Using the device along with the mindprinter program, China could “see” well enough to distinguish individual objects, although she could not discern specific features of a person nor, for example, read print. She still preferred her memorization routines, which were now so natural that she hardly looked handicapped getting about, but in an emergency or in a strange environment, the device might mean life or death, and she appreciated it.
They had not wasted the time in other ways, either. They hunted without much success for other remnants of the freebooter culture, and finally Hawks decided, with the council of captains concurring, to go after a ring.
By now the newcomers had been told the whole story—what they were after, what the rings could do, and why the rings had been created. Two of the crews had visited Chanchuk, and the Indrus knew Janipur well, since the people of that world had been created out of the same original race as theirs and had kept many of the same customs and forms of the ancient Hindu beliefs. Captain Paschittawal, in fact, had even seen the ring itself, in the People’s Treasures collection at Cochin Center, the chief administrator’s headquarters. Apparently, he reported, the chief administrator rarely wore it, except on solemn and highly ceremonial occasions.
“It is a beautiful thing, very big,” Captain Paschittawal told them. “It is kept under a magnifier, in fact, so that one can see the exquisite detail work. Two beautiful birds, mirror images, sitting on small fir branches. It is most treasured because it is one of the every few artifacts that came with the Founders centuries ago.”
Hawks nodded. “I want you to get together with Raven and Sabatini and give them as much detail as you can. I believe it is time we put Sabatini’s unique talents to work for us.”
The captain’s eyebrows rose. “I have heard you and the others talk of this, but I do not understand what you mean by ‘unique talents.’“
“You won’t believe it until you witness it, but let me put it this way. You are Hindu, correct?”
“I am, sir.”
“And you believe, then, in reincarnation?”
“Yes, sir, I most firmly do.”
“Let me just say that Captain Sabatini not only can reincarnate, but can choose just what and who he’s going to be. And he does not have to die to do it.” Although somebody else does, he added a bit guiltily to himself.
After a full briefing by the Indrus crew, Hawks met with his security staff and Sabatini in his own office deep inside the guts of the Thunder.
“Well,” Raven said with a sigh, “Nagy said it’d be the easiest, although I ain’t sure I like it if it is. This thing’s like something in the regional museums of somebody’s crown jewels. It’s almost a sacred object because it’s Earth and it’s original. It will be guarded and not just by people. It’s gonna have one hell of a nasty security system on it, since a lot of these Hindu folks believe things like this got magic. That crew said there are all sorts of legends about the powers of the gods that come with being the wearer of the thing. This is a heist problem, and who knows what kind of technology they bought or what the nasty computers of that Center came up with? And there’s the racial and cultural thing.”
Hawks nodded, knowing just what Raven meant. “Those we will face with every problem. We knew that from the start—at least I did, and I think you did, too, if you wanted to think about it. It would have been too much to expect that any of the colonials were recruited from the freebooters would be members of this race. I consider it a stroke of real fortune that we, at least, had people here who knew the world and its people. If this is the easiest, then this is the one we go for just to see if we have a prayer of getting the others. Sabatini?”
“This is one I think I’m really gonna enjoy,” the captain said. “I never been anything this different before. Still, the basics are here. The chief administrator comes from a small town up against the mountains on the smaller of the three continents, and he has an estate there and goes home a lot. He’s one of them types that likes to spend time with the people—and, of course, I bet he has one hell of an illegal high-tech lab there someplace, too. We can’t just walk into the Center—it’s gonna be too well guarded and it won’t have the kind of conditions I need to be safe and secure while I—change into something less obvious, shall we say. I may have to go through a few people to get in there. Maybe some townspeople, then to servants at the big man’s place, and from there to somebody with authority and easy access to Center.”
“That’s understood,” Hawks told him. “But I don’t think there is any way you are going to be able to steal that thing all by yourself. If you can, fine, but if I know a chief administrator, no matter what the race or culture, there will be no time when you will be able to become him and particularly not his security chief without being discovered, and I would wager much, if I had anything, that it takes at least both of them to disable that alarm system.”
Sabatini nodded. “I understand that. Still, if I get a crack at it, I’ll try. If not—well, then it’ll have to go to the experts up here and we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, I’d say the biggest problem is getting me in—and out, if need be. Master System knows what we’re after and it’s got to have that place monitored wall to wall, and we sure as hell aren’t going to be able to get close enough in to land a transmuter receiver.”
“I believe I can help there,” Star Eagle broke in. “It wouldn’t do to bring the Thunder and expose the fleet at this point—we may need all that power later on, if only to fight our way back to Earth. I can use a capsule, however, with a basic life-support system, and stick it in a preprogrammed fighter. They are fast and expendable. Janipur might even let you get down if they couldn’t tell where the fighter came from, if only to follow it back.”
“Uh huh. And how are you gonna get that fighter close enough to let it get in? You punch anywhere in the area and they’re gonna know it.”
“I know. If need be, we have ships to spare, but I would just as soon not spare any people. It will get you in and confound Master System, I am sure. It will also tell us just what sort of forces are in the area, so we can plan for the future. We must, after all, also get you out.”
Raven turned to Sabatini. “You know, if this all goes as planned, we’re gonna hav’ta figure some new name for you, and if it’s one like the Indrus crew’s got, I won’t want to know it. We’ll also have to recognize you when we see you.”
Sabatini grinned. “Well, we have a nightingale, a hawk, and a raven, at least, and I’m told a couple of our new friends have names that translate out like that anyway. From now on, why don’t we follow that convention? Why not—Vulture?”
And Vulture it was. Although all the captains hungered for some action and volunteered to make the drop, Star Eagle determined that Pirate One would be their best bet. It could carry the small fighter with its cargo capsule, and might just fool any automated defenses. In any case, although none liked to discuss it, it was expendable.
It was agreed, however, that the small, dark Captain Paschittawal would fly it, since he had the most knowledge and experience of any aboard in getting in and out of Janipur. Warlock would handle weapons, since she was best at that. Only those two would go; Sabatini, in his capsule inside the fighter, would be along for the ride.
Thanks to the Indrus’s local charts, they had excellent maps of the planet and its terrain. It was decided to attempt a landing in the mountains to the north of the village and state, where landforms and general weather conditions would provide good cover for the fighter, which was intended to remain down. The people of Janipur were not good at mountain climbing, which would provide some extra security, but might cause problems for Vulture should he have to return to the ship in Janipurian form. He did not minimize the difficulties, but he was not that concerned. “I will get whatever I need, one way or the other,” he assured them.
The one thing they weren’t all that concerned about was Vulture returning reprogrammed by Master System. Clayben was quick to assur
e them that if such techniques could have worked with “the creature,” he would have used them back on Melchior. The very methods by which memory was stored were so different that none of the common methods would work, and any biochemical or psychogenetic agents would be neutralized if introduced. “Remember,” the scientist told them, “this is not Sabatini, or Koll, or any of the others it has called itself. It is a unique homemade alien organism only pretending to be these people, just as it will pretend to be one of the people of Janipur.”
As an initial test, Star Eagle rigged up Pirate One with false identification and an automatic program requiring no one on board. All it would do was punch into the system, go about its standard refueling, and then return to a predetermined point where its much more sophisticated scanning records would be analyzed. Lobotomized, the ship’s core was not much good without a human at the decision-making level, but it could carry out such simple and routine tasks and respond to standard queries. They were not much worried about it being recognized; it was one of an entire class of automated freighters all of which looked identical. This was one area in which machine precision and standardization worked to the advantage of the pirates.
They spent a nervous eight and a half hours while their first ship was away, worrying that it might not return or might return altered or containing a cargo of Vals, but it arrived right on schedule, its tamper seals and passwords untouched. From examining the sensor data, Star Eagle felt sure that either they were being led into a trap or Master System was being very cavalier about the world and its ring. No other ships were evident in the system while Pirate One was there. An automated satellite relay station had challenged, then passed, Pirate One.
“I don’t like it,” Hawks told the council. “It’s too easy. Master System isn’t overflowing with Vals, but it has enough, or it can create enough, to monitor five worlds, and it could probably have a ship full of its troopers lurking around each, as well. I can’t believe it would keep the way open for us unless it had something more sinister in mind. It is logical—it also would know that this was the easiest and the probable first target.”
“I agree that it has something up its metaphorical sleeve,” Savaphoong put in, “but I wouldn’t be too surprised if it was traditional and probing. I think it may want to see if we can do it, and, certainly, it does not just want the few who would steal the ring, but all of us. It thinks in far longer terms than we. At this point it is not as concerned about us getting all the rings as it is about us spreading and multiplying so that it will be in constant danger now and for generations to come. As of now, our knowledge is more of a threat to it than our deeds. It will be after we get the ring, senors, that we will be in the gravest danger. The game is two-way, you see. We must acquire the rings. It, however, must acquire us and stamp out the knowledge of the rings and their power.”
Sabatini grinned. “But it does not know about the Vulture.”
Insertion proved relatively easy, far easier than they had a right to expect, bearing out both Hawks’s concerns and Savaphoong’s reasoning. They flew the fighter remotely, choosing a landing site so rugged and misshapen by rocky outcrops and towering peaks that it never even saw the sun. Powered down, the fighter would be practically invisible from the air. Even so, it was a tricky operation that has to be done with deliberate speed. Master System’s monitoring satellite had to be on the other side of the planet when they began, on an orbital swing that would keep it away from the landing zone for the longest possible time. The fighter could be powered down before the satellite made its sweep, but residual heat might still betray it when the satellite compared notes with its previous pass. Some cooling time was essential to keep it from showing up like a beacon to the monitor.
The new fake ship’s identification worked as well as the previous, with no indication that the system monitor suspected that it was actually seeing the same ship again. The fighter was launched as soon as they felt safely clear of the system monitor’s scan, and Captain Paschittawal, linked in, guided it carefully toward Janipur, cutting and boosting power as needed to avoid the orbital scans and finally inserting it in opposition to and behind Master System’s planetary monitor. It would now pass over the exact same region as the monitor, but only after the monitor and always on the other side of the planet from it.
Within two hours, while the alleged freighter was still taking on fuel, the spot was passed over, checked, and found to be good. Paschittawal allowed two more orbital passes, so that the area of the monitor survey would no longer include the target, then launched the fighter down to the prescribed spot. Vulture wasted no time in climbing out as soon as he could risk it.
“Very easy,” the captain said with satisfaction. “It is how we got down to the planet to do business in the old days.”
They dropped a relay satellite in the dense fueling belt that could pick up and relay coded subspace communications from Vulture. The only danger in the relay was that another ship, in for fuel, might gobble it up, but the odds of that happening were not great.
Vulture was now loose on Janipur and those back on the Thunder could only wait.
In the meantime, the members of that odd community continued to get to know one another and to grow. China had a daughter, whom she named Star Daughter, and Hawks and the others of the old guard were more than astonished to hear that Cloud Dancer was also with child. Silent Woman’s nursery was going to get crowded a bit faster than expected.
The Chows in particular seemed to be blossoming. Both had taken well to piloting, which had given them an enormous amount of self-confidence and a real job that might prove important, even vital, in times to come, and both were also now spending a lot of time in the company of the two half-Chinese crew members from the Bahakatan. Their extremely mottled skin had given them a low self-image, but the crewmen did not seem to mind. Hawks suspected that men born and raised in deep space, where they dealt with large numbers of bizarre colonials, would find the strangely marked but otherwise attractive women more exotic than grotesque.
Hawks himself was diverted for a while by Cloud Dancer’s news, but he could not let it sway him from long-range planning. He was to have a child and that was important, but for that child to have any chance at life and a future, his parents and their allies would have to prepare the way.
Fernando Savaphoong was an initial key to any planning goals. He had contacts, secret channels of communication and information, and he used them.
“There is very little out there,” he reported. “The heat continues to be on, I fear, and I do not know when or if it will be off. There were an estimated half-million freebooters out here, and those who have not been caught or killed are mostly either running or hiding. I have contacted some who are hiding, but they are of no real use; they expected to hear news and get information from me, so withdrawn are they.”
“Anything about the targets? Particularly the missing ring?” Hawks asked him.
“Little. Stories, nothing more. Even my Center contacts on the colonial worlds know little that we do not know.”
Ikira Sukotae looked thoughtful. “Now, let me get this straight. You know that one is on the Mother World, and we know the second is definitely on Janipur. You have the worlds for two more, and while they will be harder to find we have some support, at least in freebooter stories, about them existing there. Yet nothing, absolutely nothing, on the fifth ring.”
Hawks nodded. “That’s about the size of it.”
The tiny captain rose. “Let me talk to somebody for awhile. I never had this thought before, but it’s one way to go.” She went back and sought out Takya Mudabur, her amphibian crew member. Mudabur was nice enough and good in a pinch, but unlike the others, who had been together for many years, she was a bit of an outsider kept more to herself.
“Takya?”
“Yes, my captain?” She was in her bath enclosure but stuck her head out when she saw someone enter her hut. “Something wrong?”
“Takya, we have done well w
ith you dealing with the water worlds. How many has it been—four? Five?
“Six, my captain. Why do you ask?”
“When you talk to those people, just in general conversation, did you ever hear of a story or legend about a great golden ring with a design on it? Birds, perhaps, on a black stone set in a great gold ring owned by someone of power or importance?”
Takya thought a moment, then shook her head. “No, never. I have heard the story of the five gold rings and I am sure that if I had heard of any such thing I would have remembered it then.”
“Of the more than four hundred and fifty known colonial worlds, how many would you say have water people?”
“Not many. Ten, perhaps fifteen percent. You should know as well as I.”
She hadn’t known, never having counted them, but the total amazed her. Somewhere between forty-five and sixty or so such worlds. “Takya, all the water people I have ever seen are still air breathers like us. All of the ones you visited were. Have you ever heard of a race of water breathers?”
“Yes, there are some,” she said, “although not many. There are also some who breathe atmospheres poisonous to us, as well. Why do you ask?”
“Just following a train of thought. Axe there any freebooters, any spacefarers at all, among such races? Ones that either breathe water or something else we cannot?”
“I do not know for certain, but I have never heard of any. They would have to drastically modify any ships they flew, have special pressure suits and the like, and would have to modify the atmospheric transmuter systems to produce their required atmospheres. It was difficult enough for ones such as you and I to get out. Adding that may be asking the impossible.”
The captain nodded. “Very well. Thank you.” She headed back up to the council of captains on the Thunder’s bridge. They all looked at her expectantly.
Pirates of the Thunder Page 25
