Starfishers Triology - Shadowline Part 16

'We got what we came for. You do the flying. I need some sleep."

h.e.l.ler escorted them to the port, which the police had closed till they got the crisis in hand. His okay was necessary before any vessel could lift off.

"Ca.s.sius?" h.e.l.ler said as Walters was about to board. "Do me a favor, eh? Don't hurry back."

Ca.s.sius grinned. For a moment he looked like a boy again, instead of a tired, old, old man. "Karl, if you make me apologize one more time I'll puke. All right? I owe you one. A big one."

"Okay. Okay. You didn't bring them here. Go on. Get out of here before I forget I forgot to charge you with carrying illegal weapons."

Mouse glanced over as Ca.s.sius settled into the acceleration couch beside him. Walters said, "Set a base curve for Helga's World."

Mouse began the programing. "Why there?" He was baffled. By everything. "Ca.s.sius? What happened last night?"

Ca.s.sius answered with a snore.

He slept nine hours. Mouse grew ever more impatient. Ca.s.sius seldom slept more than five, and resented that, as if it were time stolen from his alloted span.

Mouse took the s.h.i.+p offworld, aligned the Helga's World curve, put her into a power fly while getting up influence to go hyper.

"Keep putting on inherent," Ca.s.sius said by way of announcing his return. "On this base you lose about a thousand klick-seconds on your inherent when you drop and we may want to make a fast pa.s.s when we get there."

"Now will you tell me what happened while I was asleep?"

"We got an ID on that old shooter. From my friend Beckhart. Turned out n.o.body else could have filled us in. The guy was supposed to have been dead for two hundred years."

"What?"

"Beckhart's got a computer that remembers everything. When he fed it the guy's personals it dug all the way back to personnel records we captured on Prefactlas. That's where it found him. His name was Rhafu. He worked for the Norbon Family. The Norbon station was where we caught them with their fingers up their b.u.t.ts."

Mouse examined the idea more closely than it seemed to deserve. Ca.s.sius's att.i.tude implied that the information was especially significant. "What's the kicker?"

"Beckhart didn't just answer the question I asked. He went looking for the meaning. He instelled us an abstract of his printouts. This Rhafu wasn't the only survivor. The Family heir, a sort of crown prince, made it through too. They managed to get off Prefactlas and somehow reclaim their Family prerogatives. Very mysterious people. Their own kind don't know any more about them than we do, but they're mucho respected and feared. Sort of the Sangaree's Sangaree. They've turned the Norbon into one of the top Sangaree Families. Their economic base is an otherwise unknown First Expansion world."

"What's the connection with us? That old man didn't try to kill us because we had the wrong color eyes. He meant it personal."

"Very personal. You'd have to have Sangaree eyes to see it, though."

"Well?"

"They'd figure a personal involvement got started the night your grandfather and I s.p.a.ced in on Prefactlas. n.o.body has ever quite figured out how they distinguish what's business, what's the fortunes of war, and what's personal. It's a violent and volatile culture with its own unique rules. The Norbon seem to have decided the Prefactlas raid wasn't just war."

"You don't mean they've picked us for the other half of one of those Family vendettas?"

"I do. It's the only answer that makes sense. And our burning this Rhafu will only make them madder. Don't ask me to tell you why. They don't understand us, either. They can't figure out what makes us want to destroy them."

"I'm lost, Ca.s.sius. What's the connection with Michael Dee? Or is there one? Wouldn't there have to be? To have brought the old man out?"

"There may be one. I want to think about it before I say anything. You've got a red and yellow on your comm board. You might better see who wants to get hold of us."

Mouse did so. After listening a moment, "Ca.s.sius, it's a Starfisher with a relay from Wulf and Helmut."

"Shut up and listen to the man."

In fifteen minutes they knew the worst.

"Push your influence factor to the red line," Ca.s.sius told him. "Keep putting on inherent. I want to be going like the proverbial bat out of h.e.l.l when we go norm again." He remained calm and businesslike while studying the displays the computer brought up on the main astrogational screen. He fed in everything the Darkswords had given them. He plotted alternate hyper arcs for Helga's World.

"But..."

"She'll take it. More if she has to. Check the register. I need the c c-relative on the boat Dee swiped."

Mouse punched it up. "Old Mister Smart, my uncle Michael. He grabbed the slowest d.a.m.ned s.h.i.+p we had. Almost, anyway. Here're a couple of trainers she can outrun."

"One break for the good guys. About time we got one. Well. Look here. We're going to get him. About an hour before he sneaks under Helga's missile umbrella. Sooner if he has to maneuver to get around your father. Start a check down on the weapons systems."

Mouse fidgeted.

"What's the matter?"

"Uh...You think there'll be any shooting?"

Ca.s.sius smiled a broad, wicked smile. "G.o.dd.a.m.ned right, boy. There's going to be beaucoup shooting. First time for you, right? You just hang on and do what I tell you. We'll be all right."

The waiting bothered Mouse. He was not afraid, much. The hours piled up, and the hours piled up, and they seemed no closer than before...

"Here we go," Ca.s.sius said, almost cheerfully. "Got your father on screen. And there's your idiot uncle, hopping around like a barefoot man in a sandbrier patch. Give your guns a burst."

The hours became minutes. Ca.s.sius kept boring in. "Ah, d.a.m.n!" he swore suddenly. "Gneaus, what the h.e.l.l did you have to go and do that for?"

"What?" Mouse demanded. He shed bis harness and leaned over. "What did he do?"

"Sit down, s.h.i.+thead. It's going to get rough."

It got rougher than Mouse could imagine.

Thirty-Two: 3052 AD

My father was not a religious man. Nevertheless, he did have an unshakable faith in predestination. Till the very end he thought he was battling the invincible forces of Fate. You could sense that he expected no victory, but you never despaired. You knew that Gneaus Storm would never surrender.

-Masato Igaras.h.i.+ Storm

Thirty-Three: 3031 AD

The Seiner got through just after Storm left the atmosphere of Helga's World.

"He's gone? Already?" The tension he had been riding like a nightmare suddenly dissipated. He found himself emotionally limp, hanging out to dry. His right hand snaked out, secured the instel receiver.

The limpness did not last. Rage and sorrow smashed down on him. It was a crus.h.i.+ng emotional avalanche. The feelings were so powerful that a small, stunned part of him recoiled in amazement.

There in the privacy of his s.h.i.+p, locked away from all human eyes, he could safely open the flood gates. He did so, venting not only emotions engendered by his failure to save Benjamin and Homer, but his responses to all the frustrations that had been building since first he had heard of Blackworld and the Shadowline. He wept, cursed, asked the G.o.ds what justice there was in a universe where a man could not control his own fate.

The universe and G.o.ds, of course, did not reply.

There was no justice in that momentary eddy in chaos. There never had been or would be. A man made his own justice if he wanted any at all.

Storm knew that. But sometimes even the most strongly anch.o.r.ed mind slips its cables and refuses to accept reality. Once in a while, at least, it seemed the G.o.ds or universe ought to care.

Storm vowed, "I'll get a bit of justice of my own." He had been making a lot of vows lately, he realized. Would he survive long enough to see any of them fulfilled?

The shakes were going. The tears had dried. His voice was losing its tightness. He opened instel communications again. "Starfisher? Are you there? Why are you nosing into this?" Those people did not get involved in the troubles of outsiders.

There was a long delay. "Lady Prudence of Gales, Colonel. And other reasons involving the man you're chasing. Not subject to discussion. Do you wish a relay?"

"Yes. Fortress of Iron."

"Ready when you are, Colonel."

"Wulf? Are you there?"

In time, "Here, Colonel."

"Recall Ca.s.sius."

"He's finished already. He's on his way. I've inserted him into the pursuit pattern."

"Good. Anything new?"

"Dee is running for Helga's World. The Seiners have given us a projected course. He'll be coming right down your throat. I'm using box and plane and I'm tightening it up to keep him headed your way. I've got Ca.s.sius on an intercept that should catch Dee just after he spots you and sheers off Helga's World. The trap should close before he recognizes it."

The trap's mouth closed slowly. Even at velocities many times that of light it took a long ledger of days before the scale of action tightened enough to warrant Storm's taking his s.h.i.+p off auto control. For a while he lay motionless in relation to the nearest stars, listening to the Seiner's reports. He kept influence up so he could make a quick snake-strike at Dee as he came up. Essentially, he was pretending to be a singularity.

Michael did not fall for it. He could not know who was waiting to ambush him, but he did know that there were no singularities near his daughter's world. He s.h.i.+fted course into the one gap apparently open to him.

And there was Ca.s.sius, playing a trick not unlike Storm's but remaining in norms.p.a.ce with an inherent velocity approaching that of light.

Dee's nose swung toward the tiniest of cracks in the closing walls of the trap. He attacked it with every erg his s.h.i.+p could give.

Storm put way on. Ca.s.sius skipped into hyper. The quiet dance, that might but likely would not end in a blaze of weaponry, began. Storm wondered if his brother were desperate enough to fight. It was not Michael's style, but he might panic, not knowing who had blocked his flight.

Maneuver. Counter-maneuver. Feint and lunge. Dee tried to fake Storm out of position for the vital few seconds he needed to whip past and streak for the safety of Helga's World.

Wulf's pursuing box closed in while Dee surrendered straight-line velocity for maneuver.

Ca.s.sius arrowed in on a spear of a course, riding the fastest s.h.i.+p involved. His sprint would put him across Dee's bows if Michael took too long getting past Storm. Even separated by light-hours and without direct communication, Ca.s.sius and Storm worked as a team.

Storm became satisfied that his singles.h.i.+p would outperform his brother's. He could commit one narrow error and still not lose his man. In dealing with Michael a second was a treasure to be h.o.a.rded against the unpredictable, but Gneaus no longer felt like playing safe. He wanted Dee, and wanted him quick. He decided to risk his advantage.

Pus.h.i.+ng as hard as his s.h.i.+p would endure without breaking up under hyper stress, he darted toward where he expected Michael to be next. He fed max power to his influential field. Dee's s.h.i.+p had the stronger generator and would take his under control, but then it would take Michael precious minutes in norm to disentangle the fields. Ca.s.sius would arrive. He would mesh his field with the others long enough for Wulf to slam the lid on the box.

Michael recognized his intention. He sheered off. Too late. The tracks of the singles.h.i.+ps continued to converge.

Storm pulled closer and closer, at a steadily decreasing relative velocity, till his influential sphere just brushed his brother's.

His singles.h.i.+p screamed. Alarms hooted. An effect that could only be described as fifth-dimensional precession took place as both s.h.i.+ps tried to twist away in a direction that did not exist. Storm's s.h.i.+pboard computer calmly murmured portents of disaster.

Swift as lightning and as jagged, hairline cracks scurried across his control-room walls. Even before he heard a sound Storm knew that his engine room's stressteel frame members were snapping, that his generators were crawling free of their mounts. His hand darted toward the manual override, to cancel his approach program, but he knew it was too late. Either his drive or Michael's was badly out of synch.

Dee had won again.

This might be the death-without-resurrection, his hope no more than a chance at a clone. It was no solace that Michael might share his fate.

His hand changed course and shot toward the disaster escape release.

Crystals and fog formed before his vision went. His skin protested the nibbling of a thousand hot little needles as vacuum gulped the contents of his control room. The locked vessels had processed into norm s.p.a.ce. Their conflicting inherent velocities were tearing them apart.

Before the darkness came there was a moment in which he wished he had been a better father and husband. And had had the sense to wear a combat suit going into a combat situation.

Thirty-Four: 2853-2880 AD

Deeth had thought he was immune to pain. h.e.l.l, the girl wasn't even Sangaree...He walked. And walked, without paying any attention to where he was going. His feet responded to some instinct for the debts he owed. They carried him to the s.p.a.ceport.

It had grown during the human occupation. Prefactlas Corporation involved itself in far more s.h.i.+pping than ever the Sangaree had. The port was furiously busy. The Corporation was gutting the world.

He paused to watch the stevedores unloading a big Star Line freight lighter. The Corporation employed natives and former slaves because human muscle power was less expensive than imported lading machinery.

A familiar face turned his way.