Asaro, Catherine - Skolian Empire 10.2 - Walk in Silence - Novella.pdf

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Walk in Silence
Catherine Asaro
If ancient animosities
are finally laid to rest,
will new ones take
their place?
I
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 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.
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 study interstellar dust clouds for the next few
months. Several weeks ago Silver Tide had dropped off a team of anthropologists on the world Icelos,
and Jess wanted to check on them. Other groups had other itinerary requests.
Normally Jess enjoyed this part of her job, but today she felt too queasy to do more than function.
During a meeting with the Microbiology division, she started to sneeze. She wished the med-patch
George had given her would take effect. This was embarrassing.
After a full day, she headed home for a few hours of sleep. As she walked, she brooded on the discord
among her staff. Several argued against returning to Icelos to check on the anthropologists. They claimed
it would take valuable time other research teams needed. Jess found that hard to credit, given how often
Silver Tide made such checks. Far more likely, their reluctance came about because Icelos was a
Cephean world.
Cepheans had once been human. Six thousand years ago, an unknown race had moved humans from
Earth to another planet, then vanished with no explanation. The stranded humans learned genetic
engineering in desperation; without it, their population would have been too small to maintain a viable
gene pool. Driven by memories of their lost home, they also developed space travel and went in search
 
of Earth. So it was that five millennia ago, Earth’s displaced children built an interstellar empire.
But the empire soon collapsed, stranding its colonies. Although its descendants took thousands of years
to regain space travel, they eventually succeeded, this time building a formidable civilization, the Skolian
Imperialate. When Earth’s people finally reached the stars, they found their lost siblings already there,
busily building empires. The Skolians had recovered many of their ancient colonies–including Cepheus.
The name was actually an Earth word. Unable to reproduce Cephean speech, Earth’s humans called the
world Cepheus after a mythological king descended from Zeus, because the parent star appeared in the
direction of the constellation Cepheus when seen from Earth.
However, Cepheus was a Skolian world. Its colonists had altered themselves, though now, millennia
later, no one knew why. If they had intended to expand their gene pool, they failed miserably; Cepheans
could neither reproduce with humans nor had any interest in doing so. Perhaps the changes adapted their
harsh new world. They had two extra arms, modifications to accommodate the limbs, and luxuriant pelts.
Entrepreneurs on Earth had spent millions trying to synthesize the fur, but that was all most humans liked
about their altered neighbors. Cepheans evoked ancient terrors: Yeti, golems, stalkers in the night, a
child’s nightmare.
Initially Cepheans had liked humans, responding on an instinctual level. Earth’s children looked like pretty
pets to them. They turned wary as they discovered their long-lost siblings were anything but simple or
malleable. When they realized how much humans reviled them, their unease became hostility.
A few decades ago, the Cepheans had settled Icelos, a planet in a system near their home. The colony’s
scientific nature made it amenable to interaction with humans, and scientists on Earth and Icelos soon set
up an exchange program. Silver Tide had carried Earth’s research team to Icelos, and Jess felt
responsible for them. The exchange offered a symbol, proof that humans and Cepheans could work
together. But the tenuous accord could unravel all too easily.
Dusk spread over the landscape as the panels dimmed overhead. Weary, Jess sat on a large boulder by
the path and folded her arms across her torso. She leaned forward, swallowing the bile in her throat;
either George’s medicine wasn’t working or else she needed new thoughts. She felt like hell.
Better not to think of Icelos.
With her arms crossed on her polished desk, Jess nodded pleasantly to the man sprawled in a leather
armchair of her office. "I hope your accommodations are acceptable, Mr. O’Brien."
Jack O’Brien gave her a rakish grin, more like a pirate than a security officer in the Allied Services. "Top
shape, Cap’n." A black curl fell over his forehead as he took a swig of his coffee. "After our military
transport didn’t show up, we figured we were stranded at Epsilani Station. Your ship was a godsend.
"I’m glad we could help." Although the Space Corps had no formal connection to the Allied Services,
 
Jess had no objection to their agents hitching a ride on her ship.
The comm in her desk buzzed. Touching a panel, she said, "Fernández here."
Sandra Bolton’s voice crackled. "Captain, I need to see you as soon as possible."
Jess held back her groan. She had no wish to see Sandra now or ever, but she knew the doctor; the
more Jess balked, the more Sandra would persist. The last thing she needed right now was to have a
verbal duel with the head of Claymore Hospital in front of a visitor.
Jack O’Brien stood up, setting his mug on her desk, and mouthed, Thanks for the coffee. Relieved by his
tact, Jess raised her hand to him as he left. When she was alone, she spoke into the comm. "I’ll stop by
the hospital later if I have time." She had a lot of work to finish today. In fact, she had just remembered
more she had to do. Incredible amounts.
Sandra wasn’t buying it. "This can’t wait."
Jess frowned. "Why not?"
"You should come here."
That gave Jess pause. Sandra wasn’t usually this oblique. It might bear checking out. Grudgingly, she
said, "All right."
Sandra stood at a bench surrounded by monitors. The doctor was five-foot-six and had gained weight
over the years, nothing drastic, but enough to make her round. Her short, stylish hair gleamed silver in the
harsh light.
As Jess entered the exam room, Sandra turned and regarded her with a neutral expression. Bland.
Sandra never looked bland. Something was up.
Jess stopped just inside the room, even more wary now. "Yes?"
Sandra studied her face. "We need to talk."
"How about some other time?" Like in a century.
"Jess, listen." The doctor cleared her throat. "It’s about the suggestions I gave you."
 

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