The relief and joy weren’t tarnished by her remark. “Do you have any plan?” asked one of the women.
“Of a sort, Rinperee,” answered Jindigar. He paced with a Dushau gait, briefing them in a Dushauni dialect. “So I hope you’ll forgive Thirlein for taking Arlai’s reprogramming.”
“Absolutely,” answered Grisnilter. “You did right, Jindigar. I’ve known this was coming for decades, but I misjudged how near it was.” Even his approval and contrition were tinged with a disappointed parent’s attitude.
Jindigar faced Grisnilter, unawed but reverential. “Thirlein has now been returned to your control. It is for you to order her to make the ship unlivable for the Lehiroh.”
Grisnilter’s expression clouded, and one of the others protested in the modem Dushau dialect Krinata knew. “We can’t ask her to turn on an incarnate; she’d never survive.”
“There will be none harmed,” assured Jindigar. “I want only mischief such as a malfunction might cause: a ridge of high gravity rippling under someone’s feet, a beam of light in their eyes, a local concentration of carbon dioxide, a shower run ice cold, food burned, bad smells; anything she can think of to vex and distract them. Krinata here—a most capable human—will accuse the captain of incompetence, unable to keep his ship safe. On that pretext, we’ll remove you to Truth, which is now called Roving Bettina.”
Grisnilter considered, then asked, “Thirlein, can you do that without disturbing your equilibrium?”
“I believe so. And Arlai is willing to help with some inventive ideas. When do I start?”
“As soon as we’re out of the sickbay,” said Jindigar. Turning to Krinata, he said, “Do you think it will work?”
“I wish I’d thought of it! It’ll work if I can keep from giggling. Captains don’t giggle.” But she knew why she’d never considered it. Sentients weren’t supposed to be able to play such games.
They all eyed her with puzzlement, then Jindigar replaced the dental appliance and instantly became Rndeel again, right down to the Skhe gait. Grisnilter favored him with a prim shudder, and turned away as Rndeel said serenely, “My Lady-Commodore, I’ll be signaling to get us out of here?” “Please do, Rndeel,” she answered.
SEVEN
Rescue
When they arrived at the bridge, the orderly routine had been turned to furor. The internal operations screens all showed crew reporting malfunctions. At the engineering station, the overloaded screen splitter malfunctioned, to show off-duty Lehiroh in toilet rooms, sauna, or even in sexual intercourse.
Just as they were escorted down into the command well, the captain stood and roared for silence. All about him, screens died to black, the incessant chuckling and chirping of a living ship silenced, and his crew faced him in total stillness. Then his eye lit on Krinata.
She strode forward demanding, “What is going on here?”
The Lehiroh’s natural coloring didn’t show any darkening but his eyes bulged. In a strained voice, he answered, “A momentary malfunction, Commodore-Lady. It shall be corrected shortly. Was your visit with the cargo satisfactory?”
“The visit, yes. your treatment of them—not especially. I believe there are too many objects in the ex-sickbay which they could turn into weapons.” She glanced about at the dead bridge. “Are you quite certain the snapfield is still on down there?”
‘*Of course.” His eyes widened still further, and he sent someone to check. “Believe me this has never happened before, Commodore-Lady.”
“I don’t intend to believe you, Captain. I intend to check your logs. Meanwhile. I certainly can’t trust you with such a sensitive cargo. So instead of placing reinforcements aboard >our craft, I’m taking the prisoners with me to Roving Bettina. A: least we have a proper brig, and a Sentient smart enough to keep the environment in order.”
A stench had reached her worse than Skhe body odor. The Lehiroh coughed, eyes streaming. “Mister Rndeel, let us collect our charges and get off this sewer.”
The captain sputtered in several languages, confusing the overhead translators. Before he could regain composure, Krinata spun on her heel.
It can’t be this easy! her mind shrieked as they retraced their steps toward the sickbay. But she’d gotten away with stealing Jindigar from the Emperor—surely she could steal six Dushau from a mere Duke.
When they got there, the shaftway’s deck was slick with something offensive and slimy—as if a Binwon’s tank had overflowed. Krinata coughed, feeling her sinuses fill up. But she kept going, and found the snapfield off.
Rndeel drew her attention to the guard on the field’s console, way down the hall. He was sitting hip deep in the noxious substance, a wallfield keeping it in that branch of the shaftway. His body was slumped over the controls.
When Krinata charged into the sickbay, Thirlein’s image came on the screen. “I’m not going to hurt him. I’m pumping the stuff out of there as fast as I can. This really was a malfunction. Honest. I didn’t know he’d be allergic to it!”
Rndeel said, “Send a scurry to him with appropriate medication. You are not to allow harm to anyone.”
Krinata asked, “Where are the Dushau?”
“Three of them have gone into my core room,” said Thirlein nervously. “I can’t track them there.”
Rndeel looked at Krinata in grim surmise. “Jindigar told the Dushau that the armed escort ships are gone.”
She couldn’t deduce what the Dushau were up to, but she followed when Rndeel said, “I’ve got to hurry,” and took off.
He led the way/as if he’d lived a century in that ship, and even with avoiding Lehiroh in distress, and crash bulkheads slammed down, they were at the Sentient’s main housing in moments.
The core room was a small cave filled with gleaming towers, sparkling fields, and odorless, cold air. Three Dushau worked at a panel in one instrument-filled wall.
Just as Krinata took this hi, one of them said, “Got it!” The panel came up, and another probed the opening with a forceps, extracting a flat housing about the size of Krinata’s forearm and twice as wide.
Rndeel swore protestingly, but it was too late. The lights and gravity went out, leaving Krinata floating above the deck, fighting down primitive panic. The incessant hiss of the air circulators stopped. The drive whine dopplered to silence. It was like being buried in black cotton.
But she heard a Dushau swear, at least she assumed the bitter surprise coupled with unfamiliar words to be invective. A moist hand closed over her ankle and hauled her down. Slick fingers pulled her hand onto a grip. Rndeel said, “They’ve a’taken Thirlein’s core outta her circuits. Folly is dead in space. We’ve no touch with Arlai. Captain, we shoulda run for it?”
“Not without the six of them.” She called to the other three Dushau, “Where are the rest of you?”
“They’ll meet us at the lander bay,” called one of the Dushau in Standard. “Sorry we forgot to warn you; didn’t realize things would shut down so fast.”
Rndeel swore. “Amateur spacers! Stand aside and let an expert get you out of here.”
Defensively, one of the Dushau said, “We couldn’t leave Thirlein to their mercy after what she’d done to them.”
“Dushau!” spat Rndeel. “All alike! Get your fuzzy body over here un’ chain up behina me, Captain. Go offn your own an you’ll ram ursels agin shut bulkheads.” He added some more blistering epithets as he dragged Krinata behind him.
Her questing hand met soft nap, and a warm Dushau hand closed over her shoulder as they moved in pitch darkness. “Hang on now, people, and we’ll be a’lightin’ in a moment.”
They floundered across the cavern, but finally a light flared in Rndeel’s hand. He gave it to Krinata and produced others. “Captain, we musta darken the lights out there. No use helpin’ the enemy find us.”
“Can you lead us through the dark, Rndeel?”
“Captain!” he reproached. “Dis ‘ere Skhe professional!”
“Sorry,” she apologized.
“How are we going to launch a lander,” asked Krinata, “without Thirlein or Arlai?” There was a jittering scream in the pit of her stomach at the idea of going back to the tube through open space, but an unassisted launch was even worse.
“Rinperee,” said one of the Dushau, “can manual launch and get us across to Truth.”
“If anyone can, Rinperee can,” agreed Rndeel. “Where be the lady?”
“Collecting our dead, of course,” answered a Dushau.
“Of course,” echoed Rndeel, adding suitable invective. “I’ll a’fetch the fools. Try you to board the lander without killing ursels.”
Twisting like an acrobat, Rndeel reversed and dove through the hatch into the dark shaftway. Using their lights, the three Dushau spread out to the launch controls, searching for a manual way of opening the lander’s hatch without opening the bay doors to space. Krinata felt lost and helpless. To watch such procedures in adventures did not equip one to face it in real life. She could not have found the controls, nor operated them. But apparently the Dushau weren’t quite the amateurs Rndeel labelled them.
After what could not have been more than seconds, the lander’s hatch opened, spilling cheerful light. “Let’s check it out,” suggested one Dushau.
They piled through the hatch and found Dushau gravity in a comfortably appointed interior, fifteen red multispecies reclining chairs, adjustable light and gravity at each, ample personal cargo stowage, and a drop-platform to a cargo bay below the cabin. The controls were set apart from the cabin by a hushwall that scintillated with interesting patterns and could display the sensors’ view of the outside terrain. Two of the Dushau slid into the control cabin and called readings to another stationed at the rear of the craft checking dials inside an access hatch.
By the time Rndeel arrived towing the other three Dushau and a white bodybag, swearing about Dushau in general, the first three were ready to certify the lander spaceworthy.
Nevertheless. Rndeel insisted on taking the co-pilot’s seat beside Rinperee. a female with a graceful dancer’s manner and gold flecks in her violet eyes. Her throaty voice floated through the air as she let Rndeel run his own check. She leaned far back in her seat, her eyes drooping shut, her body relaxed like a feline feeling safe.
When she took up again, as Krinata was securing herself for a rough ride. Rinperee’s voice, even lower, carried each number clearly to the pair in the rear who entered her calculations manually. At last, one of the Dushau at the rear said, “I’ll bet this lander hasn’t done this since it left the factory, but it’s as ready as it’ll ever be.”
Rinperee chanted more numbers as she touched the controls. Gravity swooped out from under them sending loose items flying, then steadied. “Sorry.” said Rinperee abstracted. “I’ve got Truth on scope. Our approach vector?” More numbers were faithfully repeated from the back.
They soared free for longer than it had taken Krinata to negotiate the tube, then a sharp bump made her bite her tongue. “Arlai’s got us in his beam!” announced Rndeel. “Good work, Rinperee. Maybe Dushau be not so bad.”
She grinned ferociously, “From you, I consider that a compliment.” She tapped at her controls. “Look. Here’s Ac?.” On the hushwall appeared the dark, star-speckled view of Intentional Act, running without the tiny marker lights of emitting sensors, its lower bay doors gaping carelessly, scanning receivers motionless.
Then the view was cut off as Arlai’s bay doors closed over them. Safe, breathed Krinata, letting herself go lax during the wait for pressurization.
But the moment the lander hatch swung wide, Rndeel was racing down the ladder and across the bay to duck under and around the landers that belonged to Arlai and race toward the bridge. Krinata followed, marveling aloud at Arlai’s precision in stowing a lander he had no room for.
Arlai’s simulacrum flashed into full projection beside her and paced her as she led the Dushau after Rndeel. Behind her, several more Arlai projections paced the Dushau and spoke with them in low tones. To Krinata, Arlai said, “If I hadn’t been able to fetch you in, you’d have crashed into my forward scope nodule! But other than that, Rinperee pulled off a miraculous feat that makes mine look picayune. I honestly didn’t think she could do it. I underestimated incarnates as much as Jindigar tends to underestimate me.”
“I’d given us up for dead several times in there,” said Krinata. “I wonder how many times I’m going to owe you my life before this is over?” She didn’t dare think about the weakness in her knees, for once she let the screaming fear out, she knew she’d collapse. No time for that now. She smiled bravely. “I’ll learn not to underestimate you.”
“That warms the grief over Thirlein’s death,” he replied in Dushauni.
She stopped at the hatchway to the bridge. “Thirlein’s not dead!” She told of the extraction of her main module. “They risked their lives to rescue her. She’ll get new external components, a ship, and a new life.”
The classic relief the Sentient displayed almost made that nightmarish trip through the dark worthwhile.
Rndeel squatted at his station on the bridge, an image of Act on the big screen. He tossed a glance around as she arrived, and said, “Captain, they still be alive in Act now. I dispatch detiming capsule to Ithawa Station—Arlai, be you sure no rescue team being arrive before we clear Cambera?”
“Not unless they have one poised and waiting, with a spare Sentient module onboard. In times like these, how likely is that?”
“Point oh, oh, oh, three percent,” answered Rinperee, then added. “Sorry. You got me started.”
“It’s three five,” argued Arlai. “I prefer to round up.”
Rndeel swore, shutting them both up, and said, “Captain, yours to scribe in the order. Or’re you plannin’ to leave those poor souls dyin’?”
“No, of course not,” she said. “Arlai, send the message as Rndeel says. But remind me of that deadline. When they have communications again, they’ll broadcast our identities throughout the Allegiancy. Zinzik will be having fits!”
Rndeel gave a Skhe grin, and bounced on his stool. “His face bein’ the sight of the century!”
“We’re not going back for it, though,” said Krinata, almost able to share the Dushau’s zest. -
“But where is Jindigar taking us?” asked Grisnilter. “I admit I never expected to see him alive after the official announcement that all ofKamminth’s died traitors to the Emperor.”
“Be saying so?” asked Rndeel mildly. “Well, Jindigar be unlikely again visible among Allegiancy.”
I hope hell be seen here, soon,” said Rinperee hugging a small shudder as she eyed Rndeel.
“Not very,” answered Rndeel. “Next be stopping Cassr. Friends of Jindigar to liberate. Arlai will gossip it all out to you. Now when’d passengers scoot off’ our bridge! Revered Historian, Grisnilter. be needing rest.”
Krinata was shocked on one level—any of those Dushau were better spacers than she—and admiring on another. Never once bad Jindigar unintentionally fallen out of the Rndeel character. Trying to find some charity in her heart for one Jindigar obviously held in high regard, she followed Grisnilter a way and said softly, “We’d planned to rescue some Cassrian friends of Jindigar’s. News from Cassr indicated they’d soon be executed, if they hadn’t been already. We were rushing there when we got your distress call. There’re four more groups on other planets to collect, and the Jindigar is going to take us someplace safe.”
The others stopped to listen. An unwelcome thought leaped to Krinata’s mind. After what she’d just been through, she didn’t know if she could face more of the same, but she was compelled to ask, “Do any of you have friends w
ho have to be rescued? I’m sure Jindigar wouldn’t spare any effort.”
“Jindigar,” said Grisnilter in a parchment dry voice, as thin as his emaciated physique, “is famous for entanglements with Ephemerals. Please understand, we’re not callous to the fate of such as are accused of befriending us, but in most instances the charges are wholly false. I, personally have no obligations among living Ephemerals—except yourself, Lady Zavaronne.” He looked about at the others, and there was a murmur of agreement.
In a small voice, she said, “I had to ask.”
“Your thoughtfulness bespeaks a greatness of heart, my Lady. We notice.”
After so much time with Jindigar, she’d forgotten how aloof most Dushau could be. “Thank you,” she replied coolly. “Arlai will see you settled and answer your questions, I’m sure. You must need rest after your ordeal.”
“This is a truth, ephemeral and eternal,” answered Grisnilter.
That was the highest compliment she’d ever get from a Dushau, she knew, so she wished them well and went back to Rndeel. Settling in her station, she said, “This captain thing makes me feel so ridiculous. Any of them could do this better than I.”
“Not a’fore Cassrians, and none of ‘em’re in any shape fer more danger.” He spun his stool about to face her, his head cocked to one side quizzically. “But’re you any better? Will keep ur nerve, girl?”
“We’ve lost so much time, I’m not sure we should go through with this. Maybe we should go on to Khol.”
His eyes, shielded by inserts to disguise their midnight violet color, bored into her. Then he spun back to the console. “With ur permission, Cap’n, I’d like to go aground on Cassr… alone, to attend me business there.”
He was giving her a way out. Coward, screamed her mind. She’d given her word. True, that was before things got complicated, but still…
She was brooding over her own plotting scope when a small Arlai climbed up out of the bottom margin and words crawled across: Privately, Krinata, may I beg you to go with Jindigar/ Rndeel? It so increases the odds of success and.., and, I discovered grief when I thought Thirlein was dead. I wanted to blast Act out of existence! I’m not supposed to be able to entertain such thoughts. If grief causes that in me, and so soon after the shock of Thirlein’s “death” I have to face Jindigar’s … Krinata, he’s been with me since I came out of training. He commissioned me built. Please. Help him.
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