For these and many other reasons,
Blood Oath
slowed to groundcar speed as it approached the gate. For one thing, the gate was oriented at nearly right angles to their orbit. Saton was decelerating at a rate that would bring them to a halt just in front of silver ring. He would then rotate the ship a quarter-turn and use maneuvering thrusters to slowly nudge the ship into position at the exact center of the gate. Only when the ship was at rest to the limit of detection would he divert power to the jump generators and begin the buildup of energy that would throw them to a distant star.
“We have passed the outer boundary,” the sailing master announced some time later.
“Are the timing circuits still holding?” Pas-Tek asked.
“Still holding,” the engineer replied from his station at the heart of
Blood Oath
.
“Very well. Sailing master, take us through.”
There passed a hundred heartbeats in which nothing happened. Then there was an indescribable sensation, followed by a change in the starlight falling on the ship’s hull.
“Jump successfully completed, Ship Commander.”
“Very well. Plot an orbit for Pastol. Chief Engineer, you may begin making preparations for the recalibration.”
Both crewmen acknowledged his order.
When Pas-Tek was convinced that everything was in order, he left his station to return to his cabin. This being a new system to him, he needed to study up on the local customs. Not that a member of the Race had anything to fear from trampling on local customs. In any dispute between subservient and master, the masters always won. However, knowing how a particular race of subservients thought made completing his mission easier.
Just three more planets and he could go home!
Chapter Thirty Four
Mark Rykand casually walked CanVisTal to the door of their assigned quarters and bade him goodbye. The trade representative halted for a moment and asked, “Is something wrong with our deal?”
“Wrong?” Mark asked.
“The call from your ship. It was not bad news, was it?”
“No. Captain Harris merely wanted to confirm that the cargo was ready for transfer as soon as the landing boat can get back to orbit. We should have your payment here tomorrow.”
“Then I must depart to see that our portion of the bargain is upheld,” the Ranta replied.
“That would be best. We are very behind schedule and I would like to depart as soon as the
vasa
juice is ready. The sooner we leave, the sooner we return to Troje, and the sooner we can get the bulk carrier here with the rest of your payment.”
“Then we both have a reason to hurry,” CanVisTal replied before turning on his heel and striding out the door at the disconcertingly fast pace that was the normal Ranta walking speed.
Mark’s hands trembled as he reached for his communicator and signaled the ship.
“Harris, here,” came the immediate reply.
“What’s the matter?” Mark asked. Both men were speaking Standard to make sure that their signal could not be intercepted and understood.
“A ship just popped out of the stargate.”
“What ship?”
“A Broan Avenger.”
Mark gulped. “Bad news” didn’t seem to cover it. The mission to obtain a planetary database had so far gone off flawlessly, and now this worst of all possible scenarios.
“Are you sure it’s an Avenger?”
“The emissions spectrum matches the recordings from the Battle of New Eden.”
It hadn’t been a battle, of course. More of a slaughter. When
Magellan
had first spotted Sar-Say’s ship, it had been under attack by a craft Sar-Say identified as a powerful warcraft. He had named the type “Avenger” and apparently, another was en route to Pastol. They were so damned close! Why couldn’t the Broa have waited another week to schedule a visit?
“Any idea whether they are looking for us?” Mark asked.
“They don’t appear to be in a hurry to get here. At the moment, they are just accelerating away from the stargate at a leisurely pace.”
“What are your orders, Captain?”
“For you and your people to get your asses on that boat and get back up here. We need to break orbit as soon as you are onboard.”
Mark’s stomach tightened into a tension knot. At the same time, his mind raced. To have come so far and then fall short was a crushing blow. Worse, it was not the first time this had happened to him.
“I think that would be a mistake, Captain.”
“How so, Mr. Rykand?” the tone of command was evident in Harris’s voice.
“We had this problem at Klys’kra’t. We were close to obtaining a planetary database then, and we let it slip through our fingers.”
“From what I heard, Lieutenant, it was the right decision,” Captain Harris replied.
“You’re probably right, sir. If Sar-Say had managed to get word to the locals, no telling what would have happened. We just couldn’t risk Earth that way. Still, I lie awake at night and wonder if we shouldn’t have brazened it out.”
“Is that your recommendation now?”
“Yes, sir. I think it is. This system has but one stargate. If we run for it, we have to run right past that inbound Avenger. What if the Broan captain orders us to halt for inspection? Or the Ranta might note that as soon as the Broan ship appeared, we abandoned our goods and ran. It would be better to stay and carry on as though nothing is wrong. After all, we aren’t supposed to know that a Broan warship is in this system.”
“You’re risking the lives of your ground party and of everyone on this ship, Mister.”
“Yes, sir, but I think the benefit is worth the risk. The Ranta claim they will have the database in three days. If the Avenger isn’t in a hurry to get here, it will make orbit in four or five days. That gives us a minimum of 24 hours to wrap things up, return to the ship, and be ready to space as soon as the Avenger assumes a parking orbit.
“They slip in and we slip out. That way, we won’t have to confront him en route and it won’t look to the Ranta like we’re running away.”
“What if something goes wrong, Lieutenant?”
“If something goes wrong, we fight our way to safety. Also, there is always
Chicago
to rectify any mess we make while trying to get clear.”
There came a long pause in which Captain Harris considered his recommendation. Finally, the voice that issued from the communicator bore a trace of resignation along with fatigue. “We’ll follow your recommendation. I hope you know what you are doing.”
“That makes two of us, Captain.”
#
Three days later, CanVisTal made good on his promise. Five large hundred-liter tanks were loaded aboard the landing boat with great ceremony, and the trade representative handed him a record cube containing the standard planetary database of Pastol.
“There, Master Trader, we have met our part of the bargain.”
“Thank you, CanVisTal. And we are ready with our portion,” he said, pointing to the alien goods piled up just beyond the landing boat airlock.
At the Ranta’s signal, his work crew began moving tanks into the boat, where they were strapped to the aft passenger benches. To clear the airlock door required them to bend nearly double. The Ranta then began loading the pile of power units, reformers, verifiers, and statuary onto a small self-propelled cart.
When the goods were safely inside a nearby warehouse, CanVisTal made a speech about how trade was good and how he hoped their
vasa
winemaking venture would add a store of value to both species. He managed to take half an hour to express a sentiment that should have gone a minute or two. To the four shivering members of the ground party lined up outside the boat, it seemed interminable.
Eventually the trade representative ran down and Mark responded with his own speech. He thanked CanVisTal for his courtesy and praised the business acumen and fairness of the Ranta.
Finally the speeches were done, CanVisTal shook the hands of each of them as Mark had taught him to do, and the time came to enter the boat.
Mark was the last one to board. It was with a sigh that he pressed the control that sealed both airlock doors. He took off his heavy coat, stuffed it into a small storage compartment, then squirmed his way forward past shining containers of
vasa
juice. He slid onto the first bench where his wife was holding the lap belt ready for use.
He took one final look around. Seeing nothing amiss, he turned to Bernie Sampson, and in a loud official voice, said, “Pilot!”
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Would you please get us the hell out of here?”
“Gladly, Lieutenant. Hang on to your butt because this is going to be one of the fastest transits you’ve ever seen.”
Seconds later, they were aloft and climbing for altitude. As soon as they cleared the continent, Sampson accelerated through the sound barrier — sound propagated more slowly on Pastol than Earth because of the lower temperature — and began to climb for the deep black.
#
Mark never realized how much he had missed
New Hope
until he was safely back onboard. No sooner had the hangar bay been pressurized than he was out through the airlock. The temperature seemed colder than Pastol. His breath made smoke as he breathed. He was followed by three excited members of the ground party.
It was good to be home again.
Captain Harris met them at the hatch. “Did you get it?”
Mark held up the glittering jewel of the record cube between thumb and forefinger.
“Is it authentic?”
“I don’t know yet. I doubt the Ranta would cheat us. They’re too anxious to sell us their juice. Still, you can never tell about aliens, so we’ll make some copies and have Suichi check it out.”
“You called, boss?” the ersatz Trojan scholar asked from behind Mark.
Mark turned to him and handed over the cube.
“The first thing I want is for you to make a dozen copies. After that, check to see if it’s really the database. Look for maps of the stargate system.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t look before you’ve made the copies. We’ve come too far to screw things up now.”
Takamatsu grinned. “Not to worry. I know how to do my job.”
“Good, then do it.” The intensity of Mark’s response was an indication of the strain he’d been under the last few weeks.
Both he and Harris watched Takamatsu disappear through the hatch before Mark turned to the captain and asked, “What is that Avenger doing?”
“Just boring in as though he hasn’t a care in the world. He’ll make orbit tomorrow afternoon.”
“Do you think he suspects us? Has he made any hostile moves?”
“None,” Harris replied. “And he’d better not. I have both of our superlight missiles tracking him as we speak. If he twitches in our direction, I’ll blast him out of space.”
#
“Pastol Space Control, this is Trojan Trade Ship
New Hope
. We are ready to depart orbit.”
“You will have to wait,” a Rantan voice replied. “There is a Warship of the Masters that has priority.”
“Understood. Our sensors indicate that he will reach orbit on the other side of the planet. When he does, we would like to depart for the stargate.”
“Your request is noted. Stand by.”
“Just like our Navy,” Harris muttered under his breath. “Hurry up and wait!”
Half an hour later, the Broan Avenger slid behind the disk of Pastol and was presumably taking up the same parking orbit that
New Hope
was in. Moments later, a voice emanated from the communicator, announcing that they were free to depart.
Harris acknowledged the order and gave the same command Mark had when leaving the planet.
“Astrogator, get us the hell out of here, but don’t make it look as though we are in any particular hurry.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When you are clear of the local orbital junk, boost speed to something that makes it look like we are anxious to make up for lost time, but don’t show them any performance better than they expect to see.”
“Already plotted, Captain.”
There followed four tense hours while they watched to see if anyone was pursuing them. In fact, there were only two ships in the system… their own and the Avenger. That fact did not put anyone’s mind at ease, however.”
At the end of first watch, Captain Harris called his staff together in the wardroom. In addition to Mark, who was his astrogator, he included the rest of the ground party.
They debriefed him as to what had taken place on the surface while he and the crew had waited in orbit. If the ground party despaired of ever obtaining the database, those aboard
New Hope
had the worst of it. There is a certain calming effect that action has on the human psyche. Those aboard the ship did not have the benefit of that calming. All they could do was sit and wait and imagine the worst.
At the end of the debriefing, Seiichi Takamatsu reported on his initial search of the data in the record cube.
“It’s a planetary database, all right. It must have 50 terabytes of information stuffed in there. Most of it is Ranta junk, but I did manage to locate the map of the stargate network. Care to see it?”
He didn’t wait for a response as one was not needed. Instead, he punched a series of commands into his datacom and the large holoscreen at one end of the compartment lit up.
A series of rainbow colors swirled for a moment, and then a diagram based on Broan symbols came up. The screen was filled with glowing gold stargate symbols connected by dim red lines. There were so many of them that Mark had difficulty making out the shape of the map.
“This isn’t a star map, per se,” Takamatsu said. “It’s more like one of those maps of the tube in London. The interconnecting lines show the topology of the system rather than location in space. The scale is expanded for important systems, diminished for minor ones.”
“Can you tell us where to find the Broan home world?” Harris asked.
The scientist held up his hands in a gesture of exasperation. “Captain, give me a break. I just barely managed to find this diagram before the briefing.”
“It’s huge!” Lisa exclaimed, looking at the screen.
She was right. It looked as though some giant spider had gone insane while spinning his web. Red lines went everywhere on the screen, jumping from stargate to stargate in seemingly random order.