The Fugitive Worlds (2 page)

Two hundred feet below the gondola the striated fields of
the region slipped quietly by, forming patterns of stripes
which flowed out to the horizon. It was now just over fifty
years since the migration to Overland, and the Kolcorronian
farmers had had time to impose their designs on the natural
coloration of the landscape. On a planet without seasons
the edible grasses and other vegetation tended to be heterogeneous, each plant following its own maturation cycle, but
the farmers had painstakingly sorted them into synchronous groups to achieve the six harvests a year which had been
traditional on the Old World since history began. Each
field of grain displayed linear variations in color, from the
delicate green of young shoots to harvest gold and the brown
of shorn earth.

"There's another ship to the south of us, sir," shouted
Niskodar, the helmsman. "Same altitude or a bit higher.
About two miles away."

Toller located the ship—a dark sliver low on the purple-
hazed horizon—and turned his glasses on it. The magnified
image showed that the craft had blue-and-yellow Sky Service
markings, a fact which caused Toller some surprise. Several
times in the previous eight days he had glimpsed the ship
which was patrolling the sector adjoining his to the south,
but that had been at the mutual limit of the sweeps and the
visual contacts had been fleeting. The newcomer was well
inside Toller's assigned territory and, as far as he could
determine, was closing with him as though also intending to
intercept the returning parachutist.

"Get on the
Sunwriter
," he said to Lieutenant Feer, who
was at the rail beside him. "Give the commander of that ship my compliments and advise him to change course—I am on
the Queen's business and will brook no interference or
obstruction."

"Yes, sir," Feer replied eagerly, obviously pleased that
the incident had come along to add a hint of savor to the
foreday. He opened a locker and took out a sunwriter which
was of the new lightweight design employing silvered mirror
slats in place of the conventional glass sandwich construction.
Feer aimed the instrument and worked the trigger, producing
a busy clacking sound. For about a minute after he had
finished there was no visible response, then a tiny sun began
to blink rapidly on the distant ship.

Good foreday, Captain Maraquine,
came the pulsed message.
The Countess Vantara returns your greeting. She has
decided to take command of this operation in person. Your attendance is no longer required. You are hereby instructed
to return to Prod immediately.

Toller choked back the angry swear words the message
had inspired in him. He had never met Countess Vantara,
but he knew that she, as well as holding the rank of sky-
captain, was a granddaughter of the Queen and that she habitually used the royal connection to enhance her auth
ority. Many other commanders faced with a similar situ
ation would have backed down, perhaps after a token protest,
for fear of prejudicing their careers, but Toller was consti
tutionally unable to accept what he saw as a slur. His hand
dropped to the hilt of the sword which had once belonged
to his grandfather, and he scowled fiercely in the direction
of the intruding ship as he composed a reply to the countess's imperious message.

"Sir, do you wish to acknowledge the signal?" Lieutenant Feer's manner was absolutely correct, but a certain brightness in his eyes showed that he relished seeing Toller faced with a tricky decision. Although of subordinate rank he was somewhat the older of the two, and he almost certainly subscribed to the general view that Toller had achieved captaincy so early through family influence. It was apparent that the prospect of witnessing a duel between the privileged and the privileged had a strong appeal to the lieutenant.

"Of course I wish to acknowledge it," Toller said, hiding his irritation. "What is that woman's family name?"

"Dervonai, sir."

"All right, forget all that countess frippery and address her as Captain Dervonai. Say: Your kind offer of assistance is noted, but in this instance the presence of another vessel is likely to be more of a hindrance than a help. Continue with your own business and do not impede me in the execution of the Queen's direct orders."

A look of gratification appeared on Feer's narrow face as he beamed Toller's words out to the other ship—he had not expected an outright confrontation to develop so quickly. There was only the briefest pause before a reply came.
Your
show of discourtesy, not to say insolence, has also been noted,
but I will refrain from reporting it to my grandmother if you withdraw at once. I urge you to be prudent.

"The arrogant bitch!" Toller snatched the sunwriter out of Feer's hands, aimed it and worked the trigger.
I
deem it more prudent to be reported to her Majesty for discourtesy than for treason, which would be the case were
I
to abandon my mission. I therefore urge you to return to your needlework.

"Needlework!" Lieutenant Feer, who had been able to read the message from the side, gave an appreciative chuckle as Toller handed the sunwriter back to him. "The lady aviator
won't appreciate that one, sir. I wonder what her reply will
be."

"There it is," Toller said, having raised his binoculars just
in time to discern smoke pluming out from the other ship's
main jets. "She's either departing the scene in a huff or going
all out to reach our objective first—and if what I've heard
about the Countess Vantara is true . . . Yes! We have a race
on our hands!"

"Do you want full speed?"

"What else?" Toller said. "And tell the men to put on
parachutes."

At the mention of parachutes Feer's gleeful expression
faded and was replaced by one of wariness. "Sir, you don't
think it's going to come to—"

"Anything can happen when two ships dispute a single
piece of sky." Toller injected a note of joviality into his
voice, subtly punishing the lieutenant for the improprieties
in his attitude. "A collision could easily result in deaths, and
I would prefer it that they were all on the opposition's side."

"Yes, sir." Feer turned away, already signaling to the
engineer, and a moment later the main jets began a steady
roar as maximum continuous power was applied. The nose of the long gondola lifted as the jet thrust tried to rotate the
entire ship about its center of gravity, but the helmsman
quickly corrected its attitude by altering the angle of the
engines. He was able to do so single-handed, by means of a
lever and ratchets, because the engines were of the modern
lightweight type consisting of riveted metal tubes.

Until quite recently each jet would have utilized the entire trunk of a young brakka tree, and consequently would have
been heavy and unwieldy. The power source was still a mixture of pikon and halvell crystals, which throughout
history had been extracted from the soil by the root systems of brakka trees. Now, however, the crystals were obtained
directly from the earth by means of chemical refining methods
developed by Toller's father, Cassyll Maraquine.

Industrial chemistry and metallurgy were the cornerstones
of the Maraquine family's immense fortune and power—
which in turn were the source of most of the personal diffi
culties Toller had with his parents. They had expected him
to understudy his father in preparation for taking up the
reins of the family's industrial empire—a prospect he had
viewed with dread—and his relationship with them had been
occasionally strained ever since he had chosen to enter the
Sky Service in pursuit of excitement and adventure. Those two qualities had been less plentiful than he had hoped for,
which was one of the reasons for his determination not to be
elbowed aside on this particular occasion. . . .

He returned his attention to the astronaut, who was still a
good mile above the surface of the undulating farmlands.
There was no practical point in racing to the parachutist's
estimated touchdown point, but it might strengthen Van
tara's case if she could claim to have been at the site first. Toller guessed that she had by pure chance intercepted the
sunwriter message he had relayed to the palace earlier in
the day, and then had decided on a whim to take over at the
interesting phase of what had been a tedious mission.

He was considering whether or not to send her a final
warning message when he noticed that a line of dark blue
had appeared on the western horizon. His binoculars con
firmed that there was a substantial body of water ahead, and on consulting his charts he found that it was called Lake
Amblaraate. It was more than five miles across, which meant
that the astronaut had little chance of drifting himself clear
of its edges, but it was traversed by a line of small, low-lying
islands from which a skilful parachutist ought to be able to
select a good landing site.

Toller beckoned Feer to him and showed him the chart.
"I think we may be in for some sport," he said. "Those islets look scarcely big enough to accommodate a parade ground.
If yonder flyaway seed manages to plant himself on one of
them the task of plucking him up again will call for some
fancy airmanship. I wonder if the lady aviator, as you dubbed her, will remain so anxious to claim the honor."

"The important thing is that the messenger and his dispatches are conveyed safely to the Queen," Feer replied. "Does it really matter who picks him up?"

Toller gave him a broad smile. "Oh yes, lieutenant—it matters a great deal."

He leaned on the gondola's rail, enjoying the cooling effect of the gathering slipstream, and watched the other ship draw nearer on the converging course. The range was still too great for him to be able to see any of the crew clearly, even with binoculars, but he knew they were all female. It had been Queen Daseene herself who had insisted on women being allowed to enter the Sky Service. That had been during the emergency of twenty-six years earlier, at the time of the threatened invasion from the Old World, but the tradition persisted to the present day, though for mainly practical reasons it had been decided not to use mixed crews. Toller, who had spent most of his active service on the far side of Overland, had not previously encountered any of the very few airships crewed by women, and he was interested in finding out if gender had any noticeable effect on ship-handling techniques.

As he had expected, both ships reached Lake Amblaraate while the parachutist was still high above them. Toller judged which of the islands was most likely to provide the touchdown point, ordered his ship down to a hundred feet and began cruising in a circle around the triangular patch of green. To his annoyance, Vantara adopted a similar tactic, taking up a station at the opposite side of the circle. The two ships rotated as though attached to the ends of an invisible rod, the intermittent blasts of their jets disturbing colonies of birds which nested on the low ground.