“James!” yelled Kiru. “James!”
Then the hatch slammed shut, and she knew it wasn’t such a good idea to try to open it, not if she wanted to live.
She sank down on to the floor and wondered if she wanted to.
All was silent. The emergency siren could no longer be heard. The escape capsule must either have been ejected from the main ship, or the ship no longer existed—or perhaps both.
It was warm inside the lifeboat, warm and light, but she’d willingly have spent the rest of her life in the cold and dark if she could have been with James.
He had sacrificed himself for her, and now she was alone.
Alone again, as she had been for almost all of her life.
“And who are you?” enquired a voice.
Kiru looked up quickly. There was a human standing at the far end of the capsule, or a figure that appeared to be human. If so, he seemed to be male; but because he was dressed, she couldn’t be certain. Within the confines of the capsule, he seemed even taller, broader, than he really was. His face was black, his hair was white, and he was wearing a dark outfit of loose trousers and long jacket.
“Who are you?” said Kiru, as she stood up.
The man smiled, looking her up and down, and said, “I asked first.”
Kiru put her hands on her hips and tried to out-stare him. Without success. He kept studying her naked body.
“I’m delighted you’re here,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“To be joined by a lovely young thing such as yourself, that’s what I mean. What a pleasure.”
“You’re not getting any pleasure from me!” said Kiru.
The man held up both hands in a placatory gesture. “You misunderstand, my darling. When one gets to my age, one doesn’t bother about that kind of thing anymore. Which doesn’t mean one can’t appreciate the physical perfection of a nubile young beauty such as yourself.”
As he spoke, he slowly moved toward her. Kiru glanced around for some kind of weapon, but there seemed to be nothing she could thump him with.
The man followed her gaze, and he also studied the lifeboat. It was small, compact. All that could be seen of the interior was a short corridor, about three metres high, one metre wide. The floor and sides were matte, metallic, and Kiru knew that below and behind them was all the survival gear and rations. The capsule was fully equipped for several people, but would be ideal as a single cabin.
If she had been here alone, she wouldn’t have wanted anyone else suddenly coming in. Apart from James.
“It ain’t much,” said the man, “but it’s going to be our home. I think we should get going.”
“Going? Where?”
“This is an escape pod, my sweetheart. So we escape.”
“I’m not your sweetheart.”
“Whatever you say, my love.”
The man turned, making his way back to the end of the capsule. He raised one hand, rotated his wrist, pointed, and a screen appeared on the wall. Then he started waving his hands in front of it.
Kiru hadn’t moved from the hatch. Although the capsule was larger than the spherical cell, that wasn’t saying much, and she wanted to keep as much distance between herself and the man as possible.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head over that. This is man’s work.”
Kiru felt a movement. The lifeboat was in motion. Slipping away from the convict ship. Away from James.
But the ship no longer existed. Neither did James.
She had to forget about him. It would be easy. He was just a man. She’d hardly known him. He was nobody to her. And now, he was nobody at all.
Kiru didn’t believe anything James had told her, or not much of it. He might have been a policeman, but what kind of person became a cop? The kind of person who couldn’t be trusted. James couldn’t help telling lies. Three hundred years old? He probably wasn’t from Earth. He probably wasn’t even human. She was much better off without him.
“Yeah,” she said.
“I’m glad you agree,” said the man.
Kiru realised she’d spoken aloud, trying to convince herself by vocalising her thoughts.
“Women, bless them,” the man continued speaking, as he continued gesticulating in front of the screen, “just don’t have the reflexes and co-ordination to pilot a starship. As long as you know your place, my dear, we’ll get on fine.”
“What is my place?”
“In the galley.”
“You mean I’ve got to row the lifeboat? Chained to an oar?”
“The galley is the kitchen.”
“Ah! I cook and clean for you?”
“If only. It’s all compact food, flasheated in five seconds.”
“Good.”
“It’s not good. If we can cook and eat in ten minutes, how do we pass the rest of the time? This is going to be a long voyage, my precious.”
“I’m not your precious. I’m not anyone’s precious. I’m not a love, not a dear, not a darling. My name is Kiru.”
“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Kiru. Is that it? Just one name?”
“We were too poor to afford more than one.”
The man laughed.
“What’s funny?” demanded Kiru. “It’s true.” It probably wasn’t true because she must once have had a family name—because once she had a family. “I’m from a poor planet. It’s called Earth.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“I couldn’t help noticing, Kiru, that you’re not wearing a slate. But you understand me, which means we’re from the same planet.”
He had been gesturing at the control screen all the time. There was no longer any sense of movement, but Kiru knew the capsule was now speeding through space. Away from the debris of the convict craft. Away from James. Heading for…?
She’d been about to ask their destination, but this was a more important question.
“You’re from Earth?”
The screen vanished and the man walked back from the far end of the lifeboat, which was only several long strides away. He stood in front of her, looking down, and nodded.
Earth was just one of thousands and thousands of inhabited worlds, an average little planet with no distinguishing features—or even distinguished features. Since leaving her native planet, almost everyone Kiru had met claimed to be from Earth. The boss, Grawl, James, and now this man. But they were all men. They could all have been lying.
Kiru had been very nervous at first, but now that the man was so close that she could look up his nose and see his nasal hairs needed a trim, he wasn’t so intimidating, and she was no longer scared. Even his nose hairs were white, as were his eyebrows and lashes.
“Do you have a name?” she asked.
“Plenty of them,” he said. “Unlike you.”
“Do you have a name I can call you?” she asked.
“Eliot Ness,” he said.
There was something familiar about the man. Kiru had never seen him before, or at least not the way he looked now. But appearances could be changed, and no one was ever who they seemed to be.
In retrospect, she knew how much the boss had altered during the voyage from Clink to Hideaway, although she was now unable to picture him in any of his guises. That must have been part of his masquerade, to block the memory of anyone who saw him. He might not have changed at all, but he had controlled Kiru’s perception of his appearance: He had never been an old man, but he had made her believe that he was.
Despite his ability to transform himself, she felt sure Eliot Ness wasn’t the pirate boss.
Neither was he Grawl. Because if he was, Kiru would have lost her mind by now. Literally. And Grawl would have claimed her body.
She also knew that he wasn’t James. Because he would also have claimed her body, although in a much more pleasant and far less fatal way.
James was outside the lifeboat when the hatch had closed, by which time Eliot Ness was already inside. James was gone, dead and gone, dead and gone and forgotten.
“You should put something on,” said Eliot Ness.
“I haven’t got any clothes,” Kiru told him. “I haven’t got anything. I was a prisoner on a convict ship. That was a convict ship we left, wasn’t it?”
“Depends on your perspective.”
“From where I was, there wasn’t much of a perspective. Were you locked up?”
“Depends on your definition of ‘locked up.’ ”
“If you weren’t a prisoner, you must have been working on the ship.”
“Working? Me! You think I do manual labour?”
“How should I know? Are you going to tell me what you were doing on board?”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
She wondered how he knew.
“As I told you, Kiru, we’re in this together. We’ve got to be friends.”
She looked around again for a weapon.
“Or at least not enemies,” Eliot Ness added. He stepped back, reached up to the bulkhead, and part of the wall slid away. Leaning inside, he took something out, threw it to her. “Not very flattering, but they’ll fit almost every known race in the galaxy.”
Kiru unfolded what he’d given her. It felt warm to the touch but looked like a huge plastal bag.
“Aren’t you going to put it on?” he asked.
“Not with you watching.”
“But you’re already naked.”
“So?”
Eliot Ness shrugged, then turned his back.
Kiru couldn’t work out where to begin. There didn’t seem to be any sleeves or legs or neck. The garment clung to her as she examined it. When she tried to pull away, it moulded itself to her skin. She twisted to free herself but instead became more entangled. The thing slid up, around, over, and suddenly she was no longer naked.
It was looser than a bodysuit, but even more comfortable, supporting her where she felt weak, warming her where she was cool. She was completely covered from toe to head, with only her face and hands exposed.
“Um,” she said. “Um, um, um, um, ummmmmm.”
“It’s called a symsuit,” said Eliot Ness, as he took out another and unbuttoned his jacket.
“You’re already dressed. Why do you need one?”
“Because I prefer survival to annihilation. The suits will slow our metabolism and allow us to live longer.”
Kiru didn’t want to turn her back on him, but neither did she want to watch him undress. As he took off his clothes, she looked away.
“What are they made of?” she asked, running her fingers across the strange material. It had felt cold and hard at first; now it was warm and soft.
“That’s like asking what are we made of.”
“You mean they’re… alive?”
“It’s better than wearing something dead. People used to do that, did you know? They wore dead animals. Leather and fur.”
“This is some kind of animal ? Some kind of alien animal? Is it dangerous? Could it eat me?”
“More like a plant than an animal. It won’t eat you, but you could eat it. They’re dormant until they come into contact with a living creature, then they start to interact, working symbiotically with your body.”
Kiru glanced around. Eliot Ness was dressed in his own colourless symsuit. Only his face remained visible, his long white hair covered by the fabric. His hair wasn’t that colour because of his age. He was old, of course. Everyone was old to Kiru. But he wasn’t old old, really old, not the way the boss had pretended to be.
“Shall we celebrate our survival by having something to eat?” he said. “With only two of us on board, we don’t have to ration ourselves. For a while.”
“Now my chores begin, you mean?” said Kiru.
“I’ll do it,” said Eliot Ness.
In a very brief time, his whole manner toward her had changed. He must have been as surprised as Kiru was to find that there were two of them in the escape capsule, and the way he’d first spoken to her showed he had been as wary of her as she was of him.
He found the food, flasheated two meals, made two seats and a table appear out of the walls, and they ate.
“Don’t think of this as food,” he said. “It’s fuel to ensure our survival.”
“Tastes fine to me.” The meal was far better than most of what she’d eaten during her life. “How do you know where everything is? How come you can pilot this ship? Where are we going?”
“The eternal questions. Where are we going? Where do we come from? What’s the purpose of life?”
“I’ll settle for the first two. Where did we come from? No, where did you come from? Why were you on that ship? Were you being taken to Clink?”
“Clink is for common criminals. I am neither.”
Kiru was about to tell him that she’d been on Clink, but decided it was best not to say anything about herself yet.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Escape pods are designed to head for the nearest inhabited world. That isn’t necessarily where I want to go, so I reprogrammed the controls.”
“What if I want to go there?”
“Hideaway? That’s nearest. You want to go back?”
“No, not there.”
“Where do you want to go?”
It made no difference, and Kiru shrugged. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“You won’t have heard of it.”
“Where?”
He told her, and she hadn’t heard of it. Not that it made any difference because she didn’t believe him. They were probably heading somewhere else, to some other planet she’d also never heard of.
“If you weren’t being taken to Clink,” Kiru asked, “what were you doing on that ship?”
“What makes you think it was heading for Clink?”
“That’s where we came from.”
“We?”
“Ah…” said Kiru.
“You mean the convicts who broke free from Arazon and then attacked Hideaway?”
Kiru nodded. “I was with the space pirates, but not with them. If you know what I mean.”
“You thought you were on an excursion trip for jailbirds? A relaxing holiday on Hideaway, then back to the prison planet?”
“Okay, I was guessing.” Kiru shrugged. “I was captured, locked up, I’d no idea where I was or where I was going. But you seem to know.”
Eliot Ness nodded. “I thought I knew. Then I discovered what was really happening.” He paused, shaking his head in disbelief. “So I made my excuses and left. How did you work out what was going on?”
Kiru hadn’t worked out what was going on. And she still didn’t know. She shrugged again because it could mean anything.
“You’re a clever girl, Kiru.”
No one had ever called her that before. In fact, very few people had called her anything. She’d spent most of her life being ignored. When she was a kid no one took any notice of her, and as she’d grown up, no one ever listened to what she had to say. Eliot Ness, however, had no alternative. As well as not talking about herself, she should say as little as possible about anything, or else he’d soon discover she wasn’t as clever as he thought.
“Lucky for us the ship had escape pods. Even luckier, this one is still functional.” Eliot Ness glanced around. “So far.”
“Don’t all ships have lifeboats?”
“No. And probably not ships with a suicide circuit.”
Kiru stared at him. “It was no accident? The ship was deliberately destroyed?”
“Yes. We were on board a time bomb.”
Despite her symsuit, Kiru shivered, and her voice was a whisper as she said, “We were meant to die?”
“Most people are meant to die,” said Eliot Ness. “But I have other plans.”
Kiru was born more than three hundred years after Wayne Norton.
In those three hundred years, Earth had revolved around the sun three hundred times.
In galactic terms, that was less than the blink of an eye.
When their distant ancestors were still struggling for survival in the fertile slime of Earth’s primeval ocean, a globule of molten magma erupted from the white-hot core of a star in a remote solar system.
For hundreds and hundreds of millions of years, this lump of alien ore had drifted across the galaxy, its course varying every few aeons as it came under the gravitational influence of the nearest star. Every sun it approached, every speck of interstellar dust it encountered, every single atom of hydrogen created on its course, helped guide the meteoroid toward its destiny.