Read Online Betrayer of Worlds by Larry Niven, Edward M. Lerner - Free Book Online Page B

was while you stood still. The faster you moved, the deadlier things became, with every stray atom and molecule coming on like cosmic rays. Ships needed shielding, and lots of it, for protection.
    A ramscoop field, by sweeping up the atoms and molecules that came sleeting at a ship, did double duty as shielding. Pak were too sure of their technology, too certain of their ability to improvise around any problem, to backstop the ramscoop field with simple, foolproof, massive shielding. Why carry all that dead weight?
    Even without the deadly blast of the neutron bomb, the Pak on that ship were doomed the moment their ramscoop failed.
    But the ramscoop field was also deadly. Magnetic fields intense enough to deflect molecules moving at near light speed also induced massive electric currents. Crewed ramscoops had to warp the magnetic field around the habitat module. If that force-field bubble ever wavered, the magnetic flux would kill everyone.
    It took arrogant brilliance to fly such ships—much of it, clearly, deserved. The Pak had crossed tens of thousands of light-years in ships like this.
    The salvage party had shrunk to ten tiny dots. Sending one person would have sufficed, if that one carried a stepping disc. But if, against all logic, any of the Pak had survived? Achilles had refused to permit stepping discs on the first visit.
    “Your status?” Achilles radioed.
    “About halfway,” came Roland’s voice. “
Argo
still looks huge, I’m happy to say.”
    Because it
was
huge, a #4 hull, the biggest that General Products made. Most #4s were cargo ships, hauling grain from the Nature Preserve worlds to Hearth. Achilles needed a ship this big for quite another reason: to carry home his prize. Once his hirelings confirmed that everyone aboard the ramscoop was dead. For now, in its position just in front of the wreck,
Argo
’s girth and impenetrable hull shielded the humans from the sleet of interstellar gas and dust.
    Achilles continued to watch, anxiously, as the ten tiny hotspots closed the distance to the Pak ship. Closer they crept, and closer, and closer . . .
    He began plucking at his so carefully styled mane. The madness of the moment asserted itself. It was
so
tempting. He could close the cargo hatch and jump to hyperspace. With minds of their own, his heads reached for the console—
    “I wouldn’t do that.”
    Achilles twitched, his heads whipping around toward the unexpected voice.
    Roland stood in the entrance to the bridge, a stunner in hand. “You’re not going to abandon my people. Move away from the console.”
    Achilles stood from his crash couch. “You did not trust me.”
    Roland laughed scornfully. “Why would we?”
    Meaning capture of an alien ramscoop struck very close to home. Achilles changed the subject. “Do I have other unannounced company?”
    “Just me.” Roland laughed again. “If you choose to believe that.”
    That was the problem with criminals and mercenaries. The attitudes and aptitudes that made them useful also made them unreliable. Long ago and far away, Beowulf Shaeffer had been a much more dependable tool.
    Moving slowly, lest he get himself stunned, Achilles set a display to show the bridge security camera. Roland was nowhere in the picture. Achilles waved a head at the camera. His double in the image remained at work at his console.
    Argo
’s security sensors had been compromised.
    “So who is about to board the Pak ship?” Achilles asked.
    Roland leaned against a console shelf, far across the bridge from Achilles. Too bad the human did not take a proper seat. Had he settled into any crash couch on the bridge, Achilles could have immobilized him with the crash-protection force field. Maybe the human knew that.
    “Nine,” Roland said. “All but me. The tenth suit was empty, a balloon on a string, towed along so you wouldn’t suspect anyone had stayed behind.” He managed to look apologetic. “Our mission cannot succeed if you get cold feet. Hooves. Now move