Distant Horizon (Backyard Starship, #6)

by J.N. Chaney

“Really? Fascinating. I’m hardly an expert at—Perry, what’s that term?” “Measuring things, boss.” “Right. Thank you—at measuring things, so naturally, my math might be off a bit. But even a simple fellow like myself can see that increasing the size of a ship will yield extra space. Is that accurate, Rolis?” “I’d say so. These off-the-shelf workboats get modified all the time. I’ve worked on a few jobs like that myself, back when I was, you know, all fleshy and squishy and stuff.” “Good catch, and thanks again, Rolis.”

“Van, what’s—oh. Oh wow. What is that?” I shook my head. “I have no idea.” She withdrew and I heard some conversation, then Zenophir clambered into the hold. “Oh, it’s one of these,” she said. “One of what? What is it?” “A—thing. A really fast little thing.” “You have no clue, do you?” “None at all. All I can say is that it’s a ship—which you’ve probably already figured out.” “I’m going to need a bit more detail, if you please.”

I turned to the crew. “Meantime, folks, this ship is now officially impounded, and you’re under arrest for transporting stolen cultural artifacts.” One of the Yonnox peered back at me blankly. “That’s a thing?” I sighed. “Yes, sir, that’s a thing. Perry will explain it to you.” Perry nodded. “And I shall use suitably simple, ideally one-syllable words to do it.” “To do what?” the Yonnox asked. Perry turned to look at me, his amber gaze one of resignation. “You might as well go do something else, Van. This is gonna take a while.”

“We have another problem,” Zeno said, appearing behind me in her work coveralls and wiping her hands of some greasy fluid. “And here I was just thinking that we were dangerously low on problems.” Zeno cocked her head at me. “Really?”

Lucky shrugged. “Look at it this way, Van. The more that power gets funneled into a single person, the more and more that person becomes a single point of failure.”

I’d hate to end up hurting or killing any of them.” “Kinda hate to have them hurting or killing any of us, too,” Rolis said. “There’s that, too,” I agreed.

“What if I want a gee-gaw?” Torina asked. Zeno chuckled. Rolis, though, was puzzled. “What’s a gee-gaw?” “It’s better than bric-a-brac, but not quite as good as a doodad,” I said. “Ah. Well, that clears it right up, thanks.”

knowing your enemy goes far beyond what you know he is likely to do. It is far more important to think of the things your opponent is capable of doing and is willing to do.”

“Excuse me, but perhaps I can help,” a new voice said. I jumped and turned to find Rolis entering from the Fafnir’s galley from somewhere aft. “I really wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, despite listening to every word you two said,” he went on.

“Look, right now, let’s concentrate on our case. Gerhardt might be an immovable object, but I’m damned determined to be the unstoppable force.”

“He tinkers. All he needs is an idea for a project and some scrap, and he’ll be happy for hours, sometimes days,” Icky replied. “Oh, and he sings. Terribly.” “He… sings? Like, what?” I asked. “Mostly Wut’zur songs that you… you would call them show tunes. Musical production songs about things my culture finds romantic, like love and smashing things. Or welding. We like singing about welding, too,” Icky said. I pretended to wipe a tear. “And I thought romance was dead.”

“That’s a really good idea. Do some reconnaissance,” she said. “What, you mean actually knowing what we’re dealing with before we go charging in headlong to confront? Madness! Madness, I say,” Perry exclaimed.

I straightened, a little nonplussed. It wasn’t like Carter to so quickly back down, much less apologize. “That’s… fine, Carter. All of our stress levels have been a little on the high side lately.” “Not mine. I’m cool as an artichoke,” Perry said. I gave him a sidelong look. “Don’t you mean cucumber?” “Cucumbers are always hogging the cool spotlight. I thought I’d give another vegetable some time to shine.” “Are artichokes actually even cool?” “They are if they’re refrigerated.”

“Crazy people can appreciate wine, Van,” Perry said. “It’s people who drink IPAs that are to be ostracized. For the good of the galaxy.”

“I happen to like trash panda more than racoon. It’s more poetic, like murder chicken instead of Canada goose,” Netty replied.

Perry shook his head. “You’ll be a good Master, Van. A kinda dumb one, but a good one.”

“Among my people, Linulla, I am what is described as quite caucasian. I start getting a sunburn if I glance at a picture of the sun. Oh, and then I tan, but first, I burn.”

They all dutifully fell in behind Zeno as she led them away, an orderly line of little anthropomorphic crabs and a hairy, gorilla-like hulk following a grumpy sort-of walrus.

“You are a being of unique value—Van—which again goes far beyond the obvious and superficial. From the perspective of your kind, this existence is better with you in it than not. The Starsmith believes that, and I respect his views. For that reason, although I do not care, I do not care about you less than I do not care about others.” Talk about faint praise.

I sniffed. “You, your ship, and your ship’s AI are all named Lucky?” “Yup. Keeps things simple. Leaves more brain power for important things, like choosing my lunch.”

“Oh, right. This is Rolis. He’s… a little hard to explain.” “I was murdered, but I got better.”

Myron sank back and shook his head. “So you mean that we now really do know the truth, and we can’t share it with anyone?” I leaned back and smiled at him. “Congratulations, Myron. You thought there was a conspiracy, and you were right—and now you’re part of it. Ain’t life a funny thing?”

“How intense is more intense?” I asked her. “Somewhere more than noteworthy, getting close to a cause for concern, but not yet worrisome.” “Okay, and how much closer to worrisome are they likely to get?” I asked. “If the current rate of increase keeps up, we’ll definitely be past worrisome and probably somewhere around uh-oh by the time we reach the debris field.” “That’s what I like—good, hard, quantifiable values on the trusty old holy shit scale,” Perry noted wryly.

few things heavier than words yet unspoken, and both of us labored under the silence we didn’t know how to fill.

“Because, Tudor, when you uncovered that mole, sitting in that chair right there, you made me realize something profound. I’ve become so fixated on doing the correct thing that I’ve let myself lose sight of doing the right thing.”

“That’s the difference between plans and leadership,” he said. “Plans only get you to the enemy. Leadership is how you defeat him.”

A wall of lawyers was a lot like a missile defense network, the only difference being the lawyers charged by the hour.