Labyrinth of Night (5 page)

One of the Marines snickered again. ‘Tanks for nuthin’,’ he said.

The squad commander, Colonel Carter Aldiss, had taken the fourth seat at the table. He was a middle-aged man with a greying crewcut and a perpetual don’t-fuck-with-me look in his eyes; like the two other Marines, he wore a blue jumpsuit with the embroidered eagle-and-starscape patch of the First Space Infantry on his chest. He glanced up from his papers and coffee and muttered, ‘Shaddup, Spike.’

‘Yessir, Colonel.’

Jessup nervously cleared his throat again. ‘So I’ll turn over the floor to captain Omori, who’ll update you on our mission profile. Captain?’

‘Thank you, Dr. Jessup.’ Minoru Omori was a heavy-set, round-faced man who looked as if he smiled once a year, just for kicks. ‘Welcome to the
Shinseiki,
gentlemen. My two crewmen, first officer Massey and Executive Officer Cimino, extend their best wishes and also their apologies that they are not here to greet you personally, since they are otherwise involved on the bridge. Ms. Cimino wishes for me to tell you, though, that she enjoyed looking after you while you were in biostasis, and that she’s looking forward to doing so again during the return leg of our voyage.’

Unexpectedly, Omori grinned and laughed. Jessup responded with a polite, uncertain smile. ‘Maybe she enjoyed asking us to cough,’ one of the Marines whispered.

‘Cut it out, Goober,’ Aldiss said.

‘Yessir, Colonel.’

‘To continue…’ Omori, formal again, pulled a datapad from his jumpsuit pocket and tapped in a couple of commands. The overhead screens blinked and replaced the TV images from the outer hull with a computer-generated diagram of the
Shinseiki’s
approach to Mars. ‘The outermost curve represents our present trajectory. When we reach the periapsis at seventeen-hundred hours, Landers One and Two will be launched. The landing party for Lander One needs to be at airlock One-Two-Delta at fifteen-thirty hours for suitup and boarding.’

‘That’s us, Ben,’ Jessup murmured. Cassidy nodded. He was still thinking about the spilled coffee.

‘The relief crew for Arsia Station, the main base near the Noctis Labyrinthis region, will be boarded on Lander Two at fifteen-forty-five hours from airlock Two-Two-Charlie,’ captain Omori went on. ‘These people are unaware of your presence, since they’re secluded in another part of the ship. Before then, at fifteen-hundred hours, the outbound landers will be launched from Arsia Station. They will intercept the
Shinseiki
at eighteen-hundred and will dock for the return voyage. By then, of course, both of our landers will have been launched and will have completed aerobraking and landing maneuvers. During a normal timetable, we would execute periapsis burn for Earth encounter thirty minutes later, at eighteen-thirty, but for this mission we will have a minor glitch in the targeting computer, causing a disagreement in the primary AI interface.’

A smile touched the edges of Omori’s lips. ‘It will be nothing critical, naturally. The targeting computer will have simply told the firing system that the course is in error and the major system will go down, aborting the burn. An unforeseen accident. It will cause us to fire the OMS for an emergency low-orbit insertion. This will give us enough time to question the main AI neural-net and sort out the problem without losing our REO window. Both Arsia and Cydonia commands will be apprised of the unfortunate circumstances for the delay.’ Omori’s smile grew broader. ‘Of course.’

Cassidy, confused by the explanation, heard the Marines chuckle and saw Aldiss stretch back in his chair in satisfaction; Jessup tried to hide a smug grin. Cassidy ignored the soldiers and stared straight across the table at Omori. ‘Excuse me, captain,’ he said softly, ‘but what the hell are you talking about?’

Omori stared back at him and became taciturn once more. ‘An unforeseen occurrence, Mr Cassidy. Nothing which should concern you.’

‘Nothing which should concern me. Right.’ Finally, his mind had started to clear. He had been warned that an aftereffect of biostasis was mental numbness. The frontal lobes were the last part of the brain to recover from the pharmaceuticals—clinically derived from the herbs that Haitian
houngan
had once traditionally used to sedate and enslave people as
zombies—
now used for deep-space hibernation. But it was not unlike the cerebral fuzzout of a cocaine high. In fact, you could almost enjoy the buzz…

Cassidy shook his head:
Stop that.
Questions which over the last few hours had lingered unspoken in the back of his mind now galloped to his attention. He looked at Jessup. ‘Who are these guys?’ he asked, cocking a thumb at the Marines lurking behind him. ‘You told me that there was going to be a science team on this ship. Where are they?’

Jessup shrugged innocently. ‘Module One, the other side of the ship,’ he said with unruffled complacency. ‘They’re the ones on their way down to Arsia Station. Why?’

‘Why?
I was told they were coming with us to Cydonia Base. You said that yourself back at the space station.’

Jessup blinked. ‘I told you that nine months ago, Ben. Things have changed since then. That’s a completely different team…’

‘Okay, so where’s
my
team?’ he insisted. ‘The guys I met before they stuck a needle in my arm and told me to count back from one hundred.’

The Marines chuckled again; Cassidy found himself getting mad. ‘What’re the Marines doing here? And what’s this shit about unforeseen accidents and delayed burning, uh…return retroangular whatever the hell you call it…’

‘Yeah,’ said the Marine whom Aldiss had called Spike, a skinny guy leaning against the hatch. ‘It’s rectal return burn, man.’

Cassidy turned around in his seat and stared at the kid, who was still laughing at him. ‘You’re in the Marines, right?’ Spike, grinning hugely now, nodded his head. ‘Guess you know a lot about having a burning rectum, don’t you?’

As the other Marine broke up, Spike’s face melted into an angry glare. The musician ignored him and switched his attention back to Jessup. ‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded.

‘Well…’ Jessup sighed and looked down at his hands. ‘As I was saying, there was a change in the mission which you were not informed about before we left Earth. Security considerations…’

‘Screw that. You got me out here on the pretense that I was to be part of a scientific expedition. Now I suddenly find I’m the one-man Marine Corps Band for a bunch of grunts.’ Cassidy angrily shook his head. ‘I don’t know much about how these things are arranged, but I can figure that this was planned well in advance. You’ve been yanking me along, haven’t you?’

‘Ben, I…’ Jessup shut his eyes and blew out his cheeks. ‘Okay, I’ll admit it. You were kept in the dark about certain aspects of this mission, and now it’s time to let you in on it. Most of it, at least.’

Cassidy started to object, but Jessup raised his hand. ‘Wait. Let’s get through this first. Colonel Aldiss, this is as good a time as any to brief your team and Mr Cassidy here.’

Aldiss nodded his head. ‘Spike, Goober, you can open your orders now.’

While the Marines peeled open the seals on the folders they’d been issued upon entering the wardroom, Aldiss continued. ‘Last January, while this mission was still being prepared, the Russian cycleship
Sergei Korolev
entered Mars orbit and dropped supplies to Cydonia Base. It was a scheduled run, but what was unexpected was that one of their cargo landers contained two AT-80 Bushmaster autotanks and one combat armor suit. Big surprises, needless to say.’

Captain Angelo ‘Spike’ D’Agostino whistled softly. ‘Bushmasters are nasty business, Colonel. And what kind of CAS?’

‘New type, so there’s not much info on it. Adapted for Mars environment…the Bushies were modified the same way…but the suit looks like a variation on the Hoplite I armor which the First Space used during the Descartes Station raid a few years back. Probably a little less swift on its feet, considering the higher gravity…’

‘Higher gravity than the Moon?’

‘Right. Check your material. The CIA specs are all in there. In any case, those are the first weapons to be mobilized on Mars, and they came complete with a Russian military advisor, Major Maksim Oeljanov…you’ll want to read the dossier they’ve got on him, too. Of course, Minsk has claimed that the armor is there in case there are any surprises from the Cooties. But we’re not taking any chances on the Russians wanting to force a takeover of Cydonia Base…’

‘Whoa, wait a minute,’ Cassidy interrupted. ‘Isn’t it against some UN treaty about placing weapons in space?’

‘The UN’s a long way from here, man,’ D’Agostino murmured without looking up from his file.

Aldiss cast a stern look at the captain, but nodded his head. ‘There’s no proof that the Russkies have any such intentions…’

‘Yeah, but two Bushies and a CAS make a pretty strong argument,’ D’Agostino commented. ‘The Russians have been getting pretty cocky lately.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe that’s because the yahoo we just put in the White House has been getting pretty cocky himself,’ Cassidy said.

‘Let’s not get political about this, shall we?’ Jessup said quietly. ‘In any case, Colonel Aldiss’ RDF squad…’

‘Falcon Team,’ Spike said pointedly. ‘Call us by name.’

‘Or don’t call us at all,’ Goober added.

‘Right. Falcon Team is here as an ace in the hole. Look, Ben, there was a science team assembled for Cydonia that was supposed to be on this flight, but it was bumped back to make way for Steeple Chase…um, as this operation has been code-named.’

‘That’s right, buddy.’ Lieutenant William ‘Goober’ Hoffman—a tall, lean Alabama boy with a shaved head—slapped his hand with condescending comfort on Cassidy’s shoulder. ‘Just think of us as your guardian angels.’

‘“Death From Above,”’ D’Agostino murmured from behind his folder. ‘Just kicking ass and writing down names.’

‘Terrific’ Cassidy’s eyes rolled up. ‘Jessup, are these characters going down there with us? If they are, you don’t mind if I just wait up here until they’re finished shooting up the place, do you?’

Aldiss shook his head. ‘We won’t be on the lander with you, Mr Cassidy. The team will remain here for the time being.’

‘For the…?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Aldiss said in a tone which suggested that he would answer no further questions. ‘All we expect you to do is keep your mouth shut about our presence here once you arrive at Cydonia Base.’

Cassidy squinted at the colonel. It didn’t make sense. If the Marines were here as a counterforce to the Russian armor on Mars, then what purpose was served by the Rapid Deployment Force remaining on the
Shinseiki
? He opened his mouth to venture another question, but Jessup seemed to read his thoughts. Slowly standing up from his chair—apparently he, too, was getting used to the Coriolis effect—he cleared his throat and picked up his clipboard.

‘Colonel, I’m sure that you want to complete this briefing alone with your men and captain Omori.’ Aldiss nodded and Jessup looked over at Cassidy. ‘Ben, if you’ll come along, I’ll reintroduce you to an old friend.’

‘Great.’ Cassidy stood up and watched his chair fold itself back underneath the table. ‘Then maybe after that you’ll gimme back my guitar.’

He followed Jessup down a ladder into the storage compartment below the wardroom. Jessup reached up to close the hatch-cover above them. ‘They’re probably the best the First Space has to offer,’ he said quietly. ‘You could have been a little more civil to them.’

‘I volunteered to be part of a scientific experiment, not a USO show…though “drafted” is probably the better term.’

‘Maybe it’s better if you think of yourself as a volunteer, regardless of the circumstances.’ The bulkheads of the narrow compartment were lined with recessed lockers. Jessup pushed past Cassidy and traced his finger along the numbered cabinets until he located one in particular. ‘But I’ll offer you some advice.’

Cassidy walked over and watched as Jessup unlatched the cabinet. ‘What’s that?’

Jessup pulled out a long bundle wrapped in opaque silver Mylar and gently handed it to Cassidy. ‘When we get down there, do exactly what I tell you, but don’t head for the habitat. I’ll arrange for you to be taken to a safer place…’

‘Why?’

Jessup gazed expressionlessly at him. ‘There’s some shit that’s about to hit the fan.’ He raised a forefinger before Cassidy could speak. ‘I can’t tell you what it is right now. Just do as I say and you won’t get hurt. Okay?’

Cassidy stared at Jessup for a moment, then unzipped the seal on the bundle and looked inside at his Yamaha guitar. ‘What do I do after that?’

‘Do your job, that’s all,’ Jessup replied with a shrug. ‘It’s what we brought you here for. But till then, just go where we tell you to go. Understand?’

‘Uh-huh.’ Cassidy deflected his nervousness by running his fingers over the neck of his instrument. He didn’t want to admit it, but the craving was back. Just like it always had been, those times when he was unsure of himself, of his talent. ‘So, to paraphrase the immortal Frank Zappa, I just shut up and play my guitar.’

‘That’s not a bad idea,’ Jessup said.

Even as the news media were spreading photos of the City and the Face across every screen and page, at Arsia Station preparations were already underway for an extended expedition to the alien necropolis. The
Edgar Rice Burroughs
expedition of 2028 had made little more than a flyover and a brief touchdown at the Face, and although the airship was the fastest means of long-range transportation available on Mars—unlike ground vehicles, it didn’t have to contend with the planet’s rugged terrain—it did not have the cargo capacity or crew complement necessary for long-term exploration of the site. Meanwhile, scientists on Earth (along with the general public) were clamoring for more information about the City. It was because of the haste in which the expedition was mounted that a dispute arose: who had the primary right to explore the ruins?

Although the prior establishment of Arsia Station was an international effort, different nations had contributed the components of the settlement and had aided in the discovery of the site. The
Burroughs
was registered to the United States, but her two-man crew, W. J. Boggs and Katsuhiko Shimoda, were respectively American and Japanese. Was the United States the prime discoverer of the Face, since Boggs had been flying the airship, or was Japan, since Shimoda had been the first one to spot the pyramids? The Mars tractors which brought the second expedition to Cydonia were Russian-made, but the leaders of the Arsia Station science team, Shin-ichi Kawakami and Paul Verduin, were Japanese and Dutch, while the co-supervisors of the newly-established Cydonia Base—Arthur Johnson, Sasha Kulejan and Miho Sasaki—were American, Russian and Japanese. Although the scientific equipment which was cannibalized from Arsia Station’s labs and transported to Cydonia Base was largely American-made, the habitat modules had been built by the European Space Agency while the ingenious portable waste-recycling plant was a product of the CIS, and so on.