Planet Pirates Omnibus

by neetha Napew

  “It is not just heavyworlders,” Zebara murmured, as if he’d read her mind. “You know there are others?” Lunzie nodded.

  Any of the commercial entities would find greater profit in resource development without regulation. Humans and aliens both. She had heard of no society so idealistic that it had no criminals among it. Perhaps the Ssli, she amended: once sessile, how could they do anything wrong, in anyone’s terms? But here and now?

  “Seti!” came Zebara’s murmur. “They’ve used us, pretended sympathy for our fate, for having been genetically altered. But they despise us for it, as well.”

  She nodded against his chest, trying to think. The Seti predated human membership in the FSP, though not by much. They were difficult, far more alien-seeming, and less amusing, than the Ryxi or Wefts. They had destroyed a Weft planet and later claimed to have done so accidentally, not knowing of the Wefts they killed. And the Thekl

  “It’s three-cornered, really.” Zebara nuzzled her hair a long moment and she felt the draft of someone’s movement past them again. “Our Governor’s worked for the Pralungan Combine for over twenty years. He’s been paid off in money, shares, and positions for his relatives. The Combine gets strong backs for its internal security forces, industrial enforcers. Even private troops. Crew for illegally armed vessels to fight Fleet interference. Your Sassinak’s been a major problem for us, by the way. She gets along too well with her heavyworlder marines. That word’s spread and we have too many • youngsters thinking of Fleet as a future. Not to mention the number of ships she’s blown up in her career. Also, the Seti have some gain of their own we haven’t quite figured out. They want some of the planets we’ve taken: mostly those unsuitable for human settlement. They’re fanneling money into the Combine and the Combine funnels some, as little as they can, to us.”

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  It was almost too much to take in. “What do you want me to do?” asked Lunzie.

  “Get the real data out. Not the faked stuff you’re supposed to be caught with. You’ll have to leave before your team. It’s supposed to look as if you’re fleeing with stolen information. And if you don’t, they’ll know I didn’t convince you. But you can leave before even they expect it. I can say you double-crossed me, used the pass you were given too soon.”

  It sounded most unlikely. No lightweight could get oflplanet unnoticed. Surely they would be watching her. If she tried to bolt, they would simply call Zebara to check. And then find on her the real data, dooming both of them. She said this, very fast and very softly, into his ear. He held her close, a steady grip that would have been calming if her mind had not gone on ahead to the obvious conclusion.

  He did not mean her to escape as a lightweight: as someone walking up the ramp, opening her papers for inspection at the port, climbing into her seat in the shuttle. He had something else in mind, something that would not be so obvious. The possibilities scrolled through her mind as if on a screen. As cargo? But an infrared scan would find her. As— She stiffened, puBed her head back, and tried to see his face in the darkened hall.

  “Not in coldsleep.” She meant it to be non-negotiable.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, into her hair.

  “No.” Quietly, but firmly, and with no intention of being talked into it. “Not again.”

  At that very inopportune moment, the softly passionate music stopped, leaving the hall in sudden silence interspersed with rustling clothing. The silence lengthened. A single drumbeat, slow, inexorable, signalled a dire event, and the back of her seat shoved her up, away from Zebara. The armrest slid upward between them. The footrest dropped. Another drum joined the first, heavy, sodden with grief. Muted brass, one grave note after another followed the drums. Onstage, lights showed the barest outline of a heap of bodies, of sufferers still alive and starving. The sacrifice had not been enough. They would all die after all. A child’s soprano.

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  piercing as a needle, cried out for food, and Lunzie flinched. The alto’s voice replying held all history’s bitterness.

  Surely it had not really been this bad! It could not have been! The rigid arm of the man beside her insisted it was, it had been. He believed it so, at least, and he believed the future might be as bleak. Lunzie swallowed, fighting nausea. If they actually showed cannibalism onstage . . . but they did not. A chorus of grieving women, of hungry children. One suggested, the others cried out in protest, and this went on (as so often in operas) somewhat longer than. was necessary to convince everyone that both sides were sincere.

  One after another came over to the side of horror, for the children’s sake, but it was, in the end, a child who raised a shaking arm to point at the new element in the crisis. The new element, presented onstage as a fur-coated robot of sorts, was the native grazer of the tundra. Shaggy, uncouth, and providentially stupid, it had been drawn by the warmth of the colonists’ huts from its usual path of migration. The same woman who had been ready to put the dead into a synthesizer now wrestled the shaggy beast and killed it: not without being gored by two of its six horns. Whereupon the survival of the colony was assured so long as they were willing to kill and eat the animals.

  One alone stood fast by the Federation’s prohibition, and threatened to reveal what they’d done. She was prevented from sending any message and died by her own hand after a lengthy aria explaining why she was willing to kill not only herself but her unborn child.

  “That none of my blood shed sentient blood, so precious is to me ...”

  Lunzie found herself more moved by this than she had expected. Whether it was true or not, whether it had happened at all, or for these reasons, the story itself commanded respect and pity. And it explained a lot about the heavyworlders. If you believed this, if you had grown up seeing this, hearing this gorgeous music put to the purpose of explaining that the lightweights would let forty thousand people die of cold and starva-

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  tion because it was inconvenient to rescue them, because it would lower the profit margin, then you would naturally distrust the lightweights, and despise their dietary whims.

  Would I have eaten meat even after it had been through the synthesizer? she asked herself. She let herself remember being pregnant, and the years when Fiona had been a round-faced toddler. She would not have let Fiona starve.

  In a grand crashing conclusion, the lightweights returned in a warm season to remonstrate with the colonists about their birthrate and their eating habits. The lead soprano, now white-haired and many times a grandmother, the children clustered around her as she sang, told them off in ringing phrases, dizzying swoops of melody that seemed impossible to bring from one throat. The colonists repudiated the lightweights’ claims, refused to submit to their rules, their laws, demanded justice in the courts or they would seek it in their own way.

  The lightweights flourished weapons and two heavyweights lifted them contemptuously overhead, tossing them—the smallest cast members Lunzie had yet seen— until they tumbled shaken to the ground. Then the two picked up the “spaceship,” stuffed the lightweight emissaries inside, and threw the whole assemblage into space. Or so it appeared. Actually, Lunzie was sure, some stage mechanism pulled it up out of sight. Curtain down! Lights up! Zebara turned to her. “Well? What do you think of Zilmach?” Then his blunt finger touched her cheek. “You cried.”

  “Of course I did.” Her voice was still rough with emotion. To her own ears she sounded peevish. “If that’s true . . .” She shook her head, started again. “It’s magnificent, it’s terrible, and tears are the only proper response.” What she wanted to say would either start a riot or make no sense. She said, “What voices! And to think I’ve never heard of this. Why isn’t it known?”

  “We don’t export this. It’s just our judgment that your people would have no interest in it.” “Music is music.” “And politics is politics. Come! Would you like to

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  meet Ertrid, the one who brought those tears to your eyes?”

  Clearly the on
ly answer was yes, so she said yes. Zebara’s rank got them backstage quickly, where Ertrid proved to have a speaking voice as lovely as her singing. Lunzie had had little experience with performers. She hardly knew what to expect. Ertrid smiled, if coolly, and thanked Lunzie for her compliments, with an air of needing nothing from a lightweight. But she purred for Zebara, almost sleeking herself against him. Lunzie felt a stab of wholly unreasonable jealousy. Ertrid’s smile widened.

  “You must not mind, Lunzie. He has so many friends!”

  She fingered the necklace she wore, which Lunzie had admired without considering its origins. Zebara gave the singer a quick hug and guided Lunzie away. When they were out of earshot, he leaned to speak in her ear.

  “I could have said, so does she, but I would not embarrass such a great artist on a night like this. She does not like to see me with another woman, and particularly not a lightweight.”

  “And particularly not after that role,” said Lunzie, trying to stifle her jealousy and be reasonable. She didn’t want Zebara now, if she ever had. The emotion was ridiculous.

  “And I didn’t buy her that necklace,” Zebara went on, as if proving himself to her. “That was the former Lieutenant Governor’s son, the one I spoke of.”

  “It’s all right.”

  Lunzie wished he would quit talking about it. She did not care, she told herself firmly, what Zebara had done with the singer, or who had bought what jewelry seen and unseen, or what the Lieutenant Governor’s son had done. All that mattered was her mission, and his mission, and finding some other way to accomplish it than enduring another bout of coldsleep.

  m.

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  Chapter Eight

  FedCentral, Fleet Headquarters

  “And that’s the last of the crew depositions?” Sassinak asked. The Tenant behind the desk nodded.

  “Yes, ma’am. The Prosecutor’s office said they didn’t need anyone else. Apparently the defense lawyers aren’t going to call any of the enlisted crew as witnesses either.”

  So we’ve just spent weeks of this nonsense for nothing, Sassinak thought. Dragging my people up and down in ridiculous civilian shuttles, for hours of boring questioning which only repeats what we taped on the ship before. She didn’t say any of this. Both the Chief Prosecutor’s office and the defense lawyers had been furious that Lunzie, Dupaynil, and Ford were not aboard. For one thing, Kai and Varian had also failed to appear for depositions. No one knew if the fast bark sent to collect them from Ireta had found them on the planet’s surface for no message had been received on either count.

  She herself was sure that Ford and Lunzie would be back in time. Dupaynil? Dupaynil might or might not arrive, although she considered him more resourceful

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  than most desk-bound Security people. If he hadn’t made her so furious, she’d have enjoyed more of his company.

  She would certainly have preferred him to Aygar as an assistant researcher. True, Aygar could go search the various databases without arousing suspicion. Anyone would expect him to. The Prosecutor’s office had arranged a University card, a Library card, all the access he could possibly want. And he was eager enough.

  But he had no practice in doing research; no background of scholarship. Sassinak had to explain exactly where he should look and for what. Even then he would come back empty-handed, confused, because he didn’t understand how little bits of disparate knowledge could fit together to mean anything. He would spend all day looking up the genealogy of the heavyworlder mutineers, or baring after some interest of his own. Dupaynil, with all his smug suavity, would have been a relief.

  She strolled back along the main shopping avenues of the city, in no hurry. She was to meet Aygar for the evening shuttle flight. She had time to wander around. A window display caught her eye, bright with the colors she favored. She admired the jeweled jacket over a royal-blue skirt that flashed turquoise in shifts of light. She glanced at the elegant calligraphy above the glossy black door. No wonder! “Fleur de Paris” was only the outstanding fashion designer for the upper classes. Her mouth quirked: at least she had good taste.

  The door, its sensors reporting that someone stood outside it longer than the moment necessary to walk past, swung inward. A human guard, in livery, stood just inside.

  “Madame wishes to enter?”

  The sidewalk burned her feet even through the uniform shoes. Her head ached. She had never in her life visited a place like this. But why not? It could do no harm to look.

  “Thank you,” she said, and walked in.

  Inside, she found a cool oasis: soft colors, soft carpets, a recording of harp music just loud enough to cover the street’s murmur. A well-dressed woman who

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  came forward, assessing her from top to toe, and, to Sassinak’s surprise, approving.

  “Commander . . . Sassinak, is it not?”

  “I’m surprised,” she said. The woman smiled.

  “We do watch the news programs, you know. How serendipitous! Fleur will want to meet you.”

  Sassinak almost let her jaw drop. She had heard a little about such places as this. The designer herself did not come out and meet everyone who came through the door.

  “Won’t you have a seat?” the woman went on. “And you’ll have something cool, I hope?” She led Sassinak to a padded chair next to a graceful little table on which rested a tall pitcher, its sides beaded, and a crystal glass. Sassinak eyed it doubtfully. “Fruit juice,” the woman said. “Although if you’d prefer another beverage?”

  “No, thank you. This is fine.”

  She took the glass she was offered and sipped it to cover her confusion. The woman went away, leaving her to look around. She had been in shops, in some very good shops, with elegant displays of a few pieces of jewelry or a single silk dress. But here nothing marked the room as part of a shop. It might have been the sitting room of some wealthy matron: comfortable chairs grouped around small tables, fresh flowers, soft music. She relaxed, slowly, enjoying the tart fruit juice. If they knew she was a Fleet officer, they undoubtedly knew her salary didn’t stretch to original creations. But if they were willing to have her rest in their comfortable chair, she wasn’t about to walk out.

  “My dear!” The silver-haired woman who smiled at her might have been any elegant great-grand-mother who had kept her figure. Seventies? Eighties? Sassinak wasn’t sure. “What a delightful surprise. Mirelle told you we’d seen you on the news, didn’t she? And of course we’d seen you walk by. I must confess,” this with a throaty chuckle that Sassinak could not resist, “I’ve been putting one thing after another in the window to see if we could entice you.” She turned to the first woman. “And you see, Mirelle, I was right: the jeweled jacket did it.”

  Mirelle shrugged gracefully. “And I will wager that if

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  you asked her, she’d remember seeing that sea-green number.”

  “Yes, I did,” said Sassinak, half-confused by their banter. “But what...”

  “Mirelle, I think perhaps a light snack.” Her voice was gentle, but still commanding. Mirelle smiled and withdrew, and the older woman smiled at Sassinak. “My dear Sassinak, I must apologize. It’s . . . it’s hard to think what to say. You don’t realize what you mean to people like us.”

  Thoroughly confused now, Sassinak murmured something indistinct. Did famous designers daydream about flying spaceships? She couldn’t believe that, but what else was going on?

  “I am known to the world as Fleur,” the woman said, sitting down across the table from Sassinak. “Fleur de Paris, which is a joke, although very few know it. I cannot tell you what my name was, even now. But I can tell you that we had a friend in common. A very dear friend.”

  “Yes?” Sassinak rummaged in her memory for any wealthy or socially prominent woman she might have known. An admiral, or an admiral’s wife? And came up short.

  “Your mentor, my dear, when you were a girl, Abe.”

  She could not have been more
startled if Fleur had poured a bucket of ice over her. “Abe? You knew Abe?”

  The older woman nodded. “Yes, indeed. I knew him before he was captured, and after. Although I never met you, I would have, in time. But as it was . . .”

  “I know.” The grief broke over her again, as startling in its intensity as the surprise that this woman—this old woman—had known Abe. But Abe, if he’d lived, would be old. That, too, shocked her. In her memory, he’d stayed the same, an age she gradually learned was not so old as the child had thought.

  “I’m sorry to distress you, but I needed to speak to you. About Abe, about his past and mine. And about your future.”

  “My future?” What could this woman possibly have to do with her future? It must have shown on her lace, because Fleur shook her head.

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  “A silly old woman, you think, intruding on your life. You admire the clothes I design, but you don’t need a rich woman’s sycophant reminding you of Abe. Yes?”

  It was uncomfortably close to what she’d been thinking. “I’m sorry,” she said, apologizing for being obvious, if for nothing else.

  “That’s all right. He said you were practical, tenacious, clear-headed, and so you must be. But there are things you should know. Since we may be interrupted at any time-nafter all, this is a business—first let me suggest that if you find yourself in need of help, in any difficult situation in the city, mention my name. I have contacts. Perhaps Abe mentioned Samizdat?”

  “Yes, he did.” Sassinak came fully alert at that. She had never found any trace of the organization Abe had told her about once she was out of the Academy. Did it still exist?