Hero!

by Dave Duncan

  And maybe half the nonmetal materials into its buildings, Vaun suspects. Hiport is ’immensely old, and immensely impressive. It is too huge to comprehend. They don’t make ’em like this any more. He hates it. In Hiport he can almost never be alone with Maeve, and when he isn’t with Maeve his longing for her drives him lunatic. He dreams fantastic dreams of actually pulling off this crazy mission and returning as a hero, to inherit Valhal. Then he will throw Roker out and keep Maeve. Just the two of them together alone for always.

  Not extremely likely.

  An intercontinental is coming in. Traffic is heavy today. May be going to rain, later.

  Roker drones on. He will not tell this group why the Q ship is suspect, for that is the heart of the most secret, but soon he will explain how Commodore Prior will be taking up the pilot boat.

  Eventually someone will object that it is dangerous to run boats around Q ships when the fireballs are active, and Roker will say he knows that, thank you. He may or may not explain the need to stop the intruder dispersing a few quick shuttle craft on the sly. What he certainly won’t say is that the pilot boat is going to be in a lot more danger from the crew of the Q ship than from its singularities.

  At least there is no longer any doubt about motive, no doubt that Prior was an advance scout for an invasion. Vaun has Prior’s memories, or some of them, enough of them. He remembers Prior remembering that the brethren plan to be on that ship, if they can. Of course if the Brotherhood lost the war on Avalon, then the ship will be harmless and Vaun will disappear very soon after he makes planetfall again. If the brethren are on board, then they will want to talk with Prior, but they will be very suspicious.

  Vaun will have to play it by ear, both ears.

  If he can give Roker enough evidence to justify attacking the Q ship, then he will probably die in the neuron blast.

  If he finds the Q ship is harmless, then he’ll be disposed of afterward, but quietly.

  If he alerts the brethren on the Q ship, then they may get him before Roker does.

  Issa. That’s the name of Admiral Haniar’s lady. Issa.

  Tonight would be all right, she said. Yes, tonight would be all right for him, too. He’ll have to make it awful quick, but it would be all right. Nice being a commodore.

  EMPEROR OF THE planet!

  Roker was dead and Central had accepted that Vaun was in command—it was a heady feeling, but unfortunately he had no time to savor it.

  When he finally had time to inquire, he learned that the senior surviving officer in the Patrol was Admiral Weald. He knew of her vaguely as a recluse interested in nothing outside her collection of antique porcelain. In all his forty-eight years as an admiral, he had not met her once. She turned out to be a slight, frail-seeming girl who looked as if she could never have survived toilet training un-traumatized, let alone the rigors of Doggoth. Yet her eyes were steady as she stared out of the tank, and her pale smile seemed genuine. A spacefarers’ blaze was nestled in the lace on her blouse.

  “I was afraid you might call,” she said.

  “Ma’am, I have the honor—”

  She shook her head, and her dark hair waved. Her home must be a long way east of Valhal, for sun streamed through the window behind her. “You’re doing very well, lad. I’ve been watching you all morning, and no one could have done a better job. I think you should continue to act.”

  Strangely, despite all his years of frustration as a figurehead admiral, Vaun felt no ambition to retain command of the Patrol. He had enjoyed the challenge of the last few hours, but it was over now, and he wanted to wheel himself off to bed. On the other hand, this sprig of a girl hardly looked like a high admiral, even if the records said she was twice his age. Not even if she did call him “lad.”

  “It would not be appropriate,” he said.

  “Very appropriate! You’ve done a splendid job. The flacks must be ecstatic.” She laughed as he pulled a face.

  Space Patrol to the Rescue—Famous Hero Takes Charge…

  “Seriously,” he said. “I’ve got a couple of reports here. Look them over and you’ll see what I mean.”

  Weald pouted, but did not object as he had expected. She faded out. He sent her his work on the Q ship trajectory, and Tham’s Ootharsis of Isquat file.

  He leaned back and stretched sensuously, enjoying his aches and a world-sized yawn. Then he looked around, and the three biologists were sprawled over the table, heads on arms, all apparently asleep. He must have been here for hours.

  “Why inappropriate?”

  He had completely forgotten Feirn. She was sitting cross-legged on the next chair to his, and regarding him with a steady, if understandably bleary, gaze. Obviously she had recovered her wits and poise. She had combed her lovely hair, too, sometime in the last however-long-it-had-been. Good for her!

  “Why aren’t you watching Blade, as I told you to?” he snapped.

  She smirked. “Because he’s in the shower.”

  “Shower?”

  “He’s finished. Wounded and bodies, all collected. He tried to report to you and I told him you were busy.” Feirn tossed her head pertly.

  Obviously she had resilience as well as impudence. “Then tell him to come down here as soon as he’s ready,” Vaun said, hiding amusement.

  “I already did! He’s done very well, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes. He’s done extremely well. He’s one of the night’s heroes.”

  She frowned at that. “You’re the biggest hero. Why are you trying to give up now?”

  As Acting High Admiral, he was no longer free to babble Patrol secrets to Feirn, if he ever had been, so he laughed off the question. “I don’t want to overdo the hero-saves-the-world act. People may get bored of it.”

  “But you just did. Did save the world.” She seemed quite serious as she said it.

  Vaun shrugged. “The pepods have erupted many times before, and Ult has always survived without any help from me.”

  “This was the worst outbreak of modern times. It was the worst since at least 19,090, if you’re interested.” She smiled cockily at his surprise, and indicated the tank beside her. “Blade didn’t need me, and your conversation began to get boring.”

  He apologized solemnly.

  She considered the matter, head on one side, eyes as bright as a bird’s. “Well, I admit you were busy saving the world, but don’t expect that excuse to work every time.”

  There was a sparkle there that he had not anticipated, but if she thought their date for this evening was still on, then she had chagrin coming. Admiral Vaun lusted for bed, and bed alone.

  “The cities escaped, of course,” she said seriously. “And the winter weather was a godsend, wasn’t it?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Kept people indoors. So now we all stay indoors for a few days, until the vegetation calms down?”

  “That’s about it.” Vaun covered a yawn. He had apparently impressed both Feirn and Weald, but in fact Hiport’s computers had done most of it. He had been helped by the special powers he could invoke under Roker’s state of emergency—that had been a fortunate irony—and all he had needed to do was keep his head, set priorities, and issue orders. He had dispatched air strikes against the worst infestations; he had untangled communications; he had organized rescues and medical help; he had restored public calm. Almost every operational torch and spacecraft on the planet was operating on his behest right now.

  It had not been difficult. If the Brotherhood was planning to create worldwide chaos, as Roker had suggested, then it could hardly do better than what had just happened, but the effect had been very brief, in spite of Roker’s death. And that had been a fluke, for high admirals did not normally spend much time near pepods. Moreover the timing had been wrong, because the Q ship panic had not started yet. So the pepod outbreak had nothing to do with the Brotherhood, right?

  Right, said logic.

  Wrong, said instinct. Paranoiacs live longer…But if there was a connection, he co
uldn’t see it. He yawned.

  “So why give up your command?” Feirn had turned serious, her blue eyes glazing over with hero worship.

  “It’s been an interesting exercise in priorities, is all. Now I want to hand over the paperwork to someone else.”

  “But I get first interview!” In one of her sudden changes of mood, she showed a gleeful collection of teeth. “And now it isn’t just the old folk who’ll recognize—Oh shit! Sorry, Admiral.” She turned red, and then redder.

  “Oh, I save the world every couple of generations, just to keep my face in the news.”

  “I said I’m sorry! Now you can see why I’m no good at—”

  “I’m sure you’re fine. You do very well for a kid.”

  “Swine! Rub it in.”

  “You’re tired, is all. We both need to get to bed.”

  “Yes, please.” She grinned nervously. Hero worship again.

  Before Vaun had time to straighten out her confusion on that topic, Weald’s fine-drawn features returned to the tank, brow creased with worry. He swung around to face her.

  She was nodding solemnly. “I see what you mean, Admiral. Of course, no reasonable person would doubt your loyalty for a minute, but…”

  “But they should,” Vaun said, smothering yet another yawn. “It would be unreasonable not to. And I certainly must not be in charge of the Patrol when that Q ship arrives.” Some hotheaded xenophobe would certainly assassinate him.

  “Let me see if I’ve got my ancient mind round this. Standard arrival will be in twenty-eight weeks if it begins deceleration no later than today, at a normal half gee. That’s about the limit for rocks, right? And if it doesn’t…”

  “Seventy-eight days till impact.”

  Weald frowned. “That doesn’t seem to add up.”

  “One hundred and eighteen in their frame of reference, less light lag of thirty-nine.”

  “Of course. Stupid of me. No way to contact it, of course?”

  “None.”

  Weald looked exasperated. “How long does it take to call a conclave?”

  “Your decision, ma’am. I’d give them a couple of days to assemble, and a few more to talk about it. Then vote.”

  She nodded impatiently. “And then I can come home and be myself again…Very well. Is there a ceremony to this?”

  “I think you just record your acceptance, ma’am.”

  “Right. I accept the position of, and will serve as, high admiral pro tem. Carry on, Admiral, you’re doing great. Call a conclave, let me know where and when it is to be and if there is any development in the Q ship matter. You handle everything else.”

  The tank was empty.

  Feirn sniggered. Vaun used a Doggoth expression she had not likely heard before.

  “Two can play that game,” he said grimly, and glanced at his Valhal situation board. The Great Hall was dim and quiet. Heavy equipment had brought the forest fires under control. The parking lot was deserted, with the last of the casualties removed. Blade was on his way to report. As soon as he’d done so, he could remove the irrepressible Feirn. Satisfactory!

  The Hiport board was more cluttered, but nothing seemed critical. The duty officer’s face appeared, gray with fatigue. “Sir?”

  “Find a relief, and get some rest,” Vaun snapped. “Advise all hands that Admiral Weald is Acting High Admiral with myself as ExOff…I am copying her acceptance to Archives…Process a promotion for Ensign Blade to lieutenant, effective at once…Hold all messages until I check in…Has Admiral Phalo arrived yet?”

  “No, sir.”

  “When he does, he’s in charge. Any questions?”

  “About two hundred, sir.”

  “Tell your relief to deal with them.”

  The worry lines curled into a smile. “Sir!”

  Vaun broke the connection and spun his chair around to look at the three biologists, the last problem to clear. One of the boys was still sleeping. The other two were sitting up, looking almost as scared as they should be. He wondered how long he’d been holding them here.

  “Well? Have you an explanation?”

  The girl nodded. “Yes, Admiral. It was an accident.”

  “Show me.”

  Elan rose stiffly and went to a board. In a moment she had called up a map of Shilam. She spoke without looking around. “This shows the pepod transmission on what we call the linking mode.” A blue spot appeared at Valhal’s location, and began to spread out over the continent like a stain, advancing irregularly but inexorably.

  “What time lapse are you…” Then Vaun’s eyes found the display on the screen overhead, and saw that he was viewing a realtime display.

  “Real time.” Elan’s voice was hoarse and dull with fatigue. “The radio travels at light speed, but each thicket takes a few seconds to react.”

  “Right.” It was impressive, and creepy. In a very few minutes, the blue had reached the sea almost everywhere. “That means that every pepod on Shilam was then linked into the group mind?”

  “We believe so,” she said.

  The elevator door hissed open, but Vaun did not turn.

  “You’d created a monster! And then what happened?”

  “This.” She touched a toggle, and the display turned red.

  “Attack mode?”

  “Yes, sir. But it didn’t start here!” Her voice had risen to a squeak. “See it again in slow motion.” The map went back to blue, and then to red again, but now there was time to see that the red had spread up from the south, from somewhere near Gefax.

  “Something set them off at Gefax?” Vaun asked uneasily. Why did that feel wrong?

  Elan turned around to look at him and he saw that she was terrified. “It must have done, sir! Not our doing at all! Some pepod was provoked while we had them linked…Professor Quild had never considered that possibility, so far as we know. It should have been just a local disturbance, but because we had them all linked…That was why they all went. We couldn’t have known.” She stared at him beseechingly.

  Both boys were awake now, and both had the same dread look on their faces.

  “Well, I suppose it’s reasonable,” Vaun said grudgingly. “And I’m not the judge. There will have to be an inquiry. You can go, but you will stay here in Valhal.”

  “We are under arrest?” one of the boys demanded shrilly.

  “You are. You may communicate with your families, though. Or lawyers. Now scat!”

  As the three stampeded for the elevator, Vaun turned wearily to Blade, who was standing stiffly at attention, of course. The last time Vaun had peeked at him, he had been a scarecrow running around the woods in bloody rags. Now he was his former impeccable self, in a clean uniform, with every hair in place…Insufferable perfectionist!

  “Congratulations. You did a fine job, Lieutenant.”

  The mauve eyes widened. “Thank you, sir! I just did my duty.” Not a hint of a smile.

  “And I just did mine.” Again Vaun paused for a yawn. “Now escort Citizen Feirn to her quarters, and if you want my advice, Lieutenant…but I’m sure you don’t.”

  “Vaun?” Feirn said softly.

  He turned to her to shut her up, and then said, “Yes?” when he saw that he had guessed wrong.

  She paused until the elevator door closed. “They missed something.”

  “Who did?”

  “The three ivy-brains.” She smirked, pleased with herself. Dropping her feet to the floor, she turned to the board beside her chair. Blade was frowning.

  Her fingers jabbed at keys. “I was doing a little research, too. I saw what they were up to, and pried their data out of the banks…Here’s the big picture.” The map appeared again, but this time Shilam was smaller, and the three minor continents of the southern hemisphere appeared below it. Slowly the blue tide spread out from Valhal to fill Shilam—and cross the sea. “It never reached South Thisly, right? The pepods’ range is too short to jump the straits.”

  Damn! Feirn had seen what Vaun and the students had
overlooked—Thisly and Paralyst had been infested, but South Thisly had escaped the disaster. He should have remembered that, after spending so many hours dealing with the results. And she was obviously right about the range, because the blue stain spread down the Broach Peninsula to infect Paralyst, and leapfrogged through the Imbue Archipelago to Thisly. South Thisly stayed clear, isolated by the width of the Terebus Strait.

  Lots of pepods in the cooler, southern continents.

  “Well done!” he muttered crossly. “So the trigger wasn’t at Gefax, it was somewhere down in Thisly?” So what?

  “Er, yes. But…well, it’s not important, I guess. But they still weren’t quite right.” She shifted the map to a close-up of Thisly. “Whatever provoked the attack didn’t happen after the linkup. See…watch this. Did you see? The blue wave comes down to here—Kohab. That’s its name, Kohab—and then bounces right back in red. No time break when you have the whole picture. So what happened was that the edge of the linkup ran into a thicket that was already on the warpath, and…Vaun!”

  Vaun was on his feet, shoving her hands aside. Then he switched to vocal. “Show me that again. With more magnification! No, round Kohab. Bigger. Right…Again…”

  Mother of Stars!

  “Vaun?”

  Vaun glanced at Blade, who had not said a word, but Blade was still frowning, and Blade was smarter than he acted. Vaun cut the display quickly. His throat was dry, his pulse racing. Was it possible?

  Kohab had been blue before the linkup reached it—one tiny, isolated spot of blue, which had immediately turned red, and the red had then taken over every where, spreading back north. But even the front of the wave heading on south had been red after it passed Kohab.

  “Summary of Kohab, in Thisly.”

  “Mining settlement dating from first millennium,” said the dry, calm voice of the equipment. “Present population: zero. Abandoned and reactivated fourteen times. Occupied by religious cults four times. Also used at various periods as penal station, artist colony, and germ warfare laboratory. Most recently reactivated, after three centuries of abandonment, as marine life research station in 29,399—”