Angel didn’t use those hours idly, nor waste them in sleep or recrimination. She had a Situation, as her trainers would have called it, and it demanded that choices be made and stuck to.
One by one she contacted the cabins of those she’d determined were just ordinary passengers. As crisply and professionally as possible she explained the basics of the situation, and that their only chance was the lifeboats, which Kincaid could protect and launch remotely. Some refused to believe her. Some simply were too scared or convinced that this somehow didn’t apply to them and would blow over if they ignored it. She didn’t have much of a choice with the latter. They were told they would get one chance, and if they did not take it, they were on their own.
In each case, once told, the life module’s computer isolated them from the lounge and public areas. They could get deliveries to their rooms, but that was all. They would have to watch their cabin clocks; when instructed, they were to proceed, following the lifeboat signs, and board.
She was particularly gratified by the few who offered to stay and fight it out with Kincaid, but she rejected that course. This wasn’t their battle, and the opposition was far too powerful. In this case, dying just wasn’t a particularly productive strategy, and even if you could take some of the nasty ones with you, well, what was the long-term point that was worth lives?
Ari Martinez and Ming Dawn Palavri were two she felt confident she could place in charge of individual lifeboats. She planned on taking the third out herself. Tann Nakitt was still something of a question mark, but she allowed him to make his own decision, although he was, of course, monitored to ensure that he tipped off none of the bad guys.
Not that they needed to be tipped off. Jules Wallinchky sent the Rithians and Mallegestors on an all-out search to find out where the hell everybody had gone. When they determined that almost everybody had remained in their cabins for the last day and night, Wallinchky knew something was up. When he determined that the lifeboats would not respond to the general emergency access panels, he had the plot pretty well figured out.
“What do you want to do?” Teynal asked him. “If we can’t get off, we will have to go with them. Inconvenient, and they are water breathers.”
Wallinchky seemed singularly unworried. “We’ll take care of it. You know I never go into a place unless I have good protection and multiple exits. They can shut off corridor access to us when they need to, so I say let ’em go. If they can’t be picked off, so be it.” He did, however, palm and pass several pieces of paper between his people and himself, actions that could be observed by the monitors but not read by them. In all cases, they ate the messages, so there would be no reconstruction. Clearly he wasn’t going to give away his game plan to Jeremiah Kincaid.
Sealed off on the bridge with his monitors, Kincaid was frustrated by this most primitive of devices, nor could he be certain from that vantage point what conversations of theirs were for real and which ones were for his benefit.
It was simply a matter of waiting that eternity until the clock ticked down and they were ejected from null-space back into the normal universe. In the meanwhile he could only try to anticipate everything and wonder what he’d missed.
When the clocks read seven days, twenty hours, fifty-one minutes, no seconds, there was a shudder that shook the entire ship, and everyone once more had that feeling of falling into a deep, bottomless pit. Alarms went off then, and the ship’s “voice” said, “Attention! Attention! We have experienced an emergency, and to avoid loss of life and minimize discomfort we have been forced to reenter normal space short of our destination. Please remain calm. For your safety, all passengers are directed toward the lifeboats designated for their immediate sections. Do not be alarmed. It is a routine procedure. In the event of a life-threatening situation, the lifeboats can take you without harm to safety. This will probably not be necessary, but to ensure that everyone is where they should be, please follow the flashing lines in the direction they indicate to your lifeboats now.”
In the lounge, Wallinchky nodded to the Rithians and whispered something in the ears of each of his beautiful companions. All of them immediately set off into the corridors, while the Mallegestors took up protective station with Wallinchky in the lounge.
Kincaid couldn’t quite figure out what was going on, but he spoke into the two-way in his environment suit on a channel only he knew was operational. “Execute final option, priority code Ahab. Good luck, City of Modar. You are on your own.”
“We will do our best, Captain,” came the response from the control panel. “Good luck.”
Jeremiah Kincaid had to stifle a chuckle at that, even at this most tense of moments. A computer had just wished him good luck. He wasn’t sure he liked discovering that computers believed in luck.
The area they were in represented a huge amount of space, and he had only an approximation of where the other ship would emerge. Even a few seconds here or there could mean tens of thousands of kilometers; minutes might turn into millions.
He’d turned off the ship’s local distress calls, but the other ship would have something, probably from the water sections.
Almost as if on cue with the thought, his sensors picked it up, the scanners locking in on the frequencies. There was no way to break their code at this point, of course, but he noted with some approval that the ship seemed to be having some success in either jamming or dampening their signals. The more time the better.
Back on board, Angel saw that the loading of the lifeboats was going pretty well. A few didn’t come, but most did, particularly that family Angel had worried so much about. The computer had instructions to launch as soon as the lifeboats were filled, and at least one, with Ari in command, Angel hoped, had already left. She went down to the second one to check on it and saw Ming at the entrance but making no move to board.
“Why aren’t you aboard? You must leave!” Angel cried urgently to the other woman. “I will go back and catch any stragglers.”
Ming shook her head. “Sorry, can’t do it. I wanted one last check to see if anybody else was coming, then I’m sealing it up.”
“But—why?”
“Because I’m a kind of a cop, that’s why, and because my job is to prevent the transfer of that device even if I have to blow it up.” She turned and stuck her head in the door. “Everybody just follow the instructions of the holographic boatswain and you will be fine. Good luck!”
Angel almost moved to put a martial-arts-style kick on Ming’s rear that would have propelled her into the lifeboat, but for some reason she held back. She hoped she wouldn’t regret it.
The hatch swung shut, there was a loud hissing sound, then vibration as the lifeboat detached from its moorings and fully powered up, the corridors shaking as well, and then the lifeboat was gone.
Angel looked at Ming and saw that she had a full-power laser pistol stuck in her belt, which she now removed and checked. “How—How did you even get that on board?” Angel asked her.
“They set it up to smuggle their weapons aboard, so it wasn’t that hard to use the same system,” Ming replied. “Now, let’s check on the third boat and any missing passengers.”
“You should get on the third boat!” Angel pleaded with her. “This is suicide!”
“Maybe, but I know what this sucker is. You don’t. And don’t ask what it is, either. Just trust me that it’s worth a lot more lives than Kincaid’s and mine to keep it out of anybody’s hands, particularly Hadun’s.”
They were moving at a fast walk along the corridor, circling to the other set of boats. As they came to each cabin door, it unlocked and slid away into the bulkhead. They could then check and see if anybody was still in any of them. So far, they’d found a couple, and those had both decided to exit with them. Now, however, they were approaching Boat Station Three.
This was the most dangerous of the positions; the two lifeboats on the side they’d just left were easily accessed by most of the passengers they wanted to reach, and could be blocked off to Wallinchky’s crowd, most of whom had cabins on the far side, basically flanking Wallinchky’s super-luxury suite. The lifeboat nearest that cabin suite at Boat Station Four now had its power off; it could not be turned back on without a complex series of passwords or direct authority of the City of Modar’s computer net.
The other one, however, was kind of a border location. Ari’s cabin was on the wrong side, as was Tann Nakitt’s. Hopefully they were both inside now so that the access could be sealed off, but if not, there could be trouble.
Ari was standing in the lifeboat, frowning, as he watched them approach. His face showed some surprise when he saw Ming with Angel, but he was all business, getting the two stragglers in and settled. Then he came up, out of the lifeboat, and spied Ming’s pistol. “What’s that for, doll?”
“Long story. Anybody missing?”
“No, we’re as good as we’re gonna get. Come on!”
Angel reached the hatch, looked in, then turned and frowned. “Where’s Tann Nakitt?”
“Long story,” he responded, bringing up his own pistol and firing on Angel. Her body was bathed in a sudden glow and then she collapsed, unconscious, to the deck.
The action was so automatic it caught Ming by surprise, but she brought her pistol around on her old friend immediately. That was the problem—he was an old friend, and onetime lover. You don’t pull the trigger that fast on somebody like him when your pistol is set to kill.
That allowed two stun blasts from the Wallinchky women behind her to strike and knock her instantly as out-to-the-world as Angel.
Ari looked down at them. “Take them to the lounge. Any barriers, start shooting up the electrical plates. Move!”
He leaned into the now terrified lifeboat and said, “This does not concern you. I’m closing and you will launch as per normal. Just follow the boatswain’s instructions. Maybe some of us will live through this to explain it all to you. Go with God!” He pulled back, sealed the hatch, and heard and felt the lifeboat detach and shoot away.
He hoped they would make it. They knew virtually nothing about this, and interrogation wouldn’t bring much more in the way of details useful to the authorities. Creatures like this Hadun bastard never cared how many innocents they killed, but he didn’t believe in gratuitous violence. He was particularly sorry about Ming. He’d wanted her to take her lifeboat and be well away when she had the chance. It was only because she showed up here, and with a pistol, that she made her fate inevitable.
The whole module suddenly lurched, throwing him momentarily off balance, and the lighting went on and off erratically for a half minute or so while the cabin doors eerily slid open and closed, open and closed. Then it was over, at least for the moment.
Ari made his way down a spoke corridor to the center lounge. The rest of them were already there, waiting for him.
“What the hell was that?” he grumbled.
Jules Wallinchky was as unflappable as ever. “Don’t let it get to you. We managed to tap in and get some interference going. I don’t think we can rehijack the module computer, but we tapped it enough to remove all those nasty force fields.”
“We have Boat Four on its own power,” one of the Rithians announced, returning just in back of Ari. “Boats Five and Six were never blocked, and our soggy friends are away from the ship and on station. Hard to tell if everybody else is in the other boats and heading out, but it looks like the bulk of the passengers will make planetfall sooner or later.”
“As will we, my friends,” Jules Wallinchky assured them, one of his girls lighting a big, fat cigar for him.
“What do you want me for?” Tann Nakitt grumbled. “I can’t hardly go to the cops, and I don’t give a damn about your deals. Ask the Rithians.” He was now bound hand and foot in what a Terran rancher might call a hog tie. He wanted to bite somebody, but the only one in range was one of the huge Mallegestors, and he’d just break his teeth on it.
Wallinchky blew smoke in the Geldorian’s face, causing the little creature to cough, giving the victim what he’d so recently been fond of handing out. “I know all about your little expedition, and the poison formulas for all sixty-eight races of the Realm that you carry in that memory bubble implanted in your neck. I also know you’d sell out your entire planet if you thought it would get you out of something.” His voice had risen menacingly, and was now filled with rage. “But what I know most is that you knew about all this plotting and planning against me and you did nothing! You said nothing! At least, not to me. To her, to this—this— nun you tell the whole deal! For that I’ll have your fangs and all your countless other teeth extracted one by one and put in a sack with your fingers and toes and other extraneous parts!”
“I didn’t betray you, you bastard!” the Geldorian snapped back, too angry to be scared. “I had no interest in your doings and just wanted to be allowed to continue no matter who won! And I sure hadn’t heard any good offers from you!”
Wallinchky rose, as if he would go over and strike the smaller creature, but then he sat back down and seemed to regain control.
“You hadn’t heard anything from me because I hadn’t decided about you, Geldorian,” the crime king told him in his usual calm, deliberate mode. “Now I have. Don’t worry, though. I have an honorable streak in me. Yes, I do. I might send your people that bubble anyway. Maybe I’ll even send them your whole head. I could use a few favors in that quarter.”
Tann Nakitt said nothing, not even demonstrating that his incredible limberness extended to his arms and wrists and that he could already slip in and out of his bonds at will. There would be time to either try and escape or at least gain revenge; right now it didn’t seem there was anywhere to run, so he decided it would be best to allow them to carry him someplace worth escaping from.
“I can understand me, but why her?” the Geldorian asked, trying not to provoke the big man any further. And if Nakitt could get the subject off the fate of certain Geldorians, it would make the next waiting period a bit more tolerable and probably less painful.
It wasn’t as if any of them could do much until the rescue party arrived, so Jules Wallinchky didn’t mind being the center of it all.
“She’s the Captain’s friend and known to the ship’s computer net,” the crime boss explained. “Kincaid can undock the tow from us and then blow us to bits, you know. That’s why we tried to ensure that nobody would be up there when we stopped. He’s perfectly capable of doing that, and even more so now that the innocent passengers are gone.” He raised his voice and looked toward the ceiling, more as a dramatic gesture than because anything was really there. “But not all the innocents are away, are they, Captain? And while you might gladly do any of us in, even her, if it meant getting closer to your enemy, we aren’t your enemy, are we, Captain? What do we care about Hadun? So you go at him, Captain, but leave us alone. I understand your viewpoint even though almost nobody else does. You’re no murderer— you’re an executioner. That’s okay with me. Go at them, Captain. But remember her and leave all of us out.”
There wasn’t any response. Wallinchky didn’t expect one. Still, he knew he’d made his point.
The crime king looked back down at the still unconscious Angel on the deck, her hands and feet tied behind her and together in much the same manner as Tann Nakitt. “Besides,” he added in a lower, menacing tone, “I saw how she moved and could fight. Not at all the Sister Helpless she appeared at the start of this trip. And she’s got a pretty good body there. Erase the memories, reinforce the skills, and she might be a nice addition to my personal staff. As for the lady cop, I’m positive she’ll change sides.” Ming, too, was trussed up like Angel and still out cold.
A tone sounded from a small communicator on Wallinchky’s belt. He unclipped it and said into it, “Yes?”
“We have a signal response on the proper frequency with valid codes,” a strange, distant, flat voice told him.
“Very well. I’m moving everybody into Boat Four now. Cover us in case there are any surprises.”
“Will do.”
He reclipped the communicator and looked at the large party that had been sitting around. Each of the two Mallegestors picked up a Terran prisoner in one hand, carrying them as if they were no more than a small bag of snacks. One of them picked up Tann Nakitt with the other.
“Hey! Watch it, jumbo!” the Geldorian snapped. “I bruise easy!”
The Mallegestor gave a loud snort which could have been a kind of laughter.
Behind them, first the Kharkovs, then the Rithians, followed, and finally came Wallinchky and his pair of bodyguard mistresses.
Ari Martinez was already in the lifeboat, and he had the forward control panel disassembled and a set of small cubes with internal flashing light points set into the boat’s electronics.
The four Rithians took the rear seats, two on each side, then the Mallegestors eased into adjusted seats that could hold them, one on each side, with Nakitt in the port empty seat, hemmed in, and nobody in the starboard empty. Next, Wallinchky sat in front of the Mallegestor on the starboard side, and his two pretty companions took the seats on port and starboard side in front of the crime boss. The two Terran prisoners were quite literally hung from the two other seats next to the bodyguards, the seats in front of them providing a kind of stake through the bound hands and feet so that they were held against the seat backs, looking aft. The front of those seats, the empty ones on each side, were for the drawn and frightened-looking Kharkovs. Ari Martinez had the jump seat, next to the jury-rigged console and facing aft himself, although more comfortably.
He got up, closed and sealed the hatch manually, then took his seat again, reaching down and picking up a tablet the size of a large notebook. He pressed some areas on it, and the lifeboat’s forward screen came to life, showing the boat moving off from the larger vessel and the connector pulling off and remaining there, half extended, as if waving goodbye.
“Any trouble in getting Kincaid’s stuff out of the guts of this thing?” Wallinchky asked him.
“No, not really. It was pretty basic, but it couldn’t be done until after it was activated. I’m not sure it occurred to him that no power in the boat also meant no power to his monitors.”
Wallinchky chuckled. “His mind was on other things.” He turned as he heard a moan from his left, just forward. “Ah! The sleeping beauties are coming around!”
It had felt to Angel as if she were falling down a long, dark tunnel at breakneck speed, only occasional flashes of light here and there and terrible distorted sounds breaking the otherwise monotonous free fall. Now the noise increased, became an increasingly louder rushing noise, like white or pink noise gradually increasing in volume to nearly unbearable levels. Then she came to, but wished she hadn’t, as every muscle in her body seemed to protest in throbbing or sharp pains, and there was tremendous disorientation. Her arms and legs were in particular pain, and she tried to move them but found that she could not.