Fall of the White Ship Avatar (2 page)

[Fitzhugh 3]-FALL OF THE WHITE SHIP AVATAR

"What I'd really like to do is start panhandling, but the Lunie cops're nobody to cross."

Floyt looked about. "Do you think they're after us? They and whom else?"

Alacrity shook his head. "I doubt Luna's been alerted, since Grissom cut our leashes, but we can figure on Langstretch operatives being on the prowl. And if there aren't a lot of Camarilla
members
looking to get even with us, then beer is rainwater and we should all go live in the gutters."

Floyt fingered his neat, graying, close-cropped beard.

"Do you think we can make it across Billingsgate Circus, much less out to the Sockwallet lashup? Um, you
were
thinking of asking the Foragers for sanctuary, weren't you?"

Alacrity's worried look made way for a quick: grin. "Oh, you're fast today. Yeah."

"Don't some of those robohucksters over there sell clothes, as I recall?" Floyt asked. "And last time we were through here, there were vending machines that dispensed disguises, weren't there?"

Alacrity was shaking his head, his silver-in-gray banner of hair rippling. "Those're cheap dressup for people who are fooling around on the side or playing masquerade or kids out for some grabass. No, a little finesse, here. First, we tour the transport system."

They set off, not such an odd duo in the hodgepodge of Billingsgate Circus.

On the way, the two passed a data kiosk with a rack of current best-sellers on display. Conspicuous among these were
Hobart Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh in the Castle of the Death Addicts
and
Hobart
Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh Challenge the Amazon Slave Women of the Supernova.
Since the title characters as portrayed in the ad loops resembled astoundingly rugged and handsome male models much more than they did the real items, the books' popularity had been a minor problem thus far. Floyt had read them and found his fictionalized adventures much more enjoyable and happy-go-lucky and less pestiferous and terrifying than the authentic versions.

A major part of their remaining funds got them two five-hour transit passes, and Alacrity snagged a guide-map. For the next twenty minutes they alternated between riding the tubeways, ascending and descending by carrier chute, and kangaroo-shuffling along pedestrian tracks.

Alacrity kept surveillance on the people and other beings around them, following a convoluted route, doubling back twice. Floyt monitored faces too, trying to pick out any tails.

In a coin-operated vicebooth near Plasm Dealers' Row, Floyt shrugged out of his tux jacket and removed his vest, white tie, and wing collar, all of which went into Alacrity's warbag. Floyt drew on a disposable smock bought from a vending machine along the way; all his other clothes were back on Earth. They left file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (6 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12

[Fitzhugh 3]-FALL OF THE WHITE SHIP AVATAR

through a different door, and couldn't see anyone following, though that was no guarantee; with decent communications and even middling organization, it would be possible to follow them with never the same tail in view more than once—or for very long. Similarly, they'd examined themselves for a bug or homer, though they lacked the equipment for a proper sweep.

They grabbed an empty tubeway capsule out in the direction of Hubble City. Alacrity leaned his head back for a moment, closing his eyes. "You've been a real pal, not asking a lot of questions about where we go from Luna, Ho."

"Been a goddamn
prince
!"

They both laughed tiredly. "Anyway, I'll fill you in as soon as we're someplace secure," Alacrity promised. "It was nothing I could talk about on Earth because—well, you had the picture."

True enough. Their spectacular return to Terra had Citizen Ash, Earth's executioner, dismembering Earthservice almost singlehandedly and making the Alpha-bureaucrats tell all they knew about the Camarilla that had kept the planet in isolation for two hundred years. The atmosphere of intrigue and counterintrigue, upheaval and unrest that flared on Earth and across human space made it an unsafe time for confidences about future plans. Especially for Alacrity, pursued from childhood by Langstretch operatives and others, and particularly for confidences to Floyt, who was at the eye of the storm and—

until a few hours before—destined for years of security debriefings and testimony before courts, boards of inquiry, grand juries, and all that.

"I'd just assumed you're going to lay claim to the White Ship, no?"

"Huh! You don't just show up in the Spican system and casually deal yourself in on something like the White Ship, Citizen Floyt. But I swear, she's gonna be mine."

Floyt looked at him dubiously. "You're not going to clomp around up on deck all night on a whalebone peg-leg, are you? And nail gold doubloons to the mast?"

"What? Sometimes I wish we had a language in common, Hobart." Alacrity opened his wide, oblique eyes and looked around the capsule uncomfortably. It wouldn't be so hard to wire the whole mass-transit system for covert monitoring. "I'll explain everything a little later."

Floyt nodded, leaning back, adjusting the shoulder holster so that the Webley rode more comfortably, studying the layout of the capsule for potential fields of fire.

Despite the joking, Floyt was still mulling what Alacrity had said regarding the White Ship inboard
Mindframe.
Alacrity had admitted to being more than just a shiftless breakabout; his grandparents were prime movers behind the building of the White Ship. For nearly thirty years the stupendous starship had file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (7 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12

[Fitzhugh 3]-FALL OF THE WHITE SHIP AVATAR

been under construction and reconstruction, her sole mission being to uncover the secrets of the long-vanished, all-powerful Precursors.

The White Ship was a lightning rod of intergovernmental conflict, corporate bloodletting, and a near war or two. Who controlled the secrets of the Precursors stood to control the galaxy, or perhaps all of Creation.

Small wonder that a lot of people were eager to cancel Alacrity's postage and that "Alacrity Fitzhugh"

wasn't the name given him at birth, but one of many aliases he'd picked up being raised by various breakabouts and serving as one himself.

The whole business of Floyt's inheritance and the destruction of the Camarilla moved Alacrity squarely into the public eye and splashed his name across the light-years. Then there were Sintilla and her books about Alacrity and Floyt. From what little Floyt knew, Langstretch Detective Network had a standing high-figure contract on the life of the man sitting there in the capsule with him. And Floyt had already seen how very effective Langstretch personnel could be.

He resettled himself and thought about his own decision, to put Terra behind him and venture out among the stars. Earthservice had originally had to
kick
him off the planet, force him to go claim his inheritance from Weir. But somewhere along the way some new, inner Floyt had emerged. Unable to go back to his pigeonhole as a nameless functionary third class, he'd thrown in his lot with Alacrity.

Floyt realized that he was tapping his lips, which were numb, and it came to him that they'd been that way for a while.

"Alacrity? It's no great matter, I know, but I've been noticing a certain, um, lack of sensation lately, in my fingertips, my lips—"

"Peripheral neuropathy," Alacrity said. "I've got problems with it, too. Look, we've been stungunned, gassed, actijotted, and whatever the hell else these last few weeks. All those zap-naps are murder on your nervous system. No immediate crisis, but we'll get it treated the first chance that comes our way."

He was silent for a moment, then added, "And we can get those friggin' actijots dug out of us at the same time."

It had been weeks since Floyt had spared any thought for the minute control devices implanted in the two back on Blackguard. One of the advantages of constant peril and turmoil, he'd come to see, was a certain preoccupation with the immediate.

The capsule viewscreen, which was showing the route's surface scenery relayed from a string of above-ground pickups, brought the ruins of This End Up City—"Upsie"—into view. It was history's first box-file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (8 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12

[Fitzhugh 3]-FALL OF THE WHITE SHIP AVATAR

town, collapsed now and deserted for more than a century.

Soon after, the abandoned catapult head of Luna's original and smallest mass driver came into sight.

The capsule began to slow and Alacrity again blinked open his great eyes, their irises glowing an unearthly, radiant yellow, striated with red and black.

"
Maldkas
! I hope the Sockwallet Outfit's still here."

So did Floyt, thinking hopefully of a chilled mug of Old Geyserfroth beer, or a Gunga Din gin and tonic.

He almost asked Alacrity why he hadn't made a few inquiries about the Sockwallets at Lunaport, then realized that was no way to keep a destination secret.

Alacrity opened his holster's thumbbreak. If there were Forager guards on the platform, he'd be expected to hand it over. If not, he might need it.

Floyt stood when Alacrity did, finding his balance with only a bit of difficulty. He made sure his smock was open, the Webley's butt accessible. The capsule came to a smooth halt at the abandoned catapult head's subsurface station.

The pair froze, looking for the loitering guttersnipes—Third Breath updates of Dickens's street urchins—

who were the very canny Forager sentinels.

Instead, the platform put Floyt in mind of the sewers of ancient Paris, stories of the long-gone Casbah, and pictures he'd seen of hobo jungles. Someone was making music with sonic withe, synthesizer, and tin whistle; shabbily dressed children were doing an odd, flapping-scarecrow dance in the light gravity.

With darting glances Alacrity took in everything. He passed over the few foodsellers and their meager stocks; the end-of-the-line sex rentals who could no longer cut it in Lunaport; the fences with nothing worth buying; and the begging terminal cases. He registered the hawkeyed gang kids and lounging strongarm types, weighing dangers and options.

The squalid smell of the place nearly rocked Floyt back on his heels as he caught sight of the vacant-eyed faces, recalling a similar place light-years away where the stench had been different and yet quite emphatically the same.

"Boxtown," Alacrity muttered as they stood at the open capsule doors. "The Sockwallets are gone, and the down-and-outers've moved in and turned the place into a boxtown."

"Do we get off or pass?" Floyt preferred the latter. The capsule doors were about to close again.

"There's nothing for us in Hubble City. Stick close, and for Shaitan's sake keep an eye on my backpack.

Everything we've got's in it, and I'm a sitting pigeon for pickpockets and cutpurses."

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[Fitzhugh 3]-FALL OF THE WHITE SHIP AVATAR

"Sitting duck," Floyt corrected automatically, taking up his station behind Alacrity and a hair to the left.

They stepped out of the capsule. In that arrangement, one Alacrity had taught him, Floyt's right hand and arm were blocked from view and he could reach for the Webley with a certain amount of concealment.

The capsule's doors closed and it slid away silently except for a rushing turbulence in the air.

Four of the healthier-looking idlers, three men and a woman, casually moved to take a better look at the new arrivals, obstructing the way. Floyt waited for a signal, sweat starting in his mustache, but Alacrity gave none.

As they closed on the strongarm group, Alacrity simply stopped, resettling his pack a bit, and put his hand on the grip of the Captain's Sidearm. Floyt kept watch on what was going on to the sides and behind them.

The music stopped and the dancers edged toward cover. The banter and goofing died away too as people took prudent steps to avoid possible lines of fire. Quite a few hungry, fearful glances were turned their way and Floyt compelled himself to glower in return.

The muscle were watching Alacrity. He sneered at them in some language Floyt hadn't heard before, tugging at his own clothes and pack, and gesturing to Floyt. The challenge wasn't too hard to figure out, given Alacrity's previous attitude in that kind of crisis. The two companions were more prosperous looking than most boxtown visitors, but they were armed and knew the ropes. Alacrity's question, in slum
patois,
conceding that pack and clothes had some value, had to be:
But are they worth your lives?

Floyt drew the Webley, letting the lanyard ring at its base swing and clink, putting a hard squint on his face, keeping watch on their rear and flanks for a sneak attack. There was a profound silence on the platform.

In the midst of it, Floyt thumbed back the revolver's hammer, a sound that hung in the air. Not many hours before he'd been in the somewhat ensnaring lap of luxury, Hero of the Terran Weal, seemingly Earthbound for life. In retrospect, that fate had certain points to recommend it.

The muscle began to spread out to either side, to outflank them. Alacrity yanked out the Captain's Sidearm. It was a big, matte-black weapon with a basket hand-shield to protect the firer from blast and backlash.

"Ah!
Now just go back and sit where you were, or we start hosing!"

Floyt brought the revolver up into the clear. The muscle looked at one another. Floyt had seen Alacrity kill their kind in another boxtown, not so long before. Then Floyt hadn't been obliged to fire; now it looked different. An altogether inappropriate time, but he found himself wrestling with his doubts.

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