Starmind. Part 20

"Come on," Duncan said, jaunting away. "I'm an Orientator-I know this dump better than Kate Tokugawa."

I hope you're right,Jay thought. Rand jaunted after Duncan, and Jay took up the rear, gun at the ready.

In the discreetly unmarked riot-control compartment Duncan led them to, they found the tank Jay wanted, fresh thrusters, and a sonic rifle for Rand. While they swapped the new thrusters for their exhausted ones, they also exchanged information.

"I was heading for Deluxe country, I knew the panic would be worst there, and I took service corridors to make better time. Then I saw Martin and those two goons go by at an intersection ahead of me, guns out, towing you two. They didn't see me in the lousy light."

"What made you decide to b.u.t.t in?" Rand asked. "And how did you know which side you were on?"

Duncan didn't duck the question. "I'm in love with your wife, and she's in love with you. I didn't want her hurt."

Rand didn't duck the answer. "I understand. How did you ever manage to take all three of them?"

Duncan shrugged. "All three were earthborn. Taking Martin's gun wasn't a major challenge. Actually the other two didn't do too badly; I was trying to keep one of them alive to question, but they hurried me. So tell me: who are the bad guys and what do we do about them?"

"Anybody could be a bad guy," Jay said. "But the one we know about is Kate Tokugawa herself."

Duncan's eyebrows raised, but he made no comment. "And what we're going to do is take her alive for questioning. But I almost hope she hurries us. She's behind the system crash-she's using it to cover akidnapping."

Duncan's eyes widened, then shut tight. "Jesus."

"You think they're alive, then?" Rand said.

"Have to be. There are much easier ways to kill somebody."

"Easier ways to kidnap people too. They could have s.n.a.t.c.hed us off the shuttle without all this hooraw."

"The s.p.a.ce Command keeps a careful eye on moving objects in High Orbit," Jay said, "but they hardly ever look at the Shimizu. Doing it here cost the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, but it probably bought them enough lead to get away clean."

"Who got kidnapped?" Duncan asked.

"Fat Humphrey Pappadopoulos, Reb Hawkins, Meiya and Eva Hoffman. Possibly others, but I'm sure of those. They s.n.a.t.c.hed them right out of a suite: right out the G.o.ddam window and into a stealthed ship, long gone by now. I don't know what the f.u.c.k is going on, but it has something to do with a coup against the UN."

"Jesus Christ!" Duncan said. "An honest-to-G.o.d old-time coup d'etat?"

"I thinkcoup du monde is more like it, from the way Ev was talking. I don't care what historians call it, as long as they put 'failed' in front of it. So we need Kate-alive, and with her vocal cords intact; everything else is optional. She's in her office . . . and I think I know how to get her out, if we can get there alive. But that might be a problem. I'm sure she has a private surveillance-and-defense system. She let us approach the last time because Martin didn't want to have to explain embarra.s.sing laserburns on our corpses to the cronkites-but if she sees us coming again, I don't think she'll hesitate."

"So what's the plan?" Rand asked.

Jay sighed. "I was hoping one of you would come up with something.I don't know how you storm a castle with a slingshot when they know you're coming."

"I do," Duncan said. "You use the servant's entrance."

Twenty minutes later, they peered out through the grille of an air-circulation tunnel ten meters from Tokugawa's office door. They were all wearing stock p-suits scavenged from the riot-control locker, but maintaining radio silence. Jay unsealed his hood and sniffed the air; when he didn't pa.s.s out, the others did the same.

"I think we're inside her perimeter," Duncan said. "I don't see anything in that hallway that looks like the business end of a laser."

Jay wedged past him and looked. Bare walls. He clutched the tank of sleepy gas to his chest. "So one of us tries it and the other two avenge him if necessary."

"Let's not rush into this," Rand said. Jay laughed mirthlessly. "Feel a little stuffy in here to you, bro?"

"Now that you mention it, I'm sweating like-oh!"

"When a groundhog starts to sweat, he smiles and reaches for a cold beer. When a s.p.a.cer starts to sweat, he reaches for his p-suit." The hotel's backup system had power for air circulation and limited lighting-but none for cooling. The Shimizu was a shiny ball of metal in the sunshine, full of heat-producing people, and contrary to groundhog belief s.p.a.ce is not cold at all. "Folks are going to start dying if the system doesn't come back up in the next hour or two: we're running out of time."

"How do you plan to get her to open the door for your gas?" Duncan asked.

Jay grinned wickedly. "I don't need to. Ev Martin drilled a neat little hose-sized hole for me about a meter earthward of the door." He started to push the grille free, but Rand stopped him.

"Let me," he said.

"I claim privilege," Jay protested. "I've known Eva and Reb a lot longer than you have."

"My point exactly. You said before you almost hope she hurries you. I don't. I have less need to find an excuse to kill her."

"That could getyou killed."

Rand grinned. "Well, bro, just now the world doesn't need a first-cla.s.s shaper as badly as it needs her."

"I'm faster than both of you put together," Duncan said.

Rand turned to him. "Yeah. But that's a ma.s.sy tank: you haven't got the muscles to hump it. Some things, earthborns are better at. Besides, it's my turn to do something heroic. Okay?"

After a moment, Duncan nodded. "Good luck."

"Thanks."

After all that melodrama, the capture itself was ludicrously easy. Everything went like a good opening night, just enough adrenalin to keep you in top form and no surprises you couldn't cope with. There were hidden gas-jets in the hallway-but p-suits made them irrelevant. The laser-hole by Tokugawa's door was the perfect gauge for Rand's hose. She had a p-suit of her own stashed in her office, and managed to reach it-but pa.s.sed out before she got its hood over her head. Once they had access to her terminal, Jay and Duncan were able between them to coax the system back up and on-line in a matter of minutes.

As the main lights came on, they could almost feel the cheer reverberating around the Shimizu. Then, ignoring the hundreds of incoming calls, they put in an SOS to the s.p.a.ce Command, and soon found themselves talking to an Admiral c.o.x, an old warhorse who was most interested in-and totally unfazed by-an attempted overthrow of the planetary government. With a minimum of words, he extracted from them every sc.r.a.p of useful information they could give him, then put them on hold.

Despite a mild sense of anticlimax, Jay felt himself grinning. "We did it, guys," he said.

"h.e.l.l of a note," Rand said. "I started the day a respectable artist-and now I'm running a G.o.ddamhotel."

Jay giggled. "You may be going out there just a star, kid . . . but you're coming back a waitress."

"You know," Duncan said, "I alwaysthought I could run this dump better than that a.s.shole." He gestured at the sleeping Tokugawa, and all three of them broke up. She did look silly. In the absence of gravity, simply binding a person's wrists and ankles does not immobilize her effectively enough; instead you tape each wrist to its related bicep, each ankle to its thigh, then tape elbows and knees together. The result looked remarkably like a Buddhist in the midst of prostrating herself.

But their laughter chopped off short when they noticed that she was no longer breathing.

" . . . and about half an hour later, Commander Panter showed up with six Marines in full armor-and here we are," Jay finished. He glanced at his watchfinger. "I'd say she died about two hours ago. That's everything we know, Admiral."

He and Rand and Duncan were in a place any small boy would have killed to visit: the command center of the Citadel, the UN s.p.a.ce Command's princ.i.p.al fortress in s.p.a.ce. It looked just like it did in the movies. The only person with them now was Admiral c.o.x himself, a grizzled old centenarian with a startlingly warm smile-but Jay knew perfectly well that every word he'd just said had been heard by literally hundreds of people on and off Earth. It was beginning to make him distinctly uneasy too. c.o.x was treating them as vip guests-but Jay was beginning to suspect how long it might be before he slept in his own bed again.

c.o.x sucked coffee from a battered military-issue bulb, and nodded sadly. "Post mortem shows a fatal allergy to sedation. Iatrogenic, of course. Her superiors didn't even give her an option. They wanted her interrogation-proof. Interesting people."

"I'm sorry, Admiral. We should have thought-should have given her antidote right away-"

c.o.x shook his head emphatically. "There was no other way to take her; you'd have thrown your lives away trying. And it was too late for antidote the moment she lost consciousness. More coffee, gentlemen?"

Jay had been too busy talking to consciously taste his; he queried his tongue and learned that the brew had come from the Atherton tablelands of Queensland. "Yes, please, Admiral." The others accepted as well, and a servobot much uglier and clumsier than anything in the Shimizu brought them fresh bulbs.

There was a short silence while they all drank. Rand broke it. "We screwed up," he said hollowly-and Jay felt himself nodding in agreement.

"On the contrary!" c.o.x said. "You walked among the lions today, son, and all your blood is still on the right side of your skin. Are you sure none of you has had military training?" All three shook their heads.

"If you were my cadets, I'd be sewing stripes on all three of you right now."

"But we don't knows.h.i.t ," Rand insisted.

"We know a lot more than we would if you three had gotten yourselves dead trying to take her cowboy-style! I'd be sitting here right now, listening to Kate Tokugawa tell me the emergency was over and thanks, but they didn't need any a.s.sistance. Who knows how long it would have taken for someoneat Top Step to try and call Humphrey, and get a no-such-guest-in-house? Now we've got everything you learned,days before they thought we would-and five low-level thugs we were able to take alive, we can sweat them-"

"-and it all adds up to doodah," Jay said. "If the Security goons know anything useful, they'll be allergic to interrogation. And what we know just doesn't make any G.o.ddamsense ."

"Not by itself, no. But it may tie in with other things . . . tell me, would you gentlemen consent to hypnointerrogation? You may know things you don't know you know."

"On one condition," Rand said.

"State it."

"Admiral, this is high-level stuff. I'm a civilian. I want your personal word that when you put this all together, you'll share it with me. I'll take any kind of secrecy oath you want-trigger me up like a courier if you want, so Ican't talk-but I have to know. Not what the cronkites get told, but the truth."

"The same goes for me," Jay said.

"Me too, Admiral," Duncan said.

c.o.x did not answer right away, and they did not hurry him. He met each of their eyes in turn. Finally he said, "I agree to that, whether you consent to hypno or not. You've earned it. For a start, I will tell you that yours wasn't the only kidnapping. Data are still coming in, but there have been at least two others in s.p.a.ce, and more than a dozen dirtside-beautifully coordinated, a.s.sorted methods but one hundred percent success rate. I am not aware of any other military engagement in modern history accomplished with such elegance and efficiency. Billions were spent. Well spent."

"What kind of people were taken?" Jay asked.

"Saints."

"What?"

"Holy men and women. Spiritually enlightened people. Like Reb and Meiya-and Fat Humphrey too, in his way. Several different faiths, and two whose religion has no brand name at all, but they're all what Reb would callbodhisattvas. Mother Theresas, if you're old enough to get the reference. You know: saints."

"You mean like the Pope?" Duncan asked.

"I didn't say religious leaders. I said spiritually enlightened people. One of them seems to be an Aboriginal witch woman. Another is a Pakistani musician who only plays hospitals."

"Of course," Rand said, slapping his forehead. "What's wrong with me? You want to overthrow the UN, naturally you kidnap saints, musicians and fat maitre-d's."

"It just keeps getting worse," Duncan said. "More than a dozen perfect military operations, carried out by wealthy morons." "Admiral, is there anything the captives have in commonbesides . . . well, besides holiness?" Jay asked.

c.o.x lifted one bald eyebrow respectfully. "You do keep surprising me, Sasaki-sama. Yes. One and only one overt connection between them. They are all known to be on especially intimate terms with the Starmind."

Rand's eyes showed a gleam of excitement. "Some sort of hostage deal-" he began.

"I've asked the Starmind for their evaluation of the known data," c.o.x said. "It can take a week to get an answer from them on a simple question, sometimes, but they've promised me at least a preliminary answer by 12:00 Greenwich, about . . ." He winked briefly; his own watch was inside his eyelid. " . . .

twelve hours from now. You'll have slept off the hypno by then. Meet me here at noon and you'll hear anything I do."

As far as Jay was concerned, he woke up with a click, totally refreshed and restored and in a comfortable bunk, one second later. He never managed to remember anything of leaving the command center, let alone the hypnointerrogation process itself. It did not trouble him, then or ever; he simply slid out of his sleepsack, confirmed that he had time to keep his appointment, stuck his head out the door and had the Marine stationed there cause breakfast to be fetched.

He did find himself wondering, as he ate, whether any alterations might have been made in his memories or motivations while he slept. But he reasoned, correctly, that the ability to form the question was a rea.s.suring clue, and dismissed the matter. His generation had been the first in a century to grow up trusting its government. Instead he tried to imagine how possession of holy people gave anyone leverage over the Starmind and/or the UN. No rational answer suggested itself.

He reached the command center early, and was admitted by the Marines guarding it; Rand and Duncan arrived shortly thereafter. At noon exactly Admiral c.o.x jaunted in, looking exhausted. It was obvious he had not slept. "Good morning, gentlemen," he said. "I hope this won't prove to be-"

"BILL.".

The voice came from everywhere. Jay found it hauntingly familiar, but couldn't pin it down. Then he grasped what it had said, and was suddenly dizzy, a most unfamiliar sensation for a zero-gee dancer.

c.o.x was a common name. But this was AdmiralWilliam c.o.x.The William c.o.x-former commander of theSiegfried ! Jay had a.s.sumed he was dead. He was used to the company of vips and uips-but he had been drinking coffee and chatting with a legend: the first human being to have set eyes on a Firefly . . .

"Yes, Charlie, I'm here," Admiral c.o.x said quietly.

Jay gasped aloud in shock. This could be no other than Charlie Armstead himself. Shara Drummond's video man, the man who had personally taped the Stardance; co-founder of the first zero-gee dance company in history; the second Stardancer who ever lived and the spiritual father of Jay's artform. He felt his dizziness turn to nausea.

But he felt infinitely worse when he heard Armstead say,"I'M SORRY OLD FRIEND. I HAVE VERY SAD NEWS . . .".

23.

Somewhere North of the Ecliptic 26 February 2065.

Eva woke hard, feeling every one of her hundred and sixteen years, tasting each one somewhere on her tongue. Her first coherent thought was that Jeeves must have been nipping at the cooking sherry. He had mutated into a Chinese gorilla and put on a white p-suit. But he still had that quality of shimmering self-effacement. "Good morning, gracious Lady," he said, and bowed. Even the bow was different.

"The h.e.l.l it is," she replied-and realized they were conversing in Cantonese, a language she had not spoken in forty years. "Speak English."

"This one regrets that he cannot, Lady." There was something wrong with his p-suit speaker; it gave his voice too much treble.