One's Aspect to the Sun (33 page)

If necessary, you can trigger that. One prearranged, coded message, and they'll get out and take everything with them, and get it to me as quickly as possible. Or to one of you, if they can't contact me. That's what will take the time. It'll be a roundabout route, because I didn't want to put anyone in the position of actually knowing where I was. Safer all around. The message is on the chip marked PC35411, and the password is the sum of your father's and my birthdays plus the year I left you all on Nellera. Please use it if you need to, but not without due consideration.

She leaned back again.
Anyway, there it is. My explanations and my sins. As I said, I hope we'll have a chance to talk about it all together sometime. And if not—well, it's in your hands now. I love you both. Good luck.
She blew a kiss toward the screen and the image froze.

Chapter Nineteen

Playing the Odds

“Excuse me, Captain.” Yuskeya's voice came over the comm. “We're ready to try and sneak out of the planet's sensor shadow now. Ando City's going into the shadow on that side and we have a clear run to the wormhole to Beta Comae Berenices.”

I touched my implant. “Start to move whenever you're ready, then. I'll be there in a minute. Thanks.” I didn't get up right away, though.

“That's a lot to process,” Hirin said.

“You're telling me. And I feel guilty seeing these without Lanar.”

Hirin stood, pulled me to my feet as well, and kissed me lightly. “Then let's go find him,” he said.

By the time we reached the bridge everyone else was there, too. Rei had taken over the pilot's console from Yuskeya, who was back in her seat at nav. Maja and Dr. Ndasa stood near the archway into Sensors, talking quietly. The main drive ticked over like a clock, its pulse rumbling through the ship as Kiando fell further and further away behind us.

“Anyone noticing us yet?” I asked as I slid into the chair.

“Would everyone please sit down so I don't have to worry about knocking you over if I have to take evasive action?” Rei asked. Maja and Dr. Ndasa moved to take skimchairs.

“Not yet,” Baden answered me from the comm station. “Only a few short traders have left the planet since we did; they all seem to be headed for Cengare. There's a starliner in orbit getting ready to ship out in a couple of hours, so there's a lot of shuttle traffic between it and the spaceport, but that's it.”

“Let's hope it stays that way. How long to the terminal point?”

“I guess we're a little faster than that bucket PrimeCorp sent,” Viss said with evident satisfaction from the engineering station. “We'll get there almost an hour faster than it took them to come in.”

“So we'll jump to Beta Comae, then take the wormhole there to Keridre/Gerdrice?” asked Maja.

I nodded. “Viss, I know you wanted to have a look at that tracking device we found in the cargo pod, but did you do anything to it yet?”

“Not yet. There hasn't exactly been an opportunity,” he said dryly.

“I know, that's what I was hoping. I wondered if it might be a good idea to drop it somewhere—I don't know, like maybe near a wormhole we
don't
plan to take, just as a bit of misdirection in case someone comes looking for us?”

He grimaced. “What a waste of a perfectly nice little tracker! I thought we were going to have some fun with it.”

“Well, you might have to sacrifice that in the interests of survival. If it looks like they're trying to follow us, I want to leave it as a red herring.”

“Oh, all right. I'll load it into one of the jettison tubes so it'll be ready.”

“Good thinking. And if we don't need it, I promise you can have it back.”

We managed to burn toward the wormhole, apparently undetected, for almost an hour when Baden let out a yelp.

“Ship just took off from Kiando and it's moving this way at a hell of a pace!”

“What? What is it?” I punched up the sensor readings on my own screen.

“
Dio!
It's the
Trident
, but what's she burning? That's not the same power she came in on!”

“Unless she was hiding it,” I said through clenched teeth. “Probably has one of those new burst drives.”

“And at the rate they're going, they'll catch us before we get to the Beta Comae wormhole,” Viss added.

“But we'll be far enough out that the Kiando Planetary Police won't have any jurisdiction,” I said. “We can't call on the Chairman for help.”

“If this was a trap, we played right into it,” Baden said. “And there's a message incoming from the
Trident
.”

“Put it through,” I said. I composed my face. Whoever was on the bridge of the PrimeCorp ship, I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of seeing me look worried.

“Captain Paixon? We meet again.” Dores Amadoro's face appeared on my screen. Her blonde hair was secured in a somewhat severe knot behind her head, throwing her sharp features into even stronger relief. She'd traded her sleek PrimeCorp pantsuit for an equally well-fitted corporate shipsuit with a red-embroidered logo on the collar. It was obvious who was in command of the ship chasing us. Whatever attempts at softness she may have made for the environs of PrimeCorp headquarters, she had clearly abandoned them now.

“Good day, Ms. Amadoro,” I said. “Small universe.”

She smiled tightly. “Getting smaller all the time, in some ways. I believe you have something to which I'm legally entitled,” she said.

I shook my head. “I'm sorry, but it will take more than a piece of paper—which you could very well have simply paid for—before I willingly surrender any samples to you.”

Dores Amadoro shook her head and chuckled softly. “Nice try, Captain, but I'm not as interested in your DNA as I am in the origin of it. I'm talking about your mother. She's on your ship, but I intend to exercise my warrant and take her onto mine.”

I leaned back in my chair, and it was my turn to smile. “That's quite a threat. You sound almost like a pirate. Sadly, you're mistaken. My mother isn't on board—as far as I know, she's still on Kiando. So you're wasting your time looking for her here.”

She cocked her head at me. “Oh, yes, of course. And I'm likely to believe that and head back to the planet? You must take me for quite a fool, Captain.”

“What I think of you personally hardly matters. My mother is not on board this ship.”

“I suppose we'll do this the hard way, then, Captain,” she said, and cut the connection.

“Well, they obviously didn't buy Chairman Buig's story,” Hirin said.

“No. And I guess it makes sense to conclude that we'd be trying to get her off the planet.”

“Yeah, if we were stupid,” Viss said. “If we really were trying to get her away, we never would have done it this way.”

“Talk about it later, folks!” Rei said. “What are we doing now? I'm giving it all I've got, but unless Viss has a secret burst drive wired up, they're definitely going to catch us before we make this wormhole.”

“I know, I know. I'm thinking.” I closed my eyes to concentrate. “Yuskeya, put the wormhole route map up on my screen, would you?”

The route map appeared in front of me, showing all the known wormholes and the systems they connected. I could have rhymed them all off without the map, but now I needed to visualize our options.

As soon as I looked at it, the answer was clear.

“We have to go through the Split again.”

“What?”

“Are you crazy?”

“Not again!”

I didn't know who said what, but I knew that Rei had only drawn her breath sharply and that Hirin stayed silent. Maja's lips were pressed in a thin white line.

“I know it sounds crazy, but I'm looking at it right here in front of me. We're not going to make it to the Beta Comae wormhole, but if we change course now, we should make it to the one for Delta Pavonis. Then we have three options. We can take the wormhole out to K/G, but the
Trident
will catch us first, and even if they don't, we can't hide where we're headed—they'd come through and see us. We could head towards the wormhole from that system to Beta Comae Berenices—same situation. They'll just chase us from system to system until they catch us—which they will eventually. Even if they find out at that point that Mother's not on board, I'd rather not have them catch us at all.”

“Obviously,” said Viss.

“But, if we skip into Delta Pav and head for the Split into GI 892, we might make the terminal point out again before they're in the Delta Pavonis system, so they won't necessarily know that's where we went, especially if Viss can mask our drive signature or scramble it a little. We can jettison the tracking device in the direction of the wormhole to Beta Comae, which is where they thought we were headed anyway, so they might take that bait. And even if they think we took the Split, they might not have a pilot who'll attempt it. They'll have to go the long way around even if they figure out where we're going. At any rate they won't know where we've headed out of GI 892.”

“And from GI 892 there's another wormhole to K/G anyway,” Yuskeya said. “But PrimeCorp won't necessarily be expecting us to take it. They're much more likely to think we'd head to Eri from there, trying a more roundabout route to Beta Comae to avoid them.”

“Couldn't we do it in reverse?” Maja asked. “Leave the tracker near the Split as a red herring and actually take the other wormhole like we planned?”

“The Split's closer. We can't make it to the other one before they come through. They'd see us. And they're less likely to go through the Split anyway.”

There was silence, then Hirin spoke.

“Luta's right. It's the best chance.” There was no hesitation in his voice, and I loved him as much in that moment as I had in my entire life. He was the one with more to fear from the Split than any of the rest of us. If he were willing, I knew the others wouldn't balk.

“So, change course for the Delta Pavonis wormhole?” Yuskeya asked.

“Do it,” I said.

“
Trident
is also changing course,” Baden reported after a moment. He ran his fingers over his touchscreen, gathering data. “They've gained on us some, but we'll definitely make it to the Delta Pav wormhole well ahead of them.”

“As long as we can get to the Split before they come through,” I said.

“It'll be close, but if we can maintain speed, we could do it,” Yuskeya said.

Viss left his console and sprinted down the corridor toward the engineering hatchway, shouting something over his shoulder about having an idea for re-routing more power to the main drive.

“Captain,” Baden said, “Yuskeya told me you want to track down your brother. I could send a message through the K/G wormhole to the Protectorate base on Nellera, see if they can tell us where he is. We might get a response back before we leave this system.”

“Good thinking, Baden, do it,” I said. “With luck, he's still in Beta Comae; we can get there in two skips from GI892.”

The overheads dimmed, the ship shuddered a bit and Rei gave a whoop. “Viss is as good as his word. That's a fifteen percent increase in power, so PrimeCorp should have a harder time catching us.”

“Message coming from the
Trident
,” Baden said.

“On my screen.”

The cold eyes of Dores Amadoro stared out at me again. “Captain, I am prepared to disable your ship if necessary.”

I stared back at her, considering. “You're bluffing,” I said. “If you want my mother this badly—and you truly think she's on this ship—you won't risk harming her.”

“That's why I'm sending this message,” she said coolly. “I'm advising everyone on your ship to get into EVA suits, just in case your life support systems suffer . . . collateral damage. Or you could just stop, let us catch up to you, and allow your mother to come with us peacefully. I am anxious to meet her, you know, so that I can thank her.”

“Thank her?”

Amadoro smiled, but it was not a nice smile. Too much wolf and not enough warmth. “When I recognized her and took that information to Chairman Sedmamin, it did wonders for my future at PrimeCorp. I can honestly say I wouldn't be where I am today without your mother.” Her face hardened. “So I'm prepared to take whatever steps are necessary to secure that meeting.”

I muted the feed. “Folks? Could they have any kind of weapon that might be capable of reaching us from that distance?”

Yuskeya shook her head decisively. “Not a chance. When they get closer, maybe. But not from that far away. They could fire torps, but we'd have so much time to get out of the way, it wouldn't be worth launching them.”

“Nothing I know of, for sure,” Rei agreed.

“Yuskeya's right,” Viss chimed in from Engineering. “Tell her to blow it out her—”

I killed the feed from Engineering and switched back to Amadoro. She was still there, looking annoyed.

“Thanks for the warning, Ms. Amadoro,” I said, and cut the connection before she could say anything else. “Everyone into EVA suits.”