John Maddox Roberts - Spacer: Window of Mind (9 page)

"Bar Kochba, Inc. made that ship," said the skipper. "They're a good firm."

"Who made those experimental engines?" asked Bert.

"Reith Power Systems," said Homer.

"A wholly-owned subsidiary of Satsuma-MacKintosh Heavy Industries," added Ham.

"And the rest?" asked Michelle.

"Captain Richard Probert left the service after the War and founded Probert Aerospace Service, a small freighting line. It ran into peculiar difficulties from the start: ships pirated, asteroid collisions, disappearances, and the like. Captain Probert eventually committed suicide.

"Captain Suleiman Ramjan and Commander Sebastien

romero Ortega, both on the board of the court-martial, went into partnership after the War, forming a company to exploit the mineral wealth of Senmut, a planet both had served on during

the War. There was friction between the two, and one morning both were found dead in a park near one of their factories. The finding of the investigative committee was death mutually inflicted in an unauthorized duel."

' 'That takes care of the court," said Torwald. The rest had crown more quiet with each recitation of misadventure.

What about the witnesses?" asked Kiril.

"To make the story brief," say.! Homer, "in all, some forty witnesses were called to testify, after the original denunciation by then-Captain Gertrude HaLevy. Of these, twenty-seven died later in the War, most in the Li Po action. Of the thirteen others, two died of natural causes and the rest in circumstances of violence or misadventure never subsequently solved by police."

"Except for one," said Ham.

"Precisely," said Homer. "The sole survivor of that court is one Gertrude HaLevy, now Skipper of
Space Angel."

"What about the prosecutor?" asked Lafayette.

"Captain Dingaan AmaZulu died of an unknown virus on Cetewayo shortly after the War. It was a lingering and extremely painful death."

"And the defense attorney?" asked the skipper. "I've forgotten his name."

"Mr. Wesley Stoddard was a civilian attorney when hired to represent Commodore Izquierda. The case was lost, but Mr. Stoddard was successful on appeal. He is now a director of the Satsuma Line, and head of the legal department."

"Nice to know somebody came out of this alive and successful," said the skipper. The quip rang hollow. They were thinking the same thing; Fifty-two people involved with that court, of those, all dead but two, one of them a director of Satsuma, the other the skipper of
Space Angel.

"So what's our next move?" asked Ham.

"Simple," said K'Stin. "Kill Izquierda." The Viver's suggestion was eminently predictable.

"There are laws against persona! vengeance, K'Stin," said the skipper, "and it didn't escape me that you tried to set him up at the banquet."

"It is your life," K'Stin said. "He will try to kill you sooner or later, and that endangers us all."

"K'Stin's right about that part of it," Torwald said. "Murder is out, but so is suicide. We can't take any chances. We're not dealing with an ordinary criminal; this man is almost supernatural."

"We have a great deal of damning information here," Michelle said. "We have officials of the government and the military right here on this expedition. Why don't we take this to them and expose him?"

"Expose what?" asked Bert. "We have no proof that he engineered all those deaths. Most of those involved were spacers in high-risk fields. It's not inconceivable that they all could die in the space of a few years. Unlikely, certainly, but not beyond the bounds of reason. We'll need more evidence than this to denounce him."

"What's it matter?" Kiril said. "We already know that this man committed one of the biggest atrocities of the War and got off with a kiss on the cheek. And he's
lots
richer and more powerful and influential than he was back then. You think he's gonna do a day of hard time just for knocking off seventeen or eighteen people? Forget it. Your Confed government is just Civis Astra on a big scale, and he's the biggest K'ang leader around."

"I'm afraid you're right," said the skipper. "It's going to come down to him or me, and right now we havfc to let him make the next move. I wish I knew why he saved me for last."

"And why he picked this mission to carry out whatever he has in mind," added Torwald.

The planet, now designated Eingma, floated above their heads in the observation bubble. This was the compartment opening off Finn's navigation chamber, where Kiril had seen Nancy playing her instrument. It was rarely used, since navigators these days never bothered with eyeball sighting for their calculations, and the instruments had long since been ripped out, but it was the only place on the ship from which the outside could be seen.

There wasn't much to see. The visible hemisphere was mostly under cloud cover, drifting across the oceans and continents in long streaks. Low in the southern hemisphere, the whorl of a small hurricane was taking shape.

"Doesn't look like much," said Kiril, slightly disappointed.

"You'd be surprised," said Torwald. "The planets that look the most spectacular from space are the ones we can't live on. If they have a cotton-ball look, like this one, it means there's free water, and that's the biggest single factor in making a planet desirable for colonization."

"But somebody else was here first, this time," Kiril pointed out.

"All too true," said the skipper. "We can only guess why, but I'm willing to guess if nobody else is. My guess is, they're oxygen breathers and their life system requires liquid water, just like us."

"Why's that?" Kiril asked.

"Because we're always on the lookout for planets just like this one. In fact, we almost never set up housekeeping on any other kind unless it has something really valuable that we want. Why knock yourself out taming a hostile environment when (here's planets like this where you can move right in without a lot of terraforming and atmosphere suits?"

"Makes sense," Kiril said. She could just make out the shapes of the two tremendous ships in the far distance. They had left the hold of the TFCS as soon as they had reached this system. It made them feel safer, for no particular reason

"When does the fun begin?" asked Finn.

"We're supposed to wait for orders to land," the skipper said. "The navy's tried to establish communication, but so far no answer on any frequency. That's not surprising. Then they send in a scoutship to check for hostility. If it's all clear, the civilian party and higher-up navy people will go down in a shuttle from the Supernova. Eventually, maybe they'll remember us and invite us down."

"Are the navy ship and the Supernova going to land?" Kiril asked.

"Neither of those monsters is designed to land," Torwald said. "They'll stay in orbit and try to look impressive."

"Any signs of alien activity so far?" Michelle asked.

"None we've detected or been informed of," said the skipper. "Come on, let's go back to the bridge and see what the screens tell us."

The main screen showed the alien base much as they had seen it before, hazed as if by intervening atmosphere. No magnification gave them any clearer idea of what they were looking at. A brilliant point of light appeared, descending toward a dark, blank area near the buildings.

"That's the navy probe going in," said Torwald. "We should be getting word before long."

They heard sooner than expected. Less than eight hours after the navy probe had landed, the
Space Angel
was notified to stand by for landing.

They waited in the cargo bay as the ramp lowered. The
Space Angel
stood on her landing shock absorbers in the shadow of the Supernova's shuttle. Ten ships the size of the
Angel
could have stood on the shadow. The wide expanse of the alien landing field was deserted except for a party of the human mission gathered around the base of the huge shuttle.

"Why didn't they just bring us down in that thing?" Torwald said. "If they want to impress these aliens, you'd think they'd want to keep the poor old
Angel
out of sight."

"We'll probably find out all too soon," said the skipper. "If Izquierda's behind it, and he most likely is, then we won't like the reason. No sense stalling. Let's go join them."

They descended the ramp, their eyes nervously scanning about, but there was no movement from the distant structures. They had been ordered to carry no weapons, for fear of provoking an incident with the aliens, if and when they should arrive. It did give them some comfort to have the Vivers along. When they reached the Supernova's shuttle, an officer passed them through the cordon of Spacer Marines that surrounded the party, their beam rifles at port arms.

"How come these jarheads can carry guns when nobody else can?" Kiril asked.

"They won't fire except on the admiral's orders," said Torwald. "There isn't a man among 'em who doesn't have ten years of psychdiscipline behind him."

"Quiet, you two," said the skipper. "I do all the talking until we know where we stand." They went to the knot of people surrounding Nagamitsu. All the navy and line officers were in full dress uniform. Nagamitsu's outfit was identical to that of his fellow officers except for his collar insignia and a long, two-handed Japanese sword thrust edge-upward through his sash. Its handle was braided with black silk tape. He was Hanked by Pierce and Izquierda.

"Nothing so far, Captain HaLevy," said Nagamitsu. "If there were going to be hostile action, it probably would have happened by now. We'd like your personnel to be here when they make their move. Especially Homer."

"Homer," said the skipper, "front and center. Admiral, what do you want the rest of us to do . . ." She trailed off as Nagamitsu's face took on a distant look, as if he were listening to some faraway voice. "Alien vessel coming in for a landing," he said.

"How's he know that?" Kiril asked Nancy in a whisper.

"Receiver implanted behind his ear," Nancy said absently, her eyes scanning overhead. Kiril looked up, too. The air was suddenly crackling with tension.

"Damn!" Torwald said. "I thought they'd send out a party from the base. This is inconsiderate, if you ask me."

"Nobody asked you, Tor," the skipper said. "Now pipe down."

Now they could see it; a black network of spheres and struts, globular instead of circular like the one in Ng's holos. It was plummeting like a stone. "Something's wrong," muttered Nagamitsu. "She's out of control." They braced themselves for the shock with gritted teeth. The more experienced threw themselves to the ground and covered their heads. Alarm sirens began shrieking from the shuttle.

Abruptly, twenty meters above the pad, the ship halted. There was no deceleration. One instant the ship was dropping in an uncontrolled fall, the next it was at rest. The ground party began picking themselves up and dusting off their clothes.

"What's holding it up?" asked someone.

"Flying carpets, for all I know," said the skipper. "But if they wanted to impress us, they sure accomplished it."

"Splendid beginning for negotiations," said Izquierda, a faint, sardonic smile on his lips. He had remained standing throughout the incident and his uniform was immaculate.

"We don't know yet that there's anything to be negotiated," the skipper pointed out. "They may not even be interested in us." Three hundred meters away the fantastic vessel settled to the pad.

"Something will have to be agreed upon," Izquierda said.. "Our two species have now impinged upon each other's space. This is only the first encounter. There will be many more. Interested or not, they have to establish whether relations between us are to be friendly or hostile."

"I'm here to offer them a lasting peace," said Nagamitsu. "We'll deal from the best position of strength we can, but we can't risk precipitating conflict. Humanity simply can't afford another war at this time."

"Amen to that," said Pierce, resplendent in striped trousers, swallowtail coat, and topper.

"Peace for now, perhaps," Izquierda said. "But if they're an expanding race, as we are, we'll come into conflict sooner or later."

"No need to borrow trouble, Director," said Pierce. "However, friendly or hostile, we would do well to learn as much of them as we can."

"I still don't see how that thing hangs together," Torwald said. By unspoken consent, the
Space Angel's
crew had drawn a few paces away from the brass. "It doesn't look like structural metal. No welds or rivets that I can make out, and everything's so irregular. Maybe it's some kind of plastic or synthetic." He took out a folding viewer from a tunic pocket and scanned the alien ship. After a minute he refolded the viewer and put it back in his pocket. "No good. That masking works even this close."

"We'll just have to wait until they trust us enough to give us a close look," Ham said.

"Something's happening," the skipper said. "It's opening up."

A split had opened in one of the larger spheres, widening toward the bottom. The babble of conversation hushed, and people began to arrange themselves in some kind of order, with Nagamitsu and Pierce to the fore. The marines continued to stand in their protective circle, as they would until ordered to do otherwise or death overtook them.