George Martin - Tuf Voyaging

“An understandable aversion,” Tuf safd. “I shall initiate immediate implementation of departure programming. One small difficulty remains, however.”

“What?” she said, all wire-edged impatience.

“Havoc remains in your custody. I cannot leave S’uthlam until she has been returned safely to me.”

“Forget the puling cat!”

“A selective memory is not among my capabilities,” Tuf said. “I have fulfilled my portion of our understanding. You must return Havoc or be in breach of contract.”

“I can’t ,” Tolly Mune said angrily. “Every fly, worm, and spinneret in the station knows that damned cat is our hostage. If I jump on a train with Havoc under my arm, it will be noticed, and someone is going to ask questions. Wait for that cat, and you’re risking everything. “

“Nonetheless,” said Haviland Tuf, “I fear I must insist.”

“Goddamn you,” swore the Portmaster. She wiped out his image with a single furious snap of her fingers.

When she reached the Worldview’s lofty atrium, the host greeted her with a brilliant smile. “Portmaster!” he said happily. “How good to see you. You’re being paged, you know. If you’d care to take the call in my private office . . . ”

“Sorry,” she said, “pressing business. I’ll check in from the room.” She rushed past him to the elevators.

Outside the door were the guards she had posted. “Portmaster Mune,” the left one said. “We were notified to watch for you. You’re to call in to the security office at once.”

“Certainly,” she said. “You two, get down to the atrium, and fast.”

“Is there a problem?”

“A big one. A brawl. I don’t think the staff can handle it alone.”

“We’ll take care of it, Ma.” They ran off together.

Tolly Mune went inside. The room was a relief; only a quarter gee, compared to the full gravity of the corridors and atrium. It was a tower suite. Beyond a triple-thick window of transparent plasteel was the vast globe of S’uthlam, the rocky surface of Spiderhome, and the brilliance of the web. She could even see the bright line that was the Ark , shining in the yellow light of S’ulstar.

Havoc was curled up asleep on the floater cushion in front of the window, but the cat hopped down when she entered and came bounding across the carpet, purring loudly. “I’m glad to see you, too,” Tolly Mune said, scooping up the creature. “But now I have to get you out of here.” She looked around for something large enough to hide her hostage.

The comm unit began to scream at her. She ignored it and continued to search. “Goddamn it,” she said furiously. She had to hide the puling cat, but how? She tried wrapping her up in a towel, but Havoc didn’t like that idea at all.

The comm unit cleared—a security override. The head of port security was staring at her. “Portmaster Mune,” he said, deferential for the moment, though she wondered how long that would last once the situation became clear to him. “There you are. The First Councillor seems to believe you have some difficulty. Is there a problem?”

“None at all,” she said. “Is there any reason for intruding on my privacy, Danja?”

He looked abashed. “My apologies, Ma. Orders. We were instructed to locate you immediately and report on your whereabouts.”

“Do that,” she said.

He apologized again and the screen blanked. Obviously, no one had yet informed him that the Ark was being cleared. Good, that bought her a bit more cushion. She moved methodically through the suite one final time, taking a good ten minutes to search everywhere and anywhere for something to stash Havoc in, before she finally gave it up as a lost cause. She’d just have to brazen it out, stride to the docks and requisition vacuum sled, skinthins, and a carrier for the cat. She moved toward the door, opened it, stepped out . . . and saw the guards running toward her. She darted back inside. Havoc yowled in protest. Tolly Mune triple-locked the door and raised the privacy shield. That didn’t stop them from banging. “Portmaster Mune,” one of them called through the door, “there was no brawl. Open please, we need to talk.”

“Go away,” she snapped. “Orders.”

“Sorry, Ma,” he replied, “they want us to take that cat downstairs. That’s right from the council, they say.”

Behind her, the comm unit came on once more. This time it was the councillor for internal security herself. “Tolly Mune,” the woman said, “you are wanted for questioning. Surrender yourself immediately.”

“I’m right here,” Tolly Mune snapped back. “Ask your goddamned questions.” The guards kept pounding on the door.

“Explain your return to port,” the woman said.

“I work here,” Tolly Mune said sweetly.

“Your actions are not in accord with policy. They have not been approved by High Council.”

“High Council’s actions haven’t been approved by me,” the Portmaster said. Havoc hissed at the screen.

“Place yourself under arrest, if you please.”

“I’d rather not.” She lifted a small, thick table—it was easy under a quarter gee—and sent it sailing into the vidscreen. The councillor’s square features disintegrated in a shower of glass and sparks.

At the door, the guards had coded in a security override. She countermanded it, using Portmaster’s priority, and heard one of them swearing. “Ma,” the other one said, “that won’t do any good. Open up, now. You can’t get by us and it won’t take them more than ten, twenty minutes to cancel your priority.”

He was right, Tolly Mune realized. She was trapped, and once they unsealed the door it was all over. She looked around helplessly, searching for a weapon, a way out, anything. There was nothing.

Far away at the end of the web the Ark shone with reflected sunlight. It ought to be clear by now. She hoped Tuf had had the sense to seal up tight when the last spinneret had departed. But would he leave without Havoc? She looked down, stroked the cat’s fur. “All this trouble for you,” she said. Havoc purred. She looked back at the Ark , then at the door.

“We could pump some gas in,” one of the guards was saying. “The room’s not airtight, after all.”

Tolly Mune smiled.

She placed Havoc back on the floater cushion, climbed up on a chair, and pulled the cover off the emergency sensor box. It had been a long time since she’d done any mech work. It took her a few moments to trace the circuits, and a few more moments to puzzle out how to make the sensors think the airseal had been broken. When she did, an alarm claxon began to shrill hideously in her ear. There was a sudden hissing and foaming around the edges of the door as the airseal was activated. The gravity went out, the air stopped circulating, and on the far side of the room, a panel slid open on the cache of emergency vacuum gear.

Tolly Mune moved to it quickly. Inside were breather-pacs, airjets, a half dozen sets of skinthins. She dressed and sealed herself up. “Come here,” she said to Havoc. The cat didn’t like all the noise. “Careful now, don’t claw the fabric.” She shoved Havoc inside a bubble helmet, attached it to a limp set of skinthins, clipped on a breather pac and turned it all the way up, way past the recommended pressure. The skinthins inflated like a balloon. The cat tried her claws against the inside of the plasteel helmet and yowled piteously. “I’m sorry,” said Tolly Mune. She let Havoc float in mid-room while she removed the laser torch from its brackets.

“Who said it was a puling false alarm?” she said as she kicked herself toward the window, torch in hand.

“Perhaps you would care for some mulled mushroom wine,” said Haviland Tuf. Havoc was rubbing up against his leg. Chaos was up his shoulder, long gray tail twitching, peering down at the black-and-white cat as if he were trying to remember just who that was. “You appear to be tired.”