Richard turned and smiled, though the movement was still painful. “We are still getting closer together, then.”
“Yes… it saved our lives this time!” Karen squeezed his knee, got up and walked towards the back of the crippled ship. I’ll check out the Drive Chamber while you complete your scan of the systems here.
Richard nodded absently and sent a mental message of understanding as he continued. I think you’ll need to check out most of it from in there anyway. Nothing much shows up in here now. He got a blurred vision of Karen’s view of the instruments in the Drive Chamber, and was amazed as she launched herself up and managed to lever herself half into the access way. He struggled to get up, and with a quick glance at the alien in the ever-increasing pool of orange blood to reassure himself that it was safe to leave the room for a moment, he walked into the Drive Chamber and slid Karen’s still visible legs into the narrow slot.
You should be resting! Her thought came through clearly.
“Don’t worry, I will,” he assured her. He walked somewhat unsteadily back into the Moss Room and sat down gratefully in front of the terminal once more. The alien had not moved. Richard started to search for systems that still were operable, and was more successful. As he initiated self-tests, he reached out mentally and found that all he could picture of Karen’s viewpoint was her pale hands against an incredibly dark background. “These aliens didn’t seem to have any doubts about us. I mean… they acted like we were old enemies or something.”
Karen’s thoughts came back increasingly clearly. That’s it! They must be the reason why the expedition to Earth was never followed up on… the Arshonnans were too busy fighting off these creatures, or perhaps they assumed the aliens had killed the Commander and his Scouts when they failed to return.
Richard activated a diagnostic repair module and sat back to wait for some sign of progress. “We’re so lucky they didn’t find Earth. I reckon the power they have means that they could defeat all the ‘military might’ back there without much exertion. Ah! I’ve got some more stuff back in action. If we can get the Drive back up, I think we should be able to manoeuvre enough to land without–”
I’ve had to shunt across the Thurgidern; it’s completely blown and there was only the one spare, Karen interrupted him abruptly, having used the insertion tool to connect across the gap in the now brown and dull line of spheres that constituted the remains of the second Thurgidern. I won’t power up the Drive until we have the pilot controls back in action.
Did you ever discover exactly what that thing did? Richard felt the negative response as he requested a length of cable and moved over to the motionless body. Karen shimmered back into the Moss Room. “Give me a hand with this; there’s nothing else that can be done in here, and I won’t leave it unguarded while we are in the Control Centre, in case it recovers.”
Karen picked up the rope-like material and together they wound it around the body until they had pinned the impossibly long arms to the torso all the way down past the reversed knees of the alien. “He won’t move now.” She looked at the wounds in the chest of the invader. The orange blood still flowed from them; in fact, the rate of flow had increased slightly due to their manhandling.
“Did you say ‘he’?” Richard asked with interest.
“Yes.” Karen lifted her hand from the grey skin where it had been resting. She turned and looked at Richard with an expression of distaste. “It’s definitely a ‘he’; I can feel some of the thoughts, but only when I’m in contact. He sure hates humans.”
“His presence doesn’t exactly fill me with feelings of tenderness, either,” Richard admitted freely as he got up slowly. “Doesn’t it strike you as interesting that these aliens found us as we neared Outpost Twenty Seven?” he said, as the coincidence resolved spontaneously in his mind, filling him with trepidation.
“You think they have captured the Outpost?”
“If that was the case I’d expect a whole pack of those Arrowhead craft to be speeding up towards us right now.”
Karen looked at him with an expression of horror. “Then we could be heading straight for a lot more of them!”
He nodded. “And we certainly won’t get the first shot in this time, if we manage to get any shots at all.”
“I’ll try to get a long range scanner back on line.”
“Let’s see if some of the first pilot instruments can be restored, too,” Richard suggested. “Then perhaps we can make a run for it.” The suggestion sounded stupid to him as soon as he had uttered it, so Richard shook his head at the hopeless nature of their predicament while he tried to straighten up.
Karen supported him as they stepped forward and shimmered out of sight, into the Control Centre.
Karen stopped as soon as the room materialised around them. She didn’t speak for some time; she just stared at the devastation. “I thought Tutor said it wasn’t possible to break through Citadel’s walls.”
Richard sat down in the centre chair before responding, and glanced down once at the stars he could dimly see through the translucent join in the floor to his immediate right. “Yes, once the Structural Protection Field was up, he said nothing could affect it. He didn’t know about the Negatruction weapon, though, and he did say that a nuclear bomb could damage the walls if the SP Field was down.”
“So you think they have something that can disable the SP Field and make this kind of hole in our Citadel?” Karen sat down in the left hand seat and started the diagnostic self-test on the only instrument still functioning before her.
“They were very clever,” Richard concluded as he checked the Structural Protection Field monitor and discovered it was inoperative, as he expected. “If they had been less self-assured and kept their defensive shields up, or if more of them had their full vacuum equipment on, we would both be dead now.”
“And they would have possession of Citadel, to do whatever they wanted with it.” Karen was horrified.
“I wonder what that would have been…”
Chapter Nineteen
No progress without frustration, some frustration without progress – Idahnian
Latt slammed his fist down on the seat next to him in frustration. It made hardly a sound. He turned the key one more time, and was rewarded by a low groan.
“What are you doing?”
Latt looked out his side window and saw Judy standing by the car, hugging herself as the sub-zero wind cut through her dark blue business dress. He wound down the glass slightly.
“I was going to drive sstraight back down to Edmonton; I must get on with my work!” His preoccupation faded as he noticed her marked lack of warm clothing, and he opened the door and put his left foot out, concern written over his face for her health. “You shouldn’t be out here dressed like that in this weather!”
Judy leaned in and pushed the light switch back into the dashboard. “That’s what I thought. This car won’t go anywhere,” she began, ignoring his comment. “The battery is completely dead.”
Latt climbed the rest of the way out and was about to slam the door, but Judy reached out and stopped him. She wound up the window.
“You don’t want it full of snow tomorrow morning.”
Latt shook his head. “This equipment has no intelligence!” He closed the door more gently than he had originally intended, and took Judy’s elbow, hurrying her back inside his apartment building.
Judy started to shiver as the warm air enveloped her. “The standard expression is ‘dumb machine’,” she explained with a wry grin. “Old government surplus – but it was a great bargain, I’m sure!”
Latt looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled back. “Come on up; I’ll get you ssome hot chocolate,” he offered.
Judy nodded.
“How did you know I would be leaving tonight?” Latt asked as he opened the door and switched on the lights. “I thought you were going over to Isaac and Ruth’s place?”
Judy stepped inside, rubbing her hands up and down her sleeves to ta
ke advantage of the warm air in his apartment.
Latt closed the door, took off his coat and hung it on a hangar in the open closet by the entrance.
“They did invite me, but I asked them to drop me off at the corner,” she said, without offering any explanation. “I didn’t bring my coat today because it was so warm this morning, and Isaac dropped by on the way to the meeting to pick me up, so I knew his car would be toasty.” She stood uncertainly in the kitchen while Latt pulled out mugs, sugar, milk and the container of chocolate powder.
“I’m glad you came by. Even if you did find me with my ‘dumb machine’. Why don’t the lights switch themselves off, anyway? Earth technology may be a bit limited, but it iss capable of that.” Latt spooned ingredients into two mugs as he talked, poured in milk, stirred briefly and put them on the turn-table in the microwave together.
“Good question,” Judy smiled as she leaned against the counter-top. “What did you think of all that talk; especially the stuff from Isaac’s friend, the ‘Presidential Advisor Professor’?”
“He does not sseem to understand the urgency of the ssituation.” Latt shook his head sadly. “I thought he would be a great asset to our cause when Isaac explained how much he respected him.”
“And what exactly did he do to lose your respect?”
“There was some discussion about researching one of the support technologies we brought back in Morton’s ‘Wonderloaf’.”
“Any interest should help our cause… What was it?”
“Subsidiary life support.” Latt suddenly seemed very reluctant to talk about the meeting.
“Subsidiary?” Brisson repeated blankly. “It’s either life support or it isn’t… isn’t it?”
“It was – the wash system, and hygiene units.” Latt admitted finally, embarrassed to confess that the hopes he had harboured for the might of Earth seemed to have been distracted by a toilet and sink.
Judy just stared at the floor, as this left little safe to be said.
“So what were you going to do in Edmonton?” Judy asked quietly, finally switching back to her original line of questioning. “You can’t defeat them all by yourself, you know.”
Latt stared through her with his grey eyes until she felt uncomfortable.
“I would have come with you, if I had known,” she continued nervously.
“You have been a great help to me,” Latt admitted freely as he refocused on her. “I can’t sstop thinking–” The microwave beeped, interrupting him, and he got out the mugs and gave her one. “I can’t stop thinking,” he continued, stirring his steaming drink absently. “About all the sslaves, my people, back on Rhaal. The pollution was getting worse all the time when I was there; they are probably dying by the hundreds, daily.”
Judy slipped her shoes off, led the way back into the living room and sat down at one end of the couch, leaving plenty of space next to her.
Latt sat in the armchair.
“Sometimes we can’t do anything about the situations we don’t like. The only way I could hope to find my stepfather’s friend would be to hire a private detective; I just can’t afford it.” She ran a hand through her short hair absently. “I’m not ‘the cavalry’ this time. Life goes on.”
“Not back on Rhaal, it doesn’t,” Latt disagreed sadly. “We can’t just accept the decision.”
Judy got up from her seat on the couch and knelt down on the floor next to Latt so she could look up at his downcast face. “I’ll see what Ed can manage; I don’t think he’ll just accept it. And I didn’t mean we’d just accept it when I said sometimes we can’t do anything,” she clarified hastily, rubbing her frozen toes through her nylons. “We’ll do a lot more than pure research, that’s for sure.” She looked at his young face with great concern. He fooled me with that grey hair, that first day, that’s for sure. Now he looks thirty years younger! “I just don’t know if we could move as fast as you would like.”
Latt returned her gaze, then smiled and leaned forwards, reaching out with one hand towards her. “Mobilising the entire planet would do the job.” He leaned back and put his hand down in his lap, his cheerful expression fading away rapidly as he contemplated the likelihood of such action occurring.
Judy sighed and returned to her seat on the couch, digging her toes into the thick pile of the rug in a continuing effort to warm them. “Let’s go back down tomorrow, but let’s talk to Ed and Isaac first.”
“Okay. I agree.” Latt finished his hot chocolate and put his mug down on the little table by the armchair.
“I’ll call myself a cab,” Judy said reluctantly, after several minutes where the only sound was the expanding of the radiator pipes. “It will take a while for one to come on a night like this.”
“Good idea,” Latt said, and his eyes took on that far-away, hopeless look once more –almost as if he were back on Rhaal, suffering a slow death with his fellow slaves.
Judy sat in silence, staring at her frustrating new friend until the taxi arrived.
***
“The kids are in bed, I suppose?” Leroy began with a hint of regret as he looked into the eyes of the diminutive Miyoko Morton.
She nodded and stepped back, allowing the big black man to come in out of the dark. “Harold said you would come tonight, but I thought it would have been much earlier. I’m sure they are all asleep now; they went down over an hour ago.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be; it’s just that the pizza is cold now!”
Leroy chuckled. He leaned back on the door until it clicked shut, then slipped his white canvas knee-high boots off, hung his down-filled jacket on the coat rack and followed Miyoko into the family room. He spotted the large cardboard containers on the coffee table and noticed several pieces left of both varieties. “You cannot say you have truly appreciated pizza until you have tried it cold,” he remarked with a tone of greatly overstated dignity to Harold, who was in his customary position lounging lazily in his over-size armchair.
Miyoko settled lightly into her husband’s lap as he used the remote and shut off the television. “Now you must tell us the real news.”
Leroy sank deep into the old couch and stretched his arms out along the back. “You’d not believe the double talk and waffling that went on,” he began, glancing from Harold’s rather angular, tanned face, to his wife’s slim oriental features, noticing once again how natural they appeared together. Almost like brother and sister, instead of husband and wife. “Ed was grinding his teeth in frustration. For a while there I thought he would explode!”
“He’s so dedicated to this cause; it’s almost as though he were born to run the NUIT,” Harold commented as he stroked his wife’s long, straight black hair absently. “And the NUIT were conceived exclusively to handle this very situation.”
Leroy picked up a slice of pizza and bit off a large chunk.
There was silence for a moment or two, then he continued. “None of the big-wigs seem capable of coherent thought on the subject. Not only that, but they are all out of phase with each other, resulting in a net transmission of zero magnitude. In other words, we got nowhere in the most cordial atmosphere imaginable.”
“What about Isaac’s old Professor, that thin Conroy guy? Didn’t he come through for his ex-student?” Harold asked incredulously.
“He was very cautious. I think he was the motivation behind the setting-up of a research group to study the equipment salvaged from the Wonderloaf, but he did it so subtly that both Ludlow and Spiner felt proud of their own pioneering spirit and history-making leadership.”
“He’s canny, as my ancestors would say,” Harold agreed finally. “Things must be really tight if that’s all he could wangle.”
“Who are these two, Ludlow and Spiner? I haven’t heard their names before, have I?” Miyoko asked as she tilted her head slightly to one side.
“Probably not. And if you never do again, it probably wouldn’t be a big loss, either. Ludlow is Canada’s national defence chief; Spiner is a
big general from the Pentagon. The first seems more concerned with keeping his nose clean so he can move up in the government; the second seems to come just so as to ensure the military are well-represented.” Leroy finished his first slice and picked up one from the second pizza.
“So what are you guys going to do? What’s the bottom line here?” Harold asked simply.
Leroy stopped his pizza inches from his mouth. “We mess around researching for the next two years, then an in-depth analysis of our progress and potential will be performed.”
“Who by?” Miyoko asked.
“Good point.” Leroy halted the slice just in front of his lips, impressed, as he often was, with the little lady’s perceptive abilities. “The big guys wisely decided to leave that aspect to a later date. They did insist that it be done entirely by a third party, though. Personally I can’t see that there is anyone, anywhere, beyond our group, who has the qualifications to even open the cover of a report that would come out of two years research into Latt’s Gravity Inducers, that high-powered laser and the super-efficient reactor that runs them all.” He slid the pizza in and took another huge bite.
“And there’s no way ‘round this bureaucratic bungling?” Harold looked at a point somewhere above his television set with a far-away expression.
Leroy shook his head and carried on chewing.
Miyoko broke the silence a minute or so later by offering him some home-made root beer, complete with ‘dry ice’.
Leroy washed down the pizza with a couple of gulps, using his teeth to prevent any of the solid carbon dioxide from inadvertently entering his mouth.
“Thanks. This is really good! But to answer your question, no, not unless my boss knows something he hasn’t told me. I can’t help thinking about little Brittney and the rest of your tribe. Will she, and they, grow up to face the big attack Latt keeps talking about, without the technological wonders that could save their world from slavery? Just because the brass lacked the… arhhh!” He gave up his search for the right expression with exasperation. “My forebears experienced that; I don’t intend to repeat history if I can help it.”
Passage Page 20
