Harvest the Fire - [Harvest of Stars 03]

by By Poul Anderson

  The door to Lirion’s cabin slid aside beneath his hand.

  He had not been there before. Bulkheads set to a uniform, winter-cold gray, it might have been the cell of a medieval monk. Nicol felt surprised; or maybe he didn’t. The man lay stretched naked under a sheet, motionless save for the slow, deep breath. Grimness and mirth alike gone, he looked simply old. Compassion passed briefly through Nicol.

  No time for that; but he dared not be hasty either, lest he make a clatter that would arouse.

  He found the belt he sought, on a tunic in the closet, and drew the key from the pouch. Gripping it needlessly hard, he stole out.

  Down the companionways, to the cylinder at the hold entry. Open it, open the portal within, climb on down through the first section. It was dimly lighted. Containers bulked like mythic trolls. Never had he felt more alone.

  Next section. Turn on its illumination, white and chill. Cross a deck that reaches like an empty plain, now that most of what it bore is outside under the stars. Come to the cabinet and touch the key to its lock.

  The door withdrew. Light spilled across a shelf at face level and, yes, two pistols. But it was the case that struck Nicol’s perception like a hammer. Of dark-blue organometal, a rounded box of slightly more volume than his head, it was set with connectors, sensors, a speaker, and two small hemispheres in front, about where a human’s eyes would be. Within it, he knew, dwelt an awareness.

  No. Not at this moment. The thing was clearly inactivated, the neural network dead. Nicol bit his lip. Wrong word, he thought crazily. Death did not mean the same to this entity as it did to him, nor did life.

  Why was it here?

  He didn’t know how long he stood trying to think. It was as if the brain gyred within his skull. At last he realized he was shivering, and caught the reek of his sweat.

  That was like a slap shocking him into purposefulness. An ally of Lirion’s wouldn’t have been shut away in the dark, would it? There didn’t seem to be any alarm. He had come in search of truth.

  Odd how steady his fingers were, pushing aside the appropriate cap on the box and reaching in to press the recessed main switch. At once he stepped back and stood wire-tense.

  The front shells halved themselves and retracted. Two flexible stalks emerged, cups at their ends. They rose to their full length, fifteen centimeters, and swiveled slowly about. When they came to rest, they were aimed at him. Within the cups, he saw optic lenses gleam.

  “Awake again—” The male voice spoke Anglo, with an accent from Earth’s southeastern quadrant. It became a whipcrack: “Who are you? Is this a rescue?”

  It can’t attack me, Nicol thought, and it doesn’t sound like a foe, and I’m starved for friends. He made thick tongue, dry mouth, constricted throat reply, “N-no, I, I don’t think so—not yet—But what are you?”

  The other spoke with machine self-command but human urgency: “Have we much time? What can we do?”

  Nicol began regaining balance, as swiftly as men are apt to when crisis comes upon them. “Maybe an hour. Maybe more, but I’d rather not risk it. Speak low.”

  “We’re aboard the Proserpinan ship, then?”

  “Yes, bound for a rendezvous—Do you know?”

  “Lirion told me in general terms.” The voice turned impersonal. “He was willing to talk, being interested in how I’d respond, till he shut me off. We’re bound for the boldest theft in history, the antimatter carrier, aren’t we?”

  “Yes. In two more daycycles.”

  The voice took on a hint of warmth. “I know you, Pilot Jesse Nicol, but you don’t know me. Permit self-introduction. I commonly use the name Venator. I’m not a sophotect; I’m the download of a Peace Authority intelligence agent, revived when my service got wind of dangerous game afoot.”

  Nicol’s flesh prickled as he noted the word “revived.” More important was “Peace Authority.” Ridiculous though it was, the sense of helpless isolation lifted a little from him, while the fear of being found out back on Earth gained strength. When Venator asked for his story, it rattled from him as if of itself, in broken pieces.

  “But what happened to you?” he blurted.

  Venator replied succinctly.

  “Lirion’s a crafty one,” he finished. “The scheme was his from the beginning, with lesser inputs from fellow conspirators after he reached Luna—and from circumstances as he found them and took advantage of them. What an opponent! . . . He told me, there in the apartment, that at our previous meeting he’d guessed I’d attempt personally to spy on him. The layout invited it, especially since he was quick to remove safeguards that had been installed earlier.”

  The twists and turns left Nicol bewildered. “Do you mean he wanted you there?”

  “Of course. Then my corps would assume matters were well in hand, and wouldn’t strike at him in other ways.”

  “But now you’ve disappeared!”

  “Hench was ready for that. Another distorted genius. He’d prepared an electronic deceptor. Maybe you haven’t heard of such devices. When the minirobot came to check on me, it would get the sensor impression that I was still present and giving it no signal that I wished to be removed. Oh, yes, eventually my service will grow suspicious and raid the place, but by then all birds will have flown. They’ll have left no particular spoor, thanks to what Hench planted in the TrafCon and security systems. Nor will the Authority be able to locate this ship, when she’s deviated from her declared flight plan.” Nicol nodded. Unless searchers had some idea of where to seek, immensity was a well-nigh perfect hideaway. “All they’ll know, or surmise, is that Lirion completed whatever mischief he intended on Luna, or failed in it, and departed, presumably having discovered me and taken me along for interrogation and a hostage. Which, in fact, are his reasons. And they’ll suppose that’s why he’s taking a roundabout way home.”

  “God, the gamble,” Nicol whispered.

  Venator fashioned a harsh laugh. “Lunarians are gamblers by nature, no? And this game of theirs was cannily planned and played. Also with you, my friend.”

  Nicol’s throat tightened anew. “I’ve wondered—”

  “Have you wondered enough?” Venator snapped. “Do you understand what Falaire’s part in it must have been?”

  Sickness welled up. “Falaire?”

  “She was brought into the plot by those persons Lirion contacted through quantum encryption while he was still en route. Her assignment was to find a Terran space pilot who could be recruited or entrapped. I rather imagine the exact procedure was her idea too, when she’d gotten to know you. The execution of it certainly was. Another formidable brain.”

  “What—do—you—mean?”

  “You did not murder that obnoxious Seyant.”

  Through thunders, Nicol heard the explanation.

  “You couldn’t have been provoked to it, in your normal state,” Venator continued. “Clearly, Falaire slipped a psychodrug into you. Exoridine-alpha, I’d guess, in something you ate or drank. She’d have taken a counter-agent beforehand. Even after that, it took manipulation, very skillful and quite heartless, to make you strike.”

  Silence followed.

  When Nicol had his wits back and could speak, it was out of a great interior hollowness. “I see. Yes. It makes sense. It accounts for everything.”

  “You’re not to blame,” Venator told him gently. “Instead, you’re the single person in the universe who can retrieve this whole disaster.”

  “How?”

  “Why, you need only beam a call to Earth. If you could come here secretly, I imagine you can do that as well, unnoticed, somewhere along the line. The Authority will send combat-armed, high-boost ships. They may arrive after the antimatter vessel had been diverted toward Proserpina, but they’ll recover and redirect it, once they know what to look for.”

  “And we? You and me?”

  “If you get your message off soon, this ship won’t have gotten too far away, either, for radar and neutrino detectors to track her. She’ll be no
match for theirs. Lirion will release us to the pursuit. The alternative will be destruction. He’ll doubtless try to bargain for being let go, himself and Falaire, and possibly the service will decide it isn’t worthwhile to attempt seizure. Sophotects are pragmatists. Nor will Lirion take revenge on you. Besides your exchange value, well, Lunarians may be cruel, but they aren’t senselessly vindictive.”

  “No,” Nicol mumbled. “Sometimes they’re actually idealists.”

  Venator’s voice sharpened. “Study some history, and you’ll see how much wreckage, misery, and death was due to idealists. Earth is well rid of their sort.”

  Impulse grabbed Nicol, like his life and free will asserting themselves. “But why do you serve, Venator? Isn’t that for your cause, your ideal?”

  “You could say I serve the cause that logic and experience show is the cause of peace and decency.” The tone softened. “But—oh, perhaps I owe you a bit of confession—I have been an avatar of the Teramind. I hope to go back to its Oneness. Then I, this little spark of existence that is I, will belong again to that which truly understands.”

  Nicol stood hushed for a spell, as is seemly in the presence of a faith transcending the world.

  “I see,” he murmured.

  Venator reverted to the practical. “You’ve more reason than that to be on my side. When Lirion and I were alone, talking, he answered a question of mine very frankly. He wasn’t, and I imagine he still isn’t, sure whether he’ll honor his commitment to you. If he leaves you off where you can get passage home, can you be trusted to keep quiet for nine years?”

  “I should think so, if I took part in the theft after . . . killing a man.” A crawling went through Nicol’s skin.

  “You might break down.”

  “But those arrangements with the Rayenn—and, and Falaire—”

  “Yes, as far as I could tell, which isn’t extremely far, they and she intend to keep the pledge to you. And perhaps Lirion will decide to take the risk, if only for the sake of their good opinion. But perhaps not. Once you’re dead, who’ll bother to punish him? Done is done.”

  As if to shove the idea away, Nicol countered, “What about you?”

  “I have my private stake in this,” the download admitted. “Lirion and his colleagues obviously won’t send me back from Proserpina before the antimatter is in their”— another chuckle—”I won’t say hands, but in their possession. And why should they at all? I have plenty of information about my corps that they’d find most useful in planning any future escapades. The methods of getting me to talk and making sure I tell the truth won’t leave much in working condition.”

  Virtual hells.

  “I’d hate to believe that of them,” Nicol said.

  The tone conjured up an image of phantom shoulders shrugging. “He didn’t threaten me with it, only with years of detention, and perhaps he won’t do it, but I’d rather not make the wager.”

  “Or I my wager,” Nicol whispered.

  “Exactly. Now, have we exchanged enough? Safest will be to shut up shop here as fast as possible.”

  The man nodded.

  “I suggest you take those sidearms, keep one hidden, and get rid of the other,” Venator went on. “Lirion won’t likely come inspect this cabinet. Why should he? But if you are caught acting against him and Falaire before the consequences are irrevocable, you’ll be glad of a weapon.”

  “Yes.” Nicol slipped the pistols under his belt. “Shall I leave you awake?”

  “M-m, I do have many thoughts to think. But you don’t know when you’ll be back, do you? Best not.”

  Could sensory deprivation drive a download, too, mad?

  “All right.” Nicol reached for the switch.

  “Good hunting,” Venator said.

  Nicol deactivated him, then closed and locked the door. In like fashion, he covered his traces throughout the return to Lirion’s quarters. The Lunarian still lay blind with sleep. Nicol put the key back and went on to his own place.

  There he could let go and tremble.

  Not for too long, though. He must pull his nerves together, consider and comprehend what had happened, and plan what to do.

  Odd, how quickly he arrived at his decision.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER

  13

  Across two thousand kilometers, to unaided vision the carrier was no more than a star, lost in the cold horde. It had ceased to move among them; Verdea fell free on trajectory, paralleling its course at practically the same velocity. The sun still dominated these skies, a tiny blaze you dared not look near without protection, but its radiance had shrunk to less than two percent of what Earth and Luna knew. Some two years into its journey, the carrier had left the orbit of Jupiter behind it. Speed had dwindled away, though, on that long climb; almost nine more years remained to its destination beyond Saturn.

  If ever it got there, Nicol thought.

  When he magnified with his optics, the ship swelled to a strange small moon, a hundred-meter spheroid shining metallic save for shadows cast by the flanges that ribbed it like meridians. At the forward “pole” a mast jutted from the dome of the command turret, crowned with sensory and communications antennae. Aft projected the cylindrical lattice that held, at its end, a fission power plant together with a docking facility for the booster that had launched this vessel from Mercury orbit and the booster that was to bring it to harbor upon arrival. Equatorially between, a reinforcing spiderweb of struts braced four long spars sticking straight out, each terminating in a jet motor that could be swiveled around for orientation maneuvers. A thin metal skin sheened across the whole web, a radiating surface for the refrigerators inside the hull.

  When Nicol magnified further, he saw how the flanges were not simply added radiators. To several of them clung the emplacements of energy projectors and nuclear-tipped missiles.

  Well, he had known that. He had studied the images Hench stole from the secret database, and had rehearsed in simulation, so grindingly often that now he went through his part like another machine. That was not necessarily a reassurance. His mind was too free to think about contingencies and about what would come after, if he succeeded and survived.

  Lirion’s voice rustled in his ears: “Three minutes. Are you ready?”

  “I am,” he answered.

  “Fare fiercely,” called Falaire. He had no reply to that.

  Instead, he ran mentally through a final review of his outfit. Space-suited, he lay several meters fromVerdea in his darter. He had found no better name to give the craft, designed and built for this one buccaneering; the Lunarian “catou” wasn’t really translatable. Harnessed full-length to an acceleration couch that would turn to hold itself always beneath him, he kept hands on a control panel—though mostly it was the robotic systems that would perceive, compute, decide, and act, faster than flesh ever could—and looked out through a grid of curved bars; otherwise, his section was open to the sky. His helmet stuck into a larger one that, upon his orders, gave him whatever display, amplification, readout, or virtual reality he might want. A rack beside him held the tools and weapons he would need, unless he met some lethal surprise. Behind him stretched a ten-meter cylinder— motor, reaction mass, nozzles pointing along three axes to thrust him hard in any direction. The ensemble would have been ludicrous elsewhere. Here it was hawk-functional, until it had served its purpose; then it was expendable, to be left adrift in the deeps.

  Not unlike him.

  He did not see the energy gun flash on Verdea, nor the light-speed strike of the blade it unsheathed. He saw the mast on the carrier flare white-hot at one point, another, another—break into loose fragments—for a short while they sketched the thing they had been, until they began slowly tumbling apart, a ruck around the turret—the ship was stricken dumb—”Go!”

  Ten gravities slammed Nicol backward. A red mist blurred his universe. Stepped-up oxygen flow stung his nostrils.

  The boost stopped. It was as if he had fallen off a cliff. A moment lat
er it smote again, laterally. The swing-around of his couch dizzied him. And again and again. He was zigzagging, randomly though always with an inward-bound component, lest a lightning gun draw a bead on him.

  White slenderness appeared in his view field, enhanced image of a missile. Evasion snatched brutally. The thing passed by at a distance of kilometers. He called up a look at Verdea and saw the Proserpinan slide across the stars, jet aglow. The carrier’s armament was only against meteoroids, controlled by robots programmed for nothing more tricky, but Lirion and Falaire weren’t taking chances. Whatever seemed to be converging on them, they would dodge while their own battery disabled it.

  A second missile shot by, hideously close. The blood drumming in Nicol’s head gave an illusion that he heard the whistle and thunder of its passage.