John Maddox Roberts - Spacer: Window of Mind (23 page)

A beam struck near the small group of Dzuna on the field, then another, smaller-faceted field surrounded the group. The field moved away, toward the treeline, as the researchers fled. Beams from the pseudo
-Angel
continued to slash into the settlement, reducing it to rubble. Nothing seemed to harm the Dzuna ship. The fake
Angel
began to lift, leaving behind a wake of devastation. Just before it was lost to view, something lanced from the Dzuna ship. Then there was silence. Within a minute the Dzuna ship lifted. It accelerated with the same wild disregard it had shown in landing. Within a few seconds it was gone.

Kiril lifted her hand from the plate. Only then did she realize she had been supplying a running commentary to the others. She shook her head. "Can you bring back the image of the attacking ship?" she asked.

Kuth's fingers danced across the plate and Kiril touched it once more. What she saw this time was a frozen scene with no sound. It showed the attacking ship hanging over the field before it had opened fire. Kiril lifted her hand again.

"How many killed?" Michelle asked. Kiril translated.

"No Dzuna died," Kuth said. "Three . . . scientists injured, now healing. No Dzuna in . . . settlement, just in ship and base camps."

"None killed!" Michelle breathed. "We can still salvage something from this."

"You see the row of slots around the middle of the ship?" Kiril asked. "There is no such row of slots on that ship." She pointed to the true
Space Angel.

"We had noticed," Kuth said. "Is this significant?" Kiril was now running a continuous translation for both sides.

"Our ships are made of metals and synthetics," Torwald said. "Had such slots been cut in our ship, the marks would still be there. Holes in a metal hull will not just heal over."

"Why attack us with weapons so primitive and weak?" Kuth asked.

"What Kiril described to us," Torwald said, "sounds like thrasher beams from a Tesla generator. Obsolete for a hundred years, but just the kind of thing you'd find in a black market arms merchant's inventory. Still used in small wars on small planets. The point was not to destroy you, but to provoke a war. Those big ships in orbit have enough firepower to destroy this planet." Kiril translated as best she could.

'"Only if we let you," Kuth said. "Understand, we are quite prepared ... to fight a war, if that is what you wish. Only because you have indicated that you want peace, that the attack was the work of an . . . aberrant individual, have we hesitated to . . . open hostilities. We thought at first you wanted a contest of strength. This we understand, and it is within our customs. We thought the . . . sneak attack was . . . unsporting, but not without precedent. We do not wish to force a war on . . . unwilling people."

A movement from the ship caught Kiril's eye. "Somebody's alive over there!" she said. Something hauled itself out of the hatch and scuttled along the hull.

"Homer!" Nancy said. "We knew he'd make it. What about the others?"

Another figure climbed from the cargo hatch. It wore a black coverall and walked with a limp. "Finn!" Torwald said with a grin. A third joined the other two. Even at this distance, Lafayette's red hair was plain as a beacon.

"Commander Kuth," Torwald said, "send for one of your rafts. I think it's time you got a close look at our ship and had a talk with our skipper."

The skipper met them at the hatch. After a preliminary round of greeting and back-slapping, she got down to business. "We all made it down in one piece, although a few of us are in the infirmary. Michelle, go take a look at Bert and Achmed. They got banged around a bit." Michelle disappeared below. The skipper turned to Kiril. "So you're our translator, eh? Go to the galley and get some decent food in you. You have a long day's work ahead of you." She turned to Kuth. "Commander, come on in and let's talk."

11

Kiril sipped at a mug of coffee. After the last few days, even coffee tasted good. Besides, she needed the stimulation to keep her overloaded wits from getting groggy. She had spent six straight hours translating, telling her own story, rehashing all the other stories for everybody concerned, and was headed for serious burn-out. Now Homer had taken over. With her key to the language, Homer had learned Dzuna speech at a furious rate. His telepathic talent was slight, but he could discern differences in sound undetectable by the human ear. Once he knew what to listen for, he could supply the "abstracts" by tiny differences in tone and volume. It was a relief to have someone else to bear the burden.

Homer had another advantage: Once he had a language down pat, he could translate as each party was speaking. It was like having a translating machine. The moment the words left the speaker's mouth. Homer's translation emerged from whatever alien apparatus served him for vocal equipment.

It looked as if the Dzuna were finally convinced of their

story. "Now, Commander Kuth," the skipper said, "I think it's time you had a look into our computer files. They'll give you a better picture of what happened and a general picture of what we're like."

"Computer?" Kuth said. The word had been translated literally. "A device for adding up numbers?"

"That's how they started out," Torwald said. "The earliest computers were just adding machines. Now they can do most things humans do and some things we can't, like play solitaire without cheating."

"Don't be facetious, Tor," Michelle said.

The skipper got up from her galley chair and led the Dzuna up to the bridge, with Homer scuttling after. Kiril slumped in her chair. When would all this end? Michelle shoved a tray in front of her. Heavenly as it smelled, she barely had the energy to eat.

"Eat that," Michelle ordered. "Then go back to your cabin and sleep. I don't know what's going to be planned, but the way things have been happening, it'll be strenuous."

Kiril nodded tiredly. With relief, she pushed the mug of coffee away. If she was going to sleep, she didn't need to force herself to drink it. Without tasting anything, she cleaned the tray, got up, and began staggering back towards her cabin. There was a lot of clutter and disorder, but the ship didn't look as bad as she had feared. The artificial gravity field had saved the interior from the worst of the fail, and Achmed had managed to dump most of the leaked fuel, but there was some wreckage strewn about. The external damage had been worse. Beside the thruster problems, the hull had been strained and ripped in a dozen places. On a ship as old as the
Angel,
that meant that she would never space again without some time in dock. Docking facilities were in short supply hereabout.

She crossed the hold, where she could clearly see many of the dents and rips in the fabric of the ship. Past the hold she came to the Vivers' quarters. The Vivers were keeping discreetly out of sight. They tended to make people uneasy and might look out of place when the skipper was trying to convince the Dzuna of their peaceful intentions. She stuck her head into the anteroom. "K'Stin?"

The huge Viver appeared in the other doorway. "How does it go?" he asked.

"Slow. Is B'Shant all right?" By way of answer, B'Shant appeared from inside the inner cabin. His carapace was brilliantly shiny and he was now only two or three inches shorter than K'Stin.

"My younger kinsman is now back in fighting shape," K'Stin said. "Tell the skipper that we are now ready to wreak vengeance upon Izquierda and all his works. Besides her own grudge and the fact that he has threatened us all, he has committed yet a greater evil."

"What's that?" she asked.

"He insulted me, B'Shant, and the glorious Clan T'Chak by sending such inferior persons to kill us. I take that personally. Tell her to simply get us aboard the Supernova, preferably armed with heavy-duty beamers. We will do the rest. Perhaps we can break the record for a two-Viver team trashing a major ship."

"I'll pass the word, K'Stin," she said, "but I wouldn't count on her going along with it."

"I speak no disloyalty," K'Stin said, "but the skipper lacks a sense of personal style. It is not enough that these things be done efficiently. Artistry is also necessary."

She pulled her head out and walked the short distance back to her cabin. She knew she should visit Achmed in the infirmary, but she was just too tired. She'd already seen Bert. He was taking things easy in his cabin. She'd see Achmed when she woke up. She locked her hatch behind her. Teddy was asleep on her bunk and she lifted him off. She collapsed into the bunk and was asleep somewhere between starting her fall and hitting the mattress.

Something felt different when she woke up. The chrono display on the bulkhead told her that she had slept for twelve hours. She pushed herself to a sitting position and then realized that she had used her left arm to do the pushing. That was what was different. She looked at the arm. The furry "splint" was gone. Her arm showed no sign of injury. She Hexed her fingers. They worked perfectly and there was no pain. She searched her bunk for the splint. Finally she found it on the deck beneath her bunk. It had shrunk like a withered leaf, with nothing left but a paper-thin membrane with a fuzzy surface.

Kiril splashed some water in her face and decided she would live. In fact, she felt fine, better than she had since this whole business had started. Either a good meal and a night's sleep had great recuperative qualities or the alien whatzit did more than fix broken bones. Whatever happened next, she felt up to facing it. Within limits, of course.

On her way to find out what was happening, she stopped by the infirmary. She found Achmed «lone, apparently asleep. He had been burned and had a number of impact injuries. He was nearly covered with the furry things. Michelle must have persuaded the Dzuna medics to give her some help.

The skipper glanced up as Kiril entered the mess room. "You're looking better," she said. Her eyes were red-ringed and she slumped in her chair with fatigue. It looked as if negotiations had been going on while Kiril slept.

"I feel fine." She took a chair. "Where are the Dzuna and the rest of the crew?"

"The Dzuna left about an hour ago. Everybody else is asleep. Draw me some coffee, will you?"

Kiril got up and went into the galley. As she drew the skipper's cup, she noticed a note clipped to a cabinet. Michelle had made out a menu for her and reminded her sternly to take another tracetab. She got a beaker of her concentrated nutrient from a refrigerator and went back into the mess room.

"The upshot of our talks with the Dzuna," the skipper began, "is that they're willing to enter peaceful trade negotiations. That would be of great benefit to both races. Their command of biochemistry and biomechanics boggles the mind. In turn, they're fascinated by our metallurgy and computer technology. Their equivalent instruments are bulky and inefficient by comparison. That's just for beginners. All that's standing in the way is Izquierda."

"What can we do about that?" Kiril asked. She drank from the beaker and made a face. She was getting sick of the stuff.

"We have to prove that the
Angel
had no part in the attack, and we have to be convincing."

"That won't be hard, if we can just get to the navy ship," Kiril said. "Just being alive proves something. By now Izquierda has faked the destruction of the
Angel
with all aboard. If we can just get them to train instruments on this swamp, they'll see that the
Angel
wasn't destroyed. Can we beam a signal? We sure can't fly up there and talk to them. This ship's going nowhere for a while."

"I proposed much the same to Kuth. This planet's under tight military security. They're afraid that any signal like that could breach their security. I'd do the same in their place. We can't ask that of them."

"That's no help," Kiril said. "Did the Dzuna have any suggestions?"

"One. They can put a small ship at our disposal. It's
very
small, smaller than that raider you arrived in. But it has their masking device. All their information says none of our sensors can penetrate that masking. They can send up two or three of us. If we can get aboard one of those ships, we can give Nagamitsu the coordinates for the
Angel.
Then whoever boards the ship can beam down a signal and the Dzuna will drop the masking of this ship for a few minutes. They'll have cleared out of the area, so the only danger is that Izquierda will catch the coordinates and try to heave a bomb in on us."

"Do you think any of us could get aboard the TFCS?"

The skipper shook her head. "Not a chance. Even if that little ship can get close enough without being detected, a TFCS on full wartime alert is the most heavily defended object in space. There's no way in once it's buttoned up." She set her coffee cup down carefully. "It's got to be the Supernova. It has nothing like the defenses of the TFCS, and we know that Izquierda has one hold and hatch that he keeps out of sight from the navy ship. The one he launched the fake
Angel
from."

"Who goes?" Kiril said, with a sinking feeling.

"I'm not putting this to a vote," the skipper said, "because I'd have a mutiny on my hands. I want you to go. You have the right to refuse, of course. But you know the inside of that ship. Most of all, you're the one who heard it all from Izquierda first hand. Even if he destroys the
Angel
and kills the rest of us, your story will stand up to government interrogation."