Envoy spoke. “Captain, you carry human passengers frozen in three cargo modules. Release these modules.”
The world went gray.
I began to breath deep and hard, to hyper-oxygenate, because I dared not faint. Captain Preiss' hands hadn't moved. That was brave, but it wouldn't save anyone. The elder Van Zilds buried their faces in each other's shoulders. The children were horrified and fascinated. They watched everything. Once I caught them looking at their parents in utter contempt.
Like them, I had been half enjoying the situation.
This would have been my last interstellar flight. Chance had me riding not as frozen cargo, but as a passenger, aware and entertained.
Flying the ship would have been more fun, of course.
Quickpony had suggested joining our cabins, as we were the obvious unpaired pair. I showed Quickpony videos displayed by the circuitry in my ring. Our lockstep ceremony. Jenna/Jeena just a year old. Sharrol/Milcenta not yet pregnant again; I should have updated while I could. We are lockstepped, see, here is our ring. Quickpony admired and dropped the subject.
And that left what for entertainment?
Kzinti hijackers!
I'd treated it like a game until Stealthy-Mating claimed my family. Bound into my couch by a crash web, I let my hand rest on the release while I considered what weapons I might have at hand.
Lips drawn back, fangs showing, Envoy's speech was turning mushy. “Examine the Covenants, Captain Preiss. They were never altered. We take only hostages. They will be returned unharmed when our needs are satisfied. Compensation will be paid for every cost incurred.”
“What crime do you claim against Fly-By-Night?” Quickpony asked.
“His ancestor committed treason against his officers and the Patriarch. Penalties hold against his blood line forever. We may claim his life, but we will not. We value his blood line.”
“Has Fly-By-Night committed a crime?”
“False identity. Purchase of a Jotok without entitlement. Trivia.” Dumb and happy Mart Graynor wasn't the type to carry weapons aboard a spacecraft. The recorded Covenant of 2505 might be the only weapon I had. I let it play in one ear. The old diplomatic language was murky… Here it was. Hostages are to be returned in health if all conditions met, conditions not to be altered… costs to be assessed in time of peace at earliest…
Was I supposed to bet lives on this?
Heidi asked, “Do you eat human meat?”
Packer and the hologram both turned to the girl. Envoy said, “Hostages. I have said. The Covenants say. Kitten, we consider human meat to be… whasht-meery… unsafe. Captain Preiss, the modules we want are all addressed to Outbound on Home, yes? We will deliver them. Else we would face all the navies of human space.”
Preiss said, “I have no such confidence.”
Packer kicked down from the dome. He set his huge hands on the girl's waist and looked into her face. He still hadn't spoken.
Nicolaus screamed and leapt. As he came at the armored Kzin, Packer reached out and wrapped both children against his armored chest. They looked up through the bubble helmet into a Kzin's smile.
Nicolaus bared his teeth.
Envoy said, “Pause, Packer! Captain Preiss, think! Without gravity generators you must still fall around Turnpoint Star and into flat space. Hyperdrive will take you to the edge of Home system. Call for help to tow you the rest of the way. What other path have we? We might smash your hyperdrive and hyperwave and leave you to die here, silenced, but your absence at Home will set the law seeking us.
“This is the better risk, to violate no law unless we must. We take hostages. You must not call your authorities until you arrive near Home. We will transport our prisoner, then deliver your passengers.”
Packer's arms were full of children: hampered. Preiss and Quickpony were on a hair trigger. I was unarmed, but if they moved, I would.
“Wait,” Envoy said. Preiss still hadn't moved. “You carry stock from Shasht? Sea life?”
“Yes.”
“I must speak with my leader. Lightspeed gap is two minutes each way. Do nothing threatening.”
We heard Envoy yowling into his communicator. Then nothing.
My pocket computer dinged.
Everybody twitched, yeeped or looked around. Heidi floated to the rim of my booth and listened over my shoulder.
Sea lions around the Earth's poles live in large communities built around one alpha male, many females and their pups, and several beta males that live around the edges of the herd. When the alpha male is otherwise occupied, an exile may rush in and mate hurriedly with a female and escape. Several species of Earth's mammals have adapted such a breeding strategy, as have life forms on Kzin and even many Kzinti clans. Biologists, particularly reproductive biologists, call them sneaky-fuckers.
I said, “Maybe there's a more polite term for the journals. Anyway, good name for a spy ship. Pleasemadam, seek Longest War plus Kzinti plus piracy, run it.” We waited.
When Hans Van Zild couldn't stand the silence any more, he said, “Heidi, Nicolaus, I'm sorry. We should have let you grow up.”
“Hans!”
“Yes, Hilde, there was all the time in the world. Hilde, there's never time. Never a way to know.”
Envoy spoke. “Release one of the modules for Outbound Enterprises and two addressed to Neptune's Empire. The passengers will be returned. Neptune's Empire will be recompensed for their stock.”
Fish?
Captain Preiss's fingertips danced. Three cargo modules slowly rose out of the rim. I felt utterly helpless.
Packer left the children floating. He pushed Fly-By-Night's balloon toward the airlock.
I said, “Wait.”
The armored Kzin turned. I squinted against the glare of his weapon. “We do not permit slavery aboard Odysseus,” I said. “Odysseus belongs to the Human Space Trade Alliance. The Jotok stays.”
“Who are you? Where derives your authority?” Envoy demanded.
“Martin Wallace Graynor. No authority, but the law—”
“Fly-By-Night purchased a Jotok and holds him as property. We hold Fly-By-Night as property. Local law crawls before interspecies covenants. The Jotok comes. Are you concerned for the well-being of the Jotok?”
I said, “Yes.”
“You shall observe if he is mistreated. Enter a vacuum refuge now.” I caught Quickpony's horror. She spun around to search her screen display of the Covenants for some way to stop this. Packer pulled Fly-By-Night toward the airlock. He wasn't waiting.
Neither did I. I launched myself gently toward the refuge that held the Jotok. It would not have occurred to me to hug the only available little girl before I disappeared into the Nursery Nebula. I launched, Heidi launched, and she was in my path, arms spread, bawling. I hugged her, let our momentum turn us, whispered something reassuring and let go. She drifted toward a wall, I toward the Jotok's bubble.
She'd put something bulky in my zip pocket.
I crawled through the collar into the Jotok's vacuum refuge and zipped the lips closed.
Packer pushed Fly-By-Night into the airlock, closed it, cycled it. His armored companion on the hull pulled the bubble into space. Packer came back for us and cycled us through.
Two bubbles floated outside Odysseus, slowly rotating, slowly diverging. Packer was still in Odysseus.
The boat jerked into motion. We watched as it maneuvered above one of the brick-shaped cargo modules attached to Odysseus. A pressure-armored Kzin stood below, guiding.
Nobody was coming after us.
The Jotok asked, “Martin, was that sane? What were you thinking?” I said, “Pleasemadam, seek interspecies diplomacy plus Kzinti plus Longest War. Run it. Paradoxical, I was thinking of a rescue. I tried to bust you loose. You know more about Fly-By-Night than I could ever learn. I need what you can tell me.”
“You have no authority to question us,” the Jotok said, “unless you hold ARM authority.”