Hero! (31 page)

“It’s been an interesting exercise in priorities, is all. Now I want to hand over the paperwork to someone else.”

“But I get first interview!” In one of her sudden changes of mood, she showed a gleeful collection of teeth. “And now it isn’t just the old folk who’ll recognize—Oh shit! Sorry, Admiral.” She turned red, and then redder.

“Oh, I save the world every couple of generations, just to keep my face in the news.”

“I said I’m sorry! Now you can see why I’m no good at—”

“I’m sure you’re fine. You do very well for a kid.”

“Swine! Rub it in.”

“You’re tired, is all. We both need to get to bed.”

“Yes, please.” She grinned nervously. Hero worship again.

Before Vaun had time to straighten out her confusion on that topic, Weald’s fine-drawn features returned to the tank, brow creased with worry. He swung around to face her.

She was nodding solemnly. “I see what you mean, Admiral. Of course, no reasonable person would doubt your loyalty for a minute, but…”

“But they should,” Vaun said, smothering yet another yawn. “It would be unreasonable not to. And I certainly must not be in charge of the Patrol when that Q ship arrives.” Some hotheaded xenophobe would certainly assassinate him.

“Let me see if I’ve got my ancient mind round this. Standard arrival will be in twenty-eight weeks if it begins deceleration no later than today, at a normal half gee. That’s about the limit for rocks, right? And if it doesn’t…”

“Seventy-eight days till impact.”

Weald frowned. “That doesn’t seem to add up.”

“One hundred and eighteen in their frame of reference, less light lag of thirty-nine.”

“Of course. Stupid of me. No way to contact it, of course?”

“None.”

Weald looked exasperated. “How long does it take to call a conclave?”

“Your decision, ma’am. I’d give them a couple of days to assemble, and a few more to talk about it. Then vote.”

She nodded impatiently. “And then I can come home and be myself again…Very well. Is there a ceremony to this?”

“I think you just record your acceptance, ma’am.”

“Right. I accept the position of, and will serve as, high admiral
pro tem
. Carry on, Admiral, you’re doing great. Call a conclave, let me know where and when it is to be and if there is any development in the Q ship matter. You handle everything else.”

The tank was empty.

Feirn sniggered. Vaun used a Doggoth expression she had not likely heard before.

“Two can play that game,” he said grimly, and glanced at his Valhal situation board. The Great Hall was dim and quiet. Heavy equipment had brought the forest fires under control. The parking lot was deserted, with the last of the casualties removed. Blade was on his way to report. As soon as he’d done so, he could remove the irrepressible Feirn. Satisfactory!

The Hiport board was more cluttered, but nothing seemed critical. The duty officer’s face appeared, gray with fatigue. “Sir?”

“Find a relief, and get some rest,” Vaun snapped. “Advise all hands that Admiral Weald is Acting High Admiral with myself as ExOff…I am copying her acceptance to Archives…Process a promotion for Ensign Blade to lieutenant, effective at once…Hold all messages until I check in…Has Admiral Phalo arrived yet?”

“No, sir.”

“When he does, he’s in charge. Any questions?”

“About two hundred, sir.”

“Tell your relief to deal with them.”

The worry lines curled into a smile. “Sir!”

Vaun broke the connection and spun his chair around to look at the three biologists, the last problem to clear. One of the boys was still sleeping. The other two were sitting up, looking almost as scared as they should be. He wondered how long he’d been holding them here.

“Well? Have you an explanation?”

The girl nodded. “Yes, Admiral. It was an accident.”

“Show me.”

Elan rose stiffly and went to a board. In a moment she had called up a map of Shilam. She spoke without looking around. “This shows the pepod transmission on what we call the linking mode.” A blue spot appeared at Valhal’s location, and began to spread out over the continent like a stain, advancing irregularly but inexorably.

“What time lapse are you…” Then Vaun’s eyes found the display on the screen overhead, and saw that he was viewing a realtime display.

“Real time.” Elan’s voice was hoarse and dull with fatigue. “The radio travels at light speed, but each thicket takes a few seconds to react.”

“Right.” It was impressive, and creepy. In a very few minutes, the blue had reached the sea almost everywhere. “That means that every pepod on Shilam was then linked into the group mind?”

“We believe so,” she said.

The elevator door hissed open, but Vaun did not turn.

“You’d created a monster! And then what happened?”

“This.” She touched a toggle, and the display turned red.

“Attack mode?”

“Yes, sir. But it didn’t start here!” Her voice had risen to a squeak. “See it again in slow motion.” The map went back to blue, and then to red again, but now there was time to see that the red had spread up from the south, from somewhere near Gefax.

“Something set them off at Gefax?” Vaun asked uneasily. Why did that feel wrong?

Elan turned around to look at him and he saw that she was terrified. “It must have done, sir! Not our doing at all! Some pepod was provoked while we had them linked…Professor Quild had never considered that possibility, so far as we know. It should have been just a local disturbance, but because we had them all linked…That was why they all went. We couldn’t have known.” She stared at him beseechingly.

Both boys were awake now, and both had the same dread look on their faces.

“Well, I suppose it’s reasonable,” Vaun said grudgingly. “And I’m not the judge. There will have to be an inquiry. You can go, but you will stay here in Valhal.”

“We are under arrest?” one of the boys demanded shrilly.

“You are. You may communicate with your families, though. Or lawyers. Now scat!”

As the three stampeded for the elevator, Vaun turned wearily to Blade, who was standing stiffly at attention, of course. The last time Vaun had peeked at him, he had been a scarecrow running around the woods in bloody rags. Now he was his former impeccable self, in a clean uniform, with every hair in place…Insufferable perfectionist!

“Congratulations. You did a fine job,
Lieutenant
.”

The mauve eyes widened. “Thank you, sir! I just did my duty.” Not a hint of a smile.

“And I just did mine.” Again Vaun paused for a yawn. “Now escort Citizen Feirn to her quarters, and if you want my advice, Lieutenant…but I’m sure you don’t.”

“Vaun?” Feirn said softly.

He turned to her to shut her up, and then said, “Yes?” when he saw that he had guessed wrong.

She paused until the elevator door closed. “They missed something.”

“Who did?”

“The three ivy-brains.” She smirked, pleased with herself. Dropping her feet to the floor, she turned to the board beside her chair. Blade was frowning.

Her fingers jabbed at keys. “I was doing a little research, too. I saw what they were up to, and pried their data out of the banks…Here’s the big picture.” The map appeared again, but this time Shilam was smaller, and the three minor continents of the southern hemisphere appeared below it. Slowly the blue tide spread out from Valhal to fill Shilam—and cross the sea. “It never reached South Thisly, right? The pepods’ range is too short to jump the straits.”

Damn! Feirn had seen what Vaun and the students had overlooked—Thisly and Paralyst had been infested, but South Thisly had escaped the disaster. He should have remembered that, after spending so many hours dealing with the results. And she was obviously right about the range, because the blue stain spread down the Broach Peninsula to infect Paralyst, and leapfrogged through the Imbue Archipelago to Thisly. South Thisly stayed clear, isolated by the width of the Terebus Strait.

Lots of pepods in the cooler, southern continents.

“Well done!” he muttered crossly. “So the trigger wasn’t at Gefax, it was somewhere down in Thisly?” So what?

“Er, yes. But…well, it’s not important, I guess. But they still weren’t quite right.” She shifted the map to a close-up of Thisly. “Whatever provoked the attack didn’t happen
after
the linkup. See…watch this. Did you see? The blue wave comes down to here—Kohab. That’s its name, Kohab—and then bounces right back in red. No time break when you have the whole picture. So what happened was that the edge of the linkup ran into a thicket that was already on the warpath, and…Vaun!”

Vaun was on his feet, shoving her hands aside. Then he switched to vocal. “Show me that again. With more magnification! No, round Kohab. Bigger. Right…Again…”

Mother of Stars!

“Vaun?”

Vaun glanced at Blade, who had not said a word, but Blade was still frowning, and Blade was smarter than he acted. Vaun cut the display quickly. His throat was dry, his pulse racing. Was it possible?

Kohab had been blue
before
the linkup reached it—one tiny, isolated spot of blue, which had immediately turned red, and the red had then taken over every where, spreading back north. But even the front of the wave heading on south had been red after it passed Kohab.

“Summary of Kohab, in Thisly.”

“Mining settlement dating from first millennium,” said the dry, calm voice of the equipment. “Present population: zero. Abandoned and reactivated fourteen times. Occupied by religious cults four times. Also used at various periods as penal station, artist colony, and germ warfare laboratory. Most recently reactivated, after three centuries of abandonment, as marine life research station in 29,399—”

“Cut!”

Possible! More than possible!

“Ens—Lieutenant. Are you familiar with the Moloch Sheer-fire?”

Blade blinked. “No, sir.”

“What d’you suppose its range would be?”

“I’d estimate a lot, sir. They don’t make ’em like that any more.”

“No,” Vaun said, struggling to control his excitement. “No, they don’t. Well, I have one more small task for you tonight. A job for a First in electronics.”

The mauve eyes flickered. “Sir?”

“The high admiral’s barge is a Sheerfire, and it’s sitting up there in my private garage. Go up there and see that’s it’s fueled to the limit. And disconnect the auto.”

The new lieutenant stiffened.

“And if you quote one word of regulations at me,” Vaun said softly, “I’ll bust you to crewboy!”

Just for a moment, he thought Lieutenant Blade was going to smile…but the fit passed. “Sir!”

Vaun headed for the elevator without another word. He heard Feirn call his name and he ignored her.

Maybe Roker hadn’t died in vain. Maybe the bastard’s crazy scheme had worked after all.

“Y
OUR FATIGUE TOXINS level is elevated,” the medic said, humming angrily. “Your last intake of booster was barely sixteen hours ago. I prescribe a sedative to counteract your current agitated condition, followed by extended bed rest. Personal history suggests that coitus would be advantageous, but your current level of testo—”

“Mind your own furtive business!” Vaun snapped. He hadn’t slept for two nights, but he didn’t feel tired now. He was running on adrenaline again. “Give me my booster with no extras…No, throw in something to keep me awake and assume that I won’t get more booster for at least thirty hours…and leave out the stiffener.” He was going to need a very clear head—an extremely clear head—if what he found at Kohab was what he suspected. And there would be no girls there to justify taking stiffener, only a couple of boys.

Dice and Cessine.

With a few clicks that sounded suspiciously like grumbling, the medic dispensed a tumblerful of booster. Sipping it as he walked, Vaun hurried off through the shadowy house. Here and there he saw lights under doors or detected low voices and moans, but all of Valhal had become one huge field hospital, and infinitely depressing in consequence.

Angel greeted him as he walked into his bedroom, flooding the sea with its spectral blue light. Normally that was a sight he could not ignore, but tonight it meant that he was running out of time. Dawn could not be far off, and he must leave before there were witnesses around.

It was going to be another long day.

He threw off his soiled clothes as he headed for the shower. Either the water or the pep in his booster began to take effect right after, and he was almost humming with excitement as he hurried into his den. Reluctantly he decided he had better wear full uniform, for he was going to be flying the high admiral’s personal barge, and there would be questions when he stopped to refuel on the way back.

Tunic still unbuttoned, he padded barefoot across to the windows and coded open his gun cupboard. He found a regulation Dilber 16k hand-beam and a Wassal Giantkiller that would bring down a behemoth or small aircraft. He’d better take some good, strong hiking boots and a warm…

“Good morning, Vaun,” said a sleepy voice from one of the armchairs at the dark end of the room.

He swung around with the handgun, and then said, “Oh, damn!”

“You’re improving.” She yawned. “Not so coprolaliac as last time.”

He was more visible in the Angellight than she was. In fact, it was only her voice he could recognize. He could barely be sure that there was no one else present.

“What’re you doing here?”

“I was sleeping, actually. I feared you would think me presumptuous if I took the bed.”

“Take it if you want. I’m not going to be using it.”

“No, this is a very comfortable chair. I might as well go and make some rounds, anyway.” She yawned again, and he saw her arms stretching overhead.

Maeve, right outside his bedroom door! Truly the night was filled with ironies. Oddly, though, he did not feel the burning anger he had felt the previous night…which was already the night before last now…Need to hurry. Blade would have the Sheerfire ready to go and dawn was pending.

Maeve! Well, she’d done a great job, too. He’d given Blade a promotion, but he could hardly promote Maeve to anything. He must go past her to reach the door, and now he was almost at her chair. He stopped.