The Chara Talisman

by Alastair Mayer

  “We know it creates a kind of event horizon, the radiation is either destroyed matter or Hawking radiation. I think.” Carson frowned. “If Jackie were here, she would know.”

  “No, this means something different,” Marten said. “In a starship, where does the energy go?”

  “What energy?” asked Carson.

  “The power from the fusion reactors that energizes the warp field, where does that energy go?”

  Rico spoke up. “It radiates off as gravity waves. What did you think? Even I know that much.”

  Carson got Marten’s point. “Right. And that gravity leaks into the hidden dimensions.”

  “Which is this symbol here, the parallel lines.”

  “Wait, you guys are saying this gadget can send matter into different dimensions?” Rico asked. “You got that from a few squiggles on the controls?”

  “Plus what we learned in the pyramid. And no, we’re archeologists, not physicists, but I think I understood what Jackie explained to us.”

  Marten nodded his agreement.

  “Okay, okay. Say you’re right. So what? How does that help us?”

  “We use it to tunnel through that pressure ridge, through the ice under their ship, and even through the hull of their ship, and surprise them,” said Carson, as though that ought to be perfectly obvious.

  Rico just shook his head. “You are crazy. The thing’s just going to blow up on you.”

  Marten looked at Rico, then at Carson. “I am inclined to agree, at least with the crazy part. Just because my prehistoric ancestors were tunnelers does not mean that I am, any more than you can swing through trees. Besides, as you said, we don’t have a suit that will fit me. I cannot help you with that. What about Jackie? What if her suit is open?”

  “We bring a rescue ball. We can stuff her in that and bring her back.” A rescue ball was what it sounded like, a ball that could rescue someone in case of a ship depressurization. Essentially it was a spherical spacesuit; you climbed in and zipped up, it inflated, and you hoped someone came to rescue you.

  “That might work,” Rico said, “if you don’t get blown up first.

  “I have another idea, Carson,” said Marten. “What if we use the fabber to make a copy of the device, and maybe some copies of the talisman too.”

  “That wouldn’t fool them for more than a couple of minutes.”

  “That might be long enough for them to release Jackie.”

  Carson considered it. “Maybe if we just give them the talisman, and a few copies with different constellations. Tell them that’s all we found. The fake copies should keep them guessing, at least for a little while.”

  Rico was shaking his head. “I don’t know, that sounds like trying to pay off a ransom with counterfeit money. I gotta say I like the idea, it sounds like something I would try, but that can’t end well.”

  It was then that the radio chimed.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “Just set the stuff down outside your ship, away from the blast area, and take off,” Maynard told Carson over the radio. “We’ll check it out and if it looks good, leave Roberts there. Then you can come back and get her.”

  Jackie groaned inwardly. That wasn’t going to work.

  “No way. For one, I don’t trust you.” Carson’s voice. “We need to make the exchange at the same time. But Roberts is our pilot, we can’t move the ship without her.”

  “What about your co-pilot?”

  “Not on this trip. And I still don’t trust you.”

  Maynard looked over at Jackie. “He’s telling the truth,” she said. “I can’t afford a co-pilot, and I didn’t think I’d need one with Carson. Not that he knows how to fly.”

  Maynard checked the instrument she was wired to. It seemed to act like a kind of lie detector. She had tried to tell them that they hadn’t found anything, but they had known otherwise. But what she’d just told Maynard was the truth.

  “Okay, Carson. Neutral territory. We’ll meet out on the ice. You leave the stuff, and after we check it we’ll send Roberts to you.”

  “Tell you what. We meet on the ice. You can stay back with Jackie. Send one man over to check the artifacts. He signals you and you release her, and we walk away.”

  “You’ve got one hour.”

  “Make it two. I’ll need to get over that ridge carrying the stuff, and I don’t have the climbing gear your guys do.”

  “Very well. Two. Starting now.” Maynard clicked the radio connection off.

  Roberts sagged with relief. The last time something like this had happened, Carson had wanted to call her captors’ bluff and refused to negotiate. She didn’t think Maynard was the bluffing type.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “Carson?” Marten said, back on the Sophie. “We still have climbing gear. What—”

  “I know. I wanted to buy us more time. We’ll have to move fast. We’ll use the Maguffin—”

  “I’m not touching that thing,” said Rico.

  “You won’t have to. Here’s my plan . . .”

  Chapter 37: Exchange

  The Icefield

  Rico stood alone on the ice at the bottom of the pressure ridge. The nametag on the front of his spacesuit read “Carson,” and he had one of the comm bracelets fastened inside his helmet, wired into the suit’s radio. It would relay everything to Carson, and vice versa. Carson himself was busy elsewhere. Rico thought about that and suppressed a shudder. Better him than me.

  The Velkaryan ship was about a hundred meters away. He checked that the suit radio transmitter was off, then spoke to Carson on the bracelet. “I’m in position, you set?”

  “Close enough,” came Carson’s reply. “Go for it.”

  Rico switched his radio to the agreed frequency and hailed the ship. Then he shut up and let Carson talk.

  “I’m here. I have the artifacts,” Carson’s voice said through Rico’s suit radio. Rico hoisted the metallic cylinder and waved it. “Where’s Jackie?”

  “All right, Carson, we’re coming out.”

  Rico saw a hatch slide open and three suited figures walked from it, one being held by the others. Was that Roberts?

  “Jackie, is that you?” Carson’s voice again.

  The figure raised its free arm and waved. “Turn her radio on, I want to hear her.”

  “All right, just a moment.”

  One of the suits touched something on the forearm of the other. Rico heard Roberts’ voice on the suit comm. “Don’t trust them, Cars—” The first suit stabbed the radio button off.

  “Can you still hear me, Jackie?” ask Carson.

  “She can hear you, we just turned off her transmitter. We don’t expect you to trust us, but this is a fair game.”

  Jackie raised her free arm again in acknowledgment.

  “All right. No worries, Jackie, a clean trade, just like Raven.”

  “What the hell is Raven?” one of the captors demanded. Rico wondered the same thing.

  “Similar situation,” Carson said. “Tomb raiders grabbed Jackie and ransomed her for some artifacts I’d found. It all worked out.”

  “Is that right?” One of the figures put his helmet up to Jackie’s, to get her response without turning her transmitter on again.

  Rico held his breath. Don’t screw it up, Roberts, just nod or something.

  Her response appeared to satisfy her captors. “Okay, I’m sending a man over to check the goods. Put it down and step away.”

  Rico raised the device then slowly and deliberately placed it on the ice. He opened a pouch on his suit, pulled several objects from it, and put them on the surface too. Talismans. “Okay.” Carson’s voice. Rico stepped back a few paces, looking around to get his bearings, then casually reached behind him to loosen the pry-bar taped to his back.

  A lone space-suited figure loped across the intervening space in an easy low-gravity bounce. Rico kept his eye on Roberts and the other back near the ship. He thought he saw a flicker of light under the ice. Not yet. He pulled the pry-bar loo
se, keeping it hidden.

  The other figure reached the small pile and bent to pick the items up. “We’ve got four talismans,” he said, “I don’t recognize the patterns.” He picked up the device and started to examine it. Rico edged closer to him.

  The man turned it over in his hands. “What the?” He turned it over again. “This is a fake! Carson—”

  “Now!” Rico yelled, and swung the pry-bar at the man, knocking him to the ice.

  Near the ship, Jackie pushed away from her other captor just as the ice behind them erupted in a blue flash. She got away from him and started running towards Rico, turning her suit radio on as she did so. “What the hell, Carson? They’ve got guns, we won’t get over that ridge in time.”

  “Taken care of,” Rico said, and pushed a button strapped to his wrist. Behind him, part of the base of the ridge erupted in a spray of ice chunks and water vapor. He felt a thump as the shock wave traveled through the ice under his feet.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Jackie saw the explosion and felt the ground shake. Was the ship firing at him? She slowed, that last voice hadn’t sounded like Carson. She felt a push from behind. She turned, and recognized the face in the helmet.

  “Come on, Jackie, let’s go. Move it.”

  “Carson?” Where had he come from? She turned back to look at the other figure.

  “That’s Rico. Let’s go. Go, go!” Carson was running, pulling her along.

  Rico? Roberts moved, she could worry about the details later. Ahead of her, near Rico, the debris from the explosion had settled out and she could see that it had blasted open an entrance to a tunnel through the ridge. How? Never mind. “Carson, anyone still on the Sophie?” she said as she ran.

  “Marten, why?”

  “Marten! Control console. Punch in AE thirty-five, that’s alpha echo three five, then execute. Emergency start sequence.”

  “Roger, Jackie.” Marten’s voice came back over the radio.

  The man Rico had knocked down was back on his feet, the two of them wrestling for the pry-bar. The other man pulled it from Rico’s grasp and swung at his helmet. Rico pulled back in time, falling to the ice, but swept a foot out and knocked the other’s legs from under him. The other went down too. Jackie and Carson were almost there; maybe they could help.

  It wasn’t necessary. Rico wrestled the pry-bar away and slammed it across the other’s helmet, starring the visor. A small plume of vapor jetted from the cracks. The man started to scramble back to the ship. Suddenly small fountains of ice erupted around them. Bullets!

  “They’re shooting at us!”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Carson said. “Keep going, get to the tunnel.”

  Jackie ran.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Carson had seen the bullet impacts too, and was already turning back to deal with it. He didn’t have a gun. His suit gloves wouldn’t fit through the trigger guards on what they’d had on the ship, and they’d run out of time to modify them. But he still had the alien disintegrator tool that he’d tunneled through the ice with. Pity it didn’t have more range, ten meters would have to do.

  The man at the ship was the one firing. He seemed to have trouble bracing himself on the ice in this low gravity. Carson aimed the disintegrator at him and pressed the control button. A small glowing spot appeared above the ground about halfway between Carson and the gunman. Too far. Carson lowered his aim, the glowing dot tracking the focus. As it touched the surface, it bloomed in a huge flash and chunks of ice flew everywhere. Carson released his thumb. Oops, forgot to engage the safeties. He grinned and started running back towards Jackie and Rico.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Rico saw the gunman go down but he didn’t stay down, he was scrambling to get back up. With no atmosphere to transmit the shock wave, explosions weren’t quite so bad here. The gunman had regained his footing, and braced himself against the side of his ship.

  “Keep going, Roberts. I’ll help Carson.” Rico called as he started running to do just that.

  Rico still had the prybar in his hand. He threw it as he ran, its trajectory hard and flat in the low gravity. It hit the ship, soundless in the vacuum, and rebounded into the gunman. The gunman recovered and brought the gun to bear on Rico. Guess I got his attention, Rico thought.

  Carson blasted out another chunk out of the ice, throwing the gunman’s aim off. Rico caught up and pulled on Carson’s arm. “Let’s go!”

  “This thing has no range,” Carson said. “He’ll shoot us in the back.”

  Rico cursed, and looked hastily around. Where was that tunnel Carson had dug? There, closer to the ship.

  “Give it to me, I’ll cover you.”

  “How will you get out?”

  “Your tunnel.” After his experience on Chara, Rico hadn’t wanted to try digging the tunnel himself, but he’d seen Carson using the disintegrator, and it was their only chance.

  Carson hesitated. “You go, I’ll cover you.”

  Ice fountained around them again, the gunman was back in action.

  “Damn it Carson, no time to argue.” Rico moved quickly, snatching the disintegrator out of Carson’s hands before he could object. “Now, you go.” He fired the disintegrator at the ice to distract the shooter.

  “Okay. Good luck.” Carson ran.

  Rico ran the other way, towards the tunnel, blasting the ice randomly between the gunman and himself. A bullet hit the ice near him. He blasted again and rolled away.

  Carson’s voice came over the radio. “Rico, we’re in the tunnel under the ridge. Get clear and get out of there.”

  “I’m working on it. Keep going.” It occurred to Rico that these guys would be happy if he just left the disintegrator for them. They might just let him go. No. They were batshit crazy. He couldn’t let them have this and they probably wouldn’t let him go anyway. But he might stall them.

  “Ahoy the ship. I’ve got your alien device. If you keep shooting at me it’s going to get broken.”

  “Rico, what the hell are you doing?” That was Carson’s voice.

  “Saving your ass, Carson. Keep going.”

  “Cease fire.” That was Maynard’s voice. “Rico, is it? Just lay the device down and we’ll let you go back to your ship with Carson and Roberts.”

  “Right. And I know that how?”

  “Taggart, walk away from the ship and put down your weapon.”

  “But—” That must have been Taggart.

  “Do it. Rico, you do the same. Put down the device and walk away.”

  “Carson, what’s your status?” asked Rico.

  “We’re nearly at the Sophie. Don’t do it, Rico, don’t let them have it.”

  “Keep out of this, Carson,” said Maynard. “Come on, Rico, one device isn’t going to make a difference. We could do more damage by bypassing the safeties on a warp engine.”

  Rico was smart enough to realize they wanted it too badly for that to be true. A movement on their ship caught his eye. A gun turret? Those sly bastards. He looked around again. Taggart was now a dozen meters off, his gun on the ground, his hands outspread. And there, there was the tunnel Carson had used to come up behind Roberts’ captors.

  “Okay, you’ve got a deal.” Rico started walking towards the ship, making an adjustment to the device’s controls as he did so. He noticed the gun turret tracking him. He angled his path between the ship and the tunnel entrance.

  “Just stop and set it down, Rico, we don’t need it delivered.”

  “Okay. I hear you.” Rico crouched down and placed the device on the ice. The tunnel entrance was three meters away. “Here you go.”

  In one fluid motion, Rico thumbed the control switch, pushed the device across the ice towards the ship, and dived for the tunnel. As he entered the tunnel head-first, he could see bright light reflecting all around him, shining blue through the ice. He slid to the bottom of the tunnel and began to run for all he was worth. He was halfway to the ridge when the glow through the ice got even brighter and the ground jum
ped beneath him.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Carson and Roberts were already aboard the Sophie. The emergency sequence had jettisoned the refueling boom head and retracted the rest, and brought the flight systems on line. Jackie pulled her helmet off and pushed forward to the cockpit. Before she reached it there was a squeal of radio noise from the speakers, and the ridge top to the southwest lit up a brilliant blue as light shone through the ice.

  “What?” Jackie saw a broad wavefront rippling through the ground towards them at high speed. “Brace—”

  Then the ground wave hit and the Sophie bounced, tossing them all to the deck and scattering anything that wasn’t secured. Beyond the ridge a plume of vapor, ice, and debris was just starting to peak and settle out.

  Jackie scrambled to her feet and to the control deck, quickly running damage checks. “Everyone all right back there?” she called as she scanned the displays.

  She heard them pulling themselves to their feet. Somebody was groaning.

  “I’m okay,” Carson said, “Marten whacked his head on a locker. He’ll be okay. How’s the ship?”

  There were yellow lights on the board but nothing critical. Objectively the shock probably had been no worse than a hard landing, it had just been unexpected. “She’s fine, nothing serious. Let me guess, Rico blew up the Maguffin again. What the hell was he doing out there anyway?”

  “That would be my guess too. And we were rescuing you. I told you this was just like the Raven.”

  “I almost lost it when you said that. You’d just walked away on Raven. I didn’t know you’d set up the rescue. I didn’t know how you’d pull it off here.” She’d forgotten about Rico. In the traumapod he’d been more like cargo.

  “So am I forgiven?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me, Carson. You got me kidnapped and almost killed twice now, and you want me to forgive you?” On the other hand, she thought, he did get me rescued. Again.

  “Anyway,” she said, changing the subject, “do you think anyone survived that? Do you think Rico got away?”

  “Hard to imagine, but we worked out most of the controls on that thing, he might have figured something out. We owe it to him to look, anyway.”