36

As Hermes cleared plates from the dinner table, Sigmund passed Amelia a folded sheet of paper. The note within read, Come with me. I’ll explain outside. He had found sensors hidden in his house; it did not take much imagination to predict his children’s houses were also bugged.

“I need to walk off dinner,” Sigmund announced.

“Mind if I join you?” Amelia asked, tucking the note into a pocket.

“Of course not.” Sigmund gestured at a window. Between flashes of lightning, the evening was pitch-black. Rain streamed in torrents down the plasteel. “There’s much to be said for living in the desert.”

Amelia took the hint. “Hon? We’re going to walk around near Sigmund’s place before dessert.”

“Um-hmm,” came the grunt from the kitchen.

One by one, they flicked to Sigmund’s patio. He went first, to shake his head, No, don’t ask, when Amelia appeared.

Here the suns had yet to set. Sigmund stalked off into the desert, griping to the bugs in the house—about the price of deuterium, about his bad knee, about anything—trusting Amelia to follow. They descended into a twisty arroyo. At the second gnarled juniper, they were out of line of sight of his house, out of range—almost certainly—of the bugs there. “Okay, it’s safe here to talk.”

“Is this about Julia?” Amelia asked anxiously. “Is my daughter all right?”

“As far as I know, Julia is fine. I intend to keep her that way.”

“You’re not supposed to be telling me, obviously.” Amelia rested a hand on his arm. “Thanks, Sigmund. But what do you mean about keeping her that way? And where is she?”

He sat on the hard-packed sand. After a brief hesitation, she settled beside him.

“The least of the matter is that I’m about to disclose classified material. I’ve smuggled spy gear into government buildings and recorded meetings illegally.”

“You’re scaring me, Sigmund. Just tell me. Please?”

He did. About Julia taking Endurance farther than any New Terran ship had gone in generations. About the Ringworld and the war fleets there watching. About contact made with Earth ships. About the theft of Endurance and, as sad as it made him, Alice’s death. About Koala’s coming visit and the strict ban on releasing any of this to the public.

“And you recorded all this?”

“Much of it.”

“I’ve pleaded for weeks for information about Julia. So why open up now? And why just me? Hermes deserves to know about our daughter, too.”

“Because what I’ve done is illegal.” Sigmund took a deep breath. “But not nearly as illegal as the things I fear—or as the help I need from you.”

*   *   *

THE COLOR/PATTERN/TEXTURE PARAMETERS of spaceport worker uniforms were not as counterfeit-resistant as the Defense Ministry’s holographic badges, but the watered appearance of the moiré “fabric” far exceeded Sigmund’s artistic skills. Rather than risk hacking for the uniform software, Sigmund had taken pictures from a distance. Jeeves turned the deconstructed images into downloads for Sigmund’s generic programmable jumpsuit.

“Is this close?” Sigmund asked. His faux mechanic’s uniform was a streaky, muddy orange. He thought he looked like a mutant pumpkin.

Amelia looked him up and down. “You’ll pass from a distance. That’s as close as you’ll get to a ship without a valid ID.”

“We,” he reminded her. He reset his garment to a mundane herringbone in blacks and grays.

“Right, we.” She shivered. “What if you publicize what you know? Won’t that stop whatever the government is up to?”

“They’ll claim my recordings are fakes. And then they’ll make sure neither Julia nor I is around to contradict them.”

Amelia shivered again. “I don’t understand how you live like this. You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” he told her.

“Then I’m in.” She downloaded his improvised uniform parameters to the jumpsuit he had given her.

An old man terrified of spaceships. A middle-aged civilian who was just terrified. An entire world’s defense establishment arrayed against them.

Sigmund told himself they had the element of surprise on their side.

They flicked to the small private spaceport from which her employer serviced drones and sensors in New Terra’s early-warning array. Amelia went first. The stepping disc at the low-security area outside the terminal accepted her company ID. He followed quickly, before the receiving disc reset. A scanner flashed green: nothing he carried looked like a weapon.

Because, tanj it, he didn’t have a weapon. If he had carried the stunner from his stash of old spy gear and the spaceport security staff was even marginally competent, this escapade would have ended before it ever began. It wasn’t as though he still had reflexes.

Element of surprise, he told himself again.

“Hi, Floyd,” Amelia told the nightshift guard who stood behind the security desk. His uniform was brown moiré. Two more guards loitered nearby. “Sigmund is my father-in-law. He asked to see the place.”

“Very good, ma’am. Welcome, sir. Please stay in the office area.” Floyd offered Sigmund a badge emblazoned V for visitor. “Wear this at all times.”

Sigmund and Amelia dallied in a break room until someone in an orange moiré uniform came in. The large type on the mechanic’s badge declared JOE. “How are you doing?” Sigmund asked amiably.

“Fine,” Joe muttered. He turned away to consider the synthesizer menu. Short and wiry, his uniform would not have fit Sigmund or Amelia.

A chop to the back of the neck dropped Joe to the floor. “Sorry,” Sigmund said. With tape brought from home, Sigmund bound Joe’s hands and feet and covered his mouth.

With his pocket comp—not a commercial model—Sigmund scanned and captured Joe’s handprint. He peeled back Joe’s eyelid to take a retinal print. Quick swipes on the touch panel transferred the biometric data to Sigmund’s programmable contact lens and to the programmable film on his own hand.

Other than weaponry, Sigmund’s cupboard of spy gear was getting perilously depleted.

“Uniforms,” Sigmund said as he donned the mechanic’s ID badge and tool belt.

Amelia, turned ashen, complied.

Glancing at Joe, Sigmund decided their jumpsuits would pass if no one looked too closely. “Grab his feet.” They dragged the bound and unconscious mechanic to a janitor’s closet and shut him inside.

“I’m going to be sick,” Amelia said. She promptly was.

“Sorry. We have to move now.” Grabbing her elbow he guided her from the break room.

Joe’s badge and handprint got them through a locked door and onto the tarmac. Two small ships sat nearby. “Which one?” Sigmund asked.

“The ships take turns. Elysium was assigned as backup on the most recent servicing run. Arcadia had no problems, so Elysium should remain fully stocked and fueled. Arcadia may not have been serviced yet.”

“Elysium it is,” Sigmund said. “Lead on.”

Joe’s badge and retinal scan got them aboard a ship.

“Hello?” someone called as the inner air-lock hatch cycled shut. An athletic-looking young woman, maybe forty, emerged from a side corridor. She did a double take at seeing them. Her badge read LORRAINE and she was orange-clad, too.

Murphy was enforcing his tanj law again, and Sigmund improvised. “Periphery sensors report a fuel leak. Everyone off the ship while we check it out.”

“It’s just me aboard,” Lorraine said. “I’m running routine diagnostics on—”

“It can wait.” Sigmund pointed to the air lock. “Out, now. Run, don’t walk, to the terminal.” That was a half mile away. “Let us do our job.”

“If you’re safe here then so am I.”

“Have you ever seen a hydrogen-gas explosion?” Sigmund asked. “Deuterium goes boom just like ordinary hydrogen.”

Lorraine squinted at Sigmund’s badge. “You’re not Joe. Get off the ship immediately.”

As Lorraine reached for her pocket comp, Sigmund stepped behind her, forcing her to the deck with a quick yank and twist on her right arm. It was a desperation move: he was too slow and frail to wrestle, and putting an armlock on anyone standing was tricky. If she had had any self-defense training, she would have slipped free and tied him into a pretzel.

He had gambled that she wouldn’t.

Wrestling, boxing, karate … Puppeteers had kept such skills from developing among their slaves. Sigmund had brought martial arts to this world, had taught the original trainers as he formed the Defense Ministry. A random mechanic was unlikely to have had the training.

For once, things had broken his way.

Things were going too fast, too improvised. He had not thought to give Amelia an alias. He had not planned an op in … he didn’t dare to remember how long it had been. Lorraine might not have read Amelia’s ID. “You,” he barked over his shoulder. “Get her comp.”

“Me?” Amelia said, confused.

“Yah.” He yanked Lorraine’s arm as she squirmed. “Lie still. Look, I’m sorry about this. Once we let you go, I suggest you run like hell. We’re launching immediately.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lorraine hissed. “This ship doesn’t have the range to take you anywhere. It’s only for servicing the array.”

He knew that. If these ships had had interstellar range, they would have been much better secured. “Let me worry about where I’m going.” Because I’m worried enough for all of us.

Gingerly, Amelia extracted the comp from their captive’s pocket.

“Now get the roll of tape from my pocket. Lorraine, when I ease up bring your arms together. My colleague will tape your wrists together behind your back. Do you understand?”

Lorraine nodded.

“Try anything,” Sigmund warned, “and I’ll dislocate your shoulder.”

Amelia, paler than ever, sloppily taped together Lorraine’s wrists.

Sigmund released his hold, took the roll of tape, and did a proper job binding Lorraine’s arms. “You can get up now.”

Shrugging off Sigmund’s helping hand, Lorraine struggled to her feet.

He led the mechanic to the air lock. “Again, I’m sorry about this. If it makes a difference, this is done in a good cause.”

“You can tell yourself that,” Lorraine snarled.

He shoved her out the hatch. “Come with me to the bridge,” he ordered Amelia.

From a hundred feet above the field, in an infrared view as he tipped Elysium’s bow skyward, Sigmund glimpsed Lorraine. She ran awkwardly, arms bound behind her, already halfway across the tarmac.

He opened up the ship’s main thrusters.

*   *   *

MINUTES LATER, while Planetary Defense dithered over what to do about a receding object, Elysium shot beyond the edge of New Terra’s singularity and then vanished into hyperspace.

*   *   *

AS THE MASS POINTER LIT, its one long line indicating New Terra, Sigmund turned toward Amelia. He wondered which of them was more upset.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“No, I’m not all right!” she shouted. “Thanks to you, I’m a mugger, a thief, a traitor, and a fugitive.”

He was all those things—and ancient and exhausted. His skin crawled from the knowledge he was once more in space, and on a ship before it could be fully checked out.

But he was also the professional here. Suck it up, he told himself.

Great advice, but he found himself lost in the view port’s hyperspace-denying images of a stormy, rockbound coast.

Koala could pop up within days and everything now depended on Amelia. He had to get her moving, engaged, fired up—and fast. The question was: how? For the love of her daughter? Patriotism? The lure of long-lost Earth.

No, Sigmund decided. Her pride.

“It’s time,” he told Amelia, “to prove you’re as smart as you think you are.”

*   *   *

“I HADN’T DARED not to believe,” Amelia said. Though her face was drawn and her eyes had grown puffy with exhaustion, she gazed with satisfaction upon her handiwork. Around her, Elysium’s photonics shop was awash in cannibalized probes: sensor platforms, hyperwave-radar buoys, and defensive drones. Two extensively modified probes sat side by side on a workbench. “But actually to have done it…”

Sigmund rubbed his eyes, as weary as she. He could contribute nothing to the effort beyond fetching spare probes from the nearby cargo bay and coffee from the relax room, but if he had gone off for much needed rest, Amelia might have slept, too. The hell of things was, he had no idea how much time they had. He had to assume, very little. With a gung-ho captain, Koala could appear any day.

What were the odds Louis Wu’s grandson was a slacker?

Sigmund said, “Then the probes will work?”

“Oh, they’ll do as you asked.” Amelia exhaled sharply. “Will that bring the results you expect? That’s out of my hands.”

Mine, too, Sigmund thought. “Shall we get them deployed?”

“That’s why we built them.” She paused. “Oh, crap, Sigmund. I can’t stay cool. I don’t know how you do it. That’s Julia out there.”

“I know.” Awkwardly, he gave Amelia a hug. “We’ll keep her safe. I promise.”

Snuggled against his chest, he felt her nod.

“I’ll be on the bridge for a little while,” he told her, letting go. “Once we’re in position, I’ll help you put the probes out the air lock.”

Their ship hung beyond the sensor range of the New Terran early-warning array, its normal-space velocity toward New Terra about five percent of light speed. A five-second jump brought them almost within the array’s reach.

They each carried one modified probe. With inner and outer air-lock hatches open, Sigmund pushed the altered defensive drone out through the air-pressure curtain. He backed out of the lock to let Amelia launch the modified hyperwave-radar buoy. When he rejoined her, the drone was only a glint by the glow of a distant blue nebula. They watched both probes drift away.

Sigmund slapped the button to close the outer hatch. “Shall we?”

“What if you’re wrong, Sigmund?”

Then we go to jail, my faith in humanity somewhat restored. “What if I’m right?” he countered.

Looking ready to cry, Amelia said, “Let’s do it.”

*   *   *

THE PROBES COASTED ACROSS the unmarked border of New Terra’s early-warning array. By then, Elysium had jumped several light-seconds away and killed its normal-space velocity.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Sigmund told Amelia.

“I’m ready now. First signal.”

She sent a low-power pulse to the modified defensive drone and it vanished into hyperspace. Like anything transitioning between normal and hyperspace, it made a ripple. The bigger the normal-space protective bubble, the bigger the ripple. Squandering energy prodigiously, this probe had, before jumping, inflated its bubble to the size of a decent-sized starship. To the early-warning array, it was a starship.

Now to make it look like an arriving starship.

“Second signal sent,” Amelia announced. “Our hyperwave gear is back in receive mode.”

They heard, “This is the Earth vessel Koala, calling New Terra.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” Amelia said.

“So do I.”

From his console, Sigmund read the faint trace of hyperwave-radar pings. This far from the array, the echoes off Elysium would be undetectable. The buoy they had dropped was nearer to the array, but due to the little probe’s size its echoes would not be detectable either.

Instead, the scan had triggered an active hyperwave pulse from the decoy buoy. That pulse mimicked a ship-sized echo. As modified, the buoy radiated infrared, too. The IR would look like a ship’s waste heat.

“We’ll know soon,” Sigmund said.

But the seconds crawled.

“This is New Terra Planetary Defense,” their hyperwave radio announced. “Welcome, Koala. We’ve been expecting you. Maintain your course and speed while we hand off your approach to Space Traffic Control, who will prepare landing guidance…”

Sigmund’s console squawked twice as things dropped into normal space nearby. Moments later, his passive infrared sensor acquired two faint objects streaking, relative to Elysium and the decoy buoy, at nine-tenths light speed. Defensive drones. Kinetic killers. His console chirped again: at hyperwave pings for terminal guidance.

“Koala, if you carry hyperwave transponders, we request that you…”

There was a blinding flash before the view-port polarizer cut in. His eyes watering, Sigmund squinted at his instruments. “They just killed ‘Koala.’”