Get Off the Unicorn (20 page)

 

“There's something over to starboard,” Brack said, raising his eyes from the screen to squint through the plas-glas snout bubble of the drone.

Tallav flipped up the call switch. “Must be Odis. We're halfway to Crown. Tallav calling fishboat. Tallav here. Fishboat. Answer!”

“You're in the ship?” Surprise and relief colored the voice of the respondent.

“Sharkey? What are you doing midocean?”

“Between the storms and the whales, I'm lucky to be anywhere,” the man snapped. “You don't see them on your screen, do you?”

“We've spent hours scanning the coast for you,” Tallav interrupted, angry but relieved at finding his mechanical genius. “You've got the only seaworthy boat and the Investigator and I—”

“Investigator?” Sharkey's voice was sharp.

Brack elbowed Tallav back from the speaker.

“Brack here. I have reason to believe that the pirated radioactive iodine is still on this Crown Lagoon the P.A. has been telling me about. I intercepted a message arranging a contact point on the southern shore of a lagoon, only the reception was faulty and I missed the entire message. Do you read me?”

“Yeah, I read you, Investigator Brack.”

“Good. Now, can that fishboat of yours make it back to Crown Lagoon. You realize, of course, that we must pick up the iodine before the pirate can retrieve it. Another fishman, named Odis, is presently believed to be in the vicinity of the lagoon.”

“Odis, but . . .”

“Can your fishboat accompany us?”

“Yeah, if you can keep those fardling whales off my back.”

“We cannot permit that iodine to fall into the wrong hands, now can we?” Brack cut across Sharkey's complaints, more threatening than suggesting, Tallav thought.

“No, we can't,” Sharkey agreed flatly.

“Good man. Now, how fast can that fishboat go?”

“Long as those squalls don't hit us, as fast as that air bubble you're in.” And, as they watched, they could see the fishboat rise slightly from the water on its hydrofoils, then take off in the plume of spray that arrowed northeast by east.

Before Brack could speak, Tallav banked the drone and poured on power to follow.

 

“Would they send another Investigator?” Odis asked Murv when Okker's transmission was completed.

Murv shrugged, grimacing. “It's possible. This has taken a lot longer than predicted. And, with the credit embargo and no ships touching down at Shoulder, I haven't been able to send in a report. They might think I'd been drowned here. Now, with Shahanna to identify the Welladan contact, we can finish this up in no time. First we've got to get this treasure safely to Shoulder.” He patted the iodine cube.

“The traitor is Sharkey,” Odis said gloomily.

Murv laughed. “I'm not sure of anything. Remember, I thought it was you and you thought it was me, and then we both suspected Shahanna of being the pirate.”

“Yes, but your Okker said Sharkey was still missing,” Shahanna reminded the men, “and when he'd last heard from the P.A., they'd given him up for lost and were heading here.”

“Try Okker again, direct, Odis,” Murv urged, glancing up at the clearing skies.

“Another squall between here and Shoulder,” Odis reported after several minutes of fruitless calling.

“This planet's fardling weather is . . . is . . .”Murv broke off.

“Don't mind me,” Shahanna suggested with a grin, “but shouldn't we leave here while we have a chance?” She pointed to the fringe of dark clouds on the western horizon.

“Okay. I'll check my boat,” Murv said.

“I'll wrestle this down the hill again,” Shahanna volunteered with mock forbearance.

“I'll see if there's anything left of my ship, but I doubt it,” Odis said with resignation as he started south down the rocks.

“I can give you a hand part of the way,” Murv offered, grinning at Shahanna.

“If you think you can keep up with me.” She grinned back.

 

“Sharkey! The cube's on the rocks on the lagoon shore. Just where the contact said it would be!” Brack roared through the speaker.

“Oh, oh,” Tallav gasped feebly. “However did it survive the storm, unprotected like that!”

“You're seeing things, Brack!” Sharkey roared back. “You're seeing things, I tell you.”

“Like your whales, I'm seeing things. You fladding fool, it's clearly visible. Are you through that passage yet?”

“How'n hell could I be beaming to you if I weren't. I'm surfacing!”

“We're landing,” Brack countered.

“I'm not sure I can land on that,” Tallav said, unable to see any likely surface on the tumbled rockscape.

“You'd better. I don't think I altogether trust this chief engineer of yours,” Brack muttered between clenched teeth, his eyes never leaving the cube, white against the black lava on which it sat. “In fact, I find it definitely suspicious that he knew such a convenient channel into this lagoon which even you, as Planetary Administrator, didn't know existed.”

“Yes, but . . . how could he possibly . . . I mean . . .”

“There's a flat space big enough for this thing.”

“It'd be so much easier for Sharkey. After all . . .”

“Land!”

“Good heavens, he's here already,” Tallav exclaimed as he set the drone down on the flat-topped slab that was scarcely larger than the drone's landing feet.

“What do you mean?” Brack followed Tallav's gesticulations and saw the figure emerging from the water, heading toward the cube. “How'dya get out of this thing?” he demanded, fumbling with his tunic.

Tallav reached across him and flipped up the hatch release. Brack, his eyes on the figure, suddenly froze.

“That's not Sharkey.”

Tallav looked. “No, it isn't, is it. But who . . . and—” Tallav broke off, staring at the Investigator. “How would you know what Sharkey looks like?”

“Get out, Tallav,” Brack ordered and turned his hand weapon on the startled man.

As the two men emerged from the drone, the figure on the shore reached for the cube and grabbed it, then started off, up the slopes with more speed than either observer thought possible.

“Halt!” Brack shouted and lobbed off a shot after the fleeing figure.

A fishboat broke surface, its hatch flipping open for the flying exit of a man. He also began to shoot, three short cracks, splitting rocks just ahead of the fugitive. The man turned and began to descend as fast as he had climbed in the direction of the fishboat, heading obliquely away from the men by the drone.

“You see,” Brack shouted at Tallav, “there's the pirate! We must intercept.”

Tallav's previous doubts were swept aside by the urgency in Brack's voice, and he didn't hesitate to follow the man down the torturous escarpment to the beach. Brack paused, whipping off a few shots in the hope of slowing the pirate, but he was closing the distance to the fishboat faster than they could jump down the rocks.

“Be careful of the Iodine,” Tallav jabbered when the pirate started to use it as a shield.

The man flung the cube into the water and dove in after it, pushing it ahead of him toward the fishboat. He was urged on by Sharkey, who was running down the ventral fin to assist.

When Shahanna, winded and half-blinded with watery eyes, grabbed the shock-webbing for a final heave into the waiting man, she got her first look at his face.

“You're not Murv. You're . . .” and she grabbed the cube back, frantically kicking out and away from the fishboat.

“Give me that thing or I'll blow you out of the water,” Sharkey snarled.

“Shoot and you'll destroy the iodine.”

Shots whistled over Shahanna's head, and Sharkey backed behind the flaring dorsal fin. Shahanna heaved herself away from the fishboat and began treading water halfway between both contenders. She used the buoyant cube as a head shield.

“I'm Tallav, Planetary Administrator of Welladay,” the shorter of the two men on the shore yelled at her. “Come ashore. If you turn yourself in, I promise you immunity.”

Shahanna felt intense relief. They had probably mistaken her for the pirate; that was why they'd shot at her. She struck out to the beach with strong sweeps of her free arm and long legs.

Tallav jumped about in the shallows, splashing water in her face as he vacillated between grabbing the iodine or her hand until she finally shook him off.

“I'm not a pirate. I'm from Seginus. My ship . . .”

“You survived?” Tallav gasped. “We got the d-k relayed from Fleet.”

“Your pirate shot my engine away,” Shahanna said as Brack joined them, lobbing another shot at Sharkey, who was trapped behind the dorsal fin of the bobbing fishboat.

“Investigator Brack mistook you for a pirate,” Tallav explained nervously. “Why didn't you identify?”

“I never had the chance,” Shahanna protested. “I was checking coordinates . . .” she trailed off when she caught the look on Tallav's face. She whirled to see that Brack's weapon was trained on them.

“I'll take that iodine. Now,” Brack said, smiling slightly. He grabbed it by the shock-webbing, then carefully stepped backward and moved up the rocks, his gun covering Shahanna, Tallav and Sharkey.

Suddenly they were distracted by violent whoshing splashing sounds from the lagoon and a whining whistle from above. Shahanna took the opportunity to launch herself, her body taking every bit of advantage from muscles that had been trained on a heavy-gravity planet as she leaped at Brack. He could not keep track of three attackers at once so his shots went wild. Shahanna zipped the valuable iodine from his hand, then rolled sideways and down. She ripped her suit against the jagged rocks, but managed to scramble away with the cube.

When she came to rest against a huge black fist of a rock, she dazedly saw Sharkey running up the ledge of his fishboat toward the hatch. Then she heard his despairing scream as half a dozen fishboats closed in on him and he was tumbled into the water to be ground against the converging hulls. A bolt lanced past her ear and she wrenched around, trying to put the rock fist between her and Brack.

Somewhere Tallav was shrieking. “They've got him. They got him. He's getting away. Stop him!” Then abruptly the sounds of the struggles ended and Tallav's exhortations ceased.

Battered and shaking with pain, Shahanna drew herself up. She saw Brack, spread across the rocks just below the drone. Odis was climbing down, hand over hand on the line which Shahanna could see had tangled Brack's feet and brought him down. In the lagoon, where roiling waters lapped around Tallav's knees, only two fishboats remained—one lay unbelievably sideways on the rocks; its belly was barnacle-covered, exposed to glisten in the sun. The second was cruising slowly in to shore near Tallav.

With a sigh Shahanna sagged and laid her scratched cheek against the cool cube.

 

“I really don't credit what I saw,” Tallav protested as he watched Murv and Odis bandage the Seginan girl.

“When I reached my ship under the ledge,” Murv said patiently, “I saw the school on sonar, flooding in through the passage after him.”

“Then he was kept from Shoulder by the whales?” Tallav asked.

“Hardly matters,” Murv remarked. “We've got to get you back to the hospital at Shoulder, Shahanna.”

“And the iodine,” Tallav said.

“Better get, then,” Odis suggested, pointing toward the squall brewing in the west.

“This fardling planet and its fladding storms!” Murv growled.

“I've got to get iodine to Seginus,” Shahanna insisted, struggling to rise.

“We will. Just as soon as we fix you up at Shoulder.”

“But my ship's—” Shahanna began, looking over her shoulder.

“Brack won't require his spaceship anymore,” Murv assured her, helping her up and then swinging the cube to his back.

“Now, wait a minute, Murv,” Tallav ordered, blocking his path.

“Fair's fair, Tallav. Brack blew her
mercy
ship up,” Murv said, “and considering her help today, that's the least you can do.”

“Of course, of course,” Tallav replied.

“And to be sure, you can return the iodine to Shoulder,” Murv went on, dumping the cube into Tallav's arms, “in Odis's drone.”

“I'm left with your fishboat?” Odis asked, slightly amused.

“You're the sailor, friend,” Murv laughed, thinking of the rough passage out of the lagoon.

“And that's the only fishboat we've got left until the embargo's lifted,” Tallav added. “You be careful with it.”

By the time Odis had clambered into the fishboat, the drones were circling above him. He tapped on the outboard panel release, plotted a course across the lagoon. The drones were approaching him now as he cut across the lagoon toward the passage out. They waggled farewell. Odis responded and then began to read his gauges. A man had to keep an eye on the weather of Welladay.

 

The three stories which follow are basically humorous—or at least they exhibit my own notions of whimsy and proportion. Humor is one of the hardest things to carry off in a story or a novel and especially in sf. But there are many humorous incidents in every life, so I've included such episodes in all my books.

 

“The Thorns of Barevi” was an attempt to cash in on the lucrative market for soft- and hard-core pornography in the 60's. The market paid well for such stories and many sf writers earned their monthly rent from such submissions. I thought I'd give it a try. I didn't really succeed there. But there were seeds in the short story that could eventually germinate a full novel about the modus operandi of the Catteni in subjugating a planet and its inhabitants. But I haven't written that one yet, either.

 

“Horse from a Different Sea” was written after my three years as a Cub Scout Den Mother. In my youth I was a Girl Scout; my brothers were Boy Scouts. So I have nothing but respect for the work done by scout leaders, and for any woman brave enough to be a den mother. Furthermore, the scouting programs have helped train many responsible and marvelous adults.

 

We're still in my Wilmington years with “The Great Canine Chorus.” Actually, we acquired Wizard in New Jersey. He became one of the first K-9's to serve the Wilmington Police Force. He was an unusually intelligent beast, about eighty-five pounds' worth and so fast on his feet that he never had to bite, even when it was all legal. He never needed to, his handler told me: he'd trip up the guy he was chasing. Wizard was honorably retired after three years of service when it was discovered that he had displacia of the hip. He lived another five years in comfort before the condition worsened enough to cause him constant pain. He sired one litter of pups, and Chet kindly gave me one, Merlin, who is the hero of a novel,
The Mark of Merlin.

Wilmington is often maligned by its residents as being a one-horse town because of the equestrian statue of Caesar Rodney (one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence), which inhabits the park in the center of town.

Although there's a lot of
good
music in Wilmington, and many fine semiprofessional singers, there never was a canine chorus . . . that I heard about it, at any rate! Who knows what's happened since I left?