Conversations on the Fortune's Smile: Six

“No help for the XO,” Nerila Janianial said. “Possible pair for the engineroom, and the doctor sits ace-high.” 

Fisk Hurun, Chief Tactical Officer of the  Fortune’s Smile, hesitated and then rapped softly on the open door of the Officer’s Mess. It was usually closed this time of day, unneeded for meals for either main or alter-day crew, the unchallenged preserve of the three officers who’d been with Pilot Roth for longest. It would take a hell of an emergency to get me to open that door under normal circumstances. 

But he had been summoned, by XO Kamajeck herself.  

Three heads turned at his knock: ‘Mitch’ Mitcheson, unshaven, a smudge of engine oil on his forehead, jacket off; Nerila Janianial, making her uniform look like  haute couture as always, sleek dark hair pinned up; Luisa Kamajeck, hair gone more grey than brown, her eyes clear and steady in a face papery with age and pale with a lifetime’s worth of ‘spacer’s tan’. 

“Fisk,” the XO said. “Come in. Pull up a chair.” She paused, and then one corner of her mouth twitched up slightly. “Not an order. You might have better things to do.”  

Both by training and by inclination, Fisk was not a man to spend longer in a doorway than necessary. Even so, he hesitated a bare second before stepping forward and pulling out a chair at the table.  

“Born in a barn?” Nerila asked, not unfriendly, with a glance at the door.  

“Sorry,” Fisk said, and shut the door before sitting down.  

“Oncer-ante, aces high, nothing wild,” Mitcheson said, pushing the cards of his unfinished hand across the table to Nerila. “You in, Fisk?”  

Fisk glanced at the XO and she gave a tiny nod. “Yessir, I am.”  

“No ‘sirs’ in this room,” Nerila said. “Nor m’m, either.  Fisk.” She gathered the deck together, her long dark fingers flicking the cards into tidiness, and began to shuffle with the precision of a surgeon and the flash of a card-shark. "Not while the door's closed."

"Yes - " He hesitated.

" Nerila," she supplied, cut the cards one-handed and jerked her thumb towards Mitcheson. "Mitch." The deck cascaded between her hands, reformed itself and divided again with the barest movement of her fingers, and she gestured with her chin toward the XO. "Luisa."

"All right," Fisk said. He looked around at the three of them, Nerila's dark gaze steady on his as she split and ruffled the deck by touch, Mitch seeming to watch Nerila but, Fisk noted,  looking in the same direction as the polished steel cabinet doors that reflect me like a mirror, and Luisa with her head tilted a little bit, studying Fisk like a sergeant sizing up a new recruit.

"You're new to the ship, Fisk. Newish," Luisa said.  

"Yes'm. I mean, Yes. I am."

"Liking it so far?"

Fisk nodded.  

Nerila flipped a card over, seemingly at random, face up in the middle of the table.  Eight hearts, Fisk noted automatically. "You can tell the future by cards, you know, Fisk," she said, holding the card for a moment before shuffling it back into the deck. "Eight of hearts is an unexpected invitation."

"Then that deck is telling my past," Fisk said.

Mitch snorted. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe not."

Nerila dealt another card and held it for Fisk to look at.  Five Acorns. "Five clubs," she said, reminding Fisk again that this was a mixed crew and two of the people in the room were Gallente. "Alliances."

"Few things happened on Pilot's ships before you came on board, Fisk," Luisa said, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the table, hands folded. "One or two."

Fisk nodded. "Everyone knows there's history," he said. "Same everywhere, isn't it?"  

"The three of us have been with her, oh, five months?" Mitch said.  

"Seems like five years, sometimes," Nerila said.

"We were with her when she lost the first Duty's Call to a swarm of mercs," Luisa said. "Made it to the escape pods."

Mitch nodded. "Heard her on comms saying she'd come back for us. That she wouldn't leave us behind."  

"And she didn't, neither," Luisa said. "You going to deal those, Nerila, or just play with them?"

" Lot of pilots wouldn't have bothered," Nerila said, sliding the cards to Mitch to cut. 

" Lot of pilots wouldn't bother checking empty blooder wrecks, ship by ship, either," Mitch said, cutting the cards and sliding them back. "Ours does."

"As you'd have reason to know, Fisk," Nerila said, beginning to deal. " Personal reason. Wouldn't you?"

Fisk watched Nerila's hands as she flicked down the cards,  one, two, three, four, thinking personal reason covered a lot of things he didn't plan to ever think about again if he could help it. 

One, two, three, four. 

"Yeah," he said at last.  

One, two, three, four. 

"Guess we all owe her one," Mitch said, gathering up his cards.  

"Guess we do," Fisk said, picking up his own and looking to see what the doctor had dealt him.  

Three of a kind. Fisk wasn't the Cluster's best poker-player but you don't need to be to know that holding three Jacks is a strong hand.

His best poker-face wasn't a patch on Luisa Kamajeck's normal expression, but he tried to keep his face blank.  

Nerila dealt Fisk a show card. "Queen of Hearts," she said. "My gran'mama'd say there's a good-natured, soft-hearted blonde in your life."

"I could be so lucky," Fisk said.  

"Card don't mean she's in your  bed, Fisk," Nerila said. She finished the round, ten of hearts to Mitch, seven bells for the XO, four bells for herself. "Are all men the same?"

"Vile slander," Mitch said. "Vile cards, too."

"Let's see if we can make it all better for you," Nerila said. "Club jack to our newest player - soldier for your queen there, Fisk, fighting her battles and keeping her safe. Ace of hearts for  you, Mitch - if you can't make a flush at least you can rest assured the cards promise you true love. And for you, Luisa - "

"Don't tell my fortune," Luisa said, and it was an order even in a room where there were no ranks.  

Slightly deflated, Nerila laid the last card of the game face up. "Four hearts."

Fisk pushed a marker into the centre of the table, trying not to move either too quickly or too slowly. "Raise one."

Mitch followed suit. "See and raise again."

"And me," Nerila said.  

Luisa glanced from the doctor to the engineer. "I see you both," she said quietly.

Fisk raised again, and the bets went round, and round again, all of them still in.  

"You know Nerila got arrested once for cheating at cards," Luisa said.

"Bad old days," Nerila said. "Long time ago, before, you know, I reformed. And got better. Raise."

"Raise," Luisa said. "It's on you again, Fisk."

"Raise," Fisk said. As the bets circled the table once more he lifted the corners of his hole cards, reassuring himself that he hadn't imagined his hand.  Jack of hearts, jack of bells, jack of leaves.

And face up, one more jack -  soldier, Nerila had said - beside the queen.

An incredibly lucky, unlikely hand.  

Dealt to him by a self-confessed cheat.

He looked up and met Nerila's gaze.  

She dropped one eyelid in a sly wink. "Your call, Fisk."

Four soldiers and one fair-haired woman.

"You in or out, Fisk?" Luisa asked.  

"Make up your mind, man," Mitch said.  

Fisk checked his cards again, then pushed his stack of markers to the centre of the table, betting everything he had on four of a kind.  

"I'm in," he said. "All the way."

Everything That You’ve Done.

"What happened ... it's a terrible tragedy, of course, Jory," Tomas Proleque said. 

Jorion Roth studied the man opposite him.  Tomas Proleque, age 54, section manager, F.I.O. Anti-Piracy Division. Behind a desk for fifteen years. "But?" 

"I'm sorry?" Tomas said.  

"You were going to say, 'it's a terrible tragedy,  but'," Jorion said. He smiled a thin-lipped, dead-eyed smile, deliberately chosen for its unsettling effect. 

On cue, Tomas shifted uneasily. "There's only so much you can do, Jory."  

"Oh, I know," Jorion assured him.

"Well, good. There's been some ... some  concern, Jory." 

"Concern?" Tomas couldn't meet his gaze, Jorion noted with carefully-hidden amusement.  

"At your use of resources." The section manager stared at the top of Jorion's desk. "It's a personal tragedy, Jory. Not a professional matter."  

Jorion could imagine the exchange of messages that had brought Tomas down here.  Something stronger than 'concern', he thought, to get this little man to take his courage in both hands and confront me. 

Time to pour some oil on the troubled waters at HQ.  

He smiled again, this time choosing the slightly rueful, apologetic version, and watched Tomas relax a little. "You're right, Tomas. I might have let myself get a little carried away."  

"It's understandable," Tomas hastened to reassure him. "She's your eldest daughter. And now your youngest, as well ... Anyone might lose perspective."  

Jorion nodded sadly. "But that's something we can't afford to do in this job. Thank you for reminding me of that, Tomas. I appreciate it."  

"Well, no harm done," Tomas said. He got to his feet.  Even reassured he can't wait to get away from me, Jorion noted. "And you know, Jory, if you need to talk to someone, my door's always open." 

"I appreciate it," Jorion said.  Let him stew on the idea I might just take him up on that. 

After a few more expressions of sympathy, Tomas made his escape. Jorion waited until the section manager's footsteps had faded away down the hall before he reached for the keyboard in front of him, tapping in the code that dismissed the chart of Angel Cartel ship movements and brought up the files he had been working on before Tomas had invited himself into the office.  

A list of names scrolled past, some blinking to indicate the global search results had updated.  Luisa Kamajeck, Michael Mitcheson, Fisk Hurun, Helmi Alpassi ... 

Jorion studied them.  Who are you, aside from Cia's crew? 

Where do you come from? Why do you work for a Sansha pilot?  

What do you want?  

What do you fear?  

What do you have to gain?  

What do you have to lose?  

He set those questions aside for the moment, letting the programs he'd written do the initial work of searching and sorting and classifying. A few more keystrokes brought up another file, this one a collection of images.  

Divide file: A < 16.12.110; B > 16.12.110 

Obediently, the file split itself into two, and with a few more keystrokes each half displayed itself on different screens.  

Posed family photographs appeared on the screen to his left. Jorion paged through them with the press of a button.  

Flip. Nineteen-year-old Cia standing awkwardly at the back of one of her mother's parties. Flip. Thirteen-year-old Cia carefully holding her new sister Camille. Flip. Cia and all four of her siblings at the beach on a family holiday. 

He turned to the screen on his right, brought up more recent images, grainier surveillance shots, stills from holovision, and paged through those too.

  

Flip, Cia crossing a spacedock, four tall guards around her. Flip. A still from the holonews, Camille walking hand-in-metal-hand with a Naqam officer. Flip. Cia at a restaurant in a dark blue dress, surrounded by people Jorion recognised, even those he'd never met. Vikarion. Lycana. Zegerth Kelja. The half-machine Naqam officer, Amieta Invelen and her captain, Silver Night.

Fitting an earpiece to his ear, Jorion brought up an audio file. His daughter's voice murmured in his ear.  She sounds just like she always did, he thought as he listened to her say I have to keep reminding myself, I don't know any of these people - even Captain Vikarion ... Cia said on the audio-playback and Jorion wondered if there was a point in the diary entries he'd copied from her files that he could point to and say, There. That's it. The point I lost her. 

Nothing showed in her voice as she prattled  I bet the people who say such mean things about NAQAM and the other pro-Sansha corporations would change their minds if they knew what Silver – and Zegerth, and Vikarion – are really like. 

He stopped the playback. There was nothing new in it.  By now I could record those entries myself, down to the hesitations.Looking at the screen to his left, he added: And draw those family happy-snaps from memory, too.

Consigning them back to storage with the touch of a button, Jorion brought up another set of records. The file name displayed briefly,  Audio-visual security surveillance, residence of Agent Roth. 

Hours, weeks,  years of footage. Jorion sorted through it with half his attention, gaze returning again and again to the right-hand screen, to his daughter's new 'friends'.

He stopped the surveillance at random. Cia, not looking much younger than she had the last time he saw her, although seeming quite a bit younger than in the picture displayed to his right, sitting at her desk, head bent over her workstation. The plaintive tones of what Jorion recognised as a song popular a few years ago drifted from the speakers on her desk.

I know a cold as cold as it gets, I know a darkness, darker than cold ...

She'd spent a lot of time alone in her room that year, Jorion remembered, studying.  Typical teenage girl, he'd thought at the time. All teenage girls spend hours alone in their room listening to sad songs and crying over the boys who'll never love them.

I know a cold as cold as it gets... 

Had he been wrong? Had that been where she'd started to turn against him?  

I know a darkness, darker than cold ...

Jorion turned back to the image on the right-hand screen.  No. He hadn't been wrong. Cia had been fine, a normal, happy girl, occasionally a little moody perhaps, until ... 

He tapped one finger against the screen as the once-famous singer crooned in his ear.  

To the end of the stars, I'll search for your face ...

A normal girl, until ...

Until Vikarion. Lycana. Zegerth Kelja. Until that thing Cia handed Camille over to, Amieta Invelen. Until Silver Night. 

His search program had compiled files on all of them from the records of all the different jurisdictions, but they were mostly maddeningly short. He'd been able to add more details from Cia's files, but still ...

On the left-hand screen teenage Cia lifted her head and turned toward the speakers.  To the end of the stars, I'll search for your face, for the one who laid all of our history to waste ... Jorion's lips twitched, the closest he'd come to an unguarded smile for fifteen years. Teenage girls and their angst.

He turned back to the right-hand screen and enlarged the image, shifting from one face to the next. Some of them looked almost normal, looked as if they'd be able to pass in a crowd. He had them all by heart. He looked again anyway.

I am the one who crawled through the wire ....

He'd been close to them, that night. He'd be close to them again.

I know a cold as cold as it gets, I know a darkness darker than cold...

He'd have answers to his questions.

Who are you? he wondered. Where do you come from?

Why become Sansha? Why take my daughter?

What do you want?  

What do you fear?  

What do you have to gain?  

What do you have to lose?  

Questions without answers, for now.

But questions I will find answers too. Nobody moves through the universe without leaving some sort of trail, some sort of indication about what they want, what they need, what matters ... 

He had all their names. That would be enough.  

I know a cold as cold as it gets, I know a darkness that's darker than cold ...

Well ...  

Almost all their names, Jorion corrected himself. 

He tapped his finger against the screen again.  Captain 'Silver Night'. You told my daughter that it can be dangerous, being too close to a capsuleer. That's what she said in her diary.

Were you speaking from experience?  

The search program brought up nothing besides basic employment history.

I dream in my sleep, I dream in my days , of some sunny street not so far away
Where up in a window a curtain will sway, And you and I'll meet down below...

Jorion called up the program and enhanced it.  You exist. You have a past.

I'm sure you believe you have a future.

He tapped a key and the image vanished, replaced by the grainy holo-capture of little Camille, looking trustingly up at Silver Night's XO, the  thing's metal hand resting on her shoulder. 

You've taken two daughters from me.

The holo on his desk caught his eye, wife, sons, daughter. The family he had left.

I know a cold as cold as it gets, I fight a war, I may never see won...

He picked up the holo.  I had five children. Letting it drop back to the desk, he turned to the screen again, barely hearing the songs as it drew to a close. 

I live only to see you live to regret...

It was easy to bypass the safeguards that were supposed to prevent an agent at his level from deploying FIO assets outside his section. Easy to send out orders for surveillance, information gathering ...  

I live only to see you live to regret, everything that you've done...

He closed down the workstation, Cia vanishing as quickly and completely from the screen as he wished she'd had the sense to vanish from his life. The sanshas seemed to linger as an afterimage on the screen.  

Vikarion. Lycana. Zegerth Kelja.

Commander Amieta Invelen.

Captain 'Silver Night'.

Jorion Roth closed his eyes, still seeing their faces on the inside of his eyelids.  

You've taken two daughters from me.

I wonder what there is I can take from  you?

Conversations on the Fortune's Smile: Five

Michael Mitcheson stared up at the ceiling of the level twenty-seven B ring storage locker. Hardly a luxurious romantic hideaway, he thought wryly, trying to ignore the bolts on the deckplating digging into his back. But storage locker 27B had a few compelling advantages: the section of corridor it opened onto was one of the few blindspots for the internal cameras, it was only ever used by members of the engineering crew doing maintenance work at the direction of the chief engineer, and it had a door that could be securely wedged shut from the inside. 

He turned his head enough to be able to see the woman lying half-sprawled across his chest. “You awake?” he asked.

“Kinda,” Nerila murmured. “Is it time to go?”

Mitch raised his arm to look at his watch. “Not yet.”

“’kay.” Nerila shifted a little, cursed the deckplates, and settled against him again. “Let me know, ‘kay?”

He ran his hand down the sweep of her back. “What do you think about all these  friends Pilot’s got?”

“Friends?”

“Yeah, you know, this corp she works for, that Naqam officer comes round here, all those fans of Sansha. It’s not great company to be keeping, you know?”

“They’re okay."  

“You saw that story on the news," he said uneasily. "That ... whatever-she-is, she was here awful quick. Awful quick to get her hands on Pilot's sister, too."

“No way, Mitch. I’ve seen her with the kid. No way.”

“They don’t think like  people, sweetheart. They can’t. She might have been involved, might have – and not even know.”

He felt Nerila shrug. “Pilot’s not putting chips in our heads, is she? So what’s the problem?”

“It’s not  her I have a problem with,” Mitch said. “She’s not a bad kid, for a pilot. But what comes with her … gives me the heebies, tell the truth. Not sure I want to … not sure I want to be here if she gets any closer to those folk do want to put things in our heads.”

Nerila lifted herself up on one elbow. “You’re thinking of leaving?”

“It’d solve a problem, wouldn’t it?” Mitch said. He looked up at her and raised a hand to brush aside the swathe of long black hair that had fallen over her left eye with her movement.  

“Didn’t know we had one.”

“We will,” he said. “We’re going to get caught, you know. Sooner or later.  Sooner, probably. The XO’s got eyes in the back of her head.” 

“She doesn’t, you know. I do her physicals. I think I woulda noticed.” Nerila pulled away from him a little and her hair fell back over her face, turning her face into collection of fragments,  eye, cheekbone, lower lip, none of them adding up to an expression Mitch could read. “Don’t use me as an excuse for what you want to do, Michael Mitcheson. Don’t you dare.”

“Would you still love me if I was stationed on a different ship?”

“Who says I love you?” she shot back, her hand closing hard over his and giving the lie to her words.  

He smiled. “No-one,” he said. “No-one at all.”

“Good.” She settled back down beside him, head in the hollow of his shoulder. “Tell you something for free, Michael Mitcheson. Could never love a man left a ship that needed him.”

“There’s plenty of engineers in the cluster.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. You’re not that dumb and faking it doesn’t suit you.”

“Yeah. Well. Pilot’d have you, and Luisa.”

“Wasn’t two people she hired on that first ship, Mitch. Was three.” Nerila propped herself up on her elbow again, staring down at him intently. “Wasn’t two of us in that control room, either. Wasn’t  two sitting watch and watch about while she cursed us and herself and tried to – ”

“Yeah,” Mitch said. “That’s all past, though, ain’t it.”  

“She’s not a bad kid,” Nerila echoed back to him. “Not a bad  kid, Mitch. Needs more than a couple of old spacers around. Needs a chief engineer who knows when to say yes and when to say not on your nelly.”

He chuckled. “I dunno what a  nelly is.”

Nerila smiled lazily. “Funny, you had no problem finding mine a little while ago.”

Mitch laughed. “No wonder they won’t give you your medical licence back.”

Nerila punched his shoulder, playfully but more than hard enough to hurt. “Won’t be able to say that from next week.”

“Honest?”

Nerila nodded. “Luisa got it sorted.”

“’grats,” Mitch said. “Get a pay bump to go with it?”

“Pilot already pays us all above the grade,” Nerila said. “No point getting greedy.”

“Yeah,” Mitch said. “She’s generous.” He paused, idly tracing the line of her collarbone with his thumb. “Do you think she’s different?”

“Pilot?”

“Yeah. Do you think she’s different? Since … “

“Since the ‘accident’?” Nerila asked.

Mitch frowned. “Accident?”

“That’s what she calls it. Or ‘that fall’.” Nerila shrugged.

“ Accident. When she got accidentally – “

“Whatever." Nerila shrugged again. "Yeah, she’s different. What do you expect? I’d be different too. She’s scared. Something like that happens in your home, despite all that security, could happen anywhere.”

“Yeah. No, that’s not what I mean. I mean – since she got back in the pod. Taking the  Duty’s Call out, f’instance." Mitch shook his head. "She hasn’t been on that ship more than once or twice since – “

“Well, I’ll tell you what, whether it’s the jumping, or something they did at station medical, or having all the systems down for maintenance while she was there, that static in the bio-telemetry is gone.”  

“Your ghost?” Mitch asked.

“Shadow reading, ghost, whatever. It’s gone. So I’m happy. If that’s  different, I’m happy with it. Whatever it is.”

“Yeah. I just – “

“You just what?” Nerila looked down at him, frowning a little.

“You don’t think she’s different? Since?”

“Different isn’t bad, Mitch," she said.

“Not always, I guess.”

Nerila lifted his arm to look at his watch. “Is it my turn to leave first?”

“Yeah. “

“Give me fifteen minutes.”

Mitch watched as she wriggled into her clothes, until she looked up and caught him at it, quirking her eyebrow.  

“Hope you don’t look at me like that in front of anyone else, Chief.”

“I’m allowed to appreciate a fine piece of engineering,” he protested.

Nerila snorted. “Good luck running  that line past the XO.”

He grinned. “Don’t worry. I have a plan for all eventualities.”

“Oh yes?” She stopped, one boot on, one off. “Do tell.”

“If the XO comes down on us, we’ll appeal to Pilot.” He shrugged. “She’s a romantic. She’ll probably congratulate us and give us her blessing.”

“Yeah, and then Luisa will put one or both of us out an airlock, Mitch.”

“Oh, but sweetheart – that’s what  Significance is for.” He began to chuckle at the look she gave him. “Will you still love me when I’m a two-day old new clone?”

“Who says I love you?” Nerila retorted, turning away to tug on her other boot.  

“No-one,” Mitch said softly, reaching out to brush his fingers over the line of her back. “No-one at all.”