• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

"The superjumper?"

"We'll be detaching the Habitat and opening it out again, surely—building on to it—the jumper unit would just be sitting there in parking orbit. Can't we give it to Ti?"

"What?" said Leo and Ti together.

"As payment. He jumps us to our destination, he gets to keep the jumpship. Then he can go off and be a pilot-owner, set up his own transport business, whatever he likes."

"In a stolen ship?" yipped Ti.

"If we're far enough away that GalacTech can't catch up with us, we're far enough away that GalacTech can't catch up with you," said Silver logically. "Then you'll have a ship that fits your neural implant, and nobody will be able to fire you again, because you'll be working for yourself."

Leo bit his tongue. He'd brought Silver along expressly to help persuade Ti—so what if it wasn't the blandishment he'd envisioned? From the blitzed look on the pilot's face, they'd gotten through to his launch-button at last. Leo lidded his eyes and smiled encouragement at her.

"Besides," she went on, her eyelashes fluttering in return, "if we do succeed in jumping out of here, Habitat and all, Mr. Van Atta's going to be left looking an awful fool." She let her head flop back on the bed and smiled sideways at Ti.

"Oh," said Ti in a tone of enlightenment. "Ah . . ."

"Are your bags all packed?" asked Leo helpfully.

"Over there." Ti nodded to a pile of luggage in the corner. "But . . . but . . . dammit, if this thing crashes, they'll crucify me!"

"Ah," said Leo. "Here, see . . ." He opened his red coveralls at the neck and drew out the laser-solderer concealed in an inner pocket. "I jimmied the safety on this thing; it'll fire an extremely intense beam for quite a distance now, until the atmosphere dissipates it—farther than the distance across this room, certainly." He waved it negligently; Ti ducked, eyes widening. "If we end up under arrest, you can truthfully testify that you were kidnapped at gunpoint by a crazed engineer and his mad mutant assistant and made to cooperate under duress. You may be a hero one way—or another."

The mad mutant assistant smiled blindingly at Ti, her eyes like stars.

"You, ah—wouldn't really fire that thing, would you?" choked Ti.

"Of course not," Leo said jovially, baring his teeth. He put the solderer away.

"Ah." Ti's mouth twitched briefly in response. But his eye returned often thereafter to the lump in Leo's coveralls.

When they made it back to the shuttle hatch where the pusher was docked, Zara was gone.

"Oh, God," moaned Leo. Had she wandered off? Gotten lost? Been forcibly removed? A frantic inventory found no message left on the com, no note pinned anywhere.

"Pilot, she's a pilot," Leo reasoned aloud. "Is there anything she could have needed to do? We've plenty of fuel—communicating with traffic control is done right from here . . ." He realized, with a cold chill, that he hadn't actually forbidden her to leave the pusher. It had been so self-evident that she was to stay out of sight, and on guard. Self-evident to himself, Leo realized. Who could say what was self-evident to a quaddie?

"I could fly this thing, if necessary," said Ti in a most unpressing tone, looking over the control deck. "It's all manual."

"That's not the point," said Leo. "We can't leave without her. The quaddies aren't supposed to be over here at all. If she gets picked up by the Station authorities and they start asking questions—always assuming she hasn't been picked up by something worse . . ."

"What worse?"

"I don't know what worse, that's the trouble."

Silver meanwhile had rolled off the acceleration couch to the deck strip. After a moment of thoughtful experimentation, she achieved a four-handed forward shuffle, and marched off past Leo's knees, pant legs trailing.

"Where are you going?"

"After Zara."

"Silver, stay with the ship. We don't need two of you lost, for God's sake," Leo ordered sternly. "Ti and I can move much faster, we'll find her."

"I don't think so," murmured Silver distantly. She reached