A Larger Universe (42 page)

"At some time or another, almost all of them are used
for games," Tommy said.  "Anyway, beside each arrow is the distance
to the nearest object, out to three light seconds."

Ull leaned toward the screen.  "The nearest one is
approximately one light second away toward Toblepas.  Focus there."

The graduated sphere disappeared from the monitor as he
directed the sensors toward where the arrow pointed.  A rectangular object
appeared on the screen.

Tommy chewed is lower lip.  "That is not a natural
shape," he said at last.

"Can we see more?" Leegh asked.  "Can we
focus on it the way you did on this ship."

Tommy made a noncommittal grunt and typed on his keyboard.

When the rectangle expanded to more than fill the monitor,
they saw shadowy shapes representing objects of more mass and several
flickering pixels that might be wormhole mouths.

"We are too far away for the moiré to appear,"
Tommy said.

After trying for several minutes to get a definitive image,
Tommy turned to the two Nesu.  "We have two choices.  We could either launch
a sensor to get greater resolution, or we could transit closer."

"We have built two," Leegh said.  "If we had
built more, we would have deployed them."  She turned to Ull.  "Shall
we transit closer?"

"Las has the command this week.  However, in her absence,
if you will allow me?" she asked Leegh.

Leegh waved Ull to the command chair, where she got the
skeleton bridge crew's attention. 

"Tommy, would you set up the transit?"

"How close should I get?"

"Just close enough to answer our question about the dimensional
tunnels.  We can transit closer later."

The transit went smoothly, placing The People's Fist a half
light second from the object.  Tommy adjusted the sensors for another look.  On
the monitor, a flickering moiré surrounded the object.  Five seconds later, the
object disappeared.

"A Kadiil ship!" Tommy shouted.  He set the
sensors to their maximum range.  At one light second from the ship, just the
distance the object had been before, a circle of shimmering pixels faded beside
what had to be the same rectangular object.

"Why did they do that?" Leegh asked.

"They must be watching us," Ull said, "but
why?  Do they already know what we are doing?"

"Maybe not," Tommy said following an arrow on the
monitor to another dot on the screen, one light second away in a different
direction.  "If that is what I think it is..."

Zooming in on the dot revealed another rectangular object.

"Two of them.  Why two of them?" Leegh asked.

"Maybe because there are two of us," Tommy
replied.  "
The People's Hand
and
My Flowing Streams
.  Maybe
they have one ship watching one drive."

"Everywhere we go?" protested Ull.  "That
makes no sense.  What would be the economics of that?"

"You told me once that one of their ships always
arrives soon after one of The People's ships is destroyed," Tommy said. 
"Maybe this is how."

"That implies they follow every ship containing one of
their drives," Ull said.  "Thousands of ships have their drives. 
What kind of creatures would do that?  What kind of culture could afford to do
that?"

"What kind of culture can afford to give away free
transit drives?" Tommy returned.

Leegh, who had been standing motionless through this entire
exchange, said, "The other end of the dimensional tunnel in our drive is
attached inside the Kadiil ship.  They communicate with something in our drive
through the tunnel."

"If they can do that, why stay so close?"  Tommy
asked.

"Because the drive has no eyes to determine its
position," answered Leegh.  "By staying nearby, they can follow if we
try to travel using the insystem drive.  For transit, they rely on coordinates
sent through the tunnel."  She slumped, pulling her tail around her and
dropping her head on her chest, a position that Tommy had never seen one of The
People take.  "Who knows what else,” she said, “other than our transit
coordinates, is sent through the tunnel.  We can never escape them, no matter
where we go."

#   #   #

For the rest of the day, all the members of the council,
except Leegh, locked themselves in a continuous meeting.  Tommy tried to return
to the study of Leegh's documents to see if any one else had suspected what
they had learned, but Leegh had secluded herself in her chamber and wouldn't
take visitors.  He was left at loose ends until the council revealed the
results of their debate.

He returned to his lord’s chambers to find Sisle struggling
with the computer program he had given her to write as part of her study. 

He would have enjoyed sitting at the computer beside her
even if Sisle didn't have the aptitude, but he felt sure she did.  The
journeymen and masters in his guild had taken over instruction of beginning
apprentices, and he limited himself to teaching advanced classes, except for
teaching Sisle.  Thinking about that made him wonder if any of what he did
would be considered advanced on Earth after more than three years. 
I'll
have to be reeducated.  If Moore's law continued, computers are now smaller
than my fingernail, and I'm completely outdated.

Sisle glanced up from debugging her program.  "Have you
decided I can’t do this?  I'm doing the best I can."

He came back to the here and now.  "No, Sisle, I was
thinking about Earth and what it might be like now."

She rotated her chair to look at him.  "Do you think I
would fit in?" she asked.

"Maybe too well.”  He sat down in his chair.  “You're
so different," he searched for a word, "so exotic.  I'm sure everyone
would want to know you."

She glanced down at her hands on the keyboard.  "That's
not the same as fitting in.  Everyone here, at least all the warriors, know me,
but I don't fit in."

Tommy thought about the phone ringing, and the reporters and
beggars on his family's lawn when everyone had wanted to know him. 
"You're right."

Her eyes met his.  "Did you mean it when you said if
you couldn't free me without freeing everybody, you would free everybody?"

Her eyes have the most wonderful color
.  "Yes, I
meant it.  I'm just not sure how, yet."

She grasped his hands in hers.  "Tommy, you can never
free me.  You will be killed if you try.  What can one person do?"

Her hands felt hot, or maybe his hands had gotten cold. 
What
can I tell her?  What should I tell her?
 

Everything, he decided.  About the wireless access points
scattered throughout the ship, and the hidden programs he had installed that
would let him take control from anywhere.  About how he could even take control
of the other Nesu ships if they were close enough.  He even told her about the
confrontation with Ull and the bargain they had made.  At that point in the
telling, her eyes widened and she tried to pull her hands from his, but he held
on. 

When he finished, she said, "If you can do all that,
why haven't you?"

He released her and sat back in his chair.  "I've
thought this through a hundred times.  I wake up dreaming about it.  I take
over the computers, and, an hour later, people are dead all over the ship,
probably including you and me.  The Nesu would have the warriors hunt me down. 
If I shut down the circulating air fans and closed all the emergency doors to
try and stop them, other people would be killed.  If the artisans and farmers
tried to help me, the warriors would kill them."  He pulled the cylinder
from his pocket.  "And if I used this, I would be responsible for killing
hundreds of warriors and women, all of them your relatives.  How could I? 
Maybe you were right in the first place.  What can one person do?  But I'm
still searching for a way."

Sisle didn’t move for so long, Tommy thought the
conversation had ended.

She leaned toward him and grabbed his hands again. 
"There are two of us.  I'll help you, and I could find others to help, if
you'll trust me and take some chances."

Tommy managed a brief smile.  "Haven't I shown I trust
you?" he said.  "Taking a bigger chance than getting me, you, and
hundreds of other people killed?  Of course I will!  What do you have in mind? 
Whom do you have in mind?"

"Give me an hour," she said.  "Will you wait
here for an hour?"

"Sure."

Somewhat more than an hour later, she returned with a woman
who had a definite resemblance to Sisle, except she loomed well over six feet
tall.  The band around the woman's long, slender neck gleamed with reflected
light.

"This is Fhele, one of my older sisters," Sisle
said.  "I told her you can disarm her necklace, and she wants to
help."

Tommy froze, looking up at Fhele. 
Well, I'm in it now
.  
He took a deep breath. 
Nothing to do but go along.  Sisle has committed us
both.

"I'll be right back," he said, and went for his
satchel.

"What will you want me to do?" Fhele asked when he
returned.

"We'll decide that later, when you don't have to worry
about your head being blown off," he said.  "Come here and turn
around."  A few seconds later, the collar hit the ground at her feet.

Fhele voiced a single gasp as her hands went to her throat.

Her next move made him wonder, briefly, if he had made a
mistake as she spun around, forcing him to take a step back. 
Will she take
her resentment of the lords out on me now that she is free of the collar?
 
Instead, she fell to one knee with her head bowed.

"I'm yours, Lord Tommy," she said.

He took another step back.  He hadn’t expected this
reaction!  "No you're not," he said.  "How long have you been
wearing that collar, anyway?  The point of this is to free you, not for you to
exchange one lord for another."  He turned to Sisle.  "I thought you
had talked to her about this."

"I did," Sisle replied, “but I’m not sure she
believed me until now”

"I have been wearing this collar for six years, Lord
Tommy.  Since I was fifteen," Fhele said.

"Would you stand up please?" Tommy said.  "We
need to talk."  He pulled a third chair next to his computer.  "Both
of you sit down.

"Fhele, do you understand how dangerous this is?"

"Yes, Lord Tommy," she said.  "But I'll do
anything to escape from the man the lords gave me to." 

She stood and turned her back to him.  Without any sign of
embarrassment, she pulled up her tunic until her back and bare buttocks were
exposed.  Black bruises the width of a warrior’s belt crossed her torso down to
her upper legs.  "He beats me whenever he has trouble with his section leader,
or when I don't respond the way he wants me to, or sometimes because he feels
like it.  Mostly, he beats me because I haven't given him children."  She
dropped the tunic and turned around.  "Nothing is more dangerous than what
I've been thinking of doing to him in his sleep.  I can't endure any more of
him.  Sisle says you are good to her."  She dropped to one knee again. 
"Please take me as your second woman.  He would not be able to stop you,
Lord Tommy."

This one definitely has an agenda of her own
. 

"Sisle, could we talk for a minute?"  He led the
way toward the bathing pool.  "Did you know she planned to do this?"
he said over his shoulder.  "I don't know what to do with one of
you!"  He turned to see Sisle red faced and looking as confused as he
felt.

"I knew she hated Patuek.  That's why I was sure she
would help us.  I didn't know she would do this!  I swear!"

"She's your sister, and those bruises are real.  What
do you want me to do?"

Sisle gazed miserably at her feet.  "You want her.  All
the men wanted her until Lord Nore gave her to Patuek."

Tommy made a growling noise in his throat.  "Sisle,
she's a foot taller than I am, and I don't even know her.  How could I want
her?" 
What great legs, though
.  Something else occurred to him. 
"Nore is dead.  Why did she give Fhele to whoever you said his name
is?"

"Patuek stood outside Lord Nore's door and did her
bidding."

"Was that an important job?"

"Yes, because Lord Nore was a member of the
council."

"What does he do now?"

"Nore's death disgraced him.  He should’ve protected
her, even if it was impossible.  Now, he stands guard on one of the male Nesu
decks."

Tommy frowned.  "I think I know a way out of this.  You
wait here with Fhele.  I must see Ull."

Thirty minutes later he returned with good news.  Ull was
pleased Tommy wanted his own door guards and wasn’t surprised he had one in
mind.  She was also willing to let him name the other warriors he would need
for full coverage.  He couldn't have asked for a better outcome.

"I don't understand what that means, Lord Tommy,"
Fhele said.

"It means Patuek won't be beating you anymore after I
have talked with him."

"That won't make me stop hating him," she said.

"I know."
I don't know and can't imagine!
 
"But we need you to help Sisle recruit more women.  It would be harder if
you both lived with me.  When we can free everyone, you won't have to put up
with him anymore."

"I will do whatever you say, Lord Tommy."

"The first thing is quit calling me Lord Tommy inside
this chamber.  Tommy is my name." 
Actually, it's Tommy Yates.  Tommy
Yates.  That was my name once, and it will be again.
  "You also must
put the collar back on for now."  Her stricken face made him quickly add,
"The explosive charge will be disabled.  I know Sisle told you."

Her face relaxed and she smiled.  "Yes," she
hesitated, then said, "Tommy.  She did tell me."

"Good," he said.  "That's taken care of. 
Now, let's discuss whom else you might recruit.  From now on, I want some
information about them first."