Anne McCaffrey - Ship 6 - The Ship Avenged

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The ship avenged
S. M. STIRLING
THE SHIP AVENGED
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.
Copyright © 1997 by S. M. Stirling
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, NY 10471
ISBN: 0-671-87861-1
Cover art by Stephen Hickman
First paperback printing, February 1998
Distributed by Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 96-36977
Typeset by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH Printed m the United States of America
PROLOGUE
Belazir t'Marid, War Lord of the Kolnar, Clan Father after Chalku, gazed at the row of crystal vials in
their rack, admiring the amber liquid within them. With a lover's tenderness he stroked one jet-black
finger across them, reveling in their cool, smooth surfaces.
"Perfect," he murmured, holding the rack up to the light.
His face was no longer an ancient Greeks vision of masculine beauty colored the depthless onyx of a
starless night. The quick aging of Kolnar had seamed and scored it, until the starved hunger of the soul
within showed through the flesh. The brass-yellow eyes looked down on the vials with a benevolent
affection he showed no human being.
Then he smiled, teeth even and white and hard, and laughed. His fist squeezed shut, as if it held a
throat.
His son fought not to shiver at the sound of that laugh. There was hatred in it, and an overtone of
madness. It made the narrow confines of the bio-storage chamber seem constricting—an odd sensation
to one born and raised in the strait confines of spaceships and vacuum habitats. Life-support kept the
air pure and varied only enough to simulate Kolnar's usual range of temperatures, from freezing to just
below the boiling point of water. Yet now it felt clammy and oppressive . . .
"Not perfect," Karak's voice rasped across his father's reverie. “This disease does not kill. I call that far
from perfect. Clan Father," he added, when Belazir turned to glare at his oldest living son.
The elder Kolnar allowed himself an exasperated hiss; it was entirely natural for a boy to plot his
father's death, but also for his father to strike first if it became too obvious. And the boys resentment
and dislike were, if anything, obvious.
At times, he wondered about Karak's paternity, for the boy had no subtlety. But the face that looked
defiantly back at him might have been his own, some years ago. Once, he too had that youthful
swagger, the crackling vitality that sparkled though the lean, panther-muscled body and the vanity that
showed in silver ornaments woven into waist-length silver-white hair.
"Child," he said with deceptive gentleness. Karak stiffened. Belazir enjoyed the reaction, and the
reaction to reaction. Let the heir realize the old eagle still had claws.
"It pleases me to enlighten you as to why this is a punishment that most admirably fits the crime.
Central Worlds, and the damnable Bethelite scum, created The Great Plague to eradicate the Divine
Seed of Kolnar." He paused and raised one eyebrow, as if to inquire, Is this not so? Karak nodded
once, resentfully. "And we shall repay that evil by inflicting upon them a disease that will not simply
destroy, but will terrify and humiliate them."
Reluctantly he placed the rack of vials back on its shelf and closed the cooler door. Then he turned to
his son:
"Is it enough for you that they should merely die?" he asked in mild astonishment. Karak frowned, but
did not answer. "True, it does not kill. What it does is far worse, and the Bethelites shall appreciate
that, where you cannot." Belazir laughed, a low chuckle full of gloating pleasure. "It will be a living
nightmare to those few not afflicted.
"As you lack imagination, Karak, let me tell you what will happen." Belazir made a sweeping motion
with his arm, as though activating a holo-display. "Once the scumvermin realize the magnitude of the
threat they face, first, they will call upon their god, as they did when we took Bethel in our fist. And
when he does not answer them, some will say that they deserve their fate; a view that we, of course,
share. But not all of them will lie down and wait to rot. No."
Belazir ground his teeth, remembering one Bethelite in particular who had refused to lie down.
"So. They will next call upon their allies, the mighty Central Worlds, for aid." He spread his hands.
"But there is no cure! Oh, a few paltry doses of one," he jerked his head dismissively, "but they are in
our possession. Their champions will have no choice but to quarantine their miserable little planet. The
all-powerful Fleet of would-be saviors from Central Worlds will watch helplessly from orbit while the
pleas for help from below slowly fade away, as thousands starve and the so-moral Bethelites turn to
preying upon each other to survive. They will watch until Bethel's civilization falls and the last of them
dies—and no human foot will ever walk upon that accursed planet again!"
Belazir wiped the spittle from his lips and studied his son's impassive face with growing impatience.
"Think, my son! Our revenge shall have symmetry." Belazir made a fluid gesture with his hand,
"subtlety."
"Your love of subtlety" Karak said bitterly, "has already cost the clan dear."
True. After their disastrous rout from the Space Station Simeon-900-C, what the Central Worlds Navy
hadn't destroyed, the Great Plague did. From the Navy they could run or hide, but they brought The
Plague with them to every gathering of Kolnar-in-space, to all of the exiles from homeworld.
Also, as was their custom, for the strengthening of their seed, they had exposed the children to it.
Virtually an entire generation, with their caretakers, died. The adult population had been reduced by
three quarters. Only now was their natural fecundity increasing their numbers once more.
The Plague had been created by minions of the beauteous Channa Hap, station master of the SSS-900-
C and by the "brain," Simeon, the station's true ruler, whom she served.
And by the Bethelites. The damnable should-have-been-crushed Bethelites who had lured them to the
Central Worlds station and their doom.
Belazir's hubris had allowed him to believe he held their hearts in his fist. He was so sure he'd
terrorized them into believing their safety was guaranteed—if they followed every Kolnari order to the
letter.
He should have broken Channa Hap's spirit, broken all of their spirits, he knew. But he'd so enjoyed
the cat and mouse game they were playing.
Belazir sighed. This was hindsight. He couldn't have known about The Plague. Even his Sire, Chalku,
would not have anticipated a sickness that could afflict the mighty Kolnar. Had not the Divine Seed
shrugged off diseases that annihilated whole populations of scum-vermin? All that does not kill us,
makes us stronger, Belazir told himself. But this had come close to killing them all, very close. Almost
as close as homeworld had come to killing all the exiled Terrans who were the first ancestors of the
Divine Seed.
Yet some survived to breed, he reminded himself. Survived, to become the superior race and made a
home of a planet their persecutors had thought would kill them all. The Clan had escaped Kolnar too;
escaped into space for endless revenge and conquest.
He glanced at his scowling son. Belazir understood the boy's bitterness. Do 1 not feel it myself, ten-
fold?
"My mistake was not in being subtle," he said to Karak. "It was in not being subtle enough."
CHAPTER ONE
The Benisur Amos ben Sierra Nueva sat before the viewscreen in his cabin, watching the beloved
shape of Bethel grow smaller, until it was merely a bright spark, another star in the star-shot blackness
of space. An exterior view was a luxury he allowed himself, even as he insisted on this simple cabin in
a hired merchantman. Bethel had always been a poor world, poor and remote; their ancestors had
chosen it to preserve their faith in isolation. It was even poorer since the Kolnari raid, if less solitary;
the Central Worlds had sent much aid, and the people had toiled without cease, but so much had been
destroyed.
Alarms rang. He braced himself, as he did before every transition; it was futile, but not something you
could help. Nausea flashed through him as the engines wrenched the ship out of contact with the
sidereal universe. He swallowed bile. Some men could take the transition without feeling so, but he
was not one of them. But I can bear it. Life taught you that, how to bear things.
Still Amos watched. The screen was a simulation now, a view of how the stars would appear if the
outside universe were there. He watched until he could no longer distinguish Bethel's star, Saffron,
from the others. Then he switched off the viewscreen and rose wearily. It was always a wrench to
leave his home, his people.
Think of what is to come. A week or so to Station SSS-900-C. He removed his robe and lay down on
the narrow bed, yawning. The drugs that helped one make an easier transition always left him sleepy.
Channa, he thought, and her image rose to delight his mind's eye. Her long, high-cheekboned face
framed by curling black hair, teeth white in a smile of welcome.
He'd never imagined, at the beginning, that this makeshift arrangement would last ten years. They'd
agreed then to steal twelve weeks from their lives each year so that they could be together. Half of that
time he visited Channa, the other half she was with him on Bethel; allowing for travel time, that gave
them four weeks together in either place.
He closed his eyes in pain. Four weeks. Just time enough to make each parting agony.
I was so sure she would stay, once she saw my home. Bethel rose before him. The stinging salty wind
from the desert marshes, dawn rising thunderous over the sands. The warm sweet smell of cut grass in
the river meadows . . . And she always wanted to live planetside.
Amos's mouth quirked. They had too much in common—both were prisoners to their sense of duty.
Being reliable made one susceptible to the demands of others. He could not leave Bethel, not while
they struggled to rebuild from the devastation the Kolnari had left. And Channa's commitment to her
Station was equally strong; as was her friendship with Simeon, the Brain whose body the Station was.
So much of her identity was tied up in being a Brawn, a calling to which many aspired but for which
few were qualified. And from among those few, she had worked her way up to an unusually high and
responsible position. She was respected in Central Worlds. She wielded power and influence.
But among his people, her profession was not understood, her strength and capability, her ambition
had been disparaged. She was considered mannish, and his love for her was considered unnatural by
many. Not a few of his worried followers had told him so.
He sighed and turned over, thumping at the pillow.
Ten years. He'd thought that if she did not come with him, that perhaps their attraction would
gradually grow less. But that had not been the case. The attraction between them was as powerful, the
parting as painful, the reunions as rapturous as ever.
Just as her dedication to the Space Station Simeon remained as strong as ever.
Simeon. There was the spur that galled his spirit; that one whom he esteemed as a brother should be his
rival for the woman he loved.
Unfair, unreasonable, he knew. Simeons twisted, non-viable body had been encased in a titanium
womb at birth. A life-sustaining shell fitted with neural implants that would allow him to be connected
to various housings—to the space station that became his body and his home. Channa was his Brawn,
the mobile half of the team of which Simeon was the "brain."
Amos twisted around in the bed again.
His jealousy was baseless, but still, it tormented him. Simeon's love for Channa and hers for Simeon
was, perforce, chaste. Simeon could never hold her, as Amos could, nor run hand in hand with her
along a beach, nor . . . other things. And yet, Simeon had the greater share of her time, her company,
the sight and sound of her that Amos himself yearned for.
In five years her contract will be finished. Then she would have to choose to renew it—or not. Amos
smiled as sleep drifted in, as gentle as weightlessness. She is too full of life to choose more years
among metal and machines.
"Is it true, my Lord, that when you return to Bethel you will at last choose a bride?"
Amos—Prophet of the Second Revelation, Hero of the war against the Kolnar and Leader of Bethel's
Council of Elders—suppressed a violent start.
Not again! The Council must have been at her. He put his book aside reluctantly—Simeon had tracked
down an original Delany—and turned his recliner to face her.
Soamosa bint Sierra Nueva, for her part, sat silently, dressed in a very proper, long-sleeved gray dress
which covered her from throat to ankles. Her hair, amazingly blond for a Bethelite, was completely
hidden now in a matching gray bag that framed her small face unbecomingly. Amos ran a list of the
usual suspects through his mind. One reason I have lived so long is that I do not have an heir. There
were many traditionalists on Bethel who loved the thought of a regency—with themselves pulling the
strings from behind a minor's chair.
Amos considered his cousin, trying to see her as a stranger might. She is no longer the tomboy I once
knew, he admitted reluctantly. She is a woman, a terribly proper one. He suppressed a sigh. I should
have brought her with me earlier.
Bethel had become considerably less isolated since the Kolnari attack. Before that he'd been viewed as
a heretic for wanting to open their planet to the universe—and he hadn't been heir, either. The Kolnari
fusion bomb that destroyed the city of Keriss and the then-Council and Prophet had driven home his
point about the dangers of isolationism quite thoroughly.
Soamosa licked her lips nervously.
"I do not wish to overstep, my Lor . . . cousin," she looked up at him with soft blue eyes and smiled
shyly.
"But it is true that the people wonder when you will take a wife. For ten years, they say, you have left
us to go to this woman who is married to an abomination and still she has given you no heir. The
people say it is a judgment and they are troubled, cousin."
Soamosa lowered her eyes and her head when she'd finished speaking. Her slender back was straight,
her slim feet pressed together in their thick, homely shoes, her hands were folded modestly in her lap.
She was the perfect picture of traditional Bethelite womanhood.
Perhaps a perfect candidate for the Prophet's wife. Amos wondered who had been in charge of her
education these past few years, regretting his lack of involvement. There was too much to do, he
protested to his creeping guilt, too many documents and summaries and reports . . .
Amos breathed a quiet, frustrated sigh. Ah, Channa, he thought, how you've changed me. Once, not so
very long ago, I would have approved of such overwhelming self-negation. I would have been pleased
at the way she distanced herself from her own opinions so as not to seem overbold. What would you
advise me to tell her, my love?
He realized now, far too late, that choosing to bring Soamosa had been something of an error.
Insensitive at best. No doubt his young cousin's mother had visions of an elaborate wedding ceremony
with thousands of guests upon their return; her daughter would be the radiant bride, himself, the
blushing groom.
He sat up straighter and spoke to her firmly.
"Soamosa, look at me."
Her lips trembled and her eyes were huge and shining when she looked up.
"I have told you that Simeon is neither an abomination, nor Channa's husband. He is my dear friend,
and Channa, who is completely unbound, is the woman that I love. Do you understand this?"
A frown struggled to manifest itself and then her face smoothed.
Ah, Amos thought, such control For one so apparently timid she's actually quite strong.
"No," she said firmly, "I do not."
"I do not owe you an explanation, little one."
She bit her lip and lowered her eyes, then looked up at him again, abashed, but hopeful.
Amos sighed.
"We will begin with Simeon," he said patiently. "What is your objection to him?"
"He isn't human, cousin. He is a thing that mocks the perfection of man as God created him."
"And is our uncle, Grigory, an abomination because his heart is made of plastic mesh?"
She frowned. "No, of course not."
"Simeon simply requires more mechanical aid than does our uncle. He is still a man, just as Grigory is
a man. And he is good man, one of the truest friends that I have ever had. If you will but open your
heart to him, he will be your friend too, Soamosa."
Predictably, she looked both doubtful and queasy.
"As to my relationship with Channa Hap . . ."
Her interest sharpened to a sword's point.
"Frankly, it is none of your business." He watched her blush a deep scarlet. "This I will say, Channa
and I do not need a marriage ceremony to sanctify what is already a very real and pure love. Nor is it
necessary for me to produce an heir."
Soamosa actually gasped and clutched at her heart in horror.
"Let the family divide my estates and wealth among themselves when I am dead. Our world and
people will not falter because I am gone. Let them find another to head the state."
"But your holiness will also be gone. We would be so comforted if you left sons behind to guide us,"
she said passionately.
Amos smiled at her. "Sweet cousin, when God touches a man's heart and urges him to speak as a
prophet to the people, that man is not chosen because of who his father was. Only think what it would
be like if the people turned to you, expecting you to fill my shoes."
"But they wouldn't!" she said in horror. "I'm only a woman."
Amos tried to imagine Channa's reaction to that remark. He gave a complex inward shudder. Channa
Hap in full fury was enough to make a strong man blanch and cringe; like a thunderstorm on the sands,
or a driven ocean crashing on high cliffs.
"Ah, but they might think that my taking you on this trip had some deeper meaning." She blushed at
that and quickly lowered her eyes. "And if I were to offer you such special attentions for the rest of my
life, then they would surely think it significant. After all, there have been prophetesses before."
"But . . . but ... I have no calling," she protested, both horrified and confused. "I know that I have not."
"So, why should I create an heir, who might have no calling either, but of whom the people would
expect such? Imagine the life my son or daughter could look forward to. Should I be so unfair? Should
I arouse such expectations?"
"No," she said almost sullenly. "But, then why... ?"
"Have I invited you to accompany me? I have invited you because I like you, cousin. Because you are
young and I thought that you might enjoy seeing one of the greatest space stations in the universe."
Because I didn't want to see you living your life in a gray sack, with your mind pinched off like a plant
being deliberately stunted.
He had changed Bethel, the Kolnari war had changed it more, but there were limits to what could be
done in a single generation.
"I thought you might like an adventure."
He was pleased to see a sudden gleam come into her eyes. It reminded him of the girl who'd put a
desert gurrek under his pillow. His heart grew content when she grinned back. Perhaps, after all, those
horrible clothes and the mealy-mouthed behavior were the result of an ambitious mother's determined
schooling. With time and care she might return to her own true self.
A sudden twisting wrench made both of them cry out involuntarily. Soamosa fell to her knees, hands
over her mouth to hold back the retching. Amos turned his chair and lunged for his console,
knowledge driving out the merely physical misery.
They'd been ripped out of hyperspace.
Dangerous, exceedingly so. Without drugs, or preparation, susceptible and unlucky passengers had
been known to slip into a psychotic state.
Amos gripped the arms of his chair and closed his eyes waiting for his body to readjust. Soamosa gave
up the unequal struggle and ran for the washroom. Amos swallowed hard as the sounds she made
urged his body to sympathetic action.
He activated the com and snapped, "Captain Sung!"
Before he had finished speaking a voice came booming through the ship:
"Attention merchanter ship Sunwise. Stand by to be boarded. Resistance is futile and will be punished.
Repeat. Prepare to be boarded."
The skin at the base of Amos's neck clenched as though stabbed with a jagged piece of ice. Kolnari.
The accent was different, but the arrogance the same.
The captain hadn't answered his call. Amos made an impatient sound deep in his throat and headed for
the bridge, calling out to Soamosa to remain in the cabin. The two guards standing watch outside the
door turned smartly and followed him.
I have waited too long. I thought . . . The Kolnari never forgot an injury; but they never attacked a foe
they thought too strong, either. They had already found the SSS-900-C a mouthful large enough to
choke on. Bethel had a space navy of its own, these days—small, but enough to defend the system
until a Central Worlds squadron arrived.
In the merchant ship Sunwise Belazir t'Marid had found a target easy enough to take, which also meant
he felt strong enough to survive the inevitable retaliation. The Kolnari leader had the cunning of
Shaithen his master. He might be right. . . .
"Ship is in the five kiloton range," the communications tech was saying. "Warship, from the neutrino
signature. Corvette class, but not a standard model."
Amos nodded to himself, standing at the rear of the horseshoe-shaped command bridge. Panic, but
well-controlled panic, he decided. Captain Sung was snapping out orders; hard, almond-shaped green
eyes glittering in a stern middle-aged face. Young Guard-Caladin Samuel stood behind him, one hand
on the captain s chair, one resting on the console. Occasionally he leaned close and spoke urgently to
the distracted Sung.
On the forward screen, to Amos's vast relief, was a somewhat worse-for-wear ex-courier ship. An
ordinary pirate vessel, nothing like the augmented ships the Kolnari favored.
Mere pirates, he thought. / am relieved that it is merely pirates.
"Have they indicated what they want, Captain Sung?"
They want to board," the Captain snarled. "Beyond that, Benisur, I don't know." He rubbed his chin.
"But this is no happy accident on their part. There's no trace of recent drive energies; they had to've
been waiting for us."
Sung glanced at the controls. "With a grapple already engaged and waiting to trip us out of
hyperspace. Timing like that . . ." he let the thought trail off.
Amos's finely chiseled mouth thinned to a grim line. Yes, timing like that meant a traitor, a spy high
enough in the Bethelite Security Forces to have access to privileged information. Traitors or Kolnari
agents, or both, he decided. Joseph, I should have listened to you.
Complacency. Letting the wish be father to the thought. I thought you paranoid. Mind you, a Chief of
Security was supposed to be paranoid. I should have listened. Of late years he'd even given up the
simple precaution of booking passage on several different ships, leaving at different times.
"That spawn of Shaithen would know where I was," he'd argued with certainty. "It would take more
than a simple trick to escape his grasp."
Joseph would have preferred an escort of destroyers, and a company of Guards. Amos had argued that
Central Worlds would, at the least, see that as an insulting lack of trust, and at worst as a
provocation— the Bethelites were thought barbaric enough as it was.
Amos glanced at his escort. Four of them; all were young. And untried, he thought, realizing for the
first time that they might well die today. Regret and anger washed through him. He'd chosen
youngsters because he wanted to expose as many of the young as he could to Central Worlds culture,
because that was their future.
Just as these vibrant young men were meant to be Bethel's.
Joseph, my brother, if I ever see you again I shall allow you to scold me for as long as pleases you
about my foolishness; and in future I witt bow to your will. He would let Joseph boot his Prophetic
arse, for that matter, if he lived past this day.
"Benisur, I'm afraid they may be after you. There's nothing else on the ship that would be worth their
trouble."
Nothing, unless the pirates were after a cargo of sun-dried tomatoes, dates, goat cheese, leather
handicrafts, and preserved meats. Valuable enough on SSS-900-C, with its rich manufactories and
well-paid, highly-trained inhabitants. Not the sort of thing which pirates selected for their raids.
Amos nodded. "My thinking exactly, Captain."
He paused. Pirates would squeeze Bethel for a ransom it could ill afford.
"I am reluctant to place your people or your ship in any greater danger, Captain, but I believe we must
consider resisting. After all, if I am the object of this exercise, then they cannot risk firing on the ship
and possibly killing me. So that is one danger we need not fear. And as they are in a small ship, how
many of them could there be? Ten perhaps? Fifteen?"
The Captain shrugged. "Fifteen tops, more would overtax life support."
"So we outnumber them as well. Let them come aboard, lure them in and when they are in far enough,
strike, and take hostage any survivors. What do you say?" Amos glanced at his young Caladin,
courteously including him in their council.
"I had not even considered surrendering you to them, Benisur." Samuel's brown eyes held an innocent
bravery.
"I'm no soldier, Benisur," Sung said, and pulled on his lower lip. "But I like your plan a whole lot
better than just letting these animals grab my ship and take you off it." He nodded decisively: "We'll
do it."
There was a slight quaver in Sung's voice as he issued orders to break out the arms. He glanced at
Amos to see if it had been noticed. But Amos was studying the monitor showing the lock through
which the pirates would enter.
An echoing clang resounded through the ship as the pirates extended a caterpillar lock to connect them
to the Sunwise.
Amos looked up from the screen to watch the crewmen depart for their ambush site and murmured a
blessing over them, knowing that most of them would neither understand nor thank him for it. But the
eyes of the four Bethelites showed gratitude as they ceremoniously touched forehead, lips, and heart.
Then he watched as the Captain keyed the monitors that covered his crews progress under the direction
of the Bethelite soldiers.
The camera trained on the main lock showed the hatch recessing. Air hissed as pressures equalized;
Bethel's was well below the Earth-derived standard the Central Worlds used.
A long second's pause. Two men in black space armor swung out from the airlock, crouching, plasma
rifles up. After a moment one of them signaled and five more swept out. Three split off and moved
carefully towards engineering, the other four, hugging the walls and moving with extreme caution,
headed for the bridge.
Amos's stomach knotted. Their armor was too much like the Kolnari's—though a stripped down
version of it—and their movements were too professional, too disciplined, for mere criminals. If the
Kolnari were so reduced as to use outsiders . . . mercenaries . . . But no, surely they would despise and
avoid such creatures.
Yet these men behaved like the product of intensive Kolnari training—that was an inhumanly
businesslike civilization.
He opened his mouth to advise the Captain to call off the ambush, when a final invader left the airlock
and entered the ship.
A foot, clad in massive black battle armor, hit the Sunwise's deck with a crash that seemed to move the
ship. Slowly—majestic as an eclipse—the Kolnari entered, turned, and marched towards the bridge.
Amos could not speak. For a moment his throat was paralyzed, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't move.
It was unexpected, to be so overwhelmed by horror at seeing one of them again, for he was no coward.
But an evil that had almost destroyed his people had returned; the nightmare was marching again—
coming to collect him personally.
"Captain!" Amos managed to choke out. "Call off the ambush, call it off or they'll kill you all!"
The Captain stared for a moment as though he hadn't understood, then activated the com and spoke,
just as Samuel, the Bethelite Caladin, fired on the invaders.
"Stand down! Stand down! Lay down your weapons and fall back!"
Some of the crew heard him, reacting with confusion at first, looking around to see if anyone else had
heard the order, lowering their rifles, backing off. But Amos's guards engaged the enemy—too intent
on battle to listen—certain that if the Benisur Amos wished them to hold their fire his voice would
have told them so.
One crewman stood up, his hands lifted in surrender and died for it, a steaming hole blasted in his
chest by a plasma rifle.
The doubtful broke then and fled, while the others fought and retreated, and died, one by one. Retreat
turned to slaughter.
Amos was thrown with bruising force at the feet of Belazir t'Marid and lay face down, unmoving, on a
rough carpet made from the scary hide of a great beast. Behind him, he heard the gentle whir of servos
as the battle-armored Kolnari lowered the arm that had flung him here. He heard soft grunts as his
companions, Captain Sung and Soamosa were tossed to the floor beside him.
Soamosa, her blond hair freed from confinement and her gown much torn, clung to Amos's arm,
burying her face against him and trembling.
"Look at me, Benisur," purred a voice silky with satisfaction.
Amos raised himself onto his elbows and slowly lifted his head. Belazir grinned down at him, white
teeth gleaming in a predator's snarl from a face as black as a starless night. He has aged, Amos
thought, shocked.
The hawklike nose was more prominent and the flesh hung on his face like slightly melted tallow. But
the golden eyes were as bright and cruel as they had ever been; though now they held the glint of sheer
mad glee, where before there had only been a lazy amusement.
"So good to see you," Belazir continued, almost whispering.
The control room was centered on his chair, like a massive throne set among control consoles and
display screens. The Kolnari lord wore only a white silk loincloth and jeweled belt, besides his
ornaments; he lolled like a resting tiger between guards in powered armor, his own suit standing empty
and waiting. Behind him a holograph showed a nighted landscape where armored plants grew and
moved and fought slow vegetable battles with spikes of organic steel. In the distance a nuclear volcano
spat fire that red-lighted the undersides of acid clouds. A giant beast with sapphire scales trumpeted its
agony at the sky as six-legged wolves leaped and clung and tore at its adamantine sides. Thick purple
blood rilled towards the ground, and the very grass writhed to drink of it.
Kolnar, Amos knew with a shudder. Antechamber of hell. Belazir had never seen the planet that bred
his land, but it lived in his genes.
"So good to see you like this," Belazir said. He slowly clenched his hand. "You are in my fist," he
explained, as though Amos might not know it. "You and your companions." He grinned at them and
indicated the Captain. "And who have we here? Captain Sung, I presume?"
A vicious kick from a mercenary prompted a response.
"Yessir," Sung grunted.
A flurry of kicks caused Sung to roll into a ball, covering his head, drawing his feet up to protect his
privates. The kicks concentrated on his kidneys until he sobbed.
"Beg," the Kolnari said.
"Please!"
Belazir raised one finger. The mercenary stepped back, grinning. He had a particolored beard and a
brass hoop in one ear.
"You must tell the Captain the rules, Benisur. We would not want a repeat of this lesson, not at his
age,"
"We must address the Divine Seed of Kolnar as 'Great Lord,'" Amos said, his voice flat and distant, his
eyes fixed on the space below the Kolnari's feet, "and when the Lord Captain Belazir addresses us we
must respond with 'Master and God.'"
"And what are you, Simeon Amos?" Belazir asked with delicate sarcasm.
"Scumvermin," Amos ground out. Belazir laughed with delight.
"Ah, there are times—like this one, Benisur—when a despised enemy can be more welcome than a
beautiful bride." He smiled benignly at Amos, then indicated the cowering girl at his side. "Is this your
bride?"
"No! Lord and God," Amos said with such obvious sincerity that Belazir raised an eyebrow.
"Do not tell me you are still saving your seed for the delectable Channahap?"
Amos tried to school his features to immobility. He knew the slight shifts in his expression conveyed
his outrage to the Kolnari like a shout.
Belazir smiled a cream-eating smile.
"A most. . . satisfying woman, truly. I can understand your obsession." He indicated Soamosa again.
"Then no doubt this little one is a virgin; your people have an inexplicable admiration for such. Do not
fear, girl, I can cure you of it."
Soamosa's body jerked as though she'd been struck. She muffled a cry with the sleeve of her robe.
"She is only a child, Master and God," Amos pleaded. "Her family will pay a ransom for her safe
return."
Belazir shrugged, "I had eight children by her age, and all of my wives were the same age as I. If I
return her to her family in ... almost one piece, I doubt they will complain. Much." He grinned. "And
certainly not to me."
He flicked a hand at the guards, "Take them away." To Amos: "We will talk again later, scumvermin. I
shall look forward to it."
CHAPTER TWO
Joseph ben Said paced restlessly through his office. It was on the top, the third story of a building well
up on the slopes overlooking New Keriss. He stopped and looked down from the open window; mild
salt air caressed his face, smelling of the gardens outside and faintly of the city of low, scattered
buildings that stretched down to the water's edge.
How different, he thought—as always.
How different from the days before the Kolnari came. Old Keriss had occupied the same site; the
airburst hadn't dug much of a crater when the city died in a moment of thermonuclear fire. But the old
city had been bigger, more densely built, narrow streets as well as fine avenues. Thickest of all along
the old docks, with their shrilling tenements and slums. The New Kerris was cleaner, more modern
now that Bethel was in touch with the rest of the galaxy once more. Cleaner, safer, more prosperous ...
although perhaps less happy than the old city had been.
Or perhaps I was happier then. His lips quirked as he remembered a lord's son down slumming, and
how he'd saved that young noble from the knives of a rival gang. Then turned and found a hand
extended; taken it in his own, astonished. Met Amos ben Sierra Nueva's eyes, and been lost to his old
life.
That brought him back to the present; his face clenched like a fist, eyes narrowing. He sat behind the
desk and keyed the screen.
"Home," he said.
It cleared, and his wife Rachel looked up in surprise from her own keyboard as his image replaced
whatever she'd been working on. In the background he could hear children playing. His children . . .
No. They are safe, and my duty is clear.
"Joseph!" she said, concern in her dark eyes. "Is there any news of the Prophet?"
He shook his head. "Nothing from SSS-900-C," he said. "Simeon reports no word. No trace of the
Ben-isur's ship has been found; it is as if they had vanished from space-time."
He took a deep breath, and saw her face change. Rachel had come to know him too well, in the years
of their marriage. Joseph held up a hand.
"Please," he said softly. "My heart, do not tear at me; this is hard enough to do. But Amos is more than
my Prophet; he is the friend of my soul, my brother."
"There are younger men to do this work!"
Joseph smiled ruefully. "Are there any better trained to seek him offplanet?" he asked.
Rachel met his eyes for a moment, then glanced aside. Hers shone with unshed tears.
"Where will you go?"
"I cannot say," he said. Must not, they both knew. There was a leak in Planetary Security. "But it must
be soon." He willed strength into his voice. "Do not fear, my love. We have friends beyond Bethel, as
well as enemies."
"Why the fardling void can't they just say give me a bribe?" Joat Simeon-Hap demanded.
New Destinies hung in space four thousand kilometers away; much closer in the main bridge
screen, of course. It wasn't very large as independent stations went, merely a cylinder ten kilometers
long by one in diameter, spinning contentedly—smugly, her mind prompted—in orbit around an
undistinguished orange-brown gas giant, which orbited a run-of-the-mill F-class star. That was a
pinprick of violent light in the distance; closer in were a few barren rocks, none of them larger than
Mars, and some asteroids.
Junk system. Junk station. Barely worth visiting because it intersected a few transit routes. There
weren't many fabricators in space nearby, either. One long latticework, a graving dock that looked
capable of repairing fair-sized ships or building small ones. A couple of zero-g algae farms, huge soft-
looking bubbles. Some in-system traffic, miners and passenger craft and wide-rnouthed scoopships to
skim and harvest the gas giants outer atmosphere. Probably they didn't pick up the litter on the station,
and charged you extra for the gravity.
Joat chuckled sourly at the thought; it appealed to her sense of the ridiculous. It didn't make her less
impatient. New Destinies had a reputation as one of those places that looked the other way. A fair
number of the ships who docked here were in the smuggling trade, which, frankly, was what kept the
station going. But a couple of generations of not noticing had an effect. Here, bribery and graft were
just the way things were done. So Joat couldn't understand why none of her hints had been picked up
on, or no overtures had been made in that direction.
She loved the Wyal, and not just because the ship was hers. But there were times when you had to get
off the ship or run starkers, raving and frothing.
The jerk's on a power trip. She combed a hand through shoulder-length blond hair and spoke, altering
her tone slightly:
"Find out who this fardling bureaucratic nightmare is, wouldja Rand?"
"You mean Dilton Tolof in Health and Immigration?"
"Yeah."
There was a confused pause.
"Joat, he's Dilton Tolof in Health and Immigration."
She rolled her eyes. "Do you have to be so literal?"
"That's the way I'm made, Joat."
"I mean find out about him."
"Why?"
"Just do it!"
"You're upset," Rand sounded surprised. "Is it me, have I caused offense?"
"No, but he has. I'd like to tailor-make a little lesson in the etiquette of negotiation for him."
"You want to benefit him?" Rand sounded mildly astonished.
She smiled slowly.
"In a sense."
摘要：

ALSOINTHISSERIES:TheShipWhoSangbyAnneMcCaffreyPartnershipbyAnneMcCaffrey&MargaretBallTheShipWhoSearchedbyAnneMcCaffrey&MercedesLackeyTheCityWhoFoughtbyAnneMcCaffrey&S.M.StirlingTheShipWhoWonbyAnneMcCaffrey&JodyLynnNyeTheShipErrantbyJodyLynnNyeTheshipavengedS.M.STIRLINGTHESHIPAVENGEDThisisaworkoffict...

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