“Here,” said Heim into his suit radio. Zucconi and Lupowitz set down the ram and started the motor.. Five hundred kilos of tool steel bashed the dome wall at sixty cycles. The narcotic fog clamored with that noise. The wall smashed open. Heim leaped through, into the red sun’s light.
A dozen followed him. “He’s somewhere in this mess,” Heim said. “Scatter. We’ve got maybe three minutes before the cops arrive.”
He burst into the jungle at random. Branches snapped, vines shrank away, flowers were crushed underfoot. A shadow flitted—Cynbe! Heim plunged.
A laser flame sizzled. Heim felt the heat, saw his combat breastplate vaporizing in coruscant fire. Then he was upon the Aleriona. He wrenched the gun loose. Mustn’t close in—he’d get burned on this hot metal. Cynbe grinned with fury and whipped his tail around Heim’s ankles. Heim fell, but still Cynbe hung on. His followers arrived, seized their quarry, and frogmarched away the Intellect Master of the Garden of War. Outside, Cynbe took a breath of vapor and went limp.
I hope the biomeds are right about this stuff’s being harmless to him, Heim thought.
He ran onto the field and had no more time for thought. A couple of PCA flyers were in the sky. They stooped like hawks. Their guns pursued Heim’s crew. He saw the line of explosions stitch toward him, heard the crackle and an overhead whistle through his helmet. “Open out!” he yelled. His throat was afire. Sweat soaked his undergarments. “Let ’em see who you’re toting!”
The flyers screamed about and climbed.
They’ll try to disable my boat. If we can’t get away fast—
The ramp was ahead, hell-road steep.
A squadron appeared over Green Mountain. Heim stopped at the bottom of the ramp. His men streamed past. Now Cynbe was aboard. Now everyone was. A flyer dove at him. He heard bullets sleet along the ramp at his heels.
Over the coaming! Someone dogged the lock. Connie Girl stood on her tail and struck for the sky. Heim lay where he was for some time.
Eventually he opened his helmet and went to the bridge. Space blazed with stars, but Earth was already swallowing them again. “We’re headed back down, eh?” he asked.
“Right-o,” Penoyer answered. The strain had left him, his boyish face was one vast grin.
“Got clean away, above their ceiling and past their radar horizon before you could say fout.”
Then a long curve above atmosphere, but swiftly, racing the moment when Peace Control’s orbital detectors were alerted, and now toward the far side of the planet. It had been a smooth operation, boded well for the privateer. If they carried it the whole way through, that was.
Heim lockered his suit and got back steadiness from the routine of an intercom check with all stations. Everything was shipshape, barring some minor bullet pocks in the outer plates. When Lupowitz reported, “The prisoner’s awake, sir,” he felt no excitement, only a tidal flow of will.
“Bring him to my cabin,” he ordered. The boat crept downward through night. Timing had been important. The Russian Republic was as amiably inept about TrafCon as everything else, and you could land undetected after dark on the Siberian tundra if you were cautious. Heim felt the setdown as a slight quiver. When the engines ceased their purr, the silence grew monstrous.
Two armed men outside his cabin saluted in triumph. He went through and closed the door.
Cynbe stood near the bunk. Only his tailtip stirred, and his hair in the breeze from a ventilator. But when he recognized Heim, the beautiful face drew into a smile that was chilling to see. “Ah-h-h,” he murmured.
Heim made the formal Aleriona salute. “Imbiac, forgive me,” he said. “I am desperate.”
“Truth must that be”—it trilled in his ears—“if you think thus to rouse war.”
“No, I don’t. How could I better disgrace my side of the argument? I just need your help.”
The green eyes narrowed. “Strange is your way to ask, Captain.”
“There wasn’t any other. Listen. Matters have gotten so tense between the war and peace factions on Earth that violence is breaking out. Some days ago my daughter was stolen away. I got a message that if I didn’t switch sides, she’d be killed.”
“Grief. Yet what can I do?”
“Don’t pretend to be sorry. If I backed down, you’d have a distinct gain, so there was no point in begging your assistance. Now, no matter what I myself do, I can’t trust them to return her. I had to get a lever of my own. I bribed someone who knew where you were, recruited this gang of men, and—and now we’ll phone the head of the organized appeasement agitators.”
Cynbe’s tail switched his heels. “Let us suppose I refuse,” said the cool music.
“Then I’ll kill you,” Heim said without rancor. “I don’t know if that scares you or not. But your delegation meets Parliament in another week. They’ll be handicapped without their military expert. Nor are things likely to proceed smoothly, after such a stink as I can raise.”
“Will you not terminate my existence in every case, Captain, that I never denounce you?”
“No. Cooperate and you’ll go free. I simply want my daughter back. Why should I commit a murder that’ll have the whole planet looking for the solution? They’d be certain to find me. The general type of this vessel is sufficient clue, since I’ve no alibi for the time of the kidnapping.”
“Yet have you not said why I shall not accuse you.”
Heim shrugged. “That’d be against your own interest. Too sordid a story would come out. A father driven wild by the irresponsible Peace Militants, and so forth. I’d produce my documents from New Europe in open court. I’d testify under neoscop what you admitted when last we talked.
Oh, I’d fight dirty. Sentiment on Earth is delicately balanced. Something like my trial could well tip the scales.”
Cynbe’s eyes nictitated over. He stroked his chin with one slim hand.
“In fact,” Heim said, “your best bet is to tell PCA you were taken by an unidentified bunch who wanted to sabotage the treaty. You persuaded them this was the worst thing they could do, from their own standpoint, and they let you go. Then insist that our own authorities hush the entire affair up. They will, if you say so, and gladly. A public scandal at this juncture would be most inconvenient.” Still the Aleriona stood hooded in his own thoughts. “Cynbe,” said Heim in his softest voice, “you do not understand humans. We’re as alien to you as you are to us. So far you’ve juggled us pretty well. But throw in a new factor, and what are all your calculations worth?”
The eyes unveiled. “Upon you I see no weapon,” Cynbe crooned. “If I aid you not, how will you kill me?”
Heim flexed his fingers. “With these hands.”
Laughter belled forth. “Star Fox captain, let us seek the radiophone.”
It was late morning in Chicago. Jonas Yore’s Puritan face looked out of the screen with loathing. “What do you want, Heim?”
“You know about my girl being snatched?”
“No. I mean, I’m sorry for her if not for you, but how does it concern me? I have no information.”
“I got word the kidnappers are skizzies in the peace faction. Wait, I don’t accuse you of having any part in it. Every group has bolshes. But if you passed the word around quietly, personal calls to your entire membership list, directly or indirectly you’d get to them.”
“See here, you rotten—”
“Turn on your recorder. This is important. I want to present Delegate Cynbe ru Taren.” In spite of everything, Heim’s heart came near bursting.