Raising Caine - eARC (16 page)
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Authors: Charles E. Gannon
Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #Space Opera, #Alien Contact, #General
“Excellent,” Brenlor decided. “That is our plan, then.”
* * *
But it did not work out that way. Early on their fifth day in the AC+20 1463-148 system, Idrem heard Nezdeh enter the bridge behind him. “You are up early,” she said. Her tone had become more familiar.
“I want to be present the moment these accursed Slaasriithi disappear from our sensors,” Idrem responded, not turning toward her. “We must commence anti-matter production as soon as possible.”
Nezdeh came to stand beside him. “It has been frustrating, being delayed this way.”
Idrem managed not to scoff. Brenlor had been on the bridge when they shifted into the system. He had taken one look at the readouts and stalked off to his quarters: a blip denoting the Slaasriithi ship had loomed unexpectedly large in their sensors. Evidently, its refueling in the previous system had taken much longer than predicted. Consequently, the ship arrived at AC+20 1463-148 later and would be in a position to spot them for much longer. And that meant more delay before the Ktor could jump ahead to GJ 1236.
Brenlor had returned to the bridge, asking about the possibility of changing plans and intercepting the enemy craft in this system. Idrem was at pains to point out that the
Arbitrage
’s tanks were dry and her anti-matter reserves low. And since the replenishment of those reserves required full output from all the available fusion plants, the skimmers would have to harvest even more hydrogen than usual. Brenlor had stalked back off the bridge. The ensuing five days had not been pleasant.
Nezdeh pointed at the sensors. “A power spike from the Slaasriithi.”
Idrem nodded. “Without question, they are preparing—”
The radiant energy level peaked asymptotically and then dropped to zero. The green blip disappeared.
Idrem immediately brought the fusion plants on both the
Arbitrage
and the tug up to full power, leaned over to summon the necessary technicians—fuel processors, flight personnel, bridge staff—to their stations. He stopped when he felt something gentle touch his arm.
Nezdeh’s hand. He looked up from it into her eyes.
“You are a great asset to this House, Idrem Perekmeres.”
“My apologies, but you forget, Nezdeh: I am twice removed from the main geneline. Technically, I am Perekmeres
uum
.”
“I do not need your correction, Idrem,” she said firmly, but not sternly. “Besides, that distinction is now nonsense. There are so few of our lines left, we must salvage everything we can.” She looked out into space. “In which task you are tireless. Now: get some sleep.”
“I shall. As soon as the second bridge crew reports, I will be returning to my quarters.”
“Your quarters on
Lurker
, or here on the
Arbitrage
?”
Idrem was rarely confused, but this question disoriented him. “Eh…here. Does it matter?”
Her gaze was unblinking. “It does. I shall see you. Very soon.”
She turned and left the bridge, with Idrem speechless at the middle of it.
* * *
Brenlor tapped one finger against his bicep as, ten days later, the
Arbitrage
approached the shift point to their next destination: system GJ 1236. “All systems nominal?”
“Yes, Evolved,” answered Ayana Tagawa, whom they had trained as the second pilot for the
Arbitrage
. She had good basic skills and very high inherent aptitudes. “Terminal preacceleration energy state has been attained.”
Nezdeh noted the lack of affect in her voice. Brenlor thought she had become the most compliant of all the Aboriginals. Nezdeh wondered if her constrained demeanor and minimal expressions and speech might not indicate the exact opposite.
Brenlor nodded to Ulpreln. “Deactivate the space-normal helm. Tagawa, you are dismissed. Go with the guard.” One of the two dozen Optigene paramilitary clones that they had wakened from cold sleep took a step toward her, waited. She nodded to the Evolved on the bridge and exited with the slow dignity that was her wont.
“Ulpreln, is the shift-drive charged?”
“Completing charge…now.”
“Engage.”
The universe seemed to flutter unpleasantly, as though consciousness threatened to blink off, and every muscle in Nezdeh’s body was preparing to spasm…And then it was over.
“Sensors, confirm destination,” Brenlor ordered.
The Aboriginal crewman glanced at his instruments. “Stellar type: M3 dwarf, main sequence. Emission bands match target star precisely. Stellar field parallax assessment confirms we are in system GJ 1236.”
“Position?”
“262 light seconds from the primary, absolute bearing of 167 by 14.”
“Position of nearest planet and target planet?”
“Nearest planet: small gas giant, absolute bearing 187 by 3, 293 light seconds from the primary…”
So a bit behind us on the port quarter—
“…Target planet: absolute bearing 84 by 2, 99 light seconds from the primary.”
Brenlor turned to Ulpreln. “Plot course for the gas giant. Second sensor operator: contact report.”
“No proximal contacts. Several structures in orbit around the target planet. Two, possibly three, sensors in orbit around the gas giant. Very small. Unpowered.”
“Time to refuel?”
“Five days, presuming typical meteorological patterns.”
Brenlor turned from the forward view ports, drew closer to Nezdeh. “You have confidence in Idrem’s estimate?”
“That we may be able to refuel before the Slaasriithi arrive? Yes. Their shorter range compelled them to shift to another system—GJ 1232—before they were able to continue on to this one. But remember Idrem’s caveat: GJ 1232 is reserved for Slaasriithi use. It is unlikely but possible that they have a fuel depot here.”
“And so, they could be here in half the time we expect,” Brenlor concluded sourly. He moved to the hatchway and ducked under the coaming as if dodging the possibility that, once again, his quarry might unwittingly frustrate his plans.
* * *
Except the Slaasriithi arrived in
much
less time,
Nezdeh thought forty hours later, recalling and amending her prior cautionary caveat.
Idrem was on hand, having heard the news of the Slaasriithi’s appearance near the other gas giant halfway across the system. And, she realized with a start, her gaze kept returning to Idrem’s broad back.
She wrenched her eyes away. Tender sentiments were vulnerabilities, even among those who had become intimate. Many of the Progenitors had authored axioms warning against them, and she had always heeded them.
But now
—
When Brenlor entered the bridge, the Aboriginals and Evolveds all straightened in unison. He looked directly at Idrem. “Do we have a reasonable chance of making a stealthy approach to the target?”
Idrem shook his head. “Even if we court the shadows of the other planets and the primary, and coast on battery power when we are not concealed, we will not reach them unobserved before they commence preacceleration.”
Brenlor stalked to the front view ports. He was silent for several moments, looking toward the primary. “Apparently they had access to a fuel depot at GJ 1232.”
Nezdeh was surprised by how calm he sounded. “Almost certainly.”
Brenlor nodded. “Can we continue our own refueling?”
“Slowly,” answered Idrem, “and only when this gas giant is between us and them.”
“So, when we have finished refueling, they will still require four to five days of further preacceleration, correct?”
“Correct.”
“And from that same moment, we too require approximately four and a half days of preacceleration also, yes?”
Idrem nodded. “Yes. So we could be shifting within hours of each other.”
Brenlor actually smiled. “Very suspenseful.” His smile widened. “I like that.”
* * *
Nezdeh glanced at the mission clock located between the two forward view ports: the
Arbitrage
was in the last thirty seconds of the countdown to her own transit to the system Aboriginals labeled GJ 1248.
As the bridge crew finished calling out the readiness marks, Brenlor leaned forward eagerly: “Engage!” Nezdeh’s stomach sunk as the world shimmered at the edge of annihilation and then, just as speedily, reasserted—but with a new starfield peering in at them through the view ports. “Sensors, report: proximal contacts?”
A tense second before the Aboriginal reported. “No proximal contacts.”
“Expand passive scan footprint. Report all contacts. Ulpreln, shift accuracy?”
“Within eighteen light seconds of the target gas giant, Brenlor. We are behind it, but are situated to rise into clear line-of-sight for observation of the main planet in orbit one.”
Perfect
, Nezdeh thought.
Now if only—
The oddly strident Aboriginal klaxons began hooting over the senior sensor operator’s report: “Asymptotic energy spike sixteen light seconds out from the main planet.” At the same moment, the green blip denoting the Slaasriithi shift carrier appeared in the navplot.
Nezdeh frowned.
They shifted in next to the
main
planet? Logically, that must mean—
“They have a base at that world, or some other fueling facility,” Brenlor announced quietly. “Sensors, any orbital facilities?”
“Unable to confirm at this range.”
Brenlor thought for a moment. “Sensors, narrow sweep of target planet: inferential spectroscopic analysis of atmosphere. Also, maximum enhanced image.”
The sensor operator’s compliance was swift. “Spectroscopic analysis returns high confidence of oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Image confirms that the planet is gravitationally locked in a one-to-one resonance with the primary, and that it has a habitable band following the approximate terminator line.”
Brenlor leaned back, resigned. “This is precisely the kind of planet that the Slaasriithi would develop. And so, would probably construct a fuel depot.” He shook his head. “We will not be able to surprise them.”
Ulpreln looked sideways at his commander. “But if we do not intercept them here—”
Brenlor nodded. “Yes, I know: they can reach Beta Aquilae in one shift. And so our chase is over and we have failed.”
Nezdeh glanced back over the screens which displayed the Slaasriithi’s prior path. “They might not shift directly to Beta Aquilae, though.” Seeing Brenlor’s surprised stare, she added, “I have no concrete evidence for my speculation; it is pure conjecture.”
Brenlor folded his arms. “Your speculative insights have often been correct, Nezdeh. For the good of our House, employ that skill now.”
“Very well. We know the Slaasriithi are, of all the species of the Accord, the ones most deeply involved in biological development. And we know that they have made all haste to arrive at this place. Yet, look at their progress toward the main planet”—she gestured at the navplot—“an unusually slow pace, almost casual.”
Ulpreln frowned. “And what do you infer from that?”
“That they are in no hurry to get to the fuel there because they are in no hurry to move onward. Not this time. I suspect they mean to visit the surface of this world, possibly to acclimatize the humans to their biota.”
Brenlor nodded. “By pausing here, do you think they will become vulnerable to attack?”
Nezdeh shook her head. “Probably not. But they are giving us the opportunity to refuel and shift much sooner than they do.”
“Are you suggesting that we precede them into their home system and ambush them there?”
“No. That would be utter and immediate suicide. But there is also the possibility that this world is only the first stage in their acclimatization of the Aboriginals. If it is, they might shift here, first.” She extended her finger toward the navplot, put her finger on the orange speck that denoted BD +02 4076. “Their own self-reference indicates that they have been transforming this world for at least eight hundred years. Logically, it might be an intermediary acclimatizing step between this newly shaped world”—she nodded outward toward the unseen planet in this system—“and Beta Aquilae itself. Consequently, if we cannot intercept them here, we might have an opportunity to ambush them in BD +02 4076.”
Brenlor squinted up into the glittering star map. “And if they do not detour there at all, but go on directly to Beta Aquilae?”
“Then we have lost nothing that is not already lost at this moment.”
Brenlor nodded. “Then we shall refuel and watch. And wait.”
Chapter Sixteen
In transit; GJ 1248’s inner system
Caine Riordan rose after checking on the reanimation progress of one of the legation’s coldslept security personnel: an Australian SAAS officer by the improbable name of Christopher Robin who had helped rescue him in Jakarta. Ben Hwang exited the cryobank module as Riordan turned back toward Karam Tsaami. “You okay on your own?”
Karam waved him out. “Yeah, yeah: I’ve got these sleeping beauties.” He glanced at the two rows of cryocell bays behind him. Most had a unit in them, all of which showed green status lights. A few were blinking, the rest were steady. One unit was dark: unoccupied. “I’ve done this more times than I can count on colony ships. You’d just be slowing me down.”
Caine nodded, resisting the urge to stay: he’d never seen anyone other than himself going through the slow process of reanimation. Two days ago, he had helped start it, but other than the automated reswap of nonglycerinated plasma and associated cellular purging, there had been nothing to do other than taking a pre-animation reading, pressing a button, watching each unit’s steady blue light become a steady green light. He suspected that a chimpanzee could be trained to do it as well as he had, possibly better. He nodded at the slightly inclined cryocells. “You know, given the number of times I’ve been in cryosleep, you’d think I’d have more skill managing it.”
Karam cocked a rueful grin at Riordan. “Being in a cryocell doesn’t teach you anything about how to operate one, Caine. Now scoot: you’re cramping my style.”
To Caine’s eyes, Karam—reading a book on his dataslate as he waited to start transferring the awakening cold sleepers to cocoon-like warming couches, IVs at the ready—didn’t seem to be doing anything he could possibly obstruct, but he nodded a farewell and gave the pilot-turned-EMT his requested privacy.
Ben Hwang had strolled halfway back to their habmod. The featureless metal corridor was the only part of the Slaasriithi ship they’d been allowed to access during the twelve long weeks of hopping from one star system to the next. “Hard to believe we’re finally going to get out of these tin cans,” Hwang murmured.
Caine caught up with him at the entry hatch. “If I never have to travel on a shift-carrier again, that will be fine with me. But it’s given me some time to catch up.”
Hwang looked back. “On recent history?” Riordan, having slept through the years 2105 to 2118 thanks to a hyper-vigilant Taiwanese security operative, still had gaps in contemporary references.
Caine shrugged as they moved through the ante-chamber that was also an airlock. “Some history, but mostly, well, personal matters. This is the first chance I’ve had to find out what happened to my family, and to Elena and Connor, when I was out of circulation.”
Hwang nodded, did not inquire further into the matter. Which was odd, since Hwang had been the most personable of his fellow travelers on the voyage into Slaasriithi space.
The compartment beyond the airlock was configured to function as a combination living room, work room, gathering space. The outfitters had attempted to make it look homey; instead, they had achieved a dismal parody of that effect. Reclining in an incongruously stylish easy chair, Bannor Rulaine looked up from the pulp-and-ink book he was reading. Hwang tossed a jocose question toward Riordan’s security XO: “Catching up on your military theory?”
“Catching up on my Milton,” Rulaine replied. And, with a nod at Caine, went back to his reading.
Caine crossed over toward the Special Forces captain turned IRIS striker, sat and glanced at the cover of his companion’s dense tome:
Milton: Collected Works
. Riordan grinned: “So, passing some time with a ripping yarn?”
“Yeah. Brought it along to read on the beach.”
“Or the fiery lakes of brimstone?”
Bannor looked up. “Are you casting me as Lucifer?”
“Hell, no—to coin a phrase. How could I do that to someone who’s been my guardian angel?”
Rulaine’s lips crinkled; for him, that was a broad smile. “I’m not reading
Paradise Lost
, anyway.”
“Oh? Which one, then?”
“
Comus
.”
“So: a journey into a mysterious forest where temptation lurks. Thinking of our current travels?”
“No: thinking of how the title character reminds me of the Ktor.” Bannor settled back: a gentle, if clear, message that his interest in banter had waned beside his interest in the verse.
Caine settled back in his own chair. Ben Hwang might be the chattier and more intimate of the two men, but Bannor was calmer and well-grounded. And a walking contradiction. His dossier was as filled with combat commendations as it was with examples of how, despite his academic brilliance, he was a poor fit for conventional learning environments. Rulaine’s brief Ivy-League career began its final, precipitous decline on the last day of what had been his favorite class: an advanced Shakespeare seminar. When asked what he had done instead of showing up for the final exam, Rulaine calmly reported that he had elected to spend the time rock-climbing. Alone. When pressed to explain this choice, he responded that while he found great pleasure and value in both the substance and form of the Bard’s plays, he simply could not abide rote memorization of passages, which had been a required component of the final exam. When the academic review board suggested that perhaps he shouldn’t presume to judge the pedagogy of his august and much-published professors, Bannor shrugged and replied that while his instructors might be excellent scholars they were poor educators. After offering a further, provocative enlargement upon that opinion, his absences mounted, his GPA plummeted, and he was summarily dismissed. But Bannor’s fateful, final words had even made it into his Army dossier (although they were buried deep): “most of my professors can’t see the wider forest of meaning because they’ve become obsessed with a few mostly meaningless trees.”
Peter Wu poked his head into the common room. “O’Garran tells me that Gaspard is awake and asking questions. Imperiously.”
Bannor shut his book: an annoyed thunderclap. “Does he ask questions any other way?”
“Occasionally.” Ben’s tone was noncommittal. He rose. “Let’s go see the Great Man.”
Bannor grimaced. “I’d rather spend another few hours on the flight simulator.” He did not rise.
“C’mon, let’s go,” coaxed Caine. “It’ll be more fun than crashing during an unpowered landing. Again and again. Bannor.”
Bannor glared at Riordan. “That’s a low blow. If accurate.”
Caine smiled. Of all the distractions that he and his five conscious fellow travelers had shared during their journey, the flight simulator had been the most useful and the most frustrating. An actual training sim used by the Commonwealth space forces, it was realistic in all regards but one: feel. Karam Tsaami, an accomplished transatmospheric pilot, had tried his hand at it early on. He crashed twice, landed in a heap three times, and then finally put the delta-shaped lander on the ground with only a few nicks and scratches. “It’s bullshit,” he’d pronounced as he pushed away from the controls.
“Why? Because you crashed it?” Hwang’s tone had been almost impish.
“No, Mr. Nobel-Winner Wiseass, not because I crashed it. It’s because you can’t feel anything.”
“You mean, like the crushing impact when you stick it nose-first into the ground?” Peter Wu’s dead-pan rejoinders were becoming his trade-mark.
Tsaami glared at the Taiwanese tunnel rat whose cool competence and valor in Jakarta had ensured that he, too, would be recruited into IRIS, “Wu, has anyone ever told you that you are one hell of a funny guy? Because if they have, they’re liars. Look: this simulator isn’t even a good approximation of instrument flying. This is like—like flying a drone. But drones have all sorts of expert systems, which uneducated idiots call ‘AI,’ to compensate for minor stability issues. This thing”—he jerked a thumb at the console—“is the worst of both worlds. You’re flying an authentically unstable platform but without the real ‘feel’ of being in it. And you’re relying on controls that are less sensitive than a drone’s.”
Caine had been curious. “Then why do they use it as a trainer?”
Karam shrugged. “Look, there’s a lot of details to flying, particularly in a lander. This sim is fine for most spaceside maneuvers. They’re a piece of cake if you can do some basic math or know how to tell the computer to do it for you. Atmospheric flight is trickier, but, unless you’re in dirty weather, it’s still pretty straightforward as long as you don’t try to pull any fancy moves. But reentry? Or fast climb to low orbit? That’s where the job gets a lot harder because that’s where things go wrong most frequently, and you don’t get a lot of warning when they do.”
“Odd, then, how all those quaint twentieth-century space capsules managed to land without computer control. Or without any controls at all.” Hwang couldn’t keep the bait-happy smile off his face.
“Yeah, real odd,” Karam retorted, “since reentry and landing was all they were designed to do. Put them in the right place, at the right angle and speed, and they’ll land. But a platform with lifting surfaces and designed to be capable of launch, landing, and flight in both space and in atmospheres? Those increased capabilities mean increased complexity.”
Bannor had put a hand on Karam’s shoulder. “Ben’s baiting you. He knows all that.”
“Yeah?” Karam sounded dubious. “He’s just annoyed that I like Wu’s food better. Sound about right to you, Pete?”
“Peter,” corrected Peter Wu.
“Yeah, yeah, sure—
Pete
. But Ben’s just jealous of your cooking, don’t you think,
Pete
?”
Wu sighed. “Yes, I’m sure that’s it.”
That had been another welcome distraction during the outbound trip: the dueling regional cuisines of China. Wu was Taiwanese. Ben Hwang had dual citizenship, China and Canada, and had grown up eating authentic Szechuan in Vancouver, then lived in Canton as a student. The cooking wars between the two men had become twice-weekly events. But before long, it was obvious that while Ben Hwang was more knowledgeable in the different nuances of the many regional cuisines and use of ingredients, Peter Wu had that unquantifiable gift for knowing—just
knowing
—the moment when the meat had been seared enough, the leeks wilted enough, the peppers sliced finely enough. The final, almost pitiable, conferral of victory upon Wu had come when Ben Hwang had been discovered making a midnight raid on the leftovers of Peter’s cooking, even though the refrigerator was still well-stocked with his own.
Caine rose to his feet to respond, along with the others, to O’Garran’s summons.
Bannor remained seated. Kept reading. Conspicuously.
Ben motioned. “C’mon.”
“You can’t make me go.”
Caine had the sudden impression of Bannor as a quietly intransigent four-year-old. “I can make you go.”
“Yeah? How?”
“Miles O’Garran, your brother-in-arms, is in there with Gaspard. Alone. And you won’t do your part to rescue him?”
Bannor glared at Riordan, sighed, put down his book, and rose. “That wasn’t fair. Lead on.”
* * *
It took Gaspard a moment to notice that Caine and the others had entered the room.
Miles O’Garran came over quickly. “So, am I off-duty, now?”
“Uh…yes. Sure.”
O’Garran nodded tightly. “Good. I’ve got to get out of here.” He shouldered past the others, several of whom had seen him stand unflinching in the face of alien invaders almost twice his size.
“
Monsieur
—ah, pardon, Captain Riordan?”
Lead from the front.
Caine approached Gaspard’s bed. “Yes, it’s me.”
“I am sorry I did not recognize you. My vision is…blurry. Is it possible that the cryogenic suspension has damaged my optic nerve or—?”
Riordan went closer. “Nothing to worry about, Ambassador. That is completely normal.” He knew he shouldn’t, but he added, “Didn’t you read the briefing on cryogenic suspension?”
“No. There was no time.”
—
Unlikely
, Caine observed silently—
“I must confess: the less I knew about what was going to happen to my body, the less I worried about being frozen as solid as an icicle.”
“Well, Ambassador, had you read the briefing materials, you would probably have worried a lot less. To begin with, you were not frozen.”
“Then why was I just removed from a cocoon originally designed to aid victims of hypothermia?”
“Because your core temperature was lowered to approximately zero point one to zero point five degrees centigrade. And to ensure against any control fluctuations, your blood plasma was replaced with an artificial surrogate containing a limited amount of glycol, genetically adapted from what Arctic cod produce when the surrounding waters drop below freezing.”
“Well, that would certainly explain the taste in my mouth.”
“Yes, that will persist for at least three or four days. Before your own blood was pumped back into you, a glycol cleanser replaced the surrogate to leach the glycol out of your cells. That takes a while, and even so, it’s not perfect. The glycol residue is what causes your blurred vision, as well as dulled sense of taste, numbness in the extremities, loss of short-term memories, and easy disorientation.”
“How long will I be so incapacitated?”
“We began your reanimation two days ago, so the symptoms will be gone the day after tomorrow. You’ll experience marginal sequelae and that lousy aftertaste for another half a week.”
Gaspard sighed. “Delightful.” He looked down his nose at the group of them, but this time, it was probably not arrogance but visual impairment which caused him to adopt what looked like a haughty posture. Actually, Caine reflected, the ambassador was behaving better than he had expected, particularly given O’Garran’s desperate dash for freedom.
The ambassador waved a hand at his other visitors. “I had expected to see you when I awoke, Captain Riordan, and of course your good self as well, Dr. Hwang. But I am not acquainted with these other gentlemen.”
Caine made the necessary introductions, made mention of Karam as Gaspard’s awakener. The ambassador took it in silently. “And with the exception of Mr. Tsaami, they are our legation’s security detachment?”
