“This is Evanauth port police. All right, you son of a bitch, just keep on that heading and slow right down. Evanauth port police to rogue craft: halt on that heading. A—”
Horza pulled on the controls, taking the CAT on a huge accelerating arc up over the stern of the GSV, flashing past the outside of the kilometre-square exit he had been heading for earlier. Wubslin, moaning now, bumped around the inside of the bridge as the CAT lifted its nose to head straight up, towards the maze of abandoned docks and gantries that was Evanauth port. As it went it turned, still twisting slightly from the spin it had picked up from the vortex of air bursting from the General bay. Horza let it twist, steadying it only as they approached the top of the loop, the port facilities coming up fast then sliding underneath as the craft levelled out.
“Rogue ship! This is your last warning!” the speakers blared. “Stop now or we’ll blow you out of the sky! God, he’s heading for—” The transmission cut off. Horza grinned to himself. He was indeed heading for the gap between the underside of the port and the top of the GSV. The Clear Air Turbulence flashed through spaces between traveltube connections, elevator shafts, graving dock gantries, transit areas, arriving shuttle craft and crane towers. Horza guided the ship through the maze with the fusion motors still blazing at maximum boost, throwing the small craft through the few hundred metres of crowded space between the Orbital and the General Systems Vehicle. The rear radar pinged, picking up following echoes.
Two towers, hanging under the Orbital like upside-down sky-scrapers, between which Horza was aiming the CAT, suddenly blossomed with light, scattering wreckage. Horza cringed in his seat as he corkscrewed the ship into the space between the two clouds of debris.
“Those were across the bows,” crackled the speakers again. “The next ones will be straight up your ass, boy racer.” The CAT shot out over the dull grey plain of slanting material that was the start of the Ends’ nose. Horza turned the CAT over and dived down, following the slope of the vast craft’s bows. The rear radar signal stopped briefly, then reappeared.
He flipped the ship over again. Wubslin, his arms and legs waving weakly, was dumped onto the CAT’s bridge ceiling and stuck there like a fly while Horza did a section of an outside loop.
The ship was racing, powering away from the Orbital port area and the big GSV, heading for space. Horza remembered about Balveda’s gear, and quickly reached over to the console, closing the vactube circuit from there. A screen showed that all the vactubes had been rotated. The rear screen showed something flame inside the twin plumes of plasma fire. The rear radar pinged insistently.
“Goodbye, stupid!” the voice in the headrest speakers said. Horza threw the ship to one side.
The rear screen went white, then black. The main screen pulsated with colours and broken lines. The speakers in Horza’s helmet, as well as the speakers set into the seat, howled. Every instrument on the console flashed and wavered.
Horza thought for a second they had been hit, but the motors were still blasting, the main screen was starting to clear, and the other instruments were recovering, too. The radiation meters were bleeping and flashing. The rear screen stayed blank. A damage monitor indicated that the sensors had been knocked out by a very strong pulse of radiation.
Horza started to realise what had happened when the rear radar didn’t start pinging again after it recovered. He threw back his head and laughed.
There had indeed been a bomb in Balveda’s kitbag. Whether it had gone off because it was caught in the CAT’s plasma exhaust or because somebody — whoever had been trying to keep the ship on board the GSV in the first place — had detonated it remotely the instant the fleeing craft was far enough away from the Ends not to cause too much damage, Horza didn’t know. Whatever; the explosion seemed to have caught the pursuing police vessels.
Laughing uproariously, Horza angled the CAT further away from the great circle of brilliantly lit Orbital, heading straight out towards the stars and readying the warp engines to take over from the plasma motors. Wubslin, back on the deck, one leg caught on the arm of his own chair, moaned distantly.
“Mother,” he said. “Mother, say it’s only a dream…”
Horza laughed louder.
“You lunatic,” breathed Yalson, shaking her head. Her eyes were wide. “That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen you do. You’re mad, Kraiklyn. I’m leaving. I resign as of now… Shit! I wish I’d gone with Jandraligeli, to Ghalssel… You can just drop me off first place we get to.”
Horza sat down wearily in the seat at the head of the mess-room table. Yalson was at the far end, under the screen, which was switched into the bridge main screen. The CAT was proceeding under full warp, two hours out on its journey from Vavatch. There had been no further pursuit following the destruction of the police craft, and now the CAT was gradually coming round to the course Horza had set, into the war zone, towards the edge of the Glittercliff, towards Schar’s World.
Dorolow and Aviger were sitting, plainly still shaken, to one side of Yalson. The woman and the elderly man were both staring at Horza as though he was pointing a gun at them. Their mouths were open, their eyes were glazed. On the other side of Yalson the slack form of Perosteck Balveda was leaning forward, head down, her body pulling against the restraining straps of the seat.
The mess room was chaotic. The CAT hadn’t been readied for violent manoeuvring, and nothing had been stowed away. Plates and containers, a couple of shoes, a glove, some half-unravelled tapes and spools and various other bits and pieces now lay strewn about the floor of the mess. Yalson had been hit by something, and a small trickle of blood had dried on her forehead. Horza hadn’t let anybody move, apart from brief visits to the heads, for the last two hours; he’d told everybody to stay where they were over the ship PA while the CAT headed away from Vavatch on a twisting, erratic course. He had kept the plasma motors and laser warm and ready, but no further pursuit came. Now he reckoned they were safe and far enough away to warp straight.
He had left Wubslin on the bridge, nursing the battered and abused systems of the Clear Air Turbulence as best he could. The engineer had apologised for grabbing at the controls and had become very subdued, not meeting Horza’s eyes but tidying up one or two bits of loose debris on the bridge and stuffing some of the loose wires back under the console. Horza told Wubslin he had nearly killed them all, but on the other hand so had he, so they would forget it this time; they’d escaped intact. Wubslin nodded and said he didn’t know how; he couldn’t believe the ship was virtually undamaged. Wubslin wasn’t undamaged; he had bruises everywhere.
“I’m afraid,” Horza said to Yalson once he had sat down and put his feet up, “our first port of call is rather bleak and underpopulated. I’m not sure you’ll want to be dropped off there.”
Yalson put the heavy stun pistol down onto the table surface. “And just where the hell are we going? What’s going on, Kraiklyn? What was all that craziness back on the GSV? What’s she doing here? Why is the Culture involved?” Yalson nodded at Balveda during this speech, and Horza kept looking at the unconscious Culture agent when Yalson stopped, waiting for an answer. Aviger and Dorolow were looking at him expectantly, too.