by Martin H.
A I brought The Dart out of hyperspace and into the Stataka system, I called up a visual on my ship’s screen. I already knew details of the planet’s gravity (a touch less than Human standard) and atmosphere (quite breathable). Now I could see what the computer had already told me: Stataka really did look absolutely… well…
mundane, the standard classification of water-and-land planet supporting oxygen-breathing life. In this case, that life was a slender, gray-skinned biped race, vaguely like my own species, Human, in having two eyes, ears, and so on. So, locals plus whatever space travelers might have put into Stataka’s one public port.
Ordinary? Maybe, but I didn’t have any complaints about a lack of drama. The latest overhaul of The Dart’s hyer-drive engines hadn’t been cheap, and incoming cash was going to be very welcome.
As The Dart sliced down through Stataka’s atmosphere, I could see the gray buildings and bright lights of Kartaka, the city that sprawled around the spaceport.
Kartaka had quite a reputation as a wide-open trading city. And yes, there was a quite a bit of illicit business taking place down there, if Alliance reports were accurate.
But from everything I’d been able to learn, Sei Sisar, the art dealer with whom I was dealing, had a reputation for honesty. The three-way contract to which I’d agreed, along with Sei Sisar and the Kuurae, was basic enough: Sharra Kinsarin-me-owner, captain, and one-woman crew of The Dart, to receive one religious artifact from art dealer Sei Sisar, and transport it back to its rightful homeworld of Kuuraet. Sei Sisar was footing half the bill to get the artifact home again, and the Kuurae were footing the other half.
Nothing unusual there: Reputable art dealers, once they realize they are holding stolen artifacts, do tend to return the things to their owners, since they want to keep their names clean. They return artifacts often enough for me to make a nice profit out of it.
Who am I? Nothing special to look at: Human, youngish, female, olive skin, and short dark hair. What I am is an art courier licensed in all one hundred and forty-three of the Alliance worlds and a few others-including provisional member worlds like Kuuraet-specializing in any objects too small and valuable to risk losing on one of the big ships. I’ll add that I have another edge over the big guys: my little swept-winged Dart is swifter than most of them. I also, not incidentally in my line of work, have an implant that lets my brain adapt quickly to new languages.
Why me, though, and not a Kuurae emissary? Simple answer: The Kuurae are one of those races who don’t like space travel. I mean, they really, really don’t. The vastness terrifies them.
I brought my ship down through the layers of atmo-sphere, and a maze of other ships taking off or landing, to a waiting berth.
Sure enough, the ground crew insisted on bribes, but in such a good-natured way that I couldn’t get angry. Besides, if things went according to contract, Sei Sisar would be covering this expense, too.
We settled on a price that included keeping The Dart ready for takeoff, and I set off to find my current employer. Daylight on this side of the planet, conveniently, which meant that I could get the artifact from Sei Sisar without any other delays. It would have made my life easier if someone had been waiting at the port with the object to be transported: signature, payment, refueling, and away. But Sei Sisar had insisted he was too busy for anything like that. Since I legally had to accept the artifact from him and only him, I was to meet him at his office, which he swore wasn’t that far from the spaceport.
So be it. I fought my way through the crowds of embarking or disembarking travelers, fought my way into an empty groundcar, and gave it the proper coordinates, trying not to wince at the amount of credits it wanted for that relatively short ride. Should have walked-no, on second thought, this warehouse region wasn’t exactly the place for a solitary stroll, even if I had included, as I always did when planning to carry art, my sidearm. Too bad Sei Sisar hadn’t told me to meet him in his shop downtown; more people meant less of a chance of some would-be robber following me.
As the car made its efficient robotic way through row after row of dull gray warehouses and the occasional flurry of pallet-unloading activity, I glanced one more time at the little image I’d downloaded. The Kurrae artifact’s name translated to the
“Silver Flame,” though there wasn’t anything flamelike about the tranquil, cross-legged, beautifully carved statue. It was a female Kurrae, thin and delicate as all her kind, vaguely humanoid, assuming that Humans had knife-sharp cheekbones, huge eyes, and faint scaling, and worked from what looked like pure white stone. A saint figure? No one knew too much about Kuurae religious beliefs.
“We are .456 kilometers from the given coordinates,” the flat AI voice told me suddenly. “I can proceed no closer.”
I looked up in surprise-surprise that quickly turned to alarm. “Oh… damn.”
What had been Sei Sisar’s office was now a blackened ruin, still smoking faintly.
Leaving the groundcar, I got as close as harried officials would let me. A fire, they told me unnecessarily. No survivors. No cause yet, though there were hints that it had been too hot to be natural, and maybe that there were some suspicious residues as well.
Well, as I’ve said, a lot of illicit business takes place in this city. Presumably someone had gotten annoyed at Sei Sisar for being too honest once too often.
No Sei Sisar. That meant no artifact. And no payment. Swearing under my breath and reminding myself that the late Sei Sisar had just had a rougher time of it, I turned back to the waiting groundcar-Which was no longer waiting. Of course not, curse it! In my shock over the fire, I’d neglected to tell the thing to stay put. And I doubted I’d find another car so easily in this area.
All right. Start walking. You can find the spaceport again easily enough. Pretend you belong here, even though you don’t look like a local.
Hell with trying to fit in. I’d just radiate my best “mess with me and die” expression and keep one hand on my sidearm. That worked on a good many worlds.
But as I strode defiantly along, a sudden whisper made me start.
“Captain Kinsarin! Please!”
I whirled, sidearm drawn. Who could possibly know my name-The frantic hiss had come from a narrow space, not even a true alley, between two buildings. A slight figure huddled against one wall as though making a decision, then came toward me in a rush. I tightened my hand on the sidearm’s haft, ready to fire-but he-she?-it?-stopped short just out of reach, almost completely shrouded in a cloak two or three sizes too big and charred at the edges. Looked as though there’d been a survivor of that fire, after all.
“Please, please, I am not harming you. Captain Kinsarin, you must be taking me off this world!”
I wasn’t about to get involved in some gang’s activities. Bad enough that this being, who or whatever, knew my name. “Sorry. I don’t carry passengers.”
“I am not that! You must know this: I am what you seek--I am the Silver Flame!”
“Ah… of course you are.” And how do you know what brought me to Stataka? …
“No, wait!” A thin hand, six-fingered, not quite steady, and dead white, pushed back the shrouding hood just enough to let me see a dead-white face with enormous deep blue eyes and narrow, knife-sharp cheekbones.
She hadn’t looked so weary in the image. Or so terrified.
The smallest pang of sympathy shot through me-along with a sense of downright
“I’ve been had.”
“Oh, hell,” I said lamely.
The average Kuurae had tannish skin. This one wasn’t an albino, not with those eyes. A mutation, then, and held sacred as a result. When you came right down to it.
the contract had never actually specified a holy statue rather than a holy living being
. And no one had ever actually agreed or denied that the artifact might be much more than merely stone.
But why the pretense of an artifact at all? To keep the matter private? Or… to make it more convenient…
A cold suspicion settled at the back of my mind. It could well be.
Yes, but now that I had the “artifact.” I also had a chance of getting paid by the Kuurae if not by Sei Sisar. Risky, if my suspicions were correct, but-if I wanted a safe, secure life, I would have joined one of the big corporations a long time ago.
My ship could hold two as easily as one, so I added, “All right, let’s get going.”
“Yes, but-”
“You do want to get back to Kuuraet?”
“Yes! But they do not want it!”
They. I whirled to see four… beings. Definitely not from this world. Strongly muscled, tall as the average Human male, they stood on two legs, had a great deal of russet fur, gaudy jewelry, and sharp teeth-and they carried vicious-looking sidearms.
Great.
“Do you know them?” I whispered to the Silver Flame.
“They are of those who stole me!”
Even better. For a moment I thought of screaming and hoping that some of those officials going over the fire-charred ruins would come running.
Not a chance.
“Get behind me,” I snapped. When the Silver Flame hesitated, I tried to push her.
“Don’t touch me!” Her voice was suddenly that of an insulted aristocrat.
Oh, joy. “Just do it!” To the beings, I asked as coolly as though I wasn’t looking at all those weapons, “You want her?”
Unfortunately, they didn’t speak the local language. They also weren’t giving my implant enough of a sample for me to understand theirs. But most kidnappers don’t look so angry-that emotion, at least, I could understand on those furry faces-or so willing to shoot their own hostage.
I pointed my own weapon at the one who, judging from the glittery stuff about his (I assumed) neck, seemed to be their leader. Since they couldn’t understand me either, I quoted from some ancient Human vid in the archaic Earth language and said, “Go ahead. Make my day.”
The bluff worked. He held back the others, and in their moment of angry confusion I hissed to the Silver Flame, “Run!”
She avoided my shoving hand and darted away. Those ridiculously narrow alleys were almost too narrow for me. But as I squeezed my way through, following the slight figure of the Silver Flame, who had shed her bedraggled cloak to reveal a formfitting white sheath, I thought they at least served one purpose: They were too narrow for our hairy pursuers. One of those folks got off a blue-white shot of blazing force that sent stony splinters raining down on me, but I managed to return a shot of my own, and heard what was unmistakably a swear word from back there.
Yes, that smarted, didn’t it? Too bad I don’t have it set on killing force.
You didn’t do that, not and risk killing a local by mistake.
The hairy guys weren’t worried about public relations. They continued shooting blindly, bringing down more stones. Swearing, head down, stung by splinters and pelted by pebbles, I forced my way on.
Lunging out into the open again, I nearly crashed into the Silver Flame, who had stopped short.
“Don’t touch me!” she insisted.
The being was beginning to get on my already tightly strung nerves. Payment, I reminded myself. You’ve got the contract.
We’d come onto a street fronted by closed warehouses. By sheer wild fortune, I commandeered a groundcar. Feeding it credits till it agreed to take us at top speed to the spaceport, I collapsed back on the thinly padded seat, struggling to catch my breath and staring at the seemingly self-possessed Silver Flame. “What the hell was that all about?”
She stared at me with those enormous blue eyes. “They wanted me back.”
“Sure they did. That’s why they were trying to kill us.”
Her gaze never wavered. “That, I know not why.”
“Of course not,” I said dryly.
“I know not why,” she repeated stubbornly, and turned away from me, falling resolutely silent, a white statue. And I, I thought, Her people really are going to pay for this, they are, indeed Still… maybe she was just scared? That wouldn’t be surprising. Maybe she just didn’t know how to-
‘This car reeks,“ the Silver Flame said coldly, and killed my sympathy in that instant.
The car’s AI couldn’t be insulted, of course. “Kartaka, Spaceport,” it announced.
No furry beings anywhere to be seen. Maybe we were going to get out of here in one piece…
Yes, and surprise, surprise, the ground crew had been honorable in their bribe-taking. The Dart sat ready, looking sleek and narrow as its namesake, glinting in the sunlight. Beautiful, I thought with a surge of pride.
“Small,” the Silver Flame summed up.
Oh, no, she wasn’t going to anger me so easily! “After you, Your Saintliness,” I said and ushered her inside with-out touching her. I didn’t even attempt to help her strap herself in.
Our furry foes were still nowhere to be seen, but I asked for immediate takeoff clearance just in case. No problem there; another ship was already waiting for the berth. I sent The Dart soaring up through the atmosphere and the maze of air traffic, back out into the freedom of space.
Setting the ship’s computer for Kuuraet’s coordinates, I also sent off a quick, private, just-in-case message to the Alliance outpost nearest to that world. The Alliance is, of course, basically a trading organization, but it does have its defense branch. Granted, space is big and messages take time to arrive, but even so, I felt a little better for the sending-And only then stopped to think that I had a Kuurae with me-a member of a race who couldn’t endure space travel. If she went into shock-worse, I thought in sudden fastidious alarm, if she got spacesick in these close quarters-But the Silver Flame… merely sat, her white face unreadable once more.
All right, so at least one Kuurae could manage space travel. I wasn’t so sure about her reaction to hyperspace. I’m a rarity among Humans, one of the few who can travel through that nowhere noplace without needing to be drugged. But that utter lack of anything recognizable has been known to drive many beings insane.
Did I have anything that would safely drug a Kuurae? “What do your people take to get through hyperspace?”
Those great blue eyes gave me a sharp sideways glance. “My people do not go through hyperspace.”
“Your, uh, kidnappers couldn’t have come all this way by sublight speed.”
“No. But I do not know what was done.”
“Great.” As I rummaged through my medkit, wishing I had just a little more medical data about her race in the computer than a standard “biped, warm-blooded,” and the basics of pulse and respiration rates, I asked, “Are you going to tell me what was going on back there?”
“You do not question me.” It was that autocratic tone again.
“Hell I don’t. This is my ship, and that pretty much gives me sovereignty rights.”
“You do not question me!”
“You know, I could really start not to like-” No. Wait. She really had been through a lot lately, enough to drive a weaker person into shock. I couldn’t tell how old she was, either. For all I knew, the Silver Flame might have been nothing more than a child.
In a much gentler tone, I said, “It’s all right. You don’t have to be afraid. The Dart’s a swift ship, and I’ll have you home before-”
“This is not a ship, but a toy! And I was not afraid.”
“Have it your way. But I need to know if we’re going to run into any more trouble.”
“I am not a prophet.”
No. You’re a pain in the- “Who were they? At least tell me that!”
“You do not question me!”
“Look, I have no intention of meddling in Kuurae affairs-”
“You do not question me!”
A spark flared where her hand clenched the armrest, a wisp of smoke began to rise, and with it, the first hint of a flame--
I acted in pure instinct, practically tearing her from the seat, not even knowing how I’d unfastened the harness, and tossed her aside s
o hard that she went crashing to the cabin floor, stunned with shock. Of course I have a fire extinguisher in the cabin, and had the tiny flame out in about three seconds. But I lingered over the work for a few minutes more, trying to get my heartbeat back down to normal.
A pyrokinetic. The Silver Flame was a pyrokinetic. Rare, any type of psionic gifts, rarer still this sort.
I was still too angry and, yes, too scared, to care. Dragging her back up, I plopped her back into the seat, aware only now of how downright hot her skin felt.
“You idiot!” I shouted. “God of Worlds, you utter idiot! Starting a fire in a spaceship, a closed environment surrounded by space-what were you trying to do?
Kill us both?”
She blinked up at me. “I did not think-
“That seems pretty clear! Damn it, I could, by every law, throw you out of The Dart into space here and now!”
“Yes.” It was the merest whisper.
A pyrokinetic.
God of Worlds, yes, I was on this ship with a-a psionic fire-starter.
Something clicked into place in my mind. “The fire,” I said. “Sei Sisar’s office… the whole building. That was your doing.”
Her head drooped like that of a scolded child. “Was.”
“But… why? And, damn it, don’t give me that ‘You must not question’ nonsense!”
“It was not meant…” Her voice trembled. “I thought only of… escape. I had escaped. Sei Sisar… he has dealt with the Kuurae, so to him I fled. He helped. Sei Sisar contacted Kuuraet. And you.”
She looked up at me. For the first time I saw genuine emotion clear in those big eyes, and was pretty sure it was sorrow. Of a sort, anyhow. And I thought, / was right. Wasn’t I?
“How old are you?” I asked her suddenly. “By your people’s standards, I mean.”
Reluctantly, she confessed, “In years, not yet of the Grown. But I am the Silver Flame!”
An adolescent. No, an adolescent pyrokinetic. “No one’s denying that. Please. What else happened, back on Stataka?”
“It was not a true escape, not for me. They are the Uwar-tai. And they found me.
And I… they… I… did not mean to harm Sei Sisar. But I feared. So greatly I feared.”