Variable Star (46 page)

She was frowning hugely. Her own p-suit drifted away from her hands, forgotten. I saw understanding wash over her, like a wave of ice water. “Oh, no. Oh,
no
! Joel—”

Now the equation solved itself: the dubious term had been defined, and others adjusted themselves to match with the inexorable beauty of math working out.

“What are you talking about?” Jinny asked.

My stomach lurched. I turned and stared at her. “You
know
, don’t you? Of course you do.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said.

“
What
does she know?” Herb asked me.

I could see from Dorothy’s face that she got it, was thinking it through, and becoming as angry as I was. I could also see that Rennick had known all along, and was not even faintly surprised. He started edging toward the hatch that led back out into the rest of the
Sheffield
.

Uptake. Uptake was going to be important, now. I spoke quickly and in my loudest talking-to-the-audience voice.

“Everyone here has a mental picture of Richard Conrad. Can any one of you really picture him spending the next thirty-odd years rescuing a few hundred
farmers
?”

General consternation. Rennick made it all the way to the door and put his back to it.

“But he himself wouldn’t—” Jinny began.

“Do you honestly think he believes that would be the best use for his one and only superluminal starship, during these next crucial empire-building decades?”

“He wanted to own the entire Solar System,” Herb said. “Now he’ll have to settle for what’s left. But I think he would consider that the absolute minimum acceptable.”

“My grandfather is with your own Captain this very minute, trying to—”

“Your grandfather is lying his aristocratic ass off at this minute,” I said, “trying to persuade Captain Bean he’s ever going to see him again after the
Mercury
leaves. That way he can consign more than four hundred people to death with an absolute minimum of harsh words or other unpleasantness. And we can all depart without Alice Dahl having to hold a gun on anyone.”

“You’re insane!” Jinny snapped.

“If he really wanted to help us, all he’d have had to do was order his grandson-in-law to unship his DIS drive from the
Mercury
…and install it in the
Sheffield
! Andrew just got finished telling us the silly thing
doesn’t believe in mass
.”

Jinny gasped in shock—but not as loud as her husband. “Coventry, what was I
thinking
of?” Andrew said, his face stricken. “I… I… I’d have to destroy the
Mercury
in the process, I guess that’s why it simply never occurred to me, but—yes, damn it to seven hells, there’s no real reason in the universe why I couldn’t recalibrate and ramp it up to make the field large enough to enfold even a ship this large. I could have it done in a few weeks! I think…”

“Don’t destroy the
Mercury
,” Herb advised. “Just bring it aboard. It’s about the size of one of our landing craft.”

“That would work—”

“I heard earlier it took you five or six subjective weeks to overtake and match orbits with us,” I told Jinny. “The
Mercury
was a private yacht on its shakedown cruise when Sol exploded. Even given Conrad family paranoia, I’d be surprised if she carried more than a couple of months’ worth of provisions for a crew of seven. My guess is
your ship’s just about out of food, water, and air by now
.” Andrew’s groan told me my guess was accurate. “
That
’s why the old bastard really let himself be talked into picking us for his first destination! He needs to be fully reprovisioned before he reaches an established colony planet, so he can deal from a position of strength. To him, we’re no more than a supplies cache en route, disposable. We’re the smallest number of people that stand between him and self-sufficiency.”

“And the easiest to con,” Herb said. “Because we’re scared and tired and vulnerable. And we have evidence other than Conrad’s word that Sol has been destroyed and hellfire is coming.”

“Oh,
Grandfather
,” Evelyn groaned. “Oh, this is awful!” She started for the exit. “Joel, you’re absolutely right: we have to—”

Rennick reached into his blouse and produced the smallest hand weapon I had ever seen, the size of a stylus, waved it across us all once. “You have to stay right where you are,” he barked. “Evelyn, I mean it!
Don’t!
” He aimed his weapon at her, and I gathered myself to leap into the line of fire, and his head exploded into red mist, most of which boiled out of existence even as it formed. A few tiny drops made it all the way across the room and spattered my face and hands. His little weapon flew from his hand and started caroming off things.

Dorothy Robb had something even smaller in
her
hand. It looked like the smaller half of a stylus, with the pocket clip on it. As I saw it, she released it like a soiled tissue and let it drift from her. “I thought I’d get all the way out of this life without ever using that,” she said thoughtfully, as if to herself, in the sudden ringing silence. “But it was worth carrying it, all these years.”

I wondered how she’d gotten it past the Gurkhas back home. But then, Rennick had managed with a larger one. Maybe the Gurkhas had known—and just figured they could deal with it. “Thank you, Dorothy,” I managed to say, wiping my face with my sleeve.

“You may always leave these little things to me,” she said, making it sound like a quote. Then she brushed a hand across her face and made a sound of revulsion. “I would not have thought his brain was large enough to make that much of a splash.”

Herb was instantly at her side with a pack of tissues. She thanked him gravely and accepted one.

The heat of the explosion had briefly been so intense, Rennick’s massive wound had cauterized itself. Most of the red mist had already been dealt with by the
Sheffield
’s intensive zero-gee airflow, and the rest would be soon.

“They’ll be here any minute,” Herb said to me.

“I know,” I said.

“You understand the problem. You’ve seen her.”

I wished I didn’t. “Yeah. I’ve seen Alice.”

We shared a wordless glance that lasted ten seconds or more. He smiled suddenly “I don’t see another way. Do you?”

I thought as hard as I know how. Finally, reluctantly, I shook my head no. “Not with the tools at hand.”

He nodded.

I retrieved Dorothy’s weapon, glanced at it briefly, and tossed it to him.

“It’s empty,” Dorothy said urgently “It was a single-shot.”

Herb held it up. “Could you tell it’s empty by looking at it?”

She made no reply, but her face said she understood now, and that the answer to his question was no.

A bounce took Rennick’s weapon past me and I picked it out of the air. I looked around at the scene, studying it closely. Just behind me, beside the airlock hatch, was a large display showing data of several kinds.

I found the right switch and powered it off. Then I stepped back, measured angles, and said, “What do you think?” to Herb.

“Good as it’s liable to get,” he said. “This is what a long time ago used to be called a Hail Mary play.”

I nodded. “I
really
wish it was better,” I said.

With infinite kindness in his eyes, he said
not
“Me, too,” but “I know.” Then he moved, to position himself just beside the hatch out to the
Sheffield
. Dorothy began gathering the p-suits we hadn’t finished donning, and stowing them out of the way.

“What are you doing?” Jinny asked dangerously “Damn it, what is going on?” Andrew couldn’t decide which of us to gape at. He wore a look I could empathize with—a man rearranging the entire contents of his brain, and heart.

“Can you handle her?” I asked Evelyn.

She looked me in the eye and said
not
“I think so,” but, “Yes.” Everybody was being very helpful to me today. I nodded thanks, and she left my side, jaunting over to dock beside Jinny.

“Cousin Jinny,” she said clearly and firmly, “zip it.”

Jinny was too shocked to respond, and before she could regroup, we all heard the sound of the party approaching the antechamber from outside.

“Joel—” Dorothy began.

“I think it’ll be all right,” I told her. “But stay alert.”

She shut up, chose a spot well away from the hatch, near the air outflow, and tugged Rennick’s body there. She held onto the grille with one hand, and held Rennick near it with the other. “Evelyn, over here, dear.”

Evelyn looked to me, I nodded, and she joined Dorothy.

Herb and I shared one last long look. Nothing to be said.

T
he hatch
irised open.

Alice Dahl entered first, and she was as good as I had presumed she must be. The instant she cleared the hatchway she sensed that something was wrong—body language? Blood scent the airflow hadn’t finished flushing yet?—and went hyperalert well before she could have seen Rennick’s body. She didn’t actually kill anyone, but she was very ready to. And it was me she focused on.

Failing to notice, Conrad came in behind her, followed by Solomon Short. “All right, everyone,” he was saying, “thanks to Captain Bean’s insights, and Relativist Short’s gift for lateral thinking, I think we’ve come up with a plan that will—”

It took him that long to see Rennick’s drifting corpse and stop speaking. He must have been very tired. But he was still sharp, and quick. He didn’t bother asking what was wrong.

“All right,” he went on. “Everyone on board now. We will discuss this later.”

“Gran’ther, how
can
you?” Evelyn asked him with infinite sadness.

He did not seem to understand her question.

“The race made a small mistake,” Herb said. Alice’s head turned to track him. “We did
finally
make some progress at stamping out war. But maybe it would have been better to start with greed.”

“What’s going on?” Solomon asked mildly.

“Conman of Conman here,” I said, “was just about to depart, leaving behind a boatful of suckers who thought he’d be coming back to start a rescue shuttle.”

Solomon caught on at once, and turned to glare at Conrad. “Really?”

“He also forgot to mention to anybody that with a little work, Andy’s Magic Carpet drive will push anything you put it in, just as fast. Irrespective of its mass.”

Solomon’s face darkened even further. “I see. He had better things to do with it. Sure, he did.”

“Sol,” I said quickly “It’s
covered
. Okay? Watch out for green mist.”

I saw him take my meaning. Stay out of the line of fire and await developments.

“Oh, for Covenant’s sake!” Conrad snarled. “Jinny,
you
understand. Evelyn, dear, history is being made. Right now, by us. We need to form and consolidate the Confederation of Human Stars, get it organized. Ferry telepaths around until rational communication can take place, and then get busy and avenge our star. For all we know, a second wave of attacks is just about to happen—there is no
way
we have time to waste rescuing a bunch of losers from their own incompetence. Please try to be rational. You’re a
Conrad
, for the—”

“I am a Johnston,” she told him.

He rolled his eyes. “Young love. Oh, I love being old! Fine. I don’t care what name you go by, as long as you get into that damned pressure suit and back aboard the ship,
now
.”

She looked him in the eye and slowly shook her head. “I will not.”

Conrad of Conrad sighed, irritated beyond endurance. “Alice.”

Alice Dahl reached for her right hip, and Time slowed to its lowest possible velocity.

“Alice!” I shouted.

She was very good, gave me less than half her attention at first despite my shout.

That changed
fast
when she saw my hand holding the weapon I’d been palming all this time, though.

She was
so
good that in the fraction of an instant it took me to draw a dead bead on her center of mass, she had her own gun out and pointed directly at my left eye.

“If you kill me,” she said calmly, “my hand will still kill you afterward.”

“Probably.” I agreed. Most of my attention was on my features, going for the best poker face of my life.

“Absolutely.” she corrected.

Time was going so slowly now, I could actually see her discern some tiny flaw in my poker face. Her finger tightened on the trigger. “Hey, Butch!” Herb bellowed at the top of his lungs.

She was still good. She turned her head
just
enough to pick him up in her peripheral vision. She knew he was bluffing, because she knew he was smart enough to know he could not possibly beat her—and still she checked.

And found Herb aiming Dorothy’s tiny little weapon at her.

She identified it, must have realized it was much deadlier than the one I held. It didn’t worry her a bit. The right side of her mouth curled up in contempt.

Faster than the eye could follow, she spun on her axis. Beating Herb was no more difficult than beating me had been for her.

And as far as Alice Dahl knew, nobody important wanted Herb alive. She shot him in his left eye, perfectly confident that shock and denial would hold a civilian like me frozen for the split second that was all she would need.

I was not in shock. I was not in denial. She died halfway back around to me, when my shot caught her square in the heart.

It was a far less gaudy death than either of the others that had happened in that room—but it was definitive. Rennick’s weapon fired not a laser or projectiles, but something that relaxed muscles. All of them, completely. Her face went slack, her eyes became doll’s eyes, her body went limp and derelict, and sphincters let go just before Solomon crashed into her.

My own nearly did the same. I had been more than half expecting to die myself, doing this. But I barely noticed; I was already in transit to Herb, just in case, knowing it was futile but unable to help myself. Halfway there I knew I was wasting my time, and started to relax and begin mourning.

An unexpected noise behind me scared the living shit out of me.