“Well,” Kraiklyn said, annoyed, “you all know that Vavatch is going to get blown away by the Culture in a few days. People have been getting everything they can off the place, and the Megaships are all abandoned now apart from a few wrecking and salvage teams. I guess all the valuables are off them. But there is one ship called the Olmedreca, where a couple of the teams had a little argument. Some careless person let off a little nuke, and now the Olmedreca’s got a damn great hole in one side. It’s still afloat and it’s still scrubbing off speed, but, because the nuke went off on one side and that hole hasn’t done a lot for the ship’s streamlining, it’s started going round in a big curve, and it’s getting closer to the outside Edgewall all the time. The last transmission I picked up, nobody was sure whether it would hit before the Culture starts blasting or not, but they don’t seem happy to take the chance, so it looks like there isn’t anybody on board.”
“You want us to go onto it,” Yalson said.
“Yeah, because I’ve been on the Olmedreca, and I think I know something people will have forgotten in the rush to get off: bow lasers.”
A few of the Company looked sceptically from one to another. “Yeah, Megaships have bow lasers — especially the Olmedreca. It used to sail through stretches of the Circlesea a lot of the other ships didn’t go through, places where there was a lot of floating weeds or icebergs; it couldn’t exactly manoeuvre out of the way so it had to be able to destroy anything in its path, and have the firepower to do it. The Olmedreca’s front armament would put a few fleet battleships to shame. That thing could frazzle its way through an iceberg bigger than it was itself, and blast islands of floatweed out of the water so big that people used to think it was attacking the Edgeland. My guess — and it’s an educated one because I’ve been reading between the lines of the outcoming signals — is that nobody’s remembered about all that weaponry, and so we’re going to go for it.”
“What if this ship hits the wall while we’re on board?” Dorolow said. Kraiklyn smiled at her.
“We’re not blind, are we? We know where the wall is and we know where… we’ll be able to see where the Olmedreca is. We’ll go down, take a look, and then if we decide we have the time, we’ll remove a few of the smaller lasers… Hell, just one would do. I’m going to be down there, too, you know, and I’m not going to risk my own neck if I can see the Edge wall looming up, am I?”
“We taking the CAT?” Lamm said.
“Not over the top. The Orbital’s got just enough mass to make the warp a tricky proposition, and the fusions would get zapped by the Hub auto-defences; they’d think our motors were meteorites or something. No — we’ll leave the CAT here unmanned. I can always control it remotely from my suit if there’s an emergency. We’ll use the shuttle’s FFD; force fields work fine on an Orbital. Oh, that’s one thing I shouldn’t really have to remind you about; don’t try to use your AG on the place, OK? Anti-gravity works against mass, not spin, so you’d end up taking an unexpected bath if you jumped over the side expecting to fly round to the bows.”
“What do we do after we get this laser, if we get it?” Yalson said. Kraiklyn frowned briefly. He shrugged.
“Probably the best thing is to head for the capital. Its called Evanauth… a port where they used to build the Megaships. It’s on the land, of course…” He smiled, looking at some of the others.
“Yeah,” Yalson said. “But what do we do once we get there?”
“Well…” Kraiklyn looked hard at the woman. Horza kicked her heel with his toe. Yalson glared round at the Changer while Kraiklyn spoke. “We might be able to use the port facilities — in space, that is, on the underside of Evanauth — to mount the laser. But anyway, I’m sure the Culture will be prompt, so we might even just go to sample the last days of one of the most interesting combined ports of call in the galaxy. And its last nights, I might add.” Kraiklyn looked at several of the others, and there was some laughter and a few remarks. He stopped smiling and looked at Yalson again. “So it could be quite interesting, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. All right. You’re the boss, Kraiklyn.” Yalson grinned, then put her head down. Under her breath, to Horza, she hissed, “Guess where the Damage game is?”
“Won’t this big seaship go right through the wall and wreck the Orbital anyway, before the Culture does anything?” Aviger was saying. Kraiklyn smiled condescendingly and shook his head.
“I think you’ll find the Edgewalls are up to it.”
“Ho! I hope so!” Aviger laughed.
“Well, don’t worry about it,” Kraiklyn reassured him. “Now, somebody give Wubslin a hand to run a final check on the shuttle. I’m going up to the bridge to make sure Mipp knows what to do. We’ll be setting off in about ten minutes.” Kraiklyn stepped back and into his suit, gathering it up and putting his arms into the sleeves. He fastened the main chest latches, picked up his helmet and nodded to the Company as he walked by them and up the steps out of the hangar.
“Were you trying to annoy him?” Horza asked Yalson. She turned to the Changer.
“Ah, I just wanted to give him a hint that I could see through him; he doesn’t fool me.”
Wubslin and Aviger were checking the shuttle. Lamm was fiddling with his laser. Jandraligeli stood with arms crossed, his back resting against the hangar bulkhead near the door, eyes raised to the ceiling lights, a bored expression on his face. Neisin was talking quietly to Dorolow, who saw the small man as a possible convert to the Circle of Flame.
“You reckon Evanauth is where this Damage game’s going to be?” Horza asked. He was smiling. Yalson’s face looked very small inside the big, still open neck of her suit, and very serious.
“Yes I do. That devious bastard probably invented the whole goddamn op on this Megaboat thing. He’s never told me he’d been to Vavatch before. Lying bastard.” She looked at Horza, punched him in the suit belly, making him laugh and dance back. “What are you smiling at?”
“You,” Horza laughed. “So what if he wants to go and play a game of Damage? You keep saying it’s his ship and he’s the boss and all that crap, but you won’t let the poor guy have a bit of fun.”
“So why doesn’t he admit it?” Yalson nodded sharply at Horza. “Because he doesn’t want to share any of his winnings, that’s why. The rule is we divide everything we make, sharing it out according to—”
“Well, I can see his point if that’s what it is,” Horza said reasonably. “If he wins in a Damage game it’s all his own work; nothing to do with us.”
“That’s not the point!” Yalson yelled. Her mouth was set in a tight line, her hands were on her hips; she stamped her feet.
“OK,” Horza said, grinning. “So when you bet on me to win my fight with Zallin, why didn’t you give all your winnings right back again?”
“That’s different—” Yalson said in exasperation. But she was interrupted.
“Hey, hey!” Lenipobra came bounding down the steps into the hangar as Horza was about to say something. Both he and Yalson turned to the younger man as he skipped up to them, fastening his suit gloves to the cuffs. “D-d-did you see that message earlier?” He looked excited and didn’t seem to be able to keep still; he kept rubbing his gloved hands together and shuffling his feet. “Novagrade g-gridfire! Wow! What a spectacle! I love the C-Culture! And a C-C-CAM dusting — hoo-wee!” He laughed, doubled at the waist, slapped both hands on the hangar deck, bounced up and smiled at everybody. Dorolow scratched her ears and looked puzzled. Lamm glared at the youth over the barrel of his rifle, while Yalson and Horza looked at each other, shaking their heads. Lenipobra went dancing and shadow-boxing up to Jandraligeli, who raised one eyebrow and watched the gangly young man prancing about in front of him.