“Hey now, how come they’re goin’ all sideways-like?” Regan asked, pointing out through the canopy, to where the tow ship was visibly rolling to one side. They were traveling to Rylea at a fairly moderate pace, crossing the remaining seven hundred million miles in minutes rather than seconds in order to avoid overtaxing the tow ship’s engines as it “pulled” the Shays Rebellion along inside its field.
“Oh, space,” Dick said. “They aren’t going ‘all sideways-like’, we are. The voiders are letting us drift off-plane. No… check that. They’re making us drift off-plane. Look, we’re starting to pitch, too.”
The other ship, the only reference point near enough to change apparent position, seemed to be sliding down as the Rebellion’s forward end tipped upwards.
“I still say it looks like they’re sideways,” Regan said, bending her neck to look at the tug head-on.
“They’ll straighten us out before we land, I’m sure,” Lilliana said.
“Naturally,” Dick said, an unusual sullenness creeping into his voice. “But in the mean time, everybody’s going to see us coming into port off-plane.”
“So?” Leo asked.
“So, it reflects poorly on us,” Dick said. “It reflects poorly on me.”
“I can’t see how,” Leo said lazily. He was the only one on the forward deck not interested in the sight of the tug or the final approach to Rylea. Instead he lay on his stomach, sprawled out on the floor. “Everybody… everybody who even actually notices… will see the tug and know it’s not our fault.”
“Don’t you see, that just makes it worse,” Dick said.
“I can’t see how,” Leo said again. “Not that I even care enough to try, mind you.”
“Yes, well, you aren’t a pilot,” Dick replied. “You don’t understand these things.”
“Now, now… don’t sulk,” Leo said.
“I’m not sulking,” he said.
“‘I’m not sulking,’ he sulked sulkily,” Regan narrated.
“You are, a bit,” Leo said, yawning. “Honestly.”
“They will straighten us out before we land, won’t they?” Lilliana asked Dick again, staring disconcertedly at the increasingly misaligned view. She appeared not to have heard the entire exchange.
“They will,” Dick said. “Probably just before, unless I miss my guess. They’ll probably bring us in low over the city, with the tops of the buildings all at an odd angle just off our starboard… actually, that’s probably giving them too much credit. They’ll likely spin us around a fair bit.”
Lilliana’s hand went to her mouth. She looked quite green.
“I… believe I’ll return to my cabin to double check… my cabin,” she said.
“Shall I inform you when we’ve made landfall?” Dick asked.
“Please,” she said. “But don’t call it ‘land fall‘. Ever.”
She hurried up the metal staircase to the walkway/landing which led back to the upper deck, where her cabin… her safe, interior cabin with no outward-facing walls… was located. Her cabin, and should it come to that, her private bathroom. Running almost doubled over as she was, Lilliana all but bowled into the three identical men who were coming out of the passageway.
“Oh, Nick,” she said to apologetically to the three of them. “I didn’t see you there.”
“That’s okay,” the one she’d come closest to running into said. The Nick Bradleys were fairly good-looking in their way, clean-cut–though not to such a sterile extreme as Dick–and dressed in identical work shirts and slacks that were far more rugged than their microweave fabric looked.
“I just came to ask if it’s true what Galatea said,” one of the others explained.
“What did Galatea say?” Lilliana asked, a heavy feeling that had little to do with vertigo growing in her stomach.
“That the reason we need towing is that we’re completely out of fuel and the ship’s going to be left stranded when we get to Rylea,” the third Nick said. All three of them looked at her earnestly. “Is that true?”
“Nick,” she said soothingly to them, “it may be true that we’re out of fuel…”
“…may be, and is,” Leo interjected from down below.
“Let’s take this conversation away from the hallway,” Lilliana said, ushering the three men in out of the doorway and sealing it shut behind them. “I really don’t want any of this leaving this compartment.”
“So, it is true,” one of the Nicks said.
“Nobody’s going to be stranded,” Lilliana said, leading them down the stairs. “I mean, we do have options.”
“And the reason you didn’t want the crew to know?” a Nick asked.
“Because I didn’t want anybody to start exploring those options,” Lilliana said. “Oh, I could just strangle that Galatea!”
“In fairness to Adams, she wasn’t present when you gave the order not to talk about it,” Dick said.
“I left her in her bed,” Lilliana said. “I didn’t exactly expect her to just… bump into anybody… there.”
“More the fool you, then,” Regan said, and Leo snorted. “Ya’d better let her in the loop, like, before she tells half the crew.”
Lilliana swore using three different languages in a single sentence.
“Hang about, now,” Regan said. “Ya aren’t after makin’ her cry again, are ya? ’cause I have to tell ya, one time is funny, like… but two times is just plain hilarious.”
“Look,” one of the Nicks said. “I don’t think you can keep this from the crew. Morally, I mean.”
“Morally?” Lilliana asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“Okay, ethically,” one of the other ones said. “Or more importantly, practically. Word gets around. Even if it wasn’t true, somebody probably would start the rumor anyhow.”
“But… you’re not planning on telling anybody, are you, Nick?” Lilliana asked. “I’ve always been able to count on you in the past.”
Three sets of lungs sighed at once.
“Fine,” the Nicks said.
“I’ll keep quiet for a couple days,” one of them said. “But if things start getting bad… if the rest of the crew starts getting antsy, or worse… well, I’ll make my own judgment call. If nobody knows what’s actually happening, there’s always the chance that they’ll manage to imagine something worse.”
“Thank you, Nick!” Lilliana gushed, hugging each of them in turn. “You’re making the right decision. I promise you we won’t be grounded for more than a couple days, if that… I mean, we’ve got out of worse scrapes before.”
“Rylea port in view,” Dick reported mechanically.
Lilliana caught a glimpse of motion and looked up through the clear canopy. She saw the tall, thin spires of the asteroid city looming suspended upside down above them, the whole thing tilting rapidly at a crazy angle that her vertiginous brain was sure would send the spike-like buildings crashing into their ship.
She bolted for the stairs, taking them two at a time… found herself delayed by the door she’d closed and locked… and ultimately did not quite make it to her bathroom in time.
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