Legacy (14 page)

He had heard it all explained, and he was even fairly sure he understood the explanations. Nevertheless, his flesh tingled as he watched Sirius dwindle at a rate forbidden by the laws of physics and merge into the star-fields as merely another star. He was relieved to note that, as he had been assured, the myriad small transpositions of continuous-displacement travel did not produce the disturbing sense of wrongness that accompanied the single astronomical one between two displacement points.

Saefal swung around to face his passengers. His face was still haggard from lack of sleep, but now there was life behind it.

"Our course is laid in. The computer can handle everything until we reach Sol's mass limit." He looked at Sarnac in an almost shamefaced way that baffled the Terran. "Now, you must realize that while the
Taelarn
class can ordinarily make a respectable pseudovelocity—over fifteen hundred times lightspeed—the powerplant burns up a lot of fuel doing it. On this trip, we didn't anticipate operating under continuous-displacement drive at all, but we did want to make New Laurentia without having to stop and skim reaction mass from some gas giant. So a trade-off was made: more reaction mass for less fuel. So we're going to have to travel at a rate that . . ." He trailed off, looking apologetic, and Sarnac began to feel worried. "Well, the long and short of it is that we're going to be en route for almost six days before arriving at Sol."

Sarnac was momentarily without the power of speech, but quickly returned to form. "Oh well, I suppose it'll have to do," he said airily, "if you're
sure
that's
really
the best you can manage." Everyone laughed with a spontaneity almost unnatural for Raehaniv, and Tiraena punched him in the ribs before he could continue his petulant tourist number.

"Don't get cocky," she warned. "I still haven't forgiven you for waiting until the last minute to tell us we were within easy range of Sol . . . which I'm sure you did deliberately!"

He had given up protesting that he still couldn't adjust to the notion of eight-and-a-half-plus light-years as easy range, after a lifetime of knowing the stars to be, by definition, accessible only via the displacement network. So he changed the subject.

"I wonder what the Korvaasha thought just now? I suppose we simply vanished, as far as they were concerned."

"Well," Taeronn said, "if they had a grav scanner trained on us, they got a very strong reading from the series of rapid-fire grav pulses—which they'll have difficulty interpreting. But as far as visual effects are concerned, you're right. A ship under continuous-displacement drive is effectively invisible to anyone, except an occupant of another ship travelling along with it, with both ships' drives synchronized to jump in and out of normal space in unison. Existing at the same 'frequency,' they can see each other, communicate with each other . . ."

"But . . ." Sarnac hesitated. "Look, I don't know too much about it, but it seems as if it should be impossible for two ships to travel in formation like that. I mean, the drive can't function at all inside a gravity well of any significant strength, right? Well, each of those two ships is generating a very strong artificial gravity field—a zillion times a second. If they're doing it at the same time, shouldn't they interfere with each other's drives?"

"In theory, yes," Saefal acknowledged. "But the grav pulse is a very localized phenomenon, and it doesn't affect the universe outside the drive field. The two ships would have to be very close together for that to happen." He stood up with a long, shuddering stretch. "But that's all academic now. The Korvaasha don't have continuous-displacement drive, and we're free and clear of them."

"Good riddance to bad rubbish," Sarnac said with feeling. "With any luck, they won't have enough reaction mass left to get back to either of the Sirius displacement points. And even if they do, they can only go on toward New Laurentia or back the way they came. So the only question is whether the New Laurentia Defense Command or Murchison gets to reduce them to their component atoms!"

"Precisely." Saefal smiled for the first time in far too long. "And now, by the authority vested in me as captain, I decree a small celebration. This ship can provide quite a little banquet if need be!"

The voyage to Sol went quickly, the days seemingly compressed by the exhilaration of escape—or perhaps it was only the contrast to the tense stretches of distended time they had spent watching their pursuers inch closer. And then, too, Sarnac was kept busy apologizing to Tiraena in the traditional way.

But there came a time when Sol, while still undeniably a mere star, was by far the brightest object in the heavens—a yellow-white flare, for which the ship must polarize the viewport, lest its passengers turn their fragile eyes directly upon it. It began to wax perceptibly if you watched it long enough. And Sarnac found himself doing that more and more.

"How much longer to Sol's mass limit?" Rael asked.

"About an hour and a quarter," Saefal replied, his translator obligingly converting the Raehaniv units for Sarnac, to whom he now turned. "So you have that long before you have to start broadcasting."

"No rush even then," the Terran assured him. "It'll be a while after we cut the drive, before anybody notices us. And there won't be any grav scanners trained on us before that." His computer-assisted holo constructions had confirmed that neither of Sol's displacement points was anywhere near their straight-line course from Sirius. They would appear in a part of the sky where no one had any business being, and he couldn't help sniggering at the thought of the cat they'd put among the beribboned pigeons at Fleet HQ.

But for now he could only gaze at the indescribable beauty of the not-quite-sun ahead. Some tiny blue star beyond Sol was barely visible just to the side of its flame, and Sarnac imagined that he was discerning the blue planet of his birth, orbiting close to Sol's life-giving warmth. . . .

There was no physical sensation, no tumbling about a wildly canting deck. But they all suddenly looked at each other, aware that something had
happened
. An instant later Saefal, in linkage with the ship, stiffened. Before he even spoke, Sarnac returned his gaze to the viewport and knew, with chill certainty, that Sol had stopped growing.

"The continuous-displacement drive has cut off without orders," Saefal said rapidly. "I don't know why. Maybe. . . ."

"Look!" Rael's voice, quavering on the edge of panic, brought all their heads around. She was pointing at the view-aft screen that they had all been ignoring.

Most of it was filled with the brutally massive bulk of what Sarnac recognized at once as a
Gorgon
-class battlecruiser.

For a long moment they were all struck dumb by the image. Not by its overwhelming size, nor by its asymmetrical hideousness, although like all Korvaash engineering it seemed to go beyond mere crude functionality into realms of gratuitous ugliness. Not even by the death they knew it held. No, it was the sheer, mind-numbing impossibility of its presence that left them speechless while the
Gorgon
crept even closer, blotting out even more of the stars. Nobody even mentioned the possibility of activating the fusion drive in an attempt to get away, at this ridiculously short energy-weapon range.

Finally, Saefal gave his head an old man's, slow, unsteady shake.

"It can't be," he whispered. "The Realm of Tarzhgul can't have continuous-displacement drive . . . can they?"

"Of course not." Sarnac spoke a little more loudly. "If they did, the worlds of the Solar Union would be all bones and ashes by now."

"Then how . . . ?" Saefal began—and then something happened that was, in its way, even more startling than the
Gorgon
's appearance.

Throughout all of the long way from the Lugh system, the ship had provided them with a steady one Raehaniv gravity—0.87 G Terran—and compensated effortlessly for all accelerations and course changes. So the sudden jolt, mild as it was, shocked them. The artificial gravity resumed control over inertia, even as they were steadying themselves with whatever was at hand to grab, and they all looked back to the view-aft, and saw the
Gorgon
growing.

"They can't have tractor beams either," Saefal said quietly.

"But
we
do." They all stared at Tiraena as she hurried on. "Remember what the
thrufarn
said about one of his frigates being missing and unaccounted for after the battle?" She looked at each of their blank faces in turn. "Well, can anybody think of any other explanation?"

"Tiraena, are you saying that the Korvaash survivors captured the frigate and somehow managed to duplicate all of its technology—the continuous-displacement drive, the tractor beam—while hiding in the outer system of Lugh?" Saefal couldn't keep the disbelief out of his voice.

"No, of course not. That would be impossible. They didn't copy it. They
used
it!" She turned to Sarnac. "I imagine a Korvaash ship this big would have a large hold for auxiliary craft."

"Oh, yeah. Cavernous. They like to carry around all sorts of . . ." His voice trailed off as realization came. "Do you mean this Raehaniv frigate is sitting inside the
Gorgon
?"

"I strongly suspect so. They must have tortured the crew into showing them how to operate things. And, since there's no need for the frigate to be kept in operational state, they could cut it open to allow themselves access. Saefal, couldn't the drive field be made to encompass that battlecruiser, and a good deal more besides?"

"Well, yes, but the frigate's drive would be designed for a ship of its small mass, and, as you know, ship mass is a factor in its efficiency. . . ." Saefal seemed to deflate. "But that wouldn't make it impossible, would it? It would just slow them down—which is why it's taken them this long to catch us, as we ambled along!"

"And when they did, the drive fields prevented each other from working, as you were explaining before. But . . ." Sarnac frowned in perplexity. "
How
? How could they gradually close the range from astern, without us even noticing them?"

"Remember what I said about a ship under continuous-displacement drive existing at a certain frequency? Ships at different frequencies are absolutely undetectable to each other. They must have calculated how long it would take to overhaul us and waited till then to switch to our 'frequency.' " Saefal was speaking like an automaton. "So now we've resumed the vector that we possessed at the moment we engaged the drive back at Sirius. . . ."

The communicator squealed for attention, causing them all to jump. Taeronn looked questioningly at Saefal, who nodded slowly and acknowledged it.

All Korvaash translator devices produced the same uninflected Standard English. But Sarnac was trained to distinguish individual Korvaasha, and he knew the face in the comm screen to be that of the Interrogator.

"As you are aware," the Korvaasha began, "you have been tractored. You will be brought inside our ship. There, you will open your hatches and prepare to be boarded. You will be killed at the first sign of resistance."

The screen went blank. They were left looking at each other, and at the view-aft, now completely filled by the
Gorgon
's belly, its hold gaping open to vacuum.

"Could they be bluffing about killing us?" Rael sounded as if she was trying to convince herself. "After all, they could have killed us already if they wanted to."

"Oh, they doubtless would prefer us as prisoners," Saefal said listlessly, eyes fixed on the screen as the hold seemed to come down and swallow them up. "But they won't hesitate to kill us . . . one at a time, to intimidate the survivors." A clang was heard, and felt through the soles of their feet, as
Norlaev
was lowered to the deck formed by the massive doors that had slid shut. Filling most of the vast, dimly lit hold was the ravaged hull of a
Torafv
-class frigate—the source of the tractor beam that had reeled them into the
Gorgon
's bowels.

Saefal's voice firmed. "I am still commanding officer of this ship, and I will not permit any useless gestures. It is our duty to remain alive as long as possible." He stepped to the control board and shut down all the ship's systems except basic life-support. The heavier gravity of the Korvaash homeworld clamped down, somehow setting a seal on their captivity.

Shortly, a squad of Korvaasha emerged into the hold—heavily armed but without vac suits—confirming what instrument readings had already reported concerning the return of atmosphere. Saefal opened the hatch. Chill, vile-smelling air began to invade
Norlaev
.

For a while nothing happened, and they began to fidget. Then clanging, booming sounds began to be audible throughout the hull.

"Guess they're not taking any chances," Sarnac said, even as the intruding air began to take on the odor of capture gas. He and Tiraena had time for the briefest eye contact, but did not quite succeed in falling to the deck facing each other before paralysis overtook them.

When the Korvaasha entered, moving awkwardly through spaces designed on the human scale, it became clear that they were taking even fewer chances than he had thought. Sarnac's sluggishly moving eyes caught sight of one of them aiming a sonic stunner.

When he awoke, his head felt as though it was being split apart by a spike. He was on a kind of long balcony overlooking what must be the
Gorgon
's bridge—enormous, crowded with instrument consoles, lit with the same burnt-orange gloom as all Korvaash interiors, and half-surrounded by a wide-curving viewport of transparent armorplast. The starlight that flooded the vast chamber, especially that of the bright yellow-white star dead ahead, did nothing to ameliorate its squalid, hideous functionality. Nearby were consoles with screens—one showing
Norlaev
resting in the hold, and another, apparently the view-aft.

But none of that registered until later. He was aware of nothing but the Interrogator, regarding him with that single, disturbing eye. And he knew he had awakened into a nightmare from which there would be no awakening.