Starship

by Michael D. Resnick

  All three volunteered, and he told them to take the Alice and depart for the planet after drawing their weapons from the armory.

  “Now what?” asked Forrice.

  “Now we wait.”

  “That's all? Just wait?”

  “My experience of war is that it's ninety-nine percent waiting—and when that other percent comes along you wish you were still waiting,” said Cole.

  Hours passed.

  “Captain,” said Christine Mboya, as she checked her sensors again, “there's a lot more traffic moving into the system.”

  “Military?” asked Cole.

  “Not as far as I can tell, sir.”

  “No sign of the Pegasus?”

  “None, sir,” she replied. “But I've been told that it may not resemble the Valkyrie's description of it.”

  “Are you monitoring all the spaceport's transmissions?” asked Cole.

  “Incoming and outgoing, yes, sir.”

  “All right. Get me David Copperfield again.”

  An instant later Copperfield's image appeared on the bridge. “Have you changed your mind, Steerforth?” the alien asked hopefully.

  “No, David, I haven't,” said Cole. “But I have a couple of questions for you. First, how corruptible are your spaceport officials?”

  “What a silly question!” said Copperfield, laughing in spite of himself. “If they weren't corruptible, how could I remain in business on Riverwind?”

  “Second question,” continued Cole. “Is there any other spaceport on the planet that can accommodate an M300 ship?”

  “There isn't another spaceport on the planet, period,” answered Copperfield. “Oh, some of the smaller one-man and two-man jobs might be able to land at a local airstrip, though it almost never happens, but certainly something the size of Olivia Twist's ship won't be able to.”

  “Thanks, David. That's what I wanted to know.”

  “I don't suppose you know where it is yet?” asked Copperfield glumly.

  “Not yet,” said Cole. “Don't look so unhappy. Along with your own muscle, you've got three motivated Muscatel crew members with you.”

  “Most of my own men have deserted me,” complained Copperfield. “As for your three, they're proper and polite and saying all the right things, but you know and I know that if it's a choice between protecting me and killing the Shark and his men, they're going to choose the latter.”

  “We're doing our best to see to it that it doesn't come down to that choice,” Cole said reassuringly. He stared at the alien. “Put that pistol away or hide it better.”

  “Pistol?”

  “In the pocket of what passes for your waistcoat.”

  “That's not a gun,” said Copperfield. “It's the book you brought back for me. If I have to exit in a hurry, it's coming with me.”

  “What about the rest of your Dickens books?” asked Cole. “I saw a shelf of ancient ones in your study.”

  “None of them are signed.”

  “Cargo ship landing on Riverwind,” announced Briggs from his station across the bridge.

  “I'll talk to you later, David,” said Cole, breaking the connection before Copperfield could ask panicky questions about the ship in question. “What have we got there, Mr. Briggs?”

  “It's not an M300, but it's the same size. Could he have somehow changed its outline?”

  “Not with three of Muscatel's ships hot on his trail,” said Cole. “Keep on it and tell me what you find out.” He turned to Christine. “Has the Alice finally been moved into a hangar?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. No sense letting him know there's a military shuttlecraft on the planet. The registration papers say it was sold to a private party. That may satisfy the local authorities, but it'll never fool the Shark.”

  “But why would it worry him, sir?” she asked. “The Pegasus has ten times the firepower.”

  “Because its presence implies the existence of a mother ship,” said Cole. “Admittedly the Teddy R isn't going to give our opponents nightmares, but on the other hand, until they locate us, they don't know that the Alice didn't come from Fleet Admiral Marcos's flagship.”

  “Sir?” said Briggs.

  “Yes, Mr. Briggs?”

  “The ship is transporting refrigeration units for a new housing complex. It's unloading them, and is due to take off in about ten minutes.”

  “If it's here for more than twenty minutes, let me know,” said Cole. Suddenly he raised his voice. “Hey, Sharon!”

  “You don't have to yell,” she replied as her holo popped into view. “Someone from Security is always monitoring the bridge.”

  “Bully for them,” said Cole. “Is Val asleep?”

  “Let me check.” She looked at some monitors. “No, she's not in her cabin.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Not in the mess hall. Not in the officers' lounge. Ah! Got her! She's working out with Bull Pampas in that tiny exercise room.”

  “She's working out?” he persisted. “She's not…ah…”

  “She's lifting weights,” said Sharon. “And before you ask, dead weights.”

  “Okay, thanks. Go back to being a Peeping Tom.”

  “Thomasina, please,” she replied with mock dignity, but he was already on his way to the airlift.

  A moment later he entered the cramped confines of the exercise room, and instantly made a face. “Stinks of sweat,” he noted.

  “Just means we've been working hard,” replied Val, as Pampas jumped to attention and saluted.

  “Relax, Bull,” said Cole. “I just want to talk to Val for a minute.”

  “I'll leave, sir,” said Pampas. “We were just about done anyway.”

  “It won't take long,” said Cole. “Stick around.”

  “I'll take a quick Dryshower and be back in fresh clothes in about ten minutes,” said Pampas, walking out into the corridor.

  “What is it?” asked Val.

  “Did you ever disguise your ship before?” asked Cole.

  “Once the Pegasus developed a reputation I always disguised it,” she answered.

  “How?”

  “I programmed a number of false registrations, names, and IDs into it.”

  “Good,” said Cole. “You'd recognize them if you saw or heard them?”

  “Yes.”

  “I'm going to have Christine run the ID of every ship that's entered the system. Let me know if any of them could belong to the Pegasus.”

  “Happy to.”

  He looked around for a holo lens. “I don't think we can transmit them to the exercise room. The infirmary is right down the corridor; let's go over there and contact the bridge.”

  She accompanied him to the small admissions room, where he contacted Christine. She listed thirty-two ships that had entered the system in the past Standard day. When she was done, Cole looked at Val questioningly.

  “No, I don't recognize any of them.”

  “Oh well, it was worth a try. We'll run any new ones by you every few hours.”

  “Fine,” she said, heading back to the exercise room.

  Cole returned to the bridge, though he had no idea what he planned to do there. He was getting nervous. The Teddy R hadn't been bothered yet, but it was only a matter of time before a police or military ship noticed its configuration and started putting two and two together. He was too close to the Republic to feel comfortable, and he had no idea how long he'd have to stay here before the Pegasus showed up. What if the Shark sensed a trap, or simply changed his mind? The Teddy R could be stuck here, waiting for a ship that never came, a target for the Navy ships that he knew would inevitably come.

  There had to be something he was overlooking, something he could do. He was sure of it, but it was just beyond his mental grasp, and that frustrated him.

  Finally he stalked off to the mess hall in a foul mood. Three crew members, one human and two Mollutei, nodded a greeting to him, saw that he was in no mood to socialize, and managed to finish their mea
ls and leave within three or four minutes. He sat alone in the mess hall, glowering at his untouched coffee, until Sharon Blacksmith showed up and sat down opposite him.

  “One of us does not look happy,” she remarked.

  “One of us is wondering how much longer he can stay in this system without endangering the entire crew beyond the limits of acceptability,” he replied. “What if the son of a bitch doesn't show up for a week?”

  “Then we'll leave,” said Sharon. “And he's a son of a shark.”

  “Don't make light of this,” said Cole. “If we leave, we're putting David at his mercy.”

  “I didn't know you were that fond of David.”

  “I'm fond of fifty percent of market value for two years.” He paused. “The hell I am. To tell you the truth, I'm not fond of the whole damned pirate business. We're a military ship and a military crew. We should be doing military things.”

  “We are. We're going to war with pirate ships.”

  “It sounds good, but so far we've destroyed one pirate ship, we're trying not to destroy another, we've robbed one fence, we're helping another, and here we are, risking our ship and our lives—and for what? For fifty percent of market value.”

  “Get used to it, Wilson,” she said. “They're never going to take us back. You know that.”

  “I don't want to go back,” he said. “I just want to feel like something more than a thief on a grand scale.”

  She stared at him long and hard. “This has nothing to do with the current situation,” she said at last. “Hell, you like David Copperfield. I can tell whenever you speak about him. And everyone likes Val—even you.”

  “I told you: I didn't spend my whole life training to be a thief, and a pirate by any other name…”

  “All right, I believe you. So what?”

  “So nothing. We've set this situation up. We have to go through with it. I made a promise to Val. I made another to David Copperfield. I've got two men and an alien who trust me sitting on the planet just waiting to be attacked. We'll see it through. Then we'll consider what comes next.”

  “Whatever you decide, you know we're behind you,” she said, then noticed that he was paying no attention to her but was staring at some fixed point in space. “What is it?”

  “I'm an idiot,” he said suddenly.

  “We all love you anyway,” she said lightly.

  “It was staring me in the face.”

  “What was?”

  “The three crewmen I sent down to protect David Copperfield,” he replied.

  “I haven't got the slightest idea what you're talking about,” said Sharon.

  He touched his communicator, and instantly Christine's image appeared.

  “Yes, sir?” she asked.

  “Contact Moyer and Nichols and whatever the hell the Pepon's name is,” said Cole. “There are three Muscatel ships pursuing the Pegasus, or at least we have to assume they are. They have to communicate with each other. Have the crewmen give you any access codes they can remember. I don't want you to try to contact them. I don't even care if you monitor them. I just want you to identify them and their positions.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The holograph vanished.

  “That's what I was missing!” he said, his depression forgotten. “If we can't identify the Pegasus, at least we can identify the ships that are tracking it. Once we pinpoint their positions, we should be able to figure out where the Pegasus is and how soon it'll get here.”

  “Always assuming they are tracking the Pegasus.”

  “Wouldn't you, if it had killed most of your men and destroyed your headquarters?”

  “I might think I was lucky to be alive and decide I didn't want any more of the Hammerhead Shark.”

  He shook his head. “Donovan Muscatel didn't get to be one of the biggest pirates on the Frontier by ducking his enemies. He'll be in hot pursuit, and when we find him, we'll have a pretty good idea of where to find the Shark.” Suddenly his appetite returned. He ordered a sandwich and a beer, finished them both quickly, remembered his coffee and finished that too, and then hurried back to the bridge.

  “Well?” he said as he approached Christine Mboya.

  “They're just giving me the codes now, sir,” she said.

  “What the hell took so long?”

  “They didn't want to do it in front of Mr. Copperfield, and he didn't want to leave his study. I don't know why he feels safer there than anywhere else, especially when he's still got his bodyguards stashed around the place, but that was the problem. There were computers in every room, of course, but all of them were security-coded. He finally found one in the pantry, of all places, that would let him contact the ship without passwords or security codes. I gather Mr. Copperfield uses it when he's willing to be monitored by the police or whoever.” She glanced down at her monitors. “The codes are all in, sir.”

  “And the police might know them?”

  “It's possible,” she answered. “Do we care?”

  “No, not really. They don't know what the codes are for, and even if they did, the Muscatel ships haven't broken any laws. The police can't act on what they've got.” Cole paused. “Okay, let's get to work.”

  She tried a code, with no response, then a second and a third.

  “It's not working, sir,” she announced.

  “Keep going,” he said. “How many more codes did Moyer send up?”

  “Only four more, sir. The fourth doesn't work.”

  “Damn it! Something's got to work!” said Cole. “If the Shark is on his way here, so is Muscatel!”

  “The fifth doesn't work, sir.” Pause. “Neither does the sixth.”

  “Shit!” said Cole. “I hate it when I get a great idea and it doesn't work!”

  “Wait a minute, sir!” said Christine. “The seventh code is working.” She paused, frowning. “Well, I'll be damned!”

  It was the first time Cole had ever heard even so inoffensive an expletive as “damn” pass Christine Mboya's lips. “What is it?” he asked.

  “They're headed for this system, sir,” she said. “They'll reach it in about seven minutes. And they're not coming together, but triangulating on it. That means the Pegasus has got to be here, sir.” She looked up, puzzled. “But all of my sensors say it isn't.”

  “That's impossible,” said Briggs, staring at his own monitors. “It must be here!”

  “It is, or they wouldn't be converging on Riverwind,” said Cole.

  “Maybe so, sir,” said Christine. “I think they've managed to cloak it somehow. At any rate, I can't spot it.”

  Cole seemed lost in thought for a moment. Then he looked up.

  “Maybe you won't have to,” he said.

  “Sharon,” said Cole, “did Val give you any contact codes for the Pegasus when you first debriefed her?”

  “A handful of them,” replied Sharon Blacksmith's image. “Why?”

  “Start using them. Let me know if anything you send gets a response.”

  “You don't really think it will, do you?”

  He shook his head. “Not much sense cloaking your ship, however the hell they did it, if you're going to answer your subspace radio. Still, it's a first step.”

  “What if they do respond?” asked Sharon.

  “Talk to them.”

  “About what?”

  “Sports. Sex. The weather. I don't much care. Just keep them talking.”

  “So the Muscatel ships can pinpoint them?”

  “Right. Now go do it.”

  “It's not going to work,” said Christine as Sharon's image vanished.

  “Probably not. But like I said, it's our obvious first step. Mr. Briggs, I want you to plot the courses of the three Muscatel ships and see exactly where they converge—and when.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Briggs, going to work with his computers.

  “Val,” said Cole, “I need some input.”

  “What is it?” asked the Valkyrie as her image popped into existence on the bridg
e.

  “You didn't tell me that the Pegasus had a cloaking device,” he said.

  “I told it to Security. You never asked.”

  “Is it any good? Most of them aren't worth the powder to blow ‘em to hell.”

  “I never use it,” she said. “It's an enormous drain on the power. The Shark would be crazy to use it for more than five or six hours unless he knew he could refresh his nuclear pile tomorrow.” She paused. “I assume from your question that he's activated it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it's obvious he smells a trap.”

  “Maybe he's just playing it safe. After all, he's a pirate and he's very near the Republic—and they love the notion of hot pursuit.”

  She took her head adamantly. “Not a chance. The Republic wants us a lot more than it wants him, and no one's bothering us, are they? If he's using the cloak, it's not the Republic he's afraid of.”

  “Okay, next question. We can't spot him. How are Muscatel's men able to track him?”

  She shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe from neutrino activity or some emissions.”

  He frowned. “That doesn't make sense. Why could they find it if we can't? Either it's camouflaged or it isn't.”

  “Different technologies specialize in different things,” she answered. “You know that. Donovan Muscatel bought his ships from the Vapines of Romanitra II. They're humanoid, but they have different senses than we do. What's standard for their sensors might be impossible for the Teddy R's.”

  “Thanks for nothing,” he muttered.

  “I know how to cloak a ship,” she said defensively. “I've never had to track one that was cloaked.”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said Sharon, her image appearing right next to Val's, “but the Pegasus, if it's there, doesn't respond to any of the codes Val gave me.”