Timothy Zahn - Star Song and Other Stories

"And that's what these people are afraid of. They've been the big ducks in the small pond all their lives. And they know the only way to hold onto that power is to keep their people ignorant."

Her lip twisted. "Slavery, you said, King Peter? You're the real slavemaster here."

"But what can I do?" Jimmy asked plaintively, his expression still looking hunted. "If they won't let us leave—"

"You can save them, that's what," Kulasawa told him. "You see, those plates I had aboard the Sergei Rock aren't deep-probe sonics. They're actually highly sophisticated monodirectional resonance self-tuning loudspeakers.

Loudspeakers which are at this moment scattered at strategic points all around this asteroid."

She reached her left hand beneath her brocaded jacket-blouse and pulled out a small flat box. "And this is a wireless player interface to them."

"You can't be serious," Rhonda said, a sandbagged look on her face. "You want to take the whole colony back?"

"Can you think of a simpler way to solve the problem?" Kulasawa asked. "The choices will be presented to the citizens, and they'll be allowed to decide for themselves what they want to do. Those who want to enter the musicmaster profession—I suppose we'll have to come up with a new name for them—can do so.

Those who don't can go on to new homes or the world of their choice."

Rhonda glanced at Peter and Suzenne, looked back at Kulasawa. "And the Freedom's Peace?"

"As I said, there are technological secrets here that will benefit the whole Expansion," she said. "The colonists will be properly compensated, of course."

"And what makes you think our people will just sit by and let you do this?"

Peter asked.

"The fact that we can do it without leaving this room," Kulasawa said, her right hand dipping beneath her jacket-blouse. "And the fact that I have this."

I looked at the tiny gun in Kulasawa's hand, a sudden hollow sensation in the pit of my stomach. "It's called a Karka nerve pistol," Kulasawa continued, her tone almost off-handed. "It fires needles that dissolve instantly in blood, disrupting neural chemistry and totally incapacitating the target. Usually nonfatal, though an allergic reaction to the drug will kill you pretty quick."

There was a soft click as she moved her thumb against the side of the gun.

"There's also a three-needle burst setting," she added. "That one is fatal."

She clicked back to the one-needle setting. "We can all hope that won't be necessary. All right, Jimmy, come over here and take the interface. Be sure to stay out of my line of fire."

Jimmy didn't move. His eyes darted around the couch one last time—

And stopped on me. "Captain?" he whispered.

"You don't need to ask him," Kulasawa said. "You're the one who holds the key to these people's freedom, not him."

"It's not our decision to make, Jimmy," I said quietly, knowing even as I said it how futile my words were. If there was one button guaranteed to start Jimmy's juices running it was the whole question of personal freedom versus authority.

Stupid rules, restrictive rules, unnecessary impositions of power—I seemed to go around that track with him at least once per trip. Kulasawa couldn't have come up with a better way to trip him to her side if she'd tried.

And then, to my eternal amazement, Jimmy squared his shoulders, turned to face her, and shook his head. "No," he said. "I can't do it."

From the look on her face, Kulasawa was as stunned by his answer as I was.

"What did you say?" she demanded.

"I said no," Jimmy said. His voice quavered slightly under the blazing heat of her glare, but his words were as solid as a sealant weld. "Captain Smith says it's wrong."

"And I say it's right," Kulasawa snapped. "Why listen to him instead of me?"

"Because he's my boss." Jimmy looked at me. "And because I trust him."

He turned back to Kulasawa. "And because he's never needed a gun to tell me what to do."

Kulasawa's face darkened like an approaching storm. "Why, you stupid little—"

"Leave him alone," Rhonda cut her off. "Face it: you've lost."

"Sit down, Chamala," Kulasawa growled, gesturing Jimmy toward the couch. "And if I were you, Blankenship, I'd keep my mouth shut," she added to Rhonda, all her heat turned to crushed ice now. "Of all the people in this room, you're the one I need the least."

She looked back at Peter, her face under control again. "Fine; so our lapdog of a musicmaster is afraid to make decisions like a man. I'm sure one of your musicians out there will see things differently. Where's the room's public-address system?"

Peter shook his head. "No," he said.

Kulasawa shifted her gun slightly to point at Suzenne. "I don't need her, either," she said.

Peter's lips compressed briefly. "In the throne. Controls are along the side of the left armrest."

"Thank you." Standing up, Kulasawa started to circle around the table.

I cleared my throat. "Excuse me, but there's just one little thing you seem to have forgotten."

Kulasawa stopped, her gun settling in to point at my chest. "And that is?"

"One of their musicians might be able to whistle up some flapblacks for you," said. "But none of them can tell you how to get back to the Expansion."

The gun lifted a little. "I'm disappointed, Smith—I would have thought you could come up with something better. I've got the Freedom's Peace's coordinates, remember? All I have to do is work backward from those and we'll wind up back at Angorki."

"We would," I agreed, "if we were anywhere near your coordinates. But we're not."

Her eyes narrowed. "Explain."

"Your coordinates didn't take into account the time-delay for the light," I explained. "Or the fact that the Freedom's Peace is no longer on a Sol-direct vector. You try a straight backtrack and you'll miss Angorki by about sixty A.U.

That's about twice the distance from Earth to Neptune, in case you need help with the numbers."

For a long moment she studied my face. Then, her lips tilted in a slight smile.

"And of course you're the only one who knows how to plot a course back, right?"

"Right," I said, folding my arms across my chest. "And I'm not going to."

"I suggest you reconsider," she said. "There's a little matter of two hundred thousand neumarks you owe the TransShipMint corporation."

The bottom seemed to fall out of my stomach. "How do you know about that?"

She snorted. "Oh, come now—you didn't really think I pulled your name out of a

lotto ball, did you? You were one of a dozen transports I knew I could bring enough pressure on to get what I wanted. You just happened to be in the right place and the right time when the data finally came through."

I shrugged as casually as I could. "So fine. Renege on the seventy thousand if you want. What do I care—Peter says we're staying here anyway."

"Wrong," Kulasawa bit out. "One way or another, we're getting back." She arched her eyebrows. "And when we do, you're going to prison... because you don't owe just seventy thousand any more. You owe the full two hundred."

I stared at her. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the hundred thirty thousand you thought you had stashed away in the Star Meridian Bank," she said, openly gloating now. "The hundred thirty thousand that isn't there any more."

"You're bluffing," Rhonda said sharply. "How could you possibly get that kind of access to Jake's account?"

"For the same reason these people can't keep me here for long." Kulasawa straightened up slightly and looked around—

And as she did so, her face and posture and entire demeanor abruptly changed.

Suddenly the upper-class scholar was gone; and in its place was someone or something that seemed far more regal even than the king seated at the end of the couch. "My name isn't Andrula Kulasawa," she said her voice rich and commanding.