Yes, they would. On that point not one person present could dissent.
It had been many hours since the alien fleet’s arrival. Although she’d had time for some sleep, Katy Romanova was nevertheless worn out when this second assembly of Narsai’s two leadership groups finally adjourned. And she sensed that beside her, Linc was exhausted too; and as for young Maddy, the girl was in Linc’s arms being carried like a three-year-old instead of a leggy young woman of thirteen.
“Do you think if we agree to help these people, these ‘Others’ and the humanoids with them, the Commonwealth will allow us to do that?” Katy’s mother was at her side as they walked out of the conference room. If she was tired, this almost centenarian woman had to be much more so. Yet Cabanne Romanova’s eyes were bright, and Katy had the distinct notion that if she had told her mother the Commonwealth would undoubtedly pound hell out of Narsai for sending its disposable resources somewhere other than the Inner Worlds that answer would not have fazed her.
What she said was, with absolute honesty, “I don’t know, Mum. I suspect they won’t be happy, but leaders like Fleet Admiral Tanaka and Defense Minister Fothingill should remember Mistworld thirteen years ago. If they remember it well enough to take all this seriously—that’s the first step toward dealing with both the Others and the Rebs in a way that won’t be a total disaster.”
And then she yawned, and crawled after Linc into an aircar that would take her little family back to its home at last.
CHAPTER 25
George Fralick was in luck. Traveling at the maximum cruising speed which the corporate marshal’s long range shuttle could muster, he was only a day out from the Narsai system before he encountered a starship.
Here in the reaches between inhabited systems, sending a comm all the way to Terra—or even to New Orient—was not possible. One ship alone could not muster the necessary power, that had to be drawn from a star and it required booster equipment that normally was installed only in planetary orbit. So the captain of the ship that found Fralick and took him aboard had a decision to make.
To head for Narsai, and attempt to deal with the situation there on her own? Or to continue on course toward New Orient, and from there let Fralick report everything he had seen so that higher authorities could determine what should be done next?
Sally Greenberg did what any captain would have done, she ordered her ship to come about. Nine against one? Lousy odds, to be sure, but unlike the Archangel her ship would have the advantage of knowing what it was sailing into instead of being taken by surprise while in planetary orbit. She’d been in worse fights, and to those people on Narsai it might make all the difference whether help came in a day’s time or in several weeks’ time instead.
It was like an omen, Fralick thought as he stood beside the trim young woman on the bridge of her ship and watched while the viewscreen began to show the first clear images of Narsai’s sun. His first and only command had been named Raven; and that was also the name of this vessel, built years after his Raven had been decommissioned and many times larger and more powerful. But that had been a lucky ship for him then, and he was convinced that this Raven was going to be another lucky ship for him now.
“We’re being hailed by a freighter, Captain,” came a voice from ops. Fralick did something he hadn’t done in years; he came damned close to answering, as if he had forgotten all the time that had passed and once again thought he was in command here.
Greenberg didn’t notice. She said, “On screen, Ensign.”
A grizzled fellow in civvies appeared, and identified himself promptly. “Angstrom, Tor. Wondering if you’re headed into Narsai, Captain…?”
Damn, the bastard was Narsatian. Both the accent and the lack of decent formality even with a Star Service command officer gave him away.
“Greenberg. Commanding Raven,” the Service officer responded with a glimmer of humor in her eyes. Plainly she wasn’t as bothered by Narsatian antics as Fralick was; but then, she hadn’t been subjected to Katy Romanova for the past forty years. “Yes, that’s our destination. I understand that you’ve had some trouble there, Captain Angstrom.”
“We thought so, too, at first. And you Star Service folks aren’t going to be happy, there was a ship lost.” Angstrom was not just Narsatian, he was lower class Narsatian. Barely literate, probably, although he had to know his maths and his sciences or he wouldn’t be able to command anything that was warp-capable. “But I thought you might already have heard something. Some bastard of a stuffed shirt diplomat named Fralick managed to get his tail between his legs and run during the battle—all fifteen minutes of it! And after our people were able to talk to their people, the ones from Mistworld, it got straightened out okay. Looks as if we’ve got new trade opportunities, and a place to settle population overflow so we might not have to be so damned rigid about family size, instead of being about to be conquered and occupied—or just plain blown to hell, the way it looked like for awhile there.”
“I’m Fralick.” To have denied it, or even to have remained decently in the background, was impossible for him right now. Greenberg at first looked surprised, then affronted; and she was within her rights, this was her bridge and the Kesran ambassador should have kept his mouth shut until she gave him leave to speak. But he rushed on, because this was one of the few times in George Fralick’s careful life when he could not control his own mouth. “Yes, I managed to escape before the Rebs shot me up along with the starship they destroyed. And a whole orbital habitat, too, if my instruments were reading correctly. How many human lives was that, Captain Angstrom? At what point will your expanded trade opportunities give you payback for their deaths?”
“Too bad, but the Star Service shot first and the Misties just shot back,” Angstrom responded, not at all abashed to learn that the personage he had just maligned had heard him do so. “Don’t know who hit the habitat. For your information it wasn’t destroyed, although people on it did die—but if we did know whose shot went wild, that couldn’t bring any of them back. Damned shame, of course, but letting a war start over it wouldn’t help anyone either. Just more people dead, is all we’d get for doing that.”
Greenberg braced her shoulders. She was a pretty woman, Fralick had noticed that immediately; willow-slim in a way that Katy never had been, not even before three pregnancies and then retirement had put extra flesh onto her already rather large-boned frame. Yet Katy had always attracted him, she still did whenever he somehow wound up in the same room with her.
Why? He still didn’t know, not even after forty years.
Greenberg was saying, “So you’re telling me I don’t need to rush the rest of the way in and rescue the good people of Narsai, Captain Angstrom? You think they’re all right?”
“Well, ma’am, at least I’d suggest you might want to comm them at Narsai Control as soon as you get within range. They can tell you a lot more than I can, but when I left things seemed to be going along fine. No one tried to shoot at me or keep me from sailing, anyway, and in my experience keeping every ship in harbor is the first thing a real enemy does.” Angstrom gave Greenberg the confidential grin of one old salt to another, and to Fralick’s absolute disbelief Greenberg grinned back.
“Safe journey, Captain,” she said formally. “Ensign, end transmission.” Then without looking at Fralick she added, “Now start hailing Narsai Control. Let me know the minute you get through to them.”
In their bedroom in the little house at the edge of MinTar, Katy Romanova and Lincoln Casey were just waking. It was morning—the second morning since Katy had taken her peaceful walk out to the terrace and had savored the early-autumn beauty of her garden, and had come inside expecting to discard her robe and spend a passionate half-hour in her husband’s arms. Instead Dan Archer had brought Rachel Kane through the front door—George Fralick had called from orbit, demanding a haven for Maddy—and since then, there had been no more peace until just a few hours ago.