Harvest of Stars (44 page)

Yes, the Sepo in the colony had told their masters what they were told. Rinndalir grinned. “That will not happen, my lord,” he said.

“It had better happen,” replied the voice.

“If not, may I ask what you propose to do?”

“You’re vulnerable to us.”

“Violence? Unprecedented. Neither the Federation nor Fireball would consider it justified, to say nothing of Luna.”

“Hijacking in space is unprecedented too.”

“I repeat my denial that that is the case.”

“I’ll take care of any consequences afterward.” The voice paused before going on in less threatening wise: “We don’t want to harm you. Cooperate, let us board you, and you and your crew get a free ride home from L-5. We’re after nothing but some stolen property we’ve reason to believe you’re conveying. Maybe that’s without your knowledge, senor. If I turn out to be wrong about it, besides releasing you I’ll give you a formal apology and stand ready to talk compensation.”

“Don’t let him stall you while he closes in,” Guthrie snapped from the couch.

“What do I hear?” roared his voice.

“What you wish to hear, perhaps,” Rinndalir answered. “Not necessarily what is.”

“Listen,” said the voice fast. “You’ve had your reasons for doing what you did how you did. If keeping the operation quiet weren’t to your benefit, you’d already have splashed the news across the Solar System. Well, I can make you an offer myself. You follow me? I’m not mad at you. We could do some big things together. Think about it.”

“I shall,” Rinndalir said. “We can discuss matters further when you are nigh. Until then, fare in good cheer.”

He signalled to Cua, who switched off. The chime sounded and the light blinked. She damped them.

“That settles it,” Guthrie said. “Call Luna, transmit the story and my image, make sure he knows you have. He’ll veer off.”

“The Security Police are still in Port Bowen,” Rinndalir demurred.

“So are your constables, now. Therefore somebody other than Sepo is bound to receive the message. And it’ll make the Sepo themselves start wondering about a lot, won’t it? Or, if you insist, beam into the independent Lunar communications net. Kyra and I would have, as soon as
Maui Maru
was in orbit, except that of course we didn’t know your classified access codes and encryptions. You’ve got them in a database aboard this boat, or else in your head. Don’t squander breath denying it. Call.”

Rinndalir stood up, black and silver above the bodiless case. “Is that our single alternative to yielding?” he asked reluctantly.

“Yeah. Unless you want to take him up on his proposition.”

“Nay, I think not. Very well—”

“Muramasa
has applied a new vector,” Cua called. “Powerful—ai-ya!”

Guthrie’s eyestalks strained toward the screen before him. He uttered a long obscenity.

Cua looked about. Her nostrils flared; the pale hair made an aureole about her head. Her tone might have been describing any observation. “He has changed direction and is accelerating at high thrust. We will meet in five minutes.”

“He foresaw he might have to!” Arren exclaimed. “He plotted a path from Earth and a moment to contact us that would make it possible.”

Rinndalir nodded at Guthrie. “My compliments on your vicarious craftiness,” he said. “We scarcely have time now to raise Luna and explain, do we? Only to call surrender. Have you a different idea?”

“Yeah. Bet our lives,” the download replied. “Which is easy for me to say.”

“What do you judge he proposes to do?”

“If we don’t give in—no, he won’t ram us. That’d wreck him too. He’s brought men along to board us, or the ruin of us; you noticed he spoke of ‘we,’ and they’ll be the reason he’s kept at one
g
till now. Because he’s his own pilot, I’m certain. He’s his own ship, hooked into her, interfacing with her computers—God damn, if I just were the same! He can pass close by in such a way that we run into his jets. They’ll slash this hull open. Spacesuits won’t save you, not from the radiation.”

“Have we any recourse?”

The light flashed, the chime rang:
Surrender
.

“You can dodge, maybe,” Guthrie said, iron-steady. “You haven’t got but a fraction of his boost or delta v. He’ll be moving almighty fast, though. You can apply a transverse vector and slip aside. He’ll need time to brake and come back after us. How much time depends on how much punishment the men with him can or will stand. We may or may not gain enough to send our message.”

“Can you accomplish that, Cua?” Rinndalir asked.

The pilot frowned. “Perhaps. I am not myself in linkage with this ship. I cannot keep the enemy in play for more than one or two passes, if that.”

Metal clashed in Rinndalir’s words: “If you do, the ladyship of Mare Muscoviensis is yours.”

“Hai, and the glory!” she yelled. Her hands flew over the console. It was as if starlight frosted her mane.

Guthrie’s lenses swiveled from an Arren gone exultant to a smiling Isabu, and on to their lord. “You’ll really try this, all of you, when you could strike a bargain instead?” he marveled. “You’re even crazier than I thought.”

Rinndalir laughed aloud. “Nay, it is you and your foe who are overly logical. Come!” He scooped Guthrie up and got onto the hoist. His men secured themselves to couches.

The Katana sprang into view, swelling to block sight of Luna, lean as a shark. Cua touched a key. Acceleration flung Rinndalir brutally against a rail. Somehow he kept
his feet. The torch exhaust blazed in a false-color view-screen. It was gone. Earth shone serene.
Inia
plodded ahead, backing down on the Moon.

Rinndalir found the seat beside Cua, settled into it, harnessed himself, cradled Guthrie on his lap. He gave the pilot an order, she acknowledged, their language rippled and sang. “What was that?” Guthrie demanded.

“To put me through to Luna,” Rinndalir said mildly. “What else?”

“Where, and who?”

“Waste no time,” Cua clipped. “I have contact.”

“I should’ve learned your damn lingo when it was invented,” Guthrie grumbled.

The comscreen came alive with the head of another Lunarian. He made a gesture of respect. Rinndalir addressed him briefly, and then: “Say what you wish, Sr. Guthrie. The pickup has you in its field.”

The download began to speak, short barking sentences. The Lunarian at the far end showed an instant’s amazement, then listened hard. From time to time Rinndalir made an English addition to the story. Cua studied her readouts.

“He comes back,” she said. No droplet of sweat glimmered on her brow.

“He’ll aim to fool you,” Guthrie predicted. “Don’t try that sideslip again. I think the max thrust you can conn, straight, will surprise him.” He continued his narration.

Pressure slammed bodies backward, downward. Blood burst from the nostrils of Rinndalir and Cua, twice scarlet against those marmoreal skins. Aft, a man groaned. But the torch flamed in the viewer, only in the viewer. And then
Muramasa
had slashed by. Guthrie spoke on. Weight dropped to Lunar.

Eyestalks turned upward and around to Rinndalir’s dripping face. “It’s done,” Guthrie rasped. “Beam to yon ship.” Cua did, her hands shaking.

“Inia
to
Muramasa
,” Guthrie chanted. “Respond.”

The screen stayed blank, but his voice snarled,
“Muramasa
to
Inia
. You did it, huh?”

“Yep. They have the story on Luna, complete with video
of me and these nice folks here. You can still wipe us out if you feel like it, but Lunar radars are locking on, opticals are tuning up, and all in all, it wouldn’t sit well with people.”

A laugh rattled. “No, I reckon not. Naturally, we’ll deny everything.”

“Deny away, if it amuses you.”

“It doesn’t. It just helps a bit. We aren’t about to fold our hands, you know.”

“You could.”

“We could not. I could not. Screw amnesty.”

“They really got to you, didn’t they? Wouldn’t you like a reprogramming job? Be your own man again.”

“Man? Hah.”

Stillness fell, save for the murmur of ships and the hoarse breathing of abused bodies.

“Well,” said Guthrie aboard
Inia
, “no doubt we can negotiate some kind of peace with you and your friends.”

“If
your
friends allow,” said Guthrie aboard
Muramasa
. “From what I’ve heard about them, look out.”

“Hasta la vista.”

“Toujours gai.”
So had Juliana often bidden him good-bye. The transmission bulb went dark.

Guthrie looked at Rinndalir. “You okay?” he asked.

“I will survive,” the Selenarch answered, wryly, not quite steadily. “Well that I had the foresight to pack good wine along.”

“Sure, go ahead, get drunk, and lift one for me.” Guthrie’s jesting was mechanical, his mind elsewhere. “We’ll come down in the middle of one all-time luau, won’t we?”

Rinndalir straightened in the seat. From behind red smears, his gaze probed into the lenses. “Not yet shall it be thus,” he said.

Guthrie lifted. “Huh? You mean your people won’t pass the story on?”

Rinndalir lifted a hand. “Have no fears. I could not suppress it did I choose. The odds are even or better that the message was acquired by more than that one station.

In any case, the activity that will ensue, on our part and on the enemy’s, will be largely unconcealable. Rumors will breed and fly free.

“Nay, I simply intend to proceed as I told you, circumspectly. Before this vessel is returned to Port Bowen, she will set down on a Lunar spacefield. You will be brought thence to a safe place. There we will plan and issue your manifesto to the Solar System.”

H
ER SAVAGE ACCELERATIONS
done with,
Muramasa
started for L-5 at half a gravity. Felix Holden released himself from his couch, clambered painfully erect, and limped about checking on the welfare of his five men. Space-trained and in peak physical condition, they had not suffered too badly. Those who had lost consciousness stirred back awake, searched for injuries, and mumbled, “Yes, I’m fit, sir.” They were somewhat dazed, as much by what had happened—bewildering to them—as by what they had undergone.

Holden scorned to take the hoist up to the pilot console when he weighed forty kilos. Climbing the ladder, he sometimes caught his breath and bit his lip. He eased down into the control chair. A semicircular viewscreen reproduced for him stars enhanced, Earth resplendent, Luna harshly outlined, against the dark.

He did not see the pilot. New Guthrie laired beneath these switches and meters, which he made purposeless, connected directly to sensors, effectors, and computers, the heart and forebrain of the system. With its instruments he also looked inward, felt the forces, tasted the chemistry of air, snuffed the faint lightning-whiff of ions. “You okay?” asked his voice.

Holden made a stiff nod. “We came through it, sir,” he reported.

“Sorry to’ve subjected you to that beating. I kept the boosts to what I figured wouldn’t do you any permanent damage, but—I’m sorrier it went for nothing.”

“You are definitely letting them go free?”

“Not much choice. They got the story out. I caught enough of their transmission.”

Holden sighed. “And so, of course, if you did kill them, matters would become worse yet for us.”

“I’m not quite sure of that,” Guthrie growled. “Hell knows what Rinndalir will make of the situation. I wish I’d met him personally over the years. Maybe I’d have a little insight into him.” A rasping chuckle. “I suspect my other self, who does have direct experience, isn’t unrelievedly happy. But we’ll see. Obviously I couldn’t carry out what everybody would call a wanton massacre.”

“What do you intend, sir?”

“Play by ear, roll with the punches, bet according to how the cards are dealt. Juliana always complained about my jumbled metaphors.” Humor died. “Are you game, colonel?”

Holden raised his head. “I’m prepared to do my duty, sir. Likewise my men.”

“But what you see as your duty will depend on what develops, eh?”

The ship could destroy the humans merely by opening the airlocks. “Yes, sir. I hope you feel the same way.”

“M-m, my relationship to your government is kind of different. However—Listen. What I figure to do is refuel at L-5 and return to space, to keep watch against contingencies. I’ll need your help for that. And afterward, I think—I’ve gotten to know you a bit—I think you’ll be the best man to have in charge of the Sepo garrison there.”

Astonished, Holden asked, “What can we do but evacuate it?”

“Toss away a bargaining chip like that, in exchange for a goose egg? You’ve got to be kidding.”

Holden looked at Earth. He had a family. Guthrie waited.

“My command and I will do what our superiors order, sir,” Holden said.

“Good enough. I’ll call them. Sit back and relax. You’ve earned it, all of you.”

“Sir,” Holden said low, to the gentleness he had just heard, “I see why your people always followed you.”

“Followed
me?
… Okay, take it easy, let me work.”

A beam flashed invisible. A tiny satellite, one of scores circling Earth, detected it and shot back an identification signal. The beam tightened, to track that single relay until time for the next to take over. Its enciphered content passed to a station on the ground and thence to Futuro. Night lay over the North American capital, but Enrique Sayre kept vigil in his office.

His image and words did not appear to Holden. Guthrie received them as input which he interpreted as face and speech. It would be wrong to say that a computer prepared this for him. Certain centers in the living brain process data that nerves bring in from the eye and the ear, but it is the human being as a whole that perceives the encompassing world. Where he lay connected, Guthrie sensed the electromagnetic spectrum as once the man sensed light. He felt himself moved through gravity fields as once he moved through wind and wave. He knew how to vector himself toward a moving goal as once he knew how to throw a ball or shoot a rifle. Sensations and knowledge were more abundant than when he lived—overwhelmingly more, they would have been, were they not ice-crystal clear. Physics is calculable where biology is not because it is simple. It is incomprehensible where biology is not because it is strange.