All the Difference Read online

  “It’s still your turn,” he says, leaning back in his chair.

  I make my decision. “I know he said he wanted to do this by himself. But what value is there to my friendship, if it is the cause of his unhappiness, and if it makes him face danger alone?”

  “You didn’t cause the breaks in him,” Dusko says. “You fixed them as best you can, but a wound can’t heal if it isn’t cleaned all the way out.”

  I stare at him in surprise. He looks uncomfortable at his display of empathy and covers it by refilling his cup.

  “So I will take Stardust and go after Wrik. He faced Infestors and the Destroyer for me; I will not fail him as he faces his past.”

  “You may find that the Infestors were easier enemies,” Dusko says, turning away from me.

  “Nonetheless, I will go. And what of you, Dusko?”

  He sighs and again sips from his cup. “I go with you, of course. I live in your shadow. Without you, well, the Guild’s long memory will doubtless manifest itself, and then it’s, ‘Farewell Dusko.’”

  “I doubt they would be so incautious as to risk an attack on you in my temporary absence.”

  “Some young villain out to make a name for himself might well take that risk, someone who has never met you or seen what you can do. It’s easy to ignore night-monsters … no offense intended—”

  “None taken.”

  “…during daylight.”

  “I see.”

  “So I will come with you. I also don’t fancy enduring Jaelle’s tempers over the next few months.”

  “Excellent. I have already sent orders to ready the starship. I will inform Jaelle of our plans. We remain networked; at least for now. She must be consulted.”

  He stood up. “Good luck with that, I’ll be moving into the ship. Let me know when you want to launch.”

  Chapter 2

  My old homeworld glowed in the viewscreen of the SS Cosmic Dust’s dining hall. The view had evidently palled for the other passengers. From space, one Earth-type world looked like another, but not for me. This was the place where my life had gone so terribly wrong. The place I’d fled from, leaving behind what passed for a family and some people I’d once thought of as friends. Five years for me and better than twelve for them, given my time in cold sleep and in the grip of the Artifact’s time dilation. So much had changed for me, but as I looked at Retief, I had to fight the sensation that it hadn’t. Had everything been but a dream: Maauro, Jaelle, Kandalor, the Artifact and the Destroyer? I felt like a child trying to sneak back into some place he’d run away from before he was discovered.

  I shook myself. Piet Wrik Van Zyle had been my name then, I lived as Wrik Trigardt since, but I was returning as Mazza Fornite, an identity I had used before when we fled the Guild after leaving Kandalor. I only hoped to escape the spaceport environs without being recognized as either. Van Zyle might attract scorn or ridicule. Trigardt would be sought after for interviews for discovering the Lost Expedition, then saving Shasti Rainhell’s grandchild. But that was last year’s news and people would be interested in the Solari rebellion now, assuming the news had ever reached a backwater like my homeworld. I wanted my venture on Retief to be as private as possible.

  And brief? I didn’t know. It was hard to visualize the life that would face me afterward. Credits were not an issue; Rainhell and the Confederacy had seen to that. It was more of an issue of what to do with myself, assuming the burdens of the past were lifted from me. Jaelle and I remained consorts, but that would never again be what it was. While I had long ago shed my animosity toward Dusko, the truth was neither of us cared if we ever saw the other again. No, there was only one face that would draw me back and one promise. Maauro. I had snuck off like a thief because I knew she would not have agreed any other way. How I must have hurt her! That thought gnawed at me. Even if she could understand what drove me, and for all her amazing growth, it was still asking a lot out of an artificial life form, could she forgive it? Had I, in trying to heal one breach of faith, merely added another to my list of sins?

  I had promised her I would return. Whether she would want me to, was another question. Yet it was her face that came unbidden to my mind, and her presence that I missed. I longed for her voice, her little-girl enjoyment of all that was around her, her huge aquamarine eyes that saw 50,000 years into the past.

  I’ll go back to her, I swore to myself, and if she wants to kick my ass out the airlock, she’ll be within her rights, but I will go back. Then we will see what it is that she and I are meant to be. Then I will be ready at last.

  A dinging sound drew me from my reverie. “Attention passengers. We’ve been cleared for landing at Blomfeldt Spaceport in the capitol. Looks like we will be pulling in early for once, and we have synched our arrival for planetary dawn over the spaceport to minimize space lag. Atmospheric entry is scheduled for two hours from now. Please be in your cabins for steward’s prelanding check in one hour. Plenty of time to finish our fine coffee before you strap in.”

  I heard voices in the passage behind me, some passengers late for breakfast. I didn’t want to see, or talk, to anyone. I drained my hot chai and slid the cup into the washer and made my way out the opposite passageway.

  I’d paid for a private room, little more than a cell on something as small and old as the Dust but the room was comfortable, and I had certainly endured worse. It beat the cold storage of my trip to Kandalor. I nodded to the attractive brunette who had the room opposite, but she ignored me, as I had ignored all her friendly overtures on the way out. Oh, well.

  I closed the door and prepared my kit for landing, determined that no liner spacer was going to find fault with my preparations. Then I belted into my bunk and flicked the bunk viewer on so I could watch the approach. There was a chime, and the steward, an older Drisnian, looked in. The slight, blue-skinned alien was the size of a human child but I knew he had been spacing for over eighty years. He cast a practiced eye over the room then looked at me.

  “Wish they were all like you, Sir. Happy landings.”

  “And Velvet Skies,” I returned in a spacer’s phrase. He gave me a glance, then grinned with blue-tinted teeth and sealed the door. I turned my attention to the viewscreen, watching the Dust’s blunt nose begin to glow as we braked. The familiar sensations and sounds of entry followed, along with the bumping and slewing of the barrel-bodied liner as she hit high atmosphere. I found myself wishing to be at the controls, as usual unhappy about being at the mercy of another pilot’s skills. Only when I’d flown with Maauro had I ever been able to relax with another person piloting.

  The buffeting slowed, then smoothed out entirely as the broad wings holding the impellers found enough air to carry the ship. I watched as we came in over one of the broad, shallow seas near the lower continent, where the First Landing had been made. Retief was a world like any other, with polar ice, tropical jungle and everything in between, but much of it was continents with huge plateaus and endless vistas of grass and scrubland. This feature had attracted the original settlers from the Terran continent of Africa. My family had been among the first to leave the lowlands near the sea where the colony ship landed, to carve our vast farms and ranches in the interior of Voortrek, the largest continent.

  Settlement hadn’t spread much beyond that half of the continent. With restrictive immigration and a devotion to demented racial ideas, Retief neither welcomed nor attracted much immigration. Population grew slowly, though it spread out widely. We were spared the Conchirri Wars and only the First Solari Incursion had touched our world. That victory gave the greybeards running our colony an exaggerated faith in the Commandoes of our world.

  The Confederacy hadn’t cared much about Retief until an even more reactionary government voted for complete secession and removal of those not judged ‘racially pure.’ That brought on the suppression and my personal disaster.

  My musing was interrupted as a jo
lt told me we were going into hover and touching down shortly. Dust was about as large a vessel as usually landed on a world, at least without a water landing, being a break-bulk freighter. We lowered ourselves into a rather Spartan-looking cargo landing. Cranes and tenders begin to roll as soon as we settled. I quickly unbelted, not waiting for the bell to sound secure stations. I had taken the minimum kit with me, figuring on buying what I needed here. So I was first down to the disembarkation point, well ahead of the other passengers.

  At the exit was Second Officer Auel, a pleasant, middle aged, dark-skinned human. He and the captain knew who I was, recognizing me from press coverage, but with a little financial incentive, they’d developed a case of amnesia. I’d stayed in my cabin, hoping to avoid any other recognition, rarely coming out until my fellow passengers lost interest. Auel had been helpful in that, letting me hang out in the crew quarters with some of the officers in return for stories about our expedition to find the Lost Colony.

  “Hey, Mr. Trigardt. Sorry you will be leaving us.”

  “I’ve told you to call me, Wrik.”

  “Ah, the company frowns on us being overly friendly with passengers.”

  “Can you let me out before the rest of the passengers get here? You know I have been trying to keep a low profile...”

  He nodded. “Sure, you being a regular spacer.”

  “The way word gets around the frontier, who knows if they have even heard of the Lost Colony, or Seddon,” I returned, itching to be gone. “It might be that the first news is being downloaded by the Cosmic Dust’s mail-load. If so, then I think the recent fighting with the Solari will grab the headlines, especially around here.”

  “Yeah,” he said, absently checking the readings on the door sensor. “Seems I read that they had a dustup with the Solari here about thirty-five years ago. Ok, looks like it’s cool enough for someone that knows what he’s doing. I’ll let you out. Head for the main terminal where you see the green roof. Your Confed military ‘all pass’ should get you right through.”

  “Thanks,” I said as the door slid open, and I shouldered out into the bright sunshine of late summer in the capitol city. I breathed in the familiar smells of a spaceport and the scents of something that had once been home.

  “Catch you on the trip back,” he called. “Maybe you can win back some of your money, double or nothing?”

  “Sure,” I said over my shoulder. I hit the ground moving quickly. The impellers weren’t rockets but that much energy still heated the ground, and I could feel it through my boots. A few stevedores herding their cargobots gave me a brief look, assuming I was a crewman making a quick exit from the Dust.

  Fortunately, I didn’t see any reporters or dignitaries, so my cover story must have held. I’d had plenty of that in the months after we returned from Seddon. It had fallen on me, as Maauro needed to avoid the public spotlight as much as possible and Jaelle hadn’t gone on the expedition. Olivia Croyzer had disappeared back into the Confed Military and Dusko also had reasons to avoid the public gaze. However, I had done my best to be uninteresting and granted the fewest interviews possible. Eventually the survivors of the prior Bexlaw expedition and the Seddonese themselves had taken over the center stage, leaving Lost Planet to creep toward the exits.

  My identity as Mazza Fornite got me through Confed military intake in seconds. The “all pass” that Candace Deveraux had arranged for us after we were “recruited” cleared the hurdles, despite curious looks from the base personnel, all of whom knew better than to question the bearer of one.

  I exited the administration center to face a broad boulevard and a monorail that hadn’t been there when I’d left. In fact nothing in the immediate area looked familiar; the spaceport and airport complex had doubled in size. The city beyond boasted a score of skyscrapers that hadn’t been there. I gaped with the astonishment of the returning traveler at the changes more than a decade had wrought.

  Then with a deep sigh, and a recollection of the mission that brought me here, I started off.

  Chapter 3

  I take the time to see Jaelle in the evening hours before I must head for the ship. We meet on what is neutral territory, the park across from our offices. There is a quiet spot near a small waterfall that is special to me. I sit by the gurgling stream, watching the willow tree above me bend in the wind.

  I observe Jaelle park in the Lost Planet lot, then dismount from her gold and black aircar and walk into the park. I see her tuck hands in her long, beige coat; I know she hates the cold. Jaelle’s night sight is excellent, and she spots me sitting motionless by the water. She walks up slowly and sits beside me on the stone bench.

  I hesitate to speak, though I have devoted much time to figuring what I would say. I am spared having to as Jaelle puts her right arm over my shoulder and then presses her face against mine. We sit that way for a few seconds, then I realize that she is crying silently. I carefully place my arms around her, slightly elevating my body temperature, warding the cold off my friend. Once before, we had sat like this, when we were pursuing Wrik’s captor, the Guild VIP known as the Collector. For all the grimness of that time, it seems happier days than those we know now.

  “I couldn’t help him,” she finally says. “This is as much my failure as his. I let too much space grow between us because we didn’t want the same things.” She sits back, releasing me and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “I wanted a trading company of my own, my children, and a place of respect in the Nekoan community. He wanted you and these missions into space. All to prove something to himself that would never stay proven in his own eyes.”

  “So your feelings toward him have changed?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Some of this is what I am. Nekoan males aren’t much part of our lives after we have kits. I have… been confused over what to do with Wrik now that I have children and some of my matrilineal line here.”

  “Then there is me.”

  “Then there is you.”

  “I did not intend this.”

  “I know, Maauro, I never said that you did. There is something in and between the two of you that will not be denied. It’s bigger than either of you or any of us.”

  “I am not sure I understand.”

  “I don’t want this to end in bitterness or regret. I still care for Wrik, still love him in a way. I still care for you. We have been through so much together. I don’t want to lose the friendship as well as Wrik.”

  “I also wish our network to endure.”

  We sit quietly for a few minutes. “Will you be coming back?” she asks.

  “I don’t know, Jaelle. There are too many variables. I do not know what will happen when Wrik gets to Retief, or when I find him. He told me not to come after him.”

  “He didn’t mean it,” Jaelle says. “Or even if he did, he knows in his heart that you will.”

  “I hope you are right.”

  She smiles at me. “I have to get back to my children.” She takes both my hands in hers. “Promise you won’t forget me.”

  “I will do more,” I reply, moved by feelings I can barely put a name to. “I will promise you that we three will meet again in better times.”

  “Kit-sister, I will hold you to that.”

  We stand and embrace, then Jaelle turns and walks rapidly to her car. I remember that Wrik once told me never to watch anyone go out of sight as it means you do not expect to see them again. Though the premise is absurd, I turn and walk away while I can still see Jaelle. I will not even take this small chance at provoking the universe. But I am free now to fix my mind on the voyage ahead.

  Stardust lifts early in the morning. Only Dusko and I are aboard. I take her up myself, a task usually relished by Wrik. I do not use his manual instruments but direct the vessel through the link I have with its AI, which is a tiny set of my own programs. Unlike Dusko, I do not even need to strap in during our ascent.
Our ship is a high-speed courier, as small a vessel as is made for interstellar use, for all it measures 112 meters. Today it feels large and empty. We carry no other passengers, not even the usual number of crab-robots we’ve used on previous missions. Lost Planet has shrunk to me and a former crime lord. Something is very wrong with the universe.

  The voyage to the outer edge of the system where the stardrive can engage will take most of a week, despite my paying to use the giant accelerator in orbit. Dusko and I quickly settle into our usual roles: he quietly tending his hydroponic gardens and me watching the stars and meditating on my new life and its complexities. But we do not remain undisturbed.

  A message arrives over the net directly into my brain, preceded by the code for Candace Devereaux. I allow the channel access. An image forms in my mind, Candace is a dark-skinned human female, now forty-one years old. Today she wears a business suit and a concerned expression. I can tell from the signal source that she is aboard a vessel, and it is closing on our position.

  “Hello, Maauro”

  “Hello. What do you want?”

  “Always straight to the point?” she replied, raising an eyebrow.

  “I have pressing matters to deal with and am unable to undertake any missions for the Confederacy.”

  “I might be able to persuade you otherwise.”

  “Unlikely.”

  “But not impossible, Little Miss Metal. Answer me this and I will give you an earful of information that you will be grateful for. Why did Wrik choose this moment to make a move toward Retief? What are you two planning?”

  I debate how much truth to share with her, knowing she has already weighed the same question about me. “Wrik’s journey to Retief is a personal matter.”

  “Without you? Has something changed between you two? I mean he has been useful to Confed Military Intelligence in the past, but it’s your special abilities that most interest me.”

  “Then you may be weighting things improperly, our last mission for you succeeded because of Wrik. I was defeated. He came up with the solution.”