In the other room, a klaxon began to wail. It was at the lowest possible setting, but it caused Nadia to twist her neck as she stared in dumbfounded amazement.
With a frown furrowed across her forehead, Nadia sat up. She didn’t—
A bizarre whine occurred as the pod’s engine kicked into life. The pod’s walls vibrated and the craft’s thrust slammed Nadia against the bunk. She wheezed for breath. What was happening?
She blinked again. She had been alone a long time, trapped in these cramped quarters with nobody to talk to. Sometimes, she wondered if life would have been more bearable with Ervil along, even if the man had raped her every day of the voyage. At least she would have had someone to talk to. The endless loneliness, the weary journey out of the Inner Planets and to the Jovian System—
The klaxon blared as the thrust pinned her to the bunk. Nadia found it hard to lift her chest high enough to draw air. As she did, her ragged shirt pressed against her breasts.
She hated the loneliness. She hated being trapped in a small pod in the vastness of the universe. Why had Marten Kluge left her? She thought about him. She remembered his promises. He had lied. All men lied. All men made promises they never kept. It was their philandering nature to do so.
Then the klaxon and the thrust stopped.
Nadia made a gasping sound as she struggled upright. The frown lines had reappeared, but now she forced herself to sit up and swing her legs over the bunk. She pushed toward the other room, floating in the pod’s returned weightlessness.
She made a mouse-like noise upon entering the second compartment. The window shields had opened. Had the command been buried somewhere in the computer’s program? She couldn’t remember anymore.
What terrified her was the shape outside the polarized window. It was sleek and deadly looking, with military style lettering on the sides and obvious cannons poking from stubby wings. It… the sleek craft had matched velocities with her, seemingly remaining stationary now.
Nadia tried to speak. It had been weeks since she’d uttered anything. She finally croaked the words, “Patrol ship.”
The sight and her speech was more than her mind could comprehend. It caused her to forget she was floating weightlessly toward the window. She remembered as her hip bumped against the console and as her face mashed against the cool window. Her nose pressed against the ballistic glass and her tearing eyes stared at the spacecraft.
The throb in her hip combined with the sting of her nose helped engage the neurons in her brain. After endless months and months of journeying, she was near Jupiter. In another three weeks—
Nadia blinked her eyeballs. Had she phased out again? It had been happening more these past months. Had those three weeks already passed?
She frowned as a red light began to blink on the console.
With another of her strange yelps, Nadia pushed herself into the pilot’s chair and hurriedly strapped in. The red light—
“Oh,” she whispered. She remembered what the light meant. This was… was… was….
With another blink and with a trembling hand, Nadia flipped a switch.
“Identify yourself,” a female voice said from the com-unit.
More tears welled in Nadia’s brown eyes. They were large eyes: ones that Marten Kluge had loved to stare into. The tears helped fire neurons and synapses in her mind.
“This is your final warning,” the voice said.
Nadia trembled violently as she opened a channel. She made a croaking sound as she tried to speak. With slow deliberation, she moistened her lips. Then she bent near the console and whispered, “This is Nadia Pravda speaking. Who… who are you?”
“Say again?” asked the woman.
“I’m Nadia Pravda.”
“What sort of cyborg name is that?”
“What?” Nadia asked. She knew nothing about the Third Battle for Mars, and she knew even less about cyborgs.
“Are you a cyborg?”
“What’s… what’s a cyborg?” Nadia whispered.
“Who are you? Identify yourself.”
“I’m from Mercury,” Nadia said.
“You’re Highborn?”
“No!” Nadia said, with the first hint of emotion. Something flared in her eyes then. She moistened her lips again and cleared her throat. She was vaguely aware of hunger. That her stomach had almost shrunken into nothing.
“I escaped from the Highborn,” Nadia said. “I want asylum.”
“You’re a political escapee?” the woman asked.
“Yes. Who are you?”
“We’re Aquinas Patrol, Boat Seven, of the Guardian Fleet. You’re in the outer boundary of the Jovian Sphere. We request an inspection, which means we’re going to board you. Will you comply, Nadia?”
Nadia’s eyes grew wide. Someone was coming aboard her pod. Why had that made the klaxon wail and the pod’s precious hydrogen-particle engine to fire?
She glanced around at her vessel. Several squeezed tubes of concentrates floated in the air.
“If you refuse—” the woman began to say.
“No,” Nadia said, terrified that the patrol boat would leave, leaving her all alone again. She was actually talking with someone. It was such a glorious feeling. “I want you to inspect me. I want to go with you.”
“Are you well?” the woman asked.
“No,” Nadia said. “I think there’s something wrong with my thinking. Please—” the tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Please, take me with you.”
“Do you have a vacc-suit?”
“I… I don’t know. It’s hard to think. I’ve been alone in space for a long time.”
“I understand.” There was compassion in the woman’s voice. “We’ll send a rescue team immediately. Patrol Boat—”
“Please,” Nadia whispered, “keep talking to me until the others come. I… I haven’t had anyone to talk to for a long time.”
“Someone will be there soon, Nadia. Tell me about Mercury.”
With the back of her hand, Nadia Pravda wiped tears from her cheeks. She had completed the journey. She had made it to the Jupiter System. Finally, everything was going to be all right. As the woman in the patrol boat listened, Nadia began to tell her about the Sun-Works Factory and her harrowing escape from it.
-4-
As Nadia boarded Boat Seven of the Aquinas Patrol over thirty million kilometers from Jupiter, Marten eased into a module in the Descartes command center. The command personnel were busy in the nearly silent room. Some tapped at computer screens. Others murmured into their implants. In the middle of the room, Yakov watched the main screen, his face impassive.
An hour had passed, meaning that the Zeno drone was thirty minutes behind them.
Marten switched on his vidscreen. Through the ship’s sensors, he watched the Zeno.
“Force-Leader,” Rhea said.
Yakov minutely turned his head.
“The Chief Controller wishes to speak with you.”
Yakov pursed his lips. “Put her on the main screen.”
The image of the Zeno faded away as Chief Controller Su-Shan appeared. There was faint color in her cheeks that hadn’t been there earlier, and the serenity that had been in her eyes before had changed. She still wore the sheer robe. Because of the large main screen, Marten noticed her delicate frame and the buds on her breasts. He’d never pictured philosophers looking like this. She appeared to be in a large room. There was a statue to her left of a satyr blowing a reed flute. Occasionally, behind her, an officer in a white robe strode past.
“Force-Leader Yakov, you have made an unwarranted leap in status.” Su-Shan hardly moved her lips as she spoke, which highlighted her elfin features.
“Force-Leader,” Rhea said. “The drone accelerates.”
“Give me a split-screen,” Yakov said.
On the main screen was a shot of the drone, its exhaust seemingly doubling the Zeno’s length. Beside it was the video image of the Chief Controller.