Northern cut a slice of fruit, squeezing it into the fizzing liquid, taking his time. “Laura, I am the captain of this ship, the leader. But my authority rests only in my crew’s acceptance of me in that position, and my ability to lead. I realize it’s in your nature to have a certain contempt for authority. But the plan that we’ve concocted is the result of much work and I really think we should stick by it.”
“But we haven’t got the signal! Maybe I can pick it up if I’m closer! I can’t wait—another day could mean Cal’s death!” What she was trying to pass off as anger was emerging closer to a sob.
“And I understand that. Just as I have my priority, you do as well … and in your case it’s your brother.”
“You can’t possibly understand,” she said, sprawling in a chair.
“Try me.”
“What do you care, Northern?” she asked. “You’ve got your priorities. You’ve got your precious ship and your delightful crew … your home, your family. What do I have? A Federation I’ve just thumbed my nose at, a blip-ship, and a lost brother, captured by the mean old Jaxdron. You’ve really got to excuse me, Captain, but as you may recall from your own Federation flunky days, emotional bonds are not exactly encouraged in the Federation scheme of things, and I’m having a bit of a hard time dealing with mine.”
Captain Northern sat on his desk and sipped at his drink. “Oh, I remember,” he said, looking away. “I also remember something you may be experiencing now.”
“Yeah? What’s that?” Laura asked suspiciously.
“Guilt.”
“Well, I’ll grant you I’m guilty as hell of cutting out on the Federation and busting you out of jail,” she said, a puzzled expression flitting over her face.
“You feel guilty about your brother.”
Laura drew a blank on that. “Huh? I’m risking my neck to get his ass out of a crack.”
Captain Northern sighed. “It’s perfectly normal, Laura. It comes with the territory. But let me absolve any guilt here. If we are to have a good chance of saving your brother—if indeed he’s on Baleful at all—our chances increase exponentially if we work in tandem. The Starbow and a blip-ship: surely an unbeatable combination.”
“I still say a little scouting expedition on my part wouldn’t hurt,” she declared, but her indignation rang hollowly in her own ears. “And I don’t feel guilty, Captain Tars Pighead Northern, so save your stupid psychology for one of your floozies.”
Tars Northern smiled gently. “Laura, it’s hard to say what will happen. Although we’ve got a crack team, we’re in unknown territory.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Well, I just want to admit that I’m … impressed with you. And there is a little girl in you somewhere in that amazing body of yours, and I’m quite charmed by her. But I should add also that I find you, as a woman, quite … well, quite beautiful, I suppose.”
Laura smiled at that. She rose from her chair and stepped over to him, leaned down, and gave him a soft, wet kiss. Surprised, Northern responded. But Laura pulled her head back and patted him condescendingly on the cheek. “Dream on, bozo,” she said, skillfully pulling away from him, mischievous laughter in her eyes.
Northern chuckled as she left, shaking his head as he treated himself to another glass of seltzer, with plenty of lime.
Chapter Twenty-two
Captain Tars Northern kept the considerable defense capabilities of the starship on optimum alert. For the last four hours before the Starbow reached orbital position around the planet known as Baleful, the crew—both human and robot—were posted at battle stations.
So it was rather an anticlimax when there wasn’t a sign of any Jaxdron ships before or after they crossed the orbits of Baleful’s three moons.
The Starbow established a high polar orbit around the world. Captain Northern ordered the sensors turned up full.
Baleful was a Class L planet, only a step away from Terra’s Class M, but what a step! Its air was breathable—to its native nomad civilization—but humans needed masks if they were to take it for a long period. Because the Federation could not terraform the world, since this would mean killing the nomads, pressure domes were built. These were mobile and shifted about to avoid the occasional hot spots created by Baleful’s parabolic orbit around its binary suns.
After a pass across one of the continents, Captain Northern looked up from Dr. Mish’s sensor boards toward where Laura hovered anxiously by communications readouts. “Doesn’t look real good, Laura. No sign of activity nonconcurrent with your blip-ship’s status-quo info on Baleful. No sign of the military action necessary to assume control, either.” Worry ridges appeared on his forehead. “How strange.”
“There’s got to be some kind of signal!” Laura said emphatically, leaning over Tether Mayz’s shoulder. “Northern, you should have let me scout, damn you! We could have missed them by an hour!”
Dr. Mish disagreed. “Sensor sweeps have indicated no spatial disruptions of any kind since our surfacing from Underspace. If the Jaxdrons departed, they did so before we arrived.”
“How about any activity within the past five days, Doctor?” Arkm Thur wanted to know. “And how about vectors, if so?”
“I have no desire to chase Jaxdrons farther into enemy territory,” Captain Northern stated firmly. “That was not a part of the—”
“That’s it!” Laura said, pointing toward an oscillating pattern in the receiver unit.
“What’s it?” the captain demanded.
“The signal!” she cried. “Mayz, would you turn on the audio for that channel?”
Laura listened carefully a few moments. “Yeah. It’s Morse code!”
“Morse code?” the communications officer said. “No one uses that anymore. That’s as ancient as some of Jitt’s jokes!”
“Well, that was our game code when we were kids! Cal found it in some archives and was so fascinated with it, we had to use it!”
Mayz twisted two knobs. Dots and dashes became audible.
“SOS,” said Laura, shaking her head and grinning. “How very original, Cal!”
“What’s the point of origin, Mayz?”
“Nine degrees north of the equator, Captain.” The communications officer, after a moment of analysis, read off the Standard Grid Imposition longitude and latitude.
“Give me a lower orbit, Thur,” the captain ordered, “adjusted toward that signal. Jitt, I want a holo of where that signal is coming from in my tank, as soon as possible.”
As the Starbow tasted the upper reaches of Baleful’s atmosphere, the seas and continents of the planet rolled under its hull majestically, grays and browns and the palest of blues, occasionally blurred by stretches of clouds.
Laura was far too excited to take much notice of the splendor below them.
“You were right, Laura,” said Captain Northern. “I haven’t the faintest idea how the bugger did it, but he did. Wish we could send him a message back, but I don’t think that would be wise.”
“Of course he did it, Northern,” she said. “Cal is a genius!”
“But how did he know you’d come looking for him?” First Mate Arkm Thur asked.
“Like I told your captain, pal, he knew his sister wouldn’t let him down!” She grinned over to Northern. “Talk about moving heaven and earth, eh, Captain?”
“And merely by raising a great deal of hell,” Northern murmured, eyes on the vu-tank, where an image was taking translucent shape. It looked like a metallic bubble rising up from the sparsely vegetated ground, agleam in the double suns. “Can you see anything abnormal on the sensors, Doctor?”
“Standard Federation pressure dome. Model G14, from all signs, with only minimal armament, as a matter of fact,” Dr. Mish reported flatly.
“It was my impression Captain that this was a Jaxdron-held planet.”
“Exactly, Arkm. Everyone’s impression
, which is perhaps what has kept the Federation away thus far.”
“Pardon, sir?”
“Some kind of strange bluff.”
“But why?”
“Well, whatever the Jaxdron are up to,” Laura said, “I know that my brother Cal is down there, and I intend to hop in my blip-ship and get him.” She gave the captain a defiant glance. “Whatever the hell you say.”
“You’re quite right, Laura,” said Captain Northern. “But I’d like to take a shuttle with some armed robots down to back you up.”
Laura shrugged. “Whatever you want, Captain, but round ‘em up quick, ‘cause I’m on my way.”
“You’ll be on your way, Pilot Shemzak, when we let your ship out of its berth and open the hangars.” He got up. “Jitt, establish synchronous orbit. Arkm, how’d you like to take a little trip?”
“You sure do like to take your chances, don’t you, Northern?” Laura said after Arkm had eagerly assented.
“Captain’s prerogative, my dear,” Northern replied. “Besides, it helps my claustrophobia.”
Chapter Twenty-three
She felt alive again.
Like a horse straining at its reins, Laura Shemzak, in her XT Mark Nine, yearned for release from the Starbow’s bonds. It was almost as though the very fabric of her hull trembled with her impatience.
“C’mon, Northern,” she vocalized through her implanted neural connection to the channel that linked her to the specially souped-up shuttle. “Let’s get a move on!”
She’d made her connections with the blip-ship in record time, and her contact with the energies coursing through the intricate mechanism gave her a high like no other she had ever experienced.
“Weapons calibration, dear heart,” the voice spoke inside her head. “Give us a minute.” For some reason, it annoyed her to have Northern’s authoritative sound inside her skull, although constant communication between the two ships was vital in this operation. “You got the hang of your new gizmos?”
“Nothing really new,” she returned’. “Just improved. I’m surprised that additional biosurgery was needed.”
“Well if the Feddies built you and they built the ship, I guess they knew what they were doing.”
“They kinda built us all, though, didn’t they?” Laura added tersely.
“They certainly would like us to believe that.”
Slightly over the time predicted by Captain Northern, the air was removed from the lock, the hangar door opened, and two ships separated from the belly of the Starbow like oddly shaped eggs dropping from a metal beast.
For Laura, exhilaration mounted with acceleration; she swooped down through the atmosphere, radiant with sunlight, ablaze with friction. The shuttle was hard pressed to follow on her heels. Planetfall was a rush of splendor, scorching through the air, skirting a sea, playing delicate gyroscope tricks with the air currents above flat desert wastes. She tasted this world, smelled it, inhaled it, sensors wide open and alert for danger.
Within minutes of departure from the low orbit of the Starbow, she reached the destination. The pressure dome that emitted the Morse code signal was a brown wart on the desert skin, crusty and hairy with protuberances and antennae. In the seconds it took for Northern and his ponderous shuttle to catch up with her, Laura looped about the structure, energy fields up full, ready to dodge any weapons.
Nothing happened.
She did not scan anything tracking her, although she definitely picked up full-scale electronic activity within the metal and silica shell, indicating life-support systems and intricate computer operations.
“If Cal is in there,” Northern’s voice sounded in her mind, “he’s got plenty to eat and drink and breathe.”
“Of course he’s in there!” Laura said. “Question is how do we get in without exciting any automatic defense systems?”
“How about knocking on the door?”
“Cute, Northern. Real cute.”
“Sensors indicate craft entry in the lower northwest quadrant of the dome, Laura. As you might notice from our circling, this thing isn’t real great at hovering. We haven’t raised anyone on the standard combands. How about if you take a look at one of those doors down there? See if maybe you can throw a switch or something.”
“Gotcha, Captain.”
Using retros, riding on her antigravs, she descended to the recessed doorway. Her holo vu-tank displayed everything in perfect detail, like she was standing at arm’s length from the doors. Quick analysis, a speedy energy futz with the wiring of the identification panel, and the thick doors drew back with a clang.
“No sign of any defensive mechanism inside,” she said. “Still, I’m not nuts about doing the cycling procedure.”
“Pressure and atmosphere content at this time of the year are only marginally different,” reported Arkm Thur. “We can fuse the closing mechanism of the outer door, Laura, and then open the inner door. No one inside will be hurt.”
“You got it,” Laura said. She found the right metal rod and welded its joint with a laser. Then she drifted into the lock, force field on high.
She triggered no defenses.
“Guess they just don’t expect nasty visitors,” was her conclusion as she saw to the next door, which only took a nudge to a pair of levers with tractor beams to open.
Reoxygenated air whooshed past Laura, almost refreshingly. She directed her ocular units past the opening and returned her energy flux detection sensors. Nothing amiss … just your average Federation pressure dome, efficiently chugging away, more on air-conditioning mode than anything else.
It was like a city in a nutshell, with the interior of the shell painted to look like a pleasant Midwestern America Terran day. She moved forward, entering a different, much smaller world, a microcosmic reflection light-years from its model.
Past the main cluster of buildings lay a large fenced field. Inside were a manor house and a swimming pool and, according to the signal, Cal.
“Come on in, guys, the water’s fine,” she said, and waited only long enough to see the shuttle nosing in before she sprinted for the field.
“Put her down on this stretch of grass,” she said, landing. “I’ll leave you plenty of room.”
“Roger,” said Northern. A moment later he set his ship down beside the kidney-shaped pool. “Looks deserted. You coming out, Laura, or are you just going to stay in there? The signal’s coming from that house, and unless we blast in the roof, we’re going to have to go in by foot.”
“Have Thur cover us, okay?”
“Sounds reasonable.”
She found that her hands trembled slightly as they unjacked her attachments. Her consciousness folded back in to rest behind her eyes, within the sensations of fingers, mouth, ears, body.
Cal, she thought excitedly. I’m going to see Cal again! She realized then that Captain Northern had been right. She did feel guilty—guilty that she had allowed the Federation to take him away from her at all.
Well, no more. When she and Cal were reunited, if the Federation wanted them back, they were going to have to accommodate this brother and sister act! Cal and she would live together again, see each other more, not be so much strangers to each other as in the past years.
She would try to make him see why she’d had to change, she thought as she opened the door and felt the sweet grassy air rush in like a promise. She would show him that even though she could deal with the roughest of spacers, inside she was still his sister, always surprised and delighted with his antics, always understanding and loving.
She checked her sidearm, a power gun in a leather holster. Cal had given it to her last year. “Remember how we used to watch those movie Westerns, Laura?” he had said. “Well, I had this made. Looks like a Colt .45, though it’s Federation regulation all the way. You can be like a sheriff, Laura. Wyatt Earp of the spaceways!”
The Federation had not been thrilled with the different design, but they had finally acquiesced to Laura’s demands that she carry this, strapped around her waist. The spacers she bunked with would sometimes make fun, until she showed them how fast she could draw it.
When she wore it, it made her realize one of the reasons she cared for Cal so—he had such a sense of play, such imagination!
When Laura stepped down from her ladder onto the grass-matted springy soil, Captain Tars Northern, fully armed with his own more standard energy weapon and a scanner, was waiting for her.
“This is the strangest rescue I’ve ever been involved with,” he said, glancing around. “I see no sign of a trap, and no sign of Jaxdron, and yet from all indications you’re quite right. Your brother is here. I guess they just didn’t expect any kind of rescue mission. And why should they? No one’s tried before—no one has been loony enough.”
“Shut up and walk, Northern,” Laura said. “The signal’s coming from that old-style house there.”
“I want you to know, Pilot Shemzak,” Northern said as they strode toward the gabled mansion a hundred yards away, “that I am not pleased by your insubordinate talk.”
“Don’t feel bad, Captain,” she said. “Everybody gets it. And you know, I keep my word, too. Just as soon as we get Cal out of this place, he’ll help you as much as he can on … whatever Dr. Mish is working on.” She allowed herself a quick scan of the environs. Well kept, pleasant, the place had the very taste of tranquility. “It doesn’t look as though they’ve been keeping Cal in a dungeon, does it?”
“I still don’t like it, Shemzak. No sign of people—or aliens, for that matter.”
“Why are you exposing yourself like this, then, Northern? You could have sent Thur out here. For that matter, you could have stayed on the Starbow.”
Northern shook his head. “Not my speed, Shemzak. I like to participate. Besides, like I say, I owe you. This way I get to pay you back in person.”
“Doesn’t seem as though it’s going to be much of a cost. I … ” They were now only fifty yards from the arched threshold of the manor house. Past the scrolled columns, Laura could see someone moving. The door opened. A man walked out, waving one arm. She could not make out who it was; he was still in shadow. “Look, Northern!”
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