Jinx on a Terran Inheritance (56 page)

Alacrity got the computers crunching numbers. The answer was astoundingly close, but inarguable.

"He's got us, unless we go to Hawking. The Solarians aren't going to step in on this one, it looks like, and we sure can't outfight him."

Floyt felt a burning in his eyes, looking at Earth. "We can't let them catch us. There'll be another time.

Take us into Hawking, Alacrity. Hurry!"

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The others simply kept a despondent silence. Then Corva cleared his throat human-style, which sounded strange coming from him. "I believe you're overlooking another factor: this boat I'm sitting in."

"The
Harpy
! Of course!" Alacrity yelled.

"I don't understand," Victoria said.

"
Harpy
is a stealth ship!" Alacrity exulted. "Don't you see? We let the Spikes chase the
Stray
—she leads

'em away from Terra, delays 'em as long as she can before she goes into Hawking—"

"—and in the meantime, the
Harpy
slips down to Terra," Victoria finished. "Yes, of course."

"Only," Sintilla said, "who stays and who goes with
Harpy
?"

"I think the gamble in
Harpy
is for me and Ho," Alacrity said. "We're the ones who're obliged."

"I am obliged no less by my vows," Corva posited quietly.

"If I don't get this story I'll open my wrists," Sintilla said. "Besides, I'm not much use on a starship to begin with."

"It's rather more a question of who will stay with
Astraea Imprimatur"
Victoria pointed out. "Janusz cannot go in the
Harpy,
and I will not leave him. But I need another trained hand to help me con the ship, damaged and vivisected as she is."

There was a prickling silence.

"Oh, Fitzhugh," Heart said softly. "Sometimes the jinxes really break your way, don't they? Are you sad, or are you relieved? Don't answer—I don't want to have to start wondering whether I can believe you."

Within minutes they'd transferred the cream of the Repository data and their few possessions, having time for little else.

Astraea Imprimatur
was a mess. Pressure containers had violated their warrantees and blown apart; debris and breakage were everywhere, and one of the sanitary holding tanks and part of its line had ruptured, moisture boiling off in the vacuum, leaving disgusting deposits in the midships area.

Everywhere were signs of the immense strain the ship had weathered.

"She'll do, though," Victoria declared, standing by
Harpy's
lock. "We can repressurize part of her, at least. She'll get us by all right." She patted a bulkhead with a gloved hand.

"I know a safe place," Heart said. "We can get help there, and—" She glanced toward the compartment where Janusz was secured. "And you two can settle what you must, I guess."

Victoria's ambivalence and confusion carried over the commo net. "You all have a right to know, after file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (297 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:31

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everything we've been through together. I've revised my decision. There were new … potential injustices, and relative values to weigh. Janusz won't be arrested."

Alacrity put his suited arms around her shoulders as best he could, their helmets bumping. "Take good care of yourself, gal."

"We have to go now." Corva's voice came to them from
Harpy's
cockpit.

While the others were making rushed farewells, Alacrity switched off his commo and signed for Heart to do the same, then pressed his facebowl against hers. They searched each other's eyes.

"I'll find you. There's more for us to say."

"I hope you mean that, Alacrity." Her voice sounded faint and far away.

CHAPTER 24—ON EARTH IS NOT HIS EQUAL

Harpy
dropped away from the
Astraea Imprimatur,
still impelled by the starship's momentum, as the bigger vessel swung away on a new course. The Spican, still closing, changed to follow. She would now pass by beyond visual range of the spaceboat, which ran darkened, only her critical systems operating.

Earth was huge beyond the canopy.

"Here's where we find out if Spican detectors are better than the ones on Blackguard and Epiphany,"

Alacrity said.

Helmets off at last, they crowded, drifting in freefall, around Corva, watching the displays. It was Floyt's first experience with zero gravity, but he was too apprehensive to give it much thought beyond the effort not to drift around.

No one spoke as they watched the silent story of the displays lighting the cockpit. The Spican drew nearer and nearer to the
Stray,
faked away from the spaceboat and its Earth-approach course. Alacrity was silently mouthing
Go on, get clear
! Corva brought up the boat's internal field, and they were drawn to the deck.

The Srillan was cautiously activating the engines, entreating the Stealth Gods, correcting his vector for blue-white Terra, when the Spican released two missiles at long range. Interceptors arrowed back from the fleeing
Stray
and the Spican missiles fired their own counterinterceptors and defensive beams, as did the
Stray's.
Before the fireworks contest had been played out, Victoria and Heart had taken
Astraea
Imprimatur
into Hawking.

Alacrity let out a breath he'd been holding for a long time.

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"I may have to go back on my word and write about Janusz, and Victoria too." Sintilla sighed. " 'Love conquers all.' It always sells big."

"Of course, they had a little help from biology, making Vic decide what she should do and all," Alacrity reminded her.

Floyt broke his preoccupation with the displays and laughed for what seemed like the first time in years.

"They had a lot more than biology going for them. Or am I wrong, Corva?"

The Srillan was uncharacteristically remote, still busy with the controls. "I have no idea what you mean, Hobart."

"What I mean is that coincidences do happen, like Victoria's conceiving just at this time. I guess I'd have accepted it too, except—those
weren't
the control auxiliaries you were working on when I almost fell over you. I know; I looked it up. They
were
the utilities, including the hookup for the mediscan computer."

"Corva, I thought you were sworn by your compact not to interfere?" Sintilla said to break the silence.

"I did
not
interfere," Corva contradicted, "as such. But even a contrition-knight can indulge in a little well-intended cheating."

Sintilla kissed him on his furry head. "I wonder what'll happen when they find out she's not pregnant?"

Alacrity said.

"One of two things. And I bet I know which," Floyt replied. "Good work, Corva."

"Don't mention it. Now, can someone tell me what 'Utah' is?"

The Spican interception had been last minute indeed. Before long they were entering Earth's upper atmosphere. The
Harpy's
detectors said the planet's antiquated warning systems were on full alert, but nothing was picking them up.

"What I'm worried about is your Citizen Ash," Sintilla said. "The Conspiracy might've gotten to him by now, put him out of the picture."

"You don't know Citizen Ash," Alacrity commented as he finished stowing the last of the spacesuits.

"And besides, all the Alphas know about so far is the
Astraea Imprimatur,
and they think she's been driven away. I doubt they've tried to tangle with Ash."

No detectors could pick up the spaceboat, but eyes could. Corva told them all to fasten in as he cut a screaming trail into the atmosphere.

"What will they throw at us?" Alacrity asked from the copilot's poz.

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"How should I know?" Floyt answered over the intercom. "Nothing terribly modern, I should think."

"I'm tracking missiles, or something like them," Corva said. "And I think I've got massive energy buildups, particle beam weapons perhaps."

But the missiles and interceptor drones, their guidance systems gulled, couldn't get a lock on the spaceboat; Corva was careful not to ram into one by chance. It was their good luck that Terra didn't throw something even older and slower at them, something guided by remote optical pickups. The computers that were supposed to aim and fire the beam weapons continued to insist that there was nothing there to shoot at.

"I'm registering a big ground-level explosion here," Alacrity said. "I think one of the beam installations just overloaded and went blooey."

No vessel had moved through Terra's sky that fast in two hundred years. They began their approach on the Utah urbanplex a hemisphere away. "How do we find Ash?" Sintilla thought to ask. "I mean how to we pinpoint him?"

"Victoria tricked his accessor index out of the SATNET," Alacrity explained. "The net won't put us through, but Ash is a shrewd guy; he left his accessor keyed, and we'll home on him."

"Double shrewd," Sintilla said. "Now if he's just trusting, credulous, open-minded, and invincible."

"And if we are visited by the Gift of Persuasion," Corva thought to include.

Somehow, Earthservice came up with three big, armed peaceguardian sky vans, which flew at them in an unpracticed attack formation as the
Harpy,
having shed most of her speed, came in toward the urbanplex. Two kilometers below, on the roof of the admin center, according to instruments, was Citizen Ash.

The spaceboat was no match for a Spican patrol craft, but she outclassed anything the Terrans could put up. Corva didn't want to cause any injuries he didn't have to, both from compassion and because the selling job ahead of them would be hard enough. He avoided their volleys—riot-control energy weapons and a few wall-openers—while Alacrity had the
Harpy's
guns deftly burn up some grilles and trim. Two vans withdrew, damaged, and the third followed, intact but chastened.

"Now look," Alacrity said over the cop control net, "we're landing peaceably, but I'm warning you: we've got a lot of very dangerous weapons and ordnance inboard. If you attack again, anything could happen."

He played around with the signal-warfare suite a little more and found that they were close enough to file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (300 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:31

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pick up Ash's accessor directly. Alacrity patched it through to the peaceguardian net.

"This is Citizen Ash speaking. On my authority, all peace-guardian units are to withdraw and maintain their distance. There are to be no further actions against that vessel or its occupants."

The regional peaceguardian commander got on. "I have my orders from Alpha-Bureaucrat Stemp."

"And I'm countermanding them. You are obstructing me in the discharge of my office."

The attacks hadn't done much good anyway and the commander, like most Terrans, had a deep-rooted fear of offworld weapons and a profound uneasiness where Citizen Ash was concerned. He called off the vans but held his units ready.

The
Harpy
came in on the roof, detectors alert, weapons ready. "The admin center." Alacrity groaned.

"Did he have to pick the enemy's backyard?" The admin center was only a small part of the urbanplex, but its roof was forty hectares or so of giant outlets, intakes, vents, stacks, and waste heat dissipators.

The boat landed on one of the largest open areas, roughly square, some 150 meters on a side, near a bank of chuteshafts. Alacrity, peering through the viewpane, noticed lots of surveillance and security equipment.

"What now?" Sintilla asked.

"What do you think, Hobart? Guns or no?" Corva said. "Are those offensive weapons along with the security pickups on the surveillance pylons?"

"They could be. This is a restricted area. But we didn't come here to shoot it out, did we?"

"That doesn't mean it can't happen," Alacrity said, buckling on his gun. Floyt looked at the Webley for a second, then carefully left it in his seat. Corva and Sintilla didn't arm themselves either.

"Look!" Sintilla was pointing through a viewpane at Citizen Ash. He was dressed in his customary black

—a loose shirt with ruffled cuffs and high, frilly collar, tapered trousers, and gleaming shoes. He was walking unhurriedly in their direction. He also wore a sleeveless manteau, open at the front, and satiny sash wound around a slim waist, all in his chosen color.

He was medium Earther height, two or three centimeters taller than Floyt, tanned and handsome in the way the Terrans still called "Mediterranean," with a meticulous mustache.

"Shouldn't one of us stay inboard?" Sintiila asked.

"You may if you wish to, of course," Corva answered. "I have been waiting for this too long. And we must win our case here, now. All of us who feel up to it must bear witness."

The four stepped to the lock as Citizen Ash drew near. Floyt went first, wearing his Inheritor's belt, file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (301 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:31

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carrying a satchel filled with Camarilla information.

"It seems you've both been busy," Ash said by way of greeting to Floyt and Alacrity as they jumped down. They looked gaunt and exhausted.

Alacrity still had a wan smile left in him. "Sorry to drop in on you like this."

"I'd like to say that we'll only ask a minute of your time," Floyt told Ash, "but that wouldn't be true."