Fall of the White Ship Avatar (40 page)

The ambushers no doubt thought they had the main landing stage covered, in that no cab or hire-flier was there to help the group escape. But the erstwhile Coptic Elder's skycraft caravan was suddenly in place, doors open, guarded by burly men who'd discarded their robes. Langstretch backup people, taken by surprise, had no time to get blocking vehicles into position and suffered much attrition in some very spirited knuckle jousts.

Alacrity, Floyt, and Circe reached the truck-size saloon flier in one sustained rush from the doors, Circe file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20krui...%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (203 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:14

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still mother-henning the dazed Standing Bear. One overexcited Langstretch backup-crew leader dove headlong, bulling his way through the Uncensored ranks, hand going under his jacket. Floyt was tugging at the Webley and Alacrity fighting to get the Captain's Sidearm free, both of them hampered by the press.

Standing Bear's mouth was open again, his eyes apparently unfocused. Yet he reached out and closed his left fist unerringly around the op's handgun and hand as it swung in Circe Minx's direction. Standing Bear had the weapon away from the op in a move that left the man nursing a separated wrist and several fractured fingers. Gentry offered the pistol to Circe with doglike devotion; the Langstretch muscle began to break contact.

Back at the doors, the Uncensored strongarm teams were making sure the opposition kept at bay. Floyt saw one of the men who'd grabbed Salome the day before, the square-jawed killer type, his right arm hanging limp and looking broken.

"Don't worry," Salome had said when Alacrity warned her, during his call, that there would likely be trouble. "Those hotel goons've messed up quite a few of our people over the years, and gals and guys on our scuffling crews'd like nothing better than a chance to get even. Besides, the press has to break a few heads every so often, so folks know we're not punching bags."

Someone was pushing Floyt into the saloon flier behind Circe and the others. The luxurious flier was big enough for Circe to sit upright. In no time Salome was practically in their laps, pickups were in place, and the interview was in progress again.

"Now, Citizen Floyt," Salome cooed, "can you give our audience a quick rundown on the sexual practices you three are looking forward to?"

CHAPTER 18—IF YOU CANT JOIN 'EM

Circe made loud and colorful protests, but Alacrity wouldn't yield the point. He and Floyt would make their connection to the White Ship in the
Tramp-Royal's
gig, Circe herself standing away and making for her vast estate on Eden.

"We don't want you getting any more involved in this, Circe!" Alacrity shouted, the blood vessels standing out in his neck and his face growing dark, because that was what it took to get something across to her.

"I expect things to go my way at this meeting, but if they don't, there'll be a lot of badges up here real soon! And if the board decides it wants a little revenge, you'll think you've been run over by a posthole file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20krui...%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (204 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:14

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drilling machine! And unlawful trespass is something they could make stick, at the very least; Interested Parties are only allowed one companion apiece at meetings, and Ho's mine."

"Hellfar," Circe Minx pronounced. "Ah got a Chinese Obligation to y'all now." She sighed. "And this's been more fun than ah've had since ah don't know when. But if that's the way y'all want it, darlin' … "

They were in the cockpit of the yacht
Tramp-Royal,
a swift, handy, and responsive starship with disproportionate headroom by most standards—sufficient for Circe throughout. She was in the outsize pilot's chair, Alacrity in the more conventional copilot's. Gentry Standing Bear was belted, uncomplaining and inert, into the weather bridge's Circe-size pilot's poz, aft. Floyt stood between Alacrity and Circe, taking in the view.

The White Ship, a scant ten kilometers away, wasn't the biggest starship he'd ever seen, but she was in the running. She resembled a sleek, spacegoing iceberg, surprisingly aerodynamic.

Floyt stared at her and wondered what lay ahead. Board meetings were critical to the operation of the White Ship Company because they were just about the only time the far-flung Interested Parties all came together. They were times of power-brokering and machinating; because of travel lags and communications delays, jockeying for leverage and influence was time consuming and frustrating—

almost impossible—when conducted across interstellar distances.

As Heart had explained it to Alacrity, the meeting, huddling, and maneuvering went on in marathon fashion; the strategic and tactical situations could change from moment to moment.

Floyt let out a deep breath.
And we're going in short on sleep, biffed and bruised by that brute Standing
Bear, and wanted by the authorities.
The only comforting aspect was that he and Alacrity had been in worse shape and worse jams.

"Uh-oh; warn-off signal from the Ship," Circe said as a holodisplay flashed. "Take us back and hold at minimum distance, hon," she told the
Tramp-Royal.
The starship came onto a new course. It was best not to provoke the White Ship; AI's in charge of her security were provided with a lot of discretion, but they were also suspicious and not hesitant to defend. There'd been a number of attempts to board and hijack her over the years, some quite bloody, none successful.

"The gig's ready for you," Circe told them. "Hang onto her as long as you need to. I'll be on Eden for a while, I expect."

"What about that Standing Bear creature?" Floyt asked.

Circe gave a high-voltage smile. "Well now, you know, I think I'll jes' hang onto him for awhile.
Lordy,
he's ugly, but he's got me mighty impressed."

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"Yeah, we saw that when you patted him down for weapons," Alacrity observed.

Circe hooted. "I think he's got possibilities, now that the meanness is gone."

Alacrity was climbing out of the copilot's poz. "Sorry we had to tell all those fibs to that gossip ghoul, Circe."

"Don't bother your head about it. A little scandal now and then's good for a gal's career, and anyway, ah'm
expected
to be licentious. Now, y'all better get movin'." They kissed her and moved out. Circe honked, blowing her nose, and turned back to her controls.

The
Tramp-Royal's
gig was like a little bit of the Taj Mahal in a spaceboat, done in a confectionary Erotodynamic-Baroque motif—with meters of headroom, of course.

Alacrity launched and the
Tramp
peeled off, headed for Eden. The gig received a warn-off, but this time Alacrity responded with his shareholder's code, was voice-I.D.'d, and got a wave-on.

The gig was assigned a boarding lock far forward in the White Ship. A dozen other ships and boats were already there, several of them company VIP shuttles. As Alacrity and Floyt cycled through the lock, they were subjected to detector scans.

The Ship spoke in a serene, precise female voice; the voice and warning displays pointed out that the two men were carrying firearms, contrary to the Ship's rules. An armored storage bin slid open to collect them.

Alacrity tried to keep back the Webley and just surrender the energy pistol; the White Ship wasn't fooled. Guns and holster harnesses went into the bin and were withdrawn from view.

The Ship informed them that her board meeting was due to convene shortly in the Vale. They could drop off their luggage at their quarters and freshen up, but there wasn't a great deal of time.

"Yeah, listen, I want to make one stop first, at a company transactions terminal," Alacrity told the Ship.

"You've got 'em up here, right?"

The Ship's voice made Floyt think of some virgin high priestess. "Of course, Shareholder Fitzhugh. Or would you prefer that I refer to you as Shareholder Jordan Bowie?"

"You had it right the first time." He ran a hand along the hatch frame.
And before too long you'll be all
mine, doll
!

A passageway tram was waiting for them just outside the inner hatch. Alacrity threw his bag in the back, joined Floyt up front, and the tram glided forward. "There is a transactions terminal just aft of the Vale,"

the tram told him in the Ship's voice. "All shareholder business can be conducted at that station."

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Floyt saw that he was plainly in a working starship, not an overdecorated palace, but there was still an expansive feel to the big passageways. He'd learned enough in his travels to see that no labor or expense had been spared.

In her thirty years of construction, the White Ship had been through work stoppages, major rebuilds, and radical design changes, been the cause of several near wars and an awful lot of corporate bloodletting.

She'd been through assorted renamings, too:
Culminator, Onward, Jilleroo, Firebird.
But those never stuck and she was only and uniquely the White Ship. Floyt, who'd hated the whole concept of space travel only months before, now looked around him and understood on a glandular level why Alacrity was ready to fight and connive and even die in his campaign to win her.

The tram eased to a stop outside a wide hatch. "The transactions terminal compartment, sir," the Ship said. Floyt followed Alacrity to the hatch, only to bump into his friend's back as Alacrity stopped short.

Alacrity didn't move, so Floyt peered down under his arm, which was braced on the hatch frame.

"Why, hello, Hobart." The voice was rich and musical. "And you, too, of course, Alacrity."

"Hello yourself." Alacrity didn't move.

She was sitting in a high-backed tech's chair before a workstation, in the most advanced accessing facility Floyt had ever seen. It was oddly appropriate that Heart, the Nonpareil, the most beautiful woman Floyt had ever beheld—he had a brief tussle with his loyalty to Paloma on that one—should be sitting there in a big, baggy coverall that hid her marvelous figure, with her chalk-blond hair gathered in careless doggy-ears, wearing a pair of scabrous shipside scuffs on her feet, and no makeup.

She'd been called an ice sculptor's wet dream; Floyt knew that most of her cool appearance was a facade, the self-defense a stunning, enormously wealthy young woman needed to survive. Just then, though, she was simply a very easy-on-the-eyes female of nineteen or so who looked like she could use some sleep.

What rattled Floyt was what had brought Alacrity up short and made his greeting so clipped. Heart was sitting with a man who was poised with one hip on a console, bent down to watch whatever Heart was doing at the terminal.

And
he
made quite a first impression, an Adonis with ringlets of light-brown hair and beard, ruggedly classic good looks, and the build of a Xanadu muscle dancer well served by his revealing crimson suit-of-thongs. His proteus was in the shape of an artwear pectoral, a burnished, gemset crescent.

Floyt hated him right away and could only imagine what was going through Alacrity's head.
He let her
go, and now she's gone and fallen for this damned demigod
!

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Heart realized why they were staring and motioned to her companion. "Wulf and I were just trying to get the final point spread on the meeting. Have you two been briefed?"

Floyt rallied first, peering under Alacrity's arm. "No, we're all at sea as usual, one jump ahead of reality, as it were."

Wulf flashed a brilliant smile at that. Heart pointed to a couch near her. "Maybe you'd both better sit down right over here, and we'll fill you in."

Alacrity's lips barely moved. "Not if we're interrupting."

The Nonpareil's eyes suddenly went wide and her fingertips flew to her lips. "Oh-hhh!" The heroic vision named Wulf turned his head aside decorously, so as to mostly conceal the grin he couldn't suppress.

Floyt heard Alacrity's teeth grinding. "Yeah; well. See you around."

She sprang up, crossing the compartment to him in two athletic bounds. Her smile was devilish. "I should
let
you go, you know that?"

She'd grabbed Alacrity's hand, but now she threw it down again. "In fact, go—go on, leave if you want to! But Hobart at least has a right to know what he's gotten into."

She'd taken Floyt's hand, which instantly started to sweat. Floyt wasn't sure what to do but was appalled by the thought of struggling with her, so ducking under Alacrity's arm, he let himself be led into the compartment.

Alacrity looked unresolved, then slouched after, telling himself,
If you lost her it's your own fault. And if
that's the price of the White Ship, so be it.

"Wulf is Chief Operating Officer of the Haviland family," Heart explained, naming one of the most powerful of the Carousel clans. "He's voting their shares and he's on our side—or, at least, mine. Now sit; I'll have to give this to you in big bites."

They sat, and she began bringing up displays, a data mosaic ten times bigger and more complex than the one back in the
Whelk.
And Floyt could see it was only a part of what the workstation could do; he followed the accessing procedures carefully, memorizing.

"My father and his group—what we call the Old Guard—have the majority of active shares over us, but only by a little," Heart said. "You two know some of his allies: Baron Mason is here, and Praxis. They're all pretty much used to having what they want, and what they want now, and what they have a fairly good chance of getting after years and years of plotting and conniving, is to make a complete break with file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20krui...%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (208 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:14