Trent smiled at the man, thanked the man, and assured him that he would do so at the first opportunity. He squeezed by the large man and walked swiftly away down the corridor.
The corridor stretched away forever.
Trent walked through silence. The corridor ran the length of Spacebace One; Trent had no feel for how far he had gone down its length. Other walkways branched out from this one in all directions, up and down and to the sides. There were dilation rings every few meters. Trent found himself growing disoriented. Nothing gave any sense of up or down; no gravity, nothing in the architectural layout. One Peaceforcer came into view walking on the ceiling of a cross corridor, and another swept by Trent from behind, flying freely down the length of the passage, navigating with touches of hands and feet to the grips extruding from the walls. Once a Peaceforcer, sitting in midair at an intersection, face at right angles to Trent's, looked at Trent oddly; Trent simply nodded to the man and kept walking, ostentatiously not hurrying, under the theory that suspicious people are people who act suspiciously.
Trent felt the man's gaze on the back of his neck as he walked away.
Only a frog Peaceforcer, he thought, would find something suspicious about bad tailoring.
His recently-operated upon knee was beginning to get sore, and his calves as well. Walking with magnetic slippers, in drop, was nothing like walking in gravity. He tried to find a rhythm for it, gliding along the way he had seen others doing, actually touching the deck with only the toes of the slippers, and was, he thought, getting the hang of it.
"ALERT, ALERT!" blared the voice.
Trent jerked to a stop, heart pounding. He found himself drifting in the exact geometrical center of the corridor, out of reach of grips on any side.
"ALIEN IN THE INSTALLATION, REPEAT, UNAUTHORIZED ALIEN IN THE INSTALLATION; ALL PERSONNEL RETREAT TO SECURED AREAS. LOCKDOWN IN EFFECT, REPEAT, LOCKDOWN IN EFFECT. PERSONNEL IN CORRIDORS WILL BE SHOT WITHOUT WARNING. REPEAT, LOCKDOWN IN EFFECT."
"Bastards!" screamed Trent. Nobody answered him, and feeling terribly silly he waited while the gentle drift took him within grabbing distance of a grip. He did not try to walk again; he dug his toes into a pair of grips and kicked off down the corridor with all the strength that was in him.
He lost velocity only slowly; air friction alone was insufficient to impede him much. He was still moving at a fair clip when he saw his next Peaceforcer, walking down the middle of the corridor watching Trent fly toward him. The Peaceforcer showed little alarm at first, and then some alarm, and then considerable alarm, and then Trent hit him. They collided in a tangle of arms and legs; with the briefcase in his left hand Trent swung at the Peaceforcer, smashed the edge of the briefcase up against the Peaceforcer's temple; the reaction sent Trent tumbling slowly backward to fetch up against the corridor wall. The Peaceforcer's head bounced off the bulkhead with an audible thud. When Trent regained his orientation again, the Peaceforcer hung limp in midair. Tiny beads of blood were forming in the air around the spot where Trent had struck him. With something approaching panic Trent kicked over to where the Peaceforcer hung motionlessly, and checked the man's pulse; it was strong and even.
"Thank you," said Trent to nobody in particular. He pulled the Peaceforcer to the nearest doorway, palmed it open, and shoved the man in.
And then the lights went out.
Trent heard his voice say, independent of him in the dark, "What a bad day."
Trent made his way slowly along the corridor, searching for doors by touch, feeling his way in the darkness by the grips and door recesses. He thought he had been near the north end of the cylinder when the lights went out.
There was nobody in the first room Trent tried, and it was dark besides. The second, third, fourth, and fifth doors Trent opened were also empty, also dark.
There were three people in the room that the sixth door opened onto, and the room was well lit, shining with bright yellow light from the ceiling sunpaint.
In the second when the three men were turning to look at the opening door, Trent pushed through, maser in hand, screaming, "Don't move!"
Only one of the three was facing Trent; the other two were half-dressed, with their backs to him. Nobody moved.
"Turn away from me."
The one Peaceforcer facing Trent stared at Trent, then at the maser in his hand, and then turned carefully away.
"If anybody does anything stupid," said Trent, just loudly enough for them to hear him, "I'm going to cut you clean in half."
Not one of the three so much as twitched. Transferring the useless maser to his right, useless hand, Trent pulled his squirt gun from his coat pocket with his left. Aiming carefully, Trent squirted each of the three on the back of the neck, making sure that the liquid touched skin each time.
When he finished, the squirt gun was empty.
Then, for the first time, Trent looked around the room he found himself in.
It was small, about twenty meters by fifteen.
There were lockers along the bulkheads.
Trent tried to remember exactly how close he had been to the slipship bays when they turned out the lights in the corridors.
"No, no," said Trent. This could not be the pilot's locker. "Good luck? Me?" Trent touched one of the lockers, tentatively. "No," he said decisively. A few beats later, he said questioningly, "Yes?" He looked at the locks on the lockers--palmprint activated, passive check circuits, and yelled, "YES!"
Halfway through the first row he found a pressure suit that fit, donned it. He had the impression that he was not supposed to wear it over a SpaceFarer uniform; though the material of the pressure suit was soft and form-fitting, it felt tight in odd places. He had special difficulty getting the pressure suit's boots on over the SpaceFarer boots he was wearing.
There was a holster on the right hip of the pressure suit.
Trent stared at it. A holster on a pressure suit? He looked in the locker he had taken the pressure suit from; there was a maser inside, restrained by an elastic strap. Trent shrugged, and filled the holster with the maser he had inherited from Lieutenant Zinth.
It took some examination before he figured out the helmet; it was supposed to hang on a snap just over his back, so that he could reach back and pull it forward, closed, in a single movement.
Mimicking the other pressure suits he had seen, Trent snapped the suit's gloves on at the spot on his left hip that did not have a pistol holster.
One of the bodies in the locker with him had begun snoring, and Trent addressed the snoring Peaceforcer: "Goodbye, dear friends; goodbye. I must go; spaceship to steal; things to do."
Trent went to the door at the other end of the room, opened it and looked cautiously out.
A wide, broad area stood revealed, vaguely circular in shape, some forty meters in diameter, perhaps five meters high. Airlocks were arrayed around the perimeter of the circle; there were green lights over some of the airlocks, red lights over others. One airlock had a red light flashing over it.
Trent left, closing the door to the pilot's locker room, turning the lights off as he did so.
Trent took three steps into the empty flight bay, marveling at his good luck.
On the fourth step, there was a light tug at his waist, and something improbably hard smashed into his ribs.
The impact lifted one of Trent's feet from the floor. He reattached it slowly in the zero gravity, and turned to look into Lieutenant Zinth's maser.
Melissa du Bois said, "Hello, Trent the thief."
Trent had read once that after a certain number of shocks the nervous system became inured.
Trent had not reached that number yet. He said, "Uh ... uh ..."
Melissa had both hands wrapped around the maser. Her knuckles were white. She said conversationally, "Fifteen minutes ago I found out who you are." Her accent had thickened under the stress. "Thirteen minutes ago I finished reading our dossier on you; it is a fascinating document. Ten minutes ago I located a terminal, found North Bay, and he
aded here." She smiled at Trent without humor. "Technically, I am AWOL. They would not give me a weapon either." She inclined her head slightly. "Thank you for the loan."
Trent said, "Uh ... Melissa ..." Nothing was occurring to him.
"You are an intriguing man, Trent the thief." Her cheeks were slightly flushed. "Respected contract thief, very likely one of the twenty best Players alive"
"Ten."
"and a man of wit and humor, reputed to be extremely skilled in unarmed combat. One of eight criminals who has ever destroyed a pursuing waldo; the only one who has ever escaped the PKF Detention Center in Capitol City; the only one ever to kill an Elite officer of the Peace Keeping Force."
"Melissa, you're making"
"A mistake, I know, Trent the thief, you are innocent. You did not do it."
"I didn't. It was an accident," Trent said, "he fell." He looked at her, met her eyes directly. "Really. Killing is wrong." Without looking away from her, he felt his side. "Damn it, I think you broke a rib."
Melissa chuckled. It didn't reach her eyes. "It is a curious thing, Trent, but you have managed to do something nobody else ever has. You have made me feel stupid. And I am not a stupid woman." She gestured at the row of eight airlocks. "I am where I am. My superiors did not expect you to make it to North Bay. How could he even find it, they said. They did not think you would make it here through all the Peaceforcers if you did find it." She shrugged. "I did. I have great respect for you, Trent the thief." Her hands, holding the maser, were terribly steady. "I shall be present at your execution."
"You liked me."
"You incredible egomaniac." She shook her head. "You are charming, but that is not it. Do you realize what you have done to me? You sat down next to me and told me your name. Trent 'Smith,'" she said icily.
Trent said quietly, "I thought I was safe by that point. My name wasn't on the Boards even then, and I was seven hours from Free Luna. I didn't know you were a Peaceforcer."
Melissa du Bois shook her head slowly. "You really do not know, do you?"
"Melissa, I don't have time for this."
"I am going to be known for the rest of my life as the Elite whom Trent the thief spent four and a half hours sitting next to while a Level Three alert was on for him. My career is ruined. My name is a joke."
"I'm going to steal a spaceship now."
The barrel of the maser climbed until it was centered on Trent's wishbone. "No, you are not."
Trent said mildly, "You're not going to shoot me, Melissa."
"Not if you surrender."
"Not at all."
"Trent, I should prefer to take you alive. But I will kill you if I must."
Trent cocked his head to one side, as though listening to something. "I don't have time for this. And I think you broke one of my ribs."
"I am horribly sorry."
"It's okay." Turning away from her, Trent headed toward the airlocks.
"Trent," called Melissa.
Trent turned to face her.
She said softly, "I am sorry, my friend," and pulled the trigger.
There was a gentle, quiet click.
Trent smiled at her. "There's no charge cartridge."
Melissa stared at him, then at the maser, then at him again.
"I pulled the charge cartridge," Trent explained. "I didn't want to hurt anybody."
Soft, meaningless sounds issued from her throat.
"I understand how you feel," said Trent, "but there's this spaceship"
With a stifled scream, Melissa launched herself across the deck at him. Trent ducked slowly, grabbing Melissa by the ankles as she sailed by overhead. Methodically, he pulled off her magnetic slippers, and then her shoes. He pushed her lightly away from him, away from any possible grip.
Trent licked one finger and tested the air currents. He pointed at the far bulkhead. "That way," he called out to Melissa, "the air's circulating that way."
Trent turned away from her again as she struggled futilely in midair, and continued toward the row of airlocks. The red light was still flashing over the third airlock from the right.
At the airlock, a thought struck Trent. "Melissa!"
She looked in his direction.
"The air currents should take you to the wall in, I don't know, ten minutes or so, but if you're really in a hurry, take off your clothes and throw them away from you; for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."
Trent stood, looking at her, for just a moment.
Then, with furious speed, Melissa du Bois began stripping her shirt off.
Trent watched her a moment longer, wishing he could stand around and react. He cycled through the airlock, his voice so quiet he could barely hear it. "So much to do, so little time."
* * *
14.
The ship docked at the third airlock from the right was not a slipship.
It was a two-seat yacht; the legend inscribed on the bulkhead, immediately inside the airlock, read:
United Nations Space Force
Rolls-Royce 2066, #312
The interior of the yacht consisted of the pilot's cabin, the airlock, and a small passageway that connected the two. Trent presumed that there were engines somewhere.
Going forward, Trent entered the pilot's cabin, seated himself in the left-hand seat and strapped in.
Seated to the right was a handsome, elderly silver-haired man, skimming news reports on his handheld. On the breast of his pressure suit a name patch said Col. Webster, UNSF.
Colonel Webster had barely glanced up when Trent entered. Returning to his handheld, he said in clipped military tones, "You're late, pilot."
"I've heard that one before," Trent snapped. He studied the board before him. Except for what was obviously an ancient triddy tank, in the panel's lower right hand corner, there was nothing Trent recognized.
Colonel Webster's head turned toward Trent as though it moved on bearings. "You're not my pilot."
"I'm not anybody's pilot."
"What the hell does the PKF think it's up to, Lieutenant?"
Trent glanced down at the name patch on his pressure suit. Lt. Charbrier, he read upside down.
It seemed to be Trent's fate in life to impersonate officers of low rank.
"Honestly," said Trent, "I don't think anybody but Melissa has much of an idea." One pressure point, near the top of the board, was bordered in blue and was labeled Auto.
Thank God for the British, Trent thought. He pressed the point marked Auto.
The Colonel's face was growing red. "Are you under the impression, Lieutenant, that being a member of the PKF gives you ..."
Trent said, "I'm not a Peaceforcer." The triddy tank glowed slightly, with a milky gray sheen; it silvered, blossomed into rainbows, and sank in to depth.
In the tank, the words System Active appeared.
"You're notyou're"
"I'm a thief."
"A th--"
"A thief. Trent the thief. Hello, computer?" There was no response from the system; Trent could not find anything on the control board in front of him that remotely resembled an I/O device. Opening his briefcase, he withdrew the circuit tracer and located the triddy tank lead-ins, following them down. The traces led into a panel on the floor; Trent got down on his knees and yanked the panel open, revealing a mass of logic and memory circuits unlike anything he had ever seen before. He recognized various components, but half of the logic and most of the chipglue was custom. One flat plastic plug sat toward the bottom of the array of exposed circuitry; Trent pulled the plug free and exposed a standard optical handheld jack.
Trent plugged his handheld in and climbed back into the left-hand seat.
Colonel Webster watched this wordlessly. When Trent was finished, he burst out, "How can you be doing this?"
"I don't know."
"I can't let you do this."
"You can't stop me."
"But"
Trent turned and looked the man square in the face. "Colonel, you're w
asting my time, and I don't have a lot. You're old and you don't have a weapon." Trent paused. "Do you?"
"Well, no, but"
"You don't have a weapon," Trent said conclusively. "I'm stronger than you are, smarter than you are, younger than you are, and a hell of a lot more desperate than you are; I know kung fu, karate, aikido, shotokan, judo, and lots of other Asian words, so would you please shut up?"
Trent had not raised his voice. The Colonel blinked and shut up.
For approximately the tenth time that day Trent regretted Booker's lack of ability to dig up a traceset for him. Aloud, Trent said, "Johnny?"
There was a brief pause before the words appeared in the triddy field. Hi, Boss.
"Can you hear me?"
Yep. Can't find an audio output for this mess. Use the handheld speaker? I'll have to jack the volume all the way up.
"This is fine, Johnny."
Slow damn hardware again, Boss.
"Sorry, Johnny. Get us out of here and I'll pour you into the finest inskin Credit can buy."
There was another pause. So--we made it to the North Bay. Checking ... not bad, Boss. This sucker has range to take us back to Earth, if we want.
"How's the autopilot?"
Likewise not bad ... the hardware's relatively new; the program itself's almost fifteen years old. But it'll get us there. It tells me it's a McDonnell 1300 autopilot, with auxiliary functions as follows: Entertainment capabilities--
"Cancel, Johnny. Inventory comm systems, weapons, drive type and acceleration capabilities. Disengage the airlock."
Done. There was a hollow clang as the airlock disconnected. This vehicle, Rolls-Royce Yacht 2066, Inventory #312, tells me it's "unarmed." Communications on all approved radio bands; further equipped for laser communications. Green "communications" laser, of 4.4 megajoules capacity...
Trent said, "Mahatma Gandhi!" He turned and stared at Colonel Webster. "You have a communications laser on this ship for what, talking to Alpha Centauri?"
"This is a military"
"Shut up."
Drive system is proton-boron fission, non-radiative. It produces a burst top acceleration of 8,800 cepssa, a sustainable top acceleration of 6,200 cepssa. Magnetically bottled positrons, used to initiate proton-boron reaction, may be sprayed independently of the main engine.
The Long Run Page 18
