The Road of Danger-ARC

by David Drake

  She stepped away from West, who now had the suit on. He got up with the slow care of a spacer whose suit fits badly.

  “But what it is now…” she said, sitting down on the other side of Daniel from Hogg. She reached across and took the liter-sized tube of salve. “Is a bloody shambles.”

  Lindstrom began salving Daniel’s right shoulder. She was used to the work; her hands were no firmer than they needed to be when they covered the sores themselves.

  “It’s easier work taking rice from the gang in the next vestry,” she said, “than it is going up against the Naval Infantry and the Alliance Guards that’re sitting in any place big enough to rate a garrison. And it’s easier still to loot civilians who don’t have a garrison or a local gang claiming to own them already.”

  West stepped into the airlock and dogged it behind him. He was still holding his helmet, though he’d have to latch it down soon.

  “There’s a lot of money in running these cargos,” Lindstrom continued, her voice growing softer. “More than I could make any other way, a lot more. And the risk, well. We’ve been doing all right, Pensett, and I guess we’ll do better with you than we did with Pete. But…”

  She shrugged. The whine of the pump evacuating the airlock made the bunk quiver. The vibration was more noticeable through the cabin fittings than within the heavily framed lock itself.

  “People are paying off old scores, now that they’ve got guns and there’s no police to worry about,” Lindstrom said. She had begun massaging Daniel’s shoulder muscles instead of spreading salve. “And I guess that’s all right, it’s no skin off my butt, but they’re pretty much treating anybody who doesn’t have a gun as the real crop, not the rice those folks were growing. And I’m kinda tired of that. It gets old fast.”

  “What about the fellow running things, Kiki?” Daniel asked. Hogg had edged away slightly, giving him and Lindstrom as much privacy as the cramped compartment allowed. “The one who calls himself Freedom.”

  He didn’t want to show too much knowledge, but it was reasonable that somebody being sent to Sunbright would have gotten a little information about the place. Besides, Lindstrom seemed to be looking for somebody to talk to.

  Lindstrom frowned as though she was really puzzling over the answer. She said, “He lit the fuze, but I guess he couldn’t control it once it all started going. He’s there on Sunbright, he shows up here and there, but nobody knows where his base is.”

  She shrugged. “He can’t control it, there’s no ‘thing’ to control,” she said. “Each gang does what it wants; takes what it wants, that’s the truth of it. Nobody can stop it now, not even Freedom if he wanted to. It’s going to go on until every plantation on Sunbright’s been burned, and every adult outside the garrisoned cities is in a gang or’s been killed by somebody who is. There won’t be any children. And I—”

  Lindstrom’s fingers were no longer kneading Daniel’s shoulders; instead they were clamping hard. It cost him effort and the certainty of bruises not to break the spell by saying something.

  “—am making great pots of money by selling them the guns to kill themselves with. Bloody wonderful business, isn’t it?”

  Daniel thought in silence for…he wasn’t sure how long. His mind was swimming through colored lights which sometimes formed images either from memory or of his present surroundings. He wasn’t always sure which of those were which, however.

  Aloud he said, “I’m very tired, Kiki. I’m sorry but I’m…”

  Daniel lurched to his feet; Hogg steadied him as he walked across the compartment. The bottom bunk of the four-high tier was empty, which was a blessing. Though he would probably be able to grip the frame of a higher one while Hogg swung his legs up onto the mattress.

  My brain still works, he thought with a faint smile. Though complex problems may require a little longer than usual.

  He sat down, bending forward so that his shoulders didn’t thump Hargate, who slept on the next one up.

  “Kiki?” he said. “There’s a way to fix it, I know there is. But you’re going to have to give me a little time.”

  He collapsed sideways onto the mattress. Lindstrom was staring at him as if he had gone mad.

  CHAPTER 17: Above Sunbright

  “Extracting in five seconds…” Daniel shouted. Everybody was in the cabin, but he wanted to be sure that Edmonson and Blemberg could hear him even though they were wearing the hard suits.

  He mashed the button with both thumbs, a habit dating back to his first real insertion on the training vessel Ganges. He had been worried that the execute button would stick—as every cable and antenna in the ancient battleship’s rigging seemed to—and was determined not to allow that to go wrong. “Extracting!”

  The Savoy dropped into normal space with a suddenness that took Daniel by surprise, even though he had experienced it before. There were advantages to a yawl even over a relatively small warship like the Princess Cecile…though how he wished he were back in the Sissie!

  The Savoy’s sensors were rudimentary, but her warship-class console processed the data instantly. Daniel had set the sensitivity to equal that of Princess Cecile, though of course that meant there was a great deal of electronic speculation at the higher ranges. For his present purposes, that was acceptable.

  They were 350,000 miles out from Sunbright. Kiki Lindstrom, leaning over his shoulder, crowed, “That is Sunbright below! Brilliant, Pensett! Bloody brilliant!”

  Daniel grunted. The only thing that pleased him at the moment was that the owner had remembered not to clap his raw, bruised back, as he had tensed himself to receive. But in truth—

  It really was respectable astrogation to bring the Savoy this close to the intended location after five—almost five—days of dead reckoning from their most recent observations in normal space. He would expect to do better—very much better—in any proper warship, let alone in the Sissie with the crew he had picked and trained; but he was in a yawl with a minimal sail plan and a maximum of two riggers available at any one time. He should cut himself some slack.

  Daniel grinned. Not likely. Not even a suggestion that anything short of perfect was really acceptable.

  A yawl much like the Savoy was 100,000 miles out from the planet, accelerating on her High Drive. The slug on Daniel’s Plot-Position Indicator abbreviated her name to Ell which, when highlighted, expanded to Ella 919.

  “That’s Captain Tommines’ ship,” Lindstrom said, pushing uncomfortably closer to the display. “But I think he’s on shares with a trading house on Cremona. I own the Savoy free and clear.”

  She peered further at the display and added, “Bloody hell. They don’t have a prayer, do they?”

  Daniel had been weighing the same question. The blockade runner was being pursued by a pair of Alliance gunboats, the Flink and the Tapfer. They had her boxed and were closing in. If the Ella shut down her motors for long enough to balance charges and insert, one or both of the gunboats would close and bathe her in ions before she could enter the Matrix. If the Ella didn’t shut down, they would catch her before long anyway.

  Unless Captain Tommines was a complete fool and had lifted directly into the path of the Alliance patrols, he had probably been a little careless and a little unlucky. In combat, either alone could be enough for a disaster.

  To confirm his suspicion, Daniel said, “Tommines is a regular on this run, then?”

  “I should say so!” Lindstrom said. “Why, he must have made it a dozen times! He’d have retired long since, I guess, but he gambles on dog races and he’s got no bloody luck.”

  “Tommy gambles on anything,” Hargate said; he shook his head. “I’ve seen him bet on which rain-drop was going to run down the window of the bar first—and give odds if nobody’d take him on at evens. But a good skipper.”

  “Not a prayer,” Lindstrom repeated sadly as the gunboats continued to near. Flecks of static across the RF spectrum indicated that they were beginning to fire with plasma cannon. If they were equipped
with the 5-centimeter popguns which were all their frames and scantlings could bear, they still weren’t within range—even to prevent their target from inserting.

  The commander of the Alliance patrol must have recognized the Ella and made his plans based on information from her previous runs. Most captains let their computers handle liftoffs and landings; the machine didn’t make mistakes and it corrected faster than most humans could if something went wrong—a thruster failed, or an antenna broke its lashings under acceleration and swung violently.

  But computers always provided the same solution to the same question. The gunboats could hang well out from the planet and, when the Ella lifted, insert on a course they had refined for a week or more, and then extract close enough to their target to trap her.

  Unless the Alliance captains were extremely good, they had still been lucky to pinch the Ella so closely, but some captains were very good. All spacers knew how much luck their trade involved.

  Daniel checked both his calculations. There were risks involved, but he took a risk every time he rolled out of his bunk.

  He grinned. Actually, he’d clouted himself a good one on the temple with the stanchion when he slid into his bunk the other day. It had stopped bleeding, but the lump was still there.

  “Inserting in five seconds,” Daniel said.

  What?/Why?/Roger… He ignored the last and similar acceptances as surely as he did the protests from Lindstrom and from Edmonson, who fancied himself as an astrogator. Edmonson could just about push Execute after the console had calculated a course.…

  “Inserting!” Daniel said. His guts flip-flopped, but because he hadn’t lighted the High Drive after extracting, the process was as painless as it could be.

  Safely back in the Matrix, he turned to face his companions. He smiled and said, “I thought we’d give Tommines and his crew a helping hand. And maybe—”

  His smile spread.

  “—we’ll remind whoever’s commanding those gunboats that it’s not just the Fleet that teaches its officers to maneuver.”

  Hogg grinned with pride. He knew even less than the spacers did of Daniel’s plans, but he knew the young master was about to stick it to the other fellow.

  Lindstrom and the crewmen looked blank—or blankly horrified, in the case of West. Still smiling, Daniel rotated his seat to face the display again. Three process clocks were counting down, but the PPI was blank: the Savoy was her own separate universe here in the Matrix.

  There were solid reasons why Daniel should not do what he was about to. The best were that he might fail—unlikely—or that some critical piece of the Savoy might break and leave them at the gunboats’ mercy. Beyond those material dangers was the fact that even if successful, he would be marking the Savoy and himself for special attention from the Alliance forces.

  Some—Adele, for one—might even have added that such boastful behavior was beneath a noble of Cinnabar.

  Others were entitled to their opinions. He was Captain Daniel Leary, RCN, and he saw nothing wrong with grinding an opponent’s face in the dirt when he saw the chance.

  “Extracting!” he called to his companions, and he pressed Execute.

  ***

  Halta City on Cremona

  “Your Ladyship?” Vesey called over the crackles, hisses and pings which filled the boarding hold. Adele turned to see the slim blond woman emerging from the companionway, looking concerned.

  An instant later, the main hatch undogged in a clanging chorus which overwhelmed any attempt at speech. The hold was the corvette’s largest empty volume; echoes from its steel surfaces multiplied sounds a thousandfold.

  The ramp began to squeal down on the thrust of hydraulic rams, allowing steam and ions to curl into the hold. The bite made Osorio close his eyes and sneeze, though the spacers—Adele included—took the familiar unpleasantness without reaction.

  “Captain?” Adele said. She didn’t really expect Vesey to be able to hear her, but she cocked an eyebrow toward the younger woman to show that she had heard. What in heaven’s name is Vesey coming to me here for?

  Adele glanced at Master Osorio out of the corner of her eye, but he was too lost in the misery of the moment to be interested in what the Principal was doing. She nodded toward Vesey and moved to the back of the compartment, through the spacers who would be her escort.

  Adele didn’t care for commo helmets, but under ordinary circumstances she would have been wearing one now. They were short-range, but when their signal was piggybacked onto the local communications net—as Adele regularly arranged every time the Sissie made landfall—they could cover as much of the planet as the system itself did.

  It was acceptable—necessary, in fact—for Principal Hrynko to be eccentric. It would send the wrong signal if she were technically proficient, however; that might cause the Cremonans, or at least the more sophisticated elements of Cremonan society, to take precautions which wouldn’t occur to them while dealing with a blustering, arrogant noblewoman from a third-class planet.

  Mind, “third class” was more complimentary than any term Adele would use for Cremona, but the locals probably didn’t see it that way. Proving how benighted they were.

  “Your Ladyship!” Vesey said. Her lips were almost touching Adele’s right ear, but she had to shout regardless. “Since the Savoy wasn’t in harbor, I asked Lieutenant Cory to check local records of her. It doesn’t, that is, it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a problem, but I’m afraid there’s no evidence that she or a vessel that could be her has landed in the past five days.”

  Adele turned to Vesey and forced a smile. “Thank you, captain,” she said, enunciating clearly but not trying to bellow over the ambient noise. “I’m sure that the appropriate parties are dealing with the situation in their usual able fashion.”

  Vesey was covering a tragic expression with professional calm. If Osorio hadn’t been present, Adele would have patted her hand—as a bit of theater for the younger woman rather than anything Adele herself found natural.

  As soon as The House of Hrynko reached orbit above Cremona, Adele had entered port records and the records of all the major trading houses in Halta City. Cazelet—and a moment later, Cory—had informed her that the Savoy wasn’t among the hundred-plus ships in Halta Harbor nor in any of the outlying anchorages scattered across Cremona.

  The yacht’s sensors were set to automatically search for starships on the surface of any planet they orbited. The information was not infrequently useful; and besides, it was always Adele’s goal to have more data rather than less.

  Vesey didn’t know that. She had always been an excellent astrogator and had improved her shiphandling to a high degree of skill under Daniel’s tutelage, but she had no more concept of what an information specialist really did than Daniel himself.

  Daniel, however, assumed that Adele knew or could quickly learn everything. That wasn’t precisely true, but it was actually a better default option than Vesey’s subconscious belief that the only data Adele had were those things which Adele had explicitly stated she knew.

  It didn’t matter that Vesey had gone out of her way to provide Adele with unnecessary information. It did matter that she’d tried to help Adele and that she had come down to the entry hold in person to take the sting out of what she knew was bad news.

  Adele compromised between a coldly professional response and the pat—or even hug, though she never could have brought herself to hug another person in public—by adding, “I understand your concern, Captain Vesey, but I have trained myself to examine probabilities. In this case, the probabilities—based on the considerable information about the personnel that we’ve both amassed over the years—are overwhelmingly in favor of a good result.”

  The boarding ramp clanged against its cradle on the yacht’s starboard outrigger. Woetjans shouted, “Hup!” and led a team of riggers to roll out the pontoon-supported gangway which would reach the rest of the way across the slip.

  The dock had a floating extender, but n
ow at high tide it had risen level with the concrete spine where a small aircar waited. Idling fans spun swirls from the steam which the Hrynko’s thrusters had boiled up from the harbor.

  Adele joined Osorio as he recovered himself enough to turn and wonder what had happened to his hostess. She said, “Where is the transportation you promised?”

  “There on the quay,” the Cremonan said. He started down the ramp at a quickstep; arriving back on his home planet seemed to have revived his mincing arrogance. “Come, don’t you see the car?”

  “That little toy?” said Adele. “I have an escort of twenty, my man. My position demands it.”

  “Not here in Halta City,” Osorio said, too brusquely to have picked up on Adele’s tone. “This is merely a business transaction, you agreeing terms with me and my friends. It is better that you be alone. We don’t want to call attention to your presence, you see. We have rivals.”

  They reached the car, which was tiny. Instead of cushions, the back seat was cast out of the same thermoplastic as the body; the vehicle hadn’t been luxurious when new, and it was by now at least twenty years old. Adele restrained her reflex of bringing out her data unit to identify the car precisely.

  It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter. But then, nothing really mattered against the certainty of the Heat Death of the Universe.

  Adele smiled faintly. Most people would not find that thought as reassuring as she did, so it was probably a good thing that she didn’t volunteer it often.

  “This is not acceptable,” she said dismissively to Osorio. “Bring proper vehicles for my escort and myself, or—”

  She turned her palms upright as though scattering trash on the wind.

  “—I will take myself off. To Sunbright, perhaps, to consult with the Governor there. Blaskett is his name, is it not?”

  Osorio and opened his mouth to shout what would probably have been an order couched in insulting terms. His glare melted as the full import of what Adele had said struck him. Enlightenment came just in time to prevent the Cremonan from making an uncomfortable mistake.