Harvest of Stars - [Harvest of Stars 01]

by Poul Anderson

  The board informed her that anti-Guthrie wanted to talk again on the previous band. Kyra touched Record and received him. “Did you hear?” she asked. “Will you go away and stop bothering us?”

  “No, you go away,” he answered. A bare hint of laughter: “I like your spirit, lass, I truly do. Bet you’re hell on wheels in bed. I’d hate to kill you. Please flit off. I won’t pursue.”

  So would the jefe speak. Her heart contracted with pain. Fury overcame it. “Listen, you,” she said between her teeth. “Scuttle off or you’re dead. If ‘dead’ is the right word. I’d enjoy shutting you down.”

  “Be reasonable,” he urged. “I’ve got the boost of you. More than just what’s in my drive. I can take accelerations as high as this boat will go, for as long as she will. You can’t.”

  “I know. Because I know what you are!” she spat. Cooler: “What of it? I can keep you in play, keep you dodging, till your tanks are dry and your orbit cold. Think what models of torch we fly. Think how you’ve been in space, skipping around, for many hours, while my craft’s fresh out of service bay. I’ve got the delta v of you, señor, and I intend to use it.”

  “Spaceship Bruin, B56,” sounded from another speaker. “Captain Helledahl. With us, Jacobite, C45, Captain Stuart. We’re the two that came to relieve L-5—”

  “Hold on,” Kyra said. She pressed switches. “Bueno, we’re all talking together now. Bruin, Jacobite, here’s the conversation I was just having.” Compressed, it transmitted in a millisecond. “I suppose you’ll want to check back with Luna, but myself, I see no reason why you can’t proceed to L-5.”

  “I am the reason,” came starkly.

  Kyra shook her head. “‘Fraid not, un-Guthrie. You try to attack a third-party ship, and you’re meat for me. Go away, I told you.”

  “You’ll grow tired. You’ll have to eat, go to the can, sleep. Delta v or no, I’ve got more active hours left than you do.”

  “We’ll see about that. I’m hunting you, you know.”

  “And meanwhile,” said a voice that must be Stuart’s, “the help you asked for should arrive.”

  “It’ll arrive too late, and I’ll chop it up,” said anti-Guthrie. “Lass, I’m sorry, but now in earnest I’m hunting you.”

  In the displays, his ship blazed.

  “Intercept,” Kyra’s throat and hands directed again. Stars wheeled across her sight as Kestrel rotated. There went Orion, there went his hounds. Thrust pressed her back. It was gentle. Likewise the Katana’s, she read. When you fully meant business, you moved as slow as might be.

  “If we want to be sure he doesn’t rake us, we should bend off at about five hundred klicks,” Kestrel told her. “Closer, he might with top acceleration acquire a vector that I can’t react to soon enough.”

  “But probably you could, no?”

  “Probably, yes.”

  “Bueno, he’s right about the endurance of flesh and blood being less than his. Our best bet is to make him expend mass, lots of mass, in a hurry. Maintain vector.”

  “Pilot Davis—” Helledahl began.

  “Don’t pester me now,” Kyra snapped. “Get on the beam to Luna.”

  The bearing did not hold steady, as for a collision course at sea or in the air. Both vessels were under boost. But the stars gleamed changeless before her—she was aimed at Andromeda, the sister galaxy a whirlpool off her starboard bow—and the diagram extrapolated two glitter-dots bound for a common point.

  In the viewscreen the Katana became a spark flitting across the constellations. “Two minutes,” Kestrel warned.

  “Steady as she goes,” Kyra ordered.

  One or the other, or both, must give way, cut thrust, spin around, move sideways at such an angle and with such a force as to escape running into the energy sword of the enemy. Neither could know what the other would do, nor when.

  It sped through Kyra: Anti-Guthrie didn’t intend mutual destruction. That would give her the victory. Not that she wanted to die. No, she hoped to kill. He’d realize that. He’d expect her to veer, in such a way that her blast might catch him. Therefore he would do likewise. The first to leap aside had a disadvantage, in that rotation before reboost took time. But if she held her course for whole seconds longer than he guessed a live human would dare—

  He loomed.

  Cut drive. Blow spinjets, a bare few degrees. Fire while still turning. Gyrate crazily off.

  —The knowledge reached Kyra that she was alive. “Give me a picture,” she whispered into the hush. “Give me data.”

  The Katana receded, a blade, a needle, a star, nothing. The readouts declared that she fell free, adrift on the tides of sun, Earth, Luna, universe. The image generated was of a hull unholed, but in it the drive assembly was only highlights and shadow. “Bring us about for a closer look,” Kyra said.

  “Pilot Davis, Pilot Davis.” rattled in her ears from Helledahl, “I think you have—”

  “Callate la boca.” She recovered her wits. “Sorry. No offense. But leave me be for a while.”

  Acceleration surged. Kestrel overtook the enemy craft and matched velocities, a few hundred meters off. At that remove, the damage was plain to eyes as well as instruments. A flame hotter than a solar flare had burned across the stern. Metal curdled along the edges of a night-black wound. Gobbets of it, flung off, still orbited near, uneasy as dustmotes. Surely the thrusters inside were a ruin.

  “Hola, hola,” Kyra called. “Are you there?” Silence hummed. She looked from the console, as if toward a face. Nothing but the stars met her gaze. “We may’ve knocked out his communications too,” she said without tone. “Or else he’s lying low.”

  “Maybe he, the pilot, is defunct,”Kestrel said.

  “Maybe. Though that’d have to be by radiation, and a plug-in is well shielded, you know. Hola, hola, Guthrie Two?”

  After a while Kyra gave up. She felt no triumph, not yet, she was wrung out, and . . . and how quietly wonderful it was to be alive.

  But how had this happened? She’d simply meant to make him flinch. She’d had no real expectation of slashing him. It was enough if he spent more mass than she did. Somehow he’d misgauged and she’d taken him. Strange.

  Oh, this discarnation of Anson Guthrie was no god. It had gained some powers, it had lost some. Was it subject to blind rage or despairing recklessness? She didn’t know. But certainly it was fallible. That she knew, how very well.

  She shook herself. “We’d better keep busy,” she said aloud, as if Kestrel shared her sudden exhaustion. With numb hands and tingling lips, she set about trying to raise Fireball on Luna.

  * * * *

  37

  T

  he Sepo in Port Bowen were few. Guthrie’s command that they lay down their arms, withdraw to their quarters, and wait for transport home had not been excised from his speech. Bewildered and demoralized, they obeyed. Company police kept an eye on them.

  Isabu conveyed Guthrie to Fireball headquarters there. “You would perchance invite Niolente or me to stay,” Rinndalir had laughed. “Delightful though that would be, I think best we postpone it. We can render more assistance where we are.”

  “Assistance especially to yourselves,” Guthrie snapped.

  “I think that upon reflection, you will find antagonism toward us inexpedient.”

  “As practical politics, no doubt. Allow me my private fun. Now let’s for Christ’s sake move!”

  Isabu carried Guthrie in a silver box set with jewels. He gave the box to the guards at the Fireball entrance and sauntered off to reclaim his vehicle. After some worried debate, the guards called a safety officer, who took the box to a strong-walled room and spent several minutes discovering how to get it open.

  Half an hour after that, Guthrie had a body. He wasted little time rejoicing in limbs and a full panoply of senses. There was work to do.

  It did not take him long to establish his identity beyond question. He need but remind various associates of half-forgotten trivial incidents which his copy
could not possibly know about. They brought him up to date on the most recent sensational events. When he heard that Kyra Davis still kept watch alongside her capture, his tongue-lashing ran for a measured three minutes and forty-eight seconds, with never a repetition. “Dispatch a tow,” he ended curtly. “I want them both back straightaway.”

  Otherwise he required little briefing. In Rinndalir’s custody he had stayed au courant, more than if he merely watched the news. The Selenarchs had their own sources of intelligence. To his staff he explained how his broadcast had been altered, but didn’t go into detail. “Later, when we have time. Right now we’ve got to cover the bet that went down when the dice were cast for us. Next we’ve got to make a throw for ourselves.”

  Eventually he stood in the office reserved for him on his visits here. It was a big chamber, stone-floored, sparely furnished though everything state of the art. Above low walls, a viewdome reproduced the scene outside, stars and Milky Way brilliant above wasteland, Earth almost full, regnant alone in azure and argent. His robot body hulked over Jacobus Botha, who sat as if strapped into his chair. The port director was a strong man, but today everybody was dominated.

  “Holden isn’t surrendering yet, is he?” Guthrie growled. A renewed demand had been transmitted an hour ago.

  “N-no, sir. He insists on orders from his government. Helledahl and Stuart think they can force an entry, but advise against it.”

  “Of course they do. Liberate a lot of corpses in a ruin? No, we’ll keep their ships on station to discourage any ideas of making a sally—not that Holden could manage one, but let’s stop him from bugging the L-5ers about it—or ideas of reinforcement from Earth.”

  “Those aren’t torchcraft, and they’re full of men.”

  “I know. But they can interdict the approaches, and the men can stand to be crowded together in free fall for a while. You see, I have hopes those Sepo will quit soon, orders or not. I suspect their morale is down around their boots, and we’ll feed ‘em news and propaganda to lower it further. If that works, we’ll want our occupation force handy to take over. If it doesn’t work, we should have a couple of torches to relieve Bruin and Jacobite in another daycycle or two.”

  Botha forced his eyes up toward the lenses in the turret. “Do you truly mean to call in our ships and attack North America?” he asked raggedly. “That is—that is war.”

  “No, I don’t mean to attack,” replied implacability. “I mean to present a credible threat. For this, we need the power, in being and in position.”

  “But the Covenant—the Federation—you’d make us outlaws.”

  Guthrie’s tone softened. “I don’t like the situation any better than you, Jake. We were hornswoggled into it, and all we can do is tough our way out.” Sharply: “No arguments. We’ve got a Paul Bunyan job of organizing ahead. Get cracking.”

  Botha rallied his nerve. “In conscience, sir, I can’t join in this.”

  “Okay,” said Guthrie without anger. “You’re fired.”

  “Sir?”

  “You are hereby dismissed from Fireball. I’ll miss your skill and experience, but I haven’t time to argue and Barbara Zaragoza should be able to fill in.”

  Botha half rose, fell back down, and cried, “Dismissed from Fireball? No, sir, no, I gave troth, you always told us we are free men, put me on latrine duty but—no, not from Fireball!”

  Guthrie stood for an instant motionless before he answered low, “‘My country, right or wrong,’ huh? Okay. I was too hasty. Never had a rat’s nest like this before. Consider yourself on leave of absence. Log in your disagreement with my policy. Then stay out from underfoot. That’ll be honest troth.”

  Botha swallowed. “Perhaps I can—after all—”

  “No. I don’t want fanatics, but neither can I use people who’re wrestling with their superegos. Think what indecision or miscalculation could cost. We’ll discuss morals and ethics and your status and everything else after this is through. Go.”

  Botha obeyed, stiff-jointed. Once his back was turned, he knuckled his eyes.

  The hours passed. Guthrie drove his staff nearly as hard as he drove himself. He would have been higher-powered, every recorded datum instantly available to him, every computation done precisely as he envisioned it, had he linked directly into the main hypercomputer. However, he wasn’t dealing with abstractions but with individual human beings. Best he too be clearly an individual, bearing a shape akin to a knight in armor. Yet when he transmitted, that was the image he sent, not the appearance of the once living man. He intended a symbol accenting that this was not a matter that could or in any slightest way should be mitigated.

  He gathered information, conferred with persons he considered wise, spoke with his directors around the globe of Earth, sent beams a-wing over the Solar System from the antimatter plant at Mercury to the outermost comet station beyond Pluto, called his ships and captains, his men and women, to bid them stand fast or to summon the nearer ones back to him.

  Nonetheless, when Kyra Davis arrived she was conducted in according to the instructions he had left. As she entered, he chanced not to be in talk. On a screen before him unrolled a spreadsheet, the latest strategic analysis from the group he had appointed to that task. He turned from it and strode across the floor to take her hand. It lay in his like a bird returned weary to the nest.

  “God, it’s great to see you again, safe,” he rumbled. “As spent as a sailor’s pay, aren’t you? No wonder, after what you’ve been through. Well, we’ve reserved you a suite at the Armstrong in Tychopolis. Sleep till you wake, order whatever tickles your fancy, and sleep some more. I just wanted to say welcome home.”

  She lifted her head and smiled. “That’d be understood,” she answered, hoarsely and mutedly. “But gracias, jefe.” She sighed. “Home. Yes.”

  “When you’re ready, but not before, I want your input about L-5. That might show us how we can regain it if Holden’s stubborn—” The phone chimed. “Bloody damn! I’ve restricted that thing to the real urgencies. ‘Scuse me.” He went back to respond. Kyra sank into a chair.

  “Señor, you have a personal call from the President of the World Federation,” the instrument reported.

  “Hm? Well, no surprise.” Guthrie glanced at Kyra. “Stick around, honey. This should interest you. . . . Okay, connect her.”

  A handsome dark visage appeared in the screen. “Have I the honor of addressing Mr. Anson Guthrie of Fireball Enterprises?” asked Sitabhai Lai Mukerji ritually, in Asian English.

  “Yes, Señora;—uh, Madame President,” he replied. “This time, the genuine article and nobody editing.”

  Transmission lag passed, for Kyra about four heartbeats.

  “There has been much deception and many allegations.” Mukerji’s tone was cold. “One cannot be certain what to believe.”

  “You’ve studied the communiqué I issued when I got back here, I’m sure.”

  Lag time.

  “Yes. It is not very informative.”

  “I tried to give the basic facts, Madame President, to the entire human race. The details can wait. They must. Not only are they a max-entropy mess, but I admit not yet knowing a great deal, and shouldn’t throw statements around that may be unfounded. The bone truth is plain, though. Agencies of the North American government stole my duplicate, reprogrammed it in violation of human rights written into the Covenant, and passed it off as me in an attempt to take over an international association of free men and women.”

  —Mukerji frowned. “That is a grave charge to bring against a government.”

  Guthrie laughed. “Ma’am, no charge has ever been too grave to bring against a government. Any government. It’s the nature of the beast.”

  —”You are entitled to your opinions. You are entitled to press charges and produce evidence. You are not entitled to break the law.”

  “What’ve I done except escape from their efforts to murder me? My communiqué explained how that call to arms was a put-up job by the Lunarians.
Complain to them, please, not to me.”

  —”We shall, sir, we shall.” Mukerji’s image leaned forward. Her forefinger pointed like a lance. “But you have not disavowed that criminal incitement. On the contrary, your statement makes demands on North America that no government could accept from a private party. Your ships are blockading the North American troop in L-5. The Peace Authority’s surveillance and intelligence units report every indication that you are mobilizing your company for violence.”