David Drake - Starliner_玖贝云文库

Starliner

Table of Contents

DEDICATION

EARTH: DOCKING

EARTH:

UNDOCKING

IN TRANSIT:

EARTH TO NEVASA

NEVASA

IN TRANSIT:

NEVASA TO BISCAY

BISCAY

IN TRANSIT:

BISCAY TO AIN AL-MAHDI

AIN AL-MAHDI

HOBILO

CALICHEMAN

SZGRANE

TELLICHERY

IN TRANSIT:

TELLICHERY ORBIT

IN TRANSIT:

TELLICHERY TO TBLISI

TBLISI

STARLINER

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David Drake

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-671-72121-6

Cover art by Paul Alexander

First printing, June 1992

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE . . .

"One thing," said Franz Streseman. He didn't look young any more- "You are all brave, and no doubt

you have weapons training,I am the soldier here, however."

He surveyed his four older companions. "Shoot first, shoot to kill," he said coldly. "Don't threaten and

don't hesitate. It maybe that Oanh will be mistaken for an opponent. I myself may mistake her for an

opponent."

Ran hadn't seen anything as bleak as the young Grantholmer's expression since he faced the Cold Crew

in Taskerville.

"I say to you," Franz continued, "it is better that Oanh die than that she remain alive in the hands of these

folk. I know them, Iknow their type. She is not human to them. We must not hesitate."

Wanda Holly licked her lips. "And on that cheerful note," she said, "I think it's time to go." She glanced

at the others, then added, "Good luck, fellows. We may all be crazy, but I'm damned glad I know people

like you."

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DEDICATION

To Clyde and Carlie Howard

Because they're friends, rather than just because they

helped with the research; though they did that too.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Clyde and Carlie Howard, and Sandra Miesel, all dug up material I didn't know I needed until it arrived.

Mark Van Name and Allyn Vogel diagnosed and cured the computer glitch that seems inevitably to crop

up when I'm almost finished with a novel (this one turned out to be a printer glitch, but you couldn't have

proved it by me). And Jim Baen told me to write this book because it was the book I wanted to

write—even though I think he'd just as soon have gotten something that could have a tank on the cover.

It's nice to have friends.

EARTH: DOCKING

The starship shimmered yellow in the midst of three spikes of blue flux, the magnetic motors of the tugs

which added their thrust to that of the larger vessel. Ribbons of aurora borealis filled the rest of the

sunless sky with faint pastels.

Lieutenant Randall Colville didn't need to squint as he stared upward, because the limousine's sunroof

grayed automatically to dim the dangerous brilliance of the tugs' discharges. The low-frequency rumble of

the starship's passage through the stratosphere shook the car.

"Is that . . . ?" asked Lady Hilda Bernsdorf. She was in the driver's seat, but the limousine edged

forward under external control in the line waiting for access to Port Northern's VIP parking.

Ran smiled at her, though there wasn't a great deal behind the expression at the moment. Hilda was a

good lady, appreciative and quite appreciable. And the timing couldn't have worked out better . . . .

"TheEmpress ?" he said. "No, probably a Planet-Class packet from Solar Traders."

Ran combed the fingers of his left hand through his short auburn hair as he considered the descending

vessel. "TheJupiter 's on a Wednesday shuttle from K'Chitka. It's probably her. But she's not a third the

size of theEmpress of Earth , milady."

The limousine jerked forward again as the car at the head of the line cleared the final security check. The

autopilot of Lady Bernsdorf's vehicle was capable of micrometric precision, but the Port Northern

control worked in much coarser increments.

Ran made a mental note. The spaceport authorities should do something about that. Those with access

to Port Northern's VIP lot understood the need for security as well as anyone on Earth, but they wouldn't

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put up with needless discomfort

That wasn't a matter of concern to a junior officer of Trident Starlines . . . but thirty standard years in the

past, Ran Colville had been born on Bifrost, the son of a hide-hunting ex-mercenary. Someday in the

future, there might be a Ran Colville who was administrator of the greatest spaceport in the known

universe.

"They're all ships," Hilda said. "They all take people places they don't want to be. . . ."

Her right hand tightened on the limousine's collective, a wheel with a 10-cm diameter. Forward and

back motion controlled speed. Rotating the wheel turned the vehicle without need for the driver to

consider the car's attitude or fan pitch. The control was disabled in the secure lane, so it didn't matter that

the knuckles of Lady Bernsdorf's fine-boned hand were mottled with the force of their grip.

Ran laid his big left hand over Hilda's, squeezing just enough to remind her that he was present Her

features were as sharp and beautiful as those of a well-struck medallion. "Some people like to travel," he

said gently.

He thought of Bifrost. Some people know that wherever they go will be better than where they started

out, even if that means working their passage in the Cold Crew, outside a starship in sponge space.

Aloud, controlling his voice to prevent it from trembling, he said, "Is that why you didn't go with your

husband to Nevasa? You don't like star travel?"

Hilda's hand twisted on the collective to grip his. She leaned toward him, reaching up with her free hand

to draw him into a fierce kiss. Ran slipped his hand behind the woman and kneaded the flesh over her

shoulderblades. The garment she wore was silk from a Waserli royal nursery chamber. The fabric was

opaque despite its natural pale dun color, but it was so fine that he could feel the texture of Lady

Bernsdorf's skin through it.

The line of cars advanced again. The stuttering motion was masked by Shockwaves reflected as the

starship and its tugs neared the ground.

Hilda turned her head, breaking the kiss but continuing to hold Ran cheek to cheek with her. "That and

other things," she said. "Sven isn't pleasant to be around when he's on a mission. If things aren't going

well, he takes it out on whoever's closest. After a while, I decided that that wouldn't be me anymore."

"Well, ambassadors have a lot on their minds," Ran said. He twisted slightly to watch the sunroof

through the blond halo of Lady Bernsdorf's hair.

A spot on the clear panel darkened. The limousine's sensors had noted potentially dangerous actinics

and polarized against them before human retinas could have reacted. "This may be it," Ran murmured.

"Umm?"

"My ship. The Empress of Earth,"

Hilda stiffened, then relaxed and very deliberately released Colville. She straightened on her side of the

car and touched a control. The limousine's windows were opaque to outside eyes; now the inner face of

the windshield mirrored as well. She adjusted the angle of reflection and began fussing with her hair.

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"I, ah . . ." Ran said awkwardly.

He wasn't sure what the woman wanted, but he knew he'd screwed up that time. She was a nice lady.

She shouldn't feel that he didn't care about her when they parted, and hedid care. But it had been a long

road from Bifrost to Third Officer, Staff Side, of theEmpress of Earth . . . .

"If your . . . if Count Bernsdorf is coming home early," Ran continued, "does that mean he's brokered

peace and the emergency is over? Or, ah, that it's war for sure between Nevasa and Grantholm?"

"You're asking the wrong Bernsdorf," Hilda said curtly. She cleared the windshield as spaceport control

jogged the limousine forward again. They were nearing the head of the queue. "Not that Sven would tell

you anything. Or tellme anything. He's very professional. In five years, he'll be heading the Ministry of

External Affairs."

The limousine shuddered from the hammering roar of the incoming starship. The eye-saving filter in the

sunroof had expanded to the size of a gravy boat. It was almost black, indicating a near-uniform intensity

of flux between the starship's own motors and those of the eight tugs aiding its descent. The vessel's mass

was such that her own motors were being run at high capacity despite the large number of tugs adding

their thrust.

"This is a—"

Ran Colville looked at Hilda in sudden confusion. Until she spoke, he'd forgotten she was present.

"—considerable promotion for you, isn't it, Ran?" the woman continued smoothly, as though her clear

blue eyes had failed to notice her ex-lover's abstraction. "This ship is bigger than any of the others you've

served on."

Ran gave a wry chuckle. "A Planet-Class liner is bigger than anythingI've served on," he admitted. "And

theEmpress of Earth , well, she's the biggest there is, my love . . . . Except maybe for theBrasil , and

that's a matter of how you measure the two of them. Yeah, this is a promotion."

Without changing her neutral expression, Hilda said, "Since Sven is coming home from Nevasa, that

means he's failed. If there'd been a realistic chance of Nevasa agreeing to peace talks, he'd have gone on

to Grantholm. Federated Earth doesn't want an interstellar war to break out, but since both the principals

do—they'll fight, won't they? Because they're fools."

"I don't figure it either," Ran said, staring upward toward theEmpress of Earth . "Nevasa and

Grantholm have everything they could want already. It's not like B-B . . . It's not like some of the fringe

worlds, where people don't have anything to lose from a war."

Not like Bifrost.

TheEmpress of Earth 's descent had been braked to a near hover by thrust at high altitude. Now she

was dropping again, supported primarily by the tugs. The limousine's filters paled, permitting details of the

huge vessel to show through a gray haze. Landing outriggers extended from the cylindrical hull, and the

panels concealing the lifeboat bays were withdrawn.

The podded reaction engines were snugged into hollows while theEmpressmaneuvered in a gravity well.

They drove the vessel in sponge space, fed and maintained by the Cold Crew while everyone else was

safe in the starship's insulated interior.

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The limousine grated to a halt at the guard kiosk. A canopy clamped over the vehicle, sealing it from the

North Polar elements. The driver's-side window withdrew before Hilda touched the control. An

attendant in civilian clothes with an identibox on her left shoulder leaned into the opening.

"Lady Hilda Bernsdorf," Hilda said coolly. She stared directly at the identibox. "Meeting Count

Bernsdorf, a passenger on theEmpress of Earth ."

"Randall Park Colville," Ran said. He blinked involuntarily, though he knew the tiny burst of laser light

which painted his retinas was of too low an intensity for him to notice. "Reporting for duty as junior staff

lieutenant aboard theEmpress of Earth ."

There was a briefzeep from the attendant's shoulder. "Milady, sir," she said as she straightened. "Thank

y—"

The closing window cut off the last of the perfunctory phrase. If Port Northern's data bank had not

cleared the occupants' identifications, or if sensors had indicated anything doubtful within the vehicle, the

limousine would have been shunted into a holding facility hardened against nuclear weapons before the

check proceeded.

"Ran," Lady Bernsdorf said. She was facing the windshield as the limousine staged through the double

airlocks which protected Port Northern against the elements. Hoarfrost formed despite the static charge

of the dome covering the port facilities. It zigged like frozen lightning against the auroral pastels.

Ran looked down at his companion. "Milady?"

"We agreed that this was only for a few days," Hilda went on in a controlled voice. "That we'd never try

to see each other again. Because it was too dangerous."

Ran thought he understood at last why Hilda had been so tense ever since they got up in the morning to

make the drive. "Oh, milady," he said gently. She still wouldn't look at him.

He leaned over the console and kissed her rigid cheek. "Did you think I was going to wreck your life?

Oh, love, I'm not that sort. You've honored me greatly with your company. I wouldn't do anything to hurt

you. Least of all cause you problems with your husband."

The limousine halted in its assigned space—less than ten meters from the VIP entrance to the passenger

terminal. Ran pressed the door release. The panel shrank from an impervious sheet to a centimeter-thick

block resting on the lower coaming.

He got out. He thought Hilda had started to say something, but when he looked back she was still

seated, and her eyes were straight ahead.

Ran stretched. Passengers and the uniformed but unarmed doorman glanced at him—a young man of

middle height, in the white uniform of a Staff Side officer of Trident Starlines. Men on Bifrost were rangy

rather than solid, but no one who had ever seen a Bifrost Cold Crew riot doubted the strength—or the

ruthlessness—of those who came from that bitter world on the fringe of civilization.

The atmosphere of the parking area was slightly warmer than that set by the limousine's climate control.

It contained vague tinges of lubricant and ozone from the vehicular traffic. At the distant rear of the lot, a

monorail hissed to a halt and began transferring the normal mass of passengers and visitors to the

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slideways that would take them within the building.

Ran looked up through the cleardome of Port Northern. For a moment, all he could see was steam

roiling in patterns of compression and rarefaction from the thrust that balanced the starliner's huge mass.

The view cleared abruptly. The motors of the tugs and starship had blasted away all the condensate on

the landing field.

TheEmpress of Earth hung poised a few meters from touching the ground: 800 meters long, 150 meters

across the diameter of her cylindrical hull; built to the precision of an astronomical dock despite her

enormous mass.

The highest expression of technology within the known universe . . . and Ran Colville was an officer

aboard her.

He straightened his cap. He considered throwing it in the air, but he'd gotten this far by not putting a foot

wrong professionally. He wasn't going to jeopardize his chances of getting much farther.

Shouting with laughter hidden by the thunder of the starliner landing, Ran Colville marched toward the

entrance and his future. He didn't look back at the limousine, which still sat with the right-hand door

open.

Franz Streseman's monorail compartment was a party of Grantholm citizens: two couples and six single

men. All of them were middle-aged, all of them were buzzed if not drunk; and they were very loud. Franz

sat stiffly, staring toward his hands crossed in his lap and thinking about the engineering degree he was

leaving behind.

Perhaps forever; but "forever" was a concept beyond the experience of an eighteen-year-old, while the

utter disruption of his life was a present reality.

"Damn, damn, damn the Mindanesians," sang the party from Grantholm, all the men and three of the

women joining in on the choruses.

Franz knew the lyrics, from a camp song of the Mindanao campaign twenty years before. Mindanao had

been settled from Earth, mostly by Filipinos and other East Asians, but with funding and control from

Grantholm. The colony fell behind on its repayment schedule, because a significant proportion of its

wireweed production was being diverted to interloping traders at free-market prices rather than going to

Grantholm on fixed-rate contracts.

Grantholm's determination to have its rights sparked a full-scale rebellion.

"Cross-eyed, dirty-faced ladrones," the party sang.

"Underneath the triple suns, civilize them with our guns,

"And return us to our own beloved homes!"

The men in the Grantholm party were of an age to have served on Mindanao, but it was unlikely that all

of them had done so. Grantholm had developed a network of dependant worlds through a combination

of entrepreneurial drive and governmental action. Most of the armed forces which put down the

Mindanese Rebellion—and theydid put it down, though wireweed production was only now beginning to

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equal what it had been before the war—came from those subject planets.

Five years after the Mindanese Rebellion drowned in blood, Mindanese battalions were serving

Grantholm on Cartegena during the "emergency" there.

"Social customs there are few," boomed the Grantholm men.

"All the ladies smoke and chew . . ."

The monorail swayed gently as its gyroscopic stabilizer matched the polar winds without difficulty.

Ultra-high-frequency sound predicted the force and direction of gusts, feeding data to the stabilizer, so

that the monorail actively met disturbances instead of reacting to them. Magnetic bearings supported the

cars which slipped along above the rail without direct contact, and the podded drive motors vibrated only

at the molecular level.

The cars' physical environment was as smooth as human endeavors could be in the real world. The

social environment within Franz Streseman's compartment, however—

"And the men do things the padres say are wrong . . ."

The compartment was designed to hold thirty people in comfort. Besides the Grantholm party, there

were only five others, huddled, like Franz, at the further end, though the monorail was packed on this run.

A family of six—father, mother, and children, none of whom was older than ten standard

years—shuffled into the compartment from the next car down. The adults hesitated for a moment,

blinking as if fearful that the apparent emptiness was a trick.

A Grantholm man noticed the newcomers. "Hey!" he shouted. "This compartment isn't for slant-eyes!"

"Yeah," cried one of the women. "Ride out there!" She pointed to the white expanse beyond the car's

full-length side windows. Violent winds lifted dry snow from the ground and whipped it into ghastly

patterns. "There's plenty of room for your sort."

The newcomers were in origin Tamils, from low on the Indian subcontinent. Their eyelids had no sign of

an epicanthal fold—

And more particularly, they were as unlikely to be citizens of Nevasa as were those folk in the front of

the compartment

"Pardon?" said the man. His smile was broad and as humorless as that of a man dying in convulsions. "I

am Parvashtisinga Sadek and—"

"Go back where you came from, slant-eye!"

"Hey, you can leave the wife. I might have a use for her!"

"Save the oldest girl, too!"

Very deliberately, Franz Streseman got up from his seat He stood in the aisle, facing the Grantholm party

with his legs spread and his hands crossed behind his back in a formal at-ease posture. He said nothing,

but he met the eyes of any who looked his way.

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He heard the Tamils slip into seats behind him. The children began to chatter, but their parents shushed

them. When Franz was sure that the last of them was settled, he walked forward two places and sat

down again himself.

"Hey, we're coming into the station," noted one of the Grantholm women who was looking out a side

window to avoid having to note Franz Streseman's presence. As she spoke, the car shuddered with the

thump, thump, of airlocks. The monorail had passed into the vast protected doughnut of Port Northern,

encircling the open area where the starships landed. In the sudden stillness of the atmosphere, Franz felt

the faint whine of drive pods braking the train.

Shapes and bright light fluttered past the compartment's windows. The images slowed to become

platforms—empty to the right, packed with passengers for the return trip on the left of the train—as the

monorail decelerated to a crawl. Thrust pulled Franz forward against his grip on the handrail. The Sadek

children squealed again, and the infant began to cry.

The car shifted with a loudclack as the superconducting magnets shut down and the monorail touched its

support rail for the first rime. The right-hand wall slid up and recessed into the car's roof. Warm, dry air

bathed the passengers. The monorail's quiver had been too slight to notice during the high-speed run, but

Franz noticed the absence now that they had come to a halt

Baggage consoles were spaced a meter apart along the back wall of the platform, with a uniformed

attendant waiting near each trio of machines. Franz didn't run, but he was young and alone. He made it to

a console a half-step ahead of one of the Grantholm couples. The woman muttered to her husband as

other members of their party spread across the consoles to either side.

Franz placed the ID chip he wore as a signet on his left little finger in the slot of the routing machine. The

holographic display fluoresced in a random pattern, then reformed with the images of eight sealed,

cubic-meter crates and four ordinary suitcases. The crates sat beneath a red mask; the suitcases were

outlined in blue.

Franz nodded and pressed the pad of his thumb to the cursor pulsing on the immaterial screen. An

attendant, a woman with a dark complexion and indeterminate features, stepped over to him and slipped

her own chip into the paired slot of the console.

She smiled professionally. "So, Mr. Streseman," she said. "You identify this luggage as yours and request

that it be loaded aboard theEmpress of Earth ?"

"That is correct," Franz said in the formal response to authority which had been ingrained in him since

birth.

"Eight pieces of hold baggage, four pieces to accompany you in your cabin. Would you like to make any

changes now? You won't be able to do so once the vessel is under way."

"No," Franz said. "That is correct. I am returning to Grantholm for military service. I will not have need

of the items in my hold baggage until, until I resume my education."

The luggage itself was in the lower compartment of one of the cars of the monorail. Robot systems

would transfer it to the starliner, but there were practical as well as legal reasons for requiring passengers

to identify their own property immediately before boarding.

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"Say,you're from Grantholm?" asked the woman behind Franz.

"And you authorize Port Northern and Trident Starlines to examine these cases in any fashion they

choose, Mr. Streseman?"

"That is correct."

The attendant placed her own thumbprint on the cursor, clearing the display. She removed her ID chip.

"TheEmpress of Earth is at Berth 8, Mr. Streseman," she said in a slightly warmer tone. "Follow the

blue arrows around the concourse if you don't know the way . . . but I don't think you'll have any

difficulty seeing theEmpress. "

Franz turned from the console. The Grantholm woman pushed past him but her husband said," 'Scuse

me, buddy, but 1 heard you say you're one of the boys going home to teach Nevasa a lesson. I'm Hans

Dickbinder."

He stuck out his hand. He was a black-haired man, a centimeter or two shorter than Franz but thick and

soft-looking.

Franz clicked his heels and dipped his head in crisp acknowledgement. He did not appear to notice the

man's outstretched hand. "And I am Franz Streseman," he said.

He strode off to the head of the monorail platform, from which slidewalks led around the concourse.

* * *

"Welcome to Trident Village," murmured a disembodied voice speaking Universal as Lieutenant Wanda

Holly walked through the authorized personnel only doorway. The badges Trident Starlines issued to

emigrants when they paid their fares responded to UHF interrogation with the wearer's birth language.

The greeting could have been in any of a thousand tongues.

If Holly's ID chip had not identified her as a Trident Starlines official, the voice would have added,

"Please wait here until someone arrives to serve you." The intruderwould wait, because both blast-proof

anteroom doors sealed at the moment of unauthorized entry.

The door to the operations room collapsed open as Wanda stepped toward it Danalesco, wearing

coveralls with emigrant staff on the cuffs and supervisor in a red field on his shoulders, was alone in the

room. He looked up from his console and called, "Yo, Wanda! Good to see you again. I thought you

were done with us peons since you got your second stripe."

Wanda Holly wore a gray, one-piece fatigue uniform with the double stripes of a senior lieutenant on the

cuffs. The upper stripe was twice the width of the lower, indicating that she was on the Staff Side,

passenger matters, rather than Ship Side, navigation and control. On public occasions, Staff officers wore

gleaming white, while the Ship officers were in dark blue which was less likely to focus the attention of a

passenger.

Around the Trident Starlines badge on her shoulder was the name of Wanda's vessel in script:Empress

of Earth.

"How's it going, Danny?" she said. Her voice was pleasant, but she was checking the systems board as

she spoke. A dozen segments were in the amber, about par for the course; but three were redlined, and

she couldn't have hidden her frown if she'd wanted to.

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David Drake - Starliner

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