Amherst's face turned scarlet. "I shall have both of you arrested and thrown into..."
"Not here you won't," Ursis growled. "Now consider carefully the choice Lieutenant Brim has given you—I would not have been so generous."
"I...I..."
"Your choice, Amherst. Quickly," Ursis said. "We shall overtake the cruiser in the next few cycles.
We cannot be busy immobilizing you during that time."
"Well.. .I..." Amherst looked imploringly at Theada. "D-Don't you want to go home?" he asked.
"Sorry, Puvis," Theada said. "We've got to at least try to pick up that spy."
"Barbousse?"
"I've sent one of the men for some rope to tie him up, Lieutenant Brim," Barbousse said, ignoring Amherst completely.
"Your choice, Lieutenant?" Brim asked.
Amherst looked around the room for support. There was none. He took a deep breath, choked back what sounded like a sob. "I-I shall remain in command, then," he whimpered, his eyes overflowing.
"Good decision," Brim said. "Go to a cabin and don't return to this deck until we tell you to.
Understand? We'll get you home as soon as we accomplish our mission."
"Heavy cruiser coming up to starboard, Wilf," Theada said as the first warning sounded from the proximity alarm. The little scout was already tossing heavily in the big warship's gravity wake.
Brim nodded. "Barbousse, let's ready that salute—the recording they gave us on Red Rock 9."
"Aye, aye, Lieutenant," the big rating said, sliding to the COMM console.
"Bastard's making sure he gets a good look, at us," Ursis commented. "He's been edging our way ever since he turned on to our course."
"I'll gladly give him the look he wants," Brim chuckled daddy. "We're legal outside—even if he wouldn't like what he'd see in here." Ahead, the big ship continued its drift to port. It was clearly visible now.
"Talk about your weird starships," Theada said. "Look at that, would you." The old cruiser was stubby and humpbacked, with a confusion of wartlike turrets protruding from its ungainly hull as if sown at random like wild seeds. Many of the larger protrusions were connected to others by great flying bridges and walkways. Four huge turrets ringed the hull a quarter of the way from the stem; each mounted two huge disruptors.
The stubby weapons reminded Brim of the ugly disruptors in Hagbut's captured fieldpieces—from the size, these would be a thousand times more powerful at their lowest setting. A squat, complex deckhouse stumbled forward from the turret ring where it terminated in an awkward, thrust-browed bridge that gave the whole ship a look of primitive stupidity. Formidably armed, though, if taken altogether, Brim thought abstractedly as he flew his little scout carefully past. But the insubstantial Drive openings aft made it obvious she would be clumsy and difficult to manage in Hyperspace. He guessed the same would prove true under antigravity generators as well. He watched Barbousse's salute expanding out from the KA'PPA: "ALL HAIL NERGOL TRIANNIC—CONQUEROR OF THE STARS" It was followed immediately by the cruiser's response: "AND RIGHTFUL RULER OF THE COSMOS—ALL HAIL!"
Brim chuckled to himself for a moment. Margot would love that! Then, suddenly they, were past, running in smooth space again, and the cruiser was receding aft, slipping back to starboard from where she had come.
"Score one for the Truculent team," he cheered. "We've passed!"
"Glad to see that one go," Theada said.
"No more than this Bear," Ursis agreed. "You saw the size of those disruptors?"
"I noticed," Brim said, grimacing. "I'll definitely avoid that ancient rustbucket—anytime I can."
A quarter metacycle before their first rendezvous, E607 was rapidly bearing down on the pickup zone with Typro now a recognizable globe that hid the stars ahead. Brim patted the little BURST section on his. COMM console. "Nothing more than a symbolic display panel and some controls," he said to Ursis.
"But we've got a lot riding on it."
"The spy has a lot more yet," the Bear growled sardonically. "I would not trade places."
"Lieutenant Brim," Barbousse interrupted unsurely, "would you look at this?"
"What's up now?" the Carescrian asked.
"Reception committee orbiting Typro, from what I can see, sir," the big rating said. "Switch one of your displays to the long—distance target scanner for the torpedo system."
"Got you," Brim said, switching the spare globe on his own console to the torpedo display. He squinted, then nearly gasped. "Universe!" he exclaimed. "They really are ready for us," he said. "Looks like they've got at least four ships orbiting there—waiting for somebody."
At that moment, the BURST gear chimmed twice. "The time window begins," Ursis observed. "We have a prompt spy."
Brim's display filled immediately: "TIME WINDOW ABORT," it read. "DANGER TO PICKUP CRAFT."
Brim nodded his head. "Guess we now know what those orbiters are," he said as he altered course slightly. "We'll still have a look at things as we pass." He shook his head bleakly. "BURST an 'aborted,'
Barbousse. Whoever that poor bastard is down there, he's got trouble right up to his ears."
As they passed Typro, the resulting confusion of challenges and authentications between E607 and the orbiting ships soon revealed there were five large patrol craft. "They're not making it easy," Brim groused while the planet receded in the distance.
"True," Ursis acknowledged with a frown. "'When rocks and crags tremble before the great storm, Nemba cubs run for joy.'"
"As they say on the Mother Planets, Nik?"
The Great Bear grinned, diamond-studded fangs reflecting the colored lights of his readouts. "You must be part Sodeskayan," he declared. "Never have I met a human who understands so much."
They spent the subsequent watch concealed close by a deserted, mined-out asteroid. Then, as the second time window opened, they were once again cautiously approaching little Typro with Barbousse's eyes glued to the long-distance target scanner. "Ships are still there, Lieutenant Brim," he reported after a time. "But now I can see six of 'em."
The BURST gear chimed again. Barbousse was at it immediately. "Same thing as last time," the Carescrian reported. "'Danger to the pickup craft.'"
Brim shook his head. "If he doesn't let us get into a little danger pretty soon, we'll never get him home."
"Probably," Ursis commented from his console, "the spy knows that as well as you. He's a brave one, all right. It must be difficult to send that signal—myself, I should want out as soon as possible, and damn the danger to the pickup crew."
"Me, too," Brim added, his mind working furiously. "Unfortunately, it is also getting xaxtdamned close to the limit of our authentication key—after which we don't move around so freely." He shook his head as they moved past the little planet, their authenticator busy answering challenges from all six patrol craft.
"BURST the spy that we'll be back in the next window," he said to Barbousse. "And tell him that we're coming no matter what."
"ACKNOWLEDGE" and "THANKS" soon appeared on Brim's BURST display. He grimaced as he cruised past two of the patrol craft—big and powerfully armed. He listened to the authentication key working in the background and thought of the trapped spy hiding helplessly on the surface below. "I'm glad I don't have that kind of work," he said to no one in particular.
Ursis nodded from across the cabin. "I, too, Wilf Ansor," said soberly. "Whoever he is, he has paid his dues in this war."
Brim got the bad news when the last window was still a quarter of a metacycle in the future.
"I count five patrol craft this time, Lieutenant Brim," Barbousse reported from the target scanner.
Brim nodded. He'd expected the patrol would still be in place—after all, the Leaguers were in home territory. They could afford a waiting game. "Action Stations!" he ordered. He was definitely going in to get the spy. He simply didn't know how—yet.