The Night's Dawn Trilogy (47 page)

“Roger,” the marine captain acknowledged.

“The Ciudad,” Eileen Carouch muttered as she accessed the Puerto de Santa Maria file in her neural nanonics. “There are several
insurrectionist cells based there, according to the planetary government’s Intelligence agency. They are pushing hard for
independence.”

Attention everybody,
Syrinx broadcast,
I want us out of stealth mode the moment we emerge. This
Lady Macbeth
is fitted with maser cannons, so let’s not have any mistakes. Chi, you have fire-control authority as of now. If they make
one smartarse move, slice them in two.
Nephele
, you keep a sharp watch for approaching ships. If these insurrectionists are desperate enough to try and obtain antimatter-confinement
technology they may be dumb enough to try and assist their courier.

We’ll cover you,
Targard, the
Nephele
’s captain, replied.

Syrinx returned her attention to
Oenone
’s sensor inputs. The
Lady Macbeth
had reverted to a perfect sphere. Blue ion flames shrank away to nothing. There was a sharp twist in space’s uniformity.

Go,
she commanded.

Oenone
erupted out of the wormhole terminus seventeen hundred kilometres distant from the
Lady Macbeth
. A blizzard of foam flakes swirled away as electronic sensors and thermo-dump panels were uncovered around the crew toroid.
Fusion generators in the lower hull combat systems toroid powered up. X-ray lasers deployed. Gravity returned to the crew
toroid. The distortion field swelled outwards, accelerating the voidhawk up to seven gees. It chased a sharp curve round to
align on the
Lady Macbeth
. Two hundred kilometres away the
Nephele
was shaking off its stealth cloak.

Ciudad was a distant lacklustre speck, with a small constellation of industrial stations wrapped around it. Strategic defence
sensor radiation raked across the
Oenone
.

Syrinx was aware of a curious secondary oscillation in the distortion field. Foam was streaming away from all across the hull.

That’s better,
Oenone
sighed almost subliminally.

Syrinx didn’t have time to form a rebuke. A transmitter dish unfolded from the lower hull toroid, swinging round to focus
on the
Lady Macbeth
.

“Starship
Lady Macbeth
,” she relayed through the transmitter’s bitek processors. “This is Confederation Navy ship
Oenone
. You are ordered to hold your position. Do not activate your reaction drive, do not attempt to jump away. Stand by for rendezvous
and boarding.”

Oenone
’s distortion field reached out to engulf the Adamist starship.

Syrinx could hear Tula communicating with Ciudad’s defence control centre, informing them of the interception.

“Hi there,
Oenone
,” Joshua Calvert’s voice came cheerfully out of the bridge’s AV pillars. “Are you in some kind of trouble? How can we assist?”

Lying prone on her couch, her teeth gritted against the four-gee acceleration, Syrinx could only glance at the offending pillar
in disconcerted amazement.

Oenone
covered the last five kilometres cautiously, every sensor and weapon trained on the
Lady Macbeth
, alert for the slightest hint of treachery. At a hundred and fifty metres’ distance, the voidhawk rotated slowly, presenting
its upper hull towards the Adamist starship. The two extended airlock tubes, then touched and sealed. Larry Kouritz led his
squad into the
Lady Macbeth
’s life-support capsules, executing the penetration and securement procedures with textbook precision.

Syrinx watched through
Oenone
’s sensor blisters as the crew toroid’s clamshell hangar doors hinged apart. Oxley piloted their small boxy multifunction
service vehicle out into space, yellow-orange chemical flames propelling it round towards
Lady Macbeth
’s open cargo hatch.

Joshua Calvert was marched into the bridge by two marines in dark carbotanium armour suits. He grinned round affably at the
members of Syrinx’s crew, with an even wider display of teeth when his eyes found her.

She shifted uncomfortably under the handsome young man’s attention. This was not how the interception was supposed to be going.

We’ve been had,
Ruben told her abruptly.

Syrinx flicked a glance at her lover. He was sitting behind his console, an expression of glum resignation settling on his
features. He combed his fingers back through his beret of curly white hair.

What do you mean?
she asked.

Oh, just look at him, Syrinx. Does that look like a man facing a forty-year sentence for smuggling?

We were on the
Lady Macbeth
for the whole flight, she never rendezvoused with anybody.

Ruben simply raised an ironic eyebrow.

She returned her attention to the tall captain. She was annoyed at the way his gaze seemed to be fastened on her breasts.

“Captain Syrinx,” he said warmly. “I must congratulate you and your ship. That was a superb piece of flying, really quite
superb. Jesus, you scared the crap out of some of my crew the way you jumped us like that. We thought you were a pair of blackhawks.”
He stuck his hand out. “It’s a pleasure to meet a captain who is so obviously talented. And I hope you don’t take offence,
but an extremely attractive captain as well.”

Yes, we’ve definitely been had.

Syrinx ignored the offered hand. “Captain Calvert, we have reason to suspect you are involved with importing proscribed technology
into this star system. I am therefore cautioning you that your ship will be searched under the powers invested in me by the
Confederation Assembly. Any refusal to permit our search is a violation of Confederation space regulatory code which permits
lawful officers full access to all systems and records once a request has been made by said officers. I am now making that
request. Do you understand?”

“Well, gosh, yes,” Joshua said earnestly. A note of doubt crept in. “I hate to ask, but are you quite sure you’ve got the
right ship?”

“Perfectly sure,” Syrinx said icily.

“Oh, well of course I’ll cooperate in any way I can. I think you navy people do a great job. It’s always reassuring for us
commercial vessels to know we can always rely on you to maintain interstellar order.”

“Please. Don’t spoil the effect now, son,” Ruben said wearily. “You’ve been doing so well.”

“I’m just a citizen happy to oblige,” Joshua said.

“A citizen who owns a ship that has an antimatter drive,” Syrinx said sharply.

Joshua’s gaze refocused on the front of her pale blue ship-tunic. “I didn’t design it. That’s the way it was built. Actually
it was built by the Ferring Astronautics company in Earth’s O’Neill Halo. I understand Earth is the greatest Edenist ally
in the Confederation? That’s what my didactic history courses say, anyway.”

“We have a common viewpoint,” Syrinx said reluctantly, anything else would have sounded like an admission of guilt.

“Couldn’t you have the drive taken out?” Ruben asked.

Joshua managed an appropriately concerned expression. “I wish I could afford to. But there was a lot of damage when my father
saved those Edenists from the pirates. The refit took all the money I had.”

“Saved which Edenists?” Cacus blurted.

Idiot,
Syrinx and Ruben told him together. The life-support engineer spread his hands helplessly.

“It was an aid convoy to Anglade,” Joshua said. “There was a bacteriological plague there several years ago. My father joined
the relief effort, of course; what are commercial needs compared to saving human life? They were taking viral-processing equipment
to the planet to manufacture an antidote. Unfortunately they were attacked by blackhawks who wanted to steal the cargo, that
kind of equipment is expensive. Jesus, I mean some people are really low, you know? There was a fight, and one of the escort
voidhawks was wounded. The blackhawks were closing in for the kill, but my father waited until the crew got out. He jumped
with a blackhawk’s distortion field locked on. It was the only chance they had, they were badly damaged, but the old
Lady Mac
, she got them out alive.” Joshua closed his eyes, remembering old pain. “Father didn’t like to mention it much.”

No kidding?
Ruben asked heavily.

Was there ever a plague on Anglade?
Tula asked.

Yes,
Oenone
said.
Twenty-three years ago. I don’t have any record of an attack on an aid convoy, though.

You do surprise me,
Syrinx said.

This captain seems to be a nice young man,
Oenone
said.
He’s obviously very taken with you.

I’d sooner join an Adamist nunnery. And just leave the psychological analysis to us humans, please.

The silence in her mind was reproachful. “Yes, well, that was the past,” Syrinx said awkwardly to Joshua Calvert. “Your problem
is here in the present.”
Syrinx?
Oxley called. The cautious mental tone warned her. Yes?

We’ve opened two of their cargo-pods. They both contain the tokamak coils listed in the manifest. No antimatter-confinement
technology in sight.

What? They can’t have tokamak coils.
She looked through Oxley’s eyes into the MSV’s tiny cabin. Eileen Carouch was strapped in a web next to him; several screens
were covered in complicated multi-coloured graphics. The liaison officer wore a worried frown as she studied the displays.
Outside the port, Syrinx could see one of the
Lady Macbeth
’s cargo-pods gripped in the MSV’s heavy-duty waldo arm. It had been opened, and the tokamak coils had been removed by some
of the mandible-like manipulator waldos.

Eileen Carouch turned to face Oxley. “It doesn’t look good. According to our information both of these pods should contain
the confinement coils.”

We’ve been had,
Ruben said.

Will you stop saying that,
Syrinx demanded.

What do you want us to do?
Oxley asked.

Examine every pod supposed to hold the antimatter-confinement coils.

OK.

“Everything all right?” Joshua asked.

Syrinx opened her eyes, and manufactured a killer-sweet smile. “Just fine, thank you.”

Eileen Carouch and Oxley opened all eighteen cargo-pods supposed to contain the illegal coils. In every one they found neatly
packaged tokamak coils.

Syrinx ordered them to open another five pods at random. They contained tokamak coils.

Syrinx gave up. Ruben was right, they’d been had.

That night she lay on her bunk, unable to sleep even though the body tensions due to ten days of enforced stealth routine
had almost abated. Ruben was asleep beside her. There had been no prospect of sex when they came off duty, her mood was too
black. He seemed to accept their defeat with a phlegmatism which she found annoying.

Where did we go wrong?
she asked
Oenone
.
That ratty old ship was never out of your sight. You followed them superbly. I was more worried about the
Nephele
keeping up. Its spacial orientation isn’t a patch on yours.

Perhaps it was the operatives at Idria who lost track of the coils?

They were very certain the coils had been put on board. I could accept Calvert hiding one set in the ship, there’s a lot of
cubic volume there, but not eighteen.

There must have been a switch.

But how?

I don’t know. I’m sorry.

Hey, it’s not your fault. You did everything you were asked to, even when you were coated in foam.

I hate that stuff.

I know. Well, we’ve only got another two months to go. We’ll be civilians after that.

Great!

Syrinx smiled in the cabin’s half light.
I thought you liked military duty.

I do.

But?

But it’s lonely, all those patrols. When we’re on commercial runs we’ll meet lots of other voidhawks and habitats. It’ll be
fun.

Yes, I suppose it will. It’s just that I would have liked to finish on a high note.

Joshua Calvert?

Yes! He was laughing at us.

I thought he was nice. Young and carefree, roaming the universe. Very romantic.

Please! He won’t be roaming it for much longer. Not with an ego like that. He’ll make a mistake soon enough, that sheer arrogance
of his will force him into it. I’m only sorry we won’t be there when he does.
She put an arm over Ruben so that he would know she wasn’t angry with him when he woke. But when she closed her eyes the
normal vista of starfields that accompanied her into sleep had been replaced by a roguish smile and a rugged face that was
all angles.

His name was Carter McBride, and he was ten years old; an only child, the pride of his parents Dimitri and Victoria, who spoilt
him as best their circumstances would allow. Like most of Aberdale’s younger generation he enjoyed the jungle and the river;
Lalonde was much more fun than the cheerless dry concrete, steel, and composite caves of Earth’s arcologies. The opportunities
for games in his new land were limitless. He had his own little garden in the corner of his father’s field, which he kept
chock-full of strawberry plants, geneered so that the big scarlet fruits didn’t rot in the rain and humidity. He had a cocker
spaniel called Chomper that was always getting underfoot and making off with clothes from the McBride cabin. He was receiving
didactic courses from Ruth Hilton, who said he was absorbing the agronomy data at a satisfactory rate, and would make a promising
farmer one day. And because he was almost eleven his parents trusted him to play unsupervised, saying he was responsible enough
not to wander too far into the jungle.