Space Chronicles: The Last Human War (8 page)

Early morning light revealed a startling new scene. Rolling foothills observed at last light had now grown into a full-sized mountain. It was huge. At one turn, Simon looked down on the distant Central Jungle. Life-giving, morning fog obscured the jungle as it completely surrounded the mountain in a sea of gray. He carefully walked along the precarious ledge.

“We’re here,” Shilgar announced.

They followed the contour of the ledge as it merged into a descending crevice leading inside the mountain. As they got beyond sight of the outside world, the tunnel became a lighted corridor with low buildings, carved directly into rock on either side, with short streets between them.

Humans,
by the hundreds, were everywhere. Some were so small that adults carried them. Simon took in unbelievable sights as they walked deeper into the hidden community. Residents seemed busy in routine daily activities. None of them wore quarry garb, and many called out personal greetings to the scout leader.

The three travelers entered a building at the
far end of the big cave and passed through several halls before ending their trip in a large room. Small groups of people stood next to tables laden with food. An unusually tall, neatly groomed man with a gray beard broke away from his friends.

“Shilgar
, it has been too long since we last shared the light.”

“Benjamin, my friend
, you know better than anyone, I am more at home in the jungle than up here. But, I do treasure moments when we get to swap tales about past adventures,” Shilgar winked at Tai, “real or imagined.”

“Hello
, Tai. What do you have here?” Benjamin asked and looked at Simon.

“A runner, Benja
min. Goes by Simon of Striker something or other. Brought em to you as soon as possible. Got delayed by some kinda Sky Guard scan.”

Benjamin
frowned.

“That was not Sky Guard. We don’t know what it was. Sky Guard was scanning north and suddenly disappeared yesterday. Maybe the Tan’s have new technology. This one is certainly not operating with any
typical Tanarac scan signatures. I’ll let you know as soon as we figure out what’s going on. Until then, we’ve ordered field scouts into deep cover.”

The human leader
turned his attention back to Simon.

“
Young man, it seems you’re a pretty famous runner. We monitor Tanarac communications, and you really got those blue boys excited. In the past two centuries, they have never entered the Central Jungle to catch a runner. Military trackers went in looking for you. Very disturbing change in behavior. They said you attacked one of their Taskers. We need to know about that.”

Benjamin furrowed his brow for a moment as he tried
to remember something. “Oh yes. Simon, I believe we have a surprise for you.”

He
issued a brief instruction to one of his assistants who promptly left the room. Then, he turned back to Shilgar, and the two Elders began bantering about past adventures, each obviously embellishing deeds in an effort to best the other. Tai listened like a child at a storyteller’s campfire while Simon stood quietly to the side, not sure what to make of it all. When Benjamin’s assistant returned, three young women in hooded tunics followed. The last to enter the room rushed past the others.

“Simon!”

The young woman plunged into his arms. For a fleeting instant, he did not recognize Kelly dressed in free human clothes, but when her feelings exploded inside his mind, there was no question. He sensed everything—joy, fear, anger, relief. Her telepathic link flooded his thoughts with emotion. All he could do was hold her tightly and wait for her emotions to settle.

When Kelly finally leaned back to look at him,
tears ran down both cheeks. He placed his hand on the back of her head and gently buried her face in his chest as he had done when Adam died. For the first time in days, everything seemed right. She was where she belonged.

“Dr. Hadje,” the Quarry 33 Head Tasker said and extended his hand. “I didn’t know you were coming until we received your incoming transponder code. Is there a problem?”

“I’m sorry for this unannounced visit
, Rase, but something important has come up. Please close the northeast quadrant of your quarry to all mining for the next five days. I need six field lights deployed immediately. Place them according to this diagram, and aim them straight up into the sky. Tell your staff we are searching for evidence related to the missing humans. Secrecy is of the utmost importance.”

He
unfolded a hand-drawn diagram for his Head Tasker.

Windows in a nearby tool shop lit up a
s the quarry master spoke into his communicator. Jix and his boss loaded their equipment into a field transporter and rumbled off into the dark quarry behind a quarry dray carrying the spotlights.

“Right on time,
” Dr. Hadje noted as Kob swooped in low over the lights and skillfully landed the small military glider between the beams.

S
mall puffs of dust rose as the scout vehicle’s weight settled onto landing stilts that extended just before the craft touched down. Within seconds, the side door opened and a large Tanarac soldier in military flight uniform jumped to the ground, ignoring steps that the craft offered.

“Good ta see ya, Dr. Hadje. It’s been too long.”

Kob walked past Jix and engulfed his former mentor in a heartfelt embrace.

“Sure hope this works for ya, Doc. I kinda figured out where you’d be goin
g, so I rigged the transponder to send false data. Nobody’ll know you’re flying over the Central Jungle as long as you stay low enough so local radar doesn’t spot you. Wish I could go with ya.”

“
You’ve already done enough,” the doctor said. “My transport is waiting to take you back to the base before anyone notices you’re gone. Thank you again, my friend.”

“One more thing,
sir, that SG’s got a new design side scanner. It uses P-logic. Should be easy for you science types to figure out. It’ll recon more ground at cruising speed. Good luck.”

The two scientists
wasted no time setting up their instruments in the cramped passenger compartment of the scout craft. After a few attempts, they enabled links between the onboard sensor array and their scientific computers. The doctor opened his shirt pocket and removed the small data bar he took from the science lab.

“Here’s the genetic information on our humans. Download it into the referencing computer and the handheld scanners.”

Moving to the front of the scout glider, he was glad to see the controls were almost identical to his civilian flier. Antigravity engines hummed quietly, as he piloted the small craft up and over the jungle, heading due east. He flew just above the night fog while testing controls to get familiar with the craft. This military version of his own transport was remarkably agile and much faster than any civilian glider he had flown.

The first of Tanarac suns began to lighten the distant sky.
Mount Vaal stood as a black giant, silhouetted against the gradually brightening horizon. It rose out of a sea of gray fog. Wispy clouds clung to its highest reaches and extended far out to one side on prevailing winds. Early morning rays of light rose from the horizon to illuminate the underside of the clouds, making them look like long strands of silk, floating against the blackness of space. It was majestic.

Dr. Hadje called Jix up front to share the spectacle.

“Doctor, fog is compromising infrared sensors. We can’t use them until it thins out, but the DNA scanners are registering full readings all the way to the ground. If you slow down, I can begin the scans.”

“Not yet.
We’re not where I want to begin. There is a possibility, however remote, that one of our humans may still be alive. General Tragge’s trackers said the male human was moving very fast. We only have this scout-sled for a few days, so we’ll start at the farthest possible travel distance for the human male and work back toward the quarry. If both humans are dead, then we should find their remains during the return trip. If the male is still alive, I don’t want to miss him, because we didn’t start far enough out.”

Dr. Hadje adjusted the controls
, and the scout glider dropped a little closer to the top of the fog, occasionally passing in and out of its topmost layer. Density of the fog thinned as they approached the transition zone between jungle and mountain.

“We’ll start our first scan at the edge of the jungle by those foothills. Th
at is a natural barrier for the human. Then, we’ll scan in overlapping passes all the way back to the quarry. Can the infrared scanner penetrate the fog now? Did you figure out how to operate that side scanner?”

Jix adjusted his instruments.

“The infrared signal is still weak, but vertical DNA returns are strong. I can’t get the side-scanner to work in conjunction with the DNA signal generator. I don’t think the side-scan technology is compatible with our signal format.”

“
Try sending the DNA output through the main sensor array, but pick up the return signal on the side-scan collector dish. You’ll have to synchronize the output and return pulses to prevent interference.”

“Where’d you learn that,
Doc?”

“That’s the way the old prototype genetic scanners were designed. I helped to
advance the technology in college. I almost went into weapons research instead of biological sciences.”

Jix expressed surprise
at the senior scientist’s past while he changed a few cable connections and set up the doctor’s patch.

“G
ot it. Everything’s working now.”

As they reached the edge of the jungle,
the doctor prepared to engage the autopilot. He included his young counterpart in his next decision.

“
Should we go north or south?”

“I don’t know,
sir. Didn’t those trackers say the male was heading due east? If he got this far, what direction do you think he’d go?”

“I haven’t a clue.”

The doctor pondered his own question for a moment and then realized the decision was simple. The side scanner is on the right side of the scout glider. Turning to the north would have them scanning up empty mountain slopes, but turning south would allow them to scan deep into the jungle where they expected Simon to be.

The scout craft banked south and lowered air speed to a scanning crawl. Dr. Hadje engaged the autopilot using a contour tracking protocol so the scout glid
er would follow the mountain’s footprint. He waited to see the ship following his program before taking a seat next to Jix to help monitor their many sensor screens.

At first, the two scientists jumped excitedly every time the infrared alarm announced a warm-blooded target below. A steady stream of animal images
soon tempered their enthusiasm as DNA sensors remained silent. Many tedious hours passed, checking false alarms.

“
Do you really think he could have traveled this far?” Jix asked.

The senior scientist was wondering the same thing.
He stood up and looked out the window.

“
There’s a small hill up ahead with a large tree on it. We’ll move deeper into the jungle after we pass that point. I doubt even our best military trackers could have made it this far, much less an untrained human.”

Dr. Hadje returned to the controls of the scout glider and disengaged the autopilot. He had not touched the controls for several hours, and as he attempted to make a simple right turn, the sensitive craft swung abruptly one hundred eighty degrees to the right under his clumsy touch.

Equipment tumbled across the cabin floor and the doctor’s passenger ducked cables flying around wildly. Hadje corrected his mistake and returned the scout glider back to the intended course leading deeper into the jungle.

“Sorry,
” the doctor called over his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

There was no answer.

“Jix, are you okay?”

“Go back,
” Jix shouted. “We got a positive DNA reading on the side scanner. It came just as you turned into the jungle.”

The doctor
immediately circled back, bringing them to the jungle edge near where he made his unplanned wide turn.

“Did you get a location on the signal?”

“No, I was too busy trying to get my balance. It only flashed on the screen for a second. I’m running the recording now. There, there it is! We definitely had a positive DNA match for the male human. It’s only a trace, but it’s a perfect match.”

Dr. Hadje mirrored
the prior course along the edge of the jungle. As the hill with the large tree passed under them, he carefully turned the little craft west for the second time, only this time, he was careful to keep the craft under control for a proper ninety-degree turn.

Jix watched the side
-scan screen, anticipating a hit at any second. Nothing happened. They flew deep into the jungle expecting a DNA hit that never came.

“
Did you check the cable connections? Could we have had a false positive from a bad coupling?”

“No
, sir. It was a full spectrum DNA pattern. A bad connection would only produce a scattered data spike. Contact was weak. Maybe it was at the farthest scanning limit. Let me raise the scanning angle a little more on the horizon and see if I can get greater distance on the array pulse.”

The junior scientist performed the adjustment. Still nothing.

“Hang on. We’re going back for another pass.” Frustrated, pilot-doctor Hadje banked hard to return to the jungle edge.

“There
. . . there it is,” Jix shouted. “It’s gone! It was only on screen for a second.”

Dr. Hadje cocked his head to one side
perplexed by the situation. He spoke to himself as the younger scientist listened.

“We detected target
genetic code twice. Each time came during a turn. Yet, when we scan the area thoroughly, there is no signal. Can you tell me the range of that side scanner?”

After Jix’s reply,
the doctor smiled and altered course. He pushed the throttle forward until they approached the edge of the jungle near the tree on the hill. Only this time, he positioned the scout glider inside the edge of the jungle and turned north.

“What’s the first rule of scientific investigation?”
he asked.

The old scientist did not wait for a response to his rhetorical question.

“Data does not lie. Information must be examined free from personal bias. We have two hits on the side scanner. Both came during a hard turn. How did we interpret the data?”

Jix replied, “We scanned the jungle looking for the source.”

The antigrav glider slowed to scanning speed. Dr. Hadje engaged the autopilot and joined his subordinate in front of the instrument screens.

Almost immediately, the DNA side-scanner sounded an alarm. Dr. Hadje triangulated the exact location of the source on his instruments and fed the coordinates into the ship’s navigation computer.
Autopilot made a gentle course adjustment while the doctor returned to the pilot’s seat. He nodded in approval as the scout glider flew slowly away from the jungle, up onto the sparsely vegetated transition zone between jungle and mountain.

“How did you figure that out?” Jix asked, equally perplexed and impressed.

“The data told me, Doctor Lillip. I listened to the data. When I over-controlled on that first turn, our glider came around one hundred and eighty degrees. The side scanner looked up out of the jungle for an instant. You and I assumed, incorrectly, that the positive scan came from somewhere within the jungle below. That was our personal bias. We believed the human could only be within the jungle. Naturally, we considered only that possibility.”

He
disengaged the autopilot while educating his young understudy.

“After our second negative pass, you adjusted the scanner by raising the projection angle on the horizon. Again, during a turn, the scan no longer looked within the jungle. You see, the data did not lie. I only had to eliminate our personal bias and trust the data. It looks like our human friend may have left the jungle
. Or . . .” Dr. Hadje frowned as his thoughts reached another logical conclusion, “perhaps his remains left the jungle.”