A Larger Universe (43 page)

The next day, Patuek stood outside Tommy's chambers for the
morning shift.  According to Fhele, Patuek's sudden promotion--and he
considered it a promotion--had some strange conditions, which he wouldn't
reveal to her, but he was pleased in spite of them.  He said the other warriors
were jealous of his new position guarding Lord Tommy.

"What did you tell him?" Sisle asked.

"I told him I had heard of his great prowess and
strength through you and your sister and that's what I needed in a guard.  I
also told him I didn't approve of men beating their women and I would know if
he did.  I left it at that.  I also told him Fhele would be visiting you
here."

"He's a stupid lump that has trouble putting two
thoughts in a row," Sisle said.  "What will you do if he does hit
her?"

"If Nore gave your sister to him, I can take her away
and give her to someone else.  But I’d rather not have that burden.  How would
I know the next person wouldn't beat her, too?  She needs to be able to choose
her own man, not be forced on someone."

"Doesn't stop him from having sex with her," Sisle
said.

The word hung in the air between them. 

"Sisle, I was thirteen years old when I was brought to
this ship,” he said finally.  “Before that, I spent most of my time doing
schoolwork or in front of a computer.  I know sex is something men and women do
together, and I figured out that's what my parents were doing when they locked
me out of their room.  I knew people talked about it a lot in movies and on
television.  Some of the boys at school talked about sex all the time, but they
didn't know much about it either.  So, when you said I didn't stop him having
sex with her, I'm not sure what that means."

She giggled.  "Maybe I should show you?"

When he couldn't find an answer, her giggle became a laugh.

"After we take over this ship, I will," she said.

Three days later, Tommy had two more guards outside his
door, and the rebellion had two more recruits with disabled collars, both first
cousins to Sisle and Fhele.  Afterward, he left the recruiting to Sisle and
Fhele, with Tommy performing the collar ceremony in some deserted corridor,
usually on the Commons level.  The women knew who could be safely approached. 
Because that wasn't everyone, Tommy made and remade plans for what he would do
if they were exposed. 

Only Sisle and the masters in his guild knew of his ability
to take over the ship through the computer network.  That gave him his only
real power.  To seize the ship through the network in an instant, regardless of
the situation, he programmed a complete lockdown of every function with a
single signal from his handheld, and then had to stop himself from walking
around with his hand in his pocket next to the button.

At the end of the second week of recruiting, the rebellion
had forty-three warrior women, not even a twentieth of those on board.  Youth
and dissatisfaction with life on the ship were common characteristics of the
recruits.  Most of the older women had children and more to risk.  At this
rate, they would be discovered before they were ready, and he still didn't have
a plan he believed would work.

#   #   #

"Lord Ull wants you to go the bridge, Lord Tommy,"
Patuek said from the door of his artisan quarters.

Uh oh.  I haven't talked with Ull in two weeks.  Maybe
this is it.
 

"Did she say what she wanted?"

"No, Lord Tommy."

Tommy picked up his satchel and made sure he had his
handheld in his pocket.  "You can take the morning off.  I won't need
you," he told Patuek.  He definitely didn’t need his own guard turning on
him.

"Good, you are here," Ull said from the
commander’s chair.  "I need you to take the gravity sensor station.  We
will be emerging from transit within the half hour."

Tommy's sigh of relief went unnoticed.  "Of course. 
Perhaps I could train someone while I am here?"

"I will assign someone," responded Ull.

"Where are we?" Tommy asked.

Ull glanced around the bridge.  "Come closer," she
said.  When he did she spoke quietly.  "The council argued every day for
more than a week after our encounter with the Kadiil ships."  She paused. 
"All of the council except Leegh.  She won't come out of her
quarters."  Her tail curled around her feet.  "We all would have been
happier not knowing the Kadiil follow everywhere.  Since we do know, the water
on this ship tastes bitter, as if someone upstream is polluting it."  She
put her snout into her hand and fixed her black eyes on Tommy.  "I know it
is illogical.  We all know everything is the same as it has been for two
thousand years, but it sickened us.  At one point, Neth suggested we drive the
ship into a planet, our despair was so great." 

Tommy felt lightheaded and sat down on the podium's edge. 
Well,
that would have been the end of the rebellion
.

Ull gave a low warble and pulled him to his feet.  "You
need not worry.  Love for our kits prevailed.  We finally decided to return to
our trade circuit, though none of us has much stomach for it. 
The People's
Fist
will emerge four light hours from our next trading planet.  We will
take
The People's Hand
in from there."

The ship exited uneventfully.  Tommy demonstrated the new console
to Suna, the Nesu assigned by Ull, but they saw little on the monitor except
the moiré marking the emergence of the two Kadiil ships.  That brought a
buzzing whistle from Ull.

"Now we will see if you are correct that one ship
follows each of our drives," she said, after calling for an aft gun to
fire a small mass to separate them from the asteroid.

The next transit, by
The People's Hand
alone, had
already been calculated.  Tommy let Suna take over the gravity sensor console
and sat back to observe and correct if necessary.

The exit a few minutes later brought a trill of satisfaction
from Ull.  Tommy looked up to see a blue and white planet floating nearby,
partially eclipsed by an airless moon. 

Ull ordered the ship to move inside the moon's orbit, then
turned to Tommy.  "Perhaps someday I will be accustomed to how accurate
you have made our transits."

On the gravity sensor screen, a pixel flickered at the one
light second marker.

"You were right," Ull said.  "A single Kadiil
followed us."

As the moon passed to the left, Suna said.  "Master
Tommy, what does this mean?"

Tommy leaned around the operator.  Suna pointed at three
more flickering pixels in three different directions, also at the one light
second marker.

"Ull, three other ships are already here!" yelled
Tommy.

"Master Tommy, look!"

On the monitor, hundreds of specks emerged around the edge
of moon. 

From the radar console came a sudden cry, "Incoming
missiles in our path!" 

An alarm sounded.

"Lord Tommy, more are coming from behind us," Suna
said, "over the top of the moon."

On the screen, behind the missiles, three much larger
objects emerged from behind the moon.  Radar and gravity sensors quickly
confirmed them as ships.

"The raiders went to our first trading stop and waited
in hiding for us," Ull said.  After giving orders to transit and
simultaneously try to dodge using insystem drive, she turned to Tommy. 
"Even with your new computers, the missiles are too close.  We cannot
transit in time to escape."

"Wait," Tommy said, as he ran for the trapdoor to
the sub-deck.  A few seconds later he tapped on the keyboard in front of the
main computer.

Ull leaned down into the opening.  "What are you
doing?  The insystem drive has stopped responding."

Tommy didn't look up.  "I know.  I have control."

On his monitor, a duplicate of the gravity sensor screen
appeared.  "This will be tricky.  They are close."

On the monitor, a red dot appeared ahead of the ship, swept
across the paths of the incoming missiles, then disappeared.  For an instant
his body stretched upward, his head seeming to pull away from his feet. 
Another red dot appeared behind the ship and swept the paths of the missiles
coming from that direction.  Again, he felt a stretching sensation.  On the
monitor, the smoothly curving paths of the incoming dots had become chaotic. 

Ull had come down the ladder.  "What did you do?"

"I used the drive to create two small black holes and
disrupted the incoming missiles.  We have time now to transit now."

"You did...," the rest he lost as she ran up the
ladder, her tail jerking from side to side behind her.  Tommy heard her yelling
at the transit operator. 

"Master Tommy!  Master Tommy!"  Suna knelt on her
hands and knees with her head and long neck through the trapdoor opening. 
"Look on the monitor!"

The characteristic moiré of five incoming wormholes
displayed on the screen, none farther than ten thousand kilometers away.

Tommy opened another window on the monitor to show the
transit entry status.  Ull had initiated the five-second countdown.  The ship
should be gone before the Kadiil ships arrived, but they would follow. 
Creating
black holes must be included on the Kadiil’s list of forbidden technologies!

He ran up the stairs, pushing Suna out of the way in his
urgency.  As he climbed, he looked up at the dome in time to see it turn black.

"Ull, when we get to
The People's Fist
you must
dock and get away as quickly as possible!  The black holes I created drew in
the Kadiil ships.  They will be following us."

A grinding whistle escaped Ull's mouth.  "I will do as
you say, but why should I bother?  They will hunt us down wherever we go."

"That is not certain," Tommy said.  "Leegh
and I came to that conclusion based on what we know.  All the Kadiil ships,
including the one watching
My Flowing Streams
, moved to the site of the
black holes.  Maybe if we transit away, they will not follow.  Maybe they will
think the raiders created the black holes.  We have to try!"

The few minutes the ship was in transit felt like an hour. 
As soon as stars became visible, Ull began giving orders to the insystem pilot,
who turned the ship and backed it into the asteroid.

Tommy turned to the gravity sensor operator.  "Suna,
extend the range to include the planet we just left."

On the monitor, instead of the signatures of a planet and
its moon were millions of pixel sized dots, moving away from where the planet
had been.

Ull had said the planet was uninhabited except for some
defenseless animals.

"Ull, the Kadiil destroyed the planet."

"And the three ships of The People?"

"Since the raiders didn't have any warning, they were
probably destroyed, too," answered Tommy.

Ull slumped in her chair.  "And so, a tenth of those
who remained of The People die in an instant.  Once again, you have saved this
ship from raiders, but at great cost."

A call from one of the bridge crew saying the docking was
complete brought her erect in her chair.  "And where will we escape the
Kadiil?" she asked Tommy.

She asked him?  How would he know?  "Uh, try a jump of
two hundred light years in some random direction.  Maybe there is some maximum
range they receive information through the wormhole.  Maybe that is why they
follow us so closely."  He had to be wrong, but what else could they try?

"I will do as you say," Ull said and busied
herself with the transit console operator.

Tommy had returned to watching over Suna's shoulder.  As the
transit operator began the five-second countdown, the monitor showed the moiré
of the five Kadiil ships. They were away with ten seconds to spare.

#   #   #

The council spent most of the ten-hour transit of
The
People's Fist
in session.  When Leegh refused to attend, the council's
other members pulled her out of her quarters while her warrior guards watched
but were forbidden to interfere.  Tommy heard about the meeting and their
continuing problems with Leegh from Ull a half-hour before the ship exited
transit.

"You probably owe your life to Leegh's condition,"
Ull said, after entering Tommy's quarters.

"My life?" Tommy said.

"Two members of the council were ready to kill you for
the situation we are in.  I am aware Leegh has no liking for you or any human. 
If she were willing to talk, I am certain she would have voted with those two. 
Instead, she swam aimlessly in circles on her back around the meeting pool. 
She seems to have lost all interest in living."

Tommy had to ask, "How did you vote?"

"I argued that, with Leegh unable to help us, your
knowledge is our only hope to escape the Kadiil.  I am not certain how I would
have voted if Leegh were healthy."

I'm not sure I blame her!
  "What do you want me
to do?"

"Be on the bridge when we exit."

"May I make a suggestion?" Tommy asked.

"Yes."

"Have the coordinates of your next transit ready to
enter when you exit this one, just in case."

#   #   #

Sisle stood up from where she had been hiding behind a
plant.  "What will you do?   What can we do?"  She threw her arms
around him.  "Oh, Tommy, I don't want them to kill you!"

He gently pushed her away.  "That hasn't happened.  We
won't let it happen." 
Although I'm not sure how
, he thought, as he
reached into his satchel and brought out a small silver cylinder.  "I may
need some help, so take this.  I hope you can use it."

She recoiled.  "You want me to kill all the warriors if
they try to kill you?  Even for you, I couldn't."

"I wouldn't ask you to.  But could you kill one or two
warriors if they threatened me or someone you cared about?"