A Stone in Heaven

XIII

Dark, cold, silent, every system turned off or throttled down to bare minimum, Hooligan drifted swiftly outward in a hyperbolic orbit. It would take her close to the moon, past the hemisphere opposite Port Asmundsen. The chance of her being observed was therefore slim, no matter how many were the instruments standing sentry. If a radar beam did happen to flick her, she ought to register as a bit of cosmic scrap. No natural meteoroids attended Niku, but an occasional rock must go by on its way through interstellar space; also, during centuries of human occupation, considerable junk must have accumulated around the planet.

Weightless, Flandry entered the saloon where Banner poised in midair. He caught a doorjamb to check his flight. The flashbeam in his hand picked her features out of shadow, a sculpture of strong curves and jewel-bright eyes in a sheening coif of hair. Her light sought him in turn. For a moment they were mute.

She drew breath. “It’s time for action, I’m sure.” Her tone was calm, but he could guess what stirred behind it. “Now will you tell me your plan?”

“I’m sorry to have shunted you off like this,” he said. “You deserved better. But Chives and I had a fiendish lot to do on short notice. Besides, knowing you, I decided it was best to present you with a fait accompli.”

“A what?”

“Listen,” he said, neither grimly nor jestingly—seriously. “We can’t dive in and shoot up the place ahead as we could Dukeston. That’s a naval base, intended for war.” Unless I’ve made a grisly mistake and am scheming to slaughter many innocents. “No single craft could get by its defenses. Moreover, you understand it’s absolutely essential that we bring word to Terra. If we don’t, a blow struck here won’t make any final difference. Cairncross can rebuild, in the same secrecy as before. Even if we have the luck to scatter his atoms, the temptation would be very great for an officer of his to take over the dukedom and carry on the project. That could well be from idealism; they’re surely dedicated men.” Flandry shrugged. “Idealism has killed a lot of people throughout history.”

Her gaze intensified. “What do you intend?”

“I’ve programmed this ship. In a few hours, she’ll reactivate herself and accelerate like a scalded bat. Shortly thereafter, she’ll go on hyperdrive; she can do it closer to a sun than most. She’ll proceed to Sol, resume relativistic state, and beam a call for assistance, in a particular code. That’ll fetch certain Corpsmen. You won’t have had anything to do under way but fix your meals, rest, and recover. Nor will you have much to do at journey’s end. Just tell the captain I’ve left a top secret record, triple-A priority. You needn’t even tell him where it is in the data bank; he’ll know. You’ll be interrogated at length later on, but it’ll be friendly, and you can expect substantial rewards.” Flandry smiled. “No doubt you can get your Ramnu job included among them.”

“But you won’t be there,” she pounced.

He nodded. “Chives and I are going to sneak our warheads in.” Her lips parted. He raised a palm. “Not a word out of you, my dear. You’re not qualified to do anything further hereabouts, either by training or by your current physical condition. You’ve done abundantly much; and you’ll be needed—needed, I repeat—on Terra.”

“Why can’t Hooligan retrieve you?”

“Too risky. She’s got to keep in free fall till the base is destroyed, if it is; and afterward, whatever craft were in space will still exist, revenge-hungry. Too many unforeseeables. A computer lacks the judgment to cope with them.”

She started to say something, but curbed herself.

“We’ll try to make Port Lulang, on Diris,” he told her.

“Do you imagine—” Again she stopped.

I read your thought, passed through him. Spacesuit impellers can’t transport us across some twenty million kilometers—alive, anyway. The odds aren’t much better if we ride a missile, especially considering the radiation belt we have to traverse. Anyhow, we’d doubtless be detected by a ducal ship. Or supposing, fantastically, we did make it, the militia will be ransacking every site where Foundation personnel are, and quizzing them under narco, to make lying impossible. How could we hide?

“It’s a tadge bit dangerous, I admit,” he said lightly. “But come worst to worst, well, I’ve had a wine cask of fun in my life, and always did hope to depart in a hellratious blaze of fireworks.”

She bit her lip. Blood broke forth and drifted away in droplets that, catching diffused light, gleamed like stars.

He thrust with a foot, arrowed across to her, hooked a leg in the rail on the outer edge of the table as she had done, and let his flashbeam bob free. His hands took her by the shoulders, his gaze came to rest on hers, and he smiled.

“I apologize for not confiding in you earlier,” he said. “We simply lacked the time for arguments. But you have your mission to complete. Our mission. You’re Max Abrams’ daughter. You won’t fail.”

“You trust me too much,” she whispered.

“No, I suspect I don’t trust you enough,” he replied. “I’ve learned that you’re quite a girl, and can dimly see what a wonderful lot more there is to you. I’d like to continue the exploration, but—” His tongue had lost its wonted smoothness. “Banner, you’re a completely decent human being. That kind has grown mighty rare. Thank you for everything.” She could only answer him with a kiss that lingered and tasted of blood and tears.

An airlock opened. Flandry and Chives stepped forth into space.

Sharing the orbital velocity of the ship, they did not leave her at once. The hull seemed to lie unmoving, agleam in savage sunlight. Elsewhere were the stars in their myriads, argent sweep of the Milky Way, nebulae where new suns and worlds were being born, mysterious glimmer of sister galaxies. Elaveli filled much of the scene, its lighted three-quarters a jumble of peaks, ridges, scarps, clefts, blank plains, long shadows—airless, lifeless, a stone in heaven. Ramnu was a partial disc, gone tiny but shining lovely bright blue.

A sapphire, Flandry reflected. Yes, another stone, where a molten ball of star-stuff should by rights have been; but this one is a precious jewel, because it holds beings who are aware. I’m glad my last expedition brought me to a thing so marvelous—irresistibly, his mouth bent upward—so oddball.

Chives’ voice came through his earplugs: “The weapons are emerging, sir.” Bulky in his suit, but his withered green countenance visible through the helmet plate, the Shalmuan flitted ahead.

Hooligan had discharged a missile on minimum impetus. The five-meter-long cylinder moved slowly off, drive tubes quiescent. Chives caught up. Behind the blunt, deadly nose, he welded a cable which secured harness for two; near the tail he fastened a tow attachment with an electrically operated release; forward again, he installed a control box which would take over guidance. Not everything had had to be made from scratch; Flandry had had a few occasions in the past to use a torpedo for an auxiliary. Banner’s sled was not adaptable to that, being underpowered and intended for planetary conditions.

The man himself was equally occupied. A cargo handler had cast forth half a dozen warheads which had been removed from their carriers. The rounded cones, a meter in height, were linked by steel cords; the ensemble tumbled leisurely as it moved, like some kind of multiple bola. But the gaucho who would cast it was after big game. Within each gray shell waited atoms that, fusing, could release up to a megaton. Flandry went among them, pushing, pulling, till he had them in the configuration he wanted. Chives steered the missile close. Together, he and the Terran prepared the warheads for towing.

The task was lengthy, complex, beset by the special perversity of objects in free fall. By the time it was done, Flandry’s undergarment was wet and reeking. An ache in every muscle reminded him that he was no young man. Chives trembled till it showed on his suit.

“Squoo-hoo, what a chore!” Flandry panted. “Well, we get to rest a while, after a fashion. Come on, into the saddle, and do you know any ancient cowboy ballads?”

“No, sir, I regret I do not even know what a cowboy is,” his companion replied. “However, I retain those arias from Rigoletto which you once desired me to learn.”

“Never mind, never mind. Let’s go.”

Astraddle on the cylinder, held by a reinforced safety web, the control box under his hands, Chives at his back, Flandry cast a final glance at Hooligan. In the course of making ready, he had wandered from her; she looked minute and lost amidst the stars. He thought of calling a farewell to Banner. But no, she couldn’t break radio silence to reply, it would be cruel to her. Luck ride with you, you good lass, he wished, and activated the drive.

Acceleration tugged him backward, but it was mild and he could relax into his harness. A look aft assured him that the warheads were trailing in orderly wise at the ends of their separate lines. From a clasp at his waist he took a sextant. That, a telescope, and a calculator were his instruments, unless you counted the seat of his pants. He got busy.

His intention was to round the moon and make for Port Asmundsen. This would require that he fall free during the last part of the trip; grav tubes radiated when at work. It must needs be a rather exact trajectory, for at the end he’d have seconds before the defenses knew him and lashed out. Well, he’d correct it once the base hove in view, and he’d done a fair amount of eyeball-directed space maneuvering in his time. The “broomstick” you rode when playing comet polo was not totally unlike this steed …

Having taken his sights, run off his computations, and adjusted his vectors, he restowed the apparatus. Chives coughed. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “Would you like a spot of tea?”

“Eh?”

“I brought a thermos of nice, hot tea along, sir, and recommend it. In the vernacular phrase, it bucks you up.”

“W-well … thanks.” Flandry took the proffered flask, connected its tube to the feeder valve on his helmet, put his lips to the nipple inside, and sucked. The flavor was strong and tarry.

“Lapsang Soochong, sir,” Chives explained. “I know that isn’t your favorite, but feared a more delicate type would be insufficiently appreciated under these circumstances.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Flandry said. “You generally are. When you aren’t, I have to submit anyway.”

He hesitated. “Chives, old fellow,” he got awkwardly forth, “I’m sorry, truly sorry about dragging you into this.”

“Sir, my task is to be of assistance to you.”

“Yes, but—You could have returned aboard after we got our lashup completed. I thought of it. But with the uncertainties—you might conceivably make the difference.”

“I shall endeavor to give satisfaction, sir.”

“All right, for God’s dubious sake, don’t make me bawl! How about a duet to pass the time? ‘Laurie From Centauri’, that’s a fine, interminable ballad.”

“I fear I do not know it, sir.”

Flandry laughed. “You lie, chum. You’ve heard it at a hundred drunken parties, and you’ve got a memory like a neutron star’s gravity well. You simply lack human filthiness.”

“As you wish, sir,” Chives sniffed. “Since you insist.”

The hours went by.

Flandry spent much of them remembering. It was true what he’d told Banner, by and large he’d had a good life. His spirit had taken many terrible wounds, but had scarred them over and carried on. More hurtful, perhaps, had been its erosion, piece by piece, as he wrought evil, unleashed destruction, caused unmerited, bewildering pain, in the service of—of what? A civilization gone iniquitous in its senility, foredoomed not by divine justice but by the laws of a universe in which he could find no meaning. A Corps that was, as yet, less corrupt, but ruthless as a machine. A career that was, well, interesting, but for whose gold he had paid the Nibelung’s price.

Still he declined to pity himself. He had met wild adventures, deep serenities, mystery, beauty, luxury, sport, mirth, admiration, comradeship, on world after world after world in an endlessly fascinating cosmos. He had drunk noble wines, bedded exquisite women, overcome enemies who were worth the trouble, conversed with beings who possessed wisdom—yes, except for hearth and home, he had enjoyed practically everything a man can. And … he had saved more lives than he ruined; he had helped win untold billions of man-years of peace; new, perhaps more hopeful civilizations would come to birth in the future, and he had been among those who guarded their womb.

Indeed, he thought, I am grossly overprivileged. Which is how it should be.

Port Asmundsen appeared on the limb of Elaveli. At this remove, the telescope picked out hardly more than a blur and a glitter, but Flandry got his sight and did his figuring. He made finicky adjustments on the controls. “Hang on to your bowels, Chives,” he warned. “Here comes the big boost.”

It was not the full acceleration of which the missile was capable. That would have killed the riders while it tore them out of their harness. But a force hauled them back for minutes, crushed ribs and flesh together, choked off all but a whistle of breath, blinded the eyes and darkened the awareness. After it ended, despite the gravanol in him, Flandry floated for a while conscious only of pain.

When he could look behind him, he saw the Shalmuan unrevived. The green head wobbled loosely in its helmet. Nothing save a dribble of blood-bubbles from nostrils showed Chives was not dead; the noise of his emergency pump, sucking away the fluid before he should choke, drowned shallow breathing.

With shaky hands, which often fumbled, Flandry took a new sight and ran a fresh computation. No further changes of trajectory seemed called for, praise fortune. To be sure, if later he found he’d been wrong about that, a burst of power at close range would give him away. But he allowed himself to hope otherwise.

There’d be little to do but hope, for the next hour or so. His velocity was high, and Elaveli would add several kilometers per second to it, which helped his chances of escaping notice. Yet he couldn’t arrive too fast, for last-moment adjustments would certainly be needed and his reaction time was merely human.

“Chives,” he mumbled, “wake up. Please.”

Though would that be any mercy?

The death-horse plunged onward. Port Asmundsen took form in the telescope. Flandry’s mind filled out the image from his recollection of pictures he had studied at Wainwright Station—none recent. A cluster of buildings occupied a flat valley floor surrounded by mountains. Most was underground, of course. Ships crowded a sizeable spacefield. Installations were visible on several peaks, and he felt pretty sure what their nature was.

No doubt the base had a negafield generator. If his missile was identified in time, it would suddenly be confronted by a shield of force it could not penetrate, except with radiation that would do negligible damage. If it did not detonate, it would fall prey to an energy beam or a countermissile, fired from beyond the screened area. Flandry was betting that it would not be noticed soon enough.

It and its tow were just a cluster of cold bodies, smaller than the smallest spacecraft, in swift motion. A radar might register a blip, an optical pickup a flick, but the computers should dismiss these as glitches. He had hypothesized that the defenses were served chiefly by computers. Cairncross’ men, especially his experienced officers, must be spread thin; he couldn’t raise a substantial body of reservists until he was ready to strike, without revealing his hand. Port Asmundsen held mostly workers. (Flandry had no compunctions about them; they knew what they were working for.) Of naval personnel there, few if any could have more than a theoretical knowledge of war.

Moreover, not even a commander with battle ribbons would likely have imagined this kind of attack. Missiles were launched from warcraft, and none which didn’t serve the ducal cause were known to be anywhere near. The raid on Dukeston would have brought a general alert. But the assumption was natural that Hooligan was bound straight home to tattle. Cairncross would have ordered a search by such vessels as had the appropriate capabilities—which meant that those vessels were not on sentry-go around Elaveli.

We’ll find out, rather soon, how right I am.

Flandry felt a stirring through his harness. A weak voice trickled into his earplugs: “Sir? How are you, sir?”

“Fine and dandy,” he fibbed, while his pulse throbbed relief. “You?”

“Somewhat debilitated, sir … Oh, dear. I am afraid the tea flask broke free of us during acceleration.”

Flandry reached to his hip. “Well,” he said, “would you care to substitute a nip of cognac?”

They couldn’t afford the least intoxication, but it would be best if they could relax a bit. Time was ample for regaining spryness before the last move in the game.

Presently Flandry settled himself to recalling, sight by sight, touch by touch, a girl who lay buried on a distant planet.

His attack was from the direction of the sun, whose brilliance torrented out of blackness, over knife-sharp heights and crags, across ashen valley and crouching buildings and the gaunt forms of ships. They grew below him, they reached, they reeled in his vision.

“Ya-a-ah!” he screamed, and gave a final burst of power. His thumb pushed a button. The tow attachment opened and released the warheads. They swept on. Flandry spun a pair of dials. The missile surged, the leap went through his bones, it was as if he felt the metal strain against its own speed.

“Don’t look down!” he yelled. Himself he peered ahead. His groundward vector was enormous. He was fighting it with as much thrust as he could stand while remaining wholly awake, but there was no telling if he would clear the mountain before him.

Hai, what a ride! Here comes the Wild Huntsman!

The mountain was twin-peaked. With all the skill that was in him, Flandry sought the gap between. Cliffs loomed dark and sheer. Suddenly they blazed. The warheads had begun to strike.

He saw the mountain shudder and crack. A landslide went across it. Another burst of reflected lividness left him dazzled. The first flung shards hurtled incandescent around, and the first night-like dust.

Somehow he got through. A precipice went by within centimeters, but somehow he did not crash. And he was beyond, falling toward barren hills underneath but more slowly for every furious instant. He might … he might yet … yes, by Satan, he would clear the horizon! He and Chives were returning starward.

When he knew that, he stared back. A pillar of murk rose and swelled, up, up, up above the shaken range. Lightnings lanced through it. That dust would quickly scatter and settle in airlessness, apart from what escaped to space. Radioactivity would poison the stone soil for years to come. The molten-bottomed craters in the valley floor would congeal around what twisted, charred fragments were left of Port Asmundsen—a terrible warning which no future powermonger would heed.

Well, but there was sufficient evidence for a properly equipped investigative team. No question survived as to what had been hatching here. Flying, Flandry had seen camouflaged portals torn open by quake and collapse; the glare of his bombs had bounced off torpedoes, artillery, armored vehicles, nothing that an honest provincial governor needed or would have concealed.

He felt incalculably glad. It would have been unbearable had his final great fireworks show destroyed harmless folk. Peace welled forth within him.

Elaveli fell behind. The residue of its former velocity, combined with the acceleration to escape, had put the missile in orbit—an eccentric orbit about Ramnu or Niku or the core of the galaxy, not yonder poor damned moon. No matter which. He’d try for Diris, but only from a sense of duty to Chives’ sense of duty. With his primitive equipment, the chances of getting there before the tanked air gave out, or just of getting there, were less than slight. Besides, under drive they’d be easily detectable by any war-craft that hurried back to learn what catastrophe had happened. Whether or not the multiple blast was seen from afar, neutrino bursts had carried the news at light speed.

Flandry grinned. He kept a warhead. If an enemy tried to capture him, he’d produce one more pyrotechnic display—unless the captain was smart and opened fire immediately, which wouldn’t be a bad way to go either.

He turned off the engine and let his bruised flesh savor its immemorial dream of flying weightless. Quiet laved him. The sun at his back, he saw the host of his old friends the stars.

“Sir,” Chives said, “permit me to offer congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Flandry replied. “Permit me to offer cognac.” They had no reason not to empty the flask. Rather, every reason prevailed for doing so.

“Are you hungry, sir? We have rations, albeit not up to your customary standard.”

“No, not yet, Chives. Help yourself if you are. I’m quite satisfied.”

Soon, however, the Shalmuan asked, “Excuse me, sir, but would it not be advisable to begin course corrections?”

Flandry shrugged. “Why not?”

He took aim at Ramnu and set off at half a gee, about as much as he guessed his companion could take without pain. They would continue to draw farther away for—he wasn’t sure how long—until their outward velocity had been shed. Then they would start approaching the planet; when they got close, he could pick out the inner moon and attempt rendezvous. The whole effort was ridiculous … except that, yes, it probably would attract a warship, and death in battle was better than death by asphyxiation.

It was bare minutes until Chives announed, “Sir, I believe I spy a spacecraft, at six o’clock and minus thirty degrees approximately. It seems to be nearing.”

Flandry twisted about and extended his telescope. “Yes,” he said. Inwardly: If he’s armed, we fight. If he’s a peaceful merchantman—I have my blaster. Maybe when we’ve boarded, we can commandeer him … No. The hull grew fast in his sight. That’s no freighter, not with those lines.

He choked on an oath.

“Sir,” Chives said, audibly astounded, “I do think it is the Hooligan.”

“What the—the—” I can but gibber.

The spearhead shape glided close. Flandry halted acceleration, and his ship smoothly matched vectors. Across a few hundred meters he saw an outer airlock door swing wide. He and Chives unharnessed and flitted across.

Nobody waited to greet them when they had cycled through. Flandry heard the low throb of full power commence, felt its pulse almost subliminally. Hooligan was running home again. He shed his armor and shuffled forward along the corridor under a planet’s weight of exhaustion. Chives trailed at a discreet distance.

Banner came from the pilot cabin. She halted amidst the metal, and he did, and for many heartbeats there was silence between them.

Finally he groaned: “How? And why, why? Compromising the mission—”

“No.” Pride looked back at him. “Not really. No other vessel is in a position to intercept us. I made sure of that, and I also dispatched a written report in a message carrier, before turnabout. Did you suppose a daughter of Max Abrams would not have learned how to do such things?”

“But—Listen, the chances of our survival were so wretched, you were crazy to—”

She smiled. “I gave them a better rating. I’ve come to know you, Dominic. Now let’s tuck you both in bed and start the therapy for radiation exposure.”

But then her strength gave way. She leaned against the bulkhead, face buried in arms, and shuddered in sudden weeping. “Forgive me! I, I did wrong, I know, you must despise me, that c-c-couldn’t follow orders, and me a Navy brat, but I n-n-never was any good at it—”

He gathered her to him. “Well,” he said, with hardly more steadiness, “I never was either.”