Jinx on a Terran Inheritance (54 page)

All seven were gathered in the salon again for the first time since Janusz's plan had been put into effect.

They'd been working steadily, with only occasional catnaps, for some forty hours.

"That would be swell," Alacrity said sourly. "Then our only headache would be that the ship's opened up file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (285 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:31

[Fitzhugh 2]-JINX ON A TERRAN INHERITANCE

like a dissected frog. What are we going to use for the rest of the buttressing?"

"We'll take out some of the forward frame members and some shielding," Corva explained matter-of-factly, yawning. "I had the figures around here somewhere."

"This whole barge could come apart when we light those sparklers," Sintilla said. "And the air's thin on the other side of the skin."

"We'll all be suited up," Corva said. "And we'll have
Harpy
as a lifeboat if that becomes necessary. But before transition, everyone should check themselves in the mediscan unit in the main head so we can adjust the environmental suits and insure we've no medical emergencies coming up that can't be treated in a suit. Get a printout and give it to Alacrity; that will be his job."

Alacrity couldn't keep from laughing. "We are asking one hell of a lot from this old crate."

"She's already given us one hell of a lot," Victoria reminded him. "It's quite a ship you inherited, Citizen Floyt."

Floyt nodded; he realized that more with each hour.

"What's that you've got there?" Alacrity said. Heart had been playing with the memory wafer again.

Now she slid it into a reader.

"I cracked it," she said.

The reader threw up a holodisplay of info in bewildering columns and sidebars, menus and lists. A lot of it seemed to have to do with stock holdings and diagrams of dummy corporations, controlling interests, voting shareholders, and buyouts.

One symbol appeared frequently in the material Heart was fast-scanning. To Floyt it looked something like a flowery maltese cross or cross-moline, or perhaps the chemical sign for white lead, in black with a white circle at the center. It was superimposed on an arc, like that of a planet or celestial body in the background. It seemed familiar, but he couldn't place it. Concentration was becoming more and more difficult.

"It's all about the White Ship," Heart said. "My father's trying to take control of the project. But he's not going to; I'm going to see to that. Some day that ship will unlock the Precursors' secrets and that will determine how we evolve and what we become—what the whole purpose of life is."

"I never heard your old man was involved in the White Ship project," Sintilla said.

"The takeover's top secret, and it's not too late to stop it. There's a lot of competition, always has been: governments, cartels, religions, secret societies."

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[Fitzhugh 2]-JINX ON A TERRAN INHERITANCE

Floyt was absorbing it all. When he looked to check Alacrity's reaction, he saw that his friend was just staring at the displays—and at that odd symbol.

"If you go up against your father now, you're risking your life," Victoria stated. "Blood will only count now in that it will make him hate you more. He's very powerful, Heart."

"I'm not alone," she answered, looking to Alacrity. If she expected him to second that, she was disappointed. "Other family members are with me, and some of my father's business rivals, competitors.

I've had time to gather a lot of information and lay detailed plans these last years. The truth is, I'm relieved that I don't have to pretend any more, no matter what."

She took Alacrity's hand. He didn't withdraw it, but he didn't respond either.

Metal fatigue. Human fatigue. Inertia-shedding limits. Breakdowns.

"That's your last word on it?" Alacrity looked not at Heart, but at the work she'd been doing, patching the improvised controls of the Annie Vs through the board and making sure the manuals were all working properly. Altered and bread-boarded as things were, there could be no trusting voice-activated systems.

"You're not leaving me much choice," she countered. "I've made promises and commitments I'm simply not free to ignore. You'll have to accept that."

"I can't." He faced her. "I have my own agenda; I learned the hard way that I can't go along with someone else's. What happened to my parents taught me that."

The two were more disbelieving than angry. "I'm sorry about what happened to them and to you. I'd take away the pain for you if I could. But some things are beyond my control; you can't have your way in this."

"Well, I'm sorry too because I'll be keeping you from having yours. I'm doing what I set out to do."

"I won't let you, Alacrity."

"You don't have any choice."

Heart gave a sad half smile. "We're not leaving ourselves very much maneuvering room here, are we?"

At that point Floyt appeared, rapping on the hatchframe and easing into sight hesitantly. "Pardon me for interrupting, please. Janusz needs you right away, Alacrity. He's in Tweedledum's launch tube."

"I'll be along directly, Ho. Thanks." When Floyt had left, he asked, "Can we talk about this later?"

"Talk, yes. Fight, no."

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[Fitzhugh 2]-JINX ON A TERRAN INHERITANCE

Hull integrity. Allocation of forces. Failure bias.

There were more than enough suits to go around. Alacrity picked the strongest and most durable and began to sweat over adjustments. The hardest crewmembers to fit would be Sintilla and Corva.

He made the rounds, collecting mediscan printouts to calibrate reusable mixtures and tailor suit adjustments to each wearer. When he got to Victoria she struck him as distracted, sitting alone in the bridge, staring. He persisted.

She turned on him. "Leave me alone, damn you! I can adjust my own damn suit!
Go away
!"

He backed off. "Correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't you and me strike a truce?" He started to leave; the data would be in the mediscanner's data bank anyway.

"Come back; I didn't mean that, Alacrity. Please come back."

"Forget it. What's the matter?"

She gave him a searching gaze, then handed him the printout. He scanned, stopped suddenly, then stared at her. "Anybody else know?"

She shook her head slowly. "But it doesn't change anything. We still go to Terra."

He sat down in the copilot's poz. "If you're sure that's the way you want it."

"It is. Just keep mum."

He sighed. "This is a helluva way to run an interstellar mission of truth and justice."

Unknowns. Variables not subject to analysis. Insufficient data. Exceeds all safety limits.

Material strengths.

The race committee's advance ship had done its job well; with only a few hours' warning, the course had been cleared of regular traffic. That wasn't unprecedented, or even surprising. The chairman of the Interworld Banking Trust was one of the participants, and his organization was thinking of granting the Solar Development Corporation an enormous venture loan for construction on and around the outer planets. Another racer was the ruler of the One Hundred League, who was considering a Solarian bid to provide new guidance systems for his entire fleet. There was also the chief operating officer of Bascomb Amalgamated; the locals very much wanted her company to choose Solarian sites for several gigantic manufacturing facilities.

The way "up-sun" toward Sol lay clear of interference. The stymied Spican flotilla, now scattered to various locations on its purported goodwill tour, had no choice but to comply with Solarian directions.

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Astraea Imprimatur
came out of Hawking surprisingly far up in the pack and immediately began falling back. Praxis' course brought the racers into normal space just inside the orbit of Mars; the starships plunged up-sun to begin the photon sailing leg of the race.

"I'm picking up Srillan transmissions," Victoria said. "It looks like they've got a fleet detachment here too, but they're also out of the way."

"Then they make no difference," Janusz decided.

"We won't get any more speed out of the Stray's sublight engines," Alacrity reported from the copilot's poz. "Time to pull the ring."

From the pilot's poz, Janusz agreed, then instructed them all to make a last check of their suits and the safety cocoons that enfolded them. He and Alacrity checked the remotes that lay under their braced hands on the armrests; the most important of these were the cutoffs for the engine arrays of Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

Floyt, immobilized in suit and cocoon in the weather bridge alongside the encapsulated forms of Sintilla and Heart, acknowledged Janusz, then switched his intercom to Sintilla's line. "What I mind is this is my one and only chance to see the rest of the Solar system and we won't even come close to anything until we get to Earth—not even an asteroid, for Finnagle's sake!"

"Why not worry about the simple things?" Sintilla suggested. "Like surviving?"

"Well, if the inertia-shedding field gives out we'll probably never know the difference anyway—isn't that what Alacrity said? Right. So why not be a bit more ambitious in my carping?"

"Corva, are you okay?" Janusz called over the main net.

"Yes, quite, thank you," Corva answered from the nestled
Harpy.
He was in several ways their only safety precaution: if there was time to abandon ship in case of mishap, Corva could have all
Harpy's
systems ready and could even make a pickup in the unlikely event that the vessel broke up without killing them all instantly. If the ship veered off course and there was the opportunity, the Srillan might do some good by using
Harpy
for steering.

"We're falling farther and farther behind," Victoria said. "We've got to go before we draw attention to ourselves."

"You think we're not about to draw attention to ourselves?" Sintilla marveled.

Janusz checked all around once more, got an all-ready from everyone. He touched a switch under his braced hand.

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Nothing happened.

He tried it again two or three more times, searching his board laboriously through his cocoon viewslit, ignoring the heads-up display in his helmet. "It's not working." He moved the switch back to the off position.

"I'm picking up something," Alacrity said. "Ship coming out of Hawking."

"I'll check the hookups," Corva said.

"Stay where you are; there isn't time," Janusz said curtly, shutting down the ship's engines. The
Harpy's
protective gear was more cumbersome than
Astraea Imprimatur's;
it would take the Srillan much longer to extricate himself, then resecure.

"I'll go," Janusz said. "Alacrity, you stay ready." Alacrity, Janusz, and Corva were the only ones who really knew how the modifications on the Annies worked; Alacrity didn't argue.

"I think this other ship's a racer," Alacrity said.

"Good, good," Janusz muttered, making his way aft.

"God, she's fast! She'll be on us in a minute!" Alacrity added, feeling that that wasn't so good. He could only bring to mind one possible late starter.

Janusz reported on his progress as he rapidly made his way to the aft control linkages. In the meantime the racer overtook the
Stray,
and a new problem appeared.

"Janusz, I got a big blip, here. I think it's Spican military."

"How far off, Alacrity?"

"We have a few minutes, but she's closing."

"I have the controls disengaged; I think there's time," Janusz said.

"I have that racer on close detectors," Heart said. "Aw,
di buttana!
It's the
Celeste Aida
!"

Alacrity made a face in the stillness of his helmet. "Chances are he'll know it's us."

"Fire control, ready," Victoria reported.

For all the good it'll do us with our engines down,
Alacrity thought. Most of the racers were fairly well armed in case of trouble along the way; it might take him some time, but Dincrist could finish them.

That was not what happened.
Celeste Aida
kept meticulously to her most economical course along the regatta's route, passing no closer to the
Astraea Imprimatur
than several thousand kilometers.

"
Wha-aat
?" Alacrity breathed.

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"My father's waited years for the chance to compete in a regatta," Heart's voice said in the resonant closeness of his helmet. "You know how much it took for him to do it, and how much it represents to him. He hates to lose; he simply doesn't give up."

"Well; put my pizzle in the pencil sharpener," Alacrity said.

"Our other problem's still with us," Victoria said. "Spican cruiser, looks like, closing fast on an intercept course. They're asking if we're in distress and requesting permission to board. Janusz,
how much longer
!"

"All done!" he cried. "Alacrity, pull the ring!"

"Get back to your cocoon!"

"There's no more time. I'm well secured, Alacrity. Now pull the ring!"

Alacrity read the displays and saw that in truth there was not more time. He fired the ship's main engines and she leapt up-sunward. Then he pulled the ring.

This time both missiles fired. The Terran Inheritance exploded ahead. There was a pronounced jolt despite the inertia-shedding field, and Alacrity sucked in breath as he read the velocity display. And speed was still increasing. He bit his lip at the thought of the forces being exerted on
Astraea
Imprimatur.
He offered The Infinite a concession-filled deal.