‘We got what we came for. You do the flying. I need some sleep."
Heller escorted them to the port, which the police had closed till they got the crisis in hand. His okay was necessary before any vessel could lift off.
"Cassius?" Heller said as Walters was about to board. "Do me a favor, eh? Don't hurry back."
Cassius grinned. For a moment he looked like a boy again, instead of a tired, old, old man. "Karl, if you make me apologize one more time I'll puke. All right? I owe you one. A big one."
"Okay. Okay. You didn't bring them here. Go on. Get out of here before I forget I forgot to charge you with carrying illegal weapons."
Mouse glanced over as Cassius settled into the acceleration couch beside him. Walters said, "Set a base curve for Helga's World."
Mouse began the programing. "Why there?" He was baffled. By everything. "Cassius? What happened last night?"
Cassius answered with a snore.
He slept nine hours. Mouse grew ever more impatient. Cassius seldom slept more than five, and resented that, as if it were time stolen from his alloted span.
Mouse took the ship offworld, aligned the Helga's World curve, put her into a power fly while getting up influence to go hyper.
"Keep putting on inherent," Cassius said by way of announcing his return. "On this base you lose about a thousand klick-seconds on your inherent when you drop and we may want to make a fast pass when we get there."
"Now will you tell me what happened while I was asleep?"
"We got an ID on that old shooter. From my friend Beckhart. Turned out nobody else could have filled us in. The guy was supposed to have been dead for two hundred years."
"What?"
"Beckhart's got a computer that remembers everything. When he fed it the guy's personals it dug all the way back to personnel records we captured on Prefactlas. That's where it found him. His name was Rhafu. He worked for the Norbon Family. The Norbon station was where we caught them with their fingers up their butts."
Mouse examined the idea more closely than it seemed to deserve. Cassius's attitude implied that the information was especially significant. "What's the kicker?"
"Beckhart didn't just answer the question I asked. He went looking for the meaning. He instelled us an abstract of his printouts. This Rhafu wasn't the only survivor. The Family heir, a sort of crown prince, made it through too. They managed to get off Prefactlas and somehow reclaim their Family prerogatives. Very mysterious people. Their own kind don't know any more about them than we do, but they're mucho respected and feared. Sort of the Sangaree's Sangaree. They've turned the Norbon into one of the top Sangaree Families. Their economic base is an otherwise unknown First Expansion world."
"What's the connection with us? That old man didn't try to kill us because we had the wrong color eyes. He meant it personal."
"Very personal. You'd have to have Sangaree eyes to see it, though."
"Well?"
"They'd figure a personal involvement got started the night your grandfather and I spaced in on Prefactlas. Nobody has ever quite figured out how they distinguish what's business, what's the fortunes of war, and what's personal. It's a violent and volatile culture with its own unique rules. The Norbon seem to have decided the Prefactlas raid wasn't just war."
"You don't mean they've picked us for the other half of one of those Family vendettas?"
"I do. It's the only answer that makes sense. And our burning this Rhafu will only make them madder. Don't ask me to tell you why. They don't understand us, either. They can't figure out what makes us want to destroy them."
"I'm lost, Cassius. What's the connection with Michael Dee? Or is there one? Wouldn't there have to be? To have brought the old man out?"
"There may be one. I want to think about it before I say anything. You've got a red and yellow on your comm board. You might better see who wants to get hold of us."
Mouse did so. After listening a moment, "Cassius, it's a Starfisher with a relay from Wulf and Helmut."
"Shut up and listen to the man."
In fifteen minutes they knew the worst.
"Push your influence factor to the red line," Cassius told him. "Keep putting on inherent. I want to be going like the proverbial bat out of hell when we go norm again." He remained calm and businesslike while studying the displays the computer brought up on the main astrogational screen. He fed in everything the Darkswords had given them. He plotted alternate hyper arcs for Helga's World.
"But... "
"She'll take it. More if she has to. Check the register. I need the c-relative on the boat Dee swiped."
Mouse punched it up. "Old Mister Smart, my uncle Michael. He grabbed the slowest damned ship we had. Almost, anyway. Here're a couple of trainers she can outrun."
"One break for the good guys. About time we got one. Well. Look here. We're going to get him. About an hour before he sneaks under Helga's missile umbrella. Sooner if he has to maneuver to get around your father. Start a check down on the weapons systems."
Mouse fidgeted.
"What's the matter?"
"Uh... You think there'll be any shooting?"
Cassius smiled a broad, wicked smile. "Goddamned right, boy. There's going to be beaucoup shooting. First time for you, right? You just hang on and do what I tell you. We'll be all right."
The waiting bothered Mouse. He was not afraid, much. The hours piled up, and the hours piled up, and they seemed no closer than before...
"Here we go," Cassius said, almost cheerfully. "Got your father on screen. And there's your idiot uncle, hopping around like a barefoot man in a sandbrier patch. Give your guns a burst."
The hours became minutes. Cassius kept boring in. "Ah, damn!" he swore suddenly. "Gneaus, what the hell did you have to go and do that for?"
"What?" Mouse demanded. He shed his harness and leaned over. "What did he do?"
"Sit down, shithead. It's going to get rough."
It got rougher than Mouse could imagine.
Thirty-Two: 3052 AD
My father was not a religious man. Nevertheless, he did have an unshakable faith in predestination. Till the very end he thought he was battling the invincible forces of Fate. You could sense that he expected no victory, but you never despaired. You knew that Gneaus Storm would never surrender.
—Masato Igarashi Storm
Thirty-Three: 3031 AD
The Seiner got through just after Storm left the atmosphere of Helga's World.
"He's gone? Already?" The tension he had been riding like a nightmare suddenly dissipated. He found himself emotionally limp, hanging out to dry. His right hand snaked out, secured the instel receiver.
The limpness did not last. Rage and sorrow smashed down on him. It was a crushing emotional avalanche. The feelings were so powerful that a small, stunned part of him recoiled in amazement.
There in the privacy of his ship, locked away from all human eyes, he could safely open the flood gates. He did so, venting not only emotions engendered by his failure to save Benjamin and Homer, but his responses to all the frustrations that had been building since first he had heard of Blackworld and the Shadowline. He wept, cursed, asked the gods what justice there was in a universe where a man could not control his own fate.
The universe and gods, of course, did not reply.
There was no justice in that momentary eddy in chaos. There never had been or would be. A man made his own justice if he wanted any at all.
Storm knew that. But sometimes even the most strongly anchored mind slips its cables and refuses to accept reality. Once in a while, at least, it seemed the gods or universe ought to care.
Storm vowed, "I'll get a bit of justice of my own." He had been making a lot of vows lately, he realized. Would he survive long enough to see any of them fulfilled?
The shakes were going. The tears had dried. His voice was losing its tightness. He opened instel communications again. "Starfisher? Are you there? Why are you nosing into this?" Those people did not get involved in the troubles of outsiders.