“It’s a good thing,” Jessan said, “that you made Beka leave off her knife for this little charade. Otherwise we’d have to wash Gentlesir Ebenra D’Caer out of that hovercar with a hose.”
“She’s well in control of herself,” the Professor replied, without looking up from the control panel of the asteroid base’s main holoprojector.
“You hope,” said Jessan.
He stood watching at the Professor’s shoulder, one hand tapping out a restless rhythm on the panel’s edge while the older man created an unrolling landscape around the mock-up hovercar shell. Llannat Hyfid sat cross-legged on the cement floor of the projection room at some distance from them both, a small figure in Adept’s black, eyes closed and features immobile as she held D’Caer in the beglam-oured state that made him more susceptible to the Professor’s holographic illusions.
“Still,” the Entiboran conceded, as the overhead monitor showed D‘Caer’s hand sliding down below Beka’s waist, “it might be wise to abridge the ‘trip to the port’ sequence. I doubt that he’ll notice.”
The hovercar whirred through the spaceport gates, flashed arrogantly past the commercial craft on its way to the private docking bays, and pulled up with a whine of nullgravs at the entrance ramp of a yacht painted in the blue and silver of the Royal House of Sapne. The driver pulled the side door open.
“Here so soon?” asked D’Caer. Briefly, he considered compelling the Princess to board the yacht with him, as a combination of insurance and entertainment for the journey, but something about the look of the huge chauffeur stopped him.
Loyal family retainer to the core, that one
, he thought.
If I tried to abduct Her Royal Silliness, he’d pound me into the pavement before he noticed I’d shot him dead. As it is, I’ll be in hyperspace by the time he’s done calming her hysterics.
“Thank you for the loan of the yacht, my dear,” he said instead. “This will only take a little while.”
He gave the Princess a farewell kiss that she bore with only a faint whimpering nose in her throat, and then slid out of the hovercar. “Good-bye, Your Highness.”
He strolled up the boarding ramp and shut the hatch behind him.
“High time,” Jessan muttered, as Beka and Ari climbed out of the mock-up hovercar and headed over toward the lift doors. Behind them, the appearance of the “spaceport” shifted and changed. The only parts that remained were those visible from the windows of
Crystal World,
docked back in the asteroid base’s chilly, echoing bay.
Readouts flickered on the console screens. “There’s his lift-off now,” said the Professor.
The Entiboran touched a sequence of keys on the console control panel. The ship pulled down under heavy tractor beams, imitating the acceleration of launch, and the holoprojections outside the windows showed Ovredis dwindling away.
“I hope he enjoys the trip,” Jessan said absently, most of his attention on the monitors that showed Beka and Ari’s progress across the floor of the bay. Beka seemed mostly disgusted—she wore the expression of someone who’s just found a dead insect at the bottom of the cha’a pot—but the look on Ari’s face made the Khesatan shake his head.
Somehow I don’t think Beka was the one on the edge of breaking back there.
The big medic had himself under control, though, by the time he and his sister stepped out of the lift into the projection room and came up to the control panel. “How did it go?” he asked.
Jessan shrugged. “You’ll have to ask the Professor. But it looked good from out front.”
“It damned well better have,” Beka said. “As far as I’m concerned, the only question left is whether I give him to Dadda for a solstice present or cycle him out of an airlock with a space suit and half an hour of air.”
“Perhaps we shouldn’t be so hasty, my lady,” the Professor said. A new light on the console had begun to flash. “Our friend wants to make a long-distance comm call through the planet’s orbiting link stations.”
“Interesting,” said Jessan. “Are we able to oblige him?”
The Professor smiled. “Fortunately, we are prepared for the eventuality. At the moment, the comm links on
Crystal World
connect only to this panel.”
The flashing red light changed to yellow as the Professor picked up a handset, and the speaker crackled. “This is Ebenra D’Caer on Ovredis,” said a scratchy voice. “I want to talk to Nivome.”
Nivome,
thought Jessan.
I knew this felt too easy.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the Professor said. A readout panel beside the handset showed two wave patterns superimposed, indicating a distorter in operation at the Professor’s end of the link. “Nivome isn’t talking to anyone.”
“He’ll talk to me,” said the scratchy voice. “Get him.”
“If you insist, sir.”
The imitation of an offended family servant had Jessan suppressing a laugh in spite of himself. Then the Professor switched off the comm link and turned to the others.
“Gentlesir D’Caer can stay in suspense for a few minutes,” he said. “Meanwhile, we have trouble.”
Beka bit her lower lip and regarded the monitor views of
Crystal World
with an expression that made her look more like Tarnekep Portree than the Princess of Sapne. Next to her, Ari shook his head in frustration and scowled at the comm set.
“Who’s this Nivome?” he asked.
“Like the Professor said—trouble,” Jessan answered.
“If he’s who I think he is—and the name’s not all that common—he heads the Five Families of Rolny and makes D’Caer look like a pauper. Owns a couple of planets outright, that sort of thing. I met him a few times, back home on Khesat.”
“Excellent,” said the Professor, his face brightening. “Can you imitate his voice?”
“Not very well.”
“Do the best you can, Commander. It’s a long way from Ovredis to Rolny, and our friend won’t be surprised to find himself contending with interference on the hyperspace relays.”
“Indeed.” Jessan reached for the handset. “I’ll provide Nivome for you, then—but you’d better make that ‘heavy interference.’”
“Ion storms, I think, in the Arcari sector,” the Professor murmured, bending over the control panel once more. “Over to you, Commander.”
Jessan closed his eyes for a second, calling up everything he could remember about Nivome’s speech patterns from a handful of long-ago casual meetings.
Just a touch of the accent should do the trick for something this short. And don’t worry about timbre and pitch. The Professor’s ion storms can handle that. All right, then—here we go.
“Rolny here,” he said over the comm link. “D’Caer, this had better be important.”
“It is. Space Force is onto us.”
“Calm yourself, D’Caer,” said Jessan. “What is there for them to find out?”
“You know damn well what!” snarled D’Caer’s voice over the link. “And if they know I arranged the Domina’s assassination, how much do you want to bet they don’t know who put me up to it—and why?”
Out of his own mouth,
Jessan thought with satisfaction.
And willingly, too.
The Khesatan glanced over at Llannat, still deep in her trance. He wondered if the Adept knew what Beka had endured to fulfill her part of that bargain the two women had struck back aboard
Crystal World.
“Are you sure about all this?” he said to D’Caer over the comm link by way of encouragement.
“It’s true,” the scratchy voice replied. “There was a Space Force man here to arrest me, but I got clear. You’d better do the same.”
Time for a touch of panic, Jessan decided. “You can’t show up here, D’Caer!”
“What kind of fool do you think I am? I won’t go near Darvell. Just watch yourself.”
Damn, thought Jessan.
If Nivome’s holed up on Darvell then nothing can touch him. That place is worse than Rolny.
“I can handle things on my end,” he said over the link. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
“Nothing. Out.”
The link clicked off.
“Now that,” said the Professor, “was certainly informative. My congratulations, Commander, on an inspired performance.”
“One manages,” Jessan said. “What next?”
“The ‘
Hammer
and I are going to Darvell,” Beka said. “Anybody who wants to come along, can—but I’m going regardless.”
“And I, my lady,” said the Professor. “Lieutenant Rosselin-Metadi?”
Ari ignored him. “You know I’m with you, Bee.”
“Ari,” she said, “you don’t know what Darvell is like. It’s not even part of the Republic.”
The big medic shook his head and growled one of his Selvauran oaths deep in his throat. “I told you once already—I’ m coming along. How about you, Jessan?”
“Of course,” he said.
Darvell. Now I know I’ve gone crazy
. “I wouldn’t miss it for all the worlds.”
“Thanks,” Beka said. “All three of you. I suppose we can ask Mistress Hyfid when she comes out of her trance.”
“Are you taking volunteers for something?” came a voice, faint but clear, from across the projection room.
Jessan turned his head, and saw Llannat getting stiffly to her feet. The Adept looked like a good candidate for a hot bath, a solid meal, and twelve hours of sleep, but her step was firm enough as she came up to join the others at the console.
“We’re planning to go visit Darvell and get ourselves killed,” Ari explained. The prospect didn’t seem to be bothering him much. “Want to come along?”
“You’re all crazy,” Llannat said. “Am I invited?”
The Professor made the Adept a formal bow. “Your presence, Mistress, would do our campaign great honor.”
She smiled at the Entiboran. “Then how could I refuse?”
The console beeped.
“Hyperspace jump calculations coming in from
Crystal World
,” Beka said. “Professor?”
“Let’s see where he wants to go,” said the Entiboran. In silence, they watched the numbers scroll up the console screen. Beka was the first to speak.
“I’ll be damned,” she said, as the Professor keyed in more commands, and the star-rush of hyperspace entry appeared in holoprojected glory before the cockpit windows of
Crystal World
. “The son of a bitch thinks he’s jumping for the Mageworlds!”
A
RI’S DEEP voice broke the resulting silence.
“The Mageworlds. Bee, are you sure?”
Jessan turned from the comp screen to see the big medic looking at the captain with a frown. In response, Beka pointed to the screen.
“The coordinates are right there, big brother,” she said. “Work out the course for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“I believe you, I believe you,” said Ari. “But the Mageworlds … damn. Why can’t things be simple for a change?”
Jessan shrugged. “The galaxy hates you?” He turned to Beka. “What do we do now, Captain?”
“Do?” She regarded the rest of them with a bright, challenging gaze. “As far as I’m concerned,
Warhammer
has an appointment on Darvell. All D’Caer’s done is raise the question of timing. Professor—your opinion?”
“That first things come first, my lady,” said the Entiboran, gentle-voiced as always. “Gentlesir D’Caer can keep indefinitely—my robots are equally proficient as valets and as jailors—but Nivome the Rolny owes your House a debt that is long overdue.”
Ari nodded. “I agree.”
“Don’t worry,” said Beka. “We’ll see that Nivome pays up. But I’ve got a bad feeling about that Mageworlds jump.” She glanced over toward Llannat. “Mistress Hyfid, if anybody in the civilized galaxy knows about the Magelords, it’s an Adept. What do you say?”
Llannat glanced around from the monitor she’d been frowning at while the others talked. “What? Oh, D’Caer.” She shook her head. “D’Caer’s not a Magelord. The smell’s not on him.”
Beka stared at her. “Damn it, we just
saw
—”
“Let me finish, Captain!”
Beka’s eyebrows went up for a moment, and then, to Jessan’s surprise, Ari’s sister chuckled. “Since you put it that way, Mistress … go on.”
Llannat nodded, but her eyes had already gone back to the image of
Crystal World
on the monitor screen. She kept on watching it as she spoke.
“What we just saw, Captain, means that we’ve got native-born citizens of the Republic in direct contact with the Mageworlds.” She lifted her eyes from the screen, and her expression was sober. “Anybody care for a try at reading the future? It shouldn’t take an Adept for this one.”
Jessan felt cold. “Speaking as a Adept,” he said, “how much breathing space do you think the Republic’s got?”
Llannat gave him a bleak smile. “Let me tell you something about seeing the future, Jessan—most of the time it’s about as useful as getting anonymous notes in your mailbox. You want prophecies whistled up to order, go to a fortune-teller or pull slips of paper out of a hat.”
“In other words,” Beka said, “you don’t know.”
The Adept sighed. “Even Master Ransome’s predictions are obscure, Captain, and I’m nowhere near in his league. But I know what the Selvaurs would say.”
“What’s that, Mistress?”
“‘Hunt while you can. The weather may change tomorrow.’”
“Got you,” said Beka. “That’s it, then. But let’s get D’Caer tucked away first.”
Jessan heard the click of comp keys on the panel next to him as the Professor entered yet another set of commands into the projection room’s control console.
“The gas in
Crystal World‘
s intruder-immobilization systems will take effect soon,” said the Entiboran. “After that, the robots can fetch D’Caer out of the yacht and convey him to the maximum-security cells.”
Ari looked curious. “This place has some of those?”
“Of course,” the Professor said. “One never knows when such things may come in handy.”
“Fine,” said Beka. “You know what’s here, Professor, and what we’re likely to need. How soon can we lift?”
The Professor thought in silence for a moment. “Allowing for dinner and a full night of rest before lift-off—if we start working immediately, Captain, we can lift within a Standard day.”
“Then let’s move, gentles,” said Beka. “We’re hitting Darvell, and our prisoner can sit here until we come home to collect him.”
If we come home,
thought Jessan, but he knew better than to say that aloud.
Ari stood in the center of the asteroid base’s well-stocked and up-to-date sickbay, surrounded by the ‘
Hammer’
s first-aid chest, the emergency kit from the Nammerin Medical Station’s aircar, and a collection of sturdy boxes and cartons. Behind him, the door to the docking bay snicked open, and he turned.
His sister entered, dressed in a coverall and spaceboots, and carrying a pocket comp. She hadn’t yet taken the time to get back into her Tarnekep rig, for which Ari felt thankful. Beka was enough of a handful under ordinary circumstances, but wearing the face and affecting the style of her highly unpleasant Mandeynan alter ego made all her natural tendencies even worse.
She stopped just inside the door, and looked at the array of boxes. “Are you planning to pack out the whole sickbay?”
“As much of it as I can,” he said. “I’d take the bone-mender and the healing pod, if I thought the ’
Hammer
had hookups for them.”
“She’s an armed freighter, not a hospital ship,” said Beka. She glanced about the room again, and shook her head. “Well, you’re the medic.”
“I’ll number the boxes in order of priority,” he promised. “How are things going on your end?”
“The Prof is tuning up the electronic cloaking gear on
Defiant
now.”
“Mmph,” Ari said, pulling boxes of sprain tape and plain bandages down off the shelf in front of him and making a layer of them in the bottom of the nearest carton. He looked from the loaded shelves to the empty boxes. “I wish I knew just how much cubic was going to be free in the ’
Hammer
’s hold … . How did an Entiboran gentleman like the Professor wind up owning a Magebuilt ship?”
His sister punched a code into the comp. “I never asked,” she said. “I figure it’s his own business what he did back in the old days.”
“Even if it included trading with the Mageworlds? That’s treason, you know.”
Beka looked exasperated. “My word, Ari, but you can be stuffy sometimes! He was a confidential agent of House Rosselin for years before the war even started; if he picked up a Magebuilt scoutship it’s probably because he needed one.”
She paused, and her expression changed to something Ari would have pegged as fond tolerance, if he’d thought for a moment that Bee had it in her to be tolerant of anything.
“Besides,” she went on, “the Prof may or may not have been a friend of the Republic’s—if he had to choose between House Rosselin and the rest of the galaxy, I don’t think he’d give the galaxy a second thought—but he’s certainly been a good friend to me.”
Ari frowned. “If he’s such, a good friend, why is he letting you go charging off into trouble on Darvell?”
The sickbay doors opened again, and Jessan entered—just in time, it seemed, to catch Ari’s last remark. The Khesatan laughed. “Royalty, my good man, can do whatever it pleases,” he said in his best Sapnish accent, “and it’s not the place of a loyal family retainer to argue. Or so our friend the Professor seems to think.”
“Let it lie, Nyls,” said Beka.
But the look she gave the fair-haired medic wasn’t nearly as chilly as Ari would have expected, knowing just how much his sister hated any reminder of her royal antecedents. House Rosselin had reckoned inheritance in the female line, and all the galaxy knew it. Calling the six-year-old Beka “sweet little Domina” was what had bought Tarveet of Pleyver that garden slug in his dinner salad, and Bee didn’t seem to have mellowed any on the subject since then.
Right now, though, she and Jessan were looking at each other in silence, and Ari was at a loss to interpret either expression. Neither his friend nor his sister appeared inclined to speak first; Ari sighed, coughed to gain Jessan’s attention, and asked, “What brings you in here?”
“The hoversled you sent for,” said Jessan. “It’s outside waiting to get loaded.”
“That’s right, Ari,” said Beka. “Fill as many boxes as you want to. They won’t take up more than a corner of the hold.”
“Thanks,” muttered Ari. He turned to Jessan. “How’s the tune-up going?”
“Like a charm,” said the Khesatan. “We can slip into Darvelline space by the back door and never be noticed.”
“Why all the extra bother?” Ari asked his sister. “Why not just go in as
Pride of Mandeyn
on a normal run?”
Beka shook her head. “No way we can be the
Pride
for this trip. What we’ll be doing is nothing at all like the way a merchant does business—especially on Darvell.”
“You’ve been there before?” Ari asked.
“No,” she said. “I never needed to go out of the Republic to find a cargo. But I’ve heard some real horror stories.”
“What kind of horror stories?” Jessan inquired, looking interested. “Blood sacrifices at the dark of the moon? Cannibals dancing in the streets? Carnivorous flora?”
“You’ve seen too many episodes of ‘Spaceways Patrol,’” Ari told him. “All right, Bee, enlighten us. What’s Darvell supposed to be like?”
“It’s so calm and law-abiding it’s unnatural,” said Beka.
“Everybody’s numbered off as they land, and outside the port compound it’s strictly ‘no spacers allowed.’ You either stay on your ship, or you bunk in one of the government dormitories inside the fence.”
“What about the rest of the world?” he asked.
“Who knows?” Beka said. “Lots of people immigrate to Darvell, and you don’t hear of anybody leaving. But it’s no place for a free-trader to do business. Everything works through a government middleman—no chance to talk to the locals and strike your own bargains—and the port captains and consignment inspectors are supposed to be above reproach.”
“What does that mean?” asked Ari.
Beka looked grim. “Nobody has
ever
bribed one.”
Ari thought about that for a while. “You’re right,” he said finally. “That does sound frightening.”
Dinner that night turned out to be a silent and edgy affair. Ari didn’t find lack of appetite a problem—not after hours of hard work punctuated only by short breaks for cha’a and sandwiches—but he still excused himself from the table as soon as he could.
Nobody else was showing any tendency to linger over dessert either, which helped. He didn’t get any arguments when he made his good-nights to the rest of the ’
Hammer
’s crew and went back to his room. It wasn’t until he’d pulled the sheet up over him and kneaded the pillow into an acceptable state of yieldingness that he realized he’d started reverting to the hunting lessons of his adolescence on Maraghai.
*Sleep well, youngling,* Ferrdacorr had told him again and again. *Once you’re on the blood trail, you can’t stop because you’re tired.*
Yawning, Ari wondered what his father’s old friend would have said about this particular hunt. He decided that the Selvaur would probably have approved. The Master of Darvell—powerful, cunning, and a predator in his own right—made a quarry worthy of anyone’s hunting. And the Lords of the Forest didn’t think much of the thin-skins’ habit of handing over the dirty work to paid help like Security and the Space Force.
At least this time
, thought Ari,
I get to carry a blasters.
On the Long Hunt, the solitary expedition that by Selvaur tradition had made him into a full adult member of the clan, things had been different. One by one, on Midsummer Night, he and his agemates had set out from the river-valley settlement, heading into the mountains to stalk the carnivores of the high slopes. Great predators like the cliffdragon, the darkstalker, and the muscular, lean-bodied
sigrikka
were the only beasts on Maraghai that could match the strength and ferocity of a full-grown Selvaur. Taking such a prey by strength and skill alone would prove that the blood of the Forest Lords had not run thin.
Therefore, as custom decreed, the youths had gone into the mountains unarmed. Some of the Old Ones had proposed that Ari be allowed a hunting knife, to make up for the lack of serviceable teeth and claws, but Ferrdacorr had turned down the concession. If his friend Jos Metadi’s thin-skinned cub wanted to come into the clan, let him do it according to the rules.
By their own rights, though, neither Ferrda nor the Old Ones had been unreasonable. Since it wasn’t Ari’s fault that he’d been born without a thick scaly hide, they hadn’t forbidden warm clothing and good stout boots. By the third fruitless week of his hunt, he was feeling grateful for even that small indulgence. Selvaur youths had gotten trapped in the high ranges by the coming of winter before, and while most of them lived through the experience to make their hunt again, even a Selvaur could freeze if the weather got cold enough.