The View from the Imperium Read online

  “Captain, what are you doing?” Pinckney demanded furiously, clambering to his feet and shaking a fist. “We should sue you for dangerous transport!”

  “Councillor, they’re shooting at us,” Iltekinov barked, and immediately tuned out any further ranting. Not since the Pletznik Coupon War twelve years before had he had to use evasion techniques to avoid anything but an asteroid or a piece of tumbling space junk. How that damned Pletznik and his fool associates from Carbon had caused so much controversy over “Grid-based discounts” still made him shake his head. But that was the problem with not having a central government in the Cluster. No uniform laws existed for the redemption of sales offers, or customer protection neither. Iltekinov hadn’t fired the ship’s weaponry except in tests since then, either. He hoped they’d work. But more than that, he hoped he wouldn’t be trapped in a position where he had no move left but to shoot it out. With the distances and the level of force involved in any typical space battle, the chances were good there could be two losers.

  He studied the path of the thermal mass fired by the other ship. It didn’t change course when he did, so it had been pure energy, not a missile with tracking capabilities. In his experience that salvo had been in the nature of a warning. But warning him of what? Who was over there?

  In the meantime, his ship continued dodging its pursuer. Whenever the other vessel managed to swoop around the last obstacle Poldin put between them, the captain studied the telemetry the computers were assembling about the stranger. It was bigger than they were by a factor of six. The overpowered engines suggested a warship rather than a trader. He’d never seen the configuration before, and his memory of ship design was almost as good as the computer’s. Who could it belong to? And why were they chasing him?

  Though he didn’t like taking his hands off the controls, Iltekinov trusted the maneuvering technology, which enabled the Little Darling to maneuver into some impossibly tight berths aboard outdated space stations. The computer assist all but anticipated Poldin’s requirements for speed, kicking the light engines into .3 sublight. The gravity generator moaned at having to maintain internal conditions. Iltekinov knew how it felt.

  “Prepare to jump back t’ultra,” Iltekinov ordered. The system “binked” acknowledgement. Figures scrolled along the bottom of his viewtank as it started calculating the safest and longest jump away from that spot.

  “What in space are you doing?” Pinckney demanded.

  “Gettin’ us out o’ here, Councillor!”

  “No!” All five of the guests cried at once.

  “We must get to that meeting,” Quelph pleaded, her eyes wide. “Take us to Boske, please!”

  Iltekinov felt his blood pressure surge. Could they be such idiots? “Councillors, we’re under attack!”

  The other ship emitted another burst of energy. According to the scope, this blob was headed for a collision with Little Darling’s current flight plan. The other fellow was trying to take his measure. Iltekinov swore and slammed both hands on his control panel.

  “Evasive action,” the computer’s tinny voice stated in his ear. Red lights flared on, bathing the bridge in a gory glow. A white line appeared on the scope ahead of Little Darling’s nose, showing its revised trajectory. Iltekinov felt helpless. The machines were taking over, just as they had twelve years ago. Straining his body against the straps, he tried to urge the ship to greater speed. He was frustrated. He just couldn’t move fast enough to make a difference. No human could, not even enhanced ones, and there were fewer of those than there’d used to be.

  “Strap in, Councillors,” Iltekinov shouted.

  The Yolkovians scrambled to the sides of the crowded bridge for the safety seats, battered cups of heavy shock padding laced with flat straps of a material that was slightly elastic. Iltekinov tried not to listen to the minor bickering going on around him as two of the visitors tried to get into the same chair. The ship lurched. Side thrusters had kicked in to avoid a spinning chunk of rock.

  To Iltekinov’s horror, the pursuing ship seemed to have no trouble following Little Darling’s twists and turns. As soon as she put a rock in between them, the stranger seemed to crest it, closing the distance between them a little more each time. He armed a precious two of his eight missiles, attached the file of the other ship’s particulars from the telemetry computer and launched them. Twin trails of ions drew away from the Little Darling’s outline in the viewtank, attenuated and disappeared in the distance.

  “How long?” he asked. The twitches and facial tension he relayed to the computer meant “How long until we can jump back to where we came from?”

  After thirty-three years in the space lanes, his ship understood him, verbal speech or no. “Six point four five minutes.”

  An eternity. “When’s it goin’ to catch us?”

  “Four point nine seven minutes.”

  “Damn!”

  “Yes.”

  Iltekinov could smell his own fear. Now he could see the telemetry for the other ship’s weapons systems. It ran fully loaded: lasers, plasma pulse, magnetic pulse and neutron missiles.

  “Can we jump sooner?” Pinckney asked.

  “No.”

  “Who’s out there?” Quelph asked, her voice shaking. At last it had dawned on them that the danger was real.

  “Pirates, most like,” the captain rattled out. Well-financed pirates, but it wasn’t unheard of for a “businessman” to decide it was better to sell goods one didn’t have to pay for in the first place. Enough people in the Cluster lived high lives because the honored Founder of the Family had made his or her pile out of do-it-yourself salvage. The ship’s configuration, put together by the computer, showed a narrow silhouette shaped like a diving bird, all smooth curves angling back from a sharply pointed nose. The shoulder angles of the wings held the main weapons. They were huge.

  Hot, red light bloomed on the face of the tumbling, boot-shaped rock they were passing: a plasma burst had found a target. The ancient, pitted stone slagged, forming a vast bowl where there had been a heel-like protruberance. Iltekinov knew his ship’s shielding capability. Little Darling would take tremendous, possibly crippling damage from a bolt like that. Dampening his fears, he looked on the readouts as if they were the stats of a digitavid game.

  He scanned the waste, looking for a means of escape. Being constantly in motion, the debris in the heliopause had no memorable geographical points he could recall. But certain features appeared frequently in any of those rocky belts. Iltekinov widened his scope’s view, hoping to locate one of them.

  “Do you see it, l’il one?” he murmured to the ship’s computer.

  “Yes.”

  About one minute ahead of them was what he had hoped to find. Collisions occurred regularly, on a galactic scale, among the giants of the ring. A disturbance, possibly triggered by a passing meteor or other body, over the course of centuries might alter the complex orbit, cannoning one or more of the huge rocks into one another. Iltekinov had flown into the cloud of particles from one of these celestial accidents, ranging from microscopic grains of sand to chunks larger than his ship. Unlike most of the belt, the matter was much more concentrated, giving rise to a real possibility of an accident, but Iltekinov intended that it should befall the other ship, not his.

  “That way,” he instructed Poldin. “Let’s warm some of th’un up, see if we can lay a false trail and ge’ a moment’s grace. Send some more hails out there.”

  Delius fluttered his tongue. “Still no replies, Cap.”

  “Keep tryin’. It’s got to be a mistake. Tell ’em we’re traders. Show ’em t’merchandise. Offer ’em a discount!”

  Little Darling dove into the clutter. Whining from the reactor fueling the dispeller screens forward testified to the increase in hits on the shield. Iltekinov crossed his fingers, hoping it wouldn’t give out. At the speed they were traveling, even a minute hole would cause a massive implosion. Once they came out the other side of the heliopause, the computers ought to h
ave readied the nav for Yolk.

  His hands rocked back and forth on the gunnery controls, pipping off laser blasts aft at friable boulders, hoping to slow down the stranger by filling space still more with obstructions. He knew it was the equivalent of pulling down cardboard boxes in a warehouse pursuit, but what choice did he have?

  “We’re losing the signal,” Poldin warned him.

  The captain knew it. As it would be for his enemy, his own scopes were blocked by the flying debris. He saw a blip behind them, but the running text along the side broke up and dissolved into gibberish. Why wouldn’t the other ship respond to their communications?

  Ahead lay an enormous hollow, fairly clear of debris. Crossing it laid them open to easy attack, but beyond were cheese-holed planetoids they could weave through, and maybe lose the stranger. He shut down all external lights; Little Darling didn’t need them to see to maneuver. In the meanwhile, he could hear Delius sending distress calls to Boske, Portent’s Star’s main inhabited planet, and every beacon. He knew little chance existed for rescue—no one could scramble out of orbit from there or any of the stations throughout the system in time to come to their aid—but at least they could get the word out that there was a predator in the heliopause.

  The ship behind them emerged with frightening speed. Now Iltekinov got a good look at it. Sleek as a seal, neat as if it came out of the shipyards that very morning. Even as he studied the outline another burst of hot energy crackled toward them. And then it was gone.

  Poldin let out a burst of profanity.

  “It’s a drone!” she exclaimed.

  Iltekinov made a fist, causing the viewtank to bring in an extreme close view of the last sighting of the pursuer. Sparks burst and fell away from a skeleton framework. Without a drive or navigation, it swerved and crashed into the next big rock. The missiles exploded within seconds against the same asteroid. The captain felt his blood drain.

  “If tha’ big ’un was a drone . . . then what’d it come out of?”

  “Yii!” yelped Poldin. A bang! resounded under the deck. The ship jerked. Alarms whooped, and the red lights flashed. Iltekinov glanced at the tank. Another burst of plasma had slagged a chunk of rock. It spun out of control and smacked into the side of Little Darling. Seconds later, another alarm sounded. They were bracketing him! Iltekinov scanned the viewtank, his heart in his throat. Where was the ship?

  “Computer, ready jump!”

  “Two minutes . . .”

  “I want it in thirty seconds!”

  “Not possible. Please wait.”

  Another hit, this one much closer. The councillors were pale and sweating. Iltekinov felt the wetness in his armpits and palms. A drop rolled into his right eye. He dashed it away in irritation.

  “Make for that big lump over there,” he ordered Poldin, having the computer bracket the biggest rock he could see. “We’ll hide in there ’til the calculatin’s done, then go like hell hounds’re followin’.”

  “Aye, Cap.”

  The Little Darling zipped into the narrow hole. If it had been a planetbound chunk of wood instead of a stone the size of a city, the twisting labyrinth could have been made by a woodworm, instead of an eternity of smaller stones rubbing their irregular but patient way through the bigger one.

  Just before they wriggled beyond line of sight of their entry point, thermal scan showed a massive burst of heat. Iltekinov gritted his teeth. The way back had been slagged shut. No choice but to go forward, and hope the enemy didn’t seal every hole in the planetoid before they could escape. Servos whined as the ship negotiated the dark passageways, sometimes coming within centimeters of the rough walls.

  The captain checked the viewtank for the other ship. Data fluttered along the margin of a nearly dark screen; there must have been a hefty measure of lead or other ores capable of blocking the scanners. Signals bounded off in every direction. He couldn’t tell where the other ship was. He hoped it was having similar problems watching him.

  At a V-intersection, the ship arrowed left. The gigantic stalagmite-like dagger of rock half-blocking the tunnel surprised them all. One of the visitors cried, “Look out!” Little Darling’s shields destroyed it in a blaze of light and smithereens that ricocheted off the sides of the tunnel into the ship again and again like pachinko balls. Iltekinov found himself panting.

  “How far?” he asked.

  “Six hundred kilometers,” the computer told him. “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .”

  “Ready weapons,” Iltekinov commanded, arming four more missiles.

  Little Darling shot out into open space. Only a few artifacts, three misshapen asteroids, lay between her and her vector home. Poldin was already laying in the coordinates to avoid them.

  Bzzzzappp!

  Iltekinov read in his own sound effects to match what he was seeing in the viewtank. One after another, the asteroids superheated, slagged and collapsed in on themselves.

  From behind the planetoid, the other ship loomed into view like a moon emerging from an eclipse. Iltekinov felt his jaw drop at the very sight of it. Its long, sleek, white-enameled body gleamed, seemingly bejeweled by the gold and red spotlights that illuminated hatches and weapons emplacements. It looked like a longsword, the engines arrayed along the quillons at the rear. The captain looked in vain for lettering on the hull; whoever they were, they didn’t want to advertise their origins. Must be corporate pirates, damn them.

  “Guns are going hot again,” Poldin said.

  “Can we jump?” Iltekinov asked.

  “Ready,” Little Darling replied.

  “On my mark, then. Three . . . two . . .”

  “Sir, it’s hailing us,” Delius interrupted.

  The star-spangled black in the viewtanks were flooded suddenly with light and color. On a yellow background, a green and black banner burst into gaudy view surrounded by the bursts of skyrockets exploding in red, purple, yellow and blue. Blaring trumpets proclaiming a triumphant march took over the shipboard speakers. All the councillors clapped their hands over their ears to block out the din. Iltekinov signalled to Delius to damp it down. The Uctu held his long hands up to his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness.

  “They’ve hacked our system, sir!” he shouted.

  Iltekinov moaned. He knew he should have upgraded the firewall! “Dammit, override!”

  The Uctu bent to his task, yanking levers and palming heat switches.

  Poldin shouted, “Sir, they’re trying to break into the protocols for navigation!”

  That system Iltekinov knew was up to date. “Block them,” he ordered. “Make for the jump point.”

  In the viewtank the banner dissolved slowly, revealing the face of a human male. Handsome by any standards, he had a strong, square jaw, silvery hair brushed back over a broad, rectangular brow. Even his thin, beaklike nose seemed powerful. Glittering, pale sea-blue eyes stared out of deep sockets. His face was clear of any markings or tattoos, showing that he was not a denizen of the Cluster. The man leaned forward, his face filling the tank. Iltekinov found himself staring, unwilling to break eye contact with the image. A screech from the drive systems brought him back to his wits. How dare this man and his big fancy ship interfere with a free trader of the Castaway Cluster? Defiance filled his chest like oxygen. He would show this interloper he wasn’t afraid!

  “What can I do for you, stranger?” he asked, as casually as he could.

  The image frowned. The councillors gasped.

  “I am Captain Sgarthad of the TU destroyer Marketmaker,” the man said. He crossed his arms on his magnificent, broad chest covered with medals. “I order you to stand down your ship and surrender.”

  Something about Sgarthad’s rumbling baritone reached deep inside Iltekinov and touched a primal nerve, compelling him to obey, but he saw the increasing energy signature of arming plasma guns. Fury and the pure stubbornness that had helped him survive many seasons running the hazards of the space lanes kicked in.

  “When he
ll freezes over,” he said. “Jumping . . . now!”

  “Hold it, Captain!” Pinckney cried, just before the navigator touched the controls on her console. Poldin froze.

  “What now, Councillor?” Iltekinov demanded. They were fifteen seconds from an unobstructed jump. In twenty-four seconds the other ship would be between them and their exit.

  “You heard the man,” Pinckney said, gesturing toward the viewtank. “Surrender the ship.”

  “What?”

  “He wants it.”

  Against his better judgement, Iltekinov turned back to look at the tank.

  The face within it gazed at them, the light eyes dragging all of theirs deep into them. Iltekinov found himself leaning towards it, wanting to oblige this man. He liked him. No, it was a stronger feeling than that: he wanted to please him. A portion of his mind still rebelled. The computer system was supposed—no, guaranteed—to catch and quarantine hypnotic patterns and other mind-control devices fed through the system. He felt his resistance dropping. He couldn’t look away from Sgarthad. The longer he maintained eye contact, the more he knew he had to do what Sgarthad wanted. What was happening to him? The man’s straight brows rose just a millimeter, inviting him to comply. Iltekinov couldn’t help himself. He had to do what Sgarthad wanted.

  “Yes, that’s right. I must.” The captain’s hands fell slack to his lap. The jump timer counted down to zero, then continued to count up, unobserved. Pinckney smiled. The other human councillors smiled, too.

  The big face in the viewtank smiled even more broadly.

  Chapter 1

  “Thomas Innes Loche Kinago, you look absolutely smashing. Fantastic! Elegant! And, very, very military.”

  I strode back and forth in front of the lighted mirror set into my cabin’s mahogany closet door with my chest stuck out and my toes turned at just the right angle. I do not believe I felt inordinately proud of my new uniform. I admired the set of the smart, deep blue tunic, the lavish, jeweled gold braid on sleeves, shoulders and lapels, and the shiny black of the boots and cap, the latter of which so handsomely set off the shiny chestnut brown of my freshly barbered hair. An especial point of gloating was to be found in the satin stripe down the outside of each buff-colored pant leg. Those were white. I had never been allowed to indulge myself like that in military school, not with the pure silk white stripe, and not with all that gold braid adorning sleeves and shoulders. Besides my pleb insignia, I had been restricted to a single loop of gold to identify my personal rank as a cousin of the Imperial house. Now that I had been assigned to command my own cutter, I had a certain amount of leeway. But what fun was leeway if one didn’t push at its edges?