Starliner

by David Drake

  "What a fascist pronouncement," Oanh said without looking at him. "And I suppose only the military is going to die in this moral crusade?"

  "Oanh," Mr. Unsaid. "Please."

  He knew it was his fault. She'd never had a proper home, even before her mother fled. Lin's duties required that he work eighteen hours on those days he didn't work twenty-four. Servants could care for Oanh and teach her—but they couldn't give orders that the strong-willed daughter of an increasingly high official had to accept.

  For all that, she hadn't become wild. Just opinionated; and under present conditions, voicing the wrong opinions could be more dangerous than drunken sprees.

  "Father," Oanh replied—but at least she did lower her voice so that it might not be heard over the pulse of the starship, "you know as well as I do that this war isn't necessary. It isn't even over things, it's just perceptions. There's no excuse for it!"

  "There may be no war," Lin repeated softly.

  To an extent, his daughter was right. A nation can always avoid war, almost always, by rolling over on its back and baring its belly. Whether that could ever be considered a valid alternative, however, was another matter entirely.

  Private firms on Grantholm and Nevasa had together begun to develop Apogee, a world with a climate that was moderate and also unusually stable because the planet had no axial tilt. Nevasa saw Apogee as a rice basket, while the Grantholm entrepreneurs developed resorts on their sections.

  Both plans had been set out publicly before any colonization took place. The problem arose when the Grantholm government—not the private developers—noticed that the population in the Nevasan sections was a hundred times greater than that in those under Grantholm control. Rice is a labor-intensive crop. Nevasa was importing a labor force from disadvantaged regions of Earth—from the Orient of Earth.

  Grantholm claimed that the pattern of development was a plot to bring the entire planet under Nevasan suzerainty . . . and Mr. Lin knew that in the secret councils of the Nevasan government, that possibility had indeed been floated. All Nevasan activities on Apogee to date had been perfectly in line with the original agreements, however.

  The arrogance of the Grantholm delegation which ordered Nevasa to cease shipping colonists to Apogee would have been quite unacceptable to any sovereign government. Certainly to the government of Nevasa, which had the military potential to teach Grantholm the lesson for which that world had been begging for so long.

  Probably. And certainly with the support of Tellichery. Almost certainly with the full support of Tellichery.

  "Oanh," he said, "I understand your feelings."

  Lin didn't know whether or not that was true. As with so many of the statements he had to make, truth or falsity did not matter as much as appropriateness did.

  "But you must understand," he continued over his daughter's attempt to reply, "that honor is not merely a word."

  "Neither is life, father!" Oanh said.

  Any further discussion was lost in the resonating boom of the Empress of Earth landing.

  * * *

  Transient Block, the ground facility on Nevasa for Trident's Third Class passengers, was neither a slave pen nor a prison. It wasn't a palace, either, and Ran didn't like the sound of the door banging behind him to shut out the soft night

  The block consisted of three levels of rooms built around a central court. It housed Third Class passengers while the Empress was on the ground. That way the on-board accommodations could be thoroughly cleaned, and the human cargo got a degree of variety when that was possible.

  Residents now crowded the court, the stairs, and the interior walkways serving the rooms on the higher levels. The speaker addressing them through a handheld amplifier spoke in an unfamiliar language, but the translator on Ran's shoulder chirped, "Join us, then, brothers and sisters, so that you personally can live better lives—"

  Mohacks was close to the door with a woman wearing a green Trident ground staff uniform and a set expression. From the look of her, she was a local or at least of oriental descent

  "Sir!" said Mohacks. "These indigs—"starship crewmen rarely had much use for ground-based personnel, but Mohacks made "indigenous staff" sound like "dog shit" "—let in unauthorized people and—"

  "They're not unauthorized!" the woman, a supervisor, snapped. "They're Nevasan government officials, and this is Nevasa, sailor."

  "Sailor" had the intonations of "cat vomit."

  "Your enlistment will be on the same terms as that of Nevasan citizens," said the translator through Ran's right earpiece, "and after the war you will be granted citizenship of—"

  The speaker wore civilian dress, a smooth-fitting business suit of rusty color with white accents. The four men with him were in gray uniforms. The leader carried a small pistol in a ludicrous little holster dangling from a broad Sam Browne belt, but the sub-machine guns of his subordinates weren't just for show. Babanguida stood in the midst of the group with a set look on his face. Two Trident ground staffers were nearby also, smiling in calm approval.

  Ran unspooled a transceiver disk from his commo unit and set it against the doorframe. Thousands of eyes were turned on the man speaking; the building breathed with the crowd's anticipation.

  "I warn you!" the ground-staff supervisor cried. "I've disabled the gas dischargers! Using force on a high official of the—"

  "—free the universe from racist Grantholm tyranny!" the translator said.

  "Block," Ran ordered the building's artificial intelligence, a modular unit common to most large-scale Trident facilities throughout the operating area, "give me a feedback loop from the government gentleman's amp through your own PA sys—"

  The screech preceded Ran's final syllable.

  "—tern!"

  The crowd bellowed in pain and fear. Ran hadn't said anything about amplitude, but the AI made the right decision: more is better. Ran winced at the impact, and the Nevasan guards whipped around with their weapons raised.

  The squeal stopped. The Nevasan official had dropped his amplifier. He picked it up again, looking around in angry question.

  "You can't do—"the supervisor said to Ran.

  "Block," Ran said. "Keep it up until I countermand the order."

  He grinned at the local woman. Not bad looking at all, though ground-staff uniforms didn't flatter females. Not that it mattered, of course.

  "Sure he can, girlie," Mohacks said. "This is Mr. Colville!"

  Ran realized that he'd just been promoted, in a manner of speaking.

  The official must have spoken again with the amp still keyed to his voice, because the PA system shrieked like a horse being disemboweled. Babanguida bent close to the man and spoke into his ear. A Nevasan guard prodded the rating with the muzzle of his submachine gun. Babanguida ignored him.

  Babanguida and the official moved toward Ran. The local man protested. Babanguida grinned, and the armed guards fluttered like birds around a blacksnake.

  "Block," Ran said, "give me the PA for a moment. Ladies and gentlemen—"his voice slapped with phase-timed clarity from all the speakers in the Transient Block "—we apologize for this problem. Please return to your sleeping quarters while we sort it out."

  The speech ended with another painful squeal. It might have been a fault in the system, but Ran had noticed that with some AIs, "intelligence" was the operative word rather than "artificial." In any case, the jagged blade of sound got the keyed-up crowd moving obediently.

  "Whose idea was it, I wonder," Ran said mildly, "to lower the barriers between male and female sections?"

  He was looking at the supervisor. There was nothing mild about his eyes.

  She grimaced and turned away.

  "This man—"snarled the Nevasan official as he waved his amplifier in Ran's face. Feedback howling through the PA system drove a mass cry from the crowd.

  Babanguida took the amp from the stunned local and switched it off. He handed the unit back. His smile could have lighted the building.

 
The Nevasan swallowed. "This man says you're responsible for . . . ?" he said. The sonic clawing had cowed him.

  Ran saluted. "Yessir," he said. "Lieutenant Randall Colville, Third Officer of the Empress of Earth—and in charge here unless one of my superiors arrives. And you are . . . ?"

  "I'm Level Six Minister Thach," the official said, regaining some his poise. "I demand that you stop this interference with my duties!"

  "Sir," Ran said, "Trident Starlines is contracted to deliver these passengers to certain destinations. Nobody on board the Empress has the authority to change that. I—"

  "The Government of Nevasa, which I represent, has the right to recruit troops on its own soil," Thach said. "Stop this nonsense!"

  "Sir," Ran repeated, "I don't question your right, it's not my business to even discuss your rights. My duties require—"

  The Nevasan officer muttered something to his subordinates. Two of them thrust their sub-machine guns into Ran's ribs.

  Ran began to laugh. "Blow me away and your superiors'll throw you to the sharks so fast your head'll spin!"

  "Stop that!" Thach snarled to his uniformed contingent. "Stop that now!"

  The guns jerked away from Ran's side.

  Passengers had paused to watch. The PA system gave a low-frequency growl that moved them on again. Trident ought to give this AI a medal. . . .

  "You, ma'am," Ran said to the ground-staff supervisor. He hadn't caught her name tape. "Your folks had better help with getting passengers back where they belong. Now."

  He didn't raise his voice, but the last syllable had teeth.

  The supervisor looked from the ship's officer to Thach, looked down, and began to sidle away.

  "You have no right to do this!" Thach said.

  "Sir, please," Ran said. "I can't make policy. I don't doubt you've got the right to do whatever you're doing, but I've got to do my duty until one of my superiors changes that duty. Take it up with them, sir. Please."

  "You're on Nevasan soil," said the uniformed officer. "The ship may be extraterritorial, but this building isn't. I could arrest you for insult to an official in the performance of his duties."

  Thach hadn't made the threat, but he waited intently for the result of it.

  Ran nodded. "Yessir," he said. "And then your diplomats and Earth's diplomats would discuss it, and it wouldn't do anything about the question of Nevasa recruiting transients shipped on labor contracts—which is the only thing that matters to us standing here. But I expect you to do your duty, as I'm doing mine."

  Ran's face wore an expression of sad calm. Mr. Thach glared at him.

  Thach gave the amplifier to the uniformed officer with almost the crispness of a blow. "Come along," he snapped as he stepped to the door.

  Ran opened it quickly. Thach turned and added over his shoulder, "We'll be back!"

  "Yessir," said Ran. He didn't doubt it in the least.

  Ran closed the door. His ratings grinned at him in delight. The ground-staff personnel had disappeared, helping chivvy passengers back into their dormitories.

  Ran could understand how the locals had felt, trapped in the gray area between patriotism and loyalty to their employer. They'd made the best decision they could. In the larger scheme of things, it didn't matter a hoot that their decision had made life for a few of the Empress of Earth's crew harder.

  But if they thought Ran Colville wasn't going to see that every one of the bastards on duty tonight at the Transient Block was fired, they were dreaming.

  "What do we do when they come back, sir?" Mohacks asked. It was a real question, not a nice way of saying, "We're shit outa luck when they come back."

  Ran touched his transceiver to the doorjamb again. "Block," he said, "get ground transport for the full Third Class list here at once. I'm authorizing overtime for the drivers and support people."

  He looked at his ratings and shivered with sudden relaxation. "What we do," he said, "is make sure that all contract passengers are back aboard Earth territory before that gentleman can organize a better try. It's after office hours, after all. We ought to be able to manage it."

  He took a deep breath and added, "Anyhow, we'll give it a good try."

  Without a pause, Ran went on, "Block, patch me through to the Empress. The Purser had better have Third Class ready, because the passengers are going to be back, ready or not!"

  * * *

  It was three hours before Ran got back to the Empress.

  The trouble with a white uniform, Ran thought as he strode into the Embarkation Hall, is that it really shows grime. Fatigues were the proper garb for directing trucks loaded with Third Class passengers around a detour, but the first part of the job that called him to the Transient Block had required all the swank he could muster.

  As it turned out, he should have stopped to change instead of coming straight to Commander Kneale to report. Kneale was in the Embarkation Hall, where nearly a hundred passengers were processing already, even though it was a full twelve standard hours before the Empress undocked. Ran was a lot dirtier than he'd realized until he reached the hall's bright lights. Passengers gave him nervous, hunted glances, and the commander looked concerned instead of furious.

  "Trouble?" Kneale murmured when he was close enough to Ran that they wouldn't be overheard. The two officers stood by a pilaster, looking out the broad gangway toward the terminal's lighted concourse. Nevasa wasn't Earth—all the human colonies together weren't Earth—but Con Ron Landing passed a tremendous quantity of commerce in its own right

  "Not really," said Ran. "Traffic's really screwed up, is all. There's a rally or something in the middle of the boulevard, so we had to take back streets to the terminal. The trucks don't have commo, so I played traffic cop at the second corner."

  He glanced ruefully at what had been a white sleeve. "It just looks like I got dragged all the way from Transient Block. Sorry. I'll go change."

  The clothing and features of the incoming passengers suggested a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Most of them were foreigners leaving Nevasa as the planet teetered above the chasm of war . . . though there were clumps of Nevasan women and children as well.

  "Umm," said Kneale. "Well, I think you've earned yourself some sleep. Why—"

  The terminal slidewalk brought a party of well-dressed Nevasans toward the Empress of Earth. They were escorted by gray-uniformed guards who jogged beside the slidewalk with weapons in their hands.

  "Thach was quicker off the mark than I'd have guessed," Ran said mildly while his mind raced. If they raised the gangplank—

  Useless; the machinery wouldn't respond fast enough, and half the crew was on leave in Nevasa City besides. Anyway, Commander Kneale was in charge—

  Kneale strode to meet the problem at the lower end of the gangway. Ran fell into step at his superior's heel.

  "Good evening, gentlemen," Kneale said in with loud cheerfulness. "Welcome to the Empress of Earth."

  There were nine Nevasan civilians. Eight of them were virtually indistinguishable, though the group included two females and the age spread was about thirty standard years. They all wore rigidly proper clothing—"proper" in higher official circles on any human planet—and they cultivated blank, vaguely disapproving expressions.

  The ninth member of the party was odd girl out: probably not as young as her fine bone structure suggested to Ran, but certainly still in her teens. She was dressed in London chic, a black and yellow frock which spiked over the right shoulder and fell off the other. Tights of translucent matching fabric encased the right leg, while the left was bare to her ankle boots.

  A nice face, though angry now, and not a bad pair of legs at all. . . .

  But the important thing was that if that girl was in the party, it wasn't an official demand to enroll contract passengers into the armed forces of Nevasa.

  "I am Minister Lin," the eldest of the civilians said to Commander Kneale. "You have a suite booked for me and my staff, I believe?"

  "Yes indeed, Minister," Kneale r
eplied. Only an expert would have caught the relief in his voice. "The Asoka Suite. You're boarding early?"

  He made a gesture behind his back. Several senior stewards stepped toward the cabin luggage arriving on floating carts.

  "Father has to arrive early," the girl said in an overly audible voice. She glared at Kneale. "So that he can be sure that it's safe for military secrets!"

  Mr. Lin coughed. "You're connected to all ground media while we're docked, of course?" he said.

  "Of course," Kneale agreed. "Ah—your attendants will have to surrender their weapons before boarding, you know, sir. They'll be returned—"

  "That's impossible!" snapped one of the civilian aides. "They're responsible for the minister's security."

  "Trident Starlines is responsible for the security of all its passengers," the commander replied calmly.

  Ran looked toward the girl. His face was expressionless to hide his anger at this latest problem.

  The Nevasans were being deliberately obtuse. Trident Starlines made no attempt to restrict what passengers had in their hold baggage. On Calicheman, pistols were as standard an item of dress as hats against the fierce sunlight, and many of the fringe worlds were harsher places yet

  The Nevasan security men could have their submachine guns as soon as they left the ship at any landfall. Nobody but Trident officers had guns aboard the vessel. As for the minister's safety against a mob of other passengers—given the facilities of the Empress's imperial suites, there was no need at all for him to leave his quarters during the voyage.

  The girl saw Ran looking, she thought, at her. She turned her head in embarrassment. Obviously, she was more inhibited than she wanted her father to think.

  "That's impossible!" the aide repeated.

  "Then it's impossible for Minister Lin to board the Empress," Kneale replied. "I'm truly very sorry."

  Lin looked at his aide. "Oh, don't be a fool, Tran," he said. "I haven't got all day to stand here and argue about trivia."

  He nodded to Kneale. "If you'll direct me to my suite, then?"

  The commander bowed and gestured a steward forward, Ran sighed and stepped back. A shower would feel good, and he'd have to see what Housekeeping could do with this uniform . . . .