“Space yacht Flutterby, GB-327-RP, beaming Georgetown, Ascension Island. We are in distress. Come in, Georgetown. Come in, Georgetown.”
The whistle of cloven air lifted toward a roar. Heat billowed through the forward shield. The bridge viewports seemed aflame and the radar screen had gone mad. Heim settled firmer into his harness and fought the pilot console.
“Garrison to Flutterby.” The British voice was barely audible as maser waves struggled through the ionized air enveloping that steel meteorite. “We read you. Come in, Flutterby.”
“Stand by for emergency landing,” David Penoyer said. His yellow hair was plastered down with sweat. “Over.”
“You can’t land here. This island is temporarily restricted. Over.” Static snarled around the words.
Engines sang aft. Force fields wove their four-dimensional dance through the gravitrons. The internal compensators held steady, there was no sense of that deceleration which made the hull groan; but swiftly the boat lost speed, until thermal effect ceased. In the ports a vision of furnaces gave way to the immense curve of the South Atlantic. Clouds were scattered woolly above its shiningness. The horizon line was a deep blue edging into space black.
“The deuce we can’t,” Penoyer said. “Over.”
“What’s wrong?” Reception was loud and clear this time.
“Something blew as we reached suborbital velocity. We’ve a hole in the tail and no steering pulses. Bloody little control from the main drive. I think we can set down on Ascension, but don’t ask me where. Over.”
“Ditch in the ocean and we’ll send a boat. Over.”
“Didn’t you hear me, old chap? We’re hulled. We’d sink like a stone. Might get out with spacesuits and life jackets, or might not. But however that goes, Lord Ponsonby won’t be happy about losing a million pounds’ worth of yacht. We’ve a legal right to save her if we can. Over.”
“Well—hold on, I’ll switch you to the captain’s office—”
“Nix. No time. Don’t worry. We won’t risk crashing into Garrison. Our vector’s aimed at the south side. We’ll try for one of the plateaus. Will broadcast a signal for you to home on when we’re down, which’ll be in a few more ticks. Wish us luck. Over and out.”
Penoyer snapped down the switch and turned to Heim. “Now we’d better be fast,” he said above the thunders. “They’ll scramble some armed flyers as soon as they don’t hear from us.”
Heim nodded. During those seconds of talk Connie Girl had shot the whole way. A wild dark landscape clawed up at her. His detectors registered metal and electricity, which must be at Cynbe’s lair. Green Mountain lifted its misty head between him and the radars at Georgetown. He need no longer use only the main drive. That had been touch and go!
He cut the steering back in. The boat swerved through an arc that howled like a wolf. A tiny landing field carved from volcanic rock appeared in the viewports. He came down in a shattering blast of displaced air. Dust vomited skyward.
The jacks touched ground. He slapped the drive to Idle and threw off his harness. “Take over, Dave,” he said, and pounded for the main airlock.
His score of men arrived with him, everyone spacesuited.
Their weapons gleamed in the overhead illumination. He cursed the safety seal that made the lock open with such sadistic slowness. Afternoon light slanted through. He led the way, jumped off the ramp before it had finished extruding, and crouched in the settling dust.
There were three buildings across the field, as Coquelin had said: a fifteen-man barracks, a vehicle shed, and an environmental dome. The four sentries outside the latter held their guns in a stupefied fashion, only approximately pointed at him. The two men on a mobile GTA missile carrier gaped. Georgetown HQ had naturally phoned them not to shoot if they detected a spacecraft. The rest of the guard were pouring from quarters.
Heim counted. Some weren’t in sight yet … He lumbered toward them. “Emergency landing,” he called. “I saw your field—”
The young man with Peace Control lieutenant’s insignia, who must be in charge, looked dismayed. “But—” He stopped and fumbled at his collar.
Heim came near. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Why shouldn’t I have used your field?”
That was a wicked question, he knew. Officially PCA didn’t admit this place existed.
The Aleriona overlords who comprised the delegation could not be housed together. They never lived thus at home; to offer them less than total privacy would have been an insult, and perhaps risky of all their lives. So they must be scattered around Earth. Ascension was a good choice. Little was here nowadays except a small World Sea Police base. Comings and goings were thus discreet.
“Orders,” the lieutenant said vaguely. He squinted at the argent spear of the yacht. “I say, you don’t look damaged.” You could fake a name and registry for Connie Girl, but not unsoundness. The last couple of men emerged from barracks. Heim raised his arm and pointed. “On her other side,” he said. He chopped his hand down and clashed his faceplate shut.
Two men in the airlock stepped back. The gas cannon they had hidden poked its nose out. Under fifty atmospheres of pressure, the anesthetic aerosol boiled forth.
A sentry opened fire. Heim dove for dirt. A bullet splintered rock before his eyes. The yellow stream gushed overhead, rumbling. And now his crew were on their way, with stunners asnicker. No lethal weapons; he’d hang before he killed humans doing their duty. But this was an attack by men who had seen combat against men whose only job had been to prevent it. Death wasn’t needed.
The short, savage fight ended. Heim rose and made for the dome. Zucconi and Lupowitz came behind, a ram slung between them on a gravity carrier. Around the field, Connie Girl’s medical team started to check the fallen Peacemen and give what first aid was indicated.
“Here,” said Heim into his suit radio. Zucconi and Lupowitz set down the ram and started the motor… Five hundred kilos of tool steel bashed the dome wall at sixty cycles. The narcotic fog clamored with that noise. The wall smashed open. Heim leaped through, into the red sun’s light.
A dozen followed him. “He’s somewhere in this mess,” Heim said. “Scatter. We’ve got maybe three minutes before the cops arrive.”
He burst into the jungle at random. Branches snapped, vines shrank away, flowers were crushed underfoot. A shadow flitted—Cynbe! Heim plunged.
A laser flame sizzled. Heim felt the heat, saw his combat breastplate vaporizing in coruscant fire. Then he was upon the Aleriona. He wrenched the gun loose. Mustn’t close in—he’d get burned on this hot metal. Cynbe grinned with fury and whipped his tail around Heim’s ankles. Heim fell, but still Cynbe hung on. His followers arrived, seized their quarry, and frogmarched away the Intellect Master of the Garden of War. Outside, Cynbe took a breath of vapor and went limp.
I hope the biomeds are right about this stuff’s being harmless to him, Heim thought.
He ran onto the field and had no more time for thought. A couple of PCA flyers were in the sky. They stooped like hawks. Their guns pursued Heim’s crew. He saw the line of explosions stitch toward him, heard the crackle and an overhead whistle through his helmet. “Open out!” he yelled. His throat was afire. Sweat soaked his undergarments. “Let ’em see who you’re toting!” The flyers screamed about and climbed.
They’ll try to disable my boat. If we can’t get away fast—The ramp was ahead, hell-road steep. A squadron appeared over Green Mountain. Heim stopped at the bottom of the ramp. His men streamed past. Now Cynbe was aboard. Now everyone was. A flyer dove at him. He heard bullets sleet along the ramp at his heels.
Over the coaming! Someone dogged the lock. Connie Girl stood on her tail and struck for the sky. Heim lay where he was for some time.
Eventually he opened his helmet and went to the bridge. Space blazed with stars, but Earth was already swallowing them again. “We’re headed back down, eh?” he asked.
“Right-o,” Penoyer answered. The strain had left him, his boyish face was one vast grin. “Got clean away, above their ceiling and past their radar horizon before you could say fout.”
Then a long curve above atmosphere, but swiftly, racing the moment when Peace Control’s orbital detectors were alerted, and now toward the far side of the planet. It had been a smooth operation, boded well for the privateer. If they carried it the whole way through, that was.
Heim lockered his suit and got back steadiness from the routine of an intercom check with all stations. Everything was shipshape, barring some minor bullet pocks in the outer plates. When Lupowitz reported, “The prisoner’s awake, sir,” he felt no excitement, only a tidal flow of will. “Bring him to my cabin,” he ordered. The boat crept downward through night. Timing had been important. The Russian Republic was as amiably inept about TrafCon as everything else, and you could land undetected after dark on the Siberian tundra if you were cautious. Heim felt the setdown as a slight quiver. When the engines ceased their purr, the silence grew monstrous.
Two armed men outside his cabin saluted in triumph. He went through and closed the door.
Cynbe stood near the bunk. Only his tailtip stirred, and his hair in the breeze from a ventilator. But when he recognized Heim, the beautiful face drew into a smile that was chilling to see. “Ah-h-h,” he murmured.
Heim made the formal Aleriona salute. “Imbiac, forgive me,” he said. “I am desperate.”
“Truth must that be”—it trilled in his ears—“if you think thus to rouse war.”
“No, I don’t. How could I better disgrace my side of the argument? I just need your help.”
The green eyes narrowed. “Strange is your way to ask, Captain.”
“There wasn’t any other. Listen. Matters have gotten so tense between the war and peace factions on Earth that violence is breaking out. Some days ago my daughter was stolen away. I got a message that if I didn’t switch sides, she’d be killed.”
“Grief. Yet what can I do?”
“Don’t pretend to be sorry. If I backed down, you’d have a distinct gain, so there was no point in begging your assistance. Now, no matter what I myself do, I can’t trust them to return her. I had to get a lever of my own. I bribed someone who knew where you were, recruited this gang of men, and—and now we’ll phone the head of the organized appeasement agitators.”
Cynbe’s tail switched his heels. “Let us suppose I refuse,” said the cool music.
“Then I’ll kill you,” Heim said without rancor. “I don’t know if that scares you or not. But your delegation meets Parliament in another week. They’ll be handicapped without their military expert. Nor are things likely to proceed smoothly, after such a stink as I can raise.”
“Will you not terminate my existence in every case, Captain, that I never denounce you?”
“No. Cooperate and you’ll go free. I simply want my daughter back. Why should I commit a murder that’ll have the whole planet looking for the solution? They’d be certain to find me. The general type of this vessel is sufficient clue, since I’ve no alibi for the time of the kidnapping.”
“Yet have you not said why I shall not accuse you.”
Heim shrugged. “That’d be against your own interest. Too sordid a story would come out. A father driven wild by the irresponsible Peace Militants, and so forth. I’d produce my documents from New Europe in open court. I’d testify under neoscop what you admitted when last we talked. Oh, I’d fight dirty. Sentiment on Earth is delicately balanced. Something like my trial could well tip the scales.”
Cynbe’s eyes nictitated over. He stroked his chin with one slim hand.
“In fact,” Heim said, “your best bet is to tell PCA you were taken by an unidentified bunch who wanted to sabotage the treaty. You persuaded them this was the worst thing they could do, from their own standpoint, and they let you go. Then insist that our own authorities hush the entire affair up. They will, if you say so, and gladly. A public scandal at this juncture would be most inconvenient.” Still the Aleriona stood hooded in his own thoughts. “Cynbe,” said Heim in his softest voice, “you do not understand humans. We’re as alien to you as you are to us. So far you’ve juggled us pretty well. But throw in a new factor, and what are all your calculations worth?”
The eyes unveiled. “Upon you I see no weapon,” Cynbe crooned. “If I aid you not, how will you kill me?”
Heim flexed his fingers. “With these hands.”
Laughter belled forth. “Star Fox captain, let us seek the radiophone.”
It was late morning in Chicago. Jonas Yore’s Puritan face looked out of the screen with loathing. “What do you want, Heim?”
“You know about my girl being snatched?”
“No. I mean, I’m sorry for her if not for you, but how does it concern me? I have no information.”
“I got word the kidnappers are skizzies in the peace faction. Wait, I don’t accuse you of having any part in it. Every group has bolshes. But if you passed the word around quietly, personal calls to your entire membership list, directly or indirectly you’d get to them.”
“See here, you rotten—”
“Turn on your recorder. This is important. I want to present Delegate Cynbe ru Taren.” In spite of everything, Heim’s heart came near bursting.
The Aleriona glided into pickup range. “My lord!” Yore gasped.
“In honor’s name did Captain Heim appeal me-ward,” Cynbe sang. “A bond is between us that we did battle once. Nor may my ancient race drink of shame. Is not yonder child returned, we must depart this planet and invoke that cleansing which is in open war. Thus do I command your help.”
“M-m-my lord—I—Yes! At once!”
Heim switched off the set. The air whistled from his lungs and his knees shook. “Th-th-thanks,” he stuttered. “Uh … uh … as soon as Vadász lets me know she’s arrived, we’ll take off. Deliver you near a town.”
Cynbe watched him for a time before he asked: “Play your chess, Captain? Of Earth’s every creation, there is the one finest. And well should I like that you not have her enminded a while.”
“No, thanks,” Heim said. “You’d win on fool’s mate every time. I’d better see about getting our false identification removed.”
He was glad of the winter cold outside.
They were almost through when Cynbe appeared in the airlock, etched black across its light. His tone soared: “Captain, be swift. The wandersinger calls from your home. She is again.”
Heim didn’t remember running to the phone. Afterward he noticed bruises on shin and shoulder. But he did lock the radio-room door.
Lisa looked at him. “Oh, Daddy!”
“Are you all right?” he cried. His hands reached out. The screen stopped them.
“Yes. They … they never hurt me. I got doped. When I woke up, we were parked here in town. They told me, take an elway from there. I was still dopey and didn’t pay any attention—no number—Please hurry home.”
“I’ll—ja. Two, three hours.”
The remnants of the drug left her more calm than him. “I think I know how it happened, Daddy. I’m awful sorry. That night you and Endre talked about your—you know—well, you’d forgot to turn off the general intercom switch. I listened from my room.”
He remembered how slinky and mysterious she had acted in the following couple of weeks. He’d put that down to an attempt at impressing Vadász. Now the knowledge of his carelessness hit him in the belly.
“Don’t,” she asked. “I never told. Honest. Only when Dick and some other kids teased me ’cause I wouldn’t go in for that stupid Aleriona stuff, I got mad and told them one human was worth a hundred of those crawlies and my father was going to prove it. I never said more. But I guess word got back to somebody, ’cause those women kept asking me what I’d meant. I told them I was just bragging. Even when they said they’d beat me, I told them it was just a brag, and I guess they believed that because they never did beat me. Please don’t be too mad, Daddy.”
“I’m not,” he said harshly* “I’m more proud than I deserve. Now go to bed and rest. I’ll be home as fast as I can.”
“I missed you so much.”
She switched off. Then Heim could weep.
Connie Girl purred aloft, and down again a kilometer outside Krasnoe. Heim escorted Cynbe to the ground. It was frozen, and rang underfoot. A few lights shone from outlying houses, dim compared to the winter stars.
“Here.” Awkwardly, Heim proffered a heated cloak. “You’ll want this.”
“My thanks,” blew from under the frost-cold locks. “When your authorities fetch me, I shall tell as you suggested. Wisest for Alerion is thus; and for I, who would not see you further hurt.”
Heim stared at the thin snowcrust. It sparkled like Cynbe’s fur. “I’m sorry about what I did,” he mumbled. “It was no way to treat you.”
“No more of anger in-dwells.” Cynbe’s song dropped low. “I knew not humans hold their young so dear. Well may you fare.”
“Good-by.” This time Gunnar Heim shook hands.
The boat took off afresh, found orbital height, and went toward Mojave Port along a standard trajectory. As far as the world was concerned, she had gone out to check on the loading of the star cruiser. Heim was surprised to note how calmly he could now wait to see his daughter again.
And when it’d be for such a short time, too. The ship must depart in a few more days, with him her captain.
That had to be, he saw. The evil had grown so mighty that he dared not challenge it with less than his whole strength: which was found among the stars, not on this sick Earth. Nor would he be worthy to be Lisa’s father, if he sent men against that thing whose creatures had tried to devour her, and did not go himself.
She’d be safe in Wingate’s care_ As for the Heimdal company, it might or might not survive without him, but that really made no difference. Lisa’s grandfather would provide for her, whatever happened. And don’t forget the chance of prize money!
Laughter welled in Heim. Maybe I’m rationalizing a selfish, atavistic desire to raise hell. Okay, what if I am? This is the way it’s going to be.