Duty Bound (8 page)

The boss rubbed his forehead and nodded.

"We'll dupe your info for you--and in the
meantime I'll call in a specialist."

"Thank you," said Daav and went back to the
bar to put his tools away, all the while amazed that a phrase
learned so long ago and so far away was still potent enough to make
a Juntava jump.

* * *

CABIN PRESSURE WAS at one-tenth normal,
which should have been counted as good; it signified that Clonak's
work was paying off.

Alas, Shadia did not much feel like
cheering. She sat lightly webbed to the command chair, patiently
doing hours of work by hand and eye that an online computer might
do in a blink.

Clonak had left her to the recognition
search while he worked on what he called "housekeeping."
Housekeeping entailed using a small bubble-bottle to find the worst
of the leaks and then seal them with the quick-patch sit.

As for her work, so far she had only three
possibles and one probable. Dust in the outer fringes of the
Nev'Lorn cluster made some of the IDs difficult and she'd not yet
found a near opaque patch or two that might also help her...

"Shadia?"

The sound reached her, distorted and
distant.

Clonak stood behind her, almost an arm's
length away, beckoning her toward a portable monitor hooked to a
test-kit. With his other hand he seemed to be fighting a
control.

Indeed, the air pressure was building ever
so slightly.

Noting her spot, she locked the star-field
scope; by the time she got to him he was using both hands on the
control. He yelled at her again through the sack-like Cloak; she
could barely hear him.

"Please tell me what you see. I'm not sure
this will work for long!"

What she saw, besides Clonak wrestling with
a wire-filled metal tube, was devastation. The grainy monitor was
showing her what would normally be her Screen Five, inspection
view.

"The rear portside airfoils are gone," she
yelled, schooling her voice to the give the information as
dispassionately as possible. "There is damage into the hull; I can
see a nozzle--likely it's one of the wing nitrogen thrusters, still
attached to a hose--moving as if it is leaking."

Clonak shrugged, did something else with his
shoulder, and the image shifted a bit toward the body of the
ship.

Shadia blinked, disoriented. The ship didn't
have a--Oh.

"The ventral foil has been blown forward and
twisted--shredded. The.."

The image went blank as Clonak's hands
slipped on the tube; the Cloak vibrated with the buzz of his
curse.

Shadia continued describing what she had
seen.

"There's no sign of any working airfoil
components. There are indications of other structural damage. I
can't tell you about the in-system engines--the view was blocked by
the ventral fin."

Clonak sat down hard.

"That view was blocked by the ventral? Might
be something left to work with if we can get some more power
going..." His last few words were lost as he stared at the blank
screen.

"Clonak, I have a feeling that the ship
is--bent." Shadia bent close and said it again, this time touching
Cloaks shoulder to shoulder.

"Well," he sighed. "That explains why we
can't budge the hatch."

They both were silent for a moment; Shadia
was glad for the slim comfort offered by touching someone else,
even through the plastic.

The ship's spine had taken some of the heat
of the attack and the ship was out of true. The rear
compartment--Including the autodoc, the sleeping alcove, and about
60 percent of the food, was accessible only if they could force the
hatch against the bend of the ship.

"We have to assume," Clonak said suddenly,
"that we're not airworthy past the hatch; obviously we won't want
to be trying any kind of atmospheric descent if we have a
choice--Might be missing some hull, too."

He straightened a bit, leaned in to her and
said, "Look again. I'll see if I can force this to scan the other
side!"

Her fingers answered yes, and Clonak began
twisting the cable yet again. The image reappeared and then swung
suddenly, showing an oddly unflawed stretch of ship's hull and
beyond it the fluted shapes of several nozzles poking out from the
blast skirts.

Beyond that was a brightness; three points
of light; reddish, bluish, whitish. A local three star
cluster--

"The Trio!" she said, but then there was
another light, making her blink

"Stop!" she yelled, the noise over loud in
her ears.

Clonak let go and the image went away.
Shadia stood staring at the blank screen, seeing the stars as they
had been.

"We're still in-system," she said, putting
her arm against his. "If the Trio and Nev'Lorn Primary are lined
up..."

"We're somewhat north of the ecliptic,"
Clonak concluded, "with Nev'Lorn headquarters safely on the other
side of the sun."

* * *

THE IMAGE OF his son--and of his son's
partner--lay on the pilot's seat along with the rest of the
information provided by the Juntavas. Daav tried to imagine the
boy--a pilot of the first water, no doubt; a Scout able to command
the respect of a Clutch chieftain, who held the loyalty--and
perhaps the love--of the very Hero of Klamath...

His imagination failed him, despite the
recording furnished by the Juntavas boss.

The boy's voice was firm, quiet and
respectful; the information he gave regarding the last known
location of his vessel only slightly less useful than a star map.
The voice of Miri Robertson was also firm; unafraid, despite the
message she'd clearly imparted: All is not as it seems here.

Yet, despite the image, the recording, and
the records his imagination failed him. Somehow, he thought he had
given over the concept of heir, of blood-child. Certainly, he
should have been well-schooled by his sojourn on the highly
civilized world of Delgado, where the length of all liaisons were
governed by the woman and where the decision to have or not to have
a child was one the father might routinely be unaware of--witness
his mistress's daughter, now blessedly off-planet and in pursuit of
her own life.

Daav picked up the flimsy, staring at the
comely golden face and the vivid green eyes. A Korval face, certain
enough, yet--there was something else. With a pang, he understood a
portion of it: the boy, whoever he was, and however he had gotten
into the scrape announced to the universe at large, was a breathing
portion of Aelliana. Daav projected her face, her hands, her voice
at the image of their son, but that did no better for him--what he
saw was Aelliana.

The boy was only a boy to him, for all they
shared genes and kin.

Daav sighed and laid the picture back on the
pilot's chair. Whoever the boy was, elder kin should surely have
taught him to stay away from the Juntavas. He should have been
given the Diary entries to read. Er Thom knew--who better? Er Thom
should have--but Er Thom was gone.

And in the end the duty had not been done,
the tale had not been told, and here was the result. Briefly he
wondered what other duties he'd left undone...

He'd have to find Clonak. Clonak had later
news. Clonak would know what needed done, now.

He sighed then, rewebbed himself, scanned
the boards, checked the coords he already keyed in from some recess
of his mind, and punched the Jump button.

* * *

THEY'D SLEPT FITFULLY in the unnaturally
silent craft, each sitting a half-watch in a Scout's Nap. What
noises were, were confined to the Momson Cloaks and their wearers.
The Cloaks had a tendency to crinkle when one moved, and though the
upper shoulder placement of the air-pack made wonderful sense when
standing, it required some adjustment to sleep semi-curled in the
command chairs in order not to disturb the airflow.

The wake-up meals were cold trail-packs,
laboriously introduced ito the Cloaks through the ingenious triple
pocket system, a sort of see-through plastic airlock. Since the
Cloaks were basically plastic bags with a few rudimentary "hand
spots" the process was awkward, even for two people.

First the trail-packs were located and then
held in place with lightweight clamps. Then the outer pocket was
opened, with one person pulling lightly on the outer tab and the
one inside the Cloak grasping the side wall of the pocket firmly
and pulling back. The pocket walls separated, and the resultant
bulge had a lip-like seal that was pressed until it opened. The
trail-pack went into the newly opened pocket, and the outside was
resealed.

The second pocket had a seal at what Shadia
thought of as the bottom; by bunching the pocket up from inside it
could be made to open, and the trail-pack was moved into that part
of the pocket, and that seal to the outside pocket pressed tightly;
now there were two seals between vacuum and food. The inner seal,
finally, was opened--puffing up the part of the pocket with the
trail-pack in it--and finally the food was safely inside the
Cloak.

Crumbs being a potential problem, the food
bars were handled gingerly and the water squeezed carefully from
its bulb.

While she ate, Shadia chewed on the problem
of their exact location, with regard to Nev'Lorn 'quarters--and
potential rescue.

While knowing that they'd not left the
Nev'Lorn system was definitely useful, the camera-monitor wasn't
the tool for finding out where they were or, more importantly,
where they were headed. It was impossible to guess how much of
their Intrinsic velocity and flight energy might have been
transferred to the attacking destroyer and they had nearly as much
chance of being in a tight, highly elliptical orbit as they did in
being on the outward leg of a hyperbolic orbit that would throw
them out of the system, never to return.

Thus, shortly after breaking her fast,
Shadia realigned the gyroscope for the auxiliary instruments and
changed her search pattern with the star-field scope. Now that she
knew which end was up her job had gone from that of a hopeful
pastime to an immediately useful necessity. What they might do
about where they were was another matter.

On the other side of the chamber, Clonak
busied himself with another semi-disassembled piece of hardware,
periodically professing himself or any number of other objects,
deities, and people damned, stupid, absurd, or useless.

That she could hear these footnotes to
progress clearly proved that the pressure in the ship was slowly
rising, in part a result of the action of the layered osmotic
membranes that made up much of structure of the Momson Cloak. The
finely tuned membranes purposefully released certain amounts of
carbon dioxide and hydrogen while retaining some moisture; heavier
users might complain of the suit "sloshing" as the moisture
reservoirs filled. Far from breathable, the external atmosphere
made the Cloaks a little easier to move around in.

The increased pressure also made Shadia
aware of an occasional twittering sound she couldn't place. Twice
she glanced up to Clonak, hard at work but doing nothing that
looked to make such a noise.

The third time she looked up, Clonak had
also raised his head. He caught Shadia's eye and smiled
ruefully.

"Not rodents, Shadia, with little rat feet.
More likely we have micro-sand, scrubbing the hull down to a fine
polish. This system has a fine collection of unfinished planets to
choose from, I'm afraid."

"Though actually," he continued, "that's not
all bad. If the wrong people are looking for us we're better off
here than an hour off Nev'Lorn."

"Should we use the monitor to--"

"I've thought of that, but really, the best
use of resources is to continue with what we're doing. I may yet
get a computer up and running and you may yet find us a safe
harbor."

There were several distinct pings and
another scrabble of dust on the hull then and Shadia bent back to
her charting with a will.

* * *

DAAV WOKE WITH a start, certain someone had
called his name. About him the ship purred a quiet purr of
circulators and the twin boards were green at every mark. The
Jump-clock showed he had enough time for breakfast and exercise
before he arrived back in normal space. No matter what might
befall, he'd be better prepared if he kept now to routine.

He'd been to three systems so far without
touching ground at any. Izviet, Natterling, and Chantor were all
minor trade ports, ports that usually sported a small training
contingent of Scouts making use of the nearby space.

At Izviet a ship a few years out of mode
coming from a port rarely heard from was barely gossip, still he'd
had the ship come in as L'il Orbit, maintaining his professorship
as well. The cycle was off--there were no Scouts training near the
spectacular multi-mooned and multi-ringed gas giant Cruchov.
Natterling's usual band of ecologists-in-training were out of
session; the wondrous planet Stall with its surface outcroppings of
pure timonioum had no company. By the time he'd hit Chantor he'd
had a lot of news to digest, but there were no cadets practicing
basic single-ship in that place, as he had.

Among the news chattered most widely were
the rumors attending the Juntavas and their danger-tree
broadcast.

Some felt it was trap, aimed at netting the
Juntavas. Others explored news-pits and libraries and invented
great empires of intrigue: one of these stated that the missing man
now ruled a system as a Juntavas boss; another said the merc hero
had bagged herself a rich one; yet another swore the pair of them
had turned pirate and were staging raids against the Scouts.

What was missing in all three places was the
back-net chat he would have found in an instant in the old days. In
the places he would normally have found Scouts he found nothing but
notes, signs, recordings: on temporary assignment, on vacation,
will return, in emergency please contact--