Eternity's End (16 page)

"But that was over a hundred years ago!"

"Yes—and there was near-civil-war here, afterward," Harriet said. "The war took a big toll, you know—in money, personnel, ships. There was a nasty dissident backlash. Coups, attempted coups, martial law. By the time things settled down, civil liberties were in the toilet along with a lot of other things. A few revolutionaries have worked for change over the years, but..." Harriet shrugged.

"Mom being one of those revolutionaries."

"In my younger years, dear. Back when I had fire," Harriet said. Morgan rolled her eyes. "But the upshot is, they
can
arrest you. So let's concentrate on keeping us out of jail—and alive."

"Which we will do how?"

Harriet looked pained, and frightened. "As your attorney, I have a hard time saying this—but you're not going to be able to clear your name from inside a prison cell. And I don't think
I
can do it without you, even if I stay out of jail myself. And—" she glanced at Peter "—the fact that they're being pressured to arrest you on so little evidence, in spite of the attack on you,
in spite of your having brought them a captured pirate ship
, suggests to me that—" she hesitated, clenching her teeth "—that we'd better get the hell off the planet at once. Right now. Before that warrant is issued."

Legroeder was stunned.

"At the moment, you'll be breaking your bail agreement, but you won't be fleeing arrest. This is probably our last chance to get away.
If
Peter can get us a ship."

"We'll know in a few minutes," said Peter.

"Have you heard from El'ken yet?" asked Legroeder.

Harriet shook her head.

"So we head there anyway? Because we're good at dropping in unannounced?"

"Something like that."

Legroeder sat back, staring up at the ceiling. Fleeing from bail would virtually guarantee he'd be finished at the RiggerGuild. But his career would be at an end anyway, if he couldn't prove his innocence—not just in the deaths of Jakus and McGinnis, but in the loss of
Ciudad de los Angeles
. "All right," he whispered. "I'll go get my bag."

Harriet glanced at her daughter. "Are you ready to go?"

"Whenever you are."

"I'll do what I can here, while you're gone," said Peter.

Vegas, gathering up the empty coffee cups, made a soft chuckling sound. But she did not look happy.

"Let's go, let's go!"
Legroeder heard, as he snapped his bag shut. He ran back into the house. Peter was at the living room window, peering out, a com-unit pressed to his ear. He turned to Legroeder. "Georgio says three patrol cars are on their way up the hill. We've got to go
now
."

Legroeder piled into Peter's flyer with Harriet and Morgan. Peter took the controls, and they lifted straight from Harriet's drive pad, with running lights dark. At the same time, two of his men climbed into a ground-car and roared off down the hill, in the direction of the approaching police. With a little luck, they'd be able to distract any pursuit.

Legroeder peered down from the flyer and saw flashing blue lights, just a few blocks from Harriet's house. The police had stopped the car with Peter's men. Legroeder flopped back in the passenger seat, breathing heavily.

Peter flew them directly to the southeastern edge of the spaceport, farthest from the main building. Piling out onto the tarmac, they got their first look at the ship they'd be traveling in. It was a small corporate-size craft, pretty old from the look of it. Peter had hired it from a company on Faber Eridani's largest moon—a company whose officers were looking for ways to generate some revenue from their expensive equipment. They probably weren't paying too much attention to what was going on at the Elmira spaceport, or with the spacing authorities or the local police. Legroeder wondered if Peter had mentioned that their passengers-to-be had an unfortunate tendency to bring trouble along with them.

A drizzling rain obscured the field. It was comforting to be surrounded by banks of mist in the midnight darkness, knowing that the police would be looking here soon. They hurried to the spacecraft and were greeted by the pilot, Conex, a dark-skinned Halcyon whose face, while humanoid, was extremely narrow, with an almost reptilian snout. Conex and Peter exchanged words and dataslips, before the Clendornan turned and said, "I'll be off, then. I'll learn what I can here. You be careful, yes?"

The Clendornan's eyes sparkled with light as Harriet thanked him. Then he glanced across the field, where the flashes of police flyers were piercing the night. "You'd better get going," he murmured. He hurried to his flyer and disappeared into the mist.

Conex escorted them through the entry portal and up to the passenger compartment. Once their bags were stowed, and everyone secured in their seats, Conex rejoined his copilot in the cockpit.

Five minutes later—an eternity—a tow descended and coupled to the ship. Flanked by the soft glow of the tow's Circadie space inductors, they accelerated up through the rain clouds and out into the star-flecked blackness of space.

Chapter 9

To the Asteroids

The trip out to the asteroid belt took three days from the time the tow released them on a fast outbound track. The sleeping compartments were scarcely larger than closets, so Legroeder, Harriet, and Morgan spent most of their time together in the cramped passenger compartment. Conex and his copilot Zan, also a Halcyon, kept to themselves most of the time, joining their passengers only at mealtime.

As a passenger on a spacecraft, Legroeder felt like a third leg. He kept wanting to go forward and help pilot the ship, never mind that they were simply traveling through normal-space and there was no rigging involved. Instead, he and the others pored over the data from McGinnis, absorbing details about the
Impris
investigation, and pondering the questions that McGinnis had never had a chance to answer. From time to time, they would go to the lounge's observation port and peer intently back at Faber Eridani, as if they might glimpse pursuit by the police, or by their unknown enemy.

After a time Legroeder, overwhelmed by the minutiae of the hundred-year-old investigation, simply sat and gazed out the port into the depths of space, his thoughts wandering among the stars. He found himself longing wistfully for a set of pearlgazers he had once owned, before they were stolen by his pirates captors: gems with psychogenerative powers that he had often used as a focus for meditation. Now, missing them, he began to lose himself in his memories... glimpses of lost friends, lost hopes and dreams...

"Penny for your thoughts, Legroeder."

He blinked and turned his head.

Morgan Mahoney had settled into the seat beside him. "You haven't moved a muscle in the last hour. I was afraid we were losing you." She peered at him for a moment, frowning. "I didn't mean to intrude."

"No—no, it's fine." It wasn't fine at all. But he would talk; he could do that.

"You're worried about your friend?"

He shrugged. "What am I
not
worried about?"

"I know what you mean. I've been wondering whether we'll get there before the authorities turn us around and haul us
all
in. I have to admit, I've never been on the run like this before. It scares me."

Legroeder rocked back and squinted up at the ceiling of the little lounge. It glittered. Now, who the hell would put
glitter
on their ceiling? "Yah," he murmured, thinking, When was I last
not
on the run?

A chime sounded, and the younger Mahoney got up to retrieve a fresh pot of tea from the galley. Returning with cups, she said to Legroeder, "I hope you don't mind my asking, but you know, I haven't heard much of anything about your life before."

"Before—?"

"The pirates. Where did you come from, how did you start rigging... what was your family like?"

Legroeder felt a sudden roaring in his ears. He closed his eyes, trying to shut it out.
Before the pirates
...

"I'm sorry—did I—I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry."

"No... no..." he whispered. Life before the pirates... eons ago. Another world. Another universe. At this moment, he couldn't begin to recapture it. Any of it. He felt as if he'd
had
no life before the pirates. Just the effort of reaching back into the fog made him dizzy. Claire Marie, where he was a child; then New Tarkus a little later. He had never really had a home planet as an adult, though for a while, Chaening's World came as close as any. Finally he managed, "Why would you want to hear about that?"

"Well... I guess to get to know you better," Morgan said, looking a little puzzled. She handed him a cup of tea. "Isn't that the usual reason?

Legroeder accepted the cup. "I guess so. But I don't recall your telling me anything about
you
. You know, before you met me."

"Oh." Morgan cleared her throat as she sat back down. "Well..."

"What's wrong? Did I say something wrong?"

Across the tiny lounge, Harriet looked faintly amused, as Morgan foundered for words. "Well, I don't know. There's not that much to say."

"Why? Because your life is too dull, or too interesting?"

Morgan blushed.

"Oh, just go ahead and tell him," Harriet said.

"About what?" Morgan snapped. "The failed marriage? Or the three different attempts at a career?"

"Listen," Legroeder said. "I didn't mean to start anything—"

"It's perfectly all right, Legroeder," said Harriet. "Morgan is just being hard on herself. She's had career troubles for perfectly good reasons, and I haven't noticed her giving up. As for the marriage—well, it's not as if she had a great role model." As Morgan glared protectively at her mother, Harriet shrugged. "Her father divorced me when she was seven. And for good cause. I was too preoccupied with my career—and, I am ashamed to admit, somewhat neglectful of my two children."

"Are we going to bring out all the dirty laundry now?"

"I'm sorry, dear. I don't mean to embarrass you. But you did open the subject."

"I did not. I just asked—"

"Look," Legroeder interrupted. "Would it help if we cut out all this feel-good history crap, and I just told you what it was like to be with pirates? That ought to bring everyone down to earth."

Harriet, startled, opened her mouth to answer. She was interrupted by a buzz from the intercom and Conex's voice:
"Mrs. Mahoney, we've received a message from Mr. El'ken, addressed to you. Would you like to come forward to view it?"

"Thank you, yes!" Harriet set her cup of tea on the sideboard. She rose and disappeared through the door to the bridge.

Legroeder sighed, glancing at Morgan.

"Don't mind my mom."

"I like your mother," Legroeder said. He looked toward the bridge, wondering what El'ken's reply was.

"Well, she has good taste in clients," Morgan said, busying herself with the pot of tea. "Sometimes, anyway. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I asked out of genuine curiosity. But if it's something you'd rather not talk about—"

"Which—my life before? Or the seven years in a raider stronghold?" Legroeder shrugged, as if the distinction were inconsequential. But there was a tension rising between his shoulders, and he knew that it was going to be a long time before he could talk about either. Strangely, he felt more inclined to discuss the pirates now. It was no worse than sitting here wondering how soon he would wind up in prison. "It was—"

"Difficult?"

He chuckled. "Yeah—it was difficult."

"That was stupid of me. What I meant was, when you had no freedom and your life was always being threatened, wasn't it hard to keep a sense of your own identity?"

"Well, yeah. I suppose the hardest thing was being forced to rig ships for them. Not so much when we were just flying transport. But when we were out prowling—" he shook his head, as if that might somehow keep the memories at bay "—when we went out to attack other ships, and we knew they were going to capture or kill innocent people..."

Morgan winced.

Legroeder shrugged, trying to ignore a buzzing in his head. "There was nothing we could do—we either flew where they said, or
we
would be killed, or brainwiped. And not just us—"

"What do you mean?"

"They always had hostages on the ships—and they wouldn't just kill
us
if we disobeyed, they would kill
them
, too. And it wasn't an empty threat."

Morgan was silent.

Legroeder frowned in thought. "Except for that one time. There was... one... occasion... when I actually managed to keep them from capturing a ship."

"
Really?
How?"

He wanted to laugh, but couldn't. "We were attacking a ship—and we made contact with the other rigger crew. And..." He had to struggle to keep his voice steady; the memory was rising with incredible power. It was about four years ago; the three riggers on the raider ship had cast an oversized net around their intended victim, and were drawing it in like a fishing net. Something in the other net struck him as oddly familiar, and he risked opening a private speech channel, disguising it as a dark crease of cloud billowing over the landscape. "I couldn't believe it. It was an old friend of mine, an old shipmate, flying the other ship! Along with some kind of alien, catlike thing."

Morgan's mouth dropped open.

Again, a half laugh rose in his throat. "His name was Gev Carlyle—one of the most innocent guys you ever met in your life. I mean, painfully innocent. When I
flew
with him, I had to watch out for him. A good rigger, but young—naive." He shook his head, pressing his lips together. "I'm not sure what came over me—but I just
couldn't
let them capture him... or kill him. I couldn't." Aboard the raider, a team of commandos was preparing to board the target, and another crew stood ready to blow it to pieces if it tried to escape or fight back.

Morgan's voice was husky. "What did you do?"

"I was scared. Real scared. But I had to hide that." His heart was pounding with the memory. "We were coming in—lights flashing in the Flux, drums crashing, boarding party ready to go. If you've never been under attack in the Flux, you can't imagine how terrifying that is. We were already grappling, net to net, drawing him in. But I was able to sabotage the net imagery... just enough. Made it seem like a fluctuation in the net." In fact, he'd been incredibly lucky. The only people who could
really
see what was happening were the riggers. He reshaped the image just enough: they already had the two ships enveloped in a flaring thunderstorm, and when an eruption of turbulence loosened their grip and clouded the image, it seemed almost natural...