Crashlander

GHOST: EIGHT

The Core. Ashes of supernovas: plasma thick and glowing among millions of neutron stars. Lighter stars still glowed, still retained their retinue of planets.

Automated spacecraft streamed out from a pentagon of blue and white worlds. Terraforming began on a vast scale. Would they all be farming worlds to feed one homeworld with a population approaching quintillions? The surface would be lost. A hollow world would form and swell to Jovian size.

Tens of thousands of years away. Would anyone remember the Pierson's puppeteers?

They would, yes. Information is too easy to record, too difficult to destroy. When the Core explosion glared in the night sky, anyone who cared would find the Fleet of Worlds in ancient United Nations records, and the record of their departure, and even Beowulf Shaeffer's opinion, as recorded by Ander Smittarasheed, as to where they'd gone. If our civilization survived, there would be records showing whether I was right.

The easy sway of Wyvern had awakened me. I knew before I opened my eyes: we were airborne.

I studied my watch. Four hours I'd slept. Not enough. Dawn must be a long way away, but I ought to do something about it.

The floor jittered under my feet as I made my groggy way to the dispenser wall.

The dispensers were coin-operated. I thanked my luck and bought tannin secretion pills for the first time in a year and a half. I downed four at the fountain, then made my way back to the hammock.

I watched black water and bright islands, their centers marked by white city glow or yellow lamplighter glow, with the electric blue flash of breakers to outline their rims. Presently one crept near. I watched while Wyvern descended to a mooring and a spiral stair came snaking up to us.

Passengers were boarding at Thelinda's Island; others were getting off. I got off.

My phone was listed under Graynor, not Hebert. I called Outbound Enterprises.

Ice Trireme would lift for Home in four days, more or less. Milcenta Graynor and a child were frozen solid and doing fine. I was expected; Milcenta had already signed me in. Was I aware that Milcenta was carrying a child? Special techniques had been required, and a surcharge had been added. It had been too long since I'd had my physical. I'd need another before I could board, and that, too, required a surcharge, which Milcenta had paid.

She'd done it! She'd retrieved Jeena; she'd reached the terminal and checked us all in and kept her cool until they cooled her down and had never made a mistake.

My turn now.

The real Martin Wallace Graynor had played the futures market. It had broken him. Feather had made him an offer, and I had become Mart Graynor.

I had taken up his habit. I bought options to buy (or sell) shares of cargoes on outgoing spacecraft, sold the option if the price went up (or down), sometimes exercised the option instead. I'd been doing that for over a year, ever since I had reasoned out how it worked. I was down a few thousand, but that wasn't the point. Mart Graynor held options on cargoes bound for Home.

Ice Trireme was carrying a fertilizer package: cattle dung seeded with minerals, earthworms, and small life-forms including unicellular rock eaters. The stuff would be treated like a concentrate, mixed into rock dust, and used as soil. Mart Graynor owned an option to buy at a set price.

I bought it all.

I would own it when it landed on Home, and there I would sell it. Money moving between stars might be noticed, but fertilizer packages were supposed to move.

Next: the apt in Pacifica, in Milcenta Graynor's name. Should I do something about that? But Sharrol had been so efficient. She might well have put it up for sale herself.

Or we could just let the lease lapse. I left it alone.

Twenty minutes gone. Plenty of time to cross the slidebridge to Baker Street Island, put coins in a booth, and be waiting on Landis Island when the dirigible Wyvern touched down.

Direct sunlight flamed on my cheeks, forehead, closed eyelids. I thrashed in terror and snapped awake. I'd taken the pills, hadn't I? Pat pockets, find the bottle. Seal broken. Good.

We had left most of the islands behind.

A balcony rimmed the gondola, screened with webbing to discourage fools and jumpers. Several passengers had taken their trays out there. I got my breakfast and went out in time to occupy an inflated chair. I took my shirt off. My blood was suffused with the antisunburn chemicals, and my skin darkened fast as the morning wore on.

We flew not far above the water. Following the surfaces of enormous swells, Wyvern felt a long-period surge and drop. This was the deep ocean. Waves had room to grow out here. So did the sea beasts.

A voice from the control room directed our eyes to where a black shadow was forming in the dark water. It surfaced; water ran from it, a black island. Then a neck rose, and rose farther, dozens of yards into the air. A bar of a head with eyes wide-spaced for binocular vision studied the lights of the flying machine above it.

I felt the heady ecstasy of the discoverer and then a sudden savage guilt.

We would end on Home.

A flat phobe could live and raise her children there without forcing her body to admit that she had left Earth. In that respect it lacks interest, and that was why we chose it. I would be there, too, marooned beneath the stars … at the bottom of a hole, as the Belters say of planets.

I didn't even know if there were alien embassies on Home. «I'm out of the aliens business,» I'd said.

I'd been on Fafnir for a year and a half, and I'd spent it beneath the ocean. This was my last chance to see the world. My last spaceflight, in miniature.

It's misdirection, see, Sharrol? The crashlander's hand is more nimble than the eye of the ARM. But I'd known what I was doing all along.

Sanity check –

Ander wouldn't ignore the spaceports; Ander wouldn't forget the iceliners. I had to gamble that he had looked at Outbound Enterprises first, and thoroughly, before he had come to Pacifica. Sharrol and Jeena and I might get clear before Ander looked again.

Then the records would tell him that a family native to Fafnir had been frozen while, halfway around the planet, Ander was watching water war with Beowulf Shaeffer. He would have no reason at all to connect these Graynors with fleeing flatlanders.

I was not burning time at my family's cost. I was confusing my back trail. With luck and ingenuity we'd be clear of Ander Smittarasheed and would stay that way.

Now, what of Sigmund Ausfaller?

They had followed us to Fafnir by following the track of Carlos's ship, but Fafnir wasn't even the best bet. Flat phobes would try to reach Home. My best guess was that Sigmund had sent Ander here and taken Home for himself.

I would wake from the frozen state, and Sigmund Ausfaller would be looking down at me.

If Ausfaller was on Home, then there was not one tanj thing I could do to protect us. Carlos Wu must deal with him, for I could not. I told myself that Carlos Wu was a match for a dozen Sigmund Ausfallers.

Night came, and the air grew chilly. I waited until I was alone and presently pushed my Persial January Hebert identity through the safety web and watched it fall.

It was very like flying with Nakamura Lines as a passenger. The differences were all to the good: the breeze, the clean taste of the air, the lesser isolation. In case of disaster, help was hours away, not weeks or months.

I noticed a «recess» mentality I'd seen during spaceflight. This was not a real place. Breaks in discipline would not be paid for. Diets broke down. Couples paired off or split up for quick liaisons. Children ran wild; distance and the soft walls absorbed their shrieking. A few adults were trying out funny chemicals or flying by wire.

The people around me were mostly Shashters eager for company to while away the hours. Some of us squared off for computer-game competitions. Our numbers kept changing. Staying with the same people was difficult because jet lag was hitting us all differently.

I let conversation find me, doing very little of the talking. I didn't want anyone remembering a pale flatlander or ex-astronaut on his way to Shasht. I turned down some interesting offers — honest, Sharrol.

The vast reach of Fafnir's ocean passed beneath us. Two days passed very pleasantly before the long backbone of Shasht rose from the sea.

And then all the relaxed people around me began acting like children who have remembered their homework.

The terminal was on the ridge, perched on the spine of the continent. I had my choice of booths or a magnetic car or a footpath down through a rocky canyon.

I chose the footpath. Maybe I was being overcautious; maybe I just wanted the walk, or the tan, or some extra time before they froze me into something not much like a living man.

Nobody tried to stop me. An hour's walk brought me to the Outbound Enterprises office at Shasht North Spaceport.

Outbound was a smallish pillbox of a building surrounded by parldand. It reminded me a little too much of a certain park on Earth that had once been a burial ground. Like Forest Lawn, the Outbound building was a pocket of green surrounded by glass slabs of cityscape.

Within the glass wall was a circle of benches and an arc of transfer booths, six, with phones at either end. Ms. Machti ruled at the center. She was a dark, pretty woman guarded by hands-off body language and by the circle of desk that enclosed her like a fortress.

I was glad to see her. She knew me by sight. Her fingers were dancing over her keyboard even as she greeted me. «Mr. Graynor! You've had a busy year and a half.»

«Nice and quiet, actually,» I said. «Are Milcenta and Jeena all right?»

«Cooled down and ready for shipment. I take it Adelaide never appeared.»

«No. Went her own way, I guess.»

«Just as well, perhaps,» she said primly. I don't think she approved of Mart Graynor having two wives, let alone bent ones. «Well, we have a few formalities to cover, and then you can join them. Did you know that your specs list you at six feet eleven inches?»

My shock must have showed. Who would have seen that listing?

I managed a credible laugh. «Did you have an oversized box laid out for me?»

«No, that's not a problem; it was only a matter of rewriting the specs. But we couldn't do that. Ms. Graynor doesn't seem to know your exact height. We'll have to measure you.

«Stet.»

«So.» She waved in a counterclockwise circle. Waving me around the desk? I walked that way and saw the sliding staircase leading down.

Of course. Most of Outbound must be underground.

I started down. Ms. Machti called, «Mr. Graynor? You've a call from a Mr. Ausfaller. He says you can't take off yet.»

Ausfaller! How could he know … What did he know? «He asked for Martin Wallace Graynor?»

«No, he wanted the red-haired man at the desk, and I said, 'Mister Graynor? and he —»

«Stet. Can you —» I did not want the call transferred to my pocket phone. «May I take it on one of those?» I waved at the booths.

«Certainly.»

It was half a phone booth, just two black walls and a projection table. It would give me privacy, but I could still see out. I tapped the receiver, and a life-sized bust of Sigmund Ausfaller popped into view.

His rather vicious smile faded a little. He hadn't expected me at eye level. I thought, Sigmund, you're bothering a total stranger, sandy-haired, tanned, a foot shorter than your albino quarry. Could I get away with that?

I didn't feel lucky. I said, «Long story. Ask Ander.»

«So your name is Graynor now?»

«Braynard,» I said distinctly. «Where are you?» He'd only heard the name over a phone. «Graynor» would give the bastard Sharrol and Jeena, too.

«Where should I be?»

I saw nothing of background, just the head and torso solid projection. He could be anywhere. I suggested, «Retrieving Carlos Wu's autodoc?»

«In due course. It shouldn't be left here. Look outside, Bey. Turn left. Farther. Look up.»

He was ten floors up in a glass slab, looking down at me. Doll-sized, he was just big enough to recognize. He waved at me from the window, then turned back to his holovid phone.

«I'm right on top of you. It would take you hours to freeze yourself, perhaps days to be stowed and launched. I need only cross the street to stop you. Let us reason together, Bey.»

«You always seem to have an offer I can't refuse. Why are you picking on me, Sigmund? I told Ander everything he wanted to know.»

«I haven't heard from Ander.»

«Feather. Carlos. Pierson's puppeteers.»

«You'll still have to come home with me, Bey. You know too much, and you talk too much. Now, wait. Don't go off half-cocked. I can get you a birthright.»

«Yeah?» It was dawning on me that he might not know about Sharrol.

«One child. We have that much power if you can do something of clear public benefit. Can you return Carlos Wu to his home?»

«Carlos is dead, Sigmund.»

«Dead?»

«How did you find me?»

«You can't see it, Bey, but I'm looking at four walls of vidscreens. We scattered cameras everywhere. Then we plastered the screens all over my room. It's been — Wait one. Pray turn all screens off.» He waited an instant, looking offstage. Then, «Thank God, I can throw these things away and watch blank walls again. I've been watching three spaceport terminals and the top five restaurants and ten hotel lobbies, and when you finally showed, I couldn't believe it was you.»

«You damn well convinced yourself somehow!»

«I couldn't believe it wasn't, either. Sorry about that. Bey, are you sure about Carlos?»

«Feather blew a hole through him. But the nanotech 'doc is his last legacy, and it's UN property, and I might arrange to put that in your hands.»

«Very good. We'll have a chance to talk about puppeteers and the like on the way home.» A bell pinged. He turned around and shouted, «Pray open the door!» He turned back. «And Feather? You know, we never intended to turn her loose on an alien world. We want some weaponry back, too. And the others, Sharrol and the children?»

I set my face for the big lie. «Feather's g-»

Sigmund jumped at me, banged his face on the edge of the field, recoiled, and fell backward and out of sight.

Ander Smittarasheed stepped into view, wading through the table, short ribs deep. He was holding a familiar object. He reached down. Sigmund Ausfaller was pulled into view by his hair. Sigmund's chest was shattered, a huge hole rammed through it.

Ander was holding Feather Filip's horrible ARM weapon, the gun that had blown a hole through my own chest. He pointed it at me. «Recognize this?»

For an instant I thought I was going mad. He couldn't have that. He couldn't. It was in the apt, Sharrol's apt, hidden — Ah. Sharrol left it for me. She left me a weapon in my backpurse. Not a bad idea, but Ander must have searched my room, searched by backpurse, found it there. When?

After dinner, when I was at the hotel desk getting my key.

Ander said, «Where are you, Beowulf?»

I was still looking through Outbound's huge window. High up in that glass slab I could see a tiny figure where Ausfaller had waved at me. The back of Ander's head and shoulders.

If he turned around and looked down, he would see me. I didn't turn away. The front of me now looked less like Beowulf Shaeffer than the back. And what could Ander see in his phone? The miniature bust of a tanned stranger and nothing behind it.

I said, «I'm in my room at the Pequod. Ander, nothing was said about killing the poor flat.»

«Beowulf, we can hardly sell our wonderful nanotech machine without Sigmund knowing where we got it. The room isn't registered to anyone, and the punchgun can go with me. You haven't used the punchgun, have you? Like for robbing a droud shop?»

«No.»

«Then at worst they'll track it back to the ARM. And then maybe to you.»

My head seemed filled with fog. Did I do this? Did I find the temptation that turned Ander Smittarasheed into a thief and killer? Or was he always that?

What do I do now? Play it out. «A dead man can't send us money,» I said.

«Sigmund brought local money. It'll be in that case. It may take me a while to break the security programs, and I don't really know how much he brought.»

«Show me the case.»

«What, you think I'm lying?» He bent out of view, then rose again with a heavy silver briefcase in his fist. «Now is when you tell me where the island is.»

I gave him a longitude, the right one. «Latitude when I've got half the money.»

«I'll be in touch.»

«Wait! Ander, get rid of the punchgun.»

Ander laughed. «I think I'll keep it.»

He'd seen how I feared it. He'd keep it to intimidate me. I tried anyway. «Ander, I was wearing a v-»

He flicked off.

I waited at the phone until I saw the shape in the hotel room window stand and step out of view. Then I went back to the desk. «Are you ready to freeze me, Ms. Machti?»

White-garbed medics wanted my retina prints and a voice match. I was five feet ten and a half inches tall. The physical exam they put me through seemed perfunctory, but what could they find? Carlos Wu's autodoc had rebuilt me almost from my DNA map. I'd never been in better shape.

I wanted to view Sharrol and Jeena. The doctors let me see them. They looked all right … well, dead, but otherwise … I was nerving myself to join them.

As if I'd left myself a choice.

What a mess. Poor Sigmund.

What would the local police make of that wound? They'd never seen a corpse like that, but they'd seen a vest like that. The punchgun had torn that kind of hole through a survival vest that had belonged to a Persial January Hebert, who'd sunk out of sight a year and a half ago.

Surely they'd make the connection. They'd come looking for the reclusive Persial January Hebert. Hebert had indulged in a sudden flurry of activity: a phone call here, a hotel room at the Pequod Hotel, a dinner with Ander Smittarasheed.

Without the punchgun Ander might bluff his way through.

But the weapon would nail him, would identify him. He couldn't hold on to the gun without using it.

Would he even hesitate? A trained ARM facing colony cops? Fafnir is a «human» world. Ander was unlikely to guess how many police are kzinti.

I wondered how much damage Ander would do before it all caught up with him. There could be one fearful bloodbath if he tried to shoot his way free.

Nice for me. Ander dead was Ander silent. But –

Tens of thousands of years from now nobody would find the old ARM records of a wild hypothesis. Nobody would wonder if a trillion powerful aliens had left known space to take possession of the galactic Core. It might never matter, even if I was right … or be all to the good if I was wrong.

Either way, I couldn't think of a way to stop him.

They were spraying my arm. I would be in a coma when they cooled me down and launched me. I wondered whose face would be looking down at me when I woke.