PIRATES, part II

PIRATES

Part 2 of 2

Christopher Stasheff

Dedicated to the memory

of David Hartwell

and his neckties

“But, Captain! How can a human choose a Khalian name?”

“In the same fashion that you and I have, Throb,” Captain Goodheart replied. “And for much the same reason—he renounces his kind. He says that we are his kind, now.”

It made sense, from Georgie’s viewpoint. He was dead to the human race, and by their own doing. Sure, only a few spiteful young men had actually thrown him out—but the Navy itself hadn’t shown much concern, surely not enough to come looking for him. As to the rest of the race, why, they scarcely knew he existed, even though most of them were already benefiting from the improved hyperspace communications link he had invented.

And the Khalians didn’t care what he looked like.

In fact, they seemed very friendly, treating him like one of their own. Which he was; he would willingly have done anything Captain Goodheart asked now, up to and including suicide. After all, he owed his life to the captain; surely it was his to call in, whenever he chose. Besides, there seemed to be neither Khalian nor human here—only pirates, together. True, he heard one or two now and then joking about “the captain’s pet human,” but Throb and the other officers were quick to punish the offender.

Georgie had never had a friend stick up for him before. The total lack of interest in athletics, though, the Khalians could not abide. They were, after all, medieval warriors, no matter what their technological skills. But Goodheart tutored Georgie himself, slowly and with immense patience and good cheer, gradually teaching him how to defend himself, then turning him over to Throb, who coached him with equal patience into learning to attack—until, after a year’s time, Georgie actually knew how to fight and was amazed to find he was physically fit. He had even learned to endure pain without flinching.

And if, between sessions, Throb stormed and ranted to the captain about what a worthless being Georgie was—why, Georgie had no need to know it. And the captain didn’t mind. He knew Georgie’s true worth—at least, to himself and his raiders. And if, in his most secret heart of hearts, he thought of Georgie as a traitor, he was quick to counter it with the charitable thought that this genius of a human was really only a poor, gullible fool.

* * *

Sales had almost had him. That slimy pirate had almost been in his grasp! He felt it as failure, of course—but he had saved the merchantman, damaged the raider, and at least proved he knew how to find Goodheart. So the admiral gave Sales a dozen ships, and Sales stationed them at the points Goodheart was most likely to raid.

Of course, the pirate never showed up—near any of Sales’s ships. He appeared in plenty of other places, gutted merchantmen and passenger liners by the score—but never where Sales expected him to be. He detected the cruisers in ambush, somehow, or maybe he had agents in the Fleet—now that they had Khalian allies, it was impossible to tell. Not that barring Weasels from the Fleet would have done any good—there had been traitors enough during the war, and Syndicate humans still didn’t look any different from Fleet humans.

Would a Syndicate agent work for Captain Goodheart?

Of course—since he was fouling up Terran-Khalian traffic. Any little bit that weakened the Fleet was in the Syndicate’s interest.

Sales considered the possibility that Goodheart might be a Syndicate agent, and decided against it. The Weasel simply had too much hatred for humans.

Then ships dropping out of hyperspace began to be boarded, light-years away from Khalia. There was either a research genius among the pirates, or the Syndicate saw a great deal of potential in Goodheart’s activities. They would’ve had to have spirited the gadget in to Goodheart by a secret agent, of course—but that wasn’t impossible.

Nor was the possibility of accident, Sales reminded himself. If the pirate had captured a ship with such a weapon aboard, he wouldn’t have hesitated to use it—or duplicate it. His value system might have been medieval, but his technicians were modern.

Sales increased the scale on his holotank exponentially; the three-AU sphere shrank to the size of a baseball. He began plotting Goodheart’s new strikes in red dots, then connecting them with very thin lines.

Gradually, a lacy red sphere grew around Khalia, about twelve light-years out.

He had to have a base, Sales knew—and it had to be inside that lacy sphere. It couldn’t be outside, or he’d have had double transit time to the ambush sites on the far side of Khalia from wherever he’d set up housekeeping—and the reports of attacks came too frequently for that.

He had to have a base—but where?

* * *

“There! It is perfect!”

Throb frowned at the image on the viewscreen. “It is bleak and pitted, Captain. What can be perfect about a huge asteroid?”

“What! Can you not see?” Goodheart spun about to Georgie. “Perhaps you, adopted one! Is not my asteroid perfect?”

“Perfect, yes, as an asteroid,” Georgie whistled. His Khalian was horribly accented, but comprehensible. It gave his shipmates much material for broad jokes—but at least he could understand the punch lines. “For a pirate’s base, it is large enough to house the warriors of the cruiser, and a dozen ships more.”

Throb and the other Khalians lifted their heads.

“Some of those pits may be tunnel mouths,” Georgie went on, “and the rest could become so. Caverns could become ammunition dumps and hydroponic gardens. Then it’s a small matter to close those mouths with walls and airlocks, and you have your base.”

“You see?” Goodheart shrilled to his crew. “You see? Even the outlander sees what you could not!”

Georgie blushed, feeling the resentment rise around him. “By your leave, Captain…”

“Anything! To one who can see so clearly—anything. What would you say, Hemoglobin?”

The crew relaxed a little, smiling, and Georgie was glad he had chosen a foolish scientist’s name—it let the Khalians feel comfortably superior, in the ways they believed really mattered. So like humans… “Good Captain, would it not be better to have a planet? A base that cannot run out of oxygen or water?”

The ship became very quiet. Georgie twitched under the weight of their stares, but held his gaze even with the captain’s.

“Why, it would be so,” Goodheart said evenly, “but how would you defend it?”

“With the ships that form your current lair, the old merchant hulks, each mounted with many cannon and set in orbit.”

“Well thought,” Goodheart purred, “but where would we find these cannon?”

“On the small ships of the Fleet that we have never bothered with.”

An appreciative whistle passed through the crew.

Goodheart grinned. “Well thought, Globin! But to take off or land from such a world requires great stores of fuel! Where shall we find it?”

Georgie hid his irritation at the blindness of people. “Our engines are fueled by hydrogen, great Captain, and water is hydrogen bonded to oxygen. We can loose it easily with small amounts of electricity. Choose a water world—with seas, to provide your hydrogen, and rivers, to turn the turbines that will make your electricity.”

The surrounding whistle increased in shrillness, and even Goodheart seemed a little shaken as he laughed and said, “He does not dream small dreams, our Globin! But where are we to find such a world?”

“In Virgo,” Globin answered, “not far from Spica.”

And he gave them the coordinates. He did not tell them that this was his own world, the one that he had gleaned from the records of many, many exploration missions, sifted in the library in the long, lonely hours of college weekends. His own world, the one around which he had built his fantasy, his dream of escape from all the sarcastic people who belittled and insulted him, from the athletes who punched him around for fun, from the beautiful and condescending girls. He gave it to them without reluctance or hesitation, for he had found his escape—but with friends.

It grew in the viewscreens, a jewel of a world, a semiprecious stone polished to an oblate spheroid, a turquoise banded with white—too small, and too mineral-poor, to have been of interest for colonization, and too far from Terra.

But close enough to Khalia, and to the route from Khalia to Target.

The ship landed, the machines sampled atmosphere and water for chemical oddities and microorganisms, and pronounced the planet safe—as the records had said it was.

“Go and frolic!” Goodheart cried. “But stay close to the ship—we know not what monsters may lurk nearby!”

The hatches opened, and the crew boiled out in a manic tide.

“Some few must stay and guard, must they not?” Goodheart glanced from screen to screen. “You and I, Globin.”

It warmed the human’s heart immensely. “Will you show me how to fight on land?”

“Haw!” Goodheart swiped at the human. “He who had no love for the things of the body! Yes, Globin, I will fight you—without claws.” His eye gleamed as he watched the screens. “See them rejoice! Thank you for my world, Globin.”

“You are welcome, Captain.” Globin would have given his hero anything.

Goodheart’s eye was still on the screen. “What would you name it, Globin?”

“Name?” Globin looked up, surprised. “Why, New Khalia, of course!”

Goodheart shook his head. “The past is closed to us, Globin, and must be forgotten. Give me a new name, for a new world!”

“Very well,” said Globin, “then Barataria, of course!”

Globin was sweating. He had always been uncomfortable among his own kind, but had never realized it so thoroughly before. He missed his friends, his Khalian pirate comrades—but the captain wanted it done, so Globin would do it.

He stepped into the little town on Target, reminding himself that he could fight now, if he had to—but no one looked twice at him.

He could scarcely believe it. He bucked his spirits up and walked on down the street into the depot, feeling as though all eyes were on him, but seeing not a single glance, no matter where he looked. Perhaps, after all, the little, funny-looking man in the gray ensemble wasn’t worth looking at.

He bought a ticket for the hover to the capital, where he checked into a hotel room, then booked passage for Terra.

“He will betray you, Captain! He is among his own kind once again! He will tell the Fleet where we lair!”

“He dares not.”

“But he may be taken! He may be given drugs!”

“Ah, Throb! Have you no confidence in our own forgers? We duplicated exactly that passport we took from a human—except in changing the name and the holo.”

“Of course,” Throb grumped, “but I have no faith in the ‘merchant’ Globin goes to meet. He may be an agent of the Fleet come to bait a trap!”

“If so, we will lose our dear Globin—but the humans will not be much the wiser, for Globin knows nothing of us but the inside of our ship and the coordinates of Barataria. That, I would begrudge—and I daresay I would truly regret Globin’s passing. But at least it would not be a Khalian whose death I mourned.”

“We will steer our ship into a trap, when we come to take the weapons the merchant has promised you,” Throb grumbled.

“Perhaps—so there will be only two pirates who go to load the consignment.” Goodheart took out the pasteboard with the human’s name on it—“Seth Adamson, Expediter.” The gall of the human, to press a business card on him in the midst of a raid! I can be of service to you, Captain. We can be of service to each other. Again, Goodheart squeezed the corner and saw the surface of the card change, displaying weapon after weapon, up to cannon and tanks, while a mouse’s voice touted their virtues. “Is there no treachery too great for these humans,” Goodheart murmured, “so long as it enriches themselves?”

“Why should that be any less true of Globin, Captain?” Throb demanded.

“Because, good Throb, we are his enrichment.” Goodheart flipped the card into the air and watched it spin slowly down.

As Globin went through the whole process—the meeting in the Terran restaurant, the discussion under the privacy screen, the haggling over price, and the listing of the order—a part of him sat aside and marveled. He would never have had the nerve to do such a thing if Captain Goodheart had not asked it. He would never have had the confidence if Captain Goodheart and his crew had not given it to him.

The freighter dropped into normal space, shed velocity, and drifted, lights blinking in the prearranged signal, waiting. Goodheart’s crew scanned the vicinity, but saw no trace of ships.

“Wait,” said Globin. “Let me try my new detector.”

Goodheart whistled with respect. “How can you detect masses in hyperspace, Globin, when we are in normal space?”

“By the interaction of interference waves between the two continua, Captain… No, so far as I can tell, there are no other ships in the area except the freighter, and us.”

Goodheart pressed a patch. “Then go, Plasma and Saline!”

The small courier shot out from the pirate ship. It docked at the great ship’s port, and the crew settled down for the long wait while the two Khalians inspected the cargo with a life-detector.

Finally, a smaller ship shot away from the freighter. Sometime later, a twinkle in the distance announced its departure from normal space.

“Terran yacht in hyperspace,” Globin announced.

Goodheart hit the com patch. “Plasma! Are you in possession of the ship?”

“I am, Captain. The merchant pronounced himself satisfied with the bonus.”

“Then guide the freighter toward the rendezvous asteroid and begin testing weapons.”

“How long until we are sure the whole ship will not blow up on us, Captain?”

“A day and a night should be enough. Enjoy your target practice.” Goodheart signed off and turned to Globin, catching him by the shoulders and shrilling with delight. “Mission accomplished, Globin! Well done!”

Whistles of acclaim pierced the air, and Globin stood with a silly smile on his face, very proud and very, very happy.

* * *

“You actually went through the records of every surplus dealer on all the human planets?”

“Computers are wonderful,” Lohengrin assured the admiral. “Of course, the records of the munitions factories’ output are submitted to us regularly—but as far as we can tell, they haven’t been doctored.”

“Very good, Commander Sales.” The admiral studied the hard copy on his desk. “Small losses in shipment, from a dozen factories…”

“And a large number of sales of personal arms, to anonymous buyers, from a hundred surplus stores.” Lohengrin nodded. “It all adds up to a very large shipment of human-made weapons.”

“Very good, Commander! And where did those weapons go?”

Sales laid the other hard copy down on the desk.

“The admiral nodded, his face grim. “Arrest Adamson.”

“We tried, sir. He disappeared.”

* * *

The whole tavern was filled with females. Throb should have been delighted to be surrounded by so many, some even beauties—and after more than a year without seeing anything feminine! But he had seen them stream out of the factory, saw the drab protective clothing they wore, and the signs of servitude sickened him.

Ri’isthin was easily the most beautiful of them all, and it should have been an almost intoxicating pleasure to share a drink with her, even if the brew had not been alcoholic. Still, he couldn’t hide his agitation.

“You are brave, to come into a place filled with bitter females,” Ri’isthin said sarcastically. “Yet I can see you are troubled by more than being so greatly outnumbered.”

Throb couldn’t hold it in any longer. “How can you labor for the conqueror! Like slaves!”

Ri’isthin winced, but shrugged with determined fatalism. “We choose to live—and so many males died in the war, so many more males than females, that we have no husbands. How else are we to find food and shelter?”

Throb took a deep breath, then took the plunge. “What is the depth of your courage?”

The first shuttle blasted the pad and settled down. The hatch opened, the gangway extruded—and the females filed down, looking around them at Barataria in wonder.

Goodheart’s crew shrilled with delight and shot out toward them.

Every crewman grabbed a female and whirled her away—but there were 180 males left unpartnered.

Not for long.

The second shuttle touched down, and the third—then the first blasted off to go back for its second load.

Goodheart stood watching them, controlling the raging tide of his own hormones with difficulty. “You chose my world well, Globin—and Throb has brought us life for it.”

“It is wonderful to see them happy,” Globin murmured, eyes on the men.

Goodheart frowned at the new note in his henchman’s voice, and looked down at him. “Ah, poor lonely Globin! Shall we find you a female, too?”

But Globin shook his head with granite resolve. “The only ones who would want me, Captain, I would not choose. Even if they wished marriage, it would not be me they’d want; they would only accept me because they could do no better. No, let me take joy in my shipmates’ pleasure.”

That was when Goodheart began to think of Globin as a being in his own right.

“Are you certain there is no ship near, in hyperspace, Globin?”

“I am sure, Captain. My detector shows nothing.”

“But it must be bait for a trap!” Goodheart paced the deck, agitated. “What else could it be? A passenger liner, dropped into normal space with its distress beacon screaming—why would the humans make themselves such easy prey?”

“And then wave a flag to show us where they are?” Throb echoed.

Globin said, “It could be a genuine emergency…”

“If so, we shall pick them clean!” Goodheart turned with decision. “And if it is a trap, we shall pick their bones! But if the snare is set, I will trip it alone! Prepare my pinnace.”

“No, Captain!”

“You must not risk yourself!”

“We would be lost without you!”

“I volunteer!”

“And I!”

The pinnace shot away moments later, staffed with three valiant crewmen. Throb and the other officers eyed the captain as though they were ready to pounce.

The pinnace docked. Three spacesuited figures drifted into the airlock.

“Leucocyte?” Goodheart called. “Are you there?”

“The lock is cycling, Captain.” Leuco’s helmet-camera showed them the interior hatch. The green patch lit, and Leuco’s paw came out to haul the hatch open. “We are entering.” The edges of the hatch swam out of sight…

The screen was filled with Khalian faces.

Goodheart stood stunned. So did Leuco.

Then, as from a distance, Goodheart heard Leuco say, “Why have warriors come cold to the void?”

“We wish to enlist with Captain Goodheart,” one of the Khalians answered.

Then, suddenly, the air was filled with keening.

“Do not leave us to labor in the conqueror’s shadow!”

“Do not condemn us to fight for our enemies!”

“No clan will battle the humans! Give me a leader!”

“Take me!”

“Do not turn us away!”

“Volunteers,” Goodheart murmured, awed.

Globin nodded, eyes glowing. “I know how they feel.”

He looked up at Goodheart, beaming. “You have made a new beginning for us all, Captain.”

* * *

“A whole shipful of Khalians?”

“Yes, sir.” Sales’s face, beyond the shadow of the desk lamp, was filled with disgust. “Don’t ask me why the shipping company was willing to lease them a liner.”

“Or why Emigration let them all get on the same ship? They’re free beings, Commander, not slaves—we can’t stop them without very good reason.” The admiral scowled heavily at the list on the screen. “If they want to go, we can’t stop them!”

“Even if they’re going to kill humans?!?”

The admiral shrugged impatiently. “Prove they’re going to join Goodheart—ahead of time. But with this ship lost, I don’t think anyone’s going to be interested in a charter for a band of Khalians again. You can tell the spaceports to watch the small ships, though, Commander.”

Sales did—and they managed to prevent several yachts with “joyriding” Khalians from leaving port. The joyriders turned out to have an amazing amount of weaponry with them—but the warriors had not surrendered their personal arms, and they claimed they needed to be able to defend themselves in case of attack by pirates.

That they needed the weapons for the pirates, Sales didn’t doubt.

But he couldn’t prevent Khalians from booking passage on liners with human passengers. And if the pirates attacked, and some humans lived, but the Khalians failed to come back, who could be surprised?

Sales wondered how many Khalians were working only to save up enough money for another round trip on a liner, hoping against hope to be pirated.

“He calls himself Globin.” Sales held up the candid shot for the admiral to see. It showed Globin at a newscreen in a spaceport; he seemed to be staring right up into the camera set next to the screen.

“Ugly enough.” The admiral frowned at the picture. “He makes weapons deals for Goodheart?”

“We’re pretty sure he’s the one who made the three weapons buys, yes. But this time, he ordered metal.”

“Metal?” The admiral looked up, frowning.

“Yes, sir. A superfreighter of manganese, aluminum, nickel, iron, and a whole list of more exotic supplies.”

“That’s industrial bulk. Just how big is this Goodheart growing, anyway?”

”He’s got to have a base, sir,” Sales said, “a mighty big base.”

“Big enough to set up his own weapons factories! Shut him down, Sales—shut him down!” He tossed the holo back. “And if this Goblin ever sets foot on a human planet again, arrest him! I want him tied, tried, and fried.”

“Yes, sir, Admiral.” Sales didn’t correct his mistake—he used it. And fed it to the rumor mills, and the public opinionators.

Within the year, there wasn’t a human on Target or Khalia who didn’t believe the psychotic Goblin was the worst villain the human race had ever spawned.

* * *

“Why don’t you ever attack Syndicate ships?” an aggrieved businessman wailed.

“Why do you think I do not?” Goodheart returned. “They are very profitable game, I assure you. Your valuables, please.”

* * *

Every few days, now, word came of another raid by a ship that grappled and cut through the side of a merchantman, and sometimes even a destroyer, disgorging a horde of shrilling Khalians whose captain wore a brightly colored necktie, each one more garish than the last. His crew cut down anybody who resisted, and weren’t terribly picky about innocent bystanders. Their last loot was always the men’s neckties.

But they always left at least a few alive and set them adrift in a lifeboat—almost as though the pirate was taunting Sales, making sure he knew that Goodheart was still striking with impunity.

Either that, or Goodheart was very much aware of the value of publicity.

But one route had more ambushes than any other—the hyperspace curve between Khalia and Target. There was no way of telling where the attack would occur, within the twelve-light-year approach to Khalia, so Sales couldn’t post sentry ships to cover every AU of it. But he could call for volunteers, order civilian suits for them, and start taking round trips on a ship that went from Khalia to Target and back. A very special ship. It looked ordinary, of course, like any other passenger ship—but Sales had ordered some very unique modifications.

The section of hull fell inward, and the Khalians leaped in among the passengers, guns leveled and ready.

“So, ladies and gentlemen.” Captain Goodheart shouldered his way in among his crewmen. “I am delighted to be your guest, no matter how brief my stay. Come, come! Have you no greater hospitality than that? Will you give no refreshment, no entertainment? Ah, but you must offer me something! Your wallets and jewelry, as a beginning.” He grinned down at the big, beefy man near him. “Come, will you not rise to greet your…” Then his eyes widened as he recognized the face he had seen in each of several news articles, that he remembered seeing last above this same civilian ensemble. “Sales!”

“Now!” Sales roared, a gun appearing in his hand. “He knows!”

Laser bolts seared the air. Weasels shrieked—then humans screamed. The stench of burning fur and flesh rose—for each “civilian” had concealed a pistol beside him in the seat, and the Khalians among them were caught in a murderous crossfire.

But they were quick, those Weasels. Even as barrels leveled, they dodged aside. A few were caught by bolts aimed at others, but most skipped back, wounded and furious, to the hole in the side.

“Back!” Goodheart shrilled. “So you do not smite your own! Then fight, as your fathers did at Target!”

The pirates pulled back in a knot around their hatch—but grenades hurled from among the Terrans. Weasels shot into the crowd, but their beams scorched upholstery, though here and there a man or woman cried out. One bomb came whirling back toward the humans, but two others blew. Pirates keened, and one cried, “They have disabled the lock!”

“The outer lock only!” Goodheart cried. “Back, back inside, so that we may close the inner hatch!”

The pirates disappeared like water down a drain—but Sales leaped forward, pulling a crowbar from under his jacket, jamming it in the hatch, whistling in execrable Khalian, “I hear you, Goodheart!”

“Then hear your death!” The big Khalian burst out, and the hatch slammed aside, knocking Sales back against the lock wall. He recovered—to see Goodheart towering before him, eyes glaring, claws out. Before the humans could shoot, he had grappled Sales to him.

The big human stomped on the Khalian’s foot.

Goodheart shrilled in anger and ran his claws into Sales’s arm. Then he pulled back with a howl, a slash of red across his abdomen, as Sales shrilled, “I have a claw, too!” Blood dripped from the slender dagger he’d pulled from his sleeve.

Goodheart sprang, claws reaching for Sales’s throat. Sales stumbled and fell, but drove a fist into the pirate’s belly, shoved stiffened fingers into the central nerve plexus above it, and brought a fist up to drive the big Khalian back. Goodheart stumbled away—and a fuming sphere hurtled from the opened lock. Goodheart dove back through it and the door clashed shut as the human ship filled with tear gas.

Coughing and gagging, Sales scrabbled at the fallen section of hull. One of his fighters realized what he was doing and leaped to join him. Eyes streaming, they raised the steel plate by feel alone…

Then the ship rocked, and Sales knew Goodheart’s ship had kicked off from his. Too late, the tear gas streamed out into the vacuum of space—but the damage was done; his fighters rolled in the aisles, eyes streaming. He and his helper threw their weight against the plate, holding it back as vacuum tore at it, trying to ease it up level with the side of the ship…

Then the door to the bridge burst open, and a crewman in a spacesuit hopped in, picking his way among bodies, lugging a tool chest. He dropped it by the hole and yanked out a wad of metallic cloth, shaking out into a huge, ten-foot square. He draped it between the alloy circle and the hole in the hull, pressing the adhesive edges against the metal all around it, stamping it against the floor. “Let it go now, sir!”

Sales and the agent eased the metal circle against the bellying tarp. The spacesuited man yanked another out of the tool kit, unfolded it, and pressed it into place over the huge disk. Then he pulled out a small welder and began to bond the edges of the patch to the metal of the hull.

Air pressure began to return.

Sales turned, and felt fingers dabbing at his eyes. Blessed coolness flowed from them, and he blinked away the last of the tears, managing to see a mottled image of his soldiers, pulling themselves to their feet, as the navigator and captain went on among them, smearing an antidote balm on their eyes.

The ship shuddered.

Sales lurched down the aisle, careful to avoid bumping soldiers, into the control room, staring at the viewscreen.

The image of the Khalian ship was just beginning to glitter. An explosion rocked its tail; then it was gone.

“How many times did you hit him?” Sales grated.

“Only that last, sir,” the gunner answered. “His fire-control picked off all my other torpedoes. I got a couple of laser burns in, but I don’t know if they did more than scar his armor.”

The man in the spacesuit loomed in the door. “Mission accomplished, sir.”

Sales turned with a grin. “We kept him busy long enough, huh?”

“Yes, sir,” the man confirmed. “I bonded the telltale to his ship’s skin.”

Sales nodded and turned away. “Into hyperspace, Captain.”

* * *

“That confounded human!” Goodheart snarled. He winced as the medic lowered him down to the acceleration couch.

“Sir, you really should be in your own berth…”

“This is my berth, Doctor! I must see how my ship fares, how she moves! What damage was there, Throb?”

“His cannon deeply scored us in two places, Captain, but did not pierce. We will need to replace those plates at home. And his final torpedo removed a control surface; we will need great care if we seek to maneuver in atmosphere. In all other respects, we are whole.”

“That, at least, is good fortune.” Goodheart lay back and let himself relax for a few moments. He had actually thought his end had come when he realized Sales had ripped him open—the pain had been almost unbearable, until his rage had hidden it. “That treacherous human,” he growled again. “To mask a war party as a passenger liner! To camouflage weapons turrets as control blisters! It was skillfully done, so elegantly done! A worthy adversary, worthy!”

“If he had been any more worthy, we would have been dead,” Throb returned, miffed. For his part, he was glad Globin wasn’t aboard on this trip—the crew might have blamed it on him, for no other reason than that he was human.

“There is mass behind us,” the sensor op reported.

Throb and Goodheart were both still.

Then the captain snapped, “How much mass?”

“Enough for a ship, Captain—a cruiser.”

“It is Sales!” Goodheart snapped. “He has pursued me, he will hound me to my doom—or his!”

“But how?” Throb cried. “How can he track us through hyperspace?”

“It is enough to know that he does it! Senses, does he gain?”

“No, Captain. He holds his distance, at a million kilometers. He must not know our detectors have expanded range.”

“Holds his distance?” Throb frowned. “Why would he follow, instead of seeking to overhaul?”

“Because he wishes to trail us to Barataria!” Goodheart’s teeth showed in a grin. “Then he would flee and return with a fleet! No, we will lead him away, far away! Helm, set course away from Target, away from Khalia—away from any settled territory that we know!”

“But where shall we go, Captain?”

“Galactic Northeast, above the plain of the ecliptic by thirty degrees! There is nothing there, nothing! Let him follow us to nowhere! Then we shall lead him too near a star and let him be sucked in to fry! Northeast by thirty, Helm!”

“Even so, Captain.” The helm set his course, trying to smother his own doubts.

They cruised on through the void of a space measured in alien dimensions, lit by streaks of light that were segments of the lives of stars, to an almost-uniform grayness. It was as though they flew through fog, with here and there the lights of a passing city.

Then, suddenly, the sensor op called out, “Ship approaching on a nearly parallel vector, sir!”

“Sales?” Goodheart spun about. “Is he no longer behind? Has he realized our gambit?”

“It is not his signature, sir.” The sensor op pointed at the screen. “The wave form is typical of the reflected shape of a Syndicate merchantman.”

“Ah-h-h-h.” Goodheart turned to the screen, feeling the pain of his humiliation diminish. “If we have lost one prey, we have found another! Lay our course parallel to theirs, Helm! We will surprise him when he breaks out!”

Onward they fled, with Sales only an impulse behind, a minor irritation. All eyes fastened now on the merchantman; warriors checked their pistols, and the gunner checked his magazines.

“As ever, Captain?” Throb asked. “Wait until they break out into normal space, then overhaul and grapple them?”

“Even so,” Goodheart answered. “Senses, what of Sales?”

“He is lost, sir,” the sensor op reported. “I think he has fallen behind, beyond my range.”

“Then he shall not disturb us while we feed. Throb, sound battle stations!”

They fled on in near silence for an hour, a day, thirty hours. The tension stretched thin, among crew who slept in their battle stations, staving off hunger with hard rations and sips of water.

Then, suddenly, the wave form that showed the merchantman began to shimmer.

“He shifts!” the sensor op called.

“Shift with him!” Goodheart snapped. “Helm, now!”

The ship bucked and seemed to twist—a transition come too suddenly, with no time to prepare. Goodheart thrust away dizziness and focused on the screen. The merchantman lay square in the screen, and the scale showed he was only fifty kilometers distant.

Goodheart keyed the intercom. “Apologies for so rude a breakout—but yonder lies our prey! Action, imminently!” He released the patch. “Senses, expand scale! Let us see our field of battle!”

The merchantman shrank in the screen as the view increased…

And the limb of a disk crept in at the edge.

“Expand by ten!” Goodheart snapped, and the disk was suddenly complete, a planet glowing across the full spectrum of visible radiation.

“What globe is that?” Throb breathed into the sudden hush.

“His destination!” Goodheart crowed. “We have found a Syndicate world! Come, pluck this fowl that lies before us, and let a few escape to bear the tale! Let the merchant traitors tremble to know that we flay their hides so close to home! Seize me that ship!” Then caution nudged his mind. “Com op, send a message torp. Let Barataria know what we have found!”

Irritated, the communications operator slapped switches and trilled a brief message into the transmitter.

Even as he did, the helm op laid course and accelerated, and the pirate ship darted toward the merchantman.

Then, suddenly, the screen was filled with a dozen streaks of light, swarming in at the edges, two swelling into the forms of Syndicate destroyers.

“They keep close watch!” Goodheart shrieked. “Torpedoes away! Rake them with cannon!”

The pirate ship spat fire; its progeny swarmed away toward the destroyers.

But a blister opened in the side of the merchantman, and flame gouted from a huge cannon. The screen filled with fire, and Goodheart had just time enough to realize the irony of his prey turning on him, before the luminescence caught him up, and he passed into the excruciating light of death with the knowledge that the Khalian clan leaders had been right, after all, and the humans of the Fleet had not been his enemies.

* * *

“He’s gone, sir!”

“Break out!” Sales snapped. He settled back into his acceleration couch, savoring the revenge of knowing that it was Goodheart’s own invention that had doomed him—that Sales’s own spies had brought back word of Goblin’s hyperspace mass detector. Just knowing that the thing existed, and who had invented it, had been enough—his own engineers had checked the records of Desrick’s work, had found the concepts he’d been working with, and had duplicated his invention. Then they had gone on to transform the detector into a tracer.

They broke out within the range of that same tracer; Goodheart’s ship had been just on the fringe. They had followed, hopefully out of his range.

Could Barataria really be so far from all habitation?

Perhaps. What better protection, than being beyond consideration?

The moment of dizziness passed, and Sales scanned the big screen eagerly, looking for the pirate’s silhouette. He saw the rippling red circle of the detector’s signal first…

Then saw the great disk looming over all.

And the darts of light that emerged into the forms of Syndicate destroyers.

“They’re trying to fry my pirate!” Sales roared. “Blast ’em, Fire Control! Punch them out of space!”

“Torpedoes away,” the chief gunner returned.

“Captain, get in there and fry those lice!”

“Aye,” the captain answered, lips stretched thin in a grin. “Full acceleration!”

Two G’s kicked them in the pants and stayed there.

Just then, fire erupted out of the merchantman, a huge spreading blossom that wrapped about the Khalian pirate, enveloping it, converting it into a ball of spreading luminescence.

“Those scum!” Sales shouted. “Those thieves, assassins! They can’t kill my pirate and get away with it! Captain, burn ’em! A merchant ship that shoots is no longer immune!”

“Aye, sir,” the captain grunted over the weight of acceleration. The light ball filled the screen, then swam up to the upper left corner as the converted liner dove around it. The merchantman swelled in the screen, but the helm op swung around the expanding flower, too.

Two smaller blossoms erupted at the heads of the streaks of light that were destroyers.

“Two out,” the gunner chanted. “Port cannon raking two more—belly cannon raking three…”

Light exploded all about them.

Pain, unbearable, filled Sales’s whole being—then passed; and, in the moment of consciousness left to him as a part of that luminescence, Sales, too, realized that he had been chasing the wrong enemy.

THE END