“To the wardroom, Captain,” he said with a grin. “Let’s see if I can pass myself off as a chief.”
“You take the lead, and I’ll give directions. The wardroom is that way and up two decks,” she said, pointing left.
Henley made his way from handhold to handhold waiting with each movement for his stomach to rebel. When it didn’t, he began to move a little faster and skip every other handhold, enjoying the flying sensation as his body accepted weightlessness.
“Up the next ladder,” Mica said from behind him.
He swooped up the ladder three rungs at a time to the second deck above his, then swung off the ladder to a handhold on the bulkhead.
Mica swung around beside him a few seconds later. “Doesn’t take you long to recover, does it?” she asked with admiration.
“If I recover,” Henley said, “it never seems to take very long. I’ve made a few trips where I never recovered. Which way from here?”
“Should be the first door over there.” As Mica followed Henley across the companionway and into the wardroom, she felt an illogical pride in the way he rebounded from spacesickness.
Henley drifted to a low railing inside the wardroom door. He was surprised by the number of officers present as he brought himself to a stop.
“Chief on the deck!” a cute watchmate with blond curls boiling from under her cap announced. “Captain on the deck,” she said quickly as Mica joined Henley at the rail.
“We’re hardly on the deck, Mate,” Henley said, looking at all the bodies drifting around the room. “Who’s the ranking officer here?”
“Commander Schwartz, sir. She’s with that group by the sipper, sir.”
Henley looked at the people floating between him and the commander’s group and wondered how he could ever get over to her without bumping into all of them. “Does protocol demand that we introduce ourselves?” he asked Mica.
She was surprised that she knew what was bothering him. “It does. Go for the overhead,” she said with a smile, “and use the handholds there. Less traffic.”
With a quick blow of air he launched himself gently toward the overhead, managed to reach a handhold without hitting anyone, and pulled himself across the room to a clear space on the opposite bulkhead where he caught himself with bent knees.
“Ah, Chief Stanmorton,” a voice said.
Henley twisted to see who was speaking to him, lost his grip, and did a slow flailing spiral toward the deck. Mica caught his arm, kicked his legs, and flicked on his magnetic boots in three quick motions. Suddenly he was ‘standing’ in front of a commander who had to be Schwartz.
“Nice moves, Captain,” the commander said.
“Thank you.”
“Admiral Gilbert told me she was the best aide in the Service,” Henley said with a smile. Then drew himself to swaying attention and saluted carefully so as not to throw himself off balance. “Chief Warrant Stanmorton, ma’am.”
“Welcome aboard, Chief. You, too, Captain Gilbert,” she said with a casual return salute for both of them. “Did I hear you say that Captain Gilbert is your aide, Chief?”
“Indeed she is, ma’am.”
“That’s the strangest hookup this board’s ever seen,” Commander Schwartz said with a smile splitting her dark, thin face. “How’d you manage that?”
“It was Admiral Gilbert’s idea, ma’am,” Henley said.
“My father thought –“
“Admiral on the deck!” the watchmate said.
Henley looked toward the door in time to see a tiny, fat woman in a skintight uniform sail into the room with her body tucked together like a blue ball. He ducked involuntarily as she flew past his head and hit the bulkhead. She came off it with a back flip and landed beside him with a sharp click as her boots grabbed the deck. Henley was too startled to speak.
“I am Admiral Devonshire,” she announced. “Who are you?”
She looked so sternly at him that he felt silly and stupid. “Uh, uh, Chief Warrant Officer Stanmorton.”
“Welcome aboard, Chief.”
“Captain Mica Gilbert, ma’am,” Mica said with a sharp salute and a delighted smile. She had met Devonshire before.
“You are Josiah’s brat, are you not?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good, the two of you follow me.” She launched herself through an opening in the crowd and headed straight for a side doorway in the wardroom.
Henley looked at Mica questioningly, then released his boots and followed slowly and carefully. As he floated through the doorway, a voice announced, “Fifteen seconds to gravity.” He barely managed to get his boots back on the deck before he felt his weight returning.
“Sit down, you two,” Admiral Devonshire said from a corner of the room. “How about a sipper?” Without waiting for an answer she brought each of them a long tube from a small sipper.
Henley wasn’t sure his stomach was ready for anything yet, but he accepted the sipper anyway. He didn’t know what to make of Admiral Devonshire, but he wanted to be polite.
“Thank you,” Mica said as she accepted her own sipper.
“Let us get one thing straight,” Devonshire said. “I will not have you two snooping around my ship.”
“Pardon, Admiral?” Mica asked before Henley could respond.
“Do not play coy with me, Captain daughter-of-the-admiral Gilbert. You are snoops, both of you.”
“And you are offensive, Admiral,” Henley said without thinking. Then he remembered he was back in uniform.
Devonshire chuckled. “Yes, I am. Mister Stanmorton. How would you like to be busted to spacer?”
“No chance, Admiral,” Henley said as he regained his composure. “You’d have to go through Admiral Gilbert and the Joint Chiefs to do that, so why don’t you just drop the intimidation role and tell us what’s itching your butt.”
Mica was shocked, and from the look on her face, so was Admiral Devonshire.
“That is quite enough from you, Mister. On my ship –“
“Stick it in your waste chute,” Henley said, dropping the sipper and standing. He had let his anger with his space sickness pass on to this obnoxious admiral, but something about her attitude kept him from backing off. “Or I’ll do a sweet profile of you for the Flag Report.”
Mica put a hand on his arm, but he brushed it off.
Suddenly Admiral Devonshire leaned back in her chair and laughed so hard that her face turned red. “You did,” she finally gasped. “You already did.”
Henley searched frantically though his memory. “Fleet Lieutenant Devonshire? The scourge of Marine Supply?”
“That was me,” Devonshire said, still chuckling. “That story you wrote almost ruined my career. But as you can see, it did not, so I will make you a proposition. Do a follow up story, you know, ‘Rotten Lieutenant Becomes Grand Admiral’ or something like that.”
“Are you serious?” Henley asked.
“Most certainly,” she said as she stood up.
He shook his head. Officers never failed to amaze him. “Sure, Admiral, I’d be glad to.”
“Good,” Devonshire said. “I will call for you.” With that she turned and left the room.
“What do you make of her?” Henley asked.
Mica smiled at him. “I don’t know what to make of either of you. You could have gotten yourself thrown in the brig.”
“But I didn’t, Captain. I never let an officer walk suitshod over me before, and I’m not about to start.”
“Then I’ll tell you something, Henley.” Mica hesitated, then decided to go ahead. “For some strange reason I don’t understand, I’m proud of you.”
“Me, too,” he said, offering her his hand. “Shall we go see if the rest of Lifeline’s officers are as friendly as their superior?”
“I’d be delighted.”
Even as she took his hand, Henley knew something inexplicable had passed between them. He accepted the unknown as something positive and thought it might make their relation
ship a little easier for both of them. That gain just might make up for having to cope with Admiral Devonshire.
* * * *
“This is impossible!” Marshall Judoff screamed.
Ayne Wallen cowered in his chair. She had asked what he needed and he had told her. Why was it impossible?
“There is no way we can assemble this much equipment for you, much less find the kind of scientists you want.” She paused and stared at him. “You are supposed to build us a weapon,” she said slowly, “not set yourself up as the head of some grand scientific institute.”
“Cannot build weapon alone,” he said meekly. “Must have proper equipment, qualified physicists, necessary –“
“I can read, damn you. I can read all too well. I’ll tell you what, Citizen Wallen. You take this list and reduce it to the absolute minimum you need, and I promise to –“
“Is minimum. Need everything there.”
“You reduce this list,” she said as though he hadn’t interrupted her, “and I promise not to take your gorlet from you. I believe that is reasonable enough.”
“Then take gorlet,” Ayne said with much more bravado than he felt. If she took away his gorlet, he knew he would suffer and die. “List is bare minimum unless you have facilities –“
“Do not tempt me, citizen,” Judoff said coldly. “There are no facilities of the kind you say you need. At least not within my power…to make available…”
Ayne watched her closely as she pondered whatever idea had caught her attention. He had worked for twenty-five days on those lists, and he knew there was nothing left on them that he would not need to begin this project. “Pardon, Marshall, but already Drautzlab is far ahead of –“
“Sit silent,” she commanded.
Again he cowered. Part of the problem with gorlet was that it made him live in fear. Sometimes he wished he was back at Drautzlab working for Sjean Birkie again, admiring her luscious body, seducing her moment by –
“Texnor,” Judoff said suddenly. She smiled when he started in his chair. “We’ll send you to Texnor, Citizen Wallen. Do you know what Texnor is?”
“Do not know.”
“Ah, Texnor is a very special place, a place where dissidents finish out their lives. There you will find the labor and the facilities you need, and what you don’t find there, you can make there.” She tilted her head with a cruel smile. “Do you understand what I am telling you?”
“No,” Ayne said with a shake of his head, “do not understand. Is this Texnor a science institute?”
“It’s a prison, you idiot.”
Ayne was confused. “But Marshall, how can we be expected to do valuable work in prison?”
“This is a special prison, Citizen Wallen. I told you that. There are many scientists there, scientists who thought they should be allowed to emigrate to Sondak. You will join them.”
Ayne did understand now, and wished with all his heart that he was wrong. “But Marshall –“
“Do not worry,” she said. “You will not be kept in the prison itself. Oh, no. Not at all. But you will have all those scientists to assist you, and prison labor to build the things you need. However, for the time being we will send you to Yakusan for safekeeping with Kuskuvyet.”
A sense of quiet resignation filled his mind. These Ukes were too stupid to understand him, and Marshall Judoff was the most stupid of all. He would go to this Texnor. He would do what he could with whatever they gave him. But there would be no Ultimate Weapon for the Ukes. They did not want it enough.
“Leave me now,” Judoff said. “And leave the list with me. I have much to do.”
As Ayne wandered back to his apartment he wished he had something to do, something with meaning. He absently chewed on a piece of gorlet. What he wished he were doing was seducing Sjean Birkie. That would be something with meaning.
12
GENERAL MARI’S TRIP FROM PORRAS’S headquarters on Jasper to the continent of Elias to find Colonel Archer took fifteen days. It culminated in an eleven-hour run across the Sea of Sabrina in a rust-stained old hydrofoil that constantly squealed and groaned in protest as its raised bow smacked through the high waves.
Twice in the late afternoon the crew had spotted Uke aircraft in the distance, but the captain ignored them, and much to Mari’s relief, the Ukes had ignored the foil. Apparently it wasn’t big enough or unusual enough to interest them. Or perhaps the Ukes just hadn’t seen its narrow wake in the rough seas and fading light. Whatever the reason, Mari felt fortunate to escape their attention.
As the foil finally slipped through the darkness into the calmer waters of Todak, Mari climbed from the cabin to the open cockpit. Cold wet wind bit into his face, but he was so numbed by the fatigue that he barely noticed it. His body, still not fully recovered from his months of imprisonment, was running on willpower more than anything else.
Dull aches and pains were his constant companions. The medics had reduced his cast to a hard plastic sleeve, but his arm still throbbed occasionally to remind him that it was healing. The skin on his hands and face had toughened and cracked. Difficult bowel movements had begun to seem natural. Discomfort had become routine. But it pleasured him greatly to arrive on the shores of Elias.
On this, his first extended trip across Sutton, he had begun to appreciate what his forces were up against. He had ridden in nine skimmers and one heavily overloaded transport plane carrying ammunition and rations to a militia brigade. For a whole terrifying night he had bounced along narrow mountain roads in a three-wheeled piece of mechanical insanity called a grossencycle. He and a pikean courier had crossed the sandy Bwayne Desert in four days on a sled pulled by thirty-one tiny beckynoids, red-furred bipeds weighing less than twenty kilograms each, but possessed of enormous energy and endurance. They had to stop the sled eight times and cover themselves with sand to avoid being sighted by Uke aircraft and once by an Uke patrol crossing their route in heavily armored attack skimmers.
Mari had slept when and where he could, eaten whatever strange food was put before him, and marveled at the high spirits of the Suttonese soldiers and civilians who took him on his torturous journey. The Ukes seemed to have troops everywhere. But the Suttonese had not only talked confidently about beating the Ukes, they had talked about doing it regardless of how long it might take or what it might cost them. He was especially impressed with the attitude shown by the civilians he talked to. Young and old they seemed fiercely determined to accept nothing short of victory over the Ukes.
Now as the foil slowed to a stop and dropped anchor he wondered how much further he would have to travel to find Colonel Archer. He prayed that it wouldn’t be far. Even in the darkness he could make out mountains rising behind the harbor against the heavy clouds, and he had no desire to cross another mountain range if he didn’t have to.
“Launch-launch coming, sir,” the foil’s captain said in thickly accented gentongue as he sat down next to Mari behind the low windscreen. “Be aside soon. Your gear is ready?”
Mari patted the small damp duffle beside him. “This is it.” He could barely make out the captain’s face in the faint lights of the instrument panel behind him. “Where will you go from here, auroolcian?” he asked, using the same honorific with which the three-member crew addressed him.
The captain smiled faintly, his broad teeth a bluish gleam in the dark. “Soon as we side you over, have to make down coast for pickup of soldiers for come back here. After? No can say. Hope for back to Coxlane or Bachman.”
Bachman was the beautiful village on the shores of Jasper, a tiny oasis of fresh water and lush vegetation wedged between the desert and the sea. It had been their embarkation point. “Good luck to you.”
“To you, sir, too, sir,” the captain said. He stood up and stared beyond the windscreen. “Be here now.”
Mari picked up his duffle and stood beside the captain. As soon as his head rose above the windscreen he could hear the muted whine of a turbine engine under the cold wind. He stared in the d
irection of the sound, but it was minutes before he saw the dim amber lights of the launch. By then it was almost abreast of the foil.
“You have passenger?” a voice from the launch asked.
“Bryant,” Mari called back. It was the code name General Porras had picked for him.
“Board then, Bryant,” the voice said.
Even in the calm swells of the harbor, stepping from the foil into the rolling launch was a tricky feat, but Mari managed to get himself into the other boat without falling down. As soon as he did, the foil crew released the launch’s lines and it pulled away with a whine accompanied by the deep mutter of its exhaust. Mari half-sat, half-fell back onto a padded bench. The pilot was the only person on the boat, and he studiously ignored Mari as he made a straight run through the harbor.
After a ride that seemed to take far too long, the pilot slowed the engine, swerved the boat, and let it drift until it bumped gently against a low, stone dock. Shadowy figures grabbed the lines and pulled the boat snug, then one of them jumped in.
“Bryant?” a woman’s voice asked flatly.
“I’m Bryant,” Mari said as he carefully stood up in front of the large woman in her heavy coat.
“Who is Newman’s father?”
“The boy who walked without shoes,” Mari thought this exchange of code phrases could have waited until they left the rocking boat, but he understood their precaution.
“And who was his mother?”
“The girl who made him shoes.”
“Follow me, Bryant,” the woman replied. Without further comment she climbed out of the boat.
Mari followed, duffle slung over his shoulder. As soon as he was on the dock the woman marched off into the darkness. He had to hurry to keep up with her as she walked quickly down the dock then up a twisting street between dark, low buildings. The other shadowy figures walked behind him, but no one spoke.
As he trudged along, Mari tried to keep his bearings, but after half-a-set of turns he knew he probably couldn’t find his way back to the harbor. For a moment he felt very vulnerable. What if these people were working with the Ukes? As quickly as he could, he pushed that idea aside. It didn’t matter. He was totally in their hands, and he had to trust them.
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