by Judith Tarr
She’d been right: he was awake. His eyes rolled, but he held still. A bolt at that range, he knew probably better than she did, would fry his brain.
Rama’s chant never paused. The light in the room—compartment—bridge was changing. Growing brighter. A subtle hum rose out of the walls and floor, like a ship powering up.
Aisha thought she might want to be afraid. But she was too busy making sure Captain Bowen didn’t attack Rama.
The chant was winding down. The energies had shifted. All the giving had been coming from Rama. Now it flowed the other way. The ship was feeding him, healing him the way he’d been healing it.
That made Aisha happy in a deep and wordless way. It didn’t keep her from trying to watch Rama and the captain and the Corps agents and the ex-prisoners and the screens all at once.
The ship rocked underfoot. The screens went dark. Tubes and wires and cables snapped out of the floor and ceiling, dropping like the dead things they were.
Aisha sucked in a breath. Some of the ex-prisoners had fallen down. One or two had started screaming.
Rama was on his feet. He didn’t do anything obvious, but the screens came back on. They started off blurry, but they came into focus, sharper than before.
The ship stopped rocking, but the screaming went on. They were well above the fight now, and rising. Fighters buzzed and darted. One bolt came close enough to white out the screen on that side.
When the screen cleared again, the fighter that had fired the bolt was dropping. Spiraling down as if its engines had gone dead.
Rama spoke calmly, without raising his voice. “This engagement is over. Stand down. Or we will do it for you.”
The screens’ audio erupted in a torrent of voices. No one was firing, but they were closing in. Trying to surround the ship.
“Very well then,” Rama said.
They all went down at once. The voices escalated into a frantic babble.
The ship sang. One long, sustained note that reduced everything else to silence.
“It says,” said Rama in that silence, “that it will put you down gently. But you will not ride the air again until you learn sense.”
“Stand down.”
That voice came from inside the ship. It sounded distinctly strained, but the words were clear. “Stand down,” Captain Bowen said again. “That is an order. Abort mission. Stand down!”
“Thank you,” Rama said dryly. “Aisha, let him up.”
Aisha didn’t want to, at all, but she untied him. She kept her pistol up and aimed while he got stiffly to his feet. He towered over her.
Aisha refused to be intimidated. She set her pistol to kill, letting him see her do it, and sighted along her forearm: first up, at the throat, and then down at a much easier and more pointed angle.
He frowned at her. Not that she was threatening his hope of future generations; that didn’t seem to bother him at all.
He was trying to read her. Almost too late, Aisha remembered to take refuge in the sun.
“Captain,” Dr. Ma said.
Aisha had been to busy to notice that the ex-prisoners had come away from the wall. Dr. Ma stood in front of them, perfectly still, radiating cold fury.
She turned her glare from Captain Bowen to Rama. “And you, Meser. If you could possibly explain—”
“I probably can’t,” Rama said. “Nor am I especially inclined to try. Did it occur to you that what you were doing was torture? Either of you?”
Dr. Ma drew herself up. “We used only the most humane of methods. Most of them were experimental, and therefore somewhat rough or tentative, but we never intended—”
“The ship is alive,” Captain Bowen said, “but hardly sentient. Its pain sensors are rudimentary. The controls were wired to areas that were determined to be free of them. We did our utmost to—”
“You,” Rama said to Dr. Ma, cutting across the Captain’s words, “may excuse your arrogance with ignorance, but he—” His teeth clicked together; he looked ready to spit. “He should have known. Every psi in the system could hear the ship’s agony.”
“Every psi in the system could not,” Captain Bowen said, “because there was none. There was a little static when we installed the regulators, but—”
She didn’t think he was lying. The other psis, who were sitting on the floor holding their heads and trying not to moan, didn’t look likely to contradict him.
“Are you really that weak?” Aisha asked. Then bit her tongue.
Luckily nobody was listening. Rama hissed through his teeth. “You are all idiots. Fools and children. Get off this ship.”
“What?” Captain Bowen said. “You have no authority—”
“I have the ship,” Rama said with terrifying sweetness. “You have shuttles. Take them.”
“I will not—”
“I have very little patience,” Rama said, “and a very big ship.”
The floor rolled under them all. Rama’s smile was wide and bright.
Aisha watched Captain Bowen decide to get out now and deal with Rama later. He might have the ship—if he could actually control it, which the Captain doubted—but Captain Bowen had fifty thousand trained psis to call on.
Fools and children, Rama would call those. He kept his smile while the Corps agents picked each other up and made as dignified an exit as they could manage.
~~~
That left the ex-prisoners, clumping together and eyeing possible exits. All but Dr. Ma. “I may be an idiot,” she said, “but I am not leaving this ship. My life’s work is here.”
“Your work is done,” Rama said. “Your slave is freed. You have nothing left to do here.”
“But I do,” she said. “If you are telling the truth, this ship is far more than we ever imagined. If you can control it by other than mechanical means—if you have insights into it that we lacked the skills or knowledge to imagine—”
“Or else he’s lying.” Aisha recognized the tourist who had spoken earlier. He was modified and dressed and accessorized to look like an Old Earth adventurer from a particularly dire era, but his eyes didn’t look as if they missed much.
“I don’t think he is,” one of the others said. He was a scientist, according to his uniform: a middle-sized man, round-faced and innocuous to look at, but the glance he darted at Rama was wickedly intelligent. “Meser Rama. You’re all over the worldweb today. Grand theft transport, wanton destruction of historical relics, grand theft again—that’s impressive.”
“I suppose I should be impressed by your access to the feeds restricted to government and law enforcement,” Rama said. “Tell me why I should let any of you stay. The ship is leaving as soon as it may. I doubt it will be amenable to serving as your personal transport.”
“This is my work,” Dr. Ma repeated. “Wherever it goes.”
Most of her colleagues nodded—stiffly, and their eyes looked frankly scared, but they seemed to have made up their minds. The crew mostly did the same, and that surprised Aisha.
The man named Ulrich took off his antique helmet and wiped his forehead with an enormous handkerchief. “Really, we’re just passing through. If you’ll put us in the way of a transport to Beijing Nine, we’ll be most obliged.”
“Or anywhere else civilized and not at war,” said the woman with him. Her costume was less elaborate than his, but equally ancient. Aisha especially admired the furled lace parasol with the sharp and gleaming point. “You can make it a ransom demand if you like, when PlanSec comes down on you, which I estimate it will any moment now. Get us transport, get rid of us, then go wherever you’re minded to go.”
“Isabel,” Ulrich said, “I really don’t think it’s wise to—”
“It’s extremely wise,” said Rama. “There’s a shuttle in the bay that, I’m assured, will hold all of you. Take it and go.”
“We’ll need a pilot,” Isabel said, “and clearance. Not to mention—”
“The shuttle will take you to the port,” Rama said. “You, Professor—Robrecht,
is it? You know the way. Direct them, please.”
The round-faced man in blue smiled. He was having a grand time, and he wasn’t trying to hide it. “This way, sers and seras.”
Some of them actually ran behind him as he strode across the bay. One didn’t: Isabel, eyeing Rama narrowly. “You know where we want to go. What about you? Or don’t you know?”
“I come from the far side of time,” he answered, “and I go to the far ends of the worlds. The ship knows.”
She didn’t tell him he was insane. Oddly, Aisha didn’t think she thought it, either. “Good luck to you, then,” she said.
He bowed his head like the king he’d been, a very long time ago. “And to you,” he said.
38
“She’ll put you in a book,” Aisha said when the tourists and the odd few of the crew were gone. “The web’s in and out—mostly out—but she’s famous enough to come through. She writes books about adventures. Vids, too.”
“Pirate vids?” Rama asked.
“Probably.” Aisha started to say more, but Rama was starting to sway on his feet.
If he passed out now, he might not lose his connection with the ship, but the people still on it might decide to take him hostage.
That was a problem. Pirate kings had mobs of henchmen for a reason. If they needed to sleep, or pass out, there was always someone to man the tiller.
Someone who knew how to sail the ship. Aisha could feel the connection in her bones, but the ship wasn’t talking to her the way it did to Rama. She didn’t want it to, either. Those same bones knew they’d shake apart if it did.
She had to try to talk to it. Not aloud, where people could hear. She shaped the thoughts as clearly as she could.
Ship. He needs to rest, but we can’t trust the humans here. Or the ones outside, either. There’s no telling when he’ll be able to stop. Can you help?
The ship didn’t answer that she could tell, but Rama stopped swaying. He took a deep breath and stood a little straighter.
“You have quarters,” he said to Dr. Ma and the others. “I suggest you rest in them.”
“Not until we know what we’ll find when we wake,” Dr. Ma said.
“Sir,” one of the crew said before Rama could erupt. He was a big man who looked as if he’d spent a good part of his life outside on rough planets, but his expression was calm and his tone was mild. “It’s not just curiosity. You need a crew. If not to fly the ship, then to monitor the screens and, if it comes to that, repel boarders.”
“And I should trust you why?” Rama inquired.
“Because if we can’t be trusted,” the man answered, “we all die.”
Rama’s brows went up. “Your name, sir?”
“Kirkov,” the man said. “Supply officer. Second in Communications. Ship’s cook.” He paused. “You do eat, sir?”
“Occasionally,” Rama said. “May I encourage you to perform that office?”
“Of course,” Kirkov said. “So you’ll trust me. That’s good. Now the rest of them, they’re not going to turn on you, either, as long as you’re fair and as honest as you can stand to be. Robrecht who’s off getting rid of tourists served a term in Military Intelligence before he went sane and became a professor instead. Rinzen over there was our security officer, and pulled duty with Engineering when there was anything to engineer. Abikanile doesn’t say where she came from originally, but she can fix anything that’s fixable and most things that aren’t. As for Soonmi—”
“Soonmi can speak for herself,” said that individual, “and she wants you to know that she is insulted by your lack of trust. We may be trapped here by a war and a hijacking, but we are devoted to the cause of staying alive. We will do whatever it takes to get you, and us, and this ship, away from this planet and safe into space where we belong.”
Rama scanned all their faces, the ones that now had names attached and the ones that, Aisha was perfectly sure, he would have names for before the day was over. He was doing it for effect, mostly. She could tell. He’d made his mind up while Kirkov was still speaking.
“Very well,” he said finally. “I am going where I have to go. The ship agrees to go with me, because I ended its long pain, and because it believes it knows the way. It’s very far and may be very long. I ask none of you to follow me; I will ask you more than once to be wise and leave. But until we escape this world and this system, I accept your service.”
“None of us said anything about—” Dr. Ma began.
“Doctor,” Kirkov said surprisingly gently, “in your way, you did. Besides, you owe the ship, after what you did to it. Don’t you think it’s the least you can do?”
Her lips were tight and her eyes were angry, but she spread her hands. “Call it what you like. This is my ship. I will not leave it.”
“To your quarters, then,” Rama said. “You will know if you are needed.”
Oh, that was sharp. Dr. Ma thought so, too: Aisha suspected she might have done her best to kill him if she’d had a weapon within reach.
She turned on her heel instead and stalked out, followed by the rest of the scientists. The crew were already getting to work, figuring out the new configurations of the controls and the screens, or heading off to their stations elsewhere on the ship.
~~~
The war hadn’t stopped because they weren’t paying attention to it. Underneath the ship, according to the screens, the civilians who had been fighting on foot had managed to escape, and take their dead and wounded with them. The Corps had taken to the air.
The ship opened a channel to the web when Aisha asked. It had the buzz in the back teeth that said it was encrypted, but she didn’t mind that at all.
None of the public traffic had anything to say about a hijacked experimental ship or a battle between Psycorps and a hundred or so civilians. The security channels were full of buzz and crackle about the war—and an ultimatum. The non-psis had set a deadline. Either they got what they wanted, or they broke the planet.
There weren’t even two planetdays left. As far as Aisha could see, and she ran so many searches she made herself dizzy, nobody in the Corps was talking about surrender. They were chasing pirates offworld instead, and rounding up nons under cover of safety patrols, and tracking down and neutralizing what they called nulls.
It was more complicated than Aisha could keep straight in her head. She gave it to the ship, for what good that would do, in time to hear Robrecht say over the conn, “Shuttle’s loaded and secured. Are we sure we want to let it go?”
Everyone in the bay turned to stare at Rama. He spoke the way he would to any of them, but the person he was talking to was halfway back to the port by now.
“Captain Bowen. We’re releasing a shuttleful of noncombatants. May we ask that you vouch for their safety?”
One of the screens that had been dark came alive with a crackle and sputter. Aisha looked through it into the pilot’s compartment of a fighter, and Captain Bowen’s startled face. “What in the name of—”
“Captain,” Rama said. “You heard me. Will you place them under your protection?”
He’d sent a manifest underneath his words, a list of people who were on the shuttle. Captain Bowen scowled at some of the names on it. “I’ll vouch for them,” he said grudgingly.
“Good, then,” Rama said. “What is it your people say, Captain? Godspeed.”
Captain Bowen was obviously not amused, but whatever he’d been about to say, the ship—or Rama—cut off. The screen went dark.
“Robrecht,” Rama said, still in that calm and casual voice, “let them go.”
“Aye, sir,” Robrecht said on the comm.
The shuttle showed up on one of the side screens, emerging from a bay that Aisha didn’t remember seeing in the ship before she came inside. It dropped fast, then leveled out, turning in a wide arc until it aimed toward the port.
“Now,” said Rama, “we go. We’ll jump as soon as we clear this planet’s gravity well. If you have cradles, I suggest you find
them now.”
Aisha’s heart thudded. He and she didn’t even have quarters, let alone jump cradles. Maybe for him it wouldn’t matter, but for her it did.
She started to remind him of that, but before she could get the words out, the ship lurched. Screens flashed to life all over the bridge—she hadn’t known there were that many.
Black-winged fighters swarmed them on all sides. Something much bigger hovered above.
Command vessel. Military Intelligence, the web told Aisha, with Psycorps agents on board in force. Which told her which side of the war MI was really on.
She looked for some sign of Aunt Khalida, but she didn’t recognize any of the names on the ship’s manifest. The commanding officer’s name was Aviram. What little she had time to catch about who he was didn’t reassure her at all.
A voice crackled across the comm. “Command vessel Shad Iliya to Ra-Harakhte. Stand by for boarding. Stand by.”
“I think not,” Rama said.
“You are surrounded. We are armed. You are not. Stand by for boarding.”
“No,” said Rama. “Aisha. Lie down.”
The words didn’t make sense at first. Or after a minute or two, either. “What—”
“Lie down,” he said. “Now.”
Aisha obeyed slowly. It wasn’t her imagination: the floor was curving up to meet her. Taking the shape of a jump cradle.
All that kept Aisha from running screaming was the fact that there was nowhere to run to. No way she was heading for the Corps.
The floor was warm, not too soft and not too hard. The cradle that grew around her looked like an ordinary one, but didn’t smell like it. This smelled green, with an undertone of fresh dirt.
The only way to deal with it was to shut off the part of her that kept trying to make sense of it all, and just let it happen.
“Ra-Harakhte,” the Shad Iliya said. “On our signal, open aft port. We would prefer not to open it for you.”
“I would prefer not to obliterate you,” Rama said pleasantly. “Out of my way, if you please.”
“Stand by,” the MI ship repeated.
“No,” Rama said.