Rise of the Terran Empire Read online

  Adzel cocked his head and rubbed his snout with a loud sandpapering sound. "Perhaps not entirely. Freeman Wyler does have dark hair and a mustache. We must do something about that."

  "Meanwhile, Wyler, off with your clothes," Chee ordered. The Merseian, half recovered, made as if to rise. She swung the blaster in his direction. "You stay put," she said in his native Eriau. "I'm not a bad marksman either."

  Bloodless in the cheeks, Wyler cried, "You're on collision orbit, I tell you, you can't get away, you'll die for goddamn nothing!"

  "Undress, I told you," Chee replied. "Or must Adzel do it?"

  Looking at the muzzle of her weapon and the implacable eyes behind, Wyler started to remove his garments. "Falkayn, haven't you any sense?" he pleaded.

  The response he got was a thoughtful "Yes. I'm planning how we can take you along to quiz."

  Chee lifted her ears. "'We,' Davy?" she asked. "How are Adzel and I going to get out? No, you can ransom us later."

  "You two most certainly are coming," Falkayn said. "We don't know how revengeful Baburites are, or their human and Merseian chums."

  "But—"

  "Besides, I'll need your help with Wyler, not to mention after we're spaceborne."

  Adzel returned from the kitchen where he had been rummaging, "Here is the means to provide you with dark hair and mustache," he announced proudly. "A container of chocolate sauce."

  It didn't seem like what a really dashing hero would use in a jailbreak, but it would have to do. While he stripped, put on Wyler's garb, and submitted to the anointing, Falkayn exchanged rapid-paced words with his companions. A scheme evolved, not much more precarious than the one which had gotten them this far.

  Adzel ripped up Blyndwyr's clothes and tied him securely in place. He and Chee kept Wyler unbound, naked, under guard of her firearm. The Wodenite uttered a benediction, all the goodbye that Falkayn took time for. They three might never fare together again, he might never come back to Coya and Juanita, but he dared not stop to think about that, not now.

  The hallway clattered to his footfalls. At the airlock, he punched the number he had seen and stood feeling as if he waited to be shot at in a duel. When the Baburite's four eyes peered out of the screen at him, he couldn't help passing his tongue over dry lips. A sweet taste reminded him of how crude his disguise was.

  He spoke without preliminary, as Wyler had done before: "The prisoners seem to have lost morale. They asked me to fetch some medicines and comforts for them from their ship. I think that may make them cooperative."

  He was gambling that human psychology would be as little known here as human bodies were.

  A heartbeat and a heartbeat went by before the creature answered: "Very well. The guards will be told to expect you." Blankness.

  Falkayn found Wyler's spacesuit and its undergarment in a locker. The suit was distinctively painted; probably every offplanet employee had an individual pattern for identification purposes. So he must adjust it to fit his somewhat taller frame. He could have used help, but didn't dare have anyone else in scanner range of the phone, lest the Baburite call him back.

  Cycling through the lock, he emerged into bulldog jaws of gravitation. The field stretched bare before him, pockmarked with hatch covers. Here and there a caterpillar shape crossed it on some unguessable errand. Blue-white lights glared along the fronts of buildings till their ice shimmered like cold made visible. A wind whined and thrust. In darkness overhead, two moons shone dimly, but no stars. The walk was long to his destination.

  It seemed impossible that no one challenged him while he opened the silo, stepped onto the elevator, and descended. By the time he had reached the personnel entrance of his ship, his helmet was chokeful of sweat-reek, he could barely whistle the countersign, and superstition rose from the grave of his childhood to croak, This can't go on. You're overdue for bad luck.

  We've already had it, he defended. We came too late—after the fleet had left.

  Do you think if it were still here, you would have been this lightly guarded?

  The valve turned. Waiting in the chamber for air exchange, Falkayn invoked some of Adzel's Buddhist techniques and regained a measure of calm. "There should be no bow, no arrow, no archer: only the firing."

  He left his space armor on inside, though frost was instantly white upon it. A flick of a switch in the heater controls cleared his faceplate, and he hurried to the bridge. Working his awkward bulk into his shockseat, he said via radio, "Muddlehead, we have to break Adzel and Chee loose. I'll steer, because you haven't seen where they are. We'll land in front of an entry lock. Blast it instantly—they won't have time to go through in the regular way—and have the outer valve of the number-two belly entrance open for them. The moment they're aboard, lift for space, taking such evasive maneuvers as your instruments suggest are best. Go into hyperdrive as soon as we're far enough out, and I mean as soon; forget about safety margins. Is this clear?"

  "As clear as usual," said the computer.

  The power plant came to full, murmurous life. Negafield generators thrust against that fabric of physical relationships which we call space. The ship glided upward.

  "Yonder!" Falkayn yelled uselessly. Dancing over the manual pilot console, his fingers were handicapped by their gloves. But if the hull should be seriously holed by an enemy shot, an unprotected oxygen breather would be dead. Air roared outside. He had left the acceleration compensator off, in order that he might have that extra sensory input for this tricky task, and forces yanked at him, threw him against the safety web and then back into the seat. Hai-ah!

  The building was straight ahead. He dropped, he hovered. A gun in its turret flung forth a shaped-charge shell. Flame erupted, the outer portal crumpled in wreckage. With surgical delicacy, an energy cannon sent its beam lancing at the inner valve. Metal turned white hot and flowed.

  The caterpillar figures dashed about on the field. Had they no ground defenses? Well, who could have anticipated this kind of attack? Wait—above—forms in the moonglow, suddenly diving, aircraft—

  The barrier went down. A frost-cloud boiled as Baburite and Terrestrial gases met. Falkayn was fleetingly glad that automatic doors would close off the module where Blyndwyr lay. Doubly gigantic in his spacesuit, Adzel stormed forth. Was he carrying Chee and Wyler? A firebolt spat from above. The spaceship swung her cannon about and threw lightning back. Adzel was out of sight, below the curve of the hull. What had happened, in God's name, what had happened?

  "They are aboard," Muddlehead reported, and sent the vessel leaping.

  Acceleration jammed Falkayn deep into his chair. "Compensators," he ordered hoarsely. A steady one gee underfoot returned. Split atmosphere raved and the first stars came in sight. Falkayn unlocked his faceplate and reached shakily for the intercom button. "Are you all right?" he called.

  A shell exploded close by, flash of light, buffet of noise, trembling of deck. Muddlin' Through drove on outward.

  Adzel's tones rumbled through the fury round about. "Essentially we are well, Chee and I. Unfortunately, a shot from an aircraft struck our prisoner, who was under my right arm, penetrated his suit, and killed him instantly. I left the body behind."

  There's our bad luck, raged within Falkayn. I would've put him under narco and maybe learned—Damn, oh, damn!

  "My own suit was damaged, but not too badly for the self-sealing to work, and I suffered no more than a scorched scale," Adzel went on. "Chee was safe on my left side . . . . I would like to say a prayer for Sheldon Wyler."

  Steadiness took over in Falkayn. "Later. First we've got to escape. We've surprise and speed on our side, but the alarm must be in space by now. Take battle stations, you two."

  He knew as well as they that in a close encounter with any fighter heavier than a corvette, they were done for. They might ward off missiles for a time; but so would the enemy, and meanwhile its energy beams, powered by generators more massive than Muddlin' Through could carry, would gnaw through plating much thinner than its own.
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  The chance of combat was small, however. Probably no Baburite had such a position and velocity at this moment that its grav drive was capable of equalizing vectors, at the same point in space, with the furiously accelerating Solar craft. Nearly all slug-it-out contests took place because opponents had deliberately sought each other.

  Target-seeking torpedoes, whose mass was small enough to permit enormous changes in speed and direction, were something else. So were rays that traveled at the speed of light.

  The sky of Babur had fallen well aft, the globe was still huge in heaven but dwindling. Stars burned manyfold, some among them the color of blood.

  "When can we go hyper, Muddlehead?" Falkayn asked. It shouldn't be long. They were already high in the gravity well of Mogul and climbing upward fast in Babur's. Soon the metric of space would be too flat to interfere unduly with fine-tuned oscillators; and once they were moving at their top faster-than-light pseudovelocity, practically nothing ever built had legs to match theirs.

  "One-point-one-six-hour, given our present vector," said the computer. "But I propose to add several minutes to that time by applying transverse thrust to bring us near the satellite called Ayisha. My instruments show a possible anomalous radiation pattern there."

  Falkayn hesitated a second. If heavy ground installations were on the moon . . . Decision: "Very well. Carry on."

  Time crawled. Twice Chee yelled savagely, when her guns destroyed a missile on its intercept course. Falkayn could only sit and think. Mostly he remembered, in jumbled oddments—wingsailing with Coya at Lunograd, a red sun forever above a desert on Ikrananka, his father's sternness about noblesse oblige, fear that he might drop newborn Juanita when she was laid in his arms, The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie, his first night with Coya and his last, youthful beer hall arguments about God and girls, Rodin's Burghers of Calais, a double moonglade on the Auroral Ocean, a firefall between two stars, Coya beside him beholding the crooked towers of a city on a planet which did not yet have a human-bestowed name, his mother using a prism to show him what made the rainbow, Coya and he laughing like children as they had a snowball fight at an Antarctic resort, the splendor of an Ythrian on the wing, Coya bringing him sandwiches and coffee when he sat far into a nightwatch studying the data readouts on a new world the ship was circling, Coya—

  The scarred moon-disc grew big in the viewscreen. Falkayn magnified, searched, suddenly found it: a sprawling complex of domes, turrets, ship housings, spacefield, test stands . . . . "Record!" he ordered automatically.

  Did Muddlehead sound hurt? Impossible. "Of course. Infrared signs are of beings thermodynamically similar to or identical with humans."

  "You mean that stuff's not meant for Baburites? Why, then—"

  "A-yu!" Chee Lan screamed; and incandescence flared momentarily. "Close, friends, close!"

  "I suggest we do not dawdle," Adzel said.

  The colony, or whatever it was, reeled out of sight behind a mountain range as the ship sped past Ayisha. "According to my instruments," Muddlehead reported, "if we persevere as at present, surrounding conditions will grow progressively less unsalubrious for us."

  That means we're going to get away, Falkayn thought. We're clear. The pains and tingles of tension spread upward through his body to the brain.

  "Where are we bound, then?" he heard Chee ask.

  He forced himself to say, "Mirkheim. We just might arrive ahead of the Baburites, in time to warn those approaching humans, whoever they are, and the workers there."

  "I doubt that," the Cynthian replied. "The enemy probably has too big a jump on us. And should we take the risk? Isn't it more important to bring home the information we've collected, that somehow Babur's acquired a substantial corps of military and technical oxygen breathers? A courier torp might not get through."

  "No, we must attempt to warn," Adzel said. "It could forestall a battle. One violent death is too much."

  Falkayn nodded wearily. His gaze sought back to the uncaring stars. Poor Wyler, he thought. Poor everybody.

  VII

  An intercom presented the captain of Alpha Cygni. "Madame," he said, "Navigation reports we are one light-year from destination."

  "Oh—" Sandra gathered in her wits. So soon? Then how had the trip from Hermes taken so long? A light-year, raced through her. The extreme distance at which the space-pulses from our hyperdrives are detectable. Instantaneously. Now they'll know at the planet that we're coming. And "they" could be an enemy. "Order all units to prepare for action."

  "Yellow alert throughout. Aye, madam." The image disappeared.

  Sandra stared about her. Save where viewscreens showed heaven, the admiral's bridge was a narrow and cheerless cave. It throbbed slightly with engine beat; the air blew warm, smelling faintly of oil and chemicals. Abruptly it felt unreal, her naval uniform a costume, the whole proceeding a ridiculous piece of playacting.

  Clad in a similar two-toned coverall, which could at need be the underpadding in a spacesuit, Eric gave her a wry look. "Buck fever?" he murmured. "Me too." He could speak candidly, since he was the only other person there.

  "I suppose that's what it is." Sandra tried to shape a smile and failed.

  "I'm surprised. When you're one of the few people along who have any combat experience."

  "Diomedes wasn't like this. That was hand-to-hand warfare. And . . . and anyway, nobody expected me to issue commands."

  Why didn't I hire mercenaries, years ago, to form the nucleus of a proper-sized officer corps?

  Because it didn't seem that the peace we had always known on Hermes would ever be threatened. Brushfire clashes happened around stars too far off for us to really notice: nothing worse. We were warned of aliens getting into space; but surely they were not too dangerous—not even the Shenna, whom, after all, the League put down before any great harm was done. Double and triple surely, Technic civilization would never know wars among its own member peoples. That was something man had left behind him, like purdah, tyranny, and cannibalism. We kept a few warcraft with minimum crews to act as a police and rescue corps, and as insurance against a contingency we didn't really believe was possible. (Inadequate insurance, I see today.) Their practice with heavy weapons we considered rather a joke, except when taxpayer organizations complained.

  "Damn me for letting you come!" she blurted. "You should have stayed behind, in charge of the reserves—"

  "We've been over that ground often enough, think you not, Mother?" Eric answered. "No better man than Mike Falkayn could be holding the reins there. What I wish is that I'd had sense to ask for an assignment that'd hold me busy here. Being your executive officer sounded big, but it turns out to be sheer comic opera."

  "Well, I'm scant more than a passenger myself till we start negotiating. Pray God I can do that. In history, comic operas have had a way of turning into tragedies."

  If only Nadi were along. His company quiets me. But she had sent the chief of the Supermetals patrol on ahead, to ready the entire outfit for cooperation with hers.

  About three hours till arrival, at their top pseudospeed . . . She drew several deep breaths. Never mind about a battle. If that came, let her leave it in the hands of her captains, with the skipper of this flagship the coordinator, as had been agreed at the outset. Their purpose then would almost certainly be just to fight free and escape. They had no great strength. Besides Alpha Cygni, a light battleship, it was two cruisers, four destroyers, and a carrier for ten Meteor-class pursuers. At that, they had not left much behind to guard their home.

  Her job was to prevent a clash, to establish Hermes as an impartial agent intervening to see justice done and order restored. And she did know something about handling people. She settled into her shock-seat, lit a cigar, and began consciously relaxing, muscle by muscle. Eric paced.

  "Madame!" The words came harsh and not quite even. "Hyperdrives detected."

  Sandra made herself remain seated. "Coming to meet us?"

  "No, madam. They're in our fourth quadrant. As
near as can be extrapolated, we and they have the same destination."

  She twisted her head about, eyes seeking from screen to screen. Darkness still held the sun of Mirkheim. They would have to come almost on top of that dim remnant to see it. The fourth quadrant—She could not identify what she sought there. It was only a small spark at its remove, lost among thousands. But in the fourth quadrant lay Mogul.

  Eric smacked fist into palm. "The Baburites!"

  "A moment, please, sir," said the captain. "I'm getting a preliminary data analysis . . . . 'Tis a huge force. No details computable yet; but in numbers, at least, 'tis overwhelming."

  For a moment Sandra gulped nausea, as if she had been kicked in the gut. Then her mind went into emergency operation. Self-doubt fell away. Decisions snapped forth. "This changes things," she said. "Best we try for a parley. From this ship, since I'm aboard her. Prepare an intercept course for us. The rest of ours—they can reach Mirkheim well ahead of the newcomers, not? . . . Good. Let them continue yonways under leadership of Achilles, rendezvous with Nadi, and hold themselves combat ready. But in case of doubt—'fore all, if something appears to have happened to us on Alpha—they are to return home at once."