Pirates of the Thunder (30 page)

And, as far as they knew, all four were the only ones of their races in space. It was a special bond, for each could understand the other’s sense of alienation when with others of the more common races.

“I had hopes, one day, of becoming so powerful that I could one day return home and break that insidious system, but I’m old enough now to know that even if I gained such power and tried, it is probably easier to break Master System than to change a culture, particularly one that is partly based on biology.”

“The only way there’s a shot is to break the big system,” Raven told her. “Then you start by introducing technology on a wide scale so that your people become masters of the planet and not just inhabitants. Then that technology can be used to alter the biology that limits things.”

Am I really saying this?
he thought suddenly.
I think I just told her to turn her people into white men and go rape their world!

It was only a two-and-a-half-day trip to the hideout. In that time Raven grew to like the tiny captain, but he found it far more difficult to get to know the other three. Of them, only Butar Killomen even seemed curious enough to talk to him, and none were as secure as their captain and willing to talk about themselves.

The refugee fleet was still cautious; passwords were required not just from the ship and captain but from each of the other crew members in turn before the sensors and automatic guns of the other ships were turned off. Only then did Ikira relax and put the graphics on the screen for him to see what was there.

“Most are light freighters built less for cargo capacity than speed and weapons ability,” she told him. “For the amount of murylium you generally find out here in months of trying beyond your own needs you don’t need a very big ship, but if you can’t outrun and outgun the competition you might lose out to somebody who found none at all. That’s
Espiritu Luzon
in the center—Savaphoong’s ship. It doesn’t look like much on the outside because it’s designed to alter itself to different common silhouettes on sensors out here. It’s a neat and expensive defense. Inside, I’m told, it’s a luxury yacht with all the comforts of Halinachi in miniature.”

He nodded. It figured that somebody, like Savaphoong would find a way to take his world with him.

“The others are San
Cristobal, Novovladivostok, Chunhoifan, Indrus, Bahakatan,
and
Sisu
Moduru.
I know them all from the past. I shot it out with
San Cristobal’s
skipper a few years back. I was glad to see he got it back in running condition. Truth was, I’d lost track of most of them until we crossed paths at the fallback positions.” She paused for a moment. “I had hoped that we might have seen a couple more before we had to run here.”

There was no official leader—these were proud and independent people—but Savaphoong certainly had the commanding voice among them, and few would challenge him. His contacts might well be valid, including many on colonial worlds, and he was the best prepared for an undertaking like this.

“Can you plug me in to Savaphoong’s ship?” Raven asked. “We might as well break the news right off. I think anything I have, to say should be said to him first before one of your trigger-happy friends takes to blasting us just on general principles.”

Fernando Savaphoong was right up on his bridge for the arrival of the
Kaotan.
He was happy to hear of the load they had aboard and a bit less thrilled to hear of their passenger, but he agreed to talk.

“Sir, my name’s Raven and I was at your place with Arnold Nagy not too long ago.”

Savaphoong remembered quite a lot about Raven, including things he shouldn’t have known.

Quickly, Raven filled the other in on what had happened so far—the death of Arnold Nagy, and at least as much of their purpose and goals as he’d given Ikira. Savaphoong listened patiently, then noted, “I can see why you precipitated all the action. Very well, Senor Raven, what do you think you are going to do now?”

“That’s not the question. I’m stuck here unless some deal is made or I’m dropped at an agreed pickup point and you know it. It seems to me the question is what are
you
going to do? The cozy relationship between the freebooters and Master System is gone. Every freebooter is a fugitive now, because they’ll try every one they find until they find us. Those caught with no other value will either be disposed of or put through the mill and changed into a worshipful supporter of the System. Face it—in a few days, a few weeks at most, you won’t even be able to risk contacting or trusting ships and people you’ve known for years. We are the only ones you can ever fully feel comfortable around. We want to make a deal. We need you, and I think you need us. Put me on to all of them and I’ll give it straight.”

It took about an hour of radio diplomacy on Savaphoong’s part to get the others calmed down enough to listen, and when they did that’s all they agreed to do—listen.

Once more Raven introduced himself and described the situation. “You have no place else to go, no other life that has any profit or future,” he told them. “You cannot trust anyone, not here right now. You can’t go back to your old free-lancing deals with the colonial worlds without knowing that Master System and its forces will be out gunning for you. You might make it several times, maybe last a year or two, but eventually you and Master System will have a meeting because there are only so many colonial worlds.”

“We could go off the charts, into regions even Master System hasn’t gone,” someone suggested. “We can start over again and build ourselves back up with or without colonial support.”

“Wishful thinking and you know it, if you stop and think a minute,” Raven retorted. “It would be rougher than you know, and all guesswork until you formed your own charts. Probably at least half of you would run dry somewhere in a hole like this one and never be heard of again. The other half—well, you might scrimp by, but there’ll be no illegal shipyards, no big transmuters, no access to technology and supercomputing. Many of you are one of a kind out here, and when you die out, that’s it. Some of you might have enough numbers to make a really tiny colony somewhere on some grubby rock, if you can find one that’ll support human life and if you can survive the wilderness there. That’ll go until your ships break down for lack of repair or out of sheer ignorance by your children and grandchildren, condemning them to be new colonials and devolve into savagery and primitivism. You have no future and very short lives now, unless you team up with us.”

“I ain’t sure how much future I got teamin’ up with the likes of you,” someone else commented. “You know how many people they killed so far because of you? And that’s only the beginning. And the colonial worlds depend on us for murylium to keep a jump ahead of Master System. You come out here, with no space experience, and in a real short time you destroy a whole way of life.”

Raven grinned. “You mean we came out and in no time flat we destroyed your neat little system? Eleven people, nine of ‘em space rookies, and they destroy your whole system? Well, then, maybe we
can
knock over the big system, huh?”

“If you’re tryin’ to be funny, I got some real slow ways for you to die,” someone said.

“No! Let him go on!” another urged. “He’s making some sense here.”

That was encouraging. “We didn’t destroy your system, we just gave you what you always said was most dear—liberation. You can get mad and yell and scream, but any of you with any sense out there will have to realize that the freebooters were as much a colonial unit as any of the worlds you served under Master System’s thumb as long as you were useful to it and easily thrown away when no longer needed. You were its unlisted colony, and you provided a service. We ended that. If you want it back, I’m sure you can just trot back to Master System, let its machines see how nice and loyal you are, and it’ll stick you back in business with no illusions. You either do that or you join the rebellion and instead of taking shots at each other you can take shots at Master System. Colonial loyalists allowed to play with antique spaceships—or freedom-fighting rebels. That’s your real choice, and your only one. If you can’t see that, you’re blind or crazy and no good to us anyway. If you can and want to go back to playing footsie with Master System, we sure as hell don’t want you. But if you want real freedom, if you want to win, we need you bad.”

After all the nasty carping on the channel, the silence was almost eerie. Finally a man’s low, gruff voice spoke. “If I really thought we had any chance of winning, I’d throw in, but I just can’t believe it.”

“That’s all I can offer, but it’s more than you think—a chance,” Raven told him. “There are no guarantees and I can virtually promise that many will die in this, or worse. We might have to—pay the ultimate price. We might have to transmute ourselves, or sacrifice ourselves for others. I intend to minimize that last possibility when it comes to myself, but I recognize it. And we are going to have to work in teams to get it done rather than go strictly lone wolf, since any major failure has the potential to compromise all of us. Now, that’s a heady brew for the likes of freebooters, but that’s the way it is.”

“Too steep,” someone commented. “I’d rather chase and run from the bastards.”

“Ah, but you haven’t heard the important part,” Raven responded. “You don’t do this for nothing. You do this for a payoff—and a big one. You see, once you’re in, you’re
in.
I put this in terms of bullets and a big gun, but that’s not really right. See, this bullet don’t kill Master System, it just makes it into what it was at the start—a nice, obedient machine that takes orders. Takes orders from whoever gets it. Now, you think about that. Whoever does this all the way gets to rule Master System the way Master System rules most everybody else. The power it has, and all the loyalty it has, and all that it knows and can do, passes up to others—human beings. If you’re in, you’re in all the way. Do your job, don’t screw up or get killed, and you name your own price and I mean it.
Anything you want!
Your own world, your own fleet of big ships, all just the way you might have dared dream it could be. It’s the magic totem for real, or whatever your own legends call it. You help us, you last it out, and you get one wish for anything that’s within Master System’s power—and you get Master System off your back, too.”

That
was something they could understand, and it was staggering.

“I must tell you that I am favorably inclined to go their way,” Savaphoong’s voice came to them. “I can exist for the rest of my life without them, I am fairly certain, and at minimal risk—I have made provisions for this sort of eventuality. Still, if there is no risk, there is no gain, and if I refuse now and then they do it, I will have no profit, no share in the rewards. If they fail, then I lose it all including what might have been, and I admit this. But if they succeed—and I know the background of one or two and would not count them out—then I want my share of godhood.”

There was a long period of silence, then suddenly everybody seemed to try to talk at once, making any rational communication impossible. There was nothing to do but wait for it to die down.

Finally Raven was able to make himself heard again.

“Now, this shouldn’t be anything hasty. Each ship should get off for a while and discuss it, captains and crew. I want no single individual in on this who doesn’t want to be there. I am absolutely certain we can combine crews and ships—those who say yes, those who say no. This is the only shot you get, though. If you’re out, you’re out. If you’re in, you will be in all the way or we will eliminate you without a second thought. Only those who come with me will get the details and the planning. There is nothing personal for those who refuse, but any who fail to take our offer now will be treated later as our enemy. We’ll have to do it that way.”

“I don’t like it,” a woman’s voice said. “We have only
his
word that this shit even exists. We have no proof that he’s spinning more than a fairy tale, a pipe dream, to lure us into their service permanently and then get rid of us when we’ve served our purpose, who the hell are they who made this discovery? They come here from the Mother World and maybe
they
believe it, but who’s to say it’s true? All we’re doing is becoming their damned servants. How come this big secret gets kept for nine hundred-plus years and suddenly falls into the hands of a bunch of yokels?”

“You may be right, Meg,” Savaphoong agreed, “but, as I say, I know some of these people. Their scientific brain is perhaps the smartest human being alive, and he has all his data. We believes it. Others, like friend Raven here, are Center people, security people who had the best that the system can offer and paths to power. They gave it up, and they are not
all
mad. The best example is Master System itself, which is so outraged and so panicky that it has mobilized all its resources to find and get these people. You think Master System would collapse the covenant just to track down pirates, even very slick ones? What are they to its domains? What are the pirates of the
Thunder
in the larger scheme of things? What is one ship full of murylium to Master System? It is pulling out all its stops, abandoning all its conventions, to go after a tiny band of mere human beings. Oh, yes, my friends—what they say is true. They know the way to fry the brains of Master System, even if they now lack the means.”

The logic was compelling to most of them, but so was the corollary. “What’s to keep
us
from doing it, then, without
them!
We got mindprinters here, and hypnoscans, and all the rest, and we got this Raven. Why throw in with them at all?”

Raven was prepared for that one. His rehearsal with Ikira was paying big dividends. “Simple,” he told them. “I can tell you what we’re after, but not how to use them. Just having them ain’t enough. What good is having bullets and guns if you don’t have a target? I don’t know where Master System
is,
or what it looks like, or anything else. Do you?”