This Alien Shore (75 page)

He waited in silence, wondering what her answer would be.

“Picking up speed,” his pilot said again. Miklas didn't need to be told this time; he could see quite clearly on the screen that the ship was pulling away from them.
All right,
he thought,
so it won't be easy.

“Get us into combat range,” he ordered. He had two gunners on board, crack men from Tridac headquarters, and he signaled for them to get ready. “I want the engines, and only the engines,” he told them firmly. “Disable the ship, don't destroy her.”

So close and yet so far....

He could feel the pressure shove him back into his chair as the ship accelerated suddenly; he felt the thrill of the hunt heat his blood. She was running now, and both of them knew it. There was no question of what the outcome would be. He knew from his spies that he was better equipped than she was for either battle or extended flight. At this speed she couldn't even dock somewhere for safety, but would soon have to head out into truly empty space, where he could run her down at his leisure. Yet she was running. Human instinct, the eternal dance of predator and prey.

“Stay with her,” he muttered.

Closer and closer they came, his pilot maneuvering to get them a clear shot at the girl's engine housing. As they finally drew into position, he saw his gunner stiffen in anticipation, ready to fire ... and then suddenly the other ship swerved, and he cursed as he aborted the shot.

“We'll get her,” Miklas promised.

She was fleeing them now at full speed, her flight pattern erratic. No doubt that was deliberate, Miklas mused, to keep them from being able to fix her in their target field. Not a bad move, for a habitat girl. He doubted that before this journey she had ever flown anything more complicated than a pleasure yacht.

“Station coming up to port,” his pilot told him.

It was the harvester station, surrounded by a field of massive ore samples, some nearly as large as the station itself. Did she mean to try to take shelter behind one of them? She was going too fast for such a maneuver. And if she thought she would thread her way through that field to throw him off her tail, then she was stupider than he thought. His outworld pilot could handle a ship far better than any habitat fugitive. Besides, he had three ships hidden behind that station that would join in the chase as soon as she came around it. The chase was all but over.

You were a good opponent,
he thought to her.
But the chase is only truly enjoyable when it ends in victory.

She was heading for the far side of the station now, skirting the ore in a zigzag path meant to throw off pursuit. His own ship was larger and not quite as maneuverable, but his pilot was good and managed to keep pace. His gunner couldn't land a shot on her, though he tried several times; one slammed into a vast piece of ore with enough force to split it in two, sending sparks showering into the blackness.

But that didn't matter. They were coming within range of the other ships now, and as soon as those moved into position, the chase would be over. Barely a minute more ...

“Get ready,” he warned them over the com.

She was picking up speed again. Making for open space. Did she hope to outrun them?

“Now!” he ordered.

They moved out from behind the station and took up position ahead of her. In unison they fired warning shots across her bow, a gesture replete with warnings:
We're out here. There are three of us. Give up the chase now and save yourself the trouble of being shot down.

He hoped she would slow down. Any sane pilot would.

“She's accelerating,” the pilot said.

He gritted his teeth.
All right, if that's the way she wants to play it.

She turned. Toward the ore field.

Maybe she meant to take shelter behind one of the captured meteors. Maybe she meant to try to dodge between them, slipping through spaces where the larger ships could not follow. Maybe she just meant the move to confuse them, or to dodge their fire, or ... who knew what was going through her head?

She couldn't make the turn fast enough. No pilot could. Perhaps if she'd been born in the outworlds, she would have known that and adjusted her course accordingly. But she wasn't. And she didn't.

She hit the meteor head-on with a force that sent huge chunks of ore spinning off into space. The explosion was a burst of light that filled the viewscreen, all the more blinding to his eyes because it was unexpected. A second later, warnings began to sound from the pilot's console as bits and pieces of the shattered ship went flying across their flight path. Her ship. Her engines. Her body.

He just stood there and stared. There were no words for such a moment. Not even curses had power enough.

“Sir—”

He waved all questions to silence. His hand, he noticed, was shaking.

“Check for biosigns,” he said at last. “Get me confirmation.”

The pilot's tone was almost apologetic as he said, “They're there, sir. Just pieces. I'm sorry.”

Amazing, how fast your career could disappear. All in an instant, like a ship exploding into a vast wall of rock. One moment there, and the next ... debris.

He drew in a long breath, shut his eyes for a minute, and at last growled, “Take us home.”

“I
T'S TIME.”

Devlin Gaza looked up at the guards in the doorway, drew in a deep breath, and nodded. His eyes had been bloodshot for lack of sleep, but he'd had his wellseeker correct that. The moisture content of his skin had been corrected also, so that its dull, dry state wouldn't reveal his exhaustion. His fear.

Now, as they gestured for him to leave his cell, he wondered if those had all been good choices. Would she be more moved by seeing him thus, without visible sign of fear, or would he gain more sympathy by appearing to be a mere shell of a man, tormented by guilt and anxiety? Such signs meant much to a
simba,
and making the right choice could well make the difference between life and death for him.

But it was too late to change things now. He rose to his feet and left the cell as ordered, falling into place in the center of a squadron of a dozen armed guards. A dozen! Good God, what did they think him capable of, that such force was deemed necessary? He was a programmer, not a warrior!

They think you are a terrorist,
an inner voice intoned.
And they know you work with terrorists. So is all this really such a surprise?

Terrorist. What a joke. An ancient word, applied blindly to anyone the Guild would like to blame for their troubles. Didn't they understand what the League was all about? Couldn't they open their minds enough to grasp that the destiny of mankind was something you sculpted with care and precision, not something you left to chance? It had been centuries since the League had last been accused of true terrorism, that blind, random violence which all civilized stations abhorred. Couldn't they understand that this was about much more than that? This was about the very future of humankind.

Look,
he had begged her after the trial,
you know and I know how much we need to be free of Earth. All I did was provide the excuse. It is such a terrible thing to leave them to make their own fate, without our technology, without our aid? It's barely a shadow of what they did to us!

She had said nothing. Nothing.

Ten years his mate, his lover, his partner. He thought he knew her.

Nothing.

They were taking him to the dock of the prison station, he saw. Thus far they had told him nothing of where they were going, or why. ‘When he asked them, the guards did not even turn their heads to acknowledge his speech. He tried to access the prison's innernet, hoping to route the query elsewhere, but though his headset made the connection his queries were shunted to a dead end and extinguished. Of course. They had given him a headset to facilitate communication and biological observation—they had locked it down onto his head in the manner common with prisoners—but they were hardly going to allow the galaxy's most notorious programmer free access to their system.

He could have been free in a day if he'd tried hard enough, despite that. He could have reprogrammed his interface and sprung the locks and reassigned the guards and prepped a ship and gotten out of there, with enough time to spare to compose a farewell speech and post it to the outemet for all to see. In any system run by computers he was master, and all their precautions could not stop him from doing what he wanted. Not even Masada could stop him.

But that way he would have lived his life in hiding, the most notorious fugitive ever known to the outworlds. Where would he run to? What friend would protect him? Any station that took him in would be assuring its own Isolation, the most dreaded of all Guild punishments. And the Hausman League was certainly under close observation now; running to them would be the same as running right into the arms of the Guild. No, it was better this way. Tell Alya the facts of the case, plain and simple, and trust that in time she would understand what he had done, and pardon him.

She was Gueran, after all. She hated Earth as much as he did.

In the dock was a small outship, Guild symbols bright on its hull. That was a good sign, he told himself. As long as only the Guild was involved in this, as long as the outworld press had no real idea what was going on, he still had a chance. They could keep this a secret as they kept so many other things a secret, and take advantage of his virus—or not—as they chose. Yes, the outship was an excellent sign.

They brought him to a small launch lounge and had him sit in one of the padded chairs. Mere minutes later he felt the ship shudder, and knew it to be leaving the prison station. “Where are we going?” he asked. He didn't really expect an answer, and he didn't receive one. All right; if silence was what they wanted, he could play that game, too. Sooner or later someone must tell him something; his rank demanded it.

After the ship was well clear of the station, and its gravity stabilized at a comfortable, if somewhat hi-G level, they indicated he should get to his feet once more and follow them. He obeyed. He knew this style of ship, so he wasn't surprised when they indicated that he should turn to the right—that would bring them to the main passenger chamber, where any manner of interview or interrogation might take place. Two guards entered first, with him behind, and the remainder of the small troop either following or spreading out in the hallway he'd just left, presumably to discourage flight.

As if there was anywhere to run to.

The door slid open and he stepped inside. Harsh lights glared in his face, blinding, unexpected. He raised a hand to shield his eyes. There were people in the room, rank upon rank of Guild uniforms ... and civilians as well. He saw to his horror that some of the latter weren't even Guerans—unthinkable!—then looked to the source of the lights and saw vidcams whizzing about, vying for the best possible view of him.

Oh, my God. The press.
He felt a cold clenching in the pit of his stomach as he recognized the sigils of major news industries adorning the headsets of some of the spectators. If the press was here ... He shuddered. That was bad, very bad. Once news got out of exactly what he had done, all the rules of the game would change. Had she done that already? Surely Alya wouldn't, Alya who loved him, Alya who understood.

And then she was before him. He didn't even recognize her at first. Her face was unpainted, a blatant defiance of all Gueran custom. He had seen her thus in their private chambers, of course, but that was different; here, where her authority was absolute, the lack of
kaja
seemed almost primitive, too bizarre to absorb. Her every expression could be read now, by strangers who would attach whatever meaning they chose to each subtle movement. While he ... he was given no hint as to her purpose or mood, such as the
kaja
would have provided. The lack of paint made her vulnerable in fact, but as she stood before him thus, it was he who felt most naked because of it.

“Alya—” he began.