Berserker's Star Page 4

  “Really?”

  “From the business point of view, that is. I mean, some people get rich, others go broke.”

  Dietrich grudgingly put in: “And yeah, one thing that makes it special is that the shrine is there. What they call the Portal. That Malakó thing, like you say. Some people are into shrines.”

  Harry said: “I had to look up Maracanda, to check if what I thought I hazily remembered was correct. Basically I had it right. Means it’s like one in a hundred billion, for screwiness.”

  According to the data bank, maybe half a dozen bodies technically they were not planets of the type were known to exist among the several hundred billion stellar systems in the great Galaxy. Besides the “habitable body” from which it took its name, the system’s chief components were a neutron star and a black hole. These three principal bodies moved in a peculiar orbital dance, tracing the form of a figure eight, each passing at times between the other two. This strongly implied that Maracanda must be much more massive than any Earth-like planet, heavier than Jupiter, in a class with objects huge enough to count as suns.

  How any object in space could weigh in with that kind of mass and still be classed as habitable was more than Harry could figure out on the spur of the moment, yet there it was, snugly occupying a niche in his data bank, being passed off with a few comments about zones of gravity inversion.

  Whatever the peculiarities, Harry could discover no reason not to visit the place; the existence of a spaceport showed that a lot of other people made the journey and survived.

  Recalling his orphaned cargo, he asked his passengers if they thought there would be much of a market on Maracanda for six large boxes, said to contain food-processing machinery. But none of them seemed to know or care.

  Dietrich and Redpath had their heads together on the far side of the control room, deep into one of their private conversations. But this one seemed more intense than usual, as if they were discussing, then agreeing on, some matter of considerable urgency.

  Lily spoke up, berating the men for not being more social. “We’re going to be shipmates for—how long? A whole standard day?”

  “Somewhat longer,” Harry put in.

  “And so we might as well be socially comfortable. What do you say?”

  They didn’t say much, only stood there side by side. Now and then one of them would shoot a speculative glance at Harry. It reminded him of the way some people acted when they were about to play some practical joke.

  The business became more and more obvious, until Lily finally reacted openly.

  “What are you two doing? Is there some problem?” Suddenly there was a hint in her voice that she might be accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed.

  Dietrich was looking at the young woman coldly. “No problem that’s any of your business, lady.” The tone of his voice had also changed.

  Redpath was giving Harry a look with something of triumph in it. He chimed in: “No need for the pilot to worry about anything either. Right? Mr. Silver, your time of worrying is just about over.”

  Harry looked up with interest. “Really?”

  Dietrich had pulled out from somewhere an object that could only be described as a small pistol. “We like your little ship here, Mr. Silver. Or should I call you Captain Silver? Ex-captain. We like your ship so much that it now belongs to us. Got that?”

  Harry didn’t answer. He made no move to do anything. He just sat there, looking interested but not appearing to be much worried, waiting to see what was going to happen next.

  Lily still protested. “The pair of you must be out of your minds!” She got up from her chair and took a nervous turn about the deck. There wasn’t much room to pace in the small control room with its four big chairs. “What can I say to you? We have our passage all set, going to Maracanda! Isn’t that what we all wanted? What do you think you want? Is this some kind of joke?”

  “You ask too many questions, lady.” That came from Red-path; Dietrich had retreated into silence. All three passengers were now out of their chairs.

  When Harry spoke, he still sounded almost calm. “The lady had a point, asking what you think you want. I’ve got a better question for you, though: What do you think you’re going to get?”

  Dietrich casually waved his weapon, as if just making sure that everyone had seen it. “I’m a qualified pilot, Silver, so you should remember that we don’t really need you at all. All we need is your ship. And, of course, as the new owners, we should get a rebate on our fares.” His grin showed slightly crooked teeth. “Just try to fight us, just give us a little bit of an argument, and your personal troubles will quickly be all over.”

  Lily was still on her feet, standing with fists clenched. She shot a fierce look at Harry, as if she expected him to jump out of his chair and put these mutineers in their place. But mostly she was staring at her fellow passengers. With every passing moment she looked more outraged, as if only now had she grasped the full import of what was happening. She could not believe her eyes. At last she almost screamed: “You imbecile! Put that gun away!”

  Mr. Dietrich ignored her. Still keeping a very close watch on Harry, he motioned slightly with the muzzle of the little gun. “All right, ex-captain, time to get down to business. Just stand up and step away from your chair. Hands away from all the manual controls—I’m a pretty good pilot, and I know where they are. Then you’re going to walk over here, just a little closer to me, and put your hands up on the wall.”

  Harry still had not moved a muscle, except that his eyebrows had gone up. His hands, fingers laced, were clasped over his trim midsection. His voice was dangerously quiet. “No refund on your fare. I ought to tack on an extra charge.”

  Lily let out a wordless noise. She sounded more angry, outraged, than terrified.

  The man with the gun kept it pointed right at Harry, while he turned his eyes toward Lily. “I told you before, sit down and shut up.”

  Instead of shutting up, she got even louder, turning to Red-path in a kind of desperate appeal. But he was watching the gunman with approval; it was plain that the two were in full agreement.

  Harry’s eyes were flaring dangerously. He was sitting up straight now, but otherwise had made no move.

  Dietrich barked: “Silver, out of the chair! You’ve got ten seconds!”

  Lily said: “Mr. Silver, you’d better move.” She was looking from one of her fellow passengers to the other. “You unutterable fools!”

  The gunman’s expression as he looked at her had morphed from anger to something like contempt. He only shook his head, and once more treated Harry to his steely glare. “Five seconds, Silver.”

  Harry stayed where he was. “Any other orders you’d like to give? Might as well spout ‘em all at once, while you’ve still got my attention.”

  Dietrich seemed about to add something else, but before he could get out the words, the expression on his face had changed. He swallowed, blinked, and then glanced down at his own right hand, looking surprised to discover it empty. His weapon had just fallen to the deck, sliding free from fingers that could no longer hold it.

  He tried to clutch with both hands at the bulkhead beside him, and with his palms got just enough pressure on the smooth surface to keep himself from falling hard, but by the time his slithering body had reached the floor, he had begun to snore.

  On the other side of the control room, Dietrich’s colleague was no longer offering him encouragement. Mr. Redpath was now sitting on the deck with his back propped against a console, eyes half closed, drooling a little. Nearby, Lily’s slender body had lost its grace, along with the ability to stand upright. She was flat on her back, her dark eyes rolling, lips moving slightly, as if she might still be trying to protest.

  For perhaps half a minute, the interior of the ship was very quiet.

  The interval of silence ended when the Witch, somewhere in her randomizing circuits, chose that moment to project a little soft background music.

  When it had finish
ed, it let a few more moments of silence pass before inquiring, in a calm and gentle voice: “Any further instructions?”

  “No,” said Harry, still in his chair. He was shaking his head, expressing thoughtful disapproval, like the director of a play whose cast had failed him miserably. “No, no, no. Nothing more just now, thank you.” He understood perfectly well that it was crazy to be thanking a machine, but sometimes, usually when he was upset, the words slipped out.

  After treating himself to a couple of deep breaths, Harry eased himself out of his chair. Going unhurriedly to a small locker nearby, he extracted from it a roll of strong tape. Moving first to Dietrich, then to Redpath, he taped each man’s hands securely behind his back. They were no more than half conscious, and could only watch helplessly as Harry picked up Dietrich’s fallen pistol, then in the course of a quick, efficient body search, gathered a similar weapon from inside Redpath’s coveralls. He also relieved each man of a receipt showing how much cash he had paid Harry Silver for transportation.

  Next Harry dragged the men one at a time to a capacious locker opening at deck level. When he had shoved them both inside the storage space, he slammed the door and locked it.

  Then he turned back toward the fallen woman.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Pleased at not having to look at the pair of incompetent pirates any longer, Harry could relax a little. He was breathing somewhat faster than normal, more with anger than exertion, as he bent over Lily’s fallen form, treating her nose and mouth to a few sprays from a small flask he took from his pocket.

  While she gradually regained the power of movement, he went through Redpath’s and Dietrich’s backpacks, finding very little in them but what might be expected from men traveling light.

  Redpath’s pack did contain a smartpaper book that Harry found mildly interesting. The text that showed when he opened it amounted to a Malakó religious tract, but when Harry’s fingers found the small switch on the spine, the print changed swiftly before his eyes, and he was holding a treatise on interstellar customs law. One more touch on the switch produced a porn manual with moving pictures.

  Restoring the book to its place, Harry stowed both packs neatly in another locker. Shortly he was back in his pilot’s chair, where he got busy checking in with the autopilot, making sure the Witch was still chugging along smoothly on her course to mysterious Maracanda, and that no other problems had come up while his attention was elsewhere.

  Less than a minute after inhaling Harry’s spray, Lily was up on her feet, leaning on the bulkhead. At first she did not try to talk. On slightly unsteady legs she made her way toward the elaborate combat chair adjacent to Harry’s. When she saw that he did not object, she let herself sink down into it. Harry, hands again folded over his middle, shot her a glance, but his attention stayed mainly with the information coming through his helmet.

  “You must believe me, Mr. Silver,” the young woman offered at last. Her voice was slow and subdued, and her expression somewhere between seasickness and tragedy. “When first I met those—those two—they seemed quite reasonable. I had no idea they were going to make such a… that they would attempt anything like that. No idea at all.” She was shaking her head slowly, as if in intense pain.

  Harry grunted. His voice was neutral. “Not your fault. When I take on strangers as passengers, I can’t be sure what they’re going to do. So I’ve got a system worked out, lets me deal with ‘em when they make bad choices. As soon as your pal Dietrich said he—”

  “He has never been my pal.” Lily had stopped shaking her head. Her voice was getting stronger, and her eyes were bright again. “I tell you I met him, both of them, for the first time only a few hours ago. Oh, they could be very plausible] Not that they had much to say about anything, even their cursed business.” The last word sounded like a curse.

  “All right, he’s no pal of yours. Just a traveling salesman. Soon as the salesmen announced that they were taking over, I gave the ship a certain command, never mind just how. Life support began to put some fancy goodies into the air. Colorless and odorless stuff, very reliable.”

  For a moment she regarded him in silence. Then: “You also breathe. Or maybe you don’t.”

  “I’ve been breathing for some time, lady, and I intend to keep on. The antidote is also very effective, as you can now testify. I dosed myself before we lifted off. Just a routine precaution for someone in my line of work.”

  The woman slumped a trifle in the big chair. Certainly not despair, but maybe the beginning of discouragement. “Mr. Silver, I really had no idea they meant to steal your ship.”

  “You said that before. All right, I guess I can believe you without too much effort.”

  But Lily wasn’t through. “And when I saw that Dietrich had actually pulled a gun, I screamed at him, I pleaded with them both to stop acting like idiots! You heard me.”

  “I did. That’s the reason you’re not in the locker, too.”

  She cast a glance in that direction and her anger flared. “Back on Hong’s World, when we—when the three of us decided to join forces, seeking transportation—I had no reason to think they would turn out to be idiots. Criminal idiots. But they have. So, what happens to them is not important.”

  Facing Harry again, Lily leaned forward, stretching between their chairs to put a small hand timidly on his arm. “I still say what I said before. The only thing that matters is Alan. We must find him, so I can bring him home.”

  Harry grunted. “Your husband may be all that matters to you, but now I’ve got some other problems to deal with. I can’t just ignore attempted piracy.” He was thinking that if he didn’t have a live witness present, he’d be greatly tempted to simply shove the pair out of the airlock in deep space. If later it turned out that somebody cared about their disappearance, there would be no record anywhere of their ever being on his ship.

  It wasn’t a possibility he wanted to discuss out loud. Neither did the woman, apparently. Or maybe it just hadn’t occurred to her yet.

  Lily said: “When you tell the authorities on Maracanda what those two tried to do—”

  Harry cut in: “I don’t like to rely on authorities for anything.”

  “Ah. Perhaps you hesitate because of the matter of the c-plus cannon?”

  “That does reinforce my natural tendency. What are your natural tendencies?”

  She sighed. “Right now my only tendency, if you want to call it that, is to find my husband and bring him home. Haven’t I made that clear already?”

  Harry grunted. He found himself leaning more and more to the idea that Alan had simply taken off with some other woman. This one was cute enough, and probably bright enough, but he could see already that she might quickly become wearing on the nerves.

  She was once more staring at the door of the big locker. “I really don’t care what happens to these two fools, but it would be wrong of you to make other people suffer for their insanity. I mean by keeping me and Alan apart any longer than necessary.”

  “Lady, we’re going to get along better if you stop telling me how to distinguish right from wrong.”

  “Oh. I am sorry.”

  “Look, I’ve contracted to transport you to Maracanda, and I will. But before I can concentrate on that job, I’ve got to decide what to do with those two clowns.”

  While speaking, Harry put his pilot’s helmet on again and studied his passenger through the faceplate as he began a mental consultation with his astrogational data banks.

  Lily’s anger at her former traveling companions seemed to be cooling a bit. “I do ask you to spare their lives.” She paused. “Honestly, I do not think they would have killed you.”

  “No? They wanted my ship, and I wasn’t about to sign it over. When they’d finished me, they wouldn’t want to leave you hanging around as a witness. You might think about that. Would have kept you and Alan apart for a good long time.”

  Lily closed her eyes. “You are right, of course.” She opened them again. “And I must th
ank you for saving my life. Still, I do ask you to spare theirs, as a matter of humanity. Then, if you want me to forget the incident, just leave it unreported when we get to Maracanda, that’s fine. As long as—”

  “You’re not delayed in getting on with your big goal in life. All right, I try to please the paying customer. The traveling salesmen don’t go out the airlock until we’re parked some place where they can breathe. But finding such a location may involve a detour. It could delay your search.”

  That, it seemed, could make a difference. Lily raised her fine eyebrows and took thought. Then she asked: “How much of a delay?”

  With folded hands, Harry riffled mentally through the thoughtware connecting to the data bank. “Actually, they’re in luck. And you are too. There seem to be a couple of choices, at less than average interstellar distances. Maybe I’ll let ‘em pick the one they want… then dump ‘em on the other. No, that would just be wasting time. I’ll make the choice. Should cost us no more than three or four extra hours—if you think your husband will keep that long.”

  Lily drew a deep breath. “I think you are wise to spare their lives, and I fully appreciate how angry you must be. Only please, whatever you do, let it be quick. We must press on and rescue Alan.”

  “Oh yeah, glad you reminded me, I had almost forgotten about him. He’s some relative of yours, right?”

  Harry had already decided, privately, that hauling the two dissatisfied customers on to Maracanda was out of the question. He had only a vague idea of the legal complications he might face in pressing charges against them there, but that wasn’t the real problem. The real trouble was that he couldn’t see himself voluntarily appearing before some Space Force magistrate, the venue he’d most likely get on a marginally habitable world, as Maracanda appeared to be.

  And there was yet another difficulty. Harry said: “There’s just one more thing. When I went through their pockets, I didn’t find much money. Nothing to suggest they would have been able to pay me the remainder of my fee, not that I feel entitled to it, under the circumstances. But it looks like they were planning a hijacking from the start.”