Dark Ararat - Brian Stableford [46]
“That’s a lot of factions in a population of a few hundred,” Matthew pointed out, mildly.
“Far too many,” the doctor agreed. “Which makes it all the more remarkable that the captain’s on our side, you poor fool. He’s the one who wants to let us fulfil the quest for which we undertook to be frozen down. He’s the one who wants to help us. It’s bad enough that Shen Chin Che is rolling round Hope’s decks like a loose cannon, without you blasting off as well.”
While this tirade was in progress Vince Solari had hauled himself off his bed and had come to stand with them, ready to play the peace officer by imposing his body between theirs should it prove necessary. All Matthew said was: “Is it really that bad? Are the crew so bitterly divided among themselves?”
“Captain Milyukov doesn’t seem to think so,” Solari put in. “The doctor may be a little overanxious. She’s in an awkward position.”
“What do you know about it?” Nita Brownell retorted.
“Only what the captain told me,” Solari said, soothingly. “Are you all right, Matt?”
“I might have broken a knuckle,” Matthew admitted. “Otherwise, it’s just bruises. My IT has blanked the pain, but I’m a little spaced out and very tired.”
Nita Brownell picked up his right hand and felt the knuckle, without any conspicuous tenderness or concern. “It’s not broken,” she concluded, giving the distinct impression that she would have been happier if it had been. “Unlike the jaw of the man you hit.”
“He was about to hit me,” Matthew pointed out.
“I think we both need sleep,” Solari said. “Perhaps we should postpone further recriminations until morning.”
Nita Brownell was ready enough to agree with that, although she insisted on giving Matthew a further examination once he was horizontal on the bed. Matthew was past caring whether her real concern was for his health or to recover some of the bugs that had recorded his conversation with Shen Chin Che.
When the door closed behind her, Solari said: “Anything I should know?”
“Not urgently,” Matthew assured him. “It was a personal thing. I know Shen. I owed it to him to pay my respects, whatever the effort required. The crew don’t understand how much they owe him.”
“That’s the way it is with children of a revolution,” Solari observed. “They tear up the past, demonize the ancestors they used to worship. But when they’ve tried out the extremes for size, they usually swing back. The wheel tends to come full circle—that’s why they call them revolutions.”
Matthew wasn’t sure that was true, but he hadn’t the energy to argue, or even to reply. As soon as silence fell, he was asleep.
TWELVE
Andrei Lityansky was as tall and slim as the majority of the crew, but his skin was too dark to manifest the curious greenish tint that many of his fellows displayed. The cast of his features was slightly Semitic—a point of Earthly reference that Matthew found oddly reassuring—and his hair was jet black. He wore a neat triangular beard, the first one Matthew had seen on Hope.
Matthew had hardly had time to finish his unappetizing breakfast before Riddell had turned up to guide him to his appointed rendezvous, but Lityansky didn’t look like a man who had recently woken from refreshing sleep. He seemed a trifle fractious, like a man who did not appreciate the disturbance of his expectations by the kind of unexpected delay that Matthew had imported into his schedule. He was nursing a cup of what looked like coffee, but he didn’t offer any to Matthew.
“How is Shen Chin Che?” the crewman asked, with ostentatious irony. “We haven’t seen much of him lately.”
“As well as can be expected,” Matthew replied. “How are Captain Milyukov and the man I hit?”
“The captain’s untroubled.