Wolf Among the Stars-ARC (21 page)

“The device is inert and effectively undetectable by a routine scan,” said Reislon easily. “It can, with difficulty, be detected after it is activated—which I did as we were leaving the gig. But I doubt if you can do so before it reaches the end of the countdown it has already commenced. And even if you do, any tampering will cause it to detonate immediately and do your station considerable damage.”

“Have the gig launched on autopilot and sent outside the station’s deflection shield,” Valdes ordered Da Silva.

“I would advise against it,” Reislon cautioned, “as any such attempt will also result in immediate detonation.”

Valdes turned to Andrew. His earlier emotionless smugness was in abeyance. “Do you know of this?”

“He doesn’t” Resilon answered for him. And, in an aside to Andrew: “I saw no reason to bother you with things you didn’t need to know.” Andrew could only gawk.

“I still say this is a bluff,” Da Silva insisted.

“Are you willing to gamble on that?” Reislon asked Valdes. “Especially when you don’t need to. You see, I’m perfectly willing to deactivate it . . . on one condition.”

Valdes’ eyes narrowed. “Yes?”

“When you destroy
Broadsword
, you must not destroy
City of Osaka
. Instead, capture it—which shouldn’t be difficult, given the damage it has sustained and the inadequacy of the prize crew—and use it to transport me to the rebel Rogovon base in the Kogurche system.”

As though from a great distance, across an abyss of shock and rage, Andrew heard himself begin to speak. “You miserable—”

“Name-calling serves no purpose. And you have no grounds for accusing me of dishonesty, nor any right to feel betrayed. I have never made any attempt to conceal the fact that my primary loyalty is to Gev-Rogov. I want to see it revolutionized so it can attain its potential instead of continuing to stagnate. This must be my primary concern.”

“But,” said Andrew, thinking frantically and speaking to Valdes as much as to Reislon, “you’ve just heard that they want to keep Gev-Rogov just the way it is, to avoid upsetting their master plan.”

“True.” Reislon turned back to Valdes. “If you agree to my conditions, I in turn will undertake to influence a new regime in Gev-Rogov in the direction you want.”

Valdes looked as stunned as Andrew felt. “You mean . . . influence it to go to war with Gev-Harath on schedule?

“Precisely.”

“But . . . why would you, a self-proclaimed Rogovon loyalist, be willing to do that? You’ve heard me describe what we intend for the ultimate fate of Gev-Rogov to be.”

“Yes, I’ve heard your plan—and, on reflection, I believe I want to further it. Because, you see, I think you’re wrong in one important particular: Gev-Rogov, not the CNE, will emerge as the ultimate victor.”

Rachel looked like she had passed beyond shock into a kind of emotional dead zone. Andrew could only stare at Reislon, and all he could see was the greenish coloring, and all he could feel was what that shade had caused humans to feel since before his birth. Only the laser weapons trained on him kept him motionless.

“Congratulations,” he said with a calmness that surprised him. “You’ve now become a
quadruple
agent.”

Valdes shook his head in perplexity. “If you turn out to be right, then our plan will have failed. So why should I agree to this?”

Reislon gave a Lokaron smile. “Because you think I’m
wrong
. If you really believe in your own plan, you should welcome this chance to have me unwittingly working for you. In any event, I suggest you not wait too long to make your decision.” He brushed a finger over an area of skin on the underside of his right wrist, and the imprinted circuits of what Andrew guessed was a timepiece glowed to life. He gave Valdes a significant look. Da Silva began to look jittery.

Valdes appeared to consider. In fact, he seemed to put on a great show of it before finally nodding. “Very well. I agree to your terms.”

Rachel suddenly swung on Reislon and spoke wildly. “Damn you, if you’re supposed to be so smart, can’t you see he’s just pretending to agree? The moment you’ve deactivated your bomb, he’ll—” Her voice ended in a gasp of pain as one of the guards reversed his laser weapon and used its butt to strike her on the back of the head, sending her staggering forward onto her hands and knees, moaning.

Before Andrew could act, he saw—through the reddish mist that filmed the world in his eyes—the guard bring the weapon back around and point it at his midriff. He held himself in check with a shivering effort.

“Enough of this.” Valdes touched a communicator button on his desk and began to speak in his native language as well as his human form permitted.
Reporting to his superior
, Andrew guessed. An individual who spent almost all his time on Earth, among humans, wouldn’t be able to function as the ultimate Kappainu boss in the solar system. That individual must reside here, at their secret base. The short conversation ended, and Valdes turned back to Reislon. “Very well. Let us proceed to the hangar bay, where you can do whatever is needful.”

“One additional point. I will require Captain Roark’s assistance. As commander of the gig, he alone has access to certain code-locked instruments I will need.”

What in God’s name is he talking about?
thought Andrew blankly. He started to open his mouth. Then Reislon’s eyes met his.

That eye-contact lasted for only a fraction of a second, before Reislon hastily looked away. But all at once, Andrew knew that he must play along.

“Why should I cooperate with you, you half-Rogovon mongrel bastard?” he spat, hoping he wasn’t overdoing truculence.

“You will cooperate with him,” Valdes stated firmly and gave a peremptory jerk of his head. Da Silva and one of the guards hauled Rachel to her feet, one grasping each arm, while the other guard kept Reislon and Andrew covered with his weapon. Valdes led the way, reversing the route they had come before, until they reached the cavernous hangar bay where the gig rested with its hatch still open, dwarfed by the ships that rested on the extensive deck. Beyond the atmosphere curtain lay starless blackness, with the universe of stars as invisible to them as they were to it.

“All right,” said Valdes to Reislon and Andrew. “Go aboard and do whatever you need to do. One of the guards will accompany you. Ms. Arnstein will remain here with us as a form of insurance.”

Reislon led the way up the short ramp the gig had extended to the deck, followed by the guard. Andrew brought up the rear, casting anxious looks over his shoulder at Rachel, even though he was fairly sure what he’d see if he met her eyes.

The gig was a standard design. There was no airlock, only a hatch suitable for fastening to a larger ship. Within the passenger cabin, there was barely space to move around among the acceleration seats—human-designed ones, so Reislon had been decidedly uncomfortable. Now he wedged himself awkwardly in and proceeded to do something. The guard behind him made it impossible for Andrew to see what that something was, or to get all the way through the hatch.

Suddenly, with a flashing of lights and a whir of power, the gig came to life.

This is impossible,
flashed through Andrew’s brain.
There’s a checklist to be run through! There’s a sequence! There’s—

Then he had no leisure to further catalogue all the things that weren’t right, for Reislon swung around with remarkable agility in the cramped space, raised the arm that held the weapon implant—and therefore was necessarily heavier than the other one—and brought it viciously down on the guard’s head. There was a sickening sound, and it immediately became obvious that the Kappainu were as fragile as they looked.

Reislon shoved the unconscious form out the hatch. As it tumbled out, it collided with Andrew, causing him to stagger halfway through the hatch, whose frame he grasped to steady himself.

Reislon called to him to get inside. The translator rendered it as a yell.

At the same moment, the guard on the hangar deck outside aimed his laser weapon at Andrew, who was still trying to get his balance—and even if he hadn’t been, he had a realistic appreciation of his chance of dodging a beam that struck at the speed of light.

Rachel, breaking away from Da Silva, tackled the guard, grabbing his weapon and wrenching it aside, while wrestling him to the floor. It flashed through Andrew’s mind that a young human woman—even a slender, not especially athletic one—was probably at least as strong as the Kappainu. But then Valdes and Da Silva both grappled her from behind and dragged her, kicking and clawing, off the guard. They must, Andrew assumed, want her for whatever hostage value she might possess, for future contingencies.

Andrew prepared to launch himself down the ramp at them.

At that instant, with a rise in the volume of the power-whine, the gig lurched as it lifted off the deck, tumbling Andrew back inside just before the hatch clanged shut.

“Strap in!” snapped Reislon as he brought the gig around and gunned it toward the atmosphere curtain. That field of pressure-gravity was impervious to molecules in a gaseous state, but would pass a solid object moving no faster than a brisk walk. Andrew, as he flung himself into a seat, was certain Reislon must be exceeding that limit. But before he could shout at the Lokar to slow down, they were through the curtain and Reislon applied full power

Andrew wondered if the gravity beam that had reeled them through the hangar bay was strong enough to overpower the gig’s engines in a straight game of tug. In the event, he didn’t have to find out. The beam was not currently activated—there was no reason for it to be—and before its stunned operators could bring it on line the straining gig was beyond its limited range. The same, Andrew decided, must be true of the station’s laser weapons; he kept expecting to die in an inferno of coherent energy, but he continued to live as the gig fled at an acceleration that pressed him back into the seat. He wondered how Reislon was holding up under it, jammed uncomfortably into a seat designed for humans.

Then, with the same lack of warning they had experienced before, they were suddenly among the blazing hordes of stars. Astern, where the Kappainu space station had loomed a second before, nothing could be seen.

Andrew realized he had been holding his breath for a long while. He released it with a
whoosh
. “Reislon—!” he gasped.

The Lokar looked shaken up, but spoke in his usual calm way—altogether too calm for Andrew’s taste. “Yes, I know I owe you an explanation. I did not, of course, actually plant a bomb aboard this gig. I did, however, rig special override circuitry which allows instantaneous powering-up and activation of all systems—a panic button in your parlance. It has its uses in emergency situations, though naturally, such a brute-force approach carries a cost. This gig’s electrical systems will need to be overhauled before—”

“Damn you, Reislon!
You left Rachel back there!
”

“What would you have had me to do? I would naturally have preferred to get all three of us away. But a hopeless rescue attempt would have had no effect but to prevent the escape I had maneuvered for so carefully. And
none
of us would have escaped with the priceless knowledge of Kappainu capabilities and intentions that we now possess.

“But even that is secondary. The important thing—no, the essential thing—is to warn Captain Taylor of the trap being laid. I have already activated a homing beacon; we should be able to establish contact with him shortly, and
City of Osaka
will be able to get clear.”

“
City of Osaka
? You mean
Broadsword
, don’t you?”

“I mean
City of Osaka
.
Broadsword
’s survival, like Ms. Arnstein’s escape, is of course desirable. But remember what Valdes said:
City of Osaka
has a concealed access key, like the Cydonia artifact that we’ve now lost. It
must
get to Kogurche, so Zhygon can examine it and, if possible, reverse-engineer it.”

Andrew drew a breath. “Reislon, I’m just glad that you are—I think—on our side.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

As Reislon had foretold,
it took very little time to establish contact with
Broadsword.
Taylor’s bewildered face appeared on the comm screen.

“Andy! What in the hell happened to you? Where have you been? What—?”

“Jamel, there isn’t time for a full explanation. This is urgent. The Kappainu have their base out here, and it’s undetectable—it might as well be in a private universe of its own as far as any outside sensors, including the Mark One Eyeball, are concerned. It can be moved, very clumsily, and they’re now maneuvering it across your projected course so you’ll enter its surrounding field like we did and be taken by surprise. You’ve got to take evasive action at once.”

Taylor visibly forced himself to defer further questions. He turned aside and gave a series of orders. Evasive action was easier said than done for spacecraft, with their inherent lack of maneuverability, but reactionless drives made it less impractical than it once had been. “All right. Done,” he told Andrew.

“Good. Next—and this is just as urgent—you need to detach
City of Osaka
from
Broadsword
and have her set a course away from you and away from the area where this gig just seemed to appear out of nowhere, to rendezvous with us. And tell the prize crew we’ll be docking with her.”

“What? I need for you to report back here. Why do you want to rendezvous with
City of Osaka
?”

“It’s a long story—longer than we have time for. Briefly, we were captured and escaped—at least Reislon and I did. Rachel . . . Ms. Arnstein is still a prisoner. And we lost the Cydonia artifact.”

“You
what
?”

“But there’s another one concealed somewhere aboard
City of Osaka
. It’s called an access key, by the way, and it’s the only means by which the Kappainu base can be detected and communicated with. We’ve
got
to get it to the Rogovon rebels at Kogurche so Zhygon, the scientist we told you about, can study it.”

Once again, Taylor clamped self-control down on his raging curiosity and spoke to his communications officer. “Raise
City of Osaka
. Tell Lieutenant Morales she’s to break formation and apply a lateral vector of—” he thought briefly and rattled off figures “—and await Captain Roark, who’s approaching in a gig.” Andrew, looking at the gig’s rudimentary nav plot, saw that the orders were being carried out. Then Taylor turned back to him. “All right. Done. But, Andy, do you really need to go to Kogurche? With the evidence you and Reislon now have, surely we can blow this wide open, let everyone on Earth know that—”