officially the Fleet claimed it didn’t care who coupled with whom, customs had developed over the centuries to restrain at least a few of the crew’s impulses. Division chiefs were discouraged from relations with their subordinates, because of the danger of coercion or of playing favorites. Relations between officers and enlisted were likewise discouraged, at least if they belonged to the same ship—Martinez’s connection with Warrant Officer Taen was well within the Fleet’s range of tolerance. And relations between the captain and any of his crew was not only considered a violation of custom, but bad luck as well.
A loophole served the officers, however, since they were allowed servants, with whom recreationals were unlimited. But this happened less often than an observer might expect: Martinez suspected that living with a paid companion in the close confines of a warship was too much like the least attractive aspects of a marriage—all the boredom and constraint of living intimately with a person one simply couldn’t escape, and all without the relaxation and charm of getting away from routine to visit a lover in her own place.
Coronahad eight recreation tubes, two of them forward and reserved for officers. Martinez properly logged himself into the recreation chamber so that Vonderheydte could page him if he was needed. Martinez was expecting missile launches or some other emergency any second, and there was little time for preliminary caresses or endearments. He was surprised at the desperate quality of his own desires, the unexpected fury of his lust. Kelly mirrored his urgency, lost in explosive pleasure nearly from the start, clutching at him with the little red-knuckled fists at the end of her long, slim forearms.Alive! he thought.Alive!
Afterward, with Kelly’s head resting on his chest, he wondered how long he dared remain here, how much he should permit himself to relax. He badly wanted to remain in the small tubelike room scented with the odors of clean sheets and the distant undertaste of disinfectant, to close his eyes, and to let the muscles bruised with high gravities relax into the mattress under the light weight of half a gravity. And he wondered how many of the other recreational tubes on the ship were occupied at that moment, with other crew celebrating their escape from death.
It wasn’t a call from Command that brought him to full alertness, but a nearby crash, a sound like the contents of an overfull closet spilling out. A crash that was followed immediately afterward by a long, bellowing laugh.
Well.This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Martinez dressed, left the tube, and followed the laughter to the captain’s cabin, where he found Zhou and Knadjian, along with their partner in crime, Ahmet. All three were stinking drunk on the captain’s liquor, and Zhou was sprawled on the floor, far beyond speech or movement.
“Hey there, Lieutenant!” Ahmet said with a wave. “Come join us!”
Sex wasn’t the only form of celebration, Martinez reminded himself.
At Martinez’s orders, they’d broken into everything in search of the captain’s key, and that apparently included the captain’s liquor store. Once released from duty for a meal, they’d made their way back to where they knew they could drink themselves into a coma.
Martinez paged Alikhan. “Get these people to couches, strap them in, and make sure they’re not in a position to touch a single control,” he said. “Then find every bottle of liquor on this ship, give it to the cooks, and see that it’s put under lock and key.”
“Very good, my lord.”
“That includes the stuff in my cabin. And in Garcia’s.”
“Yes, my lord. I’ll be there directly.”
Martinez rejoined Kelly briefly, and found her dressed and pulling on her shoes. He gave her foot a grateful squeeze—leaning into the tube, it was the only part of her he could reach—and thanked her, with all the sincerity he could muster, for joining him.
“It’s not like I didn’t have fun,” she said.
Martinez returned to Command, waited the few moments it took Kelly to return, then ordered everyone into vac suits for some sustained acceleration. It was best to put distance between them while the Naxids were inactive, he thought.
It took ten minutes or so for the three inebriates to be stuffed into their suits and strapped down, and a little longer for the cooks to secure the galley. Then Martinez ordered increased acceleration, to four gees this time— his tummy, he realized,was a little full for six gravities to sit on it.
Hours passed. Martinez spent his time obsessively studying the displays, watching Magaria’s ring on its slow rotation about its planet, speculating about the Naxids’ lack of activity.
“My lord,” Tracy reported from her station. “Judge Kybiqhas increased acceleration.”
Kybiqwas the cruiser that Fanaghee had placed en route to Wormhole 1, blockingCorona’s escape to Zanshaa.
“Heading for the wormhole?” Martinez asked as he paged through the various displays to find the one that showedKybiq.
“No, my lord. Its heading is for Barbas”—the planet next out from Magaria, a sort of failed gas giant, huge, with a solid core and an atmosphere of furious storms. At the moment, its orbit placed it nearly between Magaria and Wormhole 1, which led to the most direct route to Zanshaa. For the next several months Barbas would be convenient for a slingshot maneuver, by which traffic outbound from Magaria would pick up speed by slinging themselves around it en route to the wormhole.
“Any alteration in course?”
“No, my lord.”
Martinez found theJudge Kybiq on his display, and as he stared at it, he felt a nervous little suspicion begin to grow in his mind. Why was the Naxid cruiser increasing its speed for the wormhole? Why was it suddenly so urgent to head to Zanshaa?
A few minutes with the plotting computer confirmed his suspicions.Kybiq had been accelerating out of Magaria for three days, and it was traveling faster thanCorona even though its accelerations hadn’t been quite so brutal. It was possible that the cruiser could swing around the near side of Barbas and hurl itself for Wormhole 1.
It was equally possible, and a good deal more probable, thatJudge Kybiq could make a slight, last-minute alteration of course, then slingshot itself around thefar side of Barbas and head for Wormhole 4 and an interception ofCorona.
The navplot computer did the math. Depending on how fastKybiq accelerated, it would be three to five days before it could make its slingshot, and then another eight or ten days before the interception. Martinez plotted the worst-case scenario. How hard would he have to accelerate to beat the cruiser to the wormhole?
Not bad. To beat theKybiq by half a day, even if the cruiser advanced at chest-crushing acceleration,Corona would only have to average a constant 3.8 gees for the next fourteen days. He was exceeding that now, and he’d set the pace before he even knew he was in a race.
He didn’t want the Naxids to know he was on to their trick, however, so for the next three days he kept to a regular schedule: accelerating a steady four gees except during mealtimes, when he reduced to a single gravity; with occasional, regular bursts of up to six gees three times a day, for half an hour each time. His body ached, and his ligaments made popping and crackling sounds whenever he moved, butCorona’s crew was staying the course, if not precisely thriving.
By the timeKybiq screamed through its turn around Barbas, subjecting its suffering crew to accelerations in excess of eleven gravities while it was in the planet’s gravity well,Corona had a comfortable lead, and Martinez pulled even farther ahead by increasing the duration of the six-gravity bursts.Kybiq increased its acceleration, but Martinez was able to increase his own proportionally in order to maintain his lead—no matter what the cruiser did, it was going to lose the race, and Martinez took what comfort he could from the knowledge that however much he and his people were suffering, the Naxids’ sufferings were worse.
The acceleration was a dreary grind, however. His body ached and his mind felt dulled. His sleep was uneasy, with suggestive and distasteful dreams, and his waking hours filled with the leaden weight and unwashed stench of his own body.
Martinez knew the Naxids had surrendered the race when they opened fire again. The ships around the ring station fired 190 missiles, and then, sometime later,Kybiq fired two salvos of thirty-two each and then cut its acceleration, giving up the race officially. The barrages were well-planned this time, each missile taking a separate track to converge on theCorona , from many different angles, within the space of about an hour. By the time they
