Asaro, Catherine - Walk In Silence

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"Walk In Silence" by Catherine Asaro

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Walk in Silence Catherine Asaro

Illustration by George Krauter

If ancient animosities are finally

laid to rest, will new ones take

their place?

Silver Tide

Lieutenant Colonel Jess Fernández was sick. She sat in her chair at the end of a

giant robot arm that could swing anywhere within the large hemisphere around

her. Although she could act as captain from many locations within the ship, she

spent most shifts here on the bridge.

She rubbed her eyes, exhausted after having worked late the previous evening,

ship’s time. Her queasy stomach didn’t help. She also had a cold, of all the

absurd anachronisms, and she felt like hell.

Holoscreens covered the surface of the kilometer-wide dome that formed the

bridge. Right now they showed the planet Athena, a gas giant banded by blue

and red clouds, glowing against the spangled backdrop of space. The view to

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"Walk In Silence" by Catherine Asaro

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starboard lifted her spirits. It came from a satellite orbiting Athena and showed

her ship, Silver Tide, a scientific research facility. The vessel glistened, a rotating

cylinder several kilometers long. Lights sparkled along its body, on antennae,

pods, struts, and towers.

Jess always got a kick out of watching Silver Tide from within the ship. She had

never lost the awe she felt that first time she boarded, coming to assume her

command. In the five years since, Silver Tide had become part of her.

Her stomach interrupted her enjoyment with an unwelcome lurch. Trying to divert

her thoughts, she magnified the screen images. Now they revealed a small

spacecraft on approach, a Bolt transport. On Silver Tide, the pod on a docking

tube was opening like a giant flower. The Bolt sailed inside and the pod closed,

swallowing the craft. Jess recognized the Bolt; it carried Jack O’Brien and his

Allied Services team, which tracked the interstellar black market. They were

hitching a ride on Silver Tide, headed out across space to bust smugglers.

Jess sniffled, distracted by her stuffy nose. Pah. This was absurd. She had all her

inoculations. Granted, none were 100 percent effective, but humans had cured

most strains of the common cold. It irked her no end to have caught one anyway.

She still had to do her job. To the computer, she said, "Spin her up."

"Done," it answered. The bridge began to turn, its screens adjusting to keep the

view stationary. She rotated the bridge during part of each shift so her crew at the

consoles on the hull weren’t always in micro-gravity. Against the immensity of

space, their stations were tiny wedges moving past the stars. Usually Jess

reveled in that glorious vista. Unfortunately, seeing those consoles zip by today

did nothing glorious for her stomach. Bloody hell. Captains weren’t supposed to

get sick.

Jess sent her chair humming toward a hatch on the hull. To match speed and

position with the moving hatch, the chair turned upside down, making her

dismayed stomach flip-flop. She gulped bile as she shoved out of her seat. Then

she rendezvoused with the Bridge Renewal and Refresher Chamber, otherwise

known as the loo.

As she squeezed into the cubicle, a med-holo of her face formed in front of the

opposite panel showing a woman with black hair tousled around her shoulders.

Dark smudges showed below her eyes.

She barely had time to lean over the sink before she lost her lunch.

"You work too hard." Dr. George Mai stood by the bed in the exam room,

scanning his holopad. A heavy-set man of average height, he had a kind face and

brown eyes. He frowned at Jess, who was sitting on the end of the bed, her

booted legs almost touching the floor. "You should come in more often for a

check-up," he admonished.

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"Walk In Silence" by Catherine Asaro

Jess barely held back her grimace. She had never liked hospitals. "I’m not

working any harder than usual. I’ve no reason to be sick."

"I’m still checking a few tests, but I can already give you the diagnosis." He turned

off his holopad. "You have a cold, Captain. You need rest. Relaxation."

Jess glowered at him. "I’m perfectly relaxed."

He started to answer, then seemed to think better of it. Instead he said, "I’ll let

you know if anything else turns up."

"Thank you." She slid off the bed, standing half a head taller than him.

"You really could use a rest," he said. "Doctor Bolton would say the same."

Gads. He was pulling out the big guns. She could just hear Sandra Bolton, the

senior physician at Claymore Hospital: I insist you relax, Jess. Take a vacation,

find a hobby, meet some people. You’re an intelligent, accomplished, attractive

woman. All right, so you’re also stubborn as all hell. But you still need a social life.

Stubborn, pah. Sandra didn’t seem to understand the words, I’m fine, go away.

Jess had great respect for the doctor’s abilities, but she had no wish to hear

Sandra’s unsolicited advice on her personal life, or lack thereof.

Especially not now.

Jess hurried through the secluded woods around the medical park. She had

changed back into her uniform, the blue trousers and shirt of a lieutenant colonel

in the Space Corps of the Allied Worlds of Earth. At six-foot-two, with long legs,

she devoured distance as she strode along a gravel path. The trees and flowering

bushes on both sides tended to make her forget she lived on a star ship. Then

she reached an open area and saw the forest sloping up the distant curve of the

cylinder. The "sky" consisted of light panels in the overhead deck.

Silver Tide was a self-sufficient habitat, with its own towns and countryside. It

carried thousands of people, primarily civilians, though Jess and her officers

served in the Space Corps. The scientists onboard did research related to space,

studying everything from genetically altered colonists on other planets to star

formation. Researchers throughout the Allied Worlds of Earth regularly applied for

grants to work on Silver Tide.

Jess sighed. Cold or no cold, she had work to do. She headed for the

administrative park where her staff had their offices. The gleaming buildings were

scattered among lawns and parks, with abstract sculptures that had never made

a whit of sense to Jess. The modern art looked ugly to her, but perhaps she was

too pragmatic to appreciate its nuances.

For the rest of the day, she met with the heads of science divisions, working on

the ship’s itinerary. They had just picked up several astrophysicists who would

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Asaro, Catherine - Walk In Silence

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