The Road of Danger

by David Drake

  “What in hell have you done, Pensett?” said Lindstrom, bending over Daniel’s couch to shout. Hogg had gotten up also. Obviously neither of them had been as badly affected by the recent insertion as Daniel was. “We don’t have any way on yet!”

  Daniel set the rigging to deploy, extending the antennas and unfurling the initial sail set, before he looked up at the owner. He didn’t care to have anybody bellowing at him, but he formed his lips into an engaging smile.

  The expression was as much for her sake as his own. He didn’t want Hogg to change the situation with the enthusiasm he’d been known to show when he decided that somebody was threatening the young master.

  “We had an Alliance cruiser coming down on us, Kiki,” Daniel said. “We won’t need to go far, I hope, to confuse them for long enough that we can set off in proper fashion.”

  West — the oldest of the crewmen; he was sixty if he was a day — and Hargate had risen and were settling their helmets in place. It was nearly certain that the rigging wouldn’t work properly the first time it was deployed after liftoff, so the crewmen were preparing to go out to clear kinks and jams.

  Daniel straightened. He thought for an instant, then said, “No, stay inside for now. As the boss says — ”

  He grinned as he nodded to Lindstrom, who had returned to her couch. Hogg remained standing in the center of the compartment.

  “ — we don’t have much way on, so we’re not going anywhere in particular. We’ll extract and accelerate for a while; then you can get your exercise.”

  “Suits me, Chief,” Hargate said, giving Daniel the first smile he had seen on the man’s face. “This suit — ”

  He clacked his gauntleted fingers against the stiffened chest plate.

  “ — lacks about two inches of what it ought to have for height, and with the helmet locked down I feel like somebody’s trying to pound me through the deck.”

  “I see,” said Daniel. “When we hit ground on Cremona, I’ll see if we can’t promote a hard suit that fits you a little better.”

  Hogg could probably arrange something. Quite apart from common decency — hard suits of the wrong size were miserably uncomfortable — he didn’t want the ship’s safety to depend on a rigger whose suit hobbled him when he needed to move fast.

  Daniel returned to his display. The equipment on the hull was hydromechanical; electric current would have generated magnetic fields. They could randomly and sometimes enormously affect the sails’ resistance to the Casimir radiation which shifted a vessel through the Matrix. In a well-found modern vessel the hydraulic input was converted to electricity within the hull and appeared as readouts on the console.

  The Savoy had instead four pointers above the airlock. Three were vertical; the fourth — the starboard antenna — was at ninety degrees, indicating that the antenna had only partially extended.

  Daniel grinned. A jam at this point didn’t matter, as he had told the riggers. More to the point, he had no reason to believe that the gauges were working properly, either.

  “Preparing to extract,” he said. One real benefit of a small vessel was that insertion and extraction were relatively simple procedures. An 80,000-tonne battleship might be five minutes completing either operation, even with a crack crew.

  Daniel pulled the sliding control toward him, saying, “Extracting!”

  Ice water trickled inward from each finger and toe, meeting in the center of Daniel’s chest for one freezing moment; then the extraction was over. The yawl had reemerged in the sidereal universe, and all her external sensors were live again.

  Daniel had set his display to a naval-style Plot Position Indicator simply out of habit. The Savoy’s console was old, but it had originally come from a warship — certainly Pantellarian, and probably a destroyer.

  He lighted the High Drive as soon as a quick glance showed that the Savoy was still headed outward. His quick in-and-out of the Matrix could have reversed the ship’s attitude in normal space, and they were close enough above Madison that diving toward the surface could have serious consequences.

  The second order of business was to locate the Estremadura. With luck, the cruiser had extracted half a million miles away or even farther. That would give the Savoy plenty of time to build up speed before Daniel had to take her into the Matrix again.

  The Estremadura wasn’t visible on the PPI, which meant she was still in the Matrix. Since the Savoy’s console was a naval unit, it would have shown the cruiser on a predicted course even if she were momentarily behind the planet from the yawl’s vantage point. Daniel had deliberately allowed plenty of time for his opponent to extract from her initial jump toward Madison.

  Are they completely incompetent? That could certainly happen, but it wasn’t a safe assumption to make about an untested opponent.

  Speaking of untested, the yawl’s two High Drive motors were buzzing in nearly perfect synchrony, making the vibration in so small a ship not only unpleasant but potentially dangerous. When there was time — which there certainly wasn’t now — Daniel would adjust the units to syncopate one another with their pulses. Their present output created harmonics which could fracture electronics and might very well crystallize metal if it went on for long enough.

  Daniel wondered if Petrov had deliberately aligned the motors’ phases in some mad quest of a perfection that actually degraded performance. The gods alone knew what naval officers were taught on Novy Sverdlovsk!

  The PPI highlighted the precursor effects of a ship extracting from the Matrix about 19,000 miles from the Savoy’s present location, some three light-seconds outsystem from Madison. That could be chance, but even if it were chance —

  “Prepare to insert!” Daniel said as he slammed the paired High Drive feeds shut. The yawl wouldn’t be able to insert until they’d coasted beyond the haze of antimatter atoms finding atoms of terrene matter with which to immolate themselves, but she was far enough out now that her surroundings were hard vacuum.

  “Sir?” said one of the crewmen on a rising note. “Sir? What’s going on?”

  Lindstrom wasn’t speaking this time, but she’d gotten up from her bunk and was hovering — literally; they were in free fall — beside the console, maneuvering expertly by taps on the bulkheads. Daniel couldn’t blame the others for wondering what was going on, but it certainly wasn’t helpful.

  “Inserting!” Daniel said.

  He didn’t notice the transition this time because his mind was wholly focused on his display. He got a momentary glimpse of the ship which had returned to the sidereal universe just as the Savoy was leaving it. As he had feared, it was the Estremadura.

  And when his console enhanced and enlarged the image, Daniel could see that the cruiser’s guns had been aligned to bear on the yawl.

  CHAPTER 16

  Ashe Haven on Madison

  The Savoy and the pursuing cruiser had vanished into the Matrix. Neither Cory nor Cazelet could predict the result of chase, and they knew Adele too well to offer hopeful platitudes. Yes, Daniel was very skilled, but so was Captain Regin of the Estremadura, and the cruiser’s large crew made it handier than the yawl.

  Adele had nodded at the analysis and turned to what she could control. She lost herself in the broad expanse of the data she had harvested from Platt’s station until a purple crawl at the bottom of her display announced OSORIO ARRIVING WITH VEHICLES ON QUAY. The slug at the close of the message indicated it was from the command console, where Vesey was acting as watch officer — despite being captain now and no longer required to stand watches.

  “I’ll go down and meet him,” Adele said, letting the console reform her words into a prose response. She transferred her work to the signals console then, stripped the work off the BDC console instead of locking the files.

  Only then did she get up. “Our passenger has arrived,” she said to Cory and Cazelet. She preceded Tovera out of the BDC.

  Daniel generally had stood watches also, even when the Princess Cecile had enough officers that
it wouldn’t have been necessary. Captains were permitted to be eccentric.

  Adele glanced down at her clothing. She was still wearing the outfit she had put on to visit the Assumption Library . . . which she hadn’t entered after all. The clothes were rumpled from hard use, despite being covered by borrowed garments while she and Tovera cleared Platt’s station.

  In particular, there was a blotch on the arch of her right boot. It was almost certainly blood, though she couldn’t say without chemical analysis whether it was Platt’s blood or that of his victim.

  Kostroman nobles were permitted to be eccentric also. It was unlikely that Osorio would observe any more than Principal Hrynko looking disheveled when at leisure on her own yacht.

  Tovera stepped in front of her, the attaché case waist-high and slightly open. Before Adele entered the corridor, she looked back and said to the young men watching her, “Continue with what you’re doing.”

  Then — because they would understand — she added, “I would much rather remain here doing something useful instead of this playacting.”

  As they strode together toward the forward companionways, Tovera said quietly, “You wouldn’t do it if you didn’t believe it was useful, mistress.”

  Adele sighed and said, “What I should have said is that I don’t care to do this sort of thing, despite the frequency with which I’m called on to do it. I suppose I would be wiser to adjust my attitude rather than to expect the universe to change reality.”

  They went down by the bow companionway instead of the one immediately outside the BDC hatch in the stern. The central corridor on D Level ran past bulk storage compartments to the boarding hold, but A Level was familiar territory to Adele and required less of her conscious mind. She nodded by rote to crewmen going sternward or calling their respects through open hatchways, but her brain kept poring over the question of whether they would meet the Savoy on Cremona — and what Adele would do if they didn’t.

  Platt’s files indicated that the Estremadura sent its prizes to Westerbeke to be condemned. Adele had not yet constructed an excuse for Principal Hrynko to take her yacht to that out-of-the-way port in the Funnel. Of course they could ignore duty and simply focus on saving Daniel; but Daniel wouldn’t approve of that decision, and neither would she.

  Adele and Tovera stepped into the boarding hold just as Osorio reached the guards. Heberle, a Tech 8 and the senior spacer on duty, had just started talking on her commo helmet when a rigger with a submachine gun patted her wrist and pointed toward the principal and her aide. Heberle braced to attention and shouted, “Her Ladyship!”

  Tovera giggled. There were as many guesses about how to treat Principal Hrynko as there were Sissies. Adele had decided that lack of uniformity in address was less of a danger than trying to drill the crew into a particular form and have a confused spacer blurt something about Lady Mundy. Even sober that could happen; and sufficiently flustered spacers could probably find a drink to relax them.

  “Master Osorio,” Adele said. Looking beyond the Cremonan to the train of vehicles which had brought him — a ground car and a pair of small tractors pulling carts filled with luggage — she added, “And what is all this? Do you mistake my yacht for a merchant vessel?”

  “I have lived on Madison for three years, Your Ladyship,” Osorio said with a deep bow, “but I am going home to stay now with those of my possessions which I haven’t disposed of here.”

  He gestured toward the car. “I sold my aircar, for example. Surely it will be possible to stow my household goods on so large a vessel?”

  He probably sold the aircar at a very tidy profit, Adele realized. They weren’t manufactured on Madison, and Osorio — as a government representative — wouldn’t have had to pay the heavy import duty levied on luxuries.

  Rather than answering directly, Adele turned to the detail commander and said, “Heberle, can that quantity of cargo be stored aboard without harming our combat efficiency?”

  Heberle had a muttered conversation with the other ship-side spacer in the guard detail. She looked back at Adele and said, “Yeah, we can stuff it in, likely. We’re low on some of the fungibles, and there’s room in the forward magazine besides. What doesn’t fit there we can cram into the cabin you assigned his nibs, I guess.”

  “All right,” said Adele. “Inform Captain Vesey that I want this cargo loaded. Also tell her that I want to lift off as quickly as possible when that task is complete.”

  She looked at Osorio, who seemed startled. “Come with me to the bridge, then, my man,” she said. “I usually watch liftoffs from a console there. You can sit at the training seat on my console.”

  Adele turned and started back the Up companionway. Tovera was immediately behind her. Spacers banged into the entry hold as Adele left it, on their way to striking down the passenger’s luggage.

  Osorio followed — she glanced out of the corner of her eye as she entered the armored tube — after a moment of puzzled hesitation. He hadn’t expected to be treated as a foreigner of no importance.

  Adele smiled faintly. It was as well that the Cremonan attaché wasn’t travelling with servants, though they could be stowed also — with as little ceremony as the luggage, and probably with what a landsman would consider as little comfort.

  Her smile slipped. She did very much want to lift off. If the Princess Cecile had been ready to lift when the cruiser made for Daniel, Adele would have done so immediately, regardless of her cover as Principal Hrynko. As it was, all she could do at the moment was to determine what had happened. Later she would right it, if possible.

  Adele entered the bow rotunda and strode across it to the bridge. Tovera was a silent shadow a step behind, and Osorio panted audibly at the unpracticed effort of the steep helical staircase.

  The Cremonans wanted to hire to House of Hrynko to destroy the Estremadura. Adele would force them to make a reasonable offer for the services of her yacht, but that was only because the businessmen backing the project would be suspicious if she didn’t demand that.

  But the money really didn’t matter: Adele had already determined that. The Sissie and her crew would eliminate the cruiser. She only hoped that she would be punishing the Estremadura’s crew for worrying her, rather than taking revenge for Daniel’s death.

  The Matrix

  Daniel finished a series of computations before he rotated his couch and grinned at his companions. Hogg appeared nonchalant. The expression might be feigned, but probably not. Hogg had complete faith in the young master’s infallibility regarding anything to do with a starship, so he saw nothing to worry about.

  “What the bloody hell are you playing at?” Kiki Lindstrom demanded. She looked furious. To a degree the anger could be hiding her fear, though Daniel’s cavalier behavior toward her ship and herself gave plenty of reason for her to be pissed.

  The faces of three of the crewmen ranged from worried to frightened. The fourth, Blemberg, had no expression at all — as always before in Daniel’s experience. Daniel couldn’t tell at this early point in their acquaintance whether Blemberg was unflappably stolid or if he was simply too stupid to understand that they were in danger.

  “There’s a cruiser here in the system, targeting blockade runners,” Daniel said. “The Estremadura.”

  Lindstrom nodded, suddenly looking thoughtful. “I’ve heard of her,” she said. “She’s a privateer, really. The governor of Sunbright hired her because the Funnel Squadron couldn’t catch its ass with both hands. But she operates above Cremona, mostly, and sends her prizes to Westerbeke.”

  “Well, for now, she’s in Madison orbit,” Daniel said. “She’s coming for us, and her captain is bloody good. That’s why I’ve been bouncing around like a training exercise.”

  He was glad to see that the crewmen, too, were relaxing. When he started discussing a real danger, they realized that their captain and the only astrogator aboard hadn’t suddenly gone crazy — which was the best explanation they’d previously had for his behavior.

&n
bsp; Lindstrom backed to her bunk and seated herself again. “The Estremadura’s been in this system before but didn’t bother us when we lifted off?” she said. Her tone made the words a question.

  “Well, that’s changed,” Daniel said flatly. “If we’d been fifteen seconds later in inserting, she’d have hit us with her guns. They couldn’t have done a lot of damage at this range, but we wouldn’t have been able to insert if she kept hitting the hull. So we have a problem.”

  “Sir?” said Hargate. “Can you get us out? If they carry the ship to Westerbeke and condemn it, they just dump us spacers out on the beach there with the clothes we stand in.”

  “I think we’ll be able to handle it, yes,” said Daniel. He smiled again, but this time with the hard triumph of a chess player about to make a move which he is sure will take his opponent by surprise. “The Estremadura expects us to sail to Cremona — they have our course projections. I don’t know how, but they do, and whoever is captaining that cruiser will know what to do with the data. So — ”

  He paused to let the delay add drama.

  “ — we’ll go directly to Sunbright instead. I’ve plotted the course, and I’ll be out on the hull most hours to refine it en route.”

  “But we can’t do that!” Lindstrom said, her voice cutting through the spacers’ disconcerted babble. “We don’t have food for a straight run, and I don’t know that the reaction mass will last out, either.”

  “We have enough food,” said Daniel flatly, “and the reaction mass will be fine too. I checked them both as soon as I recalculated the course. We’ll drop into normal space when we’re ten light-minutes out from Madison on the present course. That’ll give us time enough to build up speed before the Estremadura catches up with us again, if she even tries. Then — ”

  He repeated his artificially bright grin.

  “ — we don’t enter the sidereal universe again until we’re in the Sunbright system.”

  “Can you do that?” Lindstrom said, rather as though Daniel had said he planned to dance on the hull without a suit.