Warhorse

Chapter 24

“As executive officer,” Ferrol said, working hard to keep his voice calm and formal, “one of my jobs is to inform the captain whenever I believe his course of action to be ill-advised or detrimental to the ship, the crew, or the best interests of the Cordonale. Therefore—”

“You’d like to know why we’re still sitting out here?” Roman interrupted mildly.

“Waiting for a task force that’s ten days overdue on a two-day trip?”

Ferrol clenched his teeth. “Yes, sir, I do,” he said firmly. The captain had evaded this meeting for two whole days now, and Ferrol was damned if Roman was going to undercut his arguments with that agreeable/civilized act of his. “Particularly when our delay prevents the Starforce from receiving information vital to the security of the Cordonale. Standing orders on that—”

“I take it, then, that you don’t think there could still be survivors?”

Ferrol locked eyes with him. “Do you?” he asked bluntly.

Roman’s expression didn’t change. “There’s always a chance,” he pointed out calmly. “A damaged ship able to make a short Mitsuushi hop could be a few lighthours out from 9862 making repairs. How could we go off and abandon them?”

“We could send a ship back to wait for them,” Ferrol told him. “Or drop our report and records at Solomon and then come back ourselves.”

Roman’s eyebrows went up. “And how would we do that? As soon as we reach the Cordonale, Rrin-saa and the Tampies will be taking Sleipnir back home.”

Ferrol snorted. “And that’s what this is really all about, isn’t it? You’re mad at the Starforce for their little verbal sleight of hand; and in return you’re going to make them sweat a little.”

Roman regarded him thoughtfully. “Tell me something, Commander. Back in the

9862 system, just before the second shark appeared, you said the Tampies’ anger over being lied to was nothing more than emotional manipulation. Do you really believe that?”

Ferrol glared; but the reflexive answer caught in his throat. He had believed it at the time, certainly—it fit all too well with the standard Tampy pattern of shifting blame and guilt wherever possible. But now, with ten days of extra reflection behind him, the whole situation had muddied considerably. It still seemed slightly incredible to him that the Admiralty might have deliberately set up their shark hunt in such a way as to bring Amity down along the way… and yet, he couldn’t shake from his mind that final, self-satisfied expression on the Senator’s face. The expression, and the veiled warning that the Amity project would soon be ending…

And as matters stood now, the Senate could lay the blame for Amity’s cancellation squarely on the Tampies’ shoulders. And most of the Cordonale would buy it.

“I think there was manipulation going on somewhere,” he conceded reluctantly.

“I’m not sure anymore which end of it the Tampies were on.”

He braced himself for the inevitable sly smile or lift of eyebrows; to his intense relief Roman passed up the obvious comments on Ferrol’s change of attitude. “All right,” the captain said instead. “Let’s assume, then, at least for the moment, that Rrin-saa’s reaction was a true indication of how deeply he and the other Tampies felt about being along on the shark hunt. We already know how strongly they feel these things—their giving up of Quentin showed that much.”

Or else, Ferrol thought sourly, it showed they’d realized such a deep and early trauma would make the calf useless, anyway. “Fine,” he said aloud. “Let’s assume that. So what’s your point?”

Roman’s face remained calm… but abruptly Ferrol noticed the hardness lying beneath the surface. “My point,” the captain said quietly, “is that all of that was on the record, accessible to anyone who wanted to scuttle Amity. I think the verbal sleight of hand, as you put it, was done deliberately, and for that purpose.”

Ferrol took a careful breath. “There is, of course, no way to prove it.”

“I know. I was thinking more along the lines of offering the Tampies some sort of compensation.”

Ferrol blinked. It wasn’t what he’d been expecting. “What sort of compensation?”

Roman shrugged, deliberately casual. “You’ve lived with them for the past year.

What could we on the Amity offer that they might be willing to accept?”

Ferrol frowned at him… and then he got it. “You mean a calf?”

“It would seem a suitable parting gift,” Roman said. “Wouldn’t you say?”

Abruptly, Ferrol realized his mouth was hanging open. “Are you suggesting,” he asked carefully, “that we just sit out here—in the middle of nowhere—until Sleipnir is ready to have its damn calf?”

Roman smiled faintly. “Why do you think that after putting you off for two days I agreed to see you now?”

“Because you didn’t—” Ferrol broke off, feeling his mouth fall open again. “You mean… now?”

Roman nodded. “All the indications are there,” he said. “Rrin-saa tells me a Jump in about an hour will be just about optimum.”

Ferrol’s eyes drifted to the port, and the unfamiliar star patterns beyond. “We’re not going to do it here, then?”

“I thought we’d go ahead and Jump to Solomon first. That way the Tampies can take both Sleipnir and the new calf home with them immediately.”

Ferrol nodded. The stars—the unfamiliar, distant stars—seemed to blur, and he could feel a lump form in his throat. So it was over. The Tampies had pulled the plug on Amity, and Roman was going to roll over for them… and if the Senator’s reading of the aliens was right, space would soon belong to the Cordonale again.

And for want of a little daring, humanity would quietly settle for a draw.

For want of a little daring… “With the captain’s permission,” he said between stiff lips, “I’d like to request the web boat duty.”

Roman cocked his head, and Ferrol held his breath. “Very well, Commander,”

Roman nodded. “You’d best get below, then, and start assembling your team.” He paused, his eyes boring into Ferrol’s. “Remember that it’ll be Amity’s last calving,”

he added quietly. “Make it a memorable one.”

A lump rose into Ferrol’s throat. “Don’t worry, sir. I will.”

“Rein lines secure,” Yamoto reported from the seat beside him, her voice sounding hollow behind her filter mask. “Calf’s starting to pull away.”

Ferrol nodded, feeling a tightness in his chest as he turned his head to look at the three Tampies sitting silently behind Yamoto. “Wwis-khaa?—We have control yet?”

“He is calming,” the Tampy said, sounding vaguely distracted. Three of the lights on the amplifier helmet, Ferrol noted, were still red. “It will be soon.”

“Good.” Ferrol turned toward the mike. “Lander to Amity,” he called. “Calf is secured; full control soon. Any problems with Sleipnir?”

“None at all,” Roman told him. “Sso-ngu reports no stress or trauma. Any trouble at your end?”

“Not so far,” Ferrol said, striving to sound casual. “At least nothing that Wwiskhaa will admit to. Looks like we aren’t going to need extra help in the Handler department, after all.”

“Murphy’s Law,” Roman said dryly. “Still, better to err on the side of caution than the other direction.”

“Certainly after what happened with Quentin,” Ferrol agreed, ears straining to pick up every nuance. But if the captain suspected Ferrol had had other reasons for bringing three Handlers along, it didn’t show in his voice. “Have you decided on a name for the calf yet, sir? Or aren’t we going to bother, given that the Tampies will be taking it straight home?”

“I thought perhaps we’d go with something like Epilog,” Roman said.

“Appropriate, and a little more subtle than, say, Deathblow.”

Ferrol winced at the bitterness in the other’s voice. On the other hand, the more of Roman’s mind that was tied up with resentment toward the Senate and Starforce, the less he’d have left to wonder if Ferrol was up to anything. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“Do we have a plan yet on how we’re turning Epilog and Sleipnir over to the Tampies?”

“I’ve already gotten a courier message through to the Kialinninni corral,” Roman said. “The Tampies will be sending a pair of piggyback ships here to get them.

Though it’ll probably be a few more hours before they can leave Kialinninni, so perhaps it’s just as well you took a full complement of Handlers out there with you.”

Ferrol frowned. “A few hours? They have a party going on over there or something?”

Faintly, he heard the hiss of expelled breath. “Apparently the Tampies have decided to respond to the shark threat by pulling the bulk of their fleet back to the corral,” he said. “What that gains them, I’m not really sure.”

Behind his filter mask, Ferrol felt his lip twist with contempt. So the Senator had indeed been right. The Tampies weren’t going to turn their space horses loose, but burying them all at Kialinninni wasn’t really much different. Either way, they were effectively giving up. “Gains them some time,” he grunted. “Maybe.” He halfturned.

“Wwis-khaa?”

“He is calm,” the Tampy said. “We are speaking.”

“Good.” Ferrol swallowed hard. “Yamoto, there’s a small datapack box strapped into one of the seats back near the entryway,” he told her. “Go get it for me, would you?”

“Yes, sir.” Yamoto slipped off her restraints and kicked her way aft.

And this was it. Keying the direction vector he’d so carefully worked out into the helm, Ferrol reached over and switched off the comm laser. “Wwis-khaa,” he said quietly, “bring Epilog to the indicated direction. Nice and easy.”

“Your wishes are ours,” the Tampy said, and a moment later Ferrol felt a slight pressure on his side as the calf and lander came around. “It is done.”

“All right. Now; the bright star directly ahead is Sirius. Can Epilog see it?”

There was a long pause. Above the background hum of the lander’s systems, Ferrol could hear the pounding of his heart… “He can,” Wwis-khaa said at last.

“Good.” Ferrol took a deep breath. “Jump us there.”

This time the pause was even longer. “Wwis-khaa? Did you you hear me?”

“Ffe-rho—”

“I said, did you hear me?” Ferrol cut him off, turning to face the other. Above the filter mask, the alien eyes were staring unblinkingly back at him.

“I hear.”

“Then Jump. That’s an order.”

Wwis-khaa’s eyes closed briefly; opened again. “Your wishes are ours,” he seemed to sigh—

And an instant later blue-white light flooded in through the forward viewport.

“What the hell?” Yamoto snapped, shooting forward with the datapack box clutched in her hand. “Commander, we just Jumped!”

“I know,” he assured her. “Don’t worry; everything’s under control. All right, Wwis-khaa,” he added, keying the second vector into the helm, “now move Epilog to this heading. We’ll want to Jump as soon as we’re in position.”

He confirmed that they were indeed turning the proper direction, then turned to face Yamoto. “Question, Lieutenant?” he asked mildly.

“Uh… yes, Commander,” she said, her voice cautious. Over her filter mask, he could see tension lines around her eyes. “I wasn’t informed we’d be leaving the Amity.”

“No, you weren’t,” he agreed. “Wwis-khaa, how are we coming?”

“Epilonninni is almost ready,” the Tampy said.

“Good. Keep it moving.”

Yamoto dropped her eyes to her console. “We’re going to Arachne, sir?”

“Briefly, yes,” Ferrol nodded. “Or rather, for the Tampies and me it’ll be briefly.

We’ll be dropping you off before we leave.”

She looked up at him again. “Commander, whatever you’re doing—”

“Is none of your concern,” he cut her off, putting some steel into his voice. He had no intention of getting Yamoto entangled in this, and the simplest and safest way to do that was to keep her as totally in the dark as possible. “As I said, you’ll be dropped off at Arachne, and your part will be over.”

For a long minute she gazed at him, her eyes hard with suspicion. Ferrol returned the glare as calmly as he could, listening to his heart pounding in his ears and feeling the bulge of the needle pistol pressing into his side under his tunic. The last thing he wanted was to have to start waving the damn gun around…

Almost reluctantly, Yamoto let her eyes drift away. “Understood, Commander,”

she said with a sigh. “Here’s your package,” she added, holding out the datapack box she still held. “If you really want it, that is.”

“Of course I want it,” he growled, taking it. Opening it, he selected one of the slender cylinders and handed it back to her. “This is for you: all the navigational data on Arachne and the colony there. We’ll be transferring you to a lifeboat once we reach the planet, and I’m afraid you’ll have to make your own way down. Think you can manage it?”

“Of course,” she said, professional pride momentarily eclipsing her misgivings.

“Good. Wwis-khaa, how are we doing?”

“Epilonninni is ready,” the Tampy said.

“Can Epilog see the star all right?” he asked, double-checking. A blazing star like Sirius was a dead-simple target to Jump to; Arachne’s sun was something else entirely.

“He can see the star,” Wwis-khaa said.

Ferrol gave the scanners a quick check. Luck was with him; the Amity still hadn’t caught up. His maneuver must have caught Roman completely flat-footed. “All right, then: Jump.”

The blue Sirian light vanished from the side viewport; simultaneously, an unremarkable red-orange star popped into view directly in front of them. “We’re here,” Ferrol announced, striving for a confidence he didn’t feel. Here; but if his direction vector had been wrong, here wouldn’t be the Arachne system. And if his calculation of the planet’s orbital position had been wrong… Feeling sweat breaking out on his forehead, he keyed for a proximity scan.

And found immediately that his fears had been for nothing. “Arachne, ho,” Yamoto said, peering at her own displays. “Right on the nose, too—forty-eight thousand kilometers away, bearing six port, eighty-two nadir. Just slightly downslope.”

Ferrol took a careful breath. “Make for the planet, Wwis-khaa,” he ordered the Tampy. “Two gees acceleration, or as much as Epilog can handle.”

“Your wishes are ours.”

For a minute Ferrol’s shoulders pushed against his restraints as Wwis-khaa turned Epilog nadir toward Arachne. The mottled blue-white crescent appeared in the forward viewport, the pressure eased and changed direction, and he was pushed back into his seat. “On our way,” Yamoto said unnecessarily. “Two gees acceleration.”

Ferrol nodded and keyed the lander’s scope screen, his stomach beginning to knot up again. He’d ordered the Scapa Flow to wait for him here… but that had been nearly two months ago. If they’d gotten tired of waiting…

A brief glint of sunlight caught his eye. A ship, running in geosynchronous orbit, all the way around the planet from where the human and Tampy colonies were located.

Grinning tightly, Ferrol set the comm laser to track and keyed an intercept course into the helm. “Wwis-khaa, shift direction onto the vector indicated,” he ordered.

The laser signaled ready—“Scapa Flow, this is Chayne Ferrol,” he called.

“Identification: beta hopscotch. Come in.” He held his breath—

“Scapa Flow here,” Malraux Demarco’s voice came. It sounded relieved. “Long time no hear, Chayne.”

“Much too long,” Ferrol agreed. “What’s ship status?”

“Oh, pretty much ready to go whenever you are,” the other replied. “You, uh, bringing us a gift there?”

“On loan only,” Ferrol told him. “Listen closely, now. Our ETA is—” he scanned the helm display for the numbers—“about forty-five minutes. I want the cargo bay cleared—and I mean cleared—and one lifeboat prepped and stocked for a flight planetside. Also, dig a pair of mid-length rein lines out of storage—four hundred meters ought to do it—and get them attached to the forward grapple. Attached good.”

There was a short pause. “Sounds like we’re not going to be going hunting, after all,” Demarco said.

“Oh, we’re going hunting, all right,” Ferrol told him grimly. “Count on that. Now.

Here’s the plan: we’re going to put the lander here into the cargo bay, with the rein lines hanging out the main hatchway. We’ll pack the gap to make the bay airtight; but since any real tug on the lines would tear out the sealant, we’ll run your set of reins between our space horse and the forward grapple to do the actual pulling, leaving the one from the lander slack. Clear?”

“Except for whether or not that lander will actually fit in our cargo bay,” Demarco said. “Our rangefinder readout on you makes it pretty damn close.”

“It’s close, but it’ll work,” Ferrol assured him. “I’ve run the numbers twice, and it can be done.”

“Well… if you say so,” Demarco said, still sounding unconvinced.

‘Trust me,“ Ferrol said. ”Anyway, that’s my problem. You just concentrate on making sure I’ve got room to get the thing in. That, and getting the rein lines hooked up. Oh, and you’d better run a cable from the bay intercom box so that we can link up to the lander’s outside comm port.” A stab of momentary guilt twinged at him; but without enough filter masks for the Scapa Flow’s entire crew, they really had no choice but to confine the Tampies to the lander and cargo bay.

“Got it. I presume we’re rather in a hurry?”

Ferrol threw a sideways glance at Yamoto’s profile. “There’s enough time to do the job right,” he told Demarco. “That doesn’t mean you should stop for coffee, though.”

“Right. We’ll be ready when you get here.”

“Good. Ferrol out.”

He keyed off the laser and set the scanners for a full radar and beacon search.

Unlikely there would be any other ships in the vicinity, but there wasn’t any point in taking chances.

“You going to do the docking yourself?” Yamoto asked.

Ferrol nodded. “I’d planned to, yes. Why?”

“Because I don’t think you can do it,” she said bluntly. “Not without wrecking either the lander or your cargo bay or both.”

Ferrol had wondered about that himself. “I’ll take it real slow,” he told her. “Or else have the Scopa Flow’s chief helmer come out and take us in.”

“With the Amity breathing down your neck?” she asked pointedly.

“Who said the Amity was breathing down my neck?” Ferrol countered.

She turned contemptuous eyes on him. “Oh, come on, Ferrol, let’s cut through the snow,” she said. “Whatever you’re doing here, you’re doing it on your own, without a scrap of authorization from anyone. We both know it; and we both know that if you take the time to EVA a helmer out here, you’ll be crowding your timetable so much he’s likely to rush the job.”

“I can’t let you do the docking,” Ferrol told her quietly. “So far everything you’ve done comes under the heading of innocently obeying orders from a superior officer.

I don’t want you in any deeper than that.”

“Your concern is touching,” Yamoto growled. “But soothe your conscience—I’m not doing it for you.” She jerked her head back toward the Tampies. “You’ve got three innocents at risk here—four, if you count me. I’m doing the docking, and that’s final.”

Behind the filter mask, Ferrol grimaced, glad the expression wasn’t visible. Of course; it had to have been something like that. Not simply that she was willing to trust him or his judgment.

But then, no one seemed willing to trust his judgment these days. Why should Yamoto be different?

“In that case,” he told her, “I accept.”

“Sure as hell taking her time pulling away,” Demarco growled, gazing at his displays. “You know, I don’t think she’s planning to head planetside at all.”

Ferrol glanced at the screen. Demarco was right: Yamoto was just letting her lifeboat drift. “Probably decided she’d do as well to wait for the Amity to show up,” he told Demarco. “Probably also figures that if she can record our Jump direction it’ll give them a shot at tracking us down.”

Demarco sent him a frown. “They can’t do that, can they?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ferrol advised him. “With the route we’ll be taking they won’t have a hope in hell of following us.”

On his console the intercom pinged. “Chayne, we’ve got the intercom connection to the lander now,” someone reported.

“Thank you.” Ferrol keyed the proper switch. “Wwis-khaa? This is Commander Ferrol. Are you and the others doing all right?”

“We are well, Ffe-rho.”

With Ferrol and Yamoto gone from the lander, the three aliens had removed their filter masks; briefly, Ferrol wished he was better at reading Tampy expressions.

“I’m sorry we have to keep you back there in the lander,” he apologized. “But without enough filter masks to go around we really can’t let you into the main part of the ship.”

“No scitte,” Demarco muttered under his breath. “It’d lake months to scrub the stench out of the air system.”

Ferrol threw him a glare. “You should have received the next target star on your display by now,” he continued to Wwis-khaa. “Can Epilog see it all right?”

“He can.” Wwis-khaa paused. “Ffe-rho, I would like to know what it is you are asking us to do.”

“A fair question,” Ferrol agreed. “Very simply, I’m asking you to help your people.

Your people, and your space horses. Have you ever heard of an Earth creature called the dog?”

“A domesticated carnivore of the Canis group,” Wwis-khaa said promptly. “Its ecological position is usually as a companion or pet to humans.”

“Right,” Ferrol nodded, vaguely impressed that the alien would know that.

“They’re mostly pets now, but originally they were used by herders and shepherds to help guard food animals from dangerous predators. Still are, in some places.”

He’d expected Wwis-khaa to catch his drift; and he wasn’t disappointed. “You seek to find such creatures in space?” the Tampy asked, his head tilting to one side in a gesture Ferrol had never seen before. “Small predators to protect our space horses from sharks?”

“That’s it,” Ferrol nodded. “Granted, we don’t know if such things even exist; but now that we know there are at least three species of space-going creatures, it seems reasonable that there should be others. True?”

“I do not know,” Wwis-khaa said. “How do you presume to search for such creatures throughout the vastness of space?”

“I don’t,” Ferrol said. “We’re going to leave space and normal star systems alone and concentrate instead on a much more select group of places: namely, the accretion disks around large black holes.”

Demarco twisted his head around, a stunned look on his face. “I think it makes sense,” Ferrol continued, ignoring the other. “That’s where space horses are supposed to have originated; and if so, there must be some remnant of the ecology left. You game to take a look?”

For a long moment Wwis-khaa was silent. Ferrol held his breath, fully and painfully aware that if the Tampies refused the whole thing would die right here and now. “Your wishes are ours,” the alien said. “When do you wish to leave?”

Quietly, Ferrol exhaled. “As soon as Epilog is in position,” he told the other. “Let the helmer—Randall—know when you’re ready.”

“Your wishes are ours,” Wwis-khaa repeated.

Feeling a little limp, Ferrol switched off the intercom. It had worked… and they were on their way. He looked up—

To find Demarco gazing hard at him. “I trust,” the other said carefully, “that all of that was just so much spun sugar.”

“Some of it was,” Ferrol said. “Most of it wasn’t. We are going to poke around a few black holes, and we are hunting for a scaled-down version of a shark. But not for the reason I gave Wwis-khaa—that was just to get his cooperation.”

“You should have just told melt-face it was an order, and that you were his superior officer, and that was that,” Demarco sniffed. “That’s all the explanation the stupid plant-lovers deserve.”

Ferrol frowned at the other, a strange feeling curling through his stomach.

Somehow, he didn’t remember Demarco as being quite this crude. “If I’m right,”

he said quietly, “we’ve probably got a good chance of running into some sharks along the way. Wwis-khaa and the others deserve to know what they’re letting themselves in for.”

Demarco raised his eyebrows. “I see some of the Amity’s heart-bleeding has rubbed off on you. Sir. So if we’re not recruiting watchdogs for the melt-faces, what the hell do we want these miniature sharks for?”

“We want them for transport, of course,” Ferrol growled. Demarco was teetering right on the edge of insubordination here. “We’ve been in a long, dead-end track here, trying to capture and train space horses. Human beings are predators, and the space horses can’t or won’t stand for that. But a space-going predator species might. Clear now?”

Demarco snorted. “If you say so. Sounds like the sort of wishy-wok stuff your meltfaced chummies would spout, though. If you ask me.”

Quite suddenly, Ferrol decided he was tired of Demarco. “All right then; try this,”

he said coldly.

“We’re going because I’ve given you an order, and I’m your captain, and that’s that.”

Demarco’s lip twisted, but he nodded. “Yes, sir,” he muttered, and turned back to his console.

“Chayne?” Randall spoke up tentatively. “Your melt-fa—your Tampy signals he’s ready to go.”

Ferrol took a deep breath, fighting for calm. “Tell him to go ahead and Jump,” he ordered.

And wondered what had happened to his crew in the past year, to make them so harshly bigoted.