Tuf Voyaging

“Who said it was a puling false alarm?” she said as she kicked herself toward the window, torch in hand.


“Perhaps you would care for some mulled mushroom wine,” said Haviland Tuf. Havoc was rubbing up against his leg. Chaos was up his shoulder, long gray tail twitching, peering down at the black-and-white cat as if he were trying to remember just who that was. “You appear to be tired.”

“Tired?” Tolly Mune said. She laughed. “I just burned my way out of a star-class hotel and crossed kilometers of open space, flying on nothing but airjets and using my feet to tug along a cat in an overinflated pair of skinthins. I had to outdistance the first security squad they scrambled from the dockside ready-room, and use a laser torch to cripple the sled the second bunch came cruising up on, dodging their snares the whole time, still pulling your damned cat. Then I got to spend a half-hour crawling around on the outside of the Ark, knocking on the hull like a brain-damage case, all the time watching my port go insane with activity. I lost the cat twice and had to chase her down again before she floated off to S’uthlam, and whenever I misjudged an airblast, off we went. Then a puling dreadnaught came heaving up at me. I got to enjoy the suspense of wondering when the hell you’d raise your defense sphere, and got to relish the exciting pyrotechnics when the flotilla decided to test your screens. I had a nice long time to ponder whether they’d see me, crawling around like so much vermin on the skin of some damned animal, and Havoc and I had this great conversation about what we’d do when it occurred to them to send in a wave of security on sleds. We decided I’d speak sternly to them and she’d scratch their eyes out. And then you finally notice us and drag us inside just as the goddamned flotilla is opening up with plasma torpedoes. And you think I might be tired?”

“There is no call for sarcasm,” said Haviland Tuf.

Tolly Mune snorted. “Do you have a vacuum sled?”

“Your crew abandoned four in their haste to depart.”

“Good. I’ll take one with me.” A glance at the instruments told her that Tuf finally had the seedship under way. “What’s happening out there?”

“The flotilla continues to hound me,” said Tuf. “The dreadnaughts Double Helix and Charles Darwin pursue, with their protector escorts close astern, and a cacophony of commanders clamor at me, making rude threats, stern martial pronouncements, and insincere entreaties. Their efforts are to no avail. My defensive screens, now that your spinnerets have so excellently restored them to full function, are more than equal to any weaponry in the S’uthlamese armory.”

“Don’t test it,” Tolly Mune said sourly. “Just get into drive as soon as I’m gone, and get the hell out of here.”

“This is sound advice,” Haviland Tuf agreed.

Tolly Mune looked at the banks of vidscreens along both walls of the long, narrow communications room that they had refitted as Tuf’s control center. Slumped in her chair and crumpled under the gravity, she suddenly looked and felt her age.

“What will become of you?” Tuf asked.

She looked at him. “Oh, that’s a choice question. Disgrace. Arrest. Removal from office—maybe trial for high treason. Don’t worry, they won’t execute me. Execution is anti-life. A penal farm on the Larders, I suppose.” She sighed.

“I see,” said Haviland Tuf. “Perhaps you might wish to reconsider my offer to furnish you with transportation out of the S’uthlamese system. I would be only too glad to take you to Skrymir or Henry’s World. If you wished to remove yourself further from the site of your infamy, I understand that Vagabond is quite pleasant during its Long Springs.”

“You’d sentence me to a life under gravity,” she said. “No thanks. This is my world, Tuf. Those are my own puling people. I’ll go back and take what comes. Besides, you’re not getting off the hook that easily.” She pointed. “You owe me, Tuf.”

“Thirty-four million standards, as I recall,” Tuf said.

She grinned.

“Madam,” said Tuf, “If I might so bold as to ask—”

“I didn’t do it for you,” she said quickly.

Haviland Tuf blinked. “My pardon if I seem to be prying into your motives. Such is not my intent. I fear curiosity will be my downfall someday, but for the nonce I must inquire—why did you do it?”

Portmaster Tolly Mune shrugged. “Believe it or not, I did it for Josen Rael.”

“The First Councilor?” Tuf blinked again.

“Him, and the others. I knew Josen when he was just starting out. He’s not a bad man, Tuf. He’s not evil. None of them are evil. They’re decent men and women, doing their best. All they want to do is to feed their children.”

“I do not understand your logic,” said Haviland Tuf.

“I sat at that meeting, Tuf. I sat there and listened to them talk, and I heard what the Ark had done to them. They were honest, honorable, ethical people, and the Ark had already turned them into cheats and liars. They believe in peace, and they were talking about the war they might have to fight to keep this puling ship of yours. Their entire creed is based on the holy sanctity of human life, and they were blithely discussing how much killing might be necessary—starting with yours. You ever study history, Tuf?”

“I make no special claims to expertise, but neither am I entirely ignorant of what has gone before.”

“There’s an ancient saying, Tuf. Came out of Old Earth. Power corrupts, it went, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Haviland Tuf said nothing. Havoc bounded onto his knees and settled down. He began to stroke her with a huge pale hand.

“The dream of the Ark had already begun to corrupt my world,” Tolly Mune told him. “What the hell would the reality of possession have done to us? I didn’t want to find out.”

“Indeed,” said Tuf. “A further question suggests itself.”

“What’s that?”

“I now control the Ark,” Tuf said, “and therefore wield near absolute power.”

“Oh, yes,” Tolly Mune said.

Tuf waited, saying nothing.

She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I didn’t think things through. Maybe I was just making it up as I went along. Maybe I’m the biggest damned fool you’ll find for light-years.”

“You do not seriously believe this,” said Tuf.

“Maybe I just figured it was better you got corrupted than my own people. Maybe I think you’re naïve and harmless. Or maybe it was instinct.” She sighed. “I don’t know if there is such a thing as an incorruptible man, but if there is, you’re the one, Tuf. The last goddamned innocent. You were willing to lose the whole thing for her.” She pointed at Havoc. “For a cat. Damned puling vermin.” But she smiled as she said it.

“I see,” said Haviland Tuf.

The Portmaster pulled herself wearily to her feet. “Now it’s time to go back and make that speech to a less appreciative audience,” she said. “Point me to the sleds and tell them that I’m coming out.”

“Very well,” said Tuf. He raised a finger. “One further point remains to be clarified. As your crews did not complete all of the agreed-upon work, I do not think it equitable to charge me the full price of thirty-four million standards. I suggest an adjustment. Would thirty-three million five-hundred thousand standards be acceptable to you?”

She stared at him. “What difference does it make?” she asked. “You’re never coming back.”

“I beg to differ,” said Haviland Tuf

“We tried to steal your ship,” she said.

“True. Perhaps thirty-three million would be fair, the rest being considered a penalty of sorts.”

“You’re really planning to return?” buy Mune said.

“In five years,” said Tuf, “the first payment on the loan will be due. By that time, moreover, we will be able to judge what effect, if any, my small contributions have had upon your food crisis. Perhaps more ecological engineering will be necessary.”

“I don’t believe it,” she said, astonished.

Haviland Tuf reached up to his shoulder and scratched Chaos behind the ear. “Why,” he asked reproachfully, “are we always doubted?”

The cat did not reply.