The Sea is Full of Stars

seemed to be having some success in either jamming or dampening their signals. The more time the better.

Back on board, Angel saw that the loading of the lifeboats was going pretty well. A few didn’t come, but most did, particularly that family Angel had worried so much about. The computer had instructions to launch as soon as the lifeboats were filled, and at least one, with Ari in command, Angel hoped, had already left. She went down to the second one to check on it and saw Ming at the entrance but making no move to board.

“Why aren’t you aboard? You must leave!” Angel cried urgently to the other woman. “I will go back and catch any stragglers.”

Ming shook her head. “Sorry, can’t do it. I wanted one last check to see if anybody else was coming, then I’m sealing it up.”

“But—why?”

“Because I’m a kind of a cop, that’s why, and because my job is to prevent the transfer of that device even if I have to blow it up.” She turned and stuck her head in the door. “Everybody just follow the instructions of the holographic boatswain and you will be fine. Good luck!”

Angel almost moved to put a martial-arts-style kick on Ming’s rear that would have propelled her into the lifeboat, but for some reason she held back. She hoped she wouldn’t regret it.

The hatch swung shut, there was a loud hissing sound, then vibration as the lifeboat detached from its moorings and fully powered up, the corridors shaking as well, and then the lifeboat was gone.

Angel looked at Ming and saw that she had a full-power laser pistol stuck in her belt, which she now removed and checked. “How—How did you even get that on board?” Angel asked her.

“They set it up to smuggle their weapons aboard, so it wasn’t that hard to use the same system,” Ming replied. “Now, let’s check on the third boat and any missing passengers.”

“You should get on the third boat!” Angel pleaded with her. “This is suicide!”

“Maybe, but I know what this sucker is. You don’t. And don’t ask what it is, either. Just trust me that it’s worth a lot more lives than Kincaid’s and mine to keep it out of anybody’s hands, particularly Hadun’s.”

They were moving at a fast walk along the corridor, circling to the other set of boats. As they came to each cabin door, it unlocked and slid away into the bulkhead. They could then check and see if anybody was still in any of them. So far, they’d found a couple, and those had both decided to exit with them. Now, however, they were approaching Boat Station Three.

This was the most dangerous of the positions; the two lifeboats on the side they’d just left were easily accessed by most of the passengers they wanted to reach, and could be blocked off to Wallinchky’s crowd, most of whom had cabins on the far side, basically flanking Wallinchky’s super-luxury suite. The lifeboat nearest that cabin suite at Boat Station Four now had its power off; it could not be turned back on without a complex series of passwords or direct authority of the City of Modar’s computer net.

The other one, however, was kind of a border location. Ari’s cabin was on the wrong side, as was Tann Nakitt’s. Hopefully they were both inside now so that the access could be sealed off, but if not, there could be trouble.

Ari was standing in the lifeboat, frowning, as he watched them approach. His face showed some surprise when he saw Ming with Angel, but he was all business, getting the two stragglers in and settled. Then he came up, out of the lifeboat, and spied Ming’s pistol. “What’s that for, doll?”

“Long story. Anybody missing?”

“No, we’re as good as we’re gonna get. Come on!”

Angel reached the hatch, looked in, then turned and frowned. “Where’s Tann Nakitt?”

“Long story,” he responded, bringing up his own pistol and firing on Angel. Her body was bathed in a sudden glow and then she collapsed, unconscious, to the deck.

The action was so automatic it caught Ming by surprise, but she brought her pistol around on her old friend immediately. That was the problem—he was an old friend, and onetime lover. You don’t pull the trigger that fast on somebody like him when your pistol is set to kill.

That allowed two stun blasts from the Wallinchky women behind her to strike and knock her instantly as out- to-the-world as Angel.

Ari looked down at them. “Take them to the lounge. Any barriers, start shooting up the electrical plates. Move!”

He leaned into the now terrified lifeboat and said, “This does not concern you. I’m closing and you will launch as per normal. Just follow the boatswain’s instructions. Maybe some of us will live through this to explain it all to you. Go with God!” He pulled back, sealed the hatch, and heard and felt the lifeboat detach and shoot away.

He hoped they would make it. They knew virtually nothing about this, and interrogation wouldn’t bring much more in the way of details useful to the authorities. Creatures like this Hadun bastard never cared how many innocents they killed, but he didn’t believe in gratuitous violence. He was particularly sorry about Ming. He’d wanted her to take her lifeboat and be well away when she had the chance. It was only because she showed up here, and with a pistol, that she made her fate inevitable.

The whole module suddenly lurched, throwing him momentarily off balance, and the lighting went on and off erratically for a half minute or so while the cabin doors eerily slid open and closed, open and closed. Then it was over, at least for the moment.

Ari made his way down a spoke corridor to the center lounge. The rest of them were already there, waiting for him.

“What the hell was that?” he grumbled.

Jules Wallinchky was as unflappable as ever. “Don’t let it get to you. We managed to tap in and get some interference going. I don’t think we can rehijack the module computer, but we tapped it enough to remove all those nasty force fields.”

“We have Boat Four on its own power,” one of the Rithians announced, returning just in back of Ari. “Boats Five and Six were never blocked, and our soggy friends are away from the ship and on station. Hard to tell if everybody else is in the other boats and heading out, but it looks like the bulk of the passengers will make planetfall sooner or later.”

“As will we, my friends,” Jules Wallinchky assured them, one of his girls lighting a big, fat cigar for him.

“What do you want me for?” Tann Nakitt grumbled. “I can’t hardly go to the cops, and I don’t give a damn about your deals. Ask the Rithians.” He was now bound hand and foot in what a Terran rancher might call a hog tie. He wanted to bite somebody, but the only one in range was one of the huge Mallegestors, and he’d just break his teeth on it.

Wallinchky blew smoke in the Geldorian’s face, causing the little creature to cough, giving the victim what he’d so recently been fond of handing out. “I know all about your little expedition, and the poison formulas for all sixty-eight races of the Realm that you carry in that memory bubble implanted in your neck. I also know you’d sell out your entire planet if you thought it would get you out of something.” His voice had risen menacingly, and was now filled with rage. “But what I know most is that you knew about all this plotting and planning against me and you did nothing! You said nothing! At least, not to me. To her, to this—this— nun you tell the whole deal! For that I’ll have your fangs and all your countless other teeth extracted one by one and put in a sack with your fingers and toes and other extraneous parts!”

“I didn’t betray you, you bastard!” the Geldorian snapped back, too angry to be scared. “I had no interest in your doings and just wanted to be allowed to continue no matter who won! And I sure hadn’t heard any good offers from you!”

Wallinchky rose, as if he would go over and strike the smaller creature, but then he sat back down and seemed to regain control.

“You hadn’t heard anything from me because I hadn’t decided about you, Geldorian,” the crime king told him in his usual calm, deliberate mode. “Now I have. Don’t worry, though. I have an honorable streak in me. Yes, I do. I might send your people that bubble anyway. Maybe I’ll even send them your whole head. I could use a few favors in that quarter.”

Tann Nakitt said nothing, not even demonstrating that his incredible limberness extended to his arms and wrists and that he could already slip in and out of his bonds at will. There would be time to either try and escape or at least gain revenge; right now it didn’t seem there was anywhere to run, so he decided it would be best to allow them to carry him someplace worth escaping from.