A Larger Universe (44 page)

She drew herself upright.  "We're taught to be
warriors, too.  I could do that."

"I bought several of these on Toblepas.  Turn the end
one click.  Just one click!  Point this end at the warrior and push the button
on the side.  Only his collar will explode.  Can you do that?"

Her hands were shaking as she reached out to take the
cylinder.  "Yes, I can." 

#   #   #

For the first time in months, Tommy felt like a midget in
the midst of hostile giants, but he also sensed more than hostility from the
council members around the command chair.  They expressed their hostility by
flexing their claws whenever they looked at him, but they also stood slightly
bent, with their tails partially curled around their feet, as if they might
drop to four legs and run.  Leegh had looked much the same before she quit
talking to anyone.

Leegh's equations again made the exit time precise.  Tommy
moved to the gravity sensor console and began counting seconds as soon as the
ship exited transit. 

At the count of ten, the wormhole signatures of two Kadiil
ships appeared, one at eight thousand kilometers and one at five thousand
kilometers. 

I hope Ull has this set up.
  "Ull, two of the
Kadiil ships followed us, and they are close by," he called.

As Ull gave the command to transit, the others in the
council slumped further, and, without looking at Tommy or saying a word to
anyone, left the bridge.

Tommy had been prepared to run.  What did this mean?

"We are all dead," Ull said from behind him. 
"I did as you suggested, but they will follow us wherever we go."

Tommy turned toward her.  "At least we are safe in
transit."

"A meaningless safety.  We can travel back and forth
across the galaxy until our supplies are exhausted, then we will die.  Better
that the Kadiil kill us than slowly starve to death."

"How long is this transit?" Tommy asked. 
"How much time do we have to think of something else?"

Ull gave a harsh trill.  "We will not be thinking of
something else.  After much debate, we decided for a transit of thirty
minutes.  If you had been correct that the Kadiil could not follow us so far,
it would not be needed.  If they did find us, it would give us time for one last
swim."

She got up from the chair.  "I am going there
now."  She stopped and her long head twisted toward him over her narrow
shoulders.  "We decided not to kill you ourselves.  You will die soon
enough."

Most of the bridge crew followed her to the elevators,
leaving only Cauth, Ulsu, San and Suna, the young Nesu who operated his
replacement consoles.

"Master Tommy," San said.  "Our mothers have
forgotten the ship was dying before you came.  We all know how close we were to
our final voyage.  You repaired our home and gave us hope.  Can you do anything
now?"

"Please, Master Tommy," Suna said.

Tommy glanced at the new exit clock above the command
chair. 
Nineteen minutes until exit.  They could transit again, but just
anywhere won't help.  Ull is right about that.  Where can we go the Kadiil
can't follow?  Well, where they might not be able to follow.  Where would be
safe for The People's Hand and not a Kadiil ship?

"Of course!" Tommy said.

"Master Tommy?" said San.

"This is not
The People's Hand
.  This is
The
People's Fist
.  That might make a difference.  There is a place where we
could go."

The place that occurred to him wasn't much better than being
in transit, but it did offer more possibilities.  They could do nothing while
they were wrapped in this black bubble.

Tommy practically dived down the stairs to the sub-deck. 
What he wanted had to be stored here in the computer logs.  The Nesu left on
the bridge wouldn't know.  Yes!  He hurried up the stairs with the coordinates
written on a piece of paper. 

"Who can operate the transit console?" he asked. 
He gave the paper to Cauth when she raised her hand.  "Set this up for
immediate transit when we exit."  He thought a moment and took the paper
back to write another set of coordinates below the first.  "And be
prepared to transit to this point if I tell you to.  Everyone else to your
stations."

When the dome cleared, Cauth started the countdown.  As
before, the wormhole signature appeared and was left behind by their entry into
transit.

"Now we wait," Tommy said.  He looked at the
clock, which had reset to one hour forty-three minutes.

"Five minutes before we exit, I want everyone down the
stairs to the sub-deck," he said.

From the intercom on the command desk came Ull's voice,
"Who is there?"

Tommy went to the desk and answered, "Tommy."

"We should have exited transit five minutes ago.  What
happened?" Ull said.

"The Kadiil followed us.  We entered transit
again."

"On whose orders?" Ull asked.

"Mine."

"You have much to answer for, after all, feral
human," she said, her voice grinding the words.  "How long is this
transit?"

Tommy glanced at the clock.  "One hour thirty-six
minutes."

"I do not understand why you bothered," Ull said,
"but that will give me more time for my final swim." Her voice became
cold.  "Our fate has been made evident, and the council has decided to
accept that fate.  If you transit again, I will send warriors to clear the
bridge."

She cut off the intercom from her end and didn't hear
Tommy's answer:  "That may be your fate.  It is not mine."  He added,
"So much for my promotion from feral human to lord."

Five minutes before the exit he herded the four Nesu down
the stairs and pulled the trapdoor closed behind them.  He brought up a transit
clock on the computer monitor.  When the clock reached ten seconds to exit, he
said, "Close your eyes and turn your head from the trapdoor."

When the clock ticked to zero, blinding light flashed around
the edges of the trapdoor.  The temperature in the room climbed, and Tommy
instantly was soaked with sweat.  They had returned to the nova where an entire
bridge crew had died.

After the dome cover closed, Tommy sent them back upstairs
to their stations.

"Ulsa, turn the ship ninety degrees clockwise
equatorial and ninety degrees down," Tommy commanded.  The attitude change
moved the dome and the hole in
The People’s Fist
containing
The
People's Hand
out of the direct radiation, and the bridge cooled.

"Master Tommy, half the radar installations on the
asteroid's surface have burned away," San said.

"As have all the gravity sensors," Suna said.

What did that leave them?  "Suna, switch to the gravity
sensors on
The People's Hand
's hull.  They are shielded by the mass of
the asteroid, and should work.  Cauth, be ready to return the ship to
transit."

On the gravity sensor monitor, first one then another
wormhole signature appeared.  Cauth could see the monitor from where she sat. 
Her gaze darted back and forth between the monitor, Tommy, and the switch that
would launch them into transit.  Tommy tried to ignore her and watch the
wormholes.  He had to wait for a Kadiil ship to emerge.

The first ship appeared on the monitor, followed by another
signature indicating the initiation sequence for the generation of a black
hole.  From that instant, they had five seconds.

Lord Ull had dismissed Lito and Fen from their positions
outside her door in the middle of their shift.  That had never happened
before.  Even more unsettling were her words: to go be with your children in
these final minutes.  What could that mean?

Lito had shrugged and taken her at her word.  He always did
exactly as he was told.  He often said that had gotten him to the position of
Lord Ull's guard, and that’s what it would take to keep him there. 
Understanding the whys behind her orders didn't matter.

Fen didn't agree.  He followed orders, but he always wanted
to know why, even if he seldom found out until afterward. 

On the warrior deck, outside the elevator doors, he ran into
something else without precedent.  A small mob of women listened intently to
Sisle, Lord Tommy's woman.  Seeing her made him wonder if Lord Tommy could give
him an explanation of what was happening.

"Sisle," he shouted, pushing his way through the
other women.  "Where is Lord Tommy?"

She turned to regard him with cold eyes.  "Why do you
want to know?"  He had never heard that defiant tone from a woman!

"It's enough that I ask," he said.

"I don't think so.  Not this time," she said,
holding up her right hand.

She had one of the lords' cylinders!  She could kill them
all!

He felt sweat suddenly pop out on his face.  "What are
you doing?  You’ll kill your own family if you use that!"

"No," she said, shaking her head.  "Tommy
gave me this.  See the button on the side?  I’ll just kill you."

Another of Lord Tommy's miracles!

"I ask you again," she said.  "Why’re you
searching for Tommy?  Answer me or I'll use this."

Her gaze never wavered from the band around his throat, and
she had the expression he had seen on men in the fighting circle, when only
winning mattered.  He had no doubt.  She would use the cylinder.

He held his hands, palms forward, by his sides.  "Lord
Ull is acting strangely.  She went to her quarters and told us to go be with
our children during our final minutes!  As if we are all about to die!  Lord
Tommy always talks to me as if I'm a person.  If he knows, he'll tell me what's
happening."

"He knows," she said.  "He's on the bridge
trying to save us from the Kadiil.  If Lord Ull isn't with him, then the lords
believe we're doomed, and Tommy is trying alone."

Her face showed no fear as she said the fourth unprecedented
thing of the day.  "We’re going to the bridge to help him, if we
can." 
Women are never allowed on the bridge!

What choice did he have?  "I'll go with you.  He may
need my help, too.  I won't wait to die down here while women do warriors'
work."

The black hole initiation signature disappeared from the
screen as Tommy's count reached four.  Meanwhile, a second Kadiil ship appeared
and began generating a black hole.  Its signature  disappeared before five
seconds elapsed. 

"Suna, track the movements of those ships,” said
Tommy.  What are they doing?"

"They are drifting with the nova wind," Suna said
after a few minutes.

I was right!  The Kadiil ships are just as vulnerable as
an unshielded
The People's Hand
.  Even more vulnerable because
they are a lot smaller.
  He looked at the readings on the gravity monitor. 
Each Kadiil ship has more mass than the drive this ship carries, but only a
little more.  Not big enough for much shielding!

"Lord Tommy, another Kadiil ship is arriving!"
Suna said.

"Cauth, be ready to transit," Tommy said.

On the monitor they watched as the Kadiil ship arrived,
began generating a black hole and again went dead.

Two minutes later, another Kadiil ship appeared, and two
minutes after that, another.  The time interval slowly grew to approximately
five minutes as the ships continued to emerge, begin their attack, and die.

"What is happening, Master Tommy?" San asked. 
"Doing this to destroy one ship is insane!"

"If I knew, I would tell you," Tommy said.

He turned at the sound of many voices coming from the
elevators.  Had Ull sent warriors to clear the bridge?

"Tommy!" yelled Sisle.  "You're alive!"

Her hug, when she reached him, lifted him off his feet.  A
mob of women crowded behind her, and towering over them stood Fen. 

Before Sisle could say more, Fen dropped to one knee in
front of Tommy.  "Lord Ull says we are about to die.  Is that true, Lord
Tommy?"

Tommy gently tried to pull out of Sisle's arms, but she
refused to release him completely and kept one arm around his waist.  "We
still might, but not right away."  He waved at the four young Nesu behind
him, and said loudly in the lord's language.  "The Kadiil are attacking
us.  Some of The People have given up, but these have not.  We may yet defeat
them."

Fen looked down at Tommy's feet, then up at his face. 
"How can I help you?"

Tommy returned to English.  "I'm not sure you know what
you’re asking, Fen.  Helping me means defying the council and could get you
killed."

"Accord to Lord Ull, we're already dead.  I’d rather
support someone who will fight to stay alive."

"Are you willing to fight other warriors and the Nesu
to do that?"

"I am, Lord Tommy."

"Some of what I might ask you to do, you may not
like."

"I understand," Fen said.

Tommy turned to Sisle.  "Do you believe him?"

Sisle's answer was slow in coming.  "Fen is a good
man," she suddenly smiled up at Fen, "as warriors go.  I’ve never
known him to lie.  If he says he'll support you, he will."

"That's enough for me." 

Tommy turned to the Nesu behind him.  "Do you trust me
to do what is right?" he said in the lords' language.

A chorus of "Yes, Master Tommy," answered him.

He reached into his satchel.  "Turn around, Fen."

When Fen's collar dropped to the floor, only Tommy and the
women, who knew what was coming, remained silent.  Fen cried out, and the Nesu
gave a grinding whistle. 

"The first thing you can do for me, Fen, is to stand up
and start calling me Tommy or, if you insist, Master Tommy.  The next thing is
to tell me whether any of the other warriors might follow you in this."

Before Fen could answer, Ull's voice called from the
intercom.  "Feral human, are you still there?"