The Golden Circuit (The Smith Chronicles) (4 page)

The tapping stopped.

Mikita
could hear footsteps. The intruder was getting up and walking to the kitchen door. She slammed her back hard up against the wall, but it was too late.

“Mikita! You’re back?”

It was Hanoi!

“Han
oi? “But how did you -? What are you doing in my flat?”

“Oh, I was just passing and thought I’d drop by,”
he replied, smiling that smile. “Your door was open and… well, I just came right on in.”

“But how could my door be open?”
I’m sure I locked it.

“I don’t know, don’t ask me… Oh, hi, Polo, didn’t see you there.”

It was like the argument had never happened. Him giving her the key - her leaving it behind – the message. Mikita looked to Polo for help, but her cousin simply looked back blankly, saying nothing.

“Well,
OK, whatever,” said Mikita. “But what were you doing in the kitchen, with my Serene?”

Hanoi looked irreproachable. “In there? Nothing. I was just putting it away for you. I saw it out on the table and, well, the kitchen was in quite a state too, so I tidied everything up. Here. Take a look.”

Mikita put her head round the kitchen door.

The kitchen was spotless.

“Oh! Right.” She looked at Polo and shrugged her shoulders. Polo gave her a withering stare. “That was very kind of you, Hanoi, thanks. But, didn’t you get the -”

“It was no problem, Miki. M
y pleasure,” said Hanoi, with a servile nod of his head. “Well, look, ladies. I can see you’ve got something planned, so I’ll head down to the Balmaha Centre and get some nice things in for tonight, Mikita, yeah? I’ll see you around 6-ish, at mine, OK?”

Mikita could see he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “Yeah, OK, Hanoi. I’ll see you then.”

He picked up his coat, blew Mikita a kiss, smiled at Polo, and left.

As the door clicked shut, Polo started up. “What the fire are you playing at?”

“What do you mean?”

“What was he doing here
, Mikita?”

“I don’t know, do I?
” she replied, defensively. “Maybe he’s not been back to his flat yet? Maybe he’s not got the key - and the message?”

“The message? Right, so, you left him a message? And what exactly did it say in this ‘message’?”

“It said - ‘Sorry, I can’t do this’ - on an envelope, with the key inside.”

“‘Sorry, I can’t do this’?”

“Yeah.”

“And from that, he’s supposed to think that you’ve split up with him?”

“Well, perhaps it was a bit vague…”

Polo looked at her, incredulously.
“A BIT? Herra, Mikita! But even if he didn’t get your ‘message’, he’s just let himself into your house! And it wasn’t to do the dishes!”

“Yeah, well. I guess you’re right.”

“And what was he doing on your Serene? Answer me that?”

Mikita had no reply.

“I’ll bet he was looking for something,” said Polo.

“What? Why would he
be -”

“Check the search history on your Serene. Go on, check it. Whatever he was looking for, the Serene will tell you the last files that were accessed. Go on. Do it!”

Mikita didn’t move.

“Do it, Mikita! Now!”

Reluctantly, Mikita went into the kitchen and turned on the device. The annoying message came on as usual. “Welcome to Yu-Web, a TAPCON comp -”

“Oh, drain you TAPCON!” she shouted, picking up the machine and aiming it at the shiny, newly-scoured sink.

Mikita was riled. She was nervous. What if Polo was right? What if Hanoi had been going through her files? She put the Serene back down. Her heart thumped inside her chest as she moved the cursor to ‘File Access History’.

It was
empty.

15:48 - Saturday, July 28, 2187 (
Aarmaten Border Station, Baal-500)

It was beginning to get dark on Baal-500, the sun would be gone in another hour or so
, and the lights were out across the whole of the Aarmaten District. In fact, despite the occasional sparks and fissures lighting up the power lines and overhead wires, all systems appeared to be down throughout the entire area. It was as if the moon, and everything on it, had suddenly decided to say so long to its own existence; to shuffle off to Nufanot and not leave a meta-file text for the goods-mutant.

“This place looks like all the others,” McGilvary remarked, peering out through the Argon’s main viewing-scr
een. “Not a Code in sight,” she added.

Standing next her, Phil Jameson had a feeling about this one; a Captain’s sixth sense. There was something about this situation on Baal-500 that wasn't quite right. Something unnatural,
evil almost. Something in the air that he could feel, but couldn’t for the life of him express. He needed to take a closer look.

“Officer Cox, magnify the entrance to the compound, please.”

“Yes sir,” replied Cox, pressing ‘30x-mag’ on the touchscreen and zooming in on the Border Station gates.

No, nothing there,
thought Jameson.
“Thank you, Cox. Now, go to the rear of the precinct, please.”

Using the location remote
, Cox swung the camera aspect towards the back of the station. Jameson checked the area carefully, looking out for any kind of motion, alien, animal, any subtle shift of colour or light. His gut instinct was telling him:
There’s trouble in there. Keep looking. Keep looking…

Then, he saw something
.

“Movement!” he exclaimed.

An animal’s bloodied face suddenly appeared on screen, all razor-sharp canines and salivating jaws. Cox pulled back on the viewer to reveal a lone muidog barking up at the ship, then chasing its tail, round and round as if in the throes of madness. In the gloom, Jameson could see the red light shining out from behind its eyes. It was infected, like all the other poor creatures they’d come across, abandoned, every last one them, by their Codes.

Why are the animals being left?
Jameson asked himself.
And why are the Codes leaving in such a hurry?

He took a moment and thought back to his interview with Kendall Crisp the previous night.
“Always by the book,”
Crisp had said. Jameson had resented hearing those words and they’d been rumbling through his mind ever since.
Is that what people think of me? Is that how I’ll be remembered?
He’d never thought of himself like that before. A hero, yes. A figure of admiration, that too. But a ‘by the book’ kind of leader? No. Not that. He’d never considered himself to be like that. He decided it was time for a change. Time he showed everybody what Captain Philip Jameson was really made of.

“Cox, McGilvary. We’re going in,” he pronounced, taking his crew by surprise. “Get a small reconnaissance unit ready. We leave in an hour.”

“But, sir…?” It was McGilvary.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“TAPCON has clearly expressed that under no circumstances should we land on the moon. It’s against our orders, sir.”

Jameson immediately became impatient.
“Flight Lieutenant McGilvary, how long have you served with me, now? Two, three years?”

“Three years, four months and twelve days, sir.”

Jameson was irritated by her attention to detail. “And in that time, Lieutenant, have we always done things ‘by the book’?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Yes, indeed we have, sir,” she replied, delighted with herself in saying the right thing at the right time - she was wrong, of course.

“Well, it’s time that all changed,” said Jameson, squarely.

A shocked look appeared on McGilvary’s face. “But, Captain Jameson? I’m not sure I under
stand -”

“You heard me, Lieutenant
!” Jameson bristled.

“Yes, sir. I did, sir,” managed McGilvary, still reeling from her world being turned upside down.

Cox, however, was keen to get on the body armour and get out into the wilds of Baal-500. “Captain? A question, if I may, sir?”

“Yes, Cox?”

“Are we going in armed, sir?”

“Yes, soldier. Armed for low-intensity conflict. Organise that
, now, would you? Medium artillery, plus one Pro-Cannon - give it to Crim.”

“Right away, sir,” replied Cox.

Jameson turned to Ω.

“
Take us down to the surface, 2
nd
Lieutenant. 1km from the Border Station entrance. And be careful not to scare that hound. I’d like to get it onboard with a piece of its mind still functioning.”

“Roger-Wilko, sir. Will do,” replied
Ω, with his customary breeziness.

Jameson got on the C-System and pressed ‘Loading Bay’.
“Corporal Lead-Out, Private Sawchuck? Ready the Argon Rover for embarkation.”

“But, sir,” replied Lead-Out. “The Rover, it’s not commissioned for action on this
-”

“Well, draining well commission it then, Corporal!” Jameson bellowed.

“Um… Right away, sir,” came Lead-Out’s nervy response.

“Sergeant Hellius, Sergeant Crim, get down to LB and suit up.”

“Yes, Sir! Aye, Sir!”

“
Ω, you’re in charge up here.”

“Thanking you kindly, sir,” half-sung
Ω.

By the book, in-firing-deed!
Jameson thought to himself.

He left the Bridge and made his way down to Medical.

For the past five or six hours the Argon had seen no sign of the Codes, yet hundreds of their animals had been spo
tted by Jameson and the crew. All of them either dead or dying, half-crazed or completely insane. Each one had a ghostly, red light behind the eyes, a foamed mouth and a desire to either chew themselves to death or kill whatever came near. The Captain had only viewed the poor devils from the safety of the Argon, but now he wanted to bring one onboard and let Tina open it up. He wanted to show that he could wing it when he needed to; that he was more than the ‘yes-man’ Kendall Crisp would have everyone believe.

“Nurse Ng,” gruffed Jameson, arriving at the lab. “Is Dr. Gössner free? It’s urgent.”

“Yes, sir,” replied a startled Billy Ng, nervously standing to attention and knocking over his desk-tidy in the process. He attempted to upright his pencils and pens as the Captain looked around the Med Lab.

“Got some new toys in here, eh, Nurse?” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Billy replied, rearranging his erasers. “We just need to plug it all in.”

Jameson recognised his reference to Gadget’s joke from last night’s broadcast. “Oh yes, Ng. Very good. Ha, ha, got it.”

“No, sir,” explained Billy, leaving the lab for the offices in the back. “We
do
need to plug everything in. TAPCON authorised it all without finishing the job.”

That kind of sloppiness made Jameson uneasy – details unchecked, boxes not ticked. But he’d made his call, he was improvising now, and there was no going back.

Tina Gössner, entered the Lab. “Nurse Ng tells me there’s something urgent, Phil?”

“Tina. Yeah, I’m going down to the surface. There’s an infected muidog that I want to get onboard for examination.”

She gave him a look.

“Yeah, I know, I know. Listen, there’s something going on down there. I can’t quite put my finger on it. I need you to run some tests on this mutt after we bring it in. Can you do that?”

“And you’ve put this idea to TAPCON?” Tina asked.

“Not in so many words… Look, I want to get to the root of this. Too many strange things are going here. It doesn’t make sense, any of this. Sempre is up to something, I’m sure of it.”

Tina had known Jameson long enough to realise when he needed her support. She knew Jameson better than most people did (for her sins). “All right, Phil. I’ll get Billy to prepare the Lab. How long have we got?”

“I would estimate a couple of hours. Can you be ready?”

“Oh, you know me. Once my master asks a thing, it’s as good as done.” Her sarcasm dripped like a block of ice in summer.

Jameson smiled. “Thanks, Tina,” he said, sincerely. Then made to leave.

“Wait! Phil?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful. Come back in one piece, OK?”

Jameson must have been feeling his own mortality, he came closer to Tina. “You do
know how I feel about you, don’t you?”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“You know that I… How much I…” he stumbled over his words; he wasn’t good with expressing his emotions - at least, not this kind. “One more year of flying these tin cans and I’ll be ready for the hangar, Tina. Honest. But, right now, I need to prove something…”
To myself? Crisp? Everyone?
“I don’t want to let anybody down.”

Tina smiled at him. “OK, Fly-Boy. Get out there and find me something to do. Space is so
boring these days.”

Jameson laughed.
Some girl,
he thought. “You know, maybe later tonight, Tina. When all this is over, we can -”

There was a noise from over by the lab door as Billy Ng feigned a small cough. “Sorry, sir, ma’am. It’s Lead-Out from Loading Bay on the C-system, Captain. She says there’s something you need to see down there. Right away, sir.”

Jameson’s eyes turned dark. In the back of his mind, he knew that this mission was not going to be a simple game of ball in Muhaze Park - especially now that he’d torn up his rulebook.

When Jameson arrived at LB he found Lead-Out and Gadget underneath the Argon Rover on back trolleys.

The Rover was a compact lunar vehicle in the shape of a small airstream van, with oversized wheels and a whacked-out suspension system that allowed for a wide range of alternative-terrain scenarios. Silver in colour, with a circular, blaster-proof Actionglass compartment on the front right for the driver, it could carry up to 12 personnel in the rear area. It was a tried and tested mobile unit, now used by all TAPCON spacecraft.

“Sir,” said Lead-Out, coming out from under the vehicle. “The Rover’s torsion beam is damaged, sir, the front ball joint is completely blitzed. TAPCON said they’d checked and secured everything before we left Muhaze, so it must have developed some kind of fault in transit. Gadget is onto it, though, sir. We should be ready in ten minutes - fifteen at most.”

“OK. Thank you, Corporal,” said Jameson.

He looked around the docking bay and saw, through the connecting Actionglass panel, that the other crew members were putting on their combat armour in the suit-up chamber. He joined them and began his own preparations. In a few minutes, they were making their last checks. Jameson called his squad to attention.

“Cox, McGilvary, you’re with me. Hellius, Crim, you’re back-up. Follow us in and keep watch for any unusual activity. I want to go in steady, get this critter and get the hell out of there. The animal will then be taken to Medical where Dr. Gössner will run the necessary tests. Oh, and Hellius? The Baal-500 terrain is pretty tough going, so go carefully, will you? I don't want this suspension damage to be any more of an issue than it already is, got me?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the bull-necked Sergeant. “I'll get us there and back, safe and sound, sir, no problem.”

“Good. All right, are there any questions?”

The crew were silent.

“Good, let’s not mess this up. I’ve got a date tonight.”

The crew looked around at each other and grinned back at their Captain. “Yes, sir,” they replied, as one.

The Argon Rover had been repaired. Gadget and Lead-Out had retreated back into the operations room
. They were ready to pressurise the Loading Bay to match the outside atmosphere.

“Are we set,
Gadget?” asked Jameson, over the radio.

“Yes sir, we are ready to roll.”

“Excellent. We’ll commence a full investigation into the cause of the suspension failure when we get back, Corporal.”

“Yes, very good, sir.”

“Pressurise Loading Bay, Corporal Lead-Out.”

“Pressurising, sir.”

“Engage Loading Bay doors.”

“Loading Bay doors engaged, sir.”

“Ready to proceed, Hellius?”

“Ready, sir.”

“Are we at full pressure, Corporal?”

“Loading Bay now at full pressure, sir.”

“Open Loading Bay doors.”

“Yes, sir.”
Lead-Out tapped the control screen and the doors began to slowly move apart, letting in the muted, evening light of Baal-500.

Hellius brought the Rover out onto the exit ramp and down onto the rocky, vermillion coloured sands of the moon. As he squeezed the accelerator, Hellius soon realised how bumpy the surface actually was. “I hope you’re all buckled-up in the back?” he drolled.