by Larry Niven
“Far out of our way,” Baedeker said. “Sigmund, it is past time that we return home. If planet-killers are on the way, every ship will be needed for evacuation.”
And where, Er’o wondered, does that leave my people? We start with no starships. He tried to reclaim the initiative. “But the survivors on that distant world may have much to tell us.”
“Let me check something.” Kirsten took a device from her pocket. Her fingers moved quickly over the touchpad. “As I thought. Baedeker, it’s safe to check this out before heading home. The planet-killers hit half a year or less before the enemy’s leading edge passes.”
“You cannot know that,” Baedeker challenged. “Yes, we saw one world just ahead of the vanguard that was already attacked. One instance proves nothing.”
Kirsten shook her head. “Turbulence models of the interstellar medium reveal how long ago each wave of ramscoops passed. To the first approximation, I assume all impacts eject similar amounts of vaporized crust. Then atmospheric models show when the impacter hit, estimated from the amount of dust that has since rained out. The answer isn’t exact, because volcanism must differ from world to world. Still, the regression has pretty high confidence bounds. Call it ninety-nine percent.”
Er’o marveled at the calculation Kirsten so casually offered. To have such a tool at one’s tubacle mouths! How much faster progress would come then. One more secret to discover—if they had the opportunity. “Sigmund, can we afford the time to visit this world?”
Sigmund tipped back his head, staring silently for a long while at nothing. “All right,” he finally said, “We’ll go see whoever is transmitting.”
22
Dizzy and confused, Thssthfok struggled into awareness. Curious—he was not hungry. How long had he slept? Not long, obviously.
By the cold-sleep pod’s chronometer, scarcely three Pakhome months.
Across the room, a red light flickered: his comm unit. A fiber-optic cable salvaged from his shuttle connected the comm to the cold-sleep reactivation circuit. When the Drar mastered primitive radios, it became possible to reach him safely during hibernation. Until now, no one ever had.
Wondering who dared, he put on his battle armor and checked his weapons. He ate a tree-of-life root before activating the intercom. “Who presumes to interrupt me?” he thundered.
“Koshbara, Your Excellency,” came the answer, tremulous. “Something unusual has happened.”
It had better be important. “Explain.”
“May I enter, Excellency?”
Sensors showed only one Dra, shivering, beyond the massive steel door. Thssthfok disarmed his defensive systems and slid aside the sturdy steel latch. He recognized Koshbara despite her lack of ceremonial garb. He pulled her inside by a slender limb and resealed the entrance. “What has occurred?”
“A . . . a vessel, Excellency.” She shivered, her vestigial wings rippling. “From the sky.”
A scout ship, Thssthfok guessed, surprised the last wave of evacuees had not already passed him. Looking for biomass, surely. Landed here, specifically, because this dirty, pathetic city was its world’s sole source of radio signals. Had he somehow pushed the Drar ahead only a little faster, a planet-buster, not a scout, would have come.
His own clan long gone, Thssthfok was, by definition, a threat to the newcomers. They would kill him without a second thought.
Unless he killed them first.
“You did well to awaken me,” Thssthfok said. “Go. Tell the emperor that the visitors are to be welcomed and my presence kept secret. And inform her that I will require the army.”
FLYING SQUIRRELS.
Sigmund had to shake his head. More than anything, the aliens he had come so far to meet looked like flying squirrels. Not that there weren’t differences. . ..
The creatures were hairless, skeletally thin, and walked upright. They were much larger than any earthly rodent, about five feet tall and—when they spread their arms—ten feet in wingspan. They had an extra arm in the middle of each wing. When they got down on all sixes and ran they were as fast as cheetahs. Hull sensors revealed that much of the sound they made was ultrasonic, well above the human audible range.
Local gravity was forty percent above New Terran standard; the atmosphere was thick as soup. With those great wings and gaunt builds, it was easy to picture them soaring among the local version of trees.
Don Quixote sat in an open field near this world’s only radio transmitters. Nearby, paddlewheel steamers, their pipes belching black smoke, plied a broad river. The boats, apart from their oddly bulbous, backward tilted smokestacks, looked like something Mark Twain might have piloted. Across the river stood a city like nothing Sigmund had ever seen, part adobe and stone, part steel and glass. Pyramids and turreted castles rubbed shoulders with squat offices and warehouses, a bit like nineteenth-century London and ancient Egypt brought together.
Outside Don Quixote’s main hatch waited a delegation of the natives, ornately garbed. They talked and gestured a lot, to the point that Jeeves made steady progress translating. The invitation to a palace came through clearly enough.
Eric paced outside the bridge. “Sigmund, Jeeves will learn the language faster once some of us go outside. Then we can point and gesture, too, and maybe teach them some English.”
From the pilot’s seat, Kirsten nodded. “We’re here to talk, Sigmund. Let’s do it.”
The natives seemed surprisingly calm. You would think a spaceship landed every day, setting aside that the planet was tidally locked to its sun so that this city experienced only day. But Sigmund knew Eric was right. They had come to talk.
Sigmund said, “All right, everyone, it’s time to meet the natives. For now we’ll stay near the ship, in range of the external stunners.” And in reach of every precaution he had been able to devise. “No excursions yet, not even to the palace.”
Kirsten stood. “Finally. I’ll get my—”
“No, you won’t,” Sigmund insisted. “You’re pilot and navigator, and we’re far from home. I’ll go with Eric. While I’m outside, you are in command.”
She sat, disappointment plain on her face.
“Baedeker,” Sigmund called. The Puppeteer was in his cabin. Cowering, no doubt.
“Yes, Sigmund?”
“Please come to the bridge. I need someone cautious at the weapons console.”
“How can we help?” a Gw’o sent from their tank. Sigmund recognized Er’ o’s voice.
“Keep watch through the external sensors,” Sigmund answered. “And stay put. We may need to leave fast. If so, it would be better that you all be in the tank.”
The Gw’oth had been valuable assets for the entire trip. Sigmund had no reason to believe they might try to capture this ship—and no confidence that they wouldn’t. If they meant to try, the ideal moment was when he and Eric went outside.
“Eric, meet me at the air lock,” Sigmund said. “No armor. We don’t want to look hostile.”
“I’m on my way.”
Sigmund had one stop to make first: his cabin, for a welder. Standing so that the corridor security camera saw only his back, Sigmund spot-welded shut the interior hatch from the main cargo hold. If the Gw’oth tried to come out, he would have some warning.
“Where are you?” Eric radioed impatiently.
“On my way,” Sigmund replied. Now I’ve taken every precaution I can think of.
THE CRAFT WAS OF AN UNFAMILIAR CONFIGURATION, larger than Thssthfok’s ruined shuttle, without visible exhausts. He had not seen it land; he inferred its nozzles were out of sight beneath. The absence of scorch marks puzzled him.
His handpicked team took up positions near the obvious air lock and made welcoming speeches. Finally the air lock opened and Thssthfok’s eyes bulged. Those two were no Pak!
“Now!” he radioed. Capture the ship!
The commandos flung off their cloaks, dropped to all sixes, and swarmed.
FINAGLE, THOSE THINGS WERE FAST!
The al
iens were halfway to the air lock before Sigmund’s mind even registered the holsters that had been concealed by billowy cloaks. “Back inside!” he shouted to Eric.
Too slow. Eric vanished from sight beneath a pile of the natives. More grabbed at Sigmund. They weighed next to nothing and he flung them off—only they swarmed even faster. The weapons remained holstered; the aliens wanted prisoners.
Why did Baedeker not open fire?
Two aliens hit Sigmund’s knees from behind. He toppled like a rag doll, glimpsing as he fell more of the rail-thin aliens at the controls at the inner hatch. The safety override had intuitive controls illustrated with a bold graphic. Any child could understand it.
Or any industrial-age alien.
The inner hatch began to cycle. Now weapons appeared in alien hands.
“Launch, Kirsten!” Sigmund ordered. “Shake them off!”
The air, already thick, turned almost solid. He had stripped the crash couches of their emergency protective force-field generators. Within the air lock and for a short distance outside, they reasonably approximated a police restraint field.
Sigmund knew to lie still, and the field around him eased enough to allow him to breathe. “Don’t fight it,” he hissed to Eric.
The aliens panicked. The more they struggled, the more the field restricted them. Those distant enough to break free of the force field ran.
From the inner hatch, still opening, the frying-bacon sizzle of sonic stunners. Sigmund cautiously craned his neck to see Kirsten with a gun in each fist. She was methodically stunning every immobilized alien. Finally, the weapons turrets let loose, stunning anything that moved.
Best guess, thirty seconds had passed since the ambush.
The force field vanished. Sigmund struggled to his feet and helped Kirsten clear the air lock and pry stunned natives off Eric. Eric limped a bit and bled from lots of superficial cuts but made it into the ship under his own power.
Sigmund punched the emergency-close button. The hatch slammed shut. “I ordered you to take off!”
Kirsten shrugged. “Yes, but first you put me in charge.”
BOARDERS! WAVES OF ALIENS inrushing from nearby buildings. On the river, ships opening hatches in their sides to reveal large metal tubes. The ships were coming about, bringing to bear what must be weapons.
Baedeker’s heads whipped from display to display. “Take off!” he shrieked at Kirsten.
Instead she keyboarded feverishly at her console before standing. “You have the weapons console. Use it.” She dashed from the bridge.
This was madness! He must flee!
Even Sigmund agreed. “Launch, Kirsten! Shake them off!” But Kirsten was not here to obey.
Baedeker grabbed the copilot controls. They had been designed for hands and were awkward in his mouths. Nothing happened. “Jeeves!” Baedeker screamed. “Get us out of here! Shake off the intruders and close the air lock.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Baedeker,” the AI said calmly.
In the corridor, the sound of handheld stunners. They had to get away! “Why not?”
“Kirsten’s orders. Only human crew may fly the ship.”
Her last-minute typing. And in the tactical display, more aliens swarmed. A second wave of attackers.
Because they could not flee, the only option was to fight. Baedeker shook off the paralysis of fear. He put his mouths to the weapons console and began zapping anything nearby that moved.
On the river, out of range of Baedeker’s stunners, ships continued turning into firing position.
IMAGERY STREAMED OVER THE SHIPBOARD network into the Gw’oth habitat. Eric disappearing under a pile of aliens. Sigmund falling.
The primitive natives had sprung a trap.
The humans needed help, but the battle would have ended, for good or ill, before Er’o or his mates could even get into pressure suits.
Keep watch through the external sensors, Sigmund had directed. Very well. Er’o scanned the last few minutes in the sensor logs. There! A radio burst. Seconds later, the welcoming party attacked. More comm bursts and correlated maneuvering by troops and the forces on the river.
Someone commanded these attackers. Where?
Er’o had a rough bearing on the signal source, no more. The enemy headquarters could be almost anywhere in the native city.
Events were coming too fast for him—but maybe not too fast for Ol’t’ro. “We need to meld,” Er’o called. “Quickly.”
23
So close.
Thssthfok put from his mind what might have been. His troops—the empire’s finest commandos—had failed to seize the spaceship.
The strangers’ vessel had yet to emit any recognizable long-range signal. If they could be destroyed quickly, perhaps no others would come. He might be left unmolested here to complete his fleet.
The aliens had broken free of the Drar and retreated into their ship. They would do something soon, whether lashing out with more destructive shipboard weapons or taking off. The reaction engines Thssthfok had yet to see could easily put the whole city to flame—with him deep in the urban center.
To the infantry reserves, he radioed, “Break into that ship or face the emperor’s wrath.” To the engineering squads, he ordered, “Deploy at bow, rear, and cargo hatch.” The engineers ran toward the spaceship dragging long iron tubes filled with primitive explosives. And to the naval artillery, he commanded, “Prepare to open fire.”
The foot soldiers were as good as dead, but their charge might divert attention from the more serious attacks.
BY SCANT SECONDS SIGMUND BEAT Kirsten to the bridge. Baedeker took one look at their grim faces and ran.
“I’m surprised he didn’t fly away and strand us,” Sigmund said.
“I didn’t leave him that option,” Kirsten answered cryptically. She switched on the intercom even as she dropped into her crash couch. “All hands, takeoff in five seconds.”
Sigmund grabbed the weapons joysticks, sticky with Puppeteer saliva, and blasted all around. Better to be stunned at a safe distance than crushed by the fringes of the thruster field when Don Quixote lifted. Despite everything, he wished the flying squirrels no harm. They obviously had met the enemy, too. He respected their self-control, if not the trap they had set.
“Anytime, Kirsten,” he said.
Blam! An explosion at the bow rocked the ship. The hull, unharmed, rang like a gong. The concussion threw Sigmund and Kirsten from their seats. A second later, from the stern: blam! A third explosion toppled Sigmund as he tried to regain his feet. The emergency protective field generators that should have held them in their crash couches were still installed at the air lock. The hull was nearly impregnable. The crew wasn’t.
“Jeeves,” Kirsten called—hissed?—from the floor. (Sigmund craned his neck at something in her voice. Her left arm flopped at her side. Dislocated, he thought.) “Jeeves. Take us up to one hundred feet.”
The ship lurched and slewed: another explosion just as they lifted off.
“Sigmund,” came a call over the intercom. Er’o. “I’ve been watching external sensors. We need to get away from those gunboats.”
Sigmund helped Kirsten up before settling into his seat. In his tactical display, the river fleet had come about. Hundreds of cannon pointed this way. Artillery crews worked feverishly to raise their aim.
“Evasive maneuvers, Jeeves,” Er’o shouted.
“I am afraid I can’t—” Jeeves began.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
Sigmund wasn’t much of a pilot, but anything beat being a stationary target. He took the controls and Don Quixote darted toward the crowded wharfs. A cool corner of his mind analyzed Er’ o’s practical advice, one more suggestion that Gw’oth city-states sometimes warred.
The ragged broadside volley passed where Don Quixote had just been. A dense cloud of smoke all but hid the riverboats.
Sigmund put Don Quixote into a steep climb. The tanjed squirrels couldn’t possibly shoot very high, not with
only chemical explosives. Something crude like gunpowder, he surmised from the thick smoke.
“Sigmund,” Er’o called. “Go down within range for a bit. Pretend we’re damaged. I want to see something.”
A cannonball strike or two, if it came to that, wouldn’t hurt anything, and the Gw’oth had been pretty perceptive so far. Sigmund sent his ship into a shallow dive.
“Come to bearing 225,” Er’o said. “Good. Now turn to 112.”
The riverboats could not turn fast enough to use their main batteries again, but a few boats fired off rounds from their bow guns. Compared to space junk, cannonballs were trivial to track and destroy. Nothing made it through to Don Quixote.
“Got you!” Er’o shouted.
RADIO BURSTS CAME MORE and more frequently: from the riverboats, the clusters of ground troops, and the city. The messages meant little to Ol’t’ro, but the signals themselves . . .
Ol’t’ro ignored the messages from the battlefield—those would be reports, or pleas for reinforcement, or excuses—to concentrate on comm to the warriors. Those messages might reveal who commanded the attack.
Don Quixote’s zigzag course did more than evade the primitive projectile weapons. Ol’t’ro now had three separate bearings on the source, from deep within the city, of the radio bursts. The bearings intersected at an imposing stone edifice near several pyramids. The rooftop antenna, now that Ol’t’ro knew where to direct a telescope, was decidedly out of place.
Each of Don Quixote’s sensors told a story. What tale would they tell speaking together?
Ol’t’ro decoupled tubacles, one for each external sensor. Data from across the spectrum streamed into their consciousness, but not without cost—all those dropped inter-mind connections slowed and muddled their thoughts. It was only with great concentration that Ol’t’ro rescaled, aligned, superimposed, and synthesized all the imagery. He directed Jeeves to alter the ship’s scanning patterns.