Warhorse

“He can hear you, Rro-maa,” the Tampy’s voice came faintly.

“Good. Hhom-jee, when I give you the word, I want you to have Man o’ War reach back and telekene away as many of the vultures between us and the shark that it can.”

“Your wishes are ours,” Rrin-saa replied.

“Yeah,” Roman muttered under his breath. “Yamoto? Range?”

“To the shark, twenty-four kilometers, Captain,” she said promptly. “The leading edge of vulture cloud is just over eighteen.”

At least two kilometers inside Man o’ War’s telekene range; maybe more. “Laser crew, stand by,” he ordered, shifting his attention to the internal stress indicators.

They would have exactly one shot at this. A little closer; just a little closer…

“Captain, tether stress is redlining,” Yamoto said abruptly. “Another minute and we’re going to lose Man o’ War.”

Roman’s hands curled into fists. This was it. “Hhom-jee: now.”

For a single, awful second he thought the gamble had failed. And then, as if by magic, a circle of black suddenly appeared in the hazy white cloud of vultures and rocks behind them. The hole spread outward like the negative of an explosion—

And behind it, clearly visible in the reflected light of the drive emissions, was the shark.

“Laser: fire!” Roman snapped. The faint line lanced out—

And without any warning at all Roman was slammed hard back into his chair.

There was no time to shout warnings or orders; but Yamoto was ready. A splitinstant of weightlessness as she cut the drive was followed by a second backwrenching slam of high acceleration as Man o’ War took up the slack in the rein lines and leaped forward.

And they were free.

“Keep firing,” Roman managed to shout.

“Shark falling back,” Marlowe called: “Range, fifty kilometers… sixty…

seventy… I don’t think it’s even trying to follow us, Captain.”

“It doesn’t have to,” Yamoto put in. “The optical net is back with us.”

Roman pushed against the acceleration to take a deep breath. “Laser crew: cease fire. As soon as you can, I want a maintenance check started on your equipment—we may need to use it again.” Leaden hands fought unsuccessfully to switch displays—“Marlowe, did the lander get away?”

“Negative,” the other said. “They’re about 230 kilometers ahead of us; bearing twenty port, five nadir.”

With an effort, Roman reached up and keyed into the comm laser circuit. “Amity to lander: report.”

“Lander here,” Ferrol’s voice came back. “You do believe in cutting things close, don’t you?”

“We didn’t have much choice,” Roman told him, giving the tactical display a quick check. The shark still didn’t seem to be giving chase. “I take it from your presence here that the net missile we sent out to you didn’t work?”

“It didn’t get even that much chance,” Ferrol said grimly. “The shark stopped it about a kilometer out from you.”

“I’ve got the recording queued, Captain, if you want to see it,” Marlowe put in.

Roman nodded. “Go ahead.”

Stopped was an understatement; or else that was all Ferrol had been able to see from his distance. From Amity’s closer perspective, it was far more spectacular. “It was stopped, all right,” Roman told Ferrol. “Also torn into small pieces and dispersed. Here, take a look.”

He sent a copy of the tape down the laser, and for a minute there was silence.

“Looks pretty deliberate, doesn’t it?” Ferrol commented at last.

“I’d say so, yes,” Roman agreed. “It saw what the first missile did and didn’t care for it much.”

“And so the next time it saw one, it shredded it.”

Roman nodded. “More evidence that the shark can learn. As if we needed it.” The acceleration was begi

A pause. “I hear, Rro-maa.”

Roman let out a quiet sigh of relief—the prospect of trying to find a way out of the system with a fear-crazed space horse wasn’t something he’d wanted to contemplate. “Is Man o’ War back under control again?”

“He is still… frightened.”

“It’s got plenty of company. As soon as you’ve got it calm enough to steer I want to rendezvous with the lander—Yamoto will give you the direction.”

“Your wish is ours.”

“Good.” Roman turned to Yamoto. “Run up a rendezvous plot with a continual update,” he instructed her. “No telling how long it’ll take for him to get Man o’

War functional again.”

“It had better be damn quick,” Ferrol growled. “Whatever finagling you did to get away from the shark isn’t going to work a second time. The business with the net missile pretty well proves that.”

“I’m afraid you’re probably right,” Roman agreed. “Which sends us straight back to square one.”

“Getting rid of the vultures?”

“Right. And with the shark more or less on alert now, it’ll have to be something we can do fast, before the shark has time to react to it.”

“A pretty tall order,” Ferrol grunted.

“We’ll think of something.”

Leaning against Quentin’s 2.4 gee acceleration, Ferrol flipped off the transmit switch. For a moment he glowered at the panel, feeling the knot of tension in his stomach tighten another few turns. “ ‘We’ll think of something,’ ” he muttered under his breath. “Famous last words.”

“Could be worse,” Ke

Ferrol threw her a glare. Her face, like her voice, was as unperturbed as ever, and for a moment he wondered if she’d felt even a twinge of panic during any of the last few hours. “Some day,” he told her, “something in this universe is going to throw you for a skid. I just hope I’m alive to see it.”

A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “Much better,” she nodded approvingly. “Anger’s a lot less paralyzing than fear. More conducive to constructive thought, too.”

“How would you know?” he snorted; but the swipe lacked any real force. Even while resenting the motherly tone he had to admit she was right.

He took a deep breath and gave the instruments a quick scan. For the first few minutes of that mad dash away from the Amity and the pursuing shark, Quentin’s acceleration had been slowly but steadily increasing; but for the last few minutes it had been just as steadily dropping. “Wwis-khaa, Quentin’s slowing down,” he called over his shoulder. “What’s the trouble?”

“Quenti

Ferrol twisted to look at the other. One look was all he needed. “Sso-ngu, take over,” he snapped. “Wwis-khaa’s losing it.”

Sso-ngu stirred, and for a moment looked around as if orienting himself. Then, shaking once like a wet dog, he reached past Demothi to take the helmet from Wwis-khaa. He gazed at the device, then slowly lowered it onto his head.

“We’re losing both of them,” Ke

Ferrol hissed between his teeth. “I know. What’s Amity’s ETA?”

“About fifteen minutes. You want me to call over and have another Handler standing by in a lifeboat?”

He nodded. “I just hope they’ve got someone to spare. That fight with the shark may have wiped out some of their Handlers, too.”

Ke

Twenty-seven kilometers away… and Roman wanted a way to take them out quickly.

“One of the other Tampies will be ready when we match velocities,” Ke

Ferrol snorted gently. “Terrific. We may wind up having to cut Quentin loose, after all. By default.” On his helm display the Amity’s projected course and intercept point appeared…