Joan Vinge - The Outcasts of Heaven Belt

Betha pushed back, her arms rigid against the panel. “Wadie… he’s no fool after all.” The Ranger lay in the jaws of a trap; and each jaw was unaware of the other. When the jaws closed on her ship, they would have to destroy each other too. She let go of the panel, forcing a smile. “Then I’m afraid you have a problem too, MacWong. We would have been gone before you arrived, except that someone else is already holding us here… Hand Nakamore, I’m sure you’ve been monitoring. Would you care to comment?” She waited, savoring the bitterness of useless satisfaction.

Clewell grunted. “The Ringers are transmitting video, not to be outdone…” A new patch of screen brightened with a black-and-white image. The Ringer control room was small, the crew strapped down to padded couches crowded by equipment: an image from the earliest days of space travel. A thick-set Belter in a helmet with the Discan rings for insignia sat nearest the camera, his face grim behind a stubble of beard. “This is Hand Nakamore of the Grand Harmony. My forces have seized the Outsider starship, and if it attempts to comply with your demands, we’ll destroy it. We have several prewar fusion bombs in our possession. If you attempt to keep us from takin’ that ship we’ll do our damnedest to destroy you too.”

Betha glanced at Wadie, questioning.

“He could have the bombs; salvage from the war.”

Wadie studied the embroidered whorls on his jacket front. “If he could maneuver into MacWong’s path with them, he wouldn’t have to be too accurate, even if it took the Demarchy crews a megasec to die of radiation poisoning. Things like this happened during the war, crews of dead men fighting their final battle. That’s how we got three fusion craft intact…” He raised his eyes. “Nakamore will never let the Demarchy take the Ranger, even if it means he has to die too.”

Betha saw the trace of consternation that betrayed MacWong at the sight of Nakamore; the obvious disbelief on the ruddy face of the ship’s officer and on the face of Esrom Tiriki. She watched them change again to hatred and defiance, heard MacWong begin an angry response.

“And so we’re all going to die, and so are they… and so is Heaven.” Her voice rose. “And for what?

This is insane—”

“Don’t you think they know that?” Wadie moved toward her, almost touched her again. “They know it as well as we do. But they’re trapped here just as we are; all that’s happened in the last two and a half gigasecs since the war, all the frustration and fear, has been leadin’ down to this… It had to end like this. Your own song says it—‘No one ever changed a world.’ ”

She drew away from him. “It’s the people who have to be willing to change! It didn’t have to end like this. If they could have seen that there was still a future… There could still be one now, but even you can’t see it; you won’t see it. You’re right, death is what you want… Suicide is the ultimate selfishness, and I’ve never seen a people more ready to commit it.” She unstrapped, pushing up out of her seat and away from him, her breath catching at the punishment of sudden movement. “You deserve it. Damn you all!”

He caught her wrist. Furious, she felt Shadow Jack move out of her way, staring, as Wadie pulled her back to the screen. “MacWong, Raul, this in Abdhiamal. I want to talk to you.”

Nakamore acknowledged him and Betha thought she saw a smile; she waited, saw MacWong break off his speech: “Sorry, Abdhiamal. You’re a dead man. You’ve got nothin’ to say to the Demarchy.”

MacWong glanced sideways, barely turning his head. Betha looked past him at Tiriki.

“We’re all dead men unless you listen to me! Because of this ship, which you don’t have any more right to than Nakamore does, or I do. For God’s sake, MacWong, there were seven people on this ship, who came three light-years from another system to Heaven; and five of them are already dead because of it. And now you’re goin’ to destroy the rest of them, along with the best ships left to the Demarchy and the Rings? You’re all that’s left of Heaven Belt, and your own greed is ripping your guts out. You’re killin’ yourselves because you’re scared to die. Taking the starship won’t save Heaven, and it’s goin’ to finish you off instead, if you let it.

“But you don’t have to let it happen.” He nodded at Betha waiting beside him, silent with surprise.

“These people came to trade with us because they wanted a better life. And in spite of what we’ve done to them, they’re still willin’ to trade. There’s a whole trade ring of worlds out there, holding each other up so that they never fall into the kind of trap we’ve put ourselves in. They can save us too. Heaven Belt can be all it ever was if we join them.” He waited, searching the screen for a response. “Let the starship leave Heaven, instead of destroyin’ it. You’ll accomplish the same goal but you’ll have everything to gain and nothing to lose.”

“You always could convince Djem that cold was hot, Wadie.” Betha looked for mockery on Nakamore’s face, was surprised when she didn’t find it. “But this time you even make sense to me.… I don’t want to destroy the starship or my own ships. If I could get out of this bind by lettin’ the ship leave the system, I would. The way things have turned out, it’d be enough just to put the ship beyond everybody’s reach… And the point’s not lost on me that the only reason we’ve got you now is that this woman, this Captain Torgussen, came back to Lansing as she said she would.” Nakamore found Betha’s eyes, curiously respectful. “I think you would come back to help us too.”

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.”