Except that Peter Kolb didn’t want to. Peter Kolb and four other boys, actually, but it was Peter who was doing the talking.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he insisted. “Our term will be over by the time you get there. We should wait.”
“For what?” Bascal asked calmly. “For them to come and arrest us?”
“For them to come.”
“Peter, the gates are down. If the authorities left today—which they may very well have done—even the fastest rescue ships would take nearly a week to get here. And the fastest ships are small, more like ambulances than troop carriers. Would they waste their ertial cruisers on us? That would take two weeks.”
“Ertial?”
“Yeah, ertial. Inertially shielded. I thought you were smart, boyo. They put a collapsium cap on the bow, and the black holes inside it deflect the vacuum energy which causes inertia. You can accelerate as fast as you want without feeling it. But it’s expensive, right? There aren’t many ships equipped with it—especially large ones. So if they send a fusion boat—which is what they’ve probably done—then it’s eight weeks or more, possibly sixteen.”
Peter crossed his arms. “They’re not leaving you out here for sixteen weeks, Bas. They’re not.”
“Look, we’re leaving. Get used to it.”
“I’m not leaving,” Peter said. He gestured behind him. “James and Raoul aren’t leaving. Khen isn’t.”
Khen shook his head to emphasize the point, while James and Raoul just looked hangdog, unhappy at defying their pilinisi. Bertram, whom Peter hadn’t seen fit to mention, looked blank, as if the question didn’t interest him and he just happened to be standing there. But that couldn’t be right, because Bertram and sailing were practically synonymous. He even had a fucking reentry vehicle tattooed on his foot—now there was a high-maintenance way to travel. What did it mean, if Bertram had seen the fetula math—had tacitly approved it, by failing to object— and yet was backing out at the last minute?
“Bert,” Conrad said, glaring pointedly. “What’s this about?”
Bertram shrugged. “I just don’t want to.” He was a large-framed kid, not fat or force-grown but still vaguely solid, as if he were carved from wood. He’d probably cultivated the look, thinking it was dashing. Or his parents had.
“Afraid your family will disapprove?” Bascal sneered, in that way of his.
“No. That I will. This is getting out of hand.”
“Out of hand, yes,” Bascal agreed, nodding. “You grasp the essence. Even now, the authorities probably have no clue what we’re up to.” He made a sudden, explosive gesture, slapping a fist into an open palm. “Bam! The launch will shock them, and if we pipe light around the cabin and keep the sail turned edge-on to the Queendom—to Sol and the major planets—we should be fairly invisible. We’ll simply disappear, and they’ll wonder where we’ve gone, and why.”
The five of them stood there, and now Khen and Raoul were crossing their arms as well. Bertram was cool, barely there. James just looked uncomfortable.
“And why have we done it?” Peter asked.
Bascal scowled for a moment, balling his fists, but then the tension suddenly went out of him, and he smiled. “This isn’t a pissing match, kaume’a. If you want to stay, be my guest. I’m just a figurehead—technically speaking I can’t give legal orders, much less illegal ones. I can’t override your better judgment. But stay out of our way, hmm? Because the rest of us are going.”
“Um, that may not be wise,” Conrad felt compelled to point out.
Wordlessly, Bascal grabbed him by the meat of the elbow—hard, so it hurt—and dragged him to a stand of trees a few meters away for a private conference.
“What.”
Conrad shook free. “We’ll be using up several tons of lake water to make hydrogen. I’m not sure how much will be left in the lake when we’re done. We’ll also dump a lot of oxygen into the atmosphere, and then burn it out again when the bag ignites. The simulation shows a big shockwave, around the whole planette, and then heavy rain. I mean heavy, and probably hot. There’ll be no place to hide.”
“So?”
“So, they could be badly hurt. We’d be leaving them on a ruined planette, with no food supply.”
Bascal shrugged. “They’ll be fine. Rescue is on the way.” “And if they aren’t fine?”
The prince’s eyes glittered coolly. “That’s what backups are for.”
Conrad was aghast. Risking your own neck was one thing, but risking someone else’s without permission ... They were children, fundamentally. Children whose play-time had gotten too rough. “That’s not your decision to make, Bas. That’s murder.”
“Murder five, negligent denial of memory,” Bascal said. “A misdemeanor.”
Conrad shook his head. “Uh-uh. This is—what do you call it?—premeditated. You can’t lie to the Constabulary; they’ll know it wasn’t negligence.”
“Only,” Bascal said, with rising anger, “because you’ve just told me all this.” He turned toward the Palace Guard that dogged along two or three meters behind him at all times, and snapped officiously, “You there, guard: put a cone of silence on this individual, Conrad Mursk. We’ve heard enough from him for a while. I want nothing audible. Also prevent him from writing messages, or gesturing elaborately.”
“What—” Conrad shouted, but even as the word was forming, he felt the air around him beginning to thicken, to crawl up the pathway of his voice and into his throat, silencing all. The robot was facing him with its blank metal face, training a speaker on him, focusing sound waves. Sympathetic vibration: it observed him, predicted the quivering of his vocal cords, and sent out a canceling wave. The silencer effect.
He tried again: what, WHAT ARE YOU DOING! But it was like a two-man trampoline bounce, when your partner stole your energy and went soaring higher and higher into the air, leaving you glued to the fabric no matter how hard you jumped.
It was like being smothered. Conrad began to hyper-ventilate, breathing in and out and in and out, much too fast. He knew the process didn’t actually interfere with his breathing, but tell that to his muscles, his lungs, his throat, which was already getting hoarse and yet could produce nothing more than a faint squeak or click. The robot advanced, taking up a position immediately beside him. Conrad shrank away, but of course the robot followed right along.
Bascal watched him with great interest. “Feels weird? I’ll bet it does. Sorry it has to be this way, boyo.” He studied Conrad for several seconds, not looking sorry, and when he finally spoke his voice was impatient. “Fuck, man, just breathe. It’s not hurting you. I’ll take it off as soon as we seal the hatches. I just don’t want you blowing our ride over ... what, a guilty conscience? I’ve liberated you from the possibility of action. You can’t affect anything. The guilt is all mine.”
“What’s going on?” Peter called out, from beyond the trees. He was coming in here. Behind him, Ng’s crew was dragging the electrolysis hardware along the Holy Fuckway, up toward the docks.
Bascal gave him a cheerful thumbs-up. “Nothing, just a discussion.”
Peter wasn’t buying that. “What’s wrong with Conrad?”
“Got something in his throat, I think. He’s breathing, though, so he must be okay.”
Conrad glared with a feeling beyond anger. This wasn’t a prank, or even a cruel humiliation. This was invasive, like a rape, except really it was a murder, and Conrad was the accessory. He put a level hand up across his neck, and would have drawn it sideways in a “you’re dead” gesture, except that the robot—with bullet-quick movements— caught his forearm in a cool and painless grip, and eased it gently but firmly back down toward his side.