THE NEXT SEVEN MONTHS WAS A PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT and personal compromise for all concerned, but somehow the new crew settled into a group marriage of convenience, tolerance, and, in some cases, friendship and mutual respect. The difficulty did not stem only from the alienness of the colonists, though, but also from the freebooters’ starting attitudes toward the original group. It was clear that the vast majority of newcomers still didn’t really believe that the rebels’ scheme could succeed.
Hawks once again demonstrated his leadership skills by forming a council of captains and treating them with respect. Each captain was still absolute master of his or her own ship, but each was under the command of what they had come to consider an admiral—one who commands not a ship but a fleet. And that one was Hawks.
In fact, the hardest thing for the freebooters to accept was Star Eagle’s existence at all, let alone as an equal captain among them. All their lives had been spent hating machines that could think on their own. No matter how different they looked, no matter what languages they thought in or what they liked to eat or how they liked to live, all of them, even the alien engineer, were living creatures born of other living creatures. To them, Star Eagle seemed a member of the true alien race, the one they were fighting, and it was very difficult for them to trust him.
Star Eagle had certainly done his best for them. Maintenance had created more elaborate cargo access ports fitted with air locks and tubes directly into the ships that had to be carried outside, and hoped to have real pressurization throughout the ship as needed, even in the cargo bays themselves, within another month.
The interior village was still badly in need of work, but it had been expanded enough and customized enough to satisfy most of the needs of those on board who required more than Earth-human conditions. Savaphoong continued to live on his luxurious yacht with its transmuter producing luxury goods as needed and human slaves to wait on him and his subordinates; this arrangement actually made everyone more comfortable.
Each crew was given an area of the interior shell, along with working offices in the surrounding middle region, designed as much to their specifications as practicality and space and data banks allowed. Ikira Sukotae, for example, actually had a dwelling within a very dark and grass-covered mound with little or no lighting, although somehow in there was a miniaturized vaporizer toilet and running water and much else. Her amphibian crewmember had a hut with a chamber in which fresh water sufficient to cover her body was available along with air. The centauroids preferred just a patch of ground with specially designed water supply and waste disposal; they didn’t care a bit for privacy.
The others, even the Rock Man, found that the normal hut could be configured to their needs. The green owlish couple, for example, used things much the same as everyone else but slept standing up. So, in fact, did the thick-tailed Buta Killomen and the Rock Man, while Captain Chun and his exoskeletal mates slept wrapped around pipes or logs. Only the Makkikor proved a problem to accommodate, since its native environment and needs were so different—even if it could breathe human air and a lot of other things, as it turned out—but it preferred to sleep in the niche it had designed on the Bahakatan and seemed delighted to help Star Eagle and the maintenance robots with the renovation and refurbishment of the freebooter ships.
The transmuter at Melchior had made China the way she was, but Isaac Clayben had figured a mechanical way to help her out at least in the area of her blindness. Although the program created by his old staff had been diabolically clever and designed not to be circumvented, Clayben and Star Eagle had devised a mindprinter interpretive routine and a gadget that gave her a sort of sight when she chose to use it. Sound waves, traveling on a frequency that would not interfere with ship’s systems and was beyond the ability of any colonials or Earth-humans aboard to hear, were translated into electrical signals and sent through nerves to her brain, where the interpretive program operated. Only the Makkikor could hear the signals; he found the sounds not only pleasant but, Hawks suspected, somewhat erotic.
Using the device along with the mindprinter program, China could “see” well enough to distinguish individual objects, although she could not discern specific features of a person nor, for example, read print. She still preferred her memorization routines, which were now so natural that she hardly looked handicapped getting about, but in an emergency or in a strange environment, the device might mean life or death, and she appreciated it.
They had not wasted the time in other ways, either. They hunted without much success for other remnants of the freebooter culture, and finally Hawks decided, with the council of captains concurring, to go after a ring.
By now the newcomers had been told the whole story—what they were after, what the rings could do, and why the rings had been created. Two of the crews had visited Chanchuk, and the Indrus knew Janipur well, since the people of that world had been created out of the same original race as theirs and had kept many of the same customs and forms of the ancient Hindu beliefs. Captain Paschittawal, in fact, had even seen the ring itself, in the People’s Treasures collection at Cochin Center, the chief administrator’s headquarters. Apparently, he reported, the chief administrator rarely wore it, except on solemn and highly ceremonial occasions.
“It is a beautiful thing, very big,” Captain Paschittawal told them. “It is kept under a magnifier, in fact, so that one can see the exquisite detail work. Two beautiful birds, mirror images, sitting on small fir branches. It is most treasured because it is one of the every few artifacts that came with the Founders centuries ago.”
Hawks nodded. “I want you to get together with Raven and Sabatini and give them as much detail as you can. I believe it is time we put Sabatini’s unique talents to work for us.”
The captain’s eyebrows rose. “I have heard you and the others talk of this, but I do not understand what you mean by ‘unique talents.’ ”
“You won’t believe it until you witness it, but let me put it this way. You are Hindu, correct?”
“I am, sir.”
“And you believe, then, in reincarnation?”
“Yes, sir, I most firmly do.”
“Let me just say that Captain Sabatini not only can reincarnate, but can choose just what and who he’s going to be. And he does not have to die to do it.” Although somebody else does, he added a bit guiltily to himself.
After a full briefing by the Indrus crew, Hawks met with his security staff and Sabatini in his own office deep inside the guts of the Thunder.
“Well,” Raven said with a sigh, “Nagy said it’d be the easiest, although I ain’t sure I like it if it is. This thing’s like something in the regional museums of somebody’s crown jewels. It’s almost a sacred object because it’s Earth and it’s original. It will be guarded and not just by people. It’s gonna have one hell of a nasty security system on it, since a lot of these Hindu folks believe things like this got magic. That crew said there are all sorts of legends about the powers of the gods that come with being the wearer of the thing. This is a heist problem, and who knows what kind of technology they bought or what the nasty computers of that Center came up with? And there’s the racial and cultural thing.”
Hawks nodded, knowing just what Raven meant. “Those we will face with every problem. We knew that from the start—at least I did, and I think you did, too, if you wanted to think about it. It would have been too much to expect that any of the colonials were recruited from the freebooters would be members of this race. I consider it a stroke of real fortune that we, at least, had people here who knew the world and its people. If this is the easiest, then this is the one we go for just to see if we have a prayer of getting the others. Sabatini?”
“This is one I think I’m really gonna enjoy,” the captain said. “I never been anything this different before. Still, the basics are here. The chief administrator comes from a small town up against the mountains on the smaller of the three continents, and he has an estate there and goes home a lot. He’s one of them types that likes to spend time with the people—and, of course, I bet he has one hell of an illegal high-tech lab there someplace, too. We can’t just walk into the Center—it’s gonna be too well guarded and it won’t have the kind of conditions I need to be safe and secure while I—change into something less obvious, shall we say. I may have to go through a few people to get in there. Maybe some townspeople, then to servants at the big man’s place, and from there to somebody with authority and easy access to Center.”
“That’s understood,” Hawks told him. “But I don’t think there is any way you are going to be able to steal that thing all by yourself. If you can, fine, but if I know a chief administrator, no matter what the race or culture, there will be no time when you will be able to become him and particularly not his security chief without being discovered, and I would wager much, if I had anything, that it takes at least both of them to disable that alarm system.”
Sabatini nodded. “I understand that. Still, if I get a crack at it, I’ll try. If not—well, then it’ll have to go to the experts up here and we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, I’d say the biggest problem is getting me in—and out, if need be. Master System knows what we’re after and it’s got to have that place monitored wall to wall, and we sure as hell aren’t going to be able to get close enough in to land a transmuter receiver.”
“I believe I can help there,” Star Eagle broke in. “It wouldn’t do to bring the Thunder and expose the fleet at this point—we may need all that power later on, if only to fight our way back to Earth. I can use a capsule, however, with a basic life-support system, and stick it in a preprogrammed fighter. They are fast and expendable. Janipur might even let you get down if they couldn’t tell where the fighter came from, if only to follow it back.”
“Uh huh. And how are you gonna get that fighter close enough to let it get in? You punch anywhere in the area and they’re gonna know it.”
“I know. If need be, we have ships to spare, but I would just as soon not spare any people. It will get you in and confound Master System, I am sure. It will also tell us just what sort of forces are in the area, so we can plan for the future. We must, after all, also get you out.”
Raven turned to Sabatini. “You know, if this all goes as planned, we’re gonna hav’ta figure some new name for you, and if it’s one like the Indrus crew’s got, I won’t want to know it. We’ll also have to recognize you when we see you.”
Sabatini grinned. “Well, we have a nightingale, a hawk, and a raven, at least, and I’m told a couple of our new friends have names that translate out like that anyway. From now on, why don’t we follow that convention? Why not—Vulture?”
And Vulture it was. Although all the captains hungered for some action and volunteered to make the drop, Star Eagle determined that Pirate One would be their best bet. It could carry the small fighter with its cargo capsule, and might just fool any automated defenses. In any case, although none liked to discuss it, it was expendable.
It was agreed, however, that the small, dark Captain Paschittawal would fly it, since he had the most knowledge and experience of any aboard in getting in and out of Janipur. Warlock would handle weapons, since she was best at that. Only those two would go; Sabatini, in his capsule inside the fighter, would be along for the ride.
Thanks to the Indrus’s local charts, they had excellent maps of the planet and its terrain. It was decided to attempt a landing in the mountains to the north of the village and state, where landforms and general weather conditions would provide good cover for the fighter, which was intended to remain down. The people of Janipur were not good at mountain climbing, which would provide some extra security, but might cause problems for Vulture should he have to return to the ship in Janipurian form. He did not minimize the difficulties, but he was not that concerned. “I will get whatever I need, one way or the other,” he assured them.
The one thing they weren’t all that concerned about was Vulture returning reprogrammed by Master System. Clayben was quick to assure them that if such techniques could have worked with “the creature,” he would have used them back on Melchior. The very methods by which memory was stored were so different that none of the common methods would work, and any biochemical or psychogenetic agents would be neutralized if introduced. “Remember,” the scientist told them, “this is not Sabatini, or Koll, or any of the others it has called itself. It is a unique homemade alien organism only pretending to be these people, just as it will pretend to be one of the people of Janipur.”
As an initial test, Star Eagle rigged up Pirate One with false identification and an automatic program requiring no one on board. All it would do was punch into the system, go about its standard refueling, and then return to a predetermined point where its much more sophisticated scanning records would be analyzed. Lobotomized, the ship’s core was not much good without a human at the decision-making level, but it could carry out such simple and routine tasks and respond to standard queries. They were not much worried about it being recognized; it was one of an entire class of automated freighters all of which looked identical. This was one area in which machine precision and standardization worked to the advantage of the pirates.
They spent a nervous eight and a half hours while their first ship was away, worrying that it might not return or might return altered or containing a cargo of Vals, but it arrived right on schedule, its tamper seals and passwords untouched. From examining the sensor data, Star Eagle felt sure that either they were being led into a trap or Master System was being very cavalier about the world and its ring. No other ships were evident in the system while Pirate One was there. An automated satellite relay station had challenged, then passed, Pirate One.
“I don’t like it,” Hawks told the council. “It’s too easy. Master System isn’t overflowing with Vals, but it has enough, or it can create enough, to monitor five worlds, and it could probably have a ship full of its troopers lurking around each, as well. I can’t believe it would keep the way open for us unless it had something more sinister in mind. It is logical—it also would know that this was the easiest and the probable first target.”
“I agree that it has something up its metaphorical sleeve,” Savaphoong put in, “but I wouldn’t be too surprised if it was traditional and probing. I think it may want to see if we can do it, and, certainly, it does not just want the few who would steal the ring, but all of us. It thinks in far longer terms than we. At this point it is not as concerned about us getting all the rings as it is about us spreading and multiplying so that it will be in constant danger now and for generations to come. As of now, our knowledge is more of a threat to it than our deeds. It will be after we get the ring, señors, that we will be in the gravest danger. The game is two-way, you see. We must acquire the rings. It, however, must acquire us and stamp out the knowledge of the rings and their power.”
Sabatini grinned. “But it does not know about the Vulture.”
Insertion proved relatively easy, far easier than they had a right to expect, bearing out both Hawks’s concerns and Savaphoong’s reasoning. They flew the fighter remotely, choosing a landing site so rugged and misshapen by rocky outcrops and towering peaks that it never even saw the sun. Powered down, the fighter would be practically invisible from the air. Even so, it was a tricky operation that has to be done with deliberate speed. Master System’s monitoring satellite had to be on the other side of the planet when they began, on an orbital swing that would keep it away from the landing zone for the longest possible time. The fighter could be powered down before the satellite made its sweep, but residual heat might still betray it when the satellite compared notes with its previous pass. Some cooling time was essential to keep it from showing up like a beacon to the monitor.
The new fake ship’s identification worked as well as the previous, with no indication that the system monitor suspected that it was actually seeing the same ship again. The fighter was launched as soon as they felt safely clear of the system monitor’s scan, and Captain Paschittawal, linked in, guided it carefully toward Janipur, cutting and boosting power as needed to avoid the orbital scans and finally inserting it in opposition to and behind Master System’s planetary monitor. It would now pass over the exact same region as the monitor, but only after the monitor and always on the other side of the planet from it.
Within two hours, while the alleged freighter was still taking on fuel, the spot was passed over, checked, and found to be good. Paschittawal allowed two more orbital passes, so that the area of the monitor survey would no longer include the target, then launched the fighter down to the prescribed spot. Vulture wasted no time in climbing out as soon as he could risk it.
“Very easy,” the captain said with satisfaction. “It is how we got down to the planet to do business in the old days.”
They dropped a relay satellite in the dense fueling belt that could pick up and relay coded subspace communications from Vulture. The only danger in the relay was that another ship, in for fuel, might gobble it up, but the odds of that happening were not great.
Vulture was now loose on Janipur and those back on the Thunder could only wait.
In the meantime, the members of that odd community continued to get to know one another and to grow. China had a daughter, whom she named Star Daughter, and Hawks and the others of the old guard were more than astonished to hear that Cloud Dancer was also with child. Silent Woman’s nursery was going to get crowded a bit faster than expected.
The Chows in particular seemed to be blossoming. Both had taken well to piloting, which had given them an enormous amount of self-confidence and a real job that might prove important, even vital, in times to come, and both were also now spending a lot of time in the company of the two half-Chinese crew members from the Bahakatan. Their extremely mottled skin had given them a low self-image, but the crewmen did not seem to mind. Hawks suspected that men born and raised in deep space, where they dealt with large numbers of bizarre colonials, would find the strangely marked but otherwise attractive women more exotic than grotesque.
Hawks himself was diverted for a while by Cloud Dancer’s news, but he could not let it sway him from long-range planning. He was to have a child and that was important, but for that child to have any chance at life and a future, his parents and their allies would have to prepare the way.
Fernando Savaphoong was an initial key to any planning goals. He had contacts, secret channels of communication and information, and he used them.
“There is very little out there,” he reported. “The heat continues to be on, I fear, and I do not know when or if it will be off. There were an estimated half-million freebooters out here, and those who have not been caught or killed are mostly either running or hiding. I have contacted some who are hiding, but they are of no real use; they expected to hear news and get information from me, so withdrawn are they.”
“Anything about the targets? Particularly the missing ring?” Hawks asked him.
“Little. Stories, nothing more. Even my Center contacts on the colonial worlds know little that we do not know.”
Ikira Sukotae looked thoughtful. “Now, let me get this straight. You know that one is on the Mother World, and we know the second is definitely on Janipur. You have the worlds for two more, and while they will be harder to find we have some support, at least in freebooter stories, about them existing there. Yet nothing, absolutely nothing, on the fifth ring.”
Hawks nodded. “That’s about the size of it.”
The tiny captain rose. “Let me talk to somebody for awhile. I never had this thought before, but it’s one way to go.” She went back and sought out Takya Mudabur, her amphibian crew member. Mudabur was nice enough and good in a pinch, but unlike the others, who had been together for many years, she was a bit of an outsider kept more to herself.
“Takya?”
“Yes, my captain?” She was in her bath enclosure but stuck her head out when she saw someone enter her hut. “Something wrong?”
“Takya, we have done well with you dealing with the water worlds. How many has it been—four? Five?
“Six, my captain. Why do you ask?”
“When you talk to those people, just in general conversation, did you ever hear of a story or legend about a great golden ring with a design on it? Birds, perhaps, on a black stone set in a great gold ring owned by someone of power or importance?”
Takya thought a moment, then shook her head. “No, never. I have heard the story of the five gold rings and I am sure that if I had heard of any such thing I would have remembered it then.”
“Of the more than four hundred and fifty known colonial worlds, how many would you say have water people?”
“Not many. Ten, perhaps fifteen percent. You should know as well as I.”
She hadn’t known, never having counted them, but the total amazed her. Somewhere between forty-five and sixty or so such worlds. “Takya, all the water people I have ever seen are still air breathers like us. All of the ones you visited were. Have you ever heard of a race of water breathers?”
“Yes, there are some,” she said, “although not many. There are also some who breathe atmospheres poisonous to us, as well. Why do you ask?”
“Just following a train of thought. Are there any freebooters, any spacefarers at all, among such races? Ones that either breathe water or something else we cannot?”
“I do not know for certain, but I have never heard of any. They would have to drastically modify any ships they flew, have special pressure suits and the like, and would have to modify the atmospheric transmuter systems to produce their required atmospheres. It was difficult enough for ones such as you and I to get out. Adding that may be asking the impossible.”
The captain nodded. “Very well. Thank you.” She headed back up to the council of captains on the Thunder’s bridge. They all looked at her expectantly.
“Well? Anything you’d care to let us in on?” Hawks asked.
“I—I’m not certain. Have any of you ever encountered a race that requires either water or some noxious atmosphere or excessive pressures to breathe and survive? Among the colonials, I mean.”
“There are several,” the insectlike Chun Wo Har responded. “They are not on the usual freebooter charts because they are of no practical value. Most cannot even have the level of technology the standard Centers use, and others exist under conditions that render them useless for any profit. Why?”
“I think I see where she’s headed,” Hawks told them. “Between us all we have represented here eight separate races. Combining your varying experiences, we have experience with perhaps a hundred and fifty or two hundred more through travels and business and contacts with other freebooters. Nowhere is there a trace of the lost ring, even as a legend or myth or totem of some kind. Yet we know that it is required by the core program of Master System to be in the possession of and under the control of a human being with power. If I were Master System and I wanted it as buried as possible, I might well place at least one under such conditions.”
Maria Santiago shrugged. “Why not all, then? It would make it next to impossible.”
“You are forgetting the transmuters,” Star Eagle broke in. “We can make what is required.”
“That may be true,” the San Cristobal captain responded, “but once you are remade you are that way for good, no? Because there are inevitable minor losses which become major, even catastrophic, in a second try. So you become these—people—and you get their rings, but what good does it do you? The sheer complexity of sustaining yourself in space or on another world is daunting, and the—how you say?—payoff, the insertion into Master System, is going to be under less than ideal conditions, if I guess right. You could steal them but not use them, and, I, for one, would not wish to be in the position of risking all to get the ring only to give it up and trust it to some, let us face it, alien kind of person who can offer only a promise of some ill-defined reward. If I were Master System it would be the logical thing to do.”
Hawks nodded, thinking furiously. “Unless—unless there aren’t five worlds where it could be safely done. I wish we had an analysis of any one of the rings rather than just a hologram of Chen’s. These things only look like rings, and they were designed by Earth-humans for Earth conditions using existing technology of the period. Below and in the setting are complex computer circuitry and instructions that, when combined with the other four at the correct interface, give access to the Master System core and override any existing instructions. What could they be made of? I think the gold is just that—gold. I have seen Chen’s and it looked like gold to me. The setting, which looks like stone, must be some sort of synthetic to contain and protect the electronics. Hence we can, for example, rule out any atmosphere where gold would be corroded or in any way deformed or broken down.”
Savaphoong nodded excitedly. “Si! Si! It is logical! If the rings contained anything active, they would be shorted out in water, for example, ruling that out.”
“They are most certainly passive,” Star Eagle commented. “It is asking too much to expect anything to hold a charge nine hundred-plus years, let alone indefinitely. They may be powered up when connected, but not individually and self-contained.”
“Water is looking better and better,” Hawks noted. “Gold is safe in water. It will tarnish, but it is easily restored even after centuries. The synthetic holding the electronics would certainly be watertight and airtight. And if they were water breathers, they would have virtually no contact with the freebooters. I would say we have a job and that is to check all the water breathers first. If we strike no gold, as it were, then we can begin to check the small number with deadly atmospheres.”
“I believe I can correlate the master files from the various ships and come up with most if not all the possible worlds for this,” Star Eagle told them. “However, it will not be easy to check on them all. Most will never have seen another kind of human before, and will consider us all, even Takya, as monsters.”
Hawks sighed. “These are the kind of problems we expected to have to solve, and we must solve them one way or another. It is the job of you all to work out methods and a system for doing so and then implement it when we approve. If Raven and Chen are correct in their interpretation of the core commands, then it only must be possible. I do not believe there is any requirement that it be easy or guaranteed.”
Vulture had been down on Janipur for seven weeks when the Thunder finally heard from him again. The new voice was male, very highly accented, and occasionally difficult to understand, but the message came through.
“I have rigged up a repeater device to the fighter, then the relay. I hope it works,” Vulture said. “I also do not know how long this is safe to use, so I will be brief. This is a far different world from any I have ever known, but there is a cultural undercurrent that shows a human origin. Much of the world is primitive, pretechnological, and ignorant, as expected. The population is dense in the desirable areas—very dense, and very poor, by most standards. They are administered by five Centers employing a total of perhaps thirty thousand inside and in the field. As the good Indrus captain told us, the Centers are quite modern with full technology complexes. There is a complex and rigid caste system here, as well, which complicates matters. One cannot graduate to Center level; one must be born to it, and there are physical ways to tell.”
“All right, but have you seen the ring?” Hawks asked.
“I have. It is not difficult if you are of the Brahman caste. As the captain said, it is usually on public display, during which times it would be impossible to get to. Too many people and too much split-second security. After dark it is protected by a labyrinthine set of computer and mechanical devices and switches that bewilder me, and I am many engineers and computer personnel, if you remember. To remove it even if you had all the codes and keys would require at least three people. This is long enough for now. The rest of the data is being sent serially on my subcarrier direct to Star Eagle. I will call back when I can, but not before this time tomorrow.”
“Wait! No chance you can get it without us?”
“None. I am third in rank in Security here and have much power, and I have even participated in unlocking the thing, but there is simply no way to do it alone and get away with it. One last thing. You were right about the trap. At least ten percent of security forces in this Center and possibly others are ringers. There may be more outside. Master System is just waiting for us to try for it. Good bye for now.”
“He has broken connections,” Star Eagle said. “I have the rest of his information under analysis now. It appears that the actual system is nearly identical to Earth’s, but the people there do not look anything like any of us, and the culture is a rather strange form of Hinduism. I believe with the help of the Indrus personnel we could create an effective linguistic mindprinter recording, but unlike Vulture, the rest of us would require a great deal of study to change. Culture aside, this will not be body or lifestyle to easily get comfortable with.”
“But what about the ring defenses itself?” Hawks asked. “What are we facing?”
“Everything conventional, apparently nothing new. These people have very poor night vision, making for a daylight culture, and their regular visual range is even more restricted than yours. That works in our favor since their light-beam traps are invisible to them but not to us. The outer doors are locked with a large key, but the door has its own sensors and visual remote monitors as well. There is a secondary vaultlike door inside the first, with an open area that is monitored visually and with sensors. The second door is computer-operated by coded remote from the master console in Security. No one individual has the whole code, which is changed periodically.”
“I see. Go on.”
“The inner display museum is covered by light sensors and is also visually and aurally monitored. The display cases appear to have weight sensors under tiles around them, so we will have to find out what sort of weight will set them off. The display case itself is thick but transparent, most certainly bulletproof, and perhaps cutter resistant to anything but a laser torch. Cutting or breaking through would not work, however, since fine alarm wires run through it like thin mesh. The only way to open the case is with two conventional keys, one worn by the chief administrator himself and the other by the chief of Security. Turning both simultaneously opens the case and sounds an alarm in Security. If it is legitimate, the alarm is simply ignored, but it cannot be turned off until the case is closed again and locked.”
“All right. Anything nasty waiting if you get that far and remove something?”
“No. It is a good alarm system, but not a spectacular one. You pick it up, close the case, and if you also miss the alarms on the way out and relock all the doors you have it.”
“I’d hate to see what you call a spectacular system, then. This sounds mean.”
“The alarms and locks are all conventional, which means traditional and essentially antique. The same sort is used at Earth Centers. The Vatican Center museum, for example, is far better defended.”
“Hmmm . . . I wonder if there’s any chance of Vulture being alone on duty in Center Security?”
“Not likely. If they follow the standard procedure there will probably be a duty officer and three or four others. You know the procedure, although if Master System has added personnel it is a good bet that one or more of those on duty down there will be its people. The area also has regular watchmen rounds, and the doors are checked. Bet on all the watchmen being Master System personnel. You won’t be able to bribe them or turn them, Hawks.”
“Dealing with the people is Vulture’s job, and I’m sure he can do a good enough cover to get help. It’s a sure bet that most of the regulars down there, and particularly the bureaucrats, are really going nuts under a near-occupation by Master System. Some of them might well cherish the idea of really helping embarrass the bastards—if they didn’t know the theft was for real. Any chance of doing it the easy way? Cutting in the C.A., for example?”
“Dubious. Any chance we might have had left when Master System placed its own personnel down there. The chief administrator is first and foremost a survivor with self-interest paramount. No, we will have to steal it, and that brings up the first and certainly not the last of the nasty problems we will face.”
Hawks sighed. “You have a plan and personnel in mind?”
“I have both, but let me work on it further. I will also need supplementary information for Vulture. Make no mistake, though. There is no getting around the fact that we will require at least some of our people as Janipurians if we are to get close enough to this to even have a crack at it. Others, with their own innate abilities, might not need anything drastic, but will require more than Vulture’s help to get where they are needed. It appears clear now that the late Arnold Nagy provided us with the ones best equipped for this particular job. I am merely building off his obvious intent with others he did not anticipate.”
“I know. Damn it, it shouldn’t be now, not for them. Later, perhaps—you are sure that full transmutation is the only way?”
“Hawks, think of it from the basis of what you know. Back at North American Center, what would be the chance of, say, the Kaotan crew sneaking in, looking over and examining Security areas in detail, inside and out, while they were open, then breaking in, stealing something, and getting out and away? Even if they had a senior Security official on their side? Now add ten percent Master System forces—and you can bet a Val is somewhere around to call the shots—and you see the problem.”
The leader of the pirate band sighed again and nodded. “You’re right. And in that case some excuse could be made for an open colonial visit—and they still wouldn’t be able to do it because they would be watched like, well, hawks around the chickens.”
“We are stuck. They were obviously provided to help solve this particular problem. We may try it without them, but we would be crippled if we did.”
“I agree. I’ll start easing into discussing it with them. In the meantime, do you have anything visual on what these Janipurians look like? I think I’d better know what I’m asking before I ask it.”
“Come up to the bridge. I haven’t any such data from Vulture, but I have some recordings from Indrus’s files.”
He went on up and found several members of the various crews there working at some of the consoles, and Raven, cigar stuck in the side of his mouth, trying to look as if he were busy too. But when Star Eagle put up a picture of a Janipurian, all turned and stared.
“What the hell is that?” Raven asked.
The creature was more animal than human, yet it had some very human gestures. The face, light tan in coloration, was large and humanoid, although the nose had flap-covered nostrils, was too large and wide, and its porous skin glistened with dampness like many animal noses; the mouth seemed too wide and the chin too small, giving the face a blocky shape. The pointed ears were upright and seemed to be on a swivellike socket, able to turn in any direction. Most inhuman were the eyes, which were large, round bulges.
The whole body was covered in very short but thick hair. The torso was tapered, thinner near the thick neck than at the rear and shaped more like that of a four-footed animal than a bipedal human. The arms, too, were more like forelegs, and the hands, on incredibly thick wrists, were enormous, the fingers and thumb long and pointed and looking deceptively boneless. And from the back of each hand grew an enormous, thick prominence that looked hard as steel. The creature was standing more or less erect on its two feet, although it gave the appearance of being slightly bent over, as if ready to launch into a four-footed run. Arms and legs looked to be of equal length, and the feet had huge, splayed toes with deep, curved nails that seemed to dig into the ground. Again, on the back of the ankles there was that same steellike growth. Some kind of brief protective bit of clothing was draped above the thick, animalistic thighs, but there was no hiding the fact that the creature was a male.
“If that thing can walk like that, I’ll eat it,” Raven mumbled.
A young woman, one of the crew from the Indrus, laughed. “They do not walk like that, you are right,” she said. “The hands and balancing feet curl up, leaving the hooves for moving and running. They are quite fast, in fact. They do get around upright when inside, though, if they have something to hold on to or the distance to go is very short. Do not let it fool you, though. The hands are quite dexterous, and the people are excellent artisans. Those claws can also rip someone open with one try, and they can wield weapons with deadly accuracy. They do not see very well at all at night, but always their sense of smell and their hearing is far better than ours.”
Hawks shivered. What am I asking someone to do? he couldn’t help thinking. Do I have the right to even ask!
“You said ‘weapons,’ ” Raven noted, not encumbered by such a duty. “Do they hunt or have prey?”
“Oh, no. They are vegetarians, strictly. Their mouths move more side to side, and their teeth are flat and big. Their design is based primarily on the fact that they came from a culture that was highly vegetarian to begin with—although not all—and this world developed warm as mostly grasslands, desert, and mountains. The grasslands can support a large population, but there are limits, so the system added some rather nasty predators once native to their old region—such as tigers—to maintain a balance in the early days. Today, however, most of the predators are strictly controlled and only occasionally escape from royal preserves. Much of the central grasslands is intensively farmed now, you see—those claws can also till soil. They have some domestic animals to aid them, but their tools are basically wood and stone. Useful metal is rare and prized there, and we traded a fair amount of it.”
Hawks tried to put his more personal concerns from his mind and concentrate on the problem at hand. If Cochin Center was anything like North American Center, and he thought it probably was, its floors would be of smooth, hard synthetics. Those hooves would make quite a lot of noise on them. The aural sensors would be a real problem. On the other hand, if those long, pointed fingers were really all that dexterous, then they would be an advantage when it came time to deal quietly with the locks.
“This is a male,” he noted. “What do the females look like?”
“Slightly smaller, with firm breasts that hang down when she is on all fours,” the woman told him. “The children are born as four-footed creatures with only flaps where the hands and feet will be. These do not begin to really grow out and develop until they are about seven, and are not really useful until they’re ten or eleven. The standing, walking upright, and the developed use of the hands is something they must be taught. This was thought to be a protective innovation when the world was more dangerous, as they are still essentially self-sufficient from the age of two and can walk on all fours in a matter of hours or days after birth. But it is the hands that make them truly human, that allow them to manipulate and create and build. The hands and the mastery of them are the mark of being human there. Also, you note the coloring?”
“You mean the light tan, almost white hair?”
She nodded. “That indicates that this man is a Brahman. High caste, probably either a major religious leader or from a Center, as this one was. The castes are known by their coloring. A darker tan, a light brown, would be below this one and probably a professional or a politician or regional leader. Dark, reddish brown would be working class—farmers and laborers, mainly. Black is, well, untouchable. Unclean. They roam wild and are something of a danger to the others.”
“Wonderful,” Raven grumbled. “So what happens if two castes marry?”
“The effect is interesting, as they take on multiple rather than mixed or blended coloration. The half castes or less have the rights and duties of the lowest caste their coloration shows. Such mixing is rare, but it happens often enough to be noticeable even in a small village such as the one we used for our dealings.”
Hawks was thoughtful. “And you say only the light tan get into the Centers? Nobody else?”
“That is what we were told, and it is logical in a society where you wear your class and your social potential on your body.”
“Then it’s another complication. Finding enough of these light tans to copy will be a problem.”
“No big deal, Chief,” Raven replied. “They got to come out. If Vulture says they follow the standard procedures, then they ail got to go on leave for a period—and that means some are always on leave, right? No, that ain’t the problem. The problem is that everybody on that level will have everything on record, birth to death, whatever they use for prints, you name it. The odds are if they don’t all know each other—them tans I mean—they know mutual friends and family. It’s gonna be pretty damned tough to fake.”
Hawks sat back in his chair and sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. If ten percent are Master System plants, who knows whom down there these days or can take things for granted?” He leaned forward again. “No, we can make some of those factors work for us. We might even get Master System and its friends to take the fall for the robbery, which will nicely aid our getaway. No, the two big ifs we have to face aren’t there. We can work all those out. The first is—is it possible to lift that ring? Can we do it under all their noses and get away with it?”
“Yeah,” Raven agreed, chomping on his cigar. “And who’s gonna hav’ta become one of them for life to spring the damned locks while Vulture covers?”
The ultimate price . . . And this was only the first time.
The Chows seemed more alive than he remembered them, and happier, too. He wished this situation could have arisen under more miserable circumstances. The girls were certainly curious, particularly when they were summoned to Hawks’s private office and found him there alone with one of the women from the Indrus.
“Sit down,” he invited. “Make yourself comfortable. So far you’ve played a background role in all this. You’ve been very helpful, but I know both of you felt that you just happened to attach yourself to this group by sheer chance. Would you be surprised if I told you that you had been included all along? That much of what happened to you was deliberate and designed to make sure you came with us?”
That startled them. “We—just happened to be on the same ship as China,” Chow Dai noted.
“Uh uh. A ship taking you to Melchior, so you could be handled and strictly controlled until it was time to move. You were not there by accident. They needed someone with very specific skills and they ran those skills through their computer and you came out, having been caught at China Center going through doors that expert technicians couldn’t crack. Tell me, do you know how you do it?”
They both shrugged. “How do you sing or dance? You do not think about it—it is clear in the mind. You know our uncle was a magician, an illusionist he called himself, who loved to escape from the impossible. He taught us many of his tricks because we were good at them. There are only so many ways locks work, and there is always a weak spot.”
“Huh! And does this explain how you can crack elaborate electronic combinations of numbers and even coded badge and fingerprint and eyeprint locks?”
“There are some secrets we must keep,” Chow Dai replied coyly, “because we swore an oath to our uncle, but there are always ways of getting the right numbers for finding how to fake what is needed.”
“Some of those locks at Melchior matched a minutely detailed hologram. You walked through them like they weren’t there.”
They both grinned. “There is always an alternate way to spring a lock. Anyone who needs a lock that complicated must first be very afraid that someone will get in. After they install it, and after a few times when it does not work and they cannot get in, they always have an equal or greater fear that this might happen all the time. The more complicated the lock the easier it is to figure out the emergency bypass, since it must work without triggering the other, more ordinary, way in.”
“Have you ever seen a lock or security system you couldn’t beat?”
They looked at each other and shrugged. “Yes and no,” Chow Dai responded. “We have never seen one we could not beat, but we have been caught because we did not have any easy way to look over the system and take the time to find out all about it. We were ignorant peasant girls. At the time, we did not even know what a visual monitor was.”
“But you do now.”
“Oh, yes. We have spent much time aboard here learning more and more. Star Eagle has been very kind and has read us details of the most incredible security systems, and shown us moving cartoon pictures of them. We know much more now.”
Hawks wondered who put Star Eagle up to that useful activity. The crazy thing was, the Chows were exactly what they said they were—simple peasants taken in as domestic servants by a spoiled China Center official’s wife. Neither of them could read or write or showed much inclination to learn; neither had any formal education at all. Their good speech in English was due to a mindprinter program and extensive practice aboard the Thunder. They were certainly geniuses, but their genius was limited to certain areas.
“You know what this is all about? You understand what we’re doing out here, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes. You are trying to find the five magic rings that will bring down the machine that plays god. It is a noble thing that might free our people one day.”
Here it is. “One of the rings is in a Center on a planet called Janipur. It is guarded by a complicated security system that is mechanical, electronic, and personally guarded, and is considered impregnable. This was known to the people who set up our little pirate band. They felt you could crack that system, steal the ring, and get away. That is why you are here, why you have been here all along. To steal that ring.”
“Then we will do it. We have not had a good challenge like that in a very long time.”
“There is—a problem. A hitch. The problem is that the people down there are not human like we are human. They are another kind of human—different from us but no more different than some of the others we have aboard this ship right now. We might, under very risky conditions, get humans to the Center, but they would be useless. They couldn’t walk around, get in any visual monitor, be seen by anyone there, since there are no Earth-humans anywhere on that world. Master System also has people who look like those other kind of humans down there just waiting for anyone not of that race to even be glimpsed. All our information, all our experts and computers, say that no one could get near enough to that ring to even pick the locks who was not of their race. You understand?”
“You wish us to teach them how to do it?”
He sighed. This was even harder than he thought. “No. We can’t allow any of them in on this. Not right now. They are decent people down there, mostly, but Master System is standing over them and telling them what to do and they can’t fight it, so they’re not going to do the job for us. We have to do it ourselves.”
“But you just said—”
He held up his hand. “You remember Song Ching who became China Nightingale? You know how they did it?”
They looked at each other, then at him. “They—used some kind of machine. One that changes you.”
“Yes. We have the same kind of machine, and Star Eagle knows how to run it. This ship was designed to do that, to change one kind of human into another. But we don’t have any mindprinter program, or a good means of getting one, that would teach anyone changed into the kind of people down there how to use that body. It would have to be learned after someone was changed into one of their kind. It would be very, very hard.”
“China,” Chow Mai whispered. “They cannot change her back.”
“No. People are the most complicated of all living things. We know a lot about how people work, how they’re put together and why they are the way they are, and we can change much of it, but it’s not just one part we’re talking about here—it’s the whole thing, body, brain, blood, you name it. More cells than anyone can count, all of which have to work perfectly together. Once always seems to work, but try it again and it just doesn’t come back together right. It can kill or cripple or form a horrible kind of monster that’s one of a kind—and maybe not make the brain work, either.”
The twins were silent for a moment, then Chow Dai spoke. “You want us to be changed into these—others. Learn how to be these others. Then go in and steal the ring. And, after—we are these others forever?”
“Yes. It’s the first time this has been asked of anyone, but it will not be the last. Many of us, maybe even me, will have to do the same thing. We have three more rings to get before we can head home.”
“May we—see what these people look like?”
He got out a holographic still Star Eagle had run off and handed it to them. It was of the same male he’d seen. They just stared at it, not revealing their emotions, although Chow Dai breathed “Oh” very softly.
“I know what I’m asking and don’t think it’s easy. I expect to have to give this speech again a few more times. We may all need to do it just to sneak past Master System to get to its home, but we might not. It’s not fair, but that’s the way it’s set up. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it could be done. We have Vulture—you remember the one who was Koll, then Sabatini, very well, I think—down there now, as one of them. He’s in their security system at the Center but he can’t do the job, only provide information and training and cover in and out. We will get you out.”
“As—them,” Chow Dai said quietly. “And then what?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I mean, suppose we can do it. All of it. We get your ring and then we come back here. What happens to us then?”
“You will still be human beings, damn it. You’ll still be the same inside, too. You’re both good pilots and we can use good pilots. We might also need you to train others to pick other, different locks. You will be no different from the woman with scales and her nose in the back of her head, or the Cantonese-speaking crew with their bones on the outside. Still people, still a part of the team.” He thought about the missing fourth ring and Captain Sukotae’s theory. “Someone, perhaps many, might have to become far more limited sorts than these. We believe one ring may be deep on a world of water breathers.”
The woman from the Indrus cleared her throat.
“I’m sorry,” Hawks apologized. “This is Sabira of the Indrus. She has dealt with these people and knows them well.”
“They are good people,” she told them, “and their bodies may look strange, but they are actually better than ours in many ways. They are tough and versatile. And, where it counts, they are quite human. They love their children, are generally good to one another, like luxuries and try to enjoy life as best they can. Most are peasants much like the sort of people yours are. If we are to win, this must be done.”
The girls were not properly enthused. “If we did not to this, then what would happen?” Chow Mai asked.
Hawks sighed. “I will not order someone to do this. I could, but it is not in my nature. Too many bad things were done to too many people aboard this ship now because someone or something ordered it done. If you refuse, then we will find volunteers. You will be expected to teach them all that you can about the problem, and then they will go and make the attempt. They will not have as good a chance as you would, but we will try and we will keep trying until we are down to no one here and we cannot win. We must. If we don’t get that ring then the rest doesn’t matter.”
They nodded. “This vault. You have information on it? Yes? Can we know what it is?”
Hawks gave them as detailed a description of the situation as he could. They listened attentively.
“That is not a difficult sequence but it is very tricky,” Chow Dai said. “No amateur, particularly in an unfamiliar body, could do it. It is worse because it is mostly mechanical. The mechanisms are not all that different from one big illusion in our uncle’s show. His wife would get into a coffin, and then they would fill it with water, seal it with many chains and locks, and my uncle would have to pick them all and open the coffin before she drowned. She was a Buddhist who had studied with some mystics in the high mountains and could remain under for several minutes, more than most people, but it was still a matter of speed and skill. As little girls, we knew just how it was done, and we would often practice with the coffin empty against an hourglass timer. Many long times it took us up to an hour—far too long. Now we could do it, perhaps faster than Uncle Li could. This is a very complicated version of the same problem. No one aboard here could be taught to do it fast and perfect the first time in just a few days or weeks or even months, and we cannot exactly duplicate it here because we have not seen it and its hidden surprises.”
“Nonetheless, we must try,” he told them.
Sabira spoke. “You would not be going in alone, as you might have had to do under other circumstances. We—the Indrus crew and some of the others—have talked it over. We know the land, the people, the customs. It was decided that one of us at least should go as well, take the same route as you are asked to take, to help teach you the subtler ways of those people. We also have a mindprinter program for the language, which is basically a very distorted version of Hindi, which is my first language. The omens of the gods brought us to you, as the minds behind the attack on the great computer demon brought you here. With all these things on our side, we cannot fail. Compared to what we might face with the others, this is ready-made for us.”
They gaped at her. “You would become one of them, as well? Forever?”
“It is my duty. I will not tell you that I am excited by the prospect, but I do not fear it, either.”
The twins looked at Hawks. “How long before this would happen?”
He shrugged. “The Vulture has a lot more to set up, and we have to coordinate things. We don’t think that getting you in will be a problem. We’ve been running Pirate One in and out at regular intervals for months now, so that it appears to be a new but regular run. It isn’t even challenged anymore. Vulture can arrange a much easier and more convenient arrival than we arranged for him. We’ve manage to get his old ship out and put in one with a transmuting station—the same one we used on the island world. We can send directly from Pirate One to that transmuter now, if Vulture is there and we time it right. In fact, first we have to find prospects for Star Eagle to copy and study, and get them to Pirate One, where we now have a transmuter and some storage. Covers must be arranged, and no one, least of all Master System and its personnel, must suspect. We are pretty sure that down there at Cochin Center someplace is a Val. You will have to go in and be accepted there before you pull the job. Then we have to get you all out and away under their noses. It’s going to be very tricky and very dangerous. Even Vulture can’t become a Val.”
“Very well, then,” Chow Dai said almost matter-of-factly. “Then we will do it.”
He was surprised. “Just like that? Don’t want to talk it over or think about it?”
“There is no need to do so. We would both be dead at the hands of the security guards at China Center had this not been arranged as you say. You have given the reason we have never understood, which was why we were taken from there and sent to where only important people are sent. The ones who chose us did not make us break into the Center apartments and offices or steal. We did that ourselves, and we were caught for our ignorance. Our lives and our bodies were forfeit because we were caught. They belong to the ones who saved us. You cannot know what it is like to be so helpless as we were, to be beaten and raped not by one but by many brutish men, again and again. Neither of us has really been able to get close to a man since then, nor really trust another. When this—Vulture—creature saved us from Sabatini, we owed still more. We will do it.”
“Nobody owns anyone’s bodies or lives here. That’s what this is all about.” He looked at Chow Mai. “And you? You agree?”
“We do not need to speak. We know each other’s minds,” the other said.
Hawks sighed. “All right then. We’ll set it up.”