Shon'jir

Chapter Eight

IT WAS done.

Duncan stood and watched the mri depart, and knew that soon the she'pan Melein must come, to assume nominal con­trol of the ship, now that Niun had assured himself that there would be no resistance or offense to her.

That was the way with the mri, that the she'pan made the decisions when she was available to be consulted. It was something that Boaz could have told the military; it was something that he himself could have told those that had laid the plans for security on Flower, had they asked that the mri kel'ein, the black-robes, that had made themselves a ter­ror wherever they had gone, were not the authority that must be considered.

Niun had not understood the artifact he revered. That also did not surprise Duncan. Niun, competent as he was, refused to know certain things that he did not consider appropriate for him; he had to consult Melein before any act of policy, given the chance to do so. Upon this, Duncan had relied des­perately. It had worked. He felt vindicated, freed of a weight that had been on him for days, now that he saw Niun whole and on his feet, and bound precisely where he had calculated he would go.

He found himself with a curious lack of fear for the thing that he had done". Fear, he felt lying awake at night, remem­bering the ruin in the heights, the nightmare of Sil'athen, the inferno that had come down on them; or smiling at the regul who had tried to kill him and killed a sentient species instead. Of the mri he had only a knowledgeable respect.

There was still a good chance that the mri would turn on him and kill him; he had reckoned that from the begin­ning but it was not the way that he had known them. If it would happen, it would proceed from the depth of some mri logic that these two mri had never shown him, even bitterly provoked.

It was long past time for regrets: there was little time left for anything he would do. He wiped the back of his hand across his blurring eyes he had napped when he could these past four days, but he had not slept in a bed, had not dared to, not with matters aboard in a state of flux, with two regul ships loose in the system and a nervous human ship tagging him.

He settled in at the console, called forth data from the in­struments that flashed their busy sequences, saw that they were prepared for transition, their guidance system locked upon its reference star and prepared to make the move as soon as Fox's other systems informed the computer that they were far enough from the nearest sizable mass. It could be as much as a day: automatic tolerances were wider than they had to be. It would surely not be more.

This far out, Kesrith was lost in sunglare, and red Arain it­self was assuming its proper insignificance on a stellar scale, a mere boundary beacon for men, marking as it did the edge of human territories, a star orbited by one scantly habitable world and several that were not.

And on the one screen was the mocknp that still showed the regul further out than they should be after such a time: they were making a cautious approach. He did not concern himself with regul position: they were far across the system and no part of what occupied him.

On another screen appeared the tiny object that was Sa­ber's rider Santiago, his faithful shadow.

It was closer than it was wont to be.

He bit at his lip, his heart quickening, for he did not want to break silence or to start a dispute with his escort: the mri were at large; but the fact of the mri impelled him to rapid consultation with the computer, and he swore to himself and reached for the com switch.

"Santiago," he signaled it. "Santiago, this is Fox. Request you draw back a space. You're in my scan and your mass is registering on my instruments. You are preventing jump.”

There was a long pause. "We copy," Santiago answered, and seemed to pause for consultation. "Fox," came a new voice, "Zahadi here. Advise you we have difficulties de­veloping.”

Santiago's captain. A chill of foreboding went through him. "Explain," he asked of Zahadi.

"Fox," the answer came back in due course, "advise you neither regul ship has been receptive to approach. Hulagh has shuttled up to station. Situation there is extremely tense. Hu­lagh has demanded boarding on regul vessel Siggrav, Stavros' latest message as follows: Boarding will be granted. All con­ditions with probe mission are unchanged. Proceed. End message as received.”

"Santiago, advise you we are prepared to jump. Situation elsewhere irrelevant. You are preventing jump. Please move out of scan.”

"We copy," Zahadi replied.

There was a long silence. Duncan waited, watching the scan. There was no change. He repeated the message, irri­tably.

There was still no response. Santiago still hung within scan.

He flipped the contact again and this time swore at Santi­ago and all aboard her: a condemned man was allowed that liberty. "Get out of my scan," he repeated. "Santiago, get out of my way.”

Again there was no answer. A chill sense of something ut­terly amiss was over him now; Santiago still remained, stub­bornly using its mass to prevent him he was sure of it now.

Stavros' orders, a leash on a ship Stavros could not fully trust, deliberate delay.

And the mri would come. He reckoned in his mind what would happen when Melein arrived down that corridor with the dusei to enforce her wishes. Niun might wait to search for his weapons; they both might wait a time, biding the re­turn of their strength: Niun was hardly able to walk, and perhaps Melein could not. It was too much to hope that they would not intervene.

Stavros' intervention. Stavros knew him, had not trusted him let loose without restraint.

And in a sudden flash of apprehension he flicked the scan to maximum. A moving dot appeared at the limit of the field, moving in fast.

He cursed and put in a panicked call to Santiago, com­plaining of it.

"Fox, Fox," came the reply at last, "this is Saber via Santi­ago, assigned escort. Request acknowledgment.”

Duncan leaned forward, adjusted the pickup, his other hand clenched. "Saber, this is Fox. Advise you no escort was in my orders. Pull off. Pull off.”

There was no acknowledgment in the expected time. Noth­ing.

Saber did not vary course. "Request explanation," Duncan sent at them. Nothing came in reply. Saber continued on intercept. In a very little time there would be no options at all.

Duncan swore at them. "Saber," he urged. "Saber, relay the following message to Santiago. Pull out of my scan: re­peat, pull out of my scan. This ship is ready to jump, and your mass is registering. Request following message to be offi­cially logged: Santiago, you have ignored five prior warnings. I will jump this ship on manual override in fifteen minutes. If you do not take immediate evasive action, you will be caught in my field. Advise you pull out now. Fifteen minutes, mark, and counting.”

The seconds ticked off. His hand sweated on the override. The dot that was Santiago began to move away, but Saber was still coming in fast.

"Fox," he heard. "This is Saber, Koch speaking. Advise you this operation henceforth ours too. We are assigned to track. Orders of the Hon. G. Stavros, governor Kesrith terri­tories.”

It hit him at the pit of the stomach: O God, out of this, out of this, he wished, either them or him, he did not know. He was shaking with the strain of the long-held position.

A kilometer-long warship, with escort scout. He watched Saber moving in, not yet close enough for her great mass to register, but closing. They were coming hi on Santiago's track, and Santiago, not star-capable, would link and ride Sa­ber's ungainly structure into jump.

Warships, not a probe mission. He had been made a guide for warships.

No, no, no! he raged at them in his mind, and in an action both impulse and deliberate, slammed his hand forward and hit the manual override. Jump.

He held onto the panel while the whole of his body told him lies at once, while walls flowed like water, while forms eemed to twist inside out and space was not; and was again; and the flow reversed itself, wrenching them back into nor­mality.

The stars in the screens were different. Duncan shivered in disorientation, fighting out of it as a man must who had flown combat out of deep space.

He reached for controls to scan, finding vertigo in the tini­est imbalance of his body, the impression that interstices still existed into which he could fall, neither up nor down. If there was time in jump, the mind did not perceive it, drew nothing with it out of that abyss, only that terrible wrenching inward. He swept the scan.

There was nothing but star noise.

There was nothing.

He slumped in the cushion and fought against the emo­tional dissolution that often hit after transition; and this time it was more than physical. He had made a terrible, irrevoca­ble mistake not for the mri, not for them: he had at least bought them time, while Koch and Stavros sorted out the thing that he had done, consulted and reckoned what side he was playing, and what should be done with him.

The regul are living, Stavros had said: their victims aren't. So we deal with the regul, who are a force still dangerous.

Warships, not Flower, not the likes of Boaz and Luiz. The half of Stavros' military forces had prepared to follow in un­armed Fox's wake, even with regul threatening Kesrith: war­ships, and himself before them, with mri aboard, to probe the defenses an unarmed ship, and then the others.

To seek and destroy mri bases, whatever contacts the tape could locate: to finish what the regul had begun.

He bowed his head into his arms and tried to take his breath again, muscles shaking with rage and reaction. For a moment he could do nothing else; and then, fingers still shak­ing convulsively, he sought after the ampoule he had carried for days in his belt, never knowing at what time jump might come. He broke it, almost dropped it, then inserted the needle and let the drug enter his bloodstream.

Warmth spread through him, a sense of tranquillity, ability to cope with the u

He reckoned clearly what he had done: that Saber would track them; they had identical records: everything had been duplicated. The warships would come. There would be court martial, if ever humanity recovered him; his direct defiance of Koch had made that a certainty. But the mri, when they learned what had been done, might themselves care for that matter, so that human justice was a very remote threat indeed.