"As I’ve said, its crew had no choice. I knew about them and for their existence to become known to anyone else would—still would—do great harm I’m not free to describe to you, harm not to them but to Earth’s society. They couldn’t allow that to happen, yet they weren’t willing to kill me; so they brought me here to Ciencia from which no one has ever escaped. I never saw Maclairn or Kathryn again.”
Alison said sadly, “That’s more tragic than anything I imagined—for you to suffer for having tried to protect your world.”
“I spent a lot of time cursing fate for the unfairness of it,” Terry agreed. “It wasn’t just that I’d lost everything I cared about—the worst was thinking I could never serve the cause I was pledged to. It was hell being stuck here instead of taking action to support Maclairn’s effort to win acceptance of new mind-powers.”
“But Terry,” she protested, “you did take action. That’s what the whole Estelan conspiracy is about. You risked yourself for years to give such ideas a foothold here, and it’s only because you inspired people to read and to talk about them that we have hope of changing Ciencia’s laws.”
“Yes, I know that now,” Terry said. “But at the time I didn’t look at it that way. Leading the conspiracy was just a way of keeping occupied when I was barred from my real aims.”
“If you thought there was no more to it, you were wrong,” Jon declared. “You were dedicated to spreading subversive ideas right from the start—you lit up like a landing beacon when you talked about them. I always wondered where you got the energy and the nerve to take the risks you did.”
“Well, for awhile I felt I had nothing to lose,” Terry confessed. “Getting back to what happened aboard Venture, the two men who’d chartered it gave me coordinates of the star they were heading for, the one the captain had said didn’t have inhabited planets. And I thought maybe I was dreaming the whole crazy episode, that I might be still in prison, drugged so that I couldn’t tell fantasy from reality. Because the star they told me to go to was Maclairn’s star.”
“But that’s incredible!” Alison burst out. “It couldn’t be coincidence, and yet if Quaid hated you, why would he send you where you wanted to go?”
“That wasn’t what he had in mind,” Terry said bitterly. “There’s no way he could have known I’d come from there, or even that I was aware that it existed. I was just a tool in a scheme I didn’t suspect at that point. What I found hard to believe was that I’d come into contact with men who knew that star’s location, which was top secret—I knew it myself only because I’d been captain of Promise. It all seemed surreal, and if I hadn’t been so overcome by the prospect of going home, of maybe seeing Kathryn, I would have tried harder to figure it out. It wasn’t till after I’d jumped, when we were halfway through the approach in normal space, that it dawned on me that I was breaking my oath of secrecy by taking strangers there.”
“They must already have known about the colony if they were headed for it,” Alison pointed out.
“Yes, when I finally thought it through, I realized that Maclairn’s enemies in the League government had access to files that contained its coordinates. We’d feared all along that they might send spies; that was the main reason Fleet was patrolling the solar system to turn ships away. I knew I should have jumped somewhere else even if they threatened to kill me. But it was too late to do that, and besides, there were only two men and I thought they couldn’t be carrying anything more dangerous than sidearms. Fleet would detain them, and I decided it was just as well I was in control of the ship instead of some other pilot, because I could disable the hyperdrive in case they tried to escape.”
Jon frowned. “Obviously you didn’t. If Fleet let the ship get away, won’t the spies or others like them find some way to go back?”
“They weren’t spies,” said Terry grimly. “They turned out to be terrorists. Do you remember once telling me that Ciencia’s racketeers export biochemical stuff useful only for warfare?”
“Oh, my God.”
“It’s a good thing you’d informed me. Because I kept feeling more and more that something was wrong, something a lot worse than spying, and telepathically I could sense evil in those men as well as fear. They were expecting death.
“And then my psi faculty kicked in, the kind that had alerted me to the strange ship’s presence long before, and I saw that beneath their clothes they were wearing vests full of vials. God only knows what was in them, but because Ciencian biochemists are more advanced than those anywhere else, I had to assume it was a nerve gas or virus that might wipe out the whole colony. All the pieces fit—League officials surely know Ciencia’s reputation, and I was sure Quaid would be happy to sell something like that if he was told about the Maclairnans’ mind-powers, even apart from what he must have been paid.”
Jon and Alison were silent, too horrified to comment.
“At first I tried to persuade myself that all I’d have to do was warn Fleet,” Terry went on. “Patrollers had already challenged us; we’d be taken into custody and even if I couldn’t prove my identity, I’d be on the surface of Maclairn. I’d be home. But it was too great a chance to take. The terrorists were shuttle pilots; they’d needed me only for the jump. They might kill me and elude Fleet—they might get to the surface briefly, and that would be long enough. They were on a suicide mission, after all. I was unarmed, and I hadn’t time to program a jump to another star. I did the only thing I could think of. I headed for a nearby asteroid, one I’d landed on in the past. And I crashed.”
“That’s understandable, considering the stress you were under,” Jon said. “Very few pilots could land successfully on a chunk of rock in a situation like that—I didn’t think starships could land at all.”
“Small ones can, in emergencies. It wasn’t from lack of skill, Jon. I crashed on purpose. It was the only way I could kill the terrorists and make sure whatever was in their vials stayed in space, where it was harmless.”
“But you might have been killed yourself!” Alison protested, “Or been stuck there with a damaged ship.”
“I expected to be. I didn’t think I’d live through it, and at that point I didn’t care.” Terry hesitated, for now he must fabricate. The ship had been totaled and he’d been mortally injured past any possibility of self-healing, but he could not say so, for he could not reveal that the Elders had rescued him.
“The hull cracked open and the two men were exposed to vacuum,” he said, “but the pressure seal on the bridge held, and the AI was operational. I was able to push the bodies out and get away. But my comm wasn’t functional and I’d ignored the patrollers’ hail when the ship was near Maclairn, so I was afraid they’d fire on me if I approached again. The only thing I could do was jump and hope I’d emerge from hyperspace close enough to the world I headed for to get there before my life support ran out.” Terry guessed that neither Jon nor Alison knew enough about interstellar jumps to doubt this story, unreasonable though it was. Nor did they know how recently he’d been taken out of prison, so they would assume his crash injuries had healed naturally.
“I had friends I knew would help me,” he continued, “friends who owed me because of something that happened in the past. I can’t say who or where they were—some of their ops are illegal, and you’ve no need to know the details. But they treated my injuries and repaired Venture. Since it had been in the possession of the dead terrorists and its original captain had been paid a charter fee high enough to cover its value, no one but me had any claim on it. So they hacked League records to give me a new ID and register the ship in my name as Estel.”
“That’s awesome—it almost makes me believe in fate,” Alison said.
“Fate has done stranger things in my life than give me a ship,” Terry said seriously, “Aldren, the mentor who began my mind training, said he’d seen in a dream that I had some extraordinary destiny, and it turned out to be true. Everything that’s ever happened to me led up to my saving Maclairn from the terrorists, star
ting with my being chosen by Fleet to go there. If I hadn’t become captain of Promise I wouldn’t have known enough about Maclairn’s enemies to understand the danger. If I hadn’t been pledged to defend Maclairn I wouldn’t have sought out the intruders who captured me, and if they hadn’t sent me to Ciencia—and made it impossible for me to leave—I wouldn’t have known about its misuse of biochemistry, nor would I have been in the right place at the right time to deal with the threat. In fact, if I hadn’t been caught trying to save Jon from prison I wouldn’t have been in Quaid’s hands.”
“It’s hard to believe it could all have been just chance,” Alison agreed. “To think how we grieved over your being stuck here—”
“And how sure I was that my usefulness to Maclairn was over.” Slowly, with deep feeling, Terry continued, “I’ve thought a lot about this. I almost died in that crash—at first I believed I was dying. Fate had brought me to the climax of a long sequence of events, and if that was my destiny my life should have ended there. Yet I’m still alive. I think there must be a purpose in it. I believe I’ve got a responsibility to go on working toward Maclairn’s goal.” It was the Elders’ goal too, he knew, and he owed his survival to them—but that was something he could never disclose.
“To help with what the Maclairnans are doing on Earth?” Jon asked.
“No, I can’t go to Earth because if I came into contact with the mentors there, they might sense the truth I’m bound to hide. For awhile, aboard Venture, I convinced myself I could keep it from them; but that was wishful thinking.”
“Then how can you work toward their goal?” Alison protested. “You couldn’t go on doing it here even if you wanted to, not when you’re an escaped convict. And if you become a smuggler you’ll have to stay out of sight.”
“Smuggling’s just a way of earning funds to live on and maintain the ship,” Terry said. “My real work will be to do whatever I can to achieve acceptance of psi and other advanced mind faculties on as many colony worlds as I can visit.”
“Well, I’m for that,” Alison assured him. “As Captain of Estel you’re already a symbol. We can spread belief in that symbol to other worlds.”
“Perhaps. But it means danger, and not only of arrest for smuggling. The opponents of psi must have grown strong and gained influence if they were able to recruit terrorists for a suicide mission. I’ll be targeted by Maclairn’s enemies if I go public, as I must. You need to understand that, both of you, before you commit yourselves to coming with me.”
“Count me in—I’ll be proud to go with you,” Jon declared. “I committed myself to your aims long ago.”
“So did I,” said Alison quietly. “We’ve been putting ourselves in danger here for years, haven’t we? I never felt my life had much meaning until I joined the conspiracy.”
“It won’t be just prison we’re risking,” Terry warned. “These people were willing to wipe out a whole colony to stop the spread of the ideas we’ll be promoting. They won’t hesitate to murder us if they get a chance.”
“Which is another reason we can’t go to Earth.”
“Yes, but the instigators are League officials, remember, and the League has a long reach. Unlike Ciencia, the other worlds aren’t isolated. They’re tied together by ansible as well as starship traffic, and word will get around. That’s great for circulating our message, but it will make us vulnerable wherever we go.”
“Then we’ll have to watch our backs,” Jon said. “I sure as hell won’t let another government’s threats rule me after escaping this one’s.”
They rose and Terry gripped Jon’s hand, then embraced Alison. He hadn’t doubted that they’d support him, but it was good to know that they shared his conviction. Perhaps, he thought uneasily, he shouldn’t be leading them into peril; yet his own choice had been made when he took command of Estel, and he couldn’t travel alone.
~ 6 ~
Terry spent the day tense with impatience, feeling, somewhat unreasonably, that every hour spent on preparation increased the risk of not getting away. He felt no real precognition about it; still, that was a form of psi he’d rarely experienced and had never been able to distinguish from telepathy, so he couldn’t count on it to warn him of impending trouble.
Jon went to arrange for delivery of his cargo and personal stuff, then to do a preflight check of Bonanza. Alison sorted through her belongings and Terry’s old ones, choosing the few they would be able to keep. She lacked bags to pack them in; since people on Ciencia had no place to go, most didn’t own any. “I might be able to find something we could use at the clinic,” she said, “if you don’t mind my going over there.”
“You’ll need to go anyway,” Terry said, “because we’ve got to take the neurofeedback gear with us.”
“Whatever for? We aren’t going to have therapy clients.”
“No, but someday, somehow, I might be able to get hold of the kind of brain sensors used on Maclairn. I know I could adapt the software if we had the right input, and then I could help you and others gain at least some of the abilities I was trained in.” They’d be taking a risk by making a stop at the clinic, he thought nervously, but the mind training was too important not to pursue.
So Alison went to the clinic—now closed for the weekend—to pack up the equipment, leaving Terry, who couldn’t venture out where he might be seen, to deal with the other stuff. Jon, he knew, would have duffel bags, as all spacers did, though much of what he owned was kept aboard Bonanza. Posing as miners, Terry and Alison would be expected to carry duffels, too, and Jon had agreed to stop and buy two new ones as well as a flight jacket for Alison. Lacking any other means of carrying the rest of their possessions, Terry rolled them in blankets. He could only hope that nobody would be watching when they had to transfer them to and from the van.
Jon arrived before Alison got back, and Terry immediately sensed that he was worried. “Is there a problem with the pickup?” he asked.
“No, it’s all set. But something else has come up. When I checked over the ship I found a glitch in the instrument panel and I had to call Gwen. The job won’t be finished till after the time our transport’s scheduled for.”
“Who’s Gwen?”
“Gweneth Morrell, my maintenance engineer—the best one I’ve ever had. She works for one of the big mining companies but does other jobs on the side.”
“Is she trustworthy?”
“I’d trust her with my life, as in fact I do every time I fly.”
“Sure, all pilots depend on reliable maintenance people. That’s not what I mean. If she’s still around when we arrive, will she keep quiet about anything unusual she notices?”
Jon frowned. “She will if I ask her to. She’s an avid Estelan; that’s how I met her. What worries me is that if she’s there this evening, she’ll be suspected after we disappear whether she knows anything or not. When Bonanza doesn’t return the police will question everyone connected with me. I’d expected Gwen could say she hadn’t seen me since last week.”
“And if they have cause to think she does know something, she’ll be arrested.” Terry had not stopped to consider the danger to Jon’s friends, especially those who were members of the conspiracy. The authorities overlooked his likely involvement as long as they were getting their sizable cut of his smuggling activity, but once that stopped, they might well track down his past associates.
“Jon,” he said reflectively, “we’ve been focused on getting away without giving any thought to what’s going to happen here after we’re gone. If Bonanza is found abandoned, it will be obvious that you left this solar system aboard a starship. Yet the racketeers’ stranglehold on interstellar trade, not to mention the government suppression of half humankind’s heritage, depends on the public’s belief that contact with starships is impossible. They’re not going to want it revealed that your ship was found empty. If the police discover it first they’ll probably destroy it in space, but if a mining crew does—”
“They’ll try to silence any
one who can attest to my having been aboard,” Jon agreed grimly. “And if it gets around that I was, they’ll go after my known friends to focus attention on my alleged criminal background. They might even learn who the current hackers are. God, Terry—I can’t be responsible for that! Much as I want to go with you—”
“If your ship was never found they could say you’d been lost in an accident,” Terry pointed out. “In fact they might believe it.”
“But as you said, a mining crew may bring Bonanza in.”
“Not if we destroy it ourselves instead of abandoning it.”
“I’d hate to do that, considering how I feel about that old ship, but you’re right. The catch is that I don’t see how I can get hold of enough extra mining explosives to pulverize it without arousing questions—certainly I can’t this afternoon, and you shouldn’t stay here any longer.”
“We don’t need explosives. Remember, Estel has a laser cannon.”
“Oh, my God. It could work—but what about Alison? How do we account for her disappearance?”
Terry had been wondering about that. Originally he’d assumed it wouldn’t matter after she was gone. But she, too, had known connections to the conspiracy, and her disappearing at the same time as Jon’s “accident” in space might seem too odd to be a coincidence.
“We need to change the plan,” he declared. “Alison should board the ship openly so it will be assumed that she died, too. It wouldn’t be illegal for you to hire her as a member of your crew, would it?”
“No, though it might seem strange when she hasn’t any similar work experience. Mining is hard physical labor.”
“That won’t matter after they think she’s dead. Even if they suspect she was trying to reach a starship, they can call it evidence that such attempts are ill-fated.”
The Rising Flame: Box Set: Defender of the Flame + Herald of the Flame Page 48