hundred or so ancient Culture lifter craft.
Horza had time to look around. There was plenty of space, lots of room and time. The Megaship lay on the floor of the giant
bay, looking for
all the world like a small city sitting on a great slab of metal. The
Clear Air Turbulence
flew past the stern of the Megaship, past tunnels full of
propeller blades tens of meters across, round the side of its rearmost
outrigger, where beached pleasure craft waited for a return to water, over
the towers and spires of its superstructure, then
out over its bows. Horza looked forward. The doors, if they were doors, of the General bay
faced him, two kilometers away.
They were that same distance from top to bottom, and twice that across. Horza shrugged and checked the
laser again. He was
becoming, he realized, almost blasé about the whole thing.
What the hell.
he thought.
The lasers picked a hole in the wall of material ahead, punching a slowly widening gap which Horza aimed straight for. A vortex
of swirling
air was starting to form around the hole; as the
CAT
rushed closer, it was caught in a small horizontal cyclone of air and started to twist. Then it
was through, and in space.
In a quickly dispersing bubble of air and crystals of ice, the craft burst from the body of the General Systems Vehicle, swooping
into vacuum
and star-washed darkness at last. Behind it, a force field slammed across the hole its passage had created in
the doors of the General bay.
Horza felt the plasma motors stutter as their supply of outside air disappeared, then the internal
tanks took up the slack. He was about to cut
them and slide gently into the start-up procedure for the craft’s warp engines
when the speakers in his headrest crackled.
“This is Evanauth port police. All right, you son of a bitch, just keep on that heading and slow right down. Evanauth port
police to rogue craft:
halt on that heading. A—"
Horza pulled on the controls, taking the
CAT
on a huge accelerating arc up over the stern of the GSV, flashing past the outside of the
kilometer-square exit he had been
heading for earlier. Wubslin, moaning now, bumped around the inside of the bridge as the
CAT
lifted its
nose to head straight up, toward the maze of abandoned docks and gantries that was Evanauth port. As it went it
turned, still twisting slightly
from the spin it had picked up from the vortex of air bursting from the General bay. Horza
let it twist, steadying it only as they approached the top
of the loop, the port facilities coming up fast then sliding underneath
as the craft leveled out.
“Rogue ship! This is your last warning!" the speakers blared. “Stop now or we’ll blow you out of the sky! God, he’s heading
for—" The
transmission cut off. Horza grinned to himself. He was indeed heading for the gap between the underside of the port
and the top of the GSV.
The
Clear Air Turbulence
flashed through spaces between traveltube connections, elevator shafts, graving dock gantries, transit areas,
arriving shuttle
craft and crane towers. Horza guided the ship through the maze with the fusion motors still blazing at maximum boost, throwing
the small craft through the few hundred meters of crowded space between the Orbital and the General Systems Vehicle. The rear
radar
ping
ed,
picking up following echoes.
Two towers, hanging under the Orbital like upside-down skyscrapers, between which Horza was aiming the
CAT,
suddenly blossomed with
light, scattering wreckage. Horza cringed in his seat as he corkscrewed the ship into the space between
the two clouds of debris.
“Those were across the bows," crackled the speakers again. “The next ones will be straight up your ass, boy racer." The
CAT
shot out over
the dull gray plain of slanting material that was the start of the
Ends’
nose. Horza turned the
CAT
over and dived down, following the slope of the
vast craft’s bows. The rear radar signal stopped briefly, then reappeared.
He flipped the ship over again. Wubslin, his arms and legs waving weakly, was dumped onto the
CAT
’s bridge ceiling and stuck there like
a fly while Horza did a section of an outside loop.
The ship was racing, powering away from the Orbital port area and the big GSV, heading for space. Horza remembered about Balveda’s
gear, and quickly reached over to the console, closing the vactube circuit from there. A screen showed that all the vactubes
had been rotated.
The rear screen showed something flame inside the twin plumes of plasma fire. The rear radar pinged insistently.
“Goodbye,
stupid !
" the voice in the headrest speakers said. Horza threw the ship to one side.
The rear screen went white, then black. The main screen pulsated with colors and broken lines. The speakers in Horza’s helmet,
as well as
the speakers set into the seat, howled. Every instrument on the console flashed and wavered.
Horza thought for a second they had been hit, but the motors were still blasting, the main screen was starting to clear, and
the other
instruments were recovering, too. The radiation meters were bleeping and flashing. The rear screen stayed blank.
A damage monitor indicated
that the sensors had been knocked out by a very strong pulse of radiation.
Horza started to realize what had happened when the rear radar didn’t start pinging again after it recovered. He threw back
his head and
laughed.
There had indeed been a bomb in Balveda’s kitbag. Whether it had gone off because it was caught in the
CAT
’s plasma exhaust or
because somebody—whoever had been trying to keep the ship on board the GSV in the first place—had detonated
it remotely the instant the
fleeing craft was far enough away from the
Ends
not to cause too much damage, Horza didn’t know. Whatever; the explosion seemed to have
caught the pursuing police vessels.
Laughing uproariously, Horza angled the
CAT
further away from the great circle of brilliantly lit Orbital, heading straight out toward the stars
and readying the warp
engines to take over from the plasma motors. Wubslin, back on the deck, one leg caught on the arm of his own chair,
moaned
distantly.
“Mother," he said. “Mother, say it’s only a dream…."
Horza laughed louder.
“You lunatic," breathed Yalson, shaking her head. Her eyes were wide. “That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen you do.
You’re mad, Kraiklyn.
I’m leaving. I resign as of now… Shit! I wish I’d gone with Jandraligeli, to Ghalssel…. You can just
drop me off first place we get to."
Horza sat down wearily in the seat at the head of the mess-room table. Yalson was at the far end, under the screen, which
was switched into
the bridge main screen. The
CAT
was proceeding under full warp, two hours out on its journey from Vavatch. There had been no further pursuit
following the
destruction of the police craft, and now the
CAT
was gradually coming round to the course Horza had set, into the war zone,
toward the edge of the Glittercliff, toward Schar’s
World.
Dorolow and Aviger were sitting, plainly still shaken, to one side of Yalson. The woman and the elderly man were both staring
at Horza as
though he was pointing a gun at them. Their mouths were open, their eyes were glazed. On the other side of Yalson
the slack form of Perosteck
Balveda was leaning forward, head down, her body pulling against the restraining straps of the
seat.
The mess room was chaotic. The
CAT
hadn’t been readied for violent maneuvering, and nothing had been stowed away. Plates and
containers, a couple of shoes,
a glove, some half-unraveled tapes and spools and various other bits and pieces now lay strewn about the floor
of the mess.
Yalson had been hit by something, and a small trickle of blood had dried on her forehead. Horza hadn’t let anybody move, apart
from brief visits to the heads, for the last two hours; he’d told everybody to stay where they were over the ship PA while
the
CAT
headed away
from Vavatch on a twisting, erratic course. He had kept the plasma motors and laser warm and ready, but no further
pursuit came. Now he
reckoned they were safe and far enough away to warp straight.
He had left Wubslin on the bridge, nursing the battered and abused systems of the
Clear Air Turbulence
as best he could. The engineer