That design was somewhat obsolete, now, at least anywhere near Manticoran or Havenite space. Too many Manticoran and Havenite captains had started the quiet practice of immediately executing any slavers found aboard a ship equipped for that kind of mass murder-whether the "cargo" was still alive or not. The official rules be damned. Even the occasional Solarian captain in those regions, barred from such direct and forceful action by his own government's policies, had adopted the policy of handing the crews of such ships over to the closest Manty or Havenite captain. After all, both the Star Kingdom and the Republic were treaty partners, weren't they? What happened to criminals after being duly delivered into the custody of one of the local governments was hardly the arresting captain's business, was it?
And, besides, the method of execution was such poetic justice.
As it happened, the Felicia did have the design which enabled the crew to jettison its cargo. That much was obvious to Thandi within five minutes. There could be no other explanation for the number of large cargo holds they passed through after entering the ship. Empty cargo holds, with very wide bays-and with no passageways connecting to them wide enough to move large items of cargo.
Clearly enough, Princess Ruth understood the purpose of the peculiar design. Her thin face was tight with anger.
"We'll fix that," she muttered. A moment later, moving with the sureness of an expert, she had the panel removed from the nearest instrument console and had her own mini-computer plugged into it. Ignoring Thandi's hiss of warning, Ruth's fingers started working the keyboard.
Shortly thereafter, the princess unplugged her unit. She didn't bother replacing the panel.
"Those won't work any longer. The bastards can't jettison anybody. And I disconnected the controls to the gas units, while I was at it." She glanced at Thandi's skinsuit. "The gas wouldn't bother us, of course, but if the slavers released it-"
She didn't need to finish the thought. Wincing, Thandi nodded. The gases used to drive slaves into the jettison holds were only technically "nonlethal." More precisely, they were nonlethal so long as the victim could move away into cleaner air. Trapped in compartments with no way to escape, most of the victims would die eventually. And die horribly, too, in an even worse manner than being jettisoned into space. Slavers themselves wouldn't voluntarily kill anyone that way, because they'd have to clean up the multitude of corpses-not to mention vomit and other excreta left behind. But in these circumstances, if Templeton's gang got desperate enough, they might do it as part of their suicide pact.
"Can you disconnect whatever setup they've got to blow the ship?"
Ruth shook her head. "Not from here. I'm willing to bet that they've jury-rigged their own, independent system to do the job. Most slavers aren't real big on suicide, you know, so I doubt Felicia came equipped with a scuttling charge. If Templeton's thugs did rig their own system, it's certainly a stand-alone I can't access. And even if Felicia did have one already in place, getting to it from the outside would be virtually impossible. In a number of ways, slavers are built more like warships than cargo ships. That's especially true with their electronics. The ship control, security, and environmental systems are kept separate, instead of all being connected to a central computer. It's less efficient-much less-but it also gives you a lot more in the way of safety and internal security."
One of the Amazons shook her head. "Why here? On a slaver, I mean. They don't have large crews-it'd cut into their profits. It must be awkward as hell having to operate that way."
"You're forgetting the nature of the 'cargo,' " Thandi said with a frown. "Material objects don't resist their handlers with anything more than inertia. Livestock, not much more than that. But when you're trying to haul unwilling human beings somewhere, you've got the added problem of a 'cargo' that might revolt."
The Amazon still seemed a little puzzled, and the princess smiled crookedly at her.
"You're making a common mistake. Yana, isn't it? Most people think of Manpower slaves in terms of the types which are most notorious-sex objects, or heavy labor and combat types. But the truth is that modern slavery has to fit a modern economy. Even on a hellhole like Congo, most of the labor is highly mechanized. And computerized. Sure, the slaves designed for that work have been given a minimal education, and one which carefully steers clear of training them in any of the underlying principles. Still and all…"
Ruth pursed her lips. "You've all met Web Du Havel, I think-or know who he is, at least. He's a J-line, which is Manpower's most popular, uh, 'product.' Low-level technical workers, what you might call 'sub-engineers.' " The princess nodded at the panel she'd just been working on. "You think a man like that-some of them, anyway-would have any real problem figuring out how to crack into a ship's central control unit? Sure, they'd probably set off alarms doing it-that's really where all my extra training pays off-but so what? When people are desperate, they're not going to worry about the fine points. If nothing else, once they gained access to the central computer they could probably make sure the slaver crew went to Hell with them."
Yana's frown had been deepening as Ruth talked. "Damnation, Princess. If that's how it's set up, how do we disconnect the charge without taking the bridge, first?"
"We don't," Ruth said grimly. "And now that I've seen the setup, I'm pretty sure that is how they've done it. So." She gave Thandi an uncertain look. "Can we still manage it, Lieutenant?"
The Solarian officer gazed at her for a moment, then gave her a grin. Well, a widening of teeth, anyway. It was more like a shark's grin than a human's. That was all the answer she gave. All she needed to, really.
A moment later, Thandi and Ruth were moving down yet another passage, the Amazons in their wake.
Less than five minutes after leaving the bridge, Berry found herself ushered through a heavy-and heavily locked-entry hatch. "Ushered," in the sense that Ezekiel and the slaver crewman stepped back once the hatch was unlocked and slightly opened, and urgently motioned her to pass through it. Both of them seemed very nervous, and both of them had pulsers in their hands pointed in the direction of the hatch. To all intents and purposes, they looked like men ordering a sacrificial victim into a chamber full of demons.
Seeing no alternative, Berry pulled the hatch open a bit more and stooped through the opening. She had to stoop, because the hatch was unusually low. Obviously enough, it had been specifically designed to make it impossible for more than one human being at a time to pass through it-and then, not without some difficulty.
As soon as she passed through, the hatch was slammed shut behind her. An instant later, she heard the locks closing.
But she really wasn't paying much attention to what was behind her. She was far more concerned, at the moment, with what surrounded her.
She was in a smallish compartment, not more than five meters in any dimension. Which was crowded, at the moment. Eight men and five women, all of them armed with jury-rigged bludgeons-very primitive; torn strips of clothing weighted down with something-and all of them looking as if they were ready to tear her limb from limb.
Hurriedly, she tried to think of something to say to forestall her imminent destruction. But the effort proved needless. Not more than two seconds after she entered the chamber, one of the women gasped and exclaimed: