The Ship Who Saved the Worlds

by Anne McCaffrey

  Mirina stood, feeling dazed, as the conference went on. Autumn and the others were alive! Relief fought in her belly with worry. What would happen to her and her brother now that the Central Worlds authority was coming?

  She felt something tap at her knee. She looked down to see one of Keff's—no, Carialle's drone robots beside her. On its platform was the tiny space-scape of Dimitri. She looked up at the wall. An image appeared, the head of the female executive that Carialle had feigned to fool Bisman. It mouthed a single word. "Go."

  Mirina dithered for a moment, but only a moment. Everyone's attention was centered on the image of the Inspector General. She grabbed Zonzalo's arm, and began to edge toward the airlock. Sunset glanced up as she sidled behind him. She beckoned hopefully to him, and he nodded, sliding silently backward, away from his spot next to Thunderstorm. The servo made way for them between the guards around the perimeter of the room. At the threshold of the open airlock, the drone offered her the painting with one of its claw hands, and pointed in the direction of Autumn's ship. Mirina needed no further hint. She started running, Zonzalo and Sunset right behind her.

  "And in the meantime," Carialle continued, "we've started you off by breaking up a well-established pirate ring with a fifty-year history of theft and murderous raids. That ought to be good for a bonus." M-C turned a fishy eye on Bisman.

  "I want to strike a bargain," Bisman said through gritted teeth. "I want legal representation."

  "You have nothing we want," Maxwell-Corey said, haughtily.

  "Oh, yes?" Bisman asked. "I can give you names, starting with one of your own ex-brawns. How about that, eh?" He scanned the crowd of Thelerie, Cridi, and humans. "She's the real brain behind the operation." He turned around, searching. "Where's Mirina Don?" he demanded.

  "Gone," Keff said, pretending to look astonished. "She must have slipped out in all the confusion."

  "Her brother's gone, too," Bisman said, angrily. "They can't get far. There's no ship . . ." He turned to look at Autumn.

  "Not much fuel, but it flies," Autumn said. "But there is no navigation equipment aboard for humans to use."

  "They have Sunset," Thunderstorm said, softly.

  The Inspector General rounded on Keff. "You've let a criminal escape!"

  "Not me," Keff said, in all innocence. "I've been standing right here the whole time."

  Thunderstorm rumbled a phrase in his own language. Carialle whispered the translation into Keff's ear. "My old friend, you have done a good thing." Keff smiled.

  Tall Eyebrow stepped forward and addressed the angry human on the screen.

  "Think what you do. If you arrest Keff and Carialle, you will jeopardize the fragile alliance between the Cridi and the Central Worlds. If so, we would certainly insist on every human being removed from Sky Clear, which you call Ozran. We could show in a galactic tribunal it was originally a Cridi colony of extreme long standing. I, Tall Eyebrow," he indicated his name in the Ozranian sign language, "speak as the senior representative."

  "What?" M-C demanded. Big Voice pushed in close to the camera eye.

  "And no access will become possible to our Core technology," the plump councillor insisted. "Such things are to our friends only. We like Keff and Carialle, yet you withdrew . . . what is word, Keff?"

  "Portfolio," Keff said, with an angelic expression.

  "Portfolio," Big Voice said. "A pity indeed where so much is in common. We would have traded happily for good spacecraft. But no alliance, no ships, no Cores." He shook his head, imitating the human expression of regret, a gesture that was not lost on Maxwell-Corey.

  "But—that was part of the agreement sent by the diplomatic service to Cridi," the Inspector General said, looking from brawn to pillar to Cridi with desperation in his eyes.

  "Which they were not able to sign," Carialle pointed out. "We delayed having the documents ratified because you sent in another team, and they were killed by the Melange."

  "My dear Carialle," M-C said, in amazement, "you were withdrawn from the mission because you had a paranoid episode. Your actions were what held diplomacy hostage, not the destruction of the other ship."

  "I did not have a paranoid episode," Carialle said, coldly. "I had an anxiety attack, brought on by proximity to the location where I once had a near-fatal accident. It is your interpretation of my reaction that caused you to assume paranoia, and to send another ship. You are ultimately responsible for the unnecessary death of the crew of the shuttle."

  "Ah, yes," Maxwell-Corey said, maddeningly tenting his fingers together on his narrow belly. "Now we come to it. Your phantom aliens. Your salvage wreckers."

  Carialle played the datatape of Bisman's admission on the transmission frequency, and waited. Maxwell-Corey ignored it at first, staring instead straight at his camera eye. Within moments Carialle observed him leaning closer to the screen. A scan sneaked through the sideband of the bandwidth told her he was manifesting anxiety, with increased levels of adrenaline in his system. He spoke at last.

  "Yes, well, you could have extorted such a statement from him."

  "Bisman!" Keff called. "Is it true?"

  The pirate leader looked up. "Yes," he said, through his teeth.

  "Do you see?" Carialle said. "And Keff found my old number plate among his effects." Keff displayed it to the video pickup.

  "This is very interesting," M-C said, tapping his fingertips together nervously. "Very interesting indeed."

  "Indeed," Carialle echoed, icily. "Then you will find it no surprise to hear that I am bringing a second formal complaint against you. Date-coded messages have already gone out to SPRIM and MM as well as my legal counsel regarding the programming you inserted into my message-beacon system. You overstepped reasonable bounds, and I intend to have you taken to task for it!"

  "My dear Carialle, it was for your own good!" the IG protested.

  "You've had time to absorb the information," Carialle said. "Am I sane? This is official. I am time-coding your reply. Am I?"

  "Evidence suggests that the answer might conceivably be . . . yes," the IG said, after a very long pause and a study of the ceiling. "But the evidence only came to light at this juncture, that is to say, now. I was acting on the information of the time. You could have imperiled many people, including yourself."

  "When your own psychologists said I wasn't a threat," Carialle said. "When we finish this mission, I'll have something to say to the CenCom, personally. I assume we are to complete the mission to the Cridi?"

  "Yes, yes," M-C said, defeated. His shoulders sagged. "You're reinstated. You are the best team for the job. I've always had the utmost faith in you."

  "They have done such a good job," Tall Eyebrow said, floating up to give his words emphasis. "You must tell it to those of CenCom. And teaching us so much about space travel, including such delightful games as Myths and Legends! Such an important cultural gift!"

  The Inspector General sputtered, but he managed to hold his tongue. "I will be down presently. We'll talk about the, er, the details of your mission then. I have much to consider before we land. Maxwell-Corey out."

  Keff felt a smirk at the corners of his mouth as the screen blanked. "Bravo, Cari!" he said, applauding her. "And bravo, TE. Thank you for rubbing salt in the wound."

  "It is not salt," Tall Eyebrow said, puzzled. "It is truth."

  At a gesture from the Sayas's wing-finger, the Sayas's guardians assembled the prisoners, both human and Thelerie, and marched out, leaving only the Cridi, Thunderstorm and Noonday.

  "The healing really begins now," Carialle said to Keff, who stood close beside her pillar. "He won't dare to persecute me again."

  "Which way did she go, Cari?" Keff asked softly.

  "I don't know," Carialle said. "I've blanked it out of my memory. But if I were her I'd run for the balance point. Once she's behind the anomaly she can change direction without being detected." Keff looked at Noonday and Thunderstorm.

  "If she comes back, will you treat her kindly?"

/>   "As she has always treated us," Thunderstorm said.

  "I feel she is already punished somewhat," Noonday said. "And she has killed no one. She will be allowed."

  "Thank you," Keff said, sincerely. He turned to the Cridi. "Well, TE, I suppose we'll be taking you home to Ozran soon?"

  "Much left to do here, for a while," the Frog Prince said. "Must retrieve all parts of the ship, and hope none are damaged. But once it is reassembled, Narrow Leg wants to take us home himself. He would see where Big Eyes will be living. She is staying with me. It will be difficult . . ."

  "It will be fine," Big Eyes interrupted him.

  "Congratulations!" Keff said. The young female flirted her eyelids shyly at him as she took Tall Eyebrow's hand and interlaced his long fingers in hers.

  "Yes," Big Voice said, waddling forward. "Instead, you shall have the honor of taking me home to Cridi, where I shall tell story of great heroism of mine. I captured the evil ship. And see the burns on my back where alien gas touched me, yet I continued with rescue of injured Thelerie!"

  Carialle sighed deeply, but it was for pure happiness. "Games are good," she said, "but you can't beat real life. We've never had a game where everyone lived happily ever after."

  Keff, thinking of Mirina, hurtling away from the planet in a rickety ship, but free, said, "Or as close as it's possible to be."

  Carialle's Lady Fair image appeared on the wall and winked solemnly at him. She knew exactly what he was thinking.

  The white and blue ship sank gracefully out of the sky like a diva taking a curtain call. It landed softly but heavily on the plain between Carialle's ship and the smoking hulk of the red pirate, and sank a good three meters in the viscous yellow mud. Keff, hovering among the Cridi centimeters over the surface of the plain, was on hand as the gangplank dropped with a splat. Thelerie, including Noonday and most of the Ro-sayo, swirled in to flit about the ship as soon as the engines shut off. Three security officers in full environment kit and gleaming armored suits trotted out onto the ramp, careful not to step off into the shining goo. They looked up at the gathering crowd, and stared. It only took a moment for them to realize they were looking at three different species of beings. The youngest among them, a thin-faced rating with freckles, stared openmouthed at Cridi and Thelerie until his CO elbowed him. The young man came on guard, his long-barreled gun leveled over his forearm. The CO let out a sharp all-clear whistle, and two more space-suited humans emerged. One, in black armor, must have been the commander of the ship. The other, in official blue and red, was the Inspector General.

  "Cari, I'm a little worried," Keff said into his sublingual link as he made a little salute to the ship's crew. The gangplank, under the additional weight of the IG, sank an additional quarter meter into the mud. "Will you be able to handle seeing Maxwell-Corey face-to-face?"

  "Oh, don't worry, Keff," Carialle said, confidently. "This time I'm ready for him. Bring him along! And, Keff?"

  "Yes?" Keff asked.

  "Let him walk!"

  THE END