Tarco asked maliciously, ‘How do you feel about Captain Dakk?’
‘She is a true leader. I’d follow her anywhere.’
All I felt was unease. No heroes: that’s one lesson of the Druz Doctrines, the creed that has held mankind together across fifteen thousand years, and drilled into every one of us by the Commissaries at their orientation sessions every day. If my future self had forgotten about that, something had gone wrong.
But now the gunner was looking at me intently. I became aware I was rubbing my thumb down my cheek. I dropped my hand and turned my face away.
Captain Dakk was standing before me. ‘Recognition. You’d better get used to that.’
‘I don’t want to,’ I groused. I was starting to resent the whole situation.
‘I don’t think what you, or I, want has much to do with it, ensign.’
I muttered to Tarco, ‘Lethe. Am I that pompous?’
‘Oh, yes.’
Dakk said, ‘I think we’re organised here for now. I’ll come back later when I can start thinking about damage control. In the meantime we’ve been ordered to your captain’s wardroom. Both of us.’
Tarco said hesitantly, ‘Sir – what’s a Sunrise?’
She looked surprised. ‘Right. You don’t have them yet. A Sunrise is a human-driven torpedo. A suicide weapon.’ She eyed me. ‘So you heard what happened in the Fog.’
‘A little of it.’
She cupped my cheek. It was the first time she had touched me. It was an oddly neutral sensation, like touching your own skin. ‘You’ll find out, in good time. It was glorious.’
Dakk led us back through Kard’s officer country. Commissary Varcin met us there.
Here, the partitions had hastily been taken down to open up a wide area of deck that was serving as a hospital and convalescent unit. There were crew in there in all stages of recovery. Some of them were lying on beds, weak and hollow-eyed. Many of them seemed to be pleading with the orderlies to be put back on the Torch despite their injuries – once you lose contact with your ship in a war zone it can be impossible to find it again. And many of them asked, touchingly, after the Torch itself. They really cared about their living ship, I saw; that battered old hulk was one of the crew.
An awful lot of them sported ponytails, men and women alike, apparently in imitation of their captain. Very non-Doctrinal.
When they saw Dakk they all shouted and cheered and whistled. The walking wounded crowded around Dakk and thumped her on the back. A couple just turned their heads on their pillows and cried softly. Dakk’s eyes were brimming, I saw; though she had a grin as wide as the room, she was on the point of breaking down.
I glanced at Tarco. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Among the medics I saw a figure with the shaven head and long robes of the Commission. She was moving from patient to patient, and using a needle on them. But she wasn’t treating them. She was actually extracting blood, small samples that she stored away in a satchel at her side.
This wasn’t the time or place to be collecting samples like that. I stepped forward to stop her. Well, it was a natural reaction. Luckily for me Tarco held me back.
Commissary Varcin said dryly, ‘I can see you have your future self’s impetuosity, ensign. The orderly is just doing her duty. It’s no doubt as uncomfortable for her as it is for you. Commissaries are human beings too, you know.’
‘Then what—’
‘Before they went into battle every one of these crew will have been injected with mnemonic fluid. That’s what we’re trying to retrieve. The more viewpoints we get of this action, the better we can anticipate it. We’re ransacking the ship’s databases and logs too.’
Call me unimaginative. I still didn’t know what unlikely chain of circumstances had delivered my older self into my life. But that was the first time it had occurred to me what a potent weapon had been placed in our hands. ‘Lethe,’ I said. ‘This is how we’ll win the war. If you know the course of future battles—’
‘You have a lot to absorb, ensign,’ Varcin said, not unkindly. ‘Take it one step at a time.’
Which, of course, had been my own advice to myself.
At last, somewhat to my relief, we got Dakk away from her crew. Varcin led us down more corridors to Captain Iana’s plush wardroom.
Tarco and I stood in the middle of the carpet, aware of how dinged-up we were, scared of spreading Spline snot all over Iana’s furniture. But Varcin waved us to chairs anyhow, and we sat down stiffly.
I watched Dakk. She sprawled in a huge chair, shaking a little, letting her exhaustion show now she was away from her crew. She was me. My face – reversed from the mirror image I’d grown up with. I was very confused. I hated the idea of growing so old, arrogant, unorthodox. But I’d seen plenty to admire in Dakk: strength, an ability to command, to win loyalty. Part of me wanted to help her. Another part wanted to push her away.
But mostly I was just aware of the bond that connected us. It didn’t matter whether I liked her or loathed her; whichever way, she was always going to be there, for the rest of my life. It wasn’t a comfortable notion.
Varcin was watching me. I got the idea he knew what I was feeling. But he turned to business, steepling his fingers.
‘Here’s how it is. We’re scrambling to download data, to put together some kind of coherent picture of what happened downstream.’ Downstream – not the last bit of time-hopping jargon I was going to have to get used to. ‘You have surprises ahead of you, Ensign Dakk.’
I laughed a bit shrilly, and waved a hand at the captain. ‘Surprising after this? Bring it on.’
Dakk looked disgusted. Tarco placed a calming hand on my back.
Varcin said, ‘First, you – rather, Captain Dakk – will be charged. There will be a court of inquiry.’
‘Charged? What with?’
Varcin shrugged. ‘Negligence, in recklessly endangering the ship.’ He eyed Dakk. ‘I imagine there will be other counts, relating to various violations of the Druz Doctrines.’
Dakk just smiled, a chilling expression. I wondered how I ever got so cynical.
Varcin went on, ‘Ensign, you’ll be involved.’
I nodded. ‘Of course. It’s my future.’
‘You don’t understand. Directly involved. We want you to serve as the prosecuting advocate.’
‘Me? Sir.’ I took a breath. ‘You want me to prosecute myself. For a crime, an alleged crime anyhow, I won’t commit for twenty-four years. Is there any part of that I misunderstood?’
‘No. You have the appropriate training, don’t you?’
Dakk laughed. ‘This is their way, kid. After all who knows me better?’
I stood up. ‘Commissary, I won’t do it.’
‘Sit down, ensign.’
‘I’ll go to Captain Iana.’
‘Sit. Down.’
I’d never heard such a tone of command. I sat, frightened.
‘Ensign, you are immature, and inexperienced, and impetuous. You will have much to learn to fulfil this assignment. But you are the necessary choice.
‘And there’s more.’ Again, I glimpsed humanity in that frosted-over Commissary. ‘In four months’ time you will report to the birthing complex on Base 592. There you will request impregnation by Ensign Hama Tarco, here.’