Voyage Across the Stars

by David Drake

  Tadziki keyed his helmet and said, “Adjutant to outposts. Things seem pretty quiet. Each post can release one man at the senior’s choice. The other fellow will be relieved in two hours. Out.”

  He looked at Ned. Ned shook his head. He didn’t want to go back to the ship any more than the adjutant himself seemed to want to.

  Ned squatted down. “Hey, Tadziki?” he said.

  “Umm?”

  “About Lissea and Carron, what you said?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sometimes there aren’t any good answers,” Ned said. His smile was as humorless as a knife blade.

  CELANDINE

  Île de Rameau on Celandine was the busiest spaceport in a trading cluster of twenty worlds. The sound of ships taking off and landing was a constant rumble through the roof and walls of the closed dock in which the Port Authority’s tugs had lodged the Swift.

  The dock could easily have held a freighter of one hundred thousand tonnes or a score of smaller vessels. The Swift was alone; the two robot tugs had returned to orbit before the clamshell roof closed again.

  The members of the Pancahte Expedition watched the main forward display tautly. Six Celandine officials drove an open vehicle through a small side door and across the dock’s scarred floor toward the Swift. The locals chatted to one another.

  “They’ve got guns,” Josie Paetz said.

  “Two of them are cops, an escort,” Ned answered loudly before anyone ratcheted the mercs’ nervousness up another notch. “The pair in back have enough braid between them to sell brass for a sideline. That kind of rank doesn’t show up if they’re expecting a firelight.”

  “Wish I had a gun,” Deke Warson muttered in frustrated wistfulness.

  “When I decide to declare war on a planet this size, Warson,” Lissea snapped, “you’ll be the first one I’ll tell.”

  All the weapons aboard the Swift were in closed containers. Not concealed, not even locked away, most of them: there was no way the Swift could pretend here to be a peaceful freighter. Tadziki had insisted, however, that none of the crew be openly armed when they greeted the Celandine authorities.

  The adjutant’s belief that they had to tread lightly was supported by the way the authorities sequestered the Swift in a closed dock and ordered the crew to stay buttoned up until further instructions. None of the mercenaries argued the point, but nobody was happy about it either.

  Everyone but the driver, one of the policemen, got out of the vehicle. An official in civilian clothes put the end of a contact transducer against the airlock and spoke into it. “Inspection team coming aboard,” the Swift’s hull announced. “You may open your hatches now.”

  Tadziki opened the main boarding ramp. As the hydraulics whined, Toll Warson said in a lilting voice, “We’ve come this far with no problems, boys. Let’s get the rest of the way back, all right?”

  Ned couldn’t tell whether or not “with no problems” was meant to be ironic.

  Echoes from other spacecraft made the huge hangar rumble like a seashore. The most richly decorated Celandine official raised his voice with familiar unconcern as he and his fellows walked up the ramp, roaring, “I’m Port Commander Flamond and I want you lot to understand two things right off!”

  Flamond glared at Lissea and her crew, drawn up two abreast in the aisle on either side of the head of the ramp. Ned and Tadziki headed one rank. Ned hoped that none of the mercenaries behind him were going to catcall in response to Flamond’s bluster.

  “First,” Flamond said. He seemed to have decided Tadziki rather than Lissea, who was on the other side of the aisle, was captain. “I’m in charge of Île de Rameau Spaceport. I don’t look kindly on anything or anybody who makes my life difficult.”

  Tadziki nodded. His expression was open, solemn—that of a responsible man agreeing with another responsible man. The lower-ranking Celandine officials looked around the Swift with interest, surprise, and—in the case of the armed policeman—obvious concern.

  “Second,” Flamond said, “there’s three warships from Pancahte docked here since two tennights.”

  Carron stood beside Lissea. His mouth opened in horror. Ned’s stomach dropped through the deck plates, and his hands began to tremble.

  “They’ve put in a claim for return of this vessel and crew to answer charges on Pancahte,” Flamond continued, “so you people are already causing me difficulties.”

  “Commander Flamond,” Lissea said, “I’m Captain Doormann—”

  The port commander turned to face her.

  “—of the Swift. We’re registered on Telaria and I’m on the board of Doormann Trading there. The Pancahtans have no right to detain my ship. If they believe they have a claim, they can prosecute it in our courts.”

  “Which,” Tadziki interjected, “are a great deal more fair than the mixture of piracy and imbecility to which we were subjected on Pancahte.”

  Flamond looked from Lissea to the adjutant and back. He smiled, in a manner of speaking. “Are you telling me that I don’t have the authority to hand you over to the Pancahtans, Captain?” he asked softly.

  “No sir,” Lissea said. “Celandine is a major commercial power, just as Telaria is. You have your law codes, and if they require you to . . . hand us over to murderous pirates, you most certainly have the authority. As well as the power. But I would be surprised to learn that Celandine’s codes contained such a provision.”

  “What’s she saying?” Josie Paetz whispered loudly to his uncle. Yazov, standing directly behind Lissea, put a stiff index finger to Paetz’ lips. From his expression, he was willing for it to be a pistol.

  Flamond guffawed. “Good, good, you understand the position, then,” he said. “Which that Del Vore from Pancahte doesn’t seem to. He keeps claiming that our laws don’t hold for a prince of Pancahte.”

  He eyed the assembled mercenaries. “I told him that our guns held him, if it came to that. The same holds true for your lot, Doormann. Squashing you like a bug would solve my difficulties quite nicely. Give me half an excuse and that’s just what I’ll do. Do you understand?”

  Somebody in a rank behind Ned started to speak. Somebody else had sense enough to elbow the troublemaker hard.

  “Yes sir,” Lissea said quietly. “We were hoping to water and resupply here for the last leg of our journey back to Telaria. If circumstances make that impossible, we of course understand.”

  She cleared her throat and lowered her eyes. “We only ask that you hold the Pancahtans here for a few days. To do otherwise would be to turn us over to pirates.”

  The two civilian officials behind Flamond whispered to one another. The subordinate military officer joined the conversation after a moment.

  “That’s what you request,” Flamond said harshly. “This is what you’ll get. First, your vessel can resupply here in normal fashion. I will add that although you’ll be charged for the use of a bonded hangar—”

  He moved his head in a quick upward jerk, indicating the structure which enclosed the Swift.

  “—you’re not being charged the additional costs you’ve imposed on my operations by the fact I can’t permit other vessels to share Hangar Thirty-nine with you. Under the circumstances.”

  Lissea nodded contritely.

  “Second,” Flamond continued, “you have five days from now to leave Celandine. If you don’t leave, you will be expelled. And I assure you, armed resistance would be most unwise.”

  The other military officer nodded grimly.

  “Third,” said Flamond, “no weapons will be taken out of or into this hangar. There will be a police detachment to enforce this prohibition at Entrance Five—”

  He thumbed back toward the open doorway through which his vehicle had driven.

  “—which will be the only entrance unsealed during the time you’re here.”

  “We understand,” Lissea said, nodding again.

  “Fourth and finally,” Flamond said, “all the same regulations apply to the Pancahtan contingen
t, who are also in a bonded hangar. The deadline for leaving Celandine is the same for both parties. And it will be enforced.”

  “What the hell’s he expect us to do, then?” Coyne demanded. “Just shoot ourselves?”

  Lissea turned her head. “Herne,” she called in a cold, deadly voice to Lordling, who stood at the end of the formation, directly behind Coyne. “The next time someone speaks out of turn, silence him.”

  Flamond raised an eyebrow at the tone. “As a matter of fact,” he said to Lissea, “what I hope and expect you’ll do is to negotiate a mutually acceptable compromise with this Del Vore.”

  Carron winced at the repeated name. Flamond ignored him to continue. “From discussions with the Pancahtans, I have reason to believe they might be satisfied with less than their stated demands. To that end—”

  He beckoned forward one of the civilians, a squat man in his fifties who carried a briefcase of naturally striped leather.

  “—since it will lessen my difficulties, I’m putting Master Nivelle at your mutual services. He’s head of the commercial mediation staff here at the Port Authority.”

  Nivelle made a bow of middling depth. “Mistress Captain,” he said without a trace of irony, “I’m looking forward to working with you. If you have a few minutes after Commander Flamond finishes, I can suggest some neutral venues for meetings with the Pancahtan parties.”

  The mediator stepped back. Flamond nodded crisply.

  “Yes,” he said, “well, I’m almost finished.”

  He looked hard at one half of the Swift’s complement, then the other. “I need hardly mention that in addition to regulations specific to the present situation, Celandine has normal civil and criminal codes, all provisions of which will be enforced by the proper authorities.”

  Deke Warson grinned at Flamond from over Carron’s shoulder. Toll nudged his brother warily.

  “Apart from that,” the port commander continued, “Île de Rameau Spaceport averages a hundred and thirty-one movements per day. We get all kinds here, even your kind. So long as you keep your public behavior within reason, I think you’ll find that our community can supply any kind of entertainment you’re able to pay for. That’s all.”

  Nivelle said, “I’ll wait for you at the entrance, Mistress Doormann. I realize you may want to discuss matters among yourselves in private for a few minutes—but only a few minutes, I trust.”

  Flamond nodded curtly. He turned on his heel and marched back to his car, followed by his entourage. Tadziki raised the ramp behind them.

  The mercenary ranks dissolved into babble. Over the ruck of voices Westerbeke said, “Well, that lets us know where we stand!”

  By chance, Ned’s eyes met those of Carron Del Vore as he looked away from Lissea. He realized from Carron’s blank tenseness that the Pancahtan noble didn’t know where he stood.

  “No one leaves here until I release you or Tadziki does,” Lissea said to the mercenaries standing formally at ease in one of the Hotel Massenet’s three bars, rented for the afternoon. “Colonel Lordling is in charge.”

  “The drinks are on the expedition account,” Tadziki interjected, “but I suggest you recall that we may be leaving very curst fast when we go.”

  Eyes flicked from captain to adjutant. The bartender watched with his lips pursed and his hands spread on the bar’s polished granite surface.

  “Lissea, I ought to be upstairs with you,” Herne Lordling said. There was more despair than bluster in his voice.

  “This is where I need you, Herne,” Lissea said crisply. “I can handle a negotiation, and I’ve got Tadziki and Slade to help with the technical presentation.”

  “And,” Deke Warson cooed, “she’s got the princey along for swank.”

  Men laughed. Herne Lordling flushed, and Lissea trained eyes as hard and gray as the bar-top on Warson.

  Deke looked away. “Sorry, ma’am,” Toll said.

  Yazov and Paetz were on anchor watch. The rest of the complement had come with the negotiators to the Massenet. There wasn’t any reason to keep specialists from the navigation and powerplant side on duty, since the Swift couldn’t lift off until the authorities opened the hangar roof. Flamond was in charge, there were no two ways about it.

  “I’ll give you men a full report after the meeting,” Lissea said. “I know you’re nervous, but there’s nothing here that I can’t work through if you’ll remain patient and keep the lid on. That’s all for now.”

  She turned and strode from the closed bar. Tadziki was at her side, Ned behind them, and Carron Del Vore scrambled to join the movement that had caught him unawares.

  “Why’s she think we’re nervous?” Ingried asked as the mercenaries surged toward the bar.

  The Massenet was a dockside hotel, but it catered to ships’ officers and wealthy transients. The lobby staff included a discreet security presence to prohibit roistering crewmen, and the internal decor was expensively florid. The capitals of the square stone pillars supporting the double staircase were flanged outward to form bases for lions holding coats of arms; crystal electroliers glittered down on the lobby.

  Though the Massenet was decorated in classic fashion, there was nothing antique in its operations. The molded ceilings themselves glowed to supplement the electroliers with soft, shadowless illumination. Movement between floors was by means of modern demand-actuated lift- and drop-shafts rather than elevators (or the staircases, which were kept for show).

  There were about a dozen non-uniformed people in the lobby. The couple checking out were probably civilians, but the rest were divided between hotel security and plainclothed governmental types.

  Nivelle had known what he was doing when he chose the venue for negotiations. Seeing the security presence made Ned feel calmer. The Swift’s personnel weren’t going to get into a bloody war with Pancahtans here in the hotel while the expedition’s cooler members negotiated in the roof garden.

  Delegation of tasks among expedition personnel was ad hoc, but by now areas of specialization were pretty obvious. Ned’s job included worrying about possibilities that gunmen—better gunmen—would have laughed away.

  Carron looked at the heavyset Celandine personnel with their good clothes and eyes like trip-hammers. He wrung his hands.

  Lissea stepped to the liftshaft and reached for the call button. Ned blocked her hand and said, “Captain? Let me lead.”

  “He’s correct,” Tadziki said. “I’ll bring up the rear.”

  “This isn’t a combat patrol!” Lissea said, but she let Ned take her place on the lift disk.

  “Not if we handle it right,” Tadziki murmured.

  Ned held the attaché case close to his chest and poked the R button. The lift mechanism judged its moment, then rotated the meter-diameter disk on which Ned stood into the shaft and raised him in a single smooth motion.

  At the top of the shaft, the disk rotated outward again and deposited Ned in a kiosk in the roof garden. He stepped out, meeting the professional smile of another security man whose briefcase certainly did not contain electronic files and a hologram projector as Ned’s did.

  “They’re waiting in the gazebo, sir,” the Celandine said with a nod.

  The gazebo was a substantial building, a heavy roof on tile-covered columns with couches to hold thirty-odd visitors in comfort. Several security men faced outward from beyond the low hedge encircling the structure. Nivelle and half a dozen brightly garbed Pancahtans led by Ayven Del Vore were seated at a round table in the center.

  The liftshaft shunted Lissea onto the roof. Ned nodded acknowledgment and led the way toward the gazebo.

  The walkways were tiled in a herringbone of green and white that clocked beneath their boots. Ned glanced at the flowering shrubs bordering the path and said, “A pretty blue, aren’t they?”

  “Slade, don’t be an idiot!” Lissea replied.

  He grinned toward a fountain. Fish of an unfamiliar breed, almost as clear as the plashing water, curvetted among lilies and snapped insects
out of the air.

  Ned felt loose and positive. For a moment he didn’t understand why. Then he realized that he knew he was physically safe in the midst of such tight security. It was the first time his unconscious had been sure of that since the Swift lifted from Telaria.

  Of course, there wouldn’t be any safety at all in four and a half days if they blew this meeting.

  The liftshaft sighed open again. Ayven stood up and very deliberately spat onto the tiles at the gazebo’s threshold. “Good afternoon, brother!” he called. “So glad to meet you on Celandine. For a time I thought perhaps I’d miscalculated.”

  “Good afternoon, Ayven,” Carron answered calmly. “I would just as soon have left you to your interests on Pancahte while I live my own life in the wider universe.”

  Ned had been doubtful about bringing Carron to the meeting—not that anybody’d asked his opinion. Even if Carron kept his temper (and so far, so good), his presence was likely to have a bad effect on his brother. He suspected the reason Lissea brought Carron was that she didn’t want to risk leaving him in the company of the mercenaries when she wasn’t there to protect him.

  Ned put his case down on the table and opened it. From what he could tell, the Pancahtans accompanying Ayven were simply muscle, soldiers who were uncomfortable without their powered armor. Their suits would be aboard the vessels—and completely useless to them here under Celandine supervision or if the Pancahtan squadron ran down the Swift in space later.

  The mediator rose and offered his hand to Lissea. “Glad to see you again, Captain Doormann,” he said. He was a cultured man, but in his way just as tough as any of the security personnel standing quietly in the background. “And this would be Carron Del Vore, one of the bones of contention?”

  “Master Nivelle,” Lissea said, shaking hands. She nodded to Ayven. “Prince Ayven. But as for Carron here, he’s a free citizen—of Pancahte, as it chances—and not an object to be bargained.”

  “He’s a traitor,” Ayven said flatly. “We want him, and we want the capsule you stole. When those two items have been turned over, we’ll permit the rest of you to go where you please, despite the damage you did to Astragal.”