Darkship Thieves Page 4

  I went down the other way, till I came to the set of stairs I'd guessed existed somewhere. The stairs led to another floor. Most of the doors here were marked with the timeless radiation-hazard sign. I knew that signs often lied, but I didn't feel foolhardy enough to try just yet. And besides, this seemed to be a small, intimate spaceship, so to whom would the signs lie?

  While the level upstairs had been carpeted in bright red, plushy stuff, this level was all dimatough, polished and cold.

  I came upon another staircase—with a ramp to the other side, which was odd. Was this spaceship set for disabled access? Who was disabled? Blondie? And why? If bio-improvement were allowed and not forbidden as on Earth, why have disabilities?—and took the ramp down, as silently as I could. It wasn't difficult to be silent, as the steps were made of dimatough, solid as stone and immovable, and I was barefoot.

  This level was carpeted again, and as I moved slowly clockwise, I could tell it was inhabited. It had that feel. I passed a broad, empty room full of monitors and what looked like blank gemboards. And then I came to the door of another broad room.

  My calico-haired friend was there, sitting, with his back to me—such his confidence—fully absorbed in something taking place on the screen in front of him.

  The screen was too dark for me to see exactly what he was looking at, but whatever it was, it had his attention, as he worked a joystick with his right hand and ran his hand frantically over a sensepad to his right.

  I removed my belt as soundlessly as I could. I wasn't going to kill him. Yet. But it was essential that he thought I was. Winding the belt around both of my wrists, with a generous strip left free in between, I waited till he looked down for a moment, so he wouldn't see my reflection on the screen.

  He looked up, just as I surged into the room, and I saw his eyes—reflected on the screen—widen, just as I wrapped the belt around his neck and twisted.

  Six

  In reflection, on his almost dark screen, his eyes widened further, while his hands came up, to claw at his own neck, trying to dislodge the belt. Not a chance. What there was a chance of, was my killing him. Which would be a problem.

  I've had an easy time with machinery and electronics since I could remember, but these controls looked a little complex to learn before I blew myself up on the next ripe powerpod. So I had to be careful, and bring my prey within sight of his own death without pushing him over.

  This required my knee at his back, in between his shoulder blades; my hands pulling just enough to keep him struggling without making him lose consciousness. I watched his eyes. As soon as he looked dazed enough, I would let go and I . . .

  His foot kicked at a lever on the floor. I had a millisecond to wonder if it was reflexive action. In the next moment his hand let go of his neck and he unbuckled himself from the seat. And we floated.

  No gravity. No gravity. I whimpered, as my feet lost all contact with the distant floor, and there was no floor, no ceiling. My stomach twisted.

  The creature freed himself from the belt, and growled something that sounded like another language under his breath. He turned around, mouth in a snarl. His hand, massive and square, positioned just below my breasts, pushed. I went back and spun.

  I tried to fight. I've fought many men, many who should fight better than I or who were stronger. This was like fighting a shadow. He moved . . . He was everywhere. He slid past me, fast. Fast like being in a dream where people change positions before you can track them.

  I tried to kick but never made contact. I tried to claw and scratch, but it seemed to have no effect. His features were frozen in stony anger, his teeth clamped together and showing between his drawn lips which had, in turn, gone pale. And he was muttering something that was little more than a growl, as he pushed me back and back and back, and pinned me against one of the walls.

  I bit him, hard, on the arm that held me pinned. He grabbed the back of my hair and pulled till my mouth opened and I let go. He didn't give his bleeding arm more than a glance.

  Glaring at me, his lips drawn into a rictus of fury, he muttered things, of which only a few words were understandable. "Earthworm . . . vicious . . . uncontrolled . . . I was going to let you live. I was going to . . . Tell me why in Blazing Light I shouldn't space you?"

  I opened my mouth, but no sound came. My throat felt dry and abraded, as if I'd been screaming for a long time. Whatever he was, he wasn't human. He certainly wasn't normal human. He wasn't . . . No one could move like that. I swallowed, but there was no saliva to soothe my throat. Instead of words, a pitiful whimper came out of my mouth.

  I didn't think being cute was going to save me this time. He wasn't even touching anywhere near my breasts. Though my slip was split open, the halves floating, his hand pushed solidly between my breasts and my stomach. And in his odd eyes there was no sign at all of masculine appreciation for curves.

  "Tell me," he said, his voice more understandable, but not that much calmer. "Now."

  Something exploded. At first I thought it was my head—such the sense of pressure and danger, such the need to answer, somehow. And then I realized it came from outside the ship. And then we started rolling, rolling, end over end, accompanied by thuds and pops of hitting something—several somethings outside.

  I had time to think of the dimatough trunks, the explosive powerpods. My companion clearly thought the same, as he let go of me, and said, "Oh, hell."

  And then the lights went very bright, then dark, then normal. Gravity reasserted itself and I fell. I saw my playfellow on the floor, pulling at the lever with both hands.

  So the lever was gravity, was it? I'd never seen a ship that could turn gravity off and on that easily and I wondered why. But he wasn't paying any attention to me. Which might be a good time to attack him, only, of course, I wasn't sure I could win. I also didn't know anything else to do. It wasn't like he was just going to forget I'd tried to strangle him. Was he?

  He sat down in his seat, and buckled himself with what seemed to be a reflex motion. He ran his hands along the keyboard, and along a panel next to it, where a series of raised dots shifted places quickly—whether in response to his touch, I didn't know.

  Words still came from him, under his breath, but now they seemed to be more the muttering of someone who is cursing fate. "Can you see the screen?" he asked me. "Can you see anything on the screen?"

  I'd thought we were not on speaking terms, but I squinted at the screen, and could make out, amid the prevailing darkness, some twisting darker lines and some brighter spots. "Pods and trunks?" I asked.

  "So you're not completely stupid," he said. "Can you tell me how to get out of here?"

  "Why . . . why . . ."

  He made a sound at the back of his throat. "Because I'm blind. The flash of light blinded me. Temporarily. My eyes are light sensitive. It's part of my ELFing."

  His . . . ELFing. Oh, no. I wasn't going to ask. He could be any mythical critter he wanted. I was not going to ask at all.

  He mistook my silence for something else. "Don't even think about it. I can beat you, even blind. Besides, if you don't help me, we're going to run into something and die. As far as I can tell, from my memory of where we were and how we rolled, we're in a cul de sac, surrounded by pods and trunks. How do we get out?"

  I wasn't thinking of anything. I knew he could beat me with his eyes closed. And probably without hands. It was a novel experience, meeting someone who could do this. Aloud I said, "Forward . . . um . . . the way you're facing. At least if the screen is the same orientation we are. Slowly."

  He obeyed, his hands dancing on the keyboard with eerie precision when one realized he couldn't see. We slowly advanced amid the cul the sac of branches. I could now see—well, sort of see, a lot of the screen took guessing—that we were surrounded above and below as well.

  "There's a branch at the end too," I said. "We're going to have to squeeze out."

  He only grunted.

  "Slightly down," I said. "Down, down, down.
A little more. Faster than that, damn it."

  And we were in the gullet, we were squeezing out. Squeezing. A scraping sound from outside, a faltering in the sound of motors I hadn't even noticed before, and then the sound picked up again, on a higher note, and a muscle jumped in my . . . captor's jaw.

  But we were out and I directed him: "Up now. Now forward. Now down."

  We wound like a bit of string through the knotted trunks of the powertree ring. The thing is, though it's called a ring, it is no such thing. It is more like a ball of yarn, thick and huge, an artificial satellite the twin of the moon. It might have been a ring in the time of the Mules but for the last two hundred and fifty years it had been fed overtime to satisfy the ever-larger craving for energy from Earth populations. Add to that the random blowing up and reseeding of ripe, unharvested pods, and you had . . . a cat's cradle for a particularly large and radioactive cat.

  We wound through it and spit out the other side, into what the screen showed as a space free of pods and trunks.

  My captor turned his sightless eyes—huge and more bewilderingly catlike than ever—towards me. "How good are you with machines?" he asked.

  "Why? Why . . . ?" I asked.

  "Because if you can't go outside and fix the node we scraped off in that tight place, we're going to die."

  Seven

  "Why are we going to die?" I asked. "We're out of the powertrees." I told myself he was trying to scare me. That was all he was doing. But why did he need to scare me? He'd already fought me into a corner. And I knew he could still do it, even blind.

  "Because we're on auxiliary power. If you don't fix the node, the power will fail."

  "We won't have lights?"

  "Or water," he said. "Or air."

  "Oh.

  "So, how good are you with machines?"

  "Very," I said. And it occurred to me it sounded like I was boasting, but it was the plain truth. "I keep the brooms in the lair flying."

  "Brooms? Never mind. This is quite beyond household machinery, but you're all I have."

  I bit my lip. The brooms were not household machinery. They were antigrav wands that could be ridden. Though highly illegal everywhere on Earth, except as means of lifesaving in an accident, they were, of course, used. I'd been riding them since I was twelve and most of my time on Earth was spent at my broomer lair. But if darkship thieves didn't know about brooms, I wasn't going to enlighten them.

  He got up, tentatively, hands flitting around him, to orient himself. "I have a spacesuit," he said. "Should fit you."

  If it belonged to him, it would fit me like a pair of galoshes fit a snake. My head still hurt from where he had slammed it into the wall.

  He passed me—flit of the hand in my direction, barely brushing my shoulder—and said, "Follow me," as he rushed ahead. And I mean rushed. I could tell, from the way he put his foot down hesitantly, at first, then firmed the step, and from the way his hands fluttered to the walls now and then that he was indeed blind and trying to orient himself. But he walked faster than I'd ever seen anyone walk while they lacked use of their eyes.

  He led me up to the curving corridor, to the floor without any living quarters or steering arrangements. There he stopped, in front of what seemed to be a solid wall. He felt at the wall, then punched it in three points. His face had set in something between rage and pain. I didn't want to disturb him. I was half afraid he was punching the wall because he was crazy, and even more afraid he would turn around and punch me if I made a sound.

  But to my surprise, the wall slid open, a panel disappearing into another panel. Revealed was a small compartment in which a bright blue suit hung. It didn't look like a spacesuit. It looked like a bright blue, knit stretch one-piece. As he picked it up, it hung limply from one hand.

  "That's not a spacesuit," I said. Could he be confused? He was blinded.

  "Of course it is," he said.

  "The pressures . . ."

  "It's bioed fabric. Do you mean Earthworms' suits are different?"

  I didn't say anything, just reached for the thing. It felt cold and scaly to the touch, though it looked absolutely smooth. I couldn't see any way of opening it. It seemed to be a single knit piece, but when I pulled at the front, it opened, from top to bottom, like stickfast or a zipper. I slipped it on, then closed it down the front. It felt oddly warm once I was in it, though nowhere like my spacesuit back in Father's ship. And the gloves that were part of it felt like a second skin, even more sensitive than surgical gloves.

  "It will stay closed until you pull it forcefully apart," he said. I jumped. Was he reading my mind? But he grinned—a fast and unfriendly flash of teeth. "It would be like Earthworm brains to worry." He was holding something that looked like a ski mask. "Helmet," he said.

  I was past arguing and slipped the thing on, to find that it was completely enclosed, something as transparent as glass, as malleable as fabric, covering my face. I had a moment of panic and suffocation, and then he straightened, from near the compartment, holding two large, reflective cylinders that he slapped on my back. They stuck there, and he did something, and suddenly fresh oxygen filled the suit. So, it was airtight. But I had no time to dwell on it, because he was putting boots in front of me. They looked like stylish metallic ankle boots and they fit me perfectly. The whole suit fit me perfectly. I looked at mine host and knew there was no way, there simply was no way this was his. Well, his chest was broader than mine, which might make accommodation for my breasts, but there was no way his height or bulk converted to mine. And in no way could his boots ever fit me.

  He walked ahead of me again, to a door marked—surprisingly in Glaish—with danger. door leads to vacuum. It had a genlock, on a grey membrane, upon which he lay his palm flat. The door retracted open—it was the only way to describe it. Each half contracted soundlessly, like a membrane, though it looked mechanical, and he stepped through. We were, clearly, in an airlock. He took a box that was attached to the wall near the outer door. "This is a tool box," he said. "It will open the node. It should be the one closest to this door. Inside the node, the blue . . . it's not a wire, but it will look like one to you, if history vids are right, should be feeding into the gold one. If it's not, change that. There's diagrams on the lid of what the circuit inside the node should look like."

  I looked at him. "What . . . how will I hold onto the ship? Are the boots magnetic?"

  "No," he said. "But that's fine, because the ship really isn't metal either. It's . . . localized gravity. The boots are attracted to the ship. The suit too. You won't drift away." He gave me a tight smile. "And the tool box is attracted to the ship too, so you can set it beside you. The tools are locked in it, just don't put a tool down out of place. It will float away." He approached the grey membrane on this door, and placed his hand on it, but it didn't open. "I'm going to leave. That door has a minute delay to make sure you're ready."

  "But—" I said.

  He stopped and turned around. "I'll let you in when you're done," he said.

  Frankly, that was the least of my worries. And there were many worries. Like, what exactly a node was and how I'd find the one that was broken. It should be the one closest to this door didn't exactly reassure me. It might not be that one. And I wasn't absolutely convinced this spacesuit would work, either. It was like nothing I'd ever even heard of on Earth. Were the darkship thieves truly that advanced? Could they be?

  But my captor had left. The outer door was spinning open. And I couldn't go back in the ship. I was sure the genlock in the middle of the inner door wouldn't open for me. And if it did, what would it mean? Other than that I would be able to die inside, without air when systems failed?

  I stepped out of the door, to find there was a narrow little walkway around the ship. Kind of like the representations of the rings of Saturn. I stepped onto it, and began walking around it, looking for anything that might be a node.

  Ahead, there was a rounded swelling in the skin of the ship. I grabbed onto it, and it pulled op
en as though on hinges, though no hinge was visible. Inside . . .

  Inside was a jumble I couldn't begin to understand. The creature had said I'd see wires, but there was nothing like wires. There were . . . capillaries, maybe, plus a confusion of painted circuits linked by those pulsing capillaries. The color of the capillaries was dark grey. All of them were dark grey, except if you squinted, you could sort of see, against the dark grey color, as though flickers of another color.

  Instantly, despite the coolness of fresh oxygen, sweat sprang up inside the suit and beaded on my forehead. I looked over my shoulder at space, immense and looming out there. To my right the powertrees glowed eerily. To my left, blackness punctuated with pinpoints of light, immense and dark and presumably devoid of life, save the Mules beyond.

  Then I looked at the circuit again. And still could not make heads or tails of it. Sweat was pooling above my eyebrows, a little trickling down and making my eyes sting. I would never get done here. And if I didn't get done, I wouldn't be able to get back in. Not the least because my captor would be dead of suffocation.

  My hands felt slippery inside the gloves. A single thought formed in my mind, overpowering all. I don't want to die.

  Who are you? The creature's voice sounded in my mind, unmistakable. Can you hear me?

  Eight

  Of course I can hear you, I thought, annoyed that he doubtless could hear me too.

  The thoughts forming in my head were not a pleasant form of communication, even if they came with so much of my friend the ELF's intonation and feel that there was no imagining they could be mine. I assumed something built into the suit made thought transmission possible. Or some form of subperceptible sound that sounded like thought. Looking at their circuits, I thought they'd developed centuries ahead while we stayed, more or less, still. And what do you mean, who am I?