Stardogs (12 page)

“What is it?” the rider asked warily.

“Toxin antidote. The animal will be safe against the League rider’s toxin capsule after that,” explained Karson.

The look on the rider’s face was worth many lifetimes of struggle. The new-rider girl stirred and groaned. Gently Liton took her hand. “She’s a friend. Really.”

“I’m scared. Don’t hurt me again. Please.” Then the girl-rider clapped her hand to her ear. The one the device had been put into. A wild, hunted look darted across her eyes. “This is a dream… isn’t it?” she asked plaintively, her thin voice on the edge of panic.

Karson stifled the fury that boiled in her. Few stationers or even ordinary planet-people had seen what the League had done to these poor people. Her anger would simply frighten the girl. “Calm down. No one’s going to hurt you. It is not a dream, child. But we’re not going to hurt you. It is just a hearing aid.”

“Take it away. Please take it away. I’m so scared. Please…” she shivered.

The stationer looked at her, puzzled. This was not the usual reaction. The riders were afraid, yes, but delighted to hear. “We can take it out if you like. But I’ve got an on-off switch for you to put onto one of your teeth. Don’t you want to be able to hear again?”

In answer the girl looked fearfully at the door. “No. They’ll find it. They’ll hurt us. You must go! They might come any minute now.” She clawed at her ear.

The stationer smiled reassuringly at her, habitual creases forming in her face. “Relax, child. The door won’t open, even if they should come to it. It is stuck… apparently. Actually, the central computer is locking it. They’ll have to call station personnel to unstick it. By that time I’ll be gone, and everything will be absolutely normal. The hearing aid is designed to pass undetected by everything but dissection and examination under a microscope. We’re a long way ahead of the League in technology. You can, indeed you must, turn it off most of the time. It is hard to pretend deafness, especially in the way you speak, so the hearing aids are only for emergencies. Besides, isn’t it nice to know you have friends?”

“It is.” Liton looked at the little glass vial. “But, if you are so far ahead of the League, then why are we still captives? Why have we not had the antidote before?”

“You’re still captives because you riders don’t want any risk to your Stardogs, and the antidote is very difficult to manufacture. We have… a small number of places… which can do it. Getting the stuff across sectors and distributed has been incredibly difficult. We can’t take the slightest chance on a load being intercepted, even by accident. Making the stuff is the devil, but any halfway competent League Chemist could tell them what it is. You see, there are a number of different potential poisons the League could use, and if the antidote is discovered the League could simply change poisons, and we’d be back to square one, eh?”

The rider nodded in wholehearted agreement. “What else can we do?” he said helplessly.

“What you can do on this particular trip, which is one of the main reasons we’ve made this contact, is to watch the Princess and her party. We’re sure the League has something plotted. It is… absolutely vital to the cause, to the survival of the Stardogs, that they fail.”

Liton blinked in surprise. “Yes, but… we won’t even see them again. Riders are kept isolated from passengers. We might see her in the shuttle, but not otherwise.”

“On the Royal Barge you will not be isolated. You will be right there on the Nav. Deck, with the party. We don’t expect you to be able to do anything, but information, any information, may help. Listen in to conversations that the Leaguesmen are making, if possible.” Suddenly she cocked her head slightly, obviously listening to something they couldn’t hear. “Comp informs me that the Leaguesmen are leaving their quarters on their way here. I have just three minutes to show you how to operate the tooth-mounted on-off units. Please open your mouth.

When the door opened to admit the Leaguesmen the room showed no signs of any visible disturbance. Liton had a disturbed rectum and a severely disturbed mind, however. He was rider, true. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t put two and two together. The only reason he could come up with for the Princess Royal’s journeys being so important was that the antidote courier must be part of her party. It was brilliant. Of course they wouldn’t be searched. The Princess’s trip must provide the New Moon with perfect opportunities. No wonder they didn’t want her stopped.

The Denaari ships had been found nearly fifty years after the League had first begun systematically mapping the Stardog ranges. New Sahara had been the Denaari idea of a fine colonial world, which is to say a vegetationless, cold, dry hell. In the trojan-point between the planet and the small moon, the explorer ship had found two drifting Denaari hulks. The ships were small, much smaller than the League lighters and cargo barges. They appeared to be in perfect preservation, except that the airlocks had been left cycled open. One of the two had been presented with much fanfare by the League Chairman to the Imperial house. That Emperor had seen fit to have the vessel refitted as his royal barge. It had been a hundred years since the craft had last been used by a scion of the royal house, before Shari. Her brother, in a spirit of unpleasantness, had offered it to her for her fund-raising campaigns.

It was one of his many attempts at odiousness which had backfired due to his own ignorance. He disliked leaving the palace; and space, where the hand of the League would be around him was simply not to be considered. He’d never been up there and never seen the Denaari craft, but the idea of the tiny, alien designed ship frightened him, arousing claustrophobic feelings. Apparently, because of space constraints, the ship’s only lounge was also the navigation deck. It had vast forward windows, actual thin transparent stuff, not just the safe, switch-off-able viewscreens of human-built ships. Through this the starswirl chaos of wormhole surf was not only visible but unavoidable. In addition there was actual physical contact with those revolting space-monsters too. It was the sort of gift he’d enjoyed giving her. He was suitably nastily gratified by her tepid but unavoidably polite response.

Actually, she loved it. Unlike the deep-space vessels of the League, lumpy things built out here where gravity and streamlining had no dictates, the old Denaari craft was externally cat-sleek. The make over had tacked secure cabins into the interior. However everything, roof height included, had originally been suitable for Denaari sized passengers. It had been impractical to change the height of the ceilings. Thus, while all other ships plying human space had standard 7 foot ceilings, the roof in the Imperial barge came in at just under twelve feet. The rooms were of suitable Imperial dimensions. The ship, now fitted for twenty-three humans, would, in cubic footage, have carried more than ninety people in League container-ship space.

The stardeck, on which one could watch the endless panorama of gravity-shifted light was her favourite place. Etching by space-dust and micrometeor impacts had made human ships resort to small and replaceable external lenses and interior viewscreens. But the windows of the Denaari-barge had some miracle of crystallographic engineering about them. Even after centuries in space the huge windows were not opaqued by micrometeor scarring. Indeed you could watch the scars happen… and heal.

The Stationers had the ship ready. That was unusual. There was usually a suitably arranged delay so that she could spend several extra hours on station. And judge yet another guinea-pig show! Her lip twitched at the thought. One day perhaps she could reveal that they were
not
her favorite animal. Otto II had nearly caused a major incident by chasing one.

But among those who were to be her crew the stationers had identified at least four recognized League agents. Killers… and then there had been Syrian.

Of course the efficient Syrian Brynant had been waiting at the Space-Station. Fussing about like a mother-hen. She’d known that he’d soon start to pester her with a slew of high-profile functions he wanted her to attend, at the expense of several back-country visits. As usual the thought of the pointless argument irritated her. She’d sighed to herself, in annoyance… if he wasn’t a faithful old retainer… But that was the way her brother treated those who were loyal to him. She was damned if she’d be tarred with the same brush. So she’d greeted him with every sign of pleasure. “Dear Sir Syrian. A delight to see you again. I trust you have organized everything with your usual efficiency?”

He bowed low. “Yes, your highness. Everything is perfectly in hand.” His voice seemed slightly strained, but he led her forward to introduce her to the station commander. That worthy greeted her with the perfunctory politeness that the egalitarian Station-folk customarily accorded any of the hereditary title-holders of the empire. The only vaguely unusual public deed was his request to take a holo-pix of Otto III. That request was unlikely to attract much attention from his Imperial masters.

For the first time ever Syrian hadn’t tried to alter her on-planet schedules! Normally, he tried desperately to shuffle her itinerary. This time… he hadn’t. Something must be wrong. So the Stationers had hurried things along to try to upset any assassin’s timetables. She was really upset by the Station folk too… Usually, they were so carefully aloof, even when there were no Imperial officials present. Now, suddenly, the corridors were full of people who had fawned about and wanted to touch her, or touch her clothing, or touch Otto III, even when there were Imperial or League witnesses. Plainly, they didn’t expect her to come back. And Otto hadn’t liked being pawed by all and sundry.

Even if she was heading into danger… she was relieved to be back in the ship. Maybe she was being sentimental, but the imperial barge had a warmth about it that was missing from the League ships. Somehow she felt that it was a place which had been loved, once. It would be a good place to face whatever was coming. And at least while they were in surf it would be safe to relax for a while. The League would never move while she was in surf. It might disturb the Stardog.

The stubby tugs pushed the barge away from the space station, and off into space. The Stardog was on its way and would intercept them there. Shari watched from the stardeck. She’d seen it several thousand times now, but never tired of it. This time the poignant knowledge that this might be her last trip, made the sighting of the indrifting Stardog, with its filament-mat gleaming like a filigree of silver wires against the blackness of space, even more rich and rare. As if to reward her this beast was the most gloriously silvered she’d ever seen.

Gradually the rest of the retinue came up to join her. Last came the Guildsmen and the poor rider, looking like a dog that had just been whipped for no reason he could understand. If only she could tell him… She ignored him, acted as if he simply wasn’t there. Accepted the Leaguesmen’s bow coolly, and turned away from them and the rider.

Actually she was watching them, particularly the rider, in the reflection of the highly polished bar that some long-dead emperor had had fitted to cover the inscrutable Denaari instruments. The odd-shaped alien couches had also been ripped out and replaced. In their place they had fitted comfortable, velvet-upholstered loungers for the Emperor’s guests to enjoy watching the starswirl. She wished the pompous ass had been less fond of Lapis-Lazuli inlays in the mirror-polished surface of the bar. She loved watching the riders while they discovered the difference between Denaari and human ships. The bar gave her a way of doing so without being obvious.