The City and the Ship

by Anne McCaffrey

  "Look, Joat, no more kidding. Channa and I are fighting for our lives. If we have to worry about you, too, it might make that last little bit of difference and get us killed. We can't afford distractions from a kid."

  Joat's lips went white. "You fight dirty," she whispered.

  "I fight to win," Simeon replied.

  "Well, so do I!" Joat shouted. "And I'm alive, aren't I?" She paused for a moment, breathing hard. Then the urchin grin came back. "I've got an instinct for this kinda thing. Trust me." She took a step back and disappeared.

  I wish I knew how she did that, Simeon thought. It would come in handy when the Kolnari get here.

  "Channa's expecting you on Boat Deck!" he called after her.

  A voice filtered in from nowhere. "Tell her I'll be seeing her."

  * * *

  "Detection . . . ship detected! Ship detected! Captain to the bridge!"

  Belazir t'Marid had been kneeling between his wife's thighs, with a heel in each hand.

  "Demonshit!" he swore, diving off the pallet and toward his clothing. The woman—she was his second wife, and a third cousin—cursed antiphonally, rolling away in the other direction.

  "The Divine Seed damn them," she said, hopping on one leg as she stuck the other into her skinsuit.

  "Easy for you to say," he snarled and kicked at her, struggling with the humiliating and acutely uncomfortable process of getting into space armor in a state of arousal. Then he raised his voice. "Battle stations, full alert. Brief me."

  "One vessel. Approaching on path of our trajectory, in normal space."

  "Normal space?" he said. The door hissed away as he trotted out of his quarters which were aft of the bridge and one deck down.

  "Confirmed," Serig said as Belazir stalked into the bridge. While the captain slept in hostile space, the executive officer stood the watch. He now rose from the commander's couch; a squat man for a Kolnar, a hand below Belazir's height, and muscled like a troll. "You have the bridge, lord."

  "Acknowledged." Belazir felt an obscure comfort as he slid into the crash couch and let his hands fall on the controls. And that cold plastic catheter has settled my other problem, he thought with an inward quirk of the lips. "Data."

  "Vessel is in the one kiloton mass range." The battle team was on the bridge now, the circular room brightening as consoles came up to ready status. "Neutrino signature indicates merchanter-class engines, presently running on ballistic. There may be energy or kinetic weapons, but I detect no triggers for fusion warheads."

  "Interesting," Belazir said calmly. "Serig."

  "Command me, lord."

  "Indeed. We're going to take a closer look. Prepare for drop into normal space. Notify the flotilla."

  "Lord . . ."

  "Yes, yes. The primary mission. We are gaining swiftly and have the time. Also, if we detect this ship, it may have detected us." The Kolnari fleet had the best instruments they could steal or copy, but there was no telling how much performance had improved in areas in close contact with regular shipyards. There had been one or two nasty surprises like that before in the Clan's history. "If they have, all the more reason to investigate and make sure they have no tale to tell anyone."

  "Prepare for breakthrough." Alarm chimes tinkled and sang. "Thirty seconds, mark."

  A twisting at the fabric of the universe; the view on the exterior screens did not change—the computers compensated during FTL running—but a subtle sense of reality returned, something at the corner of the mind.

  Serig's voice spoke beside Belazir. "Lord, we have her on electromagnetic detectors. No answer to hailing. Shall we use the kinetics?"

  Their relative velocities were in the thousands of kps; solid shot would strike with nuclear force.

  "Not yet," Belazir said thoughtfully. "Give me a visual."

  The image sprang out before him a few seconds later. There was a noticeable lag now that they were confined to Einstein's universe. A flattened spheroid, quite a small ship. Fairly fast, from the size of the exterior coils; neatly made, nearly new. And totally unarmed, as far as the detectors could determine. Certainly not meant for rapid transit in atmosphere as a Kolnari warship of that size would be.

  "They have a small laser," Serig said. "Meteorite-clearing type. Apart from that, nothing."

  "Is she dead?"

  "The cabin is at sixteen degrees," he replied, and touched a control. The screen's image split. A molded double of the ship appeared, infrared scanning to show temperatures.

  "But no reply to our hail," Belazir mused, tugging at his lower lip. "This is too interesting to pass by. All ships, establish zero relative velocity and stand by."

  "Great Lord." The communications officer. "The Age of Darkness is hailing, imperative code."

  "Put her through." Belazir nodded to himself; exactly what he would expect. A face that might have been his brother's flashed into a screen on his couch-arm.

  "Aragiz t'Varak," the man said. Equal-to-equal greeting, full personal and subclan-name. Socially correct as the t'Varak were one of the noble gens of the High Clan, but a military solecism. One of the problems of a family business.

  "t'Varak," Belazir said, reminding him of it. In a social situation, he would have replied with his own full name.

  "Why are we halting?" Belazir waited. "Sir."

  "Because there is a potential prize of great value here," Belazir said mildly. "In any case, we must deal with it."

  "A missile is quick." And Father Chalku is impatient: the unspoken thought was plain enough.

  "A missile is wasteful," Belazir said. He grinned for an instant. Aragiz looked slightly alarmed. "But your objection is noted. You will not, therefore, insist on sharing in the prize credit—you or your ship."

  Now Aragiz's face was unreadable black iron. Fool, the captain of the Bride thought. Everyone on the Age would be monitoring this, as the Bride was broadcasting in ship-to-ship clear. An intact merchantman could be a prize of great worth, particularly a new, fast ship, suitable for conversion to a family transport or an assault carrier. No matter how well-born or ruthless, a captain could not afford to alienate the common crew too badly; not to mention the relatives who would fill most of the command positions.

  T'Varak had just sharply reduced his chances of surviving to flag rank. Belazir's hand cut off his protests and the intership screen.

  "Serig," he said, allowing himself a slight feral smile of satisfaction. "You will take the assault team. One boat, three fighters. Full monitor at all times."

  Serig grinned, white against his ebony face. Being petit-noble, he could afford such open enjoyment at the t'Varak's discomfiture.

  "Perhaps there will be a scumvermin woman aboard," he said.

  * * *

  The lock cycled open.

  Serig na Marid signed behind himself: on the count of three. He felt good, loose and easy and fast, the plasma gun in his hands an extension of his body. Nothing else felt quite as good as the tension just before combat: not sex or wealth or satisfied revenge. The knowledge that his lord would be observing through the helmet pickups was an added bonus. Whatever he accomplished would not be just another small byte in the chaotic melee of large-scale destruction: it would be uniquely his, with commanders and officers on all four ships watching.

  "Now!"

  Swiftly, smoothly, the three figures in dark combat armor swung into the lock. The deck rang under their boots as they landed in the interior field.

  "Still no sign of reaction," Serig said. "Field is point six-three GK." Kolnari gravities, that was. It was 1.0 G Terran, the old human standard. "Pressurizing."

  Serig dropped to a three-point stance on the floor, fingers of his left hand, toes of both feet, knees bent. The two ground-fighters were on either side of the airlock. The inner portal was of standard form, circular, with a seam down the middle where the leaves met. Air hissed into the lock, and the light went from vacuum-flat to a warmer, yellow tone. Much like that on some planets he had seen, although the Kolnari fle
et still kept the harsh brightness of their vanished homeworld.

  "Go!"

  The leaves snapped back. In the same instant Serig vaulted forward, plasma rifle ready. A single octagonal corridor lay in front, ending five meters ahead in a T-junction. He went to ground just before the intersection and pressed a thumb to the stock of his weapon. A long stiff thread extended out, and Serig keyed the image it carried onto his faceplate. More empty corridor, this time running north-south through the main axis of the ship. Again octagonal, 2.0 meters in diameter, with a synthetic fabric covering on the "down" side and the ceiling; extruded synthetic sides, luminous at regular intervals, and recessed hatchways. Another door was at the north end of the corridor with a keypad, and a duplicate at the south.

  A careful one second later the two backups leapt past him, facing either way. They waited in silence, eyes flickering in trained patterns.

  "Nothing," Serig said, coming to his feet and walking into the axial corridor. He glanced down at the readouts on his gauntlet.

  "Air is Terran-standard basis." Thinner than Kolnar, but with more oxygen and less sulfuric acid and ozone. Homeworld had much ozone at the surface, little in the stratosphere. "Slightly depleted oxygen levels, high level of necrotic decay products. Wouldn't like to have to breathe it."

  "Proceed," Belazir's voice said.

  "As you command, lord," Serig replied. In the language of Kolnar, that phrase was one word. "Proceeding up axial corridor now."

  Almost all human-made ships still had a notional "bow" at the north pole, and that was the most common location for a bridge. Serig directed his subordinates forward with hand signals. They moved from one compartment to another, opening each, checking inside with a vision thread and then going on to the next.

  "Sensors detect no live presence," Serig reported. They moved forward again, two covering the one exposed, up to the small ship's control center. "These chambers appear to be staterooms, lord, presently disused."

  "Better and better," Belazir's voice said. That implied extensive life-support facilities.

  The north-end hatch yielded to the same simple random-number code as the exterior entranceway. The control chamber was a domed hemisphere with three couches, only one occupied. It had half-closed around the pilot's body in a coldsleep cocoon, not fully deployed.

  Serig moved to look down at the body.

  "You were right; a woman," Belazir said dryly.

  "Not one that appeals to me," his second-in-command replied. "Tshakiz, get a tissue sample." He was glad for the filtered, neutral air that flowed through his helmet.

  The rotting flesh slid greasily away from the probe. Serig looked elsewhere, touching the controls with slow caution. The shrill accented voice of the Medical Officer broke in. That was a low-status occupation, and the man was the gelded son of a slave mother.

  "Subject has been dead approximately four days," he announced. "Scan, please, my great lords."

  One of the ground fighters detached a sensor wand from her belt and ran it slowly from head to toe of the corpse. A minute's silence followed.

  "Preliminary analysis: death from overdose of coldsleep drugs, combined with oxygen starvation and dehydration when cocoon failed to properly deploy."

  Serig nodded. On single-crewed vessels the pilot would often use coldsleep, relying on the AI systems to handle the simple and tedious work of long interstellar transits. Slightly risky, but it saved lifespan.

  "Ship systems are live," Serig said. "Cryptography, please." He punched a jack into the receptor and waited while the powerful machines on the Bride worked on the guardian programs of the enemy ship. "Worm is through. I have control of the computer." That was simple, he thought. Not much computer security at all, and . . .

  "Ah! Lord? The coldsleep system was sabotaged."

  "How wicked," Belazir said, and they shared a chuckle. "Why?"

  "A moment, lord. Yes, by the dugs of the Dreadful Mother! This is a commercial courier. The female was an agent for some merchant house, traveling with samples. She boasts of making the 'sale of a lifetime' at her most recent stop, a nexus-station designated SSS-900-C. Some rival did it."

  "It was the sale of her lifetime," Belazir said.

  This time Serig could hear more laughter in the background. He turned sharply to his assistants. "Nobody told you to stop working," he barked. "Divine Seed of Kolnar! Lord, I have accessed the cargo manifest!"

  He could hear Belazir grunt like a man belly-punched as the figures and data scrolled across to the Kolnari warships. Computers and computer parts; engineering software; fabrication systems; drugs; luxury consumer items, wines, silks . . .

  "And lord! The cargo compartments have full climatic control!"

  Rigged for the carrying of delicate cargo? That made the vessel beyond price to the Clan. With climate-controlled holds, she could be easily and cheaply rerigged to hold families or troops in coldsleep.

  Belazir's voice grew sardonic. "Captain t'Varak, I hope you are satisfied." Nothing came over the circuit but the sound of teeth grinding. One of the other captains did venture a comment.

  "Does this not seem too much like the answer to a prayer?" he murmured. "I sacrifice much to my joss and the ancestors, vessels of the Divine Seed, but . . ." The joss help the strongest first, the saying went.

  "Under other circumstances, Zhengir t'Marid," Belazir answered him coolly, "I might agree. But cousin, who could know we forayed in this direction? Only those we pursue, and they press forward in a disintegrating hulk with no communications capability since we blew it away." Command snapped in his voice. "Serig. Secure the ship. Discard the corpse and flush the environmental systems. Are fungibles adequate?"

  "More than adequate, Great Lord," Serig said, hammering the glee out of his voice. My gods! My greed! he thought. A full percentage point would be his as noble-in-command of the boarding party. My lord is well pleased with me, he decided. He must, to give his bastard half-brother such an opportunity. Petit-nobles had been translated to full status for less.

  "There is plenty of air," he went on. "Surplus water. The pilot never awoke to renew."

  "Good. Await the prize crew—Alyze b'Marid will command it—and then return. Expedite! We will resume superluminal in less than an hour, or skin will be stripped."

  Alyze was the commander's new third wife. Serig suspected she might be pregnant, and Belazir anxious to have her out of harm's way before even the slight danger at the end of their chase. He nodded to himself. Such was good noble thinking, for a man's honor was in the diffusion of his portion of the Divine Seed.

  "Hearkening and obedience, lord," he said. And this SSS-900-C will also be in the path of our pursuit, Serig thought. I will light ten sticks to my personal joss in apology.

  He had kicked the little idol across his cabin in anger when he learned they were to be sent on a lootless, honorless pursuit mission while their comrades and clanfolk plundered Bethel. It seemed he had been premature.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  "Told ya," Joat said.

  "Yes," Seld Chaundra said, turning his head aside.

  The transit levels of SSS-900-C were still chaotic and barely-suppressed panic was rampant. Squads of weeping children pressed by, herded by an adult with a child in her arms. A caterpillar of toddlers held on to a cord which was tethered to a few protesting sub-adolescents.

  Joat and Seld were off to one side in the shadows of an access bay. There were many at the upper globe's north pole, what with the pumping and docking facilities and the multiple feeds needed. The housekeeping programs were laboring overtime, pumping odors of pine, sea-salt and wildflowers into the air. It still smelled of vomit and unchanged diapers and fear, and the baffles only muted the roar of voices. The two teenagers stepped backward as a man wearing the armband of a part-time policeman went by.

  "I hate running out on my dad like this," Seld said in a choked voice. "He's gonna kill me, Joat."

  "No, the pirates may kill you, but all he can do is slap you aroun
d."

  Shocked, the boy looked up. "Dad never hits me!"

  "Well, then you've got a pretty good dad, and you're not running out on him—you're staying with him. 'S what you wanna do, isn't it?"

  "Yeah." He turned his face to the wall. "I can't go . . . my mom. . . ." he said in a fierce tone. "I never saw her again . . . I woke up and she was just . . . gone."

  Surprised at herself—she generally hated to touch people—Joat put an awkward arm around his shoulders. He clutched at her for a moment, sobbing.

  "Sorry about blubbering," he said after a moment. Then he grew conscious of the bearhug grip he was exerting, and broke away.

  "'Salright," Joat said. Somehow it is, she thought, then flogged her mind back to practical matters. "Need a snot-rag?"

  "Thanks." He blew noisily on the one which she offered and then gave it back to her. "What do we do now?"

  "We get out of sight. Channa's going to go ballistic, and she's nearly as hard to hide from as Simeon. Worse, 'cause I can't screw up her sensors."

  "There she is," he said.

  Joat's head whipped around. The noise was reaching tidal proportions around the tall lean figure of Channa Hap. Only the escort of Vicker's security personnel kept her from being bowled over in the crowd. She had a canvas carrier bag in one hand. Joat recognized the foot of the stuffed bear sticking out one side.

  "That satisfies the letter of it," she said. "Let's go."

  * * *

  Channa stalked into the lounge, opened the door to Joat's room and flung the canvas bag she carried as hard as she could against the room's far wall. It made a solitary spot of disorder in the servo-neat room. Then she shut the door and walked stiffly to her desk, sat down and began keying through her messages, back hunched in rejection.

  "It's not my fault," Simeon finally ventured to say.

  She turned slowly to glare at his column.

  Oooh, I'm glad this is titanium crystal, Simeon thought. Now, if only there was something similar available for the psyche.

  Just as slowly, just as silently, Channa turned back to her console.

  Simeon sent her a message that read. "I'm sorry you had to go through that scene at Disembarkation."