"Yeah… just," Simeon slid the door to the brawn's quarters open, "just settle in. We'll work this out, Ms. Hap-you'll see. I'm not as bad as you seem to think I am. I'll check out your allegations and see if I can make things right. Okay?"
She looked from the open door to Simeon and back again. She sighed as she walked to the door. "No, I think it would be better if you just left things alone for a while."
"Ms. Hap," Simeon called. She turned. "When a new brawn comes aboard, station protocol recommends a little informal gathering of the department heads. I've arranged one for this evening at 20:00. That is, if that's all right with you?"
She nodded and smiled. "I think that's a great idea." The door to her room slid shut behind her.
Chapter Two
"I can't keep her level! I can't keep her level!"
Amos ben Sierra Nueva leaned forward, gripping the edge of the console as if he could force strength down the commlink and the beam to the stricken transport.
"Do not panic, Shintev," he said, firm but calm. "You are too close to your destination for panic."
Panic seemed to be the order of the day. The bridge of the Exodus-a minor substation control center for three hundred years-was in pandemonium as the refugee technicians struggled to activate and improvise. There was a hissing puncture right through the pressure hull where they had slammed a steel tube for the coaxial feeds to Guiyon's shell. None of the big cargo-bay doors were operable so they had had to lash the surface-to-ship transporters to the exterior of the ancient ship and climb in through service-hatch doors. The air was thin and cold, dim with the emergency lighting, full of the smell of fear and sweat and scorched insulation.
"Excellent sir. I think that the enemy has detected us," a voice said from one corner.
"You think?"
"I am not sure!" the technician wailed, on the brink of tears. "They are moving… yes! They have detected us!"
Amos' head whipped around. Then the link from the last shuttle began to transmit only a long high-pitched scream. He looked back again to see a face rammed into the pickup, plastered there by centrifugal force. Flesh and pooling blood rippled across the screen before it blanked out.
"They are gone," Amos said into the sudden hush. "Decouple the remaining shuttles. Prepare for boost."
Another chorus of screams protested that they were not ready.
"The engines are on-line," Guiyon's calm deep voice said. "That will suffice for now."
Amos turned and punched an override. "Prepare for acceleration! Acceleration in ten seconds from mark. Mark!"
A speck of light blossomed across one of the exterior fields.
"They got Shintev," somebody whispered. An extra-orbital fighter, bouncing across the surface of the troposphere like a skipped stone had gotten close enough to launch a seeker missile at the out-of-control shuttle.
"Attend to your duty!" Amos snapped. Later there will be time for prayers, and for tears.
Force pushed at the ancient ship. Humming and snapping sounds vibrated through the hull. Exterior feeds showed gantries and constructs bending and breaking under a strain they had never been intended to endure. The ground-to-orbit shuttles were breaking away as well, and a few figures in spacesuits.
Damnation, Amos thought, looking away. They were warned! So many lives rested on his shoulders.
The great cloud-girdled shape of Bethel began to shrink in the rear viewscreen. The visible face of the planet was obscured by dust and flame from the fighting. Acceleration flattened him into his chair as he read figures from the flickering screens.
"Guiyon!" he said. "We are moving too slowly!"
"Peace, Amos. I am trying to-yes, I am venting the life-support tanks." Tens of thousands of kilotons of water were jettisoned. "That will help us. And hinder the enemy."
"What force pursues us?"
"Five ships of small to moderate size. I think they are the enemy sentinels. None other are in position or rigged for pursuit."
"Will they be able to intercept?"
"I do not know. But I must stress the engines, and there will be casualties among the passengers."
"Do what must be done."
The weight pressing into his body increased until his bones creaked from the gravity that the antique compensators could not handle. The actual gravity would crush.
Behind the Exodus, half the universe vanished in a blaze of drive energies. The hull did not hum anymore: it creaked, with occasional rending and crashing noises as components which had weakened or reset during the long years as an orbital station came apart under the stress and crashed sternwards. Somewhere a child called for its mother, again and again.
"What can we do?" Amos asked.
"Little, until we clear the gravity well," Guiyon answered. "Pray, perhaps, since that was your custom?"
One by one, the refugees lifted voices in chant.
Patsy Sue Coburn glanced over at a silk-clad Channa Hap. Channa was sipping champagne and listening politely to a medical officer who had backed her into a corner to tell a story that seemed to involve a lot of cutting motions. The room was full of station bigwigs, section representatives, department heads, company reps, merchanter captains, the odd artist or entertainer. Trays floated about at shoulder height, loaded with beverages, canapйs, and stimulants. Everyone seemed filled with a new enthusiasm for conversations they'd had a hundred times before, as if the new brawn had reinvigorated old topics. Patsy Sue felt the warmth of Florian Gusky's presence even before his deep voice rumbled softly in her ear.
"So… what do you think of the new girl?"
Patsy looked at him out of the corner of her bottle-green eyes and flicked back her long blond hair. His jaw was thrust forward and his thick neck was hunched into heavy shoulders, accentuating the rugged cast of his features. A big man and nearly as tough as he thought he was. Gusky was an enthusiast for Revival Games, particularly rugby; he looked ready to tackle Channa.
Or stomp on her with cleats, she thought. "I think the new woman's elegant," Patsy replied. And makes me wish I'd been a little more restrained, she added to herself. Her own Junoesque figure was squeezed into a tight red sheath with a deep cleavage and a slit skirt. Her ash-blond hair-her own natural coloring with the barest tint of help from modern technology-was woven with ropes of black pearls.
"I think she's a snob," Gusky said decisively.
"She seems a bit reserved," Patsy allowed. Who wouldn't be, dropped into this mill-and-swill?
"She seems shallow."
"What is yer problem? Y' lookin' at the woman like you think she's got the legs of a cockroach under that gown. I've neva known you to make snap judgments. Do you know somethin' that needs tellin'?"
He looked into his drink, frowning. "No… it's just… Simeon's awfully quiet." He looked up at her with concern in his brown eyes. "That's just not like him."
She grinned and flicked her blond bangs aside. "Well, this will be quite an adjustment fer him after all," she said. "He an' Tell Radon were together for decades. Maybe he's missin' him and doesn't feel like bein' at a party."
Gus nodded, pursing his lips. "Yeah, or maybe he wants to give her a chance to shine…"