The Star Fox (21 page)

‘Sparks, connect me on the universal band,’ Heim ordered. He realized he was sweating. The outflank maneuver would not have been possible save for Uthg-a-K’thaq’s non-human sensitivity in the tuning of a gravitronic manifold, and the engineer could have been mistaken. But beneath the released terror, joy sang in the captain.
We’ve got them! One more blow struck!

A siren wailed. The ship trembled. Automatons reacted; great clangings and thumps resounded through her plates.

‘My God!’ Penoyer’s cry came thin. They’re armed!’

The viewports darkened, that eyes not be burned out by the intolerable brightnesses which blossomed around. Riven fragments of atoms sleeted through vacuum, were whirled away by the ship’s hydromagnetic field, spat X-rays into her material shielding and vanished starward. The meteorite detectors shouted of shrapnel thrown at kilometers per second by low-yield warheads.

Time was lacking in which to be afraid. ‘Parry her stuff,’ Heim commanded his gunners. ‘Laser Turret Three, see if you can cripple her Mach rings.’

Beyond so elementary a decision, he was helpless. Nor could his highly skilled men do a great deal more than transmit it to their robots. The death machines were too fast, too violent for human senses. Radar beams locked on, computers clicked, missiles homed on missiles and destroyed them before they could strike. A blinding beam of energy probed from the Aleriona craft. There was no stopping it; but before it inflicted more than minimal damage,
Fox’s
own heavy laser smote. Armor plate vaporized, the ray burned through, the enemy weapon went dark. The Terrestrial fire-lance drew a seared line across the Aleriona hull as it probed for the exterior fittings of the interstellar drive. That was no easy target, with
the relative position of the two vessels shifting so rapidly. But the computers solved the problem in milliseconds. The other ship crammed on acceleration, trying to shake loose. For a moment the laser pierced only emptiness. Then, remorselessly, it found its mark again and gnawed away.

‘Fire Control to bridge. His Mach’s disabled, sir.’

‘Good. He can’t go FTL on us now, whatever happens,’ Heim said. ‘Bridge to radio room. Keep trying to make contact. Bridge to engine room. Prepare for velocity-matching maneuvers.’

The fight died away. It had not been long. The disproportion between a hastily armed merchantman and a cruiser equipped like a regular Navy unit was too great. Not ludicrous – a single missile that exploded near enough would have killed the human crew by radiation if nothing else – but nonetheless too great.
Fox
had warded off every threat with an overwhelmingly larger concentration of immensely more powerful weapons. A dark peace descended in space. The stars came back in the viewports.

‘Whee-ew,’ Penoyer said faintly. ‘Jolly near got us by surprise alone, didn’t he?’

‘He obviously hoped to,’ Heim nodded. ‘I suppose after today we’d better expect every unescorted transport to be able to fight back.’ Those that were convoyed he left alone. They weren’t many, with Alerion’s strength stretched thin in the Marches and with quite a few warships searching the deeps for him. His prey were the carriers of the cargo which New Europe’s occupiers must have to make their conquest impregnable.

However closely he had skirted obliteration, he felt no delayed panic. If asked about that, he would have said he was blessed with a phlegmatic temperament. But the truth was that upwelling triumph left no room for other feelings. He must force himself to speak coolly: ‘I’m not worried. Pleased, in fact. We showed up better in combat than I had a right to expect with such a higgledy-piggledy crew.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, sir. You’ve drilled us aplenty.’ Penoyer fumbled for a cigaret. ‘Those explosions may have been noticed. Somebody bigger might come out investigating.’

‘Uh-huh. We won’t stay to admire the local scenery.’

‘But what about this capture? She can’t make the Solar System.’

‘We’ll park her in a cometary orbit, not likely to be detected, and repair at leisure—Hoy, there’s an answer to our call.’

The conscreen smoldered with the simulated light of a red dwarf sun. An Aleriona looked out. He was of rank, Heim saw from the fineness of the muliebrile visage, the luster of golden hair and silvery fur. Even in this moment of rage and grief, his language was music that would have haunted a Beethoven.

Heim shook his head. ‘Sorry, I don’t know the High Speech.
Parlez-vous français?
’

‘Not truth,’ sang the other captain. ‘In the star meadows fare we here aboard, needless of New Europe’s tongue. To you the rover yield we
Meroeth
.’

It was a relief finding one who had some English. So far there’d been two with Spanish, one each with French and Chinese. Otherwise sign language worked, when you had a gun in your hand. ‘You know what we are, then?’ Heim said.

‘All know now of that which is named for the swift animal with sharp teeth. Ill may you prosper,’ crooned the Aleriona.

‘Thanks. Now look. We’ll send a boarding party. Your crew will be brigged, but we don’t plan to mistreat anybody who doesn’t force us to. In fact, if you have any casualties—None? Good. You’ll be taken to Earth in your ship and interned for the duration of the war.’

Within himself, Heim wondered about that. Earth was far, Sol itself lost to naked vision. He had no way to get their news. A prize crew could not return and rendezvous with a ship fighting alone against an empire, dependent for survival on unpredictable motion through immensity. He supposed Parliament had had to concede France’s claim that the World Federation was indeed at war with Alerion and his own expedition lawful. Otherwise Earth ships would be out here – Earth officials, at least, aboard Aleriona ships which invited his approach – to order him home.

But there was no word, no help, nothing in the six months since he had left except his own solitary battle. The last Aleriona prisoner he talked to had said the two fleets were still merely glaring at each other in the Marches, and he believed it.
Are they deadlocked yet about whether to fight or negotiate? Will they never see that there can’t he negotiation with an enemy who’s sworn to whip us out of space, till we prove we can beat
him? Merciful God, New Europe’s been gripped for almost a year!

Sorrow touched the lonely face in the screen. ‘Could we have gotten well-wrought engines of war, might we have slain you.’ Hands slim, four-fingered, and double-jointed caressed one of the flowering vines that bedecked the bridge, as if seeking consolation. ‘Evilly built are your machines, men-creatures.’

Oh, ho! so this Q-boat was outfitted right on New Europe. Did somebody there get the idea?
‘Cease acceleration and stand by to be boarded,’ Heim said.

He cut the circuit and issued orders. Treachery was still possible.
Fox
must maintain her distance and send boats. He would have liked to go himself, but his duty was here, and every man was eager to make the trip. Like small boys playing pirate … well, they had taken some fabulous treasures.

Not that
Meroeth
was likely to hold much of interest. Alerion wanted New Europe as a strong point – above all, wanted simply to deny it to humans and thus deny the entire Phoenix – rather than a colony. The cargoes that went from The Eith to Aurore were industrial or military, and thus valuable. No important resources were sent back; at the end of so long a line of communications, the garrison of New Europe must devote everything they could to the task of producing and putting into orbit those defenses which would make the planet all but invulnerable.

Still, the ships didn’t always return empty. Some of the plunder Heim had taken puzzled him. Was it going to Alerion for the sake of curiosity, or in a hope of eventual sale to Earth, or—? Whatever the reason, his boys had not argued with luck when they grabbed a holdful of champagne!

Vectors were matched. The boats went forth. Heim settled himself in the main control chair and watched them, tiny bright splinters, until they were swallowed by the shadow of the great shark-nosed cylinder he guarded. His thoughts ran free: Earth, prideful cities and gentle skies; Lisa, who might have grown beyond knowing; Jocelyn, who had never quite left him – and then New Europe, people driven from their homes to the wilderness, a certain idiot dream about Made-Ion—

The screen buzzed. He switched it on. Blumberg’s round face looked out at him from a shell of combat armor. The helmet was open. Heim didn’t know if the ember light within
that ship could account alone for the man’s redness.

‘Boarding party reporting, sir.’ Blumberg was near stammering in his haste.

Unease tensed Heim’s belly muscles. What’s wrong?’ he demanded.

‘Nothing … situation in hand … but sir! They’ve got humans aboard!’

A
SHORT
inertialess flight took
Fox
so far outsystem that the probability of being detected was quite literally infinitesimal. Heim left the automatics in charge and decreed a celebration.

The mess seethed with men. Only twenty-five privateers remained, and a dozen New Europeans, in a room that had once held a hundred; but they filled it, shouting, singing, clashing their glasses, until the bulkheads trembled. In one corner, benign and imperturbable, Uthg-a-K’thaq snaked bottle after bottle of champagne from the cooler he had rigged, sent the corks loose with a pistol crack, and poured for all. Suitably padded, gunner Matsuo Hayashi and a lean young colonist set out to discover whether karate or Apache technique worked best. Dice rattled across the deck, IOUs for loot against promises of suitably glowing introductions to girls on the planet, come victory. A trio of college-bred Ashanti stamped out a war dance while their audience made tom-toms of pots and pans. Endre Vadász leaped onto the table, his slim body poised while his fingers flew across the guitar strings. More and more of the French began to sing with him:

‘
C’est une fleur, fleur de prairie
,

C’est une belle Rose de Provence
.

Sa chevelure ressemble á la nuit

Et ses beaux yeaux semblent
á
la mysotin
.—’

At first Heim was laughing too loudly at Jean Irribarne’s last joke to hear. Then the music grew, and it took him. He remembered a certain night in Bonne Chance. Suddenly he was there again. Roofs peaked around the garden, black under the stars,
but the yellow light from their windows joined the light of Diane rising full. A small wind rustled the shrubs, to mingle scents of rose and lily with unnamed pungencies from native blooms. Her hand was trusting in his. Gravel scrunched beneath their feet as they walked toward the summer-house. And somewhere someone was playing a tape, the song drifted down the warm air, earthy and loving.

‘
Quand du village elle se promène,

C’est un plaisir de la voir marcher;

Sa jolie taille ronde et gracieuse

Comme une vague souple et mystèrieuse
.’

His eyes stung. He shook his head harshly.

Irribarne gave him a close look. The New European was medium tall, which put him well below Heim, spare of build, dark-haired, long-headed, and clean-featured. He still wore the garments in which he had been captured, green tunic and trousers, soft boots, beret tucked in scaly leather belt, the uniform of a planetary constabulary turned
maquisard
. Lieutenant’s bars gleamed on his shoulders.

‘
Pourquoi cette tristesse soudaine?
’ he asked.

‘Eh?’ Heim blinked. Between the racket in here, the rustiness of his French, and the fact that New Europe was well on the way to evolving its own dialect, he didn’t understand.

‘You show at once the trouble,’ Irribarne said. Enough English speakers visited his planet, in the lost days, that town dwellers usually had some command of their language.

‘Oh … nothing. A memory. I spent several grand leaves on New Europe, when I was a Navy man. But that was – Judas, last time was twenty-one years ago.’

‘And so you think of aliens that slither through streets made empty of men. How they move softly, like hunting panthers!’ Irribarne scowled into his glass, lifted it, and drained it in a convulsive gesture. ‘Or perhaps you remember a girl, and wonder if she is dead or else hiding in the forests.
Hein?
’

‘Let’s get refills,’ said Heim brusquely.

Irribarne laid a hand on his arm. ‘
Un moment, s’il vous plaît
. The population of the whole planet is only five hundred thousand. The city people, that you would meet, they are much less. Perhaps I know.’

‘Madelon Dubois?’

‘From Bonne Chance in origin? Her father a doctor? But yes! She married my own brother Pierre. They live, what last I heard.’

Darkness passed before Heim’s eyes. He leaned against the bulkhead, snapped after air, struggled back to self-control but could not slow his heart. ‘
Gud she lov
,’ he breathed. It was as close to a prayer as he had come since childhood.

Irribarne considered him through shrewd, squinted brown eyes. ‘Ah, this matters to you. Come, shall we not speak alone?’

‘All right. Thanks.’ Heim led the way. Irribarne was hard put to keep up. Behind them, arms around each other’s shoulders, the men were roaring forth:

‘
Chevaliers de la table ronde,

Goûtons voir si le vin est ban
—’

while Vadász’s chords belled through all.

Heim’s cabin seemed the more quiet after he shut the door. Irribarne sat down and glanced curiously about the neat, compact room, Shakespeare, Bjørnson, and Kipling in book editions with worn bindings, micro reels of less literary stature, a model of a warship, pictures of a woman and a girl. ‘
Votre famille?
’ he asked.

‘Yes. My wife’s dead, though. Daughter’s with her grandfather on Earth.’ Heim offered one of his few remaining cigars and began to stuff a pipe for himself. His fingers were not absolutely steady and he did not look at the other man. ‘How is your own family?’

‘Well, thank you. Of course, that was a pair of weeks ago, when my force was captured.’ Irribarne got his cigar going and leaned back with a luxurious sigh. Heim stayed on his feet.