STAR HOUNDS -- OMNIBUS (15 page)

T
he
Starbow
slipped out• of the mathematical unreality of Underspace back into classical physics millions of kilometers from the rotational axis of the binary stars known as the Witch’s Tits.

Laura was on the bridge at the time. The usual feeling of mental and physical disorientation swept through her like a cold shower after a sauna. This was the time a starship was most vulnerable; the
Starbow
crew, dispersed at their stations, were therefore ready for any defensive measures needed.

Nothing awaited them but the stuff of space and a stunning view of the Coridian system: seven planets in orbit around two dissimilar suns, Hecate and Hades, locked into an infernal dance. The backdrop, stars and stars and stars, more stars, it seemed, than darkness, glittered like some magnificent grotto alive with jewels.

“Amazing,” said Dr. Michael Mish, glancing down at his sensor board. “A splendidly clean entry. Ship’s integrity stands at a virtual one hundred percent. All Underspace emergences should be so easy.”

“Because of the Fault, Doctor?” Captain Northern asked.

“Yes, I suppose so. Things in this system are a bit closer to shift point. I suggest that we take that into account in all our actions.”

“Course to Baleful, fifth planet in system, plotted and locked into the pilot computer, Captain,” Navigational Officer Dansen Jitt announced. “Standard approach at six percent light speed, with Baleful orbit achieved in 25.2 GalFed standard hours. And if I may say so, this place gives me the willies, sir.”

“Someone pissing on your grave, eh, Jitt?” the communications officer, Lieutenant Tether Mayz said, looking up from her pulse sequence array.

“Well,” said Captain Northern, “let’s hope it’s not a mass burial, shall we?”

Laura looked up from an intense study of Lieutenant Mayz’s board. “I don’t see a damned thing, Captain. Let me go and scout. I can be there and back in two hours.”

“That was not our agreement, Laura,” the captain said.

“What the hell do you care, Northern? If I get wasted, then your obligation is through. You can turn tail and run, just like you did to your beloved wife back by the
Ezekiel
!” She placed her hand impudently on her hip.

A brief twinge passed over Captain Northern’s face. He swiveled his chair so that he faced away from her. His voice was cool. “Pilot Shemzak, you may not realize that, in our contract, the stipulation was that my duties to the
Starbow
overrode my duties to Lieutenant Kat Mizel.”

“You didn’t sound real unhappy about my leaving her back in that linen closet!” she said, hoping his anger would prod him into allowing her to jump ahead to Baleful.

“My relieved state was incidental. I am a man of my word, as I have indicated. True, I enjoy the odd dance and debauch within the confines of my agreements, enjoy the occasional joke. Sometimes I exceed the bounds of the polite. However, in the complex weave of my commitments, I have my priorities, and the success of this mission, as well as the safety of my ship and crew, is much more important than a silly little girl’s antsy pants!”

“Silly little girl!” Laura said, angry now herself. “Northern, in my four years with the Federation, I have seen things and done things that have put me parsecs away from my silly-little-girl days.”

“Gentlemen,” said Northern. “Please proceed as ordered—”

“Captain, may I talk to you privately?” Laura Shemzak requested tersely.

“I don’t see why not, Pilot. We have plenty of time before we reach orbit around Baleful and our plan proceeds.” He turned to First Mate Thur. “Arkm, you have the conn.”

In his cabin, Captain Northern went first to the bar, then changed his mind, going to the refrigerator instead for a bottle of seltzer and a lime.

“Back in the old days, sailing ships on Earth, it was the English who discovered that it was their salt pork diet that gave them scurvy and that by carrying plenty of these”—he tossed the green fruit up, caught it—“and eating them, one could get the necessary vitamin C. So though others called them ‘Limeys,’ the other navies soon began eating citrus as well.” He got out glasses. “Would you care for a drink, Pilot Shemzak?”

“No. I want to know why you won’t give me permission to make a simple scouting mission.”

Northern cut a slice of fruit, squeezing it into the fizzing liquid, taking his time. “Laura, I am the captain of this ship, the leader. But my authority rests only in my crew’s acceptance of me in that position, and my ability to lead. I realize it’s in your nature to have a certain contempt for authority. But the plan that we’ve concocted is the result of much work and I really think we should stick by it.”

“But we haven’t got the signal! Maybe I can pick it up if I’m closer! I can’t wait—another day could mean Cal’s death!” What she was trying to pass off as anger was emerging closer to a sob.

“And I understand that. Just as I have my priority, you do as well … and in your case it’s your brother.”

“You can’t possibly understand,” she said, sprawling in a chair.

“Try me.”

“What do you care, Northern?” she asked. “You’ve got your priorities. You’ve got your precious ship and your delightful crew … your home, your family. What do I have? A Federation I’ve just thumbed my nose at, a blip-ship, and a lost brother, captured by the mean old Jaxdron. You’ve really got to excuse me, Captain, but as you may recall from your own Federation flunky days, emotional bonds are not exactly encouraged in the Federation scheme of things, and I’m having a bit of a hard time dealing with mine.”

Captain Northern sat on his desk and sipped at his drink. “Oh, I remember,” he said, looking away. “I also remember something you may be experiencing now.”

“Yeah? What’s that?” Laura asked suspiciously.

“Guilt.”

“Well, I’ll grant you I’m guilty as hell of cutting out on the Federation and busting you out of jail,” she said, a puzzled expression flitting over her face.

“You feel guilty about your brother.”

Laura drew a blank on that. “Huh? I’m risking my neck to get his ass out of a crack.”

Captain Northern sighed. “It’s perfectly normal, Laura. It comes with the territory. But let me absolve any guilt here. If we are to have a good chance of saving your brother—if indeed he’s on Baleful at all—our chances increase exponentially if we work in tandem. The
Starbow
and a blip-ship: surely an unbeatable combination.”

“I still say a little scouting expedition on my part wouldn’t hurt,” she declared, but her indignation rang hollowly in her own ears. “And I don’t feel guilty, Captain Tars Pighead Northern, so save your stupid psychology for one of your floozies.”

Tars Northern smiled gently. “Laura, it’s hard to say what will happen. Although we’ve got a crack team, we’re in unknown territory.”

“Yeah. So?”

“Well, I just want to admit that I’m … impressed with you. And there is a little girl in you somewhere in that amazing body of yours, and I’m quite charmed by her. But I should add also that I find you, as a woman, quite … well, quite beautiful, I suppose.”

Laura smiled at that. She rose from her chair and stepped over to him, leaned down, and gave him a soft, wet kiss. Surprised, Northern responded. But Laura pulled her head back and patted him condescendingly on the cheek. “Dream on, bozo,” she said, skillfully pulling away from him, mischievous laughter in her eyes.

Northern chuckled as she left, shaking his head as he treated himself to another glass of seltzer, with plenty of lime.

C
aptain Tars Northern kept the considerable defense capabilities of the starship on optimum alert. For the last four hours before the
Starbow
reached orbital position around the planet known as Baleful, the crew—both human and robot—were posted at battle stations.

So it was rather an anticlimax when there wasn’t a sign of any Jaxdron ships before or after they crossed the orbits of Baleful’s three moons.

The
Starbow
established a high polar orbit around the world. Captain Northern ordered the sensors turned up full.

Baleful was a Class L planet, only a step away from Terra’s Class M, but what a step! Its air was breathable—to its native nomad civilization—but humans needed masks if they were to take it for a long period. Because the Federation could not terraform the world, since this would mean killing the nomads, pressure domes were built. These were mobile and shifted about to avoid the occasional hot spots created by Baleful’s parabolic orbit around its binary suns.

After a pass across one of the continents, Captain Northern looked up from Dr. Mish’s sensor boards toward where Laura hovered anxiously by communications readouts. “Doesn’t look real good, Laura. No sign of activity nonconcurrent with your blip-ship’s status-quo info on Baleful. No sign of the military action necessary to assume control, either.” Worry ridges appeared on his forehead. “How strange.”

“There’s got to be some kind of signal!” Laura said emphatically, leaning over Tether Mayz’s shoulder. “Northern, you should have let me scout, damn you! We could have missed them by an hour!”

Dr. Mish disagreed. “Sensor sweeps have indicated no spatial disruptions of any kind since our surfacing from Underspace. If the Jaxdrons departed, they did so before we arrived.”

“How about any activity within the past five days, Doctor?” Arkm Thur wanted to know. “And how about vectors, if so?”

“I have no desire to chase Jaxdrons farther into enemy territory,” Captain Northern stated firmly. “That was not a part of the—”

“That’s it!” Laura said, pointing toward an oscillating pattern in the receiver unit.

“What’s it?” the captain demanded.

“The signal!” she cried. “Mayz, would you turn on the audio for that channel?”

Laura listened carefully a few moments. “Yeah. It’s Morse code!”

“Morse code?” the communications officer said. “No one uses that anymore. That’s as ancient as some of Jitt’s jokes!”

“Well, that was our game code when we were kids! Cal found it in some archives and was so fascinated with it, we had to use it!”

Mayz twisted two knobs. Dots and dashes became audible.

“SOS,” said Laura, shaking her head and grinning. “How very original, Cal!”

“What’s the point of origin, Mayz?”

“Nine degrees north of the equator, Captain.” The communications officer, after a moment of analysis, read off the Standard Grid Imposition longitude and latitude.

“Give me a lower orbit, Thur,” the captain ordered, “adjusted toward that signal. Jitt, I want a holo of where that signal is coming from in my tank, as soon as possible.”

As the
Starbow
tasted the upper reaches of Baleful’s atmosphere, the seas and continents of the planet rolled under its hull majestically, grays and browns and the palest of blues, occasionally blurred by stretches of clouds.

Laura was far too excited to take much notice of the splendor below them.

“You were right, Laura,” said Captain Northern. “I haven’t the faintest idea how the bugger did it, but he did. Wish we could send him a message back, but I don’t think that would be wise.”

“Of course he did it, Northern,” she said. “Cal is a genius!”

“But how did he know you’d come looking for him?” First Mate Arkm Thur asked.

“Like I told your captain, pal, he knew his sister wouldn’t let him down!” She grinned over to Northern. “Talk about moving heaven and earth, eh, Captain?”

“And merely by raising a great deal of hell,” Northern murmured, eyes on the vu-tank, where an image was taking translucent shape. It looked like a metallic bubble rising up from the sparsely vegetated ground, agleam in the double suns. “Can you see anything abnormal on the sensors, Doctor?”

“Standard Federation pressure dome. Model G14, from all signs, with only minimal armament, as a matter of fact,” Dr. Mish reported flatly.

“It was my impression Captain that this was a Jaxdron-held planet.”

“Exactly, Arkm. Everyone’s impression, which is perhaps what has kept the Federation away thus far.”

“Pardon, sir?”

“Some kind of strange bluff.”

“But why?”

“Well, whatever the Jaxdron are up to,” Laura said, “I know that my brother Cal is down there, and I intend to hop in my blip-ship and get him.” She gave the captain a defiant glance. “Whatever the hell you say.”

“You’re quite right, Laura,” said Captain Northern. “But I’d like to take a shuttle with some armed robots down to back you up.”

Laura shrugged. “Whatever you want, Captain, but round ‘em up quick, ‘cause I’m on my way.”

“You’ll be on your way, Pilot Shemzak, when we let your ship out of its berth and open the hangars.” He got up. “Jitt, establish synchronous orbit. Arkm, how’d you like to take a little trip?”

“You sure do like to take your chances, don’t you, Northern?” Laura said after Arkm had eagerly assented.

“Captain’s prerogative, my dear,” Northern replied. “Besides, it helps my claustrophobia.”