by David Drake
He nodded, probably toward Adele’s image inset on his display rather than toward the person herself on the other side of a double curtain of holographic light.
“—we have a way to release Cleveland without risking an attack with the plasma cannon while the Merchant was on the ground. Which I’m afraid was the best plan I had come up with until I learned how virulent this algae is. I—”
“Six, I can take out their gun if we just make one pass at a hundred feet,” Sun said, stepping on Daniel’s transmission. “Even if there’s somebody standing in the open hatch, this pipsqueak gun won’t so much as give them a sunburn when I jam their four-incher’s traversing gear. Which I can do, over.”
Adele heard a note of desperation in his voice. The gunner had been expecting to show off his skill; now it sounded as though he would not get a chance after all.
“Sun, if I thought that were necessary,” Daniel said, “I’d order you to do it and have every confidence in your success. I prefer to negotiate in as nonthreatening a fashion as I can, though, so we’ll simply land nearby and go down to talk to Captain Sorley in a polite fashion. And—”
Adele locked the sending units of the others on the net. Woetjans and all the males were volunteering. Daniel, of course, was saying that he was the proper person to negotiate.
“Captain Leary,” Adele said in the enforced silence, “the negotiator has to be nonthreatening. I will be the negotiator. I will take Tovera—”
Because Tovera would follow Adele to the Madison Merchant unless Adele shot her first.
“—in case there should be difficulty. I’ve met Sorley and his crew. They’re not men who will look beyond the fact that two small women have come to treat with them. Over.”
She released the others’ commo and leaned back. The babble subsided quickly when the others came to the paired realizations that Adele was right and that Adele was not going to be moved from her position.
“I’ll accompany Lady Mundy and her secretary in my second class uniform,” Vesey said unexpectedly. “There should be a commissioned officer present, and I have a lifetime of experience in not being threatening, over.”
There was a pause. Daniel laughed, breaking it.
Adele smiled, though there was more than humor in the expression. Aloud she said, “Yes, I think Lieutenant Vesey would make a welcome addition to the negotiating team.”
“All right,” Daniel said after a brief hesitation. Adele realized she had failed to close her transmission again. “Then the next order of business is to plot our landing. Six out.”
CHAPTER 29
Cleveland’s World
A quarter mile from the slope where Daniel stood, steam wreathed the Madison Merchant an instant before the sound arrived. It was a snarling roar instead of the usual pillowy thump of a ship lighting her thrusters. The freighter’s bow lifted, then slapped back onto the water as the man at the controls closed his throttles in panic.
“They didn’t flare their nozzles!” Cazelet said. “They’re lucky that they didn’t break her back when they came down like that.”
“Didn’t or couldn’t,” Daniel said with satisfaction. “They left the thrusters sphinctered after they landed. When the algae coated the petals, they wouldn’t open properly.”
Daniel had landed on a knoll which was at ninety degrees to his quarry’s long axis. For the Madison Merchant’s gun to bear, she had to rotate at least forty-five degrees; sixty would be better. After Sorley’s abortive attempt to lift his ship and turn, the Merchant floated in exactly the same relation to the Kiesche as she’d had to begin with.
“Why won’t they be able to lift now, though?” Cazelet said. “They’ll have burned off the algae. Or do you think they won’t dare try because they don’t know what the problem is?”
Daniel grinned, though his eyes were following his negotiating team. The thoughts behind his expression weren’t quite as cheerful as he tried to project. Adele had paused for a moment when the thrusters lit, but she and her companions resumed their trudge downward when the Merchant settled back. Adele held a white flag in her right hand, but nobody imagined that Sorley or his crew would take any notice of it.
“The algae fixes calcium,” Daniel said. “Not huge amounts, of course, but too much for the tolerances between the petals of a thruster nozzle. Calcium vaporizes at well over twenty-two hundred degrees. Yes, it will burn off—but not cleanly enough to allow the petals to slide properly, not from a short pulse like that.”
The Merchant’s attempt to rise had shaken the outcrop on which the Kiesche rested. Steam puffed out of a recent crack in the rock, sending a scatter of pebbles down the slope toward where Daniel and Cazelet stood. This side was too gentle to manage a real avalanche; the rattle of stone on stone petered out before anything reached the men.
“I hadn’t thought about our thrusters cracking the rock,” Daniel said. “It would’ve been embarrassing if we’d gone sliding down into the lake beside the Merchant, wouldn’t it? Not the sort of impression I was trying to give Captain Sorley.”
“I don’t think it happens very often, sir,” said Cazelet. “I don’t know of another captain who would have willingly landed on a point of rock.”
The Madison Merchant floated in what was either a lake, a lagoon, or a meandering river, depending on how it was fed. A campsite with sailcloth shelters and a remarkable amount of trash for no more than two days of occupancy stood on the beach at the end of the catwalk from the main hatch. The men whom Daniel had seen onshore while the Kiesche was in orbit had vanished back into the ship, and the freighter’s hatch was closed.
“I didn’t really need to land so high up, I think,” Daniel said. “The algae doesn’t seem to advance more than twenty feet from the lakeshore even in the wet season. It must be drawn to metal—or maybe electrical charges.”
He gestured. Cleveland’s World was placid atmospherically and geologically. The lake’s barren margin resulted from regular flooding.
The Madison Merchant lighted its thrusters again, but only three of them and all toward the stern. They were properly flared, so though the ship rocked as the water around it boiled, there was no risk of it trying to lift off again.
“She’s got eight thrusters,” Cazelet said, “but only six were functioning when she lifted from Brotherhood Harbor—I checked imagery from the harbormaster’s office. And three won’t lift her, even if they weren’t asymmetric.”
“Well observed,” Daniel said. The praise was real, though the warmth he put into his voice was a little exaggerated. “They seem to have checked their instruments this time and only lighted the units which opened properly instead of just assuming they were working.”
Cazelet was an excellent officer, a man Daniel would be pleased to have serving under him even if Cazelet were not Adele’s protégé. He came from a commercial rather than naval background, which was useful for many reasons. For example, Cazelet was more likely than Cory—or Daniel—to check the harbormaster’s records to see how well a freighter’s plasma thrusters were functioning. RCN officers—or their Fleet equivalents—came to assume that a starship’s basic systems were operating properly unless there had been an emergency.
Cazelet was personable, cultured, and intelligent. He was a stabilizing influence in Lieutenant Vesey’s life, with none of the exuberant manliness of Midshipman Dorst, her previous lover. Dorst had never been consciously cruel, but he was a young man to whom a few too many drinks or an attractive stranger were not so much a temptation as a way of life.
Daniel smiled. Much as I myself was. And still am, to a degree.
Dorst had been thick as two short planks; his sister Miranda appeared to have gotten a double set of the brains of their generation. Cazelet by contrast was extremely clever, though he didn’t rub other people’s noses in it.
Despite all the reasons to feel otherwise, however, Daniel had liked Midshipman Dorst more than he expected ever to like Cazelet. Though he knew that wasn’t fair.
; The note of the Merchant’s thrusters sharpened, then shut off again. Water slopped back and forth against the outriggers, subsiding slowly.
Sorley or whoever was in charge of the present operations had apparently tried to swing the ship with the three functioning thrusters. It would be possible to do that; but it wouldn’t be possible for that clumsy hand on the throttles to do it, at least not without a serious risk of flipping the ship on her side.
Adele and her two companions hadn’t stopped at this bloom of plasma, though they weren’t moving very quickly across the rough landscape. The most common species of local plant sprang in knee-high starbursts from a common base. Daniel had examined a clump that grew from a niche in the outcrop near where he stood. The leaves oozed sticky sap if the ends were brushed. The sap wasn’t dangerous—there were no browsing animals here for the vegetation to protect itself against—but, like deep mud, it was unpleasant and a thing to avoid.
Besides, the negotiators weren’t in a hurry. Letting Sorley stew for a while longer might be useful.
Most of Daniel’s crew was still aboard the Kiesche, in part to keep them out of the way if something started to happen. Hogg was moving down the slope well to Daniel’s left. The stocked impeller he held at the balance didn’t look particularly threatening unless you knew Hogg.
Hale was working toward the Madison Merchant on Daniel’s right with a slung carbine. Woetjans accompanied her. The bosun’s baton of high-pressure tube was thrust through her belt, but she didn’t carry a projectile weapon.
Woetjans couldn’t hit a target with an impeller from much farther away than she could with the tubing, so that was good judgment on her part. Besides, Woetjans had taken three slugs in the chest a few years ago. Though she had survived, she was even less inclined to pick up an impeller than she had been before.
The Madison Merchant remained buttoned up. “Sorley’s watching them, though,” Cazelet said in a harsh tone. “Their optics are pretty decent. Better than any of that can’s other equipment, anyway.”
He was watching the negotiators—he watched Vesey, at least—with an angry expression. Turning to Daniel, he said, “I ought to be down there with them!”
Daniel didn’t smile, though that was his first impulse. Well, his first impulse was to sneer, which wasn’t like him and wasn’t fair. I wonder if I’m jealous because he’s close to Adele?
Daniel blinked in horror at the thought. Adele had taken in the orphaned grandson of the woman who had supported Adele when she lost her family in the Three Circles Conspiracy. Resenting the boy was … well, it ought to have been unthinkable!
Aloud he said, “This business will work best if Sorley and his crew don’t feel threatened. I suspect that men of their ilk don’t even notice people like Tovera.”
To the extent there were other people like Tovera. And to the extent that Tovera was a person.
“I suppose,” Cazelet muttered. He squeezed the grip of the submachine gun slung across his chest.
The gun was for show, and only because he’d asked for it. Cazelet had proved himself brave and capable in the tussle with the squad waiting to kill Colonel Bourbon in Brotherhood, but he had used his carbine as a pole rather than a gun. That was more than satisfactory, but Daniel suspected that in the crisis Cazelet hadn’t been able to pull the trigger.
He wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger this time, either; but there wouldn’t be any cause to. Hogg wouldn’t have to shoot, either; nor Hale, who was working closer than Hogg to get within comfortable range for her less powerful carbine.
The impeller slung over Daniel’s shoulder wouldn’t be used, either, but …
“Sir?” said Cazelet.
Daniel realized he had been grinning, after a fashion. “If I had to,” he said, “I’d aim at the traversing gear of their plasma cannon. The plating there is just for streamlining, and the hydraulic hoses inside won’t deflect an osmium slug.”
“They can’t bring the gun to bear anyway, can they, sir?” Cazelet said. “We’ve seen that when they tried their thrusters.”
“I wouldn’t be doing much good, no,” Daniel agreed, “but it would be something to do.”
He shrugged fiercely, trying to shake his mind out of the direction it had been drifting. “There won’t be any trouble. If there were, Adele and Tovera would settle it without any need for the rest of us.”
That was all true. Daniel spoke forcefully to make the words sound more convincing to Cazelet—and perhaps to the speaker himself.
He kept remembering that Midshipman Dorst had been a crack shot. Not that it would be any more useful to have two impellers rather than one turning the Merchant’s gun housing into a colander, but there would have been a degree of companionship that he didn’t seem to have with Cazelet.
Which is my fault.
Daniel chuckled as the situation reformed in his head. He unslung his impeller and laid it on the slanting rock behind him. Straightening he said, “I’ve been thinking about this whole business in the wrong way. Let’s watch and be entertained by how Adele and Lieutenant Vesey deal with Sorley and his boneheaded crew.”
Daniel heard the squeal of metal rubbing metal before he saw that the freighter’s hatch had begun to open.
Worst case, Daniel and Cazelet could watch how Tovera dealt with the kidnappers; but there wasn’t any mystery about that.
* * *
Adele waved the flag from left to right in front of her, then back again. It was a linen napkin attached by grommets to a length of half-inch plastic pipe. Reed and Walkins, both riggers, had made it for her with as much care as if they had been scrimshawing gifts for people back on Cinnabar.
Possibly they were even more careful than that: they were doing this for the Mistress, for Lady Mundy.
The flag flicked back and forth. Adele felt extremely foolish, but the uniformed Vesey was in titular charge of their detachment and Tovera was staying properly in the background. It was Adele’s job to display the truce flag, so she would do so properly.
Besides, Reed and Walkins had been so proud of their handiwork that it would have been churlish not to brandish it proudly. She was Mundy of Chatsworth: noblesse oblige.
When they closed the boarding hatch, the Madisons had left their floating extension attached to the shore and to the starboard outrigger. It was a jury-rigged construction, made by bolting boards onto empty lubricant drums. It was over six feet wide, however, which Adele found comforting in comparison with the more technically impressive boarding bridges she was used to from RCN service.
The tight rolls of beryllium alloy with inflatable floatation chambers which Woetjans and her crew extended from the Sissie’s ramp—Mon had equipped the Kiesche with a similar unit—were compact and impressive. They were only thirty inches wide, however, and Adele found that a little tight when bobbing on the surface of the water.
She was in the lead. When she was thirty feet or so from the shore, the freighter’s main hatch shrieked, beginning to open. “Hold up, please,” Vesey said in a low voice.
Adele paused. She had been skirting a plant that looked as though it had been made by gluing brown drinking straws together. I wonder if I can find information for Daniel on these plants?
But of course she couldn’t; not here. She had searched every database on board for information about what was now Cleveland’s World, and the scant references had been only to the algae.
“Stop where you are!” called a distorted voice from inside the Madison Merchant. The speaker seemed to be using a bullhorn to shout through the opening at the top of the hatchway. “Don’t get onto the boarding bridge!”
Adele stopped at the base of the bridge. Vesey came up on her right side; Tovera remained a pace behind on the left. The hatch began to jerk downward with occasional squeals. Adele waved the flag back and forth, just to be doing something.
Mon had fitted external speakers to the Kiesche at Daniel’s direction, but they weren’t normal equipment for a tramp freighter. This alternativ
e made the whole business seem foolish, though, which was a good attitude to have toward it. Captain Sorley was silly, not threatening.
When the hatch had pivoted down enough to expose the main hatch, Adele saw Rikard Cleveland standing in the middle of the hold. On either side stood a crewman wearing a hardsuit. Cleveland was wearing some sort of harness. Safety lines were clipped to it and to the belts of his attendants.
Tovera giggled. Vesey noticed the sound. Rather than speak to Tovera, she turned to Adele and said, “Why is she laughing?”
Adele had to speak louder than she normally would to be heard over the sound of the hatch lowering, but it was unlikely that anyone on the ship was listening through a parabolic microphone. For that matter, it wouldn’t really matter if Sorley overheard her.
“They must think the rigging suits provide protection,” she said. “A suit might stop a round from a pocket pistol at this range or from a small submachine gun, but both Tovera and I aim for the head. And those glass-reinforced plastic panels won’t even slow slugs from the long-arms which Hogg and Hale are carrying.”
Both Madisons held pistols which they aimed in a theatrical fashion at Cleveland’s head. It was an absurd show, though if the weapons were loaded there was a real risk that one of them might go off and blow the hostage’s brains out accidentally.
The main hatch banged down onto the starboard outrigger. Six more Madisons entered the hold. One was Schmidt, the first officer, whom Adele recognized as the large man who had been guarding Cleveland upstairs in the Dancing Girl. They were armed with a mixture of pistols and long-arms, often supplemented by knives of various sorts.
The only ones who would survive the first two seconds, Adele thought with clinical detachment, are those who throw themselves flat on the deck where Tovera and I can’t see them from where we stand. We’ll have to run up the ramp to finish them.
