Joan Vinge - Heaven Chronicles

Betha frowned in sudden pain, bit her lip.

“I'm willin' to let you go, Captain. But is MacWong?”

Betha saw MacWong surreptitiously rolling the lace on his shirt front, still listening to Nakamore's transmission. Behind him the mediamen transmitted his own every move, his every word, to the waiting Demarchy: MacWong was pinned under the public gaze like a bug under glass. At last he said, “Your suggestion violates the Demarchy's mandate for this mission. I only have the authority to seize the ship or destroy it; I can't let it go.”

“Even though you want to! Even though we may all die if you don't.” Nakamore's words burned with contempt; his taciturn face was abruptly transformed, as though he were making a speech. Betha realized suddenly that he must be well aware that there was an audience waiting to receive it. Wadie began to smile, almost wonderingly. “You puppet. You call the Harmony a ‘dictatorship’ but we give more freedom to the individual than your people's mobocracy ever did or will. I have the power, the freedom of choice, to stop this stupidity. But you don't. Your people don't trust a man to use the judgment he was born with; they pick the words every time you open your mouth.

“But how are they goin' to tell you what to do this time, MacWong? They never imagined needing second-to-second control over hundreds of millions of kilometers, across a comm lag like this. By the time the whole Demarchy hears this and debates and amends and votes, things will be all over for us, and whatever they wanted won't mean a damn thing.… But you won't take the decision in your own hands because you're too afraid of the system, and of those pretty-boy anarchists behind you. The basic weakness and inefficiency of your self-servin' mob rule will make the Demarchy destroy its own ships, and mine, and destroy this system's last hope of survival. I've always known your ‘government’ was a farce … an' even you can't deny that now. I'd laugh if it wasn't such a tragedy. Because that's what it is, a tragedy.”

Betha watched impotent rage fracture MacWong's mask of complacency, saw real emotion for the first time on the faces of the listening demarchs behind him … saw the mediamen recording it all, so that the entire Demarchy could see and share their indignation. MacWong covered his anger. “Captain Torgussen, our ships will pass you in thirty-six hundred seconds. If you intend to follow our instructions, I suggest you get in touch with us soon.” His image vanished abruptly.

Betha said softly, “Try to monitor MacWong's communications with the Demarchy, Pappy; let me know how much worse that outburst makes things.”

Nakamore loosened the upturned collar of his stiff, bulky jacket, the anger flowing out of his eyes and voice. “He'll be back, I expect.”

“My congratulations on … your promotion to Hand, Raul.” Betha watched Wadie bow, inscrutable.

“My duty, to accept; my desire, to serve.” Nakamore gestured the honor aside, oddly embarrassed. “I wish I could say the same to you, Wadie. But I don't know the Demarchy's etiquette for its traitors.”

Wadie smiled bleakly. “There's not any.”

“You're the only reasonable demarch I ever met, and that's probably why the mob went after you. I don't approve of your act of piracy against the Harmony … but I think I finally begin to see why you did it; why you want to help these people. I doubt if Djem'll ever understand it—”

“I know … and I'm sorry. There wasn't any other choice. It would never have happened if—”

“If we hadn't attacked the starship when it first appeared? You're right. It was stupid of us. If we'd had sense enough to direct 'em to one of our bases instead, the Grand Harmony'd have its own starship now. But we didn't, and all we got was death. But we knew the ship was damaged, and Central Harmony figured it was worth the gamble I could catch them here.”

“That was a long chance,” Wadie said. “You'd have been a long time gettin' home if what we saw is all the propellant you've got left.”

“I know. Even without a battle, it would take us twenty megasecs to get back to Outermost—if our life-support systems held out. And then we'd freeze our asses off on that snowball, waitin' for a fuel shipment to get us to the inner Harmony.” Nakamore scratched his chin, looking tired. “But we took on food and air down on Lansing.”

Shadow Jack pushed past Betha's shoulder to the camera.“Why didn't you just rip the tent and kill 'em quick, you bastard?”

Nakamore shrugged. “Boy, you're all pirates to me. But we didn't take that much. Look on it as a trade for the hydrogen you stole from the Harmony.”

“Where's my mother?” Bird Alyn cried suddenly, shrill with anguish. “What did you do to my mother?”

Nakamore peered at her blankly; Betha saw comprehension come to him. “So … your mother's goin' to have a stiff jaw for a few hundred kilosecs. But aside from that she's better off than you are—or we are—right now. Speakin' of which: Captain Torgussen, you have my permission to off-load those gas canisters into a low orbit around Lansing. Then I recommend all our ships move out a few hundred kilometers into space. When the Demarchy forces arrive the fireworks'll be lethal over quite a volume; there's no reason why Lansing should be part of it. Somebody might as well get somethin' out of this.” He turned away, issuing soundless orders.

“Thank you,” Betha said. She saw the curious smile still on Wadie's face as he watched the screen. “What is that man? I don't understand him.”

Wadie turned toward her, and the smile grew gentle. “Sanity hasn't entirely disappeared from Heaven, Betha. Not even from the Rings.… Raul is a decent man; but more than that, he's not stupid. I told you his brother never won a chess game from me. In all the time I spent in the Rings, I won only two games from Raul. He may still have some surprises left.”

Betha rubbed her arms. “All I know is that he intentionally infuriated the Demarchy to the point where they'll never be satisfied until they see us all in hell. Whatever he thinks he's doing, I don't like being his pawn.”

The Ranger moved slowly out from Lansing. Betha watched it growing smaller below them, a world of elvish beauty, rising and falling in soft undulations beneath a transparent film of plastic spotted with milky patchwork. Trees reached upward toward the tent like sprays of lace, fragile fountains of leaves spilling over fields of ripening grain … and fields of dying grass. She saw the velvet green of parklands, still well watered … and the peeling mud of dried marshes. The people below moved in a dream ballet among airy minarets and pillared buildings of state, on the world that had once been the symbol of Heaven's splendid extravagance. The last world she would ever see.… She glanced at Clewell's still face, his closed eyes, where he drifted in his seat listening for the Demarchy's response. Afraid of the stillness, she looked away again, stroked Rusty's purring, clinging form while she tried to picture the other beloved faces already lost to her and the homeworld none of them would ever see again. There was no comfort now, no satisfaction, in this ultimate revenge that Heaven would inflict on itself in retribution for their deaths and her own. A terrible weariness settled over her, the futility of the last few weeks, the last four years.

“Betha …” Wadie kept his eyes on the screen. “I don't know how to save this ship. But I think I know how to save our lives. We can leave the Ranger , use the Lansing 04 to take us down to Lansing. All Nakamore wants an end to is the ship, not our lives. If we use our suits we can all make it.”

“No.” Betha wrapped her arms across the aching muscles of her stomach. “I won't leave the Ranger . But yes, the rest of you, get into your suits and go. There's no reason for you to stay; at least save yourselves.”