The D’neeran Factor (33 page)

She fumbled for the laser. At maximum destruct it cut an entry in seconds. There should have been alarms. She heard none. Heartworld and its dangerous mores. Oh, stupid man, brave man, to go unprotected on Earth!

Leader agreed:
Stupid,
and she felt his contempt.

There was no time to explain what it meant; that life bounded by fear was no life. Instead she said:
Smart enough to spot you! If you want to escape, shut up!

She used the laser on the aircar too, listening for the hum of aircars or groundcars, the efficient machinery of a city used to crime. Nothing. Metal smoked and glowed in the darkness and the car said querulously, “This unit has sustained considerable damage to—”

“Shut up. Shut up.” She wrenched the wrecked door open, burning her hand, and slipped into the pilot's place. The stench of burning plastics faded and the smell of fine leather engulfed her. The enclosure was haven. She or Leader was sick with relief. She pawed at what she hoped was the right switch and all the displays came on. Her eyes flickered over them.

“Can you fly?” she asked the computer controls.

“Yes. Hours to maintenance—”

“Never mind. Open the door and give me manual control.”

The exit door peeled open with maddening slowness and the car said “Ready,” and she whipped it out so fast it complained again. The controls were standard, thank God. A meter off the ground she careened wildly to avoid a tree and the car said severely, “Is the operator qualified for this vehicle?”

“Yes, yes, yes!”

She went up in a hurry and her stomach lurched. She looked over her shoulder and saw the house fall away, a child's toy, impotent. The dark snow, the darker sky, were empty of pursuit. Ahead of her were low hills and then dense city lights. She made for the hills at top speed. They would be shelter, but not for long; her eyes caught a monitor that showed moving blips of Enforcement activity, heading this way. Trust Jameson to have this little feature. She muttered, “Thank you, Commissioner,” and for a wild instant longed to go back. She meant more to him than danger, and what damage would this do him?

No. No. Do not think of that!

A shadow showed behind the protest. Reptilian beauty, unbreakable bond: she knew what it was and in a wild leap of hope reached for it savagely, it might be a weapon as powerful as The Questioner was for him.

But the agony of loss was her own. She was alien and human male and female all at once, Leader's bondmate, was that what she'd glimpsed? And, oh dear God, Jameson—

The car dipped. She broke free, gasping. Leader withdrew as violently as she, revolted. Human sex was a maze of dark tunnels that fed into each other endlessly. He wanted no part of it. He longed passionately for the simplicities of his Home.

Home, yes. Rounded towers in the dawn, the young splashing in pebbled pools, scarlet plumage warm at fullsun
—
this is not my home!

Leader said:
It is mine.

The car hovered, bereft of guidance, and she passed her hands over her face, her human face. Home, safety, a refuge against the night; her own thought had sparked Leader's, was that how it worked? The arms of his bondmate were gentle. She left to wake the hearth before dawn. He was not whole without her. They were a single living animal, and neither would ever bond with another. They were that way because, because—

She reached for it, almost understanding the imprinted bond for life, so foreign to human instinct.

The sky lit up behind her. They were there, searching for her. She would go back. To Jameson, who could not hurt her—

Leader thought with contempt:
He will. You are not Us but separate. Duty compels him.

The Questioner bent over her and the tattered mote of Hanna-then hung screaming in an abyss of nothing. Hanna-now whimpered, lost. The humans would make her endure that again, and forever.

Leader said:
Space. Safety. Freedom.

She caught at it—some of it—space; time to think, time to fight, time to get herself back. Jameson would destroy her. A man with responsibilities.

She growled to the car, “Outport. Top speed,” and sprawled with the burst of power, teetering in the broken doorway. The car tilted and spilled her safely to its other side. It began to remonstrate.

Her mind cleared. A public outport would do her no good at all.

Something she had read tugged at her memory. She cut
into the safety lecture. “Does Commissioner Jameson have private Inspace transport?”

“Yes. The
Heartworld II,
a Class D yacht, based at Nordholm Field—”

“Take me there,” she said, shocked by sudden hope. “It's not a military port, is it?”

The car veered and nearly threw her out again. It said, sounding cross, “The field is maintained by the Nordholm Society as a service to its members.”

Nordholm Society. The name meant nothing. Lights and water flashed beneath her. The car showed no Enforcers pursuing her. But by this time they would know the car was gone. It was now locked into local airspace control and could be located and stopped in minutes, maybe seconds. How far was there left to go?

The car decelerated gently, cruising in over a black ribbon of water to hover over metal shadows in the darkness. Above them on a hill there were lights. The reference connected. Nordholm Society: a private club; elegance and service for the rich and powerful. Tight security?

“Which is Commissioner Jameson's vessel? Put me down next to it.”

“It is not his vessel. It is the property of Heartworld—”

Hurry!

“—and if we descend without the proper signal, Enforcement will be notified,” the car said.

“Do you know the signal?”

“No. Air-surface vehicles are prohibited—”

“Land anyway. Down. Now!”

The alarm began before it reached the ground, a deafening burst of noise, and light flooded the field. What else would there be? She jumped the last meter to the ground, slipped on ice and nearly fell, wrenching her knee. The car shouted at her but she could not hear what it said over the clamor. The yacht towered over her, two hundred meters long and streamlined for atmosphere. The sun-and-crossed-spears of Heartworld gleamed on its bow. She scrambled along its side, slipping, until she faced the main hatch. She fired at it, hands numbing with cold as metal flared, waiting for the end, anything, sleepygas jets, supersonics to drill into her skull. There was nothing. Serves you arrogant bastards right, she said to all Heartworlders collectively and individually,
and the hatch burst open and she sprang in. She touched a switch and the inner lock opened instantly, disarmed by the pressure outside. She heard an angry yell and turned, firing blindly at the voice; a man, private security probably, ducked, and the inner lock shut behind her. Its design was familiar. She knew how to disable it and used the laser to do so; they would have to burn it open, and private security forces could not carry lasers.

She shouted orders as she ran for the flight deck, still waiting for the end. But the ship responded as if it were keyed to her voice. Bulkheads opened for her, slid shut behind her; lights flashed around her; in her feet she felt the purr of a thinking machine coming to life. She could not stop now. Her own fear and Leader's propelled her, she had to get away, get to space, think or plunge into a star.

Leader said:
Why so easy? When the not-People steal?

She understood.

Because on Heartworld you die for such theft.

Die? Die!!?

Adjustment. Brainsoup alterations. Death, more or less.

The flight deck was an elegant statement in black and white; this was a luxury machine. An enormous window in its nose showed more men running toward her, and then the white hull of an Enforcement vessel landing directly before her. She ignored it, her eyes on the master controls. Their simplicity stopped her; she was a defense pilot. Even if she knew what to do it would take too long to get power and they would shoot their way in. And it would be over. She sank into the pilot's seat, giddy with relief. She would let them stop her, Jameson deserved that—

Leader wailed without sound, and a communications signal spoke urgently.

“Shut up,” she said automatically, and the beeping stopped but Leader did not.

Do something, do something, there, there!

The urgency was her own; she forgot about stopping. She touched something without knowing what it was and the yacht said crisply, “Conventional power at seventy-five percent and building. Takeoff checklist commencing.”

“Seventy-five?”

Jameson must have to move quickly at times.

Her hand twitched on a lever, an unwilled weight. The
yacht said, “Inspace checklist commencing. Conventional power eighty percent and building.”

“No!” she cried out loud.

Leader said:
Remember.

Ship and Earth and she vanished and died; a split second later, wringing wet, she was staring at numbers, levers, winking panels, bright displays. The drug, she thought. The thing they thought of as human undeath. She could not bear it again. The humans did not even know how to make it, they would have to experiment. Endless dying without death, time stopped, all she was shredded and lost in the void. Jameson watching it all, cold sea-mist eyes in the cold howling winds.

“Conventional power ninety percent and building. Takeoff checklist completed. All systems go. Is itemization required?”

Dust clogged her mouth. Leader said:
Tell it no.

She said with difficulty, “No.”

“Ninety-five percent.”

The heart of a star, fiery ending—

“At power.”

She said like a sleepwalker, “Commence countdown.” Reflected warning lights blinked red on the Enforcement ship's hull. It stood sharply against floodlights, there was light everywhere, then it jumped as if kicked and spun away. Men would be running, getting clear. She hoped. She hoped no brave fool would charge into the wrecked airlock and try to cut his way in as she had.

“Minus five and counting.”

The flight panel wavered, steadied, and suddenly was comprehensible. She reached for atmospheric guidance.
Heartworld II
would take off faster than it ever had before.

“Two…one…liftoff,” it said, and shot up and out through an invisible ceiling just as the Enforcers decided to fire, and power flared under her and disabled God knew what.

She went straight up, ignoring atmospheric drag until the yacht screamed in protest: too much, too much! It was not made for takeoffs like this. Gravity compensation wavered and for a moment extra weight crushed her. The yacht skittered to one side, bucking and trying not to crash. A display
for local airspace said: RED ALERT. The city was paralyzed now, everything in the air dropping fast. Except this vessel which was exempted anyway, and those of the Enforcers. She let the computer take over for a second, two seconds, three: her path stabilized into a long glide oblique through atmosphere. She changed the angle, more acute now, and lights flashed but the stresses were tolerable. An override circuit blinked in and a voice began talking about its authority to order her to turn back. She located the speaker, aimed the laser, and fired. The voice stopped.

“Go,” she said to
Heartworld II,
which was already going as fast as it could. It was a match for the Enforcers, who would have only atmospheric capability. She could not remember what the law enforcement agencies of Earth had to meet this contingency, a private Inspace vessel stolen and on the run. Probably nothing. Probably this did not happen very often, possibly never. She was doing the unthinkable, but something would meet her from Fleet orbital stations and treat her like an alien enemy. They would fire rather than let her get away.

She said to
Heartworld II,
“I want to Jump the nanosecond you can do it.”

She did not know what Earth's limits were for Jumping. Beyond Lunar orbit? The spacetime disruption of a Jump was a disaster for anything nearby and the yacht would be programmed for all the legal limits and inhibited from Jumping inside them. She could not outrun Fleet vessels. If the limit were not close she could not make it.

“Destination?” said
Heartworld II,
and she saw the sky was black, the stars bright; already she was well out of atmosphere.

“What are you programmed for? And how many Jumps?”

“Heartworld in thirty.”

“Do Jump One and then program for a random Jump.”

“Fifteen seconds to One. A random Jump is inadvisable. The probability of failure is unacceptably high.”

“Do it, God damn you! And show me Earth, naked eye.”

It was more distant than she had thought. A spear of pure blue stabbed her eyes from a sea in its bulge of light.

“Radar visual—”

Half a dozen vessels after her. She ought to be dead already. But automatic defenses were set for enemies coming in, not going out.

“Countdown, please.”

“Seven…six…”

They were closing. There was nothing she could do. Private transport would not have weapons-evasion systems. And evasion would not help her; this was a race.

“Five…four…three…”

A backview monitor showed a flare of light. Someone had fired something.

“Two…”

If they killed her now at least she would not have to worry about what to do next.

“One…”

Leader said:
Thou art mine.

“Transit,” said
Heartworld II.

The stars changed, and Leader was free.

*   *   *

It occurred to Jameson once that nature might have reversed herself and established permanent night, or that by some magic he had been transported to the endless ice and darkness of a polar winter. From his rooms at Polity Admin he saw floodlit river-ice melding into blackness and nothing else for longer, surely, than was possible in this zone of Earth. Nor was there order or normalcy inside the walls of Admin. There was one face or another or many at a time and he had to talk to all of them and they blurred together. There was the intricate dance of politics and defense and personalities and bureaucracies, an unceasing storm of words, the rigorous logic of attack and defense exercised by men who still were in irrational shock at the occult-seeming power of their enemy.