Agent of Change (34 page)

Both brows lifted and Val Con set the glass aside, pulled the 'corder onto his lap, and touched the GO button.

"I greet you, brother, and thank you for the lives of myself and the youngest of your sisters. I am to say to you these things, which are true: We are alive and have been well treated, having received food, a place to sleep, and medical aid. I regret that the ship of the Clan has continued its voyage without us. It was undamaged when it left us and should achieve its destination as planned, as it kept course without fail during the seven seasons of its labor." He glanced up, encountered Tanser's glare, and bent again to the device.

"I am also to say that we will be returned our knives and given a ship in which to continue our travels.

"My thanks to you, again, brother, for your care of two of your Clan who are foolish and hasty." He thumbed the OFF stud and looked at Tanser inquiringly.

"Your turn, Sergeant. Sweetness and light, remember."

Miri took the 'corder and punched it on. "Hi, Edger," she began in a singsong monotone completely unlike her usual manner of speaking. "Everything's fine. Wish you were here. Love to the family and see you soon." She banged the OFF switch and shoved the device at Tanser.

He took it by the strap, shaking his head in wonder. "Sergeant, it beats hell out of me how you ever lived this long." He waved the gun at them. "Okay, let's go."

"Go where?" Miri demanded.

"Didn't you just hear? We're givin' you a ship and turnin' you loose. Free citizens, see? The Juntavas keeps its word." He moved the gun again. "Move it."

MIRI STOOD IN the control room of the wrecked yacht, weaving her belt around her waist and watching the viewscreen. The Juntavas ship was just at the edge of her sight, dwindling rapidly until it disappeared

Sighing, she turned from the screen to where Val Con was lying on his back, fidgeting under the piloting board.

"They're gone," she told him.

He didn't answer, but continued his work. Miri sat on the floor to wait.

Presently, he emerged and sat up, the hair across his forehead damp with sweat.

"Well," she asked, "what's the bad news? We sit here for a couple days till we get bashed by low-flying junk? Or go on at sublight for Volmer?"

He gave her a tired grin. "And arrive as skeletons? The bad news could be worse, in fact. I can do some illegal things with power shunts and cross-currents and get up enough power for one modest Jump."

"One Jump?" She lifted her eyebrows.

"One
modest
Jump. We won't raise Volmer."

"Well," she said, bumping her elbow on the knife in her belt and frowning. "One Jump's better'n no Jumps. I guess. What do I do to help?"

THE HUNTING HAD been good since the taking of the Terran yacht, and Commander Khaliiz was pleased. Now it was time to collect the prizes, to return home, to report, and to receive the payment of bounties and the accolades of success.

Commander Khaliiz issued his orders and the ship slid away into the underside of space. Perhaps, he thought, he would allow the new Adjutant the honor of bringing the Terran prize home.

MIRI SIGHED AND dragged a sleeve across her forehead, surveying the pile of junk she had assembled in the forward hold. Val Con was still in the control room, rearranging the innards of the ship's drive. Miri's task was to lighten the mass they had to move when the time came.

She sighed again as she remembered the location of another useless bit of mass and moved off in that direction.

The dead man weighed a lot, even in the light gravity, and it took her longer than she liked to move him up with the rest of the items to be spaced. Finally, she let him slip gently to the floor and stood, breathing hard, looking down at him, wondering who he might have been, and whether he had had a family.

Family meant something to some people. Like Val Con. And Edger. This man had been Terran, and Terrans did not form into clans. Still, she thought suddenly, turning the new idea around in her head, there might be somebody around who would want to know what had happened to him.

She bent and went through his pockets, removing papers, coins, a flat, flexible metal rectangle that looked as if it belonged in a computer, and a folder of holos featuring a woman and two little boys. Bundling it all together she dumped it in her pouch, then went in search of other junk to space.

VAL CON WAS at the board, his hands moving in measured control as if he were playing the 'chora. Miri slid into the copilot's chair and watched the side of his face as he ran through his rituals and read the responses in the board's flickering lights.

After a time he leaned back and smiled at her.

"Everything that can be spaced is spaced," she told him, with a mock salute. "How's life in the clean world?"

He waved a hand at the board. "We have power. We have fuel. Where would you like to go?"

She tipped her head. "What're we near? What's a 'modest' Jump?" She shrugged her shoulders, half-smiling.
"Piloting for Dummies . . . ."

Frowning, he suddenly leaned forward and felt around on the short shelf under the pilot's board; he slid out of his chair and peered inside, pushing his arm way back.

"What?" she demanded.

"Coord book." He sat back on his heels and looked at her. "Miri, when you were gathering things together, did you come across a book, about so—" He shaped it in the air with quick golden fingers. "—probably bound in leather, containing many thin, metallic pages? It would have been in this room."

She shook her head. "Would've showed you something like that first, in case it was important."

He snapped to his feet and made a quick circuit of the room, checking behind and under every instrument panel and chair. Miri got up, pushed at the cushion in her chair looking for large lumps, but found none; she gave the pilot's chair the same treatment, then shook her head. Nothing.

She turned to say so and froze. Val Con was standing in the center of the room, staring at the screen. There was no particular expression on his face.

"Coord book's pretty important?" she ventured, coming to his side and laying a cautious hand on his arm.

He moved his eyes to her face. "Without coordinates, there is no Jump. Coordinates define direction, shape, location."

She considered the implications of his words. "Think Borg Tanser knows that?"

"Yes," he said grimly. "I do."

"Can't Jump without coords?" she persisted. "Take luck of the draw?"

He shook his head. "I could invent some coordinates, just to initiate a Jump, but the chances are very, very good that we'd leave drive to find ourselves inside a sun, or a planet, or an asteroid belt, or another ship, or—"

She laid her hand over his mouth. "Got it." She closed her eyes to think. Thin metallic pages? She had seen something, just recently. Not a book, but something . . . .

"Like this?" She snapped open her pouch, pulled out the dead man's effects, and held out the metal rectangle.

Val Con took it, his eyes questioning.

"The guy in the hold," she explained. "I thought—maybe somebody might want to know what happened."

"Ah." He nodded. "We will tell his family, then." He turned his attention to the rectangle. "Why carry it with him?"

"Will it work?" she demanded.

He was on his way back to the board. "We will see what the computer thinks." Sliding into the pilot's chair, he inserted the page in a slot near the top of the board, flipped two switches, and hit a button.

Lights began to flicker and displays glowed to life. Miri settled back in the copilot's chair to watch.

"Perhaps a student?" Val Con murmured, more to himself than to her, his eyes on the readouts. "A smuggler?" He shook his head as the board flickered into stillness and the slot allowed the metal page to rise to convenient gripping height.

"Will it work?" she asked again, trying to keep the edge out of her voice.

He spun the chair to face her. "There is one set of coordinates within our range," he said slowly. "This particular page holds four. I am familiar with only one set—far out of range. It is for orbit around a planet called Pelaun, an inhabited world that has achieved the technical expertise necessary to establish electronic communication, transworld."

She blinked. "Spaceflight?"

"None."

"And the other coords? The one that's in our range?" She had a feeling she knew what the answer was going to be.

"They are not familiar to me," he said. "The only reason I recall the coords for Pelaun is because I was first Scout in-system."

"Well, I don't know as how I can think of anything
much
worse than being stuck for the rest of my life on some podunk world that thinks a planet-wide comm-net's a big deal."

He smiled slightly. "It's a bit less spectacular than a comm-net," he said gently. "Voice transmission only; no image. And the reception is horrible."

Miri stared at him, but he seemed to be serious. She shifted her eyes to the screen—and sat frozen for a long heartbeat while her mind scrambled to find words for what her eyes were seeing.

"Val Con?" her voice rasped out of her tight throat.

"Yes."

"Something worse," she told him. "There's Yxtrang, just Jumped in-system . . . ."

THE YXTRANG PILOT stared at the readout in disbelief, upped the magnification, and checked the readings once more, cold dread in his heart.

"Commander. Pilot requests permission to speak."

"Permission granted," Khaliiz said.

"The vessel which we captured on our last pass through this system is moving under power, Commander. The scans read the life forces of two creatures."

"Pilot's report heard and acknowledged. Stand by for orders. Second!"

"Commander."

"It was reported to me that none were left alive aboard yon vessel, Second. Discover the man who lied and bring him to me at once."

His Second saluted. "At once, Commander." He turned and marched from the bridge.

Khaliiz eyed the screen, perceived the ship-bounty slipping through his fingers, and was displeased.

"Pursue."

VAL CON CURSED VERY softly, then snapped back to the board, slapped the page into its slot, and demanded coords, position, speed, condition of power in the coils.

They were moving at about one-quarter the speed they could muster, locally. The Yxtrang were pouring on speed, moving to intercept.

"Could we leave now?" asked a small voice to his left.

He turned his head. Miri was sitting rigidly in the copilot's chair, her eyes frozen on the screen and the growing shape of the Yxtrang vessel. Her face was the color of milk; her freckles stood out vividly.

"We must wait until the power has reached sufficient level and the coordinates are locked into the board," he said, keeping his voice even. "We will leave in a few minutes."

"They'll
be
here in a few minutes." She bit her lip, hard, and managed to drag her eyes from the screen to his face. "Val Con, I'm
afraid
of Yxtrang."

He was aware of the tightness of the muscles in his own face, and did not try to give her a smile. "I am also afraid of Yxtrang," he said gently. His eyes flicked to the board, then to the screen. "Strap in."

"What're you gonna do?" She was watching him closely. Some of the color had returned to her face, but she was still stiff in every muscle.

"There is a game Terrans sometimes play," he murmured, dividing his attention between board and screen, his fingers busy with his own straps, "called 'chicken' ... Strap in, cha'trez."

Moving like a manikin, she obeyed; she forced herself to lean back in the chair, her eyes on his profile.

He flipped a toggle. "I see you, Chrakec Yxtrang. Pass us by. We are unworthy to be your prey."

There was a pause for transmission, then a voice, harsh as broken glass, replied in Trade. "Unworthy? Thieves are always worthy game! That ship is ours, Liaden; we have won it once."

"Forgive us, Ckrakec Yxtrang, we are here by no fault of our own. We are not worthy of you. Pass by."

"Release my prize, Liaden, or I shall wrest it from you, and you will die."

Miri licked her lips, steadfastly refusing to look at the screen. Val Con's face was smooth and calm, his voice nearly gentle. "If I release your prize, I shall die in any case. Pass by, Hunter. There is only I, who am recently wounded."

"My scans show two, Liaden."

Miri closed her eyes. Val Con, measuring board against screen, eased the speed of the ship higher, toward the halfway point. "Only a woman, Ckrakec Yxtrang. What proof is that of your skill?"

There was a pause, during which Val Con slipped the speed up another notch and pressed the sequence that locked in the coords.

"Will it please you, when you are captured, Liaden, to watch me while I take my pleasure from your woman? Afterward, I shall blind you and give you as a toy to my crew."

"Alas, Ckrakec Yxtrang, these things would but cause me pain." Coils up! The Yxtrang were finally near enough, beginning the boarding maneuver, matching velocity, and direction . . . .

"It would give you pain!" the Yxtrang cried. "All things give Liadens pain! They are a soft race, born to be the prey of the strong. In time, there will be no more Liadens. The cities of Liad will house the children of Yxtrang."

"What then will you hunt, O Hunter?" He flipped a series of toggles, leaned back in the pilot's chair, and held a hand out to Miri.

Slowly the ship began to spin.

There was a roar of laughter from the Yxtrang, horrible to hear. "Very good, Liaden! Never shall it be said, after you are dead, that you were an unworthy rabbit. A good maneuver. But not good enough."

In the screen, the Yxtrang ship began to spin as well, matching velocity uncertainly.

Miri's hand was cold in his. He squeezed it, gave her a quick smile, and released her, returning to the board.

He gave the ship more spin, and a touch more speed. The Yxtrang moved to match both. Val Con added again to the spin, but left the speed steady.