Warhorse

Chapter 17

Kennedy swore gently under her breath. “Recommendation, Ferrol: let’s get the hell out of here.”

“No argument,” Ferrol said grimly. “Sso-ngu, turn Quentin around and ease us away. Take it slow and gentle—we don’t want to provoke those things with any sudden movements.”

“Your wishes are ours.”

Quentin began a leisurely turn, and Ferrol felt himself pushed gently against his chair’s side restraints. He watched the tactical display just long enough to confirm the cloud ahead was matching their maneuver, then turned to face the Tampies. An idea was tugging at the back of his brain… “Wwis-khaa,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “you told me you didn’t know anything about these creatures.

Correct?”

“It is correct,” the Tampy replied.

“All right. Can you tell me, then, if other Tampies know anything about these creatures?”

The alien hesitated. “I do not know for sure,” he said slowly. “I know that some have claimed to; that is all.”

Ferrol grinned humorlessly to himself. “So what would one of those Tampies tell me about the creatures, if they were here?”

There was a long silence, as if Wwis-khaa was trying to decide whether or not that came under the dreaded name of speculation. “I’ll remind you,” Ferrol said into the silence, “that our lives could depend on knowing what we’re facing.” A flash of inspiration—“Quentin’s life, too, of course.”

Wwis-khaa exhaled, teeth chattering together. “They are spoken of as… carrioneaters.

As—” He fumbled for words.

“Vultures,” Kennedy supplied. “Terran carrion birds.”

“Yes,” Wwis-khaa said. “They were said to be observed beside a dead space horse in the asteroids of a distant system. No recordings were made.”

“Did these vultures make any move against the Tampy ship?” Ferrol asked.

“They moved toward it, but the space horse Jumped before they came near. The Handler afterward reported fear.”

Ferrol thought a minute. “Did the Tampies actually see the dead space horse die?”

“No. He was dead and being consumed when they arrived.”

“Have there been any other sightings?” Kennedy asked. “Has anyone witnessed a space horse dying before the vultures showed up?”

“I do not know,” Wwis-khaa said.

“I also do not know,” Sso-ngu put in. “I know I have heard of no such reports; that is all.”

“You think they’re more than just carrion-eaters?” Ferrol asked Kennedy.

“They’re small, but there are a hell of a lot of them,” Kennedy pointed out thoughtfully. “The literature says that the Tampies have had some of their space horses in captivity for seven hundred years now; no one even knows what their natural life span is. To assume the vultures just happen to show up at the exact place and time a space horse dies is stretching things a little far.”

“But we don’t know that’s the case,” Demothi spoke up, his voice uneasy. “This space horse could have been dead hundreds of years before the vultures found it.

Or perhaps they exist in huge numbers all over the galaxy, drifting in suspended animation like spores until a space horse dies nearby. Or maybe a dying space horse gives out a telepathic pulse or something that attracts them. We just don’t know.”

Kennedy threw Ferrol a look. He nodded agreement; Demothi was trying just a little too hard to talk himself into believing the vultures were harmless. And under the circumstances, wishful thinking wasn’t a luxury they could afford to put up with. “You’re talking like a Tampy thinks,” Ferrol told him, taking surprisingly little pleasure in popping the other’s bubble. “Before you get all misty-eyed over the infinite variety of the universe and the need to refrain from preconceived ideas, let me remind you that these allegedly passive carrion-eaters have very effectively locked us into this system.”

“Looking us over, probably,” Kennedy said.

“Or else waiting for Quentin to tire,” Ferrol said. “Though trying to starve a space horse in a yishyar system strikes me as pretty stupid.” Quentin had completed its turn now, and Ferrol felt himself being pushed back into his seat as the calf began to pick up speed. “The vultures stay with us the whole time?” he asked Kennedy.

“Like they were welded there,” she confirmed. “Quentin’s just too slow on turns to get ahead of them. Even with them having to lug that optical net of boulders along with them.”

An optical net. An odd term… but that was exactly what it was. A semisolid disk that had them trapped as thoroughly as if they were inside the webbing back at the Tampies’ Kialinninni corral.

Trapped… but why?

“Kennedy,” he said slowly, “is that locator program still running?”

She checked. “Yes. Still nothing registering.”

“Can the anomalous-motion section be extracted and run alone?”

Kennedy gave him a hard look. “You think,” she said, dropping her voice, “that the vultures might be holding us here for something else?”

“I can’t see them breaking off a good meal just for the fun of it,” Ferrol told her, matching his volume to hers.

She nodded and got to work; and a second later Ferrol was slammed briefly into his seat as Quentin jerked. “What was that?” he snapped, twisting his head to look at the Tampies.

Sso-ngu‘s mouth moved soundlessly for a handful of heartbeats before any words came out. “I do not know,” he said. “I know that I have never felt such intensity of feeling in a space horse before; that is all.”

“Well, what’s it like?” Ferrol snarled. “Is it like fear, or concern, or happiness—?”

“Movement!” Kennedy snapped. “One object, very large; bearing one hundred starboard, thirty nadir, range 170 kilometers. Closing!”

Ferrol had the object on his own display now; the scale clicked on—

“Ffe-rho!—Quentinninni is afraid—I cannot hold him—”

“Give it its head!” Ferrol barked. “Just don’t let it Jump—”

The rest of his words were blown out with his wind as Quentin shot forward, ramming him two gee’s-worth back into his seat. “Kennedy!” he managed as his body struggled to adjust to weight again.

“No contest,” she said, her voice tight. “The thing’s doing at least seven gees toward us.”

Ferrol got a hand to his display, keyed for tactical. Two gees or not, the vultures were still staying with them. And the scale on the intruder—“My God,” he said.

“Damn thing’s almost two kilometers long.”

“I’d say we’ve found our space horse killer,” Kennedy agreed. “That thing’s bearing down on us like a hungry shark.”

“Yeah, well, let’s see if we can discourage it a little.”

Fighting the extra weight in his arms, Ferrol keyed the comm laser for a fullintensity unmodulated pulse and set it to tracking the shark, wishing to hell he had some real weaponry to work with. “We got anything aboard this teacup besides the laser?” he asked.

“Not that I know of,” Kennedy said. “But we’re running directly away from it now, which means the main drive’s pointing straight down its throat.”

“Good.” The tactical showed the laser locked firmly on the elongated mass overtaking them. “Be sure to balance with the forward jets—we don’t want to ram Quentin.”

“Right. Range, forty-five kilometers—”

And without warning the weight was abruptly lifted from them. An instant later Ferrol was jammed painfully against his harness, the hiss of the forward jets in his ears. He caught just a glimpse of Quentin’s dark bulk as it rushed toward the forward viewport—

And with a grinding of metal the lander caromed off the calf’s side.

It took a second for Ferrol to shake off the shock. “Kennedy—what the hell—?”

“Shark reached out and grabbed Quentin, I think,” she said, her voice a bit slurred.

Ferrol looked sharply at her; but her next words were clear enough. “I couldn’t stop us in time.”

From behind them came a low moan—fear or anger or something else, coming from Demothi. “Sso-ngu, is Quentin hurt badly?” Ferrol called, glancing back.

“He is not injured.” The words were barely understandable, as if the Tampy could spare only a tiny fraction of his mind for the task of speaking English. His eyes were bright; his twisted face preternaturally alert and very alien. “He is being drawn toward the other. Who will consume him.”

Demothi moaned again. “Kennedy, give the shark a full-power spurt from the drive,” Ferrol gritted. “See if we can distract it.”

“Damn far away for that.”

“Yeah, but the telekene grip will just get stronger as it reels us in. We’ve got to try it.”

“Right.”

Ferrol braced himself; and was slammed again into his seat for an instant as the roar of the lander’s fusion drive filled the boat. Lost in the noise was the crack of capacitors as his jabbing finger fired the laser. The sound and acceleration cut off simultaneously. “Sso-ngu? Are we free?”

“The hold remains,” the Tampy said.

“But we’re not moving backwards any more,” Kennedy put in. “Could be we’ve confused or startled it.”

“Hit it again,” Ferrol ordered. On the visual he could see what looked like one of the shark’s feeding orifices rotating into view, and he’d just focused the laser on it when Kennedy fired the drive again. He rode it out, clenching his teeth firmly together; and she’d just cut off the power when the capacitor blinked ready. This time, the crack was clearly audible. “Again,” he snapped. If the tactical numbers were right, they’d actually gained a little distance on their attacker. The roar and acceleration came—

And the lander leaped forward, swaying wildly back and forth like a pendulum.

“Sso-ngu!” Ferrol snapped, fighting both the two-gee weight and a sudden surge of nausea.

“Quentinninni is free,” Sso-ngu said. “He is running toward an asteroid where he hopes to hide.”

Ferrol took a shuddering breath, eyes on the tactical. The shark was falling back, apparently not pursuing. Fifty kilometers… fifty-five… sixty—probably out of telekene range now…

“The vultures are still with us,” Kennedy said.

Ferrol nodded grimly. “I’ll settle for half a victory at this point,” he told her. “Ssongu, what’re the chances we’ve discouraged the shark permanently? After all, Quentin’s a pretty small mouthful for a predator that size.”

“I do not know,” was the predictable reply. “But you humans are a predator species yourself. Can you not form an accurate idea within yourself?”

Ferrol swallowed. Indeed he could… and the idea he formed wasn’t an especially encouraging one.

They fled at a full two gees’ acceleration for nearly ten minutes before Quentin could be persuaded to ease up. Under Sso-ngu‘s guidance the calf modified its speed and heading until it was paralleling a particularly dense section of the asteroid belt. “Maybe we should try weaving in and out, see if we can throw the vultures off,” Ferrol suggested.

“Probably a waste of time,” Kennedy shook her head. “However they hold station in front of Quentin, I don’t think they’re doing it strictly by visual means.”

Ferrol frowned. “What makes you think that?”

“When they first moved in on us they were nearly a hundred kilometers away,” she reminded him, fingers skating across keys. “Quentin’s only about a hundred meters long, with a maximum width maybe twenty-five. The difference between head-on view and complete broadside would have been only sixteen minutes of an arc.

That’s… let’s see; a thumbnail at seventeen meters. Yet they immediately settled in directly in front of Quentin. I find it hard to believe their eyesight is that good.”

“I don’t see what difference it makes how they do it,” Demothi growled impatiently.

For a man who’d spent two months trying to suppress human emotions, Ferrol thought sourly, Demothi was certainly making up for lost time. “How it matters,”

he told the other, “is that whatever they’re locking onto is very likely the same thing the shark’s going to use to track us if and when it decides on a rematch.” At least, that was what he thought the point was. He glanced at Kennedy, got a small confirming nod, and focused on the Tampies. “Sso-ngu, Wwis-khaa: do either of you know of any long-range senses space horses have that the shark and vultures may be duplicating?”

“It is thought that the internal source of telekinetic power is detectable,” Wwiskhaa said. Apparently, having been verbally maneuvered once already into revealing something he didn’t know personally made it easier the second time.

Either that, or even Tampies could give up their silly philosophic games when their own deaths were on the line. “In addition, it is thought that much of a space horse’s energy is produced by small fusion and fission reactions within his body.”

“That’ll give off neutrinos, among other things,” Kennedy commented thoughtfully. “Maybe in a recognizable pattern.”

“I’d vote for the telekene-detector, myself,” Ferrol said. “The direction or distribution of the ability is clearly asymmetric; otherwise, space horses could back up better than they do. A neutrino distribution ought to be more uniform.”

Kennedy shrugged. “Maybe. Either way, though, it means we’ve got at least one very obvious solution.” She gave him a significant look, gave a slight nod forward.

“What’s that?” Demothi demanded, his voice heavy with suspicion. “What’s she talking about?”

“She’s talking about cutting Quentin loose and letting it run,” Ferrol told him.

He was prepared for objections. But not prepared enough. “What?” Demothi all but yelped. “You can’t do that—Quentin wouldn’t have a chance.”

“It might,” Kennedy put in. “Either way, if it’s a choice between the space horse or us—”

“You can’t do that,” Demothi repeated. “Damn it all, Ferrol, you might as well just kill Quentin here and now.”

“Mmo-thee,” Sso-ngu said, reaching an awkward hand to Demothi’s shoulder.

Demothi shrugged off the touch. “That’s a calf, damn it—a baby.”

“It’s survival of the fittest,” Ferrol snapped, suddenly tired of having to argue about everything he said. “Ecology, Demothi—space horses eat rocks, sharks eat space horses, and vultures eat what’s left. You’re so keen on Tampies and Tampy philosophy?—well, that’s it in a nutshell. Letting nature take its course.”

Demothi’s face was red; but it was Sso-ngu who spoke up. “We respect all living things and the systems in which they live, yes,” the alien said. “Yet, in accepting a space horse’s service, we in return offer him our protection. We cannot turn Quentinninni free under such dangerous conditions, Ffe-rho. Not even to save ourselves.”

“It doesn’t really matter whether you like it or not,” Ferrol told them shortly. “I’m in command here, and I’ll do what I think necessary.” He took a deep breath. “As it happens, though, turning Quentin loose now would only postpone the problem. The minute the Amity gets here they’re going to be in the same fix we’re in now, and the more data we can collect between now and then, the better everyone’s chances of getting out of here alive.”

He turned to Kennedy. “So. First thing, I suppose, is to call up the record of the fight, see if we did any real damage to the shark.”

He hadn’t expected to find evidence of any; and in this he was right. “Just not enough energy in either the laser or the drive to overload its natural absorption capabilities,” Kennedy shook her head as she frowned at the analysis. “At least not at the distance we had to work from.”

Ferrol nodded. “So what we need is a way to concentrate a lot of energy into either a smaller area or a shorter time.”

“You speak of attacking the shark,” Sso-ngu said quietly. “Perhaps you intend to kill it. It would be preferable if another way could be found.”

Ferrol felt his lip twist. The shark had been out of sight for several minutes, so of course the Tampies were going all soft and mushy again. So much for survival instincts. “You might want to take a minute right now,” he threw over his shoulder,

“and decide whether it’s Quentin or the shark you really want to protect.”

“Why may we not protect both?” the Tampy persisted. “If we can simply evade the shark until the Amity arrives, then disrupt the optical net which prevents our escape—”

‘“And how do you expect us to do anything to the vultures when they stay on Quentin’s far side and thirty kilometers away?” Demothi asked dully.

“As a matter of fact,” Kennedy put in. “Sso-ngu‘s right. We can’t hope to kill the shark—neither we nor the Amity is equipped with the sub-nuke torpedos or military lasers we’d need to do that. All we can go for is escape; and the vultures are our best breakpoint.”

“I don’t suppose you’d have any ideas how we’d do that,” Demothi growled.

“Maybe,” she said. “Anyway, now’s the time to try.” She tapped a spot on the tactical display. “The shark’s moving away from us.”

Doing 1.4 gee, Ferrol read off, on a course that would take it back to the dead space horse. “It’ll be back,” he murmured to Kennedy. “The advantages of eating a space horse are the same as feeding at a yishyar, only more so: all the trace and rare elements it needs, all in the right porportions and concentrated in a single package.”

“Why all predators exist, in other words,” Kennedy nodded. “Which means we have to come up with something now, before it finishes out there and heads back for dessert.”

“Right. You have any idea?”

“Possibly.” She tapped some keys, and a schematic of the lander appeared on her display, together with an inventory list. “It’ll depend on how much spare webbing we’ve got aboard, and on what sort of miracles we can do with the engines.”

She began describing her plan… and as she talked, Ferrol found himself studying her face. Seeing, as if for the first time, the cool eyes and the small age lines around them. Kennedy’s file, he remembered, had listed her age as forty-six—not quite twice Ferrol’s own—with a military record that had been left deliberately and disturbingly vague. The Senator had hinted that that hidden record was an impressive one; he’d out-and-out warned Ferrol that she was highly dangerous.

And dangerous was exactly what they needed right now. He hoped like hell the Senator hadn’t been exaggerating.