Agent of Change (35 page)

"Enough, Liaden! What do you hope to win? The ship is ours, and we will act to keep it. Do you imagine I will grow tired of the game and leave? Do you not know that even now I might fire upon you and lay you open to the cold of space?"

"There is no bounty on ruined ships, Ckrakec Yxtrang, nor any glory in reporting that a Liaden outwitted you. But," he said, sighing deeply, "perhaps you are young and this your first hunt—"

There was a scream of rage over the comm, and the Yxtrang ship edged closer. Val Con added more spin; ship's gravity was increasing, and lifting his arm above the board the few inches required to manipulate the keys was an effort. His lungs were laboring a little for air. He glanced over at Miri. She grinned raggedly.

"How much faster will you spin, Liaden? Until the gravity crushes you?"

"If necessary. I am determined that you will collect no bounty on this ship, Chrakec Yxtrang. It has become a matter of honor." He increased the spin. He paused with his hand on the velocity lever.

"Speak not to me of honor, animal! We have toyed long enough. We shall—"

Val Con shoved the velocity to the top, slammed on more spin, hesitated, counting, eyes on the board—

Jump!

THE BLAST HIT like a tsunami, rocking the Yxtrang ship. Overloaded equipment sparked and smoked; crew members not firmly tied down joined other loose debris thrown against walls, floor, and ceiling.

The spin made it hard to stand, to move, to understand what had happened. For the moment, chaos held the ship in its grip and squeezed lungs tight, nerves tighter.

"Report! Report now!"

Reports began to trickle in. The pilot was dazed beyond sense, his Adjutant thrown against the wall . . . .

The crew slowly pulled themselves together. Khaliiz took over the pilot's chair, read the impossible readings, and used emergency rockets to slow the spin. The Adjutant came to and began his work; he found whole compartments which refused to answer in the near darkness of the emergency lighting.

It became obvious that there was no such thing as a system: Individual processors still carried out their work, but the command computers were out, as were the backups.

Gravity came back to near normal as Khaliiz gained more and more control of his vessel. A technician managed to get one screen working, though Khaliiz was forced to rotate the ship to achieve a full 360-degree view capability.

"Commander, what happened?" ventured the Adjutant.

"Work! We speak of this later."

THEY HIT NORMAL space spinning. Hands flickered over an alarm-lit board, easing acceleration, killing spin, slowing all systems back to normal.

Val Con, shivering with reaction, drooped in the pilot's seat and turned his head, mouth curving in a smile. Then he gave a start.

Miri hung limp in the copilot's chair, held erect by the webbing, head lolling, face too white.

His fingers fumbled with the straps and he was out of the chair, kneeling before her to seek the fragile pulse in the throat. "Miri?" he whispered.

Her pulse was strong, her breathing deep. He closed his eyes in relief, then snapped to his feet and gathered her in his arms. He curled her on his lap, her head resting on his shoulder, and sat listening to her breathe and watching the unfamiliar pattern of light that was the system they were bound for.

After a time she stirred, muttering something unintelligible, and raised her head to stare into his face, her eyes slightly narrowed, as if she were looking into too bright a light.

"What'd you do?"

He lifted a brow. "When?"

She raised a hand to gesture vaguely, then allowed it to find a resting place on his chest. "With Yxtrang. Why'd they have to be so close? And the gravity—" She shuddered and his arms tightened momentarily.

"I
am
sorry," he said, "about the gravity. For the rest—" He grinned. "Allow me to give you your first lesson in piloting, which is this: Never, under any circumstances at all, take a ship into drive when there is another ship or mass closer than one thousandth of a light-second in any direction. It is a very dangerous thing to do. On the occasions when it
has
been done, one of two things occurred.

"Sometimes
both
objects go into hyperspace where it was planned only one would go. Neither comes out.

"The second possibility is that—if you are lucky, or foolhardy, or afraid—you will do everything perfectly for your ship and make the Jump without mishap." He sighed. "But the ship that remains behind is then immediately caught in a hysteresis energy effect proportional to the velocity and spin of the vessel that Jumped . . . ."

Miri stared at him. "Poor Yxtrang," she said, her tone belying her words. "And we're okay? On course? Whatever that means."

He nodded. "The ship is intact and we are proceeding at moderate velocity toward an unfamiliar planetary system. We should reach scanning range in—" He glanced at the board. "—seven hours."

She sighed. "Time for a good, long sleep. Or something."

"Or something," he agreed, lifting a hand to trace the line of her cheek with a light fingertip.

She grinned, then her smile faded and she pulled away from his caress, using the hand that rested on his chest to emphasize her words.

"I want you to understand one thing, okay? No distress beacons. It goes off
five feet
from us, we ain't moving from this ship, accazi?"

"Yes, Miri," he murmured penitently, unable to control the twitch at the side of his mouth.

"Ah, you—" She leaned forward to kiss him.

THE THIRD PLANET had possibilities, he thought some while later. Too far out for decent scanning yet—not that this brute had anything like the instrumentation a Scout ship carried—but it definitely seemed the most likely of the five.

"They're all dead, ain't they?" said a voice at his elbow. "No stations, no traffic, no orbitals . . . ." Staring at the screen, her face bleak, the glow of lovemaking gone out of her, she was shaking her head at the five little planets and their lovely yellow sun. "We're stuck in the back end of nowhere and we ain't never gettin' out." Her mouth twisted and she turned to look at him. "You think there's any people?"

He suddenly recalled the training she had not had. "Many people. At least on the third planet. See that silvery shimmer over the land mass that looks like a wine bottle?"

She squinted. "Yeah . . . . What is it?"

"Smog." He smiled and took her hands in his. "Miri, listen: Where there is smog, there's technology. Where there's technology, there exists the means to build a transmitter. Where there's a signal, sooner or later, is a rescue." He lifted an eyebrow, winning a glimmer of her smile.

"You don't think Edger will let us stay missing, do you?" he asked. "He's bound to be along, in a decade or two . . . ."

THE ADJUTANT SAT with the Engineer and the Commander, apart from the crew.

"Report," Khaliiz ordered.

The Engineer reported that things were not well. The Adjutant reported that a number of men were dead, more injured: the ship would be hard put to resist a determined boarding party. The Engineer, quaking, reported that it might not be possible to have full power drive for home.

Khaliiz thought.

"It is apparent," he said. "that the vessel we approached had been badly damaged in the previous battle. It exploded, giving up what energy was left in its drive cells."

He pointed at the Engineer. "You will make the reports read so, as you value the air you breathe!

"Who swore the ship empty, Adjutant?"

"Sir, it was my Second, Thrik."

"You will shoot him, personally. You will then record your demotion to Assistant Cook. This will be your lifegrade. You failed in your choice of assistants."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," the Assistant Cook said.

"Get out!"

Khaliiz played idly with the cover of the destruct switch, though he had made his decision when he ordered the man shot. If he had meant to destroy the ship, he would have ordered the Second Adjutant to push the button. But he played with the cover, anyway, wondering if he'd been tricked—wondering if the little Liaden had blown himself up on purpose. Or if it had been an accident.

A distant boom claimed his attention, the echo ringing as an explosive gunblast will inside a ship.

It had been an accident, the Commander decided. For centuries, Liadens had lacked the courage to emulate the Yxtrang—lacked the honor to be truly worthy opponents. That could not change.

An accident.