Things Fall Apart: Chapter 61

Zephyr, 500 kiloseconds since arrival at David's Star

Singer spent the entire trip back to Zephyr irrationally wishing she could make the boat move faster. Alas, she found once again that her empathic gift did not come with a side-helping of telekinesis.

Her time in Newer York had been intense, fascinating, and deeply stressful, except perhaps her time in the gardens and other green spaces. She yearned now for her ship the way she had rarely yearned for a place. Her ship, her crew, her cabin.

And eventually, if all went well, her home. She didn't long for Cherryh's World quite so strongly as for her ship, but it was still there. She needed to see her family, or at least see for herself that they were alive. It was selfish. She didn't care.

The pinnace's main cabin did not have quite the panopticon capabilities of the workboat they'd first used in Gliese 581 to cross to Zephyr's drydock, but it did have several decent-sized screens, and Singer had dropped a hint to her pilots that a similar external tour might be worthwhile before they actually docked. All of the visitors cooing over the ship's lines and features provided a relatively safe mode of conversation that kept things from getting too fraught. Even Cadotte was less frozen up than they'd been after the meeting—Zephyr's sensorium was a topic on which the science officer could wax downright poetical.

Finally, they were in the boat bay, the forcefield was up, and Singer managed to walk with some decorum, instead of dashing madly, to the hatch to lead her officers and guests back aboard her ship.

Stepping down the ramp, she was greeted by the sight of a side party consisting of every remaining officer aboard except Cordé. She assumed Cordé drew the hot-seat straw. They were led by Terranova, and of course, Kasel, her bosun, who proceeded to pipe her party on board. Singer saw out of the corner of her eye that Admiral Donato was startled by the shrill sound, and struggled to keep a smile off her face. Donato had proven extremely cooperative in the end, but she still owed him a few digs.

Singer saluted Terranova and gave the ritual, "Permission to come aboard, Commander?"

"Of course, Captain. Welcome back!" He motioned to several crewmen who had been standing to one side, who proceeded to act as stewards and take various people's baggage from them.

"Thank you, Mr. Terranova. It's good to be home!" Turning to face the crowd, she proceeded to introduce her officers and bosun to the visiting dignitaries. Espinoza, she noticed, was having difficulty retaining his officer-like demeanor. Singer considered this could be because he knew Cadotte was in distress and wanted to be helping them. It could also be that he recognized Captain bat Chaya and wanted to be renewing acquaintance. Possibly both, Singer couldn't tell, only that he seemed to be straining at the leash, and she was pretty sure it was not just that he wanted to brag about his engines.

The signals she got from Dr. Saito, however, were clearer: he needed a word with her. He was taking advantage of knowing her abilities, along with more overt eye contact, to make that clear, and she gave a subtle nod of acknowledgement even as she introduced him.

Introductions done, she said to the visitors, "I hope you all will not think me inhospitable if I leave you in the hands of Commander Alexander and Mr. Espinoza for the tour. There are a couple of matters that need my attention. I will try to catch up with the tour, but if not, I will certainly join you all for dinner."

She managed to keep a smirk off her face at that. She had not told them all about the observation lounge, where dinner would be held tonight, in detail. If she could not, in fact, catch up with the tour, she intended to be at that table in time to see them come in to the lounge with it in full-blown, high definition "exposed to space" mode.

No one seemed put out, except maybe Captain bat Chaya, but Singer sensed that was just because the other woman hoped to compare notes, captain to captain, at some point; and perhaps a twinge from O'Halloran, but that felt personal rather than professional. Singer was no more certain of what might be developing between her and the junior diplomat than she was of what might be forming between Cadotte and Espinoza, but at least her gift meant she knew it wasn't one-sided.

So, Terranova dismissed the side party, Alexander and Espinoza led the ducklings off to see the ship, and Saito and Kasel stayed behind.

Both of them. Great. Riot Act incoming.

Worse, they both took on deceptively pleasant smiles that she could have read through without extra sensitivity. "Captain," Saito said, "do you have a moment for us? We'd like to discuss the current shore leave situation, if we might."

Well, that didn't sound too out of the way. "Do we want to go up to the office, or will the briefing room down here suffice?"

Saito looked like he was considering the question seriously, then said, "The briefing room's fine, I think."

So Singer led the way through the hatch the tour had just gone through. Fortunately, the briefing room was not really the interesting part of the ship, so the tour had already moved on. Singer sat down with a complete absence of decorum, signaling with both that action and a wave of her hand that the other two should just make themselves comfortable. She had been "on" for a couple hundred-kilos, now. She was home, on her ship, in her briefing room, and she had never been so happy and relieved to see a briefing room in her entire life.

"So, what's the issue?"

Chief Kasel answered, which maybe should have been a surprise, but she'd noticed that at this point, Kasel only really deferred to Saito in medical matters; any sense of naval hierarchy between them was entirely absent, and Saito seemed perfectly fine with that. "There are three items for your attention. The first two are related, or so we believe. On the one hand, there have been more than the usual shore-side brawls and similar trouble amongst the crews on leave. Neither of us are particularly surprised by it, but we felt it needed to come to your attention.

"Similarly, the station has reported that expected returnees from the split-shift have been a bit straggling in their arrival at the ferry pier, and four had to be fetched. The good news there is none of them were actively ditching us. They were just epically hungover. It's troubling because they were all volunteers for the split and knew they had to be back for duty. They gave no trouble beyond someone having to fetch them. The ferry is finally en route, but it has delayed the next rotation so we can maintain headcount.

"We do have two other crew requesting release from duty, however. We told them it had to wait for your return."

Singer nodded acknowledgement, and took a moment to digest the news. She, too, was unsurprised things had been rough. She was a little surprised she was hearing it from her people and hadn't already gotten an earful from Donato about her crew's beheavior.

But then, maybe he wasn't surprised, either. She still didn't like the man much, but he was no dummy.

"Who?"

Saito answered, "Crewman Yost and Crewman Ettinger. They're...together, and Ettinger has family here. I suspect they were importuned about 'coming home' as soon as we were in comms range. They haven't even been over for leave yet. It's even possible they'll change their minds by the time you speak to them."

Singer nodded again, then said, "Assuming there's nothing else pressing, I can see them right after the three of us are done. Are those your three issues, then?"

Kasel and Saito shared a look, but Kasel took up the ball. "Not exactly. I guess maybe we miscounted. See, the third issue, or fourth if you prefer, is that there's a name missing from the leave roster."

Saito took it from there, and Singer was almost positive they'd rehearsed this. "As the ship's medical officer, of course, I am not prepared to let any member of the crew off the hook for taking leave. I know we're pressed for time, but everyone else is accounted for. Alexander and Cadotte are on the roster to return to the station after dinner, for example. Espinoza had family time at your discretion which he's asked us to count as part of his leave, but like the split-shifters, he's going across for one more block of time at the top of Alpha Shift."

Singer looked at them both. "Who's the miscreant?"

Kasel gave her a level glance, and said, "One Commander Elyah Singer, ma'am, who apparently removed her name from the roster thinking we would either defer to her command judgment, be too busy to notice, or be willing to count her time touring the museum and gardens on Shabbat adequate."

Singer came dangerously close to making the fatal mistake of protesting the pile of responsibilities awaiting her, or even just her sudden, atavistic need to be aboard her ship that had gripped her en route.

Close, but not quite. Esmé Singer had not raised her child to be stupid, after all. She had never once, ever, gotten away with anything with either one of these two practitioners. She certainly wasn't going to get away with anything with both of them giving her That Look.

And it wasn't like she'd let anyone else get away with those excuses, herself.

Singer still found herself heaving a sigh of grudging resignation as she said, "Can I sleep in my own bed tonight, at least, and go across with Alpha Shift?"

Saito beamed at her, "That would be quite adequate, Captain. We can be leave buddies. I'm a split-shifter, myself, and still have a local day of my own coming."

Nail. Coffin. Not that she'd planned to evade the medically ordered necessity, anyway, but she certainly wasn't going to get away with it, now.

Kasel also looked quite pleased, and Singer was reminded of the early days of the catastrophe, when the man had gone from being utterly out of his depth, to solidly in charge of the surviving crew's well being, in what felt like moments. Saito's presence had not caused him to relinquish that responsibility in the slightest, which Singer now realized was the root of how the two men acted as an equal team.

"Done, then," she said, continuing to put some sense of grievance into her voice. It was a pose. She knew she needed to genuinely blow off steam and would not be able to do it here on the ship, no matter how much the ship was home.

Moving on, she said, "Anything more?"

Saito shook his head. "No, Captain. I believe the crew will be fit and ready when we depart. Would you like to meet with Yost and Ettinger here, as well?"

Singer considered, then said, "No. I assume they're not just waiting around for me, so I'll head up to my suite." She said to the air, "Chef?"

"Captain?" There was an odd tone to his voice. Apprehensiveness, maybe? Maybe she was projecting. Hard to say.

"Could you ask Yost and Ettinger to meet me in my office in—" she almost said "twenty minutes", then remembered where she was—"two kiloseconds?"

"Of course, Captain!"

"Thank you!"

She stood, and the others moved to join her on the nearby lift. They rode in companionable silence to the main deck. "See you both at dinner, I assume?"

"Certainly!" Saito said, and she saw he was safely speaking for both of them.

She waved, then, and went on to her quarters.

She entered through the "personal" door, the one that lead to her parlor and ultimately her bedroom, rather than the "office" door. She needed at least a couple-hundred seconds in her space, reacquainting herself with its sounds and smells.

Until now, her ships had always been home-by-default, but she'd never felt quite this strongly about one, before. She realized that she was finally understanding that bond captains tended to get. She had just never thought she would feel it, herself.

It was barely four hundred seconds, with plenty of time before she met with the two crewmen, when she emerged from her reverie, so she decided she needed to get something else out of the way.

"Chef?" she asked the air again. This time, he placed his face on a screen. Yes, there was that apprehensiveness, clear on his face.

"Captain. Welcome home!"

"Thank you, Chef. Are you...is everything all right, here?"

"Permission to speak freely?"

Singer blinked. "Have you ever not?"

"Okay, you've got me there. Are they going to turn us off? When we get to Tau Ceti, I mean. Are we goners?"

Once again, the fact that Singer's mother had not raised an idiot saved her from what would have been the trite answer, something like "Where did you get that idea from?" Instead, she just said, "Over my dead body."

Chef did not seem entirely mollified. "I won't lie to you, Captain. The more we learn about this thing, the more surprised I am to still be here at all. Castor and Pollux seem calmer about it—maybe they've just had more time to think about it."

Singer considered that, although it was a distraction and she knew it. Chef had not really shared around the extra duties he carried with the other two AIs that much. They picked up some of the slack, but they mainly focused on their specialty: engineering. Chef had, perforce, become a generalist and had not really let that go.

"Chef, every member of this crew, with maybe three exceptions Haraldsdottir scrounged up for us, owes you their lives. I am not kidding, and it is not merely rhetoric, when I tell you: over my dead body."

The AI seemed to relax a bit, then showed a bit of his more usual humor, saying, "Let's just hope that's not a prophecy."

Singer, at a rare loss for words, just made a face at him. The kind of face she might have made at her brother or her cousins when they were being pains in the ass. He grinned, then said, "Those crewmen are early. They're waiting in your office."

She stood, gave him one more side-eye look, and then proceeded through the connecting hatch.

In the end, they did decide to stick to their request to stay behind at Newer York. Singer didn't like to lose crew, but she was also not prepared to press people into service. She reluctantly signed their separation, effective Alpha Shift, and only afterward realized it meant she'd probably be sharing the ferry with them.

Well, it was what it was.

That done, she checked with Chef, who told her the tour had made it to the bridge. That seemed like good timing, so she stepped across to join them—getting a hearty, "Captain on the bridge!" from Ensign Cordé, who was in the hot seat.

"As you were! I'm just a tourist right now," she said, joining the group. Donato was all but drooling. Bat Chaya was a bit more circumspect but clearly enjoying the tour, and perhaps starting to think about the fact that she had her own shiny new ship waiting for her. President Robina said to Singer laconically, "Nice ship, Captain," but it was banter. She was beaming, clearly pleased by the idea that the person she thought of as her child was the executive officer of this beauty.

Well, that was fair. So was Singer.

Singer actually made good on her self-deprecating, "just a tourist" statement, hanging to the back, chewing on various thoughts, and enjoying observing the others as they saw her ship.

Finally, they made it to the observation deck. Singer was not at all disappointed by the reactions.

Espinoza, or maybe Alexander, had set up the all-room display with just a hint of reflectivity. The result felt much more like looking out windows, and thus being enclosed, than the default state had been when Haraldsdottir had first surprised them with the place. She could feel some unease, particularly from Robina, but the others, including Donato, were positively gawking.

Bat Chaya asked, "Is the whole top of the ship transteel?!"

Alexander answered, "No, it's actually quite ordinary hull plating. What you're seeing is an application of the same technology we employ on our inspection boats. The entire inner surface is an extremely high-definition display."

Then, ze made a gesture, something clearly pre-arranged with Chef, and the room changed to a pleasant meadow, with gently rolling hills in the distance. Singer recognized it as countryside outside of Union City, and heard O'Halloran gasp at it.

Donato harrumphed a bit, saying, "I was enjoying the starscape!"

Espinoza grinned and said, "It will be back. It's set up to simulate dusk and nightfall while we eat!"

And with that segue, they all sat down to the large table that had been set up in the middle of the room.