Finally, they seemed to come up with some sort of risky compromise, which was, after all, the best they could do in any event.
“Cap’n Murphy?”
“I’m here, darlin’s.”
“You tell ’em to get that little ship ready now. You tell ’em we leave now. You and us.”
“Well, darlin’s, we’re more than a wee bit out of the neighborhood yet. It’d still be a long flight, and they’re gonna hav’ta drive ’cause I couldn’t handle a jobbie like that. Too fancy for an old trader like me. And they ain’t gonna let it go unless they got some folks aboard to make sure it stays in their hands and comes back. Now, that’s only reasonable.”
“No! Just you and us!”
“I told you. The ship won’t even listen to me, and, besides, the laws, even on Barnum’s World, require somebody real to be in charge when it docks. There’ll be four of us and two of them. That’s not unreasonable. And I’ll be makin’ sure they don’t do no double-crossin’.”
They were silent again for a moment, but he felt better now. They weren’t thinking about not going anymore, only making the safest deal. Finally they answered, “All right, but just one of them.”
“They say two. That’s not very many considerin’ how many they got on this big bugger. They need one to pilot, one to deal with the folks on Barnum’s World to make sure they allow us to come down. I been there many a time, girls. Just me, or just us, we might talk ’em into it, but with a navy shuttle we’ll need somebody with permissions and such. They ain’t that trustin’ of the navy, you see.”
He realized that this made very little sense, but if it sounded reasonable and within their control, they might go for it.
“But we go now.” It wasn’t a question.
“If we must, yes. It’ll take longer and be less comfy, but we can go now. Let me ask the folks here.” He turned and looked at Mohr, who nodded. “Twenty minutes. We’ll use number twenty-four. It’s got its own gate drive but is also fitted out as a lifeboat, so it has basic supplies and such. It should do. Shall I alert the crew?”
“By all means.” Murphy turned back to the intercom. “Okay, darlin’s, ye drive a hard bargain but they’re buyin’ it. The man here’s callin’ his folks now. The problem is, I don’t know where you are so I don’t know how to tell you to get down there.”
“We can get there,” the girls replied. “The spirit of the ship will guide us.”
The spirit of the ship? Suddenly he realized that they meant the central computer that was running just about the whole show. To them, it was just another person, albeit a supernatural one, whose mind they were partly controlling. All those tests and practices to get a damned pilot’s license and these little girls do it by ordering the disembodied voice in the heavens. Jesus!
Mohr came back into the room and looked over at him. “You want to come with me? I’ll take you down there. I’m having a real argument with the captain and the exec over this, but short of risking the entire ship I don’t see any other way but this. Maslovic’s on his way as well, and I’ve alerted Lieutenant Chung, one of our best fighter pilots from the destroyer Agrippa to take her kit and proceed to the shuttle. She’s been briefed and knows the situation if not the whole score. Best if as few of the crew as possible ever know the kind of power these girls showed.”
Murphy nodded. “I see. Gonna be hard to keep it silent, though, I think. You better watch it with this ship’s command and control computer, too, Commander. You don’t know what thoughts them little darlin’s put in its metaphysical head.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Mohr assured him. “But there shouldn’t be any problem if we keep our end of the bargain, and I fully intend to do so. Good luck, Captain. And if you find out anything valuable about the people behind all this, there’s a great deal of reward potential. You remember that.”
“I kind of think that, havin’ seen what these little girls can do, I’m best off mindin’ me own business, Commander. And mindin’ it as far away from Barnum’s World and Tara Hibernius as well as I can. This is a kind of power I’d rather not think much on, or for long. If these girls can do this, imagine what the folks behind ’em, the ones with the big brains, can do! No, I think this is time to mind me own business.”
The security chief shrugged. “Suit yourself. It’s my duty to find out how to stop this sort of thing from happening to us again, and maybe whether or not it’s a part of something nastier that we should know about. Maybe it’s not. Well and good if not, but that’s what I’m supposed to do. It’s why I’m here.” He put out a hand and Murphy took it and shook it.
“Well, good luck, Commander. I don’t know which one of us is goin’ into the worst situation,” Murphy replied. “But at least I’m goin’ someplace.”
Finding Shuttle 24 was not all that difficult, but it did take some time to get to on the vast frigate.
As Mohr said, the shuttles did double duty as emergency lifeboats, and because of that they were laid out like lifeboats along every other deck from top to bottom and from stem to stern, each with an airlock entrance and a separate small launch bay. Each was angled slightly, so that it needed only the emergency code or a pilot to shoot it out at high velocity into space, whereupon it could be either piloted by the human aboard or go on automatic if in lifeboat mode. Mohr had not been lying when he said that a pilot was needed if they were to get to Barnum’s World; on automatic, it would simply head for the nearest inhabited world, and if no such world were in its range, it would head for the nearest stable wormgate and go through it and go through the procedure again. If more than half the supplies were used up, it would put everyone aboard into a cryogenic state whether they wanted to be or not and continue on, possibly forever, certainly until it found something in its programming.
With a pilot aboard it became a shuttle. The pilot generally brought a detailed flight plan from the central computer with him or her and simply inserted it, adjusting only as circumstances required. In this case, though, they hadn’t trusted the computers aboard the frigate to do a solid plan, and so the pilot would have to complete it on the shuttle and make daily adjustments. From this point, Barnum’s World required two jumps and would be about eighty hours subjective time at the highest speed the shuttle was capable of making. The larger ships weren’t likely to follow at that rate; they would be a week or more behind at full throttle. This was going to be a long time with the three witches, subject to their powers and whims.
When Murphy finally got to the bay, the outer lock was open and lit up from within. He had no idea who had made it and who hadn’t, but he was kind of hoping to be the last one inside.
He wasn’t. Maslovic was there, in a new, clean uniform and looking more official, but that was it, or so it seemed. He came to near attention when Murphy entered, a marked difference from the way he’d greeted them as head of the boarding party when they’d been taken aboard not all that long ago.
“At ease, Sergeant. I’m nobody’s captain here. Nobody else here yet?”
“No, sir. At least so far as I know. The pilot is on her way and should be here any minute. As for the other passengers… Well, I hope they’ll let us know because we certainly can’t leave without them!”
“Well, we could, but it would make your navy pretty unhappy, and I doubt if even me girls would like it after they finished playin’ their games. They could have them babies any time now, and I don’t think any of ’em wants to have ’em on board your big, antiseptic ship.”
He looked around the shuttle and nodded approvingly to himself. “The bunks should be more than adequate, and there’s decent toilet facilities I see.” He moved from the aft compartment to the center and found a comfortable middle room, as it were, with a padded leatherette bench seat going completely around the walls and breaking only for the fore and aft doorways, all flanking a rather cleverly designed segmented table with inserts that could be raised, lowered, tilted, inverted, and moved every which way. More bunks of a more basic sort c
ould be strung from the ceiling. Cut into the side bulkheads, one side mirroring the other, were compartments that clearly slid back.
“Serving bays,” the sergeant told him. “We’ll get our food there and drink through there. It’s mostly made from various wastes using a separate computer-controlled device with matter to energy to matter conversion, but the food it produces is nearly identical to what we get in the galleys and is really not that bad. Drinks are from those inserts there. You simply say what you want and it will make it for you. There’s a great deal of recycling here, but some loss each turn, which is why there is a limit to how long we can go. Still, we’re set for weeks here if need be, and we don’t need nearly that long.”
Murphy nodded. “I think it best we don’t mention the process and origins of the food and drink, Sergeant. Let’s let it just be magic, all right?”
The marine froze for a moment, not quite understanding what the old man was saying, and then realized the context. “Oh, yes, sir. I see. Yes, we want everyone to be happy and relaxed here.”
Murphy smiled. “I think we might just get along here for the duration, Sergeant. So, do you know this pilot?”
“Yes, sir. Picked her myself out of the group. Very skilled. When we have things we must do with some, er, delicacy, she’s who we pick. I’m not sure anybody’s ready for this trio of yours, but if anybody is, Lieutenant Chung would be. She’s had some ground experience, mostly in finding and selecting the best things we need for repairs and replacements, but she shouldn’t be thrown by a different sort of culture, no slight intended, sir.”
“None taken. Your people have gone a different way than most, but I suppose it works. You’re still basically extortionists, but it’s an elegant sort of extortion, the kind that even you think is a public service. I suppose I can live with that. I deal mostly with ones who just pick it up by choice or as a job of opportunity.”
“So our protection is extortion while your smuggling is just unrestrained business. That right?”
“That’s about it, laddie. But the big difference is that to you this is the end, the purpose of things, while to me the gatherin’ of money and whatever it brings is just the means to an end. You’ll never even understand the sort of dreams we mortal folk have.”
“Just because we’re built differently and to different purposes doesn’t mean we can’t understand such things,” the sergeant noted.
Murphy gave a low chuckle and muttered to himself, “Aye. I had a neutered dog once.”
“Sir?”
“Never mind. Nothin’ of importance. But where is—ah! Looks like our pilot has arrived.”
Lieutenant Chung was smaller and thinner by far than Maslovic or any of the others Murphy had seen aboard. Not that she had a figure; she reminded Murphy less of a warrior caste than of a girl permanently frozen before reaching puberty, and, like all the others, she was hairless. But if most of the navy types were built for weight lifting and fighting, the pilot class were acrobats, built for lightning-fast action and reaction, with perfect balance and genetically heightened senses, all the better to meld with their machines almost as if one and the same. He also suspected she wasn’t as helpless as her tiny form suggested. That same lightning quickness and superior senses made for ideal experts in the martial arts.
Her voice, too, was high and seemed more a child’s voice, yet the tone and confidence it projected suggested a lot of experience.
The sergeant came to attention but did not salute. You didn’t salute inside when on a mission. He towered over her; Murphy figured that three or four of the pilots could be made out of the protoplasm in that tough marine. Still, he was properly and professionally deferential. She was, after all, an officer.
“Stand easy, Sergeant,” she said crisply, putting down her own kit. “Is everyone here?”
“No, sir. The three passengers have yet to arrive,” Maslovic told her.
She nodded. “Very well. I’ll get everything prepped up front. Then we’ll wait. They’ll either show up or they won’t.”
The pilot went forward to the flight deck and began going through the preflight sequence. The deck had two large chairs, either one of which could have swallowed her, and a complex set of instruments, screens, and control pads. Each chair also had a headset of light mesh that would conform itself to just about any size head. While now attached to the seat back, it actually came off and was normally worn much like a cap. Chung reached up, brought it down, examined it closely, then put it on and sat back in the chair, eyes closed, hands pressed together in a fashion that made it look as if she were praying.
She remained like this for a couple of minutes, and then, without her moving an apparent muscle, the interior lights blinked and there was a sense of low vibration. In front of her, the previously inert and rather featureless console came to life, the lights and screens now actively showing data, diagrams, lines of coded numbers, and all sorts of other information that was meaningless even to an experienced pilot like Murphy. Slowly, methodically, things went on and off throughout the shuttle, from air vents to the food server controls and doors, the lights and hatches.
Murphy understood the drill and said, “Well, she seems in good shape. All we need are passengers.”
Maslovic started for a moment, then remembered that the old man, for all his looks and manners, was in fact a licensed interstellar pilot himself. “Could you fly her in a pinch?”
“Oh, probably, but I wouldn’t know what half the stuff was. Probably dump fuel in the coffee dispenser and go orbital upside down and backwards after putting us all into cryogenic suspension accidentally. And, of course, it wouldn’t recognize me in any event. No, I take ’em out of orbit, feed ’em the navigation data, stick ’em on autopilot and sit around until we get there. The likes of an old freighter, it ain’t that hard. This, now—this is a speedster. I got to say I don’t feel comfortable in ships that are most definitely smarter than I am.”
Maslovic looked around at the food service ports. “Would you like something while we wait? Who knows how long it’s going to be before the others arrive?”
“I don’t think they have the recipe in there for what I need this trip,” the old captain responded. “Unless that thing can dispense a good, fillin’ dark ale that would feel comfy in an Irishman’s gut, I guess I’ll pass for now.”
Maslovic shrugged. “Let’s see.” He turned and said to the console, “Ale, seven percent, malt brewed, very dark.”
There was a tinny kind of whistling sound from the port, and then a bell sounded and the small drink compartment door slid back. Inside was a large molded cup with a bubble top on it. The sergeant took it out and handed it to Murphy, who looked at the drink suspiciously. He removed the lid, since they had gravity and no potential motion problems, sniffed it, then sipped it. There was foam on the top. Surprised at what he tasted, he gave an approving nod and quite literally downed the entire cup in one continuous series of swallows.
Maslovic was impressed, not so much by the drink as by the manner. You had to have long practice to gulp down a heavy brew like that.
“Not bad at all,” the old captain said approvingly. “Where the devil did they get that recipe? I’ve had better, but it’s pretty good.”
“We have data and formulas for just about every known cuisine, food and drink both, in the big ship, and this is just a subset. We ourselves don’t generally eat or drink too much exotic, but the ability is there. We have to cater to guests now and then, and we’ve also found that the formulas are often quite welcome on some of the colonial worlds. It breaks the ice, I think the old term is.”
“Indeed it does! The only thing that it needs is to understand that you drink ale in liters, not in dainty little cups!”
“Well, I doubt if those kinds of liter-or-more vessels would fit in there, but you have a nearly unlimited supply so it’s all the same, isn’t it?”
“Not quite, laddie, but it’ll do. Damn! Wonder where in the world them girls are. I hope they di
dn’t get lost or decide to get into more trouble instead of gettin’ outta here. They couldn’t have been much farther away than I was!”
There was the sudden sound of girlish laughter in the air, both right there and yet as if from afar, raising the hairs on the back of Murphy’s neck. As he stiffened and tried to look around, the main hatch connecting the shuttle to the frigate closed and locked with a hissing sound, and then the outer lock did the same. Murphy looked back through the aft hatch, past the bedroom area, and saw that the main door was now closed and sealed and had a red light flashing on top of it. The light steadied after a moment, and there was a second loud hissing sound, like air brakes being applied. The air quite clearly was being pumped out of the lock.
“I think our guests have arrived,” Sergeant Maslovic commented dryly.
Murphy looked around. “Girls? That you? C’mon, now! Your old captain’s got an old man’s heart. He can’t take but so much of this spooky business! Come! Give me a hug I can see and let’s be off this cold place!”
He didn’t get the hug, although he wasn’t sure if he’d feel comfortable getting one from some unseen presence anyway. He did get more ghostly giggles, and it was Maslovic, who seemed far less nervous than the old captain, who said to thin air, “Lieutenant, our guests have arrived. I believe they want us to depart before they’ll show themselves and things get back to normal.”
“Buckle in or hold on,” the voice of the pilot came at them over the intercom. “Five… four… three… two… one… Launch!”
Murphy and the sergeant both hoped that the girls were holding on as well, as the ship suddenly shot forward and away from the big frigate like a cannonball with too much powder, pushing them back and to the side. Murphy’s thankfully empty cup of ale sped off the table and hit the wall just to the left of the aft hatch. They both could feel the thrust pinning them against the bulkhead. Then, suddenly, the acceleration cut off, and they had the rapid and uneasy feeling of weightlessness.
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