Death Sentence (23 page)

That, of course, put the local sun directly on the western horizon of the Main Landing Field as well, a reddish ball exactly bisected by the horizon. It should have been murderously, blindingly bright, but there was plainly some sort of dimming field in use that reduced the intensity of the light.

But if the sun was made a weakened shadow of itself, the planet directly overhead was a gaudy thing of blue-white-green beauty, seas and clouds and lands gleaming in the darkness, easily thirty times the size of the moon as seen from Earth.

As they looked upward, a lozenge-shaped elevator car, at first a barely visible glint of motion almost lost in the terminator, swelled up into visibility as it made its final approach to Free Orbit Station, riding its strand of cable straight through the roof of Station Nexus, even as another car launched itself upward toward the planet down below.
Up toward the planet down below,
Jamie thought in wry astonishment. The description was entirely accurate, but peculiar even so.

But the most startling, even daunting, part of the scene before them was the blackness of space all around. Viewports and portholes and windows in human-built spacecraft and spaceside facilities were
small,
for good reasons. They were expensive to build, and far more fragile in use than hull material. But there was also a psychological reason. Space-traveling humans were used to being sealed away from the vast and terrifying emptiness of it all.

But on the Main Landing Field of Free Orbit Station, things were quite the opposite. They were out in the open, exposed, the
Sholto
pinned to the surface of a vast and empty field, staring up--or was it down--at a terrestrial planet so big and bright it looked as if it was about to fall on them--unless they were about to fall on it.

"Okay," Jamie said. "Now it's official. I'm intimidated."

"And it's officially time to keep anyone from noticing," said Hannah. "Company's coming."

Three vehicles were headed toward them from Nexus. One was a robotic ship-servicer, of a type in common use in the spaceports of many worlds--including Center. It had, no doubt, already had a series of discussions with the
Sholto
, asking the ship what she needed in terms of power and supplies, negotiating amount and means of payment, and arranging the technical details, down to what sort of plugs and sockets and nozzles would be required to top up the ship's systems.

The second vehicle was basically a ramp on wheels. It drove straight up to the
Sholto
's air lock, automatically adjusting itself to bring its top end level with the bottom of the air lock hatch, thus providing an easy way to descend from the ship.

"Thank the stars for that," said Hannah as the ramp eased itself into position. "I thought we were going to have to deploy the hull ladder. I wasn't looking forward to climbing down in this skirt and heels in gravity that's twenty percent above normal."

"And I wasn't looking forward to getting the luggage down the ladder."

There were two cubical cartons on the lower end of the ramp. As soon as the ramp had stopped, its seemingly solid upper surface began moving upward, in the manner of a conveyor belt.

"Whoah!" Jamie said. "I was about to start walking down that thing. Any idea what's in the cartons?"

"Use your startling skill as a detective," said Hannah drily. "Or you could just try reading the labels on the top of the boxes. Restocking supplies for the ship."

Sure enough, printed there in Greater Trade Writing and, unexpectedly enough, in somewhat stilted English as well, was a packing list of human-digestible foods and other consumables, along with a list of repair supplies. A flashing panel on the upper left corner of the label was requesting verbal approval and authentication.

Feeling odd about speaking to a packing crate, Jamie cleared his throat and read the indicated words in Lesser Trade Speech. "I am James Mendez of the human United Government Vessel BSI-3369
Bartholomew Sholto
. I am authorized to approve and accept these supplies. I hereby approve and accept delivery of the supplies listed on this container, and authorize payment for them out of human United Government accounts." The label stopped blinking and turned a cheerful shade of orange. He then had to go through the whole speech again with the other box. Hannah waited outside while Jamie wrestled the boxes into the
Sholto
and the heavy luggage back out. Once he was done, Hannah went through the slightly involved process of closing, sealing, and locking the outer air lock hatch--and arming the self-destruct system.

It was a small item, but it was the almost instant delivery of human-digestible foods that, as much or perhaps even more than anything, made Jamie feel as if he had been put in his place.

If a Metrannan ship had arrived at Earth with only two days' notice, expecting a stay of short but uncertain duration, it would have been considered a miracle of organization to provide reprovisioning supplies in less than a week. Specialists would have been rousted out of bed in the middle of the night. Chemists would have been called in to test and retest everything for fear of poisoning the visitors. It would have required a full-court press in order to get the order delivered before the ship was scheduled to depart--and if the job were done successfully, everyone would breathe a sigh of relief and congratulate each other for not humiliating the human race.

Here, even though humans rarely visited--it was not unlikely Trevor Wilcox had been the last human here--human-suitable food was delivered by robots before the
Sholto
's thrusters had time to cool.

"Sealed and armed," Hannah said. "If you happen to be the one who opens up when we get back, try not to get the combinations wrong--or else the
Sholto
might leave a ding in their nice shiny landing field when she blows up." That wasn't exactly true. It was considered bad manners to rig a spacecraft to explode violently at someone else's spaceport. Hannah had rigged the groundside destruct system. It would simply melt or burn most of the ship's interior if anyone set it off, just enough destruction to render the whole vehicle inoperative.

"I'll bear that in mind. Let's get moving."

The two of them moved carefully down the ramp, not quite sure if it was about to turn its rigid surface back into a conveyor belt, and also not quite adapted to the slightly higher local gravity. It was easy to overbalance a trifle while rolling their heavy trunks.

The third vehicle that had pulled up to the
Sholto
was an open-frame personnel transporter--or at least that's what Jamie assumed it to be. It was unmarked, unlabeled, and didn't boast any sort of robotic voice telling them what to do. It was nothing but an open platform on wheels, with a ramp to allow entrance and exit on one side. Vertical supports held up guardrails at about human knee, waist, and shoulder height. The railing on the side with the ramp on it swung open to allow them in. They stepped aboard and got their luggage into the transporter. The gate swung shut and latched itself, then the ramp withdrew into the base of the vehicle. The transporter started moving, leaving Jamie and Hannah to hang on to the bars of their cage.

"What's this feel more like to you?" Hannah asked. "Riding in one of the rolling cages from an animal show, or riding the tumbrel to the guillotine?"

"You read too many old books," Jamie said. "Until you asked, I was just thinking it was like riding in a golf cart. Thanks for the more comfortable imagery."

The vehicle did have one notably high-tech feature. It seemed to carry its own bubble of atmosphere along with it, and there was a distinct shift in pressure as it separated from the air bubble around the
Sholto
. As they moved, Jamie could see a sort of faint shimmering effect in the air around and above them, formed into a hemisphere centered on the vehicle with a radius of about five meters. They were, in effect, pulling the air along behind them, causing it to blow at them in all sorts of turbulence patterns that made it seem as if the wind was hitting them from every direction at once.

They rolled along the strange and featureless artificial landscape toward the Nexus, both of them feeling their eyes drawn irresistibly toward the cable cluster and the mighty planet, directly overhead. It felt like the eye of God himself was staring unblinkingly at them.

Jamie couldn't help thinking He couldn't be overly impressed with the two beings He was glaring down at.

SIXTEEN

LATER THAN SOONER

The Nexus grew closer. To Hannah's eye, at least, it seemed a small and even anticlimactic center to a place of such grandiose scale, not far different from a hundred domed settlements scattered about in human-settled space.
Except, of course, for the cable cluster stabbing down through the top of the dome, and the Elevator cars hurtling back and forth every few minutes,
she told herself.
That's a little different.

Their vehicle slowed as it approached an opening in the high cylindrical wall that supported the base of the dome. The pressure field around their vehicle seemed to merge with a similar shimmering field that stretched across the opening in the wall. There was a slight popping noise, and a rush and a whir as the air in their bubble merged with the air inside the Nexus.

Their odd little open-frame vehicle rolled slowly toward an area where a half dozen similar vehicles were lined up. Their vehicle drove up to the end of the queue, brought itself to a full stop, and shut itself down. The gate in the back of the vehicle opened and the ramp reextruded itself. It was quite clearly the end of the line.

They stepped off the transporter, hauled their luggage out, and looked around, feeling rather uncertain. They had been told they would be met at the Nexus, but were given virtually no other information. Other than staying where they were until someone collected them, there was little they could do except watch the passing scene.

The facility bore a strong family resemblance to most other public transportation transfer centers--wide-open floor plan and broad walkways, allowing broad and rapid flows of foot traffic, as might be found in any spaceport or urban rail center. There were access gates to and from the Elevator cars, and to the Main Landing Field beyond. There were checkpoints and waiting areas and vending areas. A steady stream of purposeful passersby moved about, heading to and fro. Hannah was mentally settling in for the waiting part of the eternal travel ritual of "hurry up and wait" when Jamie spoke up.

"Something's wrong," he announced in a quiet voice. He didn't look at her as he spoke, but instead continued watching the interior of the Nexus, his face expressionless.

Hannah was instantly alert. She had to stop her hand from twitching reflexively toward her hidden sidearm. "What? What do you mean? Something bad?"

"There's something wrong with
them,
with this place. This isn't the way it's supposed to be."

"How can you tell that? We've only been here thirty seconds!"

"Even so," said Jamie. "There's something
wrong
."

Hannah had enough respect for Jamie's powers of observation and his tactical instincts to take him seriously. Prompted by his reaction, she began to see it for herself. There were two nearby sections of newly repaired wall panel--but the repairs looked to have been done hurriedly and not particularly well. It looked as if there were residual scorch marks on the floor near one of them. A fire? An explosion?

There were more security guards around than she would have expected, more heavily armed and armored than they should have been. Nor did the guards look entirely comfortable with their bulky equipment. And there was more than one style of uniform in evidence--a major red flag for the clothes-conscious Metrannans. They wouldn't bring in guards with clashing outfits unless it was absolutely necessary.

And, if she was reading Metrannan expressions and body language properly, more than a few of the passersby were giving the two humans suspicious, even angry looks. Maybe humans were rare in these parts, but not aliens. Metrannans should take them in stride.

"I see the wall and floor damage that's been fixed badly and the heavily armed amateurs pretending to be security pros and the paranoid civilians," she said. "What else have you got?"

"If I'm reading the info on the status and schedule boards right, it looks like they've been scrambling to get caught up after some sort of major stoppage or problem. The passersby look twitchy, and they're staring a bit too hard at us. Shouldn't they be used to aliens at their main spaceport? And we're the
only
off-planet sentients I've seen so far. Shouldn't there
be
aliens at their main spaceport? Why aren't there? Why is everyone else staying away? The cars coming up from the surface are packed and the lines to go down are very short. Plus I just spotted twelve, count 'em
twelve,
Xenoatrics boarding a transporter to take them out to the landing field--and that's where you go if you're
leaving
the planet."

"And unless our briefing books are all way off, Xenoatrics do
not
like to travel," Hannah said. "You're right. Something's wrong." She thought for a moment. "This have anything to do with that War-Starter designation? Has the war started, or almost started?"

"No idea, but let's keep on our toes. This could be tricky."

"That's one way to put it. You just trying to be careful that no one accuses you of overstating the case?"

"I'm just plain trying to be careful," Jamie said, keeping his eyes on the crowd. "We don't
know
that whatever happened has anything to do with the mystery message or our mission--but that'd be the way I'd bet."

"What the hell could be in that message that could set all this off?"

"If we're lucky, we'll get the chance to ask someone who could actually answer that question. For now, let's stay sharp."

"And let's keep our reflexes under control," said Hannah. "No itchy trigger fingers."