“Really?” Tiffany felt natural curiosity starting to get the better of her.
“Sure.” Miko looked her over. “You’re cute enough to get whatever you want from guys. Blonde hair, big caring eyes, that willing smile—bet they can’t wait to get their pants down.”
“Thanks. But I try to aim a bit higher in my social life.”
“I’ll bet.” Miko stared off again. “Me, I’m a hopeless romantic. Never wanted to have some guy grunting on top of me, whenever he was in the mood. I always wanted it all. The soft caress and tender kiss. Warm embrace, giving and getting. Smooth curves sliding with each other, faster and harder when the time is right. Loving that lasts. And not just in bed.”
Tiffany shook her head. “At the moment, I’ve given up anything that doesn’t get me where I’m headed.”
“What a strange, obstinate obsession.” Miko turned to rest her head on her knees, studying Tiffany intently. “Why won’t you tell me what you’re looking for in Floreal?”
“I will if you come with me.” Tiffany meant that too.
“I’ll think about it,” Miko promised. Sensors put her down as undecided. But naturally curious.
Truth was, Tiffany wanted someone to share her troubles with, and Miko would be just about perfect, sharp, resilient, and caring. It was the sexual edge that scared her. Too bad Miko was not a man, with maybe Anton’s body. Or looking like that young Choctaw at the starport.
With nothing to do but enjoy yourself, billions of klicks went quickly. They drank rare wines from lacquer cups, and picnicked off antique porcelain from Old Earth. Internal fields supplied various different gravities—ship standard, Aesir III normal, Kikku standard, low-g recreational, or whatever you felt like putting up with that morning. Archangel worked hard to take the sting out of space travel.
Entering B system, they began burning fuel to reduce speed, matching velocities with Floreal, orbiting close to the tiny nameless red sun. Orion 3645B had always been a backwater. Now it was a nearly empty one. The only people left were those who could not get out, and the looters and wreckers preying on them.
At a hundred million klicks out, they picked up a bogie, a high boost starship dropping downsun, rapidly closing the range. Miko called it to Tiffany’s attention. Tiffany stared at the stereo imaging. “Have you tried contacting them?”
“Sure. Got a bunch of bullshit back.”
“What sort of bullshit?”
“They are rushing to render assistance. Claim they have space to take people outsystem, and want to know how many they have to accommodate. Just jerking us off. Trying to find out who is aboard.”
The notion of some random starship roaming a doomed backwater, offering priceless berths outsystem, was an insulting absurdity. The Choctaws at the starport had been more honest. Name and registration were given as the Hiryu, out of Azha system, Eta Eridani, a K-type star in the Far Eridani, 135 light years from Old Earth—sufficiently distant that there was no chance of confirming the registration within anyone’s conceivable lifetime. The ship’s spokesperson was a concerned female face and torso, so bland that she had to be synthesized. It did not take lie detection to know the starship’s crew was laughing up their sleeves. Tiffany guessed the Hiryu was dangling hope in front of her victim, just to see what had been caught. “Can we make Floreal before they match velocities?”
“Barely,” Miko decided.
It was an odd sort of chase. Both ships were slowing down, Archangel to match orbits with Floreal, and the Hiryu to match with them. The starship was catching up because it could slow down faster. Though not much faster. A gravity drive starship’s big advantage was the ability to accelerate continuously over interstellar distances. This deep in a gravity well they had to operate at normal speeds just to stay insystem.
“Bullshit them back,” Tiffany decided. “Thank them. Tell them who’s aboard—but don’t mention me being Peace Corps. Agree to rendezvous at Floreal. Ask if they have room for the Picassos too.” Miko grimaced.
“If you don’t want to, let me do it,” Tiffany offered. “I’m the diplomat. It’s not well known, but Floreal has a docking port. If we stall them off, we might be able to slip in before they know what’s happening.”
“No. I’ll do it.” Miko meant to be the pilot, for as long as it lasted.
They arrived ahead of the starship, which was in no particular hurry to run them down. Floreal was an old, old style habitat, a brown ashcan-shaped cylinder 80 klicks long and 20 klicks in diameter, rolling between the tiny ill-fated red sun and the fiery backdrop of the Orion Nebula. No superstructure or solar panels showed on her pitted surface. Belt City’s spoke and hoop construction looked incredibly modern by comparison.
“Where is this docking port?” Miko sounded skeptical. Incommunicado for ages, Floreal had long been left to her fate.
“It should be at the upsun end of the cylinder. A chance search in electronic archives on Vanir came up with the entry codes, along with the original specs for Floreal.”
“What were they doing there?”
“They were downloaded from files aboard the outward-bound survey ship Sacajawea when it called at Vanir II.”
“Why would a survey ship have obscure data on an already settled system?”
“Good question. We signaled an immediate query to the Sacajawea, but she is currently on assignment deep in the Orion Spur of the Cygnus Carina Arm. Should take about forty centuries to get an answer.”
No one had that sort of time. Miko maneuvered to put them into position to beam a tight coded signal at the docking port. Tiffany took over the computer and started signaling.
No response.
She ran through variations on the signal, emergency alternatives, then close random combinations and fanciful permutations, assuming Floreal’s programming had deteriorated over time. She might as well have been beaming to a rock.
Tiffany was still bombarding the port lock with entry codes when she felt Miko’s hand on her shoulder. “They’ve matched velocities. And are going to dock.”
After coming trillions of klicks, through hazards aplenty, Tiffany had come up short, right at the brink of where she needed to be. And she had dragged Miko down with her. She shot her an anguished look, softly saying, “I’m sorry.” Miko gave an I-was-dead-anyway shrug, paining her even more. Tiffany did not like being the last bit of bad luck Miko had to swallow.
Grapples hit the hull. Hiryu had seized hold of Archangel. There was nothing to do but see what came through the air lock. Tiffany got up, occupying herself by changing into a loose black silk gi. Stylish, comfortable, yet fit for close combat. Way more, fit than she felt. She had nothing vaguely like a weapon. Her silly little stinger was the property of some young Choctaw.
Tiffany heard the click of adhesive boots on the hull. The lock cycled. Her breathing stopped, as if some huge weight suddenly pressed on her diaphragm. This was it.
What came through was worse than expected. She had hoped for something at least half human. Instead she got a beast in a vacuum suit and body armor. The v-suit was unsealed, with the helmet thrown back, letting her see a tawny chest, a brainy fur-covered head, and two long saber-shaped canines curving down from beneath cat’s eyes. The most chilling bit of bio-engineering Tiffany had ever confronted. A SuperCat, Homo smilodon, bred centuries back from human and big-cat DNA, mainly as mercs and bodyguards, or for any task that needed inhuman ferocity and intimidation. Jutes and Choctaws were truant school kids compared to this lab-bred killer.