Torchship (24 page)

“Shit.” Back to Billy’s channel. “We need to boost. What’s
your status?”

“Settling the last of them. Okay, I’m in a spare bunk. Go!”

PA again. “All hands, high acceleration and maneuver now.” A
quick pivot to put
Fives Full
perpendicular to the object’s approach.
Then she slammed the torch to thirty gravs. Switching her screen to the port
camera showed the plume brightening. Back to the radar display. The blip drew
nearer. Mitchie pivoted the ship again, pointing the torch exhaust straight at
the stranger. Now it was hidden in their blind spot.

When it didn’t reappear she called the captain and briefed
him. He replied, “Good work. Keep me posted.”

“Aye-aye.” Still no sign of the stranger. The radar readings
had the object accelerating at more than forty gravs. So it could catch
them—but it would have to turn or burn up in the plume. If she kept pivoting
the ship to track it she could burn it up or at least force it to use more fuel
to evade. She watched the radar, waiting for a blip to emerge from the blind
spot.

What came out was a blur, a plume extending past
Five
Full’s
nose, the stranger decelerating at nearly a hundred gravs as it shot
through the ship’s plume and braked to a halt alongside. Then as Mitchie
triggered the maneuvering thrusters it vanished. No plume, no radar blip,
nothing visible to her eyes. She switched through the cameras. Nothing.

High-pitched scratching sounded in the bridge. Mitchie looked
to port. Something bug-like was on the dome, tunneling its way in. She cut
thrust to three gravs and turned on the PA. “All hands, prepare to repel
boarders.”
That’s not very useful
. “Boarders are small robots,
thumb-sized, spider shaped.” It emerged into the bridge with no whistle of
escaping air, pausing to polish the window surface flat.

Mitchie pulled her steel sliderule from its bracket and
started undoing her harness. The intruder jumped for her. She batted it away.
It bounced off the deck and came for her again. She flipped out of the pilot
couch and let it sail by.

The bridge had a mini-toolbox for emergencies. She swapped
the sliderule for a heftier crescent wrench. The enemy had changed tactics,
crawling instead of leaping. She turned to face the tick-tick-tick-tick noise.

It had gone behind the comm console. As it came over the
edge Mitchie swung the wrench. The robot bounced off the dome twice then landed
in the captain’s couch. She followed but couldn’t spot it in the cushions.

As she poked them with the wrench the robot sprang onto her
left wrist. “Ow!” She scraped it off with the wrench. The robot landed on the
deck and skittered toward the hatch. A drop of blood clung to her wrist,
nothing needing urgent attention.

Mitchie flung herself flat on the deck swinging her weapon.
The robot dodged as it came down then launched itself through the hatch. She
followed more slowly on the ladder.

The robot and three more like it scurried for the cargo hold
hatch. Mitchie ran after, wanting to smash them all.

The hold was in chaos, passengers running out of the dorms
waving improvised clubs and hammers. Guo chased after a robot with a crowbar.
Several dozen robots had merged into a ball halfway up the hull. Captain
Schwartzenberger braced himself on the ladder and fired a shot into the ball.
Bullet fragments ricocheted off the hull but the ball was unaffected. With a
shrill buzzing the ball pressed itself flat against the hull.

Then there was just a polished circle on the hull and the
sound of a panicked crowd. A “whoosh” sounded, as if a plume impinged on the
hull, then faded.

“Quiet!” yelled Bing. “Anybody hurt?” Lots of yeses. “Anybody
have worse than a bug bite?” Two passengers exhibited broken fingers from the
sudden acceleration. “Anybody get worse than one bite from the bugs?” Silence.

“I guess they just wanted some samples,” said Reed.

“Or to inject us with something,” said another passenger.

Bing had been looking at the bite marks. “No sign of
anything injected. Looks like they just took a little divot out of the skin.”

“Could have deposited some nanobots . . .” the passengers
started arguing the possibilities.

Schwartzenberger waved his crew over. “We don’t have the
gear to check for infections before they spread so let’s not worry about that.”

Bing corrected him. “There’s a microscope in the pharmacist
kit. I can check some blood samples for anything unusual.”

“Fine, do that. Billy, bandage anyone who wants it. Guo,
Alexi, inspect the hull, make sure we don’t have any weak spots from those . .
. things. Mitchie, see if there’s any other visitors around then get us back on
ballistic.” They got to work. The captain returned to his cabin. He knelt by
his bed and whispered a prayer of thanks that his ship had lived, and pled for
further mercy.

Journey Day 37. Lunghai System. Acceleration: 10 m/s
²

The next “Sunday dinner” was held on Tuesday after they
started decelerating toward the gate. Dining in free fall didn’t have the
formal feel the captain wanted. Alexi volunteered for bridge watch again.

Mitchie wondered if the guests had been chosen by beard
length. Bing handled introductions. “Rabbi Uri Orbakh, Rabbi Hyman Wortzman,
Imam Majead Torkan, his wife Malak, and son Abdul.” Abdul had a few wisps on
his chin and lip. His father looked like he’d never touched a razor. The rabbis
had trimmed theirs to heart-high.

“So why do you want to go to Earth?” asked Guo. Billy passed
out bowls of vegetable soup.

“Duty,” answered Majead. “One of the pillars of the Muslim
faith is the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, a shrine on Earth. Few can do so in
these times but when the opportunity appeared it would be sinful for me to
decline.”

“It’s similar for us,” said Orbakh. “Each year we say ‘next
year in Jerusalem,’ which is a city not far from Mecca. We decided we wanted to
change it from a prayer to a promise.”

“Retroactively,” said Wortzman.

“Well, yes.”

“Which one are you landing at?” asked Mitchie.

“Neither,” said Majead.

“We’re splitting the difference. We’ll land at the exact
spot between them,” said Orbakh.

“How’d you talk Reed into that?” asked the captain.

“We didn’t,” said Wortzman. “As soon as the argument over
where to land started he put the right to pick the site up for auction.”

“We bid against each other, then the damned Crystallites jumped
in,” said Majead.

“They wanted to land at coordinate zero-zero. Amusingly the
Origin Set didn’t care where they went,” said Wortzman.

“Idiots would have drowned us all,” growled Majead.

“So we pooled our money and outbid them for a compromise
site,” finished Orbakh.

“Efficient way to settle the issue,” said Schwartzenberger.

“You always love auctions,” said Bing. Orbakh’s inquiring
look made her explain, “The Captain’s from Bonaventure.”

“Oh, the plutocracy planet,” said Wortzman.

“It’s not a plutocracy, dammit,” said Schwartzenberger. “Anyone
can win office.” The other passengers had blank looks. “We auction off seats in
the legislature. Top ten bids are councilors who propose laws, next hundred are
the senators who can amend them, and then a thousand assemblers who vote yes or
no on them. That’s over half our tax revenue right there.”

Majead pulled on his beard. “Sounds like your politicians
are very corrupt.”

“Y’all put a couple of Stakeholders in jail every year for
taking bribes or steering contracts. Money and politicians are like water and
downhill. The Fusion builds a dam. We put in a waterwheel and get some work out
of them. No losses to the middlemen.”

Rabbi Orbakh laughed. “I had no idea the Disconnected Worlds
were such a fount of political experimentation.”

“Hey, don’t paint all of us with that,” said Mitchie. “Akiak
has perfectly normal elections. ‘Cause we’re so poor auctioning them off wouldn’t
get a quorum.”

“We are unconventional by Fusion standards,” countered Guo. “One
house is geographic, the other proportional representation. Gives two cuts at
what the electorate is really thinking.”

“My word,” said Wortzman. “Doesn’t it get gridlocked? How
does your government get anything done?”

“It doesn’t,” answered Mitchie. “We like it that way.”

Billy replaced empty soup bowls with plates of lasagna and
hoped no one would ask him how Shishi was run.

“Bonaventure does have a significant accomplishment,” said
Wortzman. “Though I don’t know if it’s due to your system of government. The
higher an emigrant’s intelligence rating, the more likely he is to choose
Bonaventure as a destination.”

“I’m happy for the compliment,” said Schwartzenberger, “but
there’s some geniuses I’d rather went elsewhere.”

“You don’t like having smart workers?”

“Smarter than average, sure. I’ll take them. It’s the
supersmart ones I have trouble with. It’s like putting treads instead of wheels
on your groundcar. You can go more places, but when you finally do get stuck no
one can get there to help you out. These smart guys get wrapped up in some idea
and shoot down any arguments against it. So no matter how badly it works in the
real world they’re stuck.”

Orbakh burst out laughing. Wortzman smiled tightly. Orbakh
slapped his friend’s shoulder. “Oh, come on, Hymie. Doesn’t that sound just
like those leveler academics you always feuded with?”

“I suppose.”

“Geniuses getting themselves stuck is nothing,” said Majead.
“It’s when they come up with ways to kill us all that I get angry.”

“What do you mean by that?” snapped Wortzman.

“That smart people like you created the machines that killed
most of the human race and drove my people from their sacred lands!”

“Creating AIs gave us the Golden Age, the greatest
prosperity, progress, and peace humanity has ever known. If it hadn’t been for
stupid, greedy fools tampering with things they couldn’t understand we’d still
be in that paradise.”

“So now you’re blaming us, you—” Majead spewed obscenities
at the top of his lungs. Wortzman replied with equal venom and volume.

Schwartzenberger bellowed, “Gentlemen, be quiet!” to no
effect.

Orbakh protested, “Hyman, don’t make trouble.” Majead’s wife
pulled on his arm. The two started around the table as they kept yelling.

Billy and Guo put themselves between the older men. The fighters
shoved the crewmen back to back as they tried to get at each other. Punches hit
the crewmen as often as their targets. Majead shoved his wife away. Abdul
caught her as she fell.

Then the rest of the crew got to them. The other rabbi
helped pull Wortzman away. After a minute both stopped struggling.

“Gentlemen, can I expect civil behavior from you?” asked the
captain.

“I will not tolerate this,” said Majead. He walked out of
the galley. When he snapped his fingers his wife and son followed.

The galley suddenly only had the sound of men trying to
catch their breath. Orbakh kicked his friend’s ankle. “Captain, I apologize for
my behavior,” said Rabbi Wortzman. “Gentlemen, I apologize for any injury I may
have caused you. Ladies, I apologize for my language. I’m sorry.”

“Well, let’s not let the food get cold,” said Bing. They all
sat and applied themselves to the lasagna. Billy poked through it wondering
where the meat was hiding. Some garlic bread came out of the oven and swiftly
vanished.

Rabbi Orbakh decided to revisit a safer topic. “Captain, you
objected to your world being called a plutocracy. But doesn’t buying
legislative seats restrict them to the rich?”

Schwartzenberger swallowed his bread. “If legislators had to
bid with their own money, yes. We get a few of those every term but if they
keep it up they stop being rich quickly. Most legislators are funded by
supporters or represent an organization.”

“Corporations?”

“No,” said Schwartzenberger. “Stockholders figured out a
long time ago that senators are a bad investment in an auctionocracy. Mostly
issue-oriented non-profits. What on other worlds would be political parties or
lobbying groups.”

“Still, anyone holding such an office would make
connections, the sort of thing that leads to personal profits.”

Bing laughed. “Rabbi, I should warn you that you’re
discussing this with a former senator.” Mitchie and Billy were as surprised as
the guests.

“Not that it’s relevant,” Schwartzenberger muttered, taking
a chance to eat some of his seconds.

“Actually, I think the story would be fascinating,” said
Wortzman. The rest of the table endorsed this.

The captain sighed. “There’s really not that much to tell. I
was on the beach receiving medical treatment.” His face tightened in memory. “The
Free Traders’ Guild usually fields a legislator. We want to make sure the ports
are maintained, inspections are reasonable, and so on. Some groups hire a
professional lobbyist to warm the seat but that doesn’t work for us. They don’t
know the issues well enough. So we find a spacer willing to take the job.
Someone just retired, or a female wanting some kid time, or an oddball like me.

“Our current senator wanted to move on. I was available. It
was something I could do while finishing my physical therapy. I had a decent reputation
in the Guild.” Bing snorted. “So they offered me the job and I took it. Didn’t
really have anything else to do at the time.”

“So how did you get from there to here?”

“After four years my legs were fine, my feet were itchy, and
I was fed up with being polite to idiots who wanted my vote. So I found someone
else to drop the job on—Sparrow still has it, she’s sharp—and swung a deal to
captain this ship.” Bing passed out cupcakes.

“Did the ‘deal’ use your contacts from being senator?” asked
Orbakh.

“No, it counted against me. I had to retake my master’s exam
to prove I hadn’t forgotten how to run a ship while going to all those cocktail
parties. I found
Fives Full
going up for sale and arranged a loan to put
her back in service.”