Pirates of the Thunder (11 page)

He sighed and patted Nagy on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, my boy. They need you. They need
us.
We just have to watch our backs, contribute, and bide our time. If, somehow, that creature can be controlled when it is free of constraint, we are where we want to be, aren’t we?”

Sabatini had entered the compartment and had just stood there, listening to all this. “Yeah, well, that’s all well and good for you two, but I’m dead meat to them. I lost my ship, I lost my pilot, and the inmates are running the asylum. I just want
out.
Failing that, I could die happy if I could just push them Chink bitches out some air lock like they did me.”

Nagy turned to stare at Sabatini. “You know, Captain, I’d listen to the Doc here and stop all that talk. Cooperate, go along with them, make yourself useful, even friendly—and survive. They can’t carry much excess baggage even if they do have a ship as big as a small city. Watch you don’t get dumped.”

That was enough spying for now.
Analysis—Reba Koll.
The response was almost instantaneous.
Insufficient information. Input provided by subject and Clayben consistent with possibilities inherent in transmitter and psychogenetic technology. No more. Scans do not show her in any way different than would be expected for a human female her age.

The analysis of Clayben’s ship was more productive. As China had guessed, it was almost a miniature state-of-the-art laboratory, as well as a zone of comfort and an interstellar spacecraft. It was a larger and more elaborate variation of the Melchior fighter design, and it contained full and rather impressive armaments, not sufficient to do more than minor damage to the
Thunder
if it penetrated the fighter screen at all, but sufficient to do a lot of damage to lesser craft.

Also aboard was a reference computer system of unfamiliar design, possibly developed by Clayben personally. The information in it could be gleaned by a normal type of computer interface, but it was stored in a highly compressed and coded system. The decryption method was unclear; it might be hardware or special codes or a combination of the two, but it was quite sophisticated. The ship did not contain a practical transmuter, although it had one that it used for its interstellar drive fuel and maintenance; it did, however, have a single-unit, fully functioning mindprinter, attached to a psychochemical unit. While they were tied into and run by the encrypted data computer system rather than the ship’s computer, the design and operation was straightforward. Star Eagle was working on duplicating the system and creating his own, tying it into his own banks for operation. Such a system might be very handy indeed.

Unfortunately, the smaller ship was still too large for the
Thunder’s
transmuters to duplicate, but it could be flown, at least. The pilot had a cold, neuter persona, but would obey anyone who had the control codes to activate it.

China and Star Eagle continued to explore, spy, probe, and hypothesize as the
Thunder
sped on through the nothingness.

“There,” Star Eagle told them. “The second planet out.” Not much was clear from the images on the screens; they were computer graphics and not true pictures in any event, and showed a huge sun and some small, bright dots that represented planets.

“Won’t it be too hot that close to the sun?” Chow Mai asked worriedly.

“Perhaps,” the pilot responded. “No way to know for certain until we take a close look at it.” It was the third one in the region they had checked out. The first had been far too cold; the second had an atmosphere that would prevent them from living any more freely than in the
Thunder.
“The distance from the sun
is
important, but only within a very broad range. Planets two, three, and four, here, and possibly five are all in that range, but even my long-range scanners indicate that only two has an atmosphere dense enough to have potential: It is also the only one showing any readings indicating early terraforming.”

They were not blind, even in this poorly charted region. Master System had been here long before them. The area was better termed “unused” than “unexplored.” For one reason or another, the worlds here that Master System had attempted to change had either taken too long to develop or developed wrong. Although those worlds had been abandoned when more suitable planets elsewhere were developed, the processes put in motion were not halted. No one had ever found a paradise in this sector, but a number of the worlds, given many centuries to develop and mature, were at least usable and useful. And the sheer size of the sector ensured against accidental discovery of the
Thunder
by either freebooters or Master System.

“I’m getting promising readings,” Star Eagle reported. “A very thick ozone layer and a high water content. We will have to see what the surface temperatures are like, though; it’s impossible to guess anything except the fact that this will be a very humid place and certainly warmer on the average than Earth. Let’s see.”

One of the robot fighters had launched itself from the
Thunder
hours before and was now, under the firm control of Star Eagle, approaching the planet. This fighter had been modified by Maintenance for much more than defense and was capable of a soft landing if need be.

“Initial readings aren’t optimistic,” Star Eagle told them. “The world has an axial tilt of less than eight degrees, which means little seasonal variation, and the equatorial surface temperature appears close to sixty-five degrees Celsius. Tremendous, vast water bodies, with very odd landmasses. No continents as such, just islands, none incredibly large so far. The average water depth must be very deep to account for this. Lots of islands, all with rugged topography, but not much else. Some of the volcanoes are active although there is no sign of massive eruption to the atmosphere. I would guess that these are not the major explosion type, but rather the slow, steady erupters with dense lava.”

“What’s that mean?” Warlock asked, in an uncharacteristically chatty manner.

“It means that there won’t be constant dust and soot in the air that would cause things to be too hot or block so much sun that it’d be freezing cold,” Hawks told her. “But it also means you have a chance of having liquid rock wash into your house almost anywhere, and probably frequent earthquakes. Not very appetizing.”

“Interestingly, the most comfortable surface temperature would be in the polar regions,” Star Eagle said, “but there’s not a lot of promise there in surface area. The best compromise would be about thirty degrees north or south. Lots of island masses in clusters there, and a surface temperature estimated at perhaps thirty to forty degrees. I am sending the remote ship down to that latitude north for a ground scan. If I find something promising I will let you know.”

The others looked at Hawks quizzically. “Hot,” he told them. “Days hotter than the worst summer days of America or China and nights as hot as hot summer days in Europe, with very little difference over a year. We could live there, though, if the air has the kind of makeup to block the worst and most damaging rays of the sun. Even so, those of us with the darkest skin will have the best protection. It won’t do anything for comfort, though.”

“Atmosphere is quite good,” the pilot reported. “The trace gases are quite different and the water vapor is extremely high, but the oxygen-nitrogen balance is very close to nominal. The difference can be attributed almost certainly to the level of volcanic activity. Still, you can tell by how close it is that this is induced rather than natural. There might be some odors, but you could breathe the air unaided without harm.”

“What about vegetation?” Hawks asked. “Any sign of life down there?”

“Considerable, although it’s not possible to tell its full nature from here. Many of the islands appear to be almost junglelike, and I get some minor animal readings, as well, possibly insects or birds or something like that. The seas also contain much life, although I doubt that there are any deep-water creatures. The plant layer is thick enough that it probably blocks most or all light farther down. There is definitely animal life on or near the surface, though. Not an enormous amount, but it’s there.”

Hawks frowned. “Should it be? Would this have gotten far enough to be seeded with fish or something?”

“Mostly mammalian, by the spectrography. It’s possible. It’s possible this one got far enough along to be a full test.”

“If it got that far, then why wasn’t it used?” China asked, fascinated.

“Probably because of the slow development of the pattern and the heavy growth of algae or funguslike plants on the water,” Star Eagle guessed. “I suspect it was a prototype rather than a finished product. Ah! A cluster of islands that includes one very large one with a volcano at each end and perhaps forty kilometers of flat land twenty or thirty meters at most above sea level. The flats are ancient lava flows that ran together. Both volcanoes appear dormant; there is no sign of very recent lava flows into the flats, at any rate.”

A huge map appeared on the bridge screens showing a somewhat crescent-shaped island with two enormous high peaks, one at each end. The center area was relatively flat but uneven, thin in the middle—perhaps only a kilometer across—and thicker as it approached each of its two parents, perhaps as much as ten or twelve kilometers at those points. One of those jagged parent peaks was over two thousand meters high, the other slightly lower than that. Both had enormous craters inside that were hundreds of meters deep. There were several other single-peaked islands nearby, but none showed a promising landing site.

The small fighter set down on a rise in the flats region and went right to work taking samples and testing. Air temperature: Thirty-six degrees C. Humidity: Ninety-seven percent. The rock was basically basalt, its chemistry containing nothing odd or unusual. Radioactivity was fairly low, considering the volcanism. The outcrop showed extreme weathering, indicating the passage of frequent storms and high winds, a pattern confirmed by the early orbital survey. The ultraviolet reaching the surface was within the range of human tolerance, but might pose a long-term hazard to lighter-skinned people who allowed themselves to become over exposed. There were airborne spores and micro-organisms; the ship captured some in its filter and found them to be variations of Earth organisms. While this indicated that Master System had adapted readily available materials to create its balance, it also indicated that this was a very early experiment, with no assurance that such organisms would be harmless to Earth-humans.

“I should not like to come this far only to be wiped out by some virus.” Hawks sighed. “But we must also face facts. Anyplace we are likely to find that can support us will have these risks. These are, after all, the prototypes, the throwaways, the leftovers. Any world in this sector that might be better and more comfortable and safer certainly is used by the freebooters. In fact, that is the one thing that worries me about this world. It is no paradise, but it is good enough. Why
aren’t
there freebooters here? Koll, if you knew about this, then so must they.”

“Most likely,” she agreed. “I can’t answer that. Maybe it
is
an out-of-control disease. Why don’t we send Clayben down there to live awhile and do research and tell us?”

That brought a chuckle from almost everyone, but Hawks shook his head. “How long do we wait? A day? A week? A month? Star Eagle, what are the odds of us surviving normally down there as of right now? I understand all the variables—an educated guess.”

“I could be dangerously wrong, but I would suspect that there is nothing down there more hazardous than you would find on Earth, and a good likelihood that there is less, since there would have been mutation and adaptation as well as the initial alteration made by Master System. As to why it has not already been used, though, the most probable reason I can think of is that the native life forms, whatever they are, might be dangerous. If other alternatives were available, and many other worlds were, why would the freebooters go to that extreme? But I would not go down unarmed, and I would create an effective defensive perimeter and watch system. There is also the possibility that the region is occasionally patrolled. Measures will have to be taken to maintain the
Thunder
well away from here and ready for an instant getaway, coming in only as necessary.”

Hawks thought about that. “That would mean
Lightning,
as well,” he said, referring to Clayben’s ship by their new name for it. “The camp would, in effect, be landlocked there. I’m not sure I like that.”

“Of necessity, no matter where we settle. If a patrol came in close enough that it punched within a day or so of the planet, it would be impossible to pack everyone aboard and take off without being sensed, tracked, and quite possibly destroyed. We will establish a subordinate computer net down there and an effective communications system. There will be a substantial time lag, but I will be able to monitor you, and we can still contact one another. In a tight pinch,
Lightning
can be dispatched to take on and flank a patrol ship, but I would suspect that the best defense is to simply ignore it and it will go away.”

“But wouldn’t any patrol craft spot us down there?” China asked, worried. She didn’t like the idea of being separated from Star Eagle for that long.

“Unless you become a population of thousands, I would suspect not. It will be looking for indications of a spaceship and communications and transmuter-powered equipment. It’s not going to do a survey, only a patrol. You would show up in such a patrol in the same way as those life forms down there now, nothing more, nothing less, so long as you cut power. It is not going to spend a year on the suspicion that someone minus ship might just be hiding out down there.”

Hawks nodded. “All right, then. I’ll still feel better if a couple of people go ahead to scout out the place first. We’ll need someone with good reflexes and skills with a gun. Any volunteers?”