Back | Next
Contents

CHAPTER TEN

The shift into real-space seemed almost easy.

Maybe the more you do this the easier it gets, Peter thought. Then he looked around at the too thin, too pale faces on the bridge. Maybe I'd better not say that out loud. Someone might throw up yet. 

He had his screen do a global scan of the area. But there was nothing to see, nothing but distant stars, that is. At least on visual. Raeder switched his screen and gave a slow whistle. Wow! he thought. You don't see that every day. 

Before them were no less than three jump points side by side.

Their energy fields roiled in glowing colors the computer had chosen. The patterns those colors made were almost painful to look at—light seemed to bend at strange angles that the eyes wanted to reject. It took him real effort to keep watching. Across the three jump points the computer showed electric blue tracks, representing ships' neutrino signals, running everywhere between them.

Raeder knew that they weren't looking at human traffic. A cluster of jump points like this one would be famous if it belonged to the Commonwealth. He'd been taught in the Academy that the juxtaposition of more than two jump points was possible, but merely—the word of the month—theoretical.

So this is definitely not ours. Most likely it's Fibian. It could belong to some heretofore unknown alien species. But Raeder hoped not. My dance card is already too full for comfort. So he'd go with the easy and obvious. It was Fibian. Peter folded his hands and tapped his two index fingers on his upper lip. I feel like I'm playing a shell game here and we're the pea. Round and round we go and where we end up . . . Unfortunately this game was rigged, since the Fibs would be waiting with daggers drawn wherever that happened to be.

"Let's just brush by each one of these jump points," Peter said to the helmsman. "Let our tracks get lost in the general noise. Then we'll pick one of them at random and dive through."

Not that it would make much difference in the long run. I'm just feeling ornery enough that inconveniencing the clowns following us is going to amuse me. 

"Ms. Lurhman," he said, "I'm going to allow you to choose our route. Surprise me."

"Looks like our pursuers are going to make that choice for us, sir," Lurhman said. "Something's coming through behind us."

* * *

Huntmaster Shh-Feth endured the jump back to normal space without allowing it to interfere with his examination of the information before him. The emissions of the prey ship indicated a vast consumption of fuel. It should only be necessary to keep them on the run until they ran out of antihydrogen and then they would have to surrender.

That, at least, will please Lady Deshes, he thought.

Little else about this mission would. Shh-Feth winced at the memory of blundering into the territory of the sub-queen, Lady Sysek; unannounced—and obviously in pursuit of Commonwealth prey. Questions . . . would be asked. Even now Lady Sysek might be asking them.

Why return home? he asked himself. Why not engage in battle with the prey and perhaps die an easy death? 

Why? Because his lady had issued an order and everything from his culture to his genes felt the compulsion to obey. Despite the undoubted outcome for himself, and perhaps even his crew.

No! he thought. Deshes is strange—wicked, even. He shivered deliciously as he thought of the rumors about his lady. But she is not a fool. She will not dispose of a trained crew for no better reason than pique. Besides, Mesoo, the queen's second, would have her head for such waste.

But his own life was certainly forfeit. Therefore, I must do my last duty as perfectly as I can. For the next time he saw his lady might be as food.

"Huntmaster?" the steersman said, his voice quavering with trepidation.

Shh-Feth looked at him, and disliked the color of his crewman. The dull red of his scales had turned almost brown.

"You may speak," Shh-Feth commanded him.

"The prey has diverted, Huntmaster. They run towards the Three Fledrook."

The huntmaster lurched up from his couch, then slowly sank down again. His own scales were the same dull brown as his underling's from the shock of such disastrous news.

"At all costs," he said slowly, "they must be captured or destroyed."

Failure to do so would be an offense to the queen herself, and undoubted death for all of them . . . perhaps even for Lady Deshes.

* * *

They were on their way through jumpspace to . . . somewhere. Ashly Lurhman had told him that there was no sign of an exit for the next thirty-six hours at least.

At this point, the longer the better, Raeder thought.

He had made his way to engineering to have a little one on one with Augie Skinner, the engineering officer. As he walked, the commander looked around the unfamiliar territory with approval. Engineering was perfectly shipshape, the people alert and busy. But then, this was the Invincible; he'd expected no less.

How quickly we become spoiled, Raeder thought with a rueful smile. As the old saying goes, one day on the bridge and you're drunk with power. Two days and you stop realizing you're a powerful drunk. 

"Mr. Skinner," he said as he came up behind that worthy. "I wonder if I might trouble you for a word."

Skinner turned from the screen he'd been leaning over, an expression of extreme concentration on his face. For a moment he seemed almost puzzled. Slowly the clouds cleared as he mentally shifted gears.

"Sir!" the engineer said at last, straightening up. "How can I help you?" He leaned closer to Raeder. "Would have come to you, Commander."

"Frankly, Mr. Skinner, I was feeling restless. And I've never been down here before. I was on the flight deck, working with the Speeds."

Raeder looked around with an approving air. Then he turned back to find Skinner looking at him, and he blushed and grinned.

"Well," Raeder said, "everyone is treating me differently. I guess it's only natural that I start acting . . . acting like I'm channeling Captain Knott."

Skinner's lips lifted slightly in what would be a grin in someone else. "Thought I recognized something familiar there."

"Okay," Peter said, "let's start over. I came down to talk to you about the engines. Thought maybe you could show me what you're doing."

The engineer nodded and with a jerk of his head he led the commander towards the engine room. They slipped into the special coveralls that would shed any loose particles that might be clinging to them. Anywhere that antihydrogen might be in use an effort was made to keep stray particles out. If something as small as a skin cell came into contact with the stuff the explosion would be formidable.

Raeder shifted uncomfortably. The suit he was wearing was a little short in the body for him; if he straightened up, he might well be singing soprano until they got him to a regeneration tank.

Just a very quick inspection, he promised himself. At least the feet are big enough. The two officers then moved through a series of specially designed rooms that burnt off, then washed, then blew off anything that might still cling to them.

Skinner led the way into a complex of conduits and massive, self-contained engines, their exteriors boxy and blank except for screens on their surfaces that showed flow patterns, heat, fuel consumption, and so on. The fusion engines were quiet, cooling down from their brief use in real-space. Just now the transit engines were engaged and their soft hum pervaded the massive room.

There were indications everywhere of the hit they'd taken. One of the walls had temporary bulkheads pressed in place, bubbly lesions marking where metal and plastic had melted in the blast. Beside the breach one of the transit engines was down completely. Very likely it would remain so, given that its shielding was mostly gone. It was a miracle that it hadn't exploded and taken the ship with it.

Fortunately the superior engineering that had gone into the Invincible had once again showed its quality during the emergency. The automatic shutdown had worked perfectly, reversing the flow of antihydrogen already in the engine and storing it in its safe.

The other damaged engine was in permanent overdrive. Raeder could see where they'd fitted a feed shunt to the partially melted conduit. The worst of it here was that the control baffle had been destroyed, thus antihydrogen roared through the engine full throttle, so to speak, and out into the carrier's wake.

"There's nothing salvageable left of seven at all," the commander commented.

Skinner shook his head. "Gonna need a whole new engine," he said. "Modular unit. Simple enough in a shipyard, although they'd have to take hull plating off. Even if we could fix seven we'd have to shut down the engines to do repairs. As for eight, we just haven't had time for anything more than the patch job she's running on now."

"If we just shut it down . . ." Raeder began.

Skinner shook his head again.

"M'not sure we could get out of jump with six engines, sir."

The commander raised his brows.

"Theory is that you need three engines worth of power to get into, through and out of jump. We can do it with one engine down, theoretically we could do it with two out. But no one's ever tested that."

"What if we stopped?" Raeder asked. "Just shut down, then repaired eight while we're drifting. Couldn't we just start up again and continue our journey? We'd be safe from attack here in jump."

"Shut the engines down completely?" Skinner said. Raeder nodded. The engineer scowled and rubbed the back of his neck. "Don't know. M'not sure we could get enough power up to get back out."

"Theoretically," Peter said.

"Theoretically," Skinner agreed. He looked at his wounded engine with worry in his eyes. "Don't think it would make any difference now, anyway, sir, given how much fuel we've consumed so far. Maybe we should leave this theory untested."

Peter grimaced, then tried to rub his face with both hands, only to have them stopped by his faceplate. Now I see why Captain Knott rubs his neck when he's worried, Raeder thought. He took a deep breath. The man's right, he admitted. Somehow, getting out of jump and fighting seemed to favor them more than testing an obscure theory. Despite the luck we've been having with that lately. 

"Do we have enough fuel to get us out of jump?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," Skinner said. "Would've told you if we hadn't, sir."

Peter thought he looked a little pained. I guess I would too if someone came down to Main Deck and reminded me to fuel the Speeds. 

"Um . . . I suppose you've adjusted the fuel consumption on the other engines to compensate for eight's massive appetite?"

The engineer looked around them before he answered.

"They're not running at the same high level of consumption, sir. Have to take their baffles offline for 'em to do that. All the operating transit engines need to be running at pretty much the same rate." Skinner looked thoughtful. "Guess it's a design flaw they'll need to work on."

"Mmm," Peter agreed. Jeeze, I'd never realized what an optimist Augie was. Here we are running out of fuel, running towards and from an angry, well-armed, well-fueled enemy, and he's thinking of making a complaint to the manufacturers.

"Would you like to take advantage of Chief Casey?" Raeder offered.

A look came over Skinner's face and Peter suddenly remembered that Augie and Casey frequently played poker together. As Peter himself had once or twice. Yeah, I guess if someone came along with a straight line like that I'd get a funny look on my face, too. 

"I mean . . ." he began.

"I know, Sir." Skinner waved a hand to forestall further explanation. His face looked mildly pleasant, so Raeder knew that inside he must be howling with laughter.

"Talented as Paddy is, Sir," Skinner gave a one shouldered shrug, "there's nothing he could do here until the engines are down." He looked around them, his eyes slightly unfocused as he listened to his engines. "When there'd still be the problem of all the antihydrogen already used up."

Peter nodded. "Well, off the top of my head I can't think of anything else to do. I guess we'll just have to take our chances."

"We've been doing all right so far," Skinner said.

There he goes again. I must look pretty hopeless if Augie Skinner is trying to cheer me up. In all the time Peter had known the engineering officer he'd only seen the man break down and smile twice.

"That's true," Raeder said. "We are doing all right." And to his own surprise, he felt better for saying it.

* * *

Ticknor made another adjustment and tried his translation device again. The Fibian on the screen ignored him. It appeared to be building itself a web. The sight made the linguist's throat tighten, but he persevered. Eventually though he just stopped talking and watched.

"What do you think you're going to do?" he mumbled sarcastically. "Catch flies?"

The translation device murmured and bleated and at last the Fibian's head came up. The alien said something, waving its pedipalps and clicking its mandibles as its chelicerae subtly changed positions.

"Foolish . . . stupid . . . food-prey . . . leather back," the translator spit out. "I cannot . . . rest . . ." The remainder was untranslatable.

Ticknor sat back with a gasp. The translation device worked, sort of. Perhaps my tone of voice will reach him. 

"We mean you no harm," he said.

The translation device bleated once. The Fibian ignored him.

Ticknor rubbed his face then snorted. My tone of voice. As if it were a dog. Hey! He had a sudden revelation as he watched the alien. With a flurry of tapping he called up the recording of the Fibian and listened carefully. The creature's voice was somewhat high-pitched with a warble to it. The linguist's eyes widened. But without much variation in inflection! It's delivery was fairly monotone. Thus the movements of its hands . . . I think those are hands, and mouthparts.

In fact . . . He ran the recording through very slowly. The Fibian's whole body had adopted a stance that seemed, even to a non-Fibian, to speak of contempt and loathing.

Body language! he thought. The subtleties of body language are very important to them. Of course they were important in human interaction, too. But to most people they were invisible; perceived and acted upon, but unconsciously. He suspected that to the Fibians they were a much more obvious part of any conversation. They add the inflections that are missing from the spoken word. And he had it on record!

Unfortunately we have very little use for insulting language. The commander was sure to remind him of that.

The linguist attempted to get the Fibian's attention once more, but the alien continued to ignore him, working relentlessly on its web. Eventually it was finished, for which Ticknor was grateful. The sight of its posterior waving around like that was disquieting. The Fibian settled itself into the center of its construct and froze.

I've got to get it to talk, Sirgay thought desperately. Without a larger sample of words to work from we'll have nothing when we need the translator. Like now, for instance.

He leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. He'd been watching that bug for hours now and had only one, rather obnoxious, remark. Ticknor sat forward and began to play a recording of Mozart. The spiders at home seemed to like it. Or so he'd read.

The Fibian sat frozen in its web. Silent.

I wonder why it hasn't killed itself. I was under the impression that they did that sort of thing. Or was that the Mollies?

Of course it still might commit suicide. Fibians were supposed to prefer their food live, weren't they? Well it wouldn't find that here. They didn't even have lab rats. So all their captive had to do was refuse to eat whatever they came up with and it would die soon enough. Sirgay considered that. I don't think they'd even try to give it anything intravenously. For one thing they had no real idea how its circulatory system worked. For another, and more importantly, they wouldn't dare to breach its shell.

Ticknor shuddered as he imagined the crew trying to force-feed the thing. It would be a battle royal.

Maybe that's a way to approach it, he thought.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

The Fibian sat unmoving in its web.

I hate the way it doesn't blink. Perhaps it was performing some sort of buggy zen thing wherein it would just quietly will itself to death. That would be a lot less messy for everybody. But, dammit! he didn't want the thing to die.

"Do you want to live?" he asked.

Its chelicerae moved very slightly.

I'm going to assume that's a defiant sneer. If I were a captive warrior I'd like to think I'd sneer at my captors. 

"Water?" Ticknor offered.

He hit a key and water flowed from a spigot on the wall. The linguist watched his subject as the liquid flowed into a basin.

At first there was no reaction; the Fibian stared forward just as it had been doing since settling in. Then, Ticknor would have sworn he saw a quiver shake the creature.

He'd forced himself to read about Terran spiders, which the Fibians closely resembled, and now remembered that many of them preferred a moist environment and were easily dehydrated.

With a tap of his keys he slowed the flow of water to a trickle and watched the creature. Its mouthparts moved. He replayed the last few seconds of the recording of the Fibian that was constantly running. They most definitely moved.

"The water is pure," he said. "Uncontaminated, no drugs, safe."

The translator was silent, but Ticknor hoped that one of these words would reach their prisoner. I guess at some level I'm still pushing for that tone of voice thing. 

But the Fibian held firm.

Ticknor considered, then tapped a few more keys, raising the humidity in the Fibian's cell.

"Is that more comfortable?" he asked.

He felt a strange sense of pity for the captive and raised the humidity again, and again, until the air in the cell was visible from the vapor. As he watched the Fibian's chelicerae worked. Tightening the focus of one of his cameras he saw that the Fib was drinking the dew that had condensed on its shell.

Maybe this could be a first step, he thought.

Ticknor watched the creature. It angled its head so that drops flowed down the diamond-shaped face to where it was gathered by its mouthparts. It drank for a long time. Then went back to its inscrutable stillness.

"Now that you have taken sustenance from us perhaps you would be willing to talk to me."

The translator spoke a few words and the Fibian jerked as though he'd been touched with a live cattle prod. It lifted its head and seemed to stare directly into the screen before it.

It spoke, slowly, as though it wanted him to understand. After a moment the translator said, " . . . gave me nothing. I gathered . . . myself."

"There would have been nothing to gather had I not increased the humidity in your cell," Ticknor said.

The Fibian continued to stare silently at the screen, but its whole body quivered.

"All I want is to learn your language!" Ticknor said. "To speak, to communicate, to talk!"

"Talk," the Fib said flatly. It cocked its head to the side in a quizzical manner.

"Just talk," Sirgay agreed.

The Fibian spoke again, still with that inquiring cast to its body. The translator finally spat out, "Not betray?"

"No!" the linguist said, leaning forward eagerly. "Not betray. Just talk." He waited a moment. The Fibian remained motionless. Finally Ticknor said, "You have accepted sustenance from us. But all we want is to talk."

The Fibian settled back again. It spoke and gestured, and then went still.

The translator said only, "Think."

"I will leave you in peace, then," the linguist said and darkened the Fibian's screen.

He could still see it, of course. In order for it to be kept from killing itself a twenty-four-hour watch was in progress. So its privacy was already hopelessly compromised. Which might not mean a thing to it, Sirgay thought, somewhat defensively. And which also meant that it would be foolish not to watch it, in case it did something revealing and important.

It sat in its web and stared at nothing.

My translation device works! Ticknor thought giddily. If the Fibian agrees to talk to me we'll soon be able to hold real conversations with them. God, I'm good! 

Ticknor busied himself with watching the recordings of the Fibian's brief exchanges with him and making copious notes about the creature's body and hand positions. It greatly helped the linguist to be so involved with watching parts of the creature. It prevented him from having to endure the hideous impact of the whole.

Two hours later he looked up at the live screen. The Fibian had not moved.

Maybe he's waiting for me to get in touch with him? Well, of course he was! As far as the Fibian knew no one was watching him. Therefore why waste energy trying to communicate.

Ticknor brightened the creature's screen and returned its audio.

"Have you come to a decision?" he asked.

"Will talk," the Fibian said.

 

Back | Next
Contents
Framed