Part 33 (1/2)
The Grand Feast was sometimes compared to the annual Mardi Gras celebrations that still took place in various places on Earth and its colonies. Mardi Gras invariably lost.
I had used the hull cameras to take a quick look at the changes that had been made to the s.h.i.+p before we ever took to hypers.p.a.ce again. Chort was right: The disguise was far from perfect. On the other hand, he and his helpers had gotten enough of the plates in place to markedly change both our visual and radar signatures, which was hopefully all we would need to get to the ground without tripping alarms from the underworld to the Patth and back again.
Once we were on the ground, of course, it would be a different story. Someone who wandered in close for a good look would easily be able to see through the gaps to the distinctive joined spheres beneath. But I had a couple of ideas for dealing with that one; and anyway, getting to the ground was the first order of business.
After the near disaster at Utheno the situation at Palmary was decidedly anticlimactic. The official start of the Grand Feast was still three days away, but the hard-core party types were already clogging the s.p.a.ce lanes as they headed in to scope out the best celebration spots or just get a head start on the festivities. With our new silhouette, plus yet another of Ixil's fake IDs identifying us as the Sherman's Blunder, we sailed straight through the prelanding formalities. A harried-sounding controller directed me to a landing rectangle at the Bangrot s.p.a.ceport, a name that didn't even show up on my supposedly comprehensive listing, and instructed us to have a good time.
The reason for the lack of a listing was apparent as soon as I got within visual range of the coordinates I'd been given. The Bangrot s.p.a.ceport was nothing more than a large open area stretching across the southern ends of the twin cities Drobney and k'Barch, an area that looked to me like a former condemned building development. Apparently, the Grand Feast had grown so large they were now having to park s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps on every reasonably sized vacant lot they could find.
And the official celebration didn't even start for three more days. Give this whole thing a few years, and they might as well declare it a permanent party and be done with it.
One might have a.s.sumed that the Bangrot Expansion s.p.a.ceport would be only spa.r.s.ely settled, with the bulk of the s.p.a.ce still waiting for the arrival of the latecomers. But one would have been wrong. The place was crowded with s.h.i.+ps, already crammed in practically nose to tail, with the narrow s.p.a.ces between themcrawling with activity. As far as this party was concerned, we were the latecomers.
I was also a little worried about what would happen to the definitions of ”up”
and ”down” inside the Icarus as we went deeper into the Palmary gravity field.
Tera had told us that on Meima the alien gravity generator in the large sphere had been able to cancel out all other gravitational effects, but that was before Cameron's techs had gotten in and started messing around. If it failed to overcome Palmary's gravitational attraction I was going to suddenly find myself lying on my back in my seat as I tried to pilot the s.h.i.+p to the ground. Or worse, our jury-rigged seating system might fail completely and I would find myself, my seat, and possibly my entire control board falling to the bottom of the sphere some twenty meters below.
That particular set of fears proved groundless. With the removal of the metal baffling that had been created by the inner hull, walls, and corridors, the alien generator had come back to full strength, and I didn't feel so much as a flicker of change in the gravity as I eased the Icarus down onto the undersized plot of ground we'd been a.s.signed.
”Now what?” Tera called to me from across the sphere, her voice echoing through the open s.p.a.ce as I keyed the s.h.i.+p's systems back to standby.
”I go scare us up some borandis,” I said, craning my neck to look up at her, watching the top of her head as she got up from her seat at the computer and walked toward the wraparound.
”What about the rest of us?” Shawn called up from a quarter of the way around the sphere, at the natural bottom point of the s.h.i.+p. I'd stationed everyone else except Nicabar down there on the theory that there was no point in letting everyone fall to their deaths if the alien gravity failed. ”I suppose we're all going to sit around here like we did before and just wait for you? Twiddling our thumbs or whatever?”
”You're welcome to twiddle whatever you want,” I told him, walking down the curve toward them, ”since you and Everett are staying in here where he can try to keep you quiet until I get back with the medicine.”
I pointed at Chort and Tera, the latter approaching the group from the other side. ”You two and Nicabar, on the other hand, aren't going to have time to twiddle much of anything. I want the three of you to collect all the emergency lights we've got and start stringing them just inside the gaps in the shroud out there, with the lights s.h.i.+ning outward. All nice and decorative for the Grand Feast, and with any luck the glare will keep everyone from seeing past them to the linked spheres underneath.”
”Maybe we could also get hold of some colored transparent sheeting to cover them with,” Tera suggested. ”They'd look even more festive that way.”
”Probably would,” I agreed. ”But I don't know how well they've got this temporary s.p.a.ceport equipped. I don't want anyone wandering too far afield hunting for anything that's not really vital.”
”They've got tram systems leading from the port into each of the two city centers,” Nicabar put in from the wraparound, apparently having arrived in time to hear this last exchange. ”I spotted them on the monitors while you were putting us down. If they had time to set those up, they've surely got anoutfitters' shop or two in place. I can go check-it won't take me long.”
”Forget it,” Shawn growled before I could answer. ”He never lets anyone go anywhere except him, remember? Just him.”
”Shawn,” Everett said warningly, putting a ma.s.sive hand on the kid's shoulder.
”Don't 'Shawn' me,” Shawn snapped, angrily shrugging off the hand. ”I'm not a child, you know.”
”If you want to make a quick check, go ahead,” I told Nicabar. ”Just watch yourself, and be back in half an hour to help Tera and Chort with the lights.”
”I will,” Nicabar promised. ”Don't worry-it's a zoo out there. I won't even be noticed.” Turning, he disappeared back down the wraparound.
”What about him?” Tera asked, nodding toward Ixil, who was standing slightly off to the side keeping out of the conversation.
”He'll be in overall charge here,” I told her, ignoring the glare Shawn was giving me, this particular bile probably a result of me proving him wrong by letting Nicabar go. Even at his best Shawn hated being proved wrong, and in the middle of borandis withdrawal he was a long way from his best. ”He'll also be using Pix and Pax to keep an eye on things outside the s.h.i.+p.”
”How do you plan to get it this time?” Tera asked. ”The borandis, I mean.”
I focused on her face. She was gazing evenly back at me, her expression not giving anything away.
But then, the fact that she didn't want her expression giving anything away spoke volumes all by itself. ”Why, you feeling squeamish?” I countered. ”I'll do whatever I have to. Leave it at that.”
”Fine,” she said, not taking offense. At least no visible offense. ”I just want to remind you that we can't afford for you to get into any trouble. If you don't make it back, we don't lift.”
”I'll make it back,” I a.s.sured her, brus.h.i.+ng past her and heading up toward the wraparound. ”Don't worry about me,” I added over my shoulder. ”You just concentrate on getting those lights up and running.”
The transition between the different gravity vectors of the sphere and the wraparound was as always a bit tricky to navigate, but I managed it without any serious loss of balance or dignity. Nicabar had already opened the hatchway and lowered the ladder the ten meters to the ground; checking to make sure my plasmic was riding loose in its holster, I stepped to the top of the ladder and looked down.
Nicabar had been right: It was indeed a zoo out there. The close packing of the parked s.h.i.+ps was funneling the prospective merrymakers down the relatively narrow lanes between them, lanes they were further having to share with fueling trucks, the occasional token customs vehicle, and about a million little two- man runaround cars that were obviously intended to alleviate the pedestrian congestion but were only succeeding in making it worse.
All of which boiled down to about as ideal a situation as I could have asked for. Even if the Patth and their lumpy Iykami allies were out there looking for us, the sheer volume of people they would have to sift through ought to makethis as quick and clean as possible. Getting my bearings toward the nearest spur of the tram lines Nicabar had mentioned, I headed down the ladder and elbowed my way into the river of pedestrians.
My first thought had been to try to corral one of the cars for myself. But there weren't any unused ones in sight, so I set off on foot. Which was just as well, I quickly realized, as I saw how easily the cars were getting snarled up in the traffic flow. The tram spur wasn't that far away, and I could use the exercise.
And the time to do some hard thinking.
But not about how I was going to acquire Shawn's borandis. Despite my somewhat melodramatic p.r.o.nouncement to Tera about doing whatever I had to, that part was actually going to be the least of my worries. With borandis a perfectly legal substance for at least a dozen of the species jostling against me, every pharmacy on the planet would have the stuff in stock, with few if any questions asked. No, the immediate and burning question right now was the same one that had been gnawing at me for quite a while: how to get the Icarus to Earth ahead of the Patth.
Along with the subsidiary question of whether that was even the smart thing for me to do.
Because lurking in the back of my mind was my most recent conversation with Ixil, and his half-joking question of whether I would be offering the Icarus to Brother John instead. Then, I'd a.s.sured him I had no intention of doing so; now, though, I wasn't nearly so sure it wasn't the best solution we had. It would keep the stargate in human hands-b.l.o.o.d.y hands, certainly, but human nevertheless-as well as giving me the kind of career boost someone in my position could usually only dream of. I might even get to meet the elusive Mr.
Antoniewicz, which would put me in exalted company indeed.
Cameron wouldn't be pleased by such a move, of course. Neither would Tera; and if Tera wasn't happy, Nicabar probably wouldn't be happy, either. The two of them seemed to have become quite chummy since that confrontation on the bridge regarding my shadier business a.s.sociations. Still, at this point, other people's happiness or lack thereof wasn't particularly high on my priority list. We'd covered barely a fifth of the distance from Meima to Earth, and already we'd had far too many close calls than I cared to think about. The others, believing that the Icarus was a superfast alien stardrive, undoubtedly still had their hopes pinned on using it to beat out the Patth net; Ixil and I, on the other hand, knew that hope was nonexistent.
On almost every level I could think of, the idea made sense. And Cameron and Tera would surely get over their pique eventually. Still, I reluctantly concluded, I wasn't quite ready to make such a decision. Not yet. Maybe once we were off Palmary.
The tram line, for all its obviously quick a.s.sembly, was still more comfortableand professional than transports I'd used on a lot of supposedly more advanced worlds. I arrived at the platform to find a pair of trams already waiting, one each heading in to the cities of Drobney and k'Barch. I picked the k'Barch one, reasoning that the place with a k'Tra name would probably have a more frenetic celebration level, and hence more cover for a man on the run.
Most of my fellow travelers had apparently come to a similar conclusion, though undoubtedly with different motivations. I let the traffic flow carry me in through the doors and to a standing point midway down one of the cars, jammed between a group of sweaty Narchners and a group of clean but equally aromatic Saffi.
We headed out. I had enough of a view out one of the side windows to see that Nicabar's a.s.sumption had been correct: Not only was there a good-sized outfitters' store at the junction of the two tram lines, but also a collection of restaurants, tavernos, and gawk-shops. Even StarrComm had gotten into the act, setting up a prefab satellite station so that s.p.a.cers who felt the need to get in touch with the outside universe wouldn't have to go to wherever their main building was in the twin-city area. Once again, I raised my estimate of how much money this Grand Feast must pour into the Palmary economy.
We rumbled our way to the end of the line, which from the look of things was relatively close to the middle of k'Barch and perilously near the epicenter of the upcoming celebrations. The earlier flow through the tram doors reversed itself, and a few chaotic minutes later I was maneuvering my way down a sidewalk that was only marginally less crowded than the inside of the tram had been.
About a block ahead, I could see the rustling display flag of a pharmacy, and I.
concentrated on making my way toward it.
I had reached the shop and was working my way sideways through the crowd toward the door, when something exploded against the back of my neck, plunging me into darkness.