“Helping with the evacuation, of course. Who's this?” Lin glanced sideways at Bain and frowned, shrugging a little.
“You don't know the voice of the man who owes you almost five hundred debits? I'm surprised at you. Free Traders are supposed to have perfect recall.”
“That's six hundred eighty-two debits, not counting interest, Lieutenant Hollis Gilmore.” She leaned her head back against her chair and chuckled. “How did they stick your crew with this assignment?”
“Because I'm a captain now, and we're in charge of security during the evacuation.”
Even through the crackling of static, Bain could hear the mix of laughter and exasperation in the man's voice. He wondered if Lin did that to everyone, or just the people she called friends.
“Congratulations, Gil. Sort of. What's with the shielded channel?”
“Pirates, what else?”
“We're in the middle of a war. There shouldn't be any pirates,” Bain blurted. He clamped both hands over his mouth immediately. His face grew hot.
“Tell the pirates that. Is Ganfer's voice changing, Lin?”
“No, that's my apprentice. Can we land, or do you want to keep my ship hovering until the Mashrami get here?” Lin winked at Bain.
“Land, please. I could use all the help I can get. Coordinates are transmitting now.”
Two screens in between Lin and Bain started to flicker, numbers and codes scrolling up the green backgrounds as the data started to come in from the spaceport.
“We read, Dogray. Coming in for first approach.” Lin flipped a switch, and the green communications light turned off. “Gil needs our help? This ought to be interesting.”
“Who is he?”
“When I knew him, he was a lieutenant in the Rangers. I don't suppose Gil would ever let them transfer him out of the Rangers, so that means there's some big problem on Dogray.”
“The Rangers? Like the really tough soldiers? The ones who can go for days without eating or sleeping, and don't even feel it when they get shot?” Bain knew he sounded like a silly little boy impressed by a drama cube, but he was impressed.
“Not like. They are the tough soldiers. What's the military doing in full force on this planet, when they should be concentrating on reinforcing worlds like Lenga? Even if the Mashrami pass by Lenga and Hoort's World, it'll take them months to get here.” Lin shook her head, frowning, even as her fingers danced over the controls to bring Sunsinger in for a landing.
“He said pirates,” the boy offered after a few seconds of thoughtful silence broken only by the changed pitch of Sunsinger's engines and the chiming of altitude adjusters and other equipment that handled atmospheric re-entry.
“Yes, he did,” Lin murmured.
* * * *
Sunsinger looked like a pebble compared to the four other ships filling Dogray's central spaceport. Bain climbed out the hatch from the bridge, down the chain ladder, and gawked at the skyscraping height, the wide, imposing bulk of the ships. They seemed to sink down into the thermal-crete of the landing field. Sunsinger again reminded him of a dust hen, sitting quietly and lightly in her little corner of the landing field.
Bain knew the other ships had power and endurance. They had weapons and defensive systems that would have made Sunsinger's encounters with the Mashrami something to laugh at. But Bain thought about how easily Sunsinger responded to the lightest touch on her controls. She was fast and agile, and even if she was an old model, she was still in service because she was a design that worked well. He stepped down on the landing field and let go of the chain ladder. He held his shoulders straight, proud to be crew on Sunsinger.
“You're being watched,” Ganfer said through their collar links. “Two men with beam burners behind that building to your left, and three men behind the fin of that big troop transport to your right.” The ship-brain's voice came out softly, but Bain thought it sounded like a shout.
“Pirates, indeed,” Lin muttered. She took three steps out into the clear area beyond Sunsinger's shadow and stretched as if getting up from a nap. When she lowered her arms, the brilliant patches of her scarlet, azure and emerald shirt flashed in the bright morning sunshine and the copper bands on her arms winked. “You'd better come out of hiding, Captain Gilmore, before I start adding interest to what you owe me.”
“That's her, all right,” a slightly familiar man's voice said from behind the hulking troop carrier.
Three shapes dressed in the black-on-olive uniforms of the Rangers stepped into sight. Two more uniformed figures came out from behind the building to Sunsinger's left. Bain stared in curiosity at the thick tubes, as long as a man's arm and as thick as his wrist, that four of the people carried. The fifth man started across the open space, hands spread to show he carried nothing.
“Do you always have to embarrass me in front of my troops, Lin?” Ranger Captain Gilmore said, a grin brightening his cinnamon-colored face.
“It's hard to treat a man with respect when you've known him since he was a runny-nosed brat with scabbed knees and a slave-master sweet tooth.” Lin nodded to Bain and stepped out across the open landing field paving to meet the man.
Captain Gilmore had the widest shoulders Bain had ever seen. He had always envisioned Rangers as big, strong men who could run across rough terrain at a fast trot all day long and get by on a single ration bar and hardly any water for days at a time. The boy had simply never thought his fantasies would prove true. Gil's square, grinning face held the brightest blue eyes the boy had ever seen, topped by a thatch of coarse black hair that seemed to swallow the bright morning light hitting it. His hands were easily three times bigger than Bain's, and his boots looked big enough for a baby to take a bath in. Bain was impressed.
“Is that wreck of yours able to puddle-jump, or is she too old to do more than lift and land once in a blue moon?” Gil said, nodding toward Sunsinger.
“Do you still eat your weight in sweets every moon?” Ganfer responded, speaking loudly enough through Bain and Lin's collar links to make the metal buzz.
“Sorry.” The Ranger captain chuckled, shaking his head. He glanced over his shoulder at the four Rangers who had come out onto the landing field with him. “We have a problem, Lin, and your arrival is an answer to prayers.”
“What can I do?” Lin glanced pointedly at the military ships filling most of the field. “Considering the circumstances, you know I'll do anything I can, but I honestly don't know what Sunsinger can do that your big, modern ships with all their new gadgets can't do.”
“First, we have pirates trying to take over the planet in between evacuation and the Mashrami coming. There are small mining and farming operations scattered all over Dogray. All sorts of metals and precious stones and medicinal plants come from this planet. We wouldn't be too worried about pirates or the shipments they take out, except we're only halfway evacuated.”
“Oh.” She nodded, frowning that frown Bain knew meant business. “Fights?”
“More than twenty pirates got themselves killed, but we've had whole families decimated.”
“What's the problem with the evacuation?”
“Just about the time we landed,” Gil said, “a few shiploads of pirates landed on the other side of the planet. They had the brains to put together some uniforms and pretend to be military, evacuating the planet ahead of the Mashrami invasion.” He gestured toward the building where the two Rangers had been watching Sunsinger. The three of them started walking across the landing field.
“Now people don't believe you when you say they have to get out?” Bain said.
“Exactly.” The Ranger captain nodded. “Smart boy. Just your apprentice, Lin?”
“For now.” She winked at Bain. “So I take it the miners and settlers don't want to leave. What can Sunsinger do to help with that?”
“Ordinarily, we'd transmit the warning to all the settlements, but Dogray has a little problem. The metallic content of the planet and the slightly off-balance electromagnetic field of the s
ystem's star create an electromagnetic warp field around the planet. It doesn't hurt anything, physically, but it plays holy terror with communications.”
“We didn't have any problem talking to you,” Bain pointed out.
“No.” Gil grinned at him. “Shooting a carrier beam straight out into space is easy. The electromagnetic field twists and fractures anything that stays within the atmosphere. The only way for someone on the ground to talk to someone else on the ground is to bounce transmissions from satellites. We don't have enough satellites and the settlers don't have the right equipment. For the past three generations, everybody has been relying on flying sleds and jump ships to communicate, or using comm-sets during the two hours of clear atmosphere at night.”
“So all you have working for you is rumor—and it's starting to work against you,” Lin said, nodding.
“We still have pirates attacking, and other pirates pretending to be military and trying to force people to evacuate without their possessions. Your ship is very definitely a Free Trader ship. No one can duplicate the design, and no one has ever successfully stolen a Spacer's ship. Plus, if Ganfer talks to the people, they'll be completely convinced. You can do atmospheric travel, up and down a dozen times a day without any strain to your ship. My ships can't do those kinds of delicate maneuvers, and our sleds are too limited in range and speed to visit every settlement and mining camp. They aren't big enough to carry away the people and supplies, either.”
“You want us to do puddle-jump runs and bring the evacuees back here to load into your troop carriers.” Lin nodded.
She didn't argue, didn't fight, and didn't pretend to be upset. Bain knew that this was a very serious situation, and Lin would help. He felt a little scared.
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Chapter Eight
“Lin?” Bain kept his voice to a whisper.
He and Lin were alone in a corner of the room set apart as mess hall and general relaxation center for the Rangers sent to evacuate Dogray. The food was served in covered, heated bins on the far side of the room, with huge tap dispensers of coffee and chocolate and spiced tea sitting on tables on either side of the bins. Bain and Lin had been brought in by Captain Gilmore, told to get something to eat and make themselves comfortable, and then had been left alone. There were Rangers scattered around the room, eating or talking quietly or stretched out on couches to get a few minutes of rest, but he and Lin were effectively alone in the blue-painted, long room.
“Hmm?” She took a sip from her cup of chocolate and glanced once more around the room.
“Why does the captain owe you so much?”
“Is that all?” Lin chuckled. “From that serious look you're wearing, I thought you were worried about pirates catching us in the air.”
“Maybe later.” He grinned a half second later, realizing how silly that sounded. “Why does he owe you so much?”
“It's a long story ... “She stabbed her fork into the bowl of meatless stew, made of a reddish-brown sauce and lots of root vegetables and blue-green kidney-shaped beans. “Better eat. I have the feeling we'll be flying long patrols, and leaving as soon as Gil gets back here.”
“How long a story?” Bain hurried to jam a chunk of bread into his mouth so Lin didn't have to give her order twice.
“Not that long. Basically, Gil's an orphan, but he knew he had relatives and that they wanted him. The problem was, he didn't know where they were. Some kids think that the ends justify the means, so he thought it was more important to get from one planet to another than to pay for his ride.”
“He stowed away?” Bain choked on the last bit of bread. The idea of someone stowing away on a ship made his mouth go dry. Lots of cargo holds weren't hooked up to life support—they were pressurized, but they didn't get fresh air or get food or water. He had heard plenty of stories of people who died, crushed under heavy cargo that shifted during transport. Or of captains who found stowaways and put them out the airlock without space suits.
“Mm hmm. Pretty stupid, huh?” Lin's eyes sparkled in direct contrast to the sour tone of her voice.
“Did he stow away on Sunsinger?”
“No. He got caught sneaking onto a merchant ship that hired Spacers as pilots. A distant cousin of mine was the pilot that trip, and I was on board, visiting, just before they were ready to launch. The first time I saw Hollis Gilmore, he was this skinny, filthy, kicking and scratching ball of rags about half your size.” She chuckled and picked up her chocolate to take a sip. “Turns out he had already made two trips on the ship and was sneaking back on to ride to their next stop, since his relatives weren't on that particular colony world.”
“What did the captain do?”
“He made a lot of threats that I won't even bother to repeat. My cousin signaled me that the captain was the kind who would carry out every threat and enjoy it, too. So, I offered to pay for the boy's passage.”
“It was that expensive? More than five hundred debits?” Bain forgot about his dinner.
His whole notion of values and costs and expenses came from watching his parents charge people for shipping cargo around the different settlements of Lenga in their shuttle. The most his father had ever charged was ten debits for three trips between the furthest points on the planet. One hundred debits would have paid for his family's food for a whole year. Bain couldn't comprehend anyone charging that much money for a few trips on a merchant's ship.
“No, it was only about eighty debits. Which was overpriced, even back then.” Lin frowned and stopped to take a couple bites of her stew.
She stared pointedly at Bain's bowl, and he hurried to eat. She didn't continue until he had finished half his serving and started in on his meat-paste sandwich.
“My cousin couldn't do a thing to help the boy. It was against the rules and his contract with the merchant to give aid to stowaways. I paid Gil's debt, and then took him to the nearest hospital for a good check-up, put him up in a hostel and bought him some new clothes. And every time for the next two years that I was around and he got caught trying to stow away, I paid his debt.”
“Why?”
“Because Fi'in says we have to help those who need help. And because Gil was only trying to find his family. I had only been back among civilization for a few years, back then. I was spending a lot of my time trying to find my family connections, too, so I knew what he was going through. Family is important, Bain. It's more important than getting rich or having the biggest, fastest ship in the galaxy. It's more important than the prettiest clothes at the Market or playing the best harp music.” She winked at him, and Bain couldn't help grinning back.
“Did he find his family?”
“You better believe I did, Apprentice Kern,” Captain Gilmore said, coming up behind Bain. He grinned and settled down at the round table with them. “What your captain hasn't told you yet is that she helped me get into the military academy and loaned me money for my equipment.”
“And paid for more loads of sweets during shore leave than a whole company of Rangers could eat in a year's time,” Lin grumbled. She closed her eyes and tipped back her cup of chocolate and drained it. Then she chuckled. “He's actually been paying me back pretty regularly. He would have passed the pay-off mark a long time ago, if he didn't keep buying the sweets his hulking body seems to need to stay alive.”
“Which brings us back to why you're here. My scientists are already hip-deep in those samples you brought from Lenga. Pretty grim stuff. If you can help us get the civilians out of here before those plague bombs land, that'll be one less problem we have to solve.”
“Rangers don't have any special immunity, Gil,” Lin said softly.
“We won't be scattered throughout the planet, working the land or digging under it, either.”
“True. All right, I suppose you have the coordinates of the first settlement for us to visit?” She put down her cup and leaned forward.
Gil nodded and held out a square data disk. Lin
held it between her fingers for a few seconds, as if she could read the information written on the surface of the blue plastic. She slid it into the little pouch hidden on the inside of her wide belt, and then tapped her collar link.
“Ready to go, Ganfer?”
“I could manage without you two, if you're in a hurry,” the ship-brain replied in a totally serious tone.
“Not quite.” She looked at her empty bowl, then at Bain's nearly empty tray. “Ready?”
“Whenever you are.” Bain scraped the last bit of stew out of the bowl and snatched up his sandwich as he stood.
“I still don't know how you Spacers do it,” Gil said. He smiled and slumped back in his chair as Lin stood to leave.
“Do what?” she asked.
“Train your kids so well. Apprentice Kern here responds faster and with less grumbling than some adults I've commanded.” He winked at Bain and gave him another mini salute.
“Bain's a normal boy. He just knows when to be serious and when to have fun, and what's really important.” Lin rested her hand on Bain's shoulder and squeezed. Bain could hardly breathe for pride as they walked out of the building and hurried across the landing field to Sunsinger.
* * * *
Bain watched the viewport screens as Sunsinger came in for a landing on the rocky plateau at the edge of the mining camp. It was almost like coming home to Lenga during the dry, hot summer months. Everything outside the ship was scorched brown and dusty. Dust covered the brown and red-streaked slopes of solid rock leading up to the homes of the miners. Dust swirled in the air, raised by Sunsinger's landing. The sun beat down brightly, sparkling off the dust motes, and Bain felt hot just remembering what it was like back on Lenga when it looked that way outside.
“Well, doesn't look like much life out there,” Lin murmured.
She flipped a few switches and pushed three levers, and the humming of the ship's engines began to drop in pitch. Two more screens came up, showing other views of the mining camp. On one screen, a little stream trickled around the back of the camp, through a groove in the rock face. The other screen showed a black hole in the rock face, framed by timbers with a single rail for a robot cart going down into the darkness.
Spacer's Creed Page 5