There was a long delay. "Lady Prudence of Gales, Colonel. And other reasons involving the man you're chasing. Not subject to discussion. Do you wish a relay?"
"Yes. Fortress of Iron."
"Ready when you are, Colonel."
"Wulf? Are you there?"
In time, "Here, Colonel."
"Recall Cassius."
"He's finished already. He's on his way. I've inserted him into the pursuit pattern."
"Good. Anything new?"
"Dee is running for Helga's World. The Seiners have given us a projected course. He'll be coming right down your throat. I'm using box and plane and I'm tightening it up to keep him headed your way. I've got Cassius on an intercept that should catch Dee just after he spots you and sheers off Helga's World. The trap should close before he recognizes it."
The trap's mouth closed slowly. Even at velocities many times that of light it took a long ledger of days before the scale of action tightened enough to warrant Storm's taking his ship off auto control. For a while he lay motionless in relation to the nearest stars, listening to the Seiner's reports. He kept influence up so he could make a quick snake-strike at Dee as he came up. Essentially, he was pretending to be a singularity.
Michael did not fall for it. He could not know who was waiting to ambush him, but he did know that there were no singularities near his daughter's world. He shifted course into the one gap apparently open to him.
And there was Cassius, playing a trick not unlike Storm's but remaining in normspace with an inherent velocity approaching that of light.
Dee's nose swung toward the tiniest of cracks in the closing walls of the trap. He attacked it with every erg his ship could give.
Storm put way on. Cassius skipped into hyper. The quiet dance, that might but likely would not end in a blaze of weaponry, began. Storm wondered if his brother were desperate enough to fight. It was not Michael's style, but he might panic, not knowing who had blocked his flight.
Maneuver. Counter-maneuver. Feint and lunge. Dee tried to fake Storm out of position for the vital few seconds he needed to whip past and streak for the safety of Helga's World.
Wulf's pursuing box closed in while Dee surrendered straight-line velocity for maneuver.
Cassius arrowed in on a spear of a course, riding the fastest ship involved. His sprint would put him across Dee's bows if Michael took too long getting past Storm. Even separated by light-hours and without direct communication, Cassius and Storm worked as a team.
Storm became satisfied that his singleship would outperform his brother's. He could commit one narrow error and still not lose his man. In dealing with Michael a second was a treasure to be hoarded against the unpredictable, but Gneaus no longer felt like playing safe. He wanted Dee, and wanted him quick. He decided to risk his advantage.
Pushing as hard as his ship would endure without breaking up under hyper stress, he darted toward where he expected Michael to be next. He fed max power to his influential field. Dee's ship had the stronger generator and would take his under control, but then it would take Michael precious minutes in norm to disentangle the fields. Cassius would arrive. He would mesh his field with the others long enough for Wulf to slam the lid on the box.
Michael recognized his intention. He sheered off. Too late. The tracks of the singleships continued to converge.
Storm pulled closer and closer, at a steadily decreasing relative velocity, till his influential sphere just brushed his brother's.
His singleship screamed. Alarms hooted. An effect that could only be described as fifth-dimensional precession took place as both ships tried to twist away in a direction that did not exist. Storm's shipboard computer calmly murmured portents of disaster.
Swift as lightning and as jagged, hairline cracks scurried across his control-room walls. Even before he heard a sound Storm knew that his engine room's stressteel frame members were snapping, that his generators were crawling free of their mounts. His hand darted toward the manual override, to cancel his approach program, but he knew it was too late. Either his drive or Michael's was badly out of synch.
Dee had won again.
This might be the death-without-resurrection, his hope no more than a chance at a clone. It was no solace that Michael might share his fate.
His hand changed course and shot toward the disaster escape release.
Crystals and fog formed before his vision went. His skin protested the nibbling of a thousand hot little needles as vacuum gulped the contents of his control room. The locked vessels had processed into norm space. Their conflicting inherent velocities were tearing them apart.
Before the darkness came there was a moment in which he wished he had been a better father and husband. And had had the sense to wear a combat suit going into a combat situation.
Thirty-Four: 2853-2880 AD
Deeth had thought he was immune to pain. Hell, the girl wasn't even Sangaree... He walked. And walked, without paying any attention to where he was going. His feet responded to some instinct for the debts he owed. They carried him to the spaceport.
It had grown during the human occupation. Prefactlas Corporation involved itself in far more shipping than ever the Sangaree had. The port was furiously busy. The Corporation was gutting the world.
He paused to watch the stevedores unloading a big Star Line freight lighter. The Corporation employed natives and former slaves because human muscle power was less expensive than imported lading machinery.
A familiar face turned his way.
"Holy Sant!" he whispered, spinning away. "It can't be." He looked again. Rhafu's weathered face seemed to swell till it occupied his whole field of vision. The breeding master had aged terribly, but Deeth did not doubt his identity for an instant.
The old man did not seem to notice one curious boy. Back-country kids came in to stare at the wondrous port all the time.
It took all Deeth's will power not to run and hug Rhafu, to seize this one scrap that had survived a devastated past.
He fled instead, his mind a riot. The possibilities!
Rhafu's very existence set off the alarm bells. Was he a human agent, either human himself or someone who had made an accommodation to the animals? Someone had betrayed Prefactlas. The perfect timing of the attack on the Norbon station reflected possession of solid inside information.
If Rhafu were guilty why was he now a laborer, mildewing on the ass of the social scale? The humans would have killed their traitor the instant he was no longer useful. Or would have rewarded him better.
Deeth locked himself into the crude shack where he and Emily lived. Where he lived. Emily was no longer a part of his poverty. He would never see her again. He wrestled with his fears and suspicions.
Someone knocked. He had few acquaintances. Police? Emily?
Expecting a blow from the hammer of fate, he opened the door.
Rhafu pushed through, seized his left wrist, glared at the tattoo still visible there. The stony hardness left his face. He slammed the door, enveloped Deeth in a ferocious hug. "Sant be praised, Sant be praised," he murmured.
Deeth wriggled free and stepped back. There were tears in the old man's eyes.
"Deeth. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw you at the pits. Thought my mind was playing tricks. I gave up years ago. Lad, what's been keeping you? Where've you been?"
Deeth babbled his own questions.
They hugged again.
The past had come home. He was Norbon w'Deeth again. He was Sangaree. He was a Head... Of a one-man Family?
"Hold it. Hold it," Rhafu said. "Let's get organized. You tell me your story, then I'll tell you mine."
"You make me green with anticipation," Deeth complained.