The Star Fox

Oh, ho! So this Q-boat was outfitted right on New Europe. Did somebody there get the idea? “Cease acceleration and stand by to be boarded,” Heim said.

He cut the circuit and issued orders. Treachery was still possible. Fox must maintain her distance and send boats. He would have liked to go himself, but his duty was here, and every man was eager to make the trip. Like small boys playing pirate … well, they had taken some fabulous treasures.

Not that Meroeth was likely to hold much of interest. Alerion wanted New Europe as a strong point—above all, wanted simply to deny it to humans and thus deny the entire Phoenix—rather than a colony. The cargoes that went from The Eith to Aurore were industrial or military, and thus valuable. No important resources were sent back; at the end of so long a line of communications, the garrison of New Europe must devote everything they could to the task of producing and putting into orbit those defenses which would make the planet all but invulnerable.

Still, the ships didn’t always return empty. Some of the plunder Heim had taken puzzled him. Was it going to Alerion for the sake of curiosity, or in a hope of eventual sale to Earth, or—? Whatever the reason, his boys had not argued with luck when they grabbed a holdful of champagne.

Vectors were matched. The boats went forth. Heim settled himself in the main control chair and watched them, tiny bright splinters, until they were swallowed by the shadow of the great shark-nosed cylinder he guarded. His thoughts ran free: Earth, prideful cities and gentle skies; Lisa, who might have grown beyond knowing; Jocelyn, who had never quite left him—and then New Europe, people driven from their homes to the wilderness, a certain idiot dream about Madelon—

The screen buzzed. He switched it on. Blumberg’s round face looked out at him from a shell of combat armor. The helmet was open. Heim didn’t know if the ember light within that ship could account alone for the man’s redness.

“Boarding party reporting, sir.” Blumberg was near stammering in his haste.

Unease tensed Heim’s belly muscles. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

“Nothing … situation in hand … but sir! They’ve got humans aboard!”

II

A short inertialess flight took Fox so far outsystem that the probability of being detected was quite literally infinitesimal. Heim left the automatics in charge and decreed a celebration.

The mess seethed with men. Only twenty-five privateers remained, and a dozen New Europeans, in a room that had once held a hundred; but they filled it, shouting, singing, clashing their glasses, until the bulkheads trembled. In one corner, benign and imperturbable, Uthg-a-K’thaq snaked bottle after bottle of champagne from the cooler he had rigged, sent the corks loose with a pistol crack, and poured for all. Suitably padded, gunner Matsuo Hayashi and a lean young colonist set out to discover whether karate or Apache technique worked best. Dice rattled across the deck, IOU’s for loot against promises of suitably glowing introductions to girls on the planet, come victory. A trio of college-bred Ashanti stamped out a war dance while their audience made tom-toms of pots and pans. Endre Vadász leaped onto the table, his slim body poised while his fingers flew across the guitar strings. More and more of the French began to sing with him:

“Cest une fieur, fleur de prairie,
C’est une belle Rose de Provence.
Sa chevelure ressemble á la nuit
Et ses beaux yeux semblent á la mysotin.—”

At first Heim was laughing too loudly at Jean Irribarne’s last joke to hear. Then the music grew, and it took him. He remembered a certain night in Bonne Chance. Suddenly he was there again. Roofs peaked around the garden, black under the stars, but the yellow light from their windows joined the light of Diane rising full. A small wind rustled the shrubs, to mingle scents of rose and lily with unnamed pungencies from native blooms. Her hand was trusting in his. Gravel scrunched beneath their feet as they walked toward the summerhouse. And somewhere someone was playing a tape, the song drifted down the warm air, earthy and loving.

“Quand du village elle se promene,
C’est un plaisir de la voir marcher;
Sa jolie faille ronde et gracieuse
Comme une vague souple et mysterieuse.”

His eyes stung. He shook his head harshly.