Warhorse

Chapter 27

Kialinninni’s sun was a dim red star marked on Roman’s helm display by a flashing circle, moving with the rest of the stars across the screen as Sleipnir came around in a gentle arc to line up with it. For a moment, before the space horse blocked it, the star was visible in the forward port, and Roman threw a quick look out at it. It was even harder to see there than it was on the display. “Sso-ngu, are you sure Sleipnir can see the target star?” he asked into the intercom.

“He can,” the Tampy replied.

Roman frowned again at the helm display; but Sso-ngu ought to know what he was talking about. “All right. Stand by to Jump at my command. And let me know immediately if this procedure startles or frightens Sleipnir.” He keyed engineering into the circuit. “Commander Stolt; Dr. Tenzing—you ready?”

“Just waiting for the order, sir,” Stolt replied. “The boats are all tanked up and ready to go, and Dr. Tenzing’s double-checked the spray pattern.”

“Very good. Launch.”

“Yes, sir. Launching… now.”

Roman shifted his attention to the tactical display. From Amity’s hanger came Stolt’s two gimmicked boats, flying together in close formation as they came up Amity’s hull. They passed the bow and began to split apart; and by the time they reached Sleipnir they were on opposite sides of the space horse’s bulk.

“Starting the gas spray,” Stolt announced.

On Roman’s display the two boats, moving up opposite sides of Sleipnir’s cylindrical mass now, began to trail what showed up on the screen as a cohesivelooking mist. Smoothly, and in perfect synch, the boats altered direction, and as Roman watched began tracing out a double-helix pattern a few meters above the space horse’s surface. The mist spread slowly out behind them as they circled near Sleipnir’s head and started back, and by the time they were once again traveling alongside the rein lines the mist had settled in around Sleipnir, circling and engulfing the creature like a halo from some strange medieval painting.

“Boats almost back,” Stolt said. “ETA one minute.”

Roman nodded. “Marlowe?”

“Cloud holding together nicely,” the other reported. “Expanding just enough to fill in the whole gap around Sleipnir.”

“Good.” A thought occurred to him—“When you get a minute, you probably ought to let the Scapa Flow know what we’re doing—we don’t want them to be startled.”

“Yes, sir.” Marlowe turned to his intercom.

Roman returned his attention to the tactical. “Sso-ngu? Is Sleipnir bothered at all by the gas mixture?”

“He is not. He is facing the Kialinninni star, Rro-maa, and is ready to Jump.”

And was meanwhile busy exuding all the information any passing shark would ever need to find the Tampy corral. If this scheme Tenzing had dreamed up didn’t work…

And the irony of it all was that if it did work they would probably never know it.

On the tactical, the boats hovering close beside Amity’s hull disappeared. “Boats aboard, Captain,” Stolt announced. “Hangar door sealing… we’re ready here.”

“Sso-ngu?”

“I hear, Rro-maa.”

Roman settled himself and shifted his eyes to the forward viewscreen. “All right, then. Everyone ready; fire, and Jump.”

At the edge of the screen the comm laser lanced out, its passage marked just visibly by the flicker of ionized hydrogen atoms in its path. The dim line shifted inward, touched the edge of the gas cloud ahead—

And, abruptly, Sleipnir was sheathed in flame.

It wasn’t a terribly hot fire, as fires went—Tenzing had made sure of that when preparing his mixture. The temperature at Sleipnir’s skin would be no more than six hundred degrees Celsius, Roman knew—hardly worth a space horse’s notice, but more than enough to char and scramble the complex molecules in the dust sweat beyond any possible reconstruction.

Or so the logic went. But for that first flaring instant, none of the chemistry or biology or logic really mattered. For that one single instant Sleipnir was a glimpse into semi-mythic racial memories of humanity’s past: an echo of ancient Viking funeral pyres, or of the self-immolation of the Phoenix, or of the fiery horror of Dante’s Inferno.

The flame flickered out, and the vision faded, and Roman took a deep breath, feeling vaguely foolish. He glanced around the bridge, wondering if anyone had noticed. But all were still huddled over their consoles, busy with the usual tasks of a Jump.

The Jump. Belatedly, Roman dropped his eyes back to his displays, giving them a quick scan. If the trick hadn’t worked…

It had. Dead ahead on the nav display was the dim globe of Kialinninni’s sun; and a check of the timeline showed that the Jump had taken place at virtually the height of the flash fire.

He looked up, to find Ferrol’s eyes on him. “It seems to have worked,” he commented to the other.

“Looks that way,” Ferrol nodded. “So. Now what?”

“We find the corral,” Roman told him, tapping keys on his console. If Kennedy’s projections had been on the mark the corral ought to be somewhere off to starboard…

“Got it, sir,” Marlowe announced. “Bearing—well, the nearest edge of the enclosure’s about thirty-nine starboard, ten nadir; range, ninety-five thousand kilometers.”

Roman nodded as the corral—or, rather, the ovoid computer-enhanced shape marking its invisible boundaries—appeared, centered, on the scanner display. He tapped for a tenfold magnification; repeated the procedure—

“Good God,” Kennedy murmured, peering at her own display. “When they say they’re going to bring the space horses home, they don’t fool around, do they?”

“No, they don’t,” Roman agreed, feeling just a little staggered himself. The last time he’d seen the corral, back when he’d arrived to take command of the Amity, there’d been perhaps a half-dozen space horses wandering around inside the enclosure; now, the place was almost literally packed with them. Moving restlessly about, visible only as pale slivers of reflected light from the system’s star, it was oddly reminiscent of the view through a microscope at a drop of swamp water.

Distantly, Roman wondered if the Tampies had ever noticed that; but almost certainly they had. The recurring and circular patterns of life and nature were, after all, the backbone of Tampy philosophy.

“Must be two hundred space horses in there,” Marlowe commented, sounding awed.

With an effort, Roman shook the philosophic contemplations from his mind. There was work to be done. “It’s supposed to be the bulk of the Tampy herd,” he told Marlowe. “Or fleet; or whatever it is they call it. Anyway. Get on the radio and contact that space station headquarters of theirs—we need to warn them about the dust sweat trails their space horses have been leaving.” He tapped the intercom.

“Dr. Tenzing?”

“Right here, Captain,” the other said, sounding distracted. “Hang on a minute; the spectroscopic data from the fire is starting to come in.”

Which would show—or perhaps only hint at—whether or not Sleipnir’s own dust sweat trail had been adequately destroyed by the fire. Though even if it had…

Roman grimaced. Even if it had, the worst part of the job was still ahead. Tracking down and obliterating the trails from all the systems the Tampies had brought that many space horses in from would be a horrendous task, quite possibly beyond the aliens’ own capabilities. But if the Starforce could be persuaded to help—in exchange, perhaps, for continued access to space horses—

“Captain?” Across the bridge Marlowe half-turned, a frown creasing his forehead.

“I’m not getting any response from the corral station.”

“Keep trying,” Roman ordered, something cold settling into his stomach as he turned to his scanner display. The station’s cylindrical shape was centered in the view, looking just about the way he remembered it from the last time.

Except…

“Kennedy,” he said quietly, “start a full scan of the area. Anomalous motion, and tie in both the space horse and shark recognition programs.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, her voice grim.

Roman looked up, to find Ferrol frowning at him. “Trouble?” the other asked.

“I’m not sure.” Roman nodded at his display. “The last time I was here there were three Tampy courier ships tethered near the station. Now, there aren’t any.”

Ferrol frowned at his own display. “It may not mean anything,” he said slowly.

“They could be off helping in the general round-up or something.”

“Having left this batch all alone?”

Ferrol didn’t answer. Roman turned back to his own displays, feeling the abrupt tightening of tension around the bridge. Kennedy was doing a three-dimensional spiral search, he saw, scanning outward to ever increasing distances from the ship.

It was a standard military pattern, designed to quickly locate the most immediate dangers to the scanning ship. But if there was something happening far away…

“Ferrol, call the Scapa Flow,” he ordered the other. “Have them start a long-range search pattern with their anomalous-motion program.”

Ferrol threw him an odd look, but nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Roman keyed his intercom. “Sso-ngu? How’s Sleipnir holding up?”

There was a pause. “He is… troubled, Rro-maa,” the Tampy said at last.

“So are we,” Roman told him, glancing at the visual. Still nothing showing but stars. “I want you to head us toward the corral enclosure; two gees ace/dec course.”

Another pause. “Your wishes are ours.”

He keyed off the intercom and returned his attention to his displays. Kennedy’s scan was out to ten thousand kilometers now. Still showing nothing. A moment later he was pressed gently into the sides of his chair as Sleipnir turned toward the corral; felt the growing pressure backwards as the space horse began accelerating toward the two-gee goal he’d ordered—

And without warning was slammed with bone-jarring force deep into his chair.

“Sso-ngu!” he shouted. “What in—?”

“Anomalous motion!” Kennedy snapped. “Coming up behind us—fast.”

“Marlowe, get a reading on it,” Roman ordered, his mouth suddenly dry.

“I’m on it, sir,” Marlowe gritted. “Looks like a group of vultures… confirmed.

Reading about fifty objects, some of which may be telekened boulders. Closing at approximately fifteen gees.”

And according to the tactical display they were already swinging outward, far enough to stay clear of Sleipnir’s telekene range as they passed. “Try the comm laser,” Roman told him. “See if you can do some damage. Kennedy, backtrack their vector—see where they came from.”

“I’ve got that, Captain,” Ferrol cut in, his voice strained as he leaned against Sleipnir’s panic acceleration toward his displays. “There’re sharks out there, all right—the Scapa Flow reports at least six of them. Range of just over five hundred thousand kilometers.”

Kennedy hissed something blasphemous. “Confirmed, Captain. Six sharks… and looks like three space horses, too.”

The missing Tampy couriers? “Get me a clearer image.”

“I’ll try.” The picture on Roman’s display magnified, sharpened…

For a moment Roman just stared at the scene, a part of him not really believing it, the rest not wanting to. Six sharks, moving almost in formation, were flying toward the Amity and the corral; flying, according to the readout, with nearly five gees acceleration. A hundred kilometers ahead of them, just barely maintaining that distance, were the three space horses. From the small ships trailing behind them Roman could see a strangely flickering substance falling back toward the sharks. It took a second for him to identify it as space horse webbing, and another to realize what exactly the Tampies were up to. “They’re trying to snare them,” he murmured. “Snare them, or tangle them up.”

“Webbing against sharks,” Kennedy breathed. “They must be crazy.”

With an effort, Roman shook off the mental paralysis. “Marlowe—report.”

“Comm laser ineffective,” the other said tightly. “The vultures are alongside the Amity—passing now.

And if they got in front of Sleipnir… “Sso-ngu: prepare for emergency Jump,”

Roman called toward the intercom. “Anywhere will do. Kennedy, we’ll need a course from wherever we wind up back to the Cordonale.” If the Starforce could throw together a task force quickly enough, the Amity might be able to Jump it here in time to help this from turning into a space horse slaughter—

“Rro-maa?”

Impatiently, he focused on the intercom. “Rrin-saa, didn’t Sso-ngu hear me? Get him moving—we’ve got to get out of here—”

He broke off. The expression on Rrin-saa’s face—“What’s wrong?” he demanded.

“Sso-ngu is not able. Sleipnninni has become… he is in perasiata.”

Roman felt his stomach tighten. “That’s impossible,” he said, hearing how stupid the words sounded even as he said them. “Sleipnir’s accelerating, damn it—how can it be in a coma?”

“He is frightened of the vultures and the sharks,” Rrin-saa said. “He is…” He seemed to grope for words.

“The word is panicking,” Roman bit out, eyes flicking over his displays as his mind searched for a plan. The vultures were past the Amity now, heading for the point twenty-seven kilometers ahead where they’d be able to set up their optical net. Ssongu and the other Tampies had maybe a minute to snap Sleipnir out of this…

“Marlowe, are there any more vultures closing on us?” Kennedy asked suddenly.

“Or is this batch all of them?”

“Uh…” Marlowe frowned at his displays, fingers dancing over his console. “I don’t track any more coming this way, no.”

“Then I don’t think we’ve got a problem.” She swiveled around. “Captain, the Scapa Flow’s got netting equipment aboard. We can cut them loose, send them ahead to clear out the optical net, and link up with them again before we Jump.”

Roman shifted his attention to Ferrol. “Possible?”

Ferrol hesitated, then nodded. “It should be, yes,” he said slowly. “But not unless Sso-ngu can get Sleipnir to kill some of this acceleration.”

Roman nodded, feeling the tension ease somewhat. The problem wasn’t gone, but at least their deadline for action was extended somewhat. “Did you hear that, Rrinsaa?”

he called. “You and Sso-ngu have got to get Sleipnir back under control.”

“We will try, Rro-maa.”

“Good. Ferrol, alert your people on the Scapa Flow; we’ll want them to move as soon as they can.”

“Yes, sir,” Ferrol said, an odd expression flicking across his face before he turned back to his console.

Roman turned his attention back to the vultures. They were nearly in position now… and even as he watched the acceleration pressing him into his seat abruptly eased, and then vanished.

“Rro-maa? Sleipnninni is no longer in perasiata.”

“Thank you, Sso-ngu.” Roman looked at Ferrol. “Pop the tether line and tell the Scapa Flow to go,” he ordered the other. “Kennedy, check and see if we’re going to have any trouble Jumping from this deep in the gravity well.”

“Already checked, sir,” she said. “We’re a little close, but shouldn’t have any major problems. Our best bet will be the Toru system; recommend we Jump there and alert Prepyat and Earth via tachyon.”

And while the Starforce scrambled a task force they would have time to get into position for the next Jump. “Sounds good,” he nodded. He glanced at Ferrol—

And paused for a second look. The other was still sitting facing him, ignoring his console. “Ferrol? What’s the trouble?”

Ferrol swallowed visibly, a strangely haunted look in his eyes. “No trouble, sir.”

“Then get the Scapa Flow going.” He turned back to Kennedy—

“No, sir.”

Roman looked back. “No?” he asked, very quietly.

Ferrol’s eyes flicked to Kennedy as his hand dipped into a pocket and withdrew an envelope. “Captain Roman,” he said, his voice abruptly formal, “pursuant to the Senate carte blanche directive contained in this envelope—” He took a deep breath.

“I hereby relieve you of command.”