“Three Rangers and you. Enlisted are Private First Class Mason Kandiss, Specialist Miguel Flores, and Specialist Zoe Berman.”
“A girl Ranger?”
“One of only three and the only one with combat experience. Bomb expert. Don’t look like that. She’s off-limits, Leo.”
Leo smiled. “Just fucking with you.”
“Don’t.”
Leo nodded; he’d expected this. Everything in Owen’s manner had just changed, from facial expression to body posture; the informal reunion was over. Owen was an officer and from now on that would be the relationship. Leo didn’t mind. He’d rather serve under Owen—and this unknown colonel, since Owen vouched for him—than anyone else in the entire United States Army. He nodded again, to show Owen he’d gotten the message, and said, “Sir, can I ask who else is aboard?”
“Five ship’s crew, all Navy under Captain Lewis, six scientists, and four diplomats led by the US ambassador to Kindred, Maria Gonzalez. Colonel Matthews has ordered fall-in at thirteen hours.”
“Where?”
Owen smiled, reluctantly. “Well, that’s a problem. Besides personal quarters, the ship’s got the bridge, the common area you came through when you boarded, a storage bay full of supplies, and behind that an area that is wardroom and gym now—we share it with the Navy—and will be a laboratory on Kindred. It’s crammed with lab benches and exercise equipment and a big foldable table. But it’s all we have. Be there at thirteen hours.”
“Yes, sir.”
Owen—from now on and at all times, Lieutenant Lamont—left. Leo stowed his gear.
He didn’t even feel it when the Friendship lifted, smooth as a dancer. If the wall screen hadn’t suddenly blossomed into a view of Earth rapidly falling away, Leo wouldn’t have known that liftoff had occurred. No strapping in, nothing—damn, that alien tech was something! And thanks to Owen, Leo was here. Really, really here.
Going to the stars.
What the hell was she doing here?
Marianne Jenner already knew the answer to that. All the answers, actually. She was, officially, Ambassador Gonzalez’s assistant, the only one aboard who had actually met any Worlders. (No, Kindreders? The name change was beyond stupid, even for a government PR move.) She was, officially, the geneticist who had helped create the vaccine against R. sporii (only she hadn’t, not really—other team members had done that). She was, officially, the person who had saved the Friendship (when it had been the privately built Venture) from destruction by the Russian ship bent on revenge, and so averted a war. She was, officially, the only one on ship with a family member on World. On Kindred. Whatever.
All that made her practically a national icon, at least for many people. Others hated her passionately. Marianne distrusted both groups.
Unofficially, much as she wanted to see Noah again (had it really been ten years since her son left Earth?), she was ambivalent about this expedition. The Kindred expedition to Terra had resulted in much good, yes, but also in the destruction of entire economies. Was Ambassador Gonzalez charged by the US government with anything other than establishing diplomatic and trade relations with Kindred? Over half the passengers were armed military personnel, both Army and Navy, with, she suspected, much more serious weapons in storage. Not to mention ways the spaceship itself might have been weaponized; the basic alien plans that Earth had been given covered only the hull and mysterious drives. Marianne distrusted the military. She especially distrusted military going to a peaceful planet that had not seen war in thousands of years. Why were Colonel Matthews and his men along?
There was a general meeting scheduled for the common area at 1:00 p.m. Meetings, in Marianne’s experience, usually ended up 90 percent chaff to 10 percent wheat. Still, 10 percent wasn’t nothing. She would go to the meeting. As soon as she had a nap. Liftoff wasn’t for another hour, and she had not slept well last night.
Dr. Salah Bourgiba, biologist and ship’s physician, watched the liftoff on the big screen in the common area, along with the other scientists and the diplomatic corps. Ambassador Maria Gonzalez sat beside him, her gaze intent on the screen, her face unreadable. Salah had no idea what was going on in her mind, although he knew everything there was to know about her body, medical history, and genome. He knew everything there was to know about all their bodies. Salah had long ago gotten used to the double vision demanded of doctors in social situations: “Oh, what did you think of that movie?” and I hope she’s had that mole on her neck checked out.
Unlike the twenty-one bodies aboard, the ship itself was a mystery to Salah—and to everyone else, even the engineers who had built her. They might all just as well be flying on a magic carpet. Physicists and materials experts were still fighting about why the dark-matter drive worked, and the fights were vicious and public. Salah knew this because he read and spoke five languages, which was one reason he and not another physician sat here now, watching the Earth dwindle to a blue-and-white marble in a black sky. He picked up languages as easily as a dark suit picked up lint, and after studying recordings of Kindese (awkward name) for months, he was pretty sure he could translate for the other scientists and those diplomats who did not speak the language. Tend their bodies, aid their jobs—he was a full-service provider.
Except maybe for himself.
Studying his fellow adventurers, Salah thought that the least understandable thing about the Friendship might be the way that all twenty-one aboard her had just accepted liftoff. No gees pressing anyone down, no rocket boosters, no course corrections, no weightlessness. After five short test flights, everyone just accepted this miracle, this living room with fake-leather easy chairs and giant-screen TV moving through space, this alien technology out of The Arabian Nights by way of Apollo’s chariot, as the new normal. The adaptability of humans dazzled Salah.
Ostensibly, the rest of the trip should be equally painless. The humans on Kindred had, after all, practically invited Terrans to visit, by giving them the spaceship plans. In fact, they probably expected Terrans earlier than ten years after the Kindred ship departed Earth. And by now the Kindred, having technology so much more advanced than anything on Terra, would have not only perfected the vaccine it took Earth years to create, but also vaccinated everyone against R. sporii. The planet had only one continent, one culture, a carefully controlled population, peace and plenty. Kindred would not suffer the devastation that had ravaged Earth when the spore cloud had hit, and they would be welcoming hosts to this small, unthreatening Terran delegation.
So why did Salah feel such unease?
Let this go well, insha’Allah.
Leo stood at attention until Colonel Matthews said, “Stand down.” Leo relaxed his stance, at least as much as possible in a “wardroom” so crowded with stuff that the six representatives of the United States Army barely had room to stand between the table and the wall.
“Sit,” Matthews said, and Leo blinked. Enlisted men didn’t usually sit with officers. But, as Owen had already told him, this mission wasn’t usual. Leo sat.
Matthews was old, maybe in his forties, but he looked like the kind of CO you could trust. Gray hair cut very short, pale blue eyes. That the other five soldiers were Rangers put Leo at a disadvantage, but he didn’t detect any condescension from Matthews. Only—why was the CO wearing glasses? Eyesight had to be lens-free to qualify for the Seventy-Fifth.