The Fenris Device

by Brian Stableford

  “We might make Charlot see sense,” I said. “If we tried together.”

  “You and me against the vast storehouse of Gallacellan knowledge?” he said.

  He had a point.

  “He’s an old man,” I said quietly. “He can afford to take chances with his own life.”

  “Just a minute ago,” Nick pointed out, “you were crying about how you aren’t so young yourself.”

  “And Johnny?”

  “Johnny wants to try.”

  “Johnny’s a reckless fool. What about Eve?”

  Silence. What about Eve, indeed? I wondered whether Nick was in love with Eve, and decided that he probably was. No chance. No wonder his judgment was somewhat impaired.

  “You know,” he said, after a pause, “I can’t bring myself to believe that you care all that much about Johnny and Eve.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe,” I said. “I’m a selfish bastard at the best of times. If I were offered a chance to sacrifice my poor life for both of theirs I’d probably pass it up sooner than say thank you and die happy. I’m no hero. No hero at all. I’m looking out primarily for my skin. Fair enough. But what I say is true. Whether I care isn’t so important...do you care?”

  “I care,” he said.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  I knew I had him. He was all mine. He wasn’t going to be handing out any awkward orders. The Gallacellans could do their own dirty work and Charlot could have an apoplectic fit. Too bad.

  We stared at each other for just a little longer. Then he looked down, and stirred his coffee slowly. The cup was half empty.

  “Are you coming back to the doctor?” he asked.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “You want me to leave you alone?” he asked.

  “What’s the use? No sooner would you be back at the Swan than someone else would be out here to have a heart-to-heart.”

  “They care, you know,” he said.

  “I know,” I told him.

  “Reckless fools or not,” he added, almost below his breath.

  “I don’t think I could stand a man-to-man talk with Johnny just now,” I said. “It would be a mite too wearing. And as for....”

  “All right,” he said, “all right.” He picked up the cup and drained it to the dregs. He stood up.

  “Well,” he said. “Are you coming back to see the doctor or aren’t you?”

  I guessed so. I stood up.

  “He might invalid me out,” I said, ruminatively. “What a tragedy. A great career nipped in the bud. Nothing so pathetic as a grounded starman.”

  But it was really a sour and bitter joke, and I didn’t like it much.

  We went back together, through the cold, shiny night.

  We met a low-caste Gallacellan at the gateway to the shipyards, and I looked at him, wondering if it might be Ecdyon, and whether I ought to say hello if it might be. But he ignored us, so we followed the same policy.

  The lights were still blazing inside the Swan, and Charlot was hovering in the corridor, obviously wanting to say something. I was tempted to pretend to be a Gallacellan and walk past him without the slightest tremor of recognition, but I couldn’t make it. We paused to let him have his say.

  “Stylaster said before he left that he hopes you make a complete recovery,” Charlot told me.

  “Well,” I said, “that might be very nice of him. On the other hand, it might not. Did he happen to say why he expressed such a kindly interest in my well-being?”

  “The doctor is waiting for you,” Charlot said, without much trace of expression.

  “Now there,” I said, “we are on safer ground. I know why he shows a kindly interest. He wants his fee.”

  “You need sleep,” said Charlot. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Captain delArco nodding puppet-like agreement. Well, so what? I did need sleep.

  “We’ll meet again in the morning,” said Charlot. “We need a long talk about the near future.”

  “Local morning or real morning?” I asked him. We hadn’t been on Iniomi long, and the time change had been an awkward one.

  “I’ll have you roused when we’re ready,” he said.

  “Fine.”

  “One more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t wander off like that again. The regulations state....”

  This time I had no difficulty at all in forgetting he was there and going about my business. But even as I went back to my cabin, I knew that the affair wasn’t settled yet by any means. Charlot was going to fight for this one. Tooth and claw.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I woke up in the morning without anyone having to come to rouse me. I was in no hurry to seek out my fellow crew members and hasten the painful post mortem on the events of the previous day. I made myself look human, and began the somewhat lengthier task of making myself feel human again, and I waited for the knock on my door. It seemed to be a long time coming, and when it did come, it was not who I expected.

  It was, in fact, the Gallacellan Ecdyon. He introduced himself formally but I could tell by his clothes that he wasn’t Stylaster, and so far as I was aware we had no other Gallacellans on board yet.

  “Stylaster wishes me to ask whether you are fully recovered,” he said, once I’d got over my surprise and he’d had time to turn his back.

  “I’m not as bad as I might be,” I told him.

  “Stylaster wishes me to ask when you will be ready to make another attempt.”

  I narrowed my eyes. I knew this wasn’t on the level. Stylaster might well have asked of Charlot whether I was fully recovered, and Charlot might well have referred the interpreter to me. But the idea of Stylaster addressing a question to me—whether he used an interpreter or not was just not credible. Gallacellans are very much aware of status, and once they have a status situation sorted out they talk to the man at the top and him only. Real Gallacellans, that is—Ecdyon, by virtue of the fact that he had learned foreign languages in order to converse with aliens, was a demoted Gallacellan, almost an alien himself but Gallacellan enough to be a go-between.

  “I’m not going to make another attempt,” I said.

  “Stylaster wishes...,” he began.

  “What do you want?” I asked him.

  His big yellow hind-eyes blinked. One at a time. The small black pupils widened slightly, then contracted again. I got the idea that was phony too.

  “Charlot sent you, didn’t he?” I asked him.

  “No.”

  “Stylaster didn’t.”

  “Stylaster wishes me to know what is happening at all times.”

  I saw what he meant. “He gave you an open brief to ask whatever questions you might need to ask, and he left it up to you to decide who to ask, what, and when? That’s interesting. What made you come to me?”

  He paused for a moment, then said: “My observations have led me to believe that it is not always the human with the highest status who determines what is to be done.”

  I stared at him. “That’s clever,” I said. “That’s really clever. Alien languages, alien ways of seeing. Stylaster couldn’t bring himself to believe that, you know. He just couldn’t.” It suddenly dawned upon me why the Gallacellans allowed so few of their people to learn alien languages, and only the low-status people at that. A status society needs ultimate stability. Limitations even on ways of thinking. I remembered that rumor had it the Gallacellans evolved from a prey species, not a predator or a facultative predator. They were not individualists. I wondered whether I ought to offer Ecdyon a few hints on how to organize a revolution.

  “What will happen if you will not guide the ship down to Mormyr?” asked the Gallacellan.

  I sat down on the bunk and looked up at him. “Have a seat,” I said. But Gallacellans don’t sit down. He interpreted my invitation somewhat liberally and coiled himself up. To me, it looked painful, but he was built for it. The net result of the operation was that he ended up with his eyes at about the same level as mine and his bo
dy contorted beneath his loose robe. I could imagine him as a sort of gigantic snake. But his black robe was discreetly voluminous, decorated with blue and gold, and actually very handsome. He didn’t look in any way repulsive.

  I thought about answering his question. Then I thought that I might be passing up a chance to learn something interesting, and I decided to fence.

  “I’ll tell you what will happen if you’ll tell me what will happen,” I said. He blinked again. This time I was sure it was deliberate.

  “Yes,” he said, without hesitation. I wondered briefly whether he knew what I was after. Gallacellans were reputed to be .remarkably shy of giving away information.

  “OK,” I said. “Here’s how it is from our side. As you seem to know, we have only the one ship capable of doing what you want us to do—which, I presume, is to land on Mormyr and get you and Stylaster to this ship or whatever that’s down there. Now, if I can’t take that ship down there, effectively no one can. There are some men who might have the ability—men as good as me—but once they find out I refused to take the ship down they’ll refuse also. To some extent it’s a matter of etiquette, but primarily it’s a matter of respecting my judgment. Ergo, if I don’t go, nobody goes. Your ship—or whatever—stays there. The Sister Swan will be operational soon, but that won’t make any difference. I don’t want to boast and say that if I can’t do it, nobody can—but I’m pretty sure that if I don’t do it, nobody who can will.”

  He remained totally impassive, not bothering to blink. “It is a ship,” he said, obviously willing to fulfill his part of the bargain. “Its name is the Varsovien. It was left on Mormyr nearly a thousand of your time-strips....”

  “Years?”

  “Years. A thousand of your years ago.”

  “It was left,” I quoted. I didn’t like to interrupt, but I wanted to get things straight if I was getting them at all. “It didn’t crash?”

  “No,” he said. “It was abandoned.”

  “And now, after a thousand years, you want it back. Why?”

  “I do not know.”

  I knew he was telling the truth. The underhanded bastard. But perhaps not. A little information was better than no bread, and I hadn’t actually told him anything that was phenomenally useful. I paused for a moment, trying to frame another question in the most useful possible way, when the door opened. Ecdyon was sitting behind it and it dealt him a firm blow which knocked him over. Johnny literally bounded into the cabin.

  “What the fucking hell do you...?” I began to shout, forgetting that one shouldn’t swear in front of an alien, but Johnny wouldn’t let me finish.

  “Mayday,” he said. “There’s a mayday....”

  “Where?”

  “One-fifty mk out from the sun. About the same from here. We’re closer than Pallant.”

  The fact that we were closer than Pallant didn’t really figure. The Swan was far faster than anything that might be sitting around on Pallant Field. It was our pigeon.

  “Drive-chamber, quick,” I told him.

  He disappeared back out the door, without even pausing to look at poor Ecdyon.

  I helped the Gallacellan to his feet. He was making a peculiar noise with his back mouth, and seemed to be having trouble taking in air through his front one. I think he was winded.

  “I am sorry,” he wheezed, as he regained his full six foot ten. “Your air—it is rather bad.”

  “I dunno,” I muttered, as I backed away, leaving him to look after himself while I pretended to be a lifeboat. “We like it.”

  I made the control room in seconds. I closed the locks, and began to broadcast a warning to everybody within earshot via the klaxon. I checked to see that we had an empty yard, and found that there were people running for cover. I opened a circuit with the port authority.

  “Tell me as soon as I’m clear,” I snapped.

  The officer was on the ball. He didn’t bother asking questions.

  “Hold hard,” he said. “Information on the bleep.”

  There was a whine on the circuit as he transferred all the general information on the mayday call at high speed.

  “Thanks,” I said. Then, to Johnny: “Start countdown now, but be ready to hold her if we don’t get the all clear.”

  “Eighty, seventy-nine, seventy-eight...,” he began, without preamble.

  “How much burn can I use, port?” I asked.

  “Regulation,” said the officer. “Sorry, we just don’t have the space.”

  “OK,” I said. “Not to worry.” Using a bigger thrust from the cannons to lift me would have earned a few extra seconds, but no more. As it was, we were better off blasting from Iniomi than the “official” rescue craft would be in lifting from Pallant, which had half as much again in the way of gravity drag.

  While Johnny was still in the thirties, the port authority gave me the go-ahead to blast. By this time the whole ship was alive and alert. Ecdyon had staggered up to the control room to watch the action and Nick was at my shoulder. Eve was around somewhere, but neither Charlot nor the other Gallacellan had shown. I guessed that they were in conference somewhere on the ground, and that was why the crew pep talk hadn’t materialized.

  I took her up on a strictly regulation cannon burn, and I felt the flux come alive as we juggled the power.

  “Right,” I said to Johnny, “we’re going to race the transfer and use every available second. Give me a hundred countdown and make sure that you have everything hot and set when we get to zero.”

  It wasn’t really fair on him to cut his time like that—it was pushing the limitations of the engine, and when you start pushing the limitations of the engine you’re usually well beyond those of the engineer. If we missed the transfer we’d lose seconds instead of making them, and even though it would be my fault, Johnny was bound to think of it as his.

  “Nick,” I said, forgetting in the heat of the moment that we were on board and that he was the captain, “the info came in on a bleep. Pick it out and play it back to yourself. I haven’t the time to take it myself. Just tell me what the situation is after we transfer, OK?”

  He moved to comply. All the time I was speaking I was preparing to make the transfer. I was really pounding the flux, because I needed all the shields up. Leucifer was a matter-dense system and you can’t go making tachyonic transfers in bad vacuum without a full complement of shields. As it was, we were bound to lose power when I went transcee. One shield at least was bound to crack, and unless Johnny and I were really on our toes we could bleed flux. After what the ship had gone through yesterday another bleed could wreck her—or at least ground her for a month.

  But she behaved beautifully. The flux stayed perfectly balanced, my timing was dead on, and we were through the light barrier in no time. A slight movement of my ship limbs, the sensation of wind riffling feathers, and the shielding was back full, perfectly powered, dead even.

  “Beautiful,” I said. “Great work, son.” Johnny said nothing. I kept concentrating and I kept accelerating. I searched inside the hood, but I couldn’t see the stricken ship—or, at least, I couldn’t sort her out from all the other junk that was floating around.

  “Position?” I shouted.

  Nick reeled off some figures, and I spotted her as soon as I had the region to look. I could see two other ships in the mid-part of the system. One was near Pallant and was presumably the boat coming out in answer to the mayday. The other was also headed toward the emergency, but she was a long way out, coming in from an outer world, or from outside the system.

  I covered the distance between Iniomi and the injured ship in a matter of minutes. The junk that was all over the system didn’t try to get in my way, and with the special faculties of the Swan I was virtually able to ignore the particles strewn along our path.

  “Count me down to back-transfer,” I told Johnny, and while he was coming down from a hundred Nick gave me the essence of what he’d learned from the bleep.

  “It’s a yacht called the Saberwing,
” he said, “privately owned on Pallant by a man named Ferrier. Crew of three. Mayday came in only a few minutes ago, but the mayday signal gave no information except the name of the ship. Either a bad captain or...anyway, no way of knowing what’s wrong.”

  “What a moron,” I said. “What’s he expect? Am I supposed to board him or what? We’ll have to call him when we’re subcee. Perhaps he’s transmitted more while we’ve been on our way. I don’t suppose he’s expecting anyone for at least an hour. We must be taking minutes off the galactic rescue record.”

  The transfer down was as easy as the transfer up. Within five minutes after returning to subcee I could be knocking on the Saberwing’s front door. It was a brilliant piece of flying, though I say it myself.

  I opened a call circuit wide, so that I could talk to the ship coming out from Pallant while she was still below transfer if I failed to reach Saberwing. At the same time, I asked Nick whether Saberwing was a p-shifter and whether we had any clue at all about what might be wrong.

  “She’s a p-shifter all right,” he told me. “But there’s no indication at all about the trouble.”

  “Can’t be flux, anyway,” I muttered. That was a relief. At least she wasn’t going to blow up on me, and she wasn’t going to be so hot as to be impossible to approach. P-shifters don’t have many advantages—you can’t take them hardly anywhere—but at least they go wrong discreetly.

  I invited the Saberwing to communicate via the link, but there was no reply. I invited anyone to communicate, and got an answer from the ship that was coming out from Pallant.

  “This is Gray Goose,” was the message. “Bleeping data.” Fast pause for a bleep, then: “We have no additional information. Transfer due in twenty seconds.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Go ahead. See you soon.”

  Nick automatically picked up the bleep and played it back.

  “It’s only her identification,” he said. “She’s the local police boat. Doubles as ambulance and lifeboat. Man in charge is Captain Corey. That’s all.”

  It wasn’t much.

  I decelerated as I approached the Saberwing. She was drifting at a low velocity. I matched, and began to maneuver myself alongside. I sent out a couple more appeals to the ship, but there was absolute silence.