“But you know now,” I said. “So why not just keep the coral off the Quadrails?”
“Because the sensors can’t detect it,” she said. “I mean, they
And with that, the final, ugly piece dropped into place. Modhran outposts all over the galaxy, accessible only via the Spiders’ own Quadrail system… “You didn’t hire me to find out how to stop a war,” I said quietly. “You hired me to figure out how to
She turned her face away from me. “You have to understand,” she said, her voice suddenly very tired. “We’d finally learned where the enemy was located, but we knew the same limitations that keep one empire from attacking another would also keep us from taking any action against them. We suspected Fayr was up to something, but we assumed he was still just investigating. And here especially the Modhri would make sure that the warships guarding the Tube transfer station were exclusively manned by walkers. We needed a way to break the stalemate.”
Involuntarily, I glanced back out the canopy. I’d forgotten all about those warships, and the fact that they might be burning space on their way here at this very moment. I hoped Fayr wasn’t taking time to smell the flowers. “You could have saved all of us a lot of time if you’d been up front with me in the first place,” I told her. “I could have told you that you do exactly what Fayr did: Bring in stuff to sell and then buy or create your weapons there in the target system.”
She sighed. “I understand that now,” she said. “But the Spiders thought the story of an attack on the Filiaelians would be the only way to get your attention.”
“Especially since Fayr’s technique wouldn’t work on the Fillies,” I conceded. “No weapons black market, and too many genetically loyal soldiers wandering around watching everything.”
“Yes.” Bayta ran a hand through her hair. “But at least now it’s almost over.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not.”
She frowned at me. But before she could ask, there was a ping from my helmet. “Compton?” a voice called faintly.
I picked up the helmet and slipped it over my head. “Here,” I said.
“We have the records and are moving to support the half squad at the dock,” Fayr reported. “Estimate arrival and retrieval in one and two-thirds hours, return one-third later. Hostiles?”
“No sign,” I said, looking out the canopy and giving the displays a quick check. “I think all the unfriendlies must be on your side of the fence.”
“Acknowledged,” he said. “Be watchful.”
“You, too.”
He clicked off, and I took my helmet off again. “He says they’ll be back in about two hours,” I told Bayta. “Then maybe we’ll find out whether it’s over or not.”
They were back exactly two hours and five minutes later. Rather to my surprise, all of them made it, including the two commandos from the sub. They had apparently succeeded in destroying all the coral they could find, while Fayr had located and pulled all the records stored in that part of the complex. He ordered a few quick preparations, and we were ready to go.
Unfortunately, the unwanted company was already coming up the walk.
“There,” Fayr said, pointing at the long-range display as we ran up the torchferry’s thrusters and eased cautiously away from the now out-of-business harvesting complex. “You see it?”
“It would be hard to miss,” I said. In actual fact, of course, most people
“It won’t be possible to get past him,” Fayr said calmly as we reached a safe distance from the complex’s remaining defenses and lifted away from the surface.
“We’re sure not going to talk our way out of it,” I warned, frowning as he punched in our course. He was turning us toward the edge of Cassp’s disk, sitting directly ahead like a huge black hole in space with only its edge lit as the outer atmosphere refracted the light from the distant sun.
The Tube, though, was in exactly the opposite direction. The only thing in that direction was —“
“Why not?” he replied calmly. “It has a population of over three billion, including at least a hundred thousand resident Bellidos and three thousand Humans. There are also several smaller mining centers, colonies, and homesteads in the inner system. What better place for a small group of fugitives to hide until they can arrange passage back to the Quadrail?”
“Except that all those colonies and homesteads have bright shiny police and military units standing around with nothing to do,” I countered. “We’d never even get close before we got cut into bite-sized chunks.”
“Unless we have a plan to avoid that,” Fayr said, examining the power readings and adding a little more juice to the drive.
“Do we?”
“No.” His whiskers twitched. “But the Halkas don’t know that, do they?”
I frowned at him… and then, finally, I understood. “Cute,” I said. “You think they’ll fall for it?”
Hunching his shoulders once, he settled himself down into his flying. “We shall find out together.”
We pulled away from Modhra I, picking up speed as we drove inward through Cassp’s massive gravitational field, still heading for the gas giant’s edge. I alternated my attention between our projected course and the aft displays, and less than ten minutes after our departure I saw the warship’s drive wink out. “He’s turning over,” I reported. “Apparently decided we’re serious about heading inward and doesn’t want to get left behind.”
“A reasonable concern,” Fayr said. “Even without leaving Cassp there are four ring and far-moon mining operations we could be making for.”
I nodded. Torch ships were the fastest civilian spacecraft in the galaxy, but military ships were even faster. But this particular warship had been braking toward an arrival at the Modhra Binary, while we were now blazing away from the twin moons for all we were worth. If the Halkas back there let us build up too much of a velocity difference, they would have a hard time catching up.
Sure enough, the warship’s drive came on again, only now showing behind the sensor dot that represented the hull. “There they go,” I informed Fayr. “Flipped”—I checked the sensor reading—“and pulling pretty close to top acceleration.”
“Intercept point?”
I checked the computer’s projection and made a quick calculation of my own. “About eight hours,” I told him. “More importantly, we’ll be well within Cassp’s outer atmosphere before they’re in missile range.”
“Excellent.” He sent me a sideways look. “I’m told you were fired in disgrace from your empire’s service. Apparently it was not for lack of competence.”
“The wrong political toes got underfoot,” I said. “I’ll tell you all about it someday if you’re interested.”
“I am,” Fayr said. “Let us first see if we survive the next few hours.”
Thirty minutes later, we entered Cassp’s outer atmosphere.
In many ways, it was a good place to be. True, the roiling gases created a certain amount of friction on the hull, which always had the potential to be a problem. It also added drag, which required us to run the drive above its normal operating range in order to maintain our acceleration. But on the plus side it helped diffuse the glow from the drive, which made our position that much harder to pick up on both visual and nonvisual sensors. Fayr continued to move us inward, and the torchferry began to vibrate with turbulence, occasionally picking up more significant bumps and twitches. The glow of our pursuers’ drive faded behind us as we put increasingly thick layers of methane and hydrogen between us, until finally it disappeared entirely behind the planet’s edge.
And with us temporarily out of each other’s sight, Fayr shut down the torchferry’s drive and released the lifter that had been riding our hull since leaving Modhra. Activating its preprogrammed course, he sent it blazing off toward Sistarrko and the inner system.
I watched it fly away with a warm and slightly malicious sense of satisfaction. On paper, of course, it was a ridiculously tissue-thin trick. The lifter’s drive was nowhere near as powerful as the torchferry’s, and even if our
