The Lost Goats, 54a

[avevale_intelligencer]

Zander, by dislocating several joints and partly collapsing his lungs, had made himself a little less uncomfortable than a human hogtied and hung from the ceiling would have been. He had run the scenarios, and there was really no advantage in freeing himself.

If he did, then there would be the fighting, and the chasing, and (space being limited) his things would get knocked over and broken, and Snood and Jenny still had the gun and could always take out one of his kneecaps. It was only his good behaviour up to now that had prevented the woman doing so when she first had him covered; that, and Snood's vestigial compunction about up-close violence. If he could get the gun away from them, he could do the same to them, but he had no particular urge to: his anger against them on Soren's account had ended when he had tight-beamed the formula for the counter-agent to Probity on Otslag, before dumping the coup file. He couldn't kill them, and from what he knew of Jenny's type at least, the more you did to her the more certain it became that only death would stop her taking her vengeance.

If he stayed where he was, on the other hand, they would have to untie him to get him to land the ship, which would disarm their suspicions, and then they would be on Wuk, which would open up a lot more options. Also, Zander had no doubt that Galen and the forces of law and order would be in hot pursuit, and they too would prefer to catch the miscreants in their lair. When that happened, Zander would prefer the opportunity to put some distance between them and him, of the sort that could not be found in a two-Nyrond smallship.

Accordingly, Zander continued to dangle, while Snood and Jenny slept.

Comments

[jahura.livejournal.com]

Anael: What's the matter?

Mitchel: No more popcorn.

Anael: Jeez, kid! That's your second tub, already. Where in the cosmos are you putting it?

Mitchel: (giggles hysterically)

Anael: All right, I'll get some more soon.

Mitchel: Everyone's asleep and he's just hanging there. Why not go now?

Anael: We're just getting to the good part.

[soren-nyrond.livejournal.com]

Soren swallowed: this wasn't his metier, no matter how hard he tried to convince himself. "We take our joy in theatre, deceit and masquerade ... " :: it said nothing about derring-do -- indeed, so far as Soren recalled, the training sessions had been clear that Nyronds derring-didn't.

But Zander was in danger, undoubtedly as a result of something Soren had either done or failed to do (it was a firmly-rooted principle of Soren's, no matter how much he would chaff his brother otherwise, that Zander's plans always worked until he (Soren) frodded them up), and now it was meet and right that Soren Put Things Right. That he was doing it On His Own was also a logical post-mise: there was no point in needlessly endagering others, and with Snood to deal with, there was always the horrible possibility of a death-block situation arising.

Arrival at Zander's last-known whereabouts, however, disclosed the unforeseen circumstance that the smallship was no longer there. Either Zander had moved on without sending word (unlikely) or else he'd been moved on.

And an initial check of the scanner systems revealed no clue as to the current whereabouts etc.

"Computer: hear me and hear me good -- execute full three-sixty scan in all three axes and identify loci which definitely do not hold a smallship. Format those into a stacked list"

It was what a human would have called counter-intuitive, but if the scanners couldn't detect it ...

"Now delete from that list co-ordinates which match a known stellar object."

... then perhaps there was a reason -- such as someone having switched off the locator beacon.


And there it was -- three hours away, heading towards deep space ...and escorted by what looked very much like Jenny-The-Not-A-Pirate's fleet.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

"Jenny-The-Not-A-Pirate". I do like that.