Burnt Ice (10 page)

‘No, Marko. We are going to build
all that as a series of mechanical augments for the little beast to use as he
sees necessary.’

They spent another beer going
through the look of the creature and discussing a few refinements.

‘Well, if you have come this far
just to see me, sir, then you are also aware of my fees? An Artificially
Created Entity isn’t cheap. Fifty per cent upfront and the other fifty when
handover occurs. My creatures are indentured for only five years. Now, I am
very happy to take, let’s say, two and a half per cent off for the Fossa map?
Deal?’

‘Done. Thanks, Marko. This ACE is
going to be rather good. I’ve been thinking of a new mascot for some time. The
Games Board smoked the last one — supposedly by accident. Credited us, of
course, but I think that they were just trying to piss me off. I had been a
little too free with my critique of their reporting on that occasion. Flash me
your account and taxation details please.’

Marko brought up his account
details, linked across to the local Administration taxation node, fed in the
amount, calculated the tax, then sent the details across to the captain’s
plate. Seconds later the money appeared on his own plate with the tax removed
and a cheerful thanks from the tax office which made Marko grimace.

‘Thanks. Fees transferred. Here,
I’ll unlock the rest of the Fossa for you. OK. Right, I’d better be off. The
brass do not want to be kept waiting any longer. Compliments to your fellows,
and also to your warrant officer. Excellent beer, thank you. Good day,
sergeant, until we meet again.’

‘Thanks, sir. Pleasure doing
business.’

As they were within the confines
of the craft and also in what was still considered a Conflict zone, they did
not salute each other, rather gave each other a curt nod.

Marko watched Captain der Boltz walk
down the ramp and up towards the main shopping precinct above the landing
field. So that was the Star of
Gamma,
Marko mused. Interesting guy. For
all of his reputation as being an articulate, smart, real hard bastard, Marko
liked him. He had heard that der Boltz could be absolutely ruthless and there
was definitely a serious amount of cynicism in his makeup, but for all of that
he knew exactly what he wanted. Marko decided that it was all good, as having
der Boltz on his client list was not a bad thing.

Jan arrived a few hours later to
find Marko still hard at work.

‘When was the last time you had a
meal, Marko?’ she said.

He looked up at her and decided
that she was a genuine, caring person and if she stayed with them for much
longer she would probably boss them all around. He also considered that he
would miss her when she was gone and he regretted not taking the time to get to
know her better.

‘Just had Willie der Boltz on
board.’

‘Really? I’d like to wear him
like a shirt and roger him stupid!’

‘Jan!’

‘Oh, come on, Marko. You’re as
straight as they come and even
you
were attracted to him. Right? He’s
that kind of guy. He just oozes charm and dignity. Wouldn’t want to get on the
wrong side of him, though. Has a bad temper — of the worst type. Terribly,
terribly cold and calculating. And he is staggeringly wealthy. Now, you are
going to be careful in your dealings with him, eh? Would not want to have to
come back and teach you some manners, Marko. Equally, would not like to have to
go and give him a clip because he upset a friend of mine. Come on, you can take
me across to the mess. We both need a meal.’

After lunch, Jan left to check up
on a few things and Marko climbed one of the low hills to where a group of
buildings were being replanted. The original structures had been damaged beyond
repair as their main rooting balls had been killed or so badly damaged that
they could not self-repair. The dead buildings had lost cohesion and collapsed
the day before so it was a simple task for the maintenance staff to lift the
contents of the building out of their crumbling mass, clear the site of
anything that would contaminate or hinder new growth, then wait for the
building biologists to arrive. Marko smiled at his good timing, thinking of all
the buildings he had seen during his life and of how their grown bio-engineered
hardwood forms had been determined by their function and required longevity. He
wondered how big his own childhood home had become in his absence, as two of
his aunts loved tinkering with the living tree form, extending rooms and
growing on balconies and outrageous convoluted stairways.

He sat in a shady spot
overlooking the area and watched as the first of the biologists arrived with
their teams of drones and large, low-slung, self-loading vehicles. They
carefully inspected the sites then, as Marko watched, the dozen huge,
ginger-coloured seeds were gently lifted from the trucks and down into the
depressions which had had the original buildings’ root masses in them. Over the
next thirty minutes each seed was lovingly tended by the biologists as they
carefully attached feeding hoses to them, pulled away their protective covers
to expose them to the sunlight for the first time, then opened the long
nutrient hoses from a tanker which had arrived on the scene earlier.

Marko could not readily notice
any one seed growing but if he looked back at one after having watched the
others for a few moments he could see the changes. He sat on the hillside well
into the dusk, seeing the buildings run arrow-straight branches along the
ground; they linked and fused with other branches from other seeds before
starting to grow into sweeping arches that formed the boundaries of rooms. More
branches reached down and up to link and strengthen the structures. Many times
he watched the biologists lifting small branches high, supporting them as they
linked into others, sometimes patting the rapidly expanding growths as if
rewarding them for good behaviour. A constant stream of tankers arrived on the
scene, feeding the ravenous plants. As he was leaving, the growth was beginning
to accelerate with progressively finer and finer branches growing between all
the segments to form walls, floors and ceilings.

The next morning Marko got up
just as the dawn broke, and climbed the hill behind the accommodation area again
to be rewarded by seeing the first glossy leaves opening along the buildings’
roof structures to fold down over the living buildings, weatherproofing them.
Smaller leaves were slowly sprouting from the walls, pushing against and
bonding with their neighbours. The tankers were still arriving on site but not
as frequently as the previous afternoon. He reluctantly left without seeing the
electrical cabling and plumbing systems being grown into the building through
the conduits left for them, or the living membranes growing across the windows.

~ * ~

Five

Eighteen
hours later they were back at the alien city with a whole company of boffins in
tow. The Administration had brought down one of the huge dirigibles from orbit
to act as a hostel and research labs for the investigation. While the rest of
the crew looked on from a balcony surrounding one of the numerous computer and
AI suites, Fritz and his deeply peculiar lot argued about music, of all things.
They also talked so fast that Marko’s head hurt so he and the rest of the
section left them to their discussions with Jan piloting the Sunfish as they
coordinated the search programs inside the city itself. They found another
thirty-two computers and a huge amount of tech that baffled everyone as to its
use. Watching the experts, the crew joked that the most excitable state a
boffin can be in is when they are looking at something without having any idea
what purpose it served.

The real breakthroughs occurred a
day or so later. They had typed the alien DNA and a search of the types of all
the known inhabited worlds was initiated to look for traces of the DNA in the
water bodies of the water-bearing planets. Picket ships took the information
and left in all directions to spread it throughout the Sphere. The crew also
learnt that this was a single colony which had arrived from a huge distance
away some forty-eight planet years earlier. Examinations of the murals showed
alternate star systems, but only some of the constellations were immediately
recognisable. The mystery deepened.

Then one of the search teams
found a stellar ship parked well out in the Cygnus system. As Marko’s section
had been so closely involved in all the discoveries they were given information
which normally they would never have seen. AI drones were sent to the alien
starship. Once its computer core was examined by Fritz and his eccentric boffin
mates they started learning even greater amounts of information.

Helena and Marko had managed to
have some time together. Creating a little pattern of seven days of work, then
two days off meant that they saw plenty of each other, with Helena catching
lifts with the steady stream of craft going to and from orbit. Everyone thought
that even the boss looked cheerful. Fritz did a little digging and told them
that the captain and Angstrom were even considering a contract. Harry
disappeared periodically with a great big grin on his face and Fritz just did
not care. Jan even grabbed him one day in the mess, eating breakfast, dressed
only in his underpants. She frog-marched him off to shower and put him in some
clean clothes, with him constantly protesting that she was wasting valuable
time and that, as he did not care about what others thought of him, why should
she?

~ * ~

‘Well,
Fritz’s boffins have a consensus,’ said Harry. ‘They reckon this is an
intensely martial race which ran and then kept running from an unspecified
threat. It would appear that they are one of many groups who carried out an
exodus, from a central point, some thousands of standard years ago. It is
believed that this colony is the only one to make it this far, to the Sphere of
Humankind. The threat is now greatly downgraded. The Administration is intent
on learning as much as possible from the alien tech and grabbing anything of
interest.’

‘Not that there’s a great deal to
learn, unless you’re into alien anthropology, like me,’ said the captain.

Harry grinned and said, ‘Most of
their stuff is the equivalent of ours — although we still have no real idea how
the captives in the MP frigate took control of the antimatter cores. None of
the returns from the inhabited water-bearing worlds of the Administration have
found the DNA equivalent of the aliens. A chunk of the worlds have squid-like
or cuttlefish-like organisms in their oceans and even Old Earth had lots of
squid-like creatures — but nothing close to these. The belief is that we are in
the clear.’

‘Scary bastards, though,’ said
Jan. ‘Their body armour and tech is really nice.’

‘OK,’ said the captain. ‘We are
officially on leave. Three days before the Administration decides what to do
with us. Jan, it’s been a pleasure having you around. You wouldn’t consider a
permanent transfer to the engineers, and this section in particular?’

‘I’m sorry.’ said Jan.

‘That’s a shame,’ said Harry. ‘Could
you please report to Personnel when we get back? I am told that you have orders
waiting. Right, everyone, grab your kit and we’ll catch a ride back to the
resort.’

‘Drinks and a meal on me at
nineteen hundred. We have been hard at this task for too many weeks without a
party.’ said the captain. ‘Be on the beach in front of the SNCO mess. I’ve
arranged for Sergeant Reymand to cook us up a little something. Bring your
partners, no excuses. Dress casual. Harry, make sure that you grab Fritz and
drag his bum along. He needs a break for a few hours, at least. And bring along
that cute boffin — Marie — yeah, the one he keeps eyeballing. Jan says the
attraction is mutual.’

~ * ~

They
all gathered on the beach, looking around, commenting on what a few weeks, some
serious hardware and a lot of money could do. As Marko had witnessed, some of
the buildings were being completely regrown but most had just been given large
amounts of nutrients and stimulants with which to repair themselves. The signs
of the Conflict were still there, with gardens only slowly being re-established
and great swathes of the native vegetation destroyed, leaving bare earth and,
in many areas, shiny bedrock. The other obvious aspect was the lack of familiar
faces. Almost all the Soul Savers had now been recovered. Those that had been
damaged and could not be used for the Continued Life Line process of growing
new bodies for their owners were replaced with copies from the Games Board
records bank.