The Rising Flame: Box Set: Defender of the Flame + Herald of the Flame

by Sylvia Engdahl

  Legally, they can’t seize private property, Kathryn assured him. And they can’t pass some kind of special law that would let them without revealing why we’re special.

  “Fleet ships don’t go to New Tahiti, Commissioner,” she pointed out,

  “Fleet charters go wherever they’re contracted to go, just as the crew does. It would be cheaper than maintaining a private ship.”

  “But wouldn’t the tour operators consider it competition, considering how heavily they’re taxed? Besides, the people who take trips to New Tahiti view a private ship as a status symbol; we’d lose business.” I hope he’s bright enough to figure out what I’m saying, she told Terry silently. I can’t spell it out in front of his office staff, but surely he knows that we’re keeping Maclairn secret only by masquerading as a luxury tour.

  “Uh, perhaps,” the official admitted. “On the other hand, there’s been some worry about pirates, and a Fleet ship would have the advantage of arms.”

  “We are armed, sir,” Terry declared.

  “You are? Well, yes, I suppose a Fleet crew would be. If you want to take the chance of carrying civilians in a ship that doesn’t look as if it’s armed, I guess we can leave it that way. I’d be careful if I were you, Captain. It may not be safe.” He turned and went back into his office.

  “Why would he make a suggestion like that at this stage?” Kathryn wondered, as they left the Headquarters dome and headed toward the Luna City passenger terminal to meet their new group of observers. “If Fleet wanted the ship, they’d have said so earlier when they agreed to the crew.”

  Terry had been thinking, and the idea that occurred to him he did not like. “They don’t want the ship,” he said. “If they took it over the secret would have to be revealed to more Fleet personnel. That conversation was a warning, Kathryn. A warning that the observers and mentors we carry are in danger of being attacked.”

  “Well, all ships are in some danger, but it’s not very large. And our League contacts haven’t shown much interest in our ability to attract passengers; they’d be happy if we had fewer.”

  “If the ship were attacked by pirates,” Terry said grimly, “we might lose both the ship and passengers, and not be able to make any trips. Even if we escaped, it would discourage future observers. Which would please the authorities who want no more civilian contact with Maclairn.”

  “Then why would he warn you to take precautions? Anyway, it’s so unlikely—”

  “He was telling me that it is not unlikely, if we keep making frequent trips.”

  “Does he think he knows more about pirates than a Fleet captain?”

  “I’m afraid he does know more,” Terry told her. “I could sense his feelings, and they didn’t involve concern for our welfare. It was less a real warning than a threat.”

  “Oh, my God. You think they would actually sic pirates on us?”

  “Not outlaws. Mercenaries in a ship provided through the underworld, with a guarantee of immunity from prosecution. This is in line with what your granddad said to me, what he asked me to watch out for. They can’t move against us openly, but who could tie it to them if it looked like piracy?”

  Kathryn stared at him in horror. “You installed the laser cannon just because pirates wouldn’t bother with an armed ship. You said that in a fight we couldn’t win.”

  “No. We couldn’t. Not with a single laser cannon and only one crew member who knows how to use it.”

  “Then what are we going to do? We can’t just let the passengers embark.”

  “It won’t happen on this trip, or even the next one,” Terry said. “They want to scare us and convince us to change our plans without being forced to. But we’ve got to tell your granddad. Is there any way you can communicate with him in code?”

  “Not about a threat like pirates.”

  “He’ll probably get the message if we send it in clear; he knows I wouldn’t be suddenly afraid of encountering real pirates. Still, I’d hate to have it go through a regular phone center. How about if I buy a new data bracelet and send it to him as a gift for his hospitality?”

  The shopping mall in Luna City offered a wide variety of decorative data bracelets; Terry deliberately chose one identical to the one Arthur Bramfield already owned, thinking this would be a clue to its hidden purpose. “Mr. Bramfield,” he recorded, “I’m honored by your welcome to me as a member of your family, and I’m sending you this small gift, as it looks like the sort of thing you might want to add to your collection. Kathryn and I had an informative meeting with League officials about the New Tahiti cruises, and I feel you should know that Commissioner Hiller warned me that the danger from pirates is greater than we have realized, especially if we make frequent trips on that run. You may want to discuss this with whatever passengers you sign up in the future. Kathryn sends you her love. Respectfully, Terry Radnor, Captain, HS Promise.”

  “Surnames? Respectfully?” Kathryn exclaimed. “It sounds stuffy—you and Granddad were on a first-name basis five minutes after you met.”

  “Exactly. He’ll know right off that it’s not what it seems.”

  After mailing the package at the exorbitant interworld cargo rate, fortunately covered by Kathryn’s Earthside credit, they visited Fleet headquarters to deliver Captain Vargas’s dispatch to Admiral Frazer, the one officer there in on the secret. “Your promotion is confirmed, Commander,” the admiral told him when he picked up the reply after dinner. “I can’t recommend you for a medal since I can’t document what it’s for, but I agree with your CO that you should have it. I wish you the best of luck—your present command will not be an easy one.”

  He doesn’t know the half of it, Terry thought. Or does he? The man’s support of Maclairn came through clearly; he was unquestionably trustworthy. “Sir,” he asked, “have you heard anything about an unusually big problem with pirates in the New Tahiti system? Commissioner Hiller warned me to take precautions.”

  “Did he? That’s very interesting,” Admiral Frazer said. “I wasn’t aware of that, and I thank you for mentioning it. You may be sure that I’ll see to it that our ships in that system are on the lookout for pirates.”

  It was plain from the telepathic undercurrent that they understood each other.

  ~ 35 ~

  On the return trip, Promise made a stop at Titan to take messages to Aldren and Roanna sent by Corwin and Kamila as well as by their friends on Maclairn. Terry also carried a message from Admiral Frazer to Admiral Derham, as Fleet’s normal channels of communication weren’t considered secure enough for any specific mention of Maclairn. He didn’t announce himself by name when they arrived; he simply said, “Titan base, this is HS Promise. The captain wishes to present his compliments to the base commander and requests permission to land.” Derham, not having heard about the change in crew, was expecting the civilian captain and was surprised and pleased to see Terry. “Lieutenant Radnor! Or, I see, it’s now Lieutenant Commander—I had a feeling you wouldn’t be a lieutenant for long. Tell me, were you able to get that old explorer into space?”

  So Terry had to tell about the sad end of Picard and all that had happened since. Admiral Derham knew Kathryn, of course, having traveled back to Earth with her as a member of the first group of observers. He and his wife invited them both to dinner in his quarters along with Aldren and Roanna, and they had a long talk. Aldren seemed deeply worried about the threat of violence against Promise. As they were leaving he embraced Terry and said, “I’ve known there was trouble brewing. I hoped we might be spared until the presence on Earth was better established, but if it must come now, I know of no one I’d trust more to deal with it than you.” Silently he added, I have always felt that you have a significant role to play in Maclairn’s venture, and the fact that you’ve been appointed captain of Promise so soon bears that out. Godspeed, Terry.

  The rest of the trip was uneventful. Kathryn spent her time providing orientation to the incoming observers, three couples from Houston who had come to the moon b
y commercial shuttle to be met by the shuttle from Promise. As on all inbound trips, one stateroom was unoccupied to leave room for the mentors who would go with them when they left.

  Terry felt that it was only fair to warn Drew and Amir about the unexpected danger they were likely to face. He asked them to remain on the bridge after the jump and explained the situation, which took a while since the idea of hostility to psi on the part of the League’s government was new and puzzling to them. “You don’t have to stay on the crew after this trip,” he assured them. “It’s become hazardous enough to call for volunteers.”

  “Well, then, I volunteer,” said Drew. “Do you think I’d want to back out?”

  “Not really, but I’m obliged to give you the chance,” Terry said. Amir, too, expressed willingness to stay with the ship, and for the rest of the trip Terry accelerated his effort to teach him to pilot interplanetary ships. He also gave Drew some basic instruction in astrogation. “You’ve both got to be able to handle anything but a jump,” he said, “because if we ran into trouble something might happen to me, and you’d have to get the passengers to safety.”

  He discussed it with Captain Vargas after they got home. “I don’t think there’s a chance that either the Foundation or Admiral Frazer will want to reduce the number of trips, sir,” he said. “And anyhow, there’s no way to know their decision until we’re on Earth again. So I don’t see any need to alter our plans except for getting more weapons training.”

  Vargas agreed, so during the layover both Drew and Terry spent many hours in the simulator practicing with a laser cannon, and all three members of the crew got a refresher course in handling sidearms—something they’d learned as cadets but had never had occasion to use. In addition, accompanied by Zuri Kifeda, they took Promise as far as Three and Four as authorized by Arthur Bramfield to patrol and inspect the existing sensor stations and place more on asteroids. Thus Terry’s time in Petersville was short, but since he and Kathryn would be together during the trips to Earth, that wasn’t a major hardship.

  The disconcerting sense of a lurking ship didn’t come again while they were patrolling, except for one night when Terry was able to convince himself that it was just memory of what he’d experienced before. He hoped that whatever had caused it was over with. He had too many responsibilities as captain of Promise to worry over not having reported a potential problem.

  During the weeks that followed, two more trips to Earth were made. No pirates appeared and Terry received no more threats at League Headquarters; but he could sense growing hostility on the part of several officials he met there. Once the weapons training was finished except for regular target practice, he had more time free when on Maclairn, and week by week his love for the place increased, magnified by his exposure to the ever more depressing conditions on Earth.

  It wasn’t just that the physical surroundings were less crowded and dingy than on Earth and the pace of living less frantic. People on Maclairn knew how to genuinely enjoy themselves instead of rushing around to glittering bars, parties, and conferences where no real communication occurred during long hours of noisy, meaningless talk. As his telepathic sensitivity continued to grow, he became more aware of how much psi increased trust and understanding among them, in contract to the suspicion and lack of caring that was prevalent elsewhere.

  He and Kathryn continued to live in Jessica’s house; it wasn’t worthwhile to get a place of their own when they were away so much of the time. In any case small homes were rare on Maclairn; generations ordinarily lived together until there were enough young children to require more space. It was almost unheard of for a woman Kathryn’s age not to have children, whether or not she had a lifemate. For some years after the colony’s founding increasing the population had been essential, and though families were smaller now, the tie between mother and child was still viewed as supremely important.

  This, Kathryn had explained, was because of the unconscious telepathic bonding of unborn babies with their mothers, which Maclairnans, unlike people elsewhere, were aware of and considered the primary factor in a child’s development—far more significant than genetic parentage. For this reason, and because in the first generation even women without male partners or too old to conceive naturally had borne babies via IVF, under the colony’s law children belonged exclusively to their birth-mother. Neither the genetic mother nor the father had any legal responsibility for them; if the father was living with the birth-mother he normally had the same relationship with the children as he would elsewhere, but if a couple split up he had no right to custody. Nor did he have any financial obligation. All children, being vital to the colony’s survival, were supported by taxes and free childcare assistance was provided by the community.

  One night, as they cuddled among cushions piled on the thick floor mattress that dominated their room, Kathryn said, “Terry . . . what would you think about starting a family?”

  “Do you want kids?” he asked. “Wouldn’t it interfere with the trips we’ve got to make?”

  “Not really. We’re here half the time, and friends would look after them while we’re gone—Maclairnan kids, even babies, are usually raised by more people than their parents. I might have to miss a few trips at the beginning, but my aunt would be willing to take my place. She loved Maclairn when she was here. We’d be short a stateroom, so we’d have to go back to carrying just two observer couples on those trips, but I don’t think Granddad would mind.”

  A family. It was something he’d never considered, but the more he thought about it the more he liked the idea. It would mean truly belonging to Maclairn, putting down roots. He was getting further and further away from his dream of exploring distant stars, he knew, but that dimmed beside the contentment he felt in his marriage and his command of Promise. He had everything he had ever wanted except a chance to discover new worlds; one more commitment would simply add to his happiness. “I’d like that, if you’re sure you want to take it on,” he told her.

  The next day they had their contraceptive implants removed by a Maclairnan healer, a simple process since they didn’t suffer from the pain of surgery and the scars of the incisions quickly faded. “I always expected to have children someday,” Kathryn admitted. “It’s a way of showing faith in the future, isn’t it? And the future is what our work here is all about.”

  Several more trips followed. There were now mentors in London and Tokyo in addition to those in Greater Boston, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, and New York; Kathryn’s duty as courier between them and Maclairn required constant travel. Terry accompanied her, but they realized that as the number of locations grew, they would need to split the job. When it became impossible to visit all the mentors on every trip, there would have to be collection points for hand-carried data bracelets.

  By this time Terry had stopped worrying about the pirate attack that hadn’t come. Apparently the opponents of Maclairn were not unscrupulous enough to resort to actual violence, or perhaps they had realized that it would be useless when the threat of it hadn’t worked. Arthur and all the couples he had recruited were firm in their determination not to be put off by danger. “What we’re trying to achieve is worth sacrifice,” he declared. “No advance in human capability, from the discovery of fire onward, has been made without it. People have always been willing to accept risk as the price of progress.”

  When the danger did materialize, it wasn’t the armed attack they had expected. They had just emerged after the jump from New Tahiti and were three days out from Earth, near the orbit of Jupiter but on the opposite side of the sun, when the long-range comm speaker came alive. “Mayday, mayday! Any ship in range, this is HS Starhawk, inbound from Centauri. We are disabled and request aid, over.”

  Amir was alone on the bridge when the call came in, and he paged Terry. “Shall I respond?” he asked. “A Fleet ship would be better equipped to help them, but there may not be one around.”

  Terry frowned. “We’re legally required to respond whether or not we
can help,” he said. “But we’ve got to be careful. A fake distress call is the oldest pirate trick in the book.”

  “I thought the pirates would attack us in the New Tahiti system.”

  “So did I. Here, there’s a greater risk of a Fleet ship reaching them first, unless they have inside information about ops scheduling. It’s likely that they do, and that they’ve been tracking us so they could jump almost simultaneously and emerge nearby.”

  He picked up the mike. “Starhawk, this is HS Promise. What is the nature of your emergency?”

  “Promise, thank God you’re in range! Our pilot has had a heart attack and is unconscious. We had no one aboard who could set our course as we came out of hyperspace. We need astrogation and medical assistance.” It was a woman’s voice.

  “Starhawk, what is your present position?”

  The woman stated it, and it was close. “Too close for coincidence,” Amir said in a low voice. “Can’t we just outrun them? They won’t fire on us from a distance; a pirate wants to seize, not to destroy.”

  “We have no real evidence that they’re not what they say they are, and if they’re really in trouble we’d lose our license if we failed to go to their aid,” Terry said. “That may even be part of the plan—if the Foundation was denied a starship license, it would end contact with Maclairn. I wouldn’t put it past them to fake a medical emergency with drugs.” To Starhawk he said, “How many persons have you aboard?”

  “Three men besides the pilot and myself. We can rendezvous,” the woman added. “I am a qualified shuttle pilot though I haven’t flown interplanetary ships.” It wasn’t an unlikely story; Amir had been in the same position until a short while ago.

  “I’ll bet they’ve got plenty of rendezvous experience,” muttered Drew.