Planet Pirates Omnibus Part 60

yet, and until then what he planned was, by all the laws and regulations, not merely mutiny but also murder. And piracy. And probably a dozen or so lesser crimes to be tacked onto the charge sheet(s), including the things Sa.s.sinak might say about his tap into her com shack. And his present unauthorized reprogramming of emergency equipment. Not to mention his supposed orders to proceed into Seti s.p.a.ce: faked orders, which no one (after he pirated a ship and killed the crew) would believe he had not faked for himself.

What would Sa.s.sinak do about that, he wondered. He remembered the holo of the Zaid-Dayan with its patched hull, with the scars of the pirate boarding party. She had let the enemy onto her ship to trap them. Could he think of anything as devastating? All things considered, forty-three years of cold sleep might be the easy way out, he thought, finishing off the new switching sequences.

Sa.s.sinak's great-great-great might complain but a little time in the freezer could keep you out of big trouble. His mind b.u.mped him again, hard. Of course. Coldsleep them, the nasties. Drop the charges to mere mutiny and piracy and et cetera, but not murder (mandatory mindwipe for murder), and he might merely spend the next twenty years cleaning toilet fixtures with a bent toothbrush.

Of course it still wasn't simple. For all his exercise up and down the ladders, he had no more idea than a s.p.a.ce-opera hero how to operate this ship. He'd had only the basics, years back; he'd flown a comp-desk, not a ship. He could chip away at that compartment of water ice and not die of thirst, but he couldn't convert it and take a shower. Or even get the ship down out of FTL s.p.a.ce. Sa.s.sinak could probably do it, but all he could do was trigger the Fleet distress beacon and hope the pickup ship wasn't part of the same corrupt group. He wouldn't even do that, if he didn't quit jittering and get to it.

Chapter Seven.

Diplo Zebara led her through the maze of streets around the university complex at a fast pace. For all his age and apparent physical losses, he was still amazingly fit. She was aware of eyes following them, startled glances. She could not tell if it was Zebara himself, or his having a lightweight companion. She was puffing when he finally stopped outside a storefront much like the others she'd seen.

"Gin's Place," Zebara said. "Best chooli stew in the city, a very liberal crowd, and a noisy set of half-bad musicians. You'll love it."

Lunzie hoped so. Chooli stew conformed to Federation law by having no meat in it, but she had not acquired a taste for the odd spices that flavored the mix of starchy vegetables.

Inside, hardly anyone looked at her. The "liberal crowd" were all engrossed in their own food and conversation. She smelted meat, but saw none she recognized. The half-bad musicians played with enthusiasm but little skill, covering their blats and blurps with high-pitched cries of joy or anguish. She could not tell which, but it did make an effective sonic screen. She 103.

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and Zebara settled into one of the booths along the side, and ordered chooli stew with figgerunds, the green nuts she'd had at the reception, Zebara explained.

"You need to know some things," he began when the chooli stew had arrived, and Lunzie was taking a first tentative bite of something yellowish.

"I heard you were head of External Security," she said quietly.

He looked startled. "Where'd you hear? No, it doesn't matter. It's true, although not generally known." He sighed. "I can see this makes it more difficult for you ..."

"Makes what more difficult?"

"Trusting me." His eyes flicked around the room, as anyone's might, but Lunzie could not believe it was the usual casual glance. Then he looked back at her. "You don't, and I can't blame you, but we must work together or. Or things could get very bad indeed."

"Isn't your involvement with an offworlder going to be a little conspicuous?" She let a little sarcasm edge her voice; how naive did he think she was?

"Of course. That doesn't matter." He ate a few bites while she digested the implications of that statement. It could only "not matter" if policymakers knew and approved. When he looked up and swallowed, she nodded at him. "Good! You understand. Your name on the medical team was a little conspicuous, if you'd had any ulterior motive for coming here . . ."He let that trail away, and Lunzie said nothing. Whatever motives she had had, the important tiling now was to find out what Zebara was talking about. She took another bite of stew; it was better than the same dish in the research complex's dining hall.

"I saw the list," Zebara went on. "One of the things my department does is screen such delegations, looking for possible troublemakers. Nothing unusual. Most planets do the same. There was your name, and I wondered if it was the same Lunzie. Found out that it was you and then the rocks started falling."

"Rocks?"

"My . . . employers. They wanted me to contact you, renew our friendship. More than friendship, if possible. Enlist your aid in getting vital data oflplanet."

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"But your employers . . . that's the Governor, right?" Lunzie was not sure, despite having read about it, just where political power was on this planet.

"Not precisely. The Governor knows them, and that's part of the problem. I have to a.s.sume that you, with what's happened to you, are like any normal Federation citizen. About piracy, for instance."

His voice had lowered to a m.u.f.fled growl she could barely follow. The half-bad musicians were perched on their tall stools, gulping some amber liquid from tall gla.s.s mugs. She hoped it would mellow their music as well as their minds.

"My ethics haven't changed," she said, with the slightest emphasis on the p.r.o.noun.

"Good. That's what they counted on, and I, in my own way, counted on the same thing." He took a long swallow of his drink.

"Are you suggesting," Lunzie spoke slowly, phrasing it carefully, "that your goals and your employers' goals both depend on my steadfast opinions, even if they are . . . divergent?"

"You could say it that way." Zebara grinned at her, and slightly raised his mug.

And what other way, with what other meaning, could I say it? Lunzie wondered. She sipped from her own mug, tasting only the water she'd asked for, and said, "That's all very well, but what does it mean?"

"That, I'm afraid, we cannot discuss here. I will tell you what I can, and then we'll make plans to meet again." At her frown, he nodded. "That much is necessary, Lunzie, to keep immediate trouble at bay. We are watched. Of course we are, and I'm aware of it so we must continue our friendly a.s.sociation."

"Just how friendly?"

That slipped out before she meant it. She had not meant to ask that until later, if ever. He chuckled, but it sounded slightly forced.

"You know how friendly we were. You probably remember it better than I do since you slept peacefully for over forty of the intervening years."

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She felt the blood rushing to her face and let it. Any watchers would a.s.sume that was genuine emotion.

"You! I have to admit that I haven't forgotten you, not one . . . single . . . thing."

This time, he was the one to blush. She hoped it satisfied whoever was doing the surveillance but she thought the actual transcript would prove deadly.

As if he could read her thoughts, he said "Don't worry! At this stage they're still letting me arrange the surveillance. We're relatively safe as long as we don't do something outside their plans."

Their plans or your plans, she wondered. She wanted to trust Zebara: she did trust the Zebara she'd known. But this new Zebara, this old man with the hooded eyes, the grandchildren he wanted to save, the head of External Security, could she trust this Zebara? And how far?

Still, when he reached for her hand, she let him take it. His fingers stroked her palm and she wondered if he would try something as simple as dot code. Cameras might pick that up. Instead, a fingernail lightly drew the logo on the FSP banner, then letter by letter traced her name. She smiled at him, squeezed his hand, and hoped she was right.

The next day's work at the Center went well. Whatever Bias thought, he managed not to say and no one else asked uncomfortable questions. Lunzie came back to her quarters, feeling slightly uneasy that she hadn't heard from Zebara but her message light was blinking as she came in. She put in a call to the number she was given, and was not surprised to hear his voice.

"You said once you'd like to hear our native music," he began. "There's a performance tonight of Zilmach's epic work. Would you come with me?"

"Formal dress, or informal?" asked Lunzie.

"Not formal like the Governor's reception, but nice."

She was sure he was laughing underneath at her interest in clothes. But she agreed to be ready in an hour without commenting on it. Dinner before the performance was at an obviously cla.s.sy restaurant. The other diners wore expensive jewels in addition to fancy

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clothes. Lunzie felt subdued in her simple dark green dress with the copper-and-enamel necklace that served her for all occasions. Zebara wore a uniform she did not recognize. Did External Security really go for that matte black or did they intend it to intimidate ofiworlders? He looked the perfect foil for Sa.s.sinak. She let hersetf remember Sa.s.sinak in her dress whites, with the vivid alert expression that made her beautiful. Zebara sat there like a black lump of rough stone, heavy and sullen. Then he smiled.

"Dear Lunzie, you're glaring at me. Why?"

"I was thinking of my great-great-great-granddaughter," she said, combining honesty and obliqueness at once. "You have grandchildren, you said? Tlien surely they cross your mind at the oddest times, intruding, but you'd never wish them away."

"That's true." He shook his head with a rueful smile. "And since mine are here in person, they can intrude physically as well. Little Pog, the youngest, got loose from his mother in my office one time. Darted past my secretary, straight through the door and into my conference room. Set off alarms and thoroughly annoyed tte Lieutenant Governor and the Chiefs of Staff. He'd grabbed me by the leg and was howling because the alarm siren scared him. He made so much noise die guards were sure someone was really hurt." His smile had broadened; now he chuckled. "By the time I had peeled him off my leg, found his mother, and convinced the guards that it was not an exceptionally clever a.s.sa.s.sination scheme using a midget or a robot, none of us could get our minds back on the problem. Worst of all, I had to listen to a lecture by the Lieutenant Governor on the way he disciplines his family. What he didn't know, and I couldn't tell him, was that his eldest son was about to be arrested for sedition. This is, as you might suspect, the former Lieutenant Governor, not the one you met the other night."

The revelation about his job did nothing to quiet Lunzie's nerves. Anyone who could pretend not to know that someone's child was about to be arrested Had more than enough talent in lying to confuse her. She 108.

forced herself to concentrate on his feelings for his children and grandchildren. That, at least, she could understand and sympathize with.

"So what happened to little . . . Pog, was it?"

"Yes, short for Poglin. Family name on his mother's side. Well, I counseled leniency since he'd been frightened so badly by the alarms and the subsequent chaos, but his mother felt guilty that he'd gotten away from her. She promised him a good thrashing when they got home. I hope that was mostly for my benefit. She's very . . . aware of rank, that one." It was obvious that he didn't like his daughter-in-law much. Lunzie wondered if he'd meant to reveal that to her. "And have you caught up with all your family after your long sleep?" he was asking.

Lunzie shook her head, and sipped cautiously at the steaming soup that had appeared in front of them. Pale orange, spicy, not bad at all.

"My great-great, Sa.s.sinak, gave me Fleet transport to Sector Headquarters. She's an orphan. She's never met the others."

"Oh. Isn't that unusual? Wouldn't they take her in?" His eyelids had sagged again, hiding his expression. Lunzie suspected he knew a lot more about her and her family, including Sa.s.sinak, than he pretended.

"They didn't know." Quickly, she told him what t.i.ttle Sa.s.sinak had told her and added her own interpretation of Sa.s.sinak's failure to seek out her parents' relatives. "She's still afraid of rejection, I think. Fleet took her in. She considers it her family. I had one grandson, Dougal, in Fleet, and I remember the others complaining that he was almost a stranger to them. Even when he visited, he seemed attached somewhere else."

"Will you introduce her?"

"I've thought about that. Forty-three more years. I don't know who's alive, where they are, although it won't be hard to find out. But she may not want to meet them, even with me. I'm still trying to figure out whose she is, for that matter. I haven't really had time." At the startled look on his face, she laughed. "Zebara, you've been tvith your family all this time. Of

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course nothing is more important to you. But I've had one long separation after another. I've had to make my connections where and when I could. The first thing was to get my certification back, get some kind of job."

"Surely your great-great, this Sa.s.sinak, wouldn't have tossed you out to starve!"

"She's Fleet, remember? Under orders. I'm civilian." Sort of, she thought to herself, wondering just what status she did have. Coromell had recruited her: was that official? The Venerable Master Adept seemed to have connections to Fleet she had never quite understood. But surely he wasn't a Fleet agent? Sa.s.sinak had sent her to Liaka with the same a.s.surance she'd have sent one of her own officers. "I wouldn't have starved, no. You're right about that. But by the time I left Liaka, I still didn't have my acc.u.mulated back pay. It would come, they a.s.sured me, but it was sticking in someone's craw to pay me for forty-three years of coldsleep. All I really wanted was the credit for time awake, but ..." She shrugged. "Bureaucrats."

"We are difficult sometimes." He was smiling, but she wondered why he had intruded his position again.

They finished dinner with little more conversation, then went to the concert. Zebara's rank meant excellent seats, a respectful usher, and a well of silence around them, beyond which Lunzie could just hear curious murmurs. She glanced down at the program. She had never heard of Zilmach or his (her?) epic work. The program cover showed two brawny heavyworlders lifting a s.p.a.ceship overhead. She didn't know if that was a scene from the work she would hear or the logo of the Diplo Academy of Music. She nudged Zebara.

"Tell me about this."

"Zilmach, a composer you won't have heard of, spent twenty years on this, working from the series of poems Rudrik wrote in the first Long Freeze on Diplo. Rudrik, by the way, died of starvation, along with some forty thousand of those early colonists. It's called Bitter Destiny and die theme is exploitation of our strength to provide riches for the weak. You won't like the libretto, but the music is extraordinary." He nuzzled her neck and Lunzie 110.

managed not to jump. "Besides, it's loud, and we can talk if we're careful."

"It's aot rude?"

"Yes," he said quietly into her ear, "But there are segments in which almost everyone gets affectionate; you'll know."

Zilmach's epic work began with a low moaning of strings and woodwinds, plus a rhythmic banging on some instrument Lunzie had never heard before: rather Hke someone whacking a heavy chain with a hammer. She ventured a murmured question to Zebara who explained that it represented the pioneers chipping ice off their machinery. Zilmach had invented the instrument in the course of writing the music.

After the overture, a ma.s.sed chorus marched in singing. Lunzie felt gooseb.u.mps break out on her arms. Although she had told herself that the heavyworlders must have creative capacity, she had never truly believed it. She had never seen any of their art, or heard their music. Now, listening to those resonant voices filling the hall easily, she admitted to herself just how narrowminded she'd been. The best she'd been able to imagine was "kind" or "gentle." But this was magnificent.

She did not enjoy the staged presentation of the lightweight "exploiters." Although seeing ma.s.sive heavyworlders pretending to be tiny fragile lightweights cringing from each other had the humor of incongruity. She remembered having seen a cube of an Old Earth opera in which a large lady with sagging jowls was being serenaded as a "nymph."

But the voices! She had imagined heavyworlder music as heavy, thumping, unmelodic. . . and she'd been wrong.

"It's beautiful," she murmured to Zebara, in a pause between scenes.