Though Hell Should Bar the Way

by David Drake

  I’d just come down from checking the set of the ventral top-gallant when the Matrix shimmered brightly an instant before going coldly dark. Around me were the stars of the sidereal universe.

  The Alfraz had extracted without me being aware it was about to happen. We were in normal space again. My head didn’t hurt and I felt none of the usual discomforts of the process.

  I looked around for Lal and didn’t see him. I couldn’t remember whether I’d ever seen him during this insertion. I found the airlock and entered it. Only when the green light went on, indicating that the air pressure had reached that of the cabin, did I remember to take off my helmet and go in.

  I stepped over to the console still wearing my air suit. Lal was curled up on his bunk. Monica watched me from hers with an expression I couldn’t read. I said to her, “I’m going to see how close we’ve come to where we’re supposed to be. I just hope we’re close enough that the console can locate us.”

  “The fusion bottle has stayed in the green most of the time that we’ve been in the Matrix,” she said. Then, not quite in the same tone, she said, “You’re speaking to me again, then?”

  “What?” I said, setting the console to search and identify our location. “I’m not mad at you. I’ve just been busy, for heaven’s sake!”

  My skin was rubbed raw everywhere it touched the inside of the suit, which felt by now like my whole bloody body. Her question hit me the same way.

  “You haven’t spoken to me for four days, Roy,” Monica said. “I thought I must’ve done something wrong.”

  “You didn’t,” I said. “I guess I’ve just gone nuts.”

  I was too tired to care, though I was sure I’d be horrified at my behavior when I had at least two brain cells sparking together. I looked at what the console told me about our location.

  Well, I’ll be damned.

  Monica came over and stood beside my couch. I looked up at her and said, “If this is right, we’re within a light-hour of Saguntum.”

  “That’s very good,” she said. “Why are you looking so worried?”

  “It’s too good,” I said. “I—look, you say I haven’t spoken in four days. I haven’t been properly conscious for four days. I can’t have been responding to the semaphore prompts. In fact I don’t remember looking at the towers a single time since …”

  At all, but I must’ve done at least at the beginning of the run. What I remembered was the way the rigging glowed red if it wasn’t set right, and me trudging up and down the length of the ship fixing whatever wasn’t as it should be.

  I felt my lips smile as I continued to enter course calculations. Without looking at Monica, I said, “I felt I was part of the ship myself there toward the end. I guess maybe that’s not a bad way to be for a spacer. Though I really don’t want to go back to that way again.”

  “What are you doing now?” Monica said.

  “We need to get into Saguntum orbit,” I said. “We’re so close already that I’d have been sure a month ago that I could do it. That doesn’t mean I can now, of course. Being nuts isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

  I shut down the High Drive. Monica and I both grabbed the couch when we lost the acceleration that mimicked gravity—I’d forgotten to strap in when I entered the hull.

  The Alfraz inserted into the Matrix.

  Lal awakened and stretched. “Captain?” he called. “You wish that I go out alone? I have rested.”

  “Lal,” I said. “This is a short hop and the telltales”—no electrical sensors worked on the hull while we were within the Matrix, but hydraulic lines like those of the semaphores communicated with the interior—“seem happy. Also, I seem to have a magical connection with the ship right now and it tells me that we’re on course.”

  I grinned. Lal’s expression didn’t change. Monica’s face became completely blank.

  “So I figure we can both take a break until we extract in what I hope is orbit around Saguntum.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Lal said, nodding in his bunk. “I am glad to remain here.”

  I took off my air suit. When Monica realized what I was doing, she helped me. After a moment she said, “We’ll land straight at the Haven, then?”

  I shrugged. “I’ll ask Orbital Control,” I said. “I expect that they’ll put us in the civilian port, yes.”

  I looked at her and added, “Or you’ll ask Orbital Control, if you’re willing to do the commo honors here, like you’ve done before.”

  “I was counting on it,” Monica said with a grin. She walked to the other side of the console and took the striker’s seat. She was cheerful, but there was more in her attitude than I understood.

  “The Karst destroyer knew where we were going,” I said. “If they’re here ahead of us, I’ll have to play it by ear.”

  “Will they shoot at us?” Monica said.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so, but back in the Academy folks talked like on Karst they’re one stage up from dancing around fires with bones through their noses. It’s not like that really, but I’ll be just as glad if we don’t find the Meduse in orbit when we arrive.”

  “Can you land even if they do shoot?” Monica said.

  That was a good question. If they used a missile, no: A missile would gut us, even if launched from so close that it had only a fraction of its maximum terminal velocity. Aloud I said, “They mount eight ten-centimeter guns. If they’re in good condition and well served, they could certainly blow holes in our hull.”

  I gave her a lopsided smile. “It’s a Karst ship,” I said. “Chances are the guns aren’t in good condition or well served. But I’ll make the decision based on how I’m feeling if the situation arises. I will made the decision. But let’s hope it doesn’t come up, all right?”

  Monica swallowed and nodded.

  The countdown clock winked at me. I said, “Prepare to extract!”

  We were back in the sidereal universe, in an elliptical orbit above Saguntum. My body had shrunk for an instant before regaining its normal dimensions. For a moment I wasn’t sure where I was; then all was well again.

  I engaged the High Drive and began braking at 1 g. We were currently about ninety thousand miles out but on the descending leg of the lobe.

  “Saguntum Control,” Monica called from her side of the console, “this is the Alfraz, out of ben Yusuf, Captain Roylan Olfetrie commanding and First Officer Monica Foliot. We request landing permission for the Haven at Saguntum. Further, we request that this transmission be forwarded to the Directorate of Public Safety. Alfraz over.”

  I adjusted the angle of the High Drive motors to brake us a hair more effectively without having to increase output. I’d like to have a proper Power Room readout on the console, but I’d like a lot of things. If the bottle failed now and we turned into a tiny second sun above Saguntum, that was the breaks.

  “Alfraz, this is Orbital Control,” the doorkeeper responded; rather more quickly than I would have expected. “Your request is being processed. Say again your leaving port, over.”

  I set the rig to furl and retract. If the console noted any problems, there’d be time for Lal and me to make a hands-on check before we entered the atmosphere. The display stayed green, though. I’d have liked to brake harder than I was doing, but starting from so far out, 1 g would get us in safely.

  “Alfraz, you are cleared to land in the Military Harbor,” Orbital Control said. “Repeat, your berth is in the Military Harbor, not the Haven. Acknowledge please. Over.”

  Monica stood up so that she could look at me directly without the distorting screen of coherent light from my display. I nodded and gave her a V sign with my two fingers.

  I didn’t know why we were to land in the military harbor rather than the normal civilian one. It could be as simple as the fact that we were coming from a pirate stronghold. Saguntum didn’t have a real navy but the Annotated Charts noted that there were six “dart sloops,” some of which might be unserviceable.

 
; I didn’t know what dart sloop meant. Some sort of light warship. Well, that was fine.

  “Acknowledged, Saguntum Control,” Monica said calmly. “Alfraz will land in the Military Harbor. Alfraz out.”

  When we proceeded far enough in our orbit, a pulsing point appeared on the visual image of Saguntum which I kept on the upper right quadrant of my display. It didn’t matter at this point; the Military Harbor was separated by only a mole from the Haven which occupied the remainder of the bay. We would have to be much deeper into our approach before the change of a few hundred yards from the berth I’d chosen for my rough solution made any difference.

  I keyed in the data which Saguntum had sent along with the image. I’d been letting the console do the landings in the past, and I certainly wasn’t going to change now.

  I got up from the couch and walked to the internal hatch. “I’m going to check the fusion bottle,” I said, though if it were anything short of deep into the red, I was going to ride it down.

  The choice would be to hang in orbit until we could be rescued from the ground. And I just wanted to be home. The needle was still in the yellow, though.

  I switched to the plasma thrusters before I would’ve done so normally. We had plenty of reaction mass because we’d made most of the run in a single long stage, and I could actually brake harder with the thrusters than I could with the High Drive throttled back so as not to stress the fusion bottle.

  I was learning things this way that I’d never have known on a well-maintained RCN warship. There was a future for me as a tramp captain on the fringes of human space.

  We hit the atmosphere without any drama until we’d bucked and rattled our way down to ten thousand feet. Then the port mainyard carried away, ripped out of its clamps and I suppose dancing off in our slipstream. It didn’t flick back and hit the hull, though, so I didn’t care once I was sure that the console was able to handle the asymmetric buffeting. At best a starship doesn’t make many concessions to streamlining, so loss of yard and furled sail was barely noticeable.

  We passed over the breakwater and approached the icon of our berth on the display. The real-time image was obscured by steam. I hadn’t figured out how to correct the altimeter error which caused the Alfraz to drop like an anvil, but I’d changed the shut-down sequence from instantaneous to having the nozzle petals flare in a thirty-second sequence. We mushed down, unpleasantly but without jolting.

  I drew a deep breath. “We’re down,” I said. My throat was dry and I wondered how long it’d been since I’d eaten.

  “I apologize for giving you a false name,” Monica said. When the words penetrated, I opened my eyes and looked at her across the console.

  I’d shut down my display. I was sure people were trying to get ahold of me. They couldn’t reach me except through the console until the berth cooled down enough to open the ship, and I wasn’t in shape to talk to anybody.

  “Sorry?” I said, trying to figure out what she was talking about.

  With a hint of irritation, Monica said, “I told you my name was Smith. It’s really Foliot.”

  “But it’s still Monica?” I said. She’d announced herself as Monica Foliot to Orbital Control, now that I thought back. I’d had other things on my mind, like the fusion bottle. “Look, I don’t care. We got here. I’m glad I knew Monica Smith, and I wouldn’t have made it back without her.”

  I got up from the couch, moving carefully. Lal was standing. He looked about fifty years older than he had when we lifted from ben Yusuf, but I probably looked like my dad too. Well, Dad had run to fat as he got older, and right now I was more like a coat rack with a set of slops hung over it.

  “It’s just I didn’t know you,” Monica said, knotting her fingers together. “I thought you might take advantage of me.”

  And do what that we hadn’t done anyway, with a great deal of mutual pleasure? I wondered. Aloud I said, “You didn’t know me from Adam,” I said. “I’d like to think that my good intentions stood out like a beacon, but you’d had a rough time.”

  I took another deep breath and said, “I think we can open her up now. Let’s go do that.”

  The hatch controls were in the hold rather than through the console. The Alfraz gave the impression of having been assembled from bits of three or four separate vessels; the antennas and yards were sized for something much smaller, which had been a considerable advantage when Lal and I were working her alone.

  I opened the safety lock, then threw the big lever on the outer bulkhead. The dogs withdrew and the hatch began to rotate down into a boarding ramp. The mix of steam and ozone that curled down as the opening widened made me sneeze. I shut my eyes against the sting.

  I smelled Saguntum again: its garbage, at least, as incinerated in our exhaust. I wondered how Monica was feeling—to be home, really home. Her hands were knotted together. Her lips were moving in what could have been a prayer.

  By the time the hatch had lowered below the height of my eyes, the air had cleared enough for me to see that there were scores of people on the quay. Many of them were uniformed, which wasn’t a surprise, but standing in the center of them was a group in ordinary spacers’ slops.

  They weren’t armed—as some of the uniformed personnel were—but there was a cart with them. When my vision cleared enough to see who the spacers were, I was pretty sure the cart contained weapons.

  I heard a hoarse order from the quay. Too early, I thought; the air and water were both too hot to link to us, but a floating extension bridge began to open toward our outrigger. Instead of yard personnel unrolling it, Dasi and Barnes were doing the job while Woetjans walked along behind them as though supervising.

  The steam still glittered with occasional speckles of plasma. Woetjans and her mates gave no sign of noticing it.

  An aircar howled from the city at low altitude, circled out into the harbor in order to line up with the quay, and put down smoothly. The crowd waiting for the hatch to open blocked access from the harbor road, but the end of the quay was empty.

  A squad in battledress formed between the remainder of the spectators and the newly arrived vehicle, their weapons ready if not quite pointed. They suddenly fell into formal at-ease posture with their weapons by their sides in patrol slings.

  “What in blazes is that all about?” I said. The ramp clanged home on our outrigger at about the same time that the extension from the quay reached it.

  “That’s my father,” Monica said.

  Before I could respond—or stop her, though I’m not sure I would have tried—Monica went running down the ramp and onto the extension. A burly, middle-aged civilian had gotten out of the aircar and was trotting toward the crowd at the quay end of the extension.

  Woetjans and her mates let Monica pass. They parted for Captain Leary, Lady Mundy and their servants, then faced around to stop everyone else.

  Monica and the civilian met on the quay and threw their arms around one another, but I didn’t have much attention to spare.

  “Sir!” I said, throwing a salute that did the Academy proud. “Welcome aboard the Alfraz!”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  “Good to see you again, Officer Olfetrie,” Captain Leary said. “May I ask who the”—he gestured behind himself with his thumb—“attractive blond who just passed us is?”

  “Ah, sir …” I said. It wasn’t as easy a question as it probably seemed. “That’s Monica Foliot, though sometimes she goes by Monica Smith.”

  “I’m curious as to how you vanished from Saguntum three months ago …” said Lady Mundy. “And now have turned up again with the daughter of the Director of Public Safety, who hasn’t been heard of since she took ship on Greenwood six months ago on her way back to Saguntum.”

  “Ah …” I repeated. “Mistress Foliot was imprisoned in the harem of the Admiral of Salaam. I was imprisoned there too and we made our way back to Saguntum. Ah, I didn’t know who Mistress Foliot was, only that she was a Saguntine citizen improperly held in Salaam.”

&n
bsp; In the general pause—Leary and Mundy were digesting what I’d said and I sure didn’t have anything more I wanted to say—Lal said, “Captain, what do you wish of me?”

  Both Captain Leary and I turned, but Lal was talking to me. I’d almost forgotten him. “You’re dismissed for the day,” I said, “but come back tomorrow morning and we’ll see about paying you off.”

  Lal’s full wages—and I wanted to add a fifty thaler bonus—would take help from Monica, which I hoped she’d be willing to give, but I had a little cash of my own left. I gave him a ten-thaler coin and said, “This’ll get you a room and some entertainment for the night.”

  “A moment, please,” Leary said, touching Lal’s wrist with his fingertips. Then to me, “Introduce me please, Olfetrie.”

  “Sir!” I said, embarrassed. “Captain, this is Lal. He and I worked the ship from Plaquemines by ourselves.”

  Leary nodded and said, “Lal, are you looking for a berth after you’ve been paid off?”

  Lal bowed slightly and said, “Perhaps, Captain.”

  “Then talk to my bosun, Woetjans, on your way past,” Leary said. “She’s the tall one. Tell her for me to assign you a watch tomorrow when you’ve gotten squared away with your captain here.”

  Lal bowed again, then stuck the coin in his mouth and scampered down to Woetjans at the foot of the ramp.

  Captain Leary gave me a lazy grin. “Any two spacers who can work ship alone for ten days,” he said, “rate able in my book, and I want them in any crew of mine.”

  He exchanged glances with Lady Mundy and said, “Now let’s go aboard your Alfraz for a moment and have a discussion about some other things. All right?”

  “Sir!” I said. “Yes, sir!”

  I turned to lead Leary and Mundy into the cabin. Hogg and Tovera came along also, as I’m sure everybody but me expected. Well, there was plenty of room in the cabin, though the furnishings were pretty sparse.