The View from the Imperium (16 page)

“No, I have to see him in person.”

He stumbled out of the pilot’s compartment and off the ship’s ramp. Colm kept hold of his arm.

“Senthi, I’m counting on you. Don’t flame out on me now.”

“It would disappoint him! I can’t do it! Let me go!”

To Colm’s annoyance, their argument attracted attention of a group around the nearest viewscreen. Several large beings in shipsuits moved to form a protective arc behind the two males.

“This being bothering ye, Senthi?” asked a bulky man with green tattoos over his ebony face.

Guaya’s eyes flicked wildly from face to face, always going back to the viewscreen. “He’s trying to make me leave Boske!”

“He can’t do that,” said a Cocomon in a green shipsuit. “Orders have been given.”

“I know!” Senthi exclaimed. “Captain Sgarthad wouldn’t like it!”

They all looked at the screen.

Colm deliberately placed himself in front of it, eliciting protests from the rest and his own conscience.

“I’ll double the fee,” Colm whispered to Senthi, as the four largest males jumped on him. The Cocomon pilot closed his mandibles around Colm’s wrist, its toothy projections jabbing his skin. A huge human male plumped down on his back, knocking the air out of his lungs. “Double!” he gasped. Senthi stared down at him, torn between self-interest and fascination.

“You promise?” Senthi said.

“I do,” Colm asserted, though every syllable used up precious oxygen. Blackness edged his vision and threatened to swamp it. The man sitting on him seemed to take on weight by the second. He held on to consciousness and Senthi’s gaze with all his will. It seemed like forever before Senthi spoke.

“Nay, he’s not bothering me.” Senthi gave an apologetic glance at the screen behind them. He offered a hand to Colm. “Let him up. He won’t cause any more trouble.”

The Cocomon rolled his big eyes up. “Are you sure?”

“Aye.”

The other pilots rose reluctantly. The heavy man on Colm’s back was the last to rise. The crew drifted back to the viewscreen. Colm gasped in air and leaned against the
Whipcrack
.

“My mother has never had a fee like that,” Senthi said. “Double, you say?”

Colm glanced at the others. They had forgotten all about him.

“I did. Half now,” Colm said. He moved close so his face filled Senthi’s vision. “Dorie will give you the other half. Go now. Please hurry.”

“Won’t be a fast trip, you know. I might miss the City Race Contest. That’s weeks off, but you know what it’s like in between jumps.”

“There’s always next year. This is more than first prize, than all the prizes combined.”

Senthi gave him an embarrassed grin. “Well, suppose I can’t be greedy.”

He glanced over Colm’s shoulder at the screen, and his face went blank.

“Oh, no, not again,” Colm said. He pushed Senthi up the ramp into the ship.

“Hey, help! What are you doing?” Senthi demanded, then gave him a sheepish grin over his shoulder. “Oh, wait. Okay, man. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Captain Sgarthad would want you to take this trip for him.”

“He would? That’s what I hope.”

Colm helped him into the pilot’s couch and strapped him in. Senthi immediately began the preflight check.

“Captain’s log, fuel gauges full, all pressurization is on green and ready to go. Ultra-drive engines at ninety-eight-percent efficiency.” That was the best one could hope for in a vintage ship, Colm reflected. “Attention, tower, this is
Whipcrack
. T minus ten minutes and counting.”

“What? What?” came a sputtered cry from master control. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Carstairs, tower. As ordered, going home.” Senthi gave Colm a cocky grin. “All bills have been paid with ship’s license number . . .”

With Senthi busy, Colm slipped over to the unusued navigator’s station and logged into the ship’s computer. He used his council codes to override the video and audio input. He disconnected input from the tower. The protests cut off and were replaced by machine chatter and music.

“What do you say, tower?” Senthi demanded, listening hard, his hands crawling over the controls.

“Bzzz bzz bzz bzzzzz-whirrrr!”

“Curse it, that’s AI lingo! Did the Standard language circuit cut out again? I just replaced it!”

Colm shrugged in sympathy. On the main screentank, instead of the local news starring the Trade Union captain, the Grid was now locked onto a channel showing ancient digitavid dramas about a wealthy, extended family and the devoted electronic beings that served them. Once he was offworld Senthi would find the locked circuit and put it right, hopefully
long
after he had lifted ship and made his first ultra-drive jump.

“They said, ‘good to go,’ ” Colm said. He held out his personal communicator, showing the promised sum. He hit send, and the numbers vanished from the screen. A
ping
at Senthi’s waist said that it had been transferred to the pilot’s file. “Here’s the first half of your fee. I’d better get off or I’m going all the way with you.”

“Multi-chess tournament when I get back?” Senthi asked.

Colm grinned. “You’ve got it. Safe journey.”

He swung out of the hatch just as it slammed shut and sealed. The ship shot ten meters off the pad before the other spacers on the ground noticed that it was moving.

“Attention, please,
Whipcrack
! Return to your pad immediately. You are not cleared for Carstairs! Repeat, you are not cleared for Carstairs!”

Colm hoped fervently they wouldn’t resort to weaponry to bring Senthi down again, but he didn’t know how powerful Sgarthad’s secret hold was on the minds of his fellow beings. Away from the influence of the visitor’s image, people might return to their own senses. It was a piece of data he wished he had had time to record into the package, but there had not been time. He hoped the information he included was enough.

He had to get back to the councillor before she needed him again and noticed he was missing. No sense in building up a reputation as being infallible if one wasn’t there to reinforce it. In the meanwhile, he had to find out what he could about that hypnosis device and means to combat it. With a wistful glance over his shoulder, he headed for the public transportation hub. He had plenty of research to do.

Chapter 8

Even though the artificial gravity was turned on in the shuttle bay, I felt as if I was floating. The small craft that nestled there was a marvel of efficiency over art. Not a square centimeter occupied its trim frame. Her name, enameled upon the hull forward of the main hatch, was
CK-M945B
. True, there was little euphony in the designation, but it held music for my ears.

When Parsons had informed me I was to command a small cutter for a mission heretofore to be revealed, I cajoled him for every detail—none of which was forthcoming, of course. All I could do was read up on the statistics of all the scout crafts currently in use in the Imperial Space Navy. That amounted to some sixty designs. It had seemed like a high data mountain to scale, until I realized I knew at least that many standard personal spacecraft used by my peers among the nobility. Under the Imperium’s policy, we nobles were all given generous allowances. I had bought myself an asteroid-bouncer or two with a few months’ proceeds, and modified them as far as my pocketbook would allow for efficiency as well as beauty. There were fewer upgrades or changes among the naval craft, none of them for aesthetics, which made them easier to learn.

I was delighted to see that before me stood a Nexus Mark XV. The model had been brought on line only eighteen months before, making it absolute cutting edge for the navy. The Mark XV had been made to move and maneuver with the least amount of thrust. Its blue-white hull had a vertical oval cross-section, fanning out to a wide oval on the horizontal at the stern. Its nose looked rather human, slanting down from the top more swiftly than up from the bottom, making room for sensors and a superior repulsor net array. The hull was sealed with matt enamel over fourteen centimeters thick over a core of titanium-ceramic that could repel heat weapons as well as missiles up to fifteen-hundred megatons per square centimeter, should anything penetrate its repulsor shield, an upgraded system that had received the highest safety scores. Its ultra-drive, the three emitters emerging from the stern, kicked into maximum acceleration six seconds quicker than the next speediest scout craft, giving one a head start from orbit against an enemy craft. Those seconds could save lives. In the same vein, its life-support systems were so tightly sealed that it could run on an emergency battery for eight weeks or more, a necessity I hoped fervently I would not have to test.

“She’s beautiful, Parsons,” I breathed.

“Of course, sir,” he said, calmly. “Shall we prepare to depart? The crew is waiting.”

“By Forn, yes, the crew!” I exclaimed. I couldn’t understand his lack of excitement. This was a brand new ship at the top of the line. We were going to be the first to fly her on a mission. But Parsons was inscrutable. I had never understood him, not since I was a child, but now was not the time to begin probing the depths of his mystery. Instead, I turned to my new command.

The scout held a maximum crew of fifteen, but could be run by two. I had assumed that previous evening when I left the admiral’s presence that those two would be Parsons and myself. To my delight, when I read my assignment off my personal information device, I found that I was being assigned a further crew of four, their names and designations supplied. I had read their dossiers with deep interest. Not only that, I had been given the names of the militia members I was scheduled to review. I perused those as well. A good commander, my great-uncle Perleas often remarked, knew his own soldiers as well as he knew himself. These were mine only as proxy, but I wished to represent Admiral Podesta in a manner that would make him proud—and would keep him from sending an angry note to my mother.

I was so excited about my upcoming assignment that only once did I think about the realization that I had been released from punishment detail, and that I was free to go and socialize with my rank peers. A moment’s rue for the excellent tri-tennis court, and I delved back into the various files at my disposal. It would still be there upon my return. I wanted to be absolutely prepared. Little sleep visited my cabin during the so-called dark shift.

The crewbeings assigned to this mission stood by the hatch, arms behind their backs, eyes staring out straight ahead. Two humans, a Wichu and an Uctu, all in full military dress as Parsons and I were. To my great annoyance, the white stripe had been removed from the side of all the trousers in my wardrobe and replaced it with the medium gray-blue of an ensign’s rank. The stitching was flawless, so I suspected that one of the robotailors on board had been put to work when I left the cabin for one of my allowed purposes. Still, at my side was a formal naval officer’s sword that had belonged to my father and his father before him, dating back in the family over four thousand years. To that I was most certainly entitled. I rested my palm upon the ornate gold hilt and imagined it singing the rolls of my ancestry.

“Good afternoon, crew!” I exclaimed. They erupted in crisp salutes. I returned them. “At ease.” As one, they put their hands behind them and stepped out sideways with their right feet. I walked down the row. As it was a very brief trip, I reversed and made the return journey, just so I could feel that I had really done a review. They looked just as I had seen them imaged in their files: Navigator and Helm Officer Indiri Oskelev, Wichu; Fire Control Officer Amuk Rous, Uctu, midshipman; executive officer Lieutenant Carissa Plet, and Engineer Ensign Omicron Bailly, whose wide blue eyes revealed the same unbridled enthusiasm for the ship as I felt. I suddenly experienced a wave of affection for them—
my
crew.

This was far too good an opportunity to miss. From my trouser pocket, I removed my finest camera, the Optique Callusion. It had been made by Harfourn, was the best optical capture device currently available anywhere in the Imperium. I felt that it was a better model than the Fren Omulsion 9.1, that came from the Trade Union and was marketed to the same upscale, discerning customers as the Callusion, but lacked a few of what I considered key features, such as individual color enhancement, and I suspected contained a bug or two which would permit images to be transmitted against the photographer’s attention straight to listening or looking devices in Trade Union satellites. As a loyal subject of the Imperium, I eschewed Trade Union goods unless there was no homegrown alternative. Besides, the Optique’s lenses were superior. Also, its storage was on a platinum-hair matrix that would be able to retain an enormous quantity videos and single images that would last the length of my mission.

I tossed the small orb into the air and ran to set myself in the middle of my crew.

“Parsons!” I cried, beckoning to him. “Parsons, come and get in the picture.”

“Thank you, my lord, but I will decline,” Parsons said austerely. “Our launch window is in sixteen minutes. There is no time for hobbies.”

“There is always time for recording an occasion,” I chided him. He stood just out of range of a 360° shot, and no doubt the clever man knew it. No matter. I flung my arms around the necks of the two nearest crewmembers. “Smile!”

The platinum orb emitted a near-blinding flash of light. The Gecko’s pupils contracted to pinpoints and he made a face, but the others managed a game smile. I signaled the camera to take a second exposure, but a dark-looming shadow with Parsons’s outline appeared before me, blocking the best of the light.

“It is time to go, sir,” he said. He turned me with a firm hand toward the hatch. However, he failed to secure my camera, which I had trained to avoid capture by anyone but me, and it trailed along after us, taking video and still pictures for my scrapbook and Infogrid file. I felt my heart swell with pride. My first assignment! What a success it would be! I would make my mother glad that she had produced such a son.

As the ensign-captain of the
CK-M945B,
I sat in the command couch in the center rear of the control room, but the navigation and helm duties were taken by Oskelev. She looked back over her shoulder at me. I sat back against the padding, so new it still had that fresh-from-the-factory chemical aroma, wanting to relish the moment, when a sharp “Ahem!” from Parsons stole all the wind from my sails. I swiveled my chair upright.