Fall of the White Ship Avatar

by Brian Daley

  "The rest of us can change on the drive," Tomasina was saying. Last cases and pouches were tossed aboard and the former harem piled in. The truck was fairly filled with plunder and luggage, and the second touring carriage with exconcubines beginning to disrobe, windows and windshield adjusting to a dark tint. Laughter and the clinking of champagne glasses came from inside. Alacrity sighed.

  Callisto and Tomasina were at the open passenger door of the lead carriage as another woman settled in to drive.

  "Hurry up or you'll miss the wake," Tomasina called.

  But as they trudged that way tiredly, hands reached out of the door of the second carriage and seized Alacrity by the shoulder bag. There was a lot of giggling, whooping, and wolf-whistling from within as he was dragged aboard, not struggling very hard. A few garters and loin buntings were lofted out the door, and just before it closed and latched Floyt heard another champagne cork pop.

  "We're not exactly fair maidens; we'll take any edge we can get," Callisto told Floyt as he reached the lead carriage. "But that doesn't mean we don't know how to treat the gallant rescuer."

  "Especially after a steady diet of Lord Marcus," Tomasina added. "I'm sure if you knocked, they'd let you in."

  Floyt felt his face getting warm. "No, um—too crowded."

  Tomasina gestured to the open passenger door and Callisto slid her arm around Tomasina's waist. They smiled at him appraisingly.

  "Smaller gatherings still allow for some interesting permutations," Tomasina suggested.

  * * * *

  If this was some other stringer, or contract killer, or field op—if it was anybody but this monster, Case Coordinator Deighton seethed, I'd give 'em some hurts and run 'em out of the complex. Maybe even terminate 'em.

  But it simply wasn't anybody else; it was Gentry Standing Bear, one of a kind, smelling of Old Four Smokes Wallop, smoldering and bleary-eyed, too massive even for the outsize, reinforced chair across the desk from Deighton, making the chair groan and squeak beneath him.

  Deighton's office there in the midst of the regional Langstretch Agency headquarters was supposedly equipped to handle trouble, even from somebody like Standing Bear—except that there was nobody else like Standing Bear—but Deighton by no means wished to test that. There were astounding stories about the amount of punishment Standing Bear could absorb.

  Besides, Langstretch needed Standing Bear more now than ever. Floyt and Fitzhugh's unnerving victory over Plantos and his team had made a lot of people in Langstretch and elsewhere very apprehensive; their astounding success against Lord Marcus Perlez and Vinzix had sent shock waves into many quarters and caused a goodly number of crisis-action briefings.

  "What've you got for me?" Standing Bear asked, low and guttural.

  Deighton found himself avoiding the devastated maniac mask of a face, then steeled himself to control that and met Standing Bear eye to eye. Deighton, a tall man carrying 130 kilos—twenty more than when he was a field op, but they hadn't slowed him down very much, he liked to think—had dozens of confirmed kills. He'd done more interrogations than he could count. He was used to being the intimidating one; that was not the case in this instance, though.

  Deighton got a hold of himself. "We don't know where they went when they left Ends Well, but we're certain that sooner or later they'll show up for the meeting of the Board of Interested Parties."

  Incredible, Deighton reflected, how Perlez and Vinzix bollixed the kill. And all because Perlez panicked and rushed the job.

  From what Langstretch could reconstruct from the Ends Well systems and other sources, Perlez was very worried about a proteus Fitzhugh had stolen from Baron Mason. For some reason Perlez feared that the proteus might reveal that he was one of the Interested Parties who'd commissioned Langstretch to kill or capture Fitzhugh when Fitzhugh was still a kid.

  Perlez was also afraid of what hideous things Fitzhugh would do to him if he found out that Perlez had been instrumental in breaking his parents and even in getting them hooked on undertow.

  Perlez had been content to play Fitzhugh and Floyt along until he was sure they had Baron Mason's proteus. Then he'd plunged ahead with that half-ass rovers murder scheme, with the unstable Darwin's Star native as an accomplice, no less.

  Perhaps Fitzhugh's survival success lay not so much in aptitude as in the matter of inept opponents. Except now he and Floyt were top priority, and Gentry Standing Bear had a personal stake in the case.

  "We have good coverage in the Spican system," Deighton went on, "but we're sending you there just in case—"

  Standing Bear was on his feet before Deighton saw him start to move, fist crashing down, splitting the hard Promethea strandwood of the desk. Deighton almost went for a defense foot-trigger, but held off, breathing Old Four Smokes Wallop fumes.

  "Pull them back," Standing Bear said in a shockingly level, controlled voice. "They can clean up after me; I don't care. The kill's mine."

  "We have to be certain this time—" Deighton started.

  "Keep your people out of my way or lose them. Makes no difference to me," the horrible face said evenly.

  Deighton was about to object but decided to listen. He'd broken scores, hundreds of men and women in one way or another, and yet when it came right down to it he was scared by this man. Standing Bear made him feel, for the first time, like a little, fat, slow old man. Standing Bear had once carried out a termination contract on a wealthy power broker out in the Bamboo Confederation, right in her own office, her very well defended office that wasn't so different from Deighton's.

  "You get me to Spica in your fastest ship," Standing Bear decreed. "To Eden, for starters, then maybe Nirvana. I'll need money, too."

  Standing Bear untensed a little, distracted by thoughts for his mission requirements. Deighton relaxed the slightest bit, trying to breathe slowly.

  "When it's done, you'll give me a bonus," Standing Bear's huge hand retreated and Deighton gazed at the split strandwood. "Because I'm going to be very thorough."

  Deighton swallowed hard and nerved himself for the fight of his life, should standing Bear lose control in the next few seconds. "I see no problem with a good bonus. But listen, you've gotta understand, this is beyond my control—there are certain requirements on this assignment now, new ones—Standing B—no, wait!"

  Standing Bear, enormous hands resting lightly on either of Deighton's shoulders, fingers close to a neck so fragile to that overwhelming strength, decided to grant a few seconds' reprieve. Deighton's life depended on whether or not the goliath cared for the new requirements.

  Chapter 7

  Another Think Coming

  "Not a bad planet, if one's taste runs to the dead-end and obscure," Floyt allowed, peering down at Lebensraum. In many ways it resembled Earth, though it was smaller with much less surface water and more modest polar caps. It had less desert and more vegetation. "But the question is, why would a woman like Hecate want obscurity?"

  He gestured to the cockpit data mosaic of screens and projections. "I mean, the woman spent decades courting celebrity and glory. Why would she elect to drop from sight? And then reappear after all this time not to reclaim her stock in the White Ship, but to establish a hokey little sideshow?"

  Alacrity was staring at Lebensraum, too, chin on fist. "When we find her, you can ask."

  They'd worried those questions all through the trip. Hecate—Loebelia Curry—was a renowned figure of the early Third Breath: explorer and adventurer, dauntless seeker of Precursor secrets, a prime motivator of the White Ship project.

  Recordings showed her to be one of the great beauties of her day, a full-lipped siren with mounds of rich black hair framing her face and shoulders and direct, dark eyes that locked the viewer's. She'd hunted, tamed wild animals, fought in at least one war, and amassed a huge fortune through assorted businesses and investments. People rioted for tickets to her personal appearances. A life of passionate free-spiritedness didn't keep her from being recognized as a leading authority on Precursor ma
tters.

  She'd spent considerable time on Lebensraum, becoming a local legend some twenty years before, then dropped out of sight. By various accounts she'd died or left the planet or vanished into the vast Lebensraum wilderness.

  "If we find her," Floyt said.

  "We'll find her. Destiny and all that. How do I know? The causality harp told me so."

  Partly due to Alacrity's high spirits at having such a strong lead on his Quest, but mostly because of the medicine Alacrity appropriated at Ends Well, Floyt didn't differ with him, though the Earther knew that Alacrity was wrong about the causality harp's affirmation of his destiny as Master of the White Ship.

  There was a large container of stuff called neurogeneomicin. In small doses it was just the ticket to help counter their peripheral neuropathy. In larger doses it was highly addictive, the drug of choice among abuser medical personnel who could lay hands on it, and the addiction that led Alacrity's parents to tragedy. Among junkies its name was undertow.

  Alacrity spent the odd contemplative moment looking at it, an incredible three liters, wondering what Marcus was doing with so much—a clear blivet full of it. But he kept his own and Floyt's dosages scrupulously to the prescribed microlevels.

  In the presence of so much of the stuff that had contributed to the death of Alacrity's failed, despondent father—enough to O.D. a hardened addict hundreds of times over—Floyt held back his terrible news. Surely soon, with the therapy finished, there'd be some way to dispose of the stuff or render it unusable.

  "No argument, Alacrity. We'll find her. But that information in Marcus's Whereabouts file was almost six months old. What if we pay the Lebensraum Company's landing fees only to find out that Hecate's gone on to better things?"

  The Lebensraum Company was the chartered corporation—mining mostly, precious gems and metals—that controlled the planet under the lackadaisacal Bali Hai Republic, which held sway over five local starsystems. According to files, the company wasn't very cordial to visitors, though under Bali Hai law it couldn't bar them. So it charged stiff landing and docking fees by way of discouraging outsiders.

  "This is all the negotiable wealth we've got, and when it's gone we're flat," Floyt reminded Alacrity, holding up the garter Callisto had given him as a parting gift and grubstake.

  We're not exactly fair maidens, but that doesn't mean we don't know how to treat the gallant rescuer!

  Alacrity made a meaningless bear-sound, whether because he hated being reminded of their money problems of because no one had lavished any such generosity on him, Floyt couldn't make out. He suspected it was both.

  "All right, Ho. Maybe we can check, save ourselves throwing money away." Alacrity raised Lebensraum starport control on voice-only commo to avoid giving authorities a look at himself, Floyt, or the interior of the Lightning Whelk.

  "Can anybody down there tell me if the Hecate Thrillshow is still in town?"

  There was a moment's silence from the ground; it wasn't speed-of-light lag and Alacrity knew it wasn't because they were busy, because Lebensraum's traffic was light. In fact, the arrival of a nonfreight starship should be a big occasion. Floyt swapped troubled looks with him.

  "All rightT whoever you are," the response came. "Read me, we don't need troublemakers down here. If you have no business to conduct with the Lebensraum Company, I would suggest you keep moving."

  Alacrity was thinking about what to say to that when another voice came up, a woman's. It was throaty and vibrant. "Outsystem ship, switch to common-use freq three!"

  Starport control was still yelling about improper commo procedure as Alacrity searched through the data banks to find out which one was common-user freq three. Evidently a starship was an event, and people monitored when one showed up. Alacrity switched over.

  "You bet your bum I'm still around," that same female voice proclaimed. "This is Hecate speaking, Queen Hellion of the Third Breath, Keeper of the Precursor Mysteries and Dirty-Fighting Champion of Wherever I Happen to Be! Now bring up your visual; let me get a look at you."

  "Not just now," Alacrity fended. "But we want to meet with you."

  "Is that right? What are you, talent scouts? Promotors? Maybe Hecate hasn't got anytime to waste on you, mystery voice. Maybe you're just another company pest?"

  Alacrity thought for a few seconds. Then he set his proteus into an adaptor in the control console and manipulated it. Eerie tonalities played out over the commo, troubling but lofty. They reminded Floyt somewhat of the sounds of the causality harp back in the Precursor site underneath Epiphany. They seemed to go right through him, and did strange things to his cerebrocortex. But it became melodic, and he lost track of time.

  Alacrity retrieved his proteus, slipping it back on his wrist. "What d'you say to that, Hecate?" Floyt blinked, coming awake again.

  She was slow in answering. "Huh! All right, come to my bigtop tonight; anybody can tell you the way to the Wicked Wickiup. You can see Hecate in action, and my show's worth a star-hop. Afterward we can have a chat."

  The contact broke.

  "Alacrity, what were those sounds?"

  Alacrity was rubbing fingertips on his proteus. "Precursor music, I think you could call it. I got it from my folks. If Hecate knows what it is, she'd be the real item, except that I'm not so sure she knew. Only a few people have ever heard that recording."

  "I couldn't tell whether she recognized you or you just flummoxed her."

  "Me either. At least we get to talk to her. We'll know soon enough if she's Hecate."

  "And if she is?"

  "I'm on my way to being Master of the White Ship."

  "Let's just say she's not?"

  "Then it'll happen some other way." Alacrity thought for a bit. "I wonder what the local firearm laws are like?"

  * * * *

  As it turned out, they were even more stringent than on Windfall. Like most authoritarian governments, the Lebensraum Company got hysterical at the mere thought of an armed populace. The Captain's Sidearm and the Webley stayed locked in the ship.

  Lebensraum's star, Invictus, was large and amber and its only starport was a drab, outdated industrial terminal. Floyt studied both out the ship's cockpit viewpane, stretching his fingers and feeling his lips and fingertips, as Alacrity locked down the console. Their peripheral neuropathy was completely gone.

  Lebensraum had been explored around the end of the Second Breath, nearly two hundred years before, by expeditions from Shalimar, a more idyllic planet in the Invictus system. A brief flurry of interest occurred when indications of Precursor artifacts were observed, but no significant finds were made.

  With no economic enticements to be found, Lebensraum was soon ignored by all but a minor research project, then out of touch completely for nearly one hundred years after an apocalyptic battle on Shalimar at the end of the Second Breath.

  An expedition some one hundred years before Alacrity and Floyt rolled out of Hawking revealed that there was still a tiny human population, hovering on the verge of extinction, and that there was very considerable wealth to be taken from Lebensraum with new mining techniques.

  Through political leverage and judicious bribery, the expedition's backers managed to wangle a mining company charter for Lebensraum from the Bali Hai Republic, neatly Outflanking the Shalimar government. Lebensraum Mining and Development slapped a cloak of secrecy on its operations. The human survivors were relocated to a small reservation, though most succumbed to diseases brought in by company workers, or dissipation, or simple cultural absorption.

  There was also a very successful species of native wildlife, huge herbivores called gawklegs, that had the bad luck to enjoy grazing on lands coveted by the company. The management techniques used in dealing with them weren't mentioned, but the endless, teeming herds of gawklegs were, in a shockingly brief time, reduced to a handful of scattered bands.

  Somehow, Hecate had showed up there twenty years before, becoming the darling of the workers, charming top company officials into letting h
er look into Precursor rumors and lending her all support. She became the planet's unofficial royalty and star attraction until at last she dropped from sight.

  * * * *

  "I guess the old brolly'll be about all the protection we can carry," Alacrity said. He hefted his Viceroy Imperial, a product of Outback.

  "Most kinds of small blades are legal groundside, Ho," Alacrity added. "Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea if you carried that survival tool whatsit you got at the Grapple—oh!"

  Floyt had turned and raised his fatigue jacket and sweater a little to show that he had already set it in a belt pouch at his waist. The do-all survival tool incorporated various blades, a compass, assorted tools, brass knuckles, and a radiation detector; also, you could scale fish with it.

  "Great. Do me one more favor, Ho? Wear your Inheritor's belt?"

  "If you want. Do you think it will prove how much this supposed Hecate really knows?"

  "It could happen that way."

  So Floyt fetched the heavy belt of plaques; if Hecate actually knew Precursor secrets, perhaps she could translate or explain the strange symbols on it. He fastened it high around his waist, covering it with the military-style sweater he'd taken from Plantos's locker.

  "You know, Alacrity, I've lost a good deal of weight since we left Earth—the first time, I mean—but this thing fits me just as precisely as it did then."

  "It's probably just trying to impress you. You ready?"

  "Let us proceed."

  They locked up the Lightning Whelk, using a built-in touchpad rather than the code-key, and stepped out into a golden dusk out of a Flemish masterpiece as Invictus disappeared below the horizon. They'd acclimatized gradually during the trip; Lebensraum's lower air pressure didn't bother them. To Floyt it smelled weird as hell, just as had every other XT world. He felt light on his feet in ninety-odd-percent gravity.