The Sea is Full of Stars

“I can understand me, but why her?” the Geldorian asked, trying not to provoke the big man any further. And if Nakitt could get the subject off the fate of certain Geldorians, it would make the next waiting period a bit more tolerable and probably less painful.

It wasn’t as if any of them could do much until the rescue party arrived, so Jules Wallinchky didn’t mind being the center of it all.

“She’s the Captain’s friend and known to the ship’s computer net,” the crime boss explained. “Kincaid can undock the tow from us and then blow us to bits, you know. That’s why we tried to ensure that nobody would be up there when we stopped. He’s perfectly capable of doing that, and even more so now that the innocent passengers are gone.” He raised his voice and looked toward the ceiling, more as a dramatic gesture than because anything was really there. “But not all the innocents are away, are they, Captain? And while you might gladly do any of us in, even her, if it meant getting closer to your enemy, we aren’t your enemy, are we, Captain? What do we care about Hadun? So you go at him, Captain, but leave us alone. I understand your viewpoint even though almost nobody else does. You’re no murderer— you’re an executioner. That’s okay with me. Go at them, Captain. But remember her and leave all of us out.”

There wasn’t any response. Wallinchky didn’t expect one. Still, he knew he’d made his point.

The crime king looked back down at the still unconscious Angel on the deck, her hands and feet tied behind her and together in much the same manner as Tann Nakitt. “Besides,” he added in a lower, menacing tone, “I saw how she moved and could fight. Not at all the Sister Helpless she appeared at the start of this trip. And she’s got a pretty good body there. Erase the memories, reinforce the skills, and she might be a nice addition to my personal staff. As for the lady cop, I’m positive she’ll change sides.” Ming, too, was trussed up like Angel and still out cold.

A tone sounded from a small communicator on Wallinchky’s belt. He unclipped it and said into it, “Yes?”

“We have a signal response on the proper frequency with valid codes,” a strange, distant, flat voice told him.

“Very well. I’m moving everybody into Boat Four now. Cover us in case there are any surprises.”

“Will do.”

He reclipped the communicator and looked at the large party that had been sitting around. Each of the two Mallegestors picked up a Terran prisoner in one hand, carrying them as if they were no more than a small bag of snacks. One of them picked up Tann Nakitt with the other.

“Hey! Watch it, jumbo!” the Geldorian snapped. “I bruise easy!”

The Mallegestor gave a loud snort which could have been a kind of laughter.

Behind them, first the Kharkovs, then the Rithians, followed, and finally came Wallinchky and his pair of bodyguard mistresses.

Ari Martinez was already in the lifeboat, and he had the forward control panel disassembled and a set of small cubes with internal flashing light points set into the boat’s electronics.

The four Rithians took the rear seats, two on each side, then the Mallegestors eased into adjusted seats that could hold them, one on each side, with Nakitt in the port empty seat, hemmed in, and nobody in the starboard empty. Next, Wallinchky sat in front of the Mallegestor on the starboard side, and his two pretty companions took the seats on port and starboard side in front of the crime boss. The two Terran prisoners were quite literally hung from the two other seats next to the bodyguards, the seats in front of them providing a kind of stake through the bound hands and feet so that they were held against the seat backs, looking aft. The front of those seats, the empty ones on each side, were for the drawn and frightened-looking Kharkovs. Ari Martinez had the jump seat, next to the jury-rigged console and facing aft himself, although more comfortably.

He got up, closed and sealed the hatch manually, then took his seat again, reaching down and picking up a tablet the size of a large notebook. He pressed some areas on it, and the lifeboat’s forward screen came to life, showing the boat moving off from the larger vessel and the connector pulling off and remaining there, half extended, as if waving goodbye.

“Any trouble in getting Kincaid’s stuff out of the guts of this thing?” Wallinchky asked him.

“No, not really. It was pretty basic, but it couldn’t be done until after it was activated. I’m not sure it occurred to him that no power in the boat also meant no power to his monitors.”

Wallinchky chuckled. “His mind was on other things.” He turned as he heard a moan from his left, just forward. “Ah! The sleeping beauties are coming around!”

It had felt to Angel as if she were falling down a long, dark tunnel at breakneck speed, only occasional flashes of light here and there and terrible distorted sounds breaking the otherwise monotonous free fall. Now the noise increased, became an increasingly louder rushing noise, like white or pink noise gradually increasing in volume to nearly unbearable levels. Then she came to, but wished she hadn’t, as every muscle in her body seemed to protest in throbbing or sharp pains, and there was tremendous disorientation. Her arms and legs were in particular pain, and she tried to move them but found that she could not.

Angel opened her eyes, but they wouldn’t focus and showed multiple whirling visions of a lot of people she didn’t want to see very much. She shut her eyes, tried to slow down the room or wherever it was, and began a series of calming and breathing exercises that seemed to help somewhat.

Next was tuning out the pain, or as much of it as she could. Then she brought her head back up and opened her eyes to an almost steady scene, although she still had blurry double vision.

“What? Who?” she managed, her voice sounding like the croak of the walking dead even to her ears.

“Welcome back!” Wallinchky said with smug cheerfulness. “I see your lovely friend is also coming around. It’s no use trying to struggle against the bonds. We know how to tie them right, and they’ll just tighten and get worse. If you struggle, it’ll cut off your circulation and you might lose some limbs, which may not be worth regenerating in a med-tank. That depends on how much trouble you are. Oh— terribly sorry! I forgot. I am Jules Wallinchky, the Realm’s greatest collector.”

“Collector?” Angel managed. “Of what?”

“Why, of everything, of course. Art, wealth, knowledge, people, services, political power, great inventions—you name it, I got it. Some folks in the past went out to conquer their world or their system or even the entire Realm. They all failed, in the end. Even Alexander the Great died a mere youth, mostly because he felt there were no new worlds worth conquering. Fortunately, our physical and personal universe is infinite, so for me conquest has never stopped being a source of fun and satisfaction, maybe because, unlike this Emperor Hadun, I have no desire to conquer the universe itself. Someone else can do that. 1 don’t conquer it, I acquire it. Or anything within it that I want. I have whole planets devoted just to storing and displaying my most private acquisitions.”

“Wallinchky, you bastard,” Ming managed in a voice that sounded as bad as Angel’s. “What are you going to do with us? Why didn’t your hired hand just kill us and be done with it?”

The crime king chuckled. “Weren’t you listening, my dear? I have no desire to kill two such attractive and capable young women. I’ve simply acquired you, you see. I’ll be taking you both home with me. There you will be— prepared—and properly set up to join my collection, just as the Kharkovs will be polishing and repairing the settings on my most precious gems.”

“I’ll see you in Hell first!” Ming snapped.

“Well, you’ll still be mine even if we go that route, but I doubt we will,” he responded. “That soreness and taste of blood in your mouth is from where we removed the poison while you were out. Ivan Kharkov is a wizard with all sorts of little things like that. And we won’t trigger your implanted death command. Far from it. I don’t want to ask you anything at all, so there won’t be any hot button to push. In fact, I think we’ll simply erase and replace. Probably for the both of you. It’s easier that way. Knowledge is only important if it’s useful, and I suspect that neither of you know anything I don’t.” Wallinchky grinned. “And it’s not your personalities that I find attractive.”

“God will smite you for this abomination!” Angel spat.

“I doubt it, but by all means pray silently for it to happen. I suspect you’ll find out what I did long ago as a child—that God answers every prayer, but the answer is almost always no.”

“Can’t you at least let us sit in seats and get circulation back?” Ming pleaded with him. “This is very painful.”

“Sorry. I don’t mean to keep you in pain—I really don’t— but one of you is a trained undercover policewoman,