L. Neil Smith - North American Confederacy 02 (5 page)

Wonderin’ how all these loonies’d gotten assigned t’gether on a mission ticked off another point on m’ worry list: I hadn’t seen the Freenies since this nastiness’d begun.
They
were probably the reason the Academy’d been hasty an’ careless settin’ up this excursion. I’d been afraid t’ask after ’em in the faint hope the hijackers’d somehow overlooked ’em.

How do y’tie up a Freenie, anyway?

It was suddenly quiet again. Cromney—an’ his pistol— rejoined me, his face livid, his hands shaking in fury. With nothing much to lose, I decided to risk pushing him further: “Gotta question for you, Doc. What d’you think the Academy’s gonna do while you’re messin’ around with their past—sit on their hands? Lemme tellya, the first misplaced virgin or purloined golden idol, an’ there’ll be ripples up an’ down the continuum that’ll have a fleet of planet-wreck-ers on your ugly neck so quick it’ll—”

Alarmingly, Cromney threw back his bushy head and began to bray, his lesser cohorts essaying nervous chuckles behind him.

“By heaven, Captain, I’ve looked forward to telling you this for days! It’s precisely where
you
come into the picture. You see, we
aren’t
going back directly to Cuzco. Instead, we shall spend some little time patrolling the Fifteenth-Century Atlantic Ocean, destroying any exploratory European vessel which sails within a thousand kilometers of the New World. A few decades of disappearing ships and they’ll go back to believing the world is flat!”

He turned to receive admiring glances from his underlings.

“You
will direct that search and destruction, Captain, as I was severely limited in my choice of help”—he directed an angry look at my former assistant—“and young Heplar here confesses that his skills may not be up to it. In any event, only
then
will we sojoum to Peru—
-by which time there will be no Academy to pursue us!"

Yeah, that’d do it, all right. Sink Columbus on his first trip, scuttle John Cabot for good measure. You’ll have wiped out
all
subsequent history in a couple of clean strokes, meaning no preliminary ripples to warn the Academy upstairs. The alarm bells on that fancy reality-lock could shrill forever—there’d be nobody left to hear ’em.

Could be we were doomed.

As if on cue, there was a blood-curdling scream from belowdecks. Heplar scrunched his head down between his shoulders even farther than usual. Kent blinked and turned white as a boiled cow’s stomach.

The scream hadn’t been female.

Cromney recovered first. “In answer to the question you’ve undoubtedly been asking yourself, Captain, there are, indeed, a pair of individuals aboard who are
not
a party to our... enterprise. Those two old fools from the museum.”

“They had their, uh, chance, sir,” interrupted Kent. “I practically, well,
begged
them to—”

“That will
do,
Denny. I believe that was one of the old gentlemen we heard just now, responding to our little Edna’s tender ministrations. She is practicing, no doubt, the powers of persuasion she plans bringing to bear on you, Captain, should you remain uncooperative.”

Another scream. This one shut off like a politician’s smile when the polls close. I tried not to gulp visibly. “Oh, I convince real easy, Doc. Just try me.”

Behind him, Kent nodded with dumb enthusiasm. Real class outfit I was dealing with here.

Cromney smiled sadly. “I rather doubt that, Captain. Be that as it may, young Heplar here will reprogram this vessel as far as 1492. You will be asked simply to inspect and confirm—or correct—his calculations. It is remotely possible, should you sincerely join the spirit of the occasion, that we may yet find a niche for you in our New Secular Order. Although, in honesty...”

He straightened, inhaled briskly. “No matter. For the nonce, we shall remand you to our little Edna’s custody and let you think. Gentlemen?”

Silliest-lookin’ strongarm men I ever laid eyes on; coupla wimps whose faces even Mr. Peepers coulda thrown sand in. But I wasn’t quite myself that afternoon, an’ they trussed me up some more, using side-cutters to detach me from my chair, picked me up bodily, and carted me outa the control cabin.

I banged a still-tender ear on the door-frame.

Across the after pilot’s lounge, at the opening of the rear ladder-well, they simply tossed me down into the messroom. It deserved its name.

I landed on my right side in a quarter-inch-deep, roomsized pool of blood, Edna Janof standing over me, a pair of glittering tiny manicure-scissors in her scarlet hand.

4 Harry’s Other Shoe

E
DNA'S LOVELY VIOLET-COLORED EYES CON
trasted nastily with the crimson running down her upraised forearms. At the elbows, it dripped off onto my uniform. Absently working the tiny scissors open and shut, she bent over me, a little foamy spittle showing at the comers of her mouth.

I was helpless to do anything but keep a wary eye on her. Something had sprayed scarlet freckles all over her face. One of those “somethings” lay crumpled along one wall, its cruelly bound arms at unreal angles. A naked foot stretched up across a lightweight plastic chair, wired in place. Was it Merwin or Hulbert? Whoever it was, he didn’t seem to have toenails anymore.

Or any eyes.

She’d accomplished a whole lot more between those extremities. That’s probably what started the screaming. I know I’d have screamed. My coverall was soaked through to the skin along the side I was lying on, and something seemed to be dripping on my forehead. Despite myself, I glanced up: an arm, ending in the tortured mockery of a hand, hung limply off the edge of the dining table I’d skidded halfway under. I found myself wondering if anybody was attached to it. Funny, the things you think of. It was gonna take a total refit to clean
Georgie
up after this.

If there
was
an after this.

Another scarlet droplet from the table overhead caught me squarely in the eye.

And
that
did it. Okay, Captain Bemie M-for-meathead Gruenblum, maybe you gotta take it lying down, but by Ochskahrt’s Awful Accident, there’s gonna be a pile of bastards horizontal with you!

I gathered my knees to my chin slowly, faking an abject terror I was trying pretty hard not to really feel. Edna leaned closer; the scissors nibbled the air in front of my eyes. Her own were whirling pools of insanity. I managed a little whimper.

She laughed.

I’ve heard it said you can drive somebody’s nose-bone into their brain with an energetic, well-placed blow. Not being sure about that, I aimed the heels of my number nines right at the point of her cute little chin, figuring to fracture her neck.

And kicked!

I caught her on the lunge. She slipped on the blood-soaked carpet, taking my bone-crushing strike on her shoulder and flopped over hard. I stayed down, heels being my only advantage, and waited for Round Two.

It never came.

There was a curious thumping scuffle, a muffled female protest. I lurched up onto an elbow, sawing the cords painfully deeper into my flesh, and—

It was the Yamaguchian Ambassador—or one of his compatriots—plastered firmly over Edna’s pretty little mug. She fought feebly, trying to tear him away, but the Freenie clung like an abalone. I felt something scrabbling at my wrists and looked down just in time to see another alien withdrawing a dangerous-looking crablike appendage back under his shell.

My hands were free!

I worked my stiffened fingers like a milkmaid practicing arpeggios. The cord was sheared through cleanly, the end of each filament like a tiny mirror. Nor did my miniature alien worshippers leave much doubt what they wanted their God to do now. It was thunderbolt time: Freenie Number Three had broken into my private locker and was skriddling liis gory way toward me with my old Milt Sparks pistol belt tentacled high above his shell to avoid getting blood all over it There were four spare clips in that combat rig, eight big I .it cartridges apiece. I hoped I’d need ’em all.

Freenie Number Two unbound my legs, numb and practically useless. By now, Edna had stopped struggling and lay still, a sight that did my heart a lotta good. I dragged myself toward her, assisted Number One off her face, and Iclt for a carotid pulse.
Rats!
Still there—but just barely.

I considered replacing His Ambassadorship, thought better of it, and then wondered why, finally evading difficult ethical questions by taking it out on my legs. I kneaded and punched them until it felt like my skin was carbonated, and took a fling at standing up.

Sevefal attempts later, I was leaning shakily against a chair, trying to strap on the gunbelt. Levering the Colt out of its shoulder-holster (two spare magazines there, as well, under the off-armpit), I thumbed down the safety and gently pinched the slide back to check the chamber—dunno why I bother, it’s
always
full of cartridge.

The slide shuffled forward again with that Cadillactic Gold Cup clank, but I left the safety off, resting my trigger-finger on the guard, and squished a path across the tiny messroom to the ladder. I took the treads slowly, quietly, and two at a time until my eyes were on a level with the deck above.

No one in the after lounge.

Up the remaining steps and onto dry carpet, leaving tracks Jack the Ripper would’ve envied. Heplar and Kent were still present on the flight deck, but Cromney was the one I worried about, with that heavy-duty Navy burner of his. Parked in my chair, he toyed absently with the DreamCap, not wearing it. The laser was out of sight.

“Gentlemen, it’s just occurred to me that we might modify this vile device and use it to indoctrinate—”

While Cromney babbled, Heplar turned, glommed a horrified eyeful of me: soaked in blood, murder in my heart, and a cocked and loaded two-by-four-sized blue-steel automatic in my hand. The way his eyes widened, I thought he was gonna skin himself. His mouth started moving. I shot him.

—and connected with Denny Kent just as the idiot crossed the hatchway. He went down, half an ounce of lead buried in his adipose. I pivoted. The pistol belted my hand again, filling both rooms with its bellowing. Cromney clapped a hand to his ear—I’d been aiming for the bridge of his nose, but my fingers were still unmanageable—let the DreamCap fly, and snatched for his blaster. My old Colt bucked and roared a third time, and Cromney’s fancy ray-g,un burst in his hand, spraying components, meat and bone, all over the cabin. He screamed and lurched backward against Heplar, who stumbled against the console—

And the entire planet slammed down on top of me, grinding me into a million agonized fragments!

... I clambered back to consciousness, hurting all over from injuries of three or four distinct vintages. The .45 was still clutched in my hand. I flicked the safety up, not trusting my nerves, swapped for a full magazine, and stepped forward into the control room.

Georgie
was in full flight.

’Course I’d realized that from the moment I’d awakened. There’s no mistaking the feeling. And no confusing the distinct sensations of traveling in time with those of moving spacewise. We were doing both, and in a hell of a hurry.

The remainder of the cast was horizontal, draped at random over furniture, floor, and fixtures. Kent was still breathing. Thing about a .45 is, if you survive the first thirty seconds after being shot, you’ll likely live out your normal span. Cromney lay unconscious and leaking—-outa one ear and between what was left of his fingers. Made my whole goddamned day. I stepped over my former assistant, only treading on two of his ankles by unfortunate accident, and checked the board—

And looked up at the screens!

The numbers were reeling by too fast. An initial acceleration of eleven or twelve G’s had tripped
Georgie'
s overrides. The momentum we’d acquired was something pretty tierce. That numbskull Heplar had left
all
the arming-covers flipped open while he fumbled with the settings—a lazy kaydet’s trick—and then had fallen against every go-button
Georgie
's got.

But that wasn’t what worried me now as I stabbed buttons, vainly trying to slow us down. See, you pass through time and space at the same time, on a complicated vector, passing over mountains and cities and rivers as you slip through history. Sometimes you gotta be
careful
what you pass over.

Georgie
's shields are powerful, but even
they
have limits.

Heplar had plotted in an error so incredibly moronic, only flying over Krakatoa or Santorini on Boom Day could’ve compared. While I struggled helplessly, the dials whizzed around to the twentieth century, August 9, 1945. The map said Kyushu, the western fringe.

Nagasaki.

THERE WAS A WHITE LIGHT.

5 A Grizzly Tale

SHHHWAAAP!

The eleven-thousandth picture-postcard pine-bough slapped me in the puss. Too played out even to feel particularly resentful about it, I finished putting my left foot down in front of me. Somewhere above the needle-carpeted floor, a goddamn bird was singing.

I ducked another branch. The Freenies waited impatiently on the trail a hundred yards ahead—there are advantages to being only fifteen inches tall. Clear of the trees at last, I ignored their minuscule intrepidity and picked out a nice, sun-dappled, lichen-encrusted parking place. Looked to be midmoming, though it’d been full light already when the pesky little critters rolled me out, and in this forest, I couldn’t be sure. Couldn’t be sure of
anything:
we were lost in a wilderness where there should have been a city.

Springtime in the Rockies. Fed by slowly melting patches of dirty snow, the aspen-lined creek paralleling our game-track gurgled cheerfully, mocking me. I leaned over and spat pink, from where the ten-thousand nine-hundred and ninety-ninth pinecone-laden tree-appendage had smacked me in the mouth.

I glanced at my wrist again, rewarded only with a hairy fishbelly strip where my Academy-issue Nukatron was missing, then spent a consoling moment dedicating unprintable free-verse to all but two of my former passengers. This was the third crummy, miserable day—not to mention two crummy, miserable nights—I’d spent wandering along what appeared to be the prehistoric Continental Divide. Trouble was,
Georgie
's read-outs had been quivering at
A.D.
1993 when I’d whispered my last reluctant good-bye.