Limbo System

by Rick Cook

  “What are you doing?” the warden demanded without preamble.

  “You didn’t expect us to risk our ship unprotected did you?” Jenkins replied coldly. “We are jamming and we will continue jamming.”

  “That was not in the agreement!” The warden shouted. The voice emerged in a normal tone but on the screen Jenkins could see his chest heave.

  “That is the way it is. Now tell your crews to stand away from their defense stations.”

  “What?” the warden was dancing in fury.

  “Warden, in just a few minutes the first rocks are going to come plowing into those batteries. If you want to lose the crews, that’s your business.”

  The warden hissed once and forced himself to be calm. “No. This is far in excess of my instructions. Unless I am directly told to do this, I will open fire.”

  “Warden, your instructions were to exchange prisoners. We do it this way and no other. I do not think Derfuhrer would like it if we left without making the trade. And at the first sign, the first quiver of hostile action or noncompliance we will be out of here and in interstellar space.”

  The warden’s jaw muscles twitched, but his eyes stayed wide. This was nothing less than a full-scale attack on his station. An act of war unthinkable. But the prize. But the prize! And he had very little doubt that this squat ugly creature was right about his fate if it should fall through.

  “I must contact 246 for instructions,” he said finally.

  “Warden, use your head! There is no time. Already this system is boiling like a hornets’ nest. We have to make the exchange and get out of here before all hell breaks loose.” In a back part of his mind Jenkins wondered what the metaphors would translate into. “Your colony is on the other side of the Sun. It would take hours to get this straightened out. You don’t have hours, Warden. You have, at most, minutes, or I recall my shuttles and we’re out of here.”

  Again the jaw muscles jerked convulsively. “Very well,” he spat. “Have your damn defenses. I will instruct my crews accordingly.”

  “Very good, Warden. Expect our shuttle within the hour.” Jenkins cut the connection and opened another circuit.

  “Okay people, here we go. Showtime, and make it good!”

  The four ships accelerated quickly as they dropped away toward the surface of the planet.

  “Shuttles away,” Iron Alice called out.

  “Okay,” Jenkins said. Then he cut in the general circuit. “They’re on their way. Let’s give them all the cover we can.”

  And please God, let this work, he added to himself.

  The makeshift shuttle bucked and rocked as Carmella pointed its nose deeper into the atmosphere. The cockpit was crude, the software was worse and half the controls couldn’t be reached with the seat harness buckled down, but oh, what power!

  Her hands played lightly on the controls and her lips drew back in a tight hard grin as she concentrated on the instruments and keeping this beast on course.

  The forces slammed her from side to side against the loose harness as she brought her shuttle in at the steepest possible angle. Outside the nose of the ship was glowing dull red from the friction. Inside the combination of hull heat and poor air conditioning made the cabin an oven, but she didn’t notice.

  An outside observer, if there had been one in the cabin, might have noticed that suddenly Carmella O’Hara looked very much like her aunt.

  “I’m not sure I like this, you know,” Andrew Aubrey said as he stood beside the Warden in the main air lock.

  The warden stifled his first response. He knew he didn’t like it. “Why not?” he asked.

  “It’s the reasoning. Captain Jenkins was adamantly opposed to releasing the secret of the drive. Now he’s willing to trade the one man on the ship who understands the drive.”

  The warden said nothing, preoccupied with his own thoughts.

  “He’s right, of course. You’re not a threat to Earth. But I’m very surprised that he came to see that. And now this.” He gestured toward the sky where the flares and chaff still burst and bloomed. “It’s just not in character.”

  “Treachery then?”

  “I would be very surprised if Dr. Takiuji got off that shuttle. But what does he gain if he does not?” He shook his head. “Most puzzling.”

  “We will know soon,” the warden said. Through the earth came the faint rumble of a shuttle setting down.

  The lock was big enough to admit a land train. The group of humans and Colonists were dwarfed in it. Slowly the great doors swung open, revealing the bleak gray panorama outside. In spite of her suit, Sharon shivered involuntarily.

  The guards pressed even closer about them, forcing the humans into an even tighter group. Aubrey remained at the side of the warden.

  “It’s a trap!” Aubrey hissed suddenly. “That’s not one of our shuttles!”

  The warden looked down at him disgustedly. “Your shuttles were damaged. That is a modified gas-mining ship.”

  Aubrey started to say something, then settled under the Warden’s glare.

  The radio crackled. “Move the prisoners out into the open,” a human voice said.

  One by one the humans were moved out through the massive lock door and stood there in a tight little knot. A lone figure emerged from the lock and started down the ladder.

  One of the squad leaders moved as if to go forward, but the warden gestured him back.

  “It is my vocation,” he said to the squad leader. And if we botch this my life isn’t worth a shed feather, he thought grimly as he stepped forward.

  Cautiously, the warden advanced over the slate-gray gravel to meet the human.

  Halfway between the ship and the lock, the human stopped and waited. His helmet’s sun visor was up and his features were clearly visible.

  The warden checked the picture he had brought with him and nodded. Over the last several days, he had studied it carefully until he could identify the person positively. Fortunately, this human had a distinctive combination of features. The eyes were different and the hair was pale with age, growing in a fringe around the back of the head.

  The warden turned and signaled the squad forward. They double-timed across the field, fell in around their new prisoner and the whole group trooped back toward the great gaping airlock.

  “Release the prisoners,” the warden commanded over the radio. The guards fell back from the knot of humans, bringing their weapons up to rest position from the ready.

  The humans stood stock still for a few seconds after their guards moved away from them. Then one of the guards shoved a human in the small of the back with the butt of his rifle and the human stumbled forward. Reflexively, the prisoners milled forward, slowly at first and then faster and faster.

  One of the humans broke into a clumsy run and then suddenly they were all bounding across the plain toward the ship towering against the dark purple sky, heedless of the danger of falling or tearing a suit.

  Free, Sharon Dolan exalted as her breath rasped in her ears. We’re free!

  There were other humans waiting at the base of the ship, humans in human-designed spacesuits, who urged them up the ladder and into the lock.

  They crowded into the lock until there was not room to breathe. Then the outer door closed leaving others clinging to the ladder outside. Sharon first felt the pump’s vibration as it forced air into the lock and then she heard it as the air grew thick enough to carry sound.

  As soon as the pump shut off, she reached up and cracked her visor. The air she sucked into her lungs stank, but it was a human stink, rich with the odor of human beings and tainted with the tang of human chemicals. Her cheeks felt damp and she realized she was crying.

  They were all squeezed even closer together as the lock swung inward. Then they tumbled out into the ship and saw another human, the first new face they had seen in months.

  “Get the hell on board,” Carmella bawled. “All hell’s gonna break loose in just a couple of minutes.”

  Count it
out. The numbers reeled off on the head-up display inside his helmet, marking off the time in tenths of seconds. Slow and easy. Slow it down. He moved across the rough plain toward the gaping maw of the station lock as slowly as his captors would let him. And always with an eye on the numbers.

  Behind him he heard the roar of the first shuttle lifting off and the weight on his chest eased. Mission accomplished. Now for the hard part. Still he kept the slow pace, hoping that he would not have to enter the great lock.

  A small party of Colonists stood just outside the lock and in their center a single human. He did not have to be told who that human was.

  As the party came up to the lock, the human stepped forward to meet them.

  “Dr. Takiuji . . .” Andrew Aubrey began, and then stopped short.

  Billy Toyoda, his head shaved, temples and brows whitened, smiled back at him through the helmet faceplate. “Hiya, Doc.”

  Aubrey’s jaw dropped. “This isn’t Dr. Takiuji! You’ve got the wrong man!” he yelled into his suit microphone.

  The warden gaped and then his beak clacked like a gunshot. “Stop them!” he bellowed.

  Billy watched his readout and held his breath. Three two one now!

  Suddenly the sky was alight with lances of flame.

  In spite of their name, the projectiles were not rocks. They were cylindrical billets of nickel-iron, turned smooth and with blunt noses.

  Not that nomenclature mattered. They weighed about a ton each and they came down fast. The rockets did not slow them down to let them enter the atmosphere, they only changed the apogee of their orbits so they coincided with the surface of the planet at the appropriate spot. Whatever was at that spot got the equivalent of several tons of high explosive.

  First to go were the two weapons installations overlooking the field. They vanished in streaks of radiance and boiling clouds of dust. Microseconds behind them another dozen chunks of nickel-iron struck the field in a tight pattern.

  Some of them were backups, designed to take out the gun installations in case the first wave failed. A few were originally aimed at the prison itself, to destroy everything if the rescue effort failed. Most of them were targeted for the plain from the first. The missiles kicked up tons of alien soil and threw it high into the thin air, creating a dense cloud as gray as the plain.

  Billy knew what was coming. His captors did not. At the first explosion, he broke free and dashed through the air lock and out into the gloom.

  “Stop him!” bellowed the warden, but Billy Toyoda was already lost from sight in the roiling gray cloud. A dozen Colonist guards stumbled into the dust cloud after him, blind in the roiling dust.

  Billy was equally blind, but he knew exactly where he was going and he had used his slow trip to the lock to memorize bearings and distances. He put his head down and charged full-tilt through the dust cloud.

  Beams shone purple through the dust around him, but Billy ran on, unheeding. The tenths of seconds ticked off in his faceplate display as he dodged and groped through the murk across the broken gray plain.

  He made the base of the second shuttle with fifteen seconds to spare.

  He swarmed up the ladder and flopped into the air lock. “Let’s get the hell out of here!” he yelled to the unseen pilot and hit the switch to close the lock door.

  Billy was still in the lock when the second shuttle roared skyward through the dust cloud.

  On the surface of Hasta, the warden watched him go, pursued by the futile beams from his guards’ rifles. He was ruined, he knew. His life forfeit and his lineage forever degraded. With the odd, calm clarity that follows truly major disasters, he watched his future flee into the purple sky on two searing pinpoints of flame.

  The Cult Leader had escaped with the others. He found a strange sort of peace in that thought.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the guards cross himself as he watched the departing ships.

  Captain Peter Jenkins stared at the screen so hard his eyes hurt.

  There. One point of light. One shuttle was off and climbing strongly for orbit. The hostages were free. But Jenkins didn’t relax. He kept his eyes on the screen, watching and hoping desperately.

  There! The second point of light. The second shuttle was up and away. But with or without its passenger?

  Jenkins clenched and unclenched his hands on the arms of his couch. Watching for some sign. He knew the pilot would transmit a status report as soon the ship was clear of the cloud of manmade interference surrounding the planet, but the seconds dragged interminably while he waited.

  “Mission accomplished. One hundred percent.”

  “I presume it is safe to come out now.” Floating in the door was Sukihara Takiuji, looking uncharacteristic in one of Billy Toyoda’s coveralls.

  DeRosa’s jaw dropped.

  “Then who the hell did you send down there?” she demanded.

  “Billy Toyoda. I figured in makeup he could pass for Suki long enough.”

  The whole bridge broke up in cheers.

  “You tricky son of a bitch!” Iron Alice whooped. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I was afraid the Colonists might still have ears on this ship. That was the one detail that couldn’t leak under any circumstances. Only Suki, Billy and I knew that part of the plan.”

  “You son of a bitch,” DeRosa repeated, shaking her head.

  “What now?”

  “As soon as we’ve got the shuttles aboard, we get out of here. There’s some unfinished business and we’ve got a debt to pay.”

  PART IX: DAMEZUMARI

  “Ruined,” Derfuhrer bellowed. “Ruined!” His subordinate cowered at his master’s wrath.

  News of the rescue of the humans had flashed across the system and in its wake, Derfuhrer’s coalition was falling apart. Colony after colony was seeking to ally with the Council.

  The shift showed that 246’s position was built upon sand. Without the promise of the faster-than-light drive, 246 had nothing to offer its allies. Meanwhile, the alliance between the humans and the Council was growing in significance.

  Even worse than the political implications was the humiliation. The complete story wasn’t widely known, of course. But all the Colonies knew enough to know that Derfuhrer had attempted a deal with the humans and gotten his feathers singed.

  Worst of all, and unthinkably, Hasta was gone. The commander of the garrison had traitorously surrendered the remaining installations to the Colonial Council.

  The combination was more than Derfuhrer could bear. For days he had remained in seclusion in the Citadel, stalking endlessly up and down, sleeping little.

  The Master of Forests knew all this, but he was still astonished at the change in Derfuhrer when he was ushered into his presence. He looked lean and haggard and not at all well.

  Derfuhrer was looking out over the colony, seeming to stare through the mists to the workers town where they had all started their climb toward the Inner Grove.

  “Well?” Derfuhrer turned from the vista to stare challengingly at his subordinate.

  “787 has defected,” the Master of Forests said simply. “They will not abide by their agreement with us and they have begun open negotiations with the Council.”

  The Master of Forests braced himself, but there was no beak-snapping explosion of rage. Not even a frozen pause for thought. Derfuhrer took the news quietly, almost calmly. As if he did not care anymore.

  “So,” he said at last and that was all. Then he turned back to the view from the terrace.

  The Master of Forests hesitated. He had been given this mission because the Master of Bounds was in disgrace. After days of bearing bad news to his master, he was unwelcome in Derfuhrer’s presence. The Master of Skies was no more. He had been taken immediately after the alien raid on Hasta and a replacement had not been appointed.

  “The sooner we begin proceedings quickly to new alliance with the Council the more advantageous the terms,” the Master of Forests suggested tentatively.
>
  “No!” Derfuhrer commanded. He turned from the window to face the Master of Forests. “No, better to cut our own throats. We have an option left. They make open war against us? Well, then, we will make war against them.”

  In spite of the difference in status, the underling’s beak clacked in surprise.

  “If we strike now before they can absorb the news, we can destroy the usurpers.” He spread his talons for ripping and his jaws locked in a fighting rictus. “They think to polish our bones, do they? Well, we will see whose carcass lie for the picking!”

  “That is a most unusual course,” the Master of Forests said as emotionlessly as he could, “and a most dangerous one.”

  “We have nothing to lose,” Derfuhrer pointed out. “That gives us the advantage. Once we strike a few of the colonies, the rest will fall back into line. Thus will justice and True Order be restored and we will regain our rightful place.”

  “The other colonies will surely retaliate.”

  Derfuhrer made a sweeping gesture. “They will be divided as they always are by their own dissension. None of them dare move on their own. And while they squabble, we shall act! With unity and firmness of purpose we will prevail over all of them. We will split them off faction by faction and take them under our shade.”

  Derfuhrer began to stride up and down the room, moving nervously, restlessly.

  “Fail? No we have not failed. Instead our so-called ‘failure’ has set the stage for our greatest triumph. We do not need creatures from beyond our system to prevail. With the unity and the single will of our lineage expressed directly in one person we shall emerge victorious!”

  As he left the hall, The Master of Forests cleaned his teeth reflexively. This was terrible, unprecedented. But it might work, he admitted. Derfuhrer had risen so high by working in ways which were unprecedented. Often and again sheer audacity had allowed him to triumph over unbelievable odds. Now, again in a crisis he chose the outrageous. Perhaps, just perhaps, it would again prove successful.