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Jim Baen’s Universe

Page 4

by Edited by Eric Flint


  “So she ap­pe­aled to yo­ur sen­se of ho­nor,” Jen re­mar­ked.

  “’Pon my word she did. For­tu­na­tely for you, that was not all she re­li­ed upon. Ot­her words we­re spo­ken. ‘Re­ward’ be­ing among them, I de­ci­ded it was worth bur­ning a day or two lo­oking for you.

  “Having spent so­me ti­me on this world and ac­qu­ired an un­der­s­tan­ding of cer­ta­in of its ways, I ma­na­ged to track yo­ur wan­de­ring ice­bo­at’s tracks to a hot spring is­land. The­re I fo­und evi­den­ce po­in­ting to the re­cent vi­sit of a clan­des­ti­ne na­ti­ve hun­ting party. Al­so hu­man spo­or, but no sign of yo­ur ren­ted craft or you. Kno­wing what I do abo­ut the Tran, I ca­me to so­me as­sum­p­ti­ons. Ice­bo­at tracks le­ading stra­ig­h­ta­way from Ar­su­dun and not just from the is­land con­fir­med my sus­pi­ci­ons.

  “That pre­sen­ted a new prob­lem. I knew that no mat­ter how fast and low I ca­me up in a mo­dern skim­mer on you and yo­ur new fri­ends, they wo­uld ha­ve am­p­le ti­me to put kni­ves to yo­ur thro­ats be­fo­re I co­uld be cer­ta­in of ta­king all of them out, or even tal­king to them. I was at a bit of a loss how to pro­ce­ed un­til I ca­me ac­ross the so­li­tary tar­qan.

  “Now, a tar­qan’s dan­ge­ro­us when it’s on the mo­ve, but not so much when it’s fe­eding. I ma­na­ged to sne­ak up on that one. Adept Tran can pretty well ste­er them whe­re they want them to go by ap­plying he­at to cer­ta­in are­as of the­ir body. I had so­me che­mi­cal in­s­tant he­at paks in the skim­mer’s supply loc­ker. They did the job. I knew the hun­ting party that had ta­ken you wo­uld res­pond de­fen­si­vely to an ap­pro­ach by a tar­qan, but they wo­uldn’t con­nect its pre­sen­ce to you or to a res­cue at­tempt. In the fa­ding day­light I was ab­le to draw clo­se wit­ho­ut be­ing se­en. Af­ter that I was ab­le to get in among them be­fo­re they had ti­me to re­ali­ze what was hap­pe­ning.

  “I wo­uld’ve pre­fer­red to stay on the tar­qan and pick them off from a dis­tan­ce, but I knew that be­fo­re I co­uld get them all,” he con­c­lu­ded as ca­su­al­ly as if des­c­ri­bing a day’s ex­cur­si­on in a park, “they wo­uld ha­ve had plenty of ti­me to cut off yo­ur he­ads.”

  He bit back down in­to wha­te­ver it was that he had co­oked over the fi­re. Arik’s sto­mach cho­se that mo­ment to say hel­lo and, by the way, he was star­ving, and co­uld he per­haps do so­met­hing abo­ut it? Jen was un­do­ub­tedly no bet­ter off.

  “Could I ask you…” He in­di­ca­ted the hunk of well-se­ared flesh. It smel­led won­der­ful. “Jen and I ha­ven’t had an­y­t­hing to eat sin­ce yes­ter­day.” He tri­ed hard not to sa­li­va­te, kno­wing that if he did so drip­ping sa­li­va wo­uld fre­eze hard to his lo­wer lip and chin.

  “Bless my so­ul, I’ve for­got­ten my man­ners.” From the lump he was che­wing on, Sep­tem­ber promptly car­ved off sli­ces of co­oked flesh for both of them.

  Arik bit hun­g­rily in­to his. Next to him Jen was cho­wing down with an en­t­hu­si­asm that was an­y­t­hing but lad­y­li­ke. With a fla­vor that was so­mew­he­re bet­we­en pork and un­der­co­oked be­ef, the blac­ke­ned flesh was de­li­ci­o­us.

  “I’m sur­p­ri­sed that you wo­uld ha­ve ro­om in yo­ur bac­k­pack for raw me­at,” he ob­ser­ved, “tho­ugh on se­cond tho­ught I sup­po­se ke­eping it fro­zen isn’t a prob­lem he­re.”

  “It ain’t fro­zen, fel­ler-me-lad,” Sep­tem­ber in­for­med him ca­su­al­ly. “It’s fresh.”

  “Fresh?” Jen sta­red at the gi­ant, her slab of se­ared flesh hal­f­way to her lips. “Fresh what? So­me lo­cal fo­od?”

  “In a man­ner of spe­aking, yo­ung lass.” Sep­tem­ber nod­ded in the di­rec­ti­on of the des­t­ro­yed Vi­rin ice­bo­at. “In a dif­fi­cult si­tu­ati­on on a world li­ke this one ma­kes use of wha­te­ver is ava­ilab­le. Not just he­re on Tran-ky-ky. I’ve be­en in aw­k­ward cir­cum­s­tan­ces be­fo­re and if the­re’s one thing I’ve le­ar­ned in the co­ur­se of a to­le­rably long li­fe­ti­me, it’s that me­at is me­at.”

  Rising slightly from his sit­ting po­si­ti­on, Arik was ab­le to get a bet­ter lo­ok at what lay just be­yond the fi­re. Along with the gi­ant’s pack and pis­tol he was ab­le to ma­ke out a lar­ger, mo­re ir­re­gu­lar obj­ect. It was the cor­p­se of the Vi­rin com­man­der Draz-ho­de.

  It had be­en ne­atly and very pro­fes­si­onal­ly but­c­he­red.

  Slowly, he re­mo­ved a half-che­wed pi­ece of me­at from his mo­uth. In the flic­ke­ring light from the fi­re it lo­oked exactly li­ke any ot­her pi­ece of co­oked me­at. Next to him, Jen had not so much as pa­used in her vo­ra­ci­o­us mas­ti­ca­ting des­pi­te Sep­tem­ber’s mat­ter-of-fact iden­ti­fi­ca­ti­on of what it was that she was con­su­ming.

  This is not im­pos­sib­le, he ad­mo­nis­hed him­self sternly. All you had to do was turn off yo­ur bra­in whi­le le­aving yo­ur di­ges­ti­ve system run­ning. Slip­ping the me­at back bet­we­en his lips he re­su­med che­wing whi­le si­mul­ta­ne­o­usly do­ing his best to stop thin­king. His sto­mach than­ked him.

  To help ta­ke his mind off the fact that he was vi­ola­ting two and pos­sib­le fo­ur of the prin­cip­le ca­nons of con­tem­po­rary ci­vi­li­zed be­ha­vi­or, he con­f­ron­ted the gi­ant with a qu­es­ti­on that had be­en bot­he­ring him for a whi­le now.

  “Why are we sit­ting he­re eating in the dark and the cold li­ke this? Why ha­ven’t you sig­na­led yo­ur skim­mer to co­me fetch us and ta­ke us back to the sta­ti­on?”

  By way of reply Sep­tem­ber un­fas­te­ned one of his sturdy sur­vi­val su­it’s ex­ter­nal poc­kets. Re­mo­ving a small han­d­ful of elec­t­ro­nics, he tos­sed them ac­ross the fi­re. Arik had to drop his de­vi­ant ste­ak to ma­ke the catch. Still, se­ve­ral of the pi­eces mis­sed his fin­gers to scat­ter on the ice. Too many pi­eces, he tho­ught with sud­den une­ase.

  “This com­po­nent is bro­ken,” he mur­mu­red as he and Jen stu­di­ed the deb­ris.

  September nod­ded. “Su­re can’t fo­ol you, yo­ung fel­ler-me-lad. Du­ring the dust-up, that mo­du­le to­ok the full for­ce of a blow from a Tran bat­tle-axe. The flat si­de of the axe, for­tu­na­tely. Only bru­ised me, but it su­re ma­de a mess of my com­mu­ni­ca­tor.”

  Jen ga­ped at him. “So we’re ma­ro­oned aga­in? Ex­cept that now the­re’s three of us, and we’re that much far­t­her from Brass Mon­key?”

  “It is a bit of a hi­ke back, yes.” Set­ting his fo­od asi­de, Sep­tem­ber re­ac­hed be­hind him and ha­uled his bac­k­pack in­to the fi­re­light. From its depths he wit­h­d­rew a pa­ir of enor­mo­us ice ska­tes. The bla­des we­re not sto­ne, and had be­en fas­hi­oned out of du­ral­loy or so­me si­mi­lar me­tal.

  “Local go­ver­n­ment is­sue. Wish I’d had them with me a ye­ar ago.” Il­lus­t­ra­ting how they fit, he slip­ped one over the in­teg­ra­ted right bo­ot of his sur­vi­val su­it. Wig­gling it ca­used the trip­le bla­des to catch the light of the fi­re. It daw­ned on Arik that the ska­te’s de­sign had be­en mo­de­led af­ter a Tran fo­ot.

  “Special co­ating ba­ked on­to the bla­des re­du­ces fric­ti­on to next to not­hing,” Sep­tem­ber told them pro­udly. “You can ma­ke pretty go­od ti­me with a pa­ir of the­se. And with this.” Dig­ging in­to the pack on­ce mo­re he pul­led out a thin she­et of car­bof­lex. A con­ti­gu­o­us se­al was vi­sib­le along the ed­ge.

  “This at­tac­hes to a sur­vi­val su­it. Fits in a roll over yo­ur arms and ac­ross yo­ur back. Mi­mics Tran dan.” Ex­ten­ding both long arms out to his si­des he ma­de slightly aw­k­ward flap­ping mo­ti­ons. “Cat­c­hes the wind and pro­pels you ac­ross the ice. Just li­ke one of the na­ti­ves.”

  “Clever.” Jen eyed the com­mo­di­o­us pack. “Whe­re’s ours?”<
br />
  “Well now, lass, that do­es pre­sent a bit of a prob­lem. This is emer­gency ge­ar. It’s in­ten­ded to al­low so­me­one who knows what they’re do­ing to may­be ma­ke it back to ci­vi­li­za­ti­on in the event of a com­p­le­te skim­mer or ice­bo­at bre­ak­down. I’m af­ra­id I only ha­ve the one set, for me.”

  The new­l­y­weds ex­c­han­ged a glan­ce. “Then what are we to do?” Arik as­ked. “Wa­it he­re for you to re­turn with yo­ur skim­mer?”

  “Hardly. The­re are eno­ugh fancy ice scul­p­tu­res in Brass Mon­key wit­ho­ut ad­ding the two of you to the gal­lery. You’re co­ming with me.”

  “How?” Jen con­si­de­red the­ir res­cu­er’s si­ze. “Can you carry us?”

  “Not whi­le trying to stay up­right on the ice whi­le ma­ne­uve­ring ar­ti­fi­ci­al dan. But in the co­ur­se of the past ye­ar I’ve got­ten pretty go­od at im­p­ro­vi­sing.”

  The flat ice-skid the big man threw to­get­her from the wrec­ka­ge of the Vi­rin ice­bo­at was un­com­for­tab­le and fra­gi­le. At any mo­ment Arik ex­pec­ted it to co­me apart un­der him and Jen. Sal­va­ged pi­ka-pe­dan ro­pes at­tac­hed it to Sep­tem­ber’s wa­ist. With his arms held out­s­p­re­ad and the ar­ti­fi­ci­al dan at­tac­hed at wrist, arms, si­des and wa­ist, he co­uld both pull the sled and catch the ubi­qu­ito­us wind.

  Though they star­ted out slow, so­on the three of them we­re all but flying ac­ross the ice. Bu­ri­ed be­ne­ath ap­prop­ri­ated Tran clot­hing and eye­ing Sep­tem­ber thro­ugh his pro­tec­ti­ve fa­ce mask, Arik won­de­red how long the gi­ant co­uld ke­ep his arms ex­ten­ded stra­ight out to the si­des. Long eno­ugh, it de­ve­lo­ped, for the skid’s two re­cum­bent pas­sen­gers to fe­el mo­re bumps and jolts than they had be­fo­re in the­ir li­ves.

  By the ti­me they re­ac­hed the small cold spi­re of an is­land whe­re Sep­tem­ber had par­ked his skim­mer, the both of them we­re so­re from he­ad to he­el. Tho­ugh the­ir ren­ted day­su­its had by now che­mi­cal­ly red­li­ned, the la­yers of Tran fur and le­at­her ta­ken from the­ir de­ad ab­duc­tors had kept them from fre­ezing. Ac­hing and ex­ha­us­ted, they stum­b­led gra­te­ful­ly in­to the wa­iting warmth of the skim­mer’s in­te­ri­or. With the ina­de­qu­ate pi­lot’s se­at gro­aning be­ne­ath his we­ight, Sep­tem­ber set a co­ur­se back to the Com­mon­we­alth out­post.

  There they dis­co­ve­red that the gi­ant had be­en right abo­ut so­met­hing el­se. Com­mer­ci­al KK-dri­ve ships did not lin­ger on be­half of pas­sen­gers who mis­sed the­ir as­sig­ned shut­tle. Not even on be­half of rich ones. The next star­s­hip was not due to vi­sit Tran-ky-ky for a month. Un­til then the new­l­y­weds wo­uld ha­ve to lis­ten li­ke ever­yo­ne el­se to the­ir res­cu­er grum­b­le and com­p­la­in as he stal­ked the he­ated halls of the sta­ti­on. They wo­uld ha­ve to en­du­re this just as they wo­uld ha­ve to en­du­re sur­ro­un­dings that we­re con­si­de­rably less ap­pe­aling than tho­se they had plan­ned to enj­oy on the ba­lan­ce of the­ir tra­vels. At le­ast, ho­we­ver, they we­re ali­ve and had each ot­her.

  Even if it was for as fri­gid a ho­ney­mo­on as any two ci­ti­zens of the Com­mon­we­alth had ever ex­pe­ri­en­ced.

  ****

  BOW SHOCK

  Gregory Benford

  Ralph slid in­to the bo­oth whe­re Ire­ne was al­re­ady wa­iting, lo­oking perky and sip­ping on a bot­tle of Snap­ple yea. “How’d it…” she let the rest sli­de away, se­e­ing his fa­ce.

  “Tell me so­met­hing re­al­ly aw­ful, so it won’t ma­ke to­day se­em so bad.”

  She sa­id ca­re­ful­ly, “Yes sir, co­ming right up, sir. Um…” A wic­ked grin. “Once I had a pet bird that com­mit­ted su­ici­de by stic­king his he­ad bet­we­en the ca­ge bars.”

  “W- what…?”

  “Okay, you may­be ne­ed wor­se? Can do.” A flash of daz­zling smi­le. “My sis­ter for­got to fe­ed her pet ger­bils, so one di­ed. Then, the one that was ali­ve ate its de­ad fri­end.”

  Only then did he get that she was kid­ding, trying to josh him out of his mo­od. He la­ug­hed he­ar­tily. “Thanks, I su­re ne­eded that.”

  She smi­led with re­li­ef and tur­ned her he­ad, swir­ling her dir­ty-blon­de ha­ir aro­und her he­ad in a way that ma­de him think of a mo­men­tary tor­na­do. Wit­ho­ut a word her fa­ce ga­ve him sympathy, con­cern, in­qu­iry, stiff-lip­ped sup­port-all in a qu­ick gush of ex­p­res­si­ons that ska­ted ac­ross her fa­ce, her full, ele­gantly lip­s­tic­ked red mo­uth col­la­bo­ra­ting with the eg­gshell blue eyes.

  They fol­lo­wed him in­tently as he des­c­ri­bed the pa­per he had fo­und that left his work in the dust.

  “Astronomy is abo­ut get­ting the­re first?” she as­ked won­de­ringly.

  “Sometimes. This ti­me, an­y­way.” Af­ter that he told her abo­ut the talk with the de­par­t­ment cha­ir­man-the who­le sce­ne, right down to every li­ne of di­alog, which he wo­uld now re­mem­ber fo­re­ver, ap­pa­ren­t­ly-and she nod­ded.

  “It’s ti­me to so­li­cit let­ters of re­com­men­da­ti­on for me, but to who? My work’s al­re­ady out of da­te. I…don’t know what to do now,” he sa­id. Not a gre­at last li­ne to a story, but the truth.

  “What do you fe­el li­ke do­ing?”

  He sig­hed. “Re­do­ub­le my ef­forts-“

  “When you’ve lost sight of yo­ur go­al?” It was, he re­cal­led, a de­fi­ni­ti­on of fa­na­ti­cism, from a mo­vie.

  “My go­al is to be an as­t­ro­no­mer,” he sa­id stiffly.

  “That do­esn’t ha­ve to me­an aca­de­mic, tho­ugh.”

  “Yeah, but NA­SA jobs are thin the­se days.” An agency that to­ok se­ven ye­ars to get to the mo­on the first ti­me, from a stan­ding start, was now spen­ding far mo­re dol­lars to do it aga­in in fif­te­en ye­ars.

  “You ha­ve a lot of skills, use­ful ones.”

  “I want to work on fun­da­men­tal things, not ap­pli­ed.”

  She held up the cap of her Snap­ple iced tea and re­ad from the in­ner si­de with a bright, co­mi­cal­ly for­ced vo­ice, “Not a win­ner, but he­re’s yo­ur Re­al Fact num­ber 237. The num­ber of ti­mes a cric­ket chirps in 15 se­conds, plus 37, will gi­ve you the cur­rent air tem­pe­ra­tu­re.”

  “In Fah­ren­he­it, I’ll bet,” he sa­id, won­de­ring whe­re she was go­ing with this.

  “Lots of ‘fun­da­men­tal’ sci­en­ti­fic facts are just that im­p­res­si­ve. Who ca­res?”

  “Um, ha­ve we mo­ved on to a dis­cus­si­on of the va­lue of know­led­ge?”

  “Valuable to who, is my po­int.”

  If she was go­ing to qu­ote stuff, so co­uld he. “Lo­ok, Mark Twa­in sa­id that the won­der of sci­en­ce is the bo­unty of spe­cu­la­ti­on that co­mes from a sin­g­le hard fact.”

  “Can’t see a who­le lot of bo­unty from he­re.” She ga­ve him a wry smi­le, anot­her ha­ir toss. He had to ad­mit, it wor­ked very well on him.

  “I li­ke as­t­ro­nomy.”

  “Sure, it just do­esn’t se­em to li­ke you. Not as much, an­y­way.”

  “So I sho­uld…?” Let her fill in the an­s­wer, sin­ce she was full of them to­day. And he do­ub­ted the ger­bil story.

  “Maybe go in­to so­met­hing that re­wards yo­ur skills.”

  “Like…?”

  “Computers. Math. Think big! Try to sign on with a hed­ge fund, do the­ir anal­y­sis.”

  “Hedge funds…” He ba­rely re­mem­be­red what they did. “They lo­ok for short-term tra­ding op­por­tu­ni­ti­es in the mar­ket?”

  “Right, the­re’s a lot of math in that. I re­ad up on it on­li­ne.” She was sharp, that’s what he li­ked abo­ut her. “That da­ta anal­y­sis you’re do­ing, it’s wa­a­ay mo­re com­p­li­ca­ted than what H
erb Lin­z­fi­eld do­es.”

  “Herb…?”

  “Guy I know, eats in the sa­me In­di­an buf­fet pla­ce so­me of us go for lunch.” Her eyes got ve­iled and he won­de­red what el­se she and Herb had tal­ked abo­ut. Him? “He cal­cu­la­tes hed­ges on bonds.”

  “Corporate or mu­ni­ci­pal?” Just to show he wasn’t to­tal­ly ig­no­rant of things fi­nan­ci­al.

  “Uh, I think cor­po­ra­te.” Aga­in the ve­iled eyes.

  “I didn’t put in six ye­ars in grad scho­ol and get a doc­to­ra­te to-“

  “I know, ho­ney,” eyes sud­denly warm, “but you’ve gi­ven this a re­al so­lid try now.”

  “A try? I’m not do­ne.”

  “Well, what I’m sa­ying, you can do ot­her things. If this do­esn’t…work out.”

  Thinking, he told her abo­ut the lab­y­rinths of aca­de­mic po­li­tics. The rest of the UC Ir­vi­ne as­t­ro types did ne­arby ga­la­xi­es, lo­oking for de­ta­ils of stel­lar evo­lu­ti­on, or el­se big sca­le cos­mo­lo­gi­cal stuff. He wor­ked in bet­we­en, pe­ering at exo­tic be­asts sho­wing them­sel­ves in the ra­dio and mic­ro­wa­ve re­gi­ons of the spec­t­rum. It was a com­pe­ti­ti­ve fi­eld and he felt it fit him. So he spel­led out what he tho­ught of as The Why. That is, why he had wor­ked hard to get this far. For the sa­ke of the in­ner mu­sic it ga­ve him, he had set asi­de his per­so­nal li­fe, let­ting af­fa­irs lap­se and dod­ging any lon­g­term re­la­ti­on­s­hip.

 

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