"Piers Anthony - Bio of a Space Tyrant 05 - Statesman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

Chapter 1 PIRATE



We might as well have been children again, though I was sixty and my sister Spirit was fifty-seven. We faced the presentation screen and gawked at the magnificence of Planet Saturn. The rings were spectacular. Of course the image was enhanced by false-color, making it more dramatic, but still it was a wonder. All the colors of the spectrum seemed to be there in the great splay of the rings, and in the roughly spherical body of the planet itself. "Beautiful!" I breathed. "Jupiter's rings hardly compare!"

Spirit murmured agreement. "But nevertheless a sterner environment than we knew on Jupiter," she reminded me. "Their residential band has about eight and a half bars pressure, and their winds are up to quadruple Jupiter's-almost five hundred meters a second."

"A thousand miles an hour," I agreed, making a rough translation in my head. In my time on Jupiter I had become accustomed to the archaic Saxon measurements, inefficient as they were. Of course such velocities were not directly experienced, because the city-bubbles floated in the wind currents. Survival would be impossible if relative wind velocity of that strength were felt; storms whose winds were only a tenth as strong had been called hurricanes back on ancient Earth, and had wreaked enormous damage. The pressure bothered me more; as a former native of space, I tended to feel claustrophobic in pressure higher than one bar, the normal atmospheric level we lived in. It had been six bars on Jupiter, and would be higher on Saturn even though the planet was smaller, because the residential band was deeper in the atmosphere.

We were on our way to Saturn because we had been exiled from Jupiter, and the ringed planet seemed to be the best prospect of those that had expressed interest in taking us. I had just one personal acquaintance at Saturn-but that one was Chairman Khukov, the highest political figure there. He had achieved his dominance at about the time I became the Tyrant of Jupiter, and we had worked tacitly together to buttress each other's power and defuse interplanetary tension. I did not really like Khukov, but I trusted him.

"Ship ahoy," the ship's intercom announced. "Passengers to quarters."

I exchanged a glance with Spirit. We were in deep space between planets; our trip had not been announced, because the new government of Jupiter wished us no ill but wanted us out of the public eye. We cooperated because my wife Megan headed that new government, and I bore her no ill will. She had done what she felt she had to do, and I cannot say she was mistaken. The Tyrancy had accomplished a lot of good, but had also become increasingly arbitrary about the uses of power. Power does seem to corrupt the conscience, much as alcohol corrupts judgment; from the vantage of my abrupt loss of power I was able to see how far I had been straying. But because I was who I was, I was a target, which was another reason for the secrecy of this transportation. Was the other ship merely a passing merchant, or was it something else?

We retreated quickly to our quarters, obeying the authority of this ship. This was a Saturn vessel, of the escort class, displacing (as the usage still had it) about two thousand tons. She should be fast, capable of about three gees acceleration, but only lightly armed. It was her purpose to transport us swiftly and quietly to Saturn; she would be in trouble if attacked. We snapped into our acceleration harnesses.

"Ship under attack," the intercom voice said, as if responding to my thought. "Secure-"

The voice was cut off by the impact of a strike. The ship shook, and the power blinked. We were not under acceleration at the moment; the normal course is to achieve cruising velocity, then coast to the destination, conserving fuel. The vessel was spinning to provide half gee in that interim.

"Better take evasive action," Spirit muttered. She and I had been career officers in space for twelve to fifteen years; that was three decades past, but the reflexes are never lost.

The ship did not. It drifted along on its original course, not cutting in the drive.

We got out of our harnesses, acting as one. Obviously the ship's captain was a noncombatant, uncertain what to do in battle. That would get us killed promptly enough. He didn't realize that the first thing to do was to put the ship under acceleration, regardless of its course.

We burst into the control chamber. "Get it moving!" I barked in Russian.

"But the damage report is not yet in," the pilot protested. He was young, obviously inexperienced: the kind normally used on what is called a milk run, a routine mission. "The captain has not-"

I reached down and took his laser pistol from his body. I gave it to Spirit. "Get out of that seat," I said. I didn't have time to educate him in battle procedure.

"But you are passengers!" he said. "Not even of Saturn-" Then he turned his head and spied the laser bearing on his right eye. He got out of the seat.

I jumped into it. The ship's controls were unfamiliar in detail, but I understood the principle well enough. In a moment I had the drive started.

Meanwhile, Spirit was marching the pilot out of the chamber. I knew where she was headed. I spoke into the intercom. "Captain, I am assuming temporary command of this vessel," I said in Russian. "Acknowledge, and relay the directive to your crew."

"This is impossible!" the captain sputtered.

"Captain, we don't have time for debate. I am taking evasive action, but very soon the pirate will reorient and tag us with another shell. We have to fight effectively, and for that I require your implicit cooperation." I guided the craft on a random course, getting the hang of the controls in the process. This was a good little ship, I realized, capable of more acceleration than I had judged. I verified that she had not suffered any critical damage; she was responding perfectly. We had been lucky, so far.

"This is piracy right here!" he huffed. "I will not-"

"Captain, do you know who I am?" I cut in.