Earthblood (21 page)

"She's pulling a half-G," Askor said. "There's power on somewheres . . ."

"I don't like this," Noag muttered behind Roan. "If they jump us now, we're stuck like mud-pigs in a deadfall . . ."

"Shut up," Roan said. His heart was pounding high up under his ribs, and what Noag was saying made it worse. He strode on, careless of sound now, emerged from the constricting passage into a wide chamber walled with honeycombed storage racks. The crewmen gathered, staring around. One went to the nearest niche, drew out a heavy bundle wrapped in stiff, waxy cloth. He plucked at the bindings, tore the covering away, blinked at a grotesquely shaped metal casting, peppered over with tiny fittings. The others craned, took the object as the finder passed it around.

"What th' Nine Hells is that . . .?"

"Hey, how about the next rack—"

"Can't you slobs even wait until after the fight to start looting?" Roan snapped. "Put that back where you got it—and cut out the chatter." The men fell silent, listening for the enemy they had, incredibly, forgotten for the moment.

"Come on." Roan led the way out of the storeroom along another narrow way that stretched into darkness.

"These passages," a crewman whispered hoarsely. "There's miles of 'em. What if we get lost in here . . . ?"

"That's easy," another offered. "We just pound on the walls until the Niss come to see what's the matter."

"Where they hiding, anyways?" Noag shifted his power gun from his right fist to his left. "We been prowling this tub for an hour . . ." The corridor ended at a blank wall ahead. Roan raised a hand.

"Hold it up," he said. He indicated the passage along which they had just come. "I've been counting paces. We've come about half a mile along here. That puts us on the opposite side of the ship from the hatch we came in by. All we've seen is cargo, supply, and utilities space. We're going back to the big corridor we crossed and move forward. I'm guessing we'll find the personnel areas in that direction. We're going to string out now, and keep our eyes open. The first man that talks without something important to say will get a mouthful of pistol butt. Let's go."

Roan led the way back a hundred yards, turned left into a wider passage, like the others, gray, featureless, faintly lit by a feeble glare strip set in the ceiling, stretching on and on into remote distance.

"I'm freezin'," a crewman whined. "I ain't gonna be able to fire my gun, my fingers is so stiff."

"Holster your guns and get your hands warm," Roan said quietly. He went to a narrow door set in the wall, pushed at its edges. It yielded at the center, swung inward in two panels. He looked into a square room with papers scattered across the floor, a slanted table attached to one wall. There was a saddlelike seat mounted on a four-foot stand before the table. Roan picked up one of the paper scraps; it crumbled in his fingers. There were strange characters printed on the fragment he held.

He stepped back out of the room, continued along the wide passage. In an immense, dim-lit hall, Roan looked at ranked hundreds of saddlelike perches arranged in endless rows on either side of foot-wide counters that ran the length of the vast room. A hint of a vile odor hung in the still air. Dust stirred underfoot as the nervous-eyed men stared around, fingering guns.

"This is an eating room, I think," Roan said. "We're getting closer."

"Closer to what?" a voice grumbled.

"We'll take the next ramp up. The crew quarters will be somewhere near the mess—"

"Hey—what's that . . . ?" A short-necked, round-backed crewman pointed a blunt finger. Roan walked over to look. What looked like handfuls of fish bones were scattered in a mound seven feet long, inches wide, half-buried in dust. The crewman dug a toe in, uncovered a dull metal object like a strap buckle. He kicked again, and a curious double-bladed knife with a knobby grip at the center skidded across the floor. The finder exclaimed, jumped after it, picked it up.

"Neat!" he stated. He gripped the weapon, one stubby blade protruding on either side of his rocklike fist. "Ya get 'em goin' and comin'—"

"Cripes," another grunted, eyeing the heaped dust and the fish bones,

"that's one of 'em; what's left of a Niss . . ."

Roan looked around the broad room, saw other mounds here and there.

"Let's get moving," he said. "I want to see what's up above." They were in a long, narrow, high-ceilinged room lined with saddles before racks and dusty screens interspersed with panels of tiny glasslike buttons. One screen glowed faintly, showing a greenish image of stars against space, and a tiny oblong that drifted, turning on its short axis. Above the screen, scattered beads of light glowed. On the floor below the panel lay two of the long dust heaps that had been Niss. The crewmen were busy picking ornate metal objects from among the fish bones.

"This guy must of been a big shot," Noag rasped. "Look at this knickknack!" He held up a star burst done in untarnished yellow metal with a giant jewel at its center.

"Chief, this must be the command deck, right?" Askor muttered. He was a hulking hybrid of mixed Minid and Zorgian blood, with the stiff, tufted hair of the latter scattered incongruously across the typical broad Minid skull.

"I think so," Roan said. "And that's Warlock on the screen there."

"I don't get it . . ." Askor looked around the long room. "Where are they?

What are they waiting for?"

Roan stood, staring at the screen. As he watched, the blip that had been Henry Dread's ship expanded suddenly into a vivid sphere that swelled, spreading out in ragged streamers . . .

"She blew," Askor stated. "It's kind of a funny feeling. I lived aboard her for thirty years . . ."

"In reply to your question," Roan said in a harsh voice, tearing his eyes from the screen, "they're all around us. We've seen forty or fifty of them in the past three hours."

"Yeah, but them was just bones. I'm talkin' about—"

"You're talking about the Niss—the crew of this vessel," Roan cut in. He pointed to the scattered remains on the floor. "There they are. Meet the captain and the mate."

Askor furrowed his heavy brow. "Somebody fired that broadside that knocked out Warlock," he growled.

Roan jerked a thumb at the glowing lights. "The automatics took care of that," he said. "They were set to blast anything that came in range. I'd guess the power piles are nearly drained. That's why her bombardment didn't annihilate us completely."

"You mean—they're all dead?" Askor looked down at the dust and fine bones. His face spread into a broad grin. He chuckled, then put his wide hands to his chest and laughed, a booming guffaw.

"That's rich, hey, Chief? Us pussyfooting around like that—"

"Chee," a bystander commented. "Think a' that! How long's this tub been floating around like this?"

Roan kicked the bones aside, hoisted himself into the saddle before the command panel, began punching keys at random.

"I don't know," he said. "But I think it's a fair guess she's been cruising for the best part of five thousand years, with a full complement of corpses aboard."

In a cramped, metal-walled chamber lost far aft of the immense engines, Askor looked sideways at Roan.

"Looks like the Niss had a few captives aboard, eh, Cap'n?" Roan looked down at the scattered bones of men, and the smaller bones of women, and in the far corner, two small skeletons of children—human bones; Terry bones, moldering among chains.

"Gather up the identity disks," he said emotionlessly. There was a clump of feet in the corridor. The horned head of Gungle appeared in the doorway, his eyes wide with excitement.

"Cap'n, we found something! A slick thousand tonner, a Navy job, banged up a little but spaceworthy! She's slung in the boat deck . . . !" Roan followed the man along dark ways littered with discards from the looting parties ransacking the ancient vessel, now and again passed the scattered remains of a long-dead crewman.

"Wonder what killed 'em all, Cap'n?" Askor kicked a mound, sent foul dust flying.

"Disease, starvation, suicide. What does it matter? Dead's dead." Askor cast a quick glance at his grim-faced captain, said nothing. On the boat deck, Roan studied the businesslike lines of the sleek vessel poised in a makeshift cradle between malformed Niss scout boats, the numerals printed across her bows, the ITN crest.

"Looks like she took a hit aft." Noag pointed out areas of fused metal beside flaring discharge nozzles. "But they made repairs. Musta been getting her ready for some kind of sneak job . . ."

Roan mounted the access ladder, shouldered through the narrow port. There was an odor of mildew and dust. He flicked on lights, went forward, climbed a companionway to the surprisingly spacious command deck, stood looking around at the familiar Terran screens, instruments, fittings. He threw open a wall locker, choked at the dust that flew, hauled out a ship suit. He thumbed the tarnished TER. IMP. affixed above the pocket, read the name stenciled below.

ENDOR.

"Hey," Askor said from behind him. "That's the same as it says on one o'

them ID's we took off them bones . . ." He sorted through the bright metal disks, handed one over.

"I didn't know you could read Terran." Roan eyed the half-breed.

"I can't exactly read, Cap'n—but I'm good at rememberin'. They look like the same marks to me."

"So the captain died in chains." Roan tossed the disk back. "I think his suit will fit me."

"How about it, Cap'n?" Noag called from the entry. "How's she look?"

"Check her out," Roan said. "If everything works, load her up and figure out how to get those hull doors open."

Askor rubbed calloused palms together with a sound like a rasp on rough wood.

"She's a sweet tub, Cap'n. Not as big as Warlock, but we never needed all that tonnage anyways. I'll bet she's fast. We can hit and get out before the dirt-huggers know what hit 'em—"

"We're through raiding for a while," Roan said. "There's more loot aboard this hulk than we can haul—enough to make every man aboard rich."

"Not gonna raid . . . ?" Askor scratched at his bristled scalp. "Where we goin' then, Cap'n?"

"Set your course for a world called Tambool. It'll be listed in the manual." Roan indicated the glowing face of the index set in the navigator's panel.

"Tambool? What's there?"

"My past—maybe," Roan said, and turned away to pore over the ancient star maps on the chart table.

Askor sat beside Roan, staring into the wide, curved panoramic screen that filled the wardroom wall. He sipped his Terran coffee—a drink that it had taken many months to develop a habit for—then cleared his throat self-consciously.

"It's been a long cruise, Cap'n," he said.

Roan didn't answer.

"A few more hours," Askor went on. "We'll be touching down at Tambool. Not much of a place, but there'll be a few kicks—"

"I'll distribute a few kicks myself if you don't shut up," Roan said. Across the table, a crewman named Poion laid down his ever present stylus, closed his pad; he flickered his translucent eyelids down over his bulging eyes, fingering a wineglass delicately.

"Gee, Chief," Askor tried again. "It's been nine months now since the fight with the Niss ship and all. You been snappish as a gracyl in molting season ever since you took over as captain. You didn't used to be this way, back when you was Cap'n Dread's Number Two—"

"I'm not anybody's Number Two now," Roan said. "I'm Number One, and don't ever forget it." He drained his glass, refilled it.

"What do you seek on the minor world Tambool, Captain?" Poion asked in his soft, breathy voice. "Henry Dread's mission was not there . . ." Roan looked at the Beloian curiously. Poion seldom started conversations, and never personal ones.

"I thought you could read minds."

"I read emotions. I compose with emotions. It is the art of my people. I am now scoring a composition for ten minds and a dozen experimental animals—"

"Let's hear you read my emotions," Roan cut him off abruptly. Poion shook his head as though to dislodge a troublesome thought. "I cannot. That's why I asked you the question. I haven't the talent for Terran emotions. They're not like the others. They're in a different . . . mode. More powerful, more brutal, more . . . primitive."

Roan snorted. "So you can't tell anything from my mind?"

"Oh, a little," Poion said. "You are engaged in a noston, a return home. But your nostalgia is not the nostalgia of any other creature in the universe." He sipped his wine, watching Roan. "Because you have no home." On the screen Tambool rose on the left and the ship turned on its gyros and an arrow swung. Roan gripped his glass, watching the world swell on the screen.

"Perhaps," he said, at last.

The vibrations of landing stopped and Roan rose and walked back through the crew compartments. He found Askor by the exit port, rattling a gun nervously against his belt.

"I told you this wasn't like other ports," Roan said sharply. "You'll keep the men under control. They're to pay for what they take. And no shooting." Askor muttered but Roan ignored him. The port cycled open; Askor ducked his head and peered out at the puddle field, the drab row of sheds, the dismal town straggling up the hillside.

"Cripes, Chief, what's this crummy dump got that's so hot?"

"Not much; but such as it is, I don't want anybody bleeding all over it." The other men had crowded around now, decked out in their shore-going clothes, guns and knives in belts, anticipatory grins in place.

"My business won't take but a few hours," Roan said. "While we're here, forget looting. There's not much you'd want anyway."

The men muttered and shuffled their feet, but no one said anything loud enough to take exception to.

"No reception party," Sidis commented as the men followed Roan down the ramp. "At least not in sight . . ." He licked his lips and watched the windows of the sheds and peered at every shelter that might house an ambush.

"Anybody that wants to land here can land," Roan said. "Nobody cares, and you shift for yourself. It's not rich enough to loot and it's useless as a base. It's a place for outcasts to come and lose themselves." Poion glanced sideways at Roan. Roan saw the glance. He was talking too much—more than the men expected of their taciturn captain. It was a sign of nervousness, and it made the men nervous too.