Starliner(109)

"No," Ran whispered. "Grantholm didn't do that."

The newsreader vanished. The image from Nevasa expanded to fill the display. The starliner's track was a cone of roiling pastels reaching toward the ground until it merged with the distance-softened sprawl of Nevasa City.

"If Grantholm had taken the Brasil," Ran continued, "the Nevasans would never have let her get into planetary orbit. She had to be in Nevasan hands when she—dropped."

The hologram image shuddered from atmospheric distortion. The display flashed indigo verging on ultraviolet, then white, and finally all colors as a lightning-shot bubble swelled across the surface of the planet. The impact of hundreds of thousands of tonnes hitting Nevasa at astronomical speed converted the contact surfaces to plasma and a huge additional volume to gas.

"They were bringing the Brasil to Nevasa to be converted into a troopship," Ran said. He lifted Wanda's hand to his lips and kissed it gently to remind her of her grip on him. "As they would have done the Empress, if we hadn't dumped the hijack team—the Nevasan team—on Tellichery."

"They lost control?" Wanda said. The bubble continued to swell on the display. Its rim was picked out by black specks, fragments weighing hundreds of tonnes splashing out of the impact zone. Many of them would reach escape velocity.

"Yes," said Ran. "And I think I know how." He swallowed. "I want to get back to the Empress," he added.

Wanda kissed the back of Ran's hand. Her tongue tasted his blood. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Yes, let's go."

"The war's over!" the local man beside them repeated gleefully.

* * *

The walls of Commander Kneale's suite were set to show holographic scenes of Nevasa. The ceiling was a view (downward, disconcertingly) of the Empress of Earth descending onto Con Ron Landing, haloed by her squadron of tugs and the fluorescing atmosphere.

The city nestled into the hills about the spaceport Large swatches of green interspersed the built-up areas.

"Sit down, Ran," the commander offered from behind his big desk. He looked weary but composed.

"No, I don't think I'll do that," Ran said harshly. "I heard what happened on Nevasa. To Nevasa."

"Yes," Kneale said, "so did I."

He stretched. "Do you have any suggestions about who could fill a rating's slot on my watch? One of my people—Blavatsky—she's leaving the company here to marry a passenger."

He grimaced and shook his head.

"Do you know how many people died down there, Commander?" Ran shouted, pointing up toward the image of Nevasa City. "How many died?"

"Fewer than would have died if the war had gone on another ten years," Kneale said calmly, "as it might have done. But that's none of my business."

Ran twisted his eyes away from the commander's face. On the right-hand bulkhead, images of Nevasan children gamboled on the floor of a narrow gorge while their parents watched indulgently. The whip-trunked native trees grew up both walls of the gorge and wove together at the top, filtering the sunlight to soft green without glare or shadows.

The scene was a famous park, near Nevasa City. Probably too near Nevasa City.

"Commander," Ran said as he sat/collapsed into the cushioned armchair on his side of the desk. "They were innocent people. Most of them were innocent."

"If you want innocent, Colville," Commander Kneale snarled, "then think about the five passengers killed when those bastards tried to hijack the Empress! D'ye think it was any different aboard the Brazil?"

Kneale stood up, clenching his hands together as though he was trying to crush something between his palms. His face distorted with anger and self-loathing. "Those five passengers were our business, yours and mine. And we failed them, Ran Colville."

Ran gestured toward the bulkhead where he'd seen the crew of strangers installing equipment before the Empress undocked from Earth. "What's back there, Hiram?" he asked quietly. "Behind the kids playing and the false panel."

"An autopilot," Kneale said. He sat down, looking surprised at having found himself standing. "With an override that takes precedence over the ordinary systems on the bridge. As you already guessed."

Ran nodded. "And you would have done the same thing," he said. "Hidden behind the false wall of your suite and programmed the Empress of Earth to crash into Sonderburg on Grantholm. Or Nevasa City, whichever."

"Not exactly," Kneale said emotionlessly. "I was told that when the ship had a full load of the troops from the hijacking planet, it would enter sponge space and never return. If that's really what the autopilot was programmed to achieve, then something went wrong."