[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
your praises until my ears are ringing, but understand me: I do not have time
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to waste on you. Either, in the " his eye-
lids flickered " eight and a half minutes left before we
195
EARTH DREAMS
arrive at the consulate, you convince me that you are all too willing to be of
whatever aid and comfort you may to me and my endeavors, no matter the
specifics or not.
You may ask whatever questions you need to hear an-
swered, and I will assume that you do speak for your cohort. But quickly, man,
before I remember how much trouble you have caused me in years gone by."
"Sponge, will you just tell me what is going on?"
"Your thrice-cursed ass is on the line, is what's going on," RP contributed. -
Spry raised both hands, palms up. "I know when I've been bought and paid for.
I cannot think of a single ques-
tion I need answered. If Baldy's here of his own will, that's good enough for
me. Just outline the situation, and
I will step right up and sell my soul and my best friends down the river like
all the rest of you here. That's good
Kerrion form, isn't it? Any more will not be asked, any less cannot be
tolerated. But this time play me square
not the way your mother did."
"Baldwin, go ahead. Brief him," Chaeron said, al-
ready on his way out, maneuvering around the small, gray-clad pirate who
followed his exit with dazed, uneasy fascination.
"Yes, please," Spry mimicked, folding his arms, "Baldwin, go ahead. Brief me."
He stared challengingly
at the tall guildmaster. "It's the least you can do."
"... After all we've been through together?" Bald-
win, whose hands were no cleaner than Spry's, hazarded what was being left
unspoken, while Nuts Alien rumbled that Spry should back off his throttle and
Shebat assured the pirate (who looked from one to the other and could not for
the life of him guess where any one of them stood) that they were all in
"this" together, leading Pen-
rose to demur: "Not me, I'm here because I obey my orders."
"Let me talk!" Baldwin levered himself up from his seat and walked heavily
toward his pilot, who had been sentenced to space-end with him and in part
because of him and had never once rested in his attempts to get every
guildmember out of there. "I have only a few min-
utes you heard him." His sharp, sinewy chin indicated the doors behind which
the Kerrion proconsul had disap-
196
JANET MORRIS
peared into the depths of the transport. "And you've seen space-end. Every man
jack of ours from there was snatched from 'unrevealed peril' by Rafe under
Chaeron's banner."
"Chaeron? Cozy, are you not? And why did he do such a thing?"
"David," Baldwin took him by the shoulders, then wound the suddenly
unresisting pilot in his long embrace.
"It's going to be all right, now. Trust me. Listen. I
have "
"He did it because I asked him to, Softa." It was Pen-
rose's turn to go to Spry. "Let us put the past behind us, we've got a lot of
straightening up to do. Together."
Spry shook free of Baldwin, held firm. "Brief me, gentlemen."
"You are assigned to me," Batdy sighed, "unrated, pending the filing of papers
to secure official pardons all around. Listen up: you did not try to steal
Tyche; you found her abandoned and brought her back to her port of registry
when you chanced upon her coming out of sponge in which you've been lost all
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this time."
Penrose snickered. Baldwin went on, "The other pilots who are not present "
delicately, he stressed lies Spry was expected to adopt as true " are out on
turns of duty. The roster lists them as having come in here on
Danae." He gave Spry a hard look. "What we need is pick-up windows for ihe two
pilots we cannot produce, and fair warning if you have anyone else defected
guild pilots, Pegasus natives, whomever out there. And we need to be able to
prove that space piracy in the year
2252 exists only in Marada Kerrion's mind."
Softa Spry puffed out his cheeks, squeezed the air noisily through his lips.
"You folks are too swift for me,"
he protested, but his eyes glittered. "I do not know what you mean . . .
piracy? Pirates? What pirates?"
"Good lords, David, you had me worried. Now, give me some numbers." The moment
Spry had finished enu-
merating rendevous-coordinates for manned cruisers and anchor-coordinates for
empty ones, Baldwin shrank as if he had been deflated. Stooped, Acheron's new
guildmas-
ter sought a seat, sprawled in it. "I am getting too old for this," he
confided to Nuts, who squeezed the bony shoul-
EARTH DREAMS 197
der nearest him, saying, "You're doing a great job ... 1
think. Are we free to go, now we're somewheres?" He regarded the consulate,
before which the transport was just stopping.
"Nuts, you and Spry have a good chance of coming out of this with your ratings
intact, but for now David is con-
fined to the guildhall. You were not with him you came here with everybody
else in Danae."
Nuts snapped his fingers. "That's right. In the excite-
ment of seeing Davey again, I forgot. It's not every day a man's reunited with
his very own apprentice. At space-
end, he was always out in the Buzzard, whenever I was in."
"Wish I could believe the 'ratings' part," Spry mut-
tered to Penrose.
"Believe it. He's set his mind to it. I don't like it much myself," Rafe said
through unmoving lips, picking inter-
rupter circuit cards gingerly out of a terminal by the doors. "You and I have
some talking to do, about the way things are and the way they're going to be."
"At your pleasure, first bitch. You know where to find me."
Before Penrose had stowed the hard programs in his coveralls, Spry had turned
away, to find Shebat hovering concernedly: "You have not asked about the
Erinys, or what will happen to Tyche."
"That's my apprentice." Spry put an arm around
Shebat, hugging her. "Nuts, this girl's my best piece of work." Eyeing the
intelligencer, he asked her, "Is he mine to keep?"
"I believe he is assigned to you for a minimal interim only. I am sorry about
the Erinys. . . . Chaeron needs to keep as much of this secret as he can."
"I know, Shebat. Cruiser-wipe is the only way. It al-
ways is. I've lived through it before; I'll handle it. 1 just don't want to
talk about it."
"Tyche was Just improperly programmed. They will fix her."
"Please, Shebat. Not here. Not now. Not ever. I come in from way too many
sponge-hours to find an empty cruiser that does not need a pilot, and
space-end simply vanished, and that cruiser brings me to Acheron, where
198
JANET MORRIS
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
one of my most venerable enemies has prepared my de-
fense and every fellow criminal of mine is exonerated and happily re-rated and
my own guildmaster tells me that I
had better realize who my friends are: all the proconsul wants to do is wipe
my cruiser and throw me to the ar-
bitrational guild in hopes that I can help him discredit his crazy brother. I
hope it will take longer for my brain to bubble away than for them to break me [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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your praises until my ears are ringing, but understand me: I do not have time
Page 123
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
to waste on you. Either, in the " his eye-
lids flickered " eight and a half minutes left before we
195
EARTH DREAMS
arrive at the consulate, you convince me that you are all too willing to be of
whatever aid and comfort you may to me and my endeavors, no matter the
specifics or not.
You may ask whatever questions you need to hear an-
swered, and I will assume that you do speak for your cohort. But quickly, man,
before I remember how much trouble you have caused me in years gone by."
"Sponge, will you just tell me what is going on?"
"Your thrice-cursed ass is on the line, is what's going on," RP contributed. -
Spry raised both hands, palms up. "I know when I've been bought and paid for.
I cannot think of a single ques-
tion I need answered. If Baldy's here of his own will, that's good enough for
me. Just outline the situation, and
I will step right up and sell my soul and my best friends down the river like
all the rest of you here. That's good
Kerrion form, isn't it? Any more will not be asked, any less cannot be
tolerated. But this time play me square
not the way your mother did."
"Baldwin, go ahead. Brief him," Chaeron said, al-
ready on his way out, maneuvering around the small, gray-clad pirate who
followed his exit with dazed, uneasy fascination.
"Yes, please," Spry mimicked, folding his arms, "Baldwin, go ahead. Brief me."
He stared challengingly
at the tall guildmaster. "It's the least you can do."
"... After all we've been through together?" Bald-
win, whose hands were no cleaner than Spry's, hazarded what was being left
unspoken, while Nuts Alien rumbled that Spry should back off his throttle and
Shebat assured the pirate (who looked from one to the other and could not for
the life of him guess where any one of them stood) that they were all in
"this" together, leading Pen-
rose to demur: "Not me, I'm here because I obey my orders."
"Let me talk!" Baldwin levered himself up from his seat and walked heavily
toward his pilot, who had been sentenced to space-end with him and in part
because of him and had never once rested in his attempts to get every
guildmember out of there. "I have only a few min-
utes you heard him." His sharp, sinewy chin indicated the doors behind which
the Kerrion proconsul had disap-
196
JANET MORRIS
peared into the depths of the transport. "And you've seen space-end. Every man
jack of ours from there was snatched from 'unrevealed peril' by Rafe under
Chaeron's banner."
"Chaeron? Cozy, are you not? And why did he do such a thing?"
"David," Baldwin took him by the shoulders, then wound the suddenly
unresisting pilot in his long embrace.
"It's going to be all right, now. Trust me. Listen. I
have "
"He did it because I asked him to, Softa." It was Pen-
rose's turn to go to Spry. "Let us put the past behind us, we've got a lot of
straightening up to do. Together."
Spry shook free of Baldwin, held firm. "Brief me, gentlemen."
"You are assigned to me," Batdy sighed, "unrated, pending the filing of papers
to secure official pardons all around. Listen up: you did not try to steal
Tyche; you found her abandoned and brought her back to her port of registry
when you chanced upon her coming out of sponge in which you've been lost all
Page 124
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
this time."
Penrose snickered. Baldwin went on, "The other pilots who are not present "
delicately, he stressed lies Spry was expected to adopt as true " are out on
turns of duty. The roster lists them as having come in here on
Danae." He gave Spry a hard look. "What we need is pick-up windows for ihe two
pilots we cannot produce, and fair warning if you have anyone else defected
guild pilots, Pegasus natives, whomever out there. And we need to be able to
prove that space piracy in the year
2252 exists only in Marada Kerrion's mind."
Softa Spry puffed out his cheeks, squeezed the air noisily through his lips.
"You folks are too swift for me,"
he protested, but his eyes glittered. "I do not know what you mean . . .
piracy? Pirates? What pirates?"
"Good lords, David, you had me worried. Now, give me some numbers." The moment
Spry had finished enu-
merating rendevous-coordinates for manned cruisers and anchor-coordinates for
empty ones, Baldwin shrank as if he had been deflated. Stooped, Acheron's new
guildmas-
ter sought a seat, sprawled in it. "I am getting too old for this," he
confided to Nuts, who squeezed the bony shoul-
EARTH DREAMS 197
der nearest him, saying, "You're doing a great job ... 1
think. Are we free to go, now we're somewheres?" He regarded the consulate,
before which the transport was just stopping.
"Nuts, you and Spry have a good chance of coming out of this with your ratings
intact, but for now David is con-
fined to the guildhall. You were not with him you came here with everybody
else in Danae."
Nuts snapped his fingers. "That's right. In the excite-
ment of seeing Davey again, I forgot. It's not every day a man's reunited with
his very own apprentice. At space-
end, he was always out in the Buzzard, whenever I was in."
"Wish I could believe the 'ratings' part," Spry mut-
tered to Penrose.
"Believe it. He's set his mind to it. I don't like it much myself," Rafe said
through unmoving lips, picking inter-
rupter circuit cards gingerly out of a terminal by the doors. "You and I have
some talking to do, about the way things are and the way they're going to be."
"At your pleasure, first bitch. You know where to find me."
Before Penrose had stowed the hard programs in his coveralls, Spry had turned
away, to find Shebat hovering concernedly: "You have not asked about the
Erinys, or what will happen to Tyche."
"That's my apprentice." Spry put an arm around
Shebat, hugging her. "Nuts, this girl's my best piece of work." Eyeing the
intelligencer, he asked her, "Is he mine to keep?"
"I believe he is assigned to you for a minimal interim only. I am sorry about
the Erinys. . . . Chaeron needs to keep as much of this secret as he can."
"I know, Shebat. Cruiser-wipe is the only way. It al-
ways is. I've lived through it before; I'll handle it. 1 just don't want to
talk about it."
"Tyche was Just improperly programmed. They will fix her."
"Please, Shebat. Not here. Not now. Not ever. I come in from way too many
sponge-hours to find an empty cruiser that does not need a pilot, and
space-end simply vanished, and that cruiser brings me to Acheron, where
198
JANET MORRIS
Page 125
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
one of my most venerable enemies has prepared my de-
fense and every fellow criminal of mine is exonerated and happily re-rated and
my own guildmaster tells me that I
had better realize who my friends are: all the proconsul wants to do is wipe
my cruiser and throw me to the ar-
bitrational guild in hopes that I can help him discredit his crazy brother. I
hope it will take longer for my brain to bubble away than for them to break me [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]