The Starry Rift Page 12

  “Baby,” says Illyera fondly. “I’ll tell you something you won’t believe. When I was your age and looked just like your Raven and I were in love.”

  Laine’s dark eyes open—a puzzled look crosses her face. But it is too much for the tired girl to take in. She smiles vaguely, and the dark curls nestle into Illyera’s neck.

  As Laine visibly drifts off to sleep, Illyera, stroking the black hair with loving fingers, beckons across it to Raven. He leans toward her.

  “I remember—I remember our roses,” Illyera whispers. The gilt-blond head shakes in wonder and reproach. “My dear, my dear... what a little oaf I was...”

  “Never,” says Raven, choked up. Frantically he searches for distraction, and finds it.

  “Speaking of high-gee turns, we seem to be heading pretty close to that little system ahead.” He turns to the scope and sees a pair of small stars that seem to have planets. In that direction Mira had disappeared.

  “Yes,” Illyera says. “That must be where the alarms woke us, coming out. I guess he’s sticking exactly to the trail back. He’s had enough shortcuts!” She laughs that lovely low laugh.

  The trail she’s referring to is in the guidance computer.

  The tail of every ship, by regulation, carries a time-lapse camera that takes backviews of the starfields all along the route. To retrace your path, you simply take the record out and insert it in the guidance computer. It was Hope’s trace record of her path from the “great junk-pile” that Raven had pocketed. Thinking of it now, he pats his pocket. That will be his next destination—But no, it won’t. Not if he goes with Illyera. Well, junk can wait. He’ll have to surrender it at FedBase, he guesses; but not without a copy. Oh, what could be in that accretion! He sighs, thinking of antique ships...

  Any problem with the close pass to that system ahead won’t be coming up for some while. Time for a nap. But as he debates just stretching out on the chest, not bothering to get in the couch, it comes to him that he’d better check the fuel. It’s holding out better than he expected, and it would be awkward to run out and have to switch drives while they’re in the system’s gravity field.

  He gets up into the pilot’s couch, starts checking New Hope’s readouts more carefully—and finds, beyond the main tank readout, the old indicators for the supply tug’s own old tanks. Aha! So there is independent tankage, which is feeding into New Hope. He cuts the connection and realigns the supply for direct use. They are still accelerating; when New Hope’s supplies run out, the drive will now shift automatically to draw from the tug. In fact, the tug could fly on her own, if she were free. Even the oxy and water supplies are stored up here...

  Raven has leaned back and is contemplating the reconstruction possibilities of New Hope, conscious that he is dozing off. With half an ear he listens to the sweet voice of Illyera singing a lullaby. Again, the strange feeling of a happiness he can’t recall steals over him. Dimly, he’s aware that the fat Pathman has come up forward, apparently for more water. The gurgling, splashing sound strikes him as pleasant, too...

  And then, oh, gods—he’s brutally awakened by the nastiest shock of his life.

  A slithering something touches his forehead and, avoiding his drowsy hand, slips behind his neck—and tightens! Someone scuttles behind him, cloth slips from his grasp—girls scream—and he comes fully awake to find himself half-choking in what can only be a slave collar.

  His hand, gingerly exploring, feels fine links—he has been caught by a new type of slave collar made of links! Easy to conceal in a seam or a Sticktite.

  And now, too late, he recalls the thing he had forgotten—a careful search of Jangoman’s tom suit.

  As this flashes through his mind, his body has been reacting automatically to catch the culprit—he is lunging, arms out, as the fat man ducks back through the connecting waist and scuttles, half-floating, away down the hall. Raven makes to follow—but the thing on his neck contracts so savagely across his throat that he can only stop.

  Ringing through the ship comes Jangoman’s jeering laughter. The pirate, his arms free, stops working on the wires of his leg bonds to bray in triumph.

  “Turn about, eh? Take it easy, new boy.”

  He brandishes something that could be a small transmitter and guffaws again as he bends to work on his leg knots.

  Raven is speechless, sick with helpless fury. Fragments of questions tumble through his head. Has the fat priest simply betrayed them? Betrayed them for money—ransoms for the girls? Or been somehow convinced by Jangoman? Above all, what can he do? How to get out of this? And the girls—

  As he backs away from the nose-cone opening he’s conscious of a sudden slight loosening at his neck. Yes! He’s now nearer that transmitter he stuck on New Hope’s outer hull so long ago—and it’s still working. As long as it continues to send, Jangoman can’t actually kill him. But it must run down soon. What can he do?

  As if reading his mind, Jangoman calls again. “Something to keep you busy, new boy. Call that yacht and tell them I have their women. Tell ’em to turn back and meet me. And if they call the Feds, I’ll take it out on you and the cunts.” A tweak at his collar tells him that the pirate is trying to show his power. Raven pretends to choke hard. When it’s over, he goes docilely to the commo station.

  “Oh, Raven, what’s happened? What will we do?” Illyera asks. Laine, who has understood faster, is weeping.

  “Wait. I don’t know. I messed up... Mira Two? Mira Two? New Hope calling Mira.” Just as bar Palladine’s faint voice comes through, the proximity alarm jangles. Raven cuts it off and by reflex turns to the scope. Jangoman yells a query. His voice sounds closer, as if he’d hopped forward. Those knots of Raven’s must be giving him trouble.

  “A rock!” calls Raven. But it isn’t a rock. It is, he slowly realizes, what could be their salvation: a huge dark gas planet, hanging out here beyond the twin suns. There’s his gravity well, i/he can think and move fast enough, and if great luck is with him. His one crazy chance. There’ll be no other—and this one has a dozen ways to fail.

  “I’m turning around it,” he calls. Jangoman, thank the fates, seems to have no burning desire to take over driving the ship.

  “Very well.” The voice is near and piercing. To Raven’s surprise, it’s coming from the speakers. Jangoman must have found an old intercom. “And then you can send the women back here, Raven. One at a time. I think I’ll try the new one first. I’m tired of wet-face. Tell Blondie I mix my tenderness with a certain amount of, ah, pain.”

  So strange is the tone of these repellant words that Raven wonders if the pirate also had a cache of drugs in that suit. He damns himself for a stupid, bloody clown; missing that suit.

  But he has no time for self-reproach. Carefully, he aims New Hope straight at the gas giant and kicks in all drives.

  “What are you doing, Raven?” comes Jangoman’s voice.

  “I told you. Running this big rock.” Will Jangoman look out to check?

  “Get on my message.”

  “Right.” Raven almost chokes with relief. Mira Two? Bad news.” Curtly, Raven tells them that Jangoman has taken over the ship, that Roy is working with him, that he himself is a collar-prisoner, and that Jangoman claims to be holding the women for ransom. “And he threatens reprisals if you call FedBase. You will now turn back. Repeat: Turn back for rendezvous. Our coordinates will follow. Over.

  “Shall I figure the coordinates, Jangoman, if you want to meet him?”

  The field indicator is already showing the gas giant’s gravity pull as a component of their acceleration. It will stay unnoticed in the ship since it’s straight ahead. But it’ll take time to get deep enough for Raven’s wild purpose. And for that he wants the coordinates, too.

  While he works the computer, he muffles the mike and beckons to Illyera, who has been watching him, wide-eyed with fear.

  “Illyera darling—” he murmurs when the perfumed head comes close. “I’m going to make a fancy turn soon. I’m pretty sure
I can shake that booster loose. I want you two to be ready to hold tight. And—suit up.”

  At that she turns to glance at her suit, and Raven sees his error. His fatal error. Here are her suit, and his—but Laine’s is back in her sleep-chest. Two suits, three people. Oh, no.

  Raven stares numbly at the suits. His head is throbbing with pain from the intermittent choking, he is tired to death, he can’t believe this blow. And as he grunts like a man dealt a knock-out, he sees Laine has followed their gaze and guessed.

  Two suits, three people.

  The terrible logic assails him; involuntarily, he looks from one to the other—and sees that they sense that, too.

  He is choosing between them.

  He must.

  For an instant that’s the longest in Raven’s life, he vacillates. It’s only an eyeblink in the outer world, but a hundred things pass through his head. A young woman with her life before her, versus an old, old woman who has lived to the hilt—a naive, blank girl, versus his love, his love who remembers his roses, who is Illyera’s real rich self—a colonist’s healthy young grin, versus the magic smile that has haunted his dreams—a stranger, versus one so intimately his—and yet—and yet—

  Meantime a thousand things seem to be happening at once. His fingers have come up by reflex with the coordinates of their position. Jangoman is yelling at him: Raven hears some rational part of him reply, “I’m going to turn back and put us in orbit around that rock, with your permission, so they can find us. Right?”

  “Be careful, new boy.”

  He hears his own voice sending the coordinates to Mira, and their faint acknowledgment.

  But his whole soul is dominated by the terror of the choice before him. The two women are staring at him. He hears Illyera whispering, “Take her, Raven. Take my girl. I’ve had—” and Laine cuts across her:

  “No! I won’t! Take her, she’s my—” But he can’t listen, can’t “discuss” this. How can he bear to watch either of them die in a vacuum, as die one of them must when the nose-cone breaks away? Which one? Which one?

  No! He can’t.

  His whole being refuses it. Neither must die.

  Does that mean that he himself must? He will, if he gives up his suit.

  Is that the only way?

  No, again. Impossibility.

  There must be some other way. Only, what? And that planet is coming up fast. They’re already deep in its gravity. He must move... But what to do? A memory skitters across the chaos of his mind. Enough to gamble on?

  Total frustration explodes in total action.

  “Can either of you fly this thing? If not, you better learn fast. We’re turning.”

  He leans forward and bashes the drive controls to send New Hope into a violent U-turn. Gravity reels. Amid screeching and groans of strained metal, Raven leaps from the pilot couch and lifts Laine bodily into it. “Take hold. Keep her pointed up. When you can get into orbit, start sending out that Mayday there. You’ll be in a vacuum here in the nose-cone. Hold on till somebody comes. And”—he throws a suit at each woman—“suit up! Now!”

  “No, Raven, no! Oh, no!” they cry, being buffeted by the force of the turn.

  “Shut up and suit up. And you, Illyera, pull this curtain across after me, it’ll slow things down.” Crackings and squeals of the breaking weld are coming from the joint, air is already rushing to it as bolts tear loose. The gees of the turn slam him hard against the hull, but he rebounds into the already bending’passageway, ramming a couple of fast pries at the tearing joint with his iron.

  “Now close this up. I love you. Move—you godlost fools!”

  On that, Raven starts the fastest, longest run of his life.

  Back through the aft chamber toward Blackbird he goes. A fat figure is tottering at him, mouth open. He kicks it in the stomach as he goes by, half scrambling on the side of the hull, half momentarily helpless in glides. The booster shell is buckling around him, the outgoing air is fighting him, and the godlost collar is tightening, tightening as his distance from the hull transmitter grows.

  Jangoman is ahead in the shadows; he has long ago released his transmitter. Puzzled that it fails to stop Raven, he wastes a precious moment fiddling with it before he leaps to intercept his captive, one leg still trailing wire. Too late—Raven springs hard, evades a hooking foot, and is past. But at that moment the collar grows tighter still, he can barely pull a thread of breath to continue his crazy flight. Already he can see Blackbird’s open tunnel port, just ahead.

  The pirate behind him pauses, and Raven feels rather than hears a bullet whistle past. Just at his side a sleep-chest explodes. Oh, gods, Bobby is in there. Death. But there’s no time for dead men now—Raven’s almost made it.

  Too late! The collar constricts hard on his throat, nearly cutting his head off. Nightmare pain—with his last strength, all but dying, Raven twists inside the tunnel, yanks the work door shut, and makes himself dive into Blackbird, to live or die.

  For a long, gasping moment he can hardly realize he’s alive, the gamble won. The deathly collar has loosened, bathed in the frequency chord coming from under Blackbird’s couch, where a lifetime ago he had stowed the master transmitter. It’s still sending.

  For how long? Will it quit next moment or next hour? In the bucking turmoil and confusion of his ship, tied to the gyrating booster hull, Raven doesn’t try to guess but only snatches up the transmitter and eases the relaxed collar-chain off himself.

  Free! But the broken booster is dragging him down to death, the searing gases of the planet so close below are strong in the air. Raven struggles up into the pilot’s couch, casting one quick glance upward as he grabs the controls. Over the curve of the planet he sees a spark—that could be the thrust-fires of the separated nose-cone, disappearing around the planet’s limb. If all went well—if they got suited up in time—if the fuel held—they should be green. Has he actually saved them both, done the impossible?

  Meanwhile his hands have automatically cut in the torque and retroboosters that will literally unscrew Blackbird’s nose from what was New Hope’s stern, gripping hand- and leg-holds as he’s flung about. Now everything depends on whether that frail work port holds shut; there’s no time to go forward and dog the regular lock.

  It holds. Suddenly a fat shadow that is the booster, gapemouthed, is falling away from his ports. Jangoman and that fat betraying weasel, Roy, are dying or dead in there—a kinder death than they’d offered their victims. And poor Bobby’s bullet-shredded corpse with them. Well, the lad went to sleep happy, and just never woke. No way Raven could have saved them all.

  On that thought, he gets the crazy spin slowed and is able to stand Blackbird up on her own high-gee drive and start her climbing out of the giant planet’s grip... Now, for the first time in days, Raven has nothing to do but relax and wait.

  Held-back panic grabs him by the spine, buckles his knees, sets his elbows shaking and jerking, kinks his gut in nauseated knots. A dozen feelings he’d had no time for jolt him now, sending sweat sluicing down his belly, make him shiver so violently his teeth rattle. His blood curdles with repressed fear at the same time as it bubbles with triumph. Visions stream and mingle in his head—Bobby’s burst sleep-chest mixes with Illyera’s silvery hair, Roy’s broidered robe drapes over his gross belly above Laine’s young legs, bar Palladine’s hawk eyes half hide the instruments on his panel—he can feel the iron prybar in his hand, weakening the ship’s joint, while the same hand feels Illyera’s tender body through her suit; the acridity of sleep-gas mingles with remembered roses, his own voice echoes in his ears—too much, too much! Stop it!

  As his little ship mounts higher he forces himself to a shuddery stillness, takes a long deep draught of air, and then another; works to relax his legs, which are still pounding New Hope’s hull in a race for life. A strange feeling emanating from somewhere inside is helping him quell the turmoil of reaction. His fingers, shakily tuning his caller for what he hopes to hear, grow steadier and calm.
What is this? He doesn’t know but only works over the bands until, suddenly, the call he wants is there—the echo of an unmistakable Mayday squeal.

  Somewhere on the other side of the great planet,, the women are blasting their SOS into space. They’re all right.

  He can’t believe it, but the evidence’s there. After his one awful stupidity, he’s managed to work his craziest chance and save them. His love lives. All he has to do now is track down their Mayday and reach them.

  There’s a little green key on his panel that will set the job automatically, in case Raven needs to be free for emergency tasks along the route. Another neat gimmick he’s not yet used.

  But as his fingers seek the green key, Raven suddenly identifies the new strange lightness that has grown in him and helped him cancel the residues of terrors and heart-piercing pain.

  It is—freedom.

  This is what freedom felt like. Every contour of his old couch speaks of it to him now. How easy, how uncomplicated, how stressless on the heart! Nothing to concern him but that great Golconda of a junk-pile, waiting only he knows where!

  The moment he presses that little green key, all this will be gone. In its place, of course, will be the ecstasies of Human love—the blissful puzzle of choice—the thrills and revels of Human life in the luxury of Fed Central—the forgotten dreams all come true. And nothing is irrevocable, freedom can be recaptured. But... but... he has it Until he presses that key.

  He finds his hand has been fingering the pocket in which he’d stowed New Hope’s trail guide to the great junk-pile and angrily makes himself stop. Yet a thought occurs to him. That trail guide is no use without the latest link, the trail from where he is now back to where the three ships met and New Hope’s solo trail begins. And while they’d been coming here, Blackbird was being towed, her tail-holo disregarded because he’d been driving New Hope, now broken up. It would make no sense regretting a Golconda he couldn’t get to anyway; why not check this out before he scrambles his head with any more idle thought? It’s overtime to suit up and close the work tunnel properly, anyway.