The Star Fox (11 page)

Morning red, morning red,

Wilt thou shine upon me dead?

Soon the trumpets will he blowing,

Then must I to death be going,

I and many trusty friends!
—

But it wasn’t really sad, it had been chorused by troops of young merry men as they galloped with sunlight wild on banners and lances.

He laughed aloud. ‘Hey! An idea. There were exactly thirteen points in Coquelin’s speech. I wonder if he did that on purpose?’

None answered, except the plangent strings. He gave himself to thoughts … Lisa, Connie, Madelon, Jocelyn…. Earth and Moon lay far behind.

‘PCA-SN
Neptune
to cruiser
Fox II
Come in,
Fox II
.’

The voice rocketed them from their scats. ‘Judas,’ Penoyer whispered, ‘that’s a blastship.’

Heim checked the radar tapes. The one paralleling us. She’s gone to an interception course. And if they use English on us, when we’ve got a French registry, they know—’ He bit his lip and settled before the com relay console. ‘
Fox II
to
Neptune
,’ he said. ‘We read you. The master speaking. What’s on your mind? Over.’

‘This is Rear Admiral Ching-Kuo, commanding
Neptune
. Cease acceleration and stand by to be boarded. Over.’

Sickness fountained in Heim. ‘What do you mean?’ he blustered. ‘We have clearance. Over.’

‘You are suspected of illegal intentions. You are ordered to return to Earth orbit. Over.’

‘Have you a warrant? Over.’

‘I will show you my authorization when I board, Captain. Over.’

‘That’ll be too late, if you don’t have any. Establish video contact and show me now. Otherwise I am not bound to obey. Over.’

‘Captain,’ said Ching-Kuo, ‘I have my orders. If you do not follow instructions, I shall be forced to fire on you. Over.’

Heim’s gaze flew among the stars.
No, no, no, not this! Another hour and we’d have been away!

One hour!

A flaring went through him. ‘You win, Admiral,’ he said; it sounded like a stranger talking. ‘Under protest, I yield. Give us time to compute a velocity-matching vector and we’ll meet you. Over and out.’

He slammed down the switch and opened the intercom to the engine room. ‘Captain to chief engineer,’ he said. ‘Are you there?’

‘Indeed,’ Uthg-a-K’thaq belched. ‘All is satiswactory.’

‘No. Somebody’s uncorked the bottle on hell. There’s a blast-ship which says if we don’t stop and surrender, he’ll shoot. Prepare for Mach drive.’

‘Captain!’ Penoyer yelled. ‘This deep in the sun’s field?’

‘If the sync is perfect, we can do it,’ Heim said. ‘If not … we’re dead, no more. Uthg-a-K’thaq, do you believe we can?’

‘
Gwurru!
What a thing to ask!’

‘You overhauled those engines yourself,’ Heim said. ‘I trust you.’

Vadász’s guitar shouted at his back.

For a moment the intercom bore only the throb of machines. Then: ‘Cawtain, I am not God. Wut I think the chance is good for us. And I trust you.’

Heim opened the general intercom. ‘Now hear this,’ he said; music raged around the words. ‘All hands stand by for Mach drive.’

Penoyer clenched his fists. ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

The drone from aft rose until it was the noise of gales and great waters. Space twisted. Stars danced in the viewports.

Long ago, Ernst Mach of Austria
(‘Morgenrot, Morgenrot
—’) had held the key. Nothing exists in isolation. Inertia has no meaning without an inertial frame of reference: which must be the entire universe. Einstein showed inertial and gravitational mass are the same. But as for the phenomena themselves—Gravitation is describable by equations of a warped space. Inertia is, then, an inductive effect of the cosmic gravitational field on mass. If your gravitrons can bend space, not the small amount needed for lift and thrust, but through a closed curve, your ship has no resistance to accelerative force. Theoretically, you can go as fast as you like. There are no more boundaries.

Neptune
fired. The missile lagged by a million kilometers. Her captain yammered for instrument readings. Perhaps, oh,
surely, surely, his prey had been torn apart by the forces generated with imperfect mesh of space curvatures here where the sun’s power was still all-dominant. Nothing registered, no wreckage, no trace, except the howl of hydrogen atoms flung in bow wave and wake by a ship outpacing light. He dared not pursue.

Heim straightened. One by one, he eased his muscles. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we got away with it.’ The words were poor for the victory within him. Vadász was doing better:

‘
Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

And we are outward bound!
’

W
HEN
the Earth ship came, Gunnar Heim was bargaining with a devil-winged messenger from a nuclear smithy. The Aerie of Trebogir, for which Ro spoke, had weapons to sell; but there were conditions.

Non-human words hissed and whistled into the man’s helmet pickup. Gregorios Koumanoudes translated into English. ‘—missile gets so large an initial velocity by drawing on the ship’s own gravitrons for a launch impetus.’

Heim wished he could show horse-trader reluctance, as by thoughtfully scratching his head. But it would look silly under present circumstances. Damn this need to wear airsuits! Even on the lift platform where he stood, which kept his weight Earth normal, and even with the strength of a two-meter-tall body which he had gotten back into first-class condition on the voyage hither, the mass of equipment he must carry was tiring. Originally he had planned to stay inboard, put a 3V two-way outside
Connie Girl
, and thus meet with the Staurni; but Koumanoudes warned him against it. They’ll respect you more, Captain, for coming out into their own environment,’ the Greek had said. Irrational, sure, but they make a big thing of physical toughness. And they’ll give a better deal to someone they respect.’

So – Heim scowled into harsh blue sunlight. ‘I see the advantage,’ he answered. ‘However, with my own maneuvering handicapped, I’d be a sitting duck.’

Koumanoudes put his objection into the language that prevails between Kimreth heights and the Iron Sea. Ro spread his taloned hands, a startlingly humanlike gesture. The loss of maneuverability is negligible,’ he said, ‘as only a fractional second is needed for launch. Thereafter one immediately has full accelerative power available again. To be sure, the system must be synchronized with the engine complex, but it should
not take long to make the necessary modifications on your ship.’

Unconsciously, Heim glanced skyward. Somewhere beyond that deep purple vault, those icily blue-tinged clouds,
Fox II
swung in orbit around Staurn; tenders flitted back and forth with cargoes of hell, men and notmen swarmed over the cruiser, working together to fit her for war. There was not much left to do. And every nerve in him throbbed to be away. Each day he spent here, Alerion grew stronger, the cause of men on New Europe more hopeless.

Still, one privateer, raiding in the Phoenix, was dreadfully alone. She needed any microscopic advantage he could find for her. Like this missile sling which Ro claimed they could make in the Aerie of Trebogir. It did sound promising. … ‘How long to install?’ Heim asked.

Again four claw fingers, set around the entire palm of the hand, gestured. ‘Some days. One cannot tell exactly without more knowledge than my kinfather’s technologists possess about vessels of your particular class. May I suggest that the captain send his honored chief engineer to discuss such matters with our folk?’

‘Um-m-m.’ Heim considered. His gaze went past Ro, to Galveth, who waited impassively for something to be said that might concern the Lodge. But the blast gun remained idly cradled in the observer’s arms. If Galveth had any expression, it was of sleepiness, his yellow eyes drooping. A human could never be sure, though, what went on in the narrow Staurni skulls.

It was even hard to tell individuals apart. A common alienness outweighed variable details. Ro and Galveth were each about three meters long; but half of that was in the thick, rudder-tipped tail, on whose double coil the legless torso sat. The keelbone jutted like a prow. The face was sharp-muzzled, with wolfishly fanged mouth and small round ears. Its mask appearance came less from the dark band across the eyes than from the nostrils being hidden under the chin. A gray growth, neither hair nor feathers but something in between, covered the entire hide. No clothes were worn except two pouched belts crossing from shoulder to waist. All was overshadowed by the immense chiropteran wings, seven meters in span.

When you looked closely, you saw differences, mainly that Galveth had grown lean and frosty-tinged while Ro was still
in the fierceness of youth. And Galveth wore the gold-ornamented harness reserved for Lodge members, Ro the red-and-black geometry of Trebogir’s pattern.

Heim turned to Koumanoudes. What do you think?’ he asked.

The stocky man shrugged. ‘I’m no engineer.’

‘But damnation, you and Wong have spent a couple of months here. You must have some notion who’s honest and competent, who isn’t.’

‘Oh, that. Sure. Trebogir isn’t one of the robber barons. He has a good name. You can deal with him.’

‘Okay.’ Heim reached a decision. ‘Tell this messenger, then, that I am interested. I’ll call C.E. down from
Fox
as soon as possible – right now he’s got to help the contractor from the Hurst of Wenilwain install our fire-control computers – and we’ll come to the Aerie and talk further about the proposal.’

‘You can’t be that blunt,’ Koumanoudes said. ‘Lodge members are, but they’re different. A Nester is worse than an Arab or a Japanese for wanting flowery language.’ He turned and began to form syllables.

Through the wind that rustled the low red-leaved forest surrounding the spaceport, through the beat of surf a kilometer distant, a sudden whine smote. It grew, became thunderous, the heavy air was split and a shadow fell across concrete field and lava-block buildings. Every head swung up.

A rounded cylinder was descending. The blue-white radiance was savage off its metal; spots danced before Heim’s eyes when he turned them away. But he recognized the make. The heart jumped in his breast. ‘A spaceship! Human built—What’s going on?’

‘I … don’t … know.’ Behind the dark faceplate, Koumanoudes’ big-nosed countenance harshened. ‘Nobody said a word. Galveth!’ He rattled off a question.

The Lodge agent made a bland reply. ‘He says he didn’t think it mattered,’ Koumanoudes translated.

‘Blaze,’ Heim said in anger, ‘he knows about the Aleriona crisis! He must have at least some inkling of our trouble with our own government. The Lodge must’ve stopped that ship for inspection no later than yesterday. Why haven’t we been warned?’

‘I’m not sure how much the Staurni ever understood,’ Koumanoudes said. To them it’s ridiculous that we couldn’t arm
ourselves at home and take off whenever we wanted. Besides, those people can’t have any real weapons along, or they wouldn’t’ve been allowed to land.’

They can have small arms,’ Heim snapped. ‘We do. Get rid of these bucks as fast as you can, Greg, and come inboard. I’ve got to alert the boys.’

He strode rapidly across the platform to the landing ramp and up to the airlock. There he must fume while pumps replaced the atmosphere of Staurn with something he could breathe, and while he himself was decompressed. The baffled rage that he had thought was left behind on Earth came back to possess him. So much could have happened in the couple of weeks that
Fox II
had needed to cross the hundred-odd light-years to this star, or in the three weeks that followed while she was being refitted. If the appeasement party had won out, if his privateering venture had been declared illegal—

Of course
, he told himself, over and over,
that’s not a Federation Navy ship. She’s a small civilian ranger. But then, the Staurni don’t let any warcraft but their own near this planet. If she’s simply bringing an official order for me to come home
—
Well, all right, face the question: what then? Do I go on anyway – as a pirate?

Sickly:
Wouldn’t be much use. The hope was to create a situation that Earth could take advantage of. If Earth refuses the chance and disowns us, we can only be troublemakers to Alerion, until at last we’re cornered and killed. Ill never see Lisa again
. It was as if once more he could feel a small body pressed against him in farewell.
They’ll tell her, the whole rest of her life, her father was a criminal
.

But maybe, maybe even a pirate could accomplish something. There was Drake of the
Golden Hind—
He sailed in another day, when men weren’t afraid
.

The inner door opened. He moved on into his yacht, which was now an auxiliary for the starship, and opened his helmet.

Endre Vadász had the bridge. The minstrel’s thin dark face was turned outward, staring through the viewport as the other vessel neared in a gravitron-distorted shimmer of light. When Heim’s boots rang on the deck, he didn’t look around, but said tonelessly, ‘I have ordered the crew into battle gear, and brought your own rifle from your cabin.’

‘Good man.’ Heim took the weapon in the crook of an arm. There was assurance in that weight and solidity and beautiful
deadly shape. It was a .30-caliber Browning cyclic, able to send forty rounds a minute through any atmosphere or none, the pride of his collection. Vadász, also in a collapsed airsuit with faceplate unlocked, had settled for a laser pistol.

‘I am not certain,’ the Hungarian remarked, ‘what six men can do if they try to storm us. Yonder ship can easily hold five times as many.’

‘We can stand ’em off till the boys arrive from
Fox
,’ Heim said, ‘and they total almost a hundred. Assuming the Lodge doesn’t stop the fight.’

‘Oh, that I doubt,’ Vadász murmured with a slight smile. ‘We aren’t likely to damage their nice spaceport, and from everything I hear, they have no rules against bloodshed.’ He pointed to several winged shapes, wheeling black against the clouds over the western end of Orling Island. They’ll come enjoy the spectacle.’