He was impatient for the long ride back to be over. Not even the gradual lightening of his body as they eased into low grav served to curb his impatience.
At last, though, he reached the end of the journey, and he bounded aboard the Queen. He found Jellico waiting, with Rip Shannon. Ya was still asleep, then.
He handed the printout to the captain, and the chip to Shannon, who dropped it into the converter Ya had rigged. A spool of quantumtape popped out, which Rip inserted into the comp.
Within seconds the screen showed pretty much what Dane had already read on the printout.
There was one difference.
When they reached the end, Rip pointed at the screen and said, "Unless
I’m totally wrong, what this means is that there are listings for the Ariadne, but they are protected behind heavily coded fire walls."
"Will Nunku’s ferret break through?"
Rip’s dark eyes were considering. "Tang says Nunku is, in her way, a master technician. I expect that, given time, her ferret will break the entire system."
"Given time," the captain repeated.
"Right," Rip said soberly. "These codes here, and here, are reporting having crossed telltale lines."
"Telltales," Dane said. "That means someone knows we’re in the system. Though apparently they don’t know where, or what we were after, or we’d have been caught by now."
"Right," Rip said again.
Rael Cofort ducked behind a serrated piece of some kind of equipment, peering through a cog hole.
She heard the faint hiss of static, followed by a voice distorted in the way sound is always distorted when amplified through a helmet com. The language was Shver, so the only word she was sure of was "intruder."
The Monitors sped by, the air they stirred smelling faintly of whatever fuel they burned in their gauntlet and ankle jets.
She waited, watching Tooe, who perched motionless behind a huge automated scooping mechanism. Tooe’s head was cocked at an uncomfortable angle, her crest flat. Presently the faintest whistle came echoing back, a low, flat note.
Tooe’s crest snapped up at a triumphant angle. "Safe!" she whispered. "Now we go."
And she catapulted herself from her perch and ricocheted from the jumble of abandoned farming tools until she had built up speed, then launched through a dark hole. Rael couldn’t see what was beyond it, but she launched herself after as hard as she could, her heart hammering in
her chest.
The lighting was extremely dim, but Rael got the impression they were crossing a vast space, which left them very vulnerable. She couldn’t see, but she knew there were beings who could—and who liked humans only as prey.
She gripped her sleeprod tightly in her left hand, and used her right for navigation as once again Tooe bounced at odd angles down another complicated transition area.
There were no more Monitors—or Spinner habitues. Guided by the whistles, Tooe brought Rael without further incident to the appointed meeting place. She’d hoped that a few of the other denizens of the area might come if she offered free medical care in trade for data.
What awaited her in the weird chamber designated a neutral area by the Spinner people made her stop in amazement.
Perched, lying, clinging, sitting, or curled up was a crowd so large Rael could not count them. No two heads were oriented in the same direction, nor were any of the furnishings— up was entirely a matter of personal choice. And since there were lighting fixtures everywhere, it was impossible to see anything clearly. Monstrous shadows clung to odd corners; elsewhere details washed out in a blaze of light. And the smells! Even her medical training hadn’t prepared her for the odor of many beings of radically different genetic backgrounds, in an environment that made washing difficult at best, and even fatal if carelessly approached.
Rael fought dizziness while she looked around, moving her head with painstaking slowness, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t impose any sense of order on the scene.
So don't try, she thought.
Slowly her vertigo left her; the falling sensation diminished, and she was able to assess her prospective patients. Now she was glad she’d brought the large pack; reflecting that she’d be traveling in null grav, which meant no weight, she’d hauled a good selection of medical supplies, intending to leave them with Nunku for future use. Now, she realized, she would probably use them up and still have people waiting.
She wished Tau was with her, as Tooe started talking in the local patois. Next time, if there was a next time, she’d have to bring him.
As Tooe described the conditions that she and Rael had agreed on earlier, Rael slowly unpacked her kit and set up a kind of clinic. Medicine in null grav, and for races not common to any of her medical books—this was going to be one for a paper, she thought, as the first person approached.
He was Terran, so he didn’t need a translator. His age could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty, she realized, looking at the gaunt face and sparse gray hair. Horrible purple blaster burns disfigured a good portion of the left side of his body. He came close, then eyed her, plainly hesitant to speak.
"You understood the terms?" she said gently. "I am not an authority, and have no permission from the Monitors or anyone else but my captain to be here. I don’t want your real name or any other details you don’t want to give. All I want to know is how you came to be here."
"I’ll tell you my name," he growled in a raspy voice that sounded painful to her ears. "Maybe someday I’ll get justice— or at least some answers. I’m Kellam Akortu, and I served aboard the Carthaginia from boy to man, and then on Lucky Lucy for nigh on thirty years. Free Traders, Doctor, like yourself." Rael realized the tattered garments the poor old man was wearing so proudly were the remains of a brown tunic and trousers. " Lucky Lucy had a run of bad luck there, back maybe ten, twelve years ago Standard. Old lanes runnin’ out of goods, big Companies gobbling up the new stuff. Three auctions we went to, we couldn’t even afford Class D planets. So Cap’n Aki says, we’re goin’ out to new frontiers, out here in Kanddoyd territory, where they are friendly with humans, and might think our stuff worth something."
"Here, just stretch out this way," Rael murmured. "I need to use the scanner to determine the best way to help you. Please, keep talking."
The man eased himself out flat before her; it was evident that even in free fall he moved bent and twisted to accommodate badly healed burns.
"Well, the cap’n was right. We got onto a hot thing. Planet the Shver had left, due to radiation on the surface. Kanddoyds went underground, found minerals galore. Used our mining tools, and we were going to split
the profits. Kanddoyds radioed ahead to Exchange, and we went into hyper together, came out together—and the Kandder ship suddenly goes boom!" He gently snapped his fingers. "We all saw it on our screens. Thought it was an engine goin’ supercrit or something, their tech being different from ours. But before we could do anything, Cap’n yelled at our navigator to take evasive action, and for crew to stand by in the life pods."
Akortu shook his head slowly. "I was steward, so my station was nearest the pods. I was the only one who got in one before someone commenced firing. Or if I wasn’t, I was the only pod got away—though I took a hit." He touched his burned side. "Zoomed off, pod sending SOS signal, and it was a Shver ship took me in. Long range, they got. Big cutter, maybe scared off the pirates or whoever. Anyway, they brought me here, put me in the lazarette, but Trade authorities wouldn’t believe my story, said I’d sabotaged my ship, and there I was, no ID, no cred—nothing. Well, with that talk o’ sabotage, I could see what was comin’, and when I was supposed to be asleep, I snuck out and hid out up here. Better than what seemed ahead. What’s that?"