Infinite Reef (31 page)

Chapter 12

1
Instead of following the Lalandian on foot, Johnny called for a vehicle. Recon drones flying above the alien suggested it was retracing its steps, heading back to the site of the first sphere’s impact.

Waiting for the car, Alex, Mary, and the Commander had time to share their thoughts. Johnny was optimistic, asserting that the creature’s behavior might mean that it understood the datastrator image and was off to seek the clicks.

Thinking Johnny overly enthusiastic, Alex and Mary listened skeptically while their little car, driven by a single security guard, bumped over the manicured landscape.

Ahead of them a gathering of floodlights showed the location of the Lalandian. Everyone’s gaze was fixed on that spot.

Mary wanted to run, noting the car moved no faster than she could, but Johnny insisted she remain at his side. She slumped sideways in the open cart’s rear seat next to Alex, listening to the Commander’s speculations.

“It’s amazing to me,” noted the Professor, “that we were able to communicate with your general so well.”

“I’m not so confident, Professor,” Mary said with a sigh. “I think you need to be more skeptical.”

“You said yourself, or Alex did, that speculation is all that we have,” Johnny argued. “But since you received the transmissions, I guess I should be letting you tell me.”

Mary sat up straight. “I told you I wanted to run along with the General. I can move as fast as he can. I might have kept our dialogue going.”

“I doubt...” Commander Baltadonis began when the cart hit a tree root and he bit his tongue. “Ow!” he yelped in pain, clamping a hand over his mouth. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and tested his tongue, staring disapprovingly at the blood that dotted it. “I guess I’ll just shut up for the moment,” he muttered.

A call came in from Master Control via the Commander’s wristband. Alex recognized Ned Binder’s voice. “We’ve had company for quite a while, Commander,” reported Ned. “The saucers are back, sir, and in greater numbers. Ever since the thing hatched from its sphere.”

“You didn’t tell me?” Johnny shouted to his wrist. “And why was that?”

“You were ... occupied, sir.”

Johnny looked angrily at the moving terrain, watching the security officers running on a parallel course with the cart.

They kept their distance, guns at the ready. “I feel half in charge here,” complained Johnny. “Sometimes not in charge at all.”

He touched his white handkerchief to his tongue to check for blood. “Look at ’em out there. I told thoth bathtards to thstay at mathster control. Who told them to go running around out there in the thadows?”

Perhaps their consciences,” suggested Mary with a slight smile. “Perhaps the thankless love of their Commander. Or initiative. That might be it.”

“All righth,” growled the Commander, tendering his tongue as he spoke. “I geth the pointh.”

They arrived at the center of activity in time to see the alien climbing up on its sphere, now a pedestal. Keeping their distance, the security officers milled in groups with their weapons raised.

Alex noticed that the Lalandian had changed the position of its head. It was now lowered into its original position as the legs began to fold, nestling inside the smooth inner surface of the circular base.

The petal-like sections of the sphere began to swing upward and close slowly around the Lalandian. In seconds the thing returned to spherical perfection, a seamless, black glass orb. “Now what?” Johnny asked rhetorically.

The ball answered the Commander by lifting into the air. Then it headed at high speed for the doors to the tubeway.

2
While their Commander was chasing the Lalandian, the rest of the staff was working behind the scenes. The entire episode had been recorded in a number of ways, including radio and other frequencies. These observations were made from many sources, some recorded automatically by the computer and others provided by security personnel using land and air based sensors and cameras. They showed that the alien and its cube had a bright electromagnetic signature, easily detectible from outside the ship. The alien saucers that surrounded the
Goddard
probably had a good idea of the activities and the location of the Lalandian ambassador.

Johnny, Alex, and Mary learned all this via radio as they followed the sphere in their car toward the tubeway. When they arrived at its entrance they found the doors smashed inward as if a cannonball had been fired through them.

The car came to a halt a few feet from the entrance. The group jumped out and, accompanied by a small detachment of security personnel, pushed their way through the wrecked doors. As they ran down the stairs the Commander called the Biolab on his wrist receiver to warn them that the alien was probably headed there.

Reaching the tubeway tunnel, they found a tubecar skewed out of position, forced out of the way by the sphere. Its rounded side was bent inward and hydrofuel dripped from a casing at the base. “Dingers!” Alex exclaimed, surveying the damage. “The General’s sure in a hurry.”

Matt Howarth in the Biolab already knew the alien was headed there. Alex overheard Matt’s voice say, “The clicks aren’t in good shape. Why do you think I wasn’t around for all the fun? I’m down here trying to keep these stupid things alive.”

Johnny hung his head. “Well, the General’s gonna be mighty disappointed. Keep ‘em alive ’til he gets there.”

“The General?”

“Mary’s name for the Lalandian. For all we know he may be already at your door.”

Frustration tinged Johnny’s voice as he signed off. Meanwhile, the security guards had hefted the car into a repair slot next to the tubeway and another car was being moved into the dock. When it arrived, the door automatically flipped open.

“Hop in!” Johnny shouted to Alex and Mary.

They all scrambled quickly inside. Almost as soon as the door slid shut, the tubecar began moving. A glance back through the rear window reassured Alex that the security team was already getting in the next car.

“Biolab!” ordered the Commander. “Priority alpha! Top speed!”

“
Collision warning, Commander Baltadonis
,” said the computer. “
I cannot execute your order. An obstruction is detected
at the juncture to the
Biolab
.
”

Johnny growled in frustration. “Take us as far as you can, as fast as you can, computer! Stop wasting time!” After slowing for a moment the car suddenly accelerated and reached a cruising speed that seemed at least twice its normal speed.

The tunnel flexed as the heavy car wove through turns and transferred them to connecting tubes. Most of the cylinder’s interior was in complete darkness, but here and there tubeway stops provided reference points and allowed enough ambient light to see where, and how fast, the car was going. Looking back, Alex could see the headlights of the security staff cars following close on their heels.

“The security team is right behind us, Commander,” he noted.

Mary, pressed next to Alex, glanced back and smiled. “Bloodhounds at our heels.”

“Good.” Johnny smiled. “It’s only when they’re on their own that they bother me.”

“They follow general orders, don’t they?” Alex asked.

“Yes, they have to ensure the command structure is safe and secure.” Johnny’s grin grew broader. “That’s why I bark at them all the time. Leave it up to them and they’d have attacked the alien by now.”

“... or killed the Lalandian the moment he hatched,” added Alex.

“And what about the ones outside?” Mary asked.

Johnny nodded. “The enigmatic flying saucers,” he mused. “Picture me trying to explain to Earthcorp that we ran into flying saucers.”

Alex laughed. “Well, you don’t have to. Mission records will tell the tale.”

Johnny looked at Alex doubtfully. “You’d think so. But in the end people believe what they choose to, not necessarily what the data tells them.”

Alex remembered all the briefings he’d had with the bureaucrats after the missions to Jupiter’s reef. He reached forward and patted Johnny on the shoulder. “Well said.”

The car suddenly slowed, snapping them all hard against their seatbelt restraints. Lit by the dim headlamps, the Biolab tubeway doors loomed before them, looking as if they’d been forced open.

“The General could do with some manners,” Mary said as the car door slid open.

Johnny climbed out quickly and surveyed the damage. “He needs a doorman, that’s for sure.”

Two cars full of security officers arrived in short order. A Captain from the first group ran up to Johnny and saluted. His eyes moved to the ruined entrance, and his expression changed. “What are your orders, sir?”

The officer held an acoustic pistol called a pinger, just like the one Alex had secretly stashed aboard his ship. Able to pop holes in polyceramic shielding, pingers were generally banned and Corpie law forbade private ownership. Only elite Intel Officers were allowed to carry them. Alex noticed the one carried by the officer was charged and ready to fire and it set to its maximum, most lethal, setting. He thought to protest, but changed his mind. Even knowing how they operated was restricted information and might arouse suspicions.

Fortunately, Johnny noticed the weapon and apparently knew the pinger’s capabilities. “Don’t go popping holes in our hull with that thing, Captain Higgins,” he warned.

The officer looked down at his gun, then at the ruined doors of the Biolab. “Are you suggesting I won’t need this, sir?”

“We’re not at war, Captain. At least, not yet.”

The officer switched off the gun and stashed it back in its holster. “Whatever you say, sir. But this thing has caused a lot of damage.” He pointed to the doors.

“So have we,” replied Johnny.

Captain Higgins stiffened a bit. “The damage we did was accidental.”

“Well, we’ll call this damage ... incidental,” Johnny noted with a smile. “I appreciate your viewpoint, Captain. I appreciate your initiative, but let me lead this operation.”

“Aye, sir.” The officer saluted and stepped aside. “After you, sir.”

With Johnny leading them, the group moved cautiously through the ruined entrance. The inner hatchway doors stood wide open and slightly bent, but on close inspection they appeared undamaged. “Permission, sir, to send my team ahead of you,” said Higgins.

Johnny put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Relax, Captain. Permission denied. The Lalandian knows me and these two.”

He jabbed a thumb at Alex and Mary, behind him. “We lead.”

The Captain shrugged. Signaling his men to hold back, he stepped behind Alex and Mary, his hand still resting on the heel of the holstered pinger.

Beyond the doors was a hallway with a sign directing visitors to either the offices to the left or the research facilities to the right. Johnny headed immediately to the right. The double doors at the end of the hallway were closed, apparently undamaged.

Johnny paused there and took a deep breath. No sounds could be heard from the laboratory beyond. Johnny whispered into his wristband, “Matt? Can you hear me? Matt? Jeanne? Are you hearing me?”

After a few seconds a voice finally replied. “Jeanne Warren here, Commander. Matt and the rest of the staff are suiting up.”

“Suiting up? Is there a biohazard?”

“Precaution, sir,” said a soft voice from the Commander’s wrist. “Matt’s suited and wants to talk.”

The voice of Matt Howarth came next. “Commander,” he said with hushed urgency, “where are you?”

“Outside the door with Alex and Mary ... and a security team.”

“It’s with the clicks.”

“Where are you?”

“Uh ....”

“Hazmat Bunker,” replied the calmer voice of Jeanne Warren.

Johnny frowned. “You have no idea what’s going on with the Lalandian?”

Matt’s voice still sounded stressed. “Lalandian? It was a sphere!”

“Are you okay?”

There was a pause. “Scared to death, but we’re okay,” said Jeanne.

“We’re just outside the doors to the lab.” Johnny tried to sound reassuring, but nervousness was plainly in his voice.

“Haven’t you been following events, Matt?”

“Well, like I said before, I’ve been working on the click problem.”

Alex noticed that Mary had two fingers on her temple. She stepped forward and touched Johnny’s shoulder. “I hear the clicks, Commander. I’d almost forgotten what they sounded like. I’ve been hearing them since we arrived.”

Johnny looked at her doubtfully. “I’m not sure what you mean. Do they sound different?”

“Yes. Somewhat. Different from how they sounded on Jupiter,” Mary admitted.

“Matt told me that they don’t click here, in captivity.”

“Well they’re clicking now,” said Mary.

Johnny put a shoulder gently against the doors and pushed. Responding to his touch, they swung open.

3
Alex had forgotten how dark they kept the clicks’ compound. The entrance was brightly lit, and the glare made it impossible to see the rest of the laboratory.

“I can’t see,” growled the Commander, squinting into the gloom.

Alex shielded his eyes from the lights and peered at the clicker man enclosure. It appeared intact and he saw no evidence of the sphere. “Mary,” he said, “what do you see?”

“It’s here.” Mary pointed to the right.

As they all moved slowly forward the greenish glow from the clicks’ enclosure cast the room in an eerie light. Mary kept pointing and after a few steps into the darkened laboratory they all saw it. The black orb was flush to the glass of the clicker men’s enclosure, at floor level. Behind the glass the shadowy billowing shapes of the clicker men floated lazily around. Alex counted at least four of them and thought he saw a few more hidden amid the fluffy reef material.

“What are you hearing, Mary Seventeen?” asked Johnny, who stopped walking as soon as he saw the orb. “Is our guest upsetting them?”

Mary still had a finger to her temple as she tiptoed nearer the sphere. “The clicks look the same as always, sir,” she whispered. “But they’re talking up a storm.”

Johnny looked surprised. “Talking to each other?”