Where the Ships Die (6 page)

Natalie wrinkled her nose. The vehicle's interior smelled sour, like the inside of a tavern, and she ordered the window to open. It slid halfway down and jammed. The vehicle jerked into motion, pulled a U-turn, and followed Bayshore drive toward the city.

Million-credit homes jutted out from the cliffs, reminding Natalie of her childhood. Her parents owned one of those houses, though they didn't spend much time in it. Not with a shipping line to run, business deals to close, and planets to terraform. No, she and her brother had seen damned little of Howard and Mary, which was probably just as well, since neither one had any parenting skills.

The highway curved and traffic increased as the cab entered the city of Fortuna. High-rise buildings shot toward the sky, spidery skywalks tied them together, and aircars cruised vertical streets. It was typical of her parents to meet here, among the trappings of wealth, rather than in Freeport where Voss Lines had been founded. What nerve they'd had then, referring to a clapped-out freighter as their "flagship," and calling themselves "a line."

And later, when a drive failed during a deep-space voyage, and it looked as if it would take two years to limp back home, Howard and Mary had gambled on what might have been an ender rather than a commercially viable wormhole. That took courage. Real courage that paid off when the twosome emerged at the other end of the Confederation and registered their discovery.

Yes, Natalie's parents were special people, all right, which was why she spent as little time with them as possible. The cab pulled up in front of an expensive restaurant. The young woman grimaced, wished she had changed her clothes, and made her way up the steps. The doorman frowned but opened it anyway. Maybe lunch would be good. Maybe her parents had changed. Maybe hell would freeze over.

Jason looked small and vulnerable on the operating room table. Instruments gleamed as preparations were made. Orr swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat as the doctors and nurses laid sterile drapes back and forth across his son's tiny form. Monitors glowed and machines hummed as the anesthesiologist injected a sedative into the child's IV.

Jason's eyelids fluttered, he said something about dasas, and then he fell instantly asleep. The anesthesiologist looked at the surgeon, and she looked at Orr. The mask hid everything but her eyes, and they conveyed what? Horror at what they were about to do? If so, Orr understood how the doctor felt, because he felt a distinct queasiness in the pit of his stomach. He nodded. "Get on with it." The words emerged as a croak.

The initial part of the surgery was simple. An incision was made in the child's abdomen. Bleeders were located and cauterized. The first scalpel was discarded and a second incision was made. It went deeper this time, down through yellow baby fat to the peritoneum, where the surgeon paused again. A laser flashed, and the air grew thick with the smell of burned flesh. A pair of retractors scampered down a sterile ramp, positioned themselves to either side of the opening, and deployed their stainless steel arms. The hole expanded, and Orr felt dizzy.

He could have avoided the operation, could have waited outside, but had forced himself to watch. Doing so was his penance, his punishment for an act he knew to be wrong, but was determined to carry out anyway. Still, the knowledge that no harm would come to Jason, and that the son would inherit what his father built, salved Orr's conscience. The dizziness receded.

Orr opened his eyes and saw that the surgeon had cut down through the peritoneum and into the abdominal cavity. There was a pause as blood was sponged away, bleeders were cauterized, and the roboretractors repositioned themselves. The surgeon looked at the anesthesiologist, received a nod, and rinsed her gloves in a basin of sterile water. "Okay, people, let's get a move on. Is the organism ready?"

The industrialist looked across the operating table and into a Traa's tawny yellow eyes. Which one was it, anyway? The aliens were swathed in OR greens like everyone else, and the specially designed face masks made it difficult to tell them apart. The creature nodded as if to confirm the moment of contact. His voice was muffled behind the mask. “The organism is ready."

A nurse placed the specially prepared symbiote in a kidney basin. It was small, no larger than a prune, and similar in appearance. It pulsed with internal life, and the sight made Orr queasy. He fought the sensation with his knowledge of what would happen. Once in place, the alien organism would tap into Jason's blood supply and extract nourishment from it. In return for such sustenance, the symbiote would inject naturally produced antibiotics into the child's circulatory system, making both organisms resistant to disease. The only problem was that if left too long, the creature would grow its way out of the boy's abdomen and seek a larger body with which to partner, a process that would kill Orr's son.

So, to prevent that course of events, and guarantee his son's continued good health, the organism would be removed in three years. The symbiote could and probably would resist such interference, so chemicals would be used to subdue it.

Orr Enterprises scientists were already hard at work searching for the proper combination of compounds just in case a disagreement arose, though The Traa knew what the chemicals were, and were supposed to divulge that information in three years' time. It was their way of holding Jason hostage to his father's word, which was a rather important point from their perspective, since they were putting up more than half the credits required to buy the Mescalero Gap. They certainly didn't want their controlling interest to be known—not until the Confederacy was safely under their control, that is.

It was not what Orr wanted for his son, or what
any
father would have wanted, but it was necessary. Because if the industrialist had learned anything during his life, it was that nothing remains constant, and that success must be won over and over again. For, like the organism in question, Orr Enterprises had a single choice. It could find additional resources, and hope to grow larger, or remain as it was, and eventually die. The first alternative sounded a heck of a lot better than the second. The businessman smiled behind his mask. A microbot slithered down into the bottom of the incision, pulled the margins into alignment, and bonded them together.

Lunch went poorly, a fact that shouldn't have surprised Natalie but did. In spite of the fact that she should have known better, the young woman had hoped that her parents had changed, had matured somehow, and were genuinely interested in her. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. In fact, the dishes had barely been cleared from the table when the conversation switched from a perfunctory interest in her career to a terraforming project gone wrong, and what that meant to the company.

Not just
their
company, as her mother pointed out, but
her
company as well, since she and Dorn had been given equal shares in Voss Lines at birth, and would inherit someday. Not that Natalie especially wanted to.

In any case, it soon became apparent that the
real
purpose of the lunch was to advise Natalie of their intention to negotiate a loan and secure her thumbprint on the necessary screens, an approval Dorn didn't have to give since his eighteenth birthday was still months away.

So, with lunch out of the way, and conversation on the decline, the three departed for Orr Towers, a pair of high-rise buildings that dominated Fortuna's skyline and proclaimed their owner's power. The visitors were received with the pomp and ceremony that befitted both their past and present status, for even with their shipping line on the ropes, Howard and Mary Voss still owned a wormhole, and were theoretically wealthy.

As a high-speed, executive-only elevator whisked them toward the top of a tower, Natalie found reason to regret the way she was dressed for the second time that day—especially compared to her mother's custom-tailored business suit, tasteful gold jewelry, and perfect nails. She sighed. It was just one more way in which she failed to measure up.

The elevator stopped and the doors swished open. Carnaby Orr had been warned that they were on the way and came to greet them. He shook hands, exchanged pleasantries, and ushered them into a fashionably furnished office. It looked out on Discovery Bay. Natalie watched a free trader make its final approach, skim over the whitecaps, and belly flop in. Spray flew upward, and she wished she were there. Someone said her name and she took a seat instead.

Both parties knew what they wanted and were eager to begin. Mary seized the initiative. "You know why we came ... your holding company and its subsidiaries have been buying Voss Lines piecemeal for the last six months or so."

Orr shrugged. "Properties came on the market and we liked them. It was business ... nothing personal."

Mary Voss couldn't think of anything
more
personal, and knew Orr felt the same way, but understood his point. The industrialist hadn't done anything to destroy Voss Lines...she'd managed that all by herself. "Of course. We never thought otherwise. Which brings us to the present. Howard and I have a business proposition for you ... one that should be mutually beneficial."

Orr knew what was coming, and didn't have any intention of agreeing to it, but forced a smile anyway. "I love mutually beneficial business propositions. Fire away."

Natalie watched as her mother pitched the idea, explained how the loan would benefit Orr Enterprises, and minimized the extent to which she and her husband needed it. There were adders too, including language that would provide Orr's ships with a discount on tolls, and priority ratings that would shave days off shipping intervals. It was a masterful presentation, and might have worked, had Orr been interested. He waited for Mary to finish, nodded pleasantly, and said, "An excellent proposal, and tempting too, except that I have something different in mind."

Orr's counterpresentation was short and to the point. He, along with certain unidentified partners, was prepared to buy the Mescalero Gap outright, and for a rather generous sum, provided that the Voss family would agree to a large down payment, with substantial bubble payments each year for twenty years.

The figures were enormous, and Natalie felt her jaw drop as her mother not only refused, but took offense as well. Mary stood and looked at Orr through narrowed eyes. "The wormhole is worth
twice
what you offered, and you know it! Not that it makes a damned bit of difference. The gap is not now, nor will it ever be, for sale, especially to you. Good day, sir."

The atmosphere in the elevator was thick with anger as the threesome made their way down and into the street. Natalie had intended to ask after Dorn, to check on his progress at school, but she was dismissed with a kiss. Her parents couldn't wait to enter the private place where she'd never been allowed, where they could discuss the meeting and plan their next move.

Disappointed, and more than a little lonely, Natalie took a cab to Freeport. Once there she strapped herself into a loader. The exoskeleton stood twelve feet high. It had been orange once, but the abrasive effects of time, salt, and constant use had leached the pigment out of the bright paint, and left islands of unadorned steel. But the machine made for an excellent vantage point and provided Natalie with an unencumbered view of the harbor.

She used the machine's optics to find her parents' freighter and watch it break free of the land. Clearances were given, drives were engaged, and repellors were fired. Water boiled and steam enveloped the ship as the hull broke free of the surface. Five or six seconds passed before the ship appeared over its self-generated shroud and rose toward the sky.

The spacecraft was approximately a thousand feet in the air when the first explosion shook its hull. The second came seconds later and was followed by a third. A miniature sun appeared, overloaded Natalie's optics, and vanished. Thunder rolled and broke 246 of Orr's specially treated windows, damaged thousands more within the city of Fortuna, and was heard fifty miles away.

The metal was still falling, still splashing into the water, when Natalie realized that her parents were dead, that she was alone, and that things would never be the same again.

5

Only by great risks can great results be achieved.

Xerxes

A comment made prior

to the invasion of Greece (which failed)

Standard year 480 B.C.

The Planet New Hope

Dorn was ready a full hour before the agreed-upon pickup time, but made the driver wait for an extra fifteen minutes. It was something he'd learned from his mother, who said it made her seem more important, in spite of the fact that she
was
important, and had been for a long time.

Satisfied that the limo had been waiting for a sufficient length of time, and that the driver was impatient to leave, the young man checked the mirror and was pleased with what he saw. Dorn had dark hair, brown eyes, and a jaw that was firm like his father's. A pleasant, some said good-looking, face.

The suit had been in the last care package received from his parents. It was tight through the shoulders but consistent with the image he hoped to project. He wore a white shirt secured with a gold Voss Lines pin, a waist-length jacket, and a lot of gold braid. Black trousers and shiny half-boots completed the outfit.

Dorn checked to make sure that his bankroll was zipped into an inside pocket, felt the fifty-credit note in his right boot, and surveyed the room. It was home now, which meant everything had its place, just like school.

The door made a reassuring click as it closed. The teenager tested the knob, assured himself that the lock was engaged, and made for the stairs. Dorn descended to the lobby, waved to the desk clerk, and stepped through the main entrance. The air was warm and humid.
Too
humid for the clothes he wore. Dorn half expected to find Rali crouched by the stairs but saw no sign of the boy.

The limo was an older model, but so well maintained that it looked new, and hummed like a much younger machine. The driver, a villainous-looking brute with long arms and an underthrust jaw, opened the door. Dorn nodded politely and slipped inside. The door closed, and he was enveloped by a cloud of perfume. The voice came from the shadows at the far end of the seat. It had a husky quality. "Hello, Dorn ... my name's Candy."