Manta's Gift

Yes, indeed. Manta's Deep, ho!

"Magnetic fluctuations getting stronger," the young woman at the sensor station reported, her voice crisp and official. "We should be getting close, Commander."

"Acknowledged," the young man in the command chair replied, equally crisply. He was considerably older than the woman, of course, and undoubtedly well trained. But to Faraday, he still looked far too young to be in command of humanity's first colony ship to the stars.

But then, to Faraday, everyone aboard the Matthew Raimey looked far too young.

Well, almost everyone.

"They sure do teach parade and polish these days, don't they?" the man seated beside him murmured, the servos in his gravity suit humming softly as he shook his head. "I always worry that that much professional form is a way of painting over basic incompetence."

"Careful, Arbiter Hesse," Faraday admonished him. "You're far too young to become that cynical."

Hesse snorted. "Maybe to you I'm young," he countered. "To everyone else aboard, you and I are the Grand Old Spits of this trip. And you know it."

"Hey, I could have been the Grand Old Spit, singular," Faraday reminded him. "No one made you come along on this. You could have stayed on Earth with all that power and glory and comfort and been happy."

"You have a very warped view of happiness if you think it consists of sitting around with the rest of the Five Hundred discussing crop allocations," Hesse said dryly. "Besides, this is really nothing more than the final act of Project Changeling. How could I not be here? Any more than you could?"

"Nonsense," Faraday said. "I'm here solely because the Five Hundred find me awkward to have around anymore. How did you put it back then? Humanity needs a frontier for the restless and ambitious, and where the troublemakers can be dumped?"

"I think that last one was yours," Hesse pointed out. "Are you suggesting you're a troublemaker?"

"I'm certainly politically inconvenient," Faraday said. "Old heroes who refuse to fade into the sunset are like that."

He looked around the control room. "Fortunately for us, most of the rest of this particular crowd fall into the 'adventurous' category."

"Though that'll certainly change," Hesse murmured. "If this works, I imagine the Five Hundred will be commissioning a whole series of these ships. The malcontents will get their turn, never fear."

Faraday nodded. If it worked. But no one back on Earth would ever really know that, would they?

All they could ever know would be whether or not the Raimey vanished into the Deep with Manta's group of Qanskan colonists. They wouldn't know if the huge colony ship made it out the other end, to whatever gas giant planet this particular Deep co

And they wouldn't know whether or not there would be a planet in the system that could be made into a new home for the three thousand colonists crammed together inside the Raimey's pressure hull.

But then, no one aboard the ship knew those things, either. They weren't just adventurers, Faraday decided. They were the ultimate gamblers, staking everything on a single roll of the dice.

Absently, he stroked a fingertip across his myrtlewood ring. And speaking of gambling...

"You know, Albrecht, there's one thing I've never quite had the nerve to ask," he commented. "And just in case this doesn't work, it might be nice to know."

"Sure," Hesse said. "Ask away."

"Way back when Liadof was pla

"Like it was yesterday," Hesse said, smiling. "I'll never forget the look on her face when she saw that

'Charlie the Carp' you'd written on the signature line."

"Me, neither," Faraday said. "And that's the question. You'd carried that paper all the way from my quarters to the Contact Room, walking along behind me. After that you had it sitting in your pocket, over in a corner, while the rest of us hashed things over with Manta and the other Qanska."

He lifted his eyebrows. "Tell me the truth. Didn't you ever just take it out to see whether I'd signed it properly?"

Hesse's wrinkled face was the image of perfect i

He waved a servo-enhanced hand. "I mean, even with your future and the fate of the Qanska hanging in the balance, my legal obligations were perfectly clear."

"Of course," Faraday murmured. "Forgive me for even asking."

"I should think so," Hesse said. "Well, I think I'm going to the mess hall for a cup of tea. Lieutenant Seibei's optimism notwithstanding, I think it'll be a while yet before we hit the Deep. Would you care to join me?"

"Not right now," Faraday told him. "I was thinking of taking a quick nap."

There was a distant creaking of seams. "Be my guest," Hesse said, throwing a suspicious glance at the ceiling. "Though how you can sleep comfortably knowing what's out there is beyond me."

"Just a matter of practice," Faraday assured him. "I've been here before, you know."

"Right." With a hum of servos, Hesse got to his feet. "I'll see you later. Happy dreams."

"Thank you," Faraday said. "Happy tea."

Hesse waddled his way to the door and left. Shifting his attention to the bank of displays, Faraday gazed at the awesome view of the hundreds of Qanskan Wise blazing the trail ahead of them.

Qanska who were leaving Jupiter, not because they had to, but because they wanted to.

It would work, he knew. It would all work. This many eager gamblers couldn't possibly be wrong.

And with the soft sounds of the beeping instruments and the muffled rumbling of the wind outside tugging soothingly at his ears, he drifted off to sleep.