Hearts and Swords: Four Original Stories of Celta Read online

  A scenario Kelse was all too aware of. Time and again, the psi community would splinter, with others leaving in anger to find and found “a better way.”

  Yet the more they splintered, the less power and community and sense of common destiny they had. And those who hated the psis found them weak and easy prey. That had been going on for a good century until the plan to emigrate evolved and Kelse and the others jumped on it. Even then, they’d had to fight to buy the ships and supplies, hire the crews, launch.

  “You want me to help Randolph Ash.”

  He is not listening to Me. The cat sniffed. The Bad Ones hide what they want from him but not from Me. They talk when I am around. Make fun of Randolph.

  Dirk wants power, to rule. But sees too little. He does not have the skill or Flair or knowledge to make things better. Only to rule until we all die. More tail thrashing. I do not want to die. But We must fix things soon!

  “I agree. The time will come when Randolph and I need to trust each other. Be there.”

  I go now.

  Kelse bowed to him. “Later.”

  Peaches rose and swaggered off. He glanced over his shoulder and licked his whiskers. I like the new fish in sauce.

  “Good to hear.” That’s what would win him the crew. Providing better food, more motivation.

  Kelse only hoped it would be enough.

  Nine

  The next morning the vid bleeped on early. Again.

  Fern figured Dirk and his supporters knew her and Kelse’s schedule somehow. Usually they would be making love. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. Kelse was already gone and she was alone.

  Dirk’s cheerful face gave way to a somber Randolph, who appeared as if he hadn’t slept, eaten, or changed clothes since he’d received the analyses from the probes. His black hair stuck up, and he read from a prepared statement.

  “Yesterday I was privileged to be in a consultation with the other Captains of the starships when we discussed the results of the probe to the two planets of the nearby white star.” He gestured a little limply. Tired and worn. The background behind him showed the star system. “One planet is not habitable. The other showed signs of acceptability. There were soil and plant samples that indicate the First Ones who seeded the galaxy visited the planet.”

  He coughed. “But they seeded many planets and some do not match with humanity. I have concluded after long study of the analyses of the probes that planet six, too, is not habitable.”

  Fern went cold, pulled a cover over herself. She wanted Kelse. He was in the gym working with the security team.

  Randolph’s gaze slid to someone off camera. “The Ship for Ourselves party wants to continue our journey, not colonize any planet.” He bit his lower lip. “Yet we need more resources to fulfill that goal. We need fuel.” His young voice rasped. “But we have the technology to make more fuel.

  Or will.” He lifted red eyes. “There is a large asteroid field just before we reach the two star systems. We can mine the asteroids.”

  His hands trembled. Fern stared. No one had done much more than their usual jobs on the ship. No one had the skills to move in space, to use whatever tools Nuada’s Sword carried to mine asteroids.

  “But, by my calculations, we will need a . . . trace . . . more energy to reach the field.” He licked his lips. “We will be working on options to develop this energy.”

  Fear slithered through Fern like an army of snakes, making her tremble. Dirk had just upped the stakes, and targeted the sleepers. Now that the crew was wary of wormhole travel, he would be pounding on the amount of energy the cryonics bay drew.

  Randolph stared away from the camera and ended with, “Whether we wish to mine the asteroids or find a planet to settle, we need more energy.”

  Kelse replied immediately, calm, controlled, in command. “I do not accept that we should mine the asteroid fields for fuel to continue fruitless travel. I still believe in the mission. However, if the Ships for Ourselves party are contemplating resources and mining asteroids, I suggest they consider who has experience with such things. Which would be people in the cryonics bay. All our people in sleep stasis have skills to help build a colony. Otherwise they wouldn’t be here. There are also experts on our fellow starships, Lugh’s Spear and Arianrhod’s Wheel, but they, of course, will only help if they believe the overall mission is being followed, and no one is harmed here. Blessed be.”

  A minute later Kelse slammed through the access panel that led from the gym to their quarters. “Lord and Lady, I hate that Lascom.” His hands fisted. “If this was Earth I’d challenge him to a deathfight.”

  “It’s not Earth,” Fern said.

  “He dances around me,” Kelse said, frowning. “Like I danced around the prez of the USTATES. Never thought I’d have an ounce of sympathy for that man.”

  “We can’t censor him or stop the broadcasts.”

  “No. He’d gain too many followers. Rumor would warp everything we did. And it isn’t right to stop him. Except he’s a liar and murderer.” Kelse flung off his clothes and headed for the shower. “Politics,” Kelse snarled. “Now I have to waste my time soothing every-damn-body today.”

  It took Kelse two days to reassure the ship’s crew enough that they once again believed in him, despite Dirk’s daily rantings.

  Neither Kelse nor Chloe nor Fern could deny that the cryonics bay used a lot of energy. There’d been an attack on the door again, and she and Kelse had reinforced the door with psi power—Flair. She didn’t know how he did it, but she loaned him some of her strength. It seemed as if the bond between them was almost tangible, as if it could be seen. For all too few minutes.

  Fern had the idea of playing vids of each sleeper for the crew. Short pieces showing an individual happy, laughing—then their tube. “Helpless and dependent upon the ship, and you, whom she trusts.” Fern only hoped that individualizing the sleepers was the right thing to do.

  Yet the next afternoon she walked into their quarters after weeding in the great Greensward, and Kelse was sitting on the bed, head in his hands. Or he was for an instant. The moment he saw her, he rose and put on that impassive expression she was beginning to loathe. He’d never used it on her before . . . before this hideous time.

  “Tell me what’s wrong,” she asked.

  He went to the console and punched at an icon. The window changed from wall to a view of the white star system and the two other systems beyond. They still looked too far away. All of them.

  And too cold.

  She still didn’t like looking out at space. Had to concentrate on not hyperventilating. But Kelse seemed to need the view, especially when he was brooding. The wall was space most of the time.

  This wasn’t a panorama that they would see from the ship, since the white star system was actually on their right, but a visual if all the systems were lined up.

  Kelse’s jaw flexed a couple of times, then he said with suppressed anger, “The two systems with the fourteen planets are too far. I know it in my gut.” He waved at the burning white star. “That’s our best chance. It isn’t the one I’d choose, but it’s our best option if we want to live. If we want our mission to succeed.” He prowled along the wall, and she noticed with a jolt that he’d lost weight. He’d fined down to pure muscle.

  When he turned to her, his eyes burnt as intensely as the sun. “It’s wrong to continue on. I know it. We need to take the chance we have.”

  “The First Ones who seeded the galaxy, Earth, also seeded that planet. That’s a good sign,” she said softly.

  He cast her a cynical look. “I know. But like Randolph said, they seeded many planets and many aren’t compatible with ours.” Kelse snorted.

  “They had more than one packet of seeds.” He rubbed one of his scars. “I could fight Julianna, convince her to believe me. Umar would go along, too. But I. Can’t. Fight. My. Own. People.”

  “And they believe Randolph.”

  “And Randolph wants to be sure. There are no certainties in t
his matter. None. There are only gut feelings and I don’t trust Julianna’s or Randolph’s gut.”

  Fern moved close to him, was afraid if she put a comforting hand on his arm he’d flick it off as he’d been doing, and that fact made her eyes sting. But she kept her lashes lowered so he wouldn’t see that he was hurting her. Kept her voice steady. “Go talk to Randolph.”

  “That won’t work.”

  “Take him the probe samples.”

  Finally he looked her in the eyes. “What?”

  “He’s seen statistics, data. Let him see soil, dirt like he’s seen in the great Greensward. There were a few plant samples, let him see and touch green.” She made her mouth smile. “There was even a minuscule turd. Give him the samples.”

  Kelse’s eyes went distant as he considered, then he nodded to her. “Good thinking.” He went to the door. “I’ll give him ours, and if he needs more, I’ll make Julianna send a packet and Umar translocate one.” The corners of Kelse’s mouth turned up. “But if the samples hurt him, we’re doomed,” Kelse ended almost cheerfully. He walked out of the door with an absent greeting to the guards.

  And no kiss for her.

  They were doomed already.

  A few minutes later she’d gathered her ragged emotions and cobbled them together. Somehow she and Kelse might find a way back to each other when this was over. But anger flared. She was supposed to be his support in the bad times, too.

  She hated that they’d been Awakened. Hated that these problems had come between them. Hated that she was angry at him and was hiding her own emotions—fear and anger—from him.

  So she sucked it all in, the fear and anger, the distress. And decided to work on a plan of her own.

  Kelse sent a message to Randolph that he wanted to meet him in the conference room. To ensure good faith, Kelse asked that Peaches join him as his escort.

  First Kelse took a personnel folder and tucked it under his arm. He stopped by the landing bay that held the probes. Here, too, the crew was more educated, dedicated. They wanted to give him the best samples from the probe. Rumor circulated fast through the ship and Kelse didn’t want word to reach Randolph that the samples were chosen.

  As soon as he left the bay, he saw the cat and crew members. “Thank you, Peaches, for meeting me.”

  He glooms. Peaches finished a last lick on his chest hair, then stood and began strolling toward Conference Room B.

  Kelse nodded to the watching crew members and said, “I’m meeting with the FamCat’s companion, Randolph Ash.” He lifted the bag he carried. “Actual samples from the probe of planet six of the white star.”

  That caused enough buzz in the small crowd that he knew the info would spread through the ship in minutes. Tightening his hand on the grip of the heavy bag, he watched for trouble, as always. The bag could be a weapon.

  But they arrived at the conference room without incident. A security officer was stationed at the door.

  Kelse opened the door for the cat, then followed Peaches in.

  The eighteen-year-old slouched in his chair. He still wore the clothes of the day before. Uniform pants of red, something that looked like a white T-shirt.

  “You’re making things worse. Not better,” Kelse said.

  “I know.” That was barely a whisper.

  Kelse wanted to pounce on the boy and shake him hard, but that wouldn’t help. Instead he sat across from Randolph and studied the youngster in silence. Randolph didn’t seem to know or care.

  The door opened and Chloe stepped in. Her expression was worried.

  “Welcome, Chloe,” Kelse said.

  “I want to take notes,” she said.

  “Of course,” Kelse said.

  She looked at her grandson, hesitated, then went to the end of the six-person table and discreetly turned her recorder on.

  “There was an attack on the cryonics bay two nights ago. You don’t know anything about that, do you?”

  Randolph jerked, looked up, shook his head. “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. The alarm rang, but the cameras were mysteriously blurred. So, once more, we can’t identify the culprits.”

  Has bad friends, Peaches said.

  Randolph winced.

  Kelse let the silence stretch, but it had little effect on Randolph. The cat was right, he was drowning in gloom.

  “Here’s the woman you want.” Kelse slid him the hardcopy.

  “Woman?” Randolph said blankly.

  “Woman. You should know from your grandmother’s example”—Kelse nodded at Chloe—“that women can be of formidable intelligence, organization, strength.” He thought of his own Fern and ached. The problems of the ship and his people kept his mind spinning, never quiet, an experience that hadn’t happened to him since he was the age of the youngster before him. Kelse had proceeded gradually up the ladder of the psi underground, learning as a follower what would be expected of him as a leader. After he was solid in his life, he’d met Fern, could handle the distraction of love. That was then, this was now. Trying to be a good Captain was screwing up his relationship with Fern. He pulled his mind back on task.

  “The good news is that she’s had a great deal of experience, including setting up an asteroid mine, as well as mining remotely. She’s with us because most of the areas of Earth had decided to forego any further space exploration. As you know, there are great resources in space—but the governments didn’t find them cost effective.” Kelse used his knife smile. “The bad news . . .”

  “More bad news,” Randolph said dully.

  “Yes. The bad news is that Lydia Herda is not aboard Nuada’s Sword. She is in the small cryogenics bay of Lugh’s Spear. Also bad for the Ship for Ourselves party is that Umar Clague, the Captain of that ship, runs the Spear on military principles. He is not, nor ever will be, sympathetic to your cause. And if you begin killing people in the cryonics bay, he’ll see you in hell before he’d cooperate with you. Me, though, he understands. We share the same values.” Different methods but same values.

  Randolph looked at the folder, the pretty woman with platinum blond hair. He didn’t pick it up. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Kelse stilled. “And why is that?”

  The youth-becoming-man stared at Kelse with a hopeless expression. His eyes appeared even more red-veined in person. “I . . . fibbed . . . the other morning. We don’t have the fuel to get to the asteroid belt. I don’t understand it. It’s not only the wormholes effect on our fuel cells. Something else happened when the second Captain took over. I don’t know what, but it significantly slowed all our systems, particularly repair. We don’t have enough energy.” He tossed a red and glowing memory button on the table; it activated and scrolled pages of columns of figures.

  “No?”

  “Even . . .” His gaze glanced off Kelse’s. “Even if we . . . uh . . . disable the cryonics bay . . . um, Awaken everyone—”

  “Is that what Dirk said he’d do? He’s lying to you, Randolph.”

  “No!”

  Yes! said Peaches, and Chloe said, “Yes!” at the same time.

  Time to shake the boy out of his funk. Kelse had to infuse his own sense of purpose into Randolph. And Kelse could do intense determination all day. Every second of every minute of every day. He’d been determined all his life. He wouldn’t let anyone take his dream from him, even if he gasped his last breath here.

  He leaned close. “I don’t think we’re doomed. Not yet. I want to live, and I want my friends to live. And I want your help.”

  “You’ve hoarded the resources. You’ve squandered them!” Randolph burst out with the standard phrase of Ship for Ourselves. “You don’t know what it’s like—”

  Kelse cut him off with a gesture. “From what I’ve seen, the resources have been managed well. You can judge. You’re now in charge of them.”

  “What?”

  “I will give you everything you need to figure out the fuel problem, help find a viable planet for colonization.” If his eyes could burn
from the inside, they were. They felt hot enough. “And since you think we’re doomed, if there’s a trade-off of years on the ship versus a great effort to find and colonize a planet, I want the new world.”

  “The energy to keep the sleepers safe . . .”

  “Will continue to be used. If we’re doomed on the ship, we need to get off. You know the ship and its life and its people. But what do you know about living on a planet? Those people in the cryonics bay were chosen carefully. They know how to survive on a planet.” Kelse’s mouth twisted.

  “Hell, even I might survive. But you’ve never even been outside the walls of this ship. Imagine that.”

  Randolph shuddered, and Kelse wondered how many of the crew were agoraphobes. How many would he lose from madness once they landed? He needed some way to accustom them to life outside the ship. If there was a chance.

  “What information do you need?” he asked.

  The youngster looked dazed.

  Kelse grabbed the youngster’s upper arms and pulled him to his feet, went to the wall where an aux center was stowed. He opened it, swiped his hand over the system board. Picked up Randolph’s limp fingers. “Randolph Ash is now authorized to access all databases. Randolph, you can see exactly what our resources are, and all the starcharts.”

  “I can’t. We can’t.”

  “We will.”

  Peaches hopped onto the fold-down computer and stared at Randolph. You are not thinking right. You are feeling instead of thinking and that is bad for you. You can’t fix things when that happens. The cat wrinkled his nose. You smell.

  Randolph flushed.

  “Go to your quarters and sleep, Randolph,” Chloe said. “Things will look better then.”

  Kelse lifted the bag to the table. “These are the actual samples from planet six of the white star. Check them out.”

  Randolph stared. “You don’t want to go on to the two systems.”

  Kelse rolled a shoulder.

  “You’re mad.”

  “I’m Captain. We need all our resources to save us all, that includes your hard head. Find a way, Randolph.”

  “I can’t—”