His Majesty's Starship (25 page)

“Oh, great,” Gilmore muttered.

“Is now a good time to tell you that we know about the weapons on board this ship, and on every other in the fleet?” Arm Wild said. Gilmore managed a half smile.

“That helps,” he said. “Thanks.”

“But we won’t need them, sir!” Nichol said happily. “You should have seen it! The moment I said I had Arm Wild on board with me-”

“That was down there,” Arm Wild interrupted. “It might not be so easy up here.”

“What do you mean?” Nichol said, frowning.

“He means,” said Gilmore, who like Arm Wild had already worked it out, “that down there, he was in charge. Up here, he’s no different to any other civilian who happens to wander into a war zone.”

“But- but surely, sir,” Nichol said, “if they knew Arm Wild was on board-”

Gilmore and Arm Wild just looked at him.

“All right,” he said, in a last bid for reassurance. “As far as we know, all our people downstairs have been rounded up, they’re being held at gunpoint ... Arm Wild, your people won’t stand for that, will they?”

“I believe the expression your people use,” Arm Wild said, “is, ‘don’t make any wagers on it’.”

*

Shivaji
’s computer centre was behind the flight deck. Peter looked about him and reluctantly conceded that it beat his cubicle inside the centrifuge ring back on
Ark Royal
.

“Clear the room,” Ranjitsinhji said. He still hadn’t shown the slightest change in tone: his voice was that of someone to whom being disobeyed had simply never occurred. If he was the assistant, Peter hoped he would never, ever meet Krishnamurthy himself. “No, Ms Lahiri, you can stay. Mr Kirton, Ms Lahiri is your counterpart on
Shivaji
.”

Lahiri was his senior: her stripes said Commander, the same as Gilmore. “How do you do,” she said with a smile. “Please call me Muna.”

“Later, Ms Lahiri,” said Ranjitsinhji. “Mr Kirton, I understand you developed a translator program named Polyglot and that the sole copy is now on board
Ark Royal
.”

Peter groaned silently.

“Yes,” he said, “but-”

“No buts, please.” Ranjitsinhji held up a hand as if to ward the buts off. “I am too busy for that. Mr Kirton, we will avail you of all the necessary facilities on board this ship in order that you may retrieve Polyglot from
Ark Royal
’s memory. After that you will be given your freedom.”

Peter shook his head. “No, sir, I-”

“You see, the Rusties make a great thing about personal choice,” Ranjitsinhji said as if the interruption hadn’t happened. “You have declared your voluntary allegiance to our country and that will be a great coup for us: the software genius who developed Polyglot, a citizen of the Confederation! A six foot, fair skinned, blond, blue eyed citizen of the Confederation is admittedly rare, but we try to be open-minded. However, if you refuse to hand over Polyglot to your new rulers, they might think something is amiss. So, we need Polyglot.”

“My contract says that any software I develop while working for the Royal Space Fleet belongs to the Fleet,” Peter said.

“Don’t do it, Pete,” Julia said.

“The airlock is always waiting,” Ranjitsinhji pointed out.

“All right,” Peter muttered.

“Excellent. Ms Lahiri, let me know when it’s done.” Ranjitsinhji left and the others remained, looking at each other.

“I’ll need my aide,” Peter said.

Major Rajan had both their aides clipped to his belt. “Which is yours?”

“That one.”

Rajan handed it over. “The orbital net’s still up?” Peter said.

“Of course,” said Lahiri, not really surprising him.
Shivaji
’s automatic systems relied on the orbital net just as much as the other ships: Peter wouldn’t have put wrecking it past the lunatic in charge of this operation but maybe Surit Amijee,
Shivaji
’s captain, had had a word in his ear.

“My aide needs to talk to your comms system,” he said.

“I’ll do that.” Lahiri entered the required protocols manually. “Ready.”

“Right.” Peter entered a password into his aide and called up a display of codes. He, too, began entering them manually.

“Why don’t you just get your aide to transmit them?” Lahiri said at once.

“Give me some credit,” Peter said. “It won’t accept anything but manual entry. Security.”

“Try it anyway.”

Peter shrugged and did as he told.

“The host system is refusing to accept the codes,” said the aide. “Manual entry required.”

Peter cocked an eyebrow at Lahiri, who smiled. “Forgive me for insulting your intelligence. Carry on.”

“We’re in,” Peter said.

“There is a captain’s override in existence forbidding data to leave
Ark Royal
,” said the aide.

“Override, code beta apollo,” Peter said.

“Complying. The captain’s override has been overridden.”

Peter carried on entering the codes.

“Wait,” said Lahiri. Peter paused, his hands above the keys, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Rajan tensing. “Now you’re in, why not just tell your aide to get Polyglot?”

“Because,” Peter said, as if speaking to a small child, “I’ve made it a bit more secure than that. Manual entry, remember?”

“Try it anyway,” she said again.

Peter shrugged and changed to voice mode. “Retrieve Polyglot, copy to unit, password “berlitz”.”

“Unable to comply. Retrieval of that program requires manual entry of security codes.”

“You’re a very cautious man, Lieutenant,” said Lahiri. “I think I like you.”

*

On board
Ark Royal
, Gilmore and Nichol looked glumly at the display over Peter’s desk on the flight deck. Five minutes earlier it had come to life and now it was buzzing happily away to itself. Data was being taken from the ship and they couldn’t do a thing about it.

*

On
Shivaji
, Julia watched the display with equal anguish as it showed data entering the ship’s banks. AIs checked it for viruses and bombs and pronounced it clean. Lahiri straightened up from the desk with a satisfied smile.

“Well done,” she said. Peter stared stonily into the distance. “Confirm safe receipt of Polyglot program.”

“Polyglot program has been received,” said the system. “Checksum shows 100% viability.”

“Transfer to my aide. Give both password-” She entered the password manually. “Major Rajan, give these two a room. I’ll be on the flight deck with Mr Ranjitsinhji.”

The stateroom had twin beds, a view in the floor that showed a sequence of the Roving and space and the Roving again as the ship revolved, a food dispenser and a guard the other side of door. Julia also suspected it was crawling with electronic bugs.

“You’re quiet,” she said.

“Yes,” he said glumly. He pulled a stylus out of his pocket and looked around for something to write on. He settled on the palm of his hand.
Going to die
, he wrote. Then, under that,
probably
.

She stared at it. “Why?”

“Because of what I just did,” he said. His palm was full and he tried to write left handed on the other. It didn’t work and he took her hand instead.
Polyglot won’t work. Made it only work on AR
.

“Won’t wo-” she exclaimed out loud, before remembering. “Er ... you didn’t have to, Pete.”

“Yes I did. No choice. I wasn’t going to take chances with your life.”

Julia looked at her palm, then up at him. She held it up for him to see and raised her eyebrows. “Very kind of you, Pete. Very kind.”

He lay down on one of the beds with his hands behind his head and shut his eyes. “Now it’s out of the way, I hope they don’t need you as a hostage. If they’re angry about anything, they’ll take it out on me. I hope.”

He didn’t say anything else. His breathing slowed down and he was either asleep or praying. Julia looked at him, aghast. What world was this boy living in? Of course they’d take it out on her. And then on him anyway. Maybe he wasn’t worried about dying, he had his faith to comfort him, but-

Thank you, Peter Kirton, for including me in it as well. Thank you very much.

*

“Your Royal Highness!” Krishnamurthy stood up from behind his desk and came forward, hand outstretched, face beaming. “Do come in!”

Prince James walked slowly forward, seething and aware of the NVN man behind him. Krishnamurthy was interviewing each of the delegates in turn: finally, at almost 23:00, it was his turn.

“I apologise for this inconvenience,” said Krishnamurthy. “I am sure you understand that, given the insights I have received into First Breed nature ... well, what choice did I have?”

Insights! James thought with contempt, thinking of all the carefully laid plans that this creature had just comprehensively buggered up for him. Though now wasn’t the time for arguing. Gunshots, James had recently discovered, were
loud
. Being shot at was terrifying. James had decided that only a fool went to war.

“I’m amazed you haven’t started shooting hostages yet,” he said.

“At the moment, I doubt any of you would surrender your chances of ruling a world for a handful of human lives. No, we won’t shoot hostages yet: we will leave that as, say, a reserve option.”

“What do you want?” James said.

“Please, take a seat.” Krishnamurthy sat down behind the desk again and James stayed standing; never a tall man, he still towered over the Indian. Krishnamurthy looked up and his eyes glinted. “I said, sit.”

A chair banged into the back of James’s legs and a powerful NVN hand pressed down on his shoulder. He sat.

“That is better. Your Royal Highness, I once offered you the chance to join my alliance. In all sincerity and friendship, I offer you that chance again.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Your friends have decided it is the wisest course,” Krishnamurthy said with a smile. As the delegates were being shown into Krishnamurthy’s office one by one and kept incommunicado afterwards, James couldn’t know if that was true.

“As I’ve said before, I don’t think we have anything to offer you,” he said.

“Your support will suffice. Oh, and I am glad to say that your brilliant software expert Mr Kirton has chosen to become a citizen of our nation.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t in the least coerced.”

“I give you my word, he was in no danger at all. Now, you saw my message to Iron Run? Of course you did. So, you see, it is important to me that my consolidation be legitimate in the eyes of the First Breed. The First Breed don’t recognise the rights or wrongs of conquest; they just look at the fait accompli. In their eyes, once your ships have come under my control, they will be mine. Once I have the allegiance of a nation’s leader, that nation will be mine. There are two ways in which this can happen: your willing acquiescence, or your execution and replacement by one of my people. It is all the same to the Rusties, and it is your choice.”

“You realise you’ve effectively declared war on half of Earth?” A statement so blindingly obvious that James was ashamed to make it but he needed time to think. He was powerless; all he could do was hope the ships in orbit put up a good fight.

His heart sank lower at the thought. If
Ark Royal
were to be able to rely on the protection of its allies, surely it needed to be able to make its own contribution ... and that whinging idiot Gilmore had gone and locked up Plantagenet, who only happened to have the software for the ship’s weaponry in his ROM.

“And what is half of Earth going to do to me,” Krishnamurthy said, “when I will have control of the Roving and use of the First Breed’s space fleet? I advise you, Windsor, to join me.” For once, there was no pretence of a smile on his face. “Well?”

*

The door opened and Muna Lahiri stood there, arms folded, with an armed guard was behind her.

“Very clever,” she said to Peter. “Very clever.” She looked at Julia. “Your friend redesigned Polyglot so that it won’t work outside
Ark Royal
’s own net. All it comes out with is gibberish.” Back to Peter. “Excellency Krishnamurthy is not someone to cross. He will be angry and I expect he will order your execution. Why did you do it?”

Julia felt everything lower than her ribs turning to water. “When?” she whispered, her mind skirting around the question of whether the ‘your’ in ‘your execution’ had been singular or plural. It was a treacherous thought.

Lahiri ignored her. “Why did you do it?” she repeated. It was dawning on Julia that Lahiri could have been a friend. She didn’t want them dead either.

Peter just closed his eyes again. “Because,” he said, and that was all the answer Lahiri was to get.

*

Shortly after 23:00, they lost the World Administration.

The voice of the fleet commodore,
U Thant
’s captain, came over on general band. “This is
U Thant
to all Earth ships. We have been unable to make contact with our delegate below so are taking matters into our own hands. We do not believe the WA should take sides in this dispute and we hereby declare our complete neutrality.
U Thant
is leaving orbit of this world altogether and establishing its own orbit around the sun at a distance of eight light minutes. Please note that we are well able to defend ourselves. Message ends.”

U Thant
leaving orbit was like someone trying to make a dignified exit from a room, betraying their nervousness by hurrying just a bit too much. The WA ship used its fusion engines to make a quick getaway, which was safe but still broke normal space conventions so close to a planet.

“There they go,” said Nichol. The radar showed
U Thant
’s blip moving off at speed. “So much for them.”

“Thank you, Mr Nichol,” Gilmore said, more sharply than he had intended.
U Thant
’s departure meant one less obstacle for the enemy, bringing a possible attack closer. What would a space battle be like? How should he prepare? The only precedent was what common sense and his imagination could provide. He was always wary of common sense – if it really was common, he thought, everyone would have it – but his imagination could usually be relied upon. “Still the ring, Mr Nichol. Arm Wild, is your suit still on board?”