“Lovely,” the man muttered. So much for quietly matching velocities with Wunderland while the commnet is still down. To the computer: “What’s ahead of us?”
“For approximately twenty-three point six lightyears, nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“Hard vacuum, micrometeorites, interstellar dust, possible spacecraft, bodies too small or nonradiating to be detected from our position, superstrings, shadowmatter—”
“Shut up!” he snarled. “Can we brake?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, this will require several hours of thrust and exhaust our onboard fuel reserves.”
“And put up a fucking great sign, ‘Hurrah, we’re back’ for every pussy in the system,” he grated. Ingrid touched him on the arm.
“Wait, I have an idea…is there anything substantial in our way, that we could reach with less of a burn?”
“Several asteroids, Lieutenant Raines. Uninhabited.”
“What’s the status of our stasis-controller.”
A pause. “Still…I must confess, I am surprised.” The computer sounded surprised that it could be. “Still functional, lieutenant Raines.”
Jonah winced. “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” he said plaintively. “Another collision?”
Ingrid shrugged. “Right now, it’ll be less noticeable than a long burn. Computer, will it work?”
“97% chance of achieving a stable Swarm orbit. The risk of emitting infrared and visible-light signals is unquantifiable. The field switch will probably continue to function, Lieutenant Raines.”
“It should, it’s covered in neutronium.” She turned her head to Jonah. “Well?”
He sighed. “Offhand, I can’t think of a better solution. When you can’t think of a better solution than a high-speed collision with a rock, something’s wrong with your thinking, but I can’t think of what would be better to think…What do you think?”
“That an unshielded collision with a rock might be better than another month imprisoned with your sense of humor…Gott, all those fish puns…”
“Computer, prepare for minimal burn. Any distinguishing characteristics of those rocks?”
“One largely silicate, one 83% nickel-iron with traces of—”
“Spare me. The nickel-iron, it’s denser and less likely to break up. Prepare for minimal burn.”
“I have so prepared, on the orders of Lieutenant Raines.”
Jonah opened his mouth, then frowned. “Wait a minute. Why is it always Lieutenant Raines? You’re a damned sight more respectful of her.”
Ingrid buffed her fingernails. “While you were briefing up on Wunderland and the Swarm…I was helping the team that programmed our tin friend.”
“Are you sure?”
The radar operator held her temper in check with an effort. She had not been part of the Nietzsche’s crew long, but more than long enough to learn that you did not backtalk Herrenmann Ulf Reichstein-Markham. Bastard’s as arrogant as a kzin, she thought resentfully.
“Yes, sir. It’s definitely heading our way since that microburn. Overpowered thruster, usual spectrum, and unless it’s unmanned they have a gravity polarizer. 200 G’s, they pulled.”
The guerrilla commander nodded thoughtfully. “Then it is either kzin, which is unlikely in the extreme since they do not use reaction drives on any of their standard vessels, or…”
“And, sir, it’s cool. Hardly radiating at all, when the fusion plant’s off. If we weren’t close and didn’t know where to look…granted this isn’t a military sensor, but I doubt the ratcats have seen him.”
Markham’s long face drew into an expression of disapproval. “They are called kzin, soldier. I will tolerate no vulgarities in my command.”
Bastard. “Yessir.”
The man was tugging at his asymmetric beard. “Evacuate the asteroid. It will be interesting to see how they decelerate, perhaps some gravitic effect…And even more interesting to find out what those fat cowards in the Sol system think they are doing.”
“Prepare for stasis,” the computer said.
“How?” Ingrid and Jonah asked in unison. The rock came closer, tumbling, half a kilometer on a side, falling forever in a slow silent spiral. Closer…
“Interesting,” the computer said. “There is a ship adjacent.”
“What?” Jonah said. His fingers slid into the control gloves like snakes fleeing a mongoose, then froze. It was too late; they were committed.
“Very well stealthed.” A pause, and the asteroid grew in the wall before them, filling it from end to end.
Tin-brained idiot’s a sadist, Jonah thought.
“And the asteroid is an artifact. Well hidden as well, but at this range my semi-passive systems can pick up a tunnel complex and shut-down power system. Lifesupport on maintenance. Twelve seconds to impact.”
“Is anybody there?” Jonah barked.
“Negative, Jonah. The ship is occupied; I scan twinned fusion drives, and hull-mounted weaponry. Concealed as part of the grappling apparatus. X-ray lasers, possible railguns. Two of the cargo bays have dropslots that would be of appropriate size for kzin light seeker missiles. Eight seconds to impact.”
“Put us into combat mode,” the Sol-Belter snapped. “Prepare for emergency stabilization as soon as the stasis field is off. Warm for boost. Ingrid, if we’re going to talk you’ll probably be better able to convince them of our—
-discontinuity-
“—bona fides.”
The ripping-cloth sound of the gravity polarizer hummed louder and louder, and there was a wobble felt more as a subliminal tugging at the inner ear as the system strained to stop a spin as rapid as a gyroscope’s. The asteroid was fragments glowing a dull orange-red streaked with dark slag, receding; the Catskinner was backing under twenty G’s, her laser-pods starfishing out and railguns humming with maximum charge.
“Alive again,” Jonah breathed, feeling the response under his fingertips. The wall ahead had divided into a dozen panels, schematics of information, stresses, possibilities; the central was the exterior view. “Tightbeam signal, identify yourselves.”
“Sent. Receiving signal, also tightbeam.” A pause. “Obsolete hailing pattern. Requesting identification.”
“Request video, same pattern.”
The screen flickered twice, and an off right panel lit with a furious bearded face. Tightly contained fury, in a face no older than his own, less than thirty. Beard close-shaven on one side, pointed on the right. Yellow-blond and wiry, like the close-cropped matt on the narrow skull; pale narrow eyes, mobile ears, long-nosed with a prominent boney chin beneath the carefully cultivated goatee. Behind him a control chamber that was like the Belter museum back at Ceres, an early-model independent miner. But modified, crammed with jury-rigged systems of which many were marked in the squiggles-and-angles kzin script; crammed with people as well, some of them in armored spacesuits. An improvised warship, then. Most of the crew were in neatly tailored gray skinsuits, with a design of a phoenix on their chests.
“Explain yourzelfs,” the man said, with a slight guttural overtone to his Belter-English, enough to mark him as one born speaking Wunderlander.
“UNSN Catskinner, Captain Jonah Matthieson commanding, Lieutenant Raines as second. Presently,” he added dryly, “on detached duty. As representative of the human armed forces, I require your cooperation.”
“Cooperation!” That was one of the spacesuited figures behind the Wunderlander. A tall man with hair cut in the Belter crest, and adorned with small silver bells. “You fucker, you just missiled my bloody base and a year’s takings!”
“We didn’t missile it, we just rammed into it,” Jonah said. “Takings? What are these people, pirates?”
“Calm yourzelf, McAllistaire,” the Wunderlander said. His eyes had narrowed slightly at the Sol-Belter’s words, and his ears cocked forward. “Permit self-introduction, Haupmann Matthieson. Commandant Ulf Reichstein-Markham, at your zerfice. Commandant in the Free
Wunderland navy, zat is. My, ahh, coworker here is an independent entrepreneur who iss pleazed to cooperate wit’ the Naval forces.”
“Goddam you, Markham, that was a year’s profit, yours and mine both. Shop the bastard to the ratcats, now. We could get a pardon out of it, easy. Hell, you could get that piece of dirt back on Wunderland you’re always on about.”
The self-proclaimed commandant held up a hand palm-forward to Jonah and turned to speak to the owner of the ex-asteroid. “You try my patience, McAllistaire. Zilence.”
“Silence yourself, dirtsider. I—”
“Am now dispensable.” Markham’s finger tapped the console. Stunners hummed in the guerrilla ship, and the figures not in gray crumpled.
The commandant turned to a figure offscreen. “Strip zem of all useful equipment and space zem,” he said casually. Turning to the screen again, with a slight smile. “It is true, you half cost us valuable materiel…you will understand, a clandestine war requires unorthodox measures, Captain. Ve are forced sometimes to requisition goods, as the Free Wunderland government cannot levy ordinary taxes, and it is necessary to exchange these for vital supplies vit t’ose not of our cause.” A more genuine smile. “As an officer ant a chentelman, you vill appreciate the relief of no lonker having to deal vit this schweinerie.”
Ingrid spoke softly to the computer, and another portion of the screen switched to an exterior view of the Free Wunderland ship. An airlock door swung open, and figures spewed out into vacuum with a puff of vapor; some struggled and thrashed for nearly a minute. Another murmur, and a green line drew itself around the figure of Markham. Stress-reading, Jonah reminded himself. Pupil-dilation monitoring. I should have thought of that. Interesting, he thinks he’s telling the truth.
One of the gray-clad figures gave a dry retch at her console. “Control yourzelf, soldier,” Markham snapped. To the screen: “Wit all the troubles, the kzin are unlikely to have noticed your, ah, sudden deceleration.” The green line remained. “Still, ve should establish vectors to a less conspicuous spot. Then I can offer you the hozpitality of the Nietzsche, and we can discuss your mission and how I may assist you at leisure.”
The green line flickered, shaded to green-blue. Mental reservations. Not on board your ship, that’s for sure, Jonah thought, smiling into the steely fanatic’s gaze in the screen. “By all means,” he murmured.
“…Zo, as you can imagine, we are anxious to take advantage of your actions,” Markham was saying. The control chamber of the Catskinner was crowded with him and the three “advisors” he had insisted on; all three looked wirecord-tough, and all had stripped to usefully lumpy coveralls. And they all had something of the outer-orbit chill of Markham’s expression.
“To raid kzin outposts while they’re off-balance?” Ingrid said. Markham gave her a quick glance down the eagle sweep of his nose.
“You vill understant, wit improvised equipment it is not always possible to attack the kzin directly,” he said to Jonah, pointedly ignoring the junior officer. “As the great military tinker Clausewitz said, the role of a guerrilla is to avoid strength and attack weakness. Ve undertake to sabotage their operations by disrupting commerce, and to aid ze groundside partisans wit intelligence and supplies as often as pozzible.”
Translated, you hijack ships and bung the crews out the airlock when it isn’t an unmanned cargo pod, all for the Greater Good. Finagle’s ghost, this is one scary bastard. Luckily, I know some things he doesn’t.
“And the late unlamented McAllistaire?”
A frown. “Vell, unfortunately, not all are as devoted to the Cause as might be hoped. In terms of realpolitik, it iss to be eggspected, particularly of the common folk when so many of deir superiors haff decided that collaboration wit the kzin is an unavoidable necessity.” The faded blue eyes blinked at him. “Not an unreasonable supposition, when Earth has abandoned us…until now…zo, of the ones willing to help, many are merely the lawless and corrupt. Motivated by money; vell, if one must shovel manure, one uses a pitchfork.”
Jonah smiled and nodded, grasping the meaning if not the agricultural metaphor. And the end justifies the means. My cheeks are starting to hurt. “Well, I have my mission to perform. On a need-to-know basis, let’s just say that Lieutenant Raines and I have to get to Wunderland, preferably to a city. With cover identities, currency, and instructions to the underground there to assist us, if it’s safe enough to contact.”
“Vell.” Markham seemed lost in thought for moments. “I do not believe ve can expect a fleet from Earth. They would have followed on the heels of the so-effective attack, and such would be impossible to hide. You are an afterthought.” Decision, and a mouth drawn into a cold line. “You must tell me of this mission before scarce resources are devoted to it.”
“Impossible. This whole attack was to get Ingri—the lieutenant and me to Wunderland.” Jonah cursed himself for the slip, saw Markham’s ears twitch slightly. His mouth was dry, and he could feel his vision focusing and narrowing, bringing the aquiline features of the guerrilla chieftain into closer view.
“Zo. This I seriously doubt. But we haff become adept at finding answers, even some kzin haff ve persuaded.” The three “aides” drew their weapons, smooth and fast; two stunners and some sort of homemade dart-thrower. “You will answer. Pozzibley, if the answers come quickly and wizzout our having to damage you, I will let you proceed and giff you the help you require. This ship vill be of extreme use to the Cause, vahtever the bankers and merchants of Earth, who have done for us nothing in fifty years of fighting, intended. Ve who haff fought the kzin vit our bare hands, while Earth did nothing, nothing…”
Markham pulled himself back to self-command. “If it is inadvisable to assist you, you may join my crew or die.” His eyes, flatly dispassionate, turned to Ingrid. “You are from zis system. You also will speak, and then join or…no, there is always a market for workable bodies, if the mind is first removed. Search them thoroughly and take them across to the Nietzsche in a bubble.” A sign to his followers. “The first thing you must learn, is that I am not to be lied to.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Jonah drawled, lying back in his crashcouch. “But you can’t take this ship.”
“Ah.” Markham smiled again. “Codes. You vill furnish them.”
“The ship,” Ingrid said, considering her fingertips, “has a mind of its own. You may test it.”
The Wunderlander snorted. “A self-aware computer? Impossible. Laboratory curiosities.”
“Now that,” the computer said, “could be considered an insult, Landholder Ulf Reichstein-Markham.” The weapons of Markham’s companions were suddenly thrown away with stifled curses and cries of pain. “Induction fields…your error, sir. Spaceships in this benighted vicinity may be metal shells with various systems tacked on, but I am an organism. And you are in my intestines.”
Markham crossed his arms. “You are two to our four, and in the same environment, so no gasses or other such may be used. You vill tell me the control codes for this machine eventually; it is easy to make such a device mimic certain functions of sentience. Better for you if you come quietly.”
“Landholder Markham, I grow annoyed with you,” the computer said. “Furthermore, consider that your knowledge of cybernetics is fifty years out of date, and that the kzin are a technologically conservative people with no particular gift for information systems. Watch.”
A railgun yapped through the hull, and there was a bright flare on the flank of the stubby toroid of Markham’s ship. A voice babbled from the handset at his belt, and the view in the screen swooped crazily as the Catskinner dodged.
“That was your main screen generator,” the computer continued. “You are now open to energy weapons. Need I remind you that this ship carries more than thirty parasite-rider X-ray lasers, pumped by one-megaton bombs? Do we need to alert the kzin to our presence?”
There was a sheen of sweat on Markham’s face. “I haff perhaps been somewhat hasty,” he said flatly. No nonsentient com
puter could have been given this degree of initiative. “A fault of youth, as mein mutter is saying.” His accent had become thicker. “As chentlemen, we may come to some agreement.”
“Or we can barter like merchants,” Jonah said, with malice aforethought. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ingrid flash an “o” with her fingers. “Is he telling the truth?”
“To within 97% of probability,” the computer said. “From pupil, skin-conductivity, encephalographic and other evidence.” Markham hid his start quite well, “I suggest the bargaining commence. Commandant Reichstein-Markham, you would also be well advised not to…engage in falsehoods.”
Chuut-Riit always enjoyed visiting the quarters of his male offspring.
“What will it be this time?” he wondered, as he passed the outer guards.
The household troopers drew claws before their eyes in salute, faceless in impact-armor and goggled helmets, the beam-rifles ready in their hands. He paced past the surveillance cameras, the detector pods, the death-casters and the mines; then past the inner guards at their consoles, humans raised in the household under the supervision of his personal retainers.
The retainers were males grown old in the Riit family’s service. There had always been those willing to exchange the uncertain rewards of competition for a secure place, maintenance, and the odd female. Ordinary kzin were not to be trusted in so sensitive a position, of course, but these were families which had served the Riit clan for generation after generation. There was a natural culling effect; those too ambitious left for the Patriarchy’s military and the slim chance of advancement, those too timid were not given opportunity to breed.
Perhaps a pity that such cannot be used outside the household, Chuut-Riit thought. Competition for rank was far too intense and personal for that, of course.
He walked past the modern sections, and into an area that was pure Old Kzin; maze-walls of reddish sandstone with twisted spines of wrought-iron on their tops, the tips glistening razor-edged. Fortress-architecture from a world older than this, more massive, colder and drier; from a planet harsh enough that a plains carnivore had changed its ways, put to different use an upright posture designed to place its head above savanna grass, grasping paws evolved to climb rock. Here the modern features were reclusive, hidden in wall and buttress. The door was a hammered slab graven with the faces of night-hunting beasts, between towers five times the height of a kzin. The air smelled of wet rock and the raked sand of the gardens.