side to side. “Me? I’m a victim of circumstances. I was afraid to
object, with you wicked men coercing me … till I got this chance to do
the right thing. I’m sure I can make your commandant see it that way and
give me an executive pardon. Maybe even a reward. We’re good friends,
really, Admiral Julius and me.”
“You won’t get through the wait here without my help,” Flandry said.
“Certainly not if we’re attacked.”
“I might or might not,” she replied. Her expression thawed. “Nicky,
darling, why must we fight? We’ll have time to work out a plan for you.
A story or–or maybe you can hide somewhere with supplies, and I can
come back later and get you, I swear I will–” She swayed in his
direction. “I swear I want to. You’ve been wonderful. I won’t let you
go.”
“Regardless,” he said, “you insist on sending a message.”
“Yes.”
“Can you launch a courier? What if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll stun you, and tie you, and torture you till you agree,” she
said, turned altogether impersonal. “I know a lot about that.”
Abruptly it blazed from her: “You’ll never imagine how much I know!
You’d die before I finished. Remember your boasting to me about the
hardships you’ve met, a poor boy tiying to get ahead in the service on
nothing but ability? If you could’ve heard me laughing inside while I
kissed you! I came up from slavery–in the Black Hole of Jihannath–what
I’ve been through makes the worst they’ve thought of in Irumclaw Old
Town look like a crèche game–I’m not going back to hell again–as God
is my witness, I’m not!” She drew a shaking breath and damped the vizor
once more into place. From a pocket she fetched a slip of paper. “This
is the message,” she said.
Flandry balanced on the balls of his feet. He might be able to take her,
if he acted fast and luck fell his way … he just might … And swiftly
as a stab, he knew the risk was needless.
He gasped.
“What’s the matter?” Djana’s question wavered near hysteria.
He shook himself. “Nothing,” he said. “All right, you win, let’s ship
your dispatch off.”
The couriers were near the main airlock. He walked in advance, before
her steady gun muzzle, though she knew the location. For that matter,
the odds were she could figure out how to activate them herself. She had
been quick to learn the method of putting the boat on a homeward
course–feed the destination coordinates to the autopilot, lock the
manual controls, et cetera–when he met her request for precautionary
instruction. These gadgets, four in number, were simpler yet.
Inside each torpedo shape–120 centimeters long, but light enough for a
man to lift under Terran gravity–were packed the absolute minimum of
hyperdrive and grav-drive machinery; sensors and navigational computer
to guide it toward a preset goal; radio to beep when it neared;
accumulators for power; and a tiny space for the payload, which could be
a document, a tape, or whatever else would fit.
Ostentatiously obedient, Flandry opened one compartment and stepped
aside while Djana laid in her letter and closed the shell. Irumclaw’s
coordinates were stenciled on it for easy reference and she watched him
turn the control knobs. He slid the courier forward on the launch rack.
Pausing, he said: “I’d like to program this for a sixty-second delay, if
you don’t mind.”
“Why?”
“So we can get back to the conn and watch it take off. To be sure it
does, you know.”
“M-m-m–that makes sense.” Djana hefted the gun. “I’m keeping you
covered till it’s outbound, understand.”
“Logical. Afterward, can we both be uncovered?”
“Be still!”
Flandry started the mechanism and returned forward with her. They stared
out.
The view was of desolation. Jake lay close by the crater wall, which
sloped steeply aloft until its rim stood fanged in heaven, three
kilometers above. Its palisades reached so far that they vanished under
the near horizon before their opposite side became visible. The darkling
rock was streaked with white, that also covered the floor: carbon
dioxide and ammonia snow. This was beginning to vaporize in Wayland’s