by E. M. Foner
“Without power we’re riding on mechanical roller bearings, and barring further interference, the ring takes days to spin down without rocket braking. I imagine the pirates will match our angular acceleration and extend a temporary airlock. That’s well within the capability of any naval craft.”
“Let’s get our bags and meet them,” Joe said to Hannah and his family. “I think it would be best for everybody if none of the destroyer’s crew set foot on this ship.”
After they gathered their belongings, Samuel spent the remaining time assuring the crew that his parents felt deeply honored by their willingness to sacrifice themselves. A short distance away, Kelly was working equally hard to lower Hannah’s expectations.
“I can’t believe this is actually happening,” the young woman repeated for the third time in a row. “Do you think they’ll let me choose who takes me?”
“They aren’t kidnapping us,” Kelly told her, marveling at how quickly the whole alien lover business had reasserted itself in her new friend’s imagination. “Aarania promised that we’ll be on our way in twenty-four hours, and the upper-caste Vergallians would rather die than break their word.”
“If you say so,” Hannah replied, but she sounded a bit skeptical. If Kelly had to bet on which possible outcome the girl would prefer, her money was on a handsome Vergallian pirate.
The captain’s gig proved to be a utilitarian craft manned by extremely polite Vergallian marines, and the transfer went smoothly. Once aboard the destroyer, a friendly sailor even provided Hannah with a pair of magnetic cleats, after which the humans were immediately escorted to the bridge.
“I am Aarania,” the perfect Vergallian woman in charge introduced herself, though she made no attempt to approach the humans. Then she turned to one of the bridge crew and ordered, “Commence communications blackout. I want no spurious radiation from the ship until this is over. Terminate the power suppression field and execute jump.”
The two events must have taken place almost simultaneously, because Kelly just glimpsed the running lights on the Vergallian freighter that filled the display screen coming back on at full strength, before the unsettling feeling of a faster-than-light jump hit her stomach. The screen came back on faster than she expected, and the captain said, “Again.”
This time, the queasy feeling was even more pronounced, and Kelly had the urge to sit down on the deck. Joe put a comforting arm around her waist to support her, and murmured, “She’s taking evasive maneuvers to prevent tracking.”
“Again,” the captain said as soon as they reentered normal space, and the third jump lasted about the same amount of time as the second.
“You can’t hide from the Stryx,” Samuel blurted in Vergallian.
Joe winced at his son’s choice of conversation starter. The accent was perfect, but the message was confrontational, and probably the last thing some renegade Vergallians wanted to hear. To his surprise, Aarania favored his son with a brilliant smile.
“Not for any amount of time, I’m sure. But our analysis of Stryx interference in the naval affairs of other species indicates that three random jumps are enough to keep them guessing for a while. Again,” she ordered as soon the ship reentered normal space. “And that makes four.”
“But you swore you would only hold us for one day,” Kelly protested when she recovered her balance.
“I will keep my word. I also respect the resourcefulness of your son in helping me defuse an embarrassing stand-off, and I wanted to demonstrate to him the futility of hoping for an equally dramatic rescue during your stay. Where did you get the idea of asking for an invitation, young sir?”
“Scions of the Empire,” Samuel replied, naming an old Vergallian drama series. “I watched all of the episodes last year.”
Aarania nodded solemnly. “Then I suppose it’s too much to ask you to keep out of trouble.” She raised her eyes and addressed the tallest of the marines escorting the humans. “Take them to their quarters and see that they have everything they need.”
“What do you gain by holding onto us for just twenty-four hours?” Kelly asked, as the others turned to leave the bridge.
“That, Madame Ambassador, is a military secret,” Aarania responded.
Joe spent most of the walk to the drop shaft explaining the fine points of shuffling along in magnetic cleats to Hannah, who was just beginning to get a feel for it when the sensation of weight began to return.
“Are we accelerating?” Kelly asked Joe.
“I’d guess only in the spinning sense,” he replied. “These military ships fight in Zero G, but they can spin on their own axis to create varying degrees of weight, not unlike Union Station. Many species require it for health reasons.”
Their escort brought them to one large cabin, the state of which gave the impression that the former inhabitants had vacated in a hurry. On the plus side, it had its own bathroom, and there was even an entertainment system, which Samuel found immediately. Unfortunately, it had been disabled.
“You heard Aarania,” said the member of the bridge crew detailed to remain inside their cabin door to keep an eye on the humans. “Communications blackout includes entertainment systems.”
“How about my toy robot?” Samuel asked, drawing his prized possession from his bag and setting it on the floor. The robot’s eyes glowed green, it threw the guard a salute, and then a few sparks leapt from its casing.
“It’s interfering with the interior suppression field,” the officer shouted, and drawing a weapon, fired on the little robot. There was a blinding flash, and then the toy seemed to sag in on itself, as if something had melted.
“What the hell are you doing firing so close to my wife and son?” Joe yelled, and stepped aggressively towards the officer. The Vergallian thumbed a switch on his weapon and fired at the ambassador’s husband, who dropped to his knees as if he had been caught by a hard uppercut to the jaw. While he tried to shake it off, Samuel pulled his grandfather’s cane from the straps of his bag and leapt forward.
“En garde,” he shouted in Vergallian.
The officer showed his quick reflexes by grabbing the end of the cane with his free hand and yanking it towards him to pull the boy off balance. His poise failed when he found himself holding a hollow wooden sheath and confronted with a long, thin blade.
“That’s for stunning my Dad,” Samuel cried, sticking the point into the officer’s shooting hand. The Vergallian dropped his weapon and grabbed reflexively at the wound, only to find the tip of Samuel’s sword-cane had moved to his throat.
The door slid open, and the marine on the threshold halted in his tracks as he assessed the unexpected situation. He noted the two women struggling to help Joe regain his feet, glanced at the smoking robot, and shook his head in disgust at the officer. After preventing his companion from entering, the marine dragged the officer’s dropped weapon to the door with his foot and picked it up.
“Inform Aarania,” he instructed the marine who remained outside. “I’m staying here to make sure this glory hound doesn’t get lucky and cause more problems.”
“It was their fault,” Samuel’s captive said weakly. “The boy deployed some kind of robot.”
“Just shut up and try not to cut your own throat on his sword,” the marine barked. He shook his head and addressed the humans in an apologetic tone. “Nepotism. He’s a cousin of Aarania’s.”
Joe, who was just beginning to shake the cobwebs from his brain, nodded in sympathy with the professional soldier. A few minutes later, his head had cleared and he started rubbing his knees, thankful that his weight was at most a quarter of its usual measure. If it had happened under normal gravity, he doubted his sixty-year-old kneecaps would have survived.
Aarania showed up a moment later, made her own silent assessment of the situation, and addressed Samuel’s captive. “Congratulations, Cousin. You’ve been taken hostage by an underage Human. Well done.”
“Get him to put down the sword,” the captive pleaded.
“As long as he’s guarding you, you’ve effectively removed him from combat. It appears you are good for something after all.”
“But you declared a communications blackout and he activated that toy robot. I think it was trying to send a distress signal.”
Aarania leaned around the marine and peered at the remains of Samuel’s Libbyland toy. She frowned. Then the lights blinked out, and there was total silence for a second before the emergency battery back-up took over with a clunk of mechanical relays. The beautiful Vergallian spoke into her personal comm but received no response. Then a perfectly circular section of the bulkhead vaporized, and Jeeves appeared in the opening.
“Next time, I suggest housing your guests on an outer deck to save damage,” Jeeves said, floating through the hole. “On the bright side, the emergency atmosphere retention field that covered my hull breach seems to be holding, but you might want to have your crew throw up a patch after I leave.”
“Stryx!” Aarania hissed. “So this is how you practice noninterference.”
“Please move out of the way,” Jeeves said politely. “I have no intention of interfering with your affairs, but I find myself trapped by the rapid response clause included in the warranty for my young friend’s robot. I’ve gotten much more conservative about extending warranties since then, but it was my first.”
“What are you talking about, Jeeves?” Kelly squawked. “You’re just going to leave us here?”
“I don’t think the Thark who I hitched a ride with in return for providing your precise location will go along with that. Now everybody please cover your eyes while I carry out this repair. It involves high heat.”
A white glow began forming around the Stryx’s pincer, and the biologicals all reflexively squinted their eyes shut. There was a click, a scraping sound, and a hollow clank, after which Jeeves announced, “All done.”
Even Samuel looked away from his captive to stare at the restored robot. It gleamed like the day he had brought it home from Libbyland, and its eyes were glowing a healthy green.
“You didn’t repair anything,” Aarania’s cousin protested, feeling his courage coming back as the sword moved away from his throat. “You just swapped it for a new one that you had in your casing.”
“All within the terms of the warranty, I assure you,” Jeeves replied. He projected a hologram of dense text that must have run into tens of thousands of words, if not more. “You can read it if you want.”
The regular lights came back on, and Aarania stood stiffly for a moment as she digested a flood of communications from her officers. “If you would all be so kind as to accompany me to the bridge,” she said in a defeated voice, and then stalked out of the cabin.
“I’m fine,” Joe insisted, shaking off Kelly’s arm and limping after the Vergallians, who had given up any pretense of holding the humans captive in the presence of the Stryx. Samuel retrieved the wooden sheath of his cane and carefully reinserted the blade before following.
“It’s at least twice the size of our largest attack carrier,” an officer was saying as the group entered the bridge. It wasn’t possible to judge the dimensions of the enormous vessel displayed on the view screen without another ship for comparison, but it conveyed such an impression of power that everybody was willing to take the officer’s calculations at face value.
“What are their demands?” Aarania inquired.
“Her commander told us to bring the Humans to where he could see them, and then he closed the channel.”
“It’s a Thark battleship. I recognize the class from historical records, but I thought they’d all been scrapped millions of years ago. What’s the name on her prow?”
“Loss Prevention.”
“Join me within the white line,” Aarania instructed the humans, who shuffled forward on their magnetic cleats. The image on the main display instantly changed to the face of an angry Thark, blown up to ten times its natural size.
“Deliver the ambassador and her party immediately and I will leave your ship intact,” the Thark said bluntly. “You’re going to need a navigable warship if you wish to survive this debacle, and I would advise against returning to Vergallian space any time in the near future. For your sake, I hope you can transfer four-hundred thousand creds to the off-world betting parlor on Union Station to cover our expenses.”
Aarania blanched, but she nodded her assent. The destroyer’s crew members were too well versed in the pecking order of the galaxy to even suggest fighting a Thark battleship, no matter how old it was.
The McAllisters and Hannah gathered their luggage and transferred with Jeeves to the Thark ship, which jumped the moment they entered the airlock. A robot met them after they cycled through and escorted them to the bridge, which was manned by a handful of Tharks in casual dress.
“You appear to be whole,” the Thark captain said, looking Kelly up and down. “Do you feel well?”
“Yes, thank you,” the ambassador replied, surprised by the Thark’s solicitude. “I’m glad to see that my embassy manager once again ignored my explicit instructions and bought us travel insurance.”
“Travel insurance?” The Thark burst into rasping laughter, and his clan brothers followed suit. “Travel insurance covers a maximum of five thousand creds, including claims for lost baggage and emotional trauma. I wouldn’t get out of bed to prevent a travel insurance claim.”
“Then why are you here?” Kelly asked. “Jeeves? Did you put the Tharks up to rescuing us?”
“I wish we were here doing the Stryx a favor,” the Thark captain growled on being reminded of the cause for his mission. “My idiot uncle made the biggest underwriting miscalculation of the century, probably because he was licking soap. Who grants fifty million creds of key person insurance on the ambassador of a new species without even checking on her travel arrangements? The premium didn’t come anywhere near covering the charge for taking the Loss Prevention out of Union Station’s long term parking, though the station’s owner did make us a deal.”
“What’s key person insurance?” Kelly asked.
The Thark regarded her with sympathy. “It means you’re important, but before you ask, I can’t tell you why. I do request that you ping your embassy manager the moment we return to the station and tell her that the Tharks will appreciate anything she can do for us. She’ll know what I mean.”
“Are we going to Union Station now?” Hannah asked.
“Including a taxi to take you into Union Station’s core, you’ll be there within a few minutes of your originally scheduled arrival time,” the Thark replied. “We are taking the jump as slowly as our schedule allows since the distance in real space is appreciable. Please make yourselves comfortable, and don’t touch anything that looks like a weapons control system.”
Woojin met them at the arrivals area on Union Station and thanked Joe heartily for bringing along the heavy canister. “Looks like you might be on the disabled list for a few days,” he added, observing Joe’s limp.
“Getting stunned is like falling off a bike. You never forget how. Feel up to a beer before bed?”
“No thanks, Joe. Busy day for me to—, uh, tomorrow. We’ll see you then.”
Dorothy, Paul, and Aisha were all waiting up in the ice harvester, but they professed exhaustion when Kelly attempted to tell them the story of the kidnapping and rescue. Samuel said goodnight, and disappeared into his room with his little robot and his sword-cane, before his mother could think of confiscating it. After a few minutes of contagious yawning, Beowulf watched in approval as Joe, Kelly, and their new houseguest headed off to bed at ten in the morning. Then he stretched out for a mid-morning nap of his own.
Twenty
Dorothy led the family through the Empire Convention Center, piling on more and more imaginary details about Dring’s supposed birthday party to keep her mother from guessing what was going on.
“He’s way older than a hundred million, and we couldn’t find enough candles for the cake on Union Station, so we j
ust spelled it out with chocolate.”
“I thought you said the frosting was chocolate,” Kelly objected. She was a little fuzzy after sleeping for ten hours, but she hadn’t protested as Dorothy helped her into the most elaborate dress she had ever worn. “How would anybody be able to read it?”
“David used white chocolate for the numbers,” her daughter fibbed, steering them towards the entrance to the main ballroom. “Did I mention that he baked the cake himself?”
“Isn’t this the entrance to the main ballroom?” Kelly asked, coming to a halt. “Why is there a curtain?”
“To keep the heat in,” Dorothy improvised, leading them into the antechamber. “Dring is always a bit cold, you know, so the curtain at the top of the stairs keeps all the warm air from getting sucked out the doors. Here, stand with Dad at the front.”
Kelly turned her head to look suspiciously at her daughter as the curtain was drawn open, so she missed seeing the thousands of formally dressed ball-goers from over a hundred species shouting, “Surprise!” Then the McAllisters were covered in a shower of confetti, and Jeeves, wearing a silk sash that proclaimed him the Master of Ceremonies, floated up the broad staircase to welcome them. The Stryx turned to face the crowd, and despite her genuine shock, Kelly noticed that the back of the sash carried an ad for SBJ Fashions.
“EarthCent Ambassador Kelly McAllister and family,” Jeeves announced in a thundering voice. The guests all exploded in cheers again, and Jeeves spoke to the surprised couple directly over their implants, saying, “What are you waiting for? Walk down the stairs so the orchestra can start playing.”
“I’m going to kill Donna,” Kelly yelled in Joe’s ear. The orchestra struck up a waltz, and the guests rapidly withdrew towards the edges of the enormous room. “It’s Ballmageddon!”
“Dring,” Joe addressed the Maker, who stood beaming a toothy dinosaur smile at the foot of the stairs. “I banged up my knee yesterday and I don’t want to spoil the first dance. Can you take her?”
