Stepping Stones (13 page)

Zorial realized
that
Lexxa was right.  The unthinkable was about to happen, with the weapons of destruction each race had held in readines
s for generations
finally
used in an ultimate act of mutual genocide.

“Great Maker, not again!” Lexxa exclaimed, staring once more into the cube.

Zorial joined her.  Together they watched as yet another Sigma explosion blossomed in the display, merging with the first.

“We should never have trusted them,” Lexxa growled, brushing past Zorial and seating herself at the transmitter.  “I’ll notify headquarters of the second violation.  I’m also recommending that we retaliate without delay.”

“No!” Zorial choked, horrified by Lexxa’s words.  Although the
Polem
carried no armament, she
could
relay a Sigma retrocharge from one of the
armed ships in the
fleet.  Once redirected, the retro would follow the violations’ paths back through nullspace, detonating at their source.  It was feasible . . . but it meant war, with no possibility of turning back.

“No?”
hissed
Lexxa
, her eye blazing with fury
.  “Are you afraid to fight?”

“That’s not it.  I . . . I just think firing a retro
weapon
doesn’t leave
any
room to negotiate.  There may be—”

“Negotiate?  I think not.  Besides,
the decision isn’t ours.  It will
come from headquarters.  And
whatever
their decision, Lieutenant
Zorial,
you will
do your duty.  Is that u
nderstood?”

“Yes,
ma’am
,” Zorial
replied
.
  “Understood.”

Zorial stood beside Lexxa as she completed her transmission.  Afterward they waited in silence for a reply, knowing it would come soon. 
They were running out of time.  T
he
nullspace
trails left by the violations would quickly disperse, and if they were to retaliate, it would have to be within the next few minutes.  Zorial knew as well that if a retrocharge
were
sent, his cooperation would be essential.  A Sigma relay was far too complex a task for one person to
complete alone.

Can I do it? Zorial wondered numbly.  Can I play a part in
an action
that will result in the death of billions?

Suddenly the radio crackled to life.  Seconds later a decoded message flashed up on the screen.

TO:  RECONSHIP POLEM FS1142 SECTOR A23L

FROM: 
FEDCENTCOM

PRIORITY TEXT:  TWO SIGMA-CLASS VIOLATIONS CONFIRMED.

CONCLUDE SANTORI TESTING NEW WEAPON, POSSIBLE

FIRST-STRIKE POTENTIAL.  POLEM TO RELAY SIGMA RETRO

FROM BATTLESHIP TICOR.  CHARGE ARRIVAL IN EIGHT

MINUTES.

END TRANSMISSION.

“Now t
hat’s more like it,” Lexxa said coldly, keying the receipt code.  “Open a wormhole to the
Ticor.
  I’ll get the relay system operational.”

“Wait, Lexxa.  What if—”

“Do it.  There’s no time for questions.  If we’re not prepared when the retrocharge
comes through
, we’re dead.”

Zorial knew
that
if they didn’t relay the Sigma retrocharge when it exited the wormhole, it would detonate at its last point of entry, obliterating everything in
their
sector of space—includi
ng them.  He hesitated.  A
fter a long pause, he came to a decision.  Squaring his carapace, he stepped to the communications console and keyed the transmitter
. 
“
Ticor
, this is Lieutenant Zorial, second officer of the
Polem
,” he said, not bothering to scramble the message.  “I refuse to assist in relaying the retrocharge.”

“You coward!” Lexxa shouted,
grabbing a tentacle and
spinning him around.

Zorial found himself staring into the snout of Lexxa’s service sidearm.  His stomach twisted as he noticed that the weapon’s
power
setting was locked on kill.

“Prepare for
the
Sigma relay
,” Lexxa warned.  “Do it,
Zor,
or I swear I’ll fry you right where you stand.”

Nervously, Zorial eyed the blaster.  “Captain, we can’t go through with this,” he said quietly.  The consequences are unthinkable.  Even if you shoot me, you still won’t be able to complete the relay.  There has to be another way.”

Before Lexxa could reply, a voice crackled from the transmitter.  “
Polem
, this is
Ticor.
  We’re firing shortly.  Be ready.”

Without lowering her weapon, Lexxa grabbed the microphone.  “
Ticor
, we have a problem.  My second officer refuses to assist with the relay.  Please advise.”

Zorial stood motionless.  Lexxa still had her
weapon
trained on him, and he kn
ew one wrong move meant death.

I’m dead anyway,
Zorial
thought morosely.  If the Ticor
didn’t
fire the retrocharge because of
him
,
he would
be court-martialed and executed.  And if the retro
was
sent . . .
they were
all dead.

All at once the proximity alarm went off, its clanging signaling the approach of another vessel.  Zorial and Lexxa turned to the viewscreen, staring in disbelief as a Santorian warbird flickered out of nullspace beside them, its mushroom-shaped hull dwarfing the
Polem
.

Lexxa adjusted the transmitter and spoke into the mike.  “Santorian vessel, identify yourself.”

“Federation ship, this is Captain Xi of the Santorian Alliance,” came the reply, the voice from the translator circuits sounding flat and
metallic
.  Zorial made an adjustment to the communication
s
equipment, noting Lexxa’s nod of approval as he patched her conversation with the alien intruder through to the
Ticor.

“You are ordered to surrender your vessel,” the Santorian continued.  “You have one minute to comply.”

“This is outrageous!” Lexxa spat back.  “You break the Treaty, then threaten an unarmed Federation ship.  Surrender?  Never!”

“There
is
an alternative,” the Santorian noted dryly.  “If you fail to comply, I have been authorized to destroy you.”

On impulse, Zorial spoke up.  “Captain Xi, I assume from your presence that you intercepted our recent transmissions to the
Ticor.
”

“Ah, Lieutenant Zorial.  Yes, we’ve been listening to your communications with great interest.  How convenient that you failed to transmit your last message in code.  A bit
too
convenient, eh?  If you think we can be so easily misled, you’re mistaken.  Of course
you refused to relay the retrocharge. 
You would
be sending it to destr
oy your own base.  We know
who’s respon
sible for the Treaty violations: 
the Federation!”

“The Federation?  But why?  What would we have to gain?” asked Zorial, suddenly seeing a glimmer of hope.

The Santorian remained silent.

“I don’t know what happened,” Zorial pushed on rapidly, “but I
do
know that any further
aggression
by either of us will touch off a conflict
that
neither of our races will survive.  Since your arrival, we’ve maintained a communication link with the
Ticor
.  They’re listening now.  A
hostile move by you will force them to retaliate.  We may die first, but you’ll be close behind—followed by billions
on
both our worlds.  Don’t let that happen, Captain.”

A brief silence.  Then, “ I must confer with my superiors.  If you attempt to
leave
, you will be destroyed.”

The transmission abruptly ended.  Zorial glanced at Lexxa.  She was working at the communications console, her long, flexible digits snaki
ng over the controls.  S
he stopped and glared at Zorial.  “They’ve cut our link with the Ticor,” she snarled, her rage barely contained.  Then, still glaring, “You’re wasting your time
with
them.  The Santori will never back down.”

“It can’t end like this
,” Zorial said softly.  “If there’s hope, we have to try.”

Minutes later Captain Xi reestablished contact.  “We seem to be at an impasse,” he said.  “Both our races deny responsibility for the
Sigma
violations.  But there they are before us.”

“At least we concur on something,” Lexxa muttered.  “What now?”

“What do
you
propose?”

Again Zorial spoke up.  “Although unlikely, perhaps the explosions are the work of
someone other than ourselves.  If that is the case, w
hy don’t we determine who
is
responsible and
then
proceed from there?”

“Agreed.  And I assure you that
whoever
it is, Federation or otherwise, they shall pay
dearly
for their recklessness,” replied the Santorian.  “How do we find them?”

“The
Polem
has the necessary sensors to trace the violations back to their
source,” Lexxa answered.  “It is
possible for you to join us,” she added reluctantly, “but we’ll have to leave without delay.”

“Contact your superiors, Captain.  I’ll reconfer with mine.”

Moments later, both sides having acceded to a temporary truce, the two vessels flickered in the darkness . . . and were gone.

*        *        *

Now here’s something I’ll never miss,
George thought, lifting
a
bowling ball
he had spotted on a shelf near
the furnace.  He hadn’t bowled in years—not since throwing out his back
working
in the garden.  It was perfect.

“George, dinner’s getting cold,” Martha called down insistently.

Burning with curiosity, George placed the ball into the coils.  “B
e right there,” he yelled back.

“George, come up
now.
”

“Gimme a couple more minutes, hon.”

“It’s ready now!”

“Oh, all right.”  Grumbling, George
turned off the power to his apparatus.

I’ll get up early and begin again first thing tomorrow mor
ning, he promised himself, starting
up the stairs.  Maybe
he would even be able to find out where the stuff was
going.  If not—well, then after the bowling ball
he would
try something even bigger.

George stopped
on
the top landing, taking one last look
back
at the tangle of wires and circuits and coils on his workbench, bowling ball ready within.  His mood lifting at the sight, he flipped off the light, sending the room into darkness.

Tomorrow, he thought cheerfully as he headed into the kitchen. 
Tomorrow is going to
be one hell of a day!

The Sacrifice

W
ith a mix of confusion, and anger, and ineffable, bottomless despair, she realized that her
Triad was about to die.

They
had
completed
many
missions
together
,
but
this time
something had
gone horribly wrong. 
She had sensed danger from the very beginning.  Little things—an
unwarranted tightening of security
in Central Command
, an inexplicable tension in the encoding technicians,
a puzzling secrecy surrounding the message that had been embedded within her . . .

Shortly after departure,
two Dark Ones had picked up
their
trace in a region normally devoid of
enemy
.  When
her
calls for help had gone
unanswered, her Triad had taken evasive action.

T
hey
had been unable to shake their pursuers.

In
a
final act of desperation
,
the two other members of
her
Triad—
the double progeny
from her
only budding—
had separated and turned back in an effort to delay the inevitable.

Moments later
their death screams had echoed
in
her mind
.

Now, t
errifie
d and alone, she fled through the hierarchies of space and time.  In panic she entered a labyrinth of forbidden realities, twisting, turning
. . . yet still they came.

Jake Sheridan felt lousy.

His back ached, his head throbbed, and he hadn
’t slept in thirty-six hours.  Making things worse, o
ver the past two days his life had unraveled in ways
he would never have expected, and n
o matter what else happened, he was certain
his mood
couldn’t
sink
any
lower
.

He was wrong.

Toying with his
drink
, Jake sat in a slowly revolving bar atop the ninety-second floor of the Ecstasy
Pleasure Palace in West Los Angeles, glumly regarding
the lights of the city
below.  W
ith a sigh, he tossed down the
dregs
of his
whiskey and decided to have another
.

Jake hadn’t felt like coming to the
pleasure
palace.  That
had been
his friend
Cameron’s idea.  Once there
,
Jake hadn’t f
elt like getting drunk, either—although
he realized
he had
already
made seriou
s progress in that department.  But m
ost of all,
despite Cameron’s solicitous counsel, he most certainly
didn’t feel like having sex with a cyborg.

“
Jake?  Over here
, buddy. 
Punch line’s coming up
.”

“Huh?  Oh, sorry, Cam.”  Making an effort to shake his depression, Jake returned his
attention
to his friend
across
the table.

Cameron was
a
big
man, nearly as big as Jake.  A
s usual
,
Cameron
was enjoying
his own joke to a degree not warranted by the material
.
“First things first,”
Cameron
said,
noticing Jake’s empty glass and ordering another
round of co
cktails on the drinkpad—whiskey-flavored synthol for Jake, beer for himself. 
“Now, where was I?  Oh, yeah.  So the
last
couple
stands
up in front of the congregation.  ‘Well,’ says the minister.  Have you kept—”  Cameron paused, scowling as a hovercraft settled noisily onto the rooftop
landing pad
outside.

As Cameron waited for the rotor noise to
abate
, Jake let his eyes wander the
Pleasure Palace
bar
,
idly
considering his friend’s
determined
assertion that a tumble with a sex surrogate
was just the thing to help him
forget
his
post-breakup blues
.  Somehow, Jake doubted it.  He wasn’t prudish, nor was he prejudiced against cyborgs, as were
many of his contemporaries
. 
He
simply didn’t feel comfortable around them.  There was s
omething about
cyborgs
that didn’t seem quite . . . right
.

“Okay, one more time,” Cameron continued when the air taxi finally departed.
“So the
final couple gets up.  ‘Have you kept
your
promise
?’ the preacher demands.  ‘Did you
forego
sex for a month, proving your love of God and your
worthiness
to join our congregation?’

“T
he guy and his wife look
at each other.  ‘Well, t
o tell you the truth, Reverend,’ the guy says, ‘we did
pretty good
for the first two weeks, just like them other couples.  But halfway into the third week my w
ife dropped a can of peas, and w
hen she bent to pick it up, the sight of her got m
e all worked up.  A
nd, well . . . we wound up doin’ it right there on the floor.’”

Cameron grinned, took a long pull on his
beer
, and belched.  “So the preacher points to the door and
says
, ‘You have proved yourselves unworthy
and
are no longer welcome
in our congregation.
’  The guy shakes his head.  ‘I’m not surprised,’ he says.  ‘They won’t let us back in the supermarket, either.’”

By then their fresh drinks had arrived. 
Jake
grabbed his whiskey, took a sip, and
forced a smile,
trying to show some appreciation for
Cameron’s effort to cheer him up.  He and Cameron had been friends as long as he could remember. 
They had
grown up in the same building
complex
, gone to the same schools, done their UN service together, even
occasionally
dated the same girls. 
They had
shared everything . . . eve
rything except Megan.  P
ulling his thoughts
back
from
that
dangerous territory, Jake bolted
the rest of
his drink and punched up another
, glancing questioningly at Cameron
.

Cameron shook his head, nursing his beer. 
“Better
take it easy
on the synthol if you
want to get
some action
in
here tonight,”
he
advised
,
finally
recovering enough from his own joke to speak.

“That was your plan, Cam, not mine.”

“And a good
plan
it
is.  Just what the doctor ordered.”

Irritably, Jake
looked
out the bar’s floor-to-ceiling windows,
regarding
the
city’s
highways and buildings and power grids that stretched as far as the eye could see.  “Look at
it
out
there,” he said, changing the subject.  “Have you ever really
looked
at it?”

“Our fair city?  Sure.  What about it?”

“Nothing.  Just that from up here you can see it for what it really is—a living,
breathing organism that has
covered
nearly
every square inch of
our
planet
, spreading everywhere
like
a
malignant growth.”

“Mali
gnant growth?  Jeez, lighten up, pal
.”  Cameron regarded
his friend
for a long moment, then sighed
.  “Don’t take this wrong,
Jake
, but I never liked Tiffany.  Nobody did.  You’re better off without her.”

“Drop it.”

“But it’s not just her, is it? 
It’s having to
give up your berth on the colony ship.”

Jake glared.  “Yeah, t
hat’s
definitely
part of it,” he admitted
angrily
.  “Do you blame me?  Emigrating to Regula-4 was
my
chance at a new life.  Our chance at a new life.  You and
Megan,
me
and . . .”

“. . . t
he bitch Tiffany?”

Jake nodded.  “She
had to know
I couldn’t
find another partner in time
, especially not with the colony pregnancy requirement
.”

“Of course she knew.  She didn’t care.  Face it, Jake.  She never
planned
to become an indentured colonist.  She used you
to get what she wanted, and then dumped you
. 
End of story.  I hear she moved into a plush W
estside penthouse with some
fat
rich
guy
.
”  Cameron hesitated.  “She’s not pregnant anymore, either.
”

Jake
looked away
.  “
Yeah. 
I heard that, too
.”

Both men fell silent as Jake’s
fresh
drink arrived.  After their waitress departed, Jake raised his glass.  “I’m
going to
m
iss you, Cam.  You and Megan.  More than I can say
.”

Cameron somberly touched his glass to Jake’s.  “Same here, pal.”

Another hovercraft landed outside, disgorged its passengers, and lifted off.  “You’ll get another planet,” Cameron continued when the noise had
again
diminished.

“Maybe.  But planets like Regula
-4
don’t come along
that
often—G-type sun, Earth-friendly
environment
, no dominant intelligent species.”

Cameron
finished his beer
.  “Are you going to see us off in the morning?”

“Yeah.”

“Megan wants your promise that you’ll be there.”

“I’ll be there.  I haven’t notified the Company yet that we’re . . . that I’m not going.  I’ll let them know first thing tomorrow.  Probably make some alternate pair’s day.  I just wish
. . . ah, the hell with it.”

“Right.  At this point, there’s nothing you can do but get on with your life.  And take it
from me, Jake, a little sugar will
go a long way towa
rd getting you over the hump, no pun intended
.”

“Cam—”

“
C’mon, Jake
,” Cameron insisted, punching up the sex-surrogate catalog on the tabletop screen.  “At least take a look.”

“You look.”

“
Fine.  I will
,” said Cameron, beginning to scroll through the cyborgs displayed in the table’s translucent surface.

As Cameron perused the
sex-
surrogate selections, Jake
once more
glanced around the
room
. 
Across the crowded dance floor
he noticed a female cyborg ascending a ladder
that accessed a small balcony above the bar
.  Once there she began
swaying
to the background music, her nude
body
seductively shrouded in a holographic
mist
that rose and fell in colorful wisps, first concealing, then revealing—a flash of leg, the arch of her back, the smoothness of her breasts. 
Except
for the slender steel control collar encircling her neck and the absolute, unfaltering perfection of her movements,
Jake realized with a start that he
might have mistaken her for human.  Tearing away his eyes, he concentrated on his drink.