Plus another week to get back to Alpha Centauri from here. “And if we could go direct? Just asking.”
“Four weeks from here. Three weeks from Centauri or Sol, and a week to get to either.”
Carson looked at the star chart, hoping to see another answer there. Jackie had drawn a series of lines representing the jumps to connect the stars. It wasn’t quite a drunkard’s walk, but it wandered around before reaching Chara. There were a couple of red stars in the gap; it wasn’t totally empty. “What about this way?” Carson asked, pointing to one of them.
Jackie looked where he pointed. “Wolf 359?” She tapped it and a series of numbers displayed beside it. She shook her head. “Negative, that’s almost twenty-two light-years from Chara. My range is twenty. That also rules out Lalande 21185; that’s just under twenty but not enough to leave us maneuvering reserve.” She tapped another star. “Gliese 412 is in a better position, but not suitable. It’s a double star., and one of the pair is an x-ray flare star. There’s nowhere in that system to refuel anyway.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing useful. If you’re thinking of comets or the like, it takes time to find them and rendezvous with them. Not helpful if we’re in a hurry.”
Carson clenched his fists. “I’m worried about the people we’ve had run-ins with. What if they have a longer-range ship? They’ll beat us there.”
“Why would they even have any idea where to go? Anyway no fusion ship can make that in one jump. If they’ve got a parsec or two on the Sophie, they might refuel at Lalande 21185 or Wolf 359.” She paused, then said “There is one other possibility.”
Carson looked up at her. He was willing to try anything. “Yes? What?”
Jackie bit her lip and looked somber. “I’m not crazy about the idea. I’ve never done it, and there’s some risk. The right gear for this ship would certainly be available at Kakuloa if we go via the Centauri system. I don’t know if it’s available here, although the Sapphire is a common enough model.”
“Yes, but what gear, done what?”
“Drop tanks. After leaving atmosphere, we attach fuel tanks that are shaped to fit the space between Sophie’s hull and the inner edge of the warp bubble. We jettison them after the jump, before entering atmosphere again. It should double the Sophie’s range, but I’ll have to double check the specs.”
“And the risks?”
“Several. There’s less distance between the edge of the warp bubble and the tanks, if the structure intersects the bubble while in warp . . .” That would be catastrophic; the resulting explosion would destroy the ship. “There’s more power required, more load on the engine. Maneuvering in-system with all that extra mass on is a pain in the butt. And it’s a one-way thing. We’ll still have to take the long road home.
“Are you still interested?” Roberts finished.
“It’s worth checking out. If they’re available, is there any advantage to getting tanks now rather than at Kakuloa?”
“I’ll run the numbers. If they can give us the full thirty-eight light-year range we could save at least a day, more like two, by not stopping in the Centauri system.”
“I’ll take any advantage I can get. See if there are tanks available and fine tune your range calculations. If we can, then let’s do it. Time is critical.”
“Okay. I’ll get on it.” Roberts sighed, cleared the star map from the screen and sat down to work. Either way, she was going to be cooped up in the ship with Carson for quite a while.
“Jackie?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“All part of the service.” That was not said with a cheery smile.
Chapter 17: Rico and Marten
Taprobane Spaceport
Getting onto the field was the easy part. As a crew member on the Hawk, Hopkins’s ship, Rico had automatically been issued a field pass. The problem was, for what he needed to do, he would stick out like a sore thumb. He had ways around little problems like that.
Rico slipped in to the terminal building from the field side, where nobody bothered to check him at the Employees Only sign. He looked around, went through the door marked Male and, as he had guessed, there was a locker room off to one side of the usual facilities. Opening the lockers was easy work for Rico, he had been bypassing locks for as long as he could remember. In the third one he tried he found a set of coveralls, a close enough fit to pass. He slipped them on over his clothes, then left the locker room.
This time there was a guard at the door to the field. Damn, Rico’s pass was the wrong color for ground crew. He slipped back into the restroom and examined his pass closely. Ground crew passes were white, his visitor pass was similar but with a wide orange stripe printed across the top. He looked at it a bit more closely and pulled out his pocket knife. A minute or so of scraping and the printed-on orange stripe was gone, leaving only the white plastic underneath showing. Not too bad, but what if there was a chip inside?
Rico put his knife away and took out his omni. He touched a code sequence on it and two metal probes extruded from it, about an inch apart. He entered another sequence to activate the firmware—of questionable legality—which turned the omni into a shock rod. He pressed the probes to the card, touched a button and smiled at the resulting zap! and crackle of sparks from the card. So much for any ID chip.
It wouldn’t pass close inspection, but the door was from an employee only area to the field, he didn’t expect the guard to be especially alert. If he was, well then, too bad for the guard. He kept his omni in its shock rod configuration, concealed in his hand, and walked toward the door.
∞ ∞ ∞
Marten walked the few blocks from his office to the main street which would take him to the spaceport. He had his bag slung over his shoulder, the talisman tucked away carefully amongst his spare clothes and the other paraphernalia of travel. The sun—humans called it Epsilon Indi—was just setting, coloring what clouds he could see with pinks and oranges. He was absorbed in mentally reviewing his to-do list for the upcoming trip to make sure he hadn’t left anything undone, so the metallic click didn’t register right away.
“Freeze, fuzzball!” came a rough, low voice. A wiry figure stepped around the edge of the building.
Fuzzball? Then Marten looked and stifled his retort. The man held a pistol, and it was pointed at him.
∞ ∞ ∞
Rico waved his modified pass at the gate guard, who barely glanced at it and waved him through. Rico relaxed and walked out onto the field. In his Port Authority coveralls he looked just like any other ground crew member. His eyes scanned the field, looking for . . . there it was, the squat delta shape of the Sophie.
He sauntered over to it, computer pad in hand as though he had some routine check to do. He walked around the vehicle, looking at the various attachment points, cargo doors, fuel filler hatches, and hydraulic connectors. He leaned over as if to look at the landing gear., then ducked under the vehicle as if for a closer look.
Pretending to examine the landing gear then key something into his notepad, he surreptitiously slid a small disk, about two inches in diameter and maybe a sixteenth thick, slightly flexible, from under the notepad. He peeled off the backing to expose a layer of adhesive. He looked up at the fuselage of the ship and wiped his hand across one side as though feeling for a crack or a bump. His real intention was to wipe the surface clean of any dirt to ensure a good seal. He slipped the disk into his palm and, as though he were just steadying himself as he moved out from under the ship, slapped the side of the ship and the adhesive disk into place. There. To a casual glance it would look just like any other random gadget on the hull, or perhaps a hull patch.
Rico straightened up and looked around, pretending to survey the ship again but keeping an eye out for anyone who might be watching him. Nobody, the field was still clear. He made a few more perfunctory notes in his pad, then pretended to check a couple of other spots on the ship, closed his pad and strolled off toward the terminal bui
lding, again acting as though this was all just part of his job. In a way, it was.
∞ ∞ ∞
Marten stared into an enormous gun barrel, and too late the click he had heard registered on his consciousness. It had been a weapon being cocked. A similar sound came from behind him. His ears twitched at that. A second bad guy. And this was usually a good neighborhood.
“My wallet is in my pocket, I do not have much else,” said Marten. He had indeed frozen, not moving a muscle, not even twitching his ears, his eyes didn’t seem to focus on anything.
“We don’t want your wallet,” sneered the wiry-looking gunman in front of him. He looked amused that Marten seemed petrified with fear. He couldn’t have been on this planet long; he was ignorant of timoan physiology. “Drop the bag.”
“But—”
“Do it!”
Timoans, like the terrestrial meerkats that they were very distant cousins to, are very good at standing perfectly still. In part it evolved as a defense mechanism, so as not to attract the attention of a predator when caught in the open. But timoans, like meerkats, also evolved eating small animals and insects like lizards, spiders, grasshoppers, and crickets—fast food. A timoan could stand rigid, without moving eyes or ears yet still tracking its prey by sight and sound, then instantly explode into accurate, prey-snatching motion with no warning. And here the bad guy was even giving Marten an excuse to move.
Marten slowly reached up with his right hand to grab the shoulder strap of the bag, as though to slip it off. Using that motion as an excuse, he moved his head just enough to confirm the location of Bad Guy Two, about four feet behind him. Smart enough to stay out of arm’s reach, thought Marten, and not directly in line with me and Wiry. Damn. He had hoped that he could just drop down then leap straight up fast enough that they’d just shoot each other in startled reaction. He could move that fast, but the geometry was wrong. Okay, plan B.
He slowly slid the pack off his shoulder and moved his arm to hold it at arm’s length, then slowly started to crouch as though to set it down gently.
“Just drop it!”
Wiry’s attention was split between Marten and the bag. Marten counted on Bad Guy Two, behind him, also having his attention split. As he let go of the bag he exploded into motion.
Bad Guy Two was the more serious problem. Marten knew roughly where he was but couldn’t see him to anticipate his actions, so Marten had to take him out first. He leapt backwards and to the side, away from the bag, twisting in the air as he did so. He moved like a mongoose attacking a cobra. His claws raked deep across the wrist of his opponent’s gun hand, slashing tendons and nerves, making the hand—and so the gun it held—nearly useless. Marten’s leap finished with him beside his opponent, holding his arm and leaning low. Another half twist, bend and kick, and the timoan’s foot connected solidly under Bad Guy’s jaw and snapped his head back. Still holding the arm, he turned again, leveraging Bad Guy’s body against his own so that Bad Guy was now between him and Wiry’s gun.
But Wiry had barely moved. He’d had his eye on the bag and by the time he looked up at the commotion, it was over as far as his companion was concerned. Marten didn’t give him time to think up a counter move. He burst into motion again. He leveraged Bad Guy’s mass and height, running up him and leaping at Wiry from Bad Guy’s shoulder as he collapsed.
Wiry brought up his pistol, squeezing the trigger. Three shots rang out in rapid succession. Ba-ba-bang!
The burst of shots echoed, surprising Marten—he hadn’t realized it was a full-auto pistol. Then he was on Wiry, carrying him down with the impact. He slashed his claws across the man’s face. He grabbed the gun arm and slammed the hand into the ground, but Wiry held on tight, trying to bend his wrist to bring the gun to bear. Blood streamed from slashes across Wiry’s forehead, into his eyes.
Marten’s left hand still had a vise grip on Wiry’s gun arm. He reached around with his right to grab Wiry’s hair, and used that as a handle to slam Wiry’s head into the ground, again and again. The grip on the pistol loosened. Marten swiped his right arm around to slap the gun away and it slid halfway across the street. He jumped after it, expecting the second attacker to be right behind him. He reached the gun, picked it up and turned, bringing it up to shoot whoever was closest. But there was no threat.
The other attacker was still lying on the ground, a pool of blood around him, not moving. Did I hit him that hard? Marten wondered briefly. He also looked vaguely familiar. But Wiry was already running for it, and amazingly he’d had the presence of mind to grab up Marten’s bag as he did so. I should have hit his head harder, thought Marten disgustedly. His skull must be very thick. He brought the pistol to bear, aimed carefully, and squeezed off a burst.
Wiry jumped at the noise, at the impact of the bullets, one grazing his hand as another broke the strap on the bag. He didn’t stop to pick it up but began ducking and weaving as he ran. Marten grinned and ran to pick up the bag. The other thug was still on the ground. He hadn’t moved,
When Marten walked up to him, the reason became clear. A bullet from Wiry’s first burst had caught the thug across the neck and, from the amount of blood, must have smashed his carotid artery. He did look familiar; he was the guy who had run him down trying to burgle his office. And he was dead.
Marten glanced up and down the street. No bystanders. But the sound of shots would have attracted attention, people would be here soon. He started jogging away from the scene himself. Ordinarily he would have stuck around to explain things—he had acted out of self-defense, after all—but he had to get to the spaceport and, he realized, even though he hadn’t done it, the gun in his hand was the murder weapon. He started to toss it away, then thought better of it. His prints and DNA were all over it. He stuffed it in his bag as he ran. He had a ship to catch.
Chapter 18: Departure
Taprobane Spaceport
Carson was striding across the field from the terminal building to the Sophie when he spotted Marten approaching from his left. He waved and called. “Hey, Marten!” He noticed Marten was carrying his bag cradled in his arms rather than slung over a shoulder. That looked odd. “Marten, what’s with the bag? Have you got a baby in there or something?”
They caught up with each other. “No, the straps, uh, broke.” said Marten.
“Oh.” Carson took a closer look at Marten. His clothing was more rumpled than was usual, his hair was mussed, and—was that blood on his sleeve? “What happened to you?”
“Had a run in with the guys from my office. At least one of them was, I never did get a close look at the guy you chased. A wiry looking guy.”
“Are you all right? They tried to mug you? Did they get anything?”
“Oh, I am fine. Not mug exactly, more of a stick-up. And they got more than they bargained for, but not what they wanted. I’ll tell you about it later, let’s get to the ship.”
“Right,” said Carson. As they turned toward the ship, Carson glimpsed a motion out of the corner of his eye, as of someone ducking away so as not to be seen. Rather than turn to look, making it obvious to whoever it was that he had been noticed, Carson made to accidentally drop the papers he was carrying. “It’s all right,” he said to Marten, “I’ve got them.”
Bending to pick them up, he snatched a quick glance in the direction of the motion he had seen. There were a pair of field workers in Port Authority coveralls standing talking to each other. A third stood near them, holding a note pad, as though he were part of the group, but the group didn’t quite seem natural. Carson picked up a few papers, then glanced up again. Was that Rico? He fought to keep any recognition out of his face and bent down to the papers again. He was almost sure of it; it was that bastard Rico who’d kept them penned up in a tomb on Verdigris. He looked around once more as he straightened, as though checking for any stray papers. That third man was looking off in a different direction now, his face turned away. Carson recognized the profile, the build. It was definitely Rico. What was he doing here? T
he man darted a glance toward him, then turned his back and walked away as though he had remembered a task. Carson wondered if he had intended to jump Marten again before he got to the ship, but that opportunity had passed now.
“Come on, Marten,” Carson said, “let’s get to the ship. The sooner we’re out of here the better as far as I’m concerned.”
“Yes, I agree.”
Carson signaled the Sophie, and Roberts lowered its boarding ramp for them.
∞ ∞ ∞
“Where do I stow my stuff?” Marten asked as he came aboard.
Roberts was doing something at the controls and called back over her shoulder. “You’re in the second bunk on the starboard side.”
Marten looked around and moved to put his bags on the bunk adjacent to the boarding hatch. Carson reached out a hand to his shoulder. Marten paused and turned to look at him. “What?”
“Your other starboard,” Carson said, grinning and pointing to a bunk on the opposite side of the corridor.
“Oh. You know Carson, timoan boats have their steering board on the left side,” Marten said as he put his gear on the correct bunk.
“Really? I didn’t—”
“Got you! No, they’ve always had center-mounted rudders. Modeled on fish.”
“When you boys are through joking around,” interrupted Roberts, “I’d like to get the ship secure for flight.”
∞ ∞ ∞
Rico hurried off the field. Had Carson spotted him? And the timoan, he was at the ship already. What happened to Warshowski and Tuco? He pulled out his omni and loaded the blackware that let him scan police channels. He listened to the police chatter for a while, then swore. He keyed in a number.
“Warshowski and Tuco blew it,” Rico said when Hopkins answered. “I guess the little guy was faster and tougher than they expected. Tuco’s dead.”
“Dead? What happened?” asked Hopkins.
“Don’t know for sure, I think Warshowski’s still running. Near as I can tell from monitoring the police channels, there was a fight. Tuco’s wrist was slashed and he was found lying on his gun, shot through the neck. No sign of Warshowski.”
The Chara Talisman Page 11