The Jupiter Theft Part 26

"He's a true-blue," Maggie said. "If Klein told him the government wanted him to lift both feet at once, he'd hang there in the air until he was told to come down."

Captain Boyle stepped forward. "Where did you get that gun?" he said gruffly to Klein.

Klein looked him over coolly. "All right, Captain, I'll tell you," he said. "The chamber was inside the heel of a pair of my boots. The grip was in the other heel. The barrel was the handle of my safety razor. The spare clips were stacked in the bottom two thirds of a bottle of aftershave lotion, under a false reservoir.

I was able to retrieve it this morning, thanks to Commander Jameson, along with the rest of the equipment concealed in my kit."

Boyle stuck out a big hand. "Give it here, mister," he said.

Klein lifted the gun slightly, not pointing it anywhere in particular. "It's a very compact piece of ordnance," he said conversationally, "barely three eighths of an inch through the grip, but it's fully automatic. It'll fire under any conditions-no lubricants, just a double-chain fluorocarbon film bonded to the moving parts. It's designed for riot control. It fires a stream of explosive microflechettes, one hundred rounds to a clip. It could cut a man in half."

"You'd have to be crazy to take a thing like that aboard a s.p.a.cecraft," Boyle rumbled. "Hand it over."

"Captain Boyle," Klein said. "You are hereby directed to render all a.s.sistance and cooperation to an authorized agent of the Reliability Board under the directive governing the conduct of officials in the employ of GovCorp."

Boyle continued to look Klein in the eye until Klein averted his gaze slightly. Then, with a contemptuous glance at the slim, squarish weapon, he dropped his outstretched hand and stood, legs apart, with his hands clasped behind his back.

"What is it you have in mind?" Boyle asked.

Klein looked around at the group cl.u.s.tered on the broad ledge behind Boyle: Kay Thorwald and Captain Hsieh, Ruiz and Maybury and Dr. Chu, with Mike Berry pressing forward to hear. He looked over at the silent and attentive crowd. Then he said, "Captain, perhaps we'd better go to the far side of the enclosure with one of the Chinese representatives and discuss it there."

"Spit it out, mister," Boyle said. "We're all waiting to hear." He stood fast, solid as a rock.

Chia said, "We will need volunteers. Go on, you say it."

Reluctantly Klein said, "We're going to carry out our contingency orders."

"What are you talking about?" Boyle said.

"Major Hollis and his men are dead-in the line of duty. But Deputy Commander Yao's men are capable of carrying out the mission. It coincides with their own orders."

"Nuke the Cygnan s.h.i.+ps? You're insane. You'd never even make it to the air lock of this tin can we're in, let alone cross empty s.p.a.ce to our own s.h.i.+p!"

"You're wrong, Captain. Loyalty Officer Chia and I have worked it out very carefully. We've reconnoitered the immediate area personally, on our outing with Commander Jameson. We've spent weeks interrogating every member of the crew as to their recollections of the layout of the enemy s.h.i.+p-many of them were conscious or semiconscious when they were brought in-and we've pieced together an escape route. You yourself drew such a map, if you recall. We'll want that too, by the way."

Jameson flinched as he listened to Klein. So that was why the man had been so friendly, so inquisitive about his experiences in Cygnan territory!

Boyle growled, "There's fifteen miles to cover-uphill-before you even get, to the hub of the s.h.i.+p. And the areas as densely populated as Hong Kong."

"The Cygnans don't like to travel across open s.p.a.ces. There are service routes. If we encounter any of the enemy, we're armed. Captain, it's no different from crossing any other enemy territory. I was a counterguerrilla during the Baja uprising-"

"A fine piece of butchery that was, Boyle said curtly.

"I don't like your att.i.tude, Captain," Klein said.

"You're not required to, Mister Klein. You were giving me the information I'll need to evaluate your plans. Get on with it."

The encircling crowd listened neutrally to the exchange, jockeying for position. Jameson managed to force his way to the forefront, Maggie at his back. His further progress was blocked by a grinning Gifford.

"Sorry, Commander," Gifford said. A muscular young Chinese from the Struggle Brigade was backing him up with a fist wrapped around a chunk of the cementlike terrace material.

"You're flirting with mutiny, Giff," Jameson said.

"Nothin's happened yet," Gifford said. "In the meantime, why don't you just stay put." He gave Jameson a friendly wink.

Up on the next ledge Klein was saying: "I don't have to do this, Captain, but I could use your help, so I'll tell you. Our chances are reasonable. We've got weapons and we can get more. Between Chia and me, we've got a full range of electronic surveillance equipment we brought aboard as b.u.t.tons, zippers, uniform tabs, and the like. We can drop spy-eyes and acoustic detectors to guard our rear, and we have subminiaturized mobile probes we can send ahead for reconnaissance." He was holding something invisibly small out in his palm to show Boyle.

"And then?" Boyle said. "How do you get across to our s.h.i.+p?"

"It's less than a hundred miles away, according to Yeh. He got a look through an outside port when they had him sequestered. We can make it on suit jets, and our suits are right outside in that warehouse section."

"What's to keep the Cygnans from coming after us?"

Jameson heard the "us" and didn't like it. Was Boyle starting to take all this seriously? "Captain, he called out.

Boyle paid him no attention Gifford and the Chinese strongarm made a warning gesture.

Klein waved his flat little pistol. "We'll keep them busy with a few nuclear bombs. Then they won't have time to worry about us."

Boyle shook his head authoritatively. "We'd be sitting ducks. It would take hours to get the boron reaction going, even if our engines are still undamaged, and in the meantime-"

Chia leaned past Klein. "We have thought of that. We will have Comrade Li with us. He can use the Callisto lander to get us moving. The chemical engines will fire immediately."

Klein nodded. "And the automatic probes by themselves provide enough thrust to break us out of Jupiter orbit and start us coasting sunward. We checked with Gifford."

Boyle stared at his feet for a while, his hands clasped behind his back. Finally he lifted his head. "You seem to have thought it all out. I don't think the odds are good, but we're duty bound to escape if we can. Captain Hsieh and I will be in command, of course. I'll take your weapon. We can't order everyone to go with us-it's going to be a farfetched gamble-but I imagine a majority of the crew will elect to take the chance-"

"Hsieh will not go," Chia hissed. "He is traitor. Comrade Yeh can operate s.h.i.+p with you."

"Captain," Klein said softly. "You don't understand the situation. We can only take essential personnel.

The bomb crew and a minimum number to get the s.h.i.+p back in operation. Any more will slow us down."

From the crowd, Omar Tuttle shouted: "What happens to the rest of us? Scientific personnel and the like? We stay here and get nuked with the Cygnans?"

Klein's otter head jerked around, trying to identify the speaker. "We won't bomb this pod of the s.h.i.+p,"

he said smoothly. "We can cripple the s.h.i.+p with a low-yield bomb in the drive section, placed fifteen or more miles down the shaft. With any luck you can stay alive until Earth can rescue you. In the meantime you'll all be no worse off than you are now."

"Crud!" a peppery voice yelled. "It'd take years to get up another Jupiter expedition. What the h.e.l.l do you think the Cygnans will be doing all that time? And then what? You think the crew is going to fight a billion Cygnans hand to hand and get us out alive? We're stuck here and we'd better make the best of it!"

Klein located the voice. "You're one of the ones who's coming with us, Kiernan. You'll be needed to reestablish a s.h.i.+pboard ecology."

"The h.e.l.l I am! I'm needed right here!"

"You'll shut up and obey orders!" Klein snapped. "Or I'll have you up on Reliability Board charges when we get back!"

Kiernan started to say something, then thought better of it as Fiaccone appeared next to him with a length of pipe. People had started to edge away from Kiernan, leaving a clear s.p.a.ce around him, Jameson noted wryly. They didn't want to get involved. Mention of the Reliability Board had done that, though Earth was half a billion miles away. You had that kind of prudence embedded in your bones when you grew up working for GovCorp.

Not Boyle, though. "Mr. Kiernan has a point," he said deliberately. "Let's not raise any false hopes.

Those who stay behind will stay for good, unless Earth gets some kind of communication going with the Cygnans."

He turned to Klein. "And we're not going to jeopardize their safety by initiating hostile action. I want that clearly understood. This is an escape attempt, not a military action. The decision to attack these aliens with nuclear weapons is one that can only be made on Earth. You couldn't do anything except antagonize the creatures. How many missiles do you think you could get off before they retaliated? And how any missiles do you think would get to their targets when they can match velocities freehand on those broomsticks of theirs?"

"I don't know," Klein admitted. "But we can inflict as much damage on the enemy as we can before we leave."

Jameson had heard enough. Before Gifford realized what he was up to, Jameson gave him a shove that bowled him over. The Chinese strongarm made a swipe with his fistful of artificial rock, but missed. In the low 'gravity, Jameson vaulted to the ledge and ended up standing beside Boyle.

"Captain," he said. "Before you go along with this, you'd better listen to what Dr. Ruiz has to say."

"Shut up," Klein said.

Yeh made a move toward Ruiz, but Boyle said sharply, "Hold it right there. I think we all better hear this."

Yeh halted, and Klein lost the chance to control the situation. The crowd had started rustling again, straining to get close. Klein evidently was nervous about the impression that rough stuff might make.

"The Cygnans are going to leave this system in about six days," Ruiz said.

There was a moment of shocked silence; then pandemonium broke out. When it died down, Mike Berry shouted, "You told us they'd be here for over three thousand years!"

Ruiz pa.s.sed a hand wearily over his eyes. "That was the averaged figure," he said. "It still holds. But Earth seems to be one of the exceptions."

"You withheld this information?" Boyle asked in a hard voice.

"Yes. I had very good reasons."

"Captain, this was my doing," Jameson began.

"We'll discuss that later," Boyle said. "You said you had reasons. Go on."

"Discussion's ended," Klein said, raising his little gun. "I already know all about it."

Ruiz looked at the gun with pointed contempt. "How do you know?" he said. "Have the two of you been planting your eavesdropping devices around this enclosure?"

Chia broke in breathlessly, half addressing the crowd. "Six days, sure! Means we must hurry! No time left!"

"Shoot if you're going to," Ruiz snapped. "Otherwise put the silly thing down."

"I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt for the moment, Dr. Ruiz," Boyle said harshly, "but don't try my patience. We're all waiting to hear your explanation."

Ruiz took his time about it. He ran through his computations in a dry lecture-hall voice. "So we can be reasonably certain," he finished, "that if the Cygnan fleet is allowed to leave on schedule, Earth will escape with no more than a bad case of the surface hiccups. But if Mr. Klein and his overzealous friends manage to delay the Cygnan departure by as much as a month, the human race stands a good chance of being seriously depleted, or entirely wiped out. In the worst case, the Earth would fall into the sun."

"You don't know," Boyle temporized. "You're only guessing. There's no way of predicting how long the Cygnans might be delayed. Earth could be at the other side of its...o...b..t."

"The Cygnan route crosses Earth's...o...b..t twice-on opposite sides of it. The combined strike zone adds up to at least one hundred twenty degrees out of three hundred and sixty.At least! Are you a gambling man, Captain? Do you want to bet that the human race has a two-to-one chance of staying alive?"

Boyle was silent a long time. He stood in his bulldog position, his lower lip thrust out, a frown on his wide forehead.

"We're wasting time," Klein said. "In about six hours that overhead plumbing's going to be filled with those vermin-ridden snakes."

Heads swiveled involuntarily to fix on the darkened tubes that twisted through the zooscape. Some of them looped down almost to ground level. They'd been pried and hammered and hacked at by some of the more belligerent younger men, but n.o.body had been able to so much as scratch them.

So many people in the crowd missed Boyle's first step toward Klein. The captain's hand was extended.

"We're not going anywhere," Boyle said in a level voice. "That's an order. I'll take that gun now."

Klein actually began backing away. "Don't make waves, Captain," he said. "We can get along without you if we have to."

Jameson tensed, gauging his distance from Klein, from Yeh and Chia. The others were too far away to bother about. A few yards away he could see Mike Berry stirring uneasily.

"Hand it over," Boyle said, and lunged forward, making a grab for it.

There was a fluttering sound in the thin air, like someone riffling the pages of a book, and Boyle was suddenly writhing on the ground, his leg almost severed at the knee.

A woman screamed, and there was a general scramble among the spectators to get out of the way.

Jameson, off balance, fought to stay still.

Klein swung the tiny gun around in an arc. "Anybody else?" he said.

Boyle was still conscious, but looked as if he was going into shock. The sliver-sized microflechettes had st.i.tched across his leg, almost blowing it off. Blood spurted from the pulpy mess, black in the chalky light.

Down in the struggling throng, the voice of Janet Lemieux sounded, high, clear, and indignant. "You get out of my way, Jack Gifford!Move!" In a moment she was kneeling next to the captain, taking off her blouse and making a tourniquet out of it. She looked up impatiently. "Somebody get me my medical bag,"

she ordered. "Hurry!" The kit had been among the priority items Jameson had managed to bring back with him that morning.

Klein and his gang had drawn into a tight, cohesive group and were edging their way from the scene along the broad ap.r.o.n of the terrace. They'd made a mess of it, and they knew it. People got out of their way hastily, parting to let them through. Jameson watched them go, along the rim of the stepped bowl, all the way to the opposite side, toward the entrance. He could see their forms, tiny and dim, gathered in a circle, having some kind of conference.

Maggie had found him again. She hung on to his arm, "Tod, what's going to happen?"

"I don't know," he said.

Janet was thumbing back one of Boyle's eyelids, looking at it with a coldlight stick. She'd got Maybury to help her. The little astronomy tech was elevating a plastic bag with a tube leading down to a needle in Boyle's arm.

"Is he going to lose the leg?" Jameson inquired, bending over.

Janet gave him a look of tight fury. "Probably," she said. "And there's no way to clone a new one for him here."

Maybury said, her voice shaking, "Isn't there anything you cando, Commander?"

Jameson shook his head. "I could rally some of the men. We could arm ourselves with the garden tools and pipes from the hydroponics equipment. But Klein has the upper hand. We can't get near him with that automatic weapon of his. Those things have a range of a couple of hundred yards in this gravity, and aim doesn't count."

"But you've got to stop them! They're crazy!"

Ruiz limped over and rested a hand on Maybury's shoulder. She looked up at him with quick grat.i.tude.

"Commander Jameson's right," Ruiz said. "Chia has a hand-laser, too. I saw it. And the devil knows what other weapons they smuggled in here."