by Nancy Fulda
* * *
The reception hall was a mammoth of a room, a cavernous tower that had once been part of the ramjet’s fusion chamber. Standing on the second-story catwalk, mimicking Rannen’s gaze on the evening of the reception, Kimball looked out across the polished mosaic floor. He saw a bunch of overturned chairs, scattered tables, and day-old refreshments threatening to mold.
“What are we looking for?” Farlay asked beside him. “Something that might give new meaning to those news vids,” Kimball said. “From up here on the catwalk, Rannen had a different perspective on events than any of the cameras. What might he have seen that no one else did, that the cameras didn’t pick up?”
“It would have to be something very subtle,” Sanderson said, “Or something that had more significance to Rannen than to anyone else. There were several other security guards on this catwalk, and none of them noticed anything.”
Kimball nodded and scanned the room, uncertain what he was looking for. In a room where all the action had played out thirty-six hours ago, a stage where all the principles had hurriedly left, what was there to see?
“Let’s recreate the situation as closely as we can,” Kimball said. “Chief Sanderson, would you go stand approximately where ambassador Komitz stood at the time of the attack? Farlay, let’s bring up the house lights and the spots.” Sanderson nodded and descended to the ground floor while Farlay manned the lighting controls at the end of the catwalk.
Sanderson walked near the arched doorway through which the president and Komitz had entered.
“Do you see anything unusual?” Kimball called. The Security Chief shook his head.
Farlay flipped a switch on the control panel, and light suddenly glinted off of the silverware, the metal embellishments of the chairs. Specks of dust in the air lit up with the reflected glow. Kimball watched as they swirled in the air currents, twisting into tiny whorls and spirals, looking for an instant like Kaliandrus spores caught in the wake of a magnetic field.
Sanderson’s earphone trilled. He stepped into a side room to take the call in private. Kimball scanned the reception hall from the catwalk for a few moments, then beckoned for Farlay to join him in trotting down the stairs to the ground floor. Something nagged at the fringe of his consciousness.
Kaliandrus spores...
“Farlay,” Kimball said as they reached the area Sanderson had vacated, “You were standing near the President and ambassador Komitz when the attack happened. Do you remember seeing any swirling patterns of dust right before Rannen fired?”
“Dust?” Farlay shook his head. “Not that I recall. Why do you care about dust?”
“Because what looked like dust might have been Kaliandrus spores,” Kimball said.
Farlay snorted. “It’s too early in the season for Kaliandrus. Besides, why would spores be in the reception hall?”
“Because someone may have brought them as the perfect murder weapon. They’d be nearly harmless to colony members because the antibody shots we got last year are still in effect. But ambassador Komitz has never had an antibody shot; no one thought to give him one, because Kaliandrus doesn’t usually seed this early.”
Farlay’s face grew pensive. “You think someone cultivated Kaliandrus in a greenhouse and then released the spores near the ambassador?”
“Well, actually I thought someone noticed that Kaliandrus was blooming early this year and decided to capitalize on that. But I suppose it could have been more premeditated, yes. The Kaliandrus spores I saw outside this afternoon might have been the last remnants of spores that were released in the reception hall thirty-six hours ago.”
Farlay shrugged and rubbed one hand against the side of his neck. “I don’t remember seeing anything. But it would certainly explain why I had an attack of the sneezes that evening. Speaking of which—” He bent down and retrieved a piece of white fabric from the floor— “I’d better return this to my wife. She lent me her handkerchief for the reception and she’s been itching to get it back.” The gold-embroidered fabric vanished into Farlay’s pocket. “Sanderson’s staff wouldn’t let me back in to get it after the reception.”
Kimball stared at the pocket that had swallowed the handkerchief. A gold-embroidered handkerchief seemed an odd thing to carry; the embroidery must rub uncomfortably against the nose. But he supposed the gold thread had other virtues...
Kimball stopped up short. Gold thread? Or gold-composite wiring?
“Just a second,” Kimball said. “Can I see that handkerchief?”
Farlay froze. “What for?”
“Just let me see it,” Kimball said, and reached out his hand. Farlay seemed about to object, but he must have heard the steel-hard determination in Kimball’s tone. Slowly, he reached inside the pocket of his robes. Too late, Kimball realized that it was a different pocket than the one the handkerchief had vanished into.
The hand emerged gripping a tetanizer. The device clicked and whirred as Farlay thumbed it to fatal power levels.
“So there were spores in the reception hall that night,” Kimball said. And Farlay had brought them. Neatly bound to the magnetic field of his handkerchief like iron filings, distributed into the air when he cut the power to the gold-composite coils and faked a sneeze.
And Rannen, standing on the second–tier catwalk, had seen the reflected light from the spores, the gleaming coils on the handkerchief, and understood what it meant. Perhaps the old man had even suspected Farlay of treachery, and had been watching him closely that evening.
Kimball was furious. If it was Farlay’s attack that Rannen had foiled, then it was also Farlay’s tetanizer that had killed Rannen — in a way that somehow eluded Sanderson’s post-conflict security check. Kimball’s fingers twitched, eager to wring Farlay’s throat, but if he moved Farlay would surely fire.
Farlay would probably fire anyway. If Kimball lived to expose him, he would lose his place in the Inner Council, lose any further chances to undermine the treaty. Kimball prepared himself to leap... somewhere. For cover, or towards Farlay, towards that beckoning throat — he didn’t know.
Just then Sanderson emerged from the side room. He froze midstride as he spied the pair in face-off. One hand strayed to the regulation tetanizer he habitually wore.
“What’s this?” he asked quietly.
Kimball breathed in deeply, felt his muscles relax, opened his mouth to explain...
But Farlay’s quick-clipped, high precision words cut him off. “He’s a traitor, Sanderson,” Farlay said. “He’s been on Rannen’s side all along, trying to stall the investigation and keep the Earth men angry. I caught on to him and he threatened me.”
“That’s not true,” Kimball said, “I just asked to see—”
“Shut up!” Farlay shouted. “I’m sick of you, Kimball! I’m sick of your high-handed moral act, always putting on airs. Always acting like you’re better than the rest of us just because you’re the youngest man on the council. Well, now the truth is out, isn’t it? You’re a low-handed, treacherous cheat like your mentor. You want a war with Earth. You’d rather let half this colony die than let the Earth men take it over!”
Sanderson hesitated, watching the two men. In his mind Kimball replayed all the Inner Council debates that had lead to the Partial Protectorate Treaty. Kimball had always been its most vocal opponent. Like Rannen, he would have rather died defending his colony than let the Earth men defile her. Tight-throated, Kimball realized that Farlay’s accusation sounded more plausible than any objections he might raise.
But Sanderson didn’t look completely convinced. “Put the gun away, Farlay,” he said quietly.
“No, he’s dangerous. We can’t trust him.” Farlay took a breath, visibly trying to calm himself. “You’d better check him for hidden weapons first.”
Farlay was trying to get Sanderson to take his hand off his weapon, to get him and Kimball in close proximity so he could shoot them both before Sanderson had time to react. Kimball tensed, ready to dive for cover if Farlay’s finge
r pulled the trigger, and said with as much calmness as he could muster, “I think you should ask Minister Farlay what he has in his front right pocket.”
Sanderson didn’t take his hand off his gun, and he didn’t move towards Kimball. “Put the gun down, Farlay,” he said again.
Farlay began to look even more nervous. For the first time he took his eyes off of Kimball, turned his head towards Sanderson. “I’m not kidding,” he said, trying to sound sure of himself. “Just now he—”
Kimball dove left, towards a large banquet table. He struck the ground short of his goal — he wasn’t exactly in peak condition these days — and was scrambling the last inches towards cover when he realized that Farlay wasn’t tracking him. In fact, the Minister of Social Affairs was convulsing, limbs spasming and spine arching in a bizarre parody of ecstasy, head thrown back and mouth open. Kimball had seen full-power tetanizer shots: this was nothing like them.
Across the room, Chief Sanderson lowered his shooting arm, an odd mixture of astonishment, fury, and dismay etched in his face. He used his radio headset to call an emergency medical response team to the reception hall, then holstered his tetanizer and ran to Farlay, who had stopped convulsing and was now slumped on the floor. Kimball pulled himself stiffly from the ground and helped the security chief lay the unconscious man on his back. “What happened?” he asked.
“Shock amp,” Sanderson said, pressing his fingers to Farlay’s throat, feeling for a pulse. He placed both hands on Farlay’s chest and compressed it in regular intervals, speaking between thrusts: “Illegal implant used by criminal groups, especially the Sons of Aldebaran.” He pinched his fingers against Farlay’s nose and blew two breaths down his windpipe, then continued the chest thrusts. “Detects tetanizer pulse frequencies and releases a scattered series of high-voltage shocks. Fries the brain. Stops the heart.”
Sanderson worked in silence until the EMR team arrived, alternating chest compressions with loads of air expelled down Farlay’s windpipe. Then he stood with Kimball as the medics took over the CPR and set up the defibrillator. “They’re not likely to get his heart going again,” Sanderson said, “and even if they do he won’t be in condition to tell much of anything. That’s the whole point; apprehended conspirators can’t give away secrets. So what was in Farlay’s pocket?”
Kimball took a moment to reorient. After the last few minutes, the question took him by surprise. “A charge-carrying handkerchief. Farlay used it to bring a cluster of contained
Kaliandrus spores into the reception hall, then released them during that sneeze the news vids showed.”
Sanderson was no fool; his face showed immediate comprehension. “Rannen’s tetanizer shot closed ambassador Komitz’s lungs,” he said. “The shot kept him from inhaling any spores, saved his life.”
“Yes, and the higher power setting Rannen used closed the lungs more effectively than a lower setting would have. The extra current also strengthened the magnetic fields in the ionized air channels, which drew the spores into a cluster around the shot, keeping them away from Komitz after he fell to the ground.”
“...and after a few more seconds the motion of other people in the room had dispersed the spores to nondangerous concentrations,” Sanderson finished. “Do you think Farlay also shot Rannen?”
“I’m tempted to, but I don’t see how he did it without draining the power on his tetanizer.”
Sanderson looked thoughtful. “Those tetanizers use a standard-issue power pack. In all the confusion, it might not have been too difficult for Farlay to swap the pack out before checking the tetanizer in. Now that the issue comes up, I believe Farlay was the last to check in his weapon.”
Sanderson tapped a code on the external feeds to his earphone. “I’ll contact President Duchevsky. He’ll want to know about this.
“Why didn’t you believe Farlay when he claimed I was a conspirator?” Kimball asked as Sanderson waited for his call to go through. “I know you had the same suspicions yourself.”
Sanderson glanced at him, hand still pressed against his earphones. “Farlay was out on an emotional limb. High-strung people are dangerous no matter which team they’re shooting for.
I didn’t know he was lying until the shock amp went off, though...” Sanderson’s face darkened, and he tapped the earphone softly with his index finger.
“What is it?”
“I’m not getting through to — suns and novas. Did Farlay arrange that meeting with ambassador Komitz?”
Kimball’s stomach felt suddenly bottomless. “Someone’s jamming the signal?”
Sanderson’s jaw was tense. “Looks like. Come on.” He grabbed Kimball by the elbow and nearly dragged him from the reception hall, he was walking so fast. He pulled a second tetanizer from inside his uniform and pressed it in Kimball’s hands. “You know how to use one?”
Kimball nodded, still trying to keep up with Sanderson’s pace. “Yes, but why aren’t you calling for security backup?”
“If the Sons of Aldebaran have staged an attack during that meeting, then they’ve infiltrated the security channels. Right now no one knows we’re coming. If I radio for backup, that might change.”
They’d reached a side access hallway. Sanderson opened the door to the stairs, and now that they were out of the public area of the complex, he broke into a run. Jogging up the four levels towards Guest Room three, Kimball painfully recalled how old and out of shape he was getting. From the panting up ahead, Sanderson was no better off. Kimball wondered how much help they were likely to be if an attack was really happening: two unathletic, middle-aged men, one of whom had never been in a firefight in his life.
Still, they were all the chance Duchevsky had right now. So he put his head down, mentally notched up the adrenaline levels, and pelted over the stairs.
Guest Room three was on the fifth level of the complex, but Sanderson passed the fifth level exit and took them to level six. He opened a utility access door and motioned for Kimball to enter, apparently at ease in the back alleys of the complex. They pulled open a hatchway in the floor to reveal a two-foot crawlspace, as broad as the entire level, threaded with water pipes, fiberoptic network lines, and power cables. Stabilized only by small columns, the space looked like a miniature version of forgotten underground catacombs.
They clambered inside and wriggled through on their bellies. Cables pressed against Kimball’s hands; his shirt buttons scraped on the padded sheet metal floor. The air smelled of age and dust, and Kimball suppressed multiple sneezes as their passage dislodged miniature avalanches of debris.
After about ninety seconds of scrambling, Sanderson began to move with exaggerated care; he looked over his shoulder at Kimball and pressed a finger to his lips, commanding silence. They inched forward, Sanderson now and again laying his ear to the floor.
Slowly, like a buzzing fluorescent light that gradually intrudes into conscious perception, Kimball became aware of voices; nearly inaudible at first, but growing louder as they crept along. He was soon able to make out individual words, then sentences:
“...had hoped that you would unite with me in this, Duchevsky,” a cultured, nearly aristocratic voice purred. “Surely you must admit that you, too, long to see the Earthling parasites expelled from this world.”
“I long to shove that tetanizer down your throat,” Duchevsky’s voice answered. “But that would be imprudent at the moment.”
There was an exhaling of breath, perhaps a sigh. “You are an admirable man, Duchevsky, but misguided. You cannot dull the serpent’s poison by taking it into your bed; that only prolongs the inevitable. Your actions will doom this colony to decadence.” Sanderson had reached a small panel in the floor of the crawlspace. With infinite care, he slid the panel a hairsbreadth to the left, allowing the barest sliver of light to creeep past its edge. He motioned Kimball closer and murmured in his ear: “I’ll set up a cross-fire. If things get hot, push the panel aside and shoot.” Kimball wanted to ask, “at which target?” but Sanderson w
as already creeping away from him. Shifting uncomfortably in the darkness — his muscles ached from the unaccustomed locomotion — Kimball pressed his face against the floor until the lashes of one eye brushed the crack of light. It was like looking through a pinhole, black-rimmed and slightly fuzzy, but figures could be discerned. Duchevsky stood with his hands shackled behind him. Opposite him stood an erect, well-clothed man with smooth silver hair and four men wearing uniforms of the Aldebaran police force. More bodies dressed in the Aldebaran colors, along with other members of Komitz’s bodyguard, lay heaped unceremoniously against the wall. Kimball could not tell whether they lived or how they had been incapacitated, but judging from the girth and garb of the top figure, ambassador Komitz crowned the pile.
“I’m truly sorry our earlier attempt on Komitz failed,” the silver-haired man continued, shaking his head slightly. He seemed to mean what he said. “I had hoped to avoid measures this drastic. Jolas, Griggs, escort the president to our escape route. Charvy, bring over the earthling pig.”
Two of the uniformed men approached Duchevsky, one of the others dragged Komitz by one leg from the pile of bodies. Across the crawlspace, Sanderson had reached another access plate, but couldn’t seem to get it open, at least not without making any noise. Their eyes met across the space and Sanderson nodded curtly, then pressed a hand to his earphone to issue a whispered call for backup.
Kimball activated his tetanizer and set the current high enough to knock the target unconscious, hoping the weapon’s telltale hum and whine would not be audible in the room below. He rested one hand on the metal plate and leaned forward to peer again into the room.
“You fear the war,” the fanatic was telling Duchevsky. “You fear its costs, the piles of crippled bodies. You are not alone. But I will cleanse our planet of its fear. When the earth men wreak their vengeance for Komitz, when destruction is upon us, the Aldebarans cannot fear the war anymore. They can only fear losing it. Then they will rush to our banner. Those who sat upon the fence posts, those who joined with the voice of the majority, they will be our greatest warriors. What you with your politics could not do, Duchevsky, I shall do with my deeds.”
The fanatic held out his hand and one of the uniformed men placed a jagged, wicked-looking knife in his palm. He gripped it, and with his free hand he grasped the unconscious Komitz by the hair and hoisted his head partway off the ground. Kimball, one hand on his tetanizer, the other on the metal plate, spent a single instant in frozen oblivion.
It might work.
The fanatics were ruthless, lawless, but they would achieve the results Kimball, Rannen, and even Duchevsky could not have achieved; a united Aldebaran. A desperate Aldebaran, but one united in the need to drive the Earth men away and reestablish isolation. Kimball suddenly understood what Rannen must have felt, standing on that catwalk, knowing that all he had to do was do nothing, hold his fire, and the dream of his own heart might come to pass. The Sons of Aldebaran had found the way. They would drive the Earth men from the colony forever.
Frozen in the crawlspace, Kimball felt an intangible sense of weight in the situation. All he had to do was stay here, like this, without moving. He could let it happen — if he was willing to risk Duchevsky’s life, break his oath to the Inner Council, and accept a colony ruled by anarchists.
The temptation was poignant, but brief. Kimball pushed the panel aside and fired.
The fanatic crumpled in an electrically-induced convulsion. His henchmen whirled, seeking a threat at the doors, the windows; they hadn’t spotted the crack in the ceiling. Kimball swept the muzzle left and shot again, this time at one of the guards. Sanderson, abandoning the need for quiet, wrenched his ceiling panel open and fired; once, twice.
Almost before it began, the rescue was over. Sanderson checked the door and windows while Kimball assisted president Duchevsky, but if any other Sons of Aldebaran had been involved in the attack, they had fled at the first sign of trouble.
Panting and feeling suddenly very old, Kimball placed his back against the wall, slid to a sitting position, and listened to his heart pound.
* * *
Ambassador Komitz was seething when he regained consciousness. It took three hours of verbal finesse to keep him from declaring war on the spot. Duchevsky predicted that it would take months before they could reopen negotiations on the treaty, but the situation seemed salvageable.
Later, walking alone along the shorelines of one of Aldebaran’s alkaloid lakes, Kimball paused to admire the twin silhouettes of the grounded generation ramjet and the Earth warship hanging in the sky above it, both misty in the distance and gold-dusted with reflected light from the planet’s orange sun. They were beautiful, in their way. Man’s crowning technological achievementsfrom two points on the timeline. They were also hideous; metal incarnations of forces larger than any one man.
Kimball felt wet droplets kiss his cheeks.
He wept for lost chances, and for dead heroes, and for a broken future. He shed the tears that Rannen, and Farlay, and countless others crushed between the momentum of those two great ships could no longer shed. He wept because he lived, because the tears were there to weep, because there was a future, and it was not quite so bleak as it might have been.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nancy Fulda is a Phobos Award Winner, a Vera Hickley Mayhew Award Recipient, and has been honored by the National Space Society for her writing. She holds a Master’s Degree from Brigham Young University, where she conducted research in artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Afterwards, she turned to the equally complex task of raising three small children. She tries to make each of them laugh at least once per day.
