Transcript

Chapter VII · Blood on My Jets

0:00
Chapter seven of Blood on My Jets by August Boudras. This LibriVox recording is
0:07
in the public domain. Read by Bin Tucker. Chapter seven, the fleet
0:12
had scattered back to the hundreds of hidden berths among the far flung asteroids.
0:17
I came awake in a pressurized burrow dug out and the particular rock Thorston had
0:21
chosen for himself and his crew. I'd been dropped in a corner and searched
0:25
down to my shorts. There wasn't anything on me that I could use for
0:28
a weapon, except no. I caught myself before there was even a quiver
0:33
in my left arm. Now wasn't the time to press against my ribs,
0:37
to try to feel the almost imperceptible bulge of the single shot capsule between my
0:41
ribs. I groaned and let my eyes flicker open. How's it ash?
0:47
I looked up. Thorston was standing a few feet away from me, looking
0:50
down from under his spreading black eyebrows. I put my hand up to my
0:54
head. Crummy, she hits hard. Harry chuckled. He wasn't a specially
1:00
big man, but he was large enough. He had deep black eyes under
1:03
his brows. An aristocratic nose that had been broken, a slightly off centered
1:07
mouth whose lower lip was tighter on one side than the other, and a
1:11
firm jaw. His hair was black, almost as black as mind, and
1:15
as short. He hadn't changed much. His voice started in the pit of
1:19
his stomach and worked its way up. When he chuckled, the sound was
1:23
almost operatic, deeper than I remembered it. Why shouldn't I kill you,
1:27
Holcombe? He said. I climbed to my feet and looked into those probing
1:32
eyes. Go ahead, give me half a chance, and I'll kill you.
1:37
He laughed. The old school tie, he said. His voice dropped
1:41
an octave. Relax, Holcomb, You're alive for the time being. Come
1:45
on, let's get some food. He reached out and slapped me on the
1:48
back. Thorston's mess Hall was another pocket in the asteroid. It was connected
1:53
to the burrow I'd been in by a tunnel in the rock, and as
1:56
we walked down it, I'd had a chance to get quick looks into branching
1:59
corridors and other burros that were machine shops, arsenals, ration dumps, and
2:02
living quarters. Just before we turned into the mess hall, I caught a
2:06
glimpse of an airlock hatch at the end of the tunnel. That was where
2:09
Thorston's ship had to be, and my own too, Unless I missed my
2:13
guess. As long as I had a functioning mind, I was going to
2:16
use it automatically. A map of as much of the layout as I had
2:20
seen was filed away in my brain. The mess hall must have been the
2:23
largest single unit in the entire chain of burrows that honeycombed the asteroid. It
2:27
was lit by clamp on units like the rest of the place, but the
2:30
lamps were spread a little farther apart, so it was darker. Even so,
2:35
I could see that most of the space was filled with men sitting at
2:38
long mess tables. Quite a setup, isn't it, Hulcombe Thorston asked,
2:43
leading me toward a table that was slightly set apart from the others. Looks
2:46
like an improved standard TSN base, I said. Thorston chuckled again. He
2:51
must have liked the sound of it in many ways. That's more or less
2:54
what it is, he said, sounding pleased. We got to the table
2:58
and stopped all the other their mess tables ran into end from the far side
3:01
of the burrow to this. Thorston's table was set at right angles to the
3:05
others, and a separate chair that was obviously his, was placed so he
3:08
could look over all the other men. The table had a snow fresh cloth
3:13
on it and was set in high polished silver. Heavy napkins lay beside each
3:16
of the places. I glanced down at the other tables. They were bare
3:22
boarded, but that wasn't going to make much difference to the men sitting at
3:24
them. But all of that took about half a minute's looking. What stopped
3:29
my eye cold was Pat, dressed in an elaborate gown, seated at one
3:32
end of Thorston's table. Stop staring, Ash, Thorston said, the laughter
3:38
running under his words like a whisper of a river. Let's not keep our
3:42
hoosas waiting. Hello, Pat, I said, as I walked over to
3:46
the chair that Thorston indicated was mine. I was sitting next to her.
3:50
She half smiled, but her eyes were uncertain. Hello Ash. She glanced
3:54
quickly over towards Thorston, who had reached his own chair. Thorston stopped now
4:00
to the chair and laid his hand on its back. It was a signal
4:02
attention. A parade ground voice near the door wiped out every other sound in
4:08
the hall. There were close to six hundred men in the mess hall.
4:12
All of them were suddenly on their feet, snapping two the sound of boots
4:15
on rock thundering through the burrow. The men faced each other across the long
4:19
tables, staring straight ahead. The successive crashes of sound died out. I
4:25
stood casually next to my place. Pat was the only seated person in the
4:28
hall. Thorston stood where he was, his hand still on the chair,
4:31
looking out over his men. The silence held. All right, men,
4:36
let's eat, Thorston said casually. There was another roll of sound through the
4:41
hall. As six hundred men sat down in long platters of hot food were
4:45
rushed out to them by table orderlies. Thorston and I sat down, and
4:48
the three of us at the table faced each other. Enjoy the show,
4:53
I asked Thorston. He came back with a peeved look. It was my
4:57
turn to chuckle, but I had enough sense to keep it inside. I
5:00
was right back to not being sure of what to think as far as Pat
5:03
was concerned. How much of our affair had been pure bait? And how
5:06
much of it did Harry know? About. He motioned to a waiting orderly,
5:11
who stepped forward and poured wine into the crystal goblets beside our plates.
5:15
Thorston reached forward and picked his up a toast. Holcombe, the black eyes
5:18
bored into mine. I picked up my glass. Thorston turned toward Pat and
5:23
raised his glass. I looked at her. Her face was pale, and
5:26
her eyes were oddly urgent. She couldn't seem to take them off Thorston's face
5:30
to my wife, Thorston said, and drained his glass. I drank out
5:34
of my own. It was good burgundy, cold and dry in my mouth,
5:39
and warm as it came down my throat. I set the glass gently
5:42
down. If Thorston was expecting me to react, he was disappointed, but
5:46
he was laughing, the sound echoing through the burrow, none of the men
5:49
paying any attention to it. I looked at Pat another toast. Thorston's glass
5:55
had been refilled to ash Holcombe, higher gun and angel of death. He
6:00
was laughing at me and at Pat. He knew or guessed, and death
6:03
was lightly hidden by his laughter. Don't do it, Holcombe. Thorston's voice
6:10
was ice. I looked at my hands. They were hooked into talons,
6:13
and I realized there wasn't the muscle in my body that wasn't tensed and ready
6:15
to cannon me across the table. I could even hear the snarl rumbling at
6:19
the base of my throat. I looked to the side. A man with
6:24
an open holster flap was standing there, his eyes locked on me. Do
6:28
what, Harry, I asked, casually, propose another toast. He looked
6:32
uncertain for a moment. Then the smile and the laugh came back on,
6:35
and Thorston was Thorston again. He didn't know about the chained lightning that was
6:40
running in my arteries instead of blood. He was a dead man as he
6:43
sat there, and he didn't know it in a way that was funny enough
6:46
to me to keep waiting a toast. It certainly is a knight for toasts,
6:50
isn't it. Thorston murmured. Pat hadn't moved and stopped looking at him.
6:57
I didn't know if she looked at me when I was ready to go
6:59
for Thorston's throat, but I didn't think so. Now she smiled. I
7:02
wonder how much it cost her, because her lower lip was gray where she
7:05
had had it between her teeth. I had my glass rey filled. I
7:10
nodded toward Pat and gave Thorston the academy toast. Here's to space, and
7:15
the academy to stars, to the men that walk them, and to the
7:18
flaming ships that fly. I looked at Thorston for the first time since I
7:23
had raised my glass, and it was my turn to laugh. He was
7:27
gray and somehow smaller in his throne like chair. He stared across the table
7:30
at me, and then let his eyes fall hesitantly. He spread the fingers
7:34
of his hand and looked at the pale circle where the ring had been,
7:39
and incredibly he laughed. Score one for the opposition. He chuckled, nice
7:45
going ash. I laughed with him, keeping it on a casual plane.
7:48
I'd done what I wanted to hit him where he lived. Now, if
7:51
I could give the conversation a nudge in just the right direction, I might
7:56
be able to start him talking about his plans. I was that much closer
8:00
to an outside chance to do something about them. What happened, Harry?
8:05
I asked, how'd you get from the TSN into being the top man in
8:09
the belt? He bit? While Pat and I sat there, Pat nervously
8:13
shifting her glance from him to me, and me not daring to look at
8:16
her because of the things I'd say to myself. He told his story.
8:20
The orderlies brought our dinner, putting dishes down and taking them away as he
8:24
talked between mouthfuls. They don't talk much about me, I guess, he
8:28
began, it's a pretty ordinary story anyway. I was in the war with
8:31
my own squadron. We ran into some bad luck combined with a set of
8:35
orders that got mixed up. I lost my men. I lost a leg
8:39
too. He leaned down and slapped his right thigh. It rang with metal.
8:43
I didn't enjoy that. While I was in the hospital, they brought
8:46
charges against me. I wasn't given time to prepare an adequate defense, and
8:50
they threw several paragraphs of the book at me. I was dropped a rank
8:54
in grade and slated for duty at a procurement office. I got my break.
8:58
Then the mark under coal hit the moon. At practically that time.
9:03
I remembered that they had gotten a toe hold and established a forward base,
9:07
and Earth had started getting hit with atomic missiles. All of a sudden.
9:11
Anybody who could walk or be carried into a ship, was tossed into a
9:13
raggle tackle fleet. The teasin dretched up that included me. He grinned.
9:18
Only they made two mistakes. The first one was in thinking I still owed
9:22
Earth any kind of debt. The second was the bigger one. They gave
9:26
me a crew raked out of every brig and detention, barracks and the fleet.
9:30
I guess they didn't think I was fit to command anything else. He
9:33
grinned. Pat was in a wasp unit attached to the base. I took
9:37
her along. He waved his hand at the men in the mess hall.
9:41
Some of my original crew were still with me. I simply headed for the
9:43
Belt and sat out the war. The boys didn't mind one bit. We
9:46
had plenty of stores, and they knew nobody would bother us while there were
9:50
more important things going on afterwards. Well we've done all right, he had.
9:56
Some of the freight lines bribed him, some didn't. Uncounted millions and
10:01
rare minerals were scattered among the tumbling rocks of the Belt, but nobody dared
10:05
to mind them. He'd given refuge to the stragglers from Mars's broken navies and
10:09
built a kingdom on blood and loot. I know what I am called back
10:13
on Earth? He said, I'm a butcher, a brigand all the names
10:18
are there. Even another fighting man like Hugh Holcombe thinks I'm a renegade and
10:22
a traitor to humanity for throwing in with the Martys. Well they're blind,
10:26
Holcombe. His open palm came cracking down on the table. They can't see
10:30
that Earth is rotten to the very marrow in its misshapen bones, that any
10:35
system that would do to a man what it did to me is based on
10:37
stupid bungling the war, Holcombe, you were in that, you know it
10:41
was the most useless piece of imperialism the system has ever seen. He was
10:46
staring intently into my face. I did him the favor of keeping my expression
10:50
blank, But if he expected me to nod, he was going to wait
10:54
a long time. I couldn't help thinking of Mort Weedman. Mort left an
10:58
arm on Mars. He was bitter about that, and he didn't think it
11:01
had been a useless war. It had been the Martys for system bosses or
11:05
us, and they wouldn't have been gentle overlords. But Thorston was going on,
11:09
and now he had gotten to the part. I wanted to know.
11:11
There's gotta be a change, Holcomb. Humanity isn't fit to go out to
11:15
the stars the way it is. It's not ready for the hyper spatial drive.
11:20
It's not going to get it. I was beginning to understand most important,
11:24
I could finally understand what was wrong with Thorston. I could see the
11:28
Messiah complex building up in front of my eyes. The laugh, the easy,
11:31
chuckling, self assured laugh, the laugh of a man who was never
11:35
wrong and knew it. I've got the drive, Holcomb, and I'm going
11:39
to use it. I'll be the standard bearer of the human race among the
11:41
stars. There won't be any fumbling and bumbling. No bureaucrats hulcm, no
11:46
splinter groups, no special interests, no lobbies. The dream was like a
11:52
banner in his eyes. Nobody but you, right, I said right.
11:58
The palm went down on the table again. The wine was beginning to loosen
12:01
him up. His voice was losing the first fine edge of control. And
12:05
I finally understood about Pat. She was looking at Thorston, and the same
12:09
dream was plain on her face. That was all she saw. That and
12:13
the man she couldn't see, the gray rockets bellowing above the burning cities.
12:18
Have you got the drive? Damn right? Those technicians I lifted from Titan
12:24
are working on your ship now. Then a test flight, and after that
12:26
whole fleet, my fleet equipped with the drive and ready for the jump.
12:31
There's a planet out there, wholcumb the Titan project found it, a planet
12:35
Holcombe Earth type. Do you think I'd let those idiots on Earth have it?
12:39
That locked it up? He was completely paranoid. Pat was still looking
12:43
at him, lost in the dream. She couldn't be bought, and she
12:46
couldn't be taken, but she could be in love, maybe as a man.
12:50
I stacked higher up with her than Thorston did, but I couldn't rival
12:54
the dream. Seems to me a thing like that will take more supplies than
12:58
generation of intercepting freight would give you. Where'll you get your equipment? I
13:03
asked, I'd timed it right. A lot of Burgundy had gone down,
13:07
followed by sault Herne and Chabriis that's where my Martian friends come in, he
13:13
said. Pat leaned forward. This was a part she had never heard before,
13:18
and answered, who question? Nobody but an old hand at Expeditionary Forces
13:22
would ask. The Martys think they're going to get the system back some day,
13:26
he laughed. They've been trying to persuade me to help them for a
13:28
long time. Now, well I'm going to. After my fleet has the
13:33
drive, we'll invade Earth. Then the TSN won't be able to stand up
13:37
to us, not when torps start coming out of nowhere. Picture it,
13:39
all of Earth busy fighting us off, all its attention on the invasion and
13:43
on nothing else. Then, when the fighting is going nicely, my men
13:46
and I will rate a few choice supply dumps I've had spotted for a long
13:50
time. We'll load up on equipment and supplies and take off, leaving some
13:52
badly disconcerted Martys to finish their little revolt any way they want to, with
13:58
no Earth for them to conquer what it ripped out of me. Pat was
14:03
sitting there, her mouth open to the same stunned question written on her face.
14:07
Thorston laughed his omnipotent laugh again. Certainly, didn't you know, Hulcombe.
14:13
Ordinarily, of course, a hyperspatial ship will take off from a planet
14:15
on standard atomic drive and cut to her hyperspatial engines when it's out in deep
14:18
space, but it's possible to take off directly into hyperspace, the only trouble
14:24
being that the warp changes one hundred cubic miles of adjacent mass to set matter.
14:30
CT You mean, contratorine, That was pat tense faced. I couldn't
14:35
say anything. I sat there staring at Thorston, calm laughing, deliberate bringer
14:39
of death to a world in its billions because ct atoms in contact with normal
14:46
matter react violently one hundred cubic miles. Detonating instantaneously would leave a ring of
14:52
dust where Earth and Moon now swung. There will be no cancer of humanity
14:56
in space, Thorston declared. Jumped for him. One slug caught my shoulder,
15:01
the other plowed through the muscles of my back. I lay bleeding among
15:05
the broken glass and dishes on the table. Thorston swung a rabbit punch at
15:09
my head and laughed. End of Chapter seven