Beta Sector- Anthology Page 8

  I had my answer back quickly enough. Alvarez must have been hovering around, waiting for my message. A slot in the terminal opened, and the communications officer handed me a cartridge not unlike the one I’d just broken. Taking out my tablet computer, I inserted the message and read it once the deciphering mechanism had finished.

  The decoded message turned out not to be as bad as I had imagined. Until further notice I was in charge of tracking and capturing the stolen warship. I could call on Sector Command for any aid I needed. I would keep my identity as an admiral for the rest of the job. I was to keep Alvarez informed of progress.

  Translated into simple terms, my orders were to get the warship, or it would be my neck. There was no mention about my efforts in uncovering the plot in the first place. Though it didn’t surprise me, neither did it sit well with me. A simple “good job” for my efforts would have sufficed.

  As it was, that brief moment of self-pity relaxed me and I immediately left to return to my luxurious accommodations in the city. Since my primary job now was to wait, it mattered little if I was awake while I did it.

  * * * * *

  And waiting was all I could do. Of course there were secondary tasks, such as ordering a cruiser from the local system police force for my own use, and digging for more information on the thieves, but these really were secondary to my main purpose, which was waiting for bad news. There was no place I could go that would be better situated for the chase than Agrona. The missing ship could have gone in any direction. With each passing minute, the sphere of probable locations grew larger and larger. I kept the crew of the cruiser at duty stations and confined the rest within a one-hundred-meter radius of the ship.

  There was little more information on Toresson and Ingrid, as they’d covered their tracks well. Their origin was unknown, though the fact they both talked with an alien accent suggested an offworld origin. There was only a solitary picture of Toresson, chubby but looking too grim to be a happy fat boy. There was no picture of the girl. I shuffled the meager findings, controlled my impatience, and kept the communications staff busy pulling in all the reports of any kind of trouble in near-space. The navigator and I plotted their locations, comparing the positions in relation to the growing sphere that enclosed all the possible locations of the stolen ship. Some of the disasters and apparent accidents hit inside this area, but further investigation proved them all to have natural causes.

  I had left standing orders that all reports falling inside the danger area were to be brought to me at any time. A week into the search, when the messenger woke me from a deep sleep, turning on the light and handing me the data cartridge, I was quick to act. I blinked myself awake, scanned the first few lines, and pressed the action station alarm over my bunk. I'll say this, the local militia knew their business. When the sirens screamed, the crew secured the ship and blasted off before I had finished reading the report. As soon as my eyeballs unsquashed back into focus, I read it through, and then once more carefully, from the beginning.

  It looked like the one we had been waiting for. There were no witnesses to the tragedy, but a number of monitor stations had picked up the discharge static of a large energy weapon being fired. Triangulation had led investigators to the spot where they found a Rugorian freighter, Golden Princess, with a hole punched through it as big as a railroad tunnel. The freighter's cargo of radioactive material was gone.

  I read Toresson in every line of the message. Since he was flying an undermanned warship, he had used it in the most efficient way possible. If he attempted to negotiate or threaten another ship, the element of chance would be introduced. So he had simply roared up to the unsuspecting freighter and blasted her with the monster guns his warship packed. All eighteen crewmen aboard had been killed instantly. The thieves were now murderers.

  I was under pressure now to act. And under a greater pressure not to make any mistakes. Roly-poly Toresson had shown himself to be a ruthless killer. He knew what he wanted—and then reached out and took it, destroying anyone who stood in his way. More people would die before this was over, and it was up to me to keep that number as small as possible.

  * * * * *

  Ideally I should have rushed out both the militia fleet and Sector Command with guns blazing and dragged him to justice. Very nice, very pretty, and I wished it could’ve been done that way. Except where was he? A warship may be gigantic on some terms of reference, but in the immensity of the galaxy it is microscopically infinitesimal. As long as it stayed out of the regular lanes of commerce—and clear of detector stations and planets—it would never be found.

  Then how could I find it—and having found it, catch it? The infernal thing was more than a match for any ship it might meet. That was my problem. It had kept me awake nights and talking to myself days, since there was no easy answer.

  I had to construct a solution, slowly and carefully. Since I couldn't be sure where Toresson was going to be next, I had to make him go where I wanted him to.

  There were some things in my favor. The most important was the fact I had forced him to make his play before he was absolutely ready. It wasn't by chance that he had left the same day I’d arrived on Agrona. Any plan as elaborate as his certainly included warning of approaching danger. The drive on the warship, as well as controls and primary armament had been installed weeks before I showed up. Much of the subsidiary work remained to be done when the ship had left. One witness of the theft had graphically described the power lines and cables dangling from the ship's locks when she’d lifted.

  My arrival had forced Toresson off balance. Now I had to keep pushing until he fell. This meant I had to think as he did, fall into his plan, think ahead—then trap him. Set a thief to catch a thief. A great theory, only I felt uncomfortably on the spot when I tried to put it into practice.

  A drink helped, as did a cigar. Puffing on it, staring at the smooth bulkhead, relaxed me a bit. After all—there aren't that many things you can do with a warship. You can't run a big con, blow credit exchanges or make gold with it. It is hell on rockets for acts of piracy, but that's about all.

  "Great, great—but why a warship as large as a Titan?"

  I was talking to myself—normally a bad sign—but right now I didn't care. The mood of space piracy had seized me and I had been going along fine. That was, until a glaring inconsistency jumped out and hit me square in the eye.

  Why a warship? Why all the trouble and years of work to get a ship that two people could just barely manage? With a tenth of the effort, Toresson could have had a cruiser that would have suited his purposes just as well.

  Just as good for space piracy, that is—but not for his purposes. He had wanted a warship, and he had gotten himself a warship. Which meant he had more in mind than simple piracy. But what? It was obvious that Toresson was a monomaniac, an egomaniac, and as psychotic as a shorted computer. Someday the mystery of how he had slipped through the screen of official testing would have to be investigated. That wasn't my concern now. He still had to be caught.

  * * * * *

  A plan was beginning to take shape in my head, but I didn't rush it. First I had to be sure that I knew him well. Any man that can con an entire world into building a warship for him—and then steal it from them—was not going to stop there. The ship would need a crew, a base for refueling, and a mission.

  Fuel had been taken care of first; the gutted hull of Golden Princess was silent witness to that. There were countless planets that could be used as a base. Getting a crew would be more difficult in these peaceful times, although I could think of a few answers to that one, too. He could raid the mental hospitals and jails. Do that often enough and he would have a crew that would make any pirate captain proud, though piracy was, of course, too mean an ambition to ascribe to this boy. Did he want to rule a whole planet—or maybe an entire system? Or more? I shuddered a bit as the thought hit me. Was there really anything that could stop a plan like this once it got rolling? During the Galactic War with the Kafarans, any
number of types with a couple of ships and less brains than Toresson had set up just this kind of brigand government. They were all pulled down in the end, since their success depended on one-man rule. But . . . the price that had to be paid first!

  This was the plan and I felt in my bones that I was right. I might be wrong on some of the minor details; they weren't important. I knew the general outline of the idea, just as when I bumped into a mark I knew how much he could be taken for, and just how to do it. There are natural laws in crime as in every other field of human endeavor. I knew this was it.

  "Get the communications officer in here at once," I shouted at the intercom. "Also a couple of clerks with transcribers. And fast—this is a matter of life or death!" This last had a hollow ring, and I realized my enthusiasm had carried me out of character. I buttoned my collar, straightened my ribbons and squared my shoulders. By the time they knocked on the door I was an admiral again.

  Acting on my orders, the ship’s engines were set to idle. Captain Mheax grumbled as we floated there with the engines silent, wasting precious days, while half his communications staff was involved in getting out what appeared to be insane instructions across the sector. My plan was beyond his understanding . . . which is, of course, why he’s a captain and I'm an admiral, even a temporary one.

  Following my orders, the navigator again constructed a sphere of speculation. The surface of the sphere contacted all the star systems with a day’s flight ahead of the maximum flight of the stolen warship. There weren't too many of these at first and the communications officer could handle them all, calling each in turn and sending news releases to the Unified Office of Public Relations officers there. As the sphere kept growing he started to drop behind, steadily losing ground. By this time I had a general release prepared, along with directions for use and follow up, which he sent via central datanet to Station 14. The battery of communications crewmen there contacted the individual planets. All we had to do on the ship was keep adding to the list of planets.

  The release and follow-ups all harped on one theme. I expanded on it, waxed enthusiastic, condemned it, and worked it into an interview. I wrote as many variations as I could, so it could be slipped into as many different formats as possible. In one form or another I wanted the basic information in every magazine, newspaper, data feed and journal inside that expanding sphere.

  "What in the devil does this nonsense mean?" Captain Mheax asked petulantly. He had long since given up the entire operation as a futile one, and spent most of the time in his cabin worrying about the effect of it on his service record. Boredom or curiosity had driven him out, and he was reading one of my releases with horror.

  "Billionaire to found own world . . . space yacht filled with luxuries to last a hundred years." The captain's face grew red as he flipped through the stack of notes. "What connection does this tripe have with catching those murderers?"

  I shot him an angry glare across the communications compartment, then ordered him into a nearby space where we could be isolated from the rest of the crew.

  * * * * *

  When we were alone he was anything but courteous to me, having assured himself by not-too-subtle questioning that I was a spurious admiral. There was no doubt I was still in charge, but our relationship was anything but formal.

  "This tripe and nonsense," I told him, "is the bait that will snag our prey. A trap for Toresson and his partner in crime."

  "Who is this mysterious billionaire?"

  "Me," I said. "I've always wanted to be rich."

  "But this ship, the space yacht, where is it?"

  "Being readied now at the orbital shipyard at Estrone. We're almost ready to go there now, as soon as this batch of instructions goes out."

  Captain Mheax dropped the releases onto the table, then carefully wiped his hands off to remove any possible infection. He was trying to be fair and considerate of my views, and not succeeding in the slightest.

  "It doesn't make sense," he growled. "How can you be sure this killer will ever read one of these things? And if he does—why should he be interested? It looks to me as if you are wasting time while he slips through your fingers. The alarm should be out and every ship notified—including Sector Command. Patrols set on all spacelanes and—"

  "Which he could easily avoid by going around, or better yet not even bother about, since he can lick any ship we have. That's not the answer," I told him. "This Toresson is smart and as tricky as a fixed gambling machine. That's his strength—and his weakness as well. Characters like that never think it possible for someone else to outthink them. Which is what I'm going to do."

  "Modest, aren't you?"

  "I try not to be," I told him. "False modesty is the refuge of the incompetent. I'm going to catch this criminal and I'll tell you how I'll do it. He's going to attack again soon, and wherever he hits there will be some kind of a periodical with my plant in it. Whatever else he is after, he is going to take all the data feeds and news articles he can find. Partly to satisfy his own ego, but mostly to keep track of the things he is interested in . . . such as ship sailings from various trade ports."

  "You're just guessing—you don't know all this."

  His automatic assumption of my incompetence was beginning to get me annoyed. I bridled my temper and tried one last time.

  "Yes, I'm guessing—an informed guess—but I do know some facts as well. Golden Princess was cleaned out of all reading material. That was one of the first things I checked. We can't stop the warship from attacking again, but we can see to it that the time after that she sails into a trap."

  "I don't know," the captain said, "it sounds to me like—"

  I never heard what it sounded like, which is all right since he was getting under my skin and I might have been tempted to pull my pseudo-rank. The alarm sirens cut his sentence off and we raced back to the communications compartment.

  Captain Mheax won by a nose: it was his ship and he knew all the shortcuts. The officer in charge was holding out a transcription, but he summed it up in one sentence. He looked at me while he talked and his face was hard and cold.

  "They hit again; knocked out a Sector Command supply satellite. Thirty-four men dead."

  There was no choice in the matter now. Sector Command would need to intervene. Still, I had it on good authority I could still rein them in.

  "If your plan doesn't work, Admiral," the captain whispered hoarsely in my ear, "I'll personally see that you're flayed alive!"

  "If my plan doesn't work, Captain—there won't be enough of my skin left to pick up with a tweezer. Now if you please, I'd like to get to Estrone and pick up my ship as soon as possible."

  The easygoing hatred and contempt of all my associates had annoyed me, thrown me off balance. I was thinking with anger now, not with logic. Forcing a bit of control, I ordered my thoughts, checking off a mental list.

  "Belay that last command," I shouted, getting back into my old space-dog mood. "Get a call through first and find out if any of our plants were picked up during the raid."

  While the communications officer unfocused his eyes and mumbled under his breath I riffled some papers, relaxed and cool. The enlisted crewmen and officers waited tensely and made some slight attempt to conceal their hatred of me. It took about ten minutes to get an answer.

  "Affirmative," the communications officer said. "A store ship docked there twenty hours before the attack. Among other things, it left data feeds containing the article."

  "Very good," I said calmly. "Send a general order to suspend all future activity with the planted releases. Send it by highly encrypted communications only. There's a good chance now it might be ’overheard.’ Once you’ve done that, contact the lead Sector Command warship that’s been assigned to this attack. Pipe it through to my quarters immediately."

  “But how do you know—” Captain Mheax protested, but I strode past him without uttering a word.

  I strolled out slowly, in command of the situation . . . keeping my face turned away
so they couldn't see the cold sweat.

  * * * * *

  It was a fast run to Estrone where my billionaire's yacht was waiting. The dockyard commander showed me the ship, and made a noble effort to control his curiosity. After checking out the controls and special apparatus with the technicians, I cleared the ship. The navigation computer was preset: just a press of a button and I would be on my way. I pressed that button.

  It was a beautiful ship, and the dockyard had been lavish with their attention to detail. From bow to rear tubes she might as well have been plated in platinum. All the fittings, inside and out, were either machine-turned or plated. Any shipboard scanner of even medium sensitivity could tell my ship was worth every inflated credit that’d been spent on her. Everything was ready.

  Now that I was in space, past the point of no return, all the doubts that I had dismissed fought for attention. The plan that’d seemed so clear and logical now began to look like a patched and crazy makeshift.

  "Hold on there," I said to myself. Using my best admiral's voice. "Nothing has changed. It's still the best and only plan possible under the circumstances."

  But was it? Could I be sure that Toresson, flying his mountain of a ship and eating military rations, would be interested in some of the comforts and luxuries of life? Or if the luxuries didn't catch his eye, would he be interested in the planetary homesteading gear? I had loaded the cards with all the things he might want, and planted the information where he could get it. He had the bait now—but would he grab the hook?

  I couldn't tell. And I could work myself into a neurotic state if I kept running through the worry cycle. It took an effort to concentrate on anything else, but it had to be made. The next four days passed very slowly.

  When the alarm blew off, all I felt was an intense sensation of relief. I might be dead and blasted to dust in the next few minutes, but that didn't seem to make much difference.