predicament.
Bergen grew slowly enthusiastic as I told my stories. His wife simply stared at me. Maybe the isolation of the slowboat crew shift did not agree with her psyche. Svensdottir stared at me, too, but with a weighing gaze; she was clearly in command, the one to convince.
I told my hosts about the vessel some distance out from Feynman that had carried me here. I explained how it would retrofit Feynman with a gravitic polarizer drive, allowing the slowboat to make it the rest of the way to Sol in a matter of weeks.
Bergen stroked his chin thoughtfully. “So we would need to deactivate the ramscoop fields, yes?”
I nodded agreement. “The tender vessel is large. I don’t think that it could work its way through the fluxlines, even with the protective field from the gravitic polarizers.”
“This would take time,” Svensdottir said. ‘We must avoid instability of the field as it is being shut down. The fusion drive is most delicately balanced.” She stood. “I will go below and begin programming the shutdown mode.”
I blinked. I had anticipated some more doubt, maybe even opposition, debate. But then, they were desperate in here. The long years had worn them. Then I knocked on their door, bringing safety freedom, hope.
I swallowed what I was feeling. Concentrated on images of innocent faces, a woman’s severed hand.
After the old gray woman left I looked over at Bergen. “She seems a bit hard edged.”
That is true. But she has kept Feynman going, all this time.” He smiled a bit, against his innate Herrenmann sobriety.
“You mean she’s been on duty the entire trip?”
He nodded. “From the time we boosted away from Wunderland, just ahead of the kzin. She took one look at the destruction of the Serpent Swarmer fleet behind her, and refused coldsleep.” Bergen looked pensive. “Since the lifesystems on board don’t work terribly well, we take frequent shifts. But the old woman… well, she has stayed on shift for nearly forty years.”
“Odd,” I replied.
“Space is deep, Herr Hochte. We are the same age, she and I,” Bergen said. “I slept most of the time.”
“Could you have not talked her into shifts? After all, spending one’s life this way… “I pursed my lips, gestured around me at the slowboat.
He shrugged. “She insists.”
Typical Herrenmannen behavior.
I nodded. “A formidable woman. You have all been brave. Earth will hail you.” Might as well hand out the compliments. It relaxed people. Madchen Franke smiled, clearly a rare expression for her.
I shrugged. “Well, while your estimable leader is looking over the fusion drive shutdown parameters, we have one more order of business.” I reached into my carryall and very casually removed a stylus. I wanted to take care of this as quickly as possible, just in case there were further complications. I did not want anyone doing anything to ship systems without my supervision. Too much risk.
Careful to breathe through my nose I twisted at the cylinder I was holding. An invisible, inaudible puff complete surprise. An incipient shock on Bergen’s face glazed to a sleeping mask. The welding laser thumped uselessly on the floor below Franke’s nerveless fingers. Her expression was little different, awake or asleep.
Quick and neat.
Invisible nose filters no longer needed-the gas degraded to harmlessness in less than thirty seconds-I heaved a great gasp of the ship’s pungent air. Pocketing the stylus, I carefully laid them out flat on the control room floor. Then I reached for the welding laser. Time to do a little hunting.
“I knew it.” Suddenly I realized that I had half expected the voice from the hatchway-but why? I turned around to face the fragile old woman. The laser would not be necessary. Svensdottir, unarmed, ignored me completely. She was looking at the bodies of Bergen and Franke.
I said nothing. She ignored it.
Her eyes finally raised to mine. “Are they alive?”
“Yes,” I told her calmly. Soothing. “A simple nerve gas. It will wear off in a few hours.”
“You are working for the kzin.” Not a question.
I nodded again, removing the nose filters and stuffing them into a pocket. I didn’t want to insult her or myself by explaining my actions. How could she possibly understand?
“I suppose that you will put me down now, like some kind of inconvenient pet.” I could see the harsh lines deepen around Svensdottir’s mouth in the control-room light. Disapproval carved those features, like a great-aunt surveying some broken dishes left by a clumsy toddler on an unwanted visit.
“Hardly,” I told her. “My… employers… will need you left alive, as guides and teachers.”
Her eyes narrowed, then widened. She seemed to instantly grasp the Trojan Cat gambit. “Never.”
“That is what I said,” I said softly, almost kindly. “Now look at me.”
“Well, what is next, traitor?” I couldn’t look at her eyes. Didn’t want to see the accusation peering from that old face.
I paused, wet my lips. The words were difficult. “There is something you can do for me.”
The old woman said nothing, stony-faced. I could see that she was a hard woman, had always been a hard woman. She fairly vibrated with her hatred at my betrayal.
“Tante,” I said soffly.
She looked up at me sharply, face gone rigid. Her pale eyes stared into mine, studying, studying. Her wrinkles seemed etched deep by pain and loss. I knew how she felt. She raised a wisp of an eyebrow, her Herrenmann ears long and incongruous on her thin face. “You shouldn’t call me your auntie,” the old woman said at last, her tone almost gentle. “You are a traitor.”
“Did you know Helga Schleisser?” I finally asked, ignoring her insult.
Another long silence, then she sighed. “Ja. She was a proud woman; perhaps too proud.” Dry crackling precision. “She had her duty and honor to carry out. It was a heavy burden for her to bear.” Svensdottir considered it for a moment. “Perhaps too heavy.”
I snorted in derision.
The old woman poked me hard with a gnarled, fearless finger. “Do not make light of honor and duty nor their weight, Herr Hochte. They are qualities that set us apart from the beasts.” A frown deepened her wrinkles. “Yet too much attention to those qualities makes us little different than the ratcat teufels, is it not so?”
I nodded. I couldn’t stand much more of this. The stylus was a burning weight in my pocket. I suddenly remembered Sharna’s bell-like laugh in the welcoming darkness of our compartment.
“What happened to Helga Schleisser?” I persisted.
“I’ll show you,” the old woman replied, and motioned me toward the corridor. I let Svensdottir lead the way. She was unarmed. My micrograv reflexes were better than hers. I had nothing to fear.
The curving corridor finally led to a sealed hatch, which the old woman unlocked with an identikey from around her neck. The hatch sighed and slid aside, releasing foggy, bitterly cold air into the corridor. I shivered. A chilly brush of the liquid nitrogen at 77 degrees Absolute. A touch of the grave-though a temporary one. Dim lights flickered on inside the ceramic chamber.
I followed her into a connected series of cargo holds, filled from floor to ceiling with row after row of identical cryosuspension bunks. Svensdottir seemed to know exactly where she was going as she passed the stacked ranks of coffinlike containers. Finally, she stood in front of one lower-tier coldsleep bunk, gestured. I could see the name illuminated by glowing lights on the case: HELGA YAKOBSON SCHLEISSER.
The coldsleep bunk was empty.
I looked back at Svensdottir in confusion. Just in time for the magneto wrench to catch me in the pit of my stomach.
I drifted to my knees in the low gravity gasping, grabbed for her legs-and she clubbed me again, behind the ear this time. Sharp pain. Contracting vision.
“I couldn’t do it, my son,” she told me sadly. When I could open my eyes, bright lights swam before them. Somehow she had gotten a welding laser and was pointing it at me. Cool, stern. She had set all of this up. Set me up, smooth as water ice. “Uh, I-”
“I thought that it was wrong to sleep away the decades, to let others bear my burdens. I had lost Henry, you… everything. All I had left was keeping Feynman going, and reaching Sol. Just honor and duty.” She gestured at the
