Warhorse (29 page)

And they were free.

“Keep firing,” Roman managed to shout.

“Shark falling back,” Marlowe called: “Range, fifty kilometers…sixty…seventy…I don't think it's even trying to follow us, Captain.”

“It doesn't have to,” Yamoto put in. “The optical net is back with us.”

Roman pushed against the acceleration to take a deep breath. “Laser crew: cease fire. As soon as you can, I want a maintenance check started on your equipment—we may need to use it again.” Leaden hands fought unsuccessfully to switch displays— “Marlowe, did the lander get away?”

“Negative,” the other said. “They're about 230 kilometers ahead of us; bearing twenty port, five nadir.”

With an effort, Roman reached up and keyed into the comm laser circuit. “
Amity
to lander: report.”

“Lander here,” Ferrol's voice came back. “You do believe in cutting things close, don't you?”

“We didn't have much choice,” Roman told him, giving the tactical display a quick check. The shark still didn't seem to be giving chase. “I take it from your presence here that the net missile we sent out to you didn't work?”

“It didn't get even that much chance,” Ferrol said grimly. “The shark stopped it about a kilometer out from you.”

“I've got the recording queued, Captain, if you want to see it,” Marlowe put in.

Roman nodded. “Go ahead.”

Stopped
was an understatement; or else that was all Ferrol had been able to see from his distance. From
Amity
's closer perspective, it was far more spectacular. “It was stopped, all right,” Roman told Ferrol. “Also torn into small pieces and dispersed. Here, take a look.”

He sent a copy of the tape down the laser, and for a minute there was silence. “Looks pretty deliberate, doesn't it?” Ferrol commented at last.

“I'd say so, yes,” Roman agreed. “It saw what the first missile did and didn't care for it much.”

“And so the next time it saw one, it shredded it.”

Roman nodded. “More evidence that the shark can learn. As if we needed it.” The acceleration was beginning to slacken: Man o' War tiring or else Hhom-jee getting it back under control. Mentally crossing his fingers, Roman turned toward the intercom. “Hhom-jee, can you talk to me yet?”

A pause. “I hear, Rro-maa.”

Roman let out a quiet sigh of relief—the prospect of trying to find a way out of the system with a fear-crazed space horse wasn't something he'd wanted to contemplate. “Is Man o' War back under control again?”

“He is still…frightened.”

“It's got plenty of company. As soon as you've got it calm enough to steer I want to rendezvous with the lander—Yamoto will give you the direction.”

“Your wish is ours.”

“Good.” Roman turned to Yamoto. “Run up a rendezvous plot with a continual update,” he instructed her. “No telling how long it'll take for him to get Man o' War functional again.”

“It had better be damn quick,” Ferrol growled. “Whatever finagling you did to get away from the shark isn't going to work a second time. The business with the net missile pretty well proves that.”

“I'm afraid you're probably right,” Roman agreed. “Which sends us straight back to square one.”

“Getting rid of the vultures?”

“Right. And with the shark more or less on alert now, it'll have to be something we can do
fast
, before the shark has time to react to it.”

“A pretty tall order,” Ferrol grunted.

“We'll think of something.”

Leaning against Quentin's 2.4 gee acceleration, Ferrol flipped off the
transmit
switch. For a moment he glowered at the panel, feeling the knot of tension in his stomach tighten another few turns. “ ‘We'll think of something,' Ë® he muttered under his breath. “Famous last words.”

“Could be worse,” Kennedy pointed out calmly. “We damn near lost
Amity
and Man o' War there, you know.”

Ferrol threw her a glare. Her face, like her voice, was as unperturbed as ever, and for a moment he wondered if she'd felt even a twinge of panic during any of the last few hours. “Some day,” he told her, “
something
in this universe is going to throw you for a skid. I just hope I'm alive to see it.”

A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “Much better,” she nodded approvingly. “Anger's a lot less paralyzing than fear. More conducive to constructive thought, too.”

“How would
you
know?” he snorted; but the swipe lacked any real force. Even while resenting the motherly tone he had to admit she was right.

He took a deep breath and gave the instruments a quick scan. For the first few minutes of that mad dash away from the
Amity
and the pursuing shark, Quentin's acceleration had been slowly but steadily increasing; but for the last few minutes it had been just as steadily dropping. “Wwis-khaa, Quentin's slowing down,” he called over his shoulder. “What's the trouble?”

“Quentinninni is growing tired,” the Tampy said. His tone was odd…

Ferrol twisted to look at the other. One look was all he needed. “Sso-ngii, take over,” he snapped. “Wwis-khaa's losing it.”

Sso-ngii stirred, and for a moment looked around as if orienting himself. Then, shaking once like a wet dog, he reached past Demothi to take the helmet from Wwis-khaa. He gazed at the device, then slowly lowered it onto his head.

“We're losing both of them,” Kennedy murmured from beside him.

Ferrol hissed between his teeth, “I know. What's
Amity
's ETA?”

“About fifteen minutes. You want me to call over and have another Handler standing by in a lifeboat?”

He nodded. “I just hope they've got someone to spare. That fight with the shark may have wiped out some of their Handlers, too.”

Kennedy nodded and turned back to her console. Ferrol listened with half an ear, his eyes drifting to the forward viewport. Haifa kilometer away, Quentin was a dark blot against the stars. Far beyond it, invisible at their distance, the vultures and their damned optical net would be holding position.

Twenty-seven kilometers away…and Roman wanted a way to take them out
quickly.

“One of the other Tampies will be ready when we match velocities,” Kennedy reported into his thoughts. “Captain Roman says they're hurting a little for Handlers, too, but can spare us one.”

Ferrol snorted gently. “Terrific. We may wind up having to cut Quentin loose, after all. By default.” On his helm display the
Amity
's projected course and intercept point appeared…

He frowned suddenly. “You set this intercept up yourself?” he asked Kennedy.

She shook her head. “No, Yamoto and the Tampies did,” she told him. “Trouble?”

“I don't know.” He gestured at the plot. “Why is
Amity
going to hang so far out?”

Kennedy shrugged. “Why not? There's no real need to run the two ships too closely together. Especially not with the space horses already skittish from the shark.”

Skittish.
For a dozen heartbeats Ferrol stared at the display, listening to the word ricochet around his brain.
Skittish.
“Is that why we need a half-kilometer of rein line between us and Quentin?” he asked. “Because if we don't the calf will get skittish?”

He turned to find Kennedy frowning at him. “I'm not sure I understand what you mean,” she said.

“Sure you do,” he said. “Maybe you've never thought of it at a conscious level, but you
know
it just the same.” A picture from his old grade-school biology text flashed through his mind: a group of sea birds standing on a fence, spaced apart with almost military precision— “Don't you see?—space horses aren't social animals. They don't travel in groups, not even family or clan groups. More to the immediate point, when they come across each other,
they don't clump up
.”

Kennedy's eyes defocused a bit. “You're right,” she said slowly. “Every time we midwife a calf, the first thing the mother does is pull away from it. And the first thing the
calf
does is pull away from the net boat.” Her eyes came back to focus, and she glanced at the black starless circle that was Quentin. “Interesting, but so what?”

Ferrol grinned tightly. “So this. The captain's wrong; we don't need to actually outfly or outshoot the vultures. All we really need to do is to confuse them.” He nodded toward Quentin. “And I think I know how to do it.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “I'm listening,” she invited.

T
HE REIN LINES WERE
softly glowing strands brushing across the lander's ports, impossible to focus on even at such close range. Ferrol's eyes stubbornly tried to do so anyway, even as the rest of his body braced for the wrenching jolt that would mean Quentin had lost control and panicked. But the surge the Tampies had more or less predicted didn't come…and eventually Roman's confirmation did. “All set, lander,” he said. “Web boats are coming back in now. We'll keep firing the comm laser until they're back in the hangar—the longer we keep the vultures distracted, the better chance we've got. Presumably.”

Ferrol clamped his teeth against the retort that wanted to come out. Roman had been noticeably less than enthusiastic about the plan—not, Ferrol suspected, because of any flaw the other could see in it, but simply because all the Tampies seemed likewise quietly opposed. Not for any reason
they
were willing to put into words, either, but for Tampies broad hints of vague uncertainties always seemed to be enough.

“We're drifting a little,” Kennedy said into his thoughts.

With an effort, Ferrol shook the resentment from his mind. This was no time to let himself be distracted by Tampy coyness. “Ppla-zii, Quentin needs to ease a little to port,” he called to the Tampy behind them.

“Your…wish is mine.”

Ferrol threw a quick look over his shoulder at their replacement Handler, who'd taken up position between Demothi and a sleep-humming Wwis-khaa. He immediately wished he hadn't; the Tampy's face was twisted into a painful-looking expression Ferrol wouldn't have thought even such lopsided features capable of. “Ppla-zii? What's the problem?”

“Quentinninni is…troubled,” the Tampy said thickly.

Ferrol glanced at Kennedy. “How troubled?” he demanded.

Ppla-zii tried twice before any words came out. “He…will endure…as necessary.”

“We'd better get this thing off the ground, and fast,” Kennedy murmured.

Ferrol nodded and turned back to his console. Maybe the Tampies' worries hadn't been totally unfounded after all. “Lander to
Amity
: better scorch with those boats, Captain.”

“How's Quentin doing?” Roman asked.

“Ppla-zii says it's troubled,” Ferrol told him. “Whatever the hell
that
means.”

“Probably just what it says: trouble. Especially since Bbri-hwoo's telling me the same about Man o' War.” Roman paused. “All right, web boats' ETA for the hangar is two minutes. Let's go ahead and get started—they'll be in before we're ready.”

“Right.” Ferrol leaned forward to peer out the viewport. Ahead and to their left, paralleling Quentin barely a hundred meters away, Man o' War was a ghostly gray-white wall in the light of the distant sun. “You heard the captain, Ppla-zii,” he called. “Let's do it.”

“Your wish is…mine.”

Ferrol settled into his seat and keyed for a tactical display. Twenty-eight kilometers ahead, the two optical nets were a pair of blobs sitting next to each other, each exactly in front of its chosen space horse. “Quentin's starting to rotate,” Kennedy reported.

“Confirmed,” Roman said. “The vultures are matching it.”

Ferrol nodded silently. Reacting to the calf's slow rotation, they were indeed moving, sliding over toward the group that was blocking Man o' War's Jump vision. Just a little further…

“Mark!” Kennedy called. “Okay, Ppla-zii: ease it back again.”

Ferrol held his breath…and as Quentin rotated away from Man o' War, its attending vultures also reversed their motion.

Damn.
“We're going to have to move Quentin closer in.”

“I'm afraid you're right,” Roman agreed reluctantly. “I don't know, though. Rrin-saa?”

“It is dangerous,” the Tampy's voice came faintly. Manawanninni already shows signs of stress.”

“What kind of stress is getting eaten going to give it?” Ferrol retorted.

“That's enough, Commander,” Roman said sharply. “Escaping the shark at the cost of losing all control of Man o' War isn't going to gain us much.”

Ferrol ground his teeth. “Captain, with all due respect—”

“Ffe-rho is right,” Rrin-saa put in. “For Manawanninni's sake, as well as that of ourselves, we must try.”

“Not to mention all the helpless test mice in the lab,” Ferrol muttered under his breath. “Ppla-zii? Let's go—move us another twenty-five meters or so toward Man o' War.”

It took nearly five minutes for the calf to be coaxed in that close…and in the end all of Ppla-zii's work proved to have been for nothing. Again, the vultures had no problem keeping optical nets in front of both space horses.

“But we're on the right track,” Kennedy pointed out. “The vultures were measurably slower this time in their reaction to Quentin's movement.”

“For all the good
that
does us,” Ferrol growled. “We're at the end of the line here—we're never going to get them any closer together.” He could feel his face warming with anger and frustration. It had seemed like such a
good
idea—

“Let's not be quite so hasty to give up,” Roman admonished him thoughtfully. “Agreed, if the vultures can still resolve two side-by-side space horses at this separation, it's almost certainly a waste of time to try and push them any closer. But then, maybe side-by-side isn't really our best approach, anyway.”