The Outback Stars

CHAPTER


TWENTY-THREE





T

9 held a new colony bound for Warramala. Chaplain Mow took Myell to the eleventh deck and a hatch emblazoned with an official-looking seal.



“Who are we going to see?” he asked.



“A very wise man,” she replied.



The doors slid open. The suite beyond had been furnished in stan-dard Team Space decor, with none of the opulence he expected in a diplomatic suite. A large map of Warramala hung on one bulkhead, flanked by a map of Old Australia. “Sit,” Chaplain Mow said, indi-cating one of the grain-colored sofas, but he remained standing while she went into a side room. The Australia map was marked up with tribes’ names, some of which he’d come across in his reading: Nyamal, Wakaya, Gowa. Where had his mother come from? Had she been of Aboriginal descent, or had her ancestors been those who’d invaded the country and tried to destroy the native culture and people? He was following the landscape from rain forest to desert when Chaplain Mow returned in the company of a dark-skinned man with startling familiar features.



“Sergeant Myell.” The man offered his hand. “William Ganambarr.”



“Governor of this colony,” Chaplain Mow added.



“Call me Terry, sir,” he managed to say. Ganambarr was the Wirrinun. Or perhaps the Wirrinun’s twin. They had the same small eyes and high forehead, and skin that had been weathered by time and wind, and wiry gray-black hair. But this man wore a business suit and fine shoes, and no markings had been drawn on his skin. He was graceful and lithe as he sat in an armchair and motioned Myell to one of the sofas. Chaplain Mow got Myell a glass of water.



“Kath tells me you have made a great discovery,” Ganambarr said. “If it’s true, people can traverse from planet to planet without the ne-cessity of costly transport—a most amazing thing.”



“Yes, sir, it would be.” Myell was still trying to wrap his mind around the governor’s resemblance to the Wirrinun. He lifted the water glass and took a sip.



Ganambarr steepled his hands together. “Did Kath tell you our colony consists entirely of Aborigines from Earth?”



“No, sir.”



“Never before has such an endeavor been attempted. After the Lit-tle Alcheringa between Earth and Fortune was discovered, the people allowed to go forth and colonize were those survivors of the Debase-ment who had money, influence, or the proper skin color. Left be-hind all these decades to deal with the aftermath of ecological disaster were the poor and the dark and the illiterate.” Ganambarr’s tone was even, though his eyes had turned hard. “It’s taken my people twenty years of dedicated effort to fund this colony’s trans-port from what’s left of Earth. Even then, Team Space only wanted us to go to Baiame. It took ten years of lawsuits to be allowed to em-igrate to Warramala instead.”




“I understand what you’re saying, sir,” Myell said. “If it was possible to move to another planet without Team Space’s approval or assis-tance, it would change everything.”



“Everything.” Ganambarr repeated the word. “Endangered soci-eties would have the same chance at resettlement as those groups that have been traditionally entitled. The Unigar, the Shan, the Han—all on the verge of extinction, forced to eke out an existence on the planet our collective ancestors debased and defiled. The knowledge you have is priceless beyond measure.”



Myell spread his hands. “I don’t have any proof. I don’t know how to make it happen again or why it happened in the first place. Please don’t put the burden of saving the universe on my shoulders.”



Chaplain Mow said, “We’re not trying to, Terry,” but Ganambarr nodded gravely.



“It is an awesome responsibility,” Ganambarr said, “and one which would not have been placed on you were you not able to bear it. Your fate is far different than you ever imagined it would be, Sergeant. You are walking the path of the Eternal Dreamtime.”



“I’m not Aboriginal,” he protested. “I don’t even know what I be-lieve in.”



Ganambarr smiled suddenly. “The spirits will guide you. They do that to those among my people who are of high degree and clever minds. You are uninitiated, but your rite of passage is just beginning.”



The mystical talk bothered him more than he wanted them to know. Myell started to stand. “I have to get back to my quarters.”



“Wait,” Ganambarr said, and touched Myell’s knee.



The cabin lurched around him. Myell groped for something to bal-ance against as the entire room vanished into a vast plain. White sun-light blistered the sky. On the horizon, dark thunderheads rolled up against each other in preparation for a terrible storm. He could see a large monolith of rock in the distance— Uluru, a voice whispered in-side his head—and when he gazed down at himself, he saw that he was dark-skinned and dusty, painted with white markings, clad only in a loincloth with a long stick in his hand.



Something hissed on the ground nearby. The Rainbow Serpent coiled toward him, its mouth opening wide, wider than Myell him-self, wider than the world—



Ganambarr’s cabin reappeared. Myell’s knees gave way and he landed on the sofa with a solid thump.



“Terry? Are you all right?” Chaplain Mow asked.



“Uluru,” he gasped.



“One of the greatest of all spirit places.” Ganambarr leaned for-ward.

“Did you see it?”



“No,” Myell lied. Chaplain Mow pressed the glass of water into his hands and he gulped it down. The unnerving vision of himself as some kind of ancient Aboriginal made his voice shake. “I didn’t see anything.”



Ganambarr scrutinized him carefully, then rose and disappeared into the next room. When he returned, he had a small cloth bag in his hand.

“This is a dilly bag. In it, you keep your most sacred objects. Will you take it and carry it?”



“I don’t have any sacred objects,” Myell said.



Ganambarr’s tone was polite. “Perhaps you will acquire some.”



He took the bag and put down the water glass. “I really have to go. My lieutenant will be looking for me.”



Ganambarr walked him and Chaplain Mow to the door. “Think of us, Sergeant. Come back to us if you find yourself in need.”



Myell nodded, but didn’t trust himself to speak aloud.



“Take this.” Ganambarr pressed something small and hard into his palm. “Everyone has a totem ancestor. Until you determine your own, perhaps you will make do with this one.”



Myell didn’t look in his hand until he and Chaplain Mow were in the lift.



In it was a stone carved in the shape of a gecko.



* * * *



M

yell returned to work the next day with two vows in mind. One, he would refuse to think about the Rainbow Serpent or Wirrinun when he was on duty. He had a job to do, even if it was just sitting in an office doing paperwork, and spiritual mumbo-jumbo, no matter how compelling, was just going to distract him. Two, his relationship with Jodenny would be based entirely on professional respect. He would not think about what it would be like to hold her in his arms, or run his fingers through her hair and down her back, or feel her legs entwined with his. At quarters, when she welcomed him back and everyone gave him an embarrassing round of applause, he offered her only a brief nod. At the office he said, “Lieutenant. Tell me where to start.”



“RT Caldicot will show you,” Jodenny replied.



Myell went to Mrs. Mullaly’s former desk. Faddig helped him ad-just his chair to a more comfortable height. Dicensu got him coffee and offered to get him snacks. VanAmsal dropped by to see if he needed anything.



“I’m fine,” he protested. “Everyone can stop fussing.”



Because of the ongoing investigation, Jodenny had sent Amador to run T6 and reassigned Hosaka to LD-G under VanAmsal’s supervi-sion. Later that morning Myell asked Faddig, “Did Amador clear out my workbench?”



“I don’t know,” Faddig said.



Jodenny, who happened to be nearby, asked, “Is there stuff you want to keep?”



“Maybe. I’ll go over at lunch and see.”



On the tram to T6 he ran into Minnich, who was on his way to help Amador and Ishikawa finalize the June inventory.



“You nervous about going back there?” Minnich asked.



“No,” he said, but the moment he stepped off the tram he broke into a sweat that had nothing to do with the ship’s climate. Don’t be silly, he told himself. T6 held nothing to be afraid of. He had no memories of the accident. He knew that he had flatlined and was alive only because Ishikawa had pulled him out. Yet the whole experi-ence seemed to belong to someone else, and the only thing they had in common was prescription painkillers and a medical chit that kept him off watch until further notice.



Minnich went to the command module. Myell headed for the base of the hold. Above him the DNGOs glided and soared as they per-formed their duties. He’d asked Hosaka about Circe’s fate, and had been told she was in Security’s custody until the investigation was complete. He felt bad for her, sitting on a bench somewhere, pow-ered down and inert.



He tried to remember what he had been working on the morning of the accident, but the hours between breakfast and waking up in Sick Berth were a long stretch of white nothingness, like a wheat field during Baiame’s winter. He had told himself that remembering those hours wasn’t important, but they belonged to him, were part of his life, and he wanted them up in his head along with all his other mem-ories, good and bad.



“Everything okay, Sarge?” Ishikawa asked, from a respectable dis-tance away.



“Hmm?” Myell rubbed his forehead. “Oh. Yes, it’s okay.”



She drew nearer. “You still don’t remember it, huh?”



“I know I was trying to get Circe out of the slots. Everything else is a blank.”



“You had a dingo in pieces down here. Andromeda. I couldn’t find anything wrong with her, so I put her back together and sent her into service.”



“I really don’t remember,” he said.



Ishikawa studied him for a moment longer, then abruptly smiled.


“Okay. Want anything from the vends? I’m starving.”



“No, thanks.”



Myell sorted through the workbench drawers, hoping to find some-thing that would jog his memory or at least some souvenir of all his months spent in T6. In the end he had only a small log he’d kept about DNGO quirks and the gram of his mother on the beach in Australia. She was probably the same age as he was now, with a happy smile on her face and laugh lines around her eyes.



“They had my favorite halvah,” Ishikawa said as she returned.

“Chocolate chip. Want some?”



Myell put the gram in his pocket. “No. I’m heading back to Main-ship.”



“I’ll walk with you. I need some requisition codes from Caldicot.”



Back at his new desk, he set the gram out in plain sight and checked his queue. Jodenny had gone off to a department head meeting. Faddig was trying to figure out how to format a COSAL.



“How are you with DLRs?” Caldicot asked. “I’m routing you over last month’s. They need to be spot-checked and archived. Lieu-tenant’s annoyed because I keep procrastinating on them.”



“Why do you keep procrastinating?”



Caldicot smirked. “Because it annoys her.”



Myell started on the DLRs. He hadn’t exchanged more than a dozen words with Caldicot in the months since she’d joined the divi-sion, and now they were expected to work side by side.



“What else annoys her?” he asked.



“Be just two minutes late in the morning. Don’t do anything right away. Don’t ever proofread your work.”



He was troubleshooting the second batch of DLRs when he grew aware of Jodenny and Faddig standing in front of his desk. He hadn’t even heard her return.



“Aren’t you supposed to be off the clock?” Jodenny asked. “You’re under orders to only work half days.”



“Staring up at the overhead gets pretty boring, Lieutenant.” She of all people should know that.



Jodenny didn’t even blink. “You could study for the chief’s exam.”



Myell saw her scheme now. The entire reason he’d been reassigned to the admin office was so that she could make him study. Resigned, he said, “Yes, ma’am,” and shut down the reports.



“I’m walking that way,” Faddig said. “Let’s go.”



Back in his cabin Myell dictated an imail to Colby and Dottie but didn’t mention the accident. They wouldn’t get it for several months, and by then it wouldn’t matter. He tried reading more Aboriginal mythology, but the words wandered all over the page and he nearly fell asleep. He went down to the lounge, which was remarkably clean and quiet with everyone still at work. Myell slouched down on a sofa and turned on the vid. It had been so long since he played Izim that he lost his first life five minutes into the game.



In his next incarnation he followed a dragon moth down into a labyrinth of caves. The twists and turns reminded him of the slots.



He closed his eyes and tried to focus on level thirty-eight, where Hosaka had said the accident took place. What had he been doing?

Attempting to retrieve Circe. The level had been locked down. Noth-ing should have been moving—



Blankness. Dr. Moody had warned him he might not get his mem-ory back. His brain hadn’t had time to properly store all the data be-fore it was whacked against the inside of his skull. Other memories might return to him in bits and pieces. Myell returned to the game but lost the rest of his lives in quick succession. The sofa was so com-fortable he drifted off to sleep. When he woke, Gallivan, Hosaka, and Kevwitch were playing Snipe around him.



“Must be nice, lazing around all day,” Gallivan said. “Wish I had that life.”



A few minutes later they decided to go eat and dragged him along. On the mess decks, Gallivan carried his tray for him and Hosaka got him an extra serving of sashimi. Spallone was standing near the buf-fet but Kevwitch glared at him and Spallone immediately left.



“Spill it,” Myell said when they were all sitting in a booth. “Who put you up to this?”



Gallivan asked, “Put us up to what?”



“Eat up.” Hosaka pushed his plate closer. “No worries.”



Timrin had a watch that evening. Myell waited up for him to re-turn. “All right,” he said, with Koo climbing down his arm. “Who or-ganized the carrier escort duty?”



“You think you’re that important, bucko?”



Koo paused on Myell’s forearm. He had placed the stone gecko Ganambarr had given him on his pillow, and she obviously couldn’t decide what to make of the odd intruder. Her tail flicked as she edged closer.



“Three people walked me to dinner and made sure I got back here safe and sound.” Myell still didn’t know whether to be touched or irritated.

“Everywhere I’ve gone today, someone’s been with me. I don’t need babysitters. What happened in the slots was an acci-dent.”



Timrin peered into a mirror and picked at his teeth. “We’ll see. Until then, expect more mates to walk you around the ship.”



“Mates?” Myell asked.



“Teammates, at least,” Timrin said. “What more could you ask for?”



* * * *