Joshua checked the radar return, computing a vector around the crippled old ship so he could reach its airlock. “I can dock
and stabilize you,” he datavised to Captain Prager.
“Not much point,” Prager replied. “Our airlock chamber was breached by particle impact; and I doubt the latches will work
anyway. If you just hold station we’ll transfer across in suits.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Captain,” Beaulieu said. “Two fusion drives. They’re on an approach vector.”
“Jesus!” He accessed the sensors. Half of the image was a ghostly apricot-coloured ocean illuminated by the planetary-sized
aurora borealis storms which floated serenely above it. The nighttime sky which vaulted it was a perfect orrery dome of stars
where the only movement came from tiny moons racing along their ordained pathways. Red icons were bracketing two of the brighter
stars just outside the ecliptic. When Joshua keyed in the infrared they became brilliant. Purple vector lines sprouted out
of them, projecting their trajectory in towards him.
“Approximately two hundred thousand kilometres away,” Beaulieu said, her synthesized voice sounding completely uncaring. “I
think I can confirm the drive signatures; it appears to be our old friends the
Urschel
and the
Raimo
. Both plasma exhausts have very similar instabilities. If not them, then there are certainly possessed on board.”
“Who else?” Ashly grunted morosely.
Alkad looked around frantically, trying to make eye contact with the crew. They were all looking at Joshua as he lay on his
couch, eyes closed, his flat brow producing neat parallel furrows as he frowned in concentration. “What are you waiting for?”
she asked. “Take the survivors on board and run. Those ships are too far away to threaten us.”
Sarha waved her hand in annoyance. “They are now,” she said in a low voice. “They won’t be for long. And we’re too close to
the gas giant to jump out. We need to be another hundred and thirty thousand kilometres away. In other words, up where they
are. That means we can’t boost straight up; we’d fly straight into them.”
“So… what then?”
Sarha pointed a finger at Joshua. “He’ll tell us. If there’s a vector out of here, Joshua will find it.”
Alkad was surprised by the amount of respect in the normally volatile crew woman. But then all of the crew were regarding
their captain with the kind of hushed expectancy that was usually the province of holy gurus. It made Alkad very uneasy.
Joshua’s eyes flipped open. “We have a problem,” he announced grimly. “Their altitude gives them too much tactical advantage.
I can’t find us a vector.” A small regretful dip at the corner of his mouth. “There isn’t even a convenient Lagrange point
this time. And I wouldn’t like to risk it anyway, not while we’re so close to a gas giant as big as this one.”
“Fly a slingshot,” Liol said. “Dive straight at the gas giant and go for a jump on the other side.”
“That’s over three hundred thousand kilometres away.
Lady Mac
can probably accelerate harder than the Organization ships, but they’ve got antimatter combat wasps, remember. Forty-five-gee
acceleration; we’d never make it.”
“Christ.”
“Beaulieu, put a com beam on them,” Joshua said. “If they respond, ask them what they want. I’m sure we know, but if nothing
else I’d like confirmation.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Doc, how do we go about firing the Alchemist at them?”
“You can’t,” she said simply.
“Jesus, Doc, this is no time for principles. Don’t you understand? We have no other way out. None. That weapon is the only
advantage we’ve got left. If we don’t kill them, they’ll get you, and Peter.”
“This is not a question of principle, Captain. It’s not physically possible to deploy the Alchemist against starships.”
“Jesus.” He couldn’t believe it. But the doc looked frightened enough. Intuition convinced him she was telling the truth.
The navigation program was still producing flight vectors. Dumb forced-calculation, trying out every conceivable probability
to find one which would let them escape. The plots flickered in and out of existence at a subliminal speed, miniature purple
lightning bolts crackling around the inside of his head. Throw in wild card manoeuvres, lunar slingshots, Lagrange points.
Pray! It didn’t make the slightest difference. The Organization frigates had thoroughly outmanoeuvred him. His one hope had
been the Alchemist, a super-doomsday machine, a nuke to kill a couple of ants.
I have come so far I can actually see the ship it’s stored in. I can’t lose now, not with these stakes.
“Okay, Doc, I want to know exactly what your Alchemist does, and how it does it.” He clicked his fingers at Monica and Samuel.
“You two, I’ll stay in Tranquillity if we survive this, but I have to know.”
“God, Calvert, I’ll stay there with you if that’s what it takes,” Monica told him. “Just get us out of this.”
“Joshua,” Sarha said. “You can’t.”
“Give me an alternative. It gets Liol’s vote. He’ll be captain then.”
“I’m crew, Josh. This is your ship.”
“Now he tells me. Datavise the file, Doc. Now, please.” Information leapt into his mind as the files came over. Theory, application,
construction, deployment, operational parameters. All neatly indexed with helpful cross-referencing. The blueprints of how
to slay a star; in fact, build enough and you could slay an entire galaxy; or even just… Joshua flicked instantaneously back
to the operational aspects. Pumped a few figures of his own into Mzu’s coldly simple equations.
“Jesus, Doc, it wasn’t a rumour. You really are dangerous, aren’t you?”
“Can you do it?” Monica asked. She wanted to shout the question at him, jolt him out of that infuriating complacency.
Joshua winked at her. “Absolutely. Look, we came off badly down in that ironberg yard because that’s not my territory. This
is. In space, we win.”
“Is he serious?” Monica appealed to the rest of the bridge.
“Oh, yes,” Sarha said. “If anyone gets hostile with
Lady Mac
, they just crash straight into his ego.”
• • •
High York posed a difficult problem of interpretation for Louise. The AV pillar in the
Jamrana
’s lounge shone its image down her optic nerve throughout the entire approach phase. There was no colour, space was so black
she couldn’t even see the stars. The asteroid was different to Phobos’s chiselled cylinder, a grizzled irregular lump which
the ship’s sensors seemed incapable of bringing into proper focus. Mechanical artefacts were shunting out of its puckered
surface at all angles, though she wasn’t quite sure if she had the scale right. If she had, then they were bigger than the
largest ship ever to ply Norfolk’s seas.
Fletcher was in the lounge with her. From the few comments he made he understood even less of the image than she did.
Genevieve, of course, was in her tiny cabin playing games on her processor block. She’d found a soul mate in one of Pieri’s
younger cousins; the pair of them had taken to locking themselves away for hours at a time to tackle battalions of Trafalgar
Greenjackets or skate through puzzles of five-dimensional topology. Louise wasn’t entirely happy with her sister’s new hobby,
but on the other hand she was grateful she didn’t have the duty of keeping her amused during the flight.
High York’s disk-shaped spaceport traversed the AV image, eclipsing the asteroid itself. A high-pitched whine vibrated out
of the lounge walls, and the
Jamrana
drifted forwards. And still there was no glimpse of Earth. Louise had really been looking forwards to that. Pieri would align
a sensor on the planet for her if she asked, she was sure; but right now the whole Bushay family was involved in the docking
procedure.
Louise asked her processor block for an update on their approach, and studied the display which appeared on its screen while
it accessed the ship’s flight computer. “Four minutes until we dock,” she said. Assuming she was reading the tables of figures
and coloured lines correctly.
She’d spent a large portion of the flight working through the block’s tutorial programs until she could manage the unit’s
more basic display and operation modes. She didn’t need to ask anyone’s help to manage her medical nanonic packages, and she
could monitor the baby’s health continually. It gave her a good feeling. So much of Confederation life was centred around
the casual use of electronics.
“Why so nervous, my lady?” Fletcher asked. “Our voyage ends. With Our Lord’s mercy we have prevailed once more against the
most inopportune circumstances. We have returned to the good Earth, the cradle of humanity. Though I fear that which has befallen
me, I can do naught but rejoice at our homecoming.”
“I’m not nervous,” she protested unconvincingly.
“Come now, lady.”
“All right. Look, it’s not getting here; I’m really delighted we’ve made it. I suppose it’s silly of me, but something about
being on Earth is very reassuring. It’s old and it’s very strong, and if people are going to be safe anywhere, then it’ll
be here. That’s the problem. Something Endron said about it keeps bothering me.”“You know that if I can assist you, I will.”
“No. It’s nothing you can help with. That’s the point. Endron told me we wouldn’t get through High York’s spaceport; that
there would be inspections and examinations, awfully strict ones. It’ll be nothing like arriving at Phobos. And everything
I’ve heard from Pieri just confirms that. I’m sorry, Fletcher, I don’t think we’re going to make it, I really don’t.”
“And yet we must,” he said softly. “That fiend Dexter cannot prevail. Should the necessity become apparent, I will surrender
myself and warn Earth’s rulers.”
“Oh, no, Fletcher, you can’t do that. I don’t want you to be hurt.”
“Yet still you doubt me, Lady Louise. I see your heart crying in pain. That is a source of grief for me.”
“I don’t doubt you, Fletcher. It’s just that… If we can’t get through, then Quinn Dexter won’t manage it either. That would
mean your whole journey is for nothing. I hate that.”
“Dexter is stronger than I, lady. I hold that bitter memory quite plainly. He is also more cunning and ruthless. If there
is but a single chink in the armour of Earth’s valiant harbourmasters he will find it.”
“Heavens, I hope not. Quinn Dexter loose on Earth is too horrible to think about.”
“Aye, my lady.” His fingers clasped hers to emphasise his determination. Something he rarely did, shying away from physical
contact with people. It was almost as if he feared contamination.
“That is why you must swear faithfully to me that should I stumble in my task you must pick up the torch and carry on. The
world must be warned of Quinn Dexter’s devilish intent. And if possible you must also seek out this Banneth of whom he spoke
with such animosity. Alert her to his presence, emphasise the danger she will face.”
“I’ll try, Fletcher, really I will. I promise.” Fletcher was prepared to sacrifice his new life and eternal sanity to save
others. Her own goal of reaching Joshua seemed so petty and selfish in comparison. “Be careful when we disembark,” she urged.
“I place my trust in God, my lady. And if they catch me—”
“They won’t!”
“Ah, now who has adopted a frail bravado? As I recall, ’twas you who warned me of what lies crouched beside the road ahead.”
“I know.”
“Forgive me, lady. I see that once again my tact is left wanting.”
“Don’t worry about me, Fletcher. I’m not the one they’ll put into zero-tau.”
“Aye, lady, I confess that prospect is one I shrink from. I know in my heart I will not last long in such black confinement.”
“I’ll get you out,” she vowed. “If they put you in zero-tau I’ll get it switched off, or something. There will be lawyers
I can hire.” She patted her ship-suit’s breast pocket, feeling the outline of the Jovian Bank credit disk. “I have money.”
“Let us hope it proves sufficient, my lady.”
She gave him what she hoped was a bright smile, making out that everything was settled. So that’s that.
The
Jamrana
trembled, shaking loose small flocks of jumble. Clangs rumbled down the central ladder shaft as the spaceport docking latches
engaged.
“That’s funny,” Louise said. The display on the block’s screen was undergoing a drastic change.
“Is something the matter, lady?”
“I don’t think so. It’s just odd, that’s all. If I’m reading this right, the captain has given the spaceport total access
to the flight computer. They’re running some really comprehensive diagnostic programs, checking everything on board.”
“Is that bad?”
“I’m not sure.” Louise stiffened, glancing around selfconsciously. She cleared her throat. “They’re also accessing the internal
cameras. Watching us.”
“Ah.”
“Come along, Fletcher. We must get ready to leave.”
“Yes, ma’am, of course.”
He had dropped right back into the estate servant role without a blink. Louise hoped the cameras wouldn’t pick up her furtive
smile as she pushed off from the deck.
Genevieve’s cabin was full of four inch light cubes, each of them a different colour. Little creatures were imprisoned inside
them, as if they were cages made of tinted glass. The projection froze as Louise activated the door, an orchestral rock track
faded away.
“Gen! You’re supposed to be packed. We’re here, you know, we’ve arrived.”
Her little sister peered at her through the transparent lattice, red-eyed and frazzled. “I’ve just disarmed eight of the counter-program’s
Trogolois warriors, you know. I’ve never got that far before.”
“Bully for you. Now get packed, you can play it again later. We’re leaving.”
Genevieve’s face darkened in petulant rebellion. “It’s not fair! We’re always having to leave places the moment we arrive.”
“Because we’re travelling, silly. We’ll get to Tranquillity in another couple of weeks, then you can put down roots and sprout
leaves out of your ears for all I care.”
“Why can’t we just stay in the ship? The possessed can’t get inside if we’re flying about.”