THE CHANGES THAT HAD BEEN WROUGHT IN
Lightning were astonishing. Its original exterior had
resembled nothing so much as two bullet-shaped tubes attached to
either side of a very large but similarly shaped tube of dull
gun-metal gray. Now the area between the tubes had been neatly
filled in and reshaped and the entire thing coated with a dull
bronze-looking substance. It now looked like a three-edged metal
arrowhead and resembled no known ship profile. But on sensor
screens and scopes, it would look very much like a Val fighter.
It was a good compromise. Such a strange-looking ship would
cause much curiosity but no real alarm when viewed by the
freebooters, yet it would have to get very close in to be seen as
an unfriendly vessel by the average Master System pilot.
The inside had been changed, as well. Clayben’s precious
computer backup files, to which he was still forbidden access,
along with the separate unit that held and ran them, had been
removed and placed within a chamber in Thunder. This freed
up a great deal of space; in an emergency, Lightning could
hold the entire company. A duplicate of the old interplanetary
ship’s galley had been installed and could sustain them
indefinitely, although in spartan conditions. The considerable
armament had been retained and checked, and instrumentation had
been added to allow for far more effective displays to the human
occupants.
“I wish I could have done more,” Star Eagle told
them apologetically. “If I had the shops and the full
facilities for disassembly, and the time, I would have loved to
have made more of them, but with what I have this is the best that
could be done. I have scanned and analyzed it inside and
out down to the molecular level; if we ever get hold of a shipyard
I might well be able to turn out more. Still, I have learned much
from it that could be incorporated into other ships.”
Nagy slid into the Captain’s chair. The two forward
positions had been retained in their original forms, including the
comfortable bracing chairs. The other seats were more utilitarian.
“I kinda miss the yacht feeling.” The former security
chief sighed. “But this is better for our
purposes.”
“How hard is it to fly?” Raven asked him.
“Very easy once you get practice. You’re right,
that’s what we should do first. Any one of us oughtta be able
to take this sucker off and get the hell out of someplace if
something happens to the rest. Sabatini, I hope I can assume that
your Koll memories would let you run this thing if you had
to.”
“If it uses the standard interface override,
yeah.”
“Okay, then—we’ve got two. Raven, I
don’t expect you or Warlock to get to be expert pilots, but I
think I can teach you the basics. Sabatini, you ride weapons in the
second chair. I think we’ll check her out first, then see
about a few lessons.”
He reached down and picked up the helmet. “This is the
interface—same as the China girl used with the
Thunder, essentially. You put it on and you get a mild
anesthetic effect and you relax and concentrate. It maps the
input-output circuitry of your brain and determines what impulse
code means what. Takes a few seconds. Then you get plugged in to
whatever the interface plugs you into. Either of these positions
can handle either weapons or flying, but right now I’m set
for the ship and Sabatini’s set for the weapons systems. Now,
the computers in this thing can think a lot faster than any of us,
so in a crisis don’t get bogged down with who’s
controlling who. When you need instant reactions, let it go. You
can override if need be and provide consultation. When it’s
noncritical, you fly it. If things get damaged, you might
have to do it all.”
He leaned forward and punched in a code on a small keypad, then
threw a small switch and touched another code into the pad.
“I’ve just activated both interfaces and directed them
to their appropriate functions,” he told them.
“We’ll have to come up with new codes all of us can
remember. You only get three tries. Muff it the first two times and
it just doesn’t work; muff it the third time and it’ll
seem to work but when you put the helmet on it’ll
just put you to sleep and keep you there until somebody with the
right code comes and finds you. Keeps things nice and
secure. All right, we’re gonna take it out of here and check
it all out. Then we’ll let you get a taste of it.”
He put on the helmet and leaned back in the chair as Sabatini
did the same. Both men seemed to relax and then lapse into a deep
sleep. Only a few seconds elapsed, and then Star Eagle opened the
Thunder’s cargo-bay door and Lightning
shuddered and came slowly to life. It lifted smoothly a meter or so
off the deck, began a slow turn to the open space beyond, then
moved slowly and deliberately out and away.
Instruments and screens flared into life, one showing a view of
the massive Thunder already receding as they sped
away.
“Mighty efficient, but it ain’t much good for
conversation,” Raven noted to Warlock, who just shrugged.
“There’s no problem with conversation,” said
the apparently sleeping form of Arnold Nagy. “I may be
connected up to the ship, but that just makes it an extension of
myself. Of course, I can conveniently shut you out if I want to,
which is nice sometimes, and just concentrate on the
ship.”
The ship shuddered a few times, and they heard some very strange
and unnatural short, sharp sounds. “What is
that?” Warlock asked.
“Target practice,” Sabatini replied. “We throw
out some junk at random, and I try and hit it. Nothing to it. This
is a very impressive ship.”
Nagy’s body suddenly gave a jerk, and he took several deep
breaths, opened his eyes, sat up, and removed his helmet.
“Who’s flying this thing?” Raven asked
nervously.
“It flies itself pretty well until it needs to ask a
question,” Nagy replied. “All right, want to try it?
I’m gonna switch Sabatini over to copilot and put the defense
systems on automatic.”
Raven licked his lips nervously. “I ain’t never been
a pilot for anything more than a horse and a canoe. I never even
tried a skimmer.”
Nagy chuckled. “You’re probably better off because
you don’t have to unlearn as much. Most experienced flyers
want to do it all or override the computer too much. Just go ahead
and go with the flow. I think you’ll find it’s easier
than the canoe. I always turned over in canoes.”
Raven snorted. “Since when did Hungarians ride
canoes?” But he moved forward and allowed Nagy to settle him
into the seat and lower the helmet.
“This,” Arnold Nagy said, “was the way it was
supposed to work.”
Raven felt momentarily dizzy, then very relaxed; the small aches
and pains that he, like everyone, lived with vanished, but
awareness did not. If anything, it improved; Raven was reminded of
the many tales of “out-of-body” experiences, some of
which were solidly entrenched in Crow mysticism. He could see
himself, and the others, as well, in a sort of three-dimensional
mental picture. The mere sight of all sides of an object
at once was at first disorienting, them simply strange.
“Let the inside take care of itself.”
Sabatini’s voice came to him, not aloud but inside his mind.
“Look outside, out there—and you will have the
inside, as well. Don’t think about it—just do
it.”
The starfield burst around him. He concentrated on a single
direction and suddenly had the intricate details of a star map in
his mind, including names, distances, and relationships. He
understood it now, understood what China felt when she was one with
the Thunder; he even approached, perhaps, what Star Eagle
truly was. He, Raven, was one with the ship! He was the
ship; all its functions, all its commands, all its data, were at
his instant beck and call. The powerful engines were no more or
less to him than his own arms and legs, and could be used without
any more thought. And yet this extended to his human form as well;
his body was no different from the rest of the ship’s
functions and as easily managed. Iam the father of all eagles! he thought,
exhilarated. Don’t think about it, just do it. It really was
as simple as that. One did not think about walking or talking or
picking something up; all that information was in the brain encoded
for automatic response to the desire to do it. The ship and its
data were now such an extension; one didn’t have to think
about it to pilot it.
“It’s a little more complicated than that,”
Sabatini responded, apparently hearing and understanding
Raven’s surface thoughts. “But I think you have enough
of a hang of it to fly it if you had to. We’ll practice the
finer stuff later. Let me switch you out and allow Warlock the
experience, just in case.”
Raven was reluctant; he really didn’t want to cut the
connection, but he was not fully in charge. The sense of
diminution, of suddenly being weak and small after having been
powerful and great, was overwhelming. He took off the helmet,
handed it to Nagy, and went back to his old seat, where he idly lit
a half cigar. The air filtration system suddenly switched to
maximum.
“You know, that’s a hell of a thing,” he
commented, mostly to himself. “Now I think I understand why
our China girl wants desperately to be a spaceship.”
Halinachi was not much of a world, but it was one of those very
few places not fully under the tyranny of the machine. But that
didn’t make it any less dangerous, since this was one of the
points where Master System and the few who lived outside the system
met as neutrals, almost as equals. Almost—for those who lived
here and ran the place understood that the only reason Master
System tolerated this world was that it was useful to the System,
and the only reason it hadn’t done a mass extermination of
the freebooters themselves was that they were little threat and
sometimes a help.
“In effect, to live outside the system you must kiss its
ass,” Warlock noted dryly. “These are not free people.
They are merely masochists.”
Nagy chuckled. “Well, you have something of a point there,
but freedom isn’t what’s real, it’s a state of
mind. Earth’s ignorant, primitive masses mostly believe
they’re free and independent, and wouldn’t know a
computer or a skimmer or a round Earth from the Circles of
Hell.”
“But they are kept in ignorance,” Raven pointed out.
“These people know.”
“Never overestimate the human mind,” Nagy responded.
“Even without the aid of mindprinters and hypnoscanners and
all the rest, people can convince themselves of most anything, if
they really want to.”
The screens showed a small, rocky, barren world, the antithesis
of the one from which they’d come. Weather here was rare, and
a small but strong sun, more orange than the ones they had known,
beat upon it. Halinachi was a colorful place with buttes and
bizarre, twisted landforms in oranges, purples, and tans, but there
was not much green.
“It has an atmosphere, one that blocks out most of the
really nasty stuff the sun sends out, but not much water,”
Arnold Nagy told them. “You couldn’t breathe the
stuff—more nitrogen than we’re used to, and not enough
oxygen to really do the job. Still, there’s nothing down
there that’ll really hurt you, either, so you can pretty well
get along with just an air supply and nosepiece or mask. If you
ever really added the right stuff to the air and got a lot of water
you could probably grow stuff here and maybe make it livable, but
nobody’s really inclined to do it. You’d need Master
System’s logistics, and it isn’t about to
help.”
“People actually live on that hole?” Raven asked,
somewhat appalled. “It looks as lifeless as the
Moon.”
“It is. Only one settlement—that’s
Savaphoong’s. We’ll be coming up on it shortly, and I
expect to be hailed by their controllers.”
That expectation was fulfilled almost immediately, and Nagy
tended to it after putting up a view of the settlement on the big
screen. It looked to be two fairly large domes connected by a long
cylinder, with several smaller domes along the cylinder itself. It
resembled a space station more than a ground settlement.
Just off one of the large domes was a small spaceport. They
could not build a ship there, but they could probably overhaul,
modify, and service one. From the looks of the place, though,
Lightning, which was not a large vessel, would be about
the largest they could handle down there.
Any form of money was worthless on Halinachi. Anyone who
controlled a transmuter controlled everyone dependent on it. The
true medium of exchange was information, innovation, and
ideas—but there was a single commodity that was always
welcome, and that was murylium. The irony of the transmuter was
that it could not take its power from its own sources; it needed an
independent, direct source, a particular compound of absolute
purity and quality one key component of which was murylium, a
scarce mineral found only in a few places in the universe.
As Fernando Savaphoong controlled his minions by alone
controlling the transmuters, so was he dependent on a supply of
murylium, the one substance transmuters needed and could not
make.
It seemed that every time one tried to make murylium from a
murylium-powered device, one got blown to bits, along with about
thirty cubic kilometers of surrounding planet.
Melchior had once had massive amounts of the stuff; Master
System’s early robot probes had discovered as much and had
mined the hell out of it. Those caverns were modern Melchior, and
Melchior itself was powered by the leftover amounts.
So, in a sense, Halinachi was like a gold-mining town of the
ancient North American West or Australia or South Africa, but it
also traded in other things. Lightning and the
Thunder needed all the murylium they could get; they had
very little. Nagy had considered the problem, and Clayben had
supplied the solution—a simple set of equations that would
increase the transmuter’s efficiency by more than ten
percent; one of Melchior’s little discoveries needed because
Melchior had been running on traces of its cannibalized self.
“And we just give that to Savaphoong?” Raven asked.
“And so he takes it and we’re still in the
hole.”
“No, he wouldn’t do that,” Nagy assured him.
“You see, if he didn’t give fair return, or if he
double-crossed those bringing him things, he would very quickly
find himself a nonmarket. There is a lot of competition out here,
and not only among the three more or less legally tolerated
outposts. He’ll pay—and pay well—in Halinachi
credit because he wants the next item exclusively. See?”
“One good mindprobe on any of us and he has got it
all,” Warlock noted suspiciously.
“If he did, there’d also be a lot of
repercussions,” Nagy assured her. “But, in any case,
that’s why we are taking precautions, and that’s why
the Thunder is monitoring us. Damn it, we’re all
professional killers and these are our own kind. I don’t
worry much about Savaphoong. I worry about that small black ship in
Bay Three.”
Warlock gasped. “A Val ship! We dare not go in
now!”
“We dare not not go in now,” Nagy replied
casually. “We’d never outrun it, and I seriously doubt
that we could outfight it right now, and that’s what
we’d have to do.”
“But what if it’s tuned to one of us? The four of
us, I mean?”
“Then we will have to destroy it. I doubt that it is,
anyway, but if it is? Bet that it isn’t just after one of us,
but all of us. I don’t think we really have to worry about it
until we leave.”
“I like the way you say that, all casual-like,” Raven
noted sourly. “We’ll just destroy it, that’s all.
That’s a damned killing machine! They ain’t that easy
to dispose of!”
“Sure, and if you believe that, then they’re
invulnerable. Look, they are also programmed to avoid mass killings
or slaughter, and apprehension rather than the kill is their first
priority. They won’t spray fire in a room full of innocents,
they won’t go through a hostage, and they have lots of other
weak points. They’re no pushovers—you won’t get
them with a good head shot—but they can be had. The
transmuters made this a throwaway society. Nothing’s
indestructible.”
“Including us,” Raven grumped. “Better you
watch yourself in there to keep from betraying that you’re
new. Watch your tongue, and don’t stare at or react to
anybody who isn’t Earth-human.”
“Huh? You mean there’s some of the colonist types
here?”
“Sure. A person’s still a person, and we
aren’t the only ones able to beat the system. There
might even be some genuine aliens, although that’s rarer.
None of ’em could ever break free of their worlds on their
own—Master System saw to that after it found them—but
some were recruited by the freebooters because of certain talents
and abilities they might have that are a real help out here.
Tolerance to various kinds of radiation, extreme heat, that kind of
thing. When you don’t have big transmuters and you
don’t have much in the way of friendly robots, or
you’re scared of robots, they fill a handy niche. All set?
We’re going down!”
The place had looked reasonable from the air, but once they
emerged from the ship, they could detect a definite seediness about
it. The air smelled somewhat foul and unpleasant, the heat and
humidity were oddly off, and even the elevator down into the
complex was jerky and noisy and looked the worse for wear.
They were met at the main level by a four-person security party
from what served as Halinachi’s government. It was an odd and
unpleasant assortment, and Raven and Warlock both proved they were
pros by keeping their inner feelings totally hidden.
One, who seemed to be the leader, was Earth-human enough, but in
place of his arms were two skeletal robot arms ending in
five-fingered steel hands. No attempt had been made to disguise
them as human replacements, and clearly he either preferred them to
new arms and hands or didn’t have access to any top medical
personnel.
Behind him was a woman perhaps two meters tall whose leathery
skin looked as if it were made of dark-olive plates, and whose eyes
were round, unblinking, and yellow. She was hairless, and her
fingers and toes resembled talons. Next to her was a short, squat
little man whose dark-gray complexion and blocky build made him
look as if he were made of stone. The last was an elderly-looking
Oriental man with thick white hair and a long, drooping white
mustache, his skin dark and mottled. All wore sidearms.
“You are Captain Hoxa?” the man with the steel arms
said in a low, gravelly voice that fit his appearance
perfectly.
“I am,” Nagy replied smoothly. “I remember you
from the last time I was here. Beklar, isn’t it?”
The squad leader nodded approvingly. Anyone who knew him had to
be an old hand, though clearly he didn’t remember Nagy.
“Yes. I understand you have information for
credits?”
“I do. Take me to the terminal and I’ll punch it
in.”
“Why not just give it to me?”
Nagy grinned. “Are you robbing people at gunpoint now, or
do you just take me for a fool?”
The big man shrugged and they went over to an entry terminal.
Nagy acted right at home, Raven noted. He wondered how many times
the security chief had been there before, and why.
Nagy punched in the formulas Clayben had furnished, which took a
surprisingly short length of time, then waited. The information was
not reflected on the screen, but suddenly a number appeared there.
Nagy slammed his fist against the wall next to the terminal and
turned to the security crew. “Forty thousand! I save this
joint a fortune and it’s just forty thousand? Next time
I’ll take my stuff to the competition!”
A small speaker within the terminal came to life, and a
man’s voice said, “Very well, Captain. Four days
unlimited credit for you and your crew. If you don’t abuse
it, I will deposit forty thousand credits for a return visit when
you leave. Will that be satisfactory?”
Nagy nodded. “That’s more like it.” He walked
back to the group and looked at the security party. “Okay to
enter now?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” growled the man with the metal
arms. “You sure got some clout here. Check your weapons and
personal possessions in the next room, then go through
entry.”
“You make the Val check its weapons?”
“A comedian, huh? Why? You got some problems with
them?”
“Depends on who it’s looking for and why, same as
most people out here. You want to give me a clue?”
“They been around, in and out, for a couple of weeks or
more. Word is somebody broke out of Melchior and stole one of them
big universe ships. We don’t like ’em snoopin’
around—bad for business—but what can we do?
They’re lookin’ for people with the Melchior brand, so
you’re safe.”
“From the Val, anyway. All right, lead on.”
“We got to check everything?” Raven whispered to
Nagy when he could.
“Everything. Even clothes. Savaphoong didn’t get
this far by letting anything slip by him. When you’re in his
world, you’re under his absolute control.”
Stripped completely, they were run through a decontamination
chamber, then issued utilitarian clothing that was cheaply made,
didn’t fit well, and was clearly reused. All the time they
were under the watchful eye of security cameras and personnel.
A man and woman, both of whom looked Earth-human, met them on
the other side. The man was tall, perhaps a hundred eighty-five
centimeters, and very heavily muscled, with near-perfect features,
long blond hair, a dark complexion, and even a hairy chest, and the
way he was dressed left no doubt as to his most outstanding
attribute. The woman had the same coloring, but she was
short—no more than a hundred sixty centimeters—and
extremely curvaceous, with a huge heaving bosom. Their eyes and
expressions gave the impression that they both probably had the
brains and imagination of a head of lettuce, but that was as
deliberate as the rest of them. The only thing marring their
perfection was the small triangular tattoo in the center of each of
their foreheads; the marks looked like the same sort of job done on
Melchior inmates, but less obtrusive. Raven now had a suspicion of
just what business Savaphoong had had with Melchior through the
years; these were perfect examples of Clayben’s transmuter
and mind-printer handiwork.
The old boy was really gonna miss Melchior, he thought. Suddenly
the whole thing was clear to him: Clayben supplied the freebooters
with nice, perfect, docile slaves and loyal security troops, and in
exchange probably got quantities of murylium totally outside what
he could scrape up from Melchior’s remains and whatever tiny
amounts he might con out of Master System. This explained why
freebooters had visited the old hell hole at intervals, and why
Nagy had spent time going back and forth. Clayben and the
freebooters were far more interrelated than he had let on.
“I am Amal,” the beautiful man said, “and this
is Gem. We are at your service while you are with us. Anything you
wish, just ask.”
“We’ve been out a long time and we just want to
relax for a while,” Nagy told them. “We’ll go to
the lounge now, but we may require you later.”
“All you need do is ask any staff member to call Amal or
Gem and we will be there,” the man assured them. “Allow
us to escort you to the lounge.”
“Am I correct in assuming they mean that all the
way?” Warlock asked in a low tone as they walked.
Nagy nodded. “Sure. Either or both will do anything you
ask, and with a smile. If they aren’t enough, they can
produce whatever you want—particularly if you’ve got
four days’ unlimited credit. It’s not limited to them,
either. Anybody with the triangle who turns you on will be your
instant willing slave. They come in all sizes, colors, races, you
name it—about half Earth-human and half colonial. You get
some murylium miners out there, maybe alone, for months or more at
a time and they want everything when they get in. They’re all
sterile and checked medically every day, so there’s no risks,
either.”
Raven had expected a seedy outworld bar, but the lounge was a
cozy, intimate place of semiprivate booths with a small stage area.
The seats seemed to be some kind of soft brown fur, a bit worn, and
the tables were of a marblelike rock.
There were others in the lounge, which surprised the
first-timers a bit. The only ship other than the Vals’ and
the Lightning in the dock hadn’t seemed very
large.
“There aren’t many here at any one time,” Nagy
told them, “but there are more than can be accommodated in
the spaceport. Some of the ships are in orbit, their people brought
down by shuttle ferry or transmuter, and some have been dropped off
here to be picked up later. The place is relatively quiet,
though—I’d guess no more than thirty or forty guests
are here right now, when there should be a hundred. My guess is the
Val scared a lot of ’em off.”
An enormous black man appeared, all muscles, wearing little but
dark bikini briefs and the telltale triangle on his forehead. Raven
looked at Warlock and was amused to see some of that total cool
crumble at the sight.
“I am Batu,” the waiter said in a rich, deep
baritone. “How may I serve you?”
“I’ll have a liter of draft,” Nagy replied.
“Sabatini?”
“Double whiskey and soda, no ice. The good stuff, not the
rotgut.”
The waiter appeared to take no offense.
“I’ll have a beer, as well,” Raven said.
“And—you wouldn’t have cigars, would
you?”
“Yes, sir. Any kind of type you wish.”
“The large Havana style.”
“As you wish, sir. And the lady?”
“Rum tonic,” Warlock responded.
The waiter bowed and left. “You really oughtta knock off
those things,” Nagy told him. “They’ll kill you
sooner or later.”
“If I live long enough for them to kill me I will be
content.”
Nagy just shrugged. “So, what do you think of the place so
far?”
“Interesting,” Raven replied. “After all that
time in the wild under primitive conditions, I could get to like a
place like this. I can sure see how somebody’d like to run
one, too. I’m just a little surprised Master System knows of
these places and permits them.”
“As I said, mutual interest. I always feel like a target
here, though; if Master System ever changed its mind, it’s
all over. I think if I’m gonna be a freebooter it’s
gonna be in a ship, out there, with better odds and the universe to
get lost in.”
The waiter brought their drinks and a small package of full-size
cigars for Raven, who eyed them as if they were the food of the
gods. He had almost forgotten that cigars came that big and that
unspoiled.
Warlock looked around. “This place is cozy and comfortable
enough, but it is not good for socializing,” she noted.
“One does not get information in a booth serviced by
slaves.”
“True enough,” Nagy agreed. “But there are
ways, and there will be time for all that. Just relax and enjoy for
now. In a little while I may try and go back and see the old man
himself. He knows me well, and I’ll get a straight picture
without worrying about a knife in my back.”
“Savaphoong?”
He nodded. “I—” He broke off as he saw the
others tense; he looked around and saw the Val standing there. It
was an imposing figure even in this incongruous environment, and
its metallic solidity and blazing crimson eyes seemed to bore right
through them.
“Pardon,” the Val said. “I realize that my
presence here causes problems, and I only wish to assure you that I
have no instructions concerning this place or anyone who visits
it.”
Interestingly, it was Sabatini who answered. “You know you
have no place here. Why are you around?”
“I am not after freebooters. I am soliciting their help.
You have heard of the prison colony of Melchior in the Earth
system?”
Sabatini nodded. “So?”
“There was an escape. Ships were hijacked, including an
interstellar transport. The escapees for the most part have the
identifying Melchior facial tattoos. They possess certain knowledge
that no one is permitted to possess. Mere contact with these people
could prove fatal. They are using a ship that is the largest of its
kind ever built, so you could hardly miss it. Have you seen these
people?”
“Not anywhere around here,” Sabatini responded
coolly. “They’re not likely to show up at a place like
this anyway, are they?”
“Not they themselves perhaps, but they had inside help. We
are not quite certain who, but we are working on it. If you see
them, or if you run across anyone working for them, it will be more
than worth your while to notify us immediately. This place is but a
pale shade of the rewards possible to the one or ones who lead to
their apprehension. Such ones would live like gods.”
Sabatini whistled. “You must really want them. Believe me,
if I see them, I’ll be the first to collect.”
“Very well. I will be leaving this place this evening.
Enjoy your stay.”
And, with that, the great creature was gone, out of their sight
and out of the lounge. They started to say something, but Nagy put
his palm up and then reached under the table, prying off a tiny
smooth plate only a hair’s thickness and about the size of a
fingertip. The Val had left a bug.
“I don’t like those bastards one bit,” Nagy
said casually. “Come on, this place has lost its luster now.
Let’s hunt up Amal and Gem and try a few more private
pleasures.”
They all mumbled agreement and got up to leave, letting Nagy
carefully replace the bug on the underside of the table. It took
only a minute or two to summon their “procurers,” as
they were called.
“Show us our quarters,” Nagy commanded. The others
followed, still silent.
They were shown to a suite with a round central living area
furnished with couches and a built-in bar and entertainment center,
and four private sleeping rooms.
“Amal, I would like to see the manager on a matter of
urgent personal business,” Nagy told the big blond man.
Amal was somewhat taken aback by that, which was not in the
usual line of requests. “I will see if that is possible,
sir.”
“Tell him it concerns the Val and our treatment here. I
think he’ll see me.”
“Yes, sir. I will try.” The man left to do his
duty.
Nagy brought the others close to him. “Say nothing you
don’t want overheard until I get back,” he whispered.
“We don’t know how far this has gone.”
They understood. They had heard the Val’s voice, which was
almost always the voice of the person to whom it was targeted. The
voice had been that of Hawks.
Fernando Savaphoong was a small, thin, Asian-looking man of
about fifty, with a thin black mustache and neatly cropped black
hair graying on the sides. He had a pleasant voice and a
salesman’s manner, and only his eyes and his nearly constant
chain-smoking of cigarettes betrayed the constant pressure his life
style and his responsibilities brought him.
“So, Señor Nagy, I am surprised you would come here at
this date.”
The security man relaxed and sat in a chair opposite the ruler
of Halinachi. “I’m not used to Vals showing up in the
lounge,” he replied. “But I’m particularly not
used to Vals planting bugs under my table. How many other bugs has
he got around here, and how the hell will I know when I can speak
freely again to my companions?”
Savaphoong frowned. “This I do not like to hear at all. It
knows you, then.”
“I doubt it, or it would have acted more forcefully. More
likely it did a scan of the four of us as it discussed the bait,
measuring our blood pressure, heart rates, and other reactions when
it brought up certain subjects, and became suspicious. I think the
least I can demand is for your people to sweep the area—the
lounge, all the places it’s been, and my quarters, to find
and destroy any nasty little devices it might have left.”
“I will tend to it at once. I cannot afford to have such
things here.”
Nagy nodded. “Good. And in light of this, I think
it’s time we had a talk about other matters.”
Savaphoong sat back in his chair and lit a cigarette. “I
gather, then, that reports of the good doctor’s death were
overrated. I suspected as much from the start, knowing how cautious
and clever he was. But he did not engineer this break, surely.
You?”
“Uh uh. Strictly independent. We just signed on for the
duration because we had little choice.”
“You realize, then, that I could name my own price just
for calling back the Val and confirming its suspicions?”
“You could—but you won’t. You know as well as
I do that any reward from Master System could be very shortlived in
these days and times. Still I could guarantee your silence—or
the destruction of Halinachi—just by telling you what
it’s all about.”
“Si. When I first hear of this I tell myself, all
right, someone escaped. So what? Then I hear they steal this very
big ship. Again, so what? They get away. They become freebooters,
or they get caught, or they are never heard from again. Why does
Master System suddenly want them worse than anything? Then I hear
Master System invades Melchior only to find Clayben dead, along
with most of the others who count, and all the data banks
destroyed. Now I am suspicious. Now I wonder what would be so much
of a threat to Master System that it would be worth Clayben’s
while to do something like this. It is a simple matter for one of
Clayben’s talents and resources to fake one’s own death
convincingly enough even for Master System, but why? It must be
something so valuable, so dangerous, that it is worth any price.
Now my greedy side gets interested, and now you show up only months
later. You see?”
“The real question is—do you want to
know?”
“No. The real question is—can I afford not
to know? If that Val was merely suspicious, that is one thing, but
if it recognized any of you from its data files, if it has tied you
in with all this—well, then, my friend, I am a sitting duck,
am I not?”
Nagy thought a moment. “How many Vals are in this
sector?”
“Two. But one shell through each of the main domes would
be enough to destroy all this.”
“Uh uh. They don’t have what they really want here
and they know it. That Val wasn’t going to take us because it
would mean breaking the compact with you, and for that it’ll
need the highest authority. Tell me straight, Señor
Savaphoong—if it gets it, what will you do? If it breaks the
compact, do you have the firepower to stop it—and the will,
knowing what it would mean?”
Savaphoong sighed. “Señor Nagy, your brazen appearance
here with a Val in port has caused this, but it is a fair question.
If I allow it, then I am out of business anyway, am I not? What
freebooter would come here after that? Whom do I serve? Vals? They
are not interested in what I could provide, and, besides, they are
lousy tippers. For the sake of any future or refuge I might have, I
would be forced to oppose them, no matter what the cost.”
Arnold Nagy sighed. “Very well then. If that day should
ever come, I can give you refuge. We will need people and we will
need experience. If you keep faith with me, then if your back is to
the wall we’ll get you out and cut you in. Fair?”
“As fair as life gets. Tell me true—do you
really have a starship that is fourteen kilometers
long?”
“Yes. We call her the Thunder.”
The boss of Halinachi sighed. “What interesting
possibilities that opens up. It has been getting so boring
here.” He paused. “But, no. One does not trade all this
so easily. Is there anything else I can do for you right
now?”
“I need some information on three colonial worlds. This
won’t get you in any trouble—without knowing the
objectives it would be impossible to guess. Even knowing the
objectives, although it would be dangerous, wouldn’t give you
anything you could use yourself.”
“Which three?”
“Janipur, Chanchuk, and Matriyeh.”
Savaphoong gave a low whistle. “Not the most comfortable
of places, any one.”
“I didn’t expect they would be. I need the works on
them—people, political organization, leaders, Centers and
administrators, you name it. The odds are I’m looking for the
chief administrator of each world.”
“Umph! You really make it difficult on yourself.
And the purpose, in general terms?”
“Grand theft.”
Savaphoong laughed. “For such a grand and noble purpose,
how can I refuse? Very well, you shall have what you
require—if I can be assured that our mutual benefactor will
continue to supply me with things that I require.”
“As much as possible under the circumstances. Might I
assume that you have an interstellar-capable ship available in
times of need?”
“You may so assume.”
“Then we should work out a mutual meeting place and a
method of signaling. I suspect that if we get away clean this time
it is very unlikely that we can return to your fine
establishment.”
Fernando Savaphoong thought for a moment. “The Val
prepares to leave within the hour. It will take it two days to
reach a subspace relay beacon and report to Master System, and
perhaps another day to get the authority one way or another. Of
course, it will probably contact its companion ahead of time and
establish a surreptitious watch. If you leave before the authority
comes, then I am probably in the clear so long as I make no moves
showing I know what this is about. There is then no logic in
breaking the compact. The one who lurks, though, in the shadows of
the planets—it will lock on and attempt to follow, and it has
incredible equipment and tenacity. You will probably have to take
it out, you know, if you can.”
“I’m well aware of that. In the meantime, I’ll
let you get on with your—delousing—operation here and
accumulating the data I need, while I and my companions spend a
night or two enjoying your services.” He had a sudden
thought. “And I might suggest an additional item of mutual
interest to research.”
“Indeed?”
“Master System requires fairly large supplies of murylium
to manage and maintain its empire. Those mines are almost surely
totally automated and nearly impossible to locate, but the
shipments surely are not. You need the stuff and so do
we.”
“Even if I could discover such a thing, what good would it
do, my friend?”
“We are interstellar outlaws hunted by all and with
absolutely nothing to lose, but we have resources. You give me the
routings, and I’ll give you part of the loot.”
Even Savaphoong looked aghast. “Hijacking a freighter of
Master System? You must be joking! It is not possible!”
“You tell me where, and I’ll show you a thing or two
about real piracy.”
And that made Savaphoong laugh again, long and hard. “You
know,” he managed after a moment, “I almost believe you
can do this. At least I think you are either mad or the most
dangerous group of human beings alive!” He shrugged.
“Either way, what do I have to lose but
everything?”
“You know, if I could feel guilt, I’d be
feelin’ real guilty about havin’ a good time here while
the chief and the rest are stuck back in that primitive hell
hole,” Raven noted casually while washing down a fine steak
and eggs with fresh coffee. “I really do hate to leave this
place.”
“Well, leaving is going to be the trick that makes us pay
the devil’s due,” Arnold Nagy replied. “We have
our information and our contacts now, but we also have a real
problem. Sabatini, any of your incarnations ever take on a Val ship
before?”
The strange creature grinned. “Sure. Two at least. Both
lost, of course.”
Nagy glared at him and Raven almost choked on a piece of
toast.
“All right, then,” said the Hungarian who had become
the de facto head of the expedition. “It’s
something new. I have some of the information we need—enough
to get us started. Anybody else have any luck?”
“I met a man who had been to Janipur,” Warlock said.
“He said it was inhabited by a human herd of angry cows,
whatever that means. Said we would have to see it to believe it.
Still, some things do not change in the universe of Master System.
He has seen the chief administrator, who is known for the fancy
ring he wears. It is called the Ring of Peace because it bears the
likeness of two doves in gold. He also said that the chief
administrator is very smart but very brutal. He enjoys strangling
people. It is his hobby.”
“Humph! Yeah, well, who ever said these would be
pushovers? Anybody else?”
“There was a fellow—a colonial, not at all pleasant
to look on—who knew of Matriyeh,” Sabatini said.
“This fellow was raised Moslem, and he said that Matriyeh
surpassed any vision of hell he had ever dreamed. No matter how
inhuman he was, he had enough perspective so that I believe he
would have said the same thing even if he’d been one of our
kind. Certain minerals on Matriyeh are said to grow to enormous
proportions, and this fellow was an artist who hoped to trade some
technology for some of them to use in his art. The world is
supposedly very primitive. He found it impossibly primitive, not at
all organized. No Centers, no administrators that he could see at
all, and no major rulers above the tribal level. It sounded much
like what Master System is said to be considering doing to Earth.
He could not imagine a person of power there.”
Nagy shook his head. “That one’s worse. Bad boys I
think we can deal with. I don’t care if they’ve got two
heads and five arms and breathe methane, they’re still of
human stock and Master System’s origins, and we know their
type. Even Master System is obedient, though. The ring has to be
held by a person with power, authority—something
that makes him or her stand out. Damn it, that’s gonna be a
tough one.”
“The guy barely escaped with his life, let alone his ship.
The world is one very nasty place even without the people,”
Sabatini added. “That one might be suited for my special
talents, but even I can’t work from nothing, and if a
primitive, ignorant mind knows nothing of value it can’t help
me.”
“Well, we’ll see. Raven, you get anything at
all?”
“You bet. Two cases of fine Havanas and some very nice
little pills. One of ’em’s called Orgy and you oughtta
see what it does. As for information, though—forget it.
Except a couple of girls in the lounge knew of a certain world of
heat and water by reputation, and they said it was a full-fledged
colony. I didn’t like that at all.”
Nagy nodded. “I don’t like that much myself, but in
all that time nobody ever showed up and tossed a spear or shook our
hand. You got to figure they’re water breathers. No skin off
our nose or theirs if that’s the case.”
“I dunno. Somebody planted them groves on that other
island. I kinda wonder if we’d been able to get over there if
they wouldn’t’a popped up and been a little nasty about
it. Water breathers don’t grow food on land. They
didn’t know much, though—them girls, I mean. Only that
it was listed as a colonial settlement, and off limits in
general.”
“I think we better get all the stuff together we can and
get back—if we can,” Nagy told them. “Raven,
unless something happens, I’m afraid you and Warlock are
gonna be strictly passengers in this flight. Sabatini, since
you’ve had more experience, so to speak, flying these
buckets, I’m gonna let you fly and take the guns myself. It
flies like any other good ship, but I know the armament inside and
out. If there is a Val up there, waiting for us,
it’s gonna be one tough nut to crack, but it won’t know
the power or armaments of that ship. It’s a custom illegal
job. Get it all together—we might as well roll.”
Getting out of Halinachi was not quite as complicated as getting
in. They turned in their clothing but not their personal prizes,
such as Raven’s cigars, and they also received a small
encoded master cylinder from Savaphoong. The lord of Halinachi did
not see them off—Nagy guessed in any event that midmorning
was far too early for the manager of the place to be up and
about—but there was a small note attached to the cylinder,
which Nagy read.
“What’s the love letter?” Raven asked,
curious.
“It’s a bill. Somehow he managed to charge the full
forty thousand future credits and anything left from this visit.
Never mind. Short of using a transmuter and becoming someone
completely different, there’s little chance we’ll be
able to come back here again anyway.”
They went to the ship, which appeared secure, all seals intact.
Nagy spent some time doing a complete check. “Yeah, as I
figured. A bunch of nice bugs and tracking devices all over the
damned hull. We’d be another day getting those suckers off
ourselves and we don’t have that. The best thing I can do is
try to burn ’em off. Channel the transmuter power from the
main engines to the outer hull. They’re designed to withstand
the external forces of lift-off and reentry, but they’re not
well shielded where they attach to the hull itself. Get in pressure
suits and dial your climate control to maximum. This is gonna be
nasty. I got to be real careful with this. I don’t want to
bum any holes in the hull.”
When they were ready, he began. The outer hull began to glow red
hot, and Nagy had to be very careful not to let any point get too
much hotter than the rest or turn white. Shimmering blue
electricity played over the ship, inside and out, and after more
than fifteen minutes the sounds of very loud banging and terrible
random noises came through to them, as if they were in a meteor
storm with no deflectors.
The noises subsided after a while, and the inside fans came
on.
“I think I got ’em all, but at what price I
couldn’t say,” Nagy informed them. “I think
it’s best we all keep our suits on, the inside pressure down,
and ourselves strapped in until we know. Best we do that during the
flight, anyway, just in case a shot penetrates the main
cabin.”
“Great,” Raven grumped. “No cigars. I might go
to my grave staring at two cases of unopened Havanas.”
“I think we’ve cooled down uniformly now, and
I’ve got clearance, so strap in and check systems. Sabatini,
take her up.”
The ship shuddered, then roared into life and rose slowly above
the landing pad. Only when they were several kilometers in the air
did Sabatini angle the nose up, apply full thrust and roll, and
take her to escape velocity.
It was a noisy, bumpy ride out, but it was fast. They cleared
the atmosphere in just a few minutes and went into preliminary
orbit. Sabatini did a wide scan.
“Anything?” Nagy asked.
“Nothing yet, but it could be in near-total power down.
The question is more if he has better scanning range than we do. I
seem to remember that you were clearly visible in the
Thunder’s sights at your maximum fallback
position.”
“They were as good as they needed to be. If we don’t
catch sight of him, we’ll try to lead him out. Set a course
on chart A-J-8-7-7-2. That’s at a right angle to where we
want to go, but it’ll give us some running room. Keep all
sensors at maximum and we’ll see if we can pick him
up.”
They were suddenly pressed back in their seats as Sabatini gave
maximum thrust from orbital speed. It was a surprise, almost
random, move that would have thrown a human pursuer, but the Val
was not human and would not waste precious seconds wondering what
to do. It might, however, have to quickly adjust and betray
itself—or risk losing its prey at the start.
“Give me a punch as soon as you have the factors lined
up,” Nagy instructed. “Duration thirty
minutes—the minimum possible on the chart’s vector. We
may be able to exit and repunch before he can get out with
us.”
“That’s gonna really strain the power,”
Sabatini warned.
“The transmuter ram needs junk as much as it needs its
own power, or there’s nothing to convert. With that
house-cleaning you did, we’re pretty low.”
“The hell with it! We run dry, we stand and fight as best
we can.”
“Punching.”
“At least the hull seems to be holding,” Nagy noted
as the ship opened its hole and entered. “I got a delicate
touch.”
Any pursuer now would have to match the course, trajectory, and
speed perfectly and punch at the exact same spot with the exact
same elements in order to give chase. This was not difficult for a
Val or any ship programmed to do it. The Val, in fact, would know
coming in just exactly where they would emerge, but it could do
nothing about it, not even close on its prey, inside a punch. Even
Raven realized Nagy’s strategy—if the Val had hung back
too far to avoid detection, they could repunch in an infinite
number of directions before it could emerge behind them. The only
limit was the amount of fuel for conversion taken in by the forward
ram and stored. The Val, he suspected, would have been pleasantly
surprised if any of its little traps and trackers had survived, but
it also knew that the amount of energy expended to get rid of them
would limit just how far its prey could run before it caught
up.
“Give me a thirty-two degree right turn on
reemergence,” Nagy ordered, “and punch again. Use chart
B-H-6-4-4-9.”
“But there’s no punch points on that chart for
thirty hours! We haven’t got the juice to go that
long!”
“Then punch for half the juice we got left and reemerge
wherever that is.”
Sabatini was appalled. “Off the chart?”
“Yeah, off the chart.”
The purpose of the charts, other than navigation, was to permit
ease of travel. The emergence points were all selected because they
had ample density of matter for the rams and yet were clear of any
potential problems like radiation fields, suns, neutron stars, and
other obstacles. Sabatini’s prior freebooter identity gave
him enough confidence to know that the odds of coming out near
anything dangerous was next to nothing in the vastness of space;
what bothered him was that they stood very good odds of coming out
exactly there—next to nothing. Space was never completely
empty, but there were vast areas in which it might take years to
accumulate enough dust and such to make enough fuel to get them
anywhere useful, and they wouldn’t have the juice to punch
anywhere else clean.
“Nagy, you ever made a jump with low fuel off the charts
before?”
“Never had to, but it’s the only way. The only other
choice is to slow down and turn as quickly as possible, and try to
blow the bugger back to machine hell as it emerges. It’ll be
ready for that, and it has a lot more fuel than we do.”
“Yeah, but there’s a dozen charts we could jump on
and come out at a safe point.”
“That’s the problem. There’s a dozen. How long
you figure it’ll take to refuel? A couple hours? If there are
two of ’em out there, then in that time all dozen could be
checked—and would be. You make the choice. This is one fix
your little talent won’t get you out of.”
“You think of this ahead of time or are you making this up
as you go along?”
“Improvisation, my friend, is the soul of survival. If it
goes wrong I’ll blame it on this computer link.”
“If anything goes wrong you won’t have any reason to
blame anything. You’ll be dead long before we were. Hang on.
Emergence.”
Sabatini was right on the mark, but he cut power slightly and
fully opened the jets as he made a graceful turn.
“We fight, then?” Nagy asked nervously.
“We have fifteen minutes before it emerges. That gives me
ten minutes to take in what I can in this dense outer dust belt and
another four to make the punch. I am computer-linked, too,
remember.”
“Quiet. I have an idea. Open communications
channels.”
“I see. Good idea, if we have the time.”
“Shut up and gobble.”
Sitting in the back, Raven and Warlock were ignorant of all
this. They could only wait and wonder until either of the
ship’s operators took the time and trouble to brief them.
In what seemed like no time the ship was back up to speed and
punching through once more, and only then did Nagy relax enough to
explain the situation. Neither of the passengers liked it much.
“Don’t see what you can do, though,” Raven
consoled him. “Let’s play it as it lays. But I
can’t help wondering—suppose we punch through for only
forty percent of the fuel? Then turn around and punch right back to
where we were just at?”
“Damn! Why didn’t I think of that one?”
Sabatini swore. “Too late now—I’ve used fifty
percent, and with what it will take to reposition that won’t
be quite enough to get us back. Why didn’t I think of it,
though?”
“In all your lives you never were no Crow, that’s
why. An old tracker knows the double-back. I’m surprised Nagy
didn’t, considering his background.”
“Too civilized, Raven,” Nagy said. “I went
from Vatican Center to West Europe Center and then to port
Security, then finally Melchior. I never was in the field. It
wasn’t my area of expertise.”
“Yeah, well, next time remember that us ignorant savages
might know a few tricks your ancestors forgot, and deal us in. You
believe in all this high-tech brain shit and you get to playing
Master System’s game.”
“Yeah. Next time.”
“If I were the tracker Val, that is where I would put the
second Val. At the last stop,” Warlock whispered dryly.
“Shut up, Warlock,” Raven growled.
The ship was now pretty much on automatic, and there was nothing
that anyone could do for a while, so the two at the controls set
the alarms and disengaged after bringing temperature and pressure
to normal levels. It was safe to remove the pressure suits, relax,
eat, even catch some sleep, and Raven got to smoke a couple of his
precious cigars over the protests of the other three and the air
filtration system.
The time seemed to drag, and sleep was difficult. Finally,
though, the alarm sounded and Sabatini and Nagy, almost with
relief, headed back up to the command chairs and reconnected
themselves to the ships’ systems.
Emergence was smooth and right on time, but it was quite
literally in the middle of nowhere.
“Dust and cosmic debris levels are very small,”
Sabatini noted. “Distance to nearest stellar system’s
outer reaches is about thirty-three light-years. If we did another
punch we might get within four or five.”
Sabatini did a quick scan of the region and found little to be
optimistic about. “There’s some very weak gravity
source at bearing one seven one, but it’s beyond our range
and who knows what it is? If it’s a black hole or something
it could be farther than that next stellar system. I think
we’re stuck.”
They poked and probed and moved over a vast distance of empty
space during the next few hours tracking down any potential sources
of gravity that might mean trapped dust, rock, and, therefore,
fuel—and life. The hunting was pretty slim.
“The good news is that we are collecting enough material
to keep us going for several years if it remains constant,”
Sabatini told them. “The bad news is that it’s just
about enough to keep the life support and local engines
going—with a very slight loss. It means we can drag around
here for a long time but we can’t ever gain enough to offset
what we’re spending collecting it.”
“We should’a brought a couple of them playmate
slaves if we were gonna be stuck out here,” Raven
growled.
“I guess we should’ve fought after all,” Nagy
sighed. “Our only hope now—”
He paused, and even Raven and Warlock could feel the tension
fill the air. The screen flickered to life and went to maximum
magnification.
An area of space that was as dark as the darkest night now had a
glowing ring around it and, although it seemed impossible, the area
within seemed even darker, deeper, and blacker. Out of it came a
ship, small, sleek, and shopworn black against the even blacker
hole.
“Son of a bitch!” Nagy swore. “I must’ve
missed one!”
The Val ship emerged, closing the hole behind it, slowed
gracefully, and made a steady turn toward them.
Sabatini sighed. “I guess we fight them anyway,” he
said.
THE CHANGES THAT HAD BEEN WROUGHT IN
Lightning were astonishing. Its original exterior had
resembled nothing so much as two bullet-shaped tubes attached to
either side of a very large but similarly shaped tube of dull
gun-metal gray. Now the area between the tubes had been neatly
filled in and reshaped and the entire thing coated with a dull
bronze-looking substance. It now looked like a three-edged metal
arrowhead and resembled no known ship profile. But on sensor
screens and scopes, it would look very much like a Val fighter.
It was a good compromise. Such a strange-looking ship would
cause much curiosity but no real alarm when viewed by the
freebooters, yet it would have to get very close in to be seen as
an unfriendly vessel by the average Master System pilot.
The inside had been changed, as well. Clayben’s precious
computer backup files, to which he was still forbidden access,
along with the separate unit that held and ran them, had been
removed and placed within a chamber in Thunder. This freed
up a great deal of space; in an emergency, Lightning could
hold the entire company. A duplicate of the old interplanetary
ship’s galley had been installed and could sustain them
indefinitely, although in spartan conditions. The considerable
armament had been retained and checked, and instrumentation had
been added to allow for far more effective displays to the human
occupants.
“I wish I could have done more,” Star Eagle told
them apologetically. “If I had the shops and the full
facilities for disassembly, and the time, I would have loved to
have made more of them, but with what I have this is the best that
could be done. I have scanned and analyzed it inside and
out down to the molecular level; if we ever get hold of a shipyard
I might well be able to turn out more. Still, I have learned much
from it that could be incorporated into other ships.”
Nagy slid into the Captain’s chair. The two forward
positions had been retained in their original forms, including the
comfortable bracing chairs. The other seats were more utilitarian.
“I kinda miss the yacht feeling.” The former security
chief sighed. “But this is better for our
purposes.”
“How hard is it to fly?” Raven asked him.
“Very easy once you get practice. You’re right,
that’s what we should do first. Any one of us oughtta be able
to take this sucker off and get the hell out of someplace if
something happens to the rest. Sabatini, I hope I can assume that
your Koll memories would let you run this thing if you had
to.”
“If it uses the standard interface override,
yeah.”
“Okay, then—we’ve got two. Raven, I
don’t expect you or Warlock to get to be expert pilots, but I
think I can teach you the basics. Sabatini, you ride weapons in the
second chair. I think we’ll check her out first, then see
about a few lessons.”
He reached down and picked up the helmet. “This is the
interface—same as the China girl used with the
Thunder, essentially. You put it on and you get a mild
anesthetic effect and you relax and concentrate. It maps the
input-output circuitry of your brain and determines what impulse
code means what. Takes a few seconds. Then you get plugged in to
whatever the interface plugs you into. Either of these positions
can handle either weapons or flying, but right now I’m set
for the ship and Sabatini’s set for the weapons systems. Now,
the computers in this thing can think a lot faster than any of us,
so in a crisis don’t get bogged down with who’s
controlling who. When you need instant reactions, let it go. You
can override if need be and provide consultation. When it’s
noncritical, you fly it. If things get damaged, you might
have to do it all.”
He leaned forward and punched in a code on a small keypad, then
threw a small switch and touched another code into the pad.
“I’ve just activated both interfaces and directed them
to their appropriate functions,” he told them.
“We’ll have to come up with new codes all of us can
remember. You only get three tries. Muff it the first two times and
it just doesn’t work; muff it the third time and it’ll
seem to work but when you put the helmet on it’ll
just put you to sleep and keep you there until somebody with the
right code comes and finds you. Keeps things nice and
secure. All right, we’re gonna take it out of here and check
it all out. Then we’ll let you get a taste of it.”
He put on the helmet and leaned back in the chair as Sabatini
did the same. Both men seemed to relax and then lapse into a deep
sleep. Only a few seconds elapsed, and then Star Eagle opened the
Thunder’s cargo-bay door and Lightning
shuddered and came slowly to life. It lifted smoothly a meter or so
off the deck, began a slow turn to the open space beyond, then
moved slowly and deliberately out and away.
Instruments and screens flared into life, one showing a view of
the massive Thunder already receding as they sped
away.
“Mighty efficient, but it ain’t much good for
conversation,” Raven noted to Warlock, who just shrugged.
“There’s no problem with conversation,” said
the apparently sleeping form of Arnold Nagy. “I may be
connected up to the ship, but that just makes it an extension of
myself. Of course, I can conveniently shut you out if I want to,
which is nice sometimes, and just concentrate on the
ship.”
The ship shuddered a few times, and they heard some very strange
and unnatural short, sharp sounds. “What is
that?” Warlock asked.
“Target practice,” Sabatini replied. “We throw
out some junk at random, and I try and hit it. Nothing to it. This
is a very impressive ship.”
Nagy’s body suddenly gave a jerk, and he took several deep
breaths, opened his eyes, sat up, and removed his helmet.
“Who’s flying this thing?” Raven asked
nervously.
“It flies itself pretty well until it needs to ask a
question,” Nagy replied. “All right, want to try it?
I’m gonna switch Sabatini over to copilot and put the defense
systems on automatic.”
Raven licked his lips nervously. “I ain’t never been
a pilot for anything more than a horse and a canoe. I never even
tried a skimmer.”
Nagy chuckled. “You’re probably better off because
you don’t have to unlearn as much. Most experienced flyers
want to do it all or override the computer too much. Just go ahead
and go with the flow. I think you’ll find it’s easier
than the canoe. I always turned over in canoes.”
Raven snorted. “Since when did Hungarians ride
canoes?” But he moved forward and allowed Nagy to settle him
into the seat and lower the helmet.
“This,” Arnold Nagy said, “was the way it was
supposed to work.”
Raven felt momentarily dizzy, then very relaxed; the small aches
and pains that he, like everyone, lived with vanished, but
awareness did not. If anything, it improved; Raven was reminded of
the many tales of “out-of-body” experiences, some of
which were solidly entrenched in Crow mysticism. He could see
himself, and the others, as well, in a sort of three-dimensional
mental picture. The mere sight of all sides of an object
at once was at first disorienting, them simply strange.
“Let the inside take care of itself.”
Sabatini’s voice came to him, not aloud but inside his mind.
“Look outside, out there—and you will have the
inside, as well. Don’t think about it—just do
it.”
The starfield burst around him. He concentrated on a single
direction and suddenly had the intricate details of a star map in
his mind, including names, distances, and relationships. He
understood it now, understood what China felt when she was one with
the Thunder; he even approached, perhaps, what Star Eagle
truly was. He, Raven, was one with the ship! He was the
ship; all its functions, all its commands, all its data, were at
his instant beck and call. The powerful engines were no more or
less to him than his own arms and legs, and could be used without
any more thought. And yet this extended to his human form as well;
his body was no different from the rest of the ship’s
functions and as easily managed. Iam the father of all eagles! he thought,
exhilarated. Don’t think about it, just do it. It really was
as simple as that. One did not think about walking or talking or
picking something up; all that information was in the brain encoded
for automatic response to the desire to do it. The ship and its
data were now such an extension; one didn’t have to think
about it to pilot it.
“It’s a little more complicated than that,”
Sabatini responded, apparently hearing and understanding
Raven’s surface thoughts. “But I think you have enough
of a hang of it to fly it if you had to. We’ll practice the
finer stuff later. Let me switch you out and allow Warlock the
experience, just in case.”
Raven was reluctant; he really didn’t want to cut the
connection, but he was not fully in charge. The sense of
diminution, of suddenly being weak and small after having been
powerful and great, was overwhelming. He took off the helmet,
handed it to Nagy, and went back to his old seat, where he idly lit
a half cigar. The air filtration system suddenly switched to
maximum.
“You know, that’s a hell of a thing,” he
commented, mostly to himself. “Now I think I understand why
our China girl wants desperately to be a spaceship.”
Halinachi was not much of a world, but it was one of those very
few places not fully under the tyranny of the machine. But that
didn’t make it any less dangerous, since this was one of the
points where Master System and the few who lived outside the system
met as neutrals, almost as equals. Almost—for those who lived
here and ran the place understood that the only reason Master
System tolerated this world was that it was useful to the System,
and the only reason it hadn’t done a mass extermination of
the freebooters themselves was that they were little threat and
sometimes a help.
“In effect, to live outside the system you must kiss its
ass,” Warlock noted dryly. “These are not free people.
They are merely masochists.”
Nagy chuckled. “Well, you have something of a point there,
but freedom isn’t what’s real, it’s a state of
mind. Earth’s ignorant, primitive masses mostly believe
they’re free and independent, and wouldn’t know a
computer or a skimmer or a round Earth from the Circles of
Hell.”
“But they are kept in ignorance,” Raven pointed out.
“These people know.”
“Never overestimate the human mind,” Nagy responded.
“Even without the aid of mindprinters and hypnoscanners and
all the rest, people can convince themselves of most anything, if
they really want to.”
The screens showed a small, rocky, barren world, the antithesis
of the one from which they’d come. Weather here was rare, and
a small but strong sun, more orange than the ones they had known,
beat upon it. Halinachi was a colorful place with buttes and
bizarre, twisted landforms in oranges, purples, and tans, but there
was not much green.
“It has an atmosphere, one that blocks out most of the
really nasty stuff the sun sends out, but not much water,”
Arnold Nagy told them. “You couldn’t breathe the
stuff—more nitrogen than we’re used to, and not enough
oxygen to really do the job. Still, there’s nothing down
there that’ll really hurt you, either, so you can pretty well
get along with just an air supply and nosepiece or mask. If you
ever really added the right stuff to the air and got a lot of water
you could probably grow stuff here and maybe make it livable, but
nobody’s really inclined to do it. You’d need Master
System’s logistics, and it isn’t about to
help.”
“People actually live on that hole?” Raven asked,
somewhat appalled. “It looks as lifeless as the
Moon.”
“It is. Only one settlement—that’s
Savaphoong’s. We’ll be coming up on it shortly, and I
expect to be hailed by their controllers.”
That expectation was fulfilled almost immediately, and Nagy
tended to it after putting up a view of the settlement on the big
screen. It looked to be two fairly large domes connected by a long
cylinder, with several smaller domes along the cylinder itself. It
resembled a space station more than a ground settlement.
Just off one of the large domes was a small spaceport. They
could not build a ship there, but they could probably overhaul,
modify, and service one. From the looks of the place, though,
Lightning, which was not a large vessel, would be about
the largest they could handle down there.
Any form of money was worthless on Halinachi. Anyone who
controlled a transmuter controlled everyone dependent on it. The
true medium of exchange was information, innovation, and
ideas—but there was a single commodity that was always
welcome, and that was murylium. The irony of the transmuter was
that it could not take its power from its own sources; it needed an
independent, direct source, a particular compound of absolute
purity and quality one key component of which was murylium, a
scarce mineral found only in a few places in the universe.
As Fernando Savaphoong controlled his minions by alone
controlling the transmuters, so was he dependent on a supply of
murylium, the one substance transmuters needed and could not
make.
It seemed that every time one tried to make murylium from a
murylium-powered device, one got blown to bits, along with about
thirty cubic kilometers of surrounding planet.
Melchior had once had massive amounts of the stuff; Master
System’s early robot probes had discovered as much and had
mined the hell out of it. Those caverns were modern Melchior, and
Melchior itself was powered by the leftover amounts.
So, in a sense, Halinachi was like a gold-mining town of the
ancient North American West or Australia or South Africa, but it
also traded in other things. Lightning and the
Thunder needed all the murylium they could get; they had
very little. Nagy had considered the problem, and Clayben had
supplied the solution—a simple set of equations that would
increase the transmuter’s efficiency by more than ten
percent; one of Melchior’s little discoveries needed because
Melchior had been running on traces of its cannibalized self.
“And we just give that to Savaphoong?” Raven asked.
“And so he takes it and we’re still in the
hole.”
“No, he wouldn’t do that,” Nagy assured him.
“You see, if he didn’t give fair return, or if he
double-crossed those bringing him things, he would very quickly
find himself a nonmarket. There is a lot of competition out here,
and not only among the three more or less legally tolerated
outposts. He’ll pay—and pay well—in Halinachi
credit because he wants the next item exclusively. See?”
“One good mindprobe on any of us and he has got it
all,” Warlock noted suspiciously.
“If he did, there’d also be a lot of
repercussions,” Nagy assured her. “But, in any case,
that’s why we are taking precautions, and that’s why
the Thunder is monitoring us. Damn it, we’re all
professional killers and these are our own kind. I don’t
worry much about Savaphoong. I worry about that small black ship in
Bay Three.”
Warlock gasped. “A Val ship! We dare not go in
now!”
“We dare not not go in now,” Nagy replied
casually. “We’d never outrun it, and I seriously doubt
that we could outfight it right now, and that’s what
we’d have to do.”
“But what if it’s tuned to one of us? The four of
us, I mean?”
“Then we will have to destroy it. I doubt that it is,
anyway, but if it is? Bet that it isn’t just after one of us,
but all of us. I don’t think we really have to worry about it
until we leave.”
“I like the way you say that, all casual-like,” Raven
noted sourly. “We’ll just destroy it, that’s all.
That’s a damned killing machine! They ain’t that easy
to dispose of!”
“Sure, and if you believe that, then they’re
invulnerable. Look, they are also programmed to avoid mass killings
or slaughter, and apprehension rather than the kill is their first
priority. They won’t spray fire in a room full of innocents,
they won’t go through a hostage, and they have lots of other
weak points. They’re no pushovers—you won’t get
them with a good head shot—but they can be had. The
transmuters made this a throwaway society. Nothing’s
indestructible.”
“Including us,” Raven grumped. “Better you
watch yourself in there to keep from betraying that you’re
new. Watch your tongue, and don’t stare at or react to
anybody who isn’t Earth-human.”
“Huh? You mean there’s some of the colonist types
here?”
“Sure. A person’s still a person, and we
aren’t the only ones able to beat the system. There
might even be some genuine aliens, although that’s rarer.
None of ’em could ever break free of their worlds on their
own—Master System saw to that after it found them—but
some were recruited by the freebooters because of certain talents
and abilities they might have that are a real help out here.
Tolerance to various kinds of radiation, extreme heat, that kind of
thing. When you don’t have big transmuters and you
don’t have much in the way of friendly robots, or
you’re scared of robots, they fill a handy niche. All set?
We’re going down!”
The place had looked reasonable from the air, but once they
emerged from the ship, they could detect a definite seediness about
it. The air smelled somewhat foul and unpleasant, the heat and
humidity were oddly off, and even the elevator down into the
complex was jerky and noisy and looked the worse for wear.
They were met at the main level by a four-person security party
from what served as Halinachi’s government. It was an odd and
unpleasant assortment, and Raven and Warlock both proved they were
pros by keeping their inner feelings totally hidden.
One, who seemed to be the leader, was Earth-human enough, but in
place of his arms were two skeletal robot arms ending in
five-fingered steel hands. No attempt had been made to disguise
them as human replacements, and clearly he either preferred them to
new arms and hands or didn’t have access to any top medical
personnel.
Behind him was a woman perhaps two meters tall whose leathery
skin looked as if it were made of dark-olive plates, and whose eyes
were round, unblinking, and yellow. She was hairless, and her
fingers and toes resembled talons. Next to her was a short, squat
little man whose dark-gray complexion and blocky build made him
look as if he were made of stone. The last was an elderly-looking
Oriental man with thick white hair and a long, drooping white
mustache, his skin dark and mottled. All wore sidearms.
“You are Captain Hoxa?” the man with the steel arms
said in a low, gravelly voice that fit his appearance
perfectly.
“I am,” Nagy replied smoothly. “I remember you
from the last time I was here. Beklar, isn’t it?”
The squad leader nodded approvingly. Anyone who knew him had to
be an old hand, though clearly he didn’t remember Nagy.
“Yes. I understand you have information for
credits?”
“I do. Take me to the terminal and I’ll punch it
in.”
“Why not just give it to me?”
Nagy grinned. “Are you robbing people at gunpoint now, or
do you just take me for a fool?”
The big man shrugged and they went over to an entry terminal.
Nagy acted right at home, Raven noted. He wondered how many times
the security chief had been there before, and why.
Nagy punched in the formulas Clayben had furnished, which took a
surprisingly short length of time, then waited. The information was
not reflected on the screen, but suddenly a number appeared there.
Nagy slammed his fist against the wall next to the terminal and
turned to the security crew. “Forty thousand! I save this
joint a fortune and it’s just forty thousand? Next time
I’ll take my stuff to the competition!”
A small speaker within the terminal came to life, and a
man’s voice said, “Very well, Captain. Four days
unlimited credit for you and your crew. If you don’t abuse
it, I will deposit forty thousand credits for a return visit when
you leave. Will that be satisfactory?”
Nagy nodded. “That’s more like it.” He walked
back to the group and looked at the security party. “Okay to
enter now?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” growled the man with the metal
arms. “You sure got some clout here. Check your weapons and
personal possessions in the next room, then go through
entry.”
“You make the Val check its weapons?”
“A comedian, huh? Why? You got some problems with
them?”
“Depends on who it’s looking for and why, same as
most people out here. You want to give me a clue?”
“They been around, in and out, for a couple of weeks or
more. Word is somebody broke out of Melchior and stole one of them
big universe ships. We don’t like ’em snoopin’
around—bad for business—but what can we do?
They’re lookin’ for people with the Melchior brand, so
you’re safe.”
“From the Val, anyway. All right, lead on.”
“We got to check everything?” Raven whispered to
Nagy when he could.
“Everything. Even clothes. Savaphoong didn’t get
this far by letting anything slip by him. When you’re in his
world, you’re under his absolute control.”
Stripped completely, they were run through a decontamination
chamber, then issued utilitarian clothing that was cheaply made,
didn’t fit well, and was clearly reused. All the time they
were under the watchful eye of security cameras and personnel.
A man and woman, both of whom looked Earth-human, met them on
the other side. The man was tall, perhaps a hundred eighty-five
centimeters, and very heavily muscled, with near-perfect features,
long blond hair, a dark complexion, and even a hairy chest, and the
way he was dressed left no doubt as to his most outstanding
attribute. The woman had the same coloring, but she was
short—no more than a hundred sixty centimeters—and
extremely curvaceous, with a huge heaving bosom. Their eyes and
expressions gave the impression that they both probably had the
brains and imagination of a head of lettuce, but that was as
deliberate as the rest of them. The only thing marring their
perfection was the small triangular tattoo in the center of each of
their foreheads; the marks looked like the same sort of job done on
Melchior inmates, but less obtrusive. Raven now had a suspicion of
just what business Savaphoong had had with Melchior through the
years; these were perfect examples of Clayben’s transmuter
and mind-printer handiwork.
The old boy was really gonna miss Melchior, he thought. Suddenly
the whole thing was clear to him: Clayben supplied the freebooters
with nice, perfect, docile slaves and loyal security troops, and in
exchange probably got quantities of murylium totally outside what
he could scrape up from Melchior’s remains and whatever tiny
amounts he might con out of Master System. This explained why
freebooters had visited the old hell hole at intervals, and why
Nagy had spent time going back and forth. Clayben and the
freebooters were far more interrelated than he had let on.
“I am Amal,” the beautiful man said, “and this
is Gem. We are at your service while you are with us. Anything you
wish, just ask.”
“We’ve been out a long time and we just want to
relax for a while,” Nagy told them. “We’ll go to
the lounge now, but we may require you later.”
“All you need do is ask any staff member to call Amal or
Gem and we will be there,” the man assured them. “Allow
us to escort you to the lounge.”
“Am I correct in assuming they mean that all the
way?” Warlock asked in a low tone as they walked.
Nagy nodded. “Sure. Either or both will do anything you
ask, and with a smile. If they aren’t enough, they can
produce whatever you want—particularly if you’ve got
four days’ unlimited credit. It’s not limited to them,
either. Anybody with the triangle who turns you on will be your
instant willing slave. They come in all sizes, colors, races, you
name it—about half Earth-human and half colonial. You get
some murylium miners out there, maybe alone, for months or more at
a time and they want everything when they get in. They’re all
sterile and checked medically every day, so there’s no risks,
either.”
Raven had expected a seedy outworld bar, but the lounge was a
cozy, intimate place of semiprivate booths with a small stage area.
The seats seemed to be some kind of soft brown fur, a bit worn, and
the tables were of a marblelike rock.
There were others in the lounge, which surprised the
first-timers a bit. The only ship other than the Vals’ and
the Lightning in the dock hadn’t seemed very
large.
“There aren’t many here at any one time,” Nagy
told them, “but there are more than can be accommodated in
the spaceport. Some of the ships are in orbit, their people brought
down by shuttle ferry or transmuter, and some have been dropped off
here to be picked up later. The place is relatively quiet,
though—I’d guess no more than thirty or forty guests
are here right now, when there should be a hundred. My guess is the
Val scared a lot of ’em off.”
An enormous black man appeared, all muscles, wearing little but
dark bikini briefs and the telltale triangle on his forehead. Raven
looked at Warlock and was amused to see some of that total cool
crumble at the sight.
“I am Batu,” the waiter said in a rich, deep
baritone. “How may I serve you?”
“I’ll have a liter of draft,” Nagy replied.
“Sabatini?”
“Double whiskey and soda, no ice. The good stuff, not the
rotgut.”
The waiter appeared to take no offense.
“I’ll have a beer, as well,” Raven said.
“And—you wouldn’t have cigars, would
you?”
“Yes, sir. Any kind of type you wish.”
“The large Havana style.”
“As you wish, sir. And the lady?”
“Rum tonic,” Warlock responded.
The waiter bowed and left. “You really oughtta knock off
those things,” Nagy told him. “They’ll kill you
sooner or later.”
“If I live long enough for them to kill me I will be
content.”
Nagy just shrugged. “So, what do you think of the place so
far?”
“Interesting,” Raven replied. “After all that
time in the wild under primitive conditions, I could get to like a
place like this. I can sure see how somebody’d like to run
one, too. I’m just a little surprised Master System knows of
these places and permits them.”
“As I said, mutual interest. I always feel like a target
here, though; if Master System ever changed its mind, it’s
all over. I think if I’m gonna be a freebooter it’s
gonna be in a ship, out there, with better odds and the universe to
get lost in.”
The waiter brought their drinks and a small package of full-size
cigars for Raven, who eyed them as if they were the food of the
gods. He had almost forgotten that cigars came that big and that
unspoiled.
Warlock looked around. “This place is cozy and comfortable
enough, but it is not good for socializing,” she noted.
“One does not get information in a booth serviced by
slaves.”
“True enough,” Nagy agreed. “But there are
ways, and there will be time for all that. Just relax and enjoy for
now. In a little while I may try and go back and see the old man
himself. He knows me well, and I’ll get a straight picture
without worrying about a knife in my back.”
“Savaphoong?”
He nodded. “I—” He broke off as he saw the
others tense; he looked around and saw the Val standing there. It
was an imposing figure even in this incongruous environment, and
its metallic solidity and blazing crimson eyes seemed to bore right
through them.
“Pardon,” the Val said. “I realize that my
presence here causes problems, and I only wish to assure you that I
have no instructions concerning this place or anyone who visits
it.”
Interestingly, it was Sabatini who answered. “You know you
have no place here. Why are you around?”
“I am not after freebooters. I am soliciting their help.
You have heard of the prison colony of Melchior in the Earth
system?”
Sabatini nodded. “So?”
“There was an escape. Ships were hijacked, including an
interstellar transport. The escapees for the most part have the
identifying Melchior facial tattoos. They possess certain knowledge
that no one is permitted to possess. Mere contact with these people
could prove fatal. They are using a ship that is the largest of its
kind ever built, so you could hardly miss it. Have you seen these
people?”
“Not anywhere around here,” Sabatini responded
coolly. “They’re not likely to show up at a place like
this anyway, are they?”
“Not they themselves perhaps, but they had inside help. We
are not quite certain who, but we are working on it. If you see
them, or if you run across anyone working for them, it will be more
than worth your while to notify us immediately. This place is but a
pale shade of the rewards possible to the one or ones who lead to
their apprehension. Such ones would live like gods.”
Sabatini whistled. “You must really want them. Believe me,
if I see them, I’ll be the first to collect.”
“Very well. I will be leaving this place this evening.
Enjoy your stay.”
And, with that, the great creature was gone, out of their sight
and out of the lounge. They started to say something, but Nagy put
his palm up and then reached under the table, prying off a tiny
smooth plate only a hair’s thickness and about the size of a
fingertip. The Val had left a bug.
“I don’t like those bastards one bit,” Nagy
said casually. “Come on, this place has lost its luster now.
Let’s hunt up Amal and Gem and try a few more private
pleasures.”
They all mumbled agreement and got up to leave, letting Nagy
carefully replace the bug on the underside of the table. It took
only a minute or two to summon their “procurers,” as
they were called.
“Show us our quarters,” Nagy commanded. The others
followed, still silent.
They were shown to a suite with a round central living area
furnished with couches and a built-in bar and entertainment center,
and four private sleeping rooms.
“Amal, I would like to see the manager on a matter of
urgent personal business,” Nagy told the big blond man.
Amal was somewhat taken aback by that, which was not in the
usual line of requests. “I will see if that is possible,
sir.”
“Tell him it concerns the Val and our treatment here. I
think he’ll see me.”
“Yes, sir. I will try.” The man left to do his
duty.
Nagy brought the others close to him. “Say nothing you
don’t want overheard until I get back,” he whispered.
“We don’t know how far this has gone.”
They understood. They had heard the Val’s voice, which was
almost always the voice of the person to whom it was targeted. The
voice had been that of Hawks.
Fernando Savaphoong was a small, thin, Asian-looking man of
about fifty, with a thin black mustache and neatly cropped black
hair graying on the sides. He had a pleasant voice and a
salesman’s manner, and only his eyes and his nearly constant
chain-smoking of cigarettes betrayed the constant pressure his life
style and his responsibilities brought him.
“So, Señor Nagy, I am surprised you would come here at
this date.”
The security man relaxed and sat in a chair opposite the ruler
of Halinachi. “I’m not used to Vals showing up in the
lounge,” he replied. “But I’m particularly not
used to Vals planting bugs under my table. How many other bugs has
he got around here, and how the hell will I know when I can speak
freely again to my companions?”
Savaphoong frowned. “This I do not like to hear at all. It
knows you, then.”
“I doubt it, or it would have acted more forcefully. More
likely it did a scan of the four of us as it discussed the bait,
measuring our blood pressure, heart rates, and other reactions when
it brought up certain subjects, and became suspicious. I think the
least I can demand is for your people to sweep the area—the
lounge, all the places it’s been, and my quarters, to find
and destroy any nasty little devices it might have left.”
“I will tend to it at once. I cannot afford to have such
things here.”
Nagy nodded. “Good. And in light of this, I think
it’s time we had a talk about other matters.”
Savaphoong sat back in his chair and lit a cigarette. “I
gather, then, that reports of the good doctor’s death were
overrated. I suspected as much from the start, knowing how cautious
and clever he was. But he did not engineer this break, surely.
You?”
“Uh uh. Strictly independent. We just signed on for the
duration because we had little choice.”
“You realize, then, that I could name my own price just
for calling back the Val and confirming its suspicions?”
“You could—but you won’t. You know as well as
I do that any reward from Master System could be very shortlived in
these days and times. Still I could guarantee your silence—or
the destruction of Halinachi—just by telling you what
it’s all about.”
“Si. When I first hear of this I tell myself, all
right, someone escaped. So what? Then I hear they steal this very
big ship. Again, so what? They get away. They become freebooters,
or they get caught, or they are never heard from again. Why does
Master System suddenly want them worse than anything? Then I hear
Master System invades Melchior only to find Clayben dead, along
with most of the others who count, and all the data banks
destroyed. Now I am suspicious. Now I wonder what would be so much
of a threat to Master System that it would be worth Clayben’s
while to do something like this. It is a simple matter for one of
Clayben’s talents and resources to fake one’s own death
convincingly enough even for Master System, but why? It must be
something so valuable, so dangerous, that it is worth any price.
Now my greedy side gets interested, and now you show up only months
later. You see?”
“The real question is—do you want to
know?”
“No. The real question is—can I afford not
to know? If that Val was merely suspicious, that is one thing, but
if it recognized any of you from its data files, if it has tied you
in with all this—well, then, my friend, I am a sitting duck,
am I not?”
Nagy thought a moment. “How many Vals are in this
sector?”
“Two. But one shell through each of the main domes would
be enough to destroy all this.”
“Uh uh. They don’t have what they really want here
and they know it. That Val wasn’t going to take us because it
would mean breaking the compact with you, and for that it’ll
need the highest authority. Tell me straight, Señor
Savaphoong—if it gets it, what will you do? If it breaks the
compact, do you have the firepower to stop it—and the will,
knowing what it would mean?”
Savaphoong sighed. “Señor Nagy, your brazen appearance
here with a Val in port has caused this, but it is a fair question.
If I allow it, then I am out of business anyway, am I not? What
freebooter would come here after that? Whom do I serve? Vals? They
are not interested in what I could provide, and, besides, they are
lousy tippers. For the sake of any future or refuge I might have, I
would be forced to oppose them, no matter what the cost.”
Arnold Nagy sighed. “Very well then. If that day should
ever come, I can give you refuge. We will need people and we will
need experience. If you keep faith with me, then if your back is to
the wall we’ll get you out and cut you in. Fair?”
“As fair as life gets. Tell me true—do you
really have a starship that is fourteen kilometers
long?”
“Yes. We call her the Thunder.”
The boss of Halinachi sighed. “What interesting
possibilities that opens up. It has been getting so boring
here.” He paused. “But, no. One does not trade all this
so easily. Is there anything else I can do for you right
now?”
“I need some information on three colonial worlds. This
won’t get you in any trouble—without knowing the
objectives it would be impossible to guess. Even knowing the
objectives, although it would be dangerous, wouldn’t give you
anything you could use yourself.”
“Which three?”
“Janipur, Chanchuk, and Matriyeh.”
Savaphoong gave a low whistle. “Not the most comfortable
of places, any one.”
“I didn’t expect they would be. I need the works on
them—people, political organization, leaders, Centers and
administrators, you name it. The odds are I’m looking for the
chief administrator of each world.”
“Umph! You really make it difficult on yourself.
And the purpose, in general terms?”
“Grand theft.”
Savaphoong laughed. “For such a grand and noble purpose,
how can I refuse? Very well, you shall have what you
require—if I can be assured that our mutual benefactor will
continue to supply me with things that I require.”
“As much as possible under the circumstances. Might I
assume that you have an interstellar-capable ship available in
times of need?”
“You may so assume.”
“Then we should work out a mutual meeting place and a
method of signaling. I suspect that if we get away clean this time
it is very unlikely that we can return to your fine
establishment.”
Fernando Savaphoong thought for a moment. “The Val
prepares to leave within the hour. It will take it two days to
reach a subspace relay beacon and report to Master System, and
perhaps another day to get the authority one way or another. Of
course, it will probably contact its companion ahead of time and
establish a surreptitious watch. If you leave before the authority
comes, then I am probably in the clear so long as I make no moves
showing I know what this is about. There is then no logic in
breaking the compact. The one who lurks, though, in the shadows of
the planets—it will lock on and attempt to follow, and it has
incredible equipment and tenacity. You will probably have to take
it out, you know, if you can.”
“I’m well aware of that. In the meantime, I’ll
let you get on with your—delousing—operation here and
accumulating the data I need, while I and my companions spend a
night or two enjoying your services.” He had a sudden
thought. “And I might suggest an additional item of mutual
interest to research.”
“Indeed?”
“Master System requires fairly large supplies of murylium
to manage and maintain its empire. Those mines are almost surely
totally automated and nearly impossible to locate, but the
shipments surely are not. You need the stuff and so do
we.”
“Even if I could discover such a thing, what good would it
do, my friend?”
“We are interstellar outlaws hunted by all and with
absolutely nothing to lose, but we have resources. You give me the
routings, and I’ll give you part of the loot.”
Even Savaphoong looked aghast. “Hijacking a freighter of
Master System? You must be joking! It is not possible!”
“You tell me where, and I’ll show you a thing or two
about real piracy.”
And that made Savaphoong laugh again, long and hard. “You
know,” he managed after a moment, “I almost believe you
can do this. At least I think you are either mad or the most
dangerous group of human beings alive!” He shrugged.
“Either way, what do I have to lose but
everything?”
“You know, if I could feel guilt, I’d be
feelin’ real guilty about havin’ a good time here while
the chief and the rest are stuck back in that primitive hell
hole,” Raven noted casually while washing down a fine steak
and eggs with fresh coffee. “I really do hate to leave this
place.”
“Well, leaving is going to be the trick that makes us pay
the devil’s due,” Arnold Nagy replied. “We have
our information and our contacts now, but we also have a real
problem. Sabatini, any of your incarnations ever take on a Val ship
before?”
The strange creature grinned. “Sure. Two at least. Both
lost, of course.”
Nagy glared at him and Raven almost choked on a piece of
toast.
“All right, then,” said the Hungarian who had become
the de facto head of the expedition. “It’s
something new. I have some of the information we need—enough
to get us started. Anybody else have any luck?”
“I met a man who had been to Janipur,” Warlock said.
“He said it was inhabited by a human herd of angry cows,
whatever that means. Said we would have to see it to believe it.
Still, some things do not change in the universe of Master System.
He has seen the chief administrator, who is known for the fancy
ring he wears. It is called the Ring of Peace because it bears the
likeness of two doves in gold. He also said that the chief
administrator is very smart but very brutal. He enjoys strangling
people. It is his hobby.”
“Humph! Yeah, well, who ever said these would be
pushovers? Anybody else?”
“There was a fellow—a colonial, not at all pleasant
to look on—who knew of Matriyeh,” Sabatini said.
“This fellow was raised Moslem, and he said that Matriyeh
surpassed any vision of hell he had ever dreamed. No matter how
inhuman he was, he had enough perspective so that I believe he
would have said the same thing even if he’d been one of our
kind. Certain minerals on Matriyeh are said to grow to enormous
proportions, and this fellow was an artist who hoped to trade some
technology for some of them to use in his art. The world is
supposedly very primitive. He found it impossibly primitive, not at
all organized. No Centers, no administrators that he could see at
all, and no major rulers above the tribal level. It sounded much
like what Master System is said to be considering doing to Earth.
He could not imagine a person of power there.”
Nagy shook his head. “That one’s worse. Bad boys I
think we can deal with. I don’t care if they’ve got two
heads and five arms and breathe methane, they’re still of
human stock and Master System’s origins, and we know their
type. Even Master System is obedient, though. The ring has to be
held by a person with power, authority—something
that makes him or her stand out. Damn it, that’s gonna be a
tough one.”
“The guy barely escaped with his life, let alone his ship.
The world is one very nasty place even without the people,”
Sabatini added. “That one might be suited for my special
talents, but even I can’t work from nothing, and if a
primitive, ignorant mind knows nothing of value it can’t help
me.”
“Well, we’ll see. Raven, you get anything at
all?”
“You bet. Two cases of fine Havanas and some very nice
little pills. One of ’em’s called Orgy and you oughtta
see what it does. As for information, though—forget it.
Except a couple of girls in the lounge knew of a certain world of
heat and water by reputation, and they said it was a full-fledged
colony. I didn’t like that at all.”
Nagy nodded. “I don’t like that much myself, but in
all that time nobody ever showed up and tossed a spear or shook our
hand. You got to figure they’re water breathers. No skin off
our nose or theirs if that’s the case.”
“I dunno. Somebody planted them groves on that other
island. I kinda wonder if we’d been able to get over there if
they wouldn’t’a popped up and been a little nasty about
it. Water breathers don’t grow food on land. They
didn’t know much, though—them girls, I mean. Only that
it was listed as a colonial settlement, and off limits in
general.”
“I think we better get all the stuff together we can and
get back—if we can,” Nagy told them. “Raven,
unless something happens, I’m afraid you and Warlock are
gonna be strictly passengers in this flight. Sabatini, since
you’ve had more experience, so to speak, flying these
buckets, I’m gonna let you fly and take the guns myself. It
flies like any other good ship, but I know the armament inside and
out. If there is a Val up there, waiting for us,
it’s gonna be one tough nut to crack, but it won’t know
the power or armaments of that ship. It’s a custom illegal
job. Get it all together—we might as well roll.”
Getting out of Halinachi was not quite as complicated as getting
in. They turned in their clothing but not their personal prizes,
such as Raven’s cigars, and they also received a small
encoded master cylinder from Savaphoong. The lord of Halinachi did
not see them off—Nagy guessed in any event that midmorning
was far too early for the manager of the place to be up and
about—but there was a small note attached to the cylinder,
which Nagy read.
“What’s the love letter?” Raven asked,
curious.
“It’s a bill. Somehow he managed to charge the full
forty thousand future credits and anything left from this visit.
Never mind. Short of using a transmuter and becoming someone
completely different, there’s little chance we’ll be
able to come back here again anyway.”
They went to the ship, which appeared secure, all seals intact.
Nagy spent some time doing a complete check. “Yeah, as I
figured. A bunch of nice bugs and tracking devices all over the
damned hull. We’d be another day getting those suckers off
ourselves and we don’t have that. The best thing I can do is
try to burn ’em off. Channel the transmuter power from the
main engines to the outer hull. They’re designed to withstand
the external forces of lift-off and reentry, but they’re not
well shielded where they attach to the hull itself. Get in pressure
suits and dial your climate control to maximum. This is gonna be
nasty. I got to be real careful with this. I don’t want to
bum any holes in the hull.”
When they were ready, he began. The outer hull began to glow red
hot, and Nagy had to be very careful not to let any point get too
much hotter than the rest or turn white. Shimmering blue
electricity played over the ship, inside and out, and after more
than fifteen minutes the sounds of very loud banging and terrible
random noises came through to them, as if they were in a meteor
storm with no deflectors.
The noises subsided after a while, and the inside fans came
on.
“I think I got ’em all, but at what price I
couldn’t say,” Nagy informed them. “I think
it’s best we all keep our suits on, the inside pressure down,
and ourselves strapped in until we know. Best we do that during the
flight, anyway, just in case a shot penetrates the main
cabin.”
“Great,” Raven grumped. “No cigars. I might go
to my grave staring at two cases of unopened Havanas.”
“I think we’ve cooled down uniformly now, and
I’ve got clearance, so strap in and check systems. Sabatini,
take her up.”
The ship shuddered, then roared into life and rose slowly above
the landing pad. Only when they were several kilometers in the air
did Sabatini angle the nose up, apply full thrust and roll, and
take her to escape velocity.
It was a noisy, bumpy ride out, but it was fast. They cleared
the atmosphere in just a few minutes and went into preliminary
orbit. Sabatini did a wide scan.
“Anything?” Nagy asked.
“Nothing yet, but it could be in near-total power down.
The question is more if he has better scanning range than we do. I
seem to remember that you were clearly visible in the
Thunder’s sights at your maximum fallback
position.”
“They were as good as they needed to be. If we don’t
catch sight of him, we’ll try to lead him out. Set a course
on chart A-J-8-7-7-2. That’s at a right angle to where we
want to go, but it’ll give us some running room. Keep all
sensors at maximum and we’ll see if we can pick him
up.”
They were suddenly pressed back in their seats as Sabatini gave
maximum thrust from orbital speed. It was a surprise, almost
random, move that would have thrown a human pursuer, but the Val
was not human and would not waste precious seconds wondering what
to do. It might, however, have to quickly adjust and betray
itself—or risk losing its prey at the start.
“Give me a punch as soon as you have the factors lined
up,” Nagy instructed. “Duration thirty
minutes—the minimum possible on the chart’s vector. We
may be able to exit and repunch before he can get out with
us.”
“That’s gonna really strain the power,”
Sabatini warned.
“The transmuter ram needs junk as much as it needs its
own power, or there’s nothing to convert. With that
house-cleaning you did, we’re pretty low.”
“The hell with it! We run dry, we stand and fight as best
we can.”
“Punching.”
“At least the hull seems to be holding,” Nagy noted
as the ship opened its hole and entered. “I got a delicate
touch.”
Any pursuer now would have to match the course, trajectory, and
speed perfectly and punch at the exact same spot with the exact
same elements in order to give chase. This was not difficult for a
Val or any ship programmed to do it. The Val, in fact, would know
coming in just exactly where they would emerge, but it could do
nothing about it, not even close on its prey, inside a punch. Even
Raven realized Nagy’s strategy—if the Val had hung back
too far to avoid detection, they could repunch in an infinite
number of directions before it could emerge behind them. The only
limit was the amount of fuel for conversion taken in by the forward
ram and stored. The Val, he suspected, would have been pleasantly
surprised if any of its little traps and trackers had survived, but
it also knew that the amount of energy expended to get rid of them
would limit just how far its prey could run before it caught
up.
“Give me a thirty-two degree right turn on
reemergence,” Nagy ordered, “and punch again. Use chart
B-H-6-4-4-9.”
“But there’s no punch points on that chart for
thirty hours! We haven’t got the juice to go that
long!”
“Then punch for half the juice we got left and reemerge
wherever that is.”
Sabatini was appalled. “Off the chart?”
“Yeah, off the chart.”
The purpose of the charts, other than navigation, was to permit
ease of travel. The emergence points were all selected because they
had ample density of matter for the rams and yet were clear of any
potential problems like radiation fields, suns, neutron stars, and
other obstacles. Sabatini’s prior freebooter identity gave
him enough confidence to know that the odds of coming out near
anything dangerous was next to nothing in the vastness of space;
what bothered him was that they stood very good odds of coming out
exactly there—next to nothing. Space was never completely
empty, but there were vast areas in which it might take years to
accumulate enough dust and such to make enough fuel to get them
anywhere useful, and they wouldn’t have the juice to punch
anywhere else clean.
“Nagy, you ever made a jump with low fuel off the charts
before?”
“Never had to, but it’s the only way. The only other
choice is to slow down and turn as quickly as possible, and try to
blow the bugger back to machine hell as it emerges. It’ll be
ready for that, and it has a lot more fuel than we do.”
“Yeah, but there’s a dozen charts we could jump on
and come out at a safe point.”
“That’s the problem. There’s a dozen. How long
you figure it’ll take to refuel? A couple hours? If there are
two of ’em out there, then in that time all dozen could be
checked—and would be. You make the choice. This is one fix
your little talent won’t get you out of.”
“You think of this ahead of time or are you making this up
as you go along?”
“Improvisation, my friend, is the soul of survival. If it
goes wrong I’ll blame it on this computer link.”
“If anything goes wrong you won’t have any reason to
blame anything. You’ll be dead long before we were. Hang on.
Emergence.”
Sabatini was right on the mark, but he cut power slightly and
fully opened the jets as he made a graceful turn.
“We fight, then?” Nagy asked nervously.
“We have fifteen minutes before it emerges. That gives me
ten minutes to take in what I can in this dense outer dust belt and
another four to make the punch. I am computer-linked, too,
remember.”
“Quiet. I have an idea. Open communications
channels.”
“I see. Good idea, if we have the time.”
“Shut up and gobble.”
Sitting in the back, Raven and Warlock were ignorant of all
this. They could only wait and wonder until either of the
ship’s operators took the time and trouble to brief them.
In what seemed like no time the ship was back up to speed and
punching through once more, and only then did Nagy relax enough to
explain the situation. Neither of the passengers liked it much.
“Don’t see what you can do, though,” Raven
consoled him. “Let’s play it as it lays. But I
can’t help wondering—suppose we punch through for only
forty percent of the fuel? Then turn around and punch right back to
where we were just at?”
“Damn! Why didn’t I think of that one?”
Sabatini swore. “Too late now—I’ve used fifty
percent, and with what it will take to reposition that won’t
be quite enough to get us back. Why didn’t I think of it,
though?”
“In all your lives you never were no Crow, that’s
why. An old tracker knows the double-back. I’m surprised Nagy
didn’t, considering his background.”
“Too civilized, Raven,” Nagy said. “I went
from Vatican Center to West Europe Center and then to port
Security, then finally Melchior. I never was in the field. It
wasn’t my area of expertise.”
“Yeah, well, next time remember that us ignorant savages
might know a few tricks your ancestors forgot, and deal us in. You
believe in all this high-tech brain shit and you get to playing
Master System’s game.”
“Yeah. Next time.”
“If I were the tracker Val, that is where I would put the
second Val. At the last stop,” Warlock whispered dryly.
“Shut up, Warlock,” Raven growled.
The ship was now pretty much on automatic, and there was nothing
that anyone could do for a while, so the two at the controls set
the alarms and disengaged after bringing temperature and pressure
to normal levels. It was safe to remove the pressure suits, relax,
eat, even catch some sleep, and Raven got to smoke a couple of his
precious cigars over the protests of the other three and the air
filtration system.
The time seemed to drag, and sleep was difficult. Finally,
though, the alarm sounded and Sabatini and Nagy, almost with
relief, headed back up to the command chairs and reconnected
themselves to the ships’ systems.
Emergence was smooth and right on time, but it was quite
literally in the middle of nowhere.
“Dust and cosmic debris levels are very small,”
Sabatini noted. “Distance to nearest stellar system’s
outer reaches is about thirty-three light-years. If we did another
punch we might get within four or five.”
Sabatini did a quick scan of the region and found little to be
optimistic about. “There’s some very weak gravity
source at bearing one seven one, but it’s beyond our range
and who knows what it is? If it’s a black hole or something
it could be farther than that next stellar system. I think
we’re stuck.”
They poked and probed and moved over a vast distance of empty
space during the next few hours tracking down any potential sources
of gravity that might mean trapped dust, rock, and, therefore,
fuel—and life. The hunting was pretty slim.
“The good news is that we are collecting enough material
to keep us going for several years if it remains constant,”
Sabatini told them. “The bad news is that it’s just
about enough to keep the life support and local engines
going—with a very slight loss. It means we can drag around
here for a long time but we can’t ever gain enough to offset
what we’re spending collecting it.”
“We should’a brought a couple of them playmate
slaves if we were gonna be stuck out here,” Raven
growled.
“I guess we should’ve fought after all,” Nagy
sighed. “Our only hope now—”
He paused, and even Raven and Warlock could feel the tension
fill the air. The screen flickered to life and went to maximum
magnification.
An area of space that was as dark as the darkest night now had a
glowing ring around it and, although it seemed impossible, the area
within seemed even darker, deeper, and blacker. Out of it came a
ship, small, sleek, and shopworn black against the even blacker
hole.
“Son of a bitch!” Nagy swore. “I must’ve
missed one!”
The Val ship emerged, closing the hole behind it, slowed
gracefully, and made a steady turn toward them.
Sabatini sighed. “I guess we fight them anyway,” he
said.