Warhorse (5 page)

Damn the Tampies, anyway.
Abruptly, he reached to his console, keyed the radio. If the Tampies
were
here to keep tabs on his hunting— “Tampy ship, this is Captain Haml Roman aboard the C.S.S.
Dryden
,” he identified himself, his tone harsher than he'd intended it to be. “Your presence in this part of the system is not exactly conducive to our mission of hunting poachers. Would it be at all possible for you to shift your own operations elsewhere?”

“I hear,” the whining alien voice came promptly. “We conduct no operations here, Rro-maa; we bring a message for you from your people.”

Roman blinked. That wasn't exactly the reply he'd been expecting. “I see. Go ahead, we're ready to receive it.”

An indicator came on briefly and went off. “Farewell,” the Tampy said, and a moment later vanished from the displays.

The message was short, but no less a bombshell for all that. Roman read it twice before raising his eyes from his screen. “Lieutenant, lay in a course back to Solomon,” he ordered Nussmeyer. “Head out as soon as the Mitsuushi's ready to go.”

“Trouble?” Trent asked.

“I'm not sure,” Roman shook his head. “The message just says that we're to return, that the refitting for the
Amity
project has been finished.”

Trent's forehead furrowed. “That's it? So what do they want from us?—a flyby to send it off?”

“Not really,” Roman said. “Mostly, what they want is me…to be
Amity
's captain.”

T
HE COURIER SHIP THAT
had brought Roman from Solomon to the Tampies' Kialinninni system had been an old one, right on the edge of being retired or possibly a bit past it; and if appearances and the occasional creaking from the bracing struts were any indication, the shuttle now arrowing him toward Kialinninni's sun and the Tampy space horse corral was of similar vintage. A continual and sobering reminder that the
Amity
project was looked upon with scorn or even suspicion by a significant part of the Senate and Starforce…and that it was that faction that controlled the appropriations. “I hope,” he commented, “that the
Amity
's in better shape than this thing.”

The pilot chuckled. Like the shuttle he, too, was unspectacular: a middle-aged lieutenant who'd apparently reached the peak of his capabilities years before and had just sort of stayed there. Unlike the hardware, though, there was something more beneath his surface; some quietly flickering flame of excitement or optimism that official contempt and slashed budgets had been unable to dampen.

Roman had seen such borderline-religious faith before among the more rabid pro-Tampy supporters. He had yet to decide whether he found it encouraging or frightening.

“Not to worry, sir,” the pilot assured him. “The
Amity
is a beauty—brand-new, top-line in-system freighter, modified down centerline and out. You'll have better equipment and accommodations than most anything flying. Certainly better than anything
I've
ever flown on.”

Which might not, of course, be saying much. “Glad to hear it,” Roman said, eyes searching the view out the shuttle's control bubble. “Can we see it from here?”

“Just barely, sir,” the other said, touching the wraparound viewport. “That's
Amity
over there—that line of reflected sunlight right at the edge of the corral.”

Roman frowned. “
That's
part of the corral? I assumed that was the corral over there.” He pointed thirty degrees further to the left, where the edge of a cylindrical space station was visible in the dim red light. Beside it, the shapes of three space horses could be seen, with a small ship trailing behind each. Couriers, almost certainly; the Tampies had consistently refused the Cordonale's offer of tachyon transceivers to handle their interstellar communication.

“Oh, that's just the central part of it,” the lieutenant explained. “The Focus, they call it. It holds the administrative offices, quarters for on-duty Handlers, and the medical/scientific study center. The corral enclosure itself extends a good three hundred kilometers further in both directions.” He grinned. “Plenty of room for even space horses to get their exercise.”

Still frowning, Roman studied the indicated area. Sure enough, now that he was looking for them he could see a few space horses drifting individually around in what looked for all the world like empty space. “What keeps them in, netting mesh?”

“Mainly, sir. It's a double thickness of netting, wrapped around a geodesic support framework that keeps it from losing its shape.”

Roman squinted at the dim red star. “So what keeps them from simply Jumping out? The fact that they're at a low gravitational potential this close in to the star?”

“That's part of it, sir,” the other said. “Jumps are between equipotential surfaces, and practically any star the space horses can see from here is a lot bigger and hotter. That's why the Tampies put their corral in this system—the sun is cool but very dense, and any Jump from the enclosure would put the space horse pretty close to its target star. But there's more.” He did something to the navigational display, and a schematic of a section of netting appeared. “Those nodules—at the framework intersections, here and here—those are the ends of lightpipes. The other ends are connected to lenses pointed outward at particular stars.”

“Uh-
huh
,” Roman said as understanding came. “So the space horses can look in and see a normal stellar spectrum, but because they aren't actual stars there's nothing there for them to lock onto and Jump to. However the hell it is they do that.”

“Right, sir,” the lieutenant nodded. “Also, the fake starlight tends to mask the real stars behind them—sort of an extra bonus. Simple but elegant.”

Roman felt his lip twitch.
Simple but elegant
—the standard stock phrase used by pro-Tampies to describe Tampy technology.
Simpleminded and primitive
was the equally standard anti-Tampy retort. “Well, it obviously works,” Roman conceded. “How'd you learn all this stuff, anyway?”

The other's forehead creased slightly. “I asked the Tampies, of course. They're extremely eager to teach us their ways.”

“Provided one genuinely wants to learn?”

The other threw him an odd look. “Well, yes, sir,” he said. “You don't think they'd force their viewpoint down our throats, do you?”

“They do a fair job of it on the shared worlds,” Roman said, moved by a strange impulse to play devil's advocate. “Passive resistance is still resistance.”

It was as if someone had flipped a switch on the lieutenant's personality. “Yes, sir,” he said, his tone abruptly stiff and formal.

Roman let the cool silence hang in the air a moment longer. “You know, Lieutenant,” he said, keeping his voice conversational, “a person who can't understand both sides of an argument hasn't got a chance of cutting through all the emotion and rhetoric and finding common ground.”

“There may not
be
any common ground on this one. Sir.”

“There's always common ground,” Roman said bluntly. “And it can always be found if someone's willing to search for it.
Always
.”

He watched the other's profile, saw the stiffness and anger fade. “Understood, sir,” he muttered. He glanced over at Roman, and a tentative smile brushed his lips. “In this case, I take it, that someone is you?”

A half-crew's worth of human beings: thoroughly— perhaps even violently—polarized in their feelings for or against Tampies…who would be making up the other half of the crew. “Perhaps,” he said. “Peacemaker is certainly one of the two possible roles I've been cast for here.”

The lieutenant frowned. “What's the other?”

Roman grimaced. “Scapegoat.”

The woman was tall and slender, in her mid-forties, with graying dark hair, piercing eyes, and an air of confidence about her as she glided easily to the center of Roman's office. “Lieutenant Erin Kennedy, Captain,” she identified herself. “Reporting for preflight interview as ordered.”

“Welcome aboard, Lieutenant,” Roman nodded to her. “Or should I say ‘Commander'?”

Her eyebrows twitched. “ ‘Lieutenant' will be fine, sir,” she said. “I was told that the reduction in rank wouldn't be mentioned in my file.”

“It wasn't,” Roman told her. “It happens that one of my friends served on a ship where you were exec some years back, and your name stuck with me.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I presume the demotion was voluntary?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I was originally slated to be
Amity
's exec, but at the last minute I was bounced—one faction of the Senate battling with another, I gather, and my supporters lost. That left me the choice of either accepting a demotion to second officer or not coming at all.”

“I see.” Roman eyed her thoughtfully. “And riding with the
Amity
was that important to you?”

“Yes, sir,” she nodded. “But not for the reason everyone else signed on.”

“You don't particularly care one way or the other about Tampies.” It was a statement, not a question. Kennedy's psych profile had put her almost dead-center neutral on her feelings about Tampies, a glaring anomaly among
Amity
's emotion-churned majority.

She shrugged, an infinitesimal movement of her shoulders. “Not really, sir. Though it might be more accurate to just say that I know enough for the things I like and the things I dislike to balance out.”

In many ways an echo of Roman's own feelings about the aliens. Fleetingly, he wished Kennedy hadn't lost in her bid to be
Amity
's exec. “You see yourself as a peacemaker between the Pros and Antis, then?” he probed gently.

She smiled faintly. “And get shot at by both sides? Not me, sir. Actually, the main reason I wanted to come was for the hands-on experience of flying a space horse. With commercial shipping companies already experimenting with space horse-and-Tampy rentals, this looks to be the direction interstar travel is going.”

“Perhaps.” Or perhaps not; the handful of companies who had actually tried hiring space horses instead of using Mitsuushi-equipped ships had indeed raked in substantial profits…and had lost customer goodwill in roughly equal measure in the process. At the moment it was considered a toss-up as to the direction the private-sector experiment would ultimately go.

Just one more burden, Roman thought sourly, resting on his and
Amity
's shoulders. “Space horse experience, at any rate, I think I can safely guarantee you. Have you had a chance to look through our voyage plan yet?”

“Of course, sir.” She seemed surprised he would have to ask. “I've also read the initial survey reports on the four planets we'll be looking over. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta, the reports designate them.”

“The designations weren't my idea,” Roman assured her dryly. “I would have picked something with a little more class.”

She smiled again. “Yes, I've had some experience with bureaucracies and report factories myself, sir,” she said. “One question, if I may: everything in those reports came via the Tampies?”

“Right. We'll be the first humans to visit any of the four systems.”

“So everything in them—such as it is—is written from the Tampy point of view.”

“It's something to keep in mind when we get there,” Roman agreed. “Any other comments on either the plan or the reports?”

She considered. “Not really, sir. I did notice several places where the timetable or even the mission plan itself seemed a bit vague. May I assume that was deliberate?”

“You may indeed,” Roman nodded. “I wanted to leave us enough room to play things by ear. Don't forget, Lieutenant, that this is the first time something like this has been tried. You're going to be helping to make history here.”

Or at least a footnote to history,
her look seemed to say. “Yes, sir,” she said instead, her voice suitably neutral.

“We'll be examining the voyage plan at regular intervals once we're actually underway,” Roman continued. “I'll look forward to your input then, and at any other time you have a comment, of course. So.” He glanced at his desktop display, checking to see if there were any other questions he'd wanted to ask her. “How's your organization of piloting staff and helmers going? Any problems cropped up yet?”

“Nothing significant,” she shook her head. “Certainly not when you consider the potential for psychological clashes aboard.”

“Yes, some of that's already surfaced back in engineering,” Roman said grimly.

“I've heard,” she nodded. “I don't think you'll have to worry about anything that bad in the helmer staff. I've had to handle worse conflicts on some of the warships I've served on.”

“Good,” Roman said. “Then unless you have any questions, I'll let you get back to your duties.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Are we still scheduled for an 0800 departure tomorrow?”

“Provided the Tampies are all aboard and have the space horse tethered to us by then,” Roman said, suppressing a flash of annoyance. The Tampies, he'd discovered to his mild chagrin, had their own idea as to what constituted top speed, a level that was considerably below human expectations. “You can assume we're on schedule unless and until you hear anything to the contrary.”

“My people will be ready whenever you need us.”

“I'm sure they will. Thank you for coming by, Lieutenant. Dismissed.”

She glided to the door and exited, and Roman turned with a sigh to his desktop display. A hundred twenty-three interviews down; just one more to go…but this last one was likely to be a beaut.

Amity
's exec. The man who Senate infighting had succeeded in putting in as second in command, despite the record and obvious competence of Erin Kennedy. The man who, unlike the rest of the ship's officers and crew, had arrived barely twenty-four hours before the ship's scheduled departure, too late to help with any of the pre-flight preparations.