Starbridge (23 page)

"Wait a minute," Rob said, holding out both hands in a gesture of heartfelt appeal. "Wait a minute.
Listen
to me for a second. How do you know this isn't some kind of trick? Maybe the Simiu are doing this to get you into their Arena without Raoul knowing, did you ever think of that?" He took a deep breath. "They're holding us prisoner here. We've just discovered that they've got a magnetic field on our grapples."

"They've
always
had magnetic grapples on the ship!" she snapped, exasperated. "Magnetic grapples are S.O.P. for Simiu docking cradles.

Dhurrrkk' told me."

"Listen to me, Mahree. You think he's your friend, but I think he's setting you up--on Rhrrrkkeet's orders. They want you to fight in their Arena so their honor-code can be fulfilled. Or as a hostage to guarantee that we'll stay here peacefully, and not try to get away."

That makes a certain kind of sense .
. . Mahree thought, then her mouth tightened. "No," she said. "You're wrong. Dhurrrkk's my friend. In the first place, I went to
him.
And in the second, I know he wouldn't betray me."

"Maybe he wouldn't," Rob said amiably. He moved one foot forward a tiny bit. "But maybe Rhrrrkkeet's using him unwittingly to get to you. Ever think of that?" He slid his other foot toward her, slightly.

"Rob; I'd hate to shoot you in here, where it's so cold," Mahree said quietly.

"I'm not sure I could carry you out. If I left you here, your ass might freeze before you woke up. So just forget about jumping me and grabbing the gun, okay?"

He stopped, studying her face intently. Whatever he saw there made him swallow nervously. "Okay," he said. "Just tell me one more thing ...
what
outside help?"

"There are other races the Simiu know," Mahree said. "Ten, 144

at least. One of them, the Mizari, are sort of ... negotiators and peace-keepers. They'll make the Simiu let us leave peacefully. We're going to their homeworld, where the CLS headquarters are."

Rob's expression brightened in spite of himself.
"Ten
different species of aliens? An interstellar governing body?"

"I don't have time! Out into the corridor, now, dammit, or I pull this trigger!"

"Wait
a minute,
please,"
Rob said hastily.
"Please,
honey. I still think they're bullshitting you, but either way, I can't let you go alone. Take me with you."

"Hell, no," Mahree said. "You'll try and stop me."

"I swear to God I won't."

She eyed him suspiciously. "You don't believe me about the CLS, so why do you want to go along?"

He shook his head. "You're right, I think they're lying. I think the Simiu are setting a trap for you. But the First Ambassador respects me. If I'm there, maybe I can talk her into letting us

go-"

"And if I'm not walking into a trap? If Dhurrrkk' is telling the truth?"

"Then Raoul will sleep easier nights, knowing that another human is with you on that Simiu ship."

Mahree considered. She really wasn't sure she could pull that trigger in cold blood and watch someone she loved crumple up and fall to the deck.
You're
being a fool to let him talk you into this,
she told herself savagely, but she nodded, gesturing with the gun. "Okay. Out of here.
We'll
head for your cabin. You'll need supplies. And, remember, you gave your word."

They met no one on the way to Rob's cabin, and Mahree breathed a silent

"thank you." She had no illusions about Rob's oath.

"Okay," she snapped when they reached his quarters, "pack for an extended trip. Use a vacuum-proof bag."

Rob nodded silently, and moved around his cabin, collecting things. "What about food?" he said.

"I've got food," she said.

"Enough for two?"

"It'll have to be. Now, write a note to tell them you're coming with me."

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Hastily he complied. "I'm asking Yoki to feed Sekhmet," he said, scribbling.

Mahree glanced at what he'd written and nodded curtly. "Come on. And remember, if we meet anyone in the corridor, I'm going to stun them first, then you, if you so much as let out a loud breath."

They were halfway to the door when Rob stopped abruptly. "Wait a second!"

Mahree's finger tensed on the trigger. "What?"

"My medical bag."

She relaxed. "Okay. Will it fit inside your other bag?"

"If ... I ... shove . . . There! That's got it."

"We've got to hurry, Rob. Don't forget what I said."

"I remember."

They were halfway there when they heard voices, and with a sinking heart Mahree recognized them as Joan's and Paul's. Tensing, she moved closer to Rob, almost treading on his heels as they walked. She poked the barrel of the gun between his arm and his back, concealing it, and whispered, "Rob, if you open your mouth, I swear I'll stun
all
of you. Remember how old Paul is ... it might hurt him.
Please
don't make me have to do that!"

She could feel the clamminess of his coverall against her fingers, the tenseness of his body. He made no sound.

Joan and Paul were in sight now, arguing about the fuel reserves. Neither paid any attention to the approaching pair. Mahree held her breath as they moved past the Chief Engineer and the First Mate.
Keep walking, don't stop,
she ordered herself.
For God's sake, don't look back!

Not looking back was the hardest thing of all to do.

As the First Mate's and Chief Engineer's footsteps faded into the distance, Mahree gave a heartfelt sigh of relief. "Thanks, Rob."

When she reached the suit locker on the cargo deck, Mahree glanced quickly at her watch, frowning. "I'll get into my suit first. You lie on the deck, facedown."

"But--"

"Do
it!"

Trying to keep her eyes on Rob, and the weapon close to hand, Mahree quickly measured her arm against a small suit's, then pulled it out of the rack.

Quickly she climbed into the

146

A. C.
Crispin

spacesuit. Once
Rob started to raise his head, levering himself up, but she immediately grabbed the gun and fired it over his head. The charge spat blue-violet, and she smelled ozone. Her prisoner gasped, then lay still.

"I can't believe you're doing this," the doctor's muffled voice reached her as she sealed up the front of the suit and reached for the helmet.

"I can't believe I'm doing it either," Mahree admitted.

A moment later, she had the helmet locked on, then she slid the gloves over her hands and sealed them. Mahree tapped the gun against the cargo hatch to get Rob's attention, then gestured brusquely at the other suits.

He got up a little stiffly, then selected a suit, donning it far more quickly than Mahree had, due to his recent practice. As he fastened his helmet, he spoke up: "Radio check."

"I hear you," Mahree said. "And I'll also hear you if you open a channel to the bridge, understand?"

"Yes."

"Now be quiet, I've got to concentrate."

Still keeping the weapon centered on the helmet of his suit, she keyed open the inner door to the big cargo airlock. She stopped short of the last entry.

"All that," she muttered, "and I've got two minutes to spare." She glanced around her, frowning. "We may need these suits when we meet the Mizari.

Rob, strap all the charged breathing paks together, so we can take them with us."

He obeyed quickly. They made a bulky bundle as he dragged them over to the airlock. "What do the Mizari look like?" he asked.

"That's not their real name," Mahree admitted. "I just made it up. And I haven't the faintest idea what they look like. Dhurrrkk' didn't have time to tell me."

Before he could say anything more, she keyed in the final sequence, and the airlock door slid open. "All right, inside," she said, motioning. "You carry in the bags, and then come back for the breathing paks. Don't forget that I've still got this gun, and that I'm watching you."

"Don't worry," he said, with an attempt at lightness, "you've got me thoroughly convinced that you'll shoot. I'm too cowed to do anything rash."

147

147

Mahree muttered an imprecation under her breath, then snapped, "Just
do
it!"

She was right behind him as he stepped through the doors, then she signaled the lock to depressurize. "Grab something, Rob. I'm going to turn off the gravity. How are you in no-weight?"

She could see him shake his head through the clear material of his faceplate. "I don't know," he said. "I've never experienced zero gee. How are
you!"

"I'll be all right," she said. "I've got a cast-iron stomach . . . unless, that is, you get sick. If you do, you're on your own."

"Okay," Rob said dryly. "I'm warned."

Mahree slowly moved the switch that controlled the gravity in the airlock.

She decreased it by one-half, then paused. "So far so good?"

"Yup," Rob answered cheerfully.
"Ten
different kinds of aliens, you say?"

"At least." She decreased the gravity again, until they were at one-sixth gee.

"Still okay? This is lunar gravity."

"Fine," Rob said.

"Okay, I'm going for a tenth, now." She decreased the gravity again.

Even at one-sixth gee, there had been enough gravity to keep her feet on the deck. But now they had a disturbing tendency to lose contact with the flooring--a hard push with her toes would have been enough to send her bumping against the ceiling. But there was still a sense that the deck was

"down" and the ceiling was "up." Mahree knew that sense would disappear as soon as she turned off the gravity altogether. "How's that?" she asked Rob.

"Feels funny," he said, cautiously clinging with both hands to the handrail that ran around the inside of the airlock.

"Experiencing any vertigo?"

"Not yet," he said nervously. "But the perilymph and endolymph are beginning to slosh around in my inner ear."

"Move
slowly.
Take it easy ... very ... easy ..."As she finished speaking, she slid the switch up the final notch, until the gravity was gone.

At first it felt like dropping in a high-speed elevator. Then, as she looked around the airlock, Mahree realized that "up" and "down" had indeed become meaningless terms. She found that

148

she could force herself to think of the deck as "down"
intellectually,
but that the designation had no credibility, because all her senses told her that
every
direction was "down." Or "up." Or just
away.

"You okay?" she asked Rob.

"So far, so good," he said, sounding a little grim.

"Just keep thinking about seeing more aliens than you can shake a stick at,"

she encouraged him. "Now, move over into that far corner, away from the airlock controls, and stay there. I'm going to open the hatch. Don't jump me, or we'll both wind up out there without a lifeline, understand?"

"Don't worry," Rob said grimly, shuffling his magnetic soles along the deck, clutching the handrail, "moving fast is the last thing I want to try right now."

Mahree checked her suit's chrono display as she pulled herself over to the control panel.
Damn, I'm seventy seconds late! Is he still there?

Feeling as though she were moving underwater, Mahree triggered the sequence to open the outer lock. A minute later, the panels slid aside. The girl could feel the rumbling vibration of their movement through her hands, but she could no longer hear any sounds except Rob's breathing--and her own--through the suit radio.

Mahree kept one hand clamped on the rail, the magnetized soles of her boots firmly pressed against the deck, as she leaned over to peer out, into space.

The cargo airlock lay in a patch of shadow, so she could see the stars--they looked like minuscule gemmed nailheads, sharp and unwinking. Mahree gripped the handrail tightly, because for a moment she seemed to be falling into a black well that surrounded her---and everywhere she looked was

"down."

After a moment, her disorientation eased, and she was able to look "up," to a point opposite
Desiree.
Nothing hampered her view of the stars ... no Simiu vessel, nothing.

He's not here,
she thought, feeling her heart contract.
Either I missed him, or
he couldn't get the ship . . .

As she watched, something amber glided toward her, lit by the station's lights. Soon it blotted out the stars as it moved into a position alongside
Desiree.
It was one of the hammerheaded Simiu craft, a vessel not much larger than the cruisers that had escorted the freighter to the station.

149

Mahree laughed in sheer relief, bouncing on her toes in excitement. Her motion pulled the magnetized strips on her bootsoles free of the deck, and she had to grab the handrail with both hands. "He's here!" she cried, regaining her equilibrium, then cautiously turning back to Rob. "He got the ship!"

The alien craft's amidships airlock slid open, and a single spacesuited Simiu figure waved one arm, then beckoned. "I knew he'd come!" Mahree exclaimed triumphantly.

"Yeah, but how can you be sure that it's your friend in there?" Rob asked.

"That we're not walking into a trap?"

"We're not walking," Mahree said abstractedly, leaning over the edge of the hull to look out again. "We're going to jump."

'''Jump!
The length of a football field, almost? It must be twenty-five meters across!"

Mahree ran a calculating eye over the void between the two now-motionless vessels. "At least that. But we'll be okay." She began programming the cargo cable for launch sequence, then waved the Simiu figure to get back into the shelter of his airlock. Dhurrrkk' moved out of sight.

At her signal, the cargo cable went sailing out into space like a silvery umbilicus. The trajectory was perfect--the magnetic end of the cable thudded against the bulkhead of the Simiu craft, and clung. Mahree gave it an experimental tug, finding it safely anchored.

"What are we going to do?" Rob asked nervously, watching as she unclipped several "skyhooks."