He was right. They were englobing again. "Too bad for them," Helm said very cheerfully. "Don't get close, now. Mind your eyes."
Something leaped away from his ship too fast to see, mass-driven, possibly. It shot into the center of the approaching globe formation-
Space whited out from the detonation there. Gabriel was blinded. Enda cried out. " 'Cherry bomb,' " Helm said. "Squeezed nuke. Don't have many of those, but they sure lend a little excitement to a large party. Would use more of 'em, but the damned cost-accounting program screams too much."
Gabriel, gazing into the field and calling for detailed tactical, could only agree. There seemed to be nothing left of the ships that had been attempting that new englobement except drifting wreckage, much of it white hot or molten. "Uh oh," Helm said.
Gabriel saw what he saw: the last two of the ships fleeing in opposite directions, one of them vaguely toward Rhynchus, one of them away. "He's mine," Gabriel said, indicating the one heading toward Rhynchus.
"Take him. I'll have this boy."
The two of them arced away in different directions. Gabriel threw Sunshine after his quarry at high speed. It was necessary. His quarry was running as if gone wild and blind, not even evading, just shooting away like an arrow. Gabriel curved down under him, caught him as he finally tried to change direction, and put a plasma cartridge right into his belly. The ship blew up most satisfactorily. Panic, he said to Enda, as he brought the ship around and headed back to the scene of the main combat. I wonder, Enda said.
A blast of light from up ahead suggested to Gabriel that Helm had caught up with his own target. "You all right?"
"No problem," said the gravelly voice.
"That's a relief," Enda said as she let the fighting field up from around her, unclasped her helmet, and took it off. "Perhaps we have time for introductions now?"
The tank lit. "Helm Ragnarsson."
"Gabriel Connor."
"Enda," the fraal said.
"A pleasure."
They all studied each other for a moment. Though it was hard to tell when someone was sitting down, Helm looked short. He was dark-skinned and amazingly heavy-boned. His shoulders were huge, and his waist might have looked narrow enough for his own build, but it was bigger across than Gabriel's shoulders. A build, in all, much too heavy to have grown that way normally.
"Yes, I'm a mutant," Helm said, in a voice that was just faintly weary. "My 'family' went in for heavy planet work. Generation before last, they started working on engineering some specialty genes into our line. Some people don't like it." He shrugged. "We don't care. We take ourselves where the work is, together or singly."
He was casual enough about it, but Gabriel wondered how long that shell of nonchalance had taken to grow. Mutants were very much a minority among the Concord worlds and were routinely seen as dangerously different-peculiar and dangerous creatures at best, outcasts at worst. For his own part, this man had just saved his life, and Gabriel was not prepared to be sticky about it.
"So that's how you managed those high-g turns," Gabriel said. "What an advantage."
The mutant looked at him for a moment, then grinned. "I like you, Connor. First human I've met in a while who looked at the plus side of it first. Pretty rare."
Gabriel shrugged. "Anyway, believe me, you could have eyes at all corners and legs on all surfaces, and I'd still be glad to see you. You saved our butts."
"My fundament too," Enda said, "would no doubt state its gratitude, were it capable. But, Helm, how did you know where to find us? It has been some while since we saw Delde Sota, and we did not even know our own plans clearly when we last saw her." "Maybe not," said Helm, "but someone else did." "Ondway," said Gabriel.
"That her fella on Grith? He'd be the one, then. They keep in pretty close touch, it seems." "There is a great deal going on in Corrivale space," said Enda, ''that seems not to show above the surface."
"You'd be right there, lady. Place is getting complicated in its old age. I don't stay around there much any more. It's getting too civilized. Too crowded."
Gabriel was tempted to laugh. "Grith doesn't strike me as overpopulated, exactly." "No, but 'crowded' can mean people looking over your shoulder, too," said Helm. "Too much bureaucracy, too many people noticing when you turn up, when you leave, wanting to know how much money you make, what you spend it on." He shrugged. "I spend as little time as I can in places like that."
Gabriel thought that he might have a point there. At the same time, his attention was now attracted somewhat by the wreckage beginning to float around them. He reached into the tank and tweaked a control, bringing up a routine he had programmed in earlier.
"You using beams out there, brother?"
"Scanning," said Gabriel.
"Looking for something in particular?"
"Bodies," Gabriel said.
"Should be plenty of those," said Helm. "Sesheyan mostly, far as I can tell. Company types. This a personal kink, or is there a reason?" "I don't want to get into it right now." "Oh," said the friendly voice, "a kink."
Enda was chuckling. "Not the one you think, perhaps," she said.
"Well, that's all right then," Helm said. "Those bodies you looking for usually carry ID beacons?" "What?" Gabriel asked.
"Something out there's got a beacon on it. Squawk four-four-five-oh. Take a listen."
Gabriel spoke to Sunshine's comm settings. A moment later they heard the soft repetitive cheeping of the beacon.
"Black box?" Gabriel said.
"On these ships?" said Helm. "Not likely."
"Someone signaling for help?" Enda asked.
Gabriel shook his head. "It could be, but it's hard to tell."
"Signal's attenuating," Helm said. "Not meant to play for long, I think."
"Hurry up, we've got to find it!"
The signal ceased.
"I don't believe it," Gabriel said.
"Look," Enda said. "No, not there. Gabriel, look. There is a light."
He peered out the cockpit windows, then doused the interior lights to help him see. "I see it," he said. "Enda, what eyes you have!"
"There is definitely something attached," she said as Gabriel directed the tactical scanners' attention to that one spot. "A small container, perhaps?"
"Not that small," said Helm. "Looks about two meters by three?"
"Nice call," Gabriel said, for that was almost exactly its size, as the tactical display confirmed. "Some kind of escape capsule?"
"No sign of such," said Helm. "No heat sources at the right frequency, anyway."
"How much stuff have you got installed in that ship?" Gabriel said in naked envy. "The weaponry is bad enough. But infrared scanners are-"
"Not cheap, but I have a friend in the business." Helm chuckled. "Delde Sota got me a discount." Gabriel moaned softly. "Please. Her and her discounts."
"Oh, it didn't come that cheap. She made me install some of her hardware in here as a swap. She likes to watch, does Delde Sota." " 'Watch'?"
"Not that, but just about everything else. You couldn't build a nose big enough to match her nosiness. Sensors, an extension of her little braid, you name it. Comes in handy sometimes, but she charges me to use it, the cheap little metal-head," Helm snickered.
Gabriel had to chuckle at that. "Now then," he said as Sunshine came up to the object that had the beacon attached. It was a dark egglike ovoid of black metal. Its strobe was still flashing, but the flashes were getting further apart.
"Another five minutes and we wouldn't have found it," Helm said as his ship nosed up to the object too.
Gabriel looked at the name, Longshot, fused neatly on near the nose. He then looked down the length of the ship in Sunshine's spotlights. The thing was fairly bristling with weapons that it would take him and Enda years to afford. Gabriel became very glad that Helm had come in on their side and not against them. It would have been a wry short fight.