Crystal Venom (24 page)

Jasmine gently smiled and took his real hand in hers. ‘This will take time, Marko. You know that Veg is over eight hundred years old and he still says he only knows a tiny amount of what the universe can offer. Regarding humanity, maybe you are a little different, but it is you who decides where you fit. Your military training removed you a few steps from normality anyway. This just takes you a little further. Hey, look at me — I am, in theory, very young and was actually designed, and then created. How would you class me?’

Marko smiled sheepishly. ‘About as close to a perfect human female as can be imagined.’

She patted his hands. ‘Thank you. Now, whether you are still a good soldier or not... You will be much faster than you have ever been, and your thought processes will continue to speed up. The Haulers know of your type; you are unusual, but not necessarily rare. Stephine and her kin have walked among humanity for a very long time, so there have been many who have also been given the technology. It cannot be taken; it must be given, even in times of peril. Those individuals with the tech have had long and quietly distinguished lives and are all friends of the Haulers. Some, in fact, ended up as Haulers themselves. Some left the Sphere and some just simply disappeared. You have nothing to fear, Marko. The others were, and are, good people who care deeply for their own. I shall leave you in peace.’

She hugged him as he nodded his thanks. Feeling slightly better, he picked a few apples and went to check out the Hog, and found Harry and Fritz already working on it. It was starting to look like a formidable machine and they toiled away on it for the rest of the day. Flint was, of course, very happy to be back at work as well and he scuttled across to give Marko a little hug around the neck, managing to smear grease on his collar, for which he apologised repeatedly and made a fuss of removing. Nail and Glint also turned up to assist saying that they were bored and before long everyone else arrived to work on the project.

~ * ~

The next morning they awoke to find
Basalt
on the surface of the moon and that work had already started on the cleaning and resurfacing of the outer hull. Robots were walking up and down the hull abrading the exterior with powdered rock. The semi-autonomous machines fired the powder through linear accelerators, affecting an airless sandblasting that stripped away a few microns of material from the living ship, leaving a dull white surface, without affecting the water-saturated sapwood of the outer hull with its multi-layered bio polyethylene shielding. In the gasless conditions, the spent powder fell back onto the ground far below to be reprocessed.

After breakfast Lilly, Jasmine, Fritz and Minh Pham departed in the Albatross for their courses, with Patrick easing the large craft out through the airlock for them. As soon as the Albatross had left, a large sealed unit came along and pressed up against the outer part of that airlock, and established atmosphere. A crew from the shipyards arrived and started to strip the airlock out to replace it with a larger one. One of them spotted Marko watching, and the group of roughnecks all wanted to shake his hand and have their pictures taken with him on their phones. They invited him down to one of the local bars for a drink, but he begged off saying that he had another engagement. He did not want to be the centre of any attention and also knew from his early days that, although the workers might have hearts of gold, or not, they could also drink anyone under the table and were partial to the odd brawl.

As he walked back to his workbench, he called out, ‘Patrick, can you organise a meal and some beers for the shipyard guys at the end of their work, please? We are all going to be the centre of attention, anyway, so we might as well generate some good PR, but on our own terms.’

The major replied before Patrick could speak. ‘Good idea, Marko. Yes, set it up, please, Patrick ... hang on, leave it to me, in fact. I need a few extra jobs to do.’

An hour later a transport arrived for Marko’s ship, the Hanger, which was on the floor of the hangar bay beside
Blackjack.

Jan and Julie had left to find a clothing store, Harry was away seeing some of his old cronies and the major was tending to his latest astronomy files, so Marko cadged a lift down to the shipyards with the transport’s operator, who also was delighted to meet him, shaking his hand enthusiastically. He introduced himself as Jake and invited Marko and any other members of the crew who might be available for a tour of the small fighter refurbishment workshops.

Marko thought this a good idea and whistled up Glint and Nail. Jake was intrigued to meet them both, and Flint, who introduced himself after coming in late. Jake spent time quietly talking to them and was fascinated when Flint offered to fix a readout on the side of the transporter. In seconds, the ACE had the cover off and was extending probes and testers from his fingers. After finding the problem he had the whole unit stripped out, repaired and reassembled in minutes, all his little hands working in a blur of motion.

Jake shook his head in amazement. ‘Bloody hell! Just as well there are so few of you guys about as you would put the techs I know out of work in very short order! But hey, thanks for that. One less job for me at the end of my shift.’

They watched as he efficiently slid his craft above the Hanger, eased it down over the battered little fighter and activated numerous long finger-like graspers which reached down to seize the fighter, then lifted it up against the open framework of the transporter. Marko looked across to where
Blackjack
should be and was intrigued to only be viewing the wall. He activated their crew comms.

‘Nail, can you see
Blackjack
in visible spectrums?’

The cat looked across then back at Marko. ‘No, but it’s there. I was not aware it had such high-grade chameleon hardware. Not surprised, though. Did you program it to stay unseen from visiting eyes?’

Marko frowned and shook his head. ‘No, we must do a little homework on that ship sometime soon. It really astounds me.’

The ACEs all nodded in agreement, with Flint adding, ‘Have a fun time, fellas, I am staying here to help Michael. See ya!’

As Flint scuttled off, they clambered into the little teardrop-shaped transparent cockpit of the transporter, sitting themselves on a bench seat behind Jake. He attained flight clearance from Patrick, then the local flight controllers, and flew out from the hangar bay airlock over the huge expanse of the shipyards. Marko had viewed the surrounding facilities from his screens, but seeing it spread out below him made him smile with admiration at humanity’s tenacity, and commitment to the ever-expanding Sphere of Influence.

Jake kept a running commentary of what they were seeing along the way, pointing out various famous ships, some of which had been regrown dozens of times over hundreds of years. Then to the new models, which always seemed just that bit sleeker and slightly more elegant than their predecessors, and on to the ships that had only just made it back with severe damage from accident or incidents of battle, either with buccaneers or as part of a sanctioned Games Board conflict where the ships and crew had been leased to one warring party or another.

Twenty minutes later they arrived at the Fighter repair and refurbishment facility through a large surface airlock onto a platform controlled by the facilities AI. Jake smiled, commenting that they looked like typical tourists trying to see everywhere at once. They all agreed that the place was fantastic, with hundreds of fighters of every type and purpose laid out, in various stages of being stripped and rebuilt, or — for those not supplied by the Gjomvik Corporations — regrown, as the platform they were on moved above everything. Finally, the AI placed them among other Hangers in various stages of refurbishment. As they climbed down from the transporter’s cockpit, they could see what appeared to be some of the management of the facility running towards them.

Before they knew it, they were the centre of attention, as just about everyone stopped what they were doing to come up and talk to them. Marko was a bit taken aback by such a welcome. Glint and Nail smiled, answered questions and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. As the highly skilled technicians and engineers talked with them, Marko had the sudden realisation that he was indeed human in spite of all the internal changes he had undergone, deciding that those surrounding him were his kind of people. He gradually felt at peace.

As the transport lowered the Hanger down and everyone could see the damage to it, he was cheerfully encouraged to give a blow-by-blow description of what had happened. It was a great tale enjoyed by all, especially with Glint, and then Nail, chipping in with what Marko considered to be some rather exaggerated details, designed to create a humourous slant on the entire action. As they were being escorted by the management to lunch, Marko mused how far his ACEs had come and wondered what would become of them in future years.

After lunch, Jake came over to say he had another pickup to do and Marko thanked him and promised to take him up on his offer of a beer in one of the local taverns. The engineers then gathered Marko and they talked through the repairs and improvements that could be made to the Hanger. The improvements would certainly blow the budget, so he opened an account with the facility and was about to deposit a solid wad of coin into it when the senior manager arrived and said that the whole job was on the house because of the great amount of entertainment that
Basalt
and crew had given everyone to date. Marko thanked him graciously as Nail sat at his elbow on the countertop. Nail looked around into Marko’s eyes and flicked across a quick message. Marko smiled and nodded down to him, then looked at the manager.

‘Well, I note, Mr Jacobsen, that the official name of this facility is Number Seventy-three, and that you all unofficially call it Sledgehammer’s. Would you do me the honour of stencilling
Sledgehammer 73
underneath the canopy, please?’

They both thought the poor man was going to burst into tears, he was that flustered and delighted and effusive in his thanks for the honour.

Nail and Marko then went off to gather up Glint, eventually finding him surrounded by office staff, regaling them with wild tales of him, Glint, battling the octopoids, with the rest of
Basalt
and crew playing a supporting role, it seemed. Marko gently extracted him with the promise of a visit to an ice-cream shop and, after promising that they would be back in five days to uplift the Hanger themselves, they were shown out the front door into the busy subsurface malls, accommodations, bars and shops that looked just like those in any other busy city in the Sphere.

Marko realised that they must make an interesting spectacle: medium height human male in an exotic, sleek matt black combat suit, with a tall gunmetal-coloured, fur-covered reptilian version of a fossa, an Old Earth predator from Madagascar, and a large domestic cat, who appeared to be the navigator and owner of the group. They were attracting a great deal of attention so he started to look for a transport office until Glint reminded him of ice cream.

Marko gave in and led them down a floor where Glint said there was a ice-cream parlour. As they arrived and sat themselves down, two reptilian-based ACEs approached the table and introduced themselves and a very fast conversation took place. Marko knew he should not be able to understand it, but he did. The large lizards walked out at speed and minutes later, as Marko’s and Glint’s ice creams were being served, they arrived back, one of them cradling a small Siamese cat. Marko knew instantly that it was an ACE but could not engage with it on a sentient level as it acted just like an ordinary cat. It sat purring on a chair while Nail scanned it, feeding the information directly into Marko’s eyes. He nodded, gently feeling for the access points in its flank, which Nail then locked onto through his paw’s data probes. With Glint enjoying his ice-cream and intently watching, Nail transferred the identity of the Siamese to Marko. Marko grimaced, seeing the intact sentient blocks which had been disengaged in the cat months before; using Nail’s internal software they broke apart the blocks and, although knowing that he should not do it, Marko slipped one of Fritz’s music programs into the now-awake cat. It stopped purring as its eyes opened wider. It looked around at them all and let out a long sigh.

‘Long dream-sequence sleep that was! Marko Spitz, THE Marko Spitz, Glint and Nail. Maestro am I. Friends mine the Walsh brothers. Thank you all I know not how for returning me to me!’

Everyone smiled, including the Walsh brothers, the two ACE lizards who had rescued the cat from a human street gang that had been using Maestro in pit-fighting duels. One of the Walsh brothers growled, ‘How abouts you show us da lowlifes what nuked you and we go pay em a visit, ya?’

The
Basalt
crew nodded vigorously, and the Siamese said, ‘Yes! Fun for all. My family I have notified sentient-live again. Time to respond they will take, as time zone is 0200. Taken me off the family interstellar yacht when here.’ Maestro rubbed his front paws together. ‘Right. Link I need again from Nail for information.’

Nail offered his paw as Maestro also extended a datalink spike and the data was shared among them. ‘They are here, the thieves, the chemists, the slavers, the gangs.’

Marko switched his external channels to one of Fritz’s more esoteric encryptions and flashed a message to Jan and Julie inviting them along for the ‘game’. Seconds later he received a smiling face which also included the message that Harry and Flint wanted in. He wondered what the major would say, deciding to include him in the loop.