Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

When the sound from the Bridge cut off, Parnalee stirred drowsily; the brandy was smooth and rather sweet, he’d swallowed more of it than was good for him. His mind was swimming, he had to concentrate to think. “Busy bitch,” he muttered, “You and your treacherous daughter, you’re a set.” He slapped at his face, felt his stomach spasm. “Fool!” He got to his feet, forced back a surge of nausea and by an effort of will whipped mind and body into a semblance of order. The sisterBrain was hobbled until he got rid of the mainBrain. “The point is,” he told himself, “who’s left out in the corridors? How far have they got in the clearance?”

He lowered himself into the chair and swiveled to face the console. “She shut me out of the Bridge, I doubt she could…” His conversation with himself died away as he concentrated on what he was doing.

The sound-search swept through the ship, collecting a series of squeaks and rattles, mechanical hums, the sough of air. Dead sounds. Empty echoes. In the armory, voices, clinks, the scuff of feet, the complex of sounds remotes made when they were forced to the limits of their capacity. Parnalee smiled. “Dealing in armaments now, hmm, Quale? When I get back Outside and spread word around of your scavenging efforts, you’re going to have a problem or two.” Satisfied that he knew what the man was doing and why, he went on with the search.

Nothing. Nothing. Pod bays, the readings showed them empty. “Busy busy,” he murmured. “Good little housekeeper, got your cleaning finished, have you?” He did a more intensive sweep, but there was no evidence of any life forms in the area. Lifter locks. Yes, the tug was in Three. Not much sound in there, the ghosts of voices; he fiddled with the controls, focused on the tug’s lock which seemed to be open, fulminating as he did so against the lack of visuals; he depended very much on his eyes and had trouble imaging from sounds. He began recording the voices; he couldn’t make out the words, they were too broken, but the equipment here was good enough to reconstitute them when he was ready-if he decided he needed to know what was being said, which wasn’t likely, he had other, more important things to do.

The corridors were clean. It was time to move. He thumbed out three stimtabs, tossed them down his throat and followed them with a gulp of stale, lukewarm water from the spigot; he’d have preferred a final swallow of brandy but he had enough alcohol in him. Praise Omphalos it should be mostly absorbed by now. Adding more wouldn’t merely be stupid, it could even be fatal.

He checked the torp to make sure it was strapped firmly down, then went meticulously through one last test of its triggering circuits. The torp was old, not so old as the ship, but old enough to have acquired a degree of fragility inappropriate to a bomb, though it was sufficiently intact to perform its function without going off prematurely as long as he treated it gently as an egg about to hatch while he was moving it. He toed on the lift field of the dolly and guided it toward the interface exit. Since he couldn’t go near the tube without alerting that woman, he had to travel the service-ways. It was going to be a long slow trip, but there wasn’t anyone to threaten him now and he didn’t have to go near the Bridge. The mainBrain lived inside a sphere of collapsed matter close to the heart of the ship; theoretically, only the Captain had access to its coordinates; even the techs who serviced it had no idea where they were; they tubed there and back, the tubeflow coordinates set by the Bright Sister when she was commanded to do so by the Captain.

Parnalee smiled with drowsy contentment as he climbed on the dolly and settled himself at the controls. As soon as he’d waked the part of her he could reach through the tap, she’d gone hunting for her sister. Found her, too. And he knew what she knew, once he convinced her to trust him; though most of her slept still, she was awake enough to print a map for him. Awake enough to run a jolt through him so he could share her exaltation as she celebrated the power that would soon be hers. And his.

He stopped the dolly, got down so he could crank open the first of the twelve hatches ahead of him, coughed as his feet stirred fine gray dust that had lain undisturbed for millennia. He sprayed oil he’d found in the interface stores over the mix of sheddings, exuda and other muck age-bonded to the gears, slammed his fist cautiously against the handle, hit it again without budging it. He poured clear liquid handcleaner over the slowly softening glue to thin it out yet more, then leaned on the handle. The crank groaned and resisted; sweat popping out on his forehead, he put more pressure on it, half-afraid he was going to break the thing. It shrieked and moved a hair; he sprayed more oil, doused on more cleaner, worked the crank back and forth until the seal gave way and it began to turn, slowly at first then more smoothly. The hatch squealed open, slid into the wall. One down. Eleven to go. He wiped his hands on his tunic sides, rubbing vigorously to get rid of both oil and cleaner, especially the cleaner which had a strong, oversweet smell and a soapy, slimy feel. The stims were doing the job, his head was clearing, he felt as charged as the Dark Sister. He thought of Adelaar’s face when the pads died under her fingers. He smiled.

I watched the last load leave with Churri riding herd on it; I wasn’t planning to sell any of this bit of salvage; I don’t approve of arms dealing and anyway it’s a lot too dangerous for the payoff, but given some of the places I take Slancy into, it’s comforting to have that kind of firepower available and it’s not the sort of thing you can buy whenever you take a notion. And there was Bolodo. If Bolodo execs had any scruples about anything, I hadn’t come across them yet. And I hadn’t a sliver of a doubt there was a destroyer or two stashed somewhere handy where the execs on Helvetia could set them up to take us when we showed. I’d done what I could to pull some cover around us, but cover has a way of springing leaks when you need it most.

Jamber Fausse was squatting by the door with a couple of his men. He got to his feet and came sauntering over to me. “Time?”

“Time. One of you has to go to the Bridge to let Adelaar yabass know we’re ready; she’s still sealed off, I can’t reach her.”

“Tube?”

“Right. The way we got here.”

“Vehim Feda, go.” The younger of the two men got to his feet and went trotting out. “What will you do if Adelaar yabass has not discovered the Dark Sister?”

“Sit here and wait. Nothing else I can do.” I went over to the implosion torp on its dolly. There was a lot of crud still on it, but the batteries were charging steadily, no sign of trouble there, no breakdowns in the timerprogram if the probe wasn’t looping on me. I toured the testmeters and their readings were all good, no glitches. I climbed onto the dolly’s front bench, put my feet up on the console.

“Ah.” Jamber Fausse dropped to a squat beside the door. “Something I know about, sitting and waiting.”

I didn’t expect to do much waiting; Adelaar didn’t waste time or energy when she was working and Vehim wouldn’t be more than a few seconds tubing up to her. I arranged myself so I could see the screen; it was over the door. I counted seconds and got to fifty before it lit up and Adelaar was looking at us.

“Quale,” she said. “I see you’re ready.” She didn’t seem to expect a response so I didn’t give her one. “The auxBrain is scattered through more than a dozen nodes, there’s no way you’ll be able to get them all.”

“Shit! What…”

“Relax. You don’t need to. Do a thorough job on the interface and you’ve neutered our Dark Sister. There’s a weakness in the design. The nodes are connected through that interface. They don’t operate independently unless most of the ship is dead. Not enough power. They’ll probably kick on when she hits the sun, but that’s a bit late to do any good. Implosion torp?”