He seemed to remember that the Doc said that the real peasants finally got so pissed off at actually living in shit and watching their kids starve from the other side of that big castle they finally stormed it and cut her head off or something equally drastic. She probably died, totally confused, unable to comprehend why her “children” had so turned on her.
He’d known a number of dictatorial types on various worlds who had wound up with nearly identical fates, and, to a one, they, too, had had baffled and bewildered looks on their faces as they were shot down.
One thing the money folks rarely remembered: Give the little people some small share of the pie or else one day they’re gonna come after your neck. And if you play peasant, make sure you play with real peasants.
He was sick and tired of being a peasant, but things were too broken to get up a lot of enthusiasm to storm the palace. They all were tired. They weren’t really peasants, either, in the traditional sense—he was university trained, the Doc was, as the title said, a doctor of philosophy, and even An Li, Lucky Cross, and Sark had knowledge and skills that were the products of a lot of training and hard work. All any of them wanted was a score so they could relax for a little bit, or be comforted that their palace was somewhere up on one of those hills if they needed it.
They were all worse than peasants, really. Peasants continued to grub for food and take it until they boiled over or keeled over. Not them. This crew took about an hour to decide to gamble on a tiny chance that maybe they could jump off that bridge and live, knowing that it was most likely suicide. And if it stormed any castles, it was to get enough to last out their lives in comfort, not for any vision of a brighter future.
Even that queen had been an optimist. Optimism was in short supply these days, though.
He’d seen the photos of the wrecked ships and wizened bodies. They all had.
“Ever ridden a wild hole?”
Who had? Wasn’t there a reason, maybe, why nobody in this well-traveled, highly experienced crew had ever met anybody who did? Couldn’t even think of somebody who had?
His research showed a ton of ships and crews trying. Sometimes the ships came back, most times they didn’t, but when they did their crews were almost always dead, dead, dead. The few who survived were never the same, as broken and battered as their ships.
Suddenly, storming the golden palace with pitchforks seemed like the eminently more sane activity of the two.
So the Captain wants to be a demigod, and all I want is to pay off all my creditors and stay in suites like the one Sanders was in, maybe with at least the female companion he had with him or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
It didn’t matter what they wanted or didn’t want. They all had to be pretty damned desperate or pretty damned insane to take this job.
Three worlds, or something like that. A small, pretty one, a cold, ugly one and a big messy one. That was all that had ever really come through.
Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Which one had the gold and which had the spices?
Gold was pretty common out here, so common it wasn’t even worth the salvage in most cases. The other two had reasonable imitations of equal or greater value. He didn’t know what frankincense and myrrh were anyway except that they were some kind of ancient precious spices and perfumes. Gifts for a king, or a King of Kings?
He wished that somebody other than a religious fanatic had discovered these places. Then the data might make sense without having to go to a court astrologer.
Well, he’d go over and over what data was there all the way to the Three Kings. If, that is, Sanders’s information was correct and not a bunch of junk, and if the theory that a cybership could ride the wild hole and emerge both ways in decent shape was correct, and if there was really anything there of value.
And it wasn’t just the wild hole, either. Whatever forces created and sustained it as a near permanent fixture had to be massive. The ship might well have a smooth ride there and then be torn apart as it emerged. Certainly the captain knew that, but that was all she really knew, and it was the unspoken biggest question mark about her part of the journey.
What happens if, at the end of a tricky but successful journey, you are suddenly rushing into a massive stone wall?
Oh, he was going to get a lot of sleep this trip! Sheesh…
Norman Sanders and his bookends looked absolutely resplendent in their finery as they came to see the Stanley off. He was all smarmy smiles and platitudes and shaking hands all around with that dead fish handshake of his, and sounding so confident of success that you almost believed he really thought so himself.
Like the others, An Li was only impressed that he bothered to get up early enough to show up at all.
“Well, it was the least I could do for you brave explorers,” he said effusively.
“Yes, the very least you could do,” An Li agreed a bit cynically. “All right, we’ve got your pet robot, we’ve got the supplies, the Captain says she’s got your data, so the only thing left to do is to do it. We’ve got clearance in less than an hour, so I’d suggest you get off now unless you’ve reconsidered and want to come along.”
Sanders sighed. “I’m afraid that I lack some essential skills and attributes for such a mission,” he admitted, sounding genuinely contrite. “Courage, for one thing. Skills to do more than get in the way, for another. I think it’s best that each and every person do what they do best. On the other hand, deep down, I honestly do wish I could just ride along, somehow, seeing what you’re going to see, things that nobody else knows or has ever seen and lived to tell about it. With communication through a wild hole impossible, though, I guess I’m just going to have to make do here and watch the raw footage when you get back. Good luck and godspeed to you all, and I do very much mean that.”
She almost believed him on that last one, although whether he meant it because of his own potential for risk-free profit or because, deep down, there really was something inside him that wanted to know—well, who could fathom that Machiavellian mind and darkness of soul to ever know for sure? She wasn’t even certain Sanders himself could tell sincerity from the act anymore.
She watched them go, heard the hissing of the airlock, and waited until she felt the vibration of the service tug pulling away before she turned and headed for her own quarters.
The ship looked and smelled almost brand new; it was hard to even grasp that this was the same tub they’d been on when they went for salvage and found a great worm.
Randi Queson hadn’t even bothered to see Sanders off, and was sitting in the renovated wardroom hunched over her portaterminal. She barely glanced up when An Li came into the room.
“What are you doing so intently?” An asked her.