Part 10 (1/2)

Fingers moved, keyed, moved, depressed another key or set of keys. Firedancer strove to obey. To dodge leftward, then to hurtle straight ahead along 130.

Dot's shallow curve toward the indigo horizon that loomed so close. Corundum's fingers spidered and he muttered to his Jinni and Flredancer did her best to edge rightward, to hurtle upward. And all the while Janja only breathed, working at it, and thought how incredibly strong this man was. The strength of the spirit and the calves that held him erect while all this weight tried to press him flat!

And all the while that strange crisp voice threatened, bade, cited authority and regulations and ”guidelines,” ordered the straining s.h.i.+p to cease striving and freeze. The comm-signal ovals were a pair of constantly flas.h.i.+ng beacons, their rosy light as warm as the words were cold.

”Brace,” Corundum snarled, and let himself collapse into the chair behind it. He had only to unlock his knees. The crus.h.i.+ng hand of inertia supplied the motion.

He slammed into the chair-as Firedancer slammed down onto Dot. He had left off striving and allowed his s.h.i.+p to be slammed down onto the satellite's surface by the policers' paired pinner beams. Pins, that now immobilized the insect. Or the arachnid, Janja thought, considering the way Corundum's fingers had looked on the keys.

Hing got himself to a position approaching safety. Janja felt her abdomen and chest pressing against her seatbelt. Corundum was examining a ca.s.sette, nodding, preparing to inslot it.

”Get flat, Hing,” he said, in a small voice. He in-slotted the guidance ca.s.sette.

Janja did not know which it was, what it instructed the s.h.i.+p to do. She learned only later. She heard the noises and felt the violent lurches, the return of ma.s.sive weight. Corundum had made the next-to-last-ditch effort, the very last ditch being Forty Percent City.

The ca.s.sette he inslotted commanded SIPAc.u.m and Firedancer to actuate every outwardly aimed weapon in a mad blaze of firepower; to lift off at the very limit of human ability to bear the acceleration-and at the 131.

same time to channel power into a traction field at the nearest s.p.a.ceborne object.

That happened to be the MDE s.h.i.+p.

Convinced that she was dying as surely as if she lay beneath a herd of rampaging elephants, Janja heard yelling voices and knew none emanated from Firedancer. The attackers were thrown into confusion. At this moment only Corundum was sure of specific purpose.

His voice seemed a dying engine full of gravel, and it seemed to take a great part of infinity to form its command to Jinni.

”Cu-utt . . . trrra-a-acct-chun fff-fieeeelll . . .”

A moment later Firedancer continued to rush torna-dically at the Murphs.p.a.ce policer s.h.i.+p, now pushed by acceleration but not pulled by its tractor field. Stars were points of light and more; the MDE s.h.i.+p was beginning to resemble a wall in s.p.a.ce.

”Elu-u-ud-de . . . o-ob . . . jec . . . t-t . . .”

That was less easily accomplished, so close was the racing Firedancer to the other craft. Yet the command was carried out. In that violent, tight swerve away from fiery catastrophe. Janja blanked out, with an ugly sound hi her ears. It was the sound of Ring's head striking something-whatever he had been hurled against.

Blasting weaponry had disrupted the policecrafts' fields while ma.s.sive thrust had slammed Firedancer into s.p.a.ce from a little satellite that had no gravitational pull to fight, and Corundum's tractor had made sure that his s.h.i.+p raced at the MDE s.p.a.cer. A desperate burst from the TGW s.h.i.+p missed astern. It plowed into Dot's surface to mildly spectacular effect. At that, someone was mighty wide awake on the RT-Quad Janissary. Awake, and thinking rationally, and acting on it.

The Janissary began swinging, rapidly, as Firedancer rushed at the MDE craft. Onboard, the Murph crew must have been close to panic and frozen by it or nearly. They had also had a tractor beam on them while a madman raced toward them. They neither eluded nor activated defense systemry.

132.

The TGW s.h.i.+p did ...

And Firedancer obeyed Corundum's painfully rasped command to avoid cras.h.i.+ng into the Murphs.p.a.ce craft. Firedancer made that violent, just-short-of-impossible swerve just as the TGW Janissary's weapons sent searing energy at her, unstoppable energy . . .

And the TGW s.h.i.+p destroyed the MDE one.

No one heard that destruction. No one heard anything other than oncomm yells, and a single scream. The flash of light was very bright. Stars seemed to dim as the Murphs.p.a.ce Defense & Enforcement s.p.a.cer emulated a nova.

Then the yells ceased. The MDE s.p.a.cer and her crew did not exist.

”Re-du-u-ussse p-ow . . . errr . . . two-oo z-zeer-r o-o-oh perr . . . cennnt . . .”

s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p Firedancer shuddered. King bounced off something else without a moan. Janja, almost conscious, felt an upward lurch and gasped a breath, for that had become - possible again. Corundum's hands stretched forth again. He depressed, again, the keys that gave him control of the s.h.i.+p. On the console, the hot scarlet lights faded to orange and began winking out. Not all of them.

”Janja! Get that ca.s.sette out. Crew: Report!”

Bearcat's reply came weakly.

”Control of DS to you,” Corundum told him, glancing at Janja, who wallowed loosely hi her chair. ”Stand by to fire. Janja!”

”Fi-Captain . . . yes, Captain.” Bearcat; reluctant but efficient.

Corundum's hand swept out to hit a vertical rectangular key. The slot popped open and out came the course guidance ca.s.sette like a rude tongue. It had done its work. Janja stirred.

”Janja! Janja!”

”Captain?” Bearcat, wondering about Janja.

”Stand by DS! Stand by to fire!”

133.

Janja heard. She snapped back fast and clawed herself into an erect sitting position. Mind and body melded, functioned. She was an ent.i.ty, that fast.

”Janja! Janja! Inslot seven-zero. Inslot ca.s.sette seventy.”

”Right, Captain.”

At her voice and movements to obey, Corundum sighed audibly. Other matters wanted his attention; demanded his attention. The TGW s.h.i.+p was still there. He gave his attention to Jinni, to Firedancer, to TGW.

Janja found the proper course guidance ca.s.sette. She checked it to make sure-reddish waves were coming and going inside her head-and thrust it into its slot. Lights flashed. SIPAc.u.mIJinni was instructed to enter subs.p.a.ce at the first possible instant, with warning if possible. It was possible; this was one of those tunes when within seconds a bell dinged.

”Now, you rotten b.a.s.t.a.r.ds,” Corundum muttered. He completed his s.h.i.+p's arc, aimed it at the TGW craft, and braced. ”Fire fire fire!” His voice was a shout.

Janja blinked. The TGW was onscreen-on several screens. It was not firing. It was not trying to give chase. It was as if everyone onboard was frozen in horror, the horror of having accidentally destroyed the other policercraft. Or perhaps someone was being relieved of command, or a suspected computer was being pulled. Whatever the case, Firedancer was seconds away from whipping them all along the Tachyon Trail and the enemy was not making anything like a hostile move, and Corundum had just ordered- Bearcat fired and fired and fired and suddenly the TransGalactic Watch s.p.a.cer was a sheet of yellow and then a ball of cornea-searing white and then it was no longer there, for almost at the instant of the Janissary's destruction Firedancer and everything onboard was converted to tachyons and was safe, ”in subs.p.a.ce.”

Just as safely as it would have been had Corundum not vindictively ordered the deaths of those crew-members on the TGW s.p.a.cer.

9.

Nosce te ipsum: ”In order to know yourself, it is necessary to have gone through frequent alternations of happiness and un-happiness, and that's something you cannot give yourself.”

Stendhal Just before its death off the satellite called Dot in System Aristarkos, TransGalactic Watch s.p.a.cer # 809-QJ, got off a message via coherent light-beam. An a.s.sortment of relay stations batted it on, zig-ging and zagging around the geothermal noise of the many, many enormous generators at galaxy center; those generators were called suns. The message fled along energy beams to headquarters: TransGalactic Order.

She was pretty, and pretty short, and her hair was a shocking shade of pale. It was pretty short, too. Her eyes were unbelievable. No one had eyes the color of twelve centimeters of water in a pan whose bottom was pale blue. No one caused children's eyes to be changed 134.

135.