Captain Torres was shocked. “Are you seriously asking us to risk that?”
Van Rijn stared out through the office wall. “In all secrecy,” he answered. “I must have a crew I can trust.”
“But-”
“We will not be stingy with the bonuses.”
Torres shook his head. “Sir, I’m afraid it’s impossible. The Brotherhood has voted absolute refusal of any trips into the Kossaluth except punitive expeditions—which this one is not. Under the constitution, we can’t change that policy without another vote, which would have to be a public matter.”
“It can be publicly voted on after we see if it works,” urged Van Rijn. “The first trip will have to be secret.”
“Then the first trip will have to do without a crew.”
"Rot and pestilence!” Van Rijn’s fist crashed down on the desk and he surged to his feet. “What sort of cowards do I deal with? In my day we were men! We would have sailed through Hell’s open gates if you paid us enough!”
Torres sucked hard on his cigarette. “I’m stuck with the rules, sir,” he declared. “Only a Lodgemaster can . . . well, all right, let me say it!” His temper flared up. “You’re asking us to take an untried ship into enemy sky and cruise around till we’re attacked. If we succeed, we win a few measly kilo-credits of bonus. If we lose, we’re condemned to a lifetime of purgatory, locked up in our own skulls and unable to will anything but obedience and knowing how our brains have been chained. Win, lose, or draw for us, you sit back here plump and safe and rake in the money. No.”
Van Rijn sat quiet for a while. This was something he had not foreseen.
His eyes wandered forth again" to the narrow sea. There was a yacht out there, a lovely thing of white sails and gleaming brass. Really, he ought to spend more time on his own ketch—money wasn’t as important as all that. It was not such a bad world, this Earth, even for a lonely old fat man, it was full of blossoms and good wine, clean winds and beautiful women and fine books. In his forebrain, he knew how much his memories of earlier-days were colored by nostalgia—space is big and cruel, not meant for humankind. Let’s face it, here on Earth we belong.
He turned around. “You say a Lodgemaster can legally come on such a trip without telling anyone,” he remarked quietly. “You think you can raise two more like yourself, hah?”
“I told you, we won’t! And you’re only making it worse. Asking an officer to serve as a common crewhand is grounds for a duel.”
“Even if I myself am the skipper?”
The Mercury did not, outwardly, look different after the engineers were finished with her. And the cargo was the same as usual: cinnamon, ginger, pepper, cloves, tea, whiskey, gin. If he was going to Antares, Van Rijn did not intend to waste the voyage. Only wines were omitted from the list, for he doubted if they could stand a trip as rough as this one was likely to be.
The alteration was internal, extra hull bracing and a new and monstrously powerful engine. The actuarial computers gave the cost of such an outfitting—averaged over many ships and voyages—as equal to three times the total profit from all the vessel’s Antarean journeys during her estimated lifetime. Van Rijn had winced, but ordered his shipyards to work.
It was, in all truth, a very slim margin he had, and he had gambled more on it than he could afford. But if the Kossalu of Borthu had statistical experts of his own—always assuming, of course, that the idea worked in the first place—
Well, if it didn’t, Nicholas van Rijn would die in battle or be executed as useless; or end his days as a brain-churned slave on a filthy Borthudian freighter; or 'be held for a ruinous ransom. The alternatives all looked equally bad.
He installed himself, the dark-haired and multiply curved Dorothea McIntyre, and a good supply of brandy, tobacco, and ripe cheese, in the captain’s cabin. One might as well be comfortable. Torres was his mate, Captains Petrovich and Seichi his engineers. The Mercury lifted from Quito Spaceport without fanfare, hung unpretentiously in orbit till clearance was given, and accelerated on gravity beams away from the sun. At the required half-billion kilometers’ distance, she went on hyperdrive and outpaced light.
Van Rijn sat back on the bridge and stuffed his churchwarden. “Now is a month’s voyage to Antares,” he said piously. "Good St. Dismas watch over us.”
“I’ll stick by St. Nicholas,” murmured Torres. “Even if you do bear the same name.”
Van Rijn looked hurt. “Do you not respect my integrity?” Torres grinned. “I admire your courage—nobody can say you lack guts and you may very well be able to pull this off. Set a pirate to catch a pirate.”
“You younger generations have a loud mouth and no courtesy.” The merchant lit his pipe and blew reeking clouds. “In my day we said ‘sir’ to the captain even when we mutinied.”
“I’m worrying about one thing,” said Torres. “I realize that the enemy probably doesn’t know about the strike yet, and so they won’t be suspicious of us—and I realize that by passing within one light-year of Borthu itself we’re certain to be attacked—but suppose half a dozen of them jump us at once?”
“On the basis of what we know about their patrol patterns, the estimated probability of more than one ship finding us is only ten per cent, plus or minus three.” Van Rijn heaved his bulk onto his feet. One good thing about spacefaring, you could set the artificial gravity low and feel almost young again. “What you do not know so well yet, my young friend, is that there are very few certainties in life. Always we must go on probabilities. The secret of success is to arrange things so the odds favor you—then in the long run you are sure to come out ahead. It is your watch now, and I recommend to you a book on statistical theory to pass the time. As for me, I will be in conference with Freelady McIntyre and a liter of brandy.”
“I wish I could arrange my own captain’s chores the way you do,” said Torres mournfully.
Van Rijn waved an expansive hand. “Why not, my boy, why not? So long as you make money and no trouble for the Company, the Company does not interfere with your private life. The trouble with you younger generations is you lack initiative. When you are a poor old feeble fat man like me you will look back and regret so many lost opportunities.” Even in low-gee, the deck vibrated under his tread as he left.
Here there was darkness and cold and a blazing glory of suns. The viewscreens held the spilling silver of the Milky Way, the ruby spark of Antares among distorted constellations, the curling edge of a nebula limned by the blue glare of a dwarf star. Brightest among the suns was Borthu’s, yellow as minted gold.
The ship drove on through night, pulsing in and out of four-dimensional reality and filled with waiting.
Dorothea sat on a wardroom couch, posing long legs and high prow with a care so practiced as to be unconscious. She could not get her eyes from the screen.
“It’s beautiful,” she said in a small voice. “And horrible.” Nicholas van Rijn sprawled beside her, his majestic nose aimed at the ceiling. “What is so bad, my little sinusoid?” “Them ... lying out there to pounce on us and— Why did I come? Why did I let you talk me into it?”
“I believe there was mention of a tygron coat and Santori-an flamedrop earrings.”
“But suppose they catch us?” Her fingers fell cold on his wrist. “What will happen to me?”
“I told you I have set up a ransom fund for you. I also warned you maybe they would not bother to collect, and maybe we get broken to bits in this fight and all die. Satan’s horns and the devil who gave them to him! Be still, will you?”
The intraship speaker burped and Torres’ voice said: “Wake of highpowered ship detected, approaching from direction of Borthu.”
“All hands to posts!” roared Van Rijn.
Dorothea screamed. He picked her up under one arm, carried her down the hall—collecting a few scratches and bruises en route—tossed her into his cabin, and locked the door. Puffing, he arrived on the bridge. The visual intercom showed Petrovich and Seichi, radiation-armored, the engine
s gigantic behind them. Their faces were drawn tight and glistening with sweat. Torres was gnawing his lip, fingers shaking as he tuned in the hypervid.
“All right,” said van Rijn, “this is the thing we have come for. I hope you each remember what you have to do, because if not we will soon be very dead.” He dropped into the main control chair and buckled on the harness. His fingers tickled the keys, feeling the sensitive response of the ship. So far they had been using only normal power, the great converter had been almost idling; it was good to know how many wild horses he could call up.
The hypervid chimed. Torres pressed the Accept button and the screen came to life.
It was a Borthudian officer who looked .out at them. Skintight garments were dead black on the cat-lithe frame. The face was almost human, but hairless and tinged with blue; yellow eyes smoldered under the narrow forehead. Behind him could be seen the bridge, a crouching gunnery officer, and the usual six-armed bassalt idol.
“Terran ship ahoy!” He ripped out crisp, fluent Anglic, only subtly accented by a larynx and palate of different shape. “This is Captain Rentharik of the Kossalu’s frigate Gantok. By the law, most sacred, of the Kossaluth of Borthu, you are guilty of trespass on the dominions of His Frightfulness. Stand by to be boarded.”
“By double-damn, you out-from-under-wet-logs-crawling poppycock!” Van Rijn flushed turkey red. “Not bad enough you pirate my men and ships, with all their good expensive cargoes, but you have the copperbound nerve to call it •legal!”
Rentharik fingered the ceremonial dagger hung about his neck. “Old man, the writ of the Kossalu runs through this entire volume of space. You can save yourself punishment— nerve-pulsing, to be exact—by surrendering peacefully and submitting to judgment.”
“By treaty, open space is free to ships of all planets,” said Van Rijn. “And it is understood by all civilized races that treaties override any local law.”
Rentharik smiled bleakly. “Force is the basis of law, captain.”
“Ja, it is, and now you make the mistake of using force on Van Rijnl I shall have a surprise for your strutting little slime mold of a king.”
Rentharik turned to a recorder tube and spoke into it. “I have just made a note to have you assigned to the Hyan run after conditioning. We have never found any way to prevent seepage of the Ilyan air into the crewman’s helmets; and it holds chlorine.”
Van Rijn’s face lit up. “That is a horrible waste of trained personnel, captain. Now it so happens that on Earth we can make absolutely impervious air systems, and I would gladly act as middleman if you wish to purchase them—at a small fee, of course.”
“There has been enough discussion,” said Rentharik. “You will now- be grappled and boarded. There is a fixed scale of punishments for captured men, depending on the extent of their resistance.”
The screen blanked.
Torres licked sandy lips. Tuning the nearest viewscreen, he got the phase of the Borthudian frigate. She was a black shark-form, longer and slimmer than the dumpy merchantman, of only half the tonnage but with armor and gun turrets etched against remote star-clouds. She came riding in along a curve that would have been impossible without gravitic acceleration compensators, matching velocities in practiced grace, until she loomed huge a bare kilometer away.
The intercom broke into a scream. Van Rijn swore as he saw Dorothea having hysterics in the cabin. He cut her out of the circuit and thought with anguish that she would probably smash all the bottles—and Antares still eleven days off!
There was a small, pulsing jar. The Gantok was in phase and the gravity-fingers of a tractor beam had reached across to lay hold of the Mercury.
“Torres,” said Van Rijn. “You stand by, boy, and take over if anything happens to me. I may want your help anyway, if it gets too rough. Petrovich, Seichi, you got to maintain our beams and hold ’em tight, no matter what the enemy does. O.K.? We go!”
The Gantok was pulling herself in, hulls almost touching now. Petrovich kicked in the full power of his converter. Arcs blazed blue with million-volt discharges, the engine bawled, and ozone was spat forth sharp and smelling of thunder.
A pressor beam lashed out, an invisible hammerblow of repulsion, five times the strength of the enemy tractor. Van Rijn heard the Mercwy’s ribs groan with the stress. The Gantok shot away, turning end over end. Ten kilometers removed, she was lost to vision among the stars.
“Ha, ha!” bellowed van Rijn. “We spill all their apples, eh? By damn! Now we show them some fun!”
The Borthudian hove back into sight. She clamped on again, full strength attraction. Despite the pressor, the Mercury was yanked toward her with a brutal surge of acceleration. Seichi cursed and threw in all the pressor power he had.
For a moment Van Rijn thought his ship would burst open. He saw the deckplates buckle under his feet and heard steel shear. Fifty million tons of force were not to be handled lightly. The Gantok was batted away as if by a troll’s fist.
“No so far! Not so far, you dumbhead! Let me control the beams.” Van Rijn’s hands danced over the pilot board. “We want to keep him for a souvenir!”
He used a spurt of drive to overhaul the Gantok. His right hand steered the Mercury while his left wielded the tractor and the pressor, seeking a balance. The engine thunder rolled and boomed in his skull. The acceleration compensator could not handle all the fury now loosed, and straps creaked as his weight was hurled against them. Torres, Petrovich, and Seichi were forgotten, part of the machinery, implementing the commands his fingers gave.
'Now thoroughly scared, the Borthudian opened her drive to get away. Van Rijn equalized positive and negative forces, in effect welding himself to her hull by a three-kilometer bar. Grinning, he threw his superpowered engine into reverse. The Gantok strained to a halt and went backwards with him.
Lightning cracked and crashed over his engineers’ heads. The hull shuddered as the enemy fought to break free. Her own drive was added to the frantic repulsion of her pressors, and the gap widened. Van Rijn stepped down his own pressors. When she was slammed to a dead stop, the blow echoed back at him.
“Ha, like a fish we play himl Good St. Peter the Fisherman, help us not let him get away!”
It was a bleak and savage battle, nine and a half trillion empty kilometers from anyone’s home, with no one to watch but the stars. Rentharik was a good pilot, and a desperate one. He had less power and less mass than the Mercury, but he knew how to use them, lunging, bucking, wheeling about in an attempt to ram. Live flesh could only take so much, thought Van Rijn while the thunders clattered around him. The question was, who would have to give up first?
Something snapped, loud and tortured, and he felt a rush of stinging electrified air. Petrovich cried it for him: “Burst plate—Section Four. I’ll throw a patch on, but someone’s got to weld it back or we’ll break in two.”
Van Rijn signaled curtly to Torres. “Can you play our fish? I think he is getting tired. Where are the bedamned spacesuits?”
He reeled from his chair and across the pitching deck. The Gantok was making full-powered leaps, trying to stress the Mercury into ruin. By varying their own velocity and beam-force, the humans could nullify most of the effect, but it took skill and nerve. God, but it took nerve! Van Rijn felt his clothes drenched on his body.
He found the lockers and climbed awkwardly into his specially built suit. Hadn’t worn armor in a long time—forgotten how it stank. Where was that beblistered torch, anyhow? When he got out on the hull, surrounded by the blaze of all the universe, fear was cold within him.
One of those shocks that rolled and yawed the ship underfoot could break the gravitic hold of his boots. Pitched out beyond the hyperdrive field and reverting to normal state, he would be forever lost in a microsecond as the craft flashed by at translight speeds. It would be a long fall through eternity.
Electric fire crawled over the hull. He saw the flash of the Gantok’s guns—she was firing wildly, on the one-in-a-billion chance that s
ome shell would happen to be in phase with the Mercury. Good—let her use up her ammunition. Even so, it was a heart-bumping eerie thing when a nuclear missile passed through Van Rijn’s own body. No, by damn, through the space where they coexisted with different frequencies— must be precise—now here is that fit-for-damnation hull plate. Clamp on the jack, bend it back toward shape. Ah, heave ho, even with hydraulics it takes a strong man to do this, maybe some muscle remains under all that goose grease. Slap down your glare filter, weld the plate, handle a flame and remember the brave old days when you went hell-roaring halfway across this arm of the galaxy. Whoops, that lunge nearly tossed him off into God’s great iceboxl
He finished his job, reflected that there would have to be still heavier bracing on. the next ship of this model, and crept back to the air lock, trying to ignore the ache which was his body. As he entered, the rolling and plunging and racketing stopped. For a moment he thought he had been stricken deaf.
Then Torres’ face swam into the intercom, wet and haggard, and said hoarsely: “They’ve quit. I don’t think they expect their own boat can take any more of this—”
Van Rijn straightened his bruised back and whooped. “Excellent! Wonderful! But pull us up alongside quick, you lardhead, before—”
There was the twisting sensation of reversion to normal state, and the hyperdrive noise spun into silence. Van Rijn lost his footing as the Mercury sprang forward and banged against the enemy.
It had been an obvious tactic for Rentharik to use: Switching off his interstellar drive, in the hope that the Terran ship would remain hyper and flash so far away he could never be found again. The answer was equally simple—a detector coupled to an automatic cutoff, so that the Mercury would instantly do likewise. And now the League ship was immediately alongside the Gantok, snuggled beneath the very guns the frigate could no longer bring to bear and held by a tractor force she could not break.
Van Rijn struggled back to his feet and removed his helmet. The intercom blushed at his language.
Un-Man and Other Novellas Page 12