Kheslav licked his lips. “I have a datapack in my cabin,” he said, his voice lowering conspiratorially. “Lowry never knew, but my real job on Shadrach was to study the Tampies’ space horse. It was going to be there for several months, you know—day in and day out, in the same place, where we could monitor it continuously—”
“Yes, I understand,” Ferrol cut him off. “Part of the Amity’s job was to do the same sort of thing.”
“Right.” Kheslav looked around the room again. “The thing is, we had some monitors attached to the space horse’s webbing—without the Tampies knowing, of course—with everything funneled back to a receiver either direct or through a pair of tight-beam relay satellites. When B blew the first time—and all the Tampies died?—well, I have a complete record of the light intensities and types of radiation the space horse took, as well as a lot of the stuff going up and down the rein lines.” He lowered his voice still further. “And since some of the instruments were on the shielded side, away from the light, and you were in line of sight with us when you came over in the space horse’s shadow…some of that data goes right up until the end.” He fixed Ferrol with a suddenly intense stare. “You understand what that means?”
Ferrol did indeed. It meant that, for the first time ever, humanity would know exactly how to kill a space horse.
It was like a moment of truth, a moment that should have been filled with a deep and profound silence. Typically, Kheslav babbled right on through it. “You see the problem, then, with me trying to take the datapack home myself,” he said, waving his hands helplessly. “With all the publicity and attention—especially now with this calving thing—I’m not going to be able to just walk past the university people with a private datapack I’m not letting anyone see—”
“So I gather you want me to take charge of it?” Ferrol cut through the flood.
“If you would,” Kheslav said, obvious relief on his face. “I figure you can just hide it somewhere aboard the ship for now, and then later get it to the Senator—”
“Yes, thank you, I think I can handle it,” Ferrol growled. “When I’ve finished interviewing the rest of your party I’ll come by your cabin and pick it up.” He let his gaze harden, just a bit. “And after that I don’t expect to see or talk to you for the rest of the trip.”
“Sure.” Kheslav nodded with puppy dog eagerness. “Sure, I understand. I really appreciate this, Commander—”
“Good-bye, Kheslav.”
“Yeah.” Awkwardly, Kheslav got to his feet. “Uh.…yeah. Good-bye.”
For a wonder, he was silent as he left the room.
Two hours later Ferrol was back in his cabin, wedging the datapack with only moderate difficulty alongside the needle gun in his lockbox. Alongside the gun, on top of the Senator’s envelope…and for a moment Ferrol paused, staring at the bulkhead separating him from the Tampy section as he savored the bittersweet taste of irony. The Senator had placed him aboard the Amity for the express purpose of sabotaging the ship’s mission; of making sure that, with or without his direct intervention, this experiment in human-Tampy cooperation was a total and embarrassing disaster.
Instead, it had succeeded in doing something no human or even Tampy had ever done before…and with that event, Ferrol’s task had turned on its head.
Now, he was going to have to do his damnedest to make sure that the Amity experiment was allowed to continue.
He smiled tightly as one more irony of it struck him. He’d had a space horse calf within his grasp once before—had seen then the possibilities such a creature presented—and it had been Roman who snatched it from him. Now, it was that same man whose ship had given humanity this second shot at building its own space horse fleet.
And even if space horse calves proved uncontrollable by human handlers…Ferrol’s gaze dropped once more to the datapack. It would be unfortunate, but it wouldn’t be a total disaster. With the Pegasus calving, and now Kheslav’s data, the Tampy domination of space travel had come to an end.
One way or another, it had come to an end.
Sealing the lockbox, he replaced it in its underbed storage drawer, and returned to his duties.
Chapter 14
THE SHUTTLE’S ENGINES GAVE one final burp and cut off, and for a few seconds Ferrol fought the usual brief battle with nausea as his system made its adjustment back to free-fall. The adjustment seemed to take longer than usual…but then, he was seldom this weary during such transitions.
He sighed, and looked around him. A shuttle, the Senate crewers had called it; but they might as well have labeled it a yacht and been done with it. A rich man’s yacht, drafted into allegedly public service with a few rows of seats bolted into what had probably once been a dining room or conference room or something. Not that the alterations had done much to dent the atmosphere—infinitely-adjustable seats with individual built-in entertainment systems were hardly likely to be mistaken for standard Starforce-issue acceleration couches. Listening to the rumbling in his stomach, Ferrol wondered sourly if having someone throw up all over their flying glitter-room would do anything to bring the visiting senators back into the real world. From the evidence to date, he doubted it.
“Commander Ferrol?”
Ferrol looked up before he realized the voice was coming from the seatback behind him. “Yes?” he said.
“Captain Mendez’s compliments, sir; he’d like to see you on the bridge at your earliest convenience.”
Ferrol frowned. Some kind of trouble? “On my way.”
He found the release and pulled it, staying where he was for the couple of seconds it took the safety harness to remold itself and retract smoothly into the seat again. The bridge, he’d seen when they entered, was three compartments forward, just ahead of a ready room and a closet-sized box the yacht’s downgrade renovation had left apparently unused. Easing to the aisle, he gave himself a push forward and headed for the door.
It opened as he reached it, closing behind him almost before he’d gotten fully inside. A flicker of light—identity scan, possibly—and then the inner door slid open and he floated through into the ready room.
“Good evening, Chayne.”
Ferrol reached out a hand to steady himself on one of the nearby seats, relief that there wasn’t an emergency mixing with annoyance that he’d jumped to that conclusion in the first place. In retrospect, he should have expected something like this. “Good evening, Senator,” he replied, coolly polite. “Been promoted to captain, have you?”
The Senator’s lip twitched in a momentary smile. “It seemed safer to have the call put in the captain’s name. Personal entertainment systems aren’t supposed to leak over, but there’s no reason to take unnecessary risks.”
Ferrol pulled himself down into a seat, his eyes flicking to the bridge door a couple of meters away as he strapped himself in. “I’d have thought your being here at all would come under that heading, sir.”
“They’re all my people in there,” the Senator assured him, raising one hand to study a fingernail. “You know, Chayne—forgive my bluntness—you seem rather less than satisfied with the way the hearings went today.”
Ferrol snorted. “You noticed that, did you?”
Deliberately, the Senator raised his eyes from his examination. “We’ve noticed. Believe me. All of us.”
Ferrol felt his face growing warm. “Sorry,” he muttered.
For a long moment the Senator eyed him without speaking. “I’m sure you’ll understand,” he said at last, “that you’re the last person we would have expected to see passionately arguing a Tampy point of view. I’m sure you’ll also understand how such an abrupt change in attitude is likely to make our friends nervous.”
“I am not arguing a Tampy point of view,” Ferrol growled. “I’m arguing that, in this particular case, we happen to have as much to gain from an extension of Amity’s mission as do the Tampies. I don’t know how to make that any clearer than I already have.”
“Oh, your position is cle
ar enough,” the Senator shrugged. “It’s your judgment that’s in question.”
Ferrol’s annoyance was starting to simmer into anger. “This isn’t some half-assed idea I came up with on the spur of the moment, Senator,” he reminded the other stiffly. “I’ve thought that space horse calves were humanity’s best bet since long before you put me aboard the Amity.”
“Indeed,” the Senator said dryly. “Yes, your war-horse concept is quite well known among our group. Some of us feel it almost qualifies as an obsession, in fact—which is a major part of our concern. What evidence do you have that space horse calves would be more responsive to human control than the adults are?”
“Absolutely none,” Ferrol said. “What evidence do you have to the contrary?”
The Senator’s lip twisted in a way that always made Ferrol feel like a stubborn and not very bright child. “Let me spell it out for you, Chayne, in terms you apparently haven’t thought of. Assume for a moment that Junior wasn’t a fluke, that there really was some factor in Amity’s mission or crew that induced the breeding. Assume further that we can reproduce the results at will and are at some point able to make off with one of the calves. What do you think the Tampy reaction will be?”
“They won’t be exactly happy about it—”
“ ‘Won’t be happy’ doesn’t even begin to cover it,” the Senator cut him off sharply. “In case it’s escaped your notice, Chayne, the Tampies see themselves as the guardians of nature in general and of space horses in particular. Stealing a calf out from under their noses for research purposes could well trigger a full-scale war that we’re emphatically not ready for.”
With an effort Ferrol unclenched his teeth. “Then we don’t steal the calf,” he said. “We find some way to experiment on it without the Tampies knowing what we’re doing.”
The Senator raised his eyebrows. “And how do you suggest we do that?”
“I don’t know,” Ferrol shot back. “You have the idea people—ask them. Assuming they haven’t lost their nerve, too.”
The Senator’s face darkened. “Such things take time, Ferrol. Time, and money, and planning. You’d probably have to stay on the Amity for several more months, possibly as much as a year.”
“Whatever it—what?” Ferrol stared at him. “What do you mean, I’d have to stay on the Amity?”
The Senator gazed at him. “The only way the committee will authorize a breeding mission for the Amity is if at least fifty percent of the original crewers and all of the senior officers agree to stay with it. Until we know what—if anything—the actual trigger mechanism is.
Ferrol stared at the other, his anger turning into something icy. “Is that what all this was about?” he demanded. “Getting me worked up so that I wouldn’t have time to think about signing away another year of my life for you?”
“Consider it a test of your nerve,” the Senator countered coolly. “This is your vision, after all. If you don’t have the commitment to see it through…?” He shrugged.
It was emotional manipulation of the most blatant sort—deep within him, Ferrol could see that clearly. But the knowledge of what the Senator was doing to him didn’t help in the slightest. As the Senator had undoubtedly known it wouldn’t. “I’ll stay with the Amity as long as it takes,” he gritted out. “Just be damn sure you find a way to get one of the calves.”
“Assuming there are calves to be gotten,” the Senator agreed. His goal achieved, all the challenge in his voice and manner was gone again, leaving behind the slightly cynical detachment that Ferrol had always associated with the man. “I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Yes,” Ferrol said shortly, fumbling for the release with a hand that still shook slightly with emotion. Just like a damn clockwork robot, he thought bitterly. He just flips a switch, and I do a little dance. “If that’s all, I’ll be getting back to my seat.”
“One more thing, Chayne.” The Senator paused, and Ferrol thought he saw the lines around the other’s mouth tighten, just a bit. “Keeping all of Amity’s senior officers aboard means that Erin Kennedy will be staying, too.”
Ferrol cocked his head. “You say that as if it should bother me.”
The Senator snorted under his breath. “Perhaps it should. Are you aware that she took a reduction in rank to join the Amity’s original mission?”
“I’d heard that, yes,” Ferrol said slowly, forehead wrinkling in thought. He’d never had much social contact with Kennedy, but she’d never struck him as anything but highly competent in her bridge duties.
Perhaps too competent? Or was the Senator just jumping at shadows? “You think she’s some kind of plant?” he asked. “Military Intelligence, maybe?”
“Could be,” the Senator admitted. “So far we haven’t been able to dig out just why she’s there…but we do know she was originally slated to be executive officer, and that implies strongly she’s a darling of the pro-Tampy side. So watch her, Chayne. Watch her very closely. Especially if…” He raised his eyebrows significantly.
Especially if and when it came time to use the envelope. “I’ll watch her, sir,” Ferrol nodded grimly. “I still have the gun you gave me.”
“Good,” the Senator said. “I don’t doubt you’ll be able to deal with her if and when it becomes necessary. But bear in mind always that, as far as you’re concerned, she’s the most dangerous person on the Amity.” He nodded once, briskly. “Now; I understand you have a package for me.”
With an effort, Ferrol switched gears. “Yes, sir: Kheslav’s datapack. I’ll bring it to the hearings tomorrow morning.”
“You’ll get it for me now.”
Ferrol paused, floating above his seat. “What, while the shuttle’s running its pre-return checks? Won’t it look a little odd for me to dash off Amity’s hangar deck and then come charging right back again?”
“I don’t especially care what it looks like,” the Senator said, his voice abruptly icy with command. “I want the datapack, and I want it now.”
For a long minute Ferrol locked eyes with him…but it was no contest. “Yes, sir,” he growled. “With your permission, Senator, I’ll return to my seat now.”
“Just one more thing, Chayne.” The Senator’s eyes bored hard into his. “I didn’t much care for the way you spoke to me a few minutes ago. I don’t want you to ever again suggest that I’ve lost my nerve—in fact, I don’t want you to ever even think it. Do I make myself clear?”
Ferrol swallowed. “Perfectly clear. Sir.”
Which was not to say, he thought darkly as he returned to his seat, that it wasn’t true.…
The shuttle docked with the Amity half an hour later, and the preparations for its return planetside were still being carried out when Ferrol returned from his stateroom with Kheslav’s datapack.
The Senator accepted it without a word, though with what Ferrol imagined to be a suspicious set to his mouth. But if he wondered why the errand had taken Ferrol so long, he didn’t ask about it.
Perhaps he didn’t have to ask. Ferrol wasn’t worried about it one way or the other. Twice in a single brief discussion he’d gotten the uneasy feeling that the Senator and his friends were starting to lose it…and if they were, it would be all too easy for their copy of the Kheslav data to be somehow mislaid.
And even if they weren’t, it was just good sense for there to be an extra copy of the data. Somewhere no one would think of looking for it.
One month later, with much the same crew but a new space horse, Amity left Solomon and headed again into deep space. Its mission this time was a laserstat copy of its first: the preliminary investigation of four Tampy-discovered planets. There was no way to duplicate the pre-nova experience, even if anyone had been damnfool enough to risk it; as a substitute, Roman took the ship into the expanding gas cloud of a planetary nebula.
Three months later they returned to Solomon with datapacks full of scientifically exciting numbers and a new space horse calf towing their lander.
On
its third mission the Amity investigated a pulsar and a nearby Wolf-Rayet system. On its fourth, it did nothing but examine various sections of the interstellar medium.
By then it was clear to even the most cautious members of the Senate and Admiralty that the actual content of the mission didn’t seem to matter. Nor, apparently, did the fact that interpersonal conflicts forced a large turnover of crewers and scientific personnel each time. At the end of each voyage, the Amity returned with a new calf.
And on the last day of the preparations for its fifth mission the Senator finally—finally—made his move.
Chapter 15
THE MAN STANDING BESIDE Ferrol was tall and gangling, with the sort of faraway look in his eyes that Roman had always associated with heavy drug use. That drugs were not involved, though, was clear from the orders the man had brought aboard the Amity with him.
In a way, Roman thought as he skimmed the orders, that almost made it worse. It meant that that look was a normal part of the man and would probably be with him for the entire mission.
Flipping off the reader, Roman turned his full attention to his visitor. “Well, Mr. Demothi,” he said. “An intriguing experiment, to be sure. You’ll forgive me if I remain skeptical.”
Nodin Demothi’s expression remained serene. “The Senate was skeptical, too, Captain,” he said. “As was the Starforce Admiralty before them, and the Sinshahli Psych Sciences Institute before them, and the University before them.” He nodded toward the orders. “None of them remained so for long.”
“Perhaps,” Roman said. “On the other hand, dolphins and whales share a home planet and a great deal of history with humanity. Space horses are totally alien.”
Demothi shrugged minutely. “So are Tampies, but I was able to communicate with several of them during my time on Traklee-Kyn.”
“Which may mean even less than your cetacean studies,” Roman pointed out. “Your Tampy partner at the other end of the amplifier helmet could have been doing all the work.”