by Larry Niven
“Was ist—what is bad?” sounded Nordbo’s hoarse bass.
“Never mind now. Move, I tell you!”
“Jawohl.” And: “Aye, aye, ma’am, we’re off,” from Carita.
Dorcas cut transmission. “I want to spare them while they flit,” she explained. “They’ll worry, but if they don’t happen to make the enemy out in the sky, they won’t be in shock.”
“Until we meet again,” Saxtorph agreed. “What about…Tyra and Kam? Shall we keep them waiting too?”
“We may as well, or better.”
“No. Maybe you weren’t being kind after all. I think Tyra would want to know right away, so she can, well, she can—” kiss me goodbye?—“prepare herself, and meet the end with her eyes wide open. She’s like that.”
Dorcas bit her lip. “I can’t stop you if you insist.” Her words quivered a little. “But I thought you and I, these fifteen minutes or so we have left before we must tell them—”
He grinned, doubtless rather horribly. “’Fraid I couldn’t manage a quickie.”
She achieved a laugh. “Down, boy.” Soberly: “Not to get maudlin either. But let me say I love you, and thank you for everything.”
“Aw, now, the thanks are all due you, my lady.” He rose. She did. They embraced. He damned himself for wishing she were Tyra.
She kissed him long and hard. “That’s for what we’ve had.” The tears wouldn’t quite stay put. “And for, for everything we were going to have—the kids and—”
Yah, he thought, our stored gametes. We never made provision for exogenesis, in case something clobbered us. They’ll stay in the freeze, those tiny ghosts of might-have-been, year after year after year, I suppose, forgotten and forsaken, like our robot yonder.
Saxtorph lurched where he stood. “Fanden i helvede!” he roared.
Dorcas stepped back. She saw his face, and the breath whistled in between her teeth. “What?”
The Danish of his childhood, “The Devil in Hell,” his father’s favorite oath, yes, truly, for a devil did squat just outside the hell star awaiting his command. His revelation spilled from him.
Fierceness kindled in her, she shouted, but then she must ask, “What if we fail?”
“Why, we open our airlocks and drink space,” he answered. He had dismissed the idea earlier because he knew she wouldn’t want suicide while any chance of being cleanly killed remained. “Though most likely the kzinti will be so enraged they’ll missile us on the spot. Come on, we haven’t got time to gab, let’s get going.”
They returned to their seats and controls. An order went out. On the tnuctipun structure, the robot prospector stirred. Cautiously, at minimum boost, it lifted. When it was well clear, the humans accelerated it harder. They must work fast, to have the machine positioned before the enemy came so near that watchers at instruments might notice it and wonder. They must likewise work precisely, mathematically, solving a problem of vectors and coordinates in three-dimensional space. “—line integral of velocity divergence dS—” Dorcas muttered aloud to the computer while her fingers did the real speaking. There passed through the back of Saxtorph’s awareness: If the scheme flops, this’ll be how we spent our last moments together. Appropriate.
A telltale blinked. Nordbo and Carita had arrived. “Kam, our friends are back,” the captain said through the intercom. “Cycle ’em through and have them sit tight. Tyra, I think we can cope with our visitors.”
Except for Ryan’s “Aye,” neither of them responded. The quartermaster knew better than to distract the pair on the bridge. The woman must have understood the same on her own account. She isn’t whimpering or hysterical or anything, Saxtorph thought—not her. Maybe, not being a spacehand, she won’t obey my order and stay at the boat. It’s useless anyway. But the most mutinous thing she might do is walk quietly, firmly through my ship to meet her dad.
“On station,” Dorcas sighed. She leaned back, hands still on the keys, gaze on the displays. “It’ll take three or four mini-nudges to maintain, but I doubt the kzinti will detect them.”
The Raptor was big in the screen. Twin laser guns in the nose caught starlight and gleamed like eyes.
“Good.” Saxtorph’s attention skewered Rover’s control board. He’d calculated how he wanted to move, at full thrust, when things started happening. Though his present location was presumably safe, he’d rather be as far off as possible. Clear to Wonderland would be ideal, a sunny patio, a beer stein in his fist, and at his side—
“Go!” Dorcas yelled. She hit the switch that closed her last circuit. “Ki-yai!”
Afloat among stars, the robot prospector received the signal for which the program that she sent it had waited. It took off. At a hundred gravities of acceleration, it crossed a hundred kilometers of space in less than five seconds, to strike the shell around the black hole with the force of a boulder falling from heaven.
It crashed through. White light was in the radiation that torrented from the hole it left and smote the kzinti ship.
Chapter XIX
“Put me through again to the human commander,” said Weoch-Captain.
“Yes, sire,” replied Communications Officer.
Human, thought Weoch-Captain. Not monkey, whatever my position may require me to call him in public. A brave and resourceful enemy. I well-nigh wish we were more equally matched when I fight him. But no one must know that.
His optics showed Rover, an ungainly shape, battered and wayworn. Should he claim it too for a trophy? No, let Saxtorph’s head suffice; and it would not have much meaning either, when he returned in his glory to take a full name, a seat among the Patriarchs, the right to found a house of his own. Still, his descendants might cherish the withered thing as a sign of what their ancestor did. Weoch-Captain’s glance shifted to the great artifact. Power laired there, power perhaps to make the universe tremble. “Arrrh,” he breathed.
The screens blanked. The lights went out. He tumbled through an endless dark.
“Ye-a-a-ach, what’s this? What the venom’s going on?” Screams tore at air that had ceased to blow from ventilators. Weoch-Captain recognized his state. He was weightless.
“Stations, report!” No answer except the chaos in the corridors. Everything was dead. The crew were ghosts flapping blindly around in a tomb. Nausea snatched at Weoch-Captain,
He fought it down. If down existed any more, adrift among stars he no longer saw. He shouldn’t get spacesick. He never had in the past when he orbited free. He must act, take charge, uncover what was wrong, rip it asunder and set things right. He groped his way by feel, from object to suddenly unfamiliar object. “Quiet!” he bawled. “Hold fast! To me, officers, to me, your commander!”
The sickness swelled inside him.
He reached the door and the passage beyond. A body blundered into his. Both caromed, flailing air, rebounding from bulkheads, all grip on dignity lost. “My eyes, arh, my eyes,” moaned the other kzin. “Did the light burn them out? I am blind. Help me, help me.”
An idea took Weoch-Captain by the throat. He bared teeth at it, but it gave him a direction, a quarry. Remembrance was a guide. He pushed along corridors where noise diminished as personnel mastered panic. Good males, he thought amidst the hammerblows of blood in ears and temples. Valiant males. Heroes.
His goal was the nearest observation turret. It had transparent ports for direct viewing, backup in case of electronic failures, which he kept unshuttered during any action. He fumbled through the entry. A blue-white beam, too dazzling to look near, stabbed across the space beyond. It disappeared as Swordbeak floated past. Weoch-Captain reached a pane and squinted. Stars clustered knife-sharp. Carefully, fingers hooked on frames, he moved to the next.
A gray curve, a jutting tower, yes, the relic of the ancient lords, the end of his quest. Swordbeak slipped farther along. Weoch-Captain shrieked, clapped palms to face, bobbed helpless in midair.
Slowly the after-images faded. The glare hadn’t blinded him. By what light now came in, he disc
erned metal and meters. He understood what had happened.
Somehow the humans had opened a new hole in the shell. Radiation tore the life from his ship.
Sickness overwhelmed him. He vomited. Foul gobbets and globules swarmed around his head and up his nostrils. He fled before they strangled him.
Yes, death is in my bones, he knew. How long can I fight it off, and why? You have conquered, human.
No! He shoved feet against bulkhead and arrowed forward. The plan took shape while he flew. “Meet at Station Three!” he shouted against night. “All hands to Station Three for orders! Pass the word on! Your commander calls you to battle!”
One by one, clumsily, many shivering and retching, they joined him. Officers identified themselves, crew rallied round them. Some had found flashlights. Fangs and claws sheened in the shadows.
He told them they would soon die. He told them how they should. They snarled their wrath and resolution.
Spacesuits were lockered throughout the ship. Kzinti sought those assigned them. In gloom and free fall, racked by waxing illness, a number of them never made it.
Air hung thick, increasingly chill. Recyclers, thrusters, radios in the spacesuits were inoperative. Well, but the pumps still had capacitor power, and you wouldn’t have use for more air than your reserve tank held. You had your legs to leap with. You knew where you were bound, and could curse death by yourself.
Weoch-Captain helped at the wheel of his airlock, opening it manually. Atmosphere howled out, momentarily mist-white, dissipated, revealed the stars afresh. He followed it. Rover wasn’t in sight. It must have scampered away. Maybe Swordbeak’s hull blocked it off. The artifact was a jaggedness straight ahead. He gauged distance, direction, and velocities as well as he was able, bunched his muscles, and leaped, a hunter at his quarry.
“Hee-yaa!” he screamed. The noise rattled feebly in his helmet. Blood came with it, droplets and smears.
Headed across the void, he could look around. Except for his breathing, the rattle of fluid in his lungs, he had fallen into a silence, an enormous peace. Here and there, glints moved athwart constellations, the spacesuits of his fellows. We too are star-stuff, he thought. Sun-stuff. Fire.
Hardly any of them would accomplish the passage, he knew. Most would go by, misaimed, and perish somewhere beyond. A lucky few might chance to pass in front of the furnace mouth and receive instant oblivion. Those who succeeded would not know where to go. There had been no way for Weoch-Captain to describe what he had learned from long days of study. A few might spy him, recognize him, seek him, but it was unlikely in the extreme.
No matter. Because of him they would die as warriors, on the attack.
Swordbeak receded. It had still had a significant component of velocity toward the sphere when the flame struck, though it was not on a collision course. It left him that heritage for his flight.
Rover hove into view. Saxtorph was coming back to examine the havoc he had wrought, was he? Well, he’d take a while to assess what his screens and instruments told him, and realize what it meant and then—what could he do? Unlimber his grapnel and collect dying kzinti?
He can try raying us, Weoch-Captain thought. He must have an industrial laser. I would certainly do it in his place. But as a weapon it’s slow, unwieldy, and—I am almost at my mark.
The shell filled half of heaven. Its curve now hid the deadly light; only stars shone on spires, mazes, unknown engines. Weoch-Captain tensed.
A latticework seemed to spring at him. He grabbed a member. His strength ebbing, he nearly lost hold and shot on past. Somehow he kept the grip, and slammed to a halt. He clung while he got his wind back. Rags of darkness floated across his eyes.
Onward, though, lest he die unfulfilled. It was hard, and grew harder moment by moment as he clambered down. With nothing left him but the capacitor supplying the air pump and a little heat, he must by himself bend the joints at arms, legs, and fingers against interior pressure. With his mind going hazy, he must stay alert enough to find his way among things he knew merely from pictures, while taking care not to push so hard that he drifted away in space.
Nevertheless he moved.
A glance aloft. Yes, Rover was lumbering about. Maybe Saxtorph had guessed what was afoot. Weoch-Captain grinned. He hoped the human was frantic.
He’d aimed himself carefully, and luck had been with him. His impact was close to the activator. He reached it and went in among the structures and darknesses.
On a lanyard he carried a flashlight. By its glow he examined that which surrounded him. Yes, according to Yiao-Captain’s report, this object like a lever and that object like a pedal ought to close a connection when pushed. The tnuctipun had scarcely intended any such procedure. Somewhere must be an automaton, a program, and shelter for whatever crew the black hole ship bore on its warfaring. But the tnuctipun too installed backup systems. Across billions of years, Weoch-Captain hailed them, his brother warriors.
This may not work, he cautioned himself. I can but try to reave the power from the humans.
I do not know where it will go, or if it will ever come back into our space. Nor will I know. I shall be dead. Proudly, gloriously.
A spasm shook him, but he had spewed out everything in his stomach before he left Swordbeak. Parched and vile-tasting mouth, dizziness, ringing ears, blood coughed forth and smeared over faceplate, wheezing breath, shaky hands, weakness, weakness, yes, it was good to die. He got himself well braced against metal—to be inside this framework was like being inside a cane-brake at home, he thought vaguely, waiting for prey—and pushed with the whole force that remained to him.
Aboard Rover, shortly afterward, they saw their prize disappear.
Chapter XX
Regardless, the homeward voyage began merrily. When you have had your life given back to you, the loss of a treasure trove seems no large matter.
“Besides, a report on Sherrek and her beamcast, plus what we collected ourselves, should be worth a substantial award by itself,” Saxtorph observed. “And then there’s the other one, uh, Swordbeak.” Dorcas had read the name when they flitted across and attached a radio beacon, so that the derelict would be findable. “In a way, actually, more than the black hole could’ve been. Your navy—or mine, or the two conjointly—they’ll be overjoyed at getting a complete modern kzinti warcraft to dissect.”
“What that artifact, and the phenomenon within, should have meant to science—” Peter Nordbo sighed. “But you are right, complaining is ungrateful.”
“No doubt the authorities will want this part of our story hushed up,” Saxtorph went on. “But we’ll be heroes to them, which is more useful than being it to the public. I expect we’ll slide real easy through the bureaucratic rigmarole. And, as I said, get well paid for it.”
“I thought you were a patriot, Robert.”
“Oh, I s’pose I am. But the laborer is worthy of his hire. And I’m a poor man. Can’t afford to work for free.”
They sat in the Saxtorphs’ cabin, the most spacious aboard, talking over a beer. They had done it before. The instant liking they took to one another had grown with acquaintance. The Wunderlander’s English was rusty but improving.
He stroked his beard as he said slowly, “I have thought on that. Hear me, please. My family shall have its honor again, but I disbelieve our lands can be restored. The present owners bought in good faith and have their rights. You shall not pity me. From what I have heard since my rescue, society is changed and the name of Landholder bears small weight. But in simple justice we shall have money for what they stripped from us. After I pay off Tyra’s debt she took for my sake, much will stay with me. What shall I then do? I have my science, yes, but as an amateur. I am too old to become a professional in it. Yet I am too young to…putter. Always my main work was with people. What now can I enjoy?” He smiled. “Well, your business has the chronic problem that it is undercapitalized. The awards will help, but I think not enough. How would you like a partner?”
Saxtor
ph goggled. “Huh? Why, uh, what do you mean?”
“I would not travel with you, unless once in a while as a passenger for pleasure. I am no spaceman. But it was always my dream, and being in an enterprise like yours, that should come close. Yes, I will go on trips myself, making arrangements for cargoes and charters, improvements and expansions. Being a Landholder taught me about business, and I did it pretty well. Ask my former tenants. Also, the money I put in, that will make the difference to you. Together we can turn this very profitable for all of us.
“You cannot decide at once, nor can I. But today it seems me a fine idea. What do you think?”
“I think it’s a goddamn supernova!” Saxtorph roared.
They talked, more and more excitedly, until the captain glanced at his watch and said, “Hell, I’ve got to go relieve Dorcas at the mass detector. I’ll send her down here and the pair of you can thresh this out further, if you aren’t too tired.”
“Never for her,” Nordbo replied. “She is a wonderful person. You are a lucky man.”
Saxtorph’s eagerness faded. After a moment he mumbled, “I’m sorry. I often bull ahead with you as though you hadn’t…suffered your loss. You don’t speak about it, and I forget. I’m sorry, Peter.”
“Do not be,” Nordbo answered gently. “A sorrow, yes, but during my time alone, assuming I would grow old and die there, I became resigned. To learn I missed my Hulda by less than a year, that is bitter, but I tell myself we had already lost our shared life; and God has left me our two children, both become splendid human beings.”
The daughter, at least, for sure, Saxtorph thought.
Nordbo smiled again. “I still have my son Ib to look forward to meeting. In fact, since Tyra tells me he is in naval intelligence, we shall be close together—Robert, what is wrong?”
Saxtorph sat moveless until he shook himself, stood up, tossed off his drink, and rasped: “Something occurred to me. Don’t worry. It may well turn out to be nothing. But, uh, look, we’d better not discuss this partnership notion with Dorcas or anybody right away. Let’s keep it under our hats till our ideas are more definite, okay? Now I really must go spell her.”