Crashlander Read online

  “I’m still wondering how you move it,” said Carlos. Then, “Uh! The tugs!”

  Forward stared, then guffawed. “You didn’t guess that? But of course the black hole can hold a charge. I played the exhaust from an old ion drive reaction motor into it for nearly a month. Now it holds an enormous charge. The tugs can pull it well enough. I wish I had more of them. Soon I will.”

  “Just a minute,” I said. I’d grasped one crucial fact as it had gone past my head. “The tugs aren’t armed? All they do is pull the black hole?”

  “That’s right.” Forward looked at me curiously.

  “And the black hole is invisible.”

  “Yes. We tug it into the path of a spacecraft. If the craft comes near enough, it will precipitate into normal space. We guide the black hole through its drive to cripple it, board and rob it at our leisure. Then a slower pass with the quantum black hole, and the ship simply disappears.”

  “Just one last question,” said Carlos. “Why?”

  I had a better question.

  Just what was Ausfaller going to do when three familiar spacecraft came near? They carried no armaments at all. Their only weapon was invisible.

  And it would eat a General Products hull without noticing.

  Would Ausfaller fire on unarmed ships?

  We’d know too soon. Up there, near the edge of the dome, I had spotted three tiny lights in a tight cluster.

  Angel had seen it, too. He activated the phone. Phantom heads appeared, one, two, three.

  I turned back to Forward and was startled at the brooding hate in his expression.

  “Fortune’s child,” he said to Carlos. “Natural aristocrat. Certified superman. Why would you ever consider stealing anything? Women beg you to give them children, in person if possible, by mail if not! Earth’s resources exist to keep you healthy, not that you need them!”

  “This may startle you,” said Carlos, “but there are people who see you as a superman.”

  “We bred for strength, we Jinxians. At what cost to other factors? Our lives are short, even with the aid of boosterspice. Longer if we live outside Jinx’s gravity. But the people of other worlds think we’re funny. The women…never mind.” He brooded, then said it anyway. “A woman of Earth once told me she would rather go to bed with a tunneling machine. She didn’t trust my strength. What woman would?”

  The three bright dots had nearly reached the center of the dome. I saw nothing between them. I hadn’t expected to. Angel was still talking to the pilots.

  Up from the edge of the dome came something I didn’t want anyone to notice. I said, “Is that your excuse for mass murder, Forward? Lack of women?”

  “I need give you no excuses at all, Shaeffer. My world will thank me for what I’ve done. Earth has swallowed the lion’s share of the interstellar trade for too long.”

  “They’ll thank you, huh? You’re going to tell them?”

  “I—”

  “Julian!” That was Angel calling. He’d seen it…no, he hadn’t. One of the tug captains had.

  Forward left us abruptly. He consulted with Angel in low tones, then turned back. “Carlos! Did you leave your ship on automatic? Or is there someone else aboard?”

  “I’m not required to say,” said Carlos.

  “I could—no. In a minute it will not matter.”

  Angel said, “Julian, look what he’s doing.”

  “Yes. Very clever. Only a human pilot would think of that.”

  Ausfaller had maneuvered the Hobo Kelly between us and the tugs. If the tugs fired a conventional weapon, they’d blast the dome and kill us all.

  The tugs came on.

  “He still does not know what he is fighting,” Forward said with some satisfaction.

  True, and it would cost him. Three unarmed tugs were coming down Ausfaller’s throat, carrying a weapon so slow that the tugs could throw it at him, let it absorb Hobo Kelly, and pick it up again long before it was a danger to us.

  From my viewpoint Hobo Kelly was a bright point with three dimmer, more distant points around it. Forward and Angel were getting a better view through the phone. And they weren’t watching us at all.

  I began trying to kick off my shoes. They were soft ship slippers, ankle-high, and they resisted.

  I kicked the left foot fire just as one of the tugs flared with ruby light.

  “He did it!” Carlos didn’t know whether to be jubilant or horrified. “He fired on unarmed ships!”

  Forward gestured peremptorily. Angel slid out of his seat. Forward slid in and fastened the thick seat belt. Neither had spoken a word.

  A second ship burned fiercely red, then expanded in a pink cloud.

  The third ship was fleeing.

  Forward worked the controls. “I have it in the mass indicator,” he rasped. “We have but one chance.”

  So did I. I peeled the other slipper off with my toes. Over our heads the jointed arm of the Grabber began to swing…and I suddenly realized what they were talking about.

  Now there was little to see beyond the dome. The swinging Grabber, and the light of Hobo Kelly’s drive, and the two tumbling wrecks, all against a background of fixed stars. Suddenly one of the tugs winked blue-white and was gone. Not even a dust cloud was left behind.

  Ausfaller must have seen it. He was turning, fleeing. Then it was as if an invisible hand had picked up Hobo Kelly and thrown her away. The fusion light streaked off to one side and set beyond the dome’s edge.

  With two tugs destroyed and the third fleeing, the black hole was falling free, aimed straight down our throats.

  Now there was nothing to see but the delicate motions of the Grabber. Angel stood behind Forward’s chair, his knuckles white with his grip on the chair’s back.

  My few pounds of weight went away and left me in free-fall. Tides again. The invisible thing was more massive than this asteroid beneath me. The Grabber swung a meter more to one side…and something struck it a mighty blow.

  The floor surged away from beneath me, left me head down above the Grabber. The huge soft-iron puppy dish came at me; the jointed metal arm collapsed like a spring. It slowed, stopped.

  “You got it!” Angel crowed like a rooster, and slapped at the back of the chair, holding himself down with his other hand. He turned a gloating look on us, turned back just as suddenly. “The ship! It’s getting away!”

  “No.” Forward was bent over the console. “I see him. Good, he is coming back, straight toward us. This time there will be no tugs to warn the pilot.”

  The Grabber swung ponderously toward the point where I’d seen Hobo Kelly disappear. It moved centimeters at a time, pulling a massive invisible weight.

  And Ausfaller was coming back to rescue us. He’d be a sitting duck unless—

  I reached up with my toes, groping for the first and fourth buttons on my falling jumper.

  The weaponry in my wonderful suit hadn’t helped me against Jinxian strength and speed. But flatlanders are less than limber, and so are Jinxians. Forward had tied my hands and left it at that.

  I wrapped two sets of toes around the buttons and tugged.

  My legs were bent pretzel-fashion. I had no leverage. But the first button tore loose, and then the thread. Another invisible weapon to battle Forward’s portable bottomless hole.

  The thread pulled the fourth button loose. I brought my feet down to where they belonged, keeping the thread taut, and pushed backward. I felt the Sinclair molecule chain sinking into the pillar.

  The Grabber was still swinging.

  When the thread was through the pillar, I could bring it up in back of me and try to cut my bonds. More likely I’d cut my wrists and bleed to death, but I had to try. I wondered if I could do anything before Forward launched the black hole.

  A cold breeze caressed my feet.

  I looked down. Thick fog boiled out around the pillar.

  Some very cold gas must be spraying through the hair-fine crack.

  I kept pushing. More fog formed. The co
ld was numbing. I felt the jerk as the magic thread cut through. Now the wrists—

  Liquid helium?

  Forward had moored us to the main superconducting power cable.

  That was probably a mistake. I pulled my feet forward carefully, steadily, feeling the thread bite through on the return cut.

  The Grabber had stopped swinging. Now it moved on its arm like a blind questing worm as Forward made fine adjustments. Angel was beginning to show the strain of holding himself upside down.

  My feet jerked slightly. I was through. My feet were terribly cold, almost without sensation. I let the buttons go, left them floating up toward the dome, and kicked back hard with my heels.

  Something shifted. I kicked again.

  Thunder and lightning flared around my feet.

  I jerked my knees up to my chin. The lightning crackled and flashed white light into the billowing fog. Angel and Forward turned in astonishment. I laughed at them, letting them see it. Yes, gentlemen, I did it on purpose.

  The lightning stopped. In the sudden silence Forward was screaming, “—know what you’ve done?”

  There was a grinding crunch, a shuddering against my back. I looked up.

  A piece had been bitten out of the Grabber.

  I was upside down and getting heavier. Angel suddenly pivoted around his grip on Forward’s chair. He hung above the dome, above the sky. He screamed.

  My legs gripped the pillar hard. I felt Carlos’s feet fumbling for a foothold and heard Carlos’s laughter.

  Near the edge of the dome a spear of light was rising. Hobo Kelly’s drive, decelerating, growing larger. Otherwise the sky was clear and empty. And a piece of the dome disappeared with a snapping sound.

  Angel screamed and dropped. Just above the dome he seemed to flare with blue light.

  He was gone.

  Air roared out through the dome—and more was disappearing into something that had been invisible. Now it showed as a blue pinpoint drifting toward the floor. Forward had turned to watch it fall.

  Loose objects fell across the chamber, looped around the pinpoint at meteor speed, or fell into it with bursts of light. Every atom of my body felt the pull of the thing, the urge to die in an infinite fall. Now we hung side by side from a horizontal pillar. I noted with approval that Carlos’s mouth was wide open, like mine, to clear his lungs so that they wouldn’t burst when the air was gone.

  Daggers in my ears and sinuses, pressure in my gut.

  Forward turned back to the controls. He moved one knob hard over. Then he opened the seat belt and stepped out and up and fell.

  Light flared. He was gone.

  The lightning-colored pinpoint drifted to the floor and into it. Above the increasing roar of air I could hear the grumbling of rock being pulverized, dwindling as the black hole settled toward the center of the asteroid.

  The air was deadly thin but not gone. My lungs thought they were gasping vacuum. But my blood was not boiling. I’d have known it.

  So I gasped and kept gasping. It was all I had attention for. Black spots flickered before my eyes, but I was still gasping and alive when Ausfaller reached us, carrying a clear plastic package and an enormous handgun.

  He came in fast, on a rocket backpack. Even as he decelerated, he was looking around for something to shoot. He returned in a loop of fire. He studied us through his faceplate, possibly wondering if we were dead.

  He flipped the plastic package open. It was a thin sack with a zipper and a small tank attached. He had to dig for a torch to cut our bonds. He freed Carlos first, helped him into the sack. Carlos bled from the nose and ears. He was barely mobile. So was I, but Ausfaller got me into the sack with Carlos and zipped it up. Air hissed in around us.

  I wondered what came next. As an inflated sphere the rescue bag was too big for the tunnels. Ausfaller had thought of that. He fired at the dome, blasted a gaping hole in it, and flew us out on the rocket backpack.

  Hobo Kelly was grounded nearby. I saw that the rescue bag wouldn’t fit the air lock, either, and Ausfaller confirmed my worst fear. He signaled us by opening his mouth wide. Then he zipped open the rescue bag and half carried us into the air lock while the air was still roaring out of our lungs.

  When there was air again, Carlos whispered, “Please don’t do that anymore.”

  “It should not be necessary anymore.” Ausfaller smiled. “Whatever it was you did, well done. I have two well-equipped autodocs to repair you. While you are healing, I will see about recovering the treasures within the asteroid.”

  Carlos held up a hand, but no sound came. He looked like something risen from the dead: blood running from nose and ears, mouth wide open, one feeble hand raised against gravity.

  “One thing,” Ausfaller said briskly. “I saw many dead men; I saw no living ones. How many were there? Am I likely to meet opposition while searching?”

  “Forget it,” Carlos croaked. “Get us out of here. Now.”

  Ausfaller frowned. “What—”

  “No time. Get us out.”

  Ausfaller tasted something sour. “Very well. First the autodocs.” He turned, but Carlos’s strengthless hand stopped him.

  “Futz, no. I want to see this,” Carlos whispered.

  Again Ausfaller gave in. He trotted off to the control room. Carlos tottered after him. I tottered after them both, wiping blood from my nose, feeling half-dead myself. But I’d half guessed what Carlos expected, and I didn’t want to miss it.

  We strapped down. Ausfaller fired the main thruster. The rock surged away.

  “Far enough,” Carlos whispered presently. “Turn us around.”

  Ausfaller took care of that. Then, “What are we looking for?”

  “You’ll know.”

  “Carlos, was I right to fire on the tugs?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Good. I was worried. Then Forward was the ship eater?”

  “Yah.”

  “I did not see him when I came for you. Where is he?”

  Ausfaller was annoyed when Carlos laughed and more annoyed when I joined him. It hurt my throat. “Even so, he saved our lives,” I said. “He must have turned up the air pressure just before he jumped. I wonder why he did that.”

  “Wanted to be remembered,” said Carlos. “Nobody else knew what he’d done. Ahh—”

  I looked just as part of the asteroid collapsed into itself, leaving a deep crater.

  “It moves slower at apogee. Picks up more matter,” said Carlos.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Later, Sigmund. When my throat grows back.”

  “Forward had a hole in his pocket,” I said helpfully. “He—”

  The other side of the asteroid collapsed. For a moment lightning seemed to flare in there.

  Then the whole dirty snowball was growing smaller.

  I thought of something Carlos had probably missed. “Sigmund, has this ship got automatic sunscreens?”

  “Of course we’ve got—”

  There was a universe-eating flash of light before the screen went black. When the screen cleared, there was nothing to see but stars.

  ✴

  GHOST: SIX

  “Sigmund Ausfaller killed three miners without a thought,” I said.

  “He was right, though.”

  “That weapons shop he built aboard Hobo Kelly: he was in love with it. No sane man toys with such things.”

  “Saved your life.”

  “He was wearing an asymmetrical beard when I first saw him. He’s too short and stocky to pass for a Wunderlander. I’ve wondered about that for twelve years.”

  “None of my business, nor yours,” Ander said. “Maybe someone was supposed to take him for a gullible tourist, or a fool, or a crazy.”

  “He’s not to be trusted, Ander.”

  Ander laughed suddenly. Stared me in the face and laughed harder. “That’s it! He needed to look crazy. He needed to look crazy enough to plant a bomb aboard a crashlander’s ship!”

  All I
had for answer was a wordless snarl. Tanj, he could even be right.

  Our dinners arrived, and Ander’s chuckle died. He stared at what was on my plate. Crew snapper is a sea creature as big as a short man’s leg, with rows of fins down each side and a jaw built to crush bones. It took up most of the table. It was hideous.

  “Have some,” I said. “It’s an order for two.”

  We ate in silence for a bit. Ander’s eyes kept straying to the crew snapper. He wouldn’t touch it. He wouldn’t speak of it. Presently he said, “For the record, any further contact with Pierson’s puppeteers?”

  I said, “Ander, this was an amazing expenditure just so you can hear Beowulf Shaeffer’s barroom description of a species that no longer deals with any known world.”

  Ander Smittarasheed nodded. “What if I say I talked Sigmund Ausfaller out of a free vacation?”

  “Maybe, if I didn’t know you were recording.”

  He was losing patience. “Any further contact—”

  “None. I’ve seen enough kzinti to last me. Don’t they scare the ARM anymore?”

  Ander Smittarasheed said, “You wouldn’t remember the old Soviet Union? They used a technical term that translates as ‘neutral.’ ‘Neutral’ was any nation that could not conceivably damage the Soviet Union. Puppeteers think like that. If you can hurt them, you have to be rendered neutral.”

  “Better keep an eye on the planets they’ll be passing on their way to nowhere.”

  “They’ll be in range of some Patriarchy worlds, including at least three slave species. After that they’re out of known space.”

  “And the Core explosion is twenty thousand years away. They’ll have to turn first. Plenty of time.”

  “Yah—”

  “Ander?” I set down my hashi. “Never mind.”

  “What?”

  “They’re moving at near lightspeed through normal space? Everything comes on as gamma rays at that velocity! Those planets are repelling gamma rays that’ll make the Core explosion look sickly!”

  He stared. “But. They could have built…whatever…built it and never…If they can shield planets against gamma rays, they didn’t need to go!”

  I felt a grin pulling my lips way-y-y back. Ander had lost his aplomb. I wondered, “What are they running from, then? What are they up to?”