Fall of the White Ship Avatar (13 page)

She'd spent considerable time on Lebensraum, becoming a local legend some twenty years before, then dropped out of sight. By various accounts she'd died or left the planet or vanished into the vast Lebensraum wilderness.

"If we find her," Floyt said.

"We'll find her. Destiny and all that. How do I know? The causality harp told me so."

Partly due to Alacrity's high spirits at having such a strong lead on his Quest, but mostly because of the medicine Alacrity appropriated at Ends Well, Floyt didn't differ with him, though the Earther knew that Alacrity was wrong about the causality harp's affirmation of his destiny as Master of the White Ship.

There was a large container of stuff called neurogeneomicin. In small doses it was just the ticket to help counter their peripheral neuropathy. In larger doses it was highly addictive, the drug of choice among abuser medical personnel who could lay hands on it, and the addiction that led Alacrity's parents to tragedy. Among junkies its name was undertow.

Alacrity spent the odd contemplative moment looking at it, an incredible three liters, wondering what Marcus was doing with so much—a clear blivet full of it. But he kept his own and Floyt's dosages scrupulously to the prescribed microlevels.

In the presence of so much of the stuff that had contributed to the death of Alacrity's failed, despondent father—enough to O.D. a hardened addict hundreds of times over—Floyt held back his terrible news.

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Surely soon, with the therapy finished, there'd be some way to dispose of the stuff or render it unusable.

"No argument, Alacrity. We'll find her. But that information in Marcus's Whereabouts file was almost six months old. What if we pay the Lebensraum Company's landing fees only to find out that Hecate's gone on to better things?"

The Lebensraum Company was the chartered corporation—mining mostly, precious gems and metals—

that controlled the planet under the lackadaisacal Bali Hai Republic, which held sway over five local starsystems. According to files, the company wasn't very cordial to visitors, though under Bali Hai law it couldn't bar them. So it charged stiff landing and docking fees by way of discouraging outsiders.

"This is all the negotiable wealth we've got, and when it's gone we're flat," Floyt reminded Alacrity, holding up the garter Callisto had given him as a parting gift and grubstake.

We're not exactly fair maidens, but that doesn't mean we don't know how to treat the gallant rescuer
!

Alacrity made a meaningless bear-sound, whether because he hated being reminded of their money problems of because no one had lavished any such generosity on him, Floyt couldn't make out. He suspected it was both.

"All right, Ho. Maybe we can check, save ourselves throwing money away." Alacrity raised Lebensraum starport control on voice-only commo to avoid giving authorities a look at himself, Floyt, or the interior of the
Lightning Whelk.

"Can anybody down there tell me if the Hecate Thrillshow is still in town?"

There was a moment's silence from the ground; it wasn't speed-of-light lag and Alacrity knew it wasn't because they were busy, because Lebensraum's traffic was light. In fact, the arrival of a nonfreight starship should be a big occasion. Floyt swapped troubled looks with him.

"All right whoever you are," the response came. "Read me, we don't need troublemakers down here. If T

you have no business to conduct with the Lebensraum Company, I would suggest you keep moving."

Alacrity was thinking about what to say to that when another voice came up, a woman's. It was throaty and vibrant. "Outsystem ship, switch to common-use freq three!"

Starport control was still yelling about improper commo procedure as Alacrity searched through the data banks to find out which one was common-user freq three. Evidently a starship
was
an event, and people monitored when one showed up. Alacrity switched over.

"You bet your bum I'm still around," that same female voice proclaimed. "This is Hecate speaking, Queen Hellion of the Third Breath, Keeper of the Precursor Mysteries and Dirty-Fighting Champion of file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (64 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12

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Wherever I Happen to Be! Now bring up your visual; let me get a look at you."

"Not just now," Alacrity fended. "But we want to meet with you."

"Is that right? What are you, talent scouts? Promotors? Maybe Hecate hasn't got anytime to waste on you, mystery voice. Maybe you're just another company pest?"

Alacrity thought for a few seconds. Then he set his proteus into an adaptor in the control console and manipulated it. Eerie tonalities played out over the commo, troubling but lofty. They reminded Floyt somewhat of the sounds of the causality harp back in the Precursor site underneath Epiphany. They seemed to go right through him, and did strange things to his cerebrocortex. But it became melodic, and he lost track of time.

Alacrity retrieved his proteus, slipping it back on his wrist. "What d'you say to that, Hecate?" Floyt blinked, coming awake again.

She was slow in answering. "
Huh
! All right, come to my bigtop tonight; anybody can tell you the way to the Wicked Wickiup. You can see Hecate in action, and my show's
worth
a star-hop. Afterward we can have a chat."

The contact broke.

"Alacrity, what were those sounds?"

Alacrity was rubbing fingertips on his proteus. "Precursor music, I think you could call it. I got it from my folks. If Hecate knows what it is, she'd be the real item, except that I'm not so sure she knew. Only a few people have ever heard that recording."

"I couldn't tell whether she recognized you or you just flummoxed her."

"Me either. At least we get to talk to her. We'll know soon enough if she's Hecate."

"And if she is?"

"I'm on my way to being Master of the White Ship."

"Let's just say she's not?"

"Then it'll happen some other way." Alacrity thought for a bit. "I wonder what the local firearm laws are like?"

As it turned out, they were even more stringent than on Windfall. Like most authoritarian governments, the Lebensraum Company got hysterical at the mere thought of an armed populace. The Captain's Sidearm and the Webley stayed locked in the ship.

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Lebensraum's star, Invictus, was large and amber and its only starport was a drab, outdated industrial terminal. Floyt studied both out the ship's cockpit viewpane, stretching his fingers and feeling his lips and fingertips, as Alacrity locked down the console. Their peripheral neuropathy was completely gone.

Lebensraum had been explored around the end of the Second Breath, nearly two hundred years before, by expeditions from Shalimar, a more idyllic planet in the Invictus system. A brief flurry of interest occurred when indications of Precursor artifacts were observed, but no significant finds were made.

With no economic enticements to be found, Lebensraum was soon ignored by all but a minor research project, then out of touch completely for nearly one hundred years after an apocalyptic battle on Shalimar at the end of the Second Breath.

An expedition some one hundred years before Alacrity and Floyt rolled out of Hawking revealed that there was still a tiny human population, hovering on the verge of extinction, and that there was very considerable wealth to be taken from Lebensraum with new mining techniques.

Through political leverage and judicious bribery, the expedition's backers managed to wangle a mining company charter for Lebensraum from the Bali Hai Republic, neatly Outflanking the Shalimar government. Lebensraum Mining and Development slapped a cloak of secrecy on its operations. The human survivors were relocated to a small reservation, though most succumbed to diseases brought in by company workers, or dissipation, or simple cultural absorption.

There was also a very successful species of native wildlife, huge herbivores called gawklegs, that had the bad luck to enjoy grazing on lands coveted by the company. The management techniques used in dealing with them weren't mentioned, but the endless, teeming herds of gawklegs were, in a shockingly brief time, reduced to a handful of scattered bands.

Somehow, Hecate had showed up there twenty years before, becoming the darling of the workers, charming top company officials into letting her look into Precursor rumors and lending her all support.

She became the planet's unofficial royalty and star attraction until at last she dropped from sight.

"I guess the old brolly'll be about all the protection we can carry," Alacrity said. He hefted his Viceroy Imperial, a product of Outback.

"Most kinds of small blades are legal groundside, Ho," Alacrity added. "Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea if you carried that survival tool whatsit you got at the Grapple—oh!"

Floyt had turned and raised his fatigue jacket and sweater a little to show that he had already set it in a belt pouch at his waist. The do-all survival tool incorporated various blades, a compass, assorted tools, file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (66 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12

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brass knuckles, and a radiation detector; also, you could scale fish with it.

"Great. Do me one more favor, Ho? Wear your Inheritor's belt?"

"If you want. Do you think it will prove how much this supposed Hecate really knows?"

"It could happen that way."

So Floyt fetched the heavy belt of plaques; if Hecate actually knew Precursor secrets, perhaps she could translate or explain the strange symbols on it. He fastened it high around his waist, covering it with the military-style sweater he'd taken from Plantos's locker.

"You know, Alacrity, I've lost a good deal of weight since we left Earth—the first time, I mean—but this thing fits me just as precisely as it did then."

"It's probably just trying to impress you. You ready?"

"Let us proceed."

They locked up the
Lightning Whelk,
using a built-in touchpad rather than the code-key, and stepped out into a golden dusk out of a Flemish masterpiece as Invictus disappeared below the horizon. They'd acclimatized gradually during the trip; Lebensraum's lower air pressure didn't bother them. To Floyt it smelled weird as hell, just as had every other XT world. He felt light on his feet in ninety-odd-percent gravity.

The starport was situated at one end of town, in a deep depression, the locals not trusting starcraft not to blow up or release radiation and yet not wanting the port too far from their center of governmental control.

Horselaugh, Lebensraum's only city, was actually just a modest company town, built in functional, uninspired Aerospace Doric. It was mostly admin and operations structures and company housing, interspersed with blankly identical service/retail centers.

Here and there noncompany businesses or dwellings were mostly crammed in the crannies, hovels, and arc-shelters, marked by eye-catching lightsigns. Horselaugh was a workers' town; what the Lebensraum Company couldn't stifle in human nature it had to learn to live with.

Alacrity gritted his teeth as they entered the customs shed. Floyt got the picture when he saw that the currency-exchange and assayer's booths were side by side with the inspection station. The two visitors were given med and immunity tests, then scanned and searched and questioned in a local language that was not too far from Terranglish, by surly officials dressed in the ominous black of the company police.

In due course Floyt exchanged the resplendent garter at a surprisingly fair rate, was immediately hit with file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (67 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12

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a ruinous tax on the transaction, and signed over much of the rest of his money for docking fees and security. The only break they got, as far as Alacrity could see, was that the actual starport operations were overseen by Bali Hai officials. With any luck, that would mean company goons wouldn't have access to the
Whelk.
Over strenuous objections, Floyt accepted his change in company scrip.

There were frowns all around when the two listed their business as "Talent Promotion," and three different officials told them what terrible things would be done to them if they strayed beyond Horselaugh without permission. All told, what with approach, landing and interminable bureauwanking, it was over four hours after hearing from Hecate that they were given visas and permission to explore Horselaugh.

They ventured out into the evening along an elevated walkway. Company police were patrolling, swinging clubs and chukas, watching. Traffic cruised by below and the sky was open above except for the occasional cop aircruiser or company limoflier.

Alacrity wore a shipsuit, his pathfinder boots, and a big blue bandanna. Floyt had on bush fatigues—

high-waisted pants and thigh-length jacket over the sweater—and lug-soled lace-up hiking boots that reached above his ankles. The boots were a bit narrow but long enough, so he'd chosen them; Floyt had long since learned the kind of things you can step in, in a starportside town.

If the two didn't exactly blend in with the locals, at least they didn't stand out too terribly.

These were contract miners, but not the pick-and-shovel variety. Most worked hard for their money, but their standard of living was adequate and their off-duty clothing showed it. They looked prosperous, but similar. The fashion in women's hair ran to a white cotton-candy look, floating like spindrift. Clothing tended to be comfortable and durable. Perhaps as a reaction to their industrial surroundings, many of the Horselaughers wore or carried fresh flowers.