Voyage Across the Stars (82 page)

“I understand business, mesdames and sirs,” Ned said. “I understand politics. I don’t ask you to grant Lissea the place she demands out of justice or fairness or any of those other things which are quite properly excluded by the walls of this room.”

Lucas Doormann backed a step away. His father, still smiling, nodded to Ned. “Go on,” he said.

“What I put to you is this,” Ned continued. “Lissea Doormann has displayed the resourcefulness that will make her an invaluable member of this board, and at some future point a worthy leader of it.”

He waited, looking down the table at the board members.

“At some future point,” Karel Doormann repeated. “I believe our relative’s demand was for immediate chairmanship.”

He raised an eyebrow.

Ned nodded. “I said I understood politics,” he said. “I can’t sell what I wouldn’t buy, Master Doormann. In your place, I certainly wouldn’t buy that.”

Karel nodded approvingly. “You know, young man,” he said, “there could be a place for you in this organization if you cared to accept one. However.”

To this point, the president’s tone had been playful, cruelly humorous. Now it became as hard and dry as a windblown steppe.

“First,” he said, “this board has no confidence in the willingness of your principal to accept the terms you’re offering on her behalf. Your Lissea made it clear from the beginning that she wants
everything.
Her ability to control a band of murderous cutthroats does nothing to dispel our concerns about her future behavior.”

Some of the board members glanced at Karel in concern. The president was obviously no more interested in their opinions than he was in the opinions of the obsidian table.

“Second and, I’m afraid, finally, Master Slade,” Karel continued, “we expected some such trick as this. As soon as I learned the
Swift
had arrived via Dell, I sent—this board sent—a shipload of company security personnel to that planet.
They will
. . .”

He shrugged, then resumed, “I hate to say this, sir, but your public assertion that Lissea was dead was a bit of good fortune. It will help greatly to avoid future difficulties.”

“Father!” Lucas Doormann cried. He started around the table. “Father, you can’t
think
of this, of
murder!”

Karel pointed a warning finger. “Lucas,” he said, “stop where you are. Otherwise I’ll face the embarrassment of seeing the automatic restraint system act on my offspring.”

Father and son glared at one another. Lucas turned and covered his face in his hands.

Karel looked at Ned and raised an eyebrow in prompting.

“Yes,” said Ned. “Master Doormann, I very much regret this.”

He reverted to at-ease posture with his hands behind him and went on. “Now, sir, what does the board intend for the rest of the crew and myself?”

“Your due,” Karel said calmly. “You’ve accomplished a difficult task for Doormann Trading. You’ll be paid according to your contracts, and there’ll be an added bonus for success.”

Karel pursed his lips as he chose his next words. “I can’t imagine that many of your fellows would care to remain on Telaria, nor will they be permitted to do so. Their passage will be paid to their planets of residence and, if they claim no residence, to their planets of origin. Deported, if you will, but certainly not wronged.”

He paused. “I will make an exception for you, Master Slade, if you choose.”

“No,” Ned replied curtly. Braced as he was, his eyes were focused on the wall above the president’s head. “I do not so choose.”

“I thought as much,” Karel said, “though you would have been welcome.”

The dry chill returned to his voice. “Let me make the matter very clear to you, Master Slade. This is a Telarian problem. We have no desire to offend you or the other members of your company, but you will
not
interfere in our affairs.”

He smiled again. “I know you’re intelligent enough to realize that without Lissea’s presence as a rallying point, there is no possibility of gathering a coalition to redress what—”

He paused

“—for the sake of argument we may describe as the ‘wrong’ done her. Some of your fellows may not be as sophisticated. I trust that you’ll be able to convince them not to . . . do themselves harm.”

Ned nodded. “I’ll do what I can,” he said tonelessly. He raised his commo helmet and settled it back on his head. “I believe we’ve said everything that needs to be said,” he went on. “With your leave, I’ll return to the
Swift
and gather my personal belongings.”

“As you choose,” said Karel, gesturing toward the doorway behind Ned.

“Lucas,” Ned said, “I would appreciate a few words with you outside.”

“Did you think I’d stay here?” Lucas snarled. He strode into the anteroom ahead of the mercenary. The stroke of the inner panel closing cut off sight of his father’s frown.

“I can’t believe this!” Lucas said as the main door opened.

“I can,” Ned said.
For my sins, I can.

The commo helmet was set to the channel linking it with the
Swift,
and locked against all other parties. As Ned stepped out of the shielded boardroom, he faced south and broke squelch twice.

The alarm clanged through the
Swift’
s
internal PA system.

Carron Del Vore was straightening the bunks on one side of the aisle. Unlike playing solitaire or staring at the ceiling, it gave him the illusion of accomplishment. He’d worked his way to the third pair, pulling the sheets tight and arranging the jumble of gear and tattered clothing in neat piles at the foot and head respectively. He jumped as if he’d been stabbed in the kidneys.

Tadziki sat at the backup navigational console, facing aft. He was as still as a leopard in ambush. Occasionally in the past twenty minutes he’d blinked his eyes; when the alarm sounded, he blinked them again.

“It’s time, then,” he said to Carron. “Make the call.”

“I think . . .” Carron said. He tried to lick his lips, but his tongue was dry also. “. . . that we ought to wait a, a few minutes.”

“No,” said Tadziki as he rose to his feet. “We shouldn’t. You can either use the console, or the handset—”

He indicated the unit flexed to his console. Its keypad permitted handier access to some planetary communications nets than the voice-driven AIs built into commo helmets did.

“—or a helmet, if you’d be comfortable with that. But it has to be done at once. Preset five.”

“Yes, I know it’s preset five,” Carron said. He flipped up the handset’s cover, held the unit to his ear to be sure of the connection, and pressed System/Five.

The
Swift’
s
main hatch was open. Sounds of the spaceport rumbled through. At the graving dock nearby, polishing heads howled and paused, then howled again as they cleaned the hull of a freighter.

“I don’t like having to do this,” Carron said to Tadziki as circuits clicked in his ear. “I know it was my idea. But I don’t like it.”

“We aren’t required to like it,” the adjutant said, looking through the Pancahtan and into his own past life. “People depend on us, so we’ll do our jobs. Lissea depends on us.”

“I know . . .” Carron said.

The paired chimes of the ringing signal rattled silent.
“Yeah?”
a voice croaked.
“Two-two-one, ah . . . Fuck. Two-two-one-four.”

“Platt,” Carron said imperiously, “this is Prince Carron Del Vore. You are to go into the laboratory at once and close the door of the device we brought in this afternoon.”

“What?”
the attendant said. “What?”

“Close the door of the device so that it latches, but don’t slam it,” Carron said. “Otherwise the atmosphere will degrade the interior and cause irreparable harm. And don’t touch the mirrors surrounding the installation.”

“Look, this isn’t my job!”
Platt cried.
“I’m not even supposed to go into the lab—I’m just here to watch the door!”

“Platt,” Carron said, as implacable as a priest of the Inquisition, “I will arrive in a few minutes with mercenaries from the Pancahte Expedition. If you have not carried out my instructions to the letter, they will kill you. Hunt you down and kill you, if necessary. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, yeah, I understand,”
the attendant whined.
“Look, I’m doing it, I’m doing it right now. But I shouldn’t have to, you see?”

Platt broke the connection.

Carron sighed and closed the handset. “The man’s scum,” he said to Tadziki. “But there must be thousands of people in the building now. We don’t have anything so large on Pancahte. So tall, at least. Because of the earthquakes.”

Tadziki eased past the younger man and stood in the hatch, looking outward.

“What happens now?” Carron asked. He hadn’t been part of the tactical planning from this point on.

“We wait,” Tadziki said. “I wait, at least. You might want to get out of the way, hide somewhere in Landfall City. I can arrange credit for you if you don’t have any of your own.”

Carron stood beside the adjutant. An articulated three-section roadtrain clanked slowly by on steel treads, carrying heavy cargo. Tadziki was looking beyond it, and beyond anything visible.

“You think there’s going to be trouble here, then?” Carron asked.

“There’s going to be a great deal of confusion,” Tadziki said. “If the state organization is good enough, there will certainly be police sent to arrest everyone aboard the
Swift.
I don’t expect that. There’s a far greater chance of rioters attacking, however.”

He smiled wanly at Carron. “Some of the men—men from the ship’s crew—didn’t choose to be involved further. They’ll stay low in their hotel room until the business is done. The combat personnel are where they need to be also. And I’m here, because the potential need for a command post is greater than the risk.”

Tadziki’s hand gripped the hatch coaming so hard that the veins stood out. His skin blotched white and red because the tense muscles cut off their own blood supply.

“I wouldn’t be much good to Herne and the others,” he said harshly toward Landfall City. “I’m a fat old man, and I could never hit anybody far enough away that his blood didn’t splash me.”

Carron looked at Tadziki and swallowed. “Yes,” he said. “Well, I think I’ll stay here too.”

Dockyard machinery screamed like lost souls.

The limousine was parked in front of the building. It was unattended because both the security personnel from the vehicle were escorting Ned.

There were two similar cars whose driver/bodyguards were still present. Most of the board members would have come to the meeting via underground tramlines from their private residences within the estate rather than being driven.

The guards opened both doors of the limo’s passenger compartment deferentially. The Telarian noble paused and said to Ned, “Did you really want to speak to me, or . . .”

Ned nodded. “Could we drive slowly around the estate for a moment?” he asked. “Back trails?”

“Yes, of course,” Lucas said. He gestured to the man holding his door, the driver. “Go on, then.”

Lucas looked drawn. People on the stone-flagged patio fronting the spire watched the tableau sidelong. The armed, uniformed attendants in front of the building were the only ones who felt they could openly stare at the folk who rode in limousines; and that only while Lucas and Ned stepped through the weapons detector that covered the entranceway.

Ned and Lucas got into the car from opposite sides. As soon as the doors
thunk
ed
closed, Ned retrieved the needle stunner he’d hidden between the seat cushions during the ride from the spaceport. His body concealed what he was doing from his companion.

“Master Lucas,” he said, “I don’t like what’s going to happen now—”

“You know this is none of my doing!” Lucas burst out. “I—I’ll leave home, I won’t stay on Telaria even, not after this. But it’s already done, Slade. There’s nothing I can do now!”

The guards closed themselves into the front with the same solid shocks as those the rear doors had made. Ned’s view forward ignored the guards. The limousine pulled away silently, heading down a curving drive.

“I know that, Lucas,” Ned said. “That’s why I wanted you out of the building. You’re not the only innocent person, I realize, but you’re the only one I know personally.”

“I don’t understand,” the Telarian said. He frowned as he tried to fit the mercenary’s statement into a knowledge base which had no category for it.

Secondary trails within the estate were only wide enough for one car at a time, so there were pull-overs every half kilometer or so. The limo approached one of them. A bank of red and white flowers grew on the left side, with a bower of trees with long flexible tendrils in place of leaves on the right. There were no other persons or vehicles in sight.

“Just a moment,” said Ned. He reached forward with his left index finger and touched the switch controlling the armored window between the front and rear compartments.

The driver started slightly at the sound. The guard broke off a comment about the soccer final and twisted to face the men in back. “Yes sir?” he said to Lucas.

“Would you please park here a moment?” Ned said.

Lucas nodded. “Yes, do that,” he said. He looked disconcerted. “There’s an intercom, you know,” he added as the limousine pulled beneath the trees.

Ned shot the guard, then the driver, in the back of the neck with his stunner. The weapon clicked as its barrel coil snapped tiny needles out by electromagnetic repulsion.

The guard went into spastic convulsions while the fluctuating current passed between the opposite poles of the needle in his spine. The driver arched his back and became comatose. His foot slipped off the brake, but the limousine’s mass held the
vehicle steady against the idling motors.

Lucas screamed and slapped the door latch. Ned grabbed Lucas around the neck left-handed but didn’t squeeze.

“Wait!” Ned shouted. “They’ll be all right!
Don’t
make me hurt you.”

The door was ajar. Ned slid sideways, pushing Lucas ahead of him from the vehicle. He continued to hold the Telarian for fear the fool would try to run and he’d have to shoot him down. Needle stunners could do permanent nerve damage or even cause death through syncope. If Ned had wanted
that,
he’d have left the boy in the boardroom with his relatives.