Blade Dancer
Page 14
after Uzlac. There were no access ports behind the console units wide enough to allow even skinny little
Galena to crawl through them, even if I could convince her to do so. Nothing that was strong enough to
pry the door panel open. And no substance corrosive enough to eat through the plasteel walls.
“Danea.” She gave me a hostile stare. “Any chance you could use some of that biojuice you’re producing
to jolt the panel controls back into operation?”
“No.” The crackling tension around her increased until we all felt the little jags of energy brush against us.
“My corporeal field only affects living flesh.”
I made a face. Bet no one cuddles up with her very often. I asked Renor if he had any ideas, but he
only gave me a blank look and went back to staring at the wall.
Great. Plas-Face was starting to lose it, too.
I went over the dilemma in my head a few times. Uzlac must have done this to more than a few
passengers, I thought. They would have tried to escape, so he’d have fortified these rooms into a cage.
Was there something he’d missed, something we could use?
It would take a few days to get to Garnot—I hoped—so I had some time to figure it out. If the
claustrophobia and the kids didn’t drive me nuts in the meantime. My stomach growled, and I rubbed it
absently. Maybe I should get something to eat, keep my mind off how irritable I felt. I was already
starting to sweat, despite the regulated temperature of the rooms.
Temperature.
“I’m hot,” I said out loud, and started checking the upper deck surface over our heads. “Anyone else
hot?”
No one answered me.
“He’d conceal it if it was up there, wouldn’t he?” I looked around, picked up one of the chairs Kol had
tossed, and stood it upright. After I climbed on top of it, I ran my palms over the decking, one section at
a time.
Kol came over to stand beside the chair. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to find something.”
“What is it?”
He sounded like he wanted to throw some more furnishings around, so I stopped and gave him my full
attention. “There’s a supply air duct over by the prep unit. See it?” He glanced back at the tiny six-inch
port, then back at me. “Where there’s a supply, there’s a return.”
Kol watched. It took an hour before I found the screening, which was covered with a porous material the
same color as the decking. I had to use my claws to pry it off, but by then they were extruded anyway.
The return air duct was about twenty-eight inches square, and went straight up.
“Nalek.” I climbed down off the chair and started shedding my clothes. “I need a hand over here.”
Kol immediately got pushy. “I will assist you.”
“I don’t think so.” I gave him the once-over. “No offense, but I weigh a ton, and Nalek has more muscle.”
Plus I didn’t want him touching me while I was naked. At least, not in a room filled with other people.
“You are going to climb into that little hole?” Galena asked, squeaking on the last word.
“Yeah, I am.” I left my thermals on and kicked off my footgear. “Nalek? Sometime today, if you don’t
mind?”
The big guy had been off in one corner the whole time, being his usual placid self. Now he walked over
and sized up the situation, then shook his head. “You will get stuck in there.”
I thought of all the shafts Rijor had pushed me through when we were kids. Usually with both hands and
yelling at me not to freeze up or he’d pound me. “I’ve squeezed through tighter spots than this one,
believe me.”
“No, Jory, I will go.” Galena stood by Nalek, her winglets fluttering with quick little jerks as she looked
up.
“I’m guessing you don’t like small spaces, Birdie,” I said.
Her chin lifted. “It matters not. I will fit better.”
“What happens if Uzlac finds you? Remember how cute he thinks you are.” I wasn’t letting her do this. I
was tough; I could take whatever the Ramothorran dished out. She’d crumple like a defender under a
five-man line drive.
“I will not allow him to catch me.” Little Galena started to strip. Unlike me, she didn’t have thermals, so
she went down to her skin. Which was when we all found out she didn’t have mammary glands or body
hair. “Tell me what I must do.”
If she was that determined, well, she’d make it through faster than I could. “Okay, first, crawl through the
shaft.”
It had been more than an hour since Galena disappeared into the return duct. Everyone moved restlessly
around the rooms. Everyone except Renor, who had stopped staring at the wall and now watched the
hatch with the same intensity.
Osrea was the worst. Snake Boy had paced a continuous circle from the chair under the duct to the door
and back again. He kept grinding the palms of his hands together, and the hard blue exocartilage plates
covering them made a screech, screech sound.
“Where is she?” he asked me. Again. “Could she be trapped? Why has she not yet attempted to release
the door panel?”
Osrea had started getting on everyone’s nerves a long time ago. We were now, as a group, ready to kill
him.
“Os,” I said, rubbing a hand over my eyes. “Go sit down and shut up, and stop grinding your plates
together. Or I’ll hurt you.”
He didn’t take my advice, but came over and grabbed my arm. “Did you do this to make it easier for the
Ramothorran to put his filthy hands on her?”
Kol instantly got to his feet and came at me from the other side. I waved him off.
“Listen, Os.” I kept my tone low and sympathetic. “I know you’re worried about her. We’re all worried.
But give the kid a little more time. Birdie’s not like you. She’s scared to death of enclosed places.”
“Knowing that, you let her do it? You let her go in there?” For a lizard, Osrea could certainly be
hot-blooded.
“Take it easy, Snake Boy. It’s probably the first time in Birdie’s life that she’s been allowed to do
something reckless.”
He started to say something, then changed his mind when Kol glared. “Do not call her Birdie. I do not
like it.”
“Fine.” I smiled. “Stop crushing my arm or Kol is going to rip your throat out.”
That was when I heard someone fumbling outside the door panel. We looked at each other and
practically ran over to it. A moment later the panel slid slowly to one side, and an extremely dirty but
grinning Galena stepped inside.
“I became wedged in corners a few times, but something seemed to push me along and”—she made a
broad, triumphant gesture—“I made it through.”
“Way to go, sweetheart.” I gave her a one-armed hug, then put her garments in her hands and peered
around her. “Get dressed; then let’s move. And for Pete’s sake, everyone be quiet until we locate Uzlac
and disarm him, okay?”
Osrea looked mystified. “Who is Pete?”
“Never mind. Come on.”
We crept through deck after deck, searching room after room. We found plenty of filth. Clutter.
Malfunctioning or inoperable equipment. Some very suggestive female garments. Illegal substances. Even
some weird-looking fungus growths sprouting in the strangest places. Yet after a thorough aft-to-stern
sweep, even I was ready to admit defeat.
/>
No Uzlac. Anywhere.
“He wouldn’t have left the ship,” I said as I stalked around the helm, then paused and glanced at Renor,
who was quietly re-programming the navigational array. “Would he?”
Renor simply shook his head.
“He’s too fat to hide with any degree of success.” I thought about it for a minute. “Could he have
accidentally blown himself out of a pressure lock? Could we be that lucky?”
Everyone was busy doing something and ignored my rambling. But Renor, I noticed, sat just a little stiffer
in his seat.
What Galena had said came back to me: Something seemed to push me along. Something had kept
Danea from tearing my throat out back in the caves and in our locked quarters, too. Maybe it hadn’t
been an accident.
Maybe Uzlac had gotten some assistance to the nearest exit. Announcing that wouldn’t be very
diplomatic, so I went over to the array and sat down next to Renor.
I nudged him. “You want to get something off your chest?” He looked down at himself, puzzled. “I mean,
do you want to tell me what you really did to Uzlac?”
“No.” He returned to inputting the new course settings.
“Want to at least tell me if he’s still breathing?”
Renor’s eye slits contracted to twin vertical lines. “Not where he is now.”
“Good.” I didn’t want to push him, but there were some things I had to know. “Danea’s jolts only work
on living beings. I assume whatever killed Uzlac has similar limitations.” I got a tiny nod. “Shame whatever
killed Uzlac didn’t do it a little earlier, like when he pulled the gun on us.”
“Fear of discovery often outweighs opportunity.”
Then it all clicked. “People might want to lock up someone who could push a living being around with a
thought, or whatever.” He didn’t twitch a single surface. “Okay, Ren, you can keep your secrets. I will,
too.”
It took Renor some time to figure out Uzlac’s shoddy programming and reroute the ship to Reytalon.
Turned out the greedy slob had encoded the pertinent data with a bunch of nonsensical algorithms, in the
event the ship’s systems were later impounded and examined by Jorenian officials. He’d set up a few
data-wipers, too, which were a real headache to disable.
That was one thing slavers were good at—ditching the evidence.
Everyone hung out at the helm for a few minutes, crowding each other and making a general nuisance of
themselves. Only when Osrea accidentally bumped one of his arms into a console and disabled the aft
scanner did Kol abandon whatever he was doing with the com console to take charge.
“Nalek, you and Galena attempt to secure individual quarters for each of us. Osrea, Danea, check ship’s
stores and assure we have enough provisions to complete our journey. That Ramothorran may have
consumed everything edible on the vessel.” Kol turned to Renor. “How long until we reach Reytalon?”
“Approximately six point two rotations,” Renor told him.
“When the four of you have completed your assignments, return to the helm and report to me.” Kol made
an abrupt gesture, and the other Jorenians took off. Renor was still engrossed in his computations.
That left me, and my ClanBrother gave me a long, thoughtful look. “Sajora.”
“I don’t clean lavatories,” I said at once. “Or viewports. Prep units hate me. So do sanitizers.”
“Do you know anything about weapons systems?”
“Only what I learned from the underground, which was mostly Terran, salvaged off junked ships.” I
frowned. “Why?”
“Uzlac signaled Garnot immediately after we left Joren.” Kol waved me over to the communications
array. “When we do not arrive on schedule, they may send a vessel to track us down.”
“How do you know they…” I got distracted by a relay Kol had punched up on the console, read it, then
swore. It was an invoice of delivery. “That bloated little toad got paid in advance.” A hefty chunk of
credits, too. “And after I poured every chip to my name into his greasy palms, the leech.”
“Ramothorrans are not known to be particularly ethical,” Renor said in an absent tone.
“No kidding.” I elbowed Kol aside and pulled up the local star charts. “We’re only two light-years from
Garnot. For this much money, they’ll definitely send a ship to recover us.” I swiveled toward Renor.
“We’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
“As you said, no kidding.” Renor completed his input and rose from the console to activate another.
“Kol, as you requested, here are the security grid controls and a current inventory of defensive armament.
As I have no experience in this area, I am unable to advise you if it is adequate for defense purposes.
However, the majority of the inventory is of standard Terran manufacture.”
Both of them looked at me.
“Whoa, hold it right there.” I showed them some palm. “I didn’t have anything to do with weaponry on
this ship. Having a little DNA and living on the planet doesn’t mean everything Terran is my fault.”
“You said you learned about Terran weapons in the underground.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You know more about it than we do.” Kol took my arm and guided me over, then pushed me into the
console seat. “Tell us what you can.”
I studied the screen. Four standard pulse emitters, all drained, two launching shafts, and a couple dozen
of the oldest series of displacer projection torpedoes in existence. “Oh, great. No juice in the emitters.
We used to steal protorps like these from military recyclers so we could blow new shafts.”
A big hand landed on my shoulder. “Is it enough to defend the ship?”
I reconsidered the list. “Against one Garnotan in a very thin envirosuit, maybe. A whole ship of them?” I
shook my head. “We don’t have a prayer.”
“Then we should, as you say, get out of here. See to it, Renor.” Kol grabbed my arm and tugged me out
of the seat. “Jory and I have other business to attend to.”
I didn’t care much for the way Kol was bossing everyone around. Now this hauling me from here to
there. I planted my feet. “What business?”
“Family business.” He pointed to the chamber Uzlac had occupied while the ship was on autodrone, just
off the helm. “In there.”
Either Uzlac had a fascinating collection of etchings, or Kol wanted to yell at me. I was guessing the
latter. Okay, maybe he’s entitled. Silently I went into the dark, smelly room and activated the light panel.
And immediately wished I hadn’t.
“God, what a pigsty.” Rotting food, stained garments, and anonymous filth lay piled all around us. I’d seen
arena lavatories after ten thousand fans had gotten through using them. They’d been cleaner than this.
Behind me, Kol closed the door panel. I faced him, saw the look in his eyes and the way he was
standing. “What?”
“Jory, you came from Terra, a world of dedicated xenophobes, to Joren, a world from which your
ClanMother was banished.” He rolled his hand over the back of his neck.
I took a wary step backward. “Uh-huh.”
“You traveled across Joren to gather us together and tell us we are the progeny of slavers, born outside
bond.”
“We are.”
“You tell us you intend to become an assassin, so you may seek out and kill the raider who was
responsible for the dishono
r of your ClanMother.” That was when his claws emerged. “And the dishonor
of all of our ClanMothers.”
“Right.” I took another step back. Why was he so angry? “Kol?”
“You contracted space for this journey with a trader who had already sold us to slavers before we came
on board. The only weapons he has stocked also happen to be Terran.” He’d been leaning against the
panel, but now he started walking toward me. “How did you phrase it? Do the math.”
He was right: The facts made me look terrible. Terribly guilty, or terribly stupid. Kol was about to decide
which.
I could have looked around for something large and heavy to club him over the head with. I could have
dodged him, maybe long enough to get out of the chamber. I could have yelled at him for being so damn
stupid as to think I’d go through all this waste just to snag Uzlac a half dozen exotic-looking Jorenian
slaves. Only I was trying to figure out how Uzlac had known I was bringing six people with me—and had