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.
I am 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.