“I remember… maybe a year after we quit holding meetings, we got another mailout, suggesting that we form a senior club. But we’d lost interest, and anyway that was just before the colony was taken.”
“Right. Now - can you explain the two grades in analytic geometry? Or the uncompleted social history project?”
Sassinak frowned, trying to remember. “As far as I know, I always got top grades in math… what are those? Oh… sure… they were trying a pass/fail system, and gave all of us dual grades in math that semester. It’s not two grades, really; it’s the same grade expressed two ways. As for social history - I can’t remember anything.”
“You see? Three little things, and you can’t clear up all of them. And yet it’s not important. If we had a pattern - if you seemed to have incompletes in all your social science classes - it might matter. But this is nothing, and most of the odd things in your crew’s records are nothing. Still, we must look into all of it, even so silly a thing as a child’s fan club.”
Among the odd bits Dupaynil turned up in the next week were a young man who’d chosen to use his matrilineal name rather than his far more prominent patrilineal title, and yet another person of heavyworlder genetic background posing as a normal human. Sassinak came in on the interviews of both these, but neither had the unstable personality of the poisoner. The young man insisted that he’d joined Fleet to get away from his father’s influence - he’d been pushed to enter the diplomatic service, but preferred to work with his hands. The heavyworlder said frankly that heavyworlders looked down on him, but that he had found acceptance and even friendships among the lightweights. “If they know I’m from a heavyworld family, they’re afraid of my strength - I can tell by the way they hold back. But I can pass as a strong normal, and that suits me just fine. No, I wouldn’t help heavyworlders expand their influence - why should I? They’re snobs - they teased me and threw me out for being a weakling, as if they really were superior. They’re not. Let ‘em stay on their worlds, and let me go where I fit in.”
Dupaynil, Sassinak noticed, seemed far more sympathetic to the young man escaping a pushy father than to the heavyworlder. She herself found both convincing.
They had been on-station a month when their detectors picked up a ship off the normal FTL paths. Its IFF and passive beam gave its ownership as General Freight (again! thought Sass), but from the passive beam they could strip its origin code… and that was a heavyworld system.
Once more theZaid-Dayan took up the chase, guided by its Ssli perception of the quarry’s disturbance of space. And once more it soon became clear that the quarry was headed for someplace unusual.
Chapter Fifteen
“And just what is this?” No one answered the navigation officer’s murmur; Sassinak leaned over to see what identification data were coming up on the screen. Nav went on. “Mapped… hmm… on the EEC survey, Ryxi on the fifth planet, which is on this side of the system, and a human team dropped to do some exploration on the fourth, called Ireta. Wonder why it’s got a name, if it doesn’t have a colony and this was the first exploration team. Something about mesozoic fauna, whatever that means.”
“New contact: ship on insystem drive boosting out of the fifth planet’s system - “ That went up on the main screen, where they could all see it. “No leech beacon - d’you want to try its IFF, captain?”
“No - if they’re what I think, another pirate escort, they’ll notice that,” said Sass. “But… Ryxi?”
“Dropped here some forty years ago - colonial permit - “
“No one’s ever suggested Ryxi were involved in this kind of thing,” said Dupaynil, looking as confused as Sassinak felt. “Certainly not in anything with heavyworlders. They hate them worse than they do normal humans.”
The Zaid-Dayan crept cautiously after the other two ships, which now seemed to be making for Ireta, a journey of some days on insystem drive. Sassinak wondered what someone might be planning - another “accidental” missile release? Some other dangerous accident? Dupaynil had come up with nothing definite, and although she had moved both the most likely suspects away from their usual duties, that didn’t make her feel any safer. She made sure that none of the same people were assigned duty in the quadrant missile rooms, that the stewards’ duties were rotated differently. What else could she do? Nothing, really.
Day by day the two target ships arced toward the distant fifth planet. Sassinak had time to look it up in the Index for herself, and check out the reference to “mesozoic.” One of her new Jigs, a biology enthusiast, rattled on to everyone about the possibilities. Huge reptilian beasts from prehuman history on old Terra, superficially similar to some races of reptiloid aliens, but really quite stupid… Sassinak grinned to herself. Had she ever had that kind of enthusiasm, and been so unaware of everyone else’s lack of interest? She thought not, but indulged him when he showed her his favorite slides from his files.
Fordeliton happened into the middle of this, and turned out to be another enthusiast, though more restrained. “Dinosaurs!” he said. “Old Terran, or near enough - “
“Pirates,” said Sassinak firmly. “Dangerous, or near enough.”
By the time they were close enough to be sure the quarry was intending to land, Sassinak had to worry what the other ship was doing. This could not be a colony raid, as on Myriad - there was no colony to raid. The ship that had come up from the Ryxi world was not holding a particularly good position for an escort - in fact, it almost seemed to be unaware of the transport. Could it be accidental? A ship on regular movement between planets?
The transport began to decelerate, dropping toward the planet. Behind, the second vessel seemed to be heading for a stable orbit. So far neither had detected theZaid -Dayanin its stealth mode. But she could not take the cruiser to the surface leaving a possible enemy up in orbit… yet she wanted to be sure just what the transport was up to. She needed two ships… and there was a way…
“Take a shuttle down, and see where they’re going. This world doesn’t have a landing grid, that we know of - hard to believe they’re actually going to land, but what else could they be doing? Stay in their dead zone, until they’re committed to a site, and then if you can possibly get away unseen, do it. Stay below and behind, until their landing pattern - “
“What about a landing party?” Timran’s dark eyes flashed.
“Ensign, I just said I wanted you to observe and return without alarming them - you don’t need a landing party. Just stay behind ‘em, low and fast, and once they’re down get back here. If I give you a troop of marines, you’ll try to find a use for ‘em.”
Ford shook his head as they watched the ensigns clamber into the shuttle hatch. “You know Timran would try to take on that entire transport by himself - “
“Yes, that’s why I wanted Gori with him. Gori’s got sense, besides being a good shuttle pilot. I just hope they follow orders.”
“Oh, they will. You’ve got ‘em scared proper.” The docking bay alarm hooted, and the load crew scurried for airlocks. The docking hatch opened, flowerlike, and the shuttle elevator lifted it level with the ship’s outer hull. Sassinak watched the flight deck officer signal the shuttle to start engines, and then boost away from theZaid-Dayan.
The shuttle made an uneventful approach to the transport, and on their screens appeared to be snugged into the transport’s blind spot. From high orbit, theZaid-Dayan’s technicians observed the next few descending circuits of the planet. Nothing indicated that the transport had realized it had a tail. Nor did any signal come from the ground. Then Com picked up a landing beacon, and radio signals from below.