Mainline (37 page)

Eklun tore his eyes away. He knew the risks, and so did Zay. He had to punch her twice on the arm before she followed suit,

They switched on their suit lights and went to the maintenance airlock, fetching laser cutter and toolkit. In the wreck of the control area, the two bent their heads downward and followed standard procedure—throwing attention into one thing at a time, the SureGrip floor matting underfoot, the next meter of deck spat -Best was to concentrate on something within the compass of your own arms or legs; when you saw pieces of your body, too, stayed conscious of self, and that made it easier to resist the verse siren call of destruction that the beyond whispered with light, its fascinating, oppressing colors... .

"Eklun. Zay. Talk to me," said the Captain. "I haven't heard a word from you. What's going on?"

They both gave a guilty start. Constant talk, another standard procedure.

"Sorry, sir," said the engineer. "We're walking where the power conduits used to be. Maneuver engine is a puddle."

They skirted near-vaporized floor plates, halting beside the dur-alloy-sheathed reactor. Ion exciters and flux gates were reduced lo char by the energy discharge. A hatch plate recessed into the casing covered the resonant crystals precisely braced within. The hatch bowed at the aft end, where it and a good third of the reactor shell had neared meltdown temperatures.

"We'll have to cut this out," Zay said. "Two hours, maybe longer." Slow and careful going through insulating layers, to avoid nicking any displaced prisms in the core.

"Go to it, then," Devin said. "And keep talking to each other. I'm listening, but leave me offline unless you need me."

Eklun unlimbered the laser cutter and they began.

Satisfied that his crew was safe and their salvage work well under way, Devin returned to the problem that demanded most of his cyber capacity and all of his unwired attention.

On what heading lay Selmun III?

There was no telling where the warp flicker had left them in relative space. Once blinded to a known starting point, further course alterations were as likely to take a ship away from her goal as closer to it. Every hour they spent pushing ahead in warp might be one light-year of travel they'd have to make up later.

Devin fine-tuned sensor systems until he had a single long, very narrow sensor probe, extending half again as far as normal long range would permit. He pointed the probe to the rear of the
Fortune,
and swept it in a calculated arc across the void. Slowly, he smiled. As he had known it would, a warbling cycle tone native lo the warp dimension filled his senses. In a moment, computers eliminated the background noise and the sensors relayed nothing at all.

That's perfect, thought Shiran. Now to see if we can find anything worth hearing.

He initiated an automated routine, sweeping the sky in a pattern of overlapping arcs that, over a period of hours, would encompass every degree of space that englobed them. If a space lane was anywhere within two days of travel, the long probe should pick up the distinctive tone of a navigation buoy, log its bearing, and alert Devin.

All we need is one beacon, he encouraged himself. That, and a couple of drive crystals, and we're on our way.

"We've got two, Captain!" called Zay. "Two intact crystals, maybe three." She cradled one in her hands, a translucent emerald-green prism a meter long and two hands wide. "The third is chipped on the focal point, but I think we can refacet that end."

"Bring them all," said Devin. "Work with the good ones first."

The spacers carried the fragile crystals out of the risky environment in D2. In Drive One they unsuited, then began work on a jury-rigged power booster that would even out their erratic warp reaction. Devin continued his cyber-attentive examination of the beyond.

Two-thirds of a search hemisphere had been completed when he heard the distinctive squall of a navigation buoy. It was the 1057 waypoint marker on the Claw-Chwstyoch shipping lane— still in the Tion subsector, but displaced high above the plane of the galactic equator. Once in the lane, they were five days out from R'debh.

There's no other option, Devin decided. The
Fortune
can't survive another warp encounter in the wilds between patrolled space.

They were compelled to take the safer course back to Selmun III.

He started to relax, until rigger feedback reminded him why he should not. Even if they could stabilize the warp bubble, performance was far from optimal. The engineering computer gave an estimate of six days' travel time, not five.

One day too late to help anyone.

Devin fished into the medkit beside the Captain's chair and injected himself with Syntozac. The drug heightened synaptic ae tivity and boosted rigger performance, and he needed every advantage possible, from this moment on, to wring all he could from the
Fortune.
They were no longer in danger of core failure, or ofl wandering lost. But they had yet to win back home in time to do some good.

Devin began to tap engineering and technical computers, to find a way to make five days' travel in a ship that could only do it in six.

It was the
eve of the trade with Edesz, and Lish prowled like a fenced kria.

The
Fortune
had not returned. No one remarked on it; they didn't have to. Something had gone wrong, and there was no word from Devin about what had delayed him. It looked like he was not going to make the meet.

Kastlin watched the smuggler abandon her third pointless cryocase inventory and round on the service cabinet to search for a drink. At least she won't be ruined out of hand, he told himself. Without the nanotech she isn't in violation of any laws after all. A blessing in disguise, save her from herself....

He saw the thunderous look in her eyes, and wisely kept out of her way.

Lish and her companions went to sleep far too late and got up far too early. In the residence quarters of the Lairdome they gathered around breakfast, a meager repast served only to divert them from their joyless vigil.

Reva rearranged the food on her plate for the third time, then finally shoved it into the center of the table. "Sea Father, let's out with it. Lish, what are you going to do now?"

She had spoken the unspeakable. The smuggler shrank back in her chair, staring into the murky brown depths of her cup of osk.

"You can't give up now," Reva prodded. "You're going to tell Edesz you need more time, aren't you?"

Lish looked up, her eyes grim. "I can't ask for more time."

The assassin's brows came together. "Are you sun-struck? Of course you can."

"The Scripman won't wait for his money," she snapped. "It's due tomorrow."

"Scripman." Reva waved a hand. "If you get a little more time from Edesz, you can pay the loan shark back, with late penalty."

"His late penalty on two mil is my life, Reva." She hunkered into her chair. "It's not negotiable."

"Then I'll get you offworld, if it comes to that," the assassin volunteered.

Lish shook her head. "Then I'm broke and on the run from a Scripman, and my reputation as Holdout is shot, because I couldn't hand the goods to Edesz. What am I supposed to do then?"

Reva made an exasperated sound, and Vask gave up pretending to eat. "Well, what
are
you going to do?" the assassin demanded. "Apologize to everyone and put your head on the block tomorrow?"

Lish shot her an acid look. "I'm going to get what's mine, that's what I'm going to do. We'll trade, as planned."

The others stared at her as her meaning sunk in. "You mean, a con?" Vask asked incredulously. "Fake the delivery to get your money?"

"That's right."

Reva shook her head. "If you think the streetwar was a battle, wait until the Gambru League comes hunting for you."

"But I'm not going to be here for that, am I?" Lish asked in a saccharine tone. "I'm leaving after payoffs are made, remember?"

"Lish—"

"Leave it alone, Reva. I don't see another way. Do you?"

The assassin had no answer for her friend. Neither did Vask.

"That's what I thought," Lish said. "Then let's get on with it, shall we?"

Reva watched her come to her feet, move away from the table. "How are you getting offworld, if the
Fortune
isn't here?"

The smuggler looked back. "With that much money, finding a ship won't be hard. Now are you two going to help me set up a cryocase, or what?"

They followed her to the warehouse, and kept their misgivings to themselves.

Three hours after sunrise, Rinoco Park opened its gates. Toward noon, the trickle had become a flood of bodysuit-and-breather-wearing tourists. Anonymous among their numbers, Internal Security and R'debh Commandos infiltrated the waterland. Park Security ushered them through an unalarmed gateway that would not betray the weapons they carried, then they were directed to the air-filled entrance dome and left to mix with the crowds of vacationers.

An interlocking chain of drydomes ringed the waterland park, from the first large entry bubble where visitors were welcomed to the farthest observation domes at twenty-five meters depth. Hidden glowspots and diffuse lighting raised the color density at twenty meters depth to a level normally seen only half that far from the surface. Within the air-filled ring were freshers, restaurants, aid stations, wet- and drysuit rentals, and other services. Similar facilities were offered in exterior wetdomes, for the comfort of water-breathing species touring the Park. Airlocks at intervals let tourists pass into or out of the waterland attractions as they pleased.

Half the offworld tourists and most all R'debh natives found their way outside, and stayed there for the majority of their sojourn. Others viewed the Park from the circuitous Promenade inside the drydome ring. Agents gathered there, too, to stroll near the fire spouts, oxygenated columns of water flash-ignited, then extinguished a second later as ocean overwhelmed the pillar of flame. It was a spectacular if artful creation, a series of jet igniting and dying at intervals, placed between the natural attractions of thermal spas and lava grottos.

Other IntSec agents and all of the Commandos extended the short webbed struts on their fin shoes and joined the tourists swimming fish-like through the features of the waterland. Each operative carried a laser pistol concealed in belt-bag. Each wore pressure-adapted ear set for communications, and the full-face breather that permitted radio comms. Many tourists favored the masks as well, so the Commandos and IntSec officers blended easily into the crowds.

Obray joined Captain Survek of the Commandos at a contemplation grotto halfway up a steep lava ridge. The impromptu command post flanked the viewing plaza before the fire geysers. Units reported their readiness, and mingled with tourists in the plaza.

Now all they had to do was wait.

Borgbeasts milled in
the Baffles, close-packed so they could move in a coordinated wave when called. The Vernoi who handled them drifted at the ridgeline, listening for the signal to advance into the Park.

The Vernoi did not detect anything amiss with their pack, nothing they had not already learned to suffer with through the long days of a gradual decline. Handlers and life-friends alike rested lethargically, worn to a point that would have taxed the endurance of any creature, large or small. Another one of the beasts was nonresponsive, showing the same signs of despair that Wee'ska had, shortly before she had gone on the death-swim. That particular life-friend would join the large pair on the Shelfland, lingering in reserve to hinder pursuers, and would not enter the Park, where swift and accurate maneuvering in uncomfortably shallow waters would be required.

Confined, the borgbeasts' discomfort became a palpable knot of agony, resounding through the Baffles into the echoing valleys and chasms of the seabed. The hurt-filled groan detected by the ghost-ray swelled into an amplified chorus of pain, a soul-felt lament radiated by creatures in subsonics and psychic cries only subconsciously sensed by their handlers.

The Sea Father heard their complaint clearly, and came to
see
who it was that called louder and longer than the one he had already taken.

Wafting through ravines, drifting over silted wastes, the ghost-ray flexed broad wings and sailed through turbid water. He heeded a woeful beacon clamoring through submerged valleys, rebounding off ridges of sea-carved limestone and lava.

Someone wanted to die, someone who cried long and loud. Or many someones, together. The Sea Father of R'debh heard, and was drawn irresistibly to the call.

Devin's long-range vision
flickered and died as burned out
sen
sors dropped offline. The spacer cursed, and reset his rigged
vi
sion to midrange, instead.

It had started with the refaceting of the chipped third crystal The idea had seemed like a good one at the time, the only thi: that could boost their speed the critical percentage points they needed to reach Selmun III on time. Zay had added the thir crystal to their power booster configuration, then she and Devin had spent their waking hours in shifts, juggling performance parameters ever since in the jury-rigged overdrive system.