Jinx on a Terran Inheritance (55 page)

Velocity climbed and the ship's patchwork modifications started to reflect it. Indicators began to go dead or report overloads; everyone was getting readings of damage and danger. Alacrity cut the ship's main engines and still the speed increased.

"Don't anybody move; it's going to get worse," he gritted.

Velocity soared; the ship left the Spican cruiser behind, flickering across the Solar system. A bone-deep vibration began, seeming to come from
Astraea Imprimatur's
marrow. It built as the inertia-shedding field tried to cope with forces it hadn't been designed for. The vibration became a ferocious jarring. The ship was a sound and light show of warnings and alarms.

"We're passing
Celeste Aida,
more or less," Alacrity told the others in a little bit. More or less was right; in spite of all their painful calculations and exacting work the alignment of the Animus Vs was off.

While their speed grew every moment, they were also veering off course, more so all the time.

"Can we correct?" Janusz asked in a strained voice. Alacrity supposed he was holding himself down somewhere physically as well as being hooked or tied to something.

"I'm trying to figure that out now," Alacrity replied.

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"We might also begin considering just how and when we should stop," Corva recommended.

"I think what we should do is stop-all and see where we stand," Alacrity said.

"No!" Janusz shouted. "These missiles are not wall lights, dammit! We might never get started again. Do not stop!"

"I'm picking up more Spicans, spread out along the route of the race," Victoria said. "We'd better let it ride."

Alacrity let it ride. The acceleration built, until the inertia-shedding field began to lose the battle.

Acceleration pulled at them, making the ship's nose seem like
up
, and spreading their faces, flattening their flesh, distorting them.

Corva said he suspected it was some part of the missiles' design that they'd missed. "They're supposed to be going much faster than they are, so they keep trying."

The ship began groaning. They were all eyeballs-in, having trouble breathing. Floyt felt himself sinking into a red-out. Then the inertia-shedding field fluxed and they were slammed and pressed mercilessly.

Objects somehow overlooked in the frantic last-minute battening-down flew through the air, smashing into instruments, controls, bulkheads, and cocoons.

Floyt and the others heard Janusz grunt and then cry out in pain just as alarms registered an air leak.

They were all hollering to the outlaw, asking what was wrong, confusing things. When Victoria ordered them all to silence they could hear only Janusz's labored breathing.

Alacrity made up his mind, waggled his finger, and hit the chicken switch. Tweedledee and Tweedledum fell silent. He cut in all the retro the ship could huff; she was getting farther off course by the second.
Stray
seemed almost normal again.

Victoria was the first out of her cocoon, diving for a medical kit and an emergency patch case. Alarms were shutting down as the automatics sealed the minor leak. Alacrity told Floyt, Corva, and Heart to stay at their pozzes and hurried after Victoria with Sintilla close behind.

They found Janusz with his back braced against an airlock bulkhead near Tweedledee's launch tube, where he could keep an eye on the control hookups, in case they malfunctioned again. He'd been struck by a thermotorch power pack that had worked loose; it had hit his hard-upper-torso unit hard enough to crack it. He was bleeding from mouth and nostrils.

"Check his vital signs, but don't jostle him," Victoria instructed them as she worked to open the suit.

Sintilla pulled out a portable imaging resonator.

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"Alacrity," Heart said in a tone so neutral he ached with it, "we're picking up another ship—no, two.

Moving this way, but not at high boost. They're quite large, perhaps military."

"No broken ribs," Victoria concluded, studying the resonator as Sintilla cleaned up Janusz with an irrigator and a coagulant applicator. "But he's got a broken shoulder, and I can't tell whether he's concussed or not."

"Let's get him inboard and strapped in the best way we can; we can't hang around here." Alacrity started opening the rings with which Janusz had secured the harness he'd used to fasten himself down.

Victoria glared. "Didn't you hear me? He's hurt."

"He'll be a lot more hurt if they catch us out here. Didn't you hear Heart?"
Heart, Heart …
"If we get boarded, he gets arrested at the very least, which in his case could be bad for his health."

Sintilla stopped her ministrations as Janusz's head bobbed and he came around a little. "Get out. 'S right; keep going."

Alacrity looked at Victoria skeptically. "Don't you think it's a little late to get careful? We're all gambling plenty on this run."

She gazed at Janusz for a few beats, then said, "We can secure him in the master's cabin mold-lounger and make him fast with cargo netting; I don't think we should try to put him into a cocoon."

Janusz was out the whole time they were getting him inboard and aft, but he moaned in pain several times. Floyt showed up partway along to help. They rushed to make Janusz comfortable, repair and reseal his suit, and lash him down, opening and tilting back their helmets to facilitate their work.

Victoria readied a styrette. Then she anesthetized the shoulder and injected the hypnotic. Alacrity helped her close up the suit.

"We have perhaps another eight minutes before we're in their range," Corva alerted them.

"Man your stations," Alacrity said. "Unless somebody objects, I'm correcting this tub for windage and having another run at it. If I can light the sparklers."

No one objected. Victoria reluctantly let Alacrity pull her away from Janusz. "Take Ho's place in the weather bridge. Move!"

When she'd gone, the others finished resecuring loose gear and made sure that Janusz was strapped in.

"It's so strange," Floyt mused. "She swears she's going to arrest him if we live through this, and yet she's so worried about him."

"Has to be love," Sintilla diagnosed.

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"There's something else," Alacrity said, making sure his helmet commo was off. "She took a mediscan."

"So did everybody," Sintilla said. "So what?"

"So she's pregnant, that's what. Now let's get cooking."

Alacrity assumed Janusz's place and had Floyt take the copilot's poz. It had occurred to him that Victoria should by rights have taken it, but he felt better with her standing by in the weather bridge. Fire control could be handled from a number of different pozzes. He didn't examine too closely his reasons for not wanting Heart in the control room with him.

Corva and the Nonpareil had calculated course correction. Alacrity made sure everybody was back in place, then, his pulse going at two hundred per or so, pulled the ring. Again the
Astraea Imprimatur
surged forward, the Animus Vs rattling her, on the voyage Weir had planned for her so long ago.

The
Stray
was far off the race's course and bound for Terra, crossing the night at speeds the Solar system had seldom seen before. Alacrity cut the Annies again when the acceleration neared the danger level, continuing to use the ship's regular engines judiciously, but still
Astraea Imprimatur
creaked and threatened to snap. Alarms went off again and two more leaks registered, then three, as a rush of escaping air whirled debris and scraps around.

The engine telltales began to light up, and the
Stray
thrummed like a mandolin string. Floyt dimly heard a few pops in the thinning atmosphere as racked, pressurized cannisters of one kind and another blew.

"Shouldn't we be doing something about all this?" he yelled as jetstreams of leaking air tore through the ship.

"There's nothing we can do right now. Except hold on," Victoria yelled back.

"The reason I'm happy nobody sane is flying this thing," Sintilla proclaimed, "is because I personally feel that that's the kind of situation we have here."

"Don't worry, Tilla; we'll get there," Alacrity said with an odd ring of conviction.

"Oh, easy for you to say! Who's gonna be around to rub your nose in it if we don't?"

"I mean it," he insisted. "You might say I've seen it."

"Now you can tell the future?" Heart said balefully.

"In a way."

Floyt, head encased in the moist, resilient cave of his helmet, hearing that, thought about Alacrity leaning into the star-broth of the causality harp.

Just then, though none of them could feel it, Alacrity flipped the ship, using her main engines to begin file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (294 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:31

[Fitzhugh 2]-JINX ON A TERRAN INHERITANCE

decelerating. In celestial terms, they were almost there.
Stray
vibrated and protested.

"I'm getting a signal," Heart said. "It's a Solarian patrol vessel this time. They're warning us off from Terra and citing the no-starships edict."

"Now it gets interesting," Alacrity said. He was climbing out of his cocoon, making sure the computers were abreast of what was going on, trying to provide for the fastest possible conversion to Hawking if it turned out the
Astraea Imprimatur
had to flee.

"Do your stuff, Hobart," Sintilla prompted. "Sweetie, you can do it!"

Floyt licked his lips and cued up the data wafer they'd prepared from his Letter of Free Import and his other documentation. He brought up voice mode and transmitted.

"I am Citizen Hobart Floyt, of Terra." His voice sounded weak and unsure; he looked to Alacrity.

Alacrity gave him a solemn wink. Floyt drew a deep breath and went on.

"You are now receiving my certified authorization to import this vessel to Earth. Please note that this Letter of Free Import was duly registered with Solarian authorities and
cannot be rescinded.
I am also transmitting documentation of my ownership of this vessel."

He'd fallen into stride. "I call on you to let me go in peace. I'm going home."

He switched from transmit back to ship's net.

"Well said, Hobart," Heart called softly.

"That's telling 'em, Earther." Sintilla's voice was a bit thick.

Alacrity leaned over to pat his friend's back.

"You started something," Victoria reported. "That Solarian's burning up the vacuum talking to somebody. It's all encrypted, but I think the Spicans are in on it, and Luna."

"They aren't going to buy it," Floyt said. "I didn't convince them."

"I'm not so sure," Corva said. "That Solarian's no longer on an intercept course."

Seconds later the words came over the commo. "
Astraea Imprimatur,
this is the Solarian patrol vessel
Roll and Go.
You have clearance to proceed. Be advised, however, that you have no landing status that we can ascertain. Nevertheless, under the codes, you are allowed to go your way insofar as Solarian Defense and its signatories are concerned."

Alacrity turned on every running and signal light that would still work—except distress—and started calculating his planetfall. The ship's net was noisy with laughter and cheers.

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"We're not clear yet," Alacrity said. "When we get in close, we're going to have to tap into the SATNET

system, to get in touch with Citizen Ash. We want
him
waiting for us, not a battalion of peaceguardians."

"Working on it," Victoria said crisply. She was prepared with access procedures and codes, a detailed commo-intrusion plan orchestrated with Langstretch and Srillan classified data and techniques, along with Floyt's considerable input.

It took a while, due to speed-of-light lag. Victoria made contact with Earth's SATNET system, gaining access, aided by her own expertise and the ship's very up-to-date signal-warfare gear. She got SATNET

to locate Earth's executioner—who was at a Utah urbanplex—and forward to him a voice-only message taped by Floyt:

"Citizen Ash, this is Citizen Hobart Floyt. There's no time to explain, but I must see you. I'm currently approaching Terra in a spacecraft and need your location. I beg you to meet with me. I know what I'm doing violates statutes and official protocol, but I appeal to you on the basis of a purer and more fundamental duty we both have to Earth."

They sat out the lag and the wait in various states of suspense and agitation, except Janusz. The seconds strung together unendurably. As Floyt's faith began to flag again, the well-remembered voice came.

"Very well, Citizen Floyt. I will meet you on the roof of this urbanplex. But I urge you to make haste, and advise you that you will have to answer for—"

The voice turned to static. "Cut off," Heart said. "They rejiggered the SATNET."

"I have a fix on him though," Victoria crowed.

"That's it, then," Alacrity decided. "We go in." He flipped the ship once more.

Floyt looked up to find that Earth was now large in the viewpane. He felt none of the discrete emotional sensations—by parts longing, fear, homesickness, love—that he'd expected. Instead there was a great tidal swell in him, something to which he could put no name.

"Trouble," said Heart in the very self-contained tone she'd been using since the falling-out with Alacrity.

"Picking up a … Spican, I think. Coming up from behind on intercept."