CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
With the ship back up and sort of running, Jaime was ordered by both the doctor and the captain to rest.
Rylan was glad of it. Jaime was swaying on his feet and glassy-eyed when they finally left the bridge. Rylan would have liked to have talked to him, to see where they stood with each other after everything that had happened, but it was clearly not the time. Jaime’s eyes closed as soon as he hit the pillow in their quarters. Rylan did permit himself to stroke Jaime’s hair back from his face, but then there was no delaying it any longer. Rylan stood and squared his shoulders as best he could with the one arm hanging heavy and numb in its sling. Then he went back outside to face his brother.
The Commonwealth shuttle had returned, along with even more agents. Abrams and Digby were directing some of them as they carefully moved the sealed crate from the hold. Rylan shuddered, not knowing how much of that thing Descartes was left within it.
“Please tell me you’re going to blow that up,” he said when he found Jonathan watching the unloading from outside the ship.
“From what we understand, the crystal inside the case is data storage. Descartes is still in there. Or at least an exact copy.”
“So definitely blow it up.”
“It still has valuable information. I’m not saying we’ll give it everything it wants, but a defector from the Singularity isn’t something we can afford to throw away,” Jonathan said. “We’ll be very careful. No MMIs within its presence.”
“Jonathan, it’s important that people find out — Jaime beat it. MMIs, wizards, what have you, they shouldn’t be shunned or barely tolerated by the Commonwealth. They can save us. We need them to want to.”
Jonathan rubbed his chin, considering. “It will change our strategies. I don’t suppose Jaime wants to come back to work for us?”
“Doubt it.”
“Well, I’m not going to compel him. When he’s awake, I’ll send Agent Tranh to speak with him so he can explain his techniques. We can’t have this getting out right away. We need to deal with the Purist sympathizers in the Senate before we dare expose what happened here.” He smiled wryly. “Your Captain Garcia has already asked me about hush money.”
Rylan hesitated, trying to find words for the anxiety he still felt. “Was Cavendish right? Not about being a murdering asshole, but giving up tech and laying low so the Singularity leaves us alone?”
Jonathan stared at him fiercely. “We can’t scatter and hide in remote corners of the galaxy, becoming isolated from each other and letting all this” — he gestured at the ship and the sky above it — “become so far out of our reach it might as well be magic. Besides, even if we did all that, Descartes has shown us that the Singularity isn’t a monolith. They could change their minds about our existence at any moment. We can’t beat them — yet. But we have to prepare. And perhaps people like Jaime will lead the way.”
They stood for a long moment staring out across the meadow and the forest beyond.
Jonathan cleared his throat. “I hope you see that I need you with me. The Commonwealth does.”
Rylan shook his head. “I’m a soldier who won’t kill and is bad at following orders. I don’t know what use I’d be.”
“You’re a good man. That’s something we always have need of.”
“I think I’d be better off here. With Jaime. If he’ll have me.”
Jonathan nodded, a little sadly. “And here I’d thought you’d outgrown your childhood ambition to be a pirate.”
“Smuggler. I’m looking at it as guarding the well-being of the only human and the only ship in the galaxy to defeat the Singularity. That seems pretty important.”
Jonathan actually smiled. “It sounds like a good way to serve, Rylan.”
Jonathan wanted him to go up to the Le Guin to get his arm fixed, but Rylan refused — he was more than a little worried that he’d get back to the planet and find Jaime, and the ship, gone. So instead, med techs took the shuttle to him, bringing with them the delicate circuits to replace the ones that had shorted out in his arm. They looked somewhat askance at the Prince’s sick bay with its potted plants, but all of the diagnostic and surgical tools were working now. Dr. Stevenson regarded them in their stiff uniforms with amusement. Rylan asked her to open up his arm herself, and she tidily sliced through his numbed tissue and then stepped back to let the others work on the machinery that lay beneath.
Rylan didn’t look too closely at what they were doing — he wasn’t especially squeamish, but it was still an unsettling sight to have his flesh spread open like that. He knew he was lucky his arm could be repaired and didn’t require a complete replacement with all the extensive skin regeneration that would entail.
“You sure you don’t want a sedative?” Dr. Stevenson asked, almost kindly, looking at him stretched out on the operating table, arm extended so the two techs could get at it.
“Doesn’t hurt.”
She quirked her mouth. “There’s nothing wrong with taking something to make the experience slightly less disturbing.”
“You’re being nice to me,” Rylan said. “It’s weird.”
“You’re a patient in my sick bay. I don’t want you agitated. Besides,” she admitted, “I never trusted you before.”
“You trust me now?”
“Yes, I do. I don’t like mercenaries and I thought that was all you were.” Her dark eyes turned distant. “I’ve lost people to them. There are hard lessons out there in the galaxy about those who care only for money and not about people.”
Once Rylan would have thought that was a strange thing to say when she was onboard a ship of people who smuggled goods for money. But he knew now that there was far more to this crew than that.
“Sounds like a story.”
She patted his good arm. “It’s a long one. But I’ll tell it to you some day. If you’re sticking around, that is.”
Rylan grimaced. “It’s not up to me.”
He found Captain Garcia on the floor of the engine room, helping replace some fried parts. He had his coat off and someone, likely Simi, had made him put on a cap so stray hairs couldn’t fall into sensitive works. The ends of his hair curled up from underneath the cap and there was a smear of grease on his nose. He frowned when he saw Rylan, though Rylan wasn’t sure if that was personal or just because the captain knew he looked somewhat ridiculous.
“Need a hand?” Rylan asked. “I’ve got two working ones now.”
Simi popped her head up from the other side of a large piece of equipment. “Rylan, good.” Briefly he was glad someone was happy to see him. “Take Sebastian away until he’s less cranky. He’s rattling things and swearing, I’m worried he’s going to break more than he fixes.”
“I’m not cranky,” Garcia said. “I’m just annoyed by the amount of work to be done to get us flying again. Also, I suspect the Commonwealth of foisting substandard parts on us.”
“Go,” Simi said, waving a hand. “I’ll work on the finicky bits and call when I need help. Oh, and bring me back some Buzzy.”
“Maybe we can request some better-quality coffee from the agents,” Rylan offered.
“I suppose you do have an in,” Garcia said sourly. He stood and yanked off the cap. Rylan tapped his own nose and Garcia wiped at the grease smudge with the cap before tossing it aside. He strode through the engine room doors, not bothering to see if Rylan followed. He did, though, shortening his own strides so he was half a pace behind Garcia.
“Captain, I never got a chance to explain,” Rylan said.
“Explain what? You lied from the start and set us up. Best case scenario, we all would have been arrested. Except it turns out you brought a cargo so dangerous onboard, I’m still surprised we aren’t dead.”
“I didn’t know about the cargo.”
“But sending us to prison, that was fine?”
They’d reached the captain’s quarters and he flung open the door and went inside. Garcia opened a bottle of wine and drank straight from it, before dropping himself into a chair. There was another chair in the room, but it was draped with clothes. Rylan figured he was better off standing.
“I’d hoped,” Rylan started. It was hard to meet Garcia’s eyes. “That is, I made Jonathan promise that what happened to you and the crew would only be a minor fine. It was never about you.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?”
Rylan stared down at his hands. The new scars running down his right arm were red and angry, but Rylan knew a few more sessions of tissue repair would fade them completely. He just didn’t know if he’d be getting those treatments here.
“I was trying to do what I thought was my duty,” Rylan said. “I believe in the Commonwealth — I still do — but being here on this ship, with all of the crew, it’s made think about certain things differently.”
“What things?”
Rylan ventured a glance up. “Like maybe the laws regarding trade and tariffs are too restrictive?”
Garcia’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re fine with smuggling now? What if I could get a hold of another piece of the Singularity? Or one of their weapons? It’d be dangerous as hell, but we could make a fortune.”
Rylan looked him in the eye. “I’d tell you no.”
“And if it was an order?”
“I’d tell you no, sir.”
Garcia got up and moved in close to study him. “I already have Mags around to keep me from doing stupid things.”
“I don’t know from stupid, I just know wrong. Or at least the line that I draw.”
Garcia stared for a moment longer before turning away. “I’ll take it under consideration.”
“Captain?” Rylan tried not to sound too hopeful.
Garcia waved a hand in dismissal and reached for his wine. “Thinking. Now go and make yourself useful.”