The City and the Ship

by Anne McCaffrey

  "Kraig to command," he said; the machine intelligence of the fighter would relay and encrypt it automatically. "Crew incapacitated. Am approaching Wyal."

  It was near enough for visual scan now, an elongated spindle, more streamlined than most freighters—built for landing on planetary surfaces. He was mildly surprised that the Kolnari had let it go; it would be perfect as a fleet auxiliary for surface raids.

  This mission must be important, at least to whatever passed for brains inside those silver-blond heads.

  Delicately, he established zero relative velocity and nudged his fighter towards the airlock, marked out by its square of strobing lights.

  * * *

  "So, Al, how're we going to handle this?" Joat asked, crossing her arms behind her head and stretching. The black Kolnar fighter approached delicately on the screen, like a cat advancing on a suspicious bit of string. She could think about this and stop thinking about Sperin.

  Alvec's brow went up.

  "I thought Joe was our resident warrior," he said.

  "He is," Joat grinned. "But Joe's not likely to leave Amos's side now he's got him under his eye." She glanced over at her crew. "Besides, he knows we can handle this."

  "He'll be wearin' space armor," Alvec said gruffly. He frowned and made a clicking sound with his tongue. "Can't charge a guy in space armor."

  "Figure he's a merc," Joat mused, "so he won't be wearing Kolnari armor. That's a plus." She folded her hands on her middle and stared into space. "Ninety per cent of the space armor manufactured has lousy surge protection," she said at last. "Give 'em a sustained charge and," she snapped her fingers, "they're fried."

  Alvec chuckled. "Set a trap?"

  "Either side of the entry hatch," Joat agreed.

  "Easily done," Rand said, and displayed schematics of the areas involved. "These segments—" bars of yellow flashed on the screen to indicate the spots he referred to "—are underlaid with support grids constructed of conductive materials. Actually I'm a little surprised at that," it added disapprovingly. "Anyway, they're . . ."

  "I see it," Joat said quickly. "Just cut the power there to give us a chance to work. Then when our visitor steps onto those grids . . ."

  "You can make him dance," Alvec finished, rising to follow a grinning Joat out the door.

  "Actually," Rand said, mildly puzzled, "if this works properly he shouldn't be able to move."

  * * *

  Kraig's attempts to communicate with the Wyal had been met with half-hysterical nonsense and unending repetitions of "Mayday."

  I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch who keeps sayin' that, Kraig thought. Quick too, just to shut 'im up. In the twenty minutes it had taken him to catch up with the merchant ship and align the locks he'd conceived a serious hatred for the prattling lunatic on the com. Aw, Ghu, he's crying now. I'll be doing the jerk a favor. Weight left him as he switched off his fighter's internal field.

  He'd have done the woman a favor, too, if he could only get out of this damned suit. The mercenary shuddered. No chance of that, not with some bug loose on the ship. He disconnected his suit from the fighter's feeds and drifted out of his seat. Gripping hand-holds built into the minuscule cabin he pulled himself over to the hatch. Pausing there for a moment he ran a weapons and systems check on his suit.

  All green, he thought, relieved. Even knowing he was unlikely to run into any opposition, Kraig was nervous. "Stage fright," one of his friends called it. Yeah, stage fright. Well, curtain up. He hit the control for opening the hatch.

  Grapple fields held the two craft less than arm's length apart; the hard flat light of vacuum shone on every irregularity of hull and plating, and the undiffused glow of the airlock lights made the controls of the Wyal's entryway stand out.

  e-n-t-r-y, he punched into the pad.

  The Wyal's hatch opened after a second's pause to purge atmosphere. He crouched down and waited a full minute, alarm bells going off in his mind. It was always this way for him when things were too easy. He flipped across, catching the handbars by the merchanter's lock and orienting himself so that the internal gravity field would pull him down on his feet. Vibration shivered beneath him as he stood and swung the exterior door closed. Air hissed in automatically; the readouts below his chin showed it breathable.

  He wished he had some of the fancy equipment the Kolnari had access to. Getting a nice, safe view of that corridor out there would suit him fine. As it was he'd have to rely on his eyes, and the few enhancements from his face-plate. Sonic and electromag monitor showed no weapons profiles from the access corridor. He readied the needler built into his cuff and stepped out into the ship.

  Carefully, exposing as little of himself as he could, Kraig angled himself to look out the hatch in either direction. Nothing. That didn't mean they weren't there, it just meant they weren't obviously there. The suit's sensors would tell him more once he was actually in the corridor.

  He pitched himself out of the lock and flattened himself against the wall opposite, his heart hammering.

  Nothing. The sensors confirmed it.

  He took a deep breath and let it out in a soft whistle. Then he grinned. 'Cause sometimes when it's easy, it's just . . . easy. Kraig set off for the bridge with a jaunty walk.

  * * *

  "Now," Joat said.

  The mottled armor froze in a spectacular shower of fat blue sparks. Ozone drifted through the Wyal's corridors, and the life-support system whined in overload to carry it off. The suit toppled forward slowly in midstride, left leg frozen half-raised. The three hundred kilos of mass struck the decking with a clamor that echoed through the hull.

  * * *

  Help! Kraig thought as the power-armor toppled and he crashed helplessly to the floor, a prisoner inside it. Inertia flung him against the padded restraints inside, hard enough to bruise. His jaw struck the readout panel and blood filled his mouth with a taste of iron and salt. I've fallen, he thought in disbelief. And I can't get up!

  A blond woman sauntered into sight, wearing a coverall with an amazing number of pockets for microtools Kraig didn't recognize. He did recognize the arc-pistol in the hand of the bruiser walking beside her. She squatted down beside the fallen mercenary and went to work with one of the tools. A minute later the faceplate came free; Kraig rolled his eyes at the whining head of the tool. Her thumb stroked the control, setting the tiny Phillips' head up and down the scale from a low burr to a tooth-grating whine.

  "Tsk. Now, that's the downside of cut-rate equipment," she said sweetly. "When it breaks down it's worse than useless. Doncha hate it when that happens? I'm Captain Joat Simeon-Hap, by the way. This is my engineer, Alvec Dia. He doesn't like pirates."

  "I'm . . . I'm just a freelancer!" Kraig wheezed. He was lying face-down, his limbs clamped in midstride position as firmly as a tangler-field could have done.

  The arc-pistol came closer; he turned his eyes until they ached in their sockets, enough to see the four pointed prongs of the guide-field projector at the end of the weapon. They were pitted with use.

  "I don't like mercenaries who work for pirates, either," he said in a voice like a gravel crusher.

  "Rand," Joat went on. "Lower the corridor gravity for a second, would you?"

  The mercenary felt himself lighten; not that it made any difference, since he still couldn't move anything but the muscles of his face. The face-plate began to swing shut again.

  "No!" he shouted. "My air's off!"

  "I know," Joat said.

  They shoved him onto a cargo sled and brought him to the bridge; a Sondee awaited them, with a medical kit resting beside him.

  "I don't want to do this," Seg said.

  "Neither do I," Joat said, digging in her toolbox for something to manually open the mercenary's space armor. "But we need information and we need it now."

  "No we don't! Amos will be all right whether I come up with an antidote or not. It's just a matter of time."

  "Oh yeah? This guy is supposed to signal Belazir that we'
ve accomplished our mission. I need to know what that signal is. What's more, he knows things that'll get me into Belazir's ship," she said grimly. "You may have forgotten Bros, but I haven't."

  "Jeeez boss, you can't go back there." Alvec came away from the bulkhead with a startled lurch. "You'll get yourself killed. Let Central Worlds handle it, they've got the manpower."

  "Thank you, Al, that reminds me. Rand, send that tight-beam message to the nearest Central Worlds facility."

  She turned to Alvec while she continued to manually trip the helmet's locking system. "I guarantee you, I'll bet this ship on it, that they can't get anybody here for two weeks or so."

  "Well?" She looked Alvec in the eye. "You want to take that bet?" She turned to Seg. "You?"

  They both shook their heads.

  "The Kolnari can be beaten," she said positively. "I've seen it happen."

  The helmet popped off in her hands.

  "Well, hello there," Joat said sweetly to the gasping mercenary. "Welcome aboard."

  * * *

  Kraig looked frantically around him, surprisingly fine dark eyes filled with panic. He was about thirty, balding, with dark hair and a narrow face.

  "I won't talk," he said.

  "Really?" Alvec said, sounding pleased.

  The mercenary laughed. "You're worse than the Kolnari? I don't think so. And if you aren't, I'm not going to risk getting on their bad side. You know what I mean?"

  "You're already on their bad side," Joat purred from behind him. Leaning close she continued, "And they're in no position to hurt you right now." She grabbed his sparse hair and yanked his head back. "But we are," she said, smiling pleasantly.

  He went white to the lips.

  "My name's Kraig . . ."

  "I don't care," she interrupted him cheerfully, shaking his head.

  "There are laws, lady!"

  "You're working for the Kolnari and you're talkin' about laws?" Alvec said with disgust.

  "What's civilization coming to?" Joat coolly asked the room in general. "Seg," she said, glancing at the young Sondee. "Prepare Kraig here a shot of one of those wonder drugs you've been telling us about."

  Seg's mouth was sphinctered tightly shut and his golden eyes were half-closed, his face gray with tension, the ear whorls nearly white. But he set down his bag and opened it, slowly.

  "Joat," Rand said, "I'm receiving a distress call."

  "You're joking," she said.

  Instead of answering, Rand opened the com for all to hear.

  "Mayday," an obviously distraught young woman was saying. "Mayday! Our pilot is ill, he's unconscious, if you can hear me please help us. We must get to Bethel, it's a matter of life or death! Mayday! Please, someone, answer me. Mayday." Her voice disintegrated into helpless sobbing.

  * * *

  Belazir steepled his hands beneath his chin and settled himself more comfortably on his thronelike chair, gazing placidly at Nomik Ciety.

  I think this one has some trouble with his internal mapping of reality, the Kolnari warlord thought.

  He lounged back, resting his chin on the fingers of one hand. Behind him a holographic night-scene showed a plutonium volcano on Kolnar. Down either wall stood Kolnari warriors, naked except for briefs and their weapons, armored in their leopard deadliness.

  Nomik bristled. "How dare you kidnap me and my associate?" he shouted. He ignored the subtle stirrings of the warriors, their bronze eyes riveted on Belazir. "Do you have any idea the trouble you've just bought yourself? Do you realize that I'm under the protection of Yoered Family?'

  The woman beside him had been glancing about. She looked at the collection of plants in their netted cages, and at the shape of the gnawed bones beneath them.

  "Mik . . ." she whispered urgently. The man shook off her hand.

  "Answer me, you mutant goon! What do you want?"

  He paused, panting and glaring at Belazir's mildly interested face.

  Fascinating, Belazir thought, bemused, the creature seems to think I should be frightened of him. Apparently I am supposed to be intimidated. If this was an example of intimidating behavior it was no wonder the scumvermin races were so easily conquered.

  "You are dead meat!" Ciety snarled.

  At Belazir's almost imperceptible gesture, two of the Kolnari picked Nomik up and flung him down on the floor hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

  The moment they'd moved Silken had flung herself at Belazir's throat, one hand stiffened into a blade. He watched her approach with astonishment and flicked her aside like a butterfly. She crashed to the floor and rolled to a stop not far from Ciety, and the two of them writhed, breathless at the Kolnari's feet.

  "She is brave," Belazir said to Nomik. "I shall speak with her first as she is so eager to approach me." He smiled into Ciety's furious and frightened face. "But I shall try not to keep you waiting long."

  * * *

  Well, that was disappointing, Belazir thought as the guards dragged Silken's half conscious body from his quarters. He'd expected more fire from a woman who'd thrown herself at him unarmed. Ah well, some of them considered it properly stoic to affect total disinterest. Though he hadn't made that easy for her.

  Who to speak to now? He sat down before his bank of screens, running a quick check on the day-to-day affairs of his people. Then he called up Bros Sperin and Nomik Ciety's cells.

  Sperin was on his feet again, his body bearing yet more burns on his legs and sides. He swayed precariously, his jaw slack, eyes bruised-looking and swollen from lack of sleep.

  Nomik was pacing energetically. He turned suddenly as the hatch opened. Two guards thrust Silken into the cell, where she collapsed in a boneless heap before Ciety could reach her.

  Nomik knelt beside her and gathered her slender form into his arms, rocking her tenderly and whispering her name over and over as he stroked her matted black hair.

  Bleh, Belazir thought. That is enough of that; Karak was bad enough. It is time I interviewed Sperin, anyway.

  And the houseplants were hungry. It was time to cultivate a new crop, in any case. What the spores did to living flesh was very amusing.

  * * *

  Bros Sperin wavered. When he closed his eyes it felt as though his body was moving in a circle around the anchor of his feet. He tried not to close his eyes for too long; that meant he kept falling asleep and then over. The crisp white sheets of the bunk mocked him with taunting cruelty. Soft music was playing through the com system, soft soothing music—

  He screamed as his knees struck the flooring and current arched through them. Still screaming he touched his hands to the floor to push himself up, then nearly staggered into the wall. Blisters burst on his kneecaps and palms, drooling liquid.

  He was very thirsty. He'd promised himself that if he counted to a thousand one more time he could go to the sink and get some water. But he seemed to be stuck on eight hundred sixty-seven. For the life of him he couldn't remember what came next. Or before, for that matter. Eight hundred sixty-seven kept intruding itself into his efforts, offering itself every time he sought the next number.

  The bottoms of his feet were numb, but his ankles ached and his calves burned. Inside as well as out.

  The thought struck him as funny and he began to laugh. Wonderful, some distant, still sane part of him thought, I'm getting hysterical. That should move things along nicely.

  That same part of him was waiting for Belazir to make an appearance. It unnerved him that the Kolnari hadn't come to gloat. It signaled unexpected new depths of self-discipline in the volatile pirate.

  "Wake up, scumvermin," a gentle voice urged.

  Painfully, Bros opened his eyes. Slowly, they focused on the face before him, and the wide yellow eyes blazing into his. He gasped and staggered back, almost losing his balance on his numbed and clumsy feet. Bros pinwheeled his arms and regained his balance barely in time to prevent himself from crashing into the wall.

  Then he stood there panting, head down, heart beating rapidly, gl
aring at Belazir from under his brows.

  * * *

  Belazir chuckled delightedly and crossed his arms over his chest. He was pleased that he'd taken the time to dress for this interview in a long, open-necked robe of watered green silk accented by fretted silver jewelry glittering with fire-opals. It nicely emphasized the difference in their status. A refinement Sperin was definitely intelligent enough to recognize, on some level, semiconscious as he was.

  "Are your accommodations to your liking?" he asked politely.

  "I was more comfortable on the Wyal." Bros straightened slowly and found himself equal to Belazir's imposing height. Which pleased him a great deal more than it did the Kolnari, he was sure. "You look older than I'd expected," he said conversationally.

  A tiny seed of fury burst into existence in Belazir's heart. His mortality gazed back at him from his mirror with every new wrinkle and hair gone from silver-golden to white. Leaving him ever more aware of the hot breath of ambitious underlings on his neck, well-honed blades clutched in their sweaty young hands.

  To be so casually insulted by a man he was torturing was intolerable. Lightning flickered at the edges of his vision. If they were truly in the same room he would teach the scumvermin how little his age mattered.

  But wait! Profound surprise flickered across his mind. Could Sperin be attempting to provoke me? To manipulate me? He raised one white-blond brow. Clever, foolish spy. How interesting that he was so eager to die. It promised useful information as well as excellent entertainment.

  "Do you think," he asked casually, "that it is wise to make me hate you, Bros Sperin?"

  "I don't particularly care how you feel about me," Bros said.

  Belazir smiled serenely.

  "Ah, but you will," he said with utter confidence. "And in a very short time, too."

  He decided to begin with the drug that caused pain. As yet he'd had no one to experiment on and Sperin should make a fine test case.

  Three Kolnari entered the cell, one of them smaller and pudgier than the other two and tremblingly subservient; a half-caste castrato slave, the usual type assigned the low-status occupation of medicine. He bowed to Belazir's image over the small satchel he carried.