Tolstoy Page 3

  Now that the pulse of lust was gentler in his ears, he tried to remember.

  The movement of time seemed to be muddled in her explanations. He hadn’t been able to follow her description. Maybe she was confused. Too much time spent in stasis could have bad effects on memory. Everyone knew that.

  But that old-fashioned drone surely would have corrected her. It had obviously come from a time when humans found it amusing for their drones to have personality - back before they learned to fear A.I. and began cleaning the habitual glitches from their machines.

  He tried to remember what the drone had said.

  All contents of this ship indicate acquisition per the Privateer’s Handbook 2050 to 2099 - Post Collapse.

  And then Anna had said that wasn’t far from her time.

  Which made perfect sense. The period of 2050 to 2099 as humans calculated corresponded to present time. At the end of his last assignment, it wasn’t quite 2099 yet. The writers of that handbook must be very confident in their value predictions.

  But Anna had also said she had been in stasis for a very long time, and that her friend’s brother had been dead for over a hundred years.

  Obviously that didn’t make any sense. Earth didn’t have a space cadet program a hundred years ago. They had barely explored as far as their own moon.

  The corrosion on the aluminum girder next to his hand caught his eye.

  Aluminum didn’t corrode quickly without a combination of damage and heavy oxidizing elements. Even in the underground salt ponds of Nexilt-12 it had taken nearly two hundred years for the aluminum hull of the G’yreen to break down.

  How long have I been asleep?

  He spun around, looking for clues.

  But the ship itself was a wonder of porcelain and carbon fiber - it wouldn’t reveal much about the passage of time to him.

  Anna’s words echoed in his head again.

  I volunteered to go on the first ship.

  He ran for the portal on the starboard side of the ship.

  Surely the other ships in his caravan hadn’t been waylaid here. His had to be the only one.

  His mind stammered at the idea that his brothers might be trapped or killed, or dead of old age a century ago.

  Where am I? When am I?

  He pulled back the velvet curtain, nearly ripping it from the wall.

  Before him two other massive ships hung in the dark sky. The starlight showed him their silhouettes, but he could see no signs of life.

  Frozen in place, he searched the stars for an answer to where, and when, he was. Astrology had never been his strong suit, but the stars seemed to be out of place.

  He strained his eyes against the darkness, looking for a point of reference in their dim twinkling.

  7

  Anna

  Anna enjoyed a shower in the generous en suite bathroom, and changed into civilian pajamas before crawling into bed. They certainly didn’t have these kinds of indulgences back on the Stargazer.

  BFF19 whirred gently on the charging table beside her.

  It had been an incredible day full of adventure and danger. After all the adrenaline surges, Anna thought she would be asleep instantly in the luxuriously soft bed. Aboard the Stargazer, she’d slept on a foam-lined cot, in a room with twenty-seven other women, all snoring and farting and talking in their sleep.

  But somehow the events of the day were keeping her awake.

  Okay, maybe not all the events.

  She should have been afraid of the return of that nightmare thing that had attacked her - those floating tendrils of inky smoke had threatened to consume her.

  But when she closed her eyes she only saw Leo’s face, felt the bone-deep pull of him.

  Is something wrong with me?

  Her body trembled and throbbed in a very healthy way, as if in answer.

  Keep it in your pants, Nilsson, she told herself sternly. Just because she hadn’t seen a man in a while was no reason to go all boy crazy.

  Besides, this man was about to grieve the loss of his world. He was in no place to have a love affair with a junior privateer.

  But she couldn’t help hearing his voice in her ears.

  You are so brave.

  He couldn’t have pleased her half as much if he’d told her she looked like a supermodel.

  Anna hadn’t had many opportunities to be brave before. She was looking forward to more of them.

  She kicked at the comforter and it retreated into the foot of the bed. Nice. Automated bedding. The future was a good place to be.

  She flopped over and tried to picture sheep jumping over a stone wall, or a succession of stars moving across the night sky.

  Nothing.

  “I’ll just get an early start,” she whispered to herself.

  She hopped out of bed and tried not to stare as it made itself.

  She shoved her feet into her slippers, tucked her tagging pistol into the waistband of her pajama bottoms and stood over BFF19 a moment.

  The drone did need to organize her files and charge. Besides, Anna had a feeling she would not approve of a midnight mission.

  She headed for the door and slid it open, trying not to look forward too much to seeing Leo on the other side.

  Except that he wasn’t there.

  “So much for watching over me,” she muttered.

  She wasn’t surprised. In her experience guys were easily distracted. Her big brother, Tommy, was a great example of that. He constantly forgot his shifts at the cafe or to pick her up at the mall when his friends were around or a game was on. She didn’t hold it against him. He was always quick to appear with an apology when she texted.

  She held back a wave of sadness at the idea that she would never get to know the older, more responsible Tommy.

  She took a moment to imagine the life she had given him “after-Anna”. In her mind, he was the same as always, but with a goatee and a pot belly, sitting at the dinner table laughing his head off next to Anna’s old best friend, Molly, who always had a crush on him. Their three children giggled back at him with twinkling eyes just like Tommy’s.

  These “after-Anna” imaginings were the way she had coped with her losses. And there was no harm in it. Raina had agreed the night Anna sheepishly sought her after lights-out and told her about it.

  “That’s fucking fantastic,” Raina declared. “I think that’s about the best coping mechanism I’ve ever heard. Mind if I borrow it?”

  “Sure,” Anna grinned, feeling a little like herself again.

  It hadn’t worked for Angel. Angel couldn’t imagine her brother without feeling like a traitor. She had a long road ahead of her.

  Maybe a little adventure would be good for her.

  Anna shook her head and focused on her own task.

  She tried a few doors but they were sealed, and she didn’t want to make any unnecessary noise in the dark by trying to force them. Somehow, without Leo and BFF19 the threat of the dark thing was more frightening, even though she had her tagger and she knew that would send it running for the hills.

  At least she hoped it would. Maybe she had only surprised it the first time.

  She passed a small eternity fountain with twinkle lights still in motion over it. It was amazing how much of the ship still worked after all this time without human maintenance.

  The next few doors were glass, and all were locked.

  She tried the next carbon fiber door, not expecting anything.

  The door slid open easily and lights came on automatically.

  She stepped inside, blinking until her eyes adjusted. They weren’t lights - they were screens.

  She was looking at video monitors that appeared to show views all over the cruiser.

  She bent over the screens, exploring the ship without moving.

  One screen showed the area where she had come aboard. Several were fixed on empty sleeping chambers. On one monitor, she spotted the doors that led into the forest.

  Another camera was trained on a pod of s
ome sort that reminded her of the stasis unit she had traveled in. It caught her eye because lights in the room were flashing on and off.

  It almost looked like…

  Anna perched on the stool by the monitors and leaned in but she still couldn’t be sure.

  A control panel in front of her was covered in slides and sensors. She placed her finger on one of the sensors experimentally.

  The little pad lit up and she found she could use it to select the camera she wanted.

  Suddenly the center screen was filled with the image.

  The small pod was lit from above.

  Inside the pod floated… a baby.

  Tiny, chubby limbs were curled up, and its eyelashes kissed its cheeks in peaceful slumber.

  Twin instincts of desire and protection shot through Anna in the time it took her to leap to her feet.

  There was a baby onboard this ship. And she had to find it.

  She slid her fingers along the sensors, trying to determine where the baby was. But the camera would only pan out slightly - not enough for her to see a hallway or entrance to the room.

  Think, think, think...

  Leo. She had to find Leo.

  Anna leaned back in toward the monitors, searching for any sign of her enormous new friend.

  But he was nowhere to be found.

  She began panning the cameras on each screen, hoping to catch him napping in a corner.

  Movement on one of the screens caught her eye - something passing in front of a light.

  She pulled in and saw it was the fountain she’d seen on the way here. Something dark and sinuous moved like a wave between the camera and the fairy lights.

  The creature.

  Her heart began to pound.

  She slipped out of the room, needing to get further away from it. She couldn’t go back to BFF19 without intersecting with it. She had to go deeper into the ship.

  She ran, her eyes scanning the darkness for any sign of Leo.

  Leo, please, where are you?

  Awareness hit her chest as if someone had struck her, and she found herself spinning back the other way and tearing forward, rounding a curve toward the starboard side of the ship.

  She was stunned to see Leo running toward her. She had been drawn to him like a compass needle.

  Although she supposed that saying only really applied on Earth.

  She made a mental note to update her list of time-worn clichés to bring them in line with her current situation.

  “Anna,” he called to her.

  Just the sound of his deep voice made her feel that everything was going to be okay. A surge of relief warmed her chest.

  8

  Leo

  Leo nearly knocked over the human woman as she careened along the hall and right toward him. At the moment of impact, he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up.

  “Anna,” Leo said again.

  She was so soft and warm against his chest. Through the aroma of the shampoo she had just used, her own scent was irresistible.

  Anna tilted her head up to look at him and he saw his own need reflected in her eyes.

  She had called to him through their bond, happiness surged in his chest at the thought.

  “Leo,” she murmured.

  The purr of her voice set his blood on fire. He needed to get her to a safe place, somewhere he could tune out the world and focus on assuaging the need that pulsed between them, making her tremble.

  He broke eye contact with her to glance down the hallway, trying to remember where the nearest sleeping chamber was.

  “Put me down,” she squeaked, tapping his shoulder as if the spell were broken. “I need your help.”

  Damn skippy she needed his help.

  “There’s something scary out there, and there’s… there’s a baby,” she stammered.

  “A baby?” he echoed.

  “Put me down,” she said again, smacking him on the shoulder.

  He placed her down automatically.

  As soon as her feet touched the ground she was pacing.

  “There’s a baby on this ship,” she said. “And there’s also some sort of monster. We need to get the baby before the monster gets to it. I saw it on the screen.”

  “Why do you think there’s a baby on the ship?” Leo asked. He hated to burst her bubble, but if the adult humans hadn’t survived all this time, a baby wouldn’t have much of a chance. Human young were notoriously ill equipped for self-preservation.

  “I was in a room with all these monitors and I saw a baby,” she told him.

  “But how could it be a baby?” he asked. “No one has been on this ship in…”

  He had no idea how long I had been since there had been any human besides Anna on the cruiser. But he knew had been far too long for there to be any hope for an abandoned baby.

  “It was in some kind of stasis pod,” she explained. “Like the one I was in, only smaller. That’s why how it was able to survive, and why it hasn’t aged.”

  “In stasis,” he mused. “That makes more sense.”

  A strange fluttering sound approached from the hallway.

  Anna grabbed his hand and dragged him against the wall with her.

  “BFF19 drone assistant reporting for duty,” the little robot’s voice announced. If Leo hadn’t known better, he would have thought it sounded a little hurt.

  “Oh, uh, hey BFF19,” Anna said, sounding relieved and a little guilty. “I didn’t want to interrupt you while you were uploading.”

  “It is protocol for origami drones to attend to their masters at all times,” BFF19 said, definitely snippy this time.

  “Noted,” Anna said. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. We need your help.”

  The drone didn’t answer, but it folded its landing band neatly around Anna’s wrist and hovered in the air before her in a friendly way.

  “Um, we think there is a baby on the ship,” Anna said. “It’s in a pod in stasis in a small room. I saw it on a monitor but I have no idea where that would be. The lights were flashing in the room.”

  “In a ship like this one, humans in stasis would likely be kept in a lower bay opposite the engine room,” BFF19 said.

  “Why?” Anna asked.

  “They would be kept low in the ship to avoid high-traffic areas where accidents are more likely to happen,” BFF19 said. “Since maintaining a consistent power level is important, they would be as far from the engine room as possible, to avoid surges.”

  Leo was impressed at how smug the drone sounded at her knowledge. But Anna had no time for compliments.

  “How do we get to that part of the ship?” Anna asked Leo.

  “This way,” he said, leading her toward the chutes.

  “BFF19, do you have any way of monitoring if that creepy shadow thing is around?” Anna asked.

  “I’m not sensing it now,” BFF19 said.

  The importance of that small observation was not lost on Leo. If the little drone had gotten a clear enough reading earlier, it might indeed be able to track the creature that had attacked Anna.

  And if it wasn’t sensing anything now, with him standing only a few meters away…

  Of course, he wasn’t sure how accurate the robot’s sensors really were, or how much his own vital signature might change with his form.

  There was no time to dwell on it. They took off down the hallway and Leo stopped in front of the entrance to the chutes.

  “What’s this?” Anna asked, staring at the gate in front of the opening with trepidation.

  “These are the chutes,” Leo explained. “A quick way to get from one floor to another without using any stairs.”

  “You just step into a hole?” Anna asked. Her eyes were wide.

  “They didn’t have these in your time, huh?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head and sending that flaming hair over her shoulder.

  “It’s super easy,” he told her. “But if it scares you we can take the stairs.”

 
; “How many flights?”

  “Eleven,” he told her.

  “I’ll go in the chute.”

  He wrapped an arm around her and headed to the gate, tapped in the floor code for the lowest level of the ship.

  A small platform appeared and hovered over the hole.

  BFF19 attached herself to Anna’s wristband.

  “Ready?” he asked Anna.

  She nodded.

  They stepped on, and at the sound of the discreet tone the floor suddenly dropped out from under them and they sailed down to the lower level instantly. The moving platform stopped on a dime once they reached their destination.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “H-how does that work?” she asked instead of answering.

  “It’s magnetic,” he said. “I’m not really an engineer so I don’t know the details. Did you like it?”

  “When I was on Earth, we would pay money and stand in a three hour line to ride something that scary,” she said with a wry smile.

  BFF19 fluttered off her arm, unfolding into a crane-like shape and soared through the hallway and back.

  “Engine room is that way,” BFF19 said. “So we should go this way,”

  Anna nodded and they headed off.

  Most of the doors on this level were unlocked, but most seemed to lead to nothing more than maintenance and engineering areas.

  One room held some medical equipment that neither Leo nor Anna could identify, along with some type of growth medium and pods similar to what they were looking for, but it turned out to be a dead end. Leo was glad. He didn’t like the looks of the setup. And who did that kind of scientific work on a cruise ship?

  Unless they were trying to hide something.

  “Any sign of the shadow?” Anna asked BFF19, bringing Leo back from the dark place his thoughts were headed.

  BFF19 hummed a negative.

  They walked on and on.

  A purple door caught Leo’s eye. Everything else on this level was utilitarian.

  “What’s this?” Anna asked, looking at it.

  “Most likely the sleeping chambers for the first mate,” BFF19 said.

  Leo tried opening the door.

  He noticed the test pad a second too late.