Get Off the Unicorn (17 page)

He must be nearing the tunnel mouth; he could feel the fishboat being sucked relentlessly toward the basaltic shelf. His fingers flew over the pitch and yaw controls, decreased the play in the helm, and ignored the neck-jarring rolls. On the fathometer and on the roiled viewscreen in front of him, the bottom of the ocean met the ramparts of the old volcano in a solid wall of tortured lava!

 

Shahanna was roused by the shrieking hiss of the insistent wind. She opened her eyes to grayness, to the realization that the crash foam was dissipating, to the knowledge that she was still alive and breathing. In spite of the cushioning foam and the padding of her seat, she felt thoroughly wrung out. Motion was painful. She turned her head, groaning as stiff muscles protested. A solitary yellow light gleamed on the control panel, then blinked off as she watched. The ship had sent out its death knell, the last thing this type of spacecraft was programmed to do before all its systems failed.

Shahanna reached with an enfeebled hand to her side pouch, fumbled for a stimulant and a pain depressor. Clumsily, she jabbed the drugs into her arm and then, gasping at the discomfort even that slight motion caused, lay back. The drugs worked swiftly. She staggered to her feet and worked her muscles, relieved that nothing had broken or split. Her wrist chrono showed that some eight hours had elapsed since the unexpected attack. Automatically, she reached toward the log recorder.

“All systems dead, gal,” she reminded herself, and looked out the plastight window.

Jagged black rock surrounded the nose of the scout and sheets of water scudded across the window.

How lucky can a gal get? She thought. I cracked up on land? Shahanna frowned. “Shoulder?” The Rib Reefs had been half a planet away when she had been shot down. There was no possible entry she could have made that would land her on Shoulder. But she remembered some other semi-permanent land masses on the charts, if one could dignify a wayward archipelago or a transient volcano as land mass.

The lock was jammed solid, Shahanna discovered, but the escape hatch was clear. The little scoutship rocked under her feet, and she realized it had been rocking ever since she had come to. The pitch of the wind had risen a few notes, too, and water sloshed across the viewpane in a constant fall. If she were on an island in one of those archipelagos, she was on a very precarious one.

Shahanna wasted no further time on speculation. She quick-sealed her orders onto her ribs, slapped additional supplies to her belt, shrugged into an all-purpose suit. That done, she harnessed on a life-support tank and donned her headgear and the water-aids, then punched the destruct on her ship's instrumentation and threw open the escape hatch. She got a face full of wave and drew back sputtering and choking. Undaunted, she rearranged her mask and took a second look.

Gaunt black fingers of stone held the ship. But the rising tides, wind-lashed and moon-churned, rocked the boat resting in its impromptu dry dock, grabbed it with a greedy urgency. What remained of the aft section of the ship was rocking slowly down into the water.

“That guy was a good shot—cleared off my engine. But I'm a live one.” Another wave slapped across her face. She ducked instinctively and then, with a deft movement, was over the side of the ship, its bulk protecting her from a worse battering.

She could see beyond her ship, through the spaces of the finger rocks. It wasn't a comforting view, for the huge expanse of water was equally wild. A grinding sound reminded her that she had little time for deliberation. The ship slipped further down the rocky palm. Shahanna saluted it, promising retribution, and clambered up through the rock fingers. She didn't see that an outcropping of rock caught and held the forward section of her sliding ship above the water.

“This is the damnedest terrain” Shahanna said aloud as she scrambled higher, grateful for the tough fabric of her gloves as she found handholds on the razor-edged shards of rock. The rain was coming down in such heavy torrents that she could barely see a few feet in front of her. The wind pounded her with hammer blows. She would not last long in this maelstrom, Shahanna decided, peering around for some sort of shelter against a rocky ledge. Instinct directing her, she climbed doggedly to such a height as she could manage on rockpile. The absence of water pouring over her and the slackening of the wind indicated a sanctuary, and she was inside the little cave before she even realized it existed. With an inarticulate moan, she crawled far enough inside to be out of the reach of the elements. Sighing, she rolled onto her back as exhaustion claimed a battered mind and body.

 

Planetary Adminstrator Tallav watched anxiously as the nets drew the battered space craft into the safety of the Broken Rib Hangars. Almost on cue, rain in blinding sheets plummeted until the dome over the living quarters beyond the hangars looked like a waterfall and the storm drains began to fill with alarming speed. Tallav shuddered at the ferocity of the floods.

You'd think twelve-foot-deep dikes would be ample anywhere—except on Welladay, he thought as he started down the ramp to welcome the eagerly awaited Investigator.

It wouldn't do to appear nervous, Tallev thought. Might cause suspicion. Nor should he appear irritated that it had taken Federation such an unconscionably long time to dispatch an Investigator. Didn't they realize the consequences of letting this out-and-out piracy of the vital radioactive iodine go on for so long? Surely his messages had been explicit, his reports detailed. But to wait until Central Credit actually suspended all shipments to Welladay—that was disgraceful. Disgraceful and unjust.

Tallav slid back the portal and stepped out into the rock-hewn chamber that housed the drones and visitors' shuttles. Such noise as the crewmen made in securing the ship was lost in the vast room. Tallav was a little surprised at the Investigator's physical appearance. Not that he expected a full-uniform for a minor planet like Welladay, but an Investigator ought to appear in something more than a faded one-piece shipsuit.

“I'm Tallav, Planetary Administrator, Grade 3-B,” he said in a firm voice, saluting the new arrival with what he felt was the proper deference. Investigators were not exactly equal in status to Planetary Administrators but they had superplenary powers which they could invoke if circumstances warranted. “And you are Investigator . . .”

“Brack's the name.

Tallav was a little annoyed by the very casual return of his salute.

“Your arrival couldn't be more opportune,” Tallav went on, indicating the exit to Brack. “We haven't so much as a drop of the radioactive iodine left, and two top-priority emergency capsules came in just before you got here. The tone was rather high-handed. You timed that a mite close, if I may say so.”

The Investigator shot him an odd look as he ducked under the portal. Tallav dogged the lock wondering if the Investigator thought he was being critical.

“Storms on Welladay are unusually violent,” he continued. “That's why we net down all craft.”

Brack snorted and let Tallav lead the way to the office.

“If you'll just come this way, Investigator, my tapes and personnel are entirely at your disposal. We want this piracy stopped immediately—”

“In that storm?”

“Well, no, of course not. I mean, that is . . . surely my communications gave you ample facts from which to draw some conclusions? After all, there aren't very many places on Welladay from which a pirate could operate.”

“No, there aren't.”

“Now, here we are. May I offer you some refreshment? Or would you permit yourself to try some off-world stimulant? I'm afraid the commissary is a little low—tedious, this business of being boycotted until these pirates are apprehended and the iodine is collected properly.”

“I could do with some hot protein. Natural . . . if you can supply it.”

Tallav decided not to take offense at the suggestion that Welladay could not feed its population decently. He roused the mess hall personnel and ordered a meal from his private stores. No sooner had he turned, smiling toward the Investigator, than the com unit beeped urgently.

His hand hovered over the unit to silence it. Then he saw it was Hangar calling. The dolts hadn't managed to damage the Investigator's ship, had they?

“Well, what is it?”

“Drone K-Star is back. Or rather, what's left of it is back,” the hangarmaster reported.

“Who was that one assigned to?”

“Murv.”

“Are all the other drones back?” he asked, inadvertently glancing at the waterfall that covered his plasglas wall.

“No, sir!”

“
What?
Who could still be afloat in this?”

“Odis.”

“Odis? But he . . . Get off the line. I must talk to the harbormaster.”

Angrily, he jabbed the new call. “Okker, has Murv got in yet?”

“No, nor Odis either. Just like that new-worlder to try and send his drone back through a storm,” old Okker said.

“What were their destinations?”

“You ordered 'em out yourself. Told 'em to milk anything they could catch.”

“Well, you knew a storm was coming up. Didn't you call them back?” It was difficult for Tallav to restrain his irritation with the old fool. No respect for status. Just because he had been one of the original fishmen of Welladay, he thought he knew more about everything than a trained Planetary Administrator.

“What do you think, Tallav? I know my job as harbormaster. Besides, Odis is smart enough to run submerged for the eye and drift back with it till it disperses.”

Tallav shuddered inwardly, trying hard not to notice the half-smile on the Investigator's lips at the impudence of his subordinate.

“And Murv?” Tallav was compelled to ask. He distrusted the new-worlder and would like nothing better than for him to turn out to be their pirate. He looked the part and he was obviously opting to go off-planet as soon as he could. That was the trouble with the Debt Contractees—men forced to accept undesirable world employment never took any real interest in their work.

“I can't speak for him.”

“Why didn't you report their absence when the storm broke?”

“Did. You weren't in. Down meeting that snooper you sent for so long ago.”

“Investigator Brack is present in my office.”

“Good for him,” Okker replied, ignoring the frost in Tallav's voice. “Now let me get back to my Eye. That damned fool Sharkey's out, too.”

Brack was suddenly very alert.

“The Chief?” Tallav was now fully alarmed. Losing Sharkey was unthinkable. The man was a sheer genius with the fishboats, able to repair absolute wrecks. If he lost the engineer, he might just as well resign. He would never get a replacement at the price he could force Sharkey to take.

“You can't test a patched hull in dry dock, you know,” Okker was reminding him needlessly.

“Yes, yes. Keep me posted.”

“Don't I always?” The connection was broken at the harbormaster's end and the meal arrived at the same instant.

“And you say there's not a drop of the radioactive iodine in store at the moment?” Brack asked as he attacked his food with more speed than manners.

“Not a drop. In an attempt to fill these . . . these demands,” Tallav gestured toward the message capsule shells, “I sent out my two best fishmen.”

“Into that?”

There was no doubt of the Investigator's disapproval.

“No, not into that. That storm developed some hours after they had cleared port. Even with weather satellites keeping constant guard, storms can come up with frightening speed. You see, when there are two or more moons in conjunction, particularly with one of the other planetary masses in the system . . .”

“Agreed, agreed. I know my meteorology. So that means that the only iodine is either still in your whales or preferably riding out a storm.”

“And hidden somewhere in the possession of those pirates.”

“You have proof of piracy?”

“Proof? Of course. Take, for example, the rotting hulks of whales who have been deliberately and wantonly milked to death.”

“No more than that?”

“What more is necessary?” Tallav was appalled at the man's obtuseness.

“You've got . . . how many fishmen?” The Investigator's smile was condescending.

“No Welladan fishman would milk a whale to death!” Tallav sat up stiffly to protest that possibility.

“You're sure?”

“Very sure. And just to prevent such a ridiculous accusation being leveled against my subordinates, I took precautionary steps. You heard my hangarmaster report a drone's return? When it became apparent that someone was tapping the whales to death, I initiated a drone-escort for every fishboat. The drone is programmed to hover while tapping is in process, taking careful note of the quantity taken from the glands and making a record of the number of the mature whale. They all receive a tattoo, you see. There could be no way to escape such vigilance.”

The Investigator shrugged. “But didn't I understand that two ships are still out, and only one drone back in? Murv, wasn't that the name? If there's no drone watching him right now . . .”

“In this weather? The turbulence covers the entire northern hemisphere. You couldn't possibly tap in this weather. Besides, the whales have undoubtedly sounded for protection.”

“Northern hemisphere, you said? What about down south?”

“No whales in any great number. The sea is shallow there except for the Great Longitudinal Trench, and that's too deep for fishboats anyway.”

“Who's this Sharkey?”

“Our Chief Engineer. Marvelous talent with any kind of engine or vehicle. Keeps our boats afloat and our drones aloft. In fact, he helped rig the control device so that the drone hovers the instant its linked fishboat comes to a stop.

“Sharkey, huh? Appropriate name for a water worlder.”