Mac James stretched in his chair, flexing his fingers in a hellish glare of warning lights and attitude meters. Jensen held his opinion.
Marity
might be safe at present, but only by the grace of surprise. Khalian raiders would be waiting once they rounded Castleton's sun, and even Mac James's famous cunning was not equal to combat against a cruiser.
The skip-runner captain met Jensen's skepticism with a stinging honesty. 'Boy, your officer's handbook doesn't list every known fact in the universe. The systems they have are infrared, which happens to be our salvation, because the emissions from that star out there will blind them.'
And it dawned on Jensen then, that both of them were going to survive. The Khalia believed they had burned. Once eclipsed by Castleton's star,
Marity
could hammer her way into escape trajectory with her anachronistic fusion rockets, then power down. With her gravity drives turned off, no infrared scope could distinguish her from an asteroid. Hopelessness and lethargy vanished in a breath. The pellet gun which Mac James had carelessly tossed down the companionway became of paramount importance.
Jensen measured the distance to the opened hatch with his eyes. The expanse was wider than he liked, particularly since the Freer robe would encumber him. Still, with Castleton's world and the threat of the Khalia keeping MacKenzie James preoccupied, there might never be a better opportunity. Jensen gathered his courage and jumped.
He completed no more than a step when a weight crashed into his shoulders from behind. He fell heavily to the deck. At once the muscled bulk of MacKenzie James bore him down. Jensen countered with a wrestler's move that should have freed him in short order. Instead the captain anticipated him, caught his wrist, and twisted. Jensen cursed, forced to fall limp or scream with the pain of dislocated joints.
Just shy of injury, Mac James let up. 'You're trouble,' he said bluntly. And as though he handled a vicious animal, he rolled and jerked Jensen upright. The strength in his hands was astonishing. Very quickly, the Fleet officer found himself noosed and helpless in the coils of his own restraints.
'Also, you talk too much,' MacKenzie added. He ripped away the sash of the Freer robe, pausing as his fingers encountered the bulk of the transmitter. A wicked flash of amusement touched his features as he went on and twisted the material into a gag, which he tied expertly in place. Jensen struggled but gained nothing except cuts on the ribbon-thin metal of the noose. Shoved into the nearest crew chair, he glared back as the captain studied him in passionless silence. The directness of the man's gaze unnerved Jensen as nothing had before.
'What chance did you give Evans?' Mac James's voice held a roughness that might have been grief, except his expression showed no feeling at all. The captain flexed his ruined fingers, one after another. Tortured with the certainty his fate was being weighed, Jensen recognized more than habit in the movement; such exercise had once restored mobility to hands crippled with coil burns. The driving persistence of the captain's character abruptly became frightening to contemplate.
Jensen closed his eyes, opened them to find the captain watching him still. The ambition that had driven the attempt at his capture withered away to diffidence. The gag tasted of sweat and desert spice and stale saliva, and the sick fear in Jensen's gut coiled tighter by the minute.
Aware his captive's composure was crumbling, MacKenzie James jerked him to his feet and spun him around. 'Evans never did like to kill,' he said in contempt. 'For that, you'll leave
Marity
alive.'
But reprieve was not what MacKenzie James had in mind as he hefted his captive through the companionway. Towed through null gravity like baggage, Jensen had to writhe ignominiously to keep his face from banging the bulkheads. The hiss of the lock to the cargo hold spilled icy air over his skin. Left to drift, the young officer could not see his captor, but an echoing flurry of footfalls and the clang of something metallic did little but amplify his apprehension. Then hard hands caught his legs. His view of the hold spun horizontally, and through dizziness he glimpsed customs seals and the opened hatch of the cargo capsule. Then MacKenzie James brutally started cramming his body inside. Jensen exploded in panic.
He struggled, and got a bang on the head for his effort. Mac James shoved his shoulders down. Scarred fingers reached for the latch.
Jensen twisted frantically and managed to tear the gag loose. 'Wait!' he said breathlessly. Desperate now, his ambition reduced to a fool's dream, he begged. 'I could take Evans's place for you!' Except for the piloting, he was qualified; and he wouldn't defect, not really. Once he gained MacKenzie's confidence he could alert Fleet authorities.
But his proposal met with silence. Shoved protesting into the cargo capsule, and panicked by the prospect of confinement, Jensen abandoned his pride. 'Damn you,
I'm
the son of an Alliance Councilman! That should be worth enough to hold me for ransom.'
No spark of greed warmed the eyes of MacKenzie James. Single-mindedly efficient, he banged the hatch closed over his captive's head. Jensen kicked out in disbelief and managed to skin both his knees. The slipped gag constricted his wind. Over his ragged, frantic breaths came the unmistakable click of latches, the inexorable deadening of sound as the seals of the container clamped closed. He banged again, uselessly. He might suffocate, or die of hypothermia in
Marity's
unheated cargo hold; surely Mac James would see reason, contact his father and arrange an exchange of money.
Jensen felt the capsule bump and rise; through its shell he heard the unmistakable hiss of a lock. He screamed in uninhibited terror, then; but nothing prevented the sickening, tumbling fall into weightlessness and cold which followed. He curled up, shivering in the bitter end of hope. MacKenzie James had jettisoned him, living, into deepspace.
The cargo capsule's seals preserved atmosphere. For awhile its honeycomb panels would conserve body heat, but with no air supply it was an even draw whether Jensen would die of asphyxiation, or tumble back to fry in the fury of Castleton's star. At best, he might be salvaged alive by a Khalian scout ship. Worst and most galling was the fact that MacKenzie James went free.
Jensen shouted in frustration. Unable to forget those coil-scarred fingers flexing and curling, tirelessly beating the odds, he longed for one chance to shoot his antagonist, even as he had Evans: from behind, with no chance for recriminations, just death - fast and messy and final. But anger only caused the nooses to rip painfully into his wrists. In time, all passion, all hatred, unravelled into despair. Jensen's tears soaked the hood of the Freer robe and curled the dark hair at his temples. After Mac James, he reviled his disciplinarian father, for stifling his career with the stipulation that under no circumstances was undue favor to be granted him. Competence became a sham. Such was the influence of fame and politics, no board of officers dared to grant promotion without performance of outstanding merit. One by one, Jensen had seen his peers advance ahead of him. Balked pride and rebellion had landed him here, trussed and sealed like flotsam in a cargo capsule. Too late, and in bitterness, he questioned why the promise of money had failed to motivate MacKenzie James.
The air in the capsule quickly became stale. Jensen's thoughts spiralled downward into a tide of black dizziness.
His limbs cramped, then grew numb; the transmitter in the Freer sash dug relentlessly into his neck, but he was powerless to ease even this smallest discomfort. Presently, none of that mattered. Resigned, Jensen directed his last awareness to cursing MacKenzie James; as consciousness began to dim, sometimes the name of his father slipped in ...
* * *
Something
banged the cargo capsule. Jostled against the side panels, Jensen heard the whine of grappling hooks. Fear roused him from lethargy as they clamped and secured his prison. Suffocation seemed a kindness next to threat of Khalian cruelty; but the young officer lacked strength to do more than shut his eyes as whatever being had salvaged him popped the capsule's release catches. Clean air rushed in around the seals, and light fell blindingly across Jensen's face.
'
I'm
surprised he left you alive,' said an acerbic voice he recognized.
Jensen started, drew a shuddering breath, and ducked sharply to hide cheeks still wet from crying. 'My god, how did you know where to find me?'
Perfectly groomed, and correct to the last insignia on her uniform, Ensign Shields regarded him with that whetted edge of antagonism she had affected since the morning he had compelled her collaboration in his scheme to capture MacKenzie James.'
Marity's
instruments weren't shielded,' she said at last. 'You're living lucky for that.'
Jensen tried to scrub his damp cheeks against his shoulder, and awkwardly found he couldn't, not with his hands still bound. His embarrassment changed poisonously to resentment. He faulted himself bitterly for lacking the presence of mind to note the implications of
Marity's
opened instrument panels. Evans had programmed the autopilot for the FTL jump with the keyboard circuitry wide open to surveillance; if the scout ship assigned to
Shields was not one of the fancy, new brain models, she still carried a full complement of electronics. 'You read our destination coordinates from our tempest signal,' Jensen murmured, shamed by memory of Mac James's amusement as he allowed the transmitter to remain twisted into the Freer sash. The captain had known then that his victim would be rescued. He must have considered Jensen a fool, harmless or incompetent enough to be no risk if he were set free.
'Maybe not so lucky after all.' Shields shoved the cargo capsule over, interrupting Jensen's thoughts and spilling him ignominiously onto the courier ship's lock platform. 'You'll wish you'd died in deepspace when our dispatches come in late. Serve you right if the old man himself calls you onto the carpet.'
Stung by more than humility, Jensen twisted until he gained a view of his shipmate's eyes. 'Play things right, and we'll get a commendation.'
Shields stepped back. Rare anger pinched her face; Jensen had never thought her pretty, but she had slenderness, and a certain grace of movement that had half the guys back at base off their feed. 'You're obsessed, Jensen.
Commendation for what?
You've been an overambitious jackass and now, finally, the brass in Fleet command will know it too.'
Jensen made a vicious effort to sit up; but the nooses cut into his wrists, and he gave up with a curse at the pain. 'You'll go down with me,' he threatened. 'As my senior officer, piloting a Fleet dispatch courier off course calls for court-martial, not a dressing down.'
He heard Shields's sharp intake of breath, and could not look at her. Once he might have veiled his threats in gentler language; but now, the cruelly injured dignity inspired by MacKenzie James impelled him to roughness. 'Don't be a stupid bitch.' But he couldn't quite bring himself to finish;
b
y the whitely locked knuckles of Shields's hands he saw he did not have to mention her brother, who was ill and under treatment in an Alliance medical facility, a benefit of her enrollment in the Fleet. Should she be discharged now, he would lose his benefits. But pity came second to necessity. Ambition and his driving desire to command a vessel that carried weapons instead of dispatches cut with a need like agony. Coldly Jensen outlined his alternative.
* * *
The dome at Port was packed to capacity on the day the citations were read. Banners overhung the stage where the Fleet high command were seated. At attention alongside Ensign Shields, Jensen surreptitiously checked his uniform for creases. Finding none, he stood very still, savoring the moment as the speaker at the podium recited his list of achievements.
'... commendation for bravery; for innovative escape tactics, when asked at gunpoint to surrender to three Khalian warships, which imagination and daring in the face of danger has resulted in the furtherance of Fleet knowledge of enemy behavior; for performance above and beyond the call of duty, these two young officers will be promoted in rank, and be decorated with the Galactic Cross .. .'
Shields went very white when the Admiral laid the ribbon with the medal over her shoulders. She shook his hand stiffly, and looked away from the cameras when the press popped flashes to record the event.
Jensen also stood stiffly, but for very different reasons. Warmed by his father's proud smile, he reflected that the story they had presented to Fleet command had held as many half-truths as lies; the tactics which had brought word of the takeover at Castleton's had been real enough, though only Shields and he knew they had originated with the wiliest skip-runner in Alliance space. The weight of the Galactic Cross which hung from his neck carried no implications of guilt; at last granted the command of a scout ship with armament, Jensen swore he would redeem his honor. One day MacKenzie James was going to regret the humiliation he had inflicted upon a young officer of the Fleet. Jensen intended to rise fast and far. In time he would retaliate, find means to bring down the antagonist who had bested him. The honors he took credit for now were only a part of that plan.
Tale of the Snowbeast
That year, the season of white cold was worse than any elf in the holt could remember. The storage nooks were empty of the last nuts and dried fruit; and still the wind blew screaming through bare branches while snow winnowed deep into drifts in the brush and the hollows between trees. Huddled beneath the weight of a fur-lined tunic, Huntress Skyfire paused and leaned on her bow.
'Hurry up! It's well after daylight, past time we were back to the holt.'
A soft whine answered her.
Chilled, famished, and tired of foraging on game trails that showed no tracks, Skyfire turned and looked back. Her companion wolf, Woodbiter, hunched with his tail to the wind, gnawing at the ice which crusted the fur between his pads.
'Oh, owl pellets, again?' But Skyfire's tone reflected chagrin rather than annoyance. She laid aside her bow, stripped off her gloves, and knelt to help the wolf. 'You're an unbelievable nuisance, you know that?'
Woodbiter sneezed, snow flying from his muzzle.
'This is the second night we come back empty-handed.' Skyfire blew on reddened hands, then worked her fingers back into chilled gloves. Woodbiter whined again as she rose, but did not bound ahead. Neither did he hunt up a stick to play games; instead he trotted down the trail, his bushy tail hung low behind. Hunger was wearing even his high spirits down. Skyfire retrieved her bow in frustration. The tribe needed game, desperately; the Wolfriders were all too thin, and though the cubs were spared the largest portions, lately the youngest had grown sickly. Tonight, Skyfire decided, she would range farther afield, for plainly the forest surrounding the holt was hunted out.
A gust raked the branches, tossing snow like powder over Skyfire's head. She tugged her leather cap over her ears, then froze, for something had moved in the brush. Woodbiter stopped with his tail lifted and his nose held low to the ground; by his stance Skyfire knew he scented game, probably a predator which had left its warm den to forage for mice in a stand of saplings. Skyfire slipped an arrow by slow inches from her quiver. She nocked it to her bowstring and waited, still as only an elf could be.
The shadow moved, a forest cat half-glimpsed through blown snow. Skyfire released a shot so sure that even another elf might envy her skill; and by Woodbiter's eager whine knew that he scented blood. Her arrow had flown true.
But unlike the usual kill, her companion wolf did not rush joyfully to share the fruits of their hunting. Woodbiter obediently held back, for in times of intense hardship, game must be returned to the holt for all of the tribe to share. Skyfire elbowed her way through the saplings, grumbling a little as snow showered off the branches and spilled down her neck. She picked up the carcass and felt the bones press sharply through the thick fur of its coat. Half-starved itself, the cat was a pathetic bundle of sinew; it would scarcely fill the belly of the youngest of the cubs. Skyfire sighed and worked her arrow free. She permitted Woodbiter to lick the blood from the shaft. Then, as wind chased the snow into patterns under her boots, she pushed her catch into her game bag and resumed her trek to the holt.
She arrived exhausted from pushing through the heavy drifts. Breathless, chilled, and wanting nothing more than to curl up in her hollow and sleep, she unslung her game bag. Shadows speared across the packed snow beneath the trees that sheltered the holt; but the tribe did not sleep, as Skyfire expected. Elves and wolves clustered around the blond-haired form of Two-Spear, who was chief. Closest to him were his tight cadre of friends, including Graywolf, Willowgreen, and sour-tempered Stonethrower.
Skyfire frowned. Why should Two-Spear call council at this hour, if not to take advantage of her absence? The chief might be her sibling, but to a sister who liked her hunts direct and her kills clean, Two-Spear's motives sometimes seemed dark and murky, as a pool that had stood too long in shadow. And his policies were dangerous. Elves had died for his hot-headed raids upon the humans in the past, and the chance he might even now be hatching another such reckless solution for the hunger which currently beset the tribe made Skyfire forget her weariness. Woodbiter sensed the mood of his companion. He pressed against her hip, whining softly as she pitched her game bag into the snow.
A younger elf on the fringes turned at the sound. Called Sapling for her slim build, her face lit up in welcome. 'You're late,' she said, cheerful despite the fact that hunger had transformed her slender grace to gauntness.
It was unfair, thought Skyfire, that lean times should fall hardest upon the young. She pushed the game bag with her toe, trying to lighten her own mood. '
I'm
late because of this.' Then, as Sapling's thin face showed more hope than a single, underfed forest cat warranted, she forced herself to add, 'Which was hardly worth the risk.'
Sapling paused, her hand on the strap of the game bag, and a wordless interval passed. Dangerous though it was for an elf to fare alone during daylight, when men were abroad and chances of capture increased, the game in the bag was too sorely needed to be spurned. 'The other hunters made no kills at all,' Sapling pointed out.
The admiration in her tone embarrassed; brusquely, Skyfire said, 'Is that why Two-Spear called council?'
Sapling hefted the game bag. 'He plans to send a hunting party deeper into the forest than elves have ever gone, to look for stag.'
Which was wise, Skyfire reflected; except that all too frequently Two-Spear's intentions resulted in discord and chaos. Frowning, she pulled off her cap, freeing the red-gold hair which had earned her name. 'I think I had better go along,' she said softly. And leaving the game with Woodbiter and Sapling, she stepped boldly toward the clustered members of the tribe.
Her approach was obscured by the taller forms of the few high ones whose blood had not mixed with the wolves, yet Two-Spear saw her. He stopped speaking, and other heads turned to follow his glance. 'Skyfire!' said her brother. 'We were just wondering where you were.'
Skyfire endured the bite of sarcasm in his tone. She looked to Willowgreen, and received a faint shake of the head in reply; no. Two-Spear was not in one of his rages. But at his side, the half-wild eyes of Graywolf warned her to speak with care. 'I wish to go with the hunting party, brother.'
'You went with the hunting party last night,' Two-Spear said acidly. He tossed back fair hair and shrugged. 'Yet again, you returned alone. In strange territory, that habit could endanger us.'
Skyfire bridled, but returned no malice; the carcass in her game bag was too scrawny as a boast to prove her success on the trail. Instead she sought a reply that might ease the rivalry that seemed almost daily to widen the breach between herself and this brother who was chief; above anything she did not want to provoke a challenge. The white cold made difficulties enough without elf contending against elf within the tribe. Still her thoughts did not move fast enough.
Sapling came hotly to her defense, calling from the edge of the council. 'The Huntress brought us game! She was the only Wolf rider to return with any meat.'
Skyfire gritted her teeth, embarrassed afresh as hungry, eager pairs of eyes all focused past her. Jostled as tribe-mates pushed by to crowd around Sapling and the pathetic bundle in the game bag, she hid her discomfort by pressing her hair back into her cap. Aware only of Two-Spear's sharp laugh, she missed seeing Graywolf part the drawstrings. The bloody, bone-skinny cat was held aloft, a trophy of her prowess for all the tribe to see.
Yet hunger robbed the mockery of insult; and even the tribe elder who had taught her dared not mock her affinity for the hunt. When the vote was cast, Skyfire found her name included in the party of seven that would seek new territory to forage. That satisfied her, though the choice of Two-Spear's henchman, Stonethrower, as leader of the foray pleased her not at all.
The kill was skinned, then divided among the youngest cubs. Emulating Skyfire, Sapling tried to refuse her portion, until the focus of her admiration sternly instructed her to eat. At last, bone-weary, the finest huntress in the tribe since Prey-Pacer retired to her hollow and curled deep in her furs. The only things she noticed before she fell asleep were the dizzy lassitude of extreme hunger, and the snarls of the wolf-pack as they fought over the forest cat's entrails. The sound gave rise to discordant dreams, in which she faced her brother over the honed points of the twin spears he carried always at his side ...