Warhorse

Chapter 9

It was odd, Roman thought distantly. Over the years he’d spent hours on end in cramped deep-space shuttlecraft and powered worksuits, all without the slightest hint of trouble. Now, with billions of cubic kilometers of open space around him, he was suddenly feeling the unpleasant stirrings of claustrophobia.

Trapped in a pre-nova system… “What do you mean, he’s not well?” he demanded.

“You mean he’s sick, or fatigued, or what?”

“I do not know,” was the all-too predictable reply. “I know that I have never seen a space horse like this; that is all.”

Roman gritted his teeth. “Where’s Sso-ngu? Let me talk to him.”

“He is resting.”

“Well, wake him up,” Ferrol growled.

“He cannot be disturbed,” Hhom-jee said.

Ferrol started to say something else, stopped as Roman threw him a warning look.

“I’m coming down there,” he told Hhom-jee. “Keep trying.”

He broke the connection and unstrapped. “Commander, light a small fire under Tenzing’s people,” he ordered over his shoulder as he launched himself toward the door. “I want their best guess as to what’s wrong with Pegasus, and some suggestions on how to cure it, by the time I get back.”

“Yes, sir,” Ferrol called after him.

The Tampy section looked the same as it had the first time Roman had gone there, but this time he hardly even noticed the alien beauty of it. Fingers searching out the handholds half-buried in the moss, he pulled himself along the corridors as quickly as he could.

He reached the Handler room door and pushed himself through the opening, to find three of the aliens waiting quietly there for him. Though to be more accurate, only Rrin-saa and Hhom-jee were actually waiting for him: floating alone over in a far corner, humming dreamily to himself, Sso-ngu wasn’t in any shape to be expecting Roman or anyone else.

“Rro-maa,” Rrin-saa said gravely as Roman found one of the few patches of velgrip the Tampies had allowed in their section and planted his feet onto it.

“Hhom-jee informed me you were coming.”

“Hhom-jee informed me that Pegasus was sick,” Roman returned, breathing heavily through his filter mask as he threw a glance at Hhom-jee. Beneath the amplifier helmet, the Handler’s eyes were turned upward, toward the viewport and Pegasus.

“We do not know if he is sick,” Rrin-saa said. “Perhaps he is simply disturbed by the changing light of the star and does not yet wish to move.”

“Well, why don’t we know?” Roman demanded. “Hhom-jee is in contact with it—why can’t he just ask it what’s wrong?”

Rrin-saa looked at Hhom-jee, back at Roman. “It is not like that, Rro-maa,” he said. “There are no questions or answers. There merely is.”

Roman took a deep breath, forced down the sudden rush of anger. “This isn’t the time or place for philosophic discussions, Rrin-saa,” he told the Tampy. “There are fifty humans on that planet who are going to be vaporized if we can’t get Pegasus moving again. Not to mention everyone aboard Amity.”

Rrin-saa looked at him, an odd intensity in his lopsided face. “We share your feelings, Rro-maa. The Tamplissta also have an observery on that world.”

Roman felt his eyebrows lifting. There wasn’t any particular reason, of course, why there shouldn’t be Tampies down there—Shadrach was large enough to accomodate all the research teams anyone could want. But it felt somehow out of character for them to be interested in a non-living part of nature. “Why didn’t you say something about this earlier?” he asked.

Rrin-saa touched fingers to ear: the Tampy shrug. “I was not asked.”

Roman pursed his lips. “All the more reason for us not to hang around out here.”

He nodded toward the humming Sso-ngu. “And if Hhom-jee can’t get Pegasus to move, perhaps Sso-ngu can.”

Rrin-saa looked at Hhom-jee, at Sso-ngu, back at Roman. “I do not think so. He will not wish to use compulsion; and I do not think compulsion will be effective, regardless.”

“Try it anyway.”

Rrin-saa looked again at Sso-ngu. “He is resting now and cannot be disturbed.”

Roman bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, forcing his mind to remain calm.

“Rrin-saa… I understand that these rest periods are as important to you as sleep is to us. But we’re in a crisis situation here; and I know full well that waking him up won’t harm him. So wake him up.”

“It will not be good for him,” Rrin-saa insisted. “And there is no need. If Hhom-jee cannot move Pegasunninni, then Sso-ngu will not be able to do so.”

For a long moment Roman was sorely tempted to go over there and personally shake Sso-ngu awake. But there was a principle at stake here; a principle, and a reminder of why they were all on Amity in the first place. “Rrin-saa. When we began this voyage you acknowledged that I was in command of Amity, that for the sake of this experiment you and the others would agree to follow my leadership. I accept your assessment that Sso-ngu‘s chances are probably very slim; but we humans thrive on slim odds—and when we win them it’s precisely because we don’t give up until we’re forced to.” He nodded toward Sso-ngu. “We haven’t hit that point; not yet. Consider it a lesson in human thought patterns, or even just a lesson in human stubbornness, whichever you’d prefer.

“But also consider it an order.”

For a handful of heartbeats Rrin-saa remained silent and motionless. Then, slowly, he floated over to Sso-ngu and touched him on the arm, speaking softly in the highpitched Tampy language. The humming stopped; Sso-ngu shook himself like a wet terrier and rubbed his neck. Rrin-saa said something else. Sso-ngu gazed at Roman for a moment, then went to where Hhom-jee floated, relieving him of the helmet.

“He will try now,” Rrin-saa said. There was no trace of any emotion in his voice that Roman could detect.

For a few minutes the room was silent. Then Sso-ngu turned from the viewport.

“Pegasunninni will not move,” he said. The words were clear and flat, with no room for argument.

It had still been worth a try. “Keep trying,” Roman told Sso-ngu. Kicking himself over to the repeater instrument panel, he found the intercom and keyed for the bridge. “Commander? Anything from the survey section?”

“Nothing of any use,” Ferrol said grimly. “They’ve come up with four or five theories, everything from radiation sickness to malnutrition, and not a shred of real evidence to support any of them. A cure is completely out of the question, of course.”

That, too, had been worth a try… and it left Amity with just exactly one option left.

“All right, then, I guess it’s time for some serious improvisation,” he told Ferrol.

“Call engineering and have Stolt start running the fusion drive back up to power.

Then tell Tenzing that he’s to collect the equipment he’ll need to continue analyzing Pegasus’ condition and get it to the lander.”

Ferrol’s forehead creased. “I trust, sir, that you’re not going to try to drag Pegasus all the way to Shadrach.” It was a statement, not a question.

“That’s correct,” Roman confirmed. “We’re going to cut Amity loose and go in alone. Pegasus will stay here, along with most of the survey section and enough Tampies to make sure it doesn’t suddenly get well and Jump on us.”

“And what if—?” Ferrol broke off abruptly. “I’d like to discuss this with you privately, Captain, if I may.”

Roman eyed him. “I’ll be back on the bridge in a minute. Will that be soon enough?”

Ferrol nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll get Stolt started on the drive.”

“Very good. Out.”

He turned back to the Tampies. “You heard, Rrin-saa?”

“I heard, Rro-maa.”

“All right. Figure out who you’ll need to come to Shadrach with Amity; the rest should start getting the lifeboats ready to fly. All three of your Handlers should stay with Pegasus, of course.”

Rrin-saa hesitated. “Your wishes are ours,” he whined.

“Keep trying to get Pegasus moving,” Roman said, heading for the door. “If you succeed, head out immediately. I’ll be on the bridge if you need me.”

Amity’s corridors were already beginning to hum with activity as Roman emerged from the Tampy section and headed forward. Ferrol was waiting for him when he arrived at the bridge. “Stolt says it’ll take about an hour to bring the drive up,” he told Roman. “I told him not to cut any corners, that it would take that long for us to get the lander and lifeboats ready, anyway.”

“Good.” Roman took a moment to run a quick status check, then cocked an eyebrow at his exec. “So what is it you need a private moment to discuss?”

Ferrol’s eyes bored into his. “To put it bluntly, Captain, I don’t trust the Tampies.”

“You mean as in they may be faking Pegasus’ illness?”

“No, sir. I mean as in making a run for it once Pegasus is well again… whether Amity’s back yet or not.”

For a moment Roman studied the younger man. The ghosts of Prometheus seemed to swirl behind those eyes… and Roman thought about those ninety-seven unfavorable questionnaires. “I think that highly unlikely,” he said at last, “but there’s no particular need to take even that small a chance. We certainly can’t leave the bulk of the survey section out here without a contingent of ship’s crew along to look after them… so you’ll have plenty of people to watch the Tampies, too.”

It took a second to register; and then Ferrol’s eyes widened. “Me, sir?”

“You, Commander,” Roman confirmed. “I’ll need a list of the people you’ll be taking with you within half an hour. Make sure it’s a compatible bunch—Amity’s got her share of intercrew squabbles, and there won’t be room for any friction on the boats.”

“Yes, sir.” Ferrol’s tongue swiped briefly across his upper lip. “Sir… with all due respect, I’d prefer to stay with the Amity.”

“I know you would, Commander,” Roman said, “but I don’t have any other choice.

Someone with command authority has to stay with Pegasus, and I’m going to need both Kennedy and Stolt here with me. That leaves you.”

Ferrol took a deep breath. “Yes, sir,” he said, his voice stiff with protest. He turned back to his station without further comment.

Roman watched the other’s back for a moment, then turned to his own console.

There were orders to be given; but before he got enmeshed in that, there was a crucial question that still had to be settled.

The computer’s opinion, delivered a minute later, was clear but ominous: Amity could survive the trip to Shadrach, even without using Pegasus as a shield… but only as long as B’s energy output stayed at or below current levels. At a two-gee acceleration—the maximum that Tampies could handle for long periods—it would take them over twenty-five hours each way.

And the white dwarfs next burp could come at any time. If it happened in the next fifty hours, Amity was going to fry.

We humans thrive on slim odds, he’d told Rrin-saa. He could only hope that hadn’t been all bravado. Clearing his screen, he keyed for the computer’s pager. “Call Lieutenants Kennedy and Marlowe to the bridge,” he instructed it.

The blazing plumes of superheated plasma from Amity’s fusion drive were visible long after the ship itself was too far away to be seen. Ferrol watched through the lander’s rear viewport as they grew steadily fainter; and after a few minutes, they too were lost in the glare of the twin stars.

Amity was gone.

Ferrol gazed after them a moment longer, conflicting emotions churning within him. Roman had played the danger down, but Ferrol had run all the numbers on his own before leaving the ship, and he knew the dimensions of the razor-edge monorail Roman had sent Amity skating along. If the star gave off with one of its burps before they reached Shadrach, the ship was most likely gone.

Leaving him in command.

He grimaced. In command of a disorganized mob of scientists, few of whom had any idea which end of the lander was which, most of whom were likely to be far more trouble than help if push came to shove. In command of a group of ship’s crewers who knew damn well what was going on, and were edgy as hell because of it.

In command of a group of Tampies.

Ferrol turned away from the viewport and sent a sour look around the lander interior. Surrounding him on all sides was a three-dimensional chaos of people and equipment, a hell designed for the terminally fastidious. Near the middle of the storm floated Dr. Tenzing, bellowing out instructions to his people as best he could through a filter mask; a little ways away Weapons Chief Garin was doing similarly with the crewers.

And beyond them, in a little pocket of calm at the lander’s nose, were the Tampies.

Sitting together in their compact little group—and even in zero-gee Ferrol’s mind insisted on defining their odd cross-legged stances as sitting—they remained for the most part silent and motionless. Occasionally they spoke quietly together, or touched each other, or ducked their misshapen heads to peer out past the cluster of lifeboats at the dark shape of Pegasus floating a kilometer away. One of them moved slightly, giving Ferrol a brief glimpse of Sso-ngu, his eyes unblinking beneath the bulky amplifier helmet, and an even briefer glimpse of the disgusting animal tied in to that helmet.

They were planning something—of that much Ferrol was certain. The only question was… what?

Kicking off the wall, he headed forward, and with unexpected luck managed to intercept Tenzing between orders. “Doctor,” he nodded. “How are your people doing?”

“We’re almost set up,” the other said, his voice sounding a little hoarse. “We should be able to get going in, say, ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Good. I presume I don’t have to tell you to push it.”

Tenzing’s face wrinkled, and Ferrol guessed that beneath the filter mask the other was probably giving him a tight smile. “I hold a minor degree in astrophysics, Commander,” the scientist said. “I know considerably better than you do just exactly what a nova does to its immediate neighborhood.”

“I don’t want to see it close up, either,” Ferrol agreed. “Let’s make sure we don’t have to.”

He gave his handhold a push and floated over to the port side, where Garin was hovering at the midship viewport. “How’s everything look?” he asked.

“As good as can be expected,” Garin grunted. “I was just giving the lifeboat tethers a visual inspection. They seem solid enough.”

“All right. When you’ve got a minute I want you to go find Yamoto and have her move us around into Pegasus’ shadow. No particular rush, but make it soon—we don’t have Amity’s shielding, and there’s no point in sitting out here picking up heat and radiation when we don’t have to.”

“Yes, sir,” Garin nodded. “And after that?”

Ferrol pursed his lips. “After that… I want you to keep an eye on the Tampies for me.”

Garin’s eyebrow twitched. “Anything in particular I’m supposed to watch for?”

“Something underhanded. Attempting to Jump without the Amity, if and when we get Pegasus back to normal. Maybe some kind of crazy sabotage scheme—for all we know, Rrin-saa may have saddled us with a suicide squad here. I don’t know what they’re up to—but they’re up to something. I can feel it.”

Garin looked at the group of Tampies. “Me, too, sir. Don’t worry; I’ll watch them.”

“Good. And if you catch them at anything—” Ferrol hesitated. “Well, just let me know. Privately.”

“Yes, sir,” Garin said softly. “I’ll do that.”

Ferrol nodded and pushed away. In his inner tunic pocket, the tiny needle gun felt very large.