Pirates of the Thunder

by Jack L. Chalker

  Hawks was thoughtful. “And you say only the light tan get into the Centers? Nobody else?”

  “That is what we were told, and it is logical in a society where you wear your class and your social potential on your body.”

  “Then it’s another complication. Finding enough of these light tans to copy will be a problem.”

  “No big deal, Chief,” Raven replied. “They got to come out. If Vulture says they follow the standard procedures, then they ail got to go on leave for a period—and that means some are always on leave, right? No, that ain’t the problem. The problem is that everybody on that level will have everything on record, birth to death, whatever they use for prints, you name it. The odds are if they don’t all know each other—them tans I mean—they know mutual friends and family. It’s gonna be pretty damned tough to fake.”

  Hawks sat back in his chair and sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. If ten percent are Master System plants, who knows whom down there these days or can take things for granted?” He leaned forward again. “No, we can make some of those factors work for us. We might even get Master System and its friends to take the fall for the robbery, which will nicely aid our getaway. No, the two big ifs we have to face aren’t there. We can work all those out. The first is—is it possible to lift that ring? Can we do it under all their noses and get away with it?”

  “Yeah,” Raven agreed, chomping on his cigar. “And who’s gonna hav’ta become one of them for life to spring the damned locks while Vulture covers?”

  The ultimate price... And this was only the first time.

  The Chows seemed more alive than he remembered them, and happier, too. He wished this situation could have arisen under more miserable circumstances. The girls were certainly curious, particularly when they were summoned to Hawks’s private office and found him there alone with one of the women from the Indrus.

  “Sit down,” he invited. “Make yourself comfortable. So far you’ve played a background role in all this. You’ve been very helpful, but I know both of you felt that you just happened to attach yourself to this group by sheer chance. Would you be surprised if I told you that you had been included all along? That much of what happened to you was deliberate and designed to make sure you came with us?”

  That startled them. “We—just happened to be on the same ship as China,” Chow Dai noted.

  “Uh uh. A ship taking you to Melchior, so you could be handled and strictly controlled until it was time to move. You were not there by accident. They needed someone with very specific skills and they ran those skills through their computer and you came out, having been caught at China Center going through doors that expert technicians couldn’t crack. Tell me, do you know how you do it?”

  They both shrugged. “How do you sing or dance? You do not think about it—it is clear in the mind. You know our uncle was a magician, an illusionist he called himself, who loved to escape from the impossible. He taught us many of his tricks because we were good at them. There are only so many ways locks work, and there is always a weak spot.”

  “Huh! And does this explain how you can crack elaborate electronic combinations of numbers and even coded badge and fingerprint and eyeprint locks?”

  “There are some secrets we must keep,” Chow Dai replied coyly, “because we swore an oath to our uncle, but there are always ways of getting the right numbers for finding how to fake what is needed.”

  “Some of those locks at Melchior matched a minutely detailed hologram. You walked through them like they weren’t there.”

  They both grinned. “There is always an alternate way to spring a lock. Anyone who needs a lock that complicated must first be very afraid that someone will get in. After they install it, and after a few times when it does not work and they cannot get in, they always have an equal or greater fear that this might happen all the time. The more complicated the lock the easier it is to figure out the emergency bypass, since it must work without triggering the other, more ordinary, way in.”

  “Have you ever seen a lock or security system you couldn’t beat?”

  They looked at each other and shrugged. “Yes and no,” Chow Dai responded. “We have never seen one we could not beat, but we have been caught because we did not have any easy way to look over the system and take the time to find out all about it. We were ignorant peasant girls. At the time, we did not even know what a visual monitor was.”

  “But you do now.”

  “Oh, yes. We have spent much time aboard here learning more and more. Star Eagle has been very kind and has read us details of the most incredible security systems, and shown us moving cartoon pictures of them. We know much more now.”

  Hawks wondered who put Star Eagle up to that useful activity. The crazy thing was, the Chows were exactly what they said they were—simple peasants taken in as domestic servants by a spoiled China Center official’s wife. Neither of them could read or write or showed much inclination to learn; neither had any formal education at all. Their good speech in English was due to a mindprinter program and extensive practice aboard the Thunder. They were certainly geniuses, but their genius was limited to certain areas.

  “You know what this is all about? You understand what we’re doing out here, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes. You are trying to find the five magic rings that will bring down the machine that plays god. It is a noble thing that might free our people one day.”

  Here it is. “One of the rings is in a Center on a planet called Janipur. It is guarded by a complicated security system that is mechanical, electronic, and personally guarded, and is considered impregnable. This was known to the people who set up our little pirate band. They felt you could crack that system, steal the ring, and get away. That is why you are here, why you have been here all along. To steal that ring.”

  “Then we will do it. We have not had a good challenge like that in a very long time.”

  “There is—a problem. A hitch. The problem is that the people down there are not human like we are human. They are another kind of human—different from us but no more different than some of the others we have aboard this ship right now. We might, under very risky conditions, get humans to the Center, but they would be useless. They couldn’t walk around, get in any visual monitor, be seen by anyone there, since there are no Earth-humans anywhere on that world. Master System also has people who look like those other kind of humans down there just waiting for anyone not of that race to even be glimpsed. All our information, all our experts and computers, say that no one could get near enough to that ring to even pick the locks who was not of their race. You understand?”

  “You wish us to teach them how to do it?”

  He sighed. This was even harder man he thought. “No. We can’t allow any of them in on this. Not right now. They are decent people down there, mostly, but Master System is standing over them and telling them what to do and they can’t fight it, so they’re not going to do the job for us. We have to do it ourselves.”

  “But you just said—”

  He held up his hand. “You remember Song Ching who became China Nightingale? You know how they did it?”

  They looked at each other, then at him. “They—used some kind of machine. One that changes you.”

  “Yes. We have the same kind of machine, and Star Eagle knows how to run it. This ship was designed to do that, to change one kind of human into another. But we don’t have any mindprinter program, or a good means of getting one, that would teach anyone changed into the kind of people down there how to use that body. It would have to be learned after someone was changed into one of their kind. It would be very, very hard.”

  “China,” Chow Mai whispered. “They cannot change her back.”

  “No. People are the most complicated of all living things. We know a lot about how people work, how they’re put together and why they are the way they are, and we can change much of it, but it’s not just one part we’re talking about here—it’s the whole thing, body, brain, blood, you name
it. More cells than anyone can count, all of which have to work perfectly together. Once always seems to work, but try it again and it just doesn’t come back together right. It can kill or cripple or form a horrible kind of monster that’s one of a kind—and maybe not make the brain work, either.”

  The twins were silent for a moment, then Chow Dai spoke. “You want us to be changed into these—others. Learn how to be these others. Then go in and steal the ring. And, after—we are these others forever?”

  “Yes. It’s the first time this has been asked of anyone, but it will not be the last. Many of us, maybe even me, will have to do the same thing. We have three more rings to get before we can head home.”

  “May we—see what these people look like?”

  He got out a holographic still Star Eagle had run off and handed it to them. It was of the same male he’d seen. They just stared at it, not revealing their emotions, although Chow Dai breathed “Oh” very softly.

  “I know what I’m asking and don’t think it’s easy. I expect to have to give this speech again a few more times. We may all need to do it just to sneak past Master System to get to its home, but we might not. It’s not fair, but that’s the way it’s set up. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it could be done. We have Vulture—you remember the one who was Koll, then Sabatini, very well, I think—down there now, as one of them. He’s in their security system at the Center but he can’t do the job, only provide information and training and cover in and out. We will get you out.”

  “As—them,” Chow Dai said quietly. “And then what?”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “I mean, suppose we can do it. All of it. We get your ring and then we come back here. What happens to us then?”

  “You will still be human beings, damn it. You’ll still be the same inside, too. You’re both good pilots and we can use good pilots. We might also need you to train others to pick other, different locks. You will be no different from the woman with scales and her nose in the back of her head, or the Cantonese-speaking crew with their bones on the outside. Still people, still a part of the team.” He thought about the missing fourth ring and Captain Sukotae’s theory. “Someone, perhaps many, might have to become far more limited sorts than these. We believe one ring may be deep on a world of water breathers.”

  The woman from the Indrus cleared her throat.

  “I’m sorry,” Hawks apologized. “This is Sabira of the Indrus. She has dealt with these people and knows them well.”

  “They are good people,” she told them, “and their bodies may look strange, but they are actually better than ours in many ways. They are tough and versatile. And, where it counts, they are quite human. They love their children, are generally good to one another, like luxuries and try to enjoy life as best they can. Most are peasants much like the sort of people yours are. If we are to win, this must be done.”

  The girls were not properly enthused. “If we did not to this, then what would happen?” Chow Mai asked.

  Hawks sighed. “I will not order someone to do this. I could, but it is not in my nature. Too many bad things were done to too many people aboard this ship now because someone or something ordered it done. If you refuse, then we will find volunteers. You will be expected to teach them all that you can about the problem, and then they will go and make the attempt. They will not have as good a chance as you would, but we will try and we will keep trying until we are down to no one here and we cannot win. We must. If we don’t get that ring then the rest doesn’t matter.”

  They nodded. “This vault. You have information on it? Yes? Can we know what it is?”

  Hawks gave them as detailed a description of the situation as he could. They listened attentively.

  “That is not a difficult sequence but it is very tricky,” Chow Dai said. “No amateur, particularly in an unfamiliar body, could do it. It is worse because it is mostly mechanical. The mechanisms are not all that different from one big illusion in our uncle’s show. His wife would get into a coffin, and then they would fill it with water, seal it with many chains and locks, and my uncle would have to pick them all and open the coffin before she drowned. She was a Buddhist who had studied with some mystics in the high mountains and could remain under for several minutes, more than most people, but it was still a matter of speed and skill. As little girls, we knew just how it was done, and we would often practice with the coffin empty against an hourglass timer. Many long times it took us up to an hour —far too long. Now we could do it, perhaps faster than Uncle Li could. This is a very complicated version of the same problem. No one aboard here could be taught to do it fast and perfect the first time in just a few days or weeks or even months, and we cannot exactly duplicate it here because we have not seen it and its hidden surprises.”

  “Nonetheless, we must try,” he told them.

  Sabira spoke. “You would not be going in alone, as you might have had to do under other circumstances. We—the Indrus crew and some of the others—have talked it over. We know the land, the people, the customs. It was decided that one of us at least should go as well, take the same route as you are asked to take, to help teach you the subtler ways of those people. We also have a mindprinter program for the language, which is basically a very distorted version of Hindi, which is my first language. The omens of the gods brought us to you, as the minds behind the attack on the great computer demon brought you here. With all these things on our side, we cannot fail. Compared to what we might face with the others, this is readymade for us.”

  They gaped at her. “You would become one of them, as well? Forever?”

  “It is my duty. I will not tell you that I am excited by the prospect, but I do not fear it, either.”

  The twins looked at Hawks. “How long before this would happen?”

  He shrugged. “The Vulture has a lot more to set up, and we have to coordinate things. We don’t think that getting you in will be a problem. We’ve been running Pirate One in and out at regular intervals for months now, so that it appears to be a new but regular run. It isn’t even challenged anymore. Vulture can arrange a much easier and more convenient arrival than we arranged for him. We’ve manage to get his old ship out and put in one with a transmuting station—the same one we used on the island world. We can send directly from Pirate One to that transmuter now, if Vulture is there and we time it right. In fact, first we have to find prospects for Star Eagle to copy and study, and get them to Pirate One, where we now have a transmuter and some storage. Covers must be arranged, and no one, least of all Master System and its personnel, must suspect. We are pretty sure that down there at Cochin Center someplace is a Val. You will have to go in and be accepted there before you pull the job. Then we have to get you all out and away under their noses. It’s going to be very tricky and very dangerous. Even Vulture can’t become a Val.”

  “Very well, then,” Chow Dai said almost matter-of-factly. “Then we will do it.”

  He was surprised. “Just like that? Don’t want to talk it over or think about it?”

  “There is no need to do so. We would both be dead at the hands of the security guards at China Center had this not been arranged as you say. You have given the reason we have never understood, which was why we were taken from there and sent to where only important people are sent. The ones who chose us did not make us break into the Center apartments and offices or steal. We did that ourselves, and we were caught for our ignorance. Our lives and our bodies were forfeit because we were caught. They belong to the ones who saved us. You cannot know what it is like to be so helpless as we were, to be beaten and raped not by one but by many brutish men, again and again. Neither of us has really been able to get close to a man since then, nor really trust another. When this—Vulture—creature saved us from Sabatini, we owed still more. We will do it”

  “Nobody owns anyone’s bodies or lives here. That’s what this is all about.” He looked at Chow Mai. “And you? You agree?”

  “We do not need to speak
. We know each other’s minds,” the other said.

  Hawks sighed. “All right then. We’ll set it up.”

  PASSAGE: TWO CHARACTERS MEET IN HELL

  THE ENORMOUS CREATURE ENTERED THE SMALL DOMED enclave easily, pressing the passwords as if it had set diem up, which it had. No one was present to greet it, which mildly irritated it, but it stalked down the entry corridor and into the main room where it found a lone Earth-human sitting with a glass and a bottle.

  “You’re late,” the man said. “I’d offer you some, but I know it would be a waste.”

  “You should lay off that stuff,” the creature admonished. “Those substances that dull the mind are dangerous.”

  The man chuckled. “And you should know, right? So I lay off the drinking and the smoking and maybe an occasional pleasure pill and I won’t die young? I’m already dead, remember? I sure as hell do. Scared the living shit out of me, too. Damn it, if you can’t even sin in hell then what’s the use of living any kind of life?”

  The creature let that pass. “You have been monitoring the progress of our friends?” it asked.

  “Naturally. That’s what this floating mausoleum was designed to do, wasn’t it? After all, we reprogrammed Star Eagle back on Earth. You know, I wonder when Hawks is gonna think of that? He’s a pretty clever fellow.”

  “Perhaps too clever for his own survival. The real question is what are their chances of success?

  The man sighed and took another sip of his drink. “This stuff’s good. Like the old country. Not like that synthetic crap we’ve endured all these years. Anyway, what can I say? We front-loaded Janipur as much as we could, even lucked out in spotting the Indrus just ahead of the troopers and sending it a divert message to the rest of that refugee fleet. Stroke of luck. Makes me think even God is on our side, if I only could figure out who God was and what He, She, or It wanted.”