“Not the Neander? Not even as a last resort?”
“If it gets that bad, I’ll call for reinforcements, but I don’t think it will. As I said, we’ve got some interesting hardware to deploy, and we know what we’re doing.” Glancing at the crater wall, he asked, “What about going right up the cliff-face?”
“That’s more than a mile, straight up, with the air too thin to breathe easily at the top. We don’t have the equipment.” Blaine smiled, then said, “My guess is that you do.”
“Standard Triplanetary Service Respirators, Mark Five. Should be more than enough for the job, and as it happened, I’ve got some spares. Enough for about a dozen people. As well as some climbing equipment.”
“I thought you had full aerial reconnaissance. Or drones, or something like that.”
“The resolution isn’t as good as I’d like, and there’s still nothing like getting a look at the enemy up close yourself. Besides, I can’t launch a preemptive strike while I’m sitting on the ground.”
With a smile, Blaine said, “I like the way you think. Sneaky. How many?”
“Two of us for recon. Fancy getting a bit of exercise?”
“I think I might enjoy that. Hold on while I get my kit.”
As Blaine walked back into the stockade, Cooper’s communicator chirped.
“Cooper here. Go ahead.”
“Shuttle Three. I’ve completed preflight checks and am ready to go.”
“Right, Midshipman. Thanks for the ride, and I’ll see you back at the barn.”
“Roger. Happy hunting.”
The shuttle roared on its engines, rising steadily from the ground as it cleared the stockade, all eyes on it as the pilot tipped the nose up before kicking his throttle into full, the ship hurtling toward the horizon like a dart, flame and smoke pouring from its rear. Cooper winced at the sonic boom, worrying about damage in town.
“All set, sir,” Vaughan said. “I’ve got Rhodes and Martinez setting up the mortars. Are we sure they don’t have any sort of protection?”
“Let’s hope not. Break out the extra tranq guns and tasers, and start instructing the locals in their use. I want them to be perfect long before it comes to it. And pick out the best, oh, half-dozen or so. I have a special mission in mind.”
“Hit them before they hit us?”
“Something like that. Watch out when you are working your ranges, by the way. Apparently there’s a minefield out there.”
“I’ll have Nash run a sweep, get us a map. Unless they’ve got one.”
“If they have, no-one’s told me about it. On your way, Corporal.”
“Sir.”
Cooper walked over to the bags, unceremoniously dumped on the ground, and reached through for a second respirator, quickly running the diagnostic checks. As the final light winked green, Blaine emerged, rope curled over his shoulder, a pistol in his holster and a knife at his belt.
“We’re not going to be up there for long, are we?” He looked at the respirator, and shook his head. “That little thing? Where’s the tank?”
“Only needs a small one, under high pressure, just on the side of the mouthpiece. Good for a couple of days if necessary.”
“Two days? In that?”
“It works as a compressor. Trust me, it’ll work.” The two of them donned their respirators, Blaine with an air of distinct disbelief, and then turned to the crater wall. As they approached, Cooper raised his datapad ahead of him and tapped a button, waiting for the sensor to scan the cliff.
“It’ll tell us the best way up. Scans for hand-holds, and where the rock is weak.”
“That little gadget? How do you read it while you are climbing?”
“You don’t, it’ll tell you through the respirator earpiece. It’s a short-range communicator as well.” A light flashed green, and Cooper continued, “All done. Let’s rope up.”
Frowning, Blaine asked, “Have you done much climbing?”
“Not in this heavy a gravity field, but I’m sure the principle's the same.”
“I don’t know, I was expecting rocket boots or anti-gravity.”
With a smile, Cooper started to secure his rope, and said, “Nothing as magical as that. We still do some things the old-fashioned way.”
Slowly, patiently, the two of them began to scale up the side of the cliff, the datapad issuing advice and warnings whenever they seemed at risk of falling. There were hand-holds everywhere, the rock hard and dry, almost perfect conditions if it wasn’t for the reduced air pressure.
“Say, Lieutenant,” Cooper said. “What stops the Neander sneaking teams down this way?”
“Not a damn thing, but we have recon towers at the Fort, as well as periodic patrols. It’s never happened, at least not that we know of.”
The view behind them was magnificent, the green fields mingling with the brown desert, a clear blue lake at the heart of the crater, sparkling in the sunlight, with roads and buildings scattered seemingly at random, as though some giant hand had dropped them from the sky long before. Which, in a sense, they had.
Even the respirators were beginning to complain by the time they reached the summit, the two of them cautiously peeking over the edge of the cliff. Cooper’s eyes widened as he saw what was waiting for them, dozens of tents with hundreds of Neander walking around them, patrolling the perimeter, training and preparing for battle. One of them, wearing some sort of head-dress, was talking to one of the not-men, wearing the familiar battle armor.
“Worse than I thought,” Blaine whispered. “That’s going to be damn tough to beat.”
“We can take them.”
“They’ll attack at dawn,” the lieutenant continued. “Right down the pass. I don’t know what you’ve got planned to stop them, but it had better be good.” Cooper peered across the plateau, pulling his datapad out. “What are you doing now with that magic gizmo?”
“Working out ranges. Don’t worry, they won’t attack at dawn. We’re going to hit them first.”
Chapter 6
Marshall looked around the room, trying to avoid being spotted surreptitiously looking at his watch. He’d only been at the reception for twenty minutes, and already he was trying to conjure up urgent reasons for him to return to Alamo. Caine wandered over from the side of the room, holding a plate with a trio of small hamburgers on them, smothered in some sort of spicy sauce.
“Never thought I’d be missing a fabricator,” she said. “These aren’t bad. Try one.”
“Cooper will be launching his attack in a couple of hours,” Marshall replied.
“And he’s an expert who knows his job, and worrying about it isn’t going to help in the slightest, is it?” Glancing around the room, she continued, “Here we are with the great and near-great, and you, Captain, have a diplomatic duty to undertake. Isn't that why you came down in the first place?”
Governor Hammond was holding court at the far side of the room, a pair of gray-haired women nodding at whatever he was saying while Mason looked on, periodically exchanging glares with Marshall. A pair of Neander were standing on either side of the refreshments table, though he wasn’t sure whether they were waiters or guards. Or both, judging by their demeanor.
“Captain Marshall?” a tall, slender woman asked, walking over to him. “We were introduced, but I’m sure you could hardly withstand the bombardment of introductions earlier. Eunice Richardson, Mayor of New Jamestown. And failed Gubernatorial candidate, twice over.”
“I’m surprised that the Governor…,” Caine began, but she interrupted.
“We political hacks are a small, incestuous group. Oddly enough, most of the people are more interested in just getting on with their lives and trying to survive.” She gestured at the two women by the Governor, and said, “The one on the left was Governor before Hammond, and I suspect the one on the right will follow him. Sisters, of cou
rse, descended from the Captain of the Mayflower II.”
“First families?” Marshall asked.
“We’ve had ten Governors now, and the same last names keep cropping up, time and again. My grandfather was merely a Corporal, a last-minute addition to the crew, so I have no standing to speak of.”
“You’re the Mayor. That must mean something.”
“Lots of boring meetings trying to keep everything ticking over. That’s just a sideline, anyway. I spend far more of my time working on what we laughably call our space program. Which means that your arrival brings a combination of excitement and depression.”
“Oh?”
“Fifteen years I’ve been working on trying to turn blueprints into hardware, and we’d have been lucky to throw something into orbit for another thirty. I might have done it just before my retirement. Now it all seems rather pointless.” She took a sip of her drink, and said, “Not that I’m not glad to see you. Are we to be absorbed into your Triplanetary Empire?”
“Confederation,” Marshall said. “And this isn’t a mission of conquest.”
“How many people have you got in your nation? How many worlds?”
“About seventy-five million, on a couple of dozen planets, moons and asteroids.”
“We’ve got twenty-five thousand stuck in a crater in the middle of nowhere. Hotheads like Mason are talking about going it alone, but speaking personally, I’ll be glad to leave this place behind. We’re not the center of the universe any more.”
Looking around the room, Caine asked, “Is this a popular opinion?”
“It will be when the word really begins to get out. Most of our population are subsistence farmers, and the rest are trying to turn rust into machinery from half-ruined records. A lot of people are going to want to emigrate.” She paused, then said, “Hammond and Mason won’t tell you any of this. Hammond because he always repeats what the last person told him, and Mason because he still dreams of manifest destiny, of conquering the savage tribes of the plateau and bringing them the glory of what remains of our civilization.”
Frowning, Marshall asked, “How many do you speak for?”
“Based on last year’s poll, about thirty-two-point-nine percent of the population.” She gestured at the door as a red-uniformed figure stepped in, and said, “And precisely none of the Territorial Guard. As far as I know, the whole mass of them voted for Hammond. Strange, isn’t it.”
“Are you implying…”
“Not a thing. I’ve got no reason to suspect that the election was rigged. I just find it amusing that Mason’s Gestapo has managed to pick the winner five times in a row, and that he’s never decided to just take the job for himself. Always the man behind the throne.”
Marshall glanced at the figure, and said, “You don’t seem to be afraid of them.”
“I’m the perennial opposition leader, and the best damn engineer on the planet, for what little that is worth. And making people disappear isn’t their style. It just gets impossible to stay in a government job, which means heading out to the farms, and once you are out of the city, no-one gives a damn what you think. Not while you are spending sixty, eighty hours a week trying to turn weeds into food.”
Hammond strolled over, a smile on his face, and said, “Now, now, Eunice, you can’t bother the Captain with all of your conspiracy theories.”
“She isn’t,” Marshall said. “It’s important for me to know the whole spectrum of opinion on this planet.”
“You are more patient than I, Captain, and considerably more patient than the electorate. If the trend continues, Miss Richardson will find herself out of office at her next bid for re-election.” He gestured at a glass cabinet on the wall, and continued, “I thought that you might want to have a look at my collection.”
“Collection?” Caine asked, while Richardson shook her head.
“Of alien artifacts, Lieutenant.”
A smile began to dance onto her face as she replied, “I have a degree in xeno-archaeology. I’d be very interested to see them.”
Hammond pulled a key out of his cabinet and opened the door, revealing three shelves loaded with a collection of pottery, stone tools, and strange-shaped pieces of alloy steel, some of which had pictographs on them that were somewhat familiar.
“Gathered from across our small world,” he said. “There was an advanced civilization here once, long ago. There are relics of them everywhere, though most of the best sites are up on the plateau. My theory is that this world was terraformed, by a species with a compatible biochemistry, perhaps…”
“Ten thousand years ago,” Marshall finished. “That matches our conclusions as well, though we don’t believe the creators were alien.”
“You believe this?” Richardson asked.
“We’ve found evidence of a precursor civilization to our own all across this part of the galaxy. My Science Officer is on detached duty right now, leading an excavation. It was almost certainly the Neander.”
Mason walked over, shaking his head, and said, “There is no evidence that those savages ever had any advanced civilization.”
“I’ve visited sites from their ancient past. They were spacefarers, ten thousand years ago. Not from Earth, though. Our belief is that some of their ancestors, and for that matter, some of ours as well, were taken from our homeworld about thirty thousand years ago and seeded on suitable colonies. This may well have been one of them.”
“Then the aliens gave them their technology…”
“No, sir,” Caine interrupted. “The aliens left. We believe there was some sort of a war. The Neander developed spaceflight, starflight, on their own, while on Earth our ancestors were working out the most efficient way to hunt a mammoth.”
The look on Mason’s face was amusing, but Richardson was frowning in thought, saying, “You have records of all of this? I’d like to take a look.”
“I had no idea this interested you,” Hammond said.
“That the Neander were out in the stars before humanity would rather disprove most of the propaganda that passes for our sociological studies,” she replied.
Raising a hand, Marshall said, “I should say that there is also evidence that we have ancestors among the stars as well, humans of our type that were also spacefaring. Mister Governor, with your permission I’ll take some photographs of your collection and send them up to Alamo. There’s a good chance that we’ll be able to translate the writing.”
The old man’s eyes lit up, and he replied, “That, Captain, would be the resolution of a life’s dream for me. I’d be extremely grateful to see any material that you have gathered. This has been my study, my passion, ever since I first saw the ruins as a boy.”
“Watch yourself, Bill,” Mason said. “Besides, all of my studies show quite clearly that the Neander, as you call them, have inferior mental capacity and capability. Do you realize that when we arrived, they practiced cannibalism?”
“There are cultures in our own past that practiced human sacrifice,” Caine said.
With the air of one talking to an infant, Mason replied, “Our tests have repeatedly demonstrated that they have only a limited ability for creative thought, doubtless why our ancestors bested them in the fight for survival on Earth. Creating a technological society would be impossible.”
“I’ll have to talk about this with the commander of Hydra Station, next time I see him,” Marshall said.
“Is he another of your learned experts, Captain?” Mason asked.
“In a manner of speaking. He’s Neander. As are most of his crew.”
Shaking his head, the Secretary replied, “I don’t think that we have anything else to discuss. Not while you are acting in such an intransigent manner. I am speaking of scientific tests, and you throw hearsay in my face.”
“Damn it, Kirk, he’s talking about people he knows,” Richardson said.
“Maybe,” he replied, waving a hand, “they have evolved beyond the savagery that existed on this planet before our arrival. I have no way of knowing. I certainly hope that you will consider the situation here, rather than relating it to what you may or may not have seen elsewhere. Excuse me.”
Shaking her head, Caine said, “The man is completely out of touch with reality.”
“He has his own reality, and I think he finds life there a lot more comforting,” Richardson said.
“You are speaking of one of the most dedicated public servants that I have ever encountered,” Hammond replied. “And someone who has spent most of his life working to educate and improve the lot of those people. I would not be so quick to judge.” The Governor hastened after him, and Richardson shook his head.
“If we apply for admission in the Confederation, I presume that a requirement will be that we make some rather significant changes to the way we do things,” she said.
“Almost certainly,” Marshall replied.
“Speaking purely personally, and not for my supposedly diminishing constituency, I am extremely pleased to hear it.”
Caine walked over to the drinks table, taking another glass of wine, then hurried over to Marshall, tapping him on the arm and saying, “Over to the window. Right now.”
He followed her, and looked down at the street below. A couple of hundred people were marching towards them, banners and placards in the air, shouting and yelling. When Mason saw them, he raced to the door, where one of the Territorial Guard was on duty, issuing instructions.
Leaning out to look at the crowd, Richardson said, “Another demonstration. Part of the not-so-silent majority.”
“It’s about two-thirds Neander, I think,” Caine said. “Can’t quite make out the banners from here, or the shouting from that matter.”
“There are those who would like to be free, and for some reason they would like to be full citizens of this planet. With the right to vote, to own property, the usual.” Shaking her head, Richardson said, “Not that it will do them any good. The Territorial Guard will be here in a few minutes.”
Battlecruiser Alamo: Cage of Gold Page 5
