“What is wrong?” he demanded.
“There’s nothing wrong,” Jason said.
“Have a look out the window. This window,” Anne-Marie added.
While Nessus had cowered, they had dropped from hyperspace. Two stars, one yellowish and one eyepiercingly white-violet, blazed in the view port. Glowing red smoke in a many-ringed coil looped around them. The outer end of the coil lashed and flailed, diffusing into a red veil spread across half the sky.
So much beauty! It displaced, for a little while at least, the dread that had immobilized him. He had chosen his crew wisely. “I recognize this star,” Nessus said. “Amazing. I really should have suggested this stop myself. Had I not been so depressed, I certainly would have. Thank you, Jason.”
“My pleasure, sir,” Jason said. “We’ll be on our way again whenever you’re ready.”
Anne-Marie bent over her control console. “I’ll scan with deep radar.”
Jason laughed. “Can you imagine how many ships have scanned this system already?”
Anne-Marie persisted. “Just for luck.”
• • •
THERE WAS A beep. “I don’t believe it,” Jason said.
“Two in one trip,” Anne-Marie shouted. “Jay, that’s some sort of record.”
Nessus’ mind reeled. Beta Lyrae, as the humans called this system, was one of the wonders of Known Space. Doubtless many pilots had detoured, as Jason had, for the view. Just as surely, many had scanned for stasis boxes. It felt wrong. “I suggest that we locate the box, then leave it. You may send a friend for it.”
“You hired my ship,” Jason said. “If you order me to go on, I’ll do it.”
On the other head . . . if they retrieved this new stasis box now, he could buy their shares. Nessus doubted they’d expect as high a price as the Outsiders. Nessus wasn’t ready to agree, but perhaps this merited more discussion. He extemporized, “I will not. Your species has come a long way in a short time. If you do not have prudence, you have some workable substitute.”
“There it is,” Anne-Marie said. “A little blob of a world about three billion klicks out.”
Nessus craned his necks to study the new deep-radar image. The object rested on or slightly within the translucent sphere that represented the planet. He surreptitiously checked radiation meters and saw nothing out of the ordinary—and finally understood what his subconscious had been warbling about.
Pilots searching for stasis boxes counted on one thing: the complete opacity of a stasis field to neutrinos. What none would consider—and why would they?—was that neutronium was almost as opaque. That was why Achilles, curse him, had scattered large neutronium masses in desirable solar systems within the Fleet’s wake. Spot an apparent nearly priceless stasis box, race to retrieve it, and then, when it was too late, fall prey to its deep, steep gravity well.
Three human ships had been lost to exactly such traps. Rather than protect the Fleet, the disappearances had drawn Ausfaller’s attention. Nessus tasted bitter cud remembering his desperate attempts to create a similar neutronium artifact to redirect Sigmund’s gaze. Julian’s black hole, bulked up with a comparatively small mass of neutronium, had accomplished much the same.
This couldn’t be one of Achilles’ traps. A large neutronium mass set onto the planet’s surface would eat its way through, oscillating around the center of mass, growing and emitting massive amounts of radiation.
Jason moved alongside, also studying the deep-radar image. “Shouldn’t be any problem. All right, I’ll take us down.”
Nessus said nothing, knowing his silence represented a decision.
“I DUB THEE Cue Ball,” Anne-Marie said.
Nessus watched her follow Jason through the pressure curtain now projected over the doubly open air lock. They rode the escalladder down to the frozen surface of the small world. The great, red-glowing arch of star stuff, source and replenisher of the thin local atmosphere, shone overhead. Through the main view port, Nessus watched with one head as they cautiously surveyed the landing zone with a portable deep-radar unit. A radio-linked auxiliary bridge display repeated the deep-radar image: an opaque cube buried in the ice.
The cube disappeared.
A steam geyser burst from the ice. A massive figure emerged. It was an armed and armored Kzin! Jason and Anne-Marie ran for the ship, only to be cut down. Nessus slapped the air-lock control; the doors began to close—
Too slowly.
The Kzin, taller than and easily twice as massive as Jason, splintered the bridge door with a single blow. “Come,” he snarled.
NESSUS HUNG LIKE a bug in amber, immobilized by a police restraint device. Jason and Anne-Marie, roughly stripped of their vacuum suits, remained stunned and unresponsive. Both dangled in awkward-looking poses within their own force-field restraints. Their pressure suits had been removed to another cabin. Nessus had had only moments to dress for the trek to the Kzintiship hidden beneath the ice.
A single Kzin, with few markings on his bright orange fur, shared the room with them, impatient for the stunned humans to return to consciousness.
Nessus tired of waiting. “What is the purpose of this action?” he demanded in Hero’s Tongue. Scouts learned all the languages of Known Space.
The Kzin ignored him.
Nessus guessed the Kzin was a warrior. He would be loath to speak to an herbivore.
Jason groaned. “So none of us made it.”
“No,” Nessus said. “You may remember I advised—”
“How could I forget? Sorry about that, Nessus. What’s happening?”
“Very little at the moment.”
The restraint field as set left only heads free to move. Jason turned his head toward their captor. “Who are you?”
“You may call me Captain,” the Kzin said. “Depending on future events, you are either my kidnap victims or my prisoners of war. Who are you?”
“Jason Papandreou, of Earth origin.”
“Very well. Jason, are you in possession of a stasis box, a relic of the Slaver Empire?”
Only the restraint field kept Nessus from collapsing in horror. A very few Kzinti were latent telepaths; a tiny fraction of those could tolerate the drug that awakened their powers. Kzinti warships often carried telepaths. By treaty, Kzinti no longer had warships, nor were they even allowed lethal weapons—but nevertheless this was surely a military vessel.
How but with the aid of a telepath could Captain even suspect Court Jester carried a Slaver relic?
The Kzinti—before it was their misfortune to encounter humans—had once ruled an empire. The races Kzinti subjugated were slaves. Those who had, eons earlier, left behind stasis containers called themselves Thrintun. Wielding telepathic powers far beyond the Kzinti variety, the Thrintun held whole worlds in bondage. It was no wonder the Kzinti revered their memory. Only Kzinti would feel that calling them Slavers was an honor.
A Thrintun superweapon could rekindle the Man-Kzin Wars, even imperil the Fleet.
The horror of the situation so shook Nessus that he hardly heard Jason’s denial. Captain’s question was a formality, of course. The telepath who had sensed thoughts of the artifact would peel the humans’ minds like onions.
Captain would not talk to him. Could any Kzin bear to read a mere herbivore’s mind?
A conditioned response to any such attempt would instantly kill him. Nessus was not afraid to die. He was terrified of the information that would die with him, and of the many lives at stake. That must not happen. He must await his opportunity to escape.
What would Ausfaller do?
“The trap you stumbled upon is an old one,” Captain said. “One ship or another has been waiting on this world since the last war. We have been searching out Slaver stasis boxes for much longer than that, hoping to find new weapons. . . .”
A second Kzin, ill groomed, appeared in the doorway. He waited deferentially for his Captain to finish talking. The telepath?
Captain ignored the newcomer. “Only recent
ly did we hit upon this idea. You may know that ships often stop off to see this unusual star. Ships of most species also have the habit of sending a deep-radar pulse around every star they happen across.”
It was easy to remember Achilles ranting about humans, and scheming to bolster the Patriarchy as a counterweight against them. Not even Achilles would conspire to help the Kzinti acquire Thrintun weapons—but had Achilles’ meddling inspired Kzinti to seek on their own?
“Several decades ago we did find a stasis box. Unfortunately, it contained nothing useful, but we eventually found out how to turn the stasis field on and off. It made a good trap. For forty Kzin years we have waited for ships to happen by with stasis boxes in their holds. You are our second catch.”
The echo of the deep-radar pulse sent “for luck” had masked an answering ping from the planet. They had revealed themselves and disclosed their precious cargo long before approaching within telepathic range.
Anne-Marie had also revived. At Captain’s explanation, her eyes grew round. “Sorry,” she mouthed to Nessus.
“You’d have done better finding your own boxes,” Jason said.
“We would have been seen. Earth would have acted to stop our search.” Done explaining himself, Captain turned to the unkempt Kzin in the doorway. He snarled orders in Hero’s Tongue.
The rumpled one was called, simply, Telepath. Captain turned out to be Chuft-Captain, a nobleman, entitled to a partial name. Cringing deferentially, his face scrunched in misery, Telepath set to work reading Jason’s mind.
The force field still held Jason. He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut until Telepath turned his painful attention to Anne-Marie. She also endured the ordeal stoically.
Telepath shuddered before reopening his own eyes. “Chuft-Captain, they have not hidden the stasis box. It may be found in a locker to the left of the control room.”
Chuft-Captain howled in frustration when he heard the humans knew almost nothing of Nessus’ dealings with the Outsiders. He did not direct Telepath to probe Nessus’ mind. Perhaps reading prey was too demeaning even for a no-name Kzin. Perhaps Chuft-Captain knew the attempt would kill Nessus without revealing anything of value.
Either way, Nessus was grateful. While he lived he could plan to escape.
Telepath finally left, drained by his psychic exertions. More Kzinti soon replaced him, wearing pressure suits with their helmets not yet sealed. They brought the prisoners’ pressure suits. Chuft-Captain addressed the one carrying the stasis container as Slaverstudent.
“Open it,” Chuft-Captain ordered.
Slaverstudent set down his load. The mirrored, cylindrical container obstructed Nessus’ view of whatever the Kzin operated to break the stasis field. The mirror finish vanished to reveal a dull bronze-colored box, which opened automatically. Slaverstudent removed a three-clawed alien hand, what appeared to be a slab of raw meat inside a transparent wrapping, and a small sphere on a sculpted handle.
The hand had belonged to a Thrint. A souvenir? The handgrip on what certainly looked like a weapon was entirely wrong for it. What little hope Nessus had allowed himself vanished.
These were artifacts of the Tnuctipun, the most talented of the long-gone empire’s subject races. For generations, Tnuctipun slaves had developed the most advanced technology of the Thrintun Empire—while secretly developing other technologies for themselves. When, at last, the Tnuctipun rose in rebellion, they and their former masters warred until all intelligent life in the galaxy was exterminated.
These Kzinti now possessed the first Tnuctipun stasis box ever recovered.
54
Nessus and his crew stood on the surface of Cue Ball. They were there for any insights they might offer as Chuft-Captain and Slaverstudent tested the weapon. When the prisoners ceased to be helpful, they could serve as targets. As they were immobilized by portable restraint fields, the matter was beyond their control.
No! Nessus chided himself. Do not give in to fatalism. Stay alert for an opportunity to escape.
Court Jester sat nearby, a squat cylinder atop the ice, tauntingly out of reach. Nessus wondered if it could attain safe hyperdrive operating distance from Beta Lyrae before the Kzinti ship—Traitor’s Claw, he now knew it was called—could free itself of the ice.
“I wonder why we’re still alive,” Anne-Marie said.
Nessus answered cautiously, “The Captain wants our opinions on the putative weapon. He will not ask for them, but will take them through the telepath.”
“That doesn’t apply to you, does it?” Anne-Marie asked.
“No. No Kzin would read my mind. Perhaps no Kzin would kill me; my race holds strong policies on the safety of individual members.” Their captors had set everyone’s space suit radios to a common frequency. Nessus had hinted at the power and long memories of the Concordance without implying any threat Chuft-Captain might feel honor bound to defy. Citizens did not fight back, not in the Kzinti sense. But they had the power of commerce, the influence to make and break worlds. Had, in the past tense: The wealth and influence of General Products were all but gone now. “In any case, we have some time.”
“Time for what?”
“Anne-Marie, we must wait. If the artifact is a weapon, we must recover it. If not, we must survive to warn your people the Kzinti are searching out Slaver stasis boxes. We must wait until we know which.” As though they could do anything but wait.
The restraint field kept Nessus from pivoting his heads. That was frustrating. His urge was to look himself in the eyes. The Kzinti would surely find Puppeteer bravado amusing. Would his amusing them argue for his life?
“Then what?” Anne-Marie persisted.
“We will find a way,” Nessus said.
Jason finally joined the discussion. “We?”
“Yes. Our motives coincide here.” That was true, taking escape as a motive. Nessus’ foremost goal thereafter was to get word to Hearth of the Outsiders’ demands. Even Kzinti pursuit of ancient weapons paled in comparison. “I cannot explain at this time.”
Or ever.
CHUFT-CAPTAIN SYSTEMATICALLY EXAMINED the controls of the ball-and-handle artifact. He pointed it into the distance and squeezed what might be a trigger. Nothing happened. He gripped a small mechanism at the base of the handle, edging it upward—
The mirror-faced sphere writhed like a living thing, changing and flowing into a long slender cylinder with a red ball at one end and a toggle at the other. The handle had not changed.
When Chuft-Captain engaged the toggle, the red ball lit up and shot far across the ice. The Kzin swung the artifact; the glowing ball moved in concert. “Variable sword,” Chuft-Captain guessed. He moved the artifact toward a distant rock spire. The top of the rock slid off.
Nessus knew what a variable sword was: an invisibly thin monofilament reinforced with a stasis field. One would slice through almost anything. The red ball marked the end of the filament, for purposes of aiming.
“A variable sword,” Chuft-Captain repeated. “But not of Slaver design. Slaverstudent, have you ever heard of a weapon that changes shape?”
“No, Chuft-Captain, neither of the past nor of the present.”
“Then we’ve found something new.”
“Yes!” Slaverstudent snarled enthusiastically.
The slider in the artifact’s handle had eight settings. One had turned the ball into a variable sword. Chuft-Captain set out to find the purpose of the other settings.
Setting two morphed the device into a parabolic mirror and a sonic projector. In the tenuous atmosphere of Cue Ball, even its strongest setting transmitted only a faint hum. Nessus knew that personally, as Chuft-Captain used him as a target. Slaverstudent had already reported very limited energy discharge. Chuft-Captain knew that. The Kzin must have already deemed Nessus expendable.
The third transformation produced a projectile weapon. Slaverstudent provided bullets that had also been in the stasis box. Chuft-Captain grunted appreciatively when one type proved to be po
werfully explosive.
The next setting again set the device to writhing. It spat out the remaining bullets before settling into a new sphere, smaller than the original. Test firings at target rocks did nothing, although Slaverstudent reported energy discharge. Chuft-Captain fired at each of his captives. This time, Nessus felt nothing. “I grow weary of these duds,” Chuft-Captain growled.
The fifth setting produced a stubby barrel flanked by flat metal projections. It looked dangerous even to Nessus. Chuft-Captain fired at his target rock.
Everything happened at once. Chuft-Captain spun around, as though he were holding a fire hose, struggling to control the weapon. A glowing beam lashed about. Telepath screamed as hot plasma touched him, a sickening wail of pain and fear that faded quickly. Two Kzinti grabbed Telepath, dragging him toward the ice tunnel back into Traitor’s Claw.
Anne-Marie was running for Court Jester! Telepath’s flailing had knocked her off the grid of the portable restraint. Nessus felt the stirrings of hope—
Chuft-Captain, almost casually, brought her down with a stunner. He trudged after her as she bounced and slid, paralyzed, across the ice.
“It’s a rocket motor,” Slaverstudent said. He’d returned from flash-freezing Telepath for emergency care back on Kzin. “The flat projections on the side may be holds for feet.”
Position six produced a telescopic sight and a communications laser. Nessus consulted quickly with Jason while the Kzinti continued their experimentation. The rocket mode had seemed far too powerful for the artifact’s size. Unless—
“It must use total conversion of matter,” Jason said.
Nessus had already concluded that. Slaverstudent surely would also. Nessus’ depression deepened. A compact device able to totally convert matter to energy . . . by comparison, even antimatter was a trivial peril. Such technology promised yet another way to destroy General Products’ hulls.
“Things weren’t bad enough,” Jason said. “Can you see Kzinti warships armed and powered with total conversion?”