Planet Pirates Omnibus
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Dupaynil felt very much in the way, and very much unwanted. Blast Sassinak! The woman might at least have dumped him onto something comfortable. He looked over at Panis who was determinedly not looking at him. If he remembered correctly, the shortest route to Seti space was going to take weeks and he could not endure this kind of thing for weeks.
The crew had worked off their bad humor in less than a week. Dupaynil exerted his considerable charm, let Ollery win several card games, and entertained them with some of the safer racy anecdotes from his last assignment in a political realm. He had read Ollery correctly; the man liked to find flaws in those above him; preferably blackmailable flaws. Given a story about an ambassador’s lady addicted to drugs or a wealthy senior bureaucrat who preferred cross-cultural divertissements, his eyes glistened and his cheeks flushed.
Dupaynil concealed his own contempt. Those who best liked to hear such things usually had their own similar appetites to hide.
Panis, however, was of very different stripe. He had tittered nervously at the story about the bureaucrat and turned brick red when Ollery and the senior mate sneered at him. It was clear that he had no close friends among the crew. When Dupaynil checked, he found that Panis had replaced the previous Exec only a few months before, while the rest of the crew had been unchanged for almost five years. And the previous Exec ‘•had left the ship because of an injury in a dockside ibrawl. It was odd, and more than odd: regular rotation jjflf crew was especially important on small ships. Fleet Cpolicy insisted on it. No matter how efficient a crew seemed to be, they were never left unchanged too long. ‘I-. Dupaynil had not been able to bring all his tools ; along, but he always had some. He placed his sensors Vttffefully, as carefully as he had in the larger ship, and 4$lkl his probe into the datalinks very delicately indeed. SHe had the feeling that carelessness here would get Jbim more trouble than a chewing out by the captain. In the meantime, as the days wore on, the crew sned up with him and played endless hands of
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every card game he knew, and a few he’d never seen. Crutch was a pirate’s game, he’d been told once by the merchanter who taught it to him; he wondered where this crew had learned it. Poker, blind-eye, sin on toast, at which he won back all he’d tost so far, having learned that on Bretagne, where it began.
He sweated up and down the access tube ladders, learning to respond quickly to the shifting artificial-G, keeping his muscles supple. He discovered a storage bay full of water ice which made the restrictions on bathing ridiculous. There was enough to last a crew twice that size all the way to Seti space and back but he kept his mouth shut. It seemed safer.
For all their friendliness, all their casual demeanor, he’d noticed that Ollery or the senior mate were always in any compartment he happened into. Except his own tiny cabin. And he was sure they’d been there when he found evidence that his things had been searched. He had time to wonder if Sassinak had known just what kind of ship she’d sent him to. He thought not. She had probably done a fest scan of locations, looking for the nearest docked escort vessel, some way to keep him from communicating while he was in FTL.
“I say he’s spying on us, and I say dump him.” That was the mate. Dupaynil shivered at the quietly deadly tone.
“He’s got IG orders. They’ll want to know what happened.” That was Ollery, not nearly so sure of himself.
“We can’t just space him. We have to figure out a way.”
“Emergency drill. Blow the pod. Say it was an accident.” The mate’s voice carried the shrug he would give when questioned later.
“What if he figures it out?”
“What can he do? Pod’s got no engine, no decent long-range radio, no scan. Dump him where hell fell down a well, into a star or something else big. Disable the radio and beacon. That way no one’U know he’s ever been there. ‘Sides, I don’t think his orders are real. Think about it, sir. Would the IG haul someone off a big cruiser like the Zaid-Dayan—an IFTL mes-
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sage, that’d have to be — and stick ‘em on a little bitty escort? To go to Seti space? C’mon. You send a special envoy to the Seti, you send a damn flotilla in with ‘em, not an escort. No, you mark my words, sir, he’s here to Spy on us and this proves it. “
Dupaynil could not tell through the audio link which of his taps had been found, but he wished ardently that be had not planted it, whatever it was. Once again he had out-smarted himself, as he had with Sassinak. Never underesti-mate the enemy and be damned sure you know who the enemy is; a very basic rule he had somehow violated.
He felt a trickle of sweat run down his ribs. Sassinak had been dumped in an evac pod, rescued by the combined efforts of Wefts and a Ssli. He had no Wefts or Ssli to back him up; he would have to figure this out himself.
“You’re sure he hasn’t got the good stuff out of comp
“Pretty sure.” The mate’s voice was even grimmer.
•:; “Security’s got good tools, though. Give him all the
y;; time between here and Seti space, and he’ll have not
only the basics but enough to mind-fry the lot of us, all
· the way up to Lady Luisa herself. “
••? Dupaynil almost forgot his fear. Lady Luisa? Luisa
•; Paraden? He had always been able to put two and two together and find more interesting things than four. ^.Now he felt an almost physical jolt as his mind con-JKttected everything he’d ever heard or seen; including all ‘l-ithe information Sassinak had gathered. |i; As bright as a diagram projected on the screen of a %4lrategy meeting, all connections marked out in glowing ‘X;*ed or yellow . . . Luisa to Randolph, who had ample jpeason to loathe Sassinak. That had been Randolph vengeance, through his aunt’s henchman, a washed Fleet officer once held captive on the same outpost as an orphan girl. Dupaynil spared a to pity that doomed lieutenant: Sassinak never , even if she learned the whole story. Luisa would do something that potentially dangerous just for idolph, though. It must have been vengeance for
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Abe’s part in disrupting her operation, a warning to others. Perhaps fear that he would cause her more trouble.
Abe to Sassinak, Sassinak to Randolph, Randolph to Luisa, whose first henchman partially failed. Where was Randolph now, Dupaynil wondered suddenly. He should know and he did not know. He realized that he had not ever seen one bit of information on Randolph in the system since that arrogant young man had left the Academy. Unnatural. A Paraden, wealthy, with connections: he should have done something. He should have been in the society news or been an officer in one of Aunt Luisa’s companies.
Unless he had changed his identity some way. It could be done, though it was expensive. Not that that would bother a Paraden. And why had they stopped with one attack on Sassinak? Dupaynil wished he had her file in hand. They would have been covert attempts, but knowing what to look for he might be able to see it. But of course! The Wefts. The Wefts she had saved from Par-aden’s accusations in the Academy; the Wefts who had saved her from death in the pod. Wefts might have foiled any number of plots without bothering to tell her.
Or perhaps she knew, but never made the connection, or never bothered to report it, rules or no. She was not known for following the rules. He leaned on the wall of his cubicle, sweating and furious, as much with himself as the various conspirators. This was his job, this was what he had trained for, what he had thought he was good at; finding things out, making connections, sifting the data, interpreting it. And here he was, with all the threads woven into the pattern and no possible way to get that information out.
You’re so smart, he thought bitterly. You’re going to your death having won the war but lost the brawl. He knew—it was in her file and she had confided it as well—that Sassinak still wondered about the real reason Abe had been killed. She had never forgotten it, never laid it to rest. And he had that to offer her, more than enough to get her forgiveness for that earlier misunderstanding. But too late!
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Sassinak, now. What would she do, cooped in an escort full of renegades? He had trouble imagining her on anything but the bridge of the Zaid-Dayan, but she had served in smaller ships. Would she find a weapon (where?) and threaten them from the bridge? Would she take off in an escape pod before she was jettisoned, with a functioning radio, and hope to be found in time? (In time for what? Life? The trial?) The one thing she wouldn’t do, he was sure, was slouch on a bunk wondering what to do. She would have thought of something, and given her luck it would probably have worked.
The idea, when it finally came to him hours later (miserable, sweaty hours when he was supposed to be sleeping), seemed simple. Presumably they would have a ship evacuation drill as the occasion of his murder. The others would be going into pods as well, just to make it seem normal. They had found one of his taps, but not all (or surely they’d have blocked the audio so he couldn’t hear). And therefore he could tap the links again, reset the evac pod controls, and trap them—or most of them—in the pods. They would not be able to fire his pod; he could fire theirs.
He was partway through the reprogramming of the pod controls when he realized why this was not such a simple solution. Fleet had a name for someone who took illegal con-trol of a ship and killed the captain and crew. An old, nasty name leading to a court martial which he might well lose.
/ am not contemplating mutiny, he told himself firmly. They are the criminals. But they were not convicted
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yet, and until then what he planned was, by all the laws and regulations, not merely mutiny but also murder. And piracy. And probably a dozen or so lesser crimes to be tacked onto the charge sheet(s), including the things Sassinak might say about his tap into her com shack. And his present unauthorized reprogramming of emergency equipment. Not to mention his supposed orders to proceed into Seti space: faked orders, which no one (after he pirated a ship and killed the crew) would believe he had not faked for himself.
What would Sassinak do about that, he wondered. He remembered the holo of the Zaid-Dayan with its patched hull, with the scars of the pirate boarding party. She had let the enemy onto her ship to trap them. Could he think of anything as devastating? All things considered, forty-three years of cold sleep might be the easy way out, he thought, finishing off the new switching sequences.
Sassinak’s great-great-great might complain but a little time in the freezer could keep you out of big trouble. His mind bumped him again, hard. Of course. Coldsleep them, the nasties. Drop the charges to mere mutiny and piracy and et cetera, but not murder (mandatory mindwipe for murder), and he might merely spend the next twenty years cleaning toilet fixtures with a bent toothbrush.
Of course it still wasn’t simple. For all his exercise up and down the ladders, he had no more idea than a space-opera hero how to operate this ship. He’d had only the basics, years back; he’d flown a comp-desk, not a ship. He could chip away at that compartment of water ice and not die of thirst, but he couldn’t convert it and take a shower. Or even get the ship down out of FTL space. Sassinak could probably do it, but all he could do was trigger the Fleet distress beacon and hope the pickup ship wasn’t part of the same corrupt group. He wouldn’t even do that, if he didn’t quit jittering and get to it.
Chapter Seven
Diplo
Zebara led her through the maze of streets around the university complex at a fast pace. For all his age and apparent physical losses, he was still amazingly fit. She was aware of eyes following them, startled glances. She could not tell if it was Zebara himself, or his having a lightweight companion. She was puffing when he finally stopped outside a storefront much like the others she’d seen.
“Gin’s Place,” Zebara said. “Best chooli stew in the city, a very liberal crowd, and a noisy set of half-bad musicians. You’ll love it.”
Lunzie hoped so. Chooli stew conformed to Federation law by having no meat in it, but she had not acquired a taste for the odd spices that flavored the mix of starchy vegetables.
Inside, hardly anyone looked at her. The “liberal crowd” were all engrossed in their own food and conversation. She smelted meat, but saw none she recognized. The half-bad musicians played with enthusiasm but little skill, covering their blats and blurps with high-pitched cries of joy or anguish. She could not tell which, but it did make an effective sonic screen. She
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and Zebara settled into one of the booths along the side, and ordered chooli stew with figgerunds, the green nuts she’d had at the reception, Zebara explained.
“You need to know some things,” he began when the chooli stew had arrived, and Lunzie was taking a first tentative bite of something yellowish.
“I heard you were head of External Security,” she said quietly.
He looked startled. “Where’d you hear? No, it doesn’t matter. It’s true, although not generally known.” He sighed. “I can see this makes it more difficult for you ...”
“Makes what more difficult?”
“Trusting me.” His eyes flicked around the room, as anyone’s might, but Lunzie could not believe it was the usual casual glance. Then he looked back at her. “You don’t, and I can’t blame you, but we must work together or. Or things could get very bad indeed.”
“Isn’t your involvement with an offworlder going to be a little conspicuous?” She let a little sarcasm edge her voice; how naive did he think she was?
“Of course. That doesn’t matter.” He ate a few bites while she digested the implications of that statement. It could only “not matter” if policymakers knew and approved. When he looked up and swallowed, she nodded at him. “Good! You understand. Your name on the medical team was a little conspicuous, if you’d had any ulterior motive for coming here . . .”He let that trail away, and Lunzie said nothing. Whatever motives she had had, the important tiling now was to find out what Zebara was talking about. She took another bite of stew; it was better than the same dish in the research complex’s dining hall.
“I saw the list,” Zebara went on. “One of the things my department does is screen such delegations, looking for possible troublemakers. Nothing unusual. Most planets do the same. There was your name, and I wondered if it was the same Lunzie. Found out that it was you and then the rocks started falling.”
“Rocks?”
“My . . . employers. They wanted me to contact you, renew our friendship. More than friendship, if possible. Enlist your aid in getting vital data oflplanet.”
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“But your employers . . . that’s the Governor, right?” Lunzie was not sure, despite having read about it, just where political power was on this planet.
“Not precisely. The Governor knows them, and that’s part of the problem. I have to assume that you, with what’s happened to you, are like any normal Federation citizen. About piracy, for instance.”
His voice had lowered to a muffled growl she could barely follow. The half-bad musicians were perched on their tall stools, gulping some amber liquid from tall glass mugs. She hoped it would mellow their music as well as their minds.
“My ethics haven’t changed,” she said, with the slightest emphasis on the pronoun.
“Good. That’s what they counted on, and I, in my own way, counted on the same thing.” He took a long swallow of his drink.
“Are you suggesting,” Lunzie spoke slowly, phrasing it carefully, “that your goals and your employers’ goals both depend on my steadfast opinions, even if they are . . . di
vergent?”
“You could say it that way.” Zebara grinned at her, and slightly raised his mug.
And what other way, with what other meaning, could I say it? Lunzie wondered. She sipped from her own mug, tasting only the water she’d asked for, and said, “That’s all very well, but what does it mean?”
“That, I’m afraid, we cannot discuss here. I will tell you what I can, and then we’ll make plans to meet again.” At her frown, he nodded. “That much is necessary, Lunzie, to keep immediate trouble at bay. We are watched. Of course we are, and I’m aware of it so we must continue our friendly association.”
“Just how friendly?”
That slipped out before she meant it. She had not meant to ask that until later, if ever. He chuckled, but it sounded slightly forced.
“You know how friendly we were. You probably remember it better than I do since you slept peacefully for over forty of the intervening years.”
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She felt the blood rushing to her face and let it. Any watchers would assume that was genuine emotion.
“You! I have to admit that I haven’t forgotten you, not one . . . single . . . thing.”
This time, he was the one to blush. She hoped it satisfied whoever was doing the surveillance but she thought the actual transcript would prove deadly.
As if he could read her thoughts, he said “Don’t worry! At this stage they’re still letting me arrange the surveillance. We’re relatively safe as long as we don’t do something outside their plans.”
Their plans or your plans, she wondered. She wanted to trust Zebara: she did trust the Zebara she’d known. But this new Zebara, this old man with the hooded eyes, the grandchildren he wanted to save, the head of External Security, could she trust this Zebara? And how far?