John Maddox Roberts - Spacer: Window of Mind (27 page)

He stepped in. "Where is Tomas?" He might have been talking about the weather. He crossed to the lifeboat hatch and began working its combination.

"He's running to blab everything to Nagamitsu while it's worth something. Did you think he'd stick with you? He's dumb, but he's not
that
dumb."

He turned on her with that heart-freezing glare, the reptile within fully exposed at last. For some reason, it didn't paralyze her this time. "It's
her
doing, isn't it? Your Captain Gertrude HaLevy. She hounded me out of the navy in the War, now she's trying to destroy me. I want those coordinates. She's down there someplace and I am going to kill her."

"Has anybody ever told you how crazy you are?" Kiril asked.

"What is it you want?" He seemed to be sincerely puzzled. "A Satsuma directorship? It's yours, the one Tomas would have had. Wealth and power beyond your ability to imagine."

"You just don't get it, do you?" she said.

"Then how about this?" He drew a small hand beamer and aimed it at her. Kiril seemed to huddle in upon herself, drawing in her arms and legs, but her hands were on her dagger hilts and her legs were coiled under her. It wasn't in her to give up. Maybe, even with a beamer hole burned through her, she could still get him. "You can keep your life if you give me those coordinates."

"You can't buy it all, Ramon," she said, preparing to spring.

"She's quite right, you know." Izquierda whirled towards the hatch, but something lashed into his hand and the pistol went spinning across the chamber. Standing in the hatch she saw the bulky figure of Nagamitsu. Behind him were K'Stin and B'Shant. The admiral stepped in with K'Stin behind him.

"You are well, skinny one?" K'Stin asked.

"Fine," she said. The Viver nodded curtly.

"We can deal, Admiral," Izquierda said.

"No, we can't," said Nagamitsu. "Your nephew had an interesting tale to tell. I've already ordered a good number of my people clapped in irons. I don't like doing that, but it's a better ship now. On the way up here my friend K'Stin has been giving me a brief account of what has been happening down on that planet. I've seen the real
Space Angel.
She is intact."

"You are not going to take that woman's account seriously. Admiral?"

"Her account is quite irrelevant. The ship which you claimed to have destroyed is in one piece. I had thought your story farfetched to begin with, and this is the clinching argument. For whatever insane reasons of your own, you have tried to maneuver us into a war with this extremely powerful people and blame it all on one lonely little tramp freighter."

it was a business matter," Izquierda said with a shrug.

"Ah. yes, business. That is your justification for everything. You should have stuck to corrupt, greedy men like yourself. Director. You should not have tried to involve these people. Most particularly you should not have tried to use young Kiril here. She seems quite resourceful."

Izquierda glared at her. "So she is. Am I to regard myself as under arrest, Admiral? You know it won't do any good. I can control any court I come before."

"Possibly so, but it won't come to that."

"What do you mean?"

Nagamitsu touched the long handle of the sword in his belt. "Because, technically, we are at war. That was your doing. Director. As supreme commander in this sector I have the right of summary execution."

"You don't dare," Izquierda said.

"You are wrong. I confess, Director, that for many years I have despaired of ever reaching you. Your layers of protection separated us, and a retired admiral has little influence in peacetime. And now here we are, just the two of us."

"1 don't understand," Izquierda said.

"it was the incident on Delta Orion Five, Director," Nagamitsu said without emotion. "You sent half your force to deal with the Triumvirate ships while you got your ships and cargoes away. Do you remember who was in charge of that squadron?"

Izquierda shook his head. "I confess, I do not."

"I suppose you wouldn't. You had weighty matters of business to concern you. It was Under-Commodore Masaharu Katsu. He was my eldest daughter's husband. She was serving aboard a hospital ship at the time. When she received the news, she cycled herself through an airlock without a pressure suit. It was a demonstration of grief, a protest against the injustice of her husband's death and a reminder to her father that this thing must not go unavenged."

Izquierda smiled thinly. "So that's it. It's really a personal matter, isn't it? You are going to have your revenge on me and use your wartime powers to hide it."

"No," Nagamitsu said, "I will not execute you over a personal matter, but I will challenge you. This stain upon my family honor must be wiped out. The spirits of my daughter and my son-in-law must be given rest." He signaled, and K'Stin dropped a long sword at Izquierda's feet. "Wait outside," he told the Vivers.

Izquierda bent and picked up the sword. "I can't say much for your judgment, Admiral," he said. "You should never give a man a bare blade while your own is sheathed." He lunged. Kiril had never seen anything as fast as Nagamitsu's move in unsheathing his sword. She closed her eyes tightly for a second. When she opened them, the admiral was calmly cleaning his blade.

"This sword has been in my family for seven hundred years," he said. "This is foul blood to stain so noble a blade." When it was clean, he sheathed it in one smooth, graceful motion, without looking at the scabbard. He took her hand. "Come along, my dear. Let's go see what we can do about your ship."

Wearily, she let him lead her back outside.

13

Kirii studied Earth through the observation bubble. They were in a low orbit and the view was spectacular. She'd had a chance to go down to the home planet with a landing party, but she had backed out. The others had told her that Earth was no longer beautiful from close up, and in any case she had already half decided never to set foot off
Space Angel
again.

"Kiril,"
Nancy called, "come on down. Skipper's called a meeting." Most of the ship's personnel had been on the nearby dock station for a couple of days. They had been under orders to say nothing of what had occurred on and near the Dzuna planet until they received permission. She went through the navigator's room and down the corridor to the mess room.

"Everyone here?" the skipper asked. "Okay, here's the word we got: First of all, nothing, I repeat, absolutely
nothing
happened back there except routine diplomatic negotiations. Apparently they got the Dzuna to agree to keep quiet, too. After all, nothing much happened to them. All records of the events on and near the planet have been put under hundred-year seal.

Any one of us or anybody else who was along on the expedition that talks out of line is guilty of treason."

Everybody began to talk at once. "It figures!" Torwald said. "They aren't going to let a little matter like this embarrass them."

"That's right," the skipper said. "The events out there uncovered widespread corruption in the government and the military. There's a housecleaning going on right now, orchestrated mainly by Nagamitsu and Pierce, but that's going to be kept quiet as well. Mustn't alarm the voters, you know."

"But surely they're going to break up Satsuma!" Michelle protested.

"Why?" asked the skipper. "Nothing happened, remember? In fact, I hear the government's going to pay for the repair of the damages their Supernova sustained in the regrettable accident in which Director Izquierda was so regrettably killed."

"All that good work gone to waste!" K'Stin said bitterly.

Bert turned to Kiril with a tired smile. "You see, Kiril, how wisely you chose in staying with a free freighter working at the fringes of human space?" She nodded.

"On the plus side, they've finally released our funds from the impounded diamond crystal cargo, with accumulated interest." There was prolonged cheering.

"We're rich!" Finn said.

"Not exactly," the skipper said. The cheering died down. "I've already sent Kelly his share, he's still aboard Probert's
Black Comet."
She turned to Kiril. "Kelly was the ship's boy on that trip." Kiril nodded. She'd heard all about it, over and over.

"The upshot is this: You all know the customs of free freighters. The truth is the
Space Angel's
a wreck. She needs a new thruster. She has to undergo a complete hull rebuilding to seal all the cracks and leaks. Half our instruments have to be replaced and all the internal bulkheads have been weakened. It means weeks in airdock even after we scrounge all the parts. Just finding that class of thruster and buying it will cost a fortune.

"Anybody who wants to leave the ship can collect his share and go. If you decide to stay, your share goes into the common fund to keep the ship alive. Once we're spaceworthy again, we'll have to refuel and reprovision. With luck we might just break even."

"She has to have the work," Torwald agreed. "If the Dzuna hadn't lifted us from that swamp and we hadn't come back in the hold of the TFCS, we never would've made it back at all. My share stays with the
Angel."

"Anybody choose to leave?" She looked around. Nobody wanted to go. "That's it, then. Come on, people, we've got work to do."

Later Kiril found the skipper alone on the bridge. "Come on in," the skipper said. "You been giving it some thought?"

"Yes," Kiril said. "I've been talking with Bert. He's got to retire before long, and he wants me to apprentice with him. It sounds good to me."

The skipper nodded. "It's a good position. But keep in mind what I said about going to school to be a bridge officer. You're good material, kid. Don't let it go to waste."

"I'll think about it," she said. "But things have been coming at me too fast. I want to take it slow for a while."

The skipper grinned around her cigar. "That's smart, Kiril. You've got plenty of time. Maybe we all have." She slapped a bulkhead and it resounded solidly. "This old girl's got a lot of years left in her." She turned back to Kiril. "We've got about a ton of second-hand instruments coming in within the hour, and getting them in and stored is the cargo master's job. Get to work!"

Kiril dashed down the companionway and through the corridor toward the hold. Already she was planning where she would store the instruments.