Sparrow, on the Great Eastern Ocean, New Victoria, LHS 1140

24.5 megaseconds since the catastrophe

They were twenty crammed in with the usual crew of Sparrow, and as bands went, they were not especially merry. A large part of their discontent stemmed from their change in status. A month ago, eighteen of them had been the retinue and boon companions of Crown Prince Edouard; one of them had been the Crown Prince himself; and one had been the Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Court of New Victoria from David's Star, Lars Sigurdson.

Now, they were fugitives. Edouard's mother, Victoria XXXIV, was at best a prisoner, at worst dead. The government was now in the hands of a revolutionary council or some such.

Sigurdson had once had the dubious pleasure of meeting the man who was now the leader of that council. He had from the first gotten a powerful impression of "outsider" that was both ironic, given his own off-world origin, and difficult to pin down.

The man, with the bland name of Gerald O'Dell, was shorter, squatter, and paler than the local average. New Victorians tended to be similarly tall and slender in build as Newer Yorkers, the planet's gravity being closer to 0.7 Standard G, despite its size. While pale skin was not unknown, like most of the diaspora, skin colors represented a deep mixing of genetics amongst the population of Dream of Spring.

His accent was perfect...maybe too perfect. It was difficult to pin down to a social class or a region or otherwise distinguish from the Standard New Victorian, which in turn was a descendant of Spacer Modern as it stood several hundred years ago when the colony was founded.

Sigurdson's own accent was fluent, but there was no mistaking him for a local, and he knew it. O'Dell's was flawless, but so neutral as to still be odd, at least, to Sigurdson's ear.

Various members of the royal family had long ago clocked O'Dell as someone to watch, without fully appreciating his revolutionary tendencies until recently. By then, it was too late, and Sigurdson's worst suspicion was confirmed: O'Dell was either himself an outworlder, or had outworld help. The weapons his faction had used were nothing New Victorian's deliberate steampunk culture had produced.

Sigurdson could have stayed "during good behavior". O'Dell's "government" had accepted him, and he'd already waved off the possibility of pickup or other interference from home. In the event, Baldursdottir had cleared off almost before they could have read his last message, leaving a cryptic reply about having to leave precipitously anyway. Sigurdson had resigned himself, at that point, to await developments.

Then Prince Edouard's closest confidant, Lord Iago, had knocked on his door. Covert operations did not come naturally to Iago. The fact that he was not followed, Sigurdson thought, said more about the disorganization of the revolutionaries in victory than about the suitability of Edouard's circle for conspiracy. Sigurdson considered momentarily that it might be a trap, in fact, but finally decided he'd rather get into trouble doing something than sit quietly at home and wait for this O'Dell character to decide he was an inconvenient guest or a convenient hostage.

So, he and Iago had gone down to the docks, to this ship, where the prince and his retinue were waiting. Right at first, Sigurdson had needed to exert some of his diplomatic skills in convincing Iago to be less dramatically sneaky. Fortunately, they arrived without incident.

The steam sloop cast off almost before Sigurdson's feet were squarely on the deck. Whatever Iago's skill at secrecy was or was not, the captain of Sparrow was better at his craft. Sigurdson immediately suspected, and later confirmed, that this ship was used to evading authority, especially the agents of Her Majesty's Revenue Service. Sparrow successfully slipped the patrols with hardly a hiccup, and was out on the open sea before daylight.

Settlement of this super-Earth had focused almost entirely on the main continent, which made almost all seagoing trade coastal. Nobody would really be expecting a ship to break in an almost straight line north and east, and the local technology level did not include satellite surveillance or even radar. O'Dell might have help in that regard, but he'd have to know to look for them.

Only three people aboard knew where they were heading: the prince, for whom their destination was a family secret; Sigurdson, who had been in the royal family's confidence for twenty years; and the captain of the sloop, who of course had to know to set his course.

Sigurdson spent a lot of his time up on deck. He was not a sailor, per se, but he'd been a pilot and then captain of a starship, before choosing the semi-retired life of ambassador to a deliberately non-technical backwater. As a result, he and Captain Ibekwe, and Ibekwe's main pilot Berdimuhamedow—everyone called her Birdie—got along famously. Sigurdson knew how to be a respectful observer, and knew just enough about New Victorian ships to turn his hand when it was necessary to some task that didn't require deep skill, just a pair of hands.

The ambassador was sure that cultivating a good relationship with this man and his crew was important. He couldn't say why, he just knew that it was. He trusted his instincts in matters such as this. They'd never steered him wrong.

Now, after nearly ten calendar days—local rotation had little to do with the human biological clock—they were sighting land. The prince's stalwarts stopped grumbling, at last, as they grew close enough to see it.

It was an island, or rather, Sigurdson was pretty sure, a volcano that had become an island. The face toward them was a steep wall slanting away and tapering, suggesting a cone. It was also vast, as fit such a feature on a large planet. Sigurdson was prepared to bet that the caldera it contained would prove the size of a shire.

He had other suspicions of what they were going to find there, but he kept them to himself. The prince was playing his cards close, and Sigurdson, in this, could best show his ongoing alliance and trust by not even asking in private.

As they came in close, Birdie sang out, "Captain, there's no strand, nothing to land on. Certainly nothing to bring Sparrow into."

Ibekwe nodded calmly. Apparently he'd been briefed. "Pass the word for Master Edouard," he said, and took the wheel while Birdie went to do so.

Edouard had been paying attention, however, and was already up on deck and on his way to the quarterdeck. "Captain?"

"We're here, young master," the captain said. By unspoken agreement—or at least, Sigurdson had not heard it—nobody addressed Edouard more formally. "What now?"

Edouard was a bit taller than Sigurdson, local-average tall. For all his heritage, he did not look particularly remarkable. Sigurdson had heard some of the his friends complaining that their prince was "letting himself go common". He thought perhaps they had not yet fully accepted their current status as more than a very temporary embarrassment, while Edouard had more fully grasped reality. Sigurdson rather liked the lad already, before this crisis. His respect for the young man was solidified by his ability to adapt rapidly to his new circumstances.

"Captain, I'm going to have to ask you to trust me with your ship. The course you must follow from here must be precise, and will appear quite mad until almost the last moment."

Ibekwe took this in stride. "Secret entrance?"

Edouard blinked, having apparently anticipated more pushback. "How did you...?"

"Young master, why did you engage my services?"

"Fair point. Yes, secret entrance, and then some. There's a gate that will open and let us into a docking under the cliff, but only if we approach it exactly right." He pulled a sheet of stiff paper from the leather satchel that had been on his shoulder nearly constantly since they'd left, even in his sleep.

The captain looked at the page, and said, "Just how precise does it need to be? Birdie's good, but..."

"It's the shape that matters most, Captain. As long as it's recognizable, the mechanism should function, and it does allow for retries. The people who set it up were paranoid, but not stupid."

Ibekwe nodded. "I can accept that. I may ask at some point how it all works, mind you, but for now, since you've got no real reason to want to wreck my boat while you're on it, I'll trust you know what you're doing."

Edouard smiled, an open expression that Sigurdson hoped the young man would never lose. Whether he eventually became king here, or was forced to find some other life, that expression would take him far. "We have an accord, Captain. Please begin as soon as you and Birdie are ready."

Ibekwe showed the paper to Birdie, who considered the pattern described, with arrows to show that it wasn't just the static shape, in fact, but also the movements that traced it that mattered. "Easier done than said. Give me a moment to get her into a good starting position."

Sigurdson watched, standing next to Edouard, who managed to look far calmer than he suspected he felt. Ibekwe, meanwhile, moved down off the quarterdeck, where the sailors were looking a little spooked, to give them some idea of what was about to happen. The deck was crowded, what with Edouard's friends also all up on it, now. Apparently he'd given them a sense of what was to come, and no one wanted to miss it.

It took Birdie three tries to get the pattern just right, but once she did, they were rewarded by a grinding sound as the disguised gates swung open. Birdie looked to her captain then, inquiring simply, "What now, Cap'n?"

"We go in, I assume."

Edouard said, "Just so, Captain, if you please."

"You heard the young master, Birdie."

It was a good thing Ibekwe had made a point of giving his crew some degree of heads up. They were still clearly spooked, and more so when, as they crossed the threshold, lights automatically engaged that partook of none of the qualities of gaslight.

The interior was simple enough, a cavern, possibly even natural, augmented by a metal wharf, with tie-off points to moor the ship. The sailors wasted maybe a moment gawking, and then the bosun blew his pipe, and habits kicked in. The wharf might look nothing like they'd tied off at before, but they knew their jobs, and within moments, it was safe to debark from the sloop's relatively low deck to the wharf. Edouard and his party, including Sigurdson, did so with varying degrees of grace, depending on their own athleticism and history with ships. Iago for example turned out to be fairly deft, while young Lord Harald needed steadying hands. Sigurdson had expected some ribbing to ensue, but to his surprise, his friends had simply been ready to help him.

It was a good sign, he thought.

"Captain," Edouard said, "will you also join us?"

Ibekwe affected surprise, which Sigurdson doubted. "Of course, young master. Birdie," he called up to the quarterdeck, and waited until he had the pilot's attention, "The deck is yours!"

"I have the deck, Captain!"

The wharf turned into a ramp at the end closest to the now-closed entrance, which led up to the next level. There were ladders, too, and Sigurdson wondered why they hadn't taken them, when he realized that Harald had a clear limp. Iago saw Sigurdson noticing, and whispered, "Broke his leg a while back. It healed funny."

That level terminated at a wall with a split door in it, and the group stopped at Edouard's signal. "My friends, I am sorry that I have been so secretive about where we were going or what we were going to do when we got here. You are about to see several things you will have difficulty grasping. I say this not as an insult to your intelligence, but simply because it's beyond the usual. This place, everything about it, dates back to the time of Landing and is built on the technologies the founders knew but then left behind. The ambassador here will likely find much of what follows commonplace. For myself, I only approximate that state because I have been here before, with my mother. Our ancestors' foresight included, you see, the idea that we might one day need not only a bolt-hole, but to have recourse to the world we left behind."

He paused then, to let what he was saying sink in. These were all educated people. They knew their history. They knew, intellectually at least, they were not about to experience actual magic. There was some clear apprehension in their eyes, Sigurdson saw, but no reluctance. They'd followed the prince this far.

Finally, Harald raised a hand, and asked the obvious question. "What's here that can help us, Ed?" Nobody found this form of address strange anymore, but at the beginning of the trip, it had been quite awkward.

"Easier to show you, honestly. You'll never believe me otherwise."

With that, he turned, and waved his hand to the left side of the doors. There was no obvious panel there, but a hologrammatic circle lit as his hand passed by, and the doors opened onto a lift car large enough to take the whole group.

Mechanical lifts were well enough known—steam powered, of course—in their experience. Sigurdson, a bit more alert to the workings of inertia, could feel the car was moving at an angle as it went up, following the contour of the cliff, he thought, inward.

When it stopped, the doors opposite where they entered the car opened, and they all set foot into a large room. At the far end were windows angled in such a way that they would allow someone to look down as well as out. There was a table and chairs in the middle of the room, not quite enough to accommodate so large a party but nearly so. The bank of windows was accompanied by a bank of consoles and chairs.

Edouard's friends and Captain Ibekwe all gawked around. Sigurdson recognized the space immediately. This was a control tower.

Edouard let his friends gawk as he moved forward, taking a dramatic looking block of metal out of his satchel. One face of the block had various indents and protrusions. Sigurdson moved up beside him and said, "A key?"

"A key," Edouard responded, and slotted it home in a console.

A screen came alight, reading, "Identify."

Edouard hesitated, and then turned again to face his friends, and Sigurdson turned with him. "I'm afraid you're about to hear one of those things I said was easier to experience than describe, my friends. If you jump quite out of your skin, feel no embarrassment. When Mother brought me here to pass along the family secret, I hid behind the table there after I heard her."

"Her?" said Iago.

Edouard turned back around and tapped out a code on a keyboard, hunting and pecking. He knew his code, but keyboards were not a daily feature of his life.

"Her." And he hit ENTER.

There was a pause, and then a voice, pleasantly female, speaking slowly to compensate for the drift in accent. "Good afternoon, Your Highness. Welcome. Service?"

Sigurdson had stayed turned so he could watch the reactions. He very carefully did not laugh or even smirk as even Ibekwe, who had been unflappable so far, startled at the disembodied voice.

"Status report, please, Dione."

"One moment, Your Highness."

Ibekwe came forward, looking at Sigurdson. "That...was a machine, wasn't it."

The ambassador could only nod. Edouard had made it clear where he placed his trust, and Sigurdson felt he could do no differently. "It was. She was. At least, Edouard identified her as female. I don't know myself whether the system here is advanced enough to really have an opinion as to personal pronoun."

The sloop's captain's eyes were wide but his nod and voice didn't show any signs of panic. "This is normal for you, I suppose?"

"It used to be, of course. Honestly, I took this posting to get away from all this."

Ibekwe smiled at that, saying, "Look how that turned out!"

"Right?"

And then Dione said, "I have that status report, Your Highness. The facility is showing signs of age and weather, as is to be expected, but is mostly in good repair. I last woke three years ago and performed scheduled maintenance through the remotes, although I lost one to mishap. That kind of thing will eventually degrade my ability to function, although I have enough spare parts for now to replace the unit. The field below is perhaps a bit overgrown, but the ships remain in good repair as well."

Ibekwe had not yet looked out the window, not down anyway. None of them had. But his ears pricked up and he said, "Ships?"

Sigurdson stood aside and let the man see, looking down himself.

There, in the caldera meadow below, were large metal shapes. To Sigurdson's eye, they were antiques—indeed, they had been a nearly antique design when they'd been used to ferry the colonists to this system.

Skip ships. Six Skip ships that this station, this Dione, had been maintaining this whole time. Just in case.

Ibekwe took it in, let out an explosive breath, and then said, "SPACE ships?!"

Edouard answered, "Yes, Captain. Six of the ships that brought us here, in fact. Intact."

Now, Edouard's friends all came forward, at first crowding and then, realizing the bank of windows afforded plenty of room, spreading out to gaze down into the caldera.

Lady Erica was the next to speak. "We're leaving?"

"For now. The ambassador can corroborate this: O'Dell, or someone helping him, is not New Victorian. Our splendid isolation has been violated. We need help."

Sigurdson felt, rather than saw, eyes on him. He was still staring at those glorious antiques on the field below. "As Edouard says, I'm almost positive O'Dell is an offworlder. It's subtle, and it's not absolutely definitive, but he has the look of someone who grew up in a higher gravity than New Victoria imposes. If you've ever seen him walk, you'll see he bounces a little when he does. Even being here for years, he still has muscle memory he can't quite defeat, and he expects to be heavier than he is. Most people just interpret it has having a spring in his step, and it adds to his charisma. Also, he speaks with almost no identifiable accent at all.

"But honestly, all of that is circumstantial. It's the weapons his faction have been using that are most damning. They're not completely beyond your deliberate technology ceiling, but I've had occasion to examine a captured one, and there's a precision to it that, good as your artificers are, could not be accomplished without assistance of instruments you don't use."

They digested this, and then Erica—who Sigurdson had already pegged as probably the most studious of the bunch, said, "What about this place?"

"That went by a little fast."

"Could this place build us weapons to match?"

Sigurdson couldn't answer that, and looked to Edouard, who took the ball. "In theory, yes. I'd rather not do that right away. My family has been committed to what the ambassador describes as 'the ceiling' since we founded the kingdom. If it's the only way to take my kingdom back, I will do what I have to do. I believe there are enough loyal citizens who would back us, but the result would be...bloody, win or lose."

"So we're running away instead?" Lady Erica was clearly not keen on this course. Given that Sigurdson had seen her and Edouard making interesting eyes at each other on occasion, he wondered what it would portend for that relationship. His mind was already churning on how these ships could be used. They were already not enough to lift all six, but if this facility also had dreamlearners...

"We are going to seek counsel from people who are more well versed in these matters than we are. Rather than match weapon for weapon, I want to at least try matching knowledge for knowledge. Meanwhile, I believe the ambassador would like a chance to exchange news with his people, which is one of the reasons he's a part of this company."

"And I?" asked Ibekwe. Sigurdson thought he saw a hungry look now in Ibekwe's eyes.

"A hunch, captain, that perhaps you might like to try your skill at a different sea."

Ibekwe's grinned, a feral look. "A good hunch, young master. But how? I know enough to know I don't know the first thing about..." he waved out the window.

Edouard looked at Sigurdson, and the ambassador immediately knew another reason why he was along. He'd know the questions to ask faster than Edouard would be able to find things out from station's systems. Aloud, he said, "Dione, may I address you?"

"Of course, Ambassador."

Well, that settled some questions of intelligence. Edouard had not formally introduced him, but she'd picked up on who he was, or what.

"Does this facility include dreamlearners?"

"It does, Ambassador. It was envisioned that, in an emergency such as the one I glean now faces us, people might need to be brought to an understanding of various skills faster than ordinary education and training would allow."

Now, Sigurdson saw, Lady Erica's face was looking hungry, but it was Iago who spoke, "Dreamlearners? You mean you can...teach us things while we're asleep?"

Lady Erica said, acerbic and yet somehow teasing, "How would that differ from your days at University, Iago?"

Iago sketched a bow. "A touch! Nay, a hit! A palpable hit!"

That broke the tension, somewhat, and Sigurdson said, "Lord Iago has correctly inferred my meaning. We have the ability to train people up quickly this way. It's not uniformly reliable, and it must be reinforced practically. A dreamlearned skill that isn't put to use quickly fades. That's particularly true for a language, but it holds true for other things as well."

Lady Erica reinforced his opinion of her, saying, "That's not really all that different from other forms of learning, though, is it? I mean, I've read about metalworking and blacksmithing, but I've never held a hammer and wouldn't trust myself not to miss the anvil and break my knee based solely on what I've read."

Sigurdson smiled what he hoped was an encouraging smile. He'd never been a teacher before. "That's so. The dreamlearners can teach you about ship systems, about principles of physics and electronics and so on that you don't currently know, but you'll need to drill on the ships before we can lift. Once we're underway, of course, you'll be getting continual practice. We are just enough, if all of us go, to safely crew two of those ships—"

"Three," Ibekwe said. "Assuming my crew are invited to try their hand."

It was Edouard turn to smile broadly. "Correct hunch indeed. In truth, I am hoping for exactly that, not least of which because it solves the dilemma of what your crew have already seen. I would not keep them anywhere against their will, but you'll understand I would prefer word of our whereabouts to stay a mystery for quite some time."

"I understand perfectly. I know my crew. There are a few who might have to enjoy the hospitality of this facility for a while, assuming there are provisions for them, but...Your Highness—" This was the first time all voyage Sigurdson had heard him address Edouard so, "—don't mistake our dislike of the revenue services of the kingdom for disloyalty."

But Edouard smiled. "I am also a student of history, Captain. The only people who like the tax man are the people who get the privilege of spending the taxes. Complaining about taxes, even amongst those who benefit most from them, is as old as human government."

The feral grin was back on Ibekwe's face. "When can we start?"

Newer York Tower, David's Star, 16 Elul 2541 AS

26 megaseconds since the catastrophe

Charmaine Kent sat in her office and had to admit that despite the ongoing crisis, she was actually a little bit bored.

Traffic in the system had settled back down into its own pattern. Outsystem traffic was still light, but the regular routine of busses and trucks—various inships circulating between the stations carrying people or things or both—was almost back to where it had been. The new Admiral insisted on continuing his wide orbit aboard Buzz Aldrin, which also kept him largely out of her hair. Not that Donato had ever been a micromanager, but still...

Her reverie was interrupted by an urgent chime. Be careful what you ask for, 'Maine...

She answered it. "Actual."

"Skip flare at the boundary, ma'am."

Kent blinked. "Say again?"

"Skip flare at the boundary, ma'am," came the deadpan answer. She had the distinct impression the controller on the other side of the line had anticipated her reaction.

"Details?"

"Three ships, logging in now with utterly improbable IDs. All three vessels were registered to the New Victoria expedition and haven't been heard from since the last trip they made to ferry colonists there. The login includes the information that the lead ship is under the command of one Captain Ibekwe, and that he has our ambassador and a dignitary from the deposed government aboard."

Kent digested this, nodded, and said, "Alright, Lieutenant. I'd tell you to pull the other one, but I don't have bells on and with everything else going on right now, it's not the weirdest thing I've heard this week. Are they in any distress?"

"No, ma'am. Captain Ibekwe lets us know there is some urgency, but no emergency. Logs show the ambassador is already pulling news feeds through the relay. They're in good order and ask for an interview with the Governor-General and Admiral at their earliest convenience."

"Please give them my compliments and let them know I will be conferring at once with the Governor-General and the Admiral and will get back to them as soon as possible."

"Yes'm. Anything else?"

"Not now, thank you Lieutenant. Clear on your final."

"Clear."

The screen blanked and Kent smiled. She was looking forward to reporting this bit of news.