Miles, Mutants, and Microbes

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Van Atta swore into the com one last time, then dealt the OFF key an angry blow. He had run out of fresh invective hours before, and was conscious of repeating himself. He turned from the comconsole and glowered around the security shuttle's control compartment.

  The pilot and co-pilot, up front, were busy about their work. Bannerji, commanding the force, and Dr. Yei—and how had she inserted herself into this expedition, anyway?—were strapped to their acceleration couches, Yei in the engineer's seat, Bannerji holding down the weapons console across the aisle from Van Atta.

  "That's it, then," snapped Van Atta. "Are we in range for the lasers yet?"

  Bannerji checked a readout. "Not quite."

  "Please," said Dr. Yei, "let me try to talk to them just once more—"

  "If they're half as sick of the sound of your voice as I am, they're not going to answer," growled Van Atta. "You've spent hours talking to them. Face it—they're not listening any more, Yei. So much for psychology."

  The security sergeant, Fors, stuck his head through from the rear compartment where he rode with his twenty-six fellow GalacTech guards. "What's the word, Captain Bannerji? Should we suit up for boarding yet?"

  Bannerji quirked an eyebrow at Van Atta. "Well, Mr. Van Atta? Which plan is it to be? It appears we're going to have to cross off all the scenarios that started with their surrendering."

  "You got that shit straight." Van Atta brooded at the com, which emitted only a gray empty hiss on its vid. "As soon as we're in range, start firing on 'em, then. Disable the Necklin rod arms first, then the normal space thrusters if you can. Then we blast a hole in the side, march in, and mop up."

  Sergeant Fors cleared his throat. "You did say there were a thousand of those mutants aboard, didn't you, Mr. Van Atta? What about the plan of skipping the boarding part and just taking the whole vessel in tow, back to wherever you want it? Aren't the odds a little, um, lopsided for boarding?"

  "Complain to Chalopin, she's the one who balked at drafting help from outside Security proper. But the odds aren't what they appear. The quaddies are creampuffs. Half of them are children under twelve, for God's sake. Just go in, and stun anything that moves. How many five-year-old girls do you figure you're equal to, Fors?"

  "I don't know, sir," Fors blinked. "I never pictured myself fighting five-year-old girls."

  Bannerji drummed his fingers on his weapons console and glanced at Yei. "Is that girl with the baby aboard, the ones I almost shot that day in the warehouse, Dr. Yei?"

  "Claire? Yes," she replied levelly.

  "Ah." Bannerji glanced away from her intent gaze, and shifted in his seat.

  "Let's hope your aim is better this time, Bannerji," said Van Atta.

  Bannerji rotated a computer schematic of a superjumper in his vid, running calculations. "You realize," he said slowly, "that the real event is going to have some uncontrolled factors—the probability is good that we're going to end up punching some extra holes in the inhabited modules while we're going for the Necklin rods."

  "That's all right," said Van Atta. Bannerji's lips screwed up doubtfully. "Look, Bannerji," added Van Atta impatiently, "the quaddies are—ah, have made themselves expendable by turning criminal. It's no different than shooting a thief fleeing from any other kind of robbery or break-in. Besides, you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."

  Dr. Yei ran her hands hard over her face. "Lord Krishna," she groaned. She favored Van Atta with a tight, peculiar smile. "I've been wondering when you were going to say that. I should have put a side bet on it—run a pool—"

  Van Atta bristled defensively. "If you had done your job right," he returned no less tightly, "we wouldn't be here now breaking eggs. We could have boiled them in their shells back on Rodeo at the very least. A fact I intend to point out to management later, believe me. But I don't have to argue with you any more. For everything I intend to do, I have a proper authorization."

  "Which you have not shown to me."

  "Chalopin and Captain Bannerji saw it. If I have my way you'll get a termination out of this, Yei."

  She said nothing, but acknowledged the threat with a brief ironic tilt of her head. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, apparently silenced at last. Thank God, Van Atta added to himself.

  "Get suited up, Fors," he told the security sergeant.

  Nav and Com in the D-620 was a crowded chamber. Ti ruled from his control chair, enthroned beneath his headset; Silver manned the com; and Leo—held down the post of chief engineer, he supposed. The chain of command became rather blurred at this point. Perhaps his title ought to be Official Ship's Worrier. His guts churned and his throat tightened as all lines of action approached their intersection at the point of no return.

  "The security shuttle has stopped broadcasting," Silver reported.

  "That's a relief," said Ti. "You can turn the sound back up, now."

  "Not a relief," denied Leo. "If they've stopped talking, they may be getting ready to open fire." And it was too late, too close to jump point to put a beam welder and crew Outside to fire back.

  Ti's mouth twisted in dismay. He closed his eyes; the D-620 seemed to tilt, lumbering under acceleration. "We're almost in position to jump," he said.

  Leo eyed a monitor. "They're almost in range to fire." He paused a moment, then added, "They are in range to fire."

  Ti made a squeaking noise, and pulled his headset down. "Powering-up the Necklin field—"

  "Gently," yelped Leo. "My vortex mirror—"

  Silver's hand sought Leo's. He was overwhelmed by a desire to apologize, to Silver, to the quaddies, to God, he didn't know who. I got you into this . . . I'm sorry . . .

  "If you open a channel, Silver," said Leo desperately, his head swimming in panic—all those children—"We could still surrender."

  "Never," said Silver. Her grip tightened on his hand, and her blue eyes met his. "And I choose for all, not just for myself. We go."

  Leo ground his teeth, and nodded shortly. The seconds thudded in his brain, syncopated with the hammering of his heart. The security shuttle grew in the monitor.

  "Why don't they fire now?" asked Silver.

  "Fire," ordered Van Atta.

  Bannerji's bright computer schematics drew toward alignment, numbers flickering, lights converging. Dr. Yei, Van Atta noticed, was no longer in her seat. Probably hiding out in the toilet chamber. This dose of real life and real consequences was doubtless too much for her. Just like one of those wimp politicians, Van Atta thought scathingly, who talks people into disaster and disappears when the shooting starts. . . .

  "Fire now," he repeated to Bannerji, as the computer blinked readiness, locked onto its target.

  Bannerji's hand moved toward the firing switch, hesitated. "Do you have a work order for this?" he asked suddenly.

  "Do I have a what?" said Van Atta.

  "A work order. It occurs to me that, technically, this could be considered an act of hazardous waste disposal. It takes a work order signed by the originator of the request—that's you—my supervisor—that's Administrator Chalopin—and the company Hazardous Waste Management Officer."

  "Chalopin has turned you over to me. That makes it official, mister!"

  "But not complete. The Hazardous Waste Management Officer is Laurie Gompf, and she's back on Rodeo. You don't have her authorization. The work order is incomplete. Sorry, sir." Bannerji vacated the weapons console and plunked himself down in the empty engineer's seat, crossing his arms. "It's as much as my job is worth to complete an act of hazardous waste disposal without a proper order. The Environmental Impact Assessment has to be attached, too."

  "This is mutiny!" yelled Van Atta.

  "No, it isn't," Bannerji disagreed cordially. "This isn't the military."

  Van Atta glared red-faced at Bannerji, who studied his fingernails. With an oath, Van Atta flung himself into the weapons console seat and reset the aim. He might have known—anything you wanted done right you had to do yourself—he hesitated, the eng
ineering parameters of the D-class superjumpers racing through his mind. Where on that complex structure might a hit not merely disable the rods, but cause the main thrusters to blow entirely?

  Cremation, indeed. And the deaths of the four or five downsiders aboard could, at need, be blamed on Bannerji—I did my best, ma'am—if he'd done his job as I'd first requested . . .

  The schematic spun in the vid display. There must be a point in the structure—yes. There and there. If he could knock out both that control nexus and those coolant lines, he could start an uncontrolled reaction that would result in—promotion, probably, after the dust had settled. Apmad would kiss him. Just like a heroic doctor, single-handedly stopping a plague of genetic abomination from spreading across the galaxy . . .

  The target schematic pulled toward alignment again. Van Atta's sweating palm closed around the firing switch. In a moment—just a moment—

  "What are you doing with that, Dr. Yei?" asked Bannerji's voice, startled.

  "Applying psychology."

  The back of Van Atta's head seemed to explode with a sickening crack. He pitched forward, cutting his chin on the console, bumping the keypads, turning his firing program to confetti-colored hash in the vid. He saw stars inside the shuttle, blurring purple and green spots—gasping, he straightened back up.

  "Dr. Yei," Bannerji objected, "if you're trying to knock a man out you've got to hit him a lot harder than that."

  Yei recoiled fearfully as Van Atta surged up out of his seat. "I didn't want to risk killing him. . . ."

  "Why not?" muttered Bannerji under his breath.

  Furiously, Van Atta's hands closed around Yei's wrist. He yanked the metal wrench from her grasp. "You can't do anything right, can you?" he snarled.

  She was gasping and weeping. Fors, space-suited but still minus his helmet, stuck his head through again from the rear compartment. "What the hell is going on up here?"

  Van Atta shoved Yei toward him. Bannerji, squirming uncomfortably in his seat, was clearly not to be trusted. "Hold onto this crazy bitch. She just tried to kill me with a wrench."

  "Oh? She told me she needed it to adjust a seat attitude," remarked Fors. "Or—did she say 'seat'?" But he held Yei's arms. Her struggle, as ever, was weak and futile.

  With a hiss, Van Atta heaved himself back into the weapons console seat and called up the targeting program again. He reset it, and switched on the view from the exterior scanners. The D-620–Habitat configuration stood out vividly in the vid, the cold and distant sunlight silver-gilding its structure. The schematics converged, caging it.

  The D-620 wavered, rotated, and vanished.

  The lasers fired, lances of light striking into empty space.

  Van Atta howled, beating his fists on the console, blood droplets flicking from his chin. "They got out. They got out. They got out—"

  Yei giggled.

  Leo hung limply in his seat restraints, laughter bubbling in his throat. "We made it!"

  Ti swung his headset up and sat no less limply, his face white and lined—jumps drained pilots. Leo felt as if he'd just been twisted inside out himself, squeaking, but the nausea passed quickly.

  "Your mirror was in spec, Leo," Ti said faintly.

  "Yes. I'd been afraid it might explode, during the stresses of the jump."

  Ti eyed him indignantly. "That's not what you said. I thought you were the hot-shot testing engineer."

  "Look, I'd never made one of those things before," Leo protested. "You never know. You only make the best possible guesses." He sat up, trying to gather his scattered wits. "We're here. We made it. But what's going on Outside, was there any damage to the Habitat—Silver, see what you can get on the com."

  She too was pale. "My goodness," she blinked. "So that was a jump. Sort of like six hours of Dr. Yei's truth serum all squeezed into a second. Ugh. Are we going to be doing this a lot?"

  "I certainly hope so," said Leo. He unstrapped himself and floated over to assist her.

  Space around the wormhole was empty and serene—Leo's secret paranoid vision of jumping into waiting military fire was not to be, he noted gladly. But wait, a ship was approaching them—not a commercial vessel, something dangerous and official-looking. . . .

  "It's some sort of police ship from Orient IV," Silver guessed. "Are we in trouble?"

  "Undoubtedly," Dr. Minchenko's voice cut in as he floated into Nav and Com. "GalacTech will certainly not take this lying down. You will do us all a favor, Graf, if you let me do the talking just now." He elbowed both Silver and Leo aside, taking over the com. "The Minister of Health of Orient IV happens to be a professional colleague of mine. While his is not a position of great political power, it is a channel of communication to the highest levels of government. If I can get through to him we will be in a much better position than if we try to deal with some low level police sergeant, or worse, military officer." Minchenko's eyes glinted. "There is no love lost between GalacTech and Orient IV at the moment. Whatever GalacTech's charges, we can counter—tax fraud—oh, the possibilities. . . ."

  "What do we do while you're talking?" asked Ti.

  "Keep boosting," advised Minchenko.

  "It's not over, is it?" Silver said quietly to Leo, as they floated out of Minchenko's way. "Somehow, I thought our troubles would be over if only we could get away from Mr. Van Atta."

  Leo shook his head. A jubilant grin still kept crooking up the corner of his mouth. He took one of her upper hands. "Our troubles would have been over if Brucie-baby had scored a hit. Or if the vortex mirror had blown up in the middle of the jump, or if—don't be afraid of troubles, Silver. They're a sign of life. We'll deal with them together—tomorrow."

  She breathed a long sigh, the tension draining from her face, her body, her arms. An answering smile at last lighted her eyes, making them bright like stars. She turned her face expectantly toward his.

  He found himself grinning quite foolishly, for a man pushing forty. He tried to twitch his face into more dignified lines. There was a pause.

  "Leo," said Silver in a tone of sudden insight, "are you shy?"

  "Who, me?" said Leo.

  The blue stars squeezed for a moment into quite predatory glitters. She kissed him. Leo, indignant at her accusation, kissed her back more thoroughly. Now it was her turn to grin foolishly. A lifetime with the quaddies, Leo reflected, could be all right. . . .

  They turned their faces to the new sun.

  Labyrinth

  LABYRINTH

  Miles contemplated the image of the globe glowing above the vid plate, crossed his arms, and stifled queasiness. The planet of Jackson's Whole, glittering, wealthy, corrupt . . . Jacksonians claimed their corruption was entirely imported—if the galaxy were willing to pay for virtue what it paid for vice, the place would be a pilgrimage shrine. In Miles's view this seemed rather like debating which was superior, maggots or the rotten meat they fed off. Still, if Jackson's Whole didn't exist, the galaxy would probably have had to invent it. Its neighbors might feign horror, but they wouldn't permit the place to exist if they didn't find it a secretly useful interface with the sub-economy.

  The planet possessed a certain liveliness, anyway. Not as lively as a century or two back, to be sure, in its hijacker-base days. But its cutthroat criminal gangs had senesced into Syndicate monopolies, almost as structured and staid as little governments. An aristocracy, of sorts. Naturally. Miles wondered how much longer the major Houses would be able to fight off the creeping tide of integrity.

  House Dyne, detergent banking—launder your money on Jackson's Whole. House Fell, weapons deals with no questions asked. House Bharaputra, illegal genetics. Worse, House Ryoval, whose motto was "Dreams Made Flesh," surely the damndest—Miles used the adjective precisely—procurer in history. House Hargraves, the galactic fence, prim-faced middlemen for ransom deals—you had to give them credit, hostages exchanged through their good offices came back alive, mostly. And a dozen smaller syndicates, variously and shiftingly allied.

 
Even we find you useful. Miles touched the control and the vid image vanished. His lip curled in suppressed loathing, and he called up his ordnance inventory for one final check of his shopping list. A subtle shift in the vibrations of the ship around him told him they were matching orbits—the fast cruiser Ariel would be docking at Fell Station within the hour.

  His console was just extruding the completed data disk of weapons orders when his cabin door chimed, followed by an alto voice over its com, "Admiral Naismith?"