Odd he should think of Mora now. He had been managing to keep her at the far end of his mind except when making a holo for her or viewing one from her. The communications were too brief, too few, and too long in coming. He missed her. Not as much as he had at first, though. Perhaps he was getting used to life without her… something he had once considered impossible.
Walking over to where Pierrot sat on the window sill, he touched the moss at the tree's base and noted that it felt dry. Due for some water soon, probably a root-pruning, too. Soon… he'd get to it soon. The trunk was halfway between chokkan and bankan, which was neutral, but the leaves seemed duller than usual. Closer inspection revealed a few bare inner branches with peeling bark – a sure sign of localized death.
Was something wrong with Pierrot? Or was the tree reflecting some sort of inner rot afflicting LaNague himself? That was one of the drawbacks of having an imprinted misho – there was always a tendency to read too much into its configuration, its color, its state of health. It did prompt introspection, though, and a little of that was never bad. But not now. There were too many other things on his mind.
He broke off the dead wood and threw it into the molecular dissociator that stood in the corner. The appliance was not the extravagance it seemed. LaNague made a point of disintegrating everything that was not part of a normal household's garbage. There was another dissociator at the warehouse in which all debris from production of The Robin Hood Reader and other sundry subversive activities was eventually destroyed. He would not have the revolution tripped up by a wayward piece of refuse.
He turned toward the sink for Pierrot's water and froze as he caught a glimpse of movement in the doorway that led to the bedroom.
“Peter, it's me.”
“Mora!” Conflicting emotions rooted him to the spot. He should have been overjoyed to see her, should have leaped across the room to embrace her. But he wasn't and he didn't. Instead, he felt resentment at her presence. She had no right showing up like this… she was going to interfere…
“But how?” he said when he found his voice.
“I came on a student visa. I'm supposedly going to do research at the U. of O. library. Kanya let me in this morning.” Her brow furrowed. “Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“I was watching you with Pierrot. He's your only friend here, isn't he?”
“Not really.”
“You look older, Peter.”
“I am.”
“Much older.” Her frown turned into a smile that failed to mask her hurt and concern at his remoteness. “You almost look your age.”
“Where's Laina?”
She drifted toward him, cautiously, as if fearing he'd bolt from her. “With your mother. She's too young to join the Merry Men.”
It took a while for the implications of what she had said to filter through to LaNague's befuddled brain. But when it did: “Oh no! Don't even consider it!”
“I've been considering it since you left.” She moved closer, gently touching his arms with her hands, sending shock waves through him, cracking the paralysis that held him immobile. “I was wrong… this is the only way out for Tolive… for Laina… for our way of life… and the minting's done… the coins are ready to be shipped…”
“No! There's chaos coming to Throne. I don't want you here when everything comes apart. Too dangerous!” He wouldn't want her here even if it were safe.
Mora kissed him gently, tentatively, on the lips. “I'm staying. Now, are we going to stand here and argue, or are we going to catch up on two and a half years of deprivation?”
LaNague replied by lifting her up and carrying her into the adjoining room. He could no longer deny his hunger for her. He'd send her home later.
VINCEN STAFFORD PREPARED TO EJECT another beacon into the starry void. How many was this, now? He'd have to check his records to be exactly sure. It was all becoming so mechanical and routinized – jump, release a beacon, jump, release a beacon, jump… even the jumps themselves seemed to be less traumatic. Was there such a thing as acclimation? He shrugged. He'd never heard of it, but maybe it happened. And if it did or didn't, so what? He was more than halfway to the Perseus arm. If he reached it without being contacted, he could turn back and go home. So far, so good.
There was a buzz behind him. He turned and saw his communicator light flashing. Someone – or something – was trying to contact him. Opening the circuit gave rise to no audio or visual signal. That meant the incoming message was not on the standard frequency. Stafford was liking this less and less every second. Reluctantly, he activated the search mechanism. It would lock in on the frequency of the incoming signal when it located it.
It didn't take long. The vidscreen suddenly lit with a face like nothing Stafford had ever seen. No, wait… there was something vaguely familiar there… the snout, the sharp yellow teeth, the bristly patches of fur around the ears… canine. Yes, that was it. The creature was definitely dogfaced. But not like any dog he ever wanted in the same room with him. He was glad the probe ship was equipped with only flat-screen reception. A holograph of that thing would be downright frightening. No torso features were visible but that was okay.
“Greetings,” the image said in interstellar that was garbled and gutturalized far beyond the capability of a human throat.
“Who – who are you?” Stafford blurted inanely. “Where are you?”
“I am an emissary of the Tark nation” – at least it sounded like “Tark,” a barking sound with a harsh initial consonant – “and my craft is approximately two of your kilometers aft of you.”
“You speak our language.” Stafford was reaching for the aft monitor. He wanted to see what kind of welcoming party had been sent to intercept him. An intensified image of a bulky ovoid filled the screen. At first he thought the emissary had understated the distance, but the readout showed a large mass two kilometers aft. Stafford took another look. That was no peaceful envoy ship. He had no idea what alien weaponry might look like, but he saw all sorts of tubes pointed in his direction and there was a definite feeling about the ship that said it wasn't built for mere information-gathering duties. It reminded him of a Sol-System dreadnought. But then, maybe they were just being careful. In their position, he'd probably come armed to the teeth, too.
“Of course,” the Tark replied. “We've been keeping watch on your race for quite some time. We are not so timid as you: as soon as we had sufficient evidence of an interstellar race in your arm of the galaxy, we investigated.”
“Why didn't you contact us?”
“We saw no need. Your race is obviously no threat to the Tark nation, and you are much too far away to be of any practical use to us.”
“What about trade?”
“Trade? I am not familiar with the term.” He looked down and seemed to be keying a reference into a console to his right.
Stafford couldn't resist prompting him. “An exchange of goods… and knowledge.”
“Yes, I see now.” He – for no good reason, Stafford had automatically ascribed a male gender to the creature – looked up. “Once again, we do not see any purpose in that. Your race does not appear to have anything that interests us sufficiently at this point.” The subject of trade apparently bored the Tark and he turned to another. “Why do you invade Tarkan space? You made certain that we would intercept you. Why?”
“To offer trade with us.”
The Tark gave a sharp, high-pitched yelp. Laughter? Annoyance?” You must understand – we do not trade with anyone. That would involve an exchange, requiring Tarks to give up one thing in order to gain another.”
“Of course. That's what trade is all about.”
“But Tarks are not weak. We do not surrender what we have. If you had something we truly desired, we would take it.”
“You don't understand…” Stafford began to say, but heard his voice trail off into silence. Perspiration had been collecting in his axillae since the comm indicator had buzzed; it was now running down ove
r his ribs. They didn't understand, not at all. And to think that he had dreaded being in the contact ship for fear of unintentionally offending the aliens. This was worse. These creatures seemed devoid of anything approaching a concept of give and take. They were beyond offending.
The face on the screen had apparently come to a decision. “You will shut down your drive mechanism and prepare to be boarded.”
“Boarded! Why?”
“We must be assured that you are not armed and that you pose no threat to the Tark nation.”
“How could I threaten that monstrosity you're riding?” Stafford said, glancing at the aft monitor. “You could swallow me whole!”
“Shut down your drive and prepare for boarding! We will–”
Stafford switched off the volume. He was frightened now and needed to think, something he couldn't do with that growling voice filling the cabin. He felt a sharp tug on the ship and knew that a tractor beam or something very similar had been focused on him. He was being drawn toward the Tark dreadnought. In a brief moment of panic, he stood frozen in the middle of his tiny cabin, unable to act, unable to decide what to do next.
He was trapped. His real space propulsion system was the standard proton-proton drive through a Leason crystal tube, but small. Too small to break free of the tractor beam. Activating it now would only serve to move him through space pulling the dreadnought behind him, and that futile gesture would last only as long as his fuel or the Tark commander's patience. If the latter ran out first, his probe ship might become a target for those banks of weapons which could easily reduce it to motes of spiraling rubble.
There was the warp capacity, of course. It could be used for escape, but not now… not when he was in the thrall of a tractor beam and in such close proximity to a mass as large as the Tark ship. The thought of attempting a subspace drop under those circumstances was almost as frightening as the thought of placing himself at the mercy of the Tarks.
No, it wasn't. A quick look at the canine face that still filled his comm screen convinced him of that. Better to die trying to escape than to place his life in that creature's hands.
He threw himself into the control seat and reached for the warp activator. If the tractor beam and the dreadnought's mass sufficiently disturbed the integrity of the probe ship's warp field, it would be caught between real space and subspace. The experts were still arguing over just what happened then, but the prevailing theory held that the atomic structure of that part of the ship impinging on subspace would reverse polarity. And that, of course, would result in a cataclysmic explosion. It was a fact of life for every spacer. That was why the capacity of the warp unit had to be carefully matched to the mass of the ship; that was why no one ever tried to initiate a subspace jump within the critical point in a star system's gravity well.
He released the safety lock and placed his finger on the activator switch. A cascade of thoughts washed across his mind as he closed his eyes and held his breath… Salli… if the ship blew, at least he'd take the Tarks with him… Salli… was this what had happened to the few probe ships that had been sent this way in the past and were never heard from again?. Salli…
He threw the switch.
XVII
When two coins are equal in debt-paying value but unequal in intrinsic value, the one having the lesser intrinsic value tends to remain in circulation and the other to be hoarded or exported.
Gresham's Law (original version)
Bad money drives out good.
Gresham's Law (popular version)
Mora not only refused to return to Tolive, she insisted on coming along on the next Robin Hood caper. “Give me one good reason,” she said, looking from her husband to Zack, to the Flinters, to Broohnin. “One good reason why I shouldn't go to the mint with you.”
None of them wanted her along, but the non-Kyfhons objected to her presence solely on the basis that she was a woman. They had all come to know Mora well during the past week, and she had charmed every one of them, including Sayers, who was absent today. Even Broohnin's sourness mellowed when she was around. But this was man's work, and although neither Zack nor Broohnin verbalized it internally or externally, each felt that the significance of their mission was somehow diminished if a woman joined them.
The Flinters objected because she was a non-combatant, no more, no less.
LaNague's objection rested on different grounds. Her presence made him feel uncomfortable in some vague way that he found impossible to define. He felt as if he were being scrutinized, monitored, judged. Mora made him feel… guilty somehow. But of what?
“I'm a big girl, you know,” she said when no one accepted her challenge. “And as long as firing a weapon or damaging another person is not involved, I can keep up with the best of you.”
Zack and Broohnin glanced at each other. With the exception of Flint and Tolive, sexual equality was an alien concept on most out-worlds. Men and women had reached the stars as equals, but women had become nest-keepers again as the overall technological level regressed on the pioneer worlds. They would soon be demanding parity with men, but there was no movement as yet. Mora knew this. She obviously chose her words to goad Zack and Broohnin, and to remind the Flinters and her husband of their heritage.
“You'll fly with me,” LaNague said, bringing the dispute to a close. He knew his wife as she knew him. By now each would recognize when the other had reached an intransigent position.
“Good. When do we leave?”
“Now. We've already wasted too much time arguing. And timing is everything today.”
Erv Singh had called Broohnin the day before to report that he had finally been able to place the Barsky box in a vault filled with old currency waiting to be destroyed. He mentioned that the vault was unusually full. LaNague explained the reason for that to his wife as their flitter rose into the air over Primus City.
“The one-mark note has finally been rendered obsolete by inflation; the Treasury Bureau is trying to cut expenses by phasing it out. Supply of the larger denomination bills is being upped. When the good coins started disappearing, that was an early warning sign. But now, even the most obtuse Throner should get the message that something is seriously wrong when small bills are no longer produced.”
They flew toward the dying orange glow of the sun as it leaned heavily on Throne's horizon, over Imperium Park and the surrounding structures that housed the bureaucratic entrails of the Imperium itself, and then over the city's dolee zone, a sector that was expanding at an alarming rate, on to a huge clearing fifty kilometers beyond the limits of Primus City. An impregnable block of reinforced synthestone occupied the middle of that clearing, like an iceberg floating still in a calm sea, nine tenths of its structure below the surface.
LaNague brought his craft to rest in a stand of trees on a hill overlooking the site; the second flitter followed him down. Broohnin emerged first, followed by Zack and the two Flinters. Kanya was carrying an electronic timer of Flinter design, unequaled in precision. She set it on the deck of LaNague's flitter and removed a round white disk from her belt.
“What's that?” Broohnin asked. Something in the man's voice made LaNague turn and look at him. He had worn a bored and dour expression all day. Now he was suddenly full of life and interest. Why?
“A timer,” Kanya said. She did not look up, but concentrated on fitting the disk, which could now be seen to have a red button in its center, into the circular depression atop the timer.
“No… that.” He pointed to the disk.
“That's the trigger for the Barsky box.”
“Do they all look like that? The triggers, I mean.”
“Yes.” Kanya looked up at him. “Why do you ask?”
Broohnin suddenly realized that he was under close scrutiny from a number of sources and shrugged nervously. “Just curious, that's all.” With visible effort, he pulled his eyes away from the trigger and looked at LaNague. “I still don't understand what's going to happen here. Go over it again.”
&
nbsp; “For me, too,” Mora said.
“All right.” LaNague complied for his wife's benefit more than Broohnin's, who he was sure knew exactly what was going to happen. He wondered what was cooking in that bright but twisted mind now. “When activated, the Barsky box in the vault will form an unfocused temporal displacement field in a rough globe around itself. Anything encompassed by that field will be displaced exactly 1.37 nanoseconds into the past.”
“That's all?” Mora said.
“That's enough. Don't forget that Throne is not only revolving on its axis and traveling around its primary; it's also moving around the galactic core along with the other star systems in this arm, while the galaxy itself is moving away from the location of the Big Bang. So it doesn't take too long for Throne to move the distance from here to Primus City.”
Mora frowned briefly and chewed on her lower lip. “I'd hate to even begin the necessary calculations.”
“The Flinters have formulae for it. They've been experimenting with the Barsky apparatus as a means of transportation.” LaNague smiled. “Imagine listing an ETA at point B before the time of departure from point A. Unfortunately, they've been unable to bring anything through alive. But they're working on it.”
“But why the timer?” Mora asked.
“Because the box has to be activated at the precise nanosecond that Throne's axial and rotational attitudes come into proper alignment. The Flinters have it pin-pointed at sometime between 15.27 and 15.28 today. No human reflex can be trusted to send the signal at just the right instant, so an electronic counter is employed.”