"Wait," Tommy said, as he ran for the trapdoor to the sub-deck. A few seconds later he tapped on the keyboard in front of the main computer.
Ull leaned down into the opening. "What are you doing? The insystem drive has stopped responding."
Tommy didn't look up. "I know. I have control."
On his monitor, a duplicate of the gravity sensor screen appeared. "This will be tricky. They are close."
On the monitor, a red dot appeared ahead of the ship, swept across the paths of the incoming missiles, then disappeared. For an instant his body stretched upward, his head seeming to pull away from his feet. Another red dot appeared behind the ship and swept the paths of the missiles coming from that direction. Again, he felt a stretching sensation. On the monitor, the smoothly curving paths of the incoming dots had become chaotic.
Ull had come down the ladder. "What did you do?"
"I used the drive to create two small black holes and disrupted the incoming missiles. We have time now to transit now."
"You did...," the rest he lost as she ran up the ladder, her tail jerking from side to side behind her. Tommy heard her yelling at the transit operator.
"Master Tommy! Master Tommy!" Suna knelt on her hands and knees with her head and long neck through the trapdoor opening. "Look on the monitor!"
The characteristic moiré of five incoming wormholes displayed on the screen, none farther than ten thousand kilometers away.
Tommy opened another window on the monitor to show the transit entry status. Ull had initiated the five-second countdown. The ship should be gone before the Kadiil ships arrived, but they would follow. Creating black holes must be included on the Kadiil’s list of forbidden technologies!
He ran up the stairs, pushing Suna out of the way in his urgency. As he climbed, he looked up at the dome in time to see it turn black.
"Ull, when we get to The People's Fist you must dock and get away as quickly as possible! The black holes I created drew in the Kadiil ships. They will be following us."
A grinding whistle escaped Ull's mouth. "I will do as you say, but why should I bother? They will hunt us down wherever we go."
"That is not certain," Tommy said. "Leegh and I came to that conclusion based on what we know. All the Kadiil ships, including the one watching My Flowing Streams, moved to the site of the black holes. Maybe if we transit away, they will not follow. Maybe they will think the raiders created the black holes. We have to try!"
The few minutes the ship was in transit felt like an hour. As soon as stars became visible, Ull began giving orders to the insystem pilot, who turned the ship and backed it into the asteroid.
Tommy turned to the gravity sensor operator. "Suna, extend the range to include the planet we just left."
On the monitor, instead of the signatures of a planet and its moon were millions of pixel sized dots, moving away from where the planet had been.
Ull had said the planet was uninhabited except for some defenseless animals.
"Ull, the Kadiil destroyed the planet."
"And the three ships of The People?"
"Since the raiders didn't have any warning, they were probably destroyed, too," answered Tommy.
Ull slumped in her chair. "And so, a tenth of those who remained of The People die in an instant. Once again, you have saved this ship from raiders, but at great cost."
A call from one of the bridge crew saying the docking was complete brought her erect in her chair. "And where will we escape the Kadiil?" she asked Tommy.
She asked him? How would he know? "Uh, try a jump of two hundred light years in some random direction. Maybe there is some maximum range they receive information through the wormhole. Maybe that is why they follow us so closely." He had to be wrong, but what else could they try?
"I will do as you say," Ull said and busied herself with the transit console operator.
Tommy had returned to watching over Suna's shoulder. As the transit operator began the five-second countdown, the monitor showed the moiré of the five Kadiil ships. They were away with ten seconds to spare.
# # #
The council spent most of the ten-hour transit of The People's Fist in session. When Leegh refused to attend, the council's other members pulled her out of her quarters while her warrior guards watched but were forbidden to interfere. Tommy heard about the meeting and their continuing problems with Leegh from Ull a half-hour before the ship exited transit.
"You probably owe your life to Leegh's condition," Ull said, after entering Tommy's quarters.
"My life?" Tommy said.
"Two members of the council were ready to kill you for the situation we are in. I am aware Leegh has no liking for you or any human. If she were willing to talk, I am certain she would have voted with those two. Instead, she swam aimlessly in circles on her back around the meeting pool. She seems to have lost all interest in living."
Tommy had to ask, "How did you vote?"
"I argued that, with Leegh unable to help us, your knowledge is our only hope to escape the Kadiil. I am not certain how I would have voted if Leegh were healthy."
I'm not sure I blame her! "What do you want me to do?"
"Be on the bridge when we exit."
"May I make a suggestion?" Tommy asked.
"Yes."
"Have the coordinates of your next transit ready to enter when you exit this one, just in case."
# # #
Sisle stood up from where she had been hiding behind a plant. "What will you do? What can we do?" She threw her arms around him. "Oh, Tommy, I don't want them to kill you!"
He gently pushed her away. "That hasn't happened. We won't let it happen." Although I'm not sure how, he thought, as he reached into his satchel and brought out a small silver cylinder. "I may need some help, so take this. I hope you can use it."
She recoiled. "You want me to kill all the warriors if they try to kill you? Even for you, I couldn't."
"I wouldn't ask you to. But could you kill one or two warriors if they threatened me or someone you cared about?"
She drew herself upright. "We're taught to be warriors, too. I could do that."
"I bought several of these on Toblepas. Turn the end one click. Just one click! Point this end at the warrior and push the button on the side. Only his collar will explode. Can you do that?"
Her hands were shaking as she reached out to take the cylinder. "Yes, I can."
# # #
For the first time in months, Tommy felt like a midget in the midst of hostile giants, but he also sensed more than hostility from the council members around the command chair. They expressed their hostility by flexing their claws whenever they looked at him, but they also stood slightly bent, with their tails partially curled around their feet, as if they might drop to four legs and run. Leegh had looked much the same before she quit talking to anyone.
Leegh's equations again made the exit time precise. Tommy moved to the gravity sensor console and began counting seconds as soon as the ship exited transit.
At the count of ten, the wormhole signatures of two Kadiil ships appeared, one at eight thousand kilometers and one at five thousand kilometers.
I hope Ull has this set up. "Ull, two of the Kadiil ships followed us, and they are close by," he called.
As Ull gave the command to transit, the others in the council slumped further, and, without looking at Tommy or saying a word to anyone, left the bridge.
Tommy had been prepared to run. What did this mean?
"We are all dead," Ull said from behind him. "I did as you suggested, but they will follow us wherever we go."
Tommy turned toward her. "At least we are safe in transit."
"A meaningless safety. We can travel back and forth across the galaxy until our supplies are exhausted, then we will die. Better that the Kadiil kill us than slowly starve to death."
"How long is this transit?" Tommy asked. "How much time do we have to think of something else?"
Ull gave a harsh trill. "We will not be
thinking of something else. After much debate, we decided for a transit of thirty minutes. If you had been correct that the Kadiil could not follow us so far, it would not be needed. If they did find us, it would give us time for one last swim."
She got up from the chair. "I am going there now." She stopped and her long head twisted toward him over her narrow shoulders. "We decided not to kill you ourselves. You will die soon enough."
Most of the bridge crew followed her to the elevators, leaving only Cauth, Ulsu, San and Suna, the young Nesu who operated his replacement consoles.
"Master Tommy," San said. "Our mothers have forgotten the ship was dying before you came. We all know how close we were to our final voyage. You repaired our home and gave us hope. Can you do anything now?"
"Please, Master Tommy," Suna said.
Tommy glanced at the new exit clock above the command chair. Nineteen minutes until exit. They could transit again, but just anywhere won't help. Ull is right about that. Where can we go the Kadiil can't follow? Well, where they might not be able to follow. Where would be safe for The People's Hand and not a Kadiil ship?
"Of course!" Tommy said.
"Master Tommy?" said San.
"This is not The People's Hand. This is The People's Fist. That might make a difference. There is a place where we could go."
The place that occurred to him wasn't much better than being in transit, but it did offer more possibilities. They could do nothing while they were wrapped in this black bubble.
Tommy practically dived down the stairs to the sub-deck. What he wanted had to be stored here in the computer logs. The Nesu left on the bridge wouldn't know. Yes! He hurried up the stairs with the coordinates written on a piece of paper.
"Who can operate the transit console?" he asked. He gave the paper to Cauth when she raised her hand. "Set this up for immediate transit when we exit." He thought a moment and took the paper back to write another set of coordinates below the first. "And be prepared to transit to this point if I tell you to. Everyone else to your stations."
When the dome cleared, Cauth started the countdown. As before, the wormhole signature appeared and was left behind by their entry into transit.
"Now we wait," Tommy said. He looked at the clock, which had reset to one hour forty-three minutes.
"Five minutes before we exit, I want everyone down the stairs to the sub-deck," he said.
From the intercom on the command desk came Ull's voice, "Who is there?"
Tommy went to the desk and answered, "Tommy."
"We should have exited transit five minutes ago. What happened?" Ull said.
"The Kadiil followed us. We entered transit again."
"On whose orders?" Ull asked.
"Mine."
"You have much to answer for, after all, feral human," she said, her voice grinding the words. "How long is this transit?"
Tommy glanced at the clock. "One hour thirty-six minutes."
"I do not understand why you bothered," Ull said, "but that will give me more time for my final swim." Her voice became cold. "Our fate has been made evident, and the council has decided to accept that fate. If you transit again, I will send warriors to clear the bridge."
She cut off the intercom from her end and didn't hear Tommy's answer: "That may be your fate. It is not mine." He added, "So much for my promotion from feral human to lord."
Five minutes before the exit he herded the four Nesu down the stairs and pulled the trapdoor closed behind them. He brought up a transit clock on the computer monitor. When the clock reached ten seconds to exit, he said, "Close your eyes and turn your head from the trapdoor."
When the clock ticked to zero, blinding light flashed around the edges of the trapdoor. The temperature in the room climbed, and Tommy instantly was soaked with sweat. They had returned to the nova where an entire bridge crew had died.
After the dome cover closed, Tommy sent them back upstairs to their stations.
"Ulsa, turn the ship ninety degrees clockwise equatorial and ninety degrees down," Tommy commanded. The attitude change moved the dome and the hole in The People’s Fist containing The People's Hand out of the direct radiation, and the bridge cooled.
"Master Tommy, half the radar installations on the asteroid's surface have burned away," San said.
"As have all the gravity sensors," Suna said.
What did that leave them? "Suna, switch to the gravity sensors on The People's Hand's hull. They are shielded by the mass of the asteroid, and should work. Cauth, be ready to return the ship to transit."
On the gravity sensor monitor, first one then another wormhole signature appeared. Cauth could see the monitor from where she sat. Her gaze darted back and forth between the monitor, Tommy, and the switch that would launch them into transit. Tommy tried to ignore her and watch the wormholes. He had to wait for a Kadiil ship to emerge.
The first ship appeared on the monitor, followed by another signature indicating the initiation sequence for the generation of a black hole. From that instant, they had five seconds.
Fen
Lord Ull had dismissed Lito and Fen from their positions outside her door in the middle of their shift. That had never happened before. Even more unsettling were her words: to go be with your children in these final minutes. What could that mean?
Lito had shrugged and taken her at her word. He always did exactly as he was told. He often said that had gotten him to the position of Lord Ull's guard, and that’s what it would take to keep him there. Understanding the whys behind her orders didn't matter.
Fen didn't agree. He followed orders, but he always wanted to know why, even if he seldom found out until afterward.
On the warrior deck, outside the elevator doors, he ran into something else without precedent. A small mob of women listened intently to Sisle, Lord Tommy's woman. Seeing her made him wonder if Lord Tommy could give him an explanation of what was happening.
"Sisle," he shouted, pushing his way through the other women. "Where is Lord Tommy?"
She turned to regard him with cold eyes. "Why do you want to know?" He had never heard that defiant tone from a woman!
"It's enough that I ask," he said.
"I don't think so. Not this time," she said, holding up her right hand.
She had one of the lords' cylinders! She could kill them all!
He felt sweat suddenly pop out on his face. "What are you doing? You’ll kill your own family if you use that!"
"No," she said, shaking her head. "Tommy gave me this. See the button on the side? I’ll just kill you."
Another of Lord Tommy's miracles!
"I ask you again," she said. "Why’re you searching for Tommy? Answer me or I'll use this."
Her gaze never wavered from the band around his throat, and she had the expression he had seen on men in the fighting circle, when only winning mattered. He had no doubt. She would use the cylinder.
He held his hands, palms forward, by his sides. "Lord Ull is acting strangely. She went to her quarters and told us to go be with our children during our final minutes! As if we are all about to die! Lord Tommy always talks to me as if I'm a person. If he knows, he'll tell me what's happening."
"He knows," she said. "He's on the bridge trying to save us from the Kadiil. If Lord Ull isn't with him, then the lords believe we're doomed, and Tommy is trying alone."
Her face showed no fear as she said the fourth unprecedented thing of the day. "We’re going to the bridge to help him, if we can." Women are never allowed on the bridge!
What choice did he have? "I'll go with you. He may need my help, too. I won't wait to die down here while women do warriors' work."
Chapter Nineteen: Rebellion
The black hole initiation signature disappeared from the screen as Tommy's count reached four. Meanwhile, a second Kadiil ship appeared and began generating a black hole. Its signature disappeared before five seconds elapsed.
"Suna, track the movements of those ships,” said Tommy. What are they doing?"
"They are drifting with the nova wind," Suna said after a few minutes.
I was right! The Kadiil ships are just as vulnerable as an unshielded The People's Hand. Even more vulnerable because they are a lot smaller. He looked at the readings on the gravity monitor. Each Kadiil ship has more mass than the drive this ship carries, but only a little more. Not big enough for much shielding!
"Lord Tommy, another Kadiil ship is arriving!" Suna said.
"Cauth, be ready to transit," Tommy said.
On the monitor they watched as the Kadiil ship arrived, began generating a black hole and again went dead.
Two minutes later, another Kadiil ship appeared, and two minutes after that, another. The time interval slowly grew to approximately five minutes as the ships continued to emerge, begin their attack, and die.
"What is happening, Master Tommy?" San asked. "Doing this to destroy one ship is insane!"
"If I knew, I would tell you," Tommy said.
He turned at the sound of many voices coming from the elevators. Had Ull sent warriors to clear the bridge?
"Tommy!" yelled Sisle. "You're alive!"
Her hug, when she reached him, lifted him off his feet. A mob of women crowded behind her, and towering over them stood Fen.
Before Sisle could say more, Fen dropped to one knee in front of Tommy. "Lord Ull says we are about to die. Is that true, Lord Tommy?"
Tommy gently tried to pull out of Sisle's arms, but she refused to release him completely and kept one arm around his waist. "We still might, but not right away." He waved at the four young Nesu behind him, and said loudly in the lord's language. "The Kadiil are attacking us. Some of The People have given up, but these have not. We may yet defeat them."
Fen looked down at Tommy's feet, then up at his face. "How can I help you?"
Tommy returned to English. "I'm not sure you know what you’re asking, Fen. Helping me means defying the council and could get you killed."
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