A Covenant of Justice (31 page)

Neena Linn-Campbell stepped forward, lifting her arm to show the object she held in her hand. “Take a good look at this, you noxious little fart! Do you recognize a dead-man's switch. If I let go of this, the A.I. engine of this vessel will trigger a singularity fluction in the pinpoint black hole that we use for power. Approximately four seconds after that, your ship and mine will cease to exist. Everyone aboard both vessels will likewise cease to exist. Instead, we will leave a sphere of rapidly expanding radiation. If your nasty little lizards touch my airlock door, I'll toss this across my bridge.”

“If you think to threaten me with lies and tricks, it won't work. However, you should know that I have removed myself from the luxury of
The Golden Fury
, specifically to deny you the opportunity to wreak havoc against the body of the Lord of All Moktar Dragons. You may destroy the Lady's Imperial starship. I could not care less. The worlds of the Regency will happily tax themselves to excess to build a new replacement. They will remember your name with gratitude for the opportunity you will soon give them. Myself, I watch from a safe distance, so that I might report your actions honestly.”

Captain Campbell looked quickly to Ota. Ota inclined her head slightly toward the tactical display. A great golden blip represented
The Golden Fury
; a smaller red dot connected to it represented
The Lady MacBeth
. Several smaller blips indicated tactical marauders coasting in matching orbits, more than ten thousand kilometers distant. One of the blips blinked steadily—the source of the Dragon Lord's broadcasts. Captain Campbell gave no sign of acknowledgment. She dropped her eyes to her own display. She noticed that the tractor beam had finally cut off, leaving only the grapples holding them in place. Good.

Captain Campbell turned back to the viewscreen. “I expected an act of cowardice from you,” she replied. “Thank you for not disappointing me. A real Dragon would have stood unafraid on the bridge of the flagship. Perhaps your troops will someday honor your courage in song and story. I look forward to hearing your courage celebrated. In the meantime, maybe you can tell me something—which end of the Dragon produces the most noxious noises and odors? I confess an inability to tell the difference anymore.”

On the forward screen, the shrunken image of the Dragon Lord opened its mouth to answer. Abruptly, he closed his mouth. Puzzled. He opened his mouth. He closed it again.

Curious, Neena Linn-Campbell dialed up the size of the image again.

The Dragon Lord looked . . .
distracted
. As if something peculiar had bitten him on the ass. Something had.

“Ota, did you see that?”

“Yes, Captain, I did.”

“What did it look like to you?”

“It looked like a pfingle, Captain.”

“It looked like a pfingle to me too.”

Now, the Dragon Lord turned away from the viewscreen and began lashing frenziedly at something. At a lot of somethings.

“Ota, I don't understand this,” Captain Campbell said innocently. “Why would the Dragon Lord carry a swarm of live pfingles onto his ship? I can't think of anything more dangerous.”

Ota kept its face blank. “I can't imagine any good reason, Captain. Perhaps he had a large cache of pfingle eggs aboard? Perhaps he misjudged their ripeness?”

“An excellent hypothesis,” Captain Campbell agreed. She sat down in her command chair to watch, dialing up the image to full size.

Unfortunately, the performance did not last long. Very shortly, the image winked out and the carrier beam cut off. On the tactical display, the blinking blip had fallen out of formation.

“Hm,” said Captain Campbell, blandly. “When I pray for miracles, I don't mess around, do I?” She sat back, grinning. “I rather like the way that one turned out.” She punched up a different channel. “Ahoy,
The Golden Fury
. Captain Campbell of
The Lady MacBeth
here.”

A distracted Captain ‘Ga Lunik appeared on the main view screen. “I can't talk to you now,” he said. “That goddamned Dragon brought thirty metric tons of pfingle eggs aboard my ship. Ripe pfingle eggs!”

“Goodness,” said Neena Linn-Campbell. “Ota, I do believe you calculated correctly. That bastard on Dupa sold us two-month eggs instead of three-month eggs. Thank goodness we found out before we hurt ourselves.”

Ota replied, “Thank you, Captain. I appreciate the acknowledgment.”

Captain Campbell turned back to the viewscreen. “Captain ‘Ga Lunik, I've heard that industrial grade carnivorous pfingles have quite an appetite when freshly hatched. You certainly understand that I can't risk my vessel in such close proximity to yours while you have this particular problem. I will have to disconnect your docking tube now and we'll have to continue this discussion another time—”

Captain ‘Ga Lunik still had enough presence of mind to think of revenge. “I'll take you with me, you bloody damned witch!” To someone else, he screamed, “Open the inner door of their airlock. Let them have pfingles too!”

“I don't think so.” Neena Linn-Campbell set aside the dummy dead-man's switch. “EDNA, blow the docking tube and take us out of here. Fast.” Something went suddenly BANG in the back of the ship. Neena Linn-Campbell nodded in recognition. The blast of the hidden explosive charges on the outer airlock door resonated throughout
The Lady MacBeth
, creating an extremely satisfying impact. In her mind's eye, she saw the docking tube writhing away from the back end of her vessel, spilling a horde of gasping lizards directly into the vacuum of space.

“Sealing the outer airlock doors,” EDNA reported. “Status: minimal damage, requiring less than thirty hours of repair and testing. Shariba-Jen will tend to it during
otherspace
transit.” A moment later, EDNA added, “We have full acceleration. We will reach a safe transit distance within two hours.”

Captain Campbell almost didn't hear it. The signal from the bridge of
The Golden Fury
continued. The crew stared in horror at the devastation occurring on Lady Zillabar's Imperial starship. The pfingles swarmed across the bridge, the ops bay, the ops deck, the command deck, ravenously attacking every organic thing they encountered.

“Save this,” said Ota to Shariba-Jen. “We'll want to show it to the others later. In particular, the Lady Zillabar will have to see this.”

Captain Campbell turned around to see Justice Harry Mertz standing behind her, thoughtfully watching the distant carnage. She raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes?”

“You cut it a little close there, didn't you?”

She shrugged. “To tell the truth—I honestly didn't plan that one, but it does have a certain rough justice. He who lives by the pfingle, dies by the pfingle.” She studied the tactical display thoughtfully. “Do you know that pfingle eggs can survive hard vacuum?”

“Really?”

“Really,” she nodded. “I don't think anyone will ever want to board
that
ship again. They should push it into the sun. I would. I wish we had the time to do it ourselves.”

Otherspace
.

Time and distance and form became abstract concepts.
Otherspace
defied the mind's ability to rationalize. Think of nothingness. No. Don't think of the
concept
of nothingness. Think of nothingness. You can't. Not for long. The human mind cannot think of nothingness; it traps itself automatically in the conceptualization of it. The human mind will retreat in horror from those things it cannot reduce to convenient symbols—infinity, nothingness, death. And
otherspace
.

It doesn't matter. The human mind doesn't have to think about
otherspace
. The Artificial Intelligence engines will do the thinking. The A.I. engines make it possible for ships to transit between realspace and
otherspace
and back again. And
otherspace
makes it possible for a vessel to journey from one star to another in a simple matter of days.

But aboard the starship, time still passes—and because the human mind abhors nothingness, it needs activity to fill the days of travel.

Fortunately, aboard
The Lady MacBeth
, no lack of activity existed.

First of all, they had to consider the Zillabar problem.

As with all serious discussions, before the participants held their formal discussions, they first held their
informal
discussions. The conversation had a peripatetic quality, wandering from the ship's mess to the salon, to the cabins, back to the salon, and finally back to the ship's mess where it careened peripatetically toward an unpleasant resolution.

Star-Captain Campbell sat in on this discussion, listening more than talking. The two TimeBinders, William Three-Dollar and Nyota, both offered anecdotes and precedents from their memories. Justice Mertz had opinions on the law. Lee and Sawyer and Finn had strong ideas about justice, regardless of the law.

At one point, Harry caught Three-Dollar looking at him strangely—as if he recognized him from somewhere. “I have a memory of you, but I don't know why.”

Harry shrugged it off. “We live in a small galaxy.” But Three-Dollar continued to study the man curiously.

Kask and Ibaka, an inseparable pair now, also joined this discussion; neither quite sure why the humans needed to debate these issues; but certain that they too had a right to participate in any decision made here.

Over a cup of spice-tea, Harry Mertz finally spoke the question for all of them. “What do we do with the Lady Zillabar? What kind of status will she have at the Gathering? Should we treat her as a guest or as a prisoner of war? A diplomatic representative? A hostage? Whatever we decide will very likely affect the outcome of the Gathering. The possibilities for a disastrous legal precedent worry me.”

“Wait a minute,” said Finn, in a voice so low that at first the others didn't hear him. Sawyer had to hush the rest, so Finn could speak. “Maybe the aftereffects of the blood-burn still cloud my thinking, but won't the Gathering have the authority to set aside all old precedents, if necessary? I don't think we should automatically assume that we'll determine the final outcome by any action we take toward the Lady. And—” He coughed once, waved away Sawyer's solicitous assistance, then nodded as if to allow Sawyer to finish his thought.

“And, besides,” said Sawyer, “both Finn and I believe that we should act in the spirit of justice, regardless of what the law says.”

“Hm,” said Harry. “An interesting concept, that.”

“You don't agree?” Sawyer confronted him across the table.

“I agree that we want justice,” said Harry, “but when we also agree to abandon the law, which must serve as the guidelines for justice, we take away the only protection that we have of administering justice fairly. And yes—” he held up his hands as if to ward off Sawyer's further accusations, “I know how people have used and misused the law to thwart justice rather than create it. I know it better than you, my friend, Sawyer.”

“Let's get back to the issue of Lady Zillabar's status,” Captain Campbell said. “I need an arbitration on this. The Lady could charge me with accessory to kidnapping, piracy, I don't know what all, if we don't resolve this before the Gathering.”

Sawyer giggled abruptly, and Captain Campbell glared at him. “Why do you laugh, tracker?”

“You destroyed the Lady's Imperial starship. I think that makes any lesser crime irrelevant. If Kernel d'Vashti catches up with us, he'll hang us all as conspirators. If we make it to the Gathering, they'll call us heroes, the opinions of the Phaestor notwithstanding. The context will determine the interpretation of our actions much more than any other consideration.”

“I think you spend too much time watching cheap entertainments,” Captain Campbell replied. “Only in stories do people get to escape the consequences of their actions. In the real world, somebody always has to clean up the mess.”

“Usually lawyers,” grinned Harry.

Sawyer shuddered.

“You don't agree,” said Harry.

“The way I remember it, lawyers got us into this mess.”

“I appreciate the jaundice of your opinion.”

“You think so? I challenge you to demonstrate that a lawyer can solve a problem for once instead of creating one.”

“Eh? I don't understand.”

“The more we talk, the more confused the situation gets. The Vampires nearly took Finn's life. According to M'bele, he still could die. He needs Zillabar's blood—at least four more treatments, maybe more. Who knows how many more?”

“So?”

“So what happens if you declare her a guest? Or a diplomatic representative? She'll have the right to refuse access to her blood. And she will. And what if Finn dies as a result? Would you call that problem-solving?”

“I see,” said Harry. He looked to Captain Campbell. “According to space law, the Captain has final authority aboard her vessel. I can offer my opinions, but unless the aggrieved parties specifically hire me to arbitrate, my opinions remain without weight. Perhaps I should solve this problem by deferring to the legal authority of the Captain and let her make the decision.”

“I'll settle it easily. Take all of that bitch's blood you want.”

“You see,” said Harry. “That presented no problem at all.”

“Very funny,” said Sawyer, “but you know as well as I that you didn't solve anything. As long as you keep talking about the Lady's status, you continue to endanger Finn's treatment. Somebody has to contract for an arbitration in this matter. And you'll have to make a decision.”

Captain Campbell nodded. “Sorry, Harry, but I think the tracker has a point. Even though I hold authority aboard this ship, anything I might decide would hold no legality the moment any of us step out the airlock. The TimeBinders both have vested interests and cannot claim impartiality. You, however, have both the credential and the experience, and more importantly, any ruling you might make would remain binding even beyond the termination of this voyage.”