Four in the Way Read online

  The move to deck 4, where the galley, gymnasium and other recreational rooms lay, had taken days. The quartet had time to spare since they had paid a dock fee which would go to waste if they departed early, there being no refunds. Being refugees, none possessed many belongings, and once the heavy work of removing walls thereby tripling the space of each individual, small, lower status quarters, relocating did not take long. Now, Noomi, Indri and Tully spent their evenings on Freeport, while Rastheln’iq was busy planting crops on deck 3, part of which he had already commandeered – the aft section where sick bay and dual laboratories lay. Now he had free run of the entire deck. Growing their own crops on board the Vishnu – the cleared space on deck 3 was almost three hundred feet long and half that distance wide – would cut down on their expenses considerably, food being one of their two major expenditures.

  Indri, a hairless priest descended from cetaceans, Noomi, a half-human half-animal chimera, and Tully, a human, once again supped in Clintro’s Pleasure Emporium, a tavern they had made their unofficial home away from the Vishnu. While most of the quartet were cash poor, Tully, an inveterate gambler, had been flush upon his arrival at Freeport after winning a goodly sum in a card game. This had led to the predicament that brought the Templars after them, so, feeling somewhat responsible, he uncharacteristically treated his compatriots to dinner every evening for the remainder of their stay at Freeport.

  At a nearby table in Clintro’s sat a number of sentients on this day. They were not garbed as workmen, nor clerks, nor noblemen. They wore the clothes of individuals of action. There were six of them, two females and four males – at least it appeared that way. Sometimes this was difficult to discern in certain species. A Niall – a member of an avian race – was speaking in chirping tones.

  “We know the approximate location of the ship,” said the Niall, its head, at the end of a stalk-like neck, bobbing. “No one else does. We should search immediately.”

  “We dink we know de location,” interjected a short, squat heavy-gravity worlder with burnished skin. It shimmered in the soft light of Clintro’s like metal. “We do nod know. No one does. No one reporded id for cerdain.”

  “Yuncan is not far off, Bronk,” pointed out a third being. This one’s flesh had the hue of a lemon. This resemblance to the sour fruit did not end there. His head was an oval, with slight bumps at his chin and the crown of his head. A small tuff of fine greenish hair grew from both bumps. His nose was large, beakish, casting a noticeable shadow over the lower half of his round face.

  “Eavesdropping is a bad habit,” Indri Mindsinger told Noomi Bloodgood in a low voice. The Tatar girl’s cat’s-eyes darted to him. “I couldn’t help it. That one there is carrying a Taklar K-38 beamer. That’s a pro’s gun. These guys are serious. Now, sssh … they’re getting to the good part.”

  “I heard it was a survey scout,” said one of the females. Bright plumage sprouted from her scalp, but she did not otherwise resemble a bird. Closer inspection would reveal very fine hair, rather than feathers. Her legs were very long, comprising more than half her lithe body.

  Survey scouts had been around a millennium or longer. Human deep space exploration had started with civilians, while Earth governments were busy developing habitable planets. The daring men who braved the hazards of open space formed a club, of sorts – the Order of the Nucronium Caravel, nucronium being a mythical element resistant to all damage and a caravel a sea ship designed for exploration that was popular on Earth in pre-space age times. The Order had little in the way of formal bylaws. It was mostly a place to gather to swap stories of exaggerated adventures, rather like the old gentlemen’s clubs of Victorian London. It was a collection of explorers, traders, and crackpots, but it provided accurate maps of stars and their planets in every direction from Earth, which was a great boon to the colonization of space, through the efforts of the civilian agency the Society of Stellar Cartographers, which had begun as an amateur organization in Earth’s twenty-first century when exo-planets had first begun to be discovered. It took the raw data provided by the Order and turned it into something pioneers could use.

  This intrigued the young Tatar girl. What could beings such as those at the next table want with a survey scout? They did not appear to be salvagers. Perhaps they had fallen on hard times?

  “They haven’t decided if they are going to look for a derelict,” Noomi whispered. “If we hurry, we can get there and claim salvage on the ship.”

  “What ship?” Tully asked, unaware of what had been said at the other table.

  Noomi Bloodgood took hold of one of the Earthman’s hands and jerked him to his feet. “Come on, Indri.”

  “Very well,” the Delphite priest replied in a patient voice. “We will discuss this in private back aboard the Vishnu.”

  Studying the astrographic map they had purchased some time earlier, Rastheln’iq remarked, “Yuncan is three parsecs away. It lies on the edge of the Venge.”

  “What’s that?” Indri Mindsinger asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It is a peculiar region of space here in the Borderlands where the laws of physics do not always seem to apply, and when they do, it is not in a regular or constant fashion. The area has been investigated by a number of ships, all of which that ventured into the Venge were lost without trace.”

  “And you want to go in there,” Tully said accusingly as he glared at the Tatar.

  “We will not need to go into the Venge if we decide to go to Yuncan,” corrected Rastheln’iq. “The edge of the Venge, near Yuncan, is at least a parsec away. It has not moved since it was first measured. It is not expanding. That suggests something immovable is at the center of it,” the plant man mused almost to himself. “The original boundary of the Borderlands was to be set at the Venge, but it was decided that it was too uncertain to rely on as a boundary, and the one we use today was chosen.”

  “This is an opportunity,” agreed Indri. “A derelict that no one else has picked over could prove very valuable, both for what we can salvage and what we could sell the hulk for.”

  “But won’t that identify us to the maritime authority or whatever you guys use?” asked Tully.

  “Not if we deal with a third party,” answered Indri, who had some knowledge of getting around official channels in his life as a freedom fighter. “We can take what we want and sell what remains, en bulk, to a professional salvage operation. There must be one here on Freeport.”

  “That way, our names stay out of it,” Noomi concluded with a grin. “I like it.”

  “Me, too,” Tully grinned boyishly, thinking of the wealth that was possible.

  “We may find some necessary equipment and software,” Rastheln’iq put in, thinking of the primitive state of the Vishnu.

  And so it was decided.

  Two hours later – two weeks passed in real space – the Vishnu arrived in the Yuncan system. It possessed no habitable planets, being filled with rocky, airless worlds and gas giants, the largest of which had given its name to the system, the star’s designation being a string of numbers and letters. There was one place in the system that supported life although it was only plant life, and that was the moon of one of the gas giants. The sun was a young star, and its planets younger still. Conspicuous animal life was absent on the satellite world, and if it existed in microscopic form, no one had bothered to look for it. Its atmosphere being highly oxygenated and its land being mineral poor, settlers had found little reason to colonize the miniature planet.

  And then there was the Venge. The Yuncan system was home to an energy anomaly that was thought to be an effect of the Venge, which lay a parsec away. It was difficult to pin down, and since the source was so close, the system had never undergone any sort of formal investigation. Of course, the main reason was that this was the Borderlands, which had no central authority. If the Venge had been in Imperium territory, it would have been investigated, classified and marked. Here, it was an amorphous region without clearly defined boundaries.r />
  There was no immediate sign of the nameless derelict those on the Vishnu sought. Hours passed as they searched. Rastheln’iq spent his time studying the anomalous energy readings, his attention not being required for the search. The Venge intrigued him.

  “A wild goose chase,” Tully grumbled after nearly a day of looking for the rumored derelict. He then had to explain what that meant to Indri and Noomi, which did not improve his mood.

  The trio decided to abandon the search. As they made preparations to depart Yuncan, Rastheln’iq’s thin, reedy voice came over the ship’s intercom. He was in the sensors and communications room at the aft of the Vishnu on deck 5. “The energy anomaly is not coming from the Venge,” he announced. “It is coming from the habitable moon. I wish to investigate.”

  The three on the bridge exchanged glances. Each knew Rastheln’iq, or at least understood his single-minded obsession with scientific knowledge. Indri Mindsinger stated what they were each thinking. “It will do no good to argue with him. We have already wasted our time coming here. A little more time won’t hurt us.”

  “No,” agreed Tully. “I, for one, don’t want to listen to him complain if we don’t let him get his way.”

  “Well, he’s done so much, I don’t mind giving him a few more hours,” Noomi Bloodgood put in. “His knowledge has come in handy on a number of occasions, and we don’t have anything better to do. We’re making just enough to get by doing odd jobs on Freeport.”

  “That is true,” Indri agreed. Into the intercom, he said, “Very well. What would you like us to do, Wormwood?”

  The Viridian scientist, who had long accepted the use of the derisive term for himself, said in an emotionless tone, “I will be there shortly.”

  After Rastheln’iq had trained the Vishnu’s sensors on the surface of the nameless satellite of Yuncan, the largest planet in the system, and found the region where the anomaly originated, the three escaped convicts took the shuttle down to investigate. They did not know what to expect, but the Viridian scientist assured his companions that whatever was causing the weird phenomenon, it was not harmful to organic life. Since he was rarely wrong, they took him at his word and accompanied him.

  Tully elected to remain behind, as he often did, not being particularly interested in going into possible danger, and instead volunteered to watch the ship in the absence of his crewmates. Why he continued this pretense was a mystery to Rastheln’iq, since the Earthman had admitted to being a coward; the ways of the animal mind were not always easy to understand, the plant man reflected.

  The Vir, watching the sensor plates of the little shuttle as it descended, suddenly announced, “There is something here … a large quantity of metal on the surface.”

  “Could it be the lost ship?” Indri Mindsinger queried with some excitement in his voice.

  “Very possibly,” answered Rastheln’iq. “Normally, I could answer you more certainly, but the energy anomaly is affecting the sensors.”

  Indri’s large black eyes went to Noomi Bloodgood, who piloted the craft. “Is that going to affect your ability to land?”

  The Tatar girl grinned. “No. I could land this thing blindfolded.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Was that a joke?” Noomi asked in a surprised tone.

  “No,” answered Indri.

  “Which way to the ship, Rattlesnake?” asked Noomi. Then, guided by Rastheln’iq’s instructions, she flew the shuttle unerringly toward the site. Whatever the Viridian scientist had detected, it did not seem to be affecting the avionics of the small craft.

  Within moments, a shipwreck came into sight.

  “That,” announced Noomi Bloodgood, “is a scout ship.”

  Scout ships were a type of vessel, rather than a class. They came in various shapes, but were of similar small size with only the barest of armaments. They acted as exploration ships or couriers, not warships or cargo vessels, equipped for little more than long voyages. The configuration of this ship was plainly that of a scout. Since the Order of the Nucronium Caravel was an informal organization, not all its members used its insignia on their ships – and not all owners of scouts belonged to the Order, so the lack of such an identifying symbol in this case meant nothing.

  As the Tatar girl brought the shuttle safely down on flat ground not far from the shipwreck, she said, “Well, we know that Rattlesnake’s weird energy readings didn’t cause the scout to crash.”

  “This explains why we could not detect the ship from space,” announced Rastheln’iq as his visual organs studied the sensor readings. “Even at this proximity, the ship’s power plant is virtually undetectable.”

  The three disembarked and made their way to the shipwreck, which lay at the other end of a clearing created by the crash.

  They found it in bad shape. It would not fly again. It was still mostly in one piece, however, which gave the trio some hope of salvage possibilities. They entered through a jagged rent where two seams had separated on impact, and began their explorations. The group had no means to salvage the Overdrive, as much as they desired a more powerful one, and, since it was obvious almost nothing had survived intact at the aft of the craft, the three headed toward the cockpit. They passed a few corpses on the way.

  As they walked, Noomi said, “There’s something about this ship … it seems familiar.”

  “Perhaps you were on a vessel of this design,” suggested Indri.

  “Yeah, probably,” agreed the Tatar. “But there’s something else, something I can’t put my finger on.”

  “Perhaps it will come to you,” Indri said encouragingly. Once in the cockpit, where two more bodies lay, broken and twisted, Rastheln’iq began working on the computer. He tried to get it functioning, but there wasn’t enough power remaining in the ship to do that. It looked in good shape, and he had begun removing it when Indri Mindsinger exclaimed, “There’s someone coming!”

  “Survivors?” queried Noomi.

  “I –”

  A large transport ship about the size of the Vimana came into view as it descended from the sky. But it was not the Vimana. This was a vessel none recognized.

  “I doubt it,” Indri said in a tense voice.

  Three pairs of eyes – or, in the case of Rastheln’iq, what passed for eyes in the plant world – watched as the new ship came down and landed nearby. It was about the size of the Vimana, but triangular in shape, its aft engines oversized. Lightrunner was emblazoned on its hull.

  None of the three escaped convicts were particularly surprised when they saw a Niall, a broad, burnished-skin man, a lemon-headed male, a woman who appeared to possess a feathery crest, and a tall beast-man with tusks projecting from his lower jaw. The crew of the Vishnu recognized them as five of the six seated nearby at Clintro’s on Freeport, from whom they’d heard of the lost scout ship.

  “How do you think they found us so quick?” asked Noomi Bloodgood.

  “They probably spotted the Vishnu. You said they didn’t know the exact location of the derelict,” replied the Delphite priest.

  Gesturing for Noomi to follow him, Indri went to one of the tears in the hull of the shipwreck nearest where the Lightrunner landed. He called out, “This salvage is ours. It is already registered with the Cosmotime authorities on Freeport.

  “However, we would not be adverse to sharing what is here. There is enough for both our parties.”

  “I hope that works,” Noomi said in a low voice. “We’re out manned and outgunned.”

  “I think not,” returned the lemony fellow. He wore a legless magenta tunic with a dark green cloak draped over his narrow shoulders. Black leather gloves covered his narrow, three-fingered hands and on one hip sat a neat little beamer in a holster. “I think it unlikely you have registered a claim, which means that this salvage is still open.”

  That is not what it meant, precisely, but Indri and Noomi got the point: They could be killed and no one would ever know. The other group could claim the salvage rights without dispute.
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  “They’re moving to surround us,” the Tatar girl said as she spied the five separating and disappearing behind features of the terrain. This was uneven, and rife with lush vegetation that had been disturbed by the crashing ship. It had cleared a path almost a hundred yards wide and more than three times that length. The site made a good landing spot, and was rimmed in tall jungle trees. The lemony fellow had disappeared into the green.

  Moving to defend their flank, Noomi told Indri, “I’m not waiting for them to fire first, just so you know. If that guy sticks his lemon head out, I’m making lemonade.”

  “Understood,” returned the Delphite priest. He got glimpses of some of the intruders moving about, creeping closer. They understood how to use cover to their best advantage, and he did not get a good opening to fire at them. He pointed his Zammer out the opening to discourage them nonetheless, and squeezed the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  Indri squeezed the trigger again. Again, nothing happened.

  He checked the battery – empty!

  But before he could warn Noomi, her voice came through the ship, “My guns are dead! All three of them!”

  Indri and Noomi waited for an attack that did not come.

  “Their weapons must be as useless as ours,” observed the Delph.

  “I’d bet they have others that don’t require energy,” Noomi said grimly, referring to daggers and the like. The big furry one possessed tusks, also, and the Niall a vestigial talon that could be used in combat if it was exposed. Pulling her own broad-bladed dagger from its breastbone sheath, she said, “Well, so do we.”

  “Come on, Wormwood,” Indri called. “Our weapons are useless and we are outnumbered. We’re going to have to make a run for the shuttle.”

  “Very well,” came Rastheln’iq’s voice as he appeared in the corridor. It held a tone of annoyance that was not usual to the plant man. “The computer is a model 6 and it is in working order. It is virtually priceless. We must have it.”