The Mammoth Book of SF Wars (61 page)

Carver ignored it.

The tug was changing course too, but Carver was almost on the ring system now, falling towards a particular gap he’d chosen with the help of the escape pod’s navigational system. He watched it with all of his concentration – he was finding it hard to believe in Newtonian mechanics now his life depended on it.

But there it was, at the edge of one of the arcs of ice and dust: a tiny grain flashing in raw sunlight, a shepherd moon. In less than a minute, it resolved into a pebble, a boulder, a pitted siding of dirty ice. As it flashed past, the pod’s AI lit the motor again. The brief blip of acceleration and the momentum the pod had stolen from the moon made a small change in its delta vee; as it swung around the gas giant, the difference between the trajectory of the pod and the tug widened perceptibly.

The tug didn’t have enough fuel to catch up with the pod now, but beyond Sheffield, Mr Kanza’s scow was changing course, and a few minutes later a Navy cutter shot away from the dock facility, and the comm channels were suddenly alive with chatter: the salvage company’s gigs and tugs; a couple of ships in transit between the wormholes; the Navy garrison, ordering both Mr Kanza and Carver White to stand to and await interception.

Carver couldn’t obey even if he wanted to. Less than a quarter of the pod’s fuel remained and it was travelling very fast now, boosted by the sling-shot through Sheffield’s steep gravity well. With Mr Kanza’s scow and the Navy cutter in pursuit, it hurtled towards one of the wormhole throats. Carver had no doubt that the scow would follow him through, but he believed he had enough of an edge to make it to where he wanted to go, especially now that the Navy was involved. Someone in the garrison must have discovered Rider Jackson’s deal with Mr Kanza, and that meant the cutter would be more likely to try to stop Mr Kanza’s scow first.

The wormhole throat was a round dark mirror just over a kilometre across, twinkling with photons emitted by asymmetrical pair decay, framed by a chunky ring that housed the braid of strange matter that kept the throat open, all this embedded in the flat end of a chunk of rock that had been sculpted to a smooth cone by the nameless Elder Culture that had built the wormhole network a couple of million years ago. The pod hit it dead centre, the radio chatter cut off, light flared and the pod emerged halfway around the galaxy, above a planet shrouded in dense white clouds, shining pitilessly bright in the glare of a giant F5 star.

The planet, Texas IX, had a hot, dense, runaway greenhouse atmosphere – even Useless Beauty’s tank could not have survived long in the searing storms that scoured its surface – but it also had a single moon that had been planoformed by Boxbuilders. That was where Carver wanted to go. He took back control of the pod and reconfigured it, extending wide braking surfaces of tough polycarbon, and lit the motor. It was a risky manoeuvre – if the angle of attack was too shallow the pod would skip away into deep space with no hope of return, and if it was too steep the pod would burn up – but aerobraking was the only way he could shed enough velocity.

Like a match scratching a tiny flare across a wall of white marble, the pod cut a chord above Texas IX’s cloud-tops. Carver was buffeted by vibration and pinned to the couch by deceleration that peaked at eight gees. He screamed into the vast shuddering noise; screamed with exhilaration and fear. Useless Beauty maintained its unsettling silence. Then the flames that filled the forward cameras died back and the pod rose above the planet’s nightside.

The stars came out, all at once.

Useless Beauty’s affectless voice said, “That was interesting.”

“We aren’t down yet,” Carver said. He was grinning like a fool. He believed that the worst was over.

The escape pod fell away from Texas IX, heading out towards its moon. It was almost there when Mr Kanza’s scow overtook it.

Soon after it had formed, while its core had been still molten, something big had smashed into Texas IX’s solitary moon. It had excavated a wide, deep basin in one side of the moon, and seismic waves travelling through the crust and core had focused on the area antipodal to the impact, jostling and lifting the surface, breaking crater rims and intercrater areas into a vast maze of hills and valleys, opening vents that flooded crater floors with fresh lava. That was where the escape pod came down, a thousand kilometres from the moon’s only settlement, a hundred or so hardscrabble ranches strung along the shore of a shallow, hypersaline sea.

The scow, shooting past at a relative velocity of twenty klicks per second, had cooked the pod with a microwave burst, killing the pod’s AI and crippling most of its control systems. Although the pod’s aerobraking surfaces gave Carver a little leeway as it ploughed through the moon’s thin atmosphere, it smashed down hard and skidded a long way across a lava plain; despite the web holding Carver to the couch and the impact foam that flooded the pod’s interior, he was knocked unconscious.

When he came around a few minutes later, the pod was canted at a steep angle, the hatch was open, and Useless Beauty was gone. Carver was bruised over most of his body and his nose was tender and bleeding, possibly broken, but he was not badly hurt. He clawed his way through dissolving strands of impact foam and clambered out of the hatch, discovered that the pod lay at the end of a long furrow, its skin scarred, scraped and discoloured, and radiating an intense heat he could feel through his pressure suit. Big patches of spindly desert vegetation burned briskly on either side, lofting long reefs of smoke into the white sky.

Useless Beauty’s tank stood on top of a ridge of overturned dirt, its black cylinder balanced on four many-jointed legs, two more limbs raised as if in prayer towards the sky. Carver was surprised and grateful to see it; he’d thought that the !Cha had taken the opportunity to make a run for it.

“This is only a brief respite,” Useless Beauty said, as Carver clambered up the ridge. “Your owner’s ship has swung far beyond this moon, but it is braking hard. It will soon be back.”

“Then we can’t stay here,” Carver said. We have to find a place to hide out until someone from the settlement comes to investigate.”

The tank’s two upper limbs swung down, aiming clusters of tools and sensors straight at Carver, and Useless Beauty said, “This is the part of your plan that I do not understand. This moon is owned by the Collective. You are a runaway slave. Surely they will side with your master. And if they do not, they will claim you for themselves.”

Here it was. Carver took a breath and said, “Not if you claim me first.”

After a short pause, Useless Beauty said, “So that is why you needed me.”

“As we say in the Alliance, one good turn deserves another. I rescued you; now it’s your turn to rescue me.”

Throwing himself on the mercy of the !Cha was the biggest risk of the whole enterprise. Carver had never felt so scared and alone as he did then, waiting out another of Useless Beauty’s silences while hot sunlight beat down through drifts of smoke, and Mr Kanza’s scow grew closer somewhere on the other side of the sky.

At last, the !Cha said, “You are very persistent.”

“Does that mean you’ll help me?”

“I admit that I want to see what happens next.”

Carver supposed that he would have to take that as a “yes”. Low hills shimmered in the middle distance. The ruins of a Boxbuilder city were scattered across their sere slopes like so many strings of beads. He pointed at the ruins and said, “As soon as I’ve gotten rid of this pressure suit, we start walking.”

The !Cha’s four-legged cylinder moved with easy grace through the simmering desert. Carver, wearing only his suit liner and boots, a pouch of water slung over his shoulder, had to jog to keep up. The air was thin, and the fat sun beat down mercilessly, but he revelled in the feeling of the sun’s heat on his skin and dry wind in his hair, in the glare of the harsh landscape. Everything seemed infinitely precious, a chain of diamond-sharp moments. He had never before felt so alive as he did then, with death so close at his heels.

As Carver and the !Cha climbed towards a ravine that snaked between interlocking ridges, a double sonic boom cracked across the sky. The scow had arrived. But Carver wasn’t ready to give up yet, and there were plenty of places to hide in the ruins. Chains of hollow cubes spun from polymer and rock dust climbed the slopes on either side, piled on top of each other, running along ridges, bridging narrow valleys: a formidable labyrinth with thousands of nooks and crannies that led deep into the hills, where he and Useless Beauty could hide out until sort of rescue party arrived from the colony. For a little while, he began to believe that his plan might work, but then he and the !Cha reached the end of a chain of cubes at the top of a ridge, and found Rider Jackson waiting for them.

The young officer put his pistol on Carver and said, “You led us a pretty good chase, but you forgot one thing.”

He was wearing a black Navy flight suit with a big zip down the front and pockets patching the chest and legs; that know-everything-tell-nothing expression blanked his face.

“I did?”

“You forgot you’re an indentured worker. Your Judas bridge led me straight to you. Your owner will be here as soon as he can find a place to park his ship. I reckon you’ve got just enough time to tell me your side of the story.”

While the scow lowered towards a setback below the ridge, Carver told Rider Jackson more or less everything that had happened out at the brown dwarf. Rider Jackson knew most of it, of course, because he’d seen the footage and data the tug had sent to Mr Kanza, but he listened patiently and said, when Carver was finished, “I didn’t know he was lying about your brother. If I had, I would have put an end to this a lot sooner.”

“He was probably lying about a lot of things.”

“Like giving me a 50 per cent share in the prize, uh?”

“Like giving you any share at all.”

“You might well be right,” Rider Jackson said, and looked for the first time at Useless Beauty’s tank. “Care to explain why you came along for the ride?”

“I have nothing to give you,” it said.

“I bet you don’t. But that wasn’t what I asked,” Rider Jackson said, and that was when Mr Kanza arrived.

Grim and angry and out of breath, he bulled straight across the roofless cube and stuck his shock stick in Carver’s face. Carver couldn’t help flinching; Mr Kanza smiled and said, “Tell me what the !Cha found and where it is, and maybe I won’t have to use this.”

Rider Jackson said, “There’s no point threatening him. You want to know the truth, figure out how to get the !Cha to talk straight.”

Mr Kanza stepped back from Carver and aimed the shock stick at Rider Jackson. “You were indentured once, just like him. Is that why you’re taking his side? I knew it was a mistake to let you go chase him down.”

“You could have come with me,” Rider Jackson said, “but you were happy to let me take the risk.”

“He told you. He told you what that thing found and you made a deal with him.”

“You’re making a bad mistake.”

The two men were staring at each other, Rider Jackson impassive, Mr Kanza angry and sweating, saying, “I bet you tasted the stick in your time. You’ll taste it again if you don’t drop that pistol.”

Rider Jackson said, “I guess we aren’t partners any more.”

“You’re right,” Mr Kanza said, and zapped him.

Carver was caught by the edge of the stick’s field. His Judas bridge kicked in, his muscles went into spasm, hot spikes hammered through his skull, and he fell straight down.

Rider Jackson didn’t so much as twitch. He put his pistol on Mr Kanza and said, “The Navy took out my bridge when I signed up. Set down that stick and your pistol, and I’ll let you walk away.”

“We’re partners.”

“You said it yourself: not any more. If you start walking now, maybe you can find somewhere to hide before the cutter turns up.”

Mr Kanza screamed and threw the shock stick at Rider Jackson and made a grab for the pistol stuck in his utility belt. Rider Jackson shot him. He shot Mr Kanza twice in the chest and the man sat down, winded and dazed but still alive: his pressure suit had stopped the flechettes. He groped for his pistol and Rider Jackson said, “Don’t do it.”

“Fuck you,” Mr Kanza said and jerked up his pistol and fired it wildly. Rider Jackson didn’t flinch. He took careful aim and shot Mr Kanza in the head, and the man fell sideways and lay still.

Rider Jackson turned and put his pistol on Useless Beauty’s black cylinder and said calmly, “I don’t suppose this can punch through your casing, but I could shoot off your limbs one by one and set you on a fire.”

There was a brief silence. Then the !Cha said, “You will need a very hot fire, and much more time than you have.”

“I have more time than you think,” Rider Jackson said. “I know Dana Sabah, the woman flying that cutter. She’s a good pilot, but she’s inexperienced and too cautious. Right now, she’ll be watching us from orbit, waiting to see how it plays out before she makes her move.”

“If she does not come, then the settlers will rescue me.”

“Uh-uh. Even if the settlers know about us, which I doubt, Dana will have told them to back off. I reckon I have more than enough time to boil the truth out of you.”

Useless Beauty said, “I have already told the truth.”

Carver got to his feet and told Rider Jackson, “It doesn’t matter if it’s telling the truth or not. All that matters is that we can escape in the scow. But first, I want you to drop your pistol.”

Rider Jackson looked at the pistol Carver was holding – Mr Kanza’s pistol – and said, “I wondered if you’d have the guts to pick it up. The question is now, do you have the guts to use it?”

“If I have to.”

“Look at us,” Rider Jackson said. “I’m an officer in the Collective Navy; you’re a prisoner of war sold into slavery, trying to get home … We could fight a duel to see who gets the scow. It would make a good ending to the story, wouldn’t it?”

Carver smiled and said, “It would, but this isn’t a story.”

“Of course it’s a story. Do you know why !Cha risk their lives chasing after Elder Culture artefacts?”