The City and the Ship

by Anne McCaffrey

  "Sperin?" she asked. Joat made a moue. "I'd feel better about that if he'd bothered to get back to me. But if I'm lucky he's already dealt with it." And if he hasn't I'm beached.

  "Can you not simply change Wyal's name and your name and begin again in another quadrant of space? Surely you need not meekly surrender to them? If worst comes to worst, you can return to Bethel with me and we will shelter you." He saw her look aside and blink.

  "Thanks," she said quietly, in his language. Then she took a deep breath and went on: "First, I'm not ducking out on Amos, whatever it costs. Second, I can't welch—not without losing my reputation; and this'll have gone out on the unofficial net too; they'd be after me like a sicatooth after a goat if I don't pay up, not to mention the bounty hunters." She paused reflectively. "You know how it is."

  They nodded, and Alvec grunted agreement. You might get away with cheating the above-ground companies, but not the underworld. They had a primitive, straightforward approach to those who tried to cheat them.

  "You don't seriously think I'd risk visiting your wife and children with bounty hunters on my tail, do you?"

  "No," Joseph said and smiled.

  "Besides, if I ran, then I'd never see Simeon or Channa again. It's not worth it." She stood and looked around the control cabin. "And," she went on, her hands closing into fists behind her back, "they're not even close to getting Wyal yet. We're going to Schwartztarr, and then on to Rohan."

  * * *

  Bros Sperin leaned back from the screen. So, she's gone. According to her itinerary Schwartztarr was her destination. And she's carrying a really weird cargo, going by the manifest. Most likely she was also carrying something Central Worlds would rather she wasn't. Little Ms. Simeon-Hap was nothing if not enterprising.

  Uncertainty tickled his mind like a cat playing with a piece of string. She can take care of herself, Bros told himself. Don't try second guessing yourself at this late date. She's capable.

  Capable of unraveling his carefully made plans. She was like chaos on two feet when she put her mind to it. He knew felinoid species who thought more before they leaped. Of course, he had to admit, like them, she tends to land on her feet.

  But if she wanted to live long in this business, she was going to have to learn some caution. And some tact. He grinned, Sal had told him a few stories.

  Bros liked Joat enough to want her to live a very long time indeed. He'd especially liked the Joat he'd met on the bridge of her ship; she'd been more spontaneous, more natural.

  The universe would be a far less interesting place without that young woman in it.

  He shook his head. The idea had been to lock up a loose cannon while he did the real work. Joat was supposed to merely observe. But having gotten a look at her style up close and personal, I wonder if she's even capable of doing something so passive as simply looking.

  Nomik Ciety was involved with the Kolnari. To what degree Sperin had no idea. I suspect that he's up to his neck in them, he thought disgustedly. But Bros had long ago trained himself not to treat his suspicions as evidence. And if he is working with them he's being very discreet.

  It was a calculated risk, sending her after a man like Ciety. Still, given his relatively exalted status on Rohan, he should be a perfect choice for Joat to investigate; a personage all but inaccessible to a lowly freighter captain on her first smuggling run.

  And yet . . .

  "Enough," Sperin said aloud. While she leaves a streak across the troposphere, I'll do my entry . . . nice and slow and inconspicuous.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  "What was in those cargo modules?" Alvec asked.

  Joat smiled and touched a control. A chime rang through the Wyal's bridge.

  "Beyond gravity well limits," Rand's impersonal voice said. "Prepare for transition. Three minutes and counting."

  "That's for me to know, and you to guess," she said smugly. "Got the destination data ready?"

  "Schwartztarr system," Alvec said, tossing a datahedron in one hand. "Why do you want to stop there?"

  "It's on the way . . . and I think it might be useful," she said.

  "Ten seconds."

  "You're the boss."

  "Damned right. Prepare to cheat Einstein . . . now."

  The Wyal twisted itself out of congruence with the sidereal universe.

  * * *

  Schwartztarr was the fourth planet of a G6 sun, a little brighter than Sol-standard. I've never seen Earth's sun, Joat thought idly as they dropped into normal space. Schwartztarr's star was pinpoint bright in the screens; the schematics showed the nine planets of the system and a running list of in-system traffic, interstellar ships, habitats and space-based fabricators.

  Not very much, for a system that had been settled as long as this one. Surprisingly sparse, in fact, for a place with a settled planet bearing a breathable atmosphere. She called up data on the main screen.

  Well, that explains it. Sort of large planet, gravity 1.2 standard, with a single large continent in the northern polar-to-temperate zone. Rather far out, so it was cold despite the active sun, and with a fairly steep axial tilt. Long cold winters, and the rest of the system was middling-average. The file showed a few scenes from those winters, and Joat shivered slightly, the reflex of someone who'd spent almost all of her life in the climate-controlled environment of ships and Stations. The people in the vid were wrapped up like bundles, with powered heaters underneath. Another shot showed something with eight short clawed legs, long white fur, red eyes and a head that was mostly mouth filled with long pointed teeth. Whatever-it-was was resting its front pair of legs on something much larger and dead, ripping chunks off and bolting them. Then it looked up at the camera and gave an amazing snarl, with its jaws open at least ninety degrees.

  Joat shuddered again. "Remind me never to go outside on Schwartztarr," she said.

  Joseph had come onto the bridge, toweling down his bare torso after a spell in the exerciser. Muscle rippled under the smooth olive skin of his chest as he stopped beside her command couch. Not bad, she thought. Joe was an uncle, so the thought was pretty theoretical—but Alvec caught her eye and winked.

  "That beast looks like it would make interesting hunting," the Bethelite said, nodding to the screen.

  Joat hid a grimace of distaste. Bethel was the boondocks, and they had some pretty grody customs there.

  "But what," he went on, "is that fluffy white material all over the ground?"

  "Snow," Alvec said, from the assistant/engineer's couch. At Joseph's raised eyebrow: "Flakes of frozen water that fall from the sky."

  "Ah!" Joseph leaned further forward. "But why doesn't it melt?"

  "Because the temperature is below the freezing point of water."

  "The God preserve us!" he said. "I had heard of such things on high mountains, but . . ."

  Joat glanced at him. The furrow of hard concern faded for a moment from between his eyes; he looked like a boy, smiling at wonders. It was only an instant, but it made the pain and worry more obvious when they returned.

  "Hey, Boss," Alvec said. "What landing vector do y'want to cut?"

  "Standard—Capriana Spaceport. There's not much else here, here. Rand's taking us in, it needs the practice."

  "Rand?" Alvec's face went carefully blank.

  "I fixed the program," she said defensively.

  "We've worked on it together," Rand assured him, "I'm certain we've worked the bugs out of it. And I've studied several hundred landings by you and by Joat; I've also exchanged information with several other AIs of my acquaintance. I'm confident that all will be well this time."

  "It's different from docking at a station," Alvec said nervously. "You do a real good station docking."

  "Thank you," Rand said, its lights flickering blue.

  "But I think one of us should co-pilot you until you get the landing stuff perfect. No offense."

  "None taken." The AI's tones were always neutral, but that sounded a little flatter than usual.

  "It'll be
perfect, Al," Joat said through gritted teeth. "It wasn't even Rand's fault the last time, it was the way my program interfaced with that fardling, wonky . . ."

  "Just in case . . ." he insisted.

  "If you would not mind, Joat," Joseph put in delicately. "You understand . . . I travel by spaceship so seldom . . . the conversation has made me a little, ah . . ."

  Joat shrugged. "Sure. OK."

  "Why not use a commercial program?" Alvec grumbled, settling into his crash-couch and fastening the restraint harness. "There's dozens of 'em available. Cheap too!"

  "Rand is unique," Joat said stiffly. "And I want it to stay that way."

  "When it's my butt, I sort of like standard and tried and tested as opposed to unique. You know what I mean, Boss?"

  "You trust me," she countered.

  Alvec sighed. "You may be unique, Boss, but you've also got a license."

  "Point taken," she said quietly. "And since I've already agreed to let you co-pilot, can we drop the subject?"

  "So . . ." Alvec said into the silence that followed. "You managed to scare up a cargo after all, eh, Boss?"

  "Yup."

  After a long pause he asked, "So . . . what are we shippin'?"

  There was a longer pause, then Joat answered: "Laser tube guides."

  "Lasers?"

  "Yup."

  "You're shipping laser tubes to Schwartztarr?"

  "Yup."

  "You're kidding?"

  "What is it?" Joseph asked. "What is wrong?"

  "Lasers're all they make here. It's their main industry," Alvec said. "I can't believe . . ."

  "They were cheap, and it's my money, okay?"

  "You bought them?"

  "Al," she said warningly.

  "You're right," Alvec soothed, "someone'll want 'em."

  "Attention Central Worlds freighter, this is Schwartztarr traffic control, please identify yourself."

  Alvec leapt for the com like a drowning man after a lifeline. His stubby fingers touched the controls with an odd, butterfly delicacy.

  "Cleared," traffic control said. "Planetary approach, Tarrstown spaceport. Welcome to the Schwartztarr system."

  "Yes, welcome," Joseph murmured. He had slid into the vacant navigator's couch. "Joat, observe."

  Joat slaved a screen to the scanners the Bethelite was using. "A ship . . . oh."

  Alvec leaned over. "Got a neutrino signature like a cathouse billboard," he observed. "Either they're leaking, or . . ."

  "Corvette-class engines," Joseph said. "Very similar to the ones the Prophet bought for our in-system patrol craft."

  Joat grinned. "I think we've left respectability behind."

  * * *

  The Wyal buffeted as they slid down their vector towards the outer fringes of the atmosphere. Screens began to fog as the hull compressed gas into a cloud of ionized particles. Joat's fingers itched to touch the controls; she wrapped them around the arms of her crash-couch instead. Alvec was kneading a fisted right hand into the palm of his left.

  "Cloud cover," the AI's metallic-smooth voice said. "We're down to suborbital velocity. Hull temperatures within parameters." It paused. "Ground is at minus twenty, wind seventy kilometers per hour." Another pause. "Down to suborbital speeds. Exterior view on."

  Alvec gave an exaggerated shiver as the largest screen cleared to show a swirling mass of storm cloud. The hull toned again as they plunged into it, a different note from the stress of high-altitude reentry.

  "Brrr."

  A moment later he yelped and reached for the controls. Joat stretched out her own arm and touched him on the shoulder. The Wyal rang as if a thousand medium-sized mad gods were pounding on it with their fists.

  "Let Rand handle it. Rand, what is that?"

  "Frozen water," the computer said. "Nodes of from millimetric to centimetric size, at high velocity."

  Joseph's brows rose. "Hail?"

  "Yes, hail."

  The exterior screens showed darkness shot with lightning and massive winds. Joat felt the skin along her spine creep. The hazards of space were orderly, compared to this; Wyal had the capacity for atmosphere transit, but it seemed unnatural, somehow.

  They broke through the cloud cover at three thousand meters above their destination. The spaceport was a cleared space of a few square kilometers, set in a sea of green broken only by white-rimmed inlets—the scene twisted mentally, and she realized that it was a forest, fretted by fjords of the sea. Tarrstown lay along several of those arms, its street-patterns bright against the darkening landscape. Snow blew by, nearly horizontal in the gale. A spot on the concrete of the landing field began to strobe.

  "Don't believe in luxuries like gantries or tiedowns here," Alvec grumbled. "We'll have to keep the drive hot or get blown over."

  "Nope, there's a mobile unit coming out," Joat said, tapping the screen. "Guess they don't have enough traffic to justify the cost of fixed installations. Lots of worlds don't—"

  She broke off with an oath that put Joseph's eyebrows up again. Something had slammed into the hull, not enough mass to feel but enough to make the plating ring. Several more somethings followed.

  "What is that?"

  The exterior screen split. A central panel showed something dirty-white and about ten meters from wingtip to wingtip closing fast on the pickup. That went black as it was covered, and then showed flashes of teeth and slaver as whatever-it-was tried to gnaw its way through the metal.

  "Not too bright," she said, forcing herself to relax—her arms had been trying to push her body back through the couch in instinctive reflex.

  "But hungry," Joseph observed thoughtfully.

  "Very hungry," Alvec concurred.

  The winds were slower below the clouds; the ship slid downwards as if it were following an invisible string in the sky. Snow blasted away from the landing site, and there was a rumble and clank as the seldom-used leg-jacks extended from their pods in the stern.

  "Adjusting to planetary gravity." Weight came down on them, a sluggish feeling. "There," Rand said, "I told you that we'd perfected the program."

  "Yeah, well, conditions were pretty smooth," Alvec said grudgingly. "But I guess you did okay."

  "Thank you," Rand and Joat said simultaneously.

  Smooth? Joat thought wryly. Conditions were pretty smooth? I hope I never find out what you'd consider rough, buddy.

  "It's nice to know you still have some faith in me," she said aloud.

  "What do we do now?" Joseph asked.

  "Well, you guys can go play," Joat told them. "Rand and I will wait for our contact." She put her feet up on the console and leaned back in her chair, arms behind her head: "To contact us."

  "What about selling our cargo?" Alvec asked.

  "Don't be silly, Al. Who ever heard of shipping laser tubes to Schwartztarr?"

  * * *

  Joat watched the ground-crawler take the two men towards the buildings at the edge of the spaceport. It was a long low flatbed, born on a dozen man-high wheels, with an armored cab at both ends; a heavy laser was mounted on a scarf-ring above each of the cabs. As she watched the crawler fade into the blowing snow one of the gunners swiveled his weapon and fired into the brawling whiteness. The beam itself was invisible, but it cut a tunnel of exploding steam through the snow. At the far end something unseen gave a screaming bellow that faded into a series of snarls.

  "Nice planet," Joat said.

  "Low salubrity rating," Rand replied seriously. "Nice compared to Kolnar, maybe. There is a man requesting entrance."

  "Let him in," she said.

  * * *

  "What do you mean, five thousand?"

  The man sitting across from Joat was almost a clone of the man who'd first contacted her; pale, thin, with a beard. The bulky furs and the snow melting on them were different, as was the heavy explosive-bullet slug-thrower he cradled in one arm.

  He shrugged his narrow shoulders and said with a sneer: "That's what my principals have authorized me to pay you. Take i
t or leave it. But, uh, you're goin' to owe me something if you leave it."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah, you were given an advance to cover shipping expenses. Remember."

  "I agreed to do this for twenty-five thousand, plus shipping expenses. If you've decided to shortchange me on this you're the one breaking the contract, not me." Joat glared at him and added mentally, You oily little weasel.

  "Contract!" He laughed explosively, leaning back in his chair. "What, somebody signed a contract for this? You think I'm stupid?"

  "It's implied," she said evenly. "A verbal contract is still a valid contract."

  "So take us to court! You got a case, right? So sue us. Just tell the judge that you agreed to ship stolen information for a ridiculous amount of credits and we only want to pay you a part of it. You can't lose!"

  Joat schooled her face to cold disdain, an expression Channa had taught her. The courier seemed to find it excruciatingly funny. At last he looked away, waving a pleading hand.

  "Ooh, ooh this has gotta stop, ooh wow!" He shook his head and grinned. "Look," he said reasonably. "If you decide not to take the five thousand and to keep the datahedron, all you got is something you can't use and you can't sell and you're out five thousand. Plus, you owe me two thousand." He stopped and glared at her through narrowed eyes. "And lady, you will pay me that two thousand. So where does that leave you? Broke on Schwartztarr with a cargo load of laser tubes. Nobody here is going to buy laser crystals! I'm not stupid, y'know."

  "I know that nobody on Schwartztarr is going to buy the fardling laser crystals. I'm not stupid either. If the authorities want to think I'm a moron, fine, let 'em. But you know why I'm here, so what's your excuse?"

  "Okay," he said in astonishment holding his hands up palms out. "C'mon, you had to know that twenty-five thousand was way too high for a low-risk job like this, huh? You're not stupid, right? Look, you can only lose here. Just take the credits and maybe I can find you somethin' else to do for us. Huh?"

  Joat glared at him, her lips a tight line. Then she nodded.

  "But I want payment now."

  "Okay," he said sullenly.

  She called up the branch of her bank that did business on Schwartztarr and spoke the keying phrase that opened up an account, then hit a key that transmitted her account number and the location of the home branch along with her account's most recent update in a single rapid burst. Withdrawals, of course, were much more complex.