Star Song and Other Stories

by Timothy Zahn

  will have to do it for you."

  Jimmy, who'd been largely frozen in place ever since planting himself near Peter's end of the couch, came unstuck in a rush. "Who—me?" he gulped, his eyes turning into dinner plates.

  "You're the only one who can help them, Jimmy," Kulasawa said, her voice abruptly soft and earnest. "The only one who can free them from the prison King Peter and his power elite have locked them into."

  "Wait just a second," I protested. "If the people have decided—"

  "The people haven't decided, Smith," Kulasawa cut me off scornfully. "Or haven't you been paying attention? What proportion of the people here, do you think, would jump at the chance to get out of this flying coffin and see the Universe?"

  "We can't let even one of our people leave here," Suzenne said. "If there was so much as a single slip on anyone's part, the entire colony would be doomed to slavery."

  "There's that slavery buzz-word again," Kulasawa scoffed. "Do you feel like a slave, Jimmy? Well, do you?"

  Beneath that mop of hair Jimmy's face looked like that of a cornered animal, his eyes darting around as if seeking help or a way to escape. "But if they don't want to do it—"

  "Do you feel like a slave?" Kulasawa repeated sharply. "Yes or no?" "Well... no..."

  "In fact, you're extremely well paid for what you do, aren't you?" Kulasawa persisted. "And with opportunities and privileges most teens your age would give their left arm to have." She stabbed an accusing finger at Peter and Suzenne.

  "And that's what these people are afraid of. They've been the big ducks in the small pond all their lives. And they know the only way to hold onto that power is to keep their people ignorant."

  Her lip twisted. "Slavery, you said, King Peter? You're the real slavemaster here."

  "But what can I do?" Jimmy asked plaintively, his expression still looking hunted. "If they won't let us leave—"

  "You can save them, that's what," Kulasawa told him. "You see, those plates I had aboard the Sergei Rock aren't deep-probe sonics. They're actually highly sophisticated monodirectional resonance self-tuning loudspeakers.

  Loudspeakers which are at this moment scattered at strategic points all around this asteroid."

  She reached her left hand beneath her brocaded jacket-blouse and pulled out a small flat box. "And this is a wireless player interface to them."

  "You can't be serious," Rhonda said, a sandbagged look on her face. "You want to take the whole colony back?"

  "Can you think of a simpler way to solve the problem?" Kulasawa asked. "The choices will be presented to the citizens, and they'll be allowed to decide for themselves what they want to do. Those who want to enter the musicmaster profession—I suppose we'll have to come up with a new name for them—can do so.

  Those who don't can go on to new homes or the world of their choice."

  Rhonda glanced at Peter and Suzenne, looked back at Kulasawa. "And the Freedom's Peace?"

  "As I said, there are technological secrets here that will benefit the whole Expansion," she said. "The colonists will be properly compensated, of course."

  "And what makes you think our people will just sit by and let you do this?"

  Peter asked.

  "The fact that we can do it without leaving this room," Kulasawa said, her right hand dipping beneath her jacket-blouse. "And the fact that I have this."

  I looked at the tiny gun in Kulasawa's hand, a sudden hollow sensation in the pit of my stomach. "It's called a Karka nerve pistol," Kulasawa continued, her tone almost off-handed. "It fires needles that dissolve instantly in blood, disrupting neural chemistry and totally incapacitating the target. Usually nonfatal, though an allergic reaction to the drug will kill you pretty quick."

  There was a soft click as she moved her thumb against the side of the gun.

  "There's also a three-needle burst setting," she added. "That one is fatal."

  She clicked back to the one-needle setting. "We can all hope that won't be necessary. All right, Jimmy, come over here and take the interface. Be sure to stay out of my line of fire."

  Jimmy didn't move. His eyes darted around the couch one last time—

  And stopped on me. "Captain?" he whispered.

  "You don't need to ask him," Kulasawa said. "You're the one who holds the key to these people's freedom, not him."

  "It's not our decision to make, Jimmy," I said quietly, knowing even as I said it how futile my words were. If there was one button guaranteed to start Jimmy's juices running it was the whole question of personal freedom versus authority.

  Stupid rules, restrictive rules, unnecessary impositions of power—I seemed to go around that track with him at least once per trip. Kulasawa couldn't have come up with a better way to trip him to her side if she'd tried.

  And then, to my eternal amazement, Jimmy squared his shoulders, turned to face her, and shook his head. "No," he said. "I can't do it."

  From the look on her face, Kulasawa was as stunned by his answer as I was.

  "What did you say?" she demanded.

  "I said no," Jimmy said. His voice quavered slightly under the blazing heat of her glare, but his words were as solid as a sealant weld. "Captain Smith says it's wrong."

  "And I say it's right," Kulasawa snapped. "Why listen to him instead of me?"

  "Because he's my boss." Jimmy looked at me. "And because I trust him."

  He turned back to Kulasawa. "And because he's never needed a gun to tell me what to do."

  Kulasawa's face darkened like an approaching storm. "Why, you stupid little—"

  "Leave him alone," Rhonda cut her off. "Face it: you've lost."

  "Sit down, Chamala," Kulasawa growled, gesturing Jimmy toward the couch. "And if I were you, Blankenship, I'd keep my mouth shut," she added to Rhonda, all her heat turned to crushed ice now. "Of all the people in this room, you're the one I need the least."

  She looked back at Peter, her face under control again. "Fine; so our lapdog of a musicmaster is afraid to make decisions like a man. I'm sure one of your musicians out there will see things differently. Where's the room's public-address system?"

  Peter shook his head. "No," he said.

  Kulasawa shifted her gun slightly to point at Suzenne. "I don't need her, either," she said.

  Peter's lips compressed briefly. "In the throne. Controls are along the side of the left armrest."

  "Thank you." Standing up, Kulasawa started to circle around the table.

  I cleared my throat. "Excuse me, but there's just one little thing you seem to have forgotten."

  Kulasawa stopped, her gun settling in to point at my chest. "And that is?"

  "One of their musicians might be able to whistle up some flapblacks for you," said. "But none of them can tell you how to get back to the Expansion."

  The gun lifted a little. "I'm disappointed, Smith—I would have thought you could come up with something better. I've got the Freedom's Peace's coordinates, remember? All I have to do is work backward from those and we'll wind up back at Angorki."

  "We would," I agreed, "if we were anywhere near your coordinates. But we're not."

  Her eyes narrowed. "Explain."

  "Your coordinates didn't take into account the time-delay for the light," I explained. "Or the fact that the Freedom's Peace is no longer on a Sol-direct vector. You try a straight backtrack and you'll miss Angorki by about sixty A.U.

  That's about twice the distance from Earth to Neptune, in case you need help with the numbers."

  For a long moment she studied my face. Then, her lips tilted in a slight smile.

  "And of course you're the only one who knows how to plot a course back, right?"

  "Right," I said, folding my arms across my chest. "And I'm not going to."

  "I suggest you reconsider," she said. "There's a little matter of two hundred thousand neumarks you owe the TransShipMint corporation."

  The bottom seemed to fall out of my stomach. "How do you know about that?"

  She snorted. "Oh, come
now—you didn't really think I pulled your name out of a

  lotto ball, did you? You were one of a dozen transports I knew I could bring enough pressure on to get what I wanted. You just happened to be in the right place and the right time when the data finally came through."

  I shrugged as casually as I could. "So fine. Renege on the seventy thousand if you want. What do I care—Peter says we're staying here anyway."

  "Wrong," Kulasawa bit out. "One way or another, we're getting back." She arched her eyebrows. "And when we do, you're going to prison... because you don't owe just seventy thousand any more. You owe the full two hundred."

  I stared at her. "What are you talking about?"

  "I'm talking about the hundred thirty thousand you thought you had stashed away in the Star Meridian Bank," she said, openly gloating now. "The hundred thirty thousand that isn't there any more."

  "You're bluffing," Rhonda said sharply. "How could you possibly get that kind of access to Jake's account?"

  "For the same reason these people can't keep me here for long." Kulasawa straightened up slightly and looked around—

  And as she did so, her face and posture and entire demeanor abruptly changed.

  Suddenly the upper-class scholar was gone; and in its place was someone or something that seemed far more regal even than the king seated at the end of the couch. "My name isn't Andrula Kulasawa," she said her voice rich and commanding.

  "It's Andrula Chen."

  She turned hard, arrogant eyes on me. "Second cousin of the Chen-Mellis family."

  I stared at her, my blood seeming to freeze in my heart. "Oh, my God," I whispered.

  "Captain Smith?" Peter asked, his voice low. "What does she mean?"

  With an effort, I turned away from her gaze. "Chen-Mellis is one of the Ten Families," I said, the words coming out with difficulty. "The people who effectively rule Earth and most of the Expansion."

  "I prefer to think of it as one of the Six Families, actually,"

  Kulasawa—Chen, rather—put in. "The other four survive solely at our pleasure."

  "You told us there were other groups looking for the Freedom's Peace," Rhonda said, her voice low. "The other families?"

  "You don't think I would have picked the Sergei Rock to hide from some bumbling academics, do you?" Chen retorted. "Members of the Hauptmann and Gates-Verazzano families have been sniffing along my trail for the past two months."

  She gave Peter a brittle smile. "They want your engines, too," she added. "And can assure you that Chen-Mellis will cut you a better deal than they will."

  Peter shook his head. "We will deal with none of you."

  "I'd love to see you try to persuade the Hauptmann family of that." Chen looked back at me. "Well, Smith? Cooperation and a share of the profits, or lofty ideals and a few years of your life in prison?"

  "So now it's a share of the profits, too?" Suzenne murmured.

  "Shut up, or I'll add your lives on the downside of the ledger," Chen snarled.

  "Well, Smith, what's it to be? Shall we say your freedom and, say, five million neumarks?"

  I should have been tempted. After five years of scrimping every pfennig I got to put toward my debt, I should really have been tempted. But to my own amazement, I discovered that I wasn't. Maybe it was the condescension inherent in the offer, the casual assumption that I had my price just like everyone else she'd ever met. Or maybe it was the presence of Jimmy, sitting on Rhonda's other side now, who'd already resisted the pressure and made the right decision.

  Or maybe it was the fact that I'd suddenly had an idea of how we might be able to get out of this. If I played my cards right...

  I looked Chen straight in the eye. "Forget it," I told her. "And if you're thinking about upping the ante, save your breath. You're on your own here, lady.

  None of us are going to help you."

  Her face had frosted over again at my refusal. Now, though, the ice cracked into a small but malicious smile. "Perhaps none of you three will," she said. "But you're not the only one who knows how to get us back to civilization. And I suspect First Officer Hobson will be more easily convinced of the realities of this situation."

  Keeping her eyes on us, she began backing toward the throne and King Peter's public address system. Mentally, I crossed my fingers...

  And then, abruptly, she stopped. "No," she said. "No, I see your game, Smith.

  You're hoping that anyone using the PA system except His Royal Highness will make the local secret police suspicious." She waved the gun toward the throne.

  "On the other hand, you're his captain, aren't you? What could be more natural than for you to call him to the Palace?"

  I didn't move. "And how much were you planning to offer me for this service?"

  "I wouldn't dream of insulting you that way again," she assured me, her voice not quite covering up the soft click as she shifted her gun to its three-needle setting. "So let's make it simple. You call Hobson, and Blankenship gets to live."

  I felt my throat tighten. "You wouldn't dare."

  "I've already said I don't need either her or Ms. Enderly," Chen reminded me. "In a pinch, I could probably do without the king, too."

  I took a deep breath, exhaled it noisily, and got to my feet. "Don't do it, Jake," Rhonda pleaded. "She's bluffing—even the Chen-Mellis family couldn't get her off a murder charge."

  "The Chen-Mellis family can do anything when the rewards are big enough,"

  Chen said shortly.

  "It's not worth the risk," I told Rhonda, reaching down to briefly squeeze her hand. "Besides, even if I don't, Bilko will be here eventually anyway."

  The throne was more comfortable than it looked, with silky-soft cushions fitted to the stone. The controls on the left armrest were simple and straightforward: one basic on/off switch, one that determined whether or not the audio was accompanied by a visual, and five switches determining which section or sections of the colony would receive the broadcast. I set the latter group for full coverage, set the mode for audio only—this at Chen's insistence—and we were ready. "No tricks," she warned, stepping back well out of range of any desperate flying leaps I might have been contemplating. "Bear in mind this gun has a clip of just over two hundred fifty needles, and that I don't mind spending a few of them if I have to."

  I cleared my throat and touched the "on" switch. "Attention; attention," I called. "First Officer Will Hobson of the Sergei Rock, this is your captain speaking. We're having a little party over here at the Palace you seem to have forgotten about. Greet the other cardsharps for me and hustle it over here, all right? Thank you; that is all."

  I switched off the PA and stepped down from the throne. "Happy?" I asked Chen sourly.

  "What was that nonsense about a party and cardsharps?" she demanded, her face dark with suspicion.

  "It's a private joke," I said briefly, striding past her and dropping onto the couch next to Rhonda.

  "Make it a public joke," Chen ordered.

  I could feel Rhonda's eyes on me, and could only hope she wasn't frowning too hard at this private joke she'd never heard of. "It goes back to a time on Bandolera when I got him into some trouble," I said. "I called him while he was in the middle of a game and told him to get back to the transport. He was winning big, and said he wouldn't be back until he'd finished the round. He turned off his phone; so I tracked down the numbers of the other players and started calling them and telling them to please send Bilko home."

  "I imagine he was immensely pleased by that," Chen said.

  "I don't think he ever lived it down," I said. "At least, not with that bunch.

  The point is the reference means he's to get his rear over here now, and not just whenever he finishes the current round or has won enough money or whenever."

  Chen lifted the gun warningly. "He'd better."

  "He will," I sighed, mentally crossing my fingers a little harder.

  Peter cleared his throat. "I'm curious, Miss Chen," he said. "When you spoke earlier o
f changing the shape of Expansion space travel with our engine design, I naturally assumed a certain degree of exaggeration. Now that we know your true affiliation, do I now assume you were speaking literally?"

  "Quite literally, Your Highness," Chen told him. "In ten years, the Chen-Mellis family is going to completely dominate intrasystem space travel. We're going to create super tankers, mining ships like no one's seen since the Jovian Habitats went down, passenger liners ten times bigger than the Swan of Tuonela—"

  "And warships?" Rhonda asked quietly.

  Chen didn't even flinch. "Of course we're going to need to defend our interests," she said. "I don't anticipate any actual warfare, though."

  "Of course not," I said sarcastically. "Subtle threats and economic pressure bring the same results without making so much of a mess, don't they?"

  Chen shrugged. "You learn slow, Smith. But you do learn."

  "Possibly faster than you do," I said. "Has it occurred to you that there may be a limit to how big a ship the flapblacks are going to be able to carry?"

  "Of course it has," she said. "That's another reason why I want to try to bring the colony back with me. If they can carry the Freedom's Peace, then the sky is very literally the limit."

  From across the room came the whisper of air that signaled the opening of the double doors. Chen spun around to face that direction, dropping her arm to her side to conceal the gun against the back of her right thigh. I felt my muscles tense, reflexively estimating the distance to her gun and the chances I could get there before she could aim and fire...

  Obviously not as subtly as I'd thought. "Don't, Jake," Rhonda hissed into my ear, gripping my arm. "It's still set on three-needle."

  "Hello, everyone," Bilko said, wandering almost casually into the room.

  Wandering in alone; and even as I tried to catch a glimpse of anyone else who might be out in the foyer the doors swung shut again. "Sorry to be late, Jake—my game went a little longer than I'd expecte—"

  He broke off as his eyes landed on the gun Chen had brought back into view again. "Relax, Hobson, it's not what it seems," she assured him. "My name is Andrula Chen; second cousin of the Chen-Mellis family, with the mission of bringing this colony back to the Expansion. Unfortunately, the power structure here is resisting me, and I'm going to need your assistance."