| Walk in Silence, Asaro |
| 1 | Walk in Silence Catherine Asaro If ancient animosities are finally laid to rest, will new ones take their place? I Silver Tide Lieutenant Colonel Jess Fernбndez was sick. She sat in her chair at the end of a giant robot arm that could swing anywhere within the large hemisphere around her. Although she could act as captain from many locations within the ship, she spent most shifts here on the bridge. |
| 2 | She rubbed her eyes, exhausted after having worked late the previous evening, ship's time. Her queasy stomach didn't help. She also had a cold, of all the absurd anachronisms, and she felt like hell. Holoscreens covered the surface of the kilometer-wide dome that formed the bridge. Right now they showed the planet Athena, a gas giant banded by blue and red clouds, glowing against the spangled backdrop of space. |
| 3 | The view to starboard lifted her spirits. It came from a satellite orbiting Athena and showed her ship, Silver Tide, a scientific research facility. The vessel glistened, a rotating cylinder several kilometers long. Lights sparkled along its body, on antennae, pods, struts, and towers. Jess always got a kick out of watching Silver Tide from within the ship. She had never lost the awe she felt that first time she boarded, coming to assume her command. |
| 4 | In the five years since, Silver Tide had become part of her. Her stomach interrupted her enjoyment with an unwelcome lurch. Trying to divert her thoughts, she magnified the screen images. Now they revealed a small spacecraft on approach, a Bolt transport. On Silver Tide, the pod on a docking tube was opening like a giant flower. The Bolt sailed inside and the pod closed, swallowing the craft. Jess recognized the Bolt; it carried Jack O'Brien and his Allied Services team, which tracked the interstellar black market. |
| 5 | They were hitching a ride on Silver Tide, headed out across space to bust smugglers. Jess sniffled, distracted by her stuffy nose. Pah. This was absurd. She had all her inoculations. Granted, none were 100 percent effective, but humans had cured most strains of the common cold. It irked her no end to have caught one anyway. She still had to do her job. To the computer, she said, "Spin her up." "Done," it answered. |
| 6 | The bridge began to turn, its screens adjusting to keep the view stationary. She rotated the bridge during part of each shift so her crew at the consoles on the hull weren't always in micro-gravity. Against the immensity of space, their stations were tiny wedges moving past the stars. Usually Jess reveled in that glorious vista. Unfortunately, seeing those consoles zip by today did nothing glorious for her stomach. |
| 7 | Bloody hell. Captains weren't supposed to get sick. Jess sent her chair humming toward a hatch on the hull. To match speed and position with the moving hatch, the chair turned upside down, making her dismayed stomach flip-flop. She gulped bile as she shoved out of her seat. Then she rendezvoused with the Bridge Renewal and Refresher Chamber, otherwise known as the loo. As she squeezed into the cubicle, a med-holo of her face formed in front of the opposite panel showing a woman with black hair tousled around her shoulders. |
| 8 | Dark smudges showed below her eyes. She barely had time to lean over the sink before she lost her lunch. "You work too hard." Dr. George Mai stood by the bed in the exam room, scanning his holopad. A heavy-set man of average height, he had a kind face and brown eyes. He frowned at Jess, who was sitting on the end of the bed, her booted legs almost touching the floor. "You should come in more often for a check-up," he admonished. |
| 9 | Jess barely held back her grimace. She had never liked hospitals. "I'm not working any harder than usual. I've no reason to be sick." "I'm still checking a few tests, but I can already give you the diagnosis." He turned off his holopad. "You have a cold, Captain. You need rest. Relaxation." Jess glowered at him. "I'm perfectly relaxed." He started to answer, then seemed to think better of it. Instead he said, "I'll let you know if anything else turns up." "Thank you." She slid off the bed, standing half a head taller than him. |
| 10 | "You really could use a rest," he said. "Doctor Bolton would say the same." Gads. He was pulling out the big guns. She could just hear Sandra Bolton, the senior physician at Claymore Hospital: I insist you relax, Jess. Take a vacation, find a hobby, meet some people. You're an intelligent, accomplished, attractive woman. All right, so you're also stubborn as all hell. But you still need a social life. |
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