Things Fall Apart: Chapter 28

Aboard Zephyr

They were thirty kiloseconds returning to Borass' orbit, which was more than it had taken either the workboat or Zephyr to get to Aquila. For one thing, neither had left from Borass—they had left from the dockyard further outsystem, and also closer in revolution to the Aquila's parking orbit. For another thing, now that Zephyr was out of dock, no time was being wasted beginning shakedown procedures. These included somewhat tedious but necessary calibrations of controls, to ensure, for example, that the ship accelerated exactly as intended in normal space and was neither over-eager nor laggard. Added to all of this was that Borass was not in the optimal position for a quicker rendezvous, even had the ship not needed to spend time deliberately going more slowly, testing her ability to maneuver, and so forth. Far more than just the thirty kilos would be needed to feel fully confident the systems were dialed in, but one had to start somewhere.

Still, thirty kiloseconds was only a little longer than one shift. Gliese-581 was just not that big a system, and Zephyr could make up a lot of ground once she opened up.

There was another reason for the time, however, which was simply that Haraldsdottir was stalling. She had specifically asked—not actually ordered—Singer to begin those shakedowns and take some extra time getting back to Borass while the commodore worked with the other station leaders around the system to figure out what to do with forty-eight newly arrived people.

For Singer's part, she knew that she strongly wanted the number to only be forty-seven. She had not yet cornered Doctor Saito to try to convince him to sign on to Zephyr. He deserved some recovery time before she pounced on him.

Besides which, depending on what Haraldsdottir's meetings with system leadership came up with, Saito and his crew might not have much choice.

Singer hadn't had to think about it much, fortunately. The shakedown procedure was very well documented—the Tau Ceti Fleet had, after all, been at this a while, and had inherited procedures from member fleets at its inception. The ship was new, and had some new technologies, but the process was still about the same. She had considered delegating it to Alexander, who had, after all, been an engineer, but decided ultimately that she needed to be involved. Alexander had not argued otherwise—in fact, ze seemed relieved. Singer suspected it was because it freed Alexander to actually be an engineer, assisting Espinoza. They had not really found a fusion plant expert, so Alexander was, as feared, going to have to double as an engineer. It was complicated, since ze was the XO, but Espinoza was the Chief Engineer. So far, the two got along well enough that it hadn't gotten too tangled.

The ship so far had performed mostly as expected. Even so, Singer was kept busy focusing on the checklist and accompanying documentation, giving the orders, monitoring the results. It was all new to her, but the process was written assuming the captain might not be an engineer. It was not exactly dumbed down, but it didn't make any assumptions, either, for which Singer was very, very grateful.

As they slid into a parking orbit chasing Borass, however, the absence of contact from Haraldsdottir became noticable.

To keep from fretting, Singer focused instead on debriefing the command crew on the shakedown. She chose to do this up in the observation lounge, where the large, high-resolution displays could be used to good effect.

Espinoza, Alexander, and Wasserman were practically singing three-part harmony as they discussed how well Zephyr had performed, when the call finally came in. Singer excused herself. She'd replicated a lightweight headset in anticipation of this possibility, and rather than leaving the deck, she simply moved to another part of it, activated a privacy field that shrouded her and her screen from the rest of the deck—a neat feature discovered early in exploring what the deck's systems could do—and asked Cordé to route the call to that panel.

Everything Singer needed to know was on Haraldsdottir's haggard, angry face.

"Elyah, we have a problem."

The use of her first name confirmed it. This was not going to be good.

Singer chose not to guess, and just said, "Commodore?"

"The station leaders are all adamant. They might, between them, take aboard as many as five people, assuming they were able bodied and able to pitch in immediately. There is no place at all for forty-eight people, most of whom are going to need time to recover psychologically, if not physically, from their ordeal. And just to make it clear I'm not throwing stones, when I say no place, I include Borass Station."

The leader of which would be the commodore herself.

"There's a reason," she went on, giving Singer no chance to interject even if she wanted to, "why we haven't given your crew—which desperately deserves it—shore leave in all this time. There's no shore to take leave on. Everything that's left are working stations with their full complements. These rocks were all the outbuildings of the system, the factories, the foundries, some warehouses. Some of them weren't even intended to be lived in—the workers used to commute back to the actual city-stations."

Haraldsdottir was practically rambling at this point. The need to justify a terrible decision had burned through her defenses and several megaseconds of frustration were coming out in a torrent.

"Even those dockworkers who had to hole up in the dockyard offices are still mostly living there. We've just been able to help them make their spaces more stable, more livable. And worst of all, I see absolutely no prospect of any of this improving, soon!"

The commodore finally came to halt. She had the surprised look of someone who thought she had even more to say, but had abruptly run out of words.

Singer, in turn, had none to fill in the gap, and the silence stretched. Finally, Haraldsdottir said, "Dammit, Singer, say something. At least blink so I know the connection isn't frozen and I just spent all that breath on a dead channel!"

Despite herself, Singer snorted, then shook her head. "Commodore, I don't really know what to say at this point. If there's no room, there's no room. I might have been born a dirtworlder, but I've lived my entire adult life as a spacer. I know the limits of space-borne habitats. I had already been half-expecting we'd be taking the Aquila survivors with us. I think we probably have enough space, and enough work, to keep them housed and occupied. I'll be talking to my officers about it as soon as we're done here. I'd be lying, though, if the psychological angle didn't worry me. I'm not even going to pretend my people are actually over our trauma, so much as we've been kept busy enough not to have time for it. Aquila's crew had it worse, and for longer, and all they're going to have to occupy them once we're past the shakedown is routine."

Haraldsdottir nodded, and then ran her hands through her hair, holding her skull like she was trying to keep her brain from escaping. "I know. And I don't even have a shrink to send you. I need what I have, which isn't nearly enough, here. About the only silver lining is, now you have a doctor."

Singer nodded agreement. "I had been planning to try to dragoon him, regardless. But he's exhasuted, too, just like his crew."

"Yes. And there's no time left. We've got to get you on your way. We've got to find out what's going on out there, and we've got to let others know what happened here." She opened her mouth as if to say more, then stopped herself. She'd been leaning into the pickup, now she fell back into her chair, staring at the ceiling, visibly struggling for composure.

Finally, with tears streaming from her face, she croaked out, "I'm sorry, Elyah," and terminated the call.

Knowing it wouldn't be seen, Singer nevertheless found her closing her eyes, also seeking composure, and saying, "I know, Kel. Me, too."

She took off the headset and tossed it in a recycler slot, then turned to walk back to the conversation pit where she'd left her officers.

Apparently, she looked much like Haraldsdottir had when Singer had taken her call, because everyone was on their feet immediately, and it was not just honor to the captain.

The question was in all their faces. Singer started to answer, then stopped. Took a breath, then another, then a third. Finally, she started again.

"Commander Alexander," she said, keeping it to the formalities for now, "please enroll the survivors of Aquila on the ship's books."

Alexander managed to keep zir composure, but made a point of writing down the to-do item on zir pad. "Noted, captain. It will be done before the end of next shift."

Singer shook her head. "Next shift day will be soon enough."

"Yes, captain," came the answer.

There was a stretched silence while everyone kind of looked at each other. Singer had been right—none of her people had really dealt with what they'd been through. They'd just been too busy to think about it too much.

Kasel decided it needed to be said out loud. "Nobody here has room for them, do they." It wasn't a question.

"No. Not even Borass. The commodore made explicit what we'd already assumed but not really talked about."

She paused, thinking, then said, "We came here in distress, hoping against hope for aid, In the end, wounded as we were, the only aid was what we brought—our boats, the functioning wreck of our ship and our crew. It was what the system needed to reboot itself, but it was not enough to restore even a fraction of what's been lost. It got the shipyard going again, but nobody's building a new city right now."

Another silence, then Cadotte offered, "What about Bellerophon?"

Singer gave them a tired squint and said, "That went by me a little fast."

"Bellerophon might not be able to fly again in her current state, at least, not safely; but, at the risk of making everybody feel kind of guilty about it, we were actually pretty comfortable most of the last several megaseconds. She's sound enough to basically serve as a station, and has more than enough room for the survivors."

Singer closed her eyes, partly as a bulwark against her composure collapsing; but also thinking through the conversation she'd need to have with Haraldsdottir about it.

Finally, she opened her eyes, and nodded. "It might answer, especially for anyone who really does not want to go. I was already hoping to prevail upon at least some of them to join us, I just want them to have something that almost resembles a choice, and not feel like they're coming along because we literally have no idea what else to do with them."

Singer had not intended that last part to come out aloud. Apparently, whatever final straw had crumpled Haraldsdottir's defenses was contageous.

She took a centering breath, then said, "How quickly could you have a proposal written up?"

Cadotte thought about it. "Three kiloseconds; maybe five. Once I start really working on the idea, I might come up with useful details beyond the immediate solution to the problem."

Espinoza said, "There'd need to be at least one AI left behind to help run her."

Singer had already thought of that, and just kind of looked at him, waiting to see if he'd think of it himself.

The penny dropped.

"The other Chef. The one from Grand Despot."

Singer nodded. "We'd been thinking that, since you signed up, maybe he could just sort of merge with our Chef and we don't worry about it like we would have if you were going back off on another yacht and wanted him with you. This might answer better."

Cadotte was nodding. "See, that was the part I hadn't really gotten to yet. Definitely five kiloseconds, then, to write it up."

Singer smiled wanly. This was her crew at its best. They had a problem to solve. They were going to solve it. "Let's postpone the rest of the shakedown briefing until next ship-day. Cadotte, Espinoza, work together with whomever you think might have a good idea and put together a solid proposal to make Bellerophon into a temporary station to house anyone from Aquila or from our own crew, for that matter, that really doesn't want to go. I don't really want to leave anyone behind, but I don't want to drag anyone, either.

"Meanwhile," she sighed, "I need to talk to Saito-sensei. I don't suppose," she said to Kasel, "you know if he's still sleeping things off, or not?"

"He'd better be."

She realized she could probably ask Chef, who had of course transfered over already. Rather than feeling like she was asking the AI to invade his privacy, however, she asked, "Chef, when Doctor Saito awakens, can you please let him know I would like to speak to him."

"Sure thing, captain. Should I make him eat breakfast first?"

Singer smiled. "Yes. Definitely. Nobody should face news like this on an empty stomach."

"My thought exactly, captain. I'll see to it."