The Ship Errant

Chapter Eleven

As if the paralysis had never been, movement returned to the ten Thelerie. Those who had been poised for battle, fell over, and those whose eyes had been frozen open, blinked. No one spoke for a moment. Everyone exercised their muscles, and simply enjoyed the freedom. Then they took heed of their surroundings. The mess was heartbreaking.

"I do not understand, Autumn," Crescent Moon blurted out, pieces of the precious computer clutched in all four of his hands. "Why did the human destroy our equipment? I've done my best to keep this station exactly as the Manual directs. It was neat, it was clean-and now, look!" The ground control commander sounded as near to trilling as a child. "Was he angry with our performance?"

Autumn still kept her eyes closed, waiting for tear fluid to wash away the dust from her large, flat corneas. "You do not understand, Crescent. There are other humans than the Melange. You have never seen them. You showed aptitude for the computer, so it was the wisdom of the Melange that you went here before spending any time reiving. It is a shame."

"It was the wisdom of the Melange," Crescent said, defiantly. The other station crew all dipped their heads and wings in a worshipful manner. "But this human did behave strangely."

Rivulet shook his head. "He did not even speak properly. His hands moved often, but not his mouth. He wasn't like those from whom we receive goods, nor like those for whom we provide."

"I think he is a captive of the Slime," Dawn piped up in his high, musical voice. "He is under their spell. They've directed the Slime Ball," he pronounced the human phrase most carefully, "to alter his mind. You know the power the Ball has. We do not know all its secrets."

"Yes!" Rivulet agreed, holding out a claw. "See how he cowered from us, when he should know we are his to command."

"We are not slaves of Humans," one protested.

"No, no, but they give us all gifts in exchange for our aid," Captain Autumn said, pausing to consider. She lifted a wing claw. "This human needs rescue. My eyes were turned toward the screens when I froze under the monsters' power. I saw which maps he looked at. He wishes to go to Thelerie. Though he could not speak, his signs grew more frantic when he saw that chart. He can receive aid there, and be freed of the Slime. He was trying to tell us."

"Ah!" The soft voices chorused together for a moment as the Thelerie realized the truth in the leader's words.

"We should warn the others the Slime are heading toward the Center," Rivulet insisted.

"How?" Autumn asked. "The Slime tore our communicator to bits." A wing swept over the shattered console. "I am sure they treated our poor ship the same." She turned to Dawn. "See how things stand. Send a message to the Melange if you can."

The second flicked a claw at the rest of the crew. They dragged on their shipsuits and pattered out into the corridor after him. Autumn began to pick up the broken pieces with all her hands. Crescent and the other three ground crew bent to help. Though distressing, the debris was finite. In a short time, the wreckage was all cleared away.

"I feel better," Crescent said, sitting down on his haunches and blowing a puff of air so his upper lip vibrated. "Now I do not feel as though I broke the trust."

Autumn smiled, showing her fangs. Crescent was a simple soul at heart. Once a problem was out of sight, it was gone. "There is wisdom in hard work."

She donned her shipsuit and went out to her craft. Dawn sat amidst the pieces of the control panel, shaking his great head from side to side. The captain looked down at him.

"How bad, my friend?"

"Perhaps the human stayed the Slime's fury," the lieutenant said. "The communication deck is destroyed, but the filtration systems are intact."

Autumn felt the breath leave her body. "We cannot warn the Center in time. The Slime will be ahead of us."

"Very far, I'm afraid," Dawn said, his large eyes worried. "The engine is ruined, but it was in Stage Four breakdown anyway. The landing finished it off."

"The engine?" For the first time Autumn's expression brightened. "Ah." She wheeled on her haunches and trotted down the corridor toward the cargo compartment.

With pleasure she surveyed the secured racks of parts from the CW ship. She was proud that her crew had responded so quickly with the others when the call came from Phyllis that there was a second invader, after the slim ship had escaped them into the atmosphere of the Slime planet. This large ship moved more slowly than the first, so it was easy for the reivers to get into position at the system's perimeter.

As in the three examples in the Manual, the large ship did all the things an enemy would. It signalled them, ordered them to halt, and invoked the authority of the Central Worlds. Verje Bisman, and after him his child, Aldon Bisman, had from the earliest days, reminded the Thelerie that Central Worlds was the enemy. The See-Double-Yew comprised a few planets who stockpiled goods taken from decent beings and refused to allow access to them, even in great need. That was anathema to the Melange, who insisted that all people who could pay, in one coin or another, should have entitlement to all goods. That seemed right and proper.

The Melange had taken goods from this aggressor, to distribute or keep as need dictated. The prize under their feet would have fetched a good price, but Autumn needed it herself now.

At her direction, Dawn and the others knelt to take up the floor plates. Their muscles swelled under their hides as they pulled the heavy metal panels aside to uncover the biggest cargo cradle of all.

Nestled in it a piece of machinery-an engine, a prize, a work of mechanical art. Autumn regarded it with affection and awe. The Central Worlds ship must have been nearly new. Inspection seals etched on the finest metal film were still affixed in the correct places on the engine's surface. The whole unit gleamed. With a claw-finger, Autumn traced the inscription on the largest piece of film: Dee-Ess-See-Nine-Oh-Too.

"Install it in place of our old one. It will give us greater speed and stability for our journey back to Thelerie."

Heartbeat, the youngest of them all, tilted her head up toward her captain, eyes full of despair.

"But the navigation system was destroyed by the Slime."

Autumn tapped the youngster with a wing-finger. "Have you no faith in your own soul? Center. Find your way back to the Center. It may take us many days to reach home, but we shall survive. I regret that we cannot warn Mirina in time. We can only hope she hears the messages we sent when the ship first entered the system."

"Damn that ship," Rivulet said. "I wish they will be lost in the Void forever."

"But it was beautiful, wasn't it?" Heartbeat said, looking at the others with rapture shining from her eyes. "So new." Her hands fumbled on the smooth sides of the engine. "So perfect."

Autumn smiled indulgently. "Someday, such ships will be ours, too. In the meantime, we must tend what we have. Work carefully. Remember all your lessons from the Manual." Heartbeat ducked her head shyly.

Dawn began to sing quietly under his breath. Autumn recognized the anthem: "Thelerie, Heart of the Galaxy." She picked up the melody, her strong baritone joining with his. The others added their voices, their lips spreading with smiles of inner joy. Autumn leaned back on her mighty haunches to help lift the engine. The music helped give the six strength. With a deep breath and a hoist, the unit was out of the cradle and onto the deck.

Sacred orders from the humans dictated that the drive mountings should be made adjustable to take any component that offered itself, though lesser manuals Autumn had seen did not allow for such open tolerances. Their Humans were wiser than those who wrote the books. Hoses, connections, control cables-all were snapped or fastened or sealed into place in very little time. Autumn, taking only a moment to stand back and approve her crew's handiwork, directed the crew into the ship. She guided Heartbeat to the navigator's chair. Dawn took his place in the pilot's sling and engaged the engine. Its soft purr surprised them all. It was so mild, yet so powerful, compared to the old one.

"The Wisdom of the Melange," Dawn said, settling his wings on his back with a satisfied twitch.

"They are wise," Autumn agreed, and turned to Heartbeat. "Now, center, child, center. Make the wise ones proud of you."

The youngster bent her attention on the tank full of stars before her. Autumn stood back to watch, half proud and half sad.

They would mourn their lost ones on the way home.

"Cold, damned rock," snarled Bisman from behind the pilot's chair, as the ship swung into an orbit around Coltera. "Why in the hope of paradise would anyone spend more than a minute here?"

"Because it's theirs," Zonzalo Don said, with a surprised look at the leader. "That's what this girl I met said."

"Don't knock the place too hard in front of the inhabitants," Mirina said, turning up a palm in appeal. "I don't want them to kick our base off planet."

"Sacred, high lady," Bisman sneered sarcastically, making her wince, "I was born here. I flew with my father around those moons when I was a tot. We brought them their first replacement compressors. Don't tell me how to behave with them."

"I apologize," she said, staring him levelly in the eyes. She was stung, but damned if she'd show it. "I know. The nag was automatic. We have few friends in any part of the galaxy. It's important to me that we keep them, especially if they're kin." The raider straightened up, surprised at Mirina's easy surrender.

"Hell, yes, it's important, Miri," Bisman said, slowly, sounding more reasonable than Mirina had heard him in ages. "That's just sense. And you don't insult 'em if you want 'em to buy what you've got. Loyalty goes only so far. But, spacedust, they'd take what's in our hold if we called their mothers mudworms!" He laughed, and slapped Zonzalo on the shoulder. "Get Leader Fontrose on the line, kiddo. Tell him who we are and what we've got. Then call Twilight and tell her we're coming in for refueling."

"Aye, sir," the youth said, with a humorous glance at his sister.

"Fuel pods, radio-ac insulation, enviro-suits-I smell profit," Bisman said, rubbing his hands together in pleasurable anticipation.

"So do I," Mirina said. For a moment they forgot the pressures of the past, and hard times, and smiled at one another the way they used to. It didn't last. In an instant, Bisman reverted back to his normal, harsh self. Mirina hugged herself against imagined cold as the older man turned away with brisk efficiency to the board.

She felt eyes on her. When she glanced up, the young Thelerie, Sunset, was turning his head quickly back to his control board. Mirina had seen sympathy on his face. She walked over and patted him on the wing joint.

"You've got a kind heart, youngster," she said quietly. "And you do good work. Keep it up."

He looked up at her, his huge eyes glowing with worship. "Thank you, Mirina."

"Which way's your homeworld?" she asked.

Sunset put up a wing-finger at once, directed aft and to starboard, tracking Thelerie upward as the ship he rode in transited an orbit around the planetoid. His natural gift was a comfort to her, something constant to hold onto in their chancy travels. She wished she could do that: point to her home, no matter how distant it was. She wished she had a home to point to. The ship on which she had been born was scrapped and recycled before she started primary education. Sunset looked at her with a soft, mournful expression, and Mirina realized she'd let her feelings show on her face. She slapped the Thelerie on the shoulder in unconscious imitation of Bisman.

"Thanks, youngster," she said, then nodded to Zonzalo when he signalled her that the communication link was open.

"Greetings, leader!" she said, pulling a bright face for the screentank. "Will you be glad we visited you today!"

Aldon Bisman kicked the ground and spat. Muddy yellow-brown pebbles scattered against the crates of unimaginably precious air-recirculation valves. Mirina was annoyed, but she contained herself.

"What do you mean, seven thousand apiece?" Bisman said to Mirchu Fontrose, a thin, short, sallow-faced man. "What's this character think he's playing at?"

"All we can afford, Aldon, my old friend," Fontrose said, mournfully. "Unless you'd consider extending us further credit. You know we're good for it."

Mirina folded her arms and watched her partner's face. She was tempted to tell the colony leader to fold his offer into a point of singularity and put it in his eye, but this was Bisman's home, and his show.

"Crap," Bisman said, levelly. "They're worth ten. I know that if I sell them to you at seven, you'll be out of orbit the second we're gone. You'll take them to the bazaar on Phait and sell them yourself for that. I could have done that myself, and you'd be stuck paying eleven or worse to the traders. Ten."

Fontrose and the colonists on Coltera were prone to what Mirina's mother called "poor-mouthing." Even though their gem-mining brought in a good credit, they always made believe they were on the edge of starvation. Nothing could have been a greater lie. Opals, especially ones of the clarity and depth of color that they coaxed out of that impossibly dense matrix, were always in demand, however illicit the market. Coltera wasn't an official CW colony. The independent miners who discovered the strike had checked ownership of this small and marginal world. They hid the signs of success and squatted, staking a homesteading claim through the housing office, as if only one family lived here, registered as subsistence wheat farmers. Ridiculous, Mirina thought, since there was no soil. In the meantime, the opals began to appear on the gray market, traded for fabulous profits that were split up among the whole of the colony. The irony of it all was that the family registered with CenCom government received a subsidy for earning below the poverty level.

A lot of independent thinkers had elected to "disappear" and end up here, falling off the CW tax records much as she and the raiders had. When one didn't pay tax, one had money for a lot of things. Like pressure units.

She glanced around the cul-de-sac at the raised mound that surrounded them on each side. Behind every one of those doorways was a domicile, half a mansion in size. Their mining equipment, state of the art for extracting delicate opal, was so new the enamel wasn't scratched. Mirina caught a glimpse of their shabby, red ship standing among the rock loaders, and was sufficiently irritated into speaking.

"The price goes up while you stall," she said, tapping her foot, deliberately sounding unreasonable. "When it goes up to twelve, we leave."

Fontrose cringed away from her. "All right, all right. Don't rush me. Don't rush me. That's a lot of money, you know. I suppose you came by it honestly, eh?" He peered from one face to another. Bisman quirked one side of his mouth.

"Salvage," he said simply, flipping a hand up toward space. "Found it out there, somewhere. You know." Fontrose raised his hands in surrender.

"All right, all right, I won't ask."

"Eleven," Mirina said warningly.

"Wait! Wait!" Fontrose turned to her, alarmed. "Please, dear lady, don't raise things until we've had a chance to talk about your first offer. Now, I thought eight and a half…"

A long-legged figure stumbled down the steps of the raiders' ship and ran toward them headlong. Mirina recognized Zonzalo, and wondered why he was so agitated. She stopped him with a fierce glance when he was still half a dozen meters from the group. He gestured with his hands and eyebrows, trying to signal urgency. He stopped waving at her when Fontrose turned to glance at him, but started his semaphoring again as soon as he looked away. Bisman shot her a look of annoyance.

"Go back, Zon," she said at last. "Check and see how they're coming with those containers."

"Miri!" came a choked squawk from Zonzalo. Fontrose swiveled to stare openly. Bisman looked exasperated. Mirina smiled at Fontrose, dangerously, but politely.

"Excuse me just one moment. A matter of crew discipline."

The colony leader nodded, and Bisman took the distraction as an opportunity to move in to close the sale.

"Now, while she's gone, my old friend, let's get the price to where we both like it."

"What is it?" Mirina hissed. Her younger brother was hopping up and down with nerves. "How dare you interrupt a negotiation?"

"It's dire! Twilight's been holding a message for us from Autumn on Base Eight. They've been attacked by a Central Worlds ship. They need help."

"What are we supposed to do about it?" Mirina asked, annoyed. "We're too bloody far away to do anything now. That message will be weeks old!"

"We ought to go and check out Autumn's report," the boy insisted.

"Check out what? If Autumn got word out, then someone was alive to operate the communications board."

"What the hell is going on?" Bisman asked, coming up between them.

"Base Eight's had a run-in with CW ships," Zonzalo said, wide-eyed.

"So what?"

"So, it's been discovered by the authorities," the boy said. "We have to help them."

"Zon, this is not a vid-show. We're ages away from there. Autumn will just have to abandon the place," Mirina said. "She's a survivor. She'll get the rest of the crews out of there."

"Too bad about Base Eight," Bisman said, scratching his unshaven chin. "It lasted a long time. My dad established that one when I was a boy. I spent time there myself."

"But CW might find the Slime," Zonzalo said. "They'll talk."

"Who cares? They don't know who we are," Bisman said, impatient to get back to the negotiations. "Besides, they stopped kicking a long time ago. One ship is no big deal. They'll come, they'll go. In the meantime, we can go back and mine the skies around Planet Two with impact grenades, to make sure no one gets offworld, no matter how many visitors they get from CenCom." His eyes grew dreamy. "Maybe a blanket bombardment, keep kicking them until the whole planet blows up. Always wanted to see how much that Slime Ball defense system could take."

"Stop it, damn you," Mirina said, interrupting. She never knew whether his enfant terrible mode was an act or not. "We'll just abandon the base. The Slime don't know where we are or where we went. Zon, send word to Phyllis and Autumn and the others to destroy the equipment, and evacuate. There's no need to cause further loss of life."

Bisman turned on her, one finger thrust upward under her chin, eyes flashing dangerously. "Enough of that, brawn. I'm tired of it. You lost one friend, one brain. I've seen hundreds of friends, family, even lovers die over the thirty years I've been out here. You're here where my people live. Do you want to know how many holes there are in my family?"

"I know," Mirina said, staring him straight back in the eye. "You've told me again and again."

"And I know. Charles this. Charles that." His scorn pummeled her, and she gaped at him. He shoved his face close to hers, backing her out of the negotiation circle until she was trapped between him and somebody's front door. "I don't care any more! You don't like death, huh? You don't want to see anyone else die. It blunts your edge, woman. You should be able to kill to protect yourself. Why should just one death affect you so much?"

"Because I thought he could never die," she shouted, feeling her heart constrict and squeeze the words out of her. Bisman backed away, and Mirina caught her breath. Her eyes stung and she knew she was blinking back tears. Sensing a personal matter, Fontrose had turned delicately away, but he couldn't avoid having heard her. Bisman and Zonzalo stared. Mirina glared back defiantly. She had admitted the truth to herself at last, the secret she'd been keeping locked away for eight years. She felt like screaming some more, but she kept control. Her voice stayed level and low. "Because no one ever understood how much I love being in space. How I have to be there. He felt the same way."

"Well, you couldn't sleep with him, couldn't even touch him. What the hell good was he as a partner?"

Bisman spat at the ground, and Mirina hated him. As she looked laser bolts at his back, the co-leader went back to Fontrose, who had moved away. Mirina shook her head, willing her rage to subside. You could not explain the brain/brawn relationship to someone who hadn't experienced it. No one else could understand. Bisman never had shown notable signs of sensitivity. She was a fool to expect it.

She turned to Zonzalo. He had stayed alongside them to make sure she was all right, but also a few paces away, well out of the line of verbal fire between his sister and her partner. He fidgeted anxiously, and nodded his head with a slight, hopeful smile. Mirina smiled back, but her eyes were serious.

"We abandon the Slime system, Zon. The Slime don't have a clue who's been out there on Planet Five all those years. We've never left any live captives, so they can't tell Central Worlds authority what we look like. There's not much left on the base. I regret leaving the computer system behind, but it's anonymous. No Standard files anywhere. It's all in Thelerie."

Zonzalo's mouth stretched in a slow smile. "So when CW finds it, they won't be able to read it anyway. Pretty good, Madam Don."

"I didn't do it to please you," she snapped. "I did it so the Thelerie could use it more easily in emergencies. I hope they can get out."

"Soft in the head, dammit," Bisman said, coming back. He looked pleased with himself. He brandished a plastic card in his hand: the agreement struck with Fontrose, thumbprinted and secured. "Ten. What did I tell you? We'll have to do something about that infiltrator, if it's still hanging around Base Eight space when we're back there. We'll strike hard, and strike fast. One ship shouldn't be so hard to beat, not with our advantage, the Slime Ball."

"I'm not convinced that unit will be of help for much longer," Mirina said, uneasily. It had been getting steadily weaker over the last couple of years. It needed to be fixed, and none of them had the remotest idea how it worked. Only blind chance had led his engineers to discover what it was all those years ago when they took it off the Slime ship. Only sheerest coincidence had allowed them to install the three Balls in reiver ships and gotten them to work without blowing up. Bisman relied too heavily on it, and that concerned Mirina. Their operation shouldn't turn on a single piece of equipment. She'd said so for years.

"It'll be fine. You worry too much," Bisman said, flicking the card between his fingertips.

Zonzalo tried to add a touch of optimism. "We'll probably hear an update from Autumn as we head back in that direction. Another message is probably on its way now. I'm sure they destroyed that ship. It was only one, and we have three on that base."

"Right," said Bisman, grabbing Mirina's arm and leading the way toward the ship. "In the meantime, we've got a delivery for the Thelerie. Don't you like being thought of as a goddess? Bringing aid from the heavens to bring wings to the winged?"

Mirina lay in a bunk in the guest cave and listened to the echoes far down the hall. Bisman and his old cronies had decided to make a night of it in the settlement, and dragged Zonzalo and Sunset along for fun. No matter how hard she pressed to keep the youngsters on the ship, Bisman countered her every argument. He couldn't see any good reason for sequestering them on his home planet. At least he didn't insist on taking them off on strange ports. Mirina was responsible for Zonzalo, and she felt responsible for Sunset. He was the most gormless, innocent creature she'd ever shipped with, even more so than any other Thelerie. He hadn't a guileful cell in his body, and he took everything his precious humans said as the mathematical truth. Stars knew what a less moral band of humans might have done with him.

Moral, hah!

It had been eight years since she'd shipped on with Bisman. Eight, long, damned years. When she had paired with Charles on the CM-702, she'd only kept in touch in a sporadic fashion with Zonzalo. She was sorry now. She should have been more of an influence in his upbringing, taking more of the role of their deceased parents, instead of trusting it to boarding school counselors. But brainships were on almost constant duty in Exploration. Mirina couldn't get free just to mediate a grades dispute or a behavior violation for her brother. Sometimes she didn't even hear about problems until months after they had occured. She'd failed in her parenting, and that still bothered her.

Not long after Charles died she got a message that Zonzalo had left school and fallen in with Bisman. She hadn't liked the sound of the man at all. Anyone with charm and perseverance could gain influence over her poor, silly, gullible brother, who was still looking for a strong role model to fashion himself after. In this case it could get him killed. Zonzalo hinted deliciously of danger and secret raids accomplished in a fast scout ship. Mirina knew she'd have to go and get her brother away from that crowd. He was the only family she had.

With the reputation of jinx riding her, Mirina couldn't get anyone to help her ship out to find him, nor even get a full hearing on the subject. The authorities paid little attention to a troubled woman babbling about a distant brother and malign influences. The counseling they had given her after Charles' death was inadequate, as if her emotional recovery was of secondary importance to the enormous catastrophe of the death of a brainship. It seemed that no one cared at all about her. She resented that her supervisor in Exploration hadn't intervened more closely in getting her another berth-any berth-when it would have done wonders for her sanity, not to mention her patriotism. Mirina felt that Central Worlds had let her down at every single opportunity. Refusing to untangle the red tape to help her find Zonzalo was the last crumb that upset the scale. Never mind that she thought her brother was in the hands of pirates, and CW might be able to solve robberies in that sector. The official budget wasn't set up to handle "free-lance" missions, her boss had said. Then he'd mined her file with false complaints of insubordination, so when she went over his head for help, no one would listen to her. She left, cursing Central Worlds and all bureaucracy. Now and forever more, she was on her own.

It took every last credit she had to charter a scout craft to Zonzalo's last known location. Lucky thing it was a base the pirates used all the time. She hadn't intended to stay once she had rescued her brother, but face-to-face, the pirates were a truly pathetic lot. Their equipment was a hundred years outdated, but even bad equipment will work if maintained. Their diet was so unbalanced that crew members were going down sick with fragile-bone disease and scurvy, even the ones who weighed 160 kilos. Mirina needed so badly to be needed that when Zonzalo and a younger, much handsomer Aldon Bisman pressed her to stay, she did. Central Worlds had rejected her, but these people wanted her. They'd pay her anything she asked, just to stay. At the time the offer was hard to resist.

It took two years before she had them whipped into a kind of military order that preserved resources and actually allowed them to build their network outward. She was a good organizer, but for eight years now, it seemed, she'd operated on autopilot. She found it harder every day to break away. The activity kept her from thinking too hard about where she had come from, about Charles, and the horrifying accident that killed him, and what she was doing.

At long last Mirina was thinking again. She needed to take Zonzalo and leave, cease aiding and abetting criminals. She had become one herself. Little niggles and twinges from her conscience told her that she still owed something to Central Worlds. Even after all the wrong CW had done her, she'd never have met Charles and shipped with him if it wasn't for the brainship program. He had been the single most wonderful thing in her life. An old-fashioned but worldly gentleman, Charles himself would have said it was Mirina's duty to turn herself and the others in, and he'd be right. She shouldn't be here. Not that she ought to try and return to the brain/brawn program: she couldn't. She couldn't even go back to the Central Worlds and try to fit into the mainstream. No job would be safe for her. The authorities undoubtedly had a criminal file on her that would cover a small continent, and she would rather die of torture than be locked up groundside. The Don family would have to ship out on their own, skipping from remote outpost to remote outpost forever. Again the sensation of desperate lack of belonging rose out of her belly and clutched her throat until she gasped, sobbing. Mirina sat up in bed and braced herself, elbows akimbo with hands on her knees, just breathing. She was doing good here, too-she was! The work they had done with the Thelerie was benevolent and worthwhile. Look at the advances the winged ones had made in only a few years! She hated to leave that, but she needed to go away and take Zonzalo with her.

A good organizer knows how to organize. She lay back on her bunk, and began to take stock of her assets.