by Terry Mixon
Clayton leaned back in his seat. It creaked in a satisfying manner. “Bribery is such a harsh word. I prefer to think of it as a fee. A substantial one, I’ll grant you, but just the price of doing business.”
“Don’t think the opinion of those corrupt bastards means one thing to me or the United States of America,” Queen snarled. “You either comply with my instructions or you won’t have a pot to piss in.”
Clayton stood slowly. “That brings to mind the other work I’ve been doing over the last week. Perhaps you’re curious why the Chinese are so friendly with me. They were initially quite angry about this entire situation. Now they’ve recognized my government and are coming to protect us from the ‘imperialist dogs’ of the US Navy. Quite the change, isn’t it?”
That derailed Queen’s train of thought. “You bribed them, too? They can’t stop us from seizing everything you or your companies own. Rainforest has many operations in the United States. That’s going to hurt.”
“True enough,” Clayton admitted. “Only it won’t be me you’re hurting. I sold everything to the Chinese. Other than my now flush bank accounts—which are in countries that won’t play ball with the US, by the way—everything I own sits on this twenty-one square kilometer island. Except for Liberty Station, of course. And she’s outside your jurisdiction, too. Space is just the same as international waters, I believe.”
Queen stood there with his mouth working, but no words came out.
“Now, Mister Secretary, I suggest you take some time to collect your thoughts and consult with your country. I believe that’s the correct phrase, isn’t it? We don’t have to be enemies, but I’m not your whipping boy.
“I wasn’t joking about the Chinese sending a naval task force. Nauru signed a defense pact with them a few days ago. And we’re a lot closer to China than to the US. I think it would be in all our interests to take a deep breath and step back from the edge of this cliff.”
Queen took a long, deep breath, just as Clayton had advised. “I see. This does change the complexity of the situation somewhat.”
“It does,” Clayton said amicably. “Rather than get angry, perhaps you’d allow my chef to prepare us something interesting. The people here have some amazing dishes. We can eat and I’ll tell you about what Liberty Station is up to and how it could be beneficial to the US. I’ll give you a clue. Asteroid mining.”
That part was true enough, if not the full story, and those sorts of things made the best red herrings. Queen would have his mind on all the complexities of asteroid mining and the incredible wealth in space. So much so, that he wouldn’t see the real mission the ship was carrying out.
Clayton allowed himself a smile. Diplomacy wasn’t just for nations. And sometimes the biggest players weren’t used to operating at their highest potential. Queen was a bully and a piker. By the time he realized there was anything more to the situation, it would be far, far too late for him to do anything about it.
Chapter Three
“We’re starting to get some surface scans back.”
Harry looked up from the dinner he’d decided to eat at his console and examined the main screen. They had a rotating object with the same rough shape as the comet on display. Unlike the real one, the model was light grey and was only beginning to get some elevation shading.
He’d seen video from the surface. It was darker than the Devil’s armpit. Even with the lifter’s lights playing over the surface, it still drank in the illumination.
Radar and laser rangefinders, on the other hand, were working just fine. The lasers got them precise elevations and the radar penetrated the surface to look for things they couldn’t see. Like any hidden bases or old mining shafts.
He’d been disappointed when he’d heard how shallow the initial readings would be. The radar wouldn’t map the entire interior of the comet. Far from it. Still, this should be enough to find anything obvious, or only marginally hidden.
“How long to map the entire surface?” he asked.
“A few hours,” Lindsay said. “Though the spin will bring most of it into view in less than an hour. Then the lifter has to go hit the areas that aren’t rotating the way we want.”
A chime on his console drew his attention. It was Jess. He opened the channel.
“Talk to me, Liberty Five.”
“I think these military names are silly. Who’s spying on us up here? Can’t you just call me Jess? It was good enough for Kirk and Spock.”
“You’re a civilian through and through. What can I do for you, Jess?”
“I just thought you’d like to know we’ve sunk a few test holes and I have excellent news. This isn’t an extinct comet after all. It’s a dormant one.”
“And the difference is?” he asked.
“The difference, my martial friend, is that under a few centimeters of hard surface, there are plenty of volatiles and organics. We’ll have to take the samples back to the ship to get a breakdown.”
“That’s good news, but isn’t this thing on its way out of the solar system?”
“That is a problem,” she admitted. “It’ll be past Mars before we could even set up shop. I figure we have roughly three more days before Liberty Station needs to start decelerating for Mars orbit. Then this comet just keeps rolling right out of the system. It’s not going to be a source of fuel for us, but it makes for good science. There are plenty of similar specimens near Mars and Earth. What have you found?”
“That the surface of that thing isn’t so conducive to seeing anything. We’re mapping and looking for anomalies, but that might take a couple of hours.”
Lindsay cleared her throat. “Good timing, Harry. We just spotted one of those aforementioned anomalies. It’s almost on the other side of the comet from Jess’ team.”
“I heard that,” Jess said. “What is it?”
“Some kind of surface structure, I think. The lines are too regular to be natural.”
Harry grinned. “Jackpot! Jess, I’m going to grab a lifter and head that way. I’ll pick you up.”
“Roger, wilco, and all that. See you in a few minutes.”
It took longer than a few minutes to get a team together. This time he had Sandra Dean, Jeremy Gonzales, Leann Branson, and Rex Jamison from his special operations team with him. They’d be on hand to deal with any trouble.
He also had Doctors Rachel Powell and Paulette Young. They were the restoration specialists his father had hired to preserve anything they found. They’d been working on the language the others had used.
The ship’s chief engineer, Ray Proudfoot, had slipped in at the last second. Harry wasn’t going to complain.
Their lifter detached from Liberty Station and made the trip to where Jess was waiting in just a few minutes. She boarded and strapped in next to him. Neither of them removed their helmets.
“Any more detail on what you’ve found?” she asked.
“Not really. The subsurface readings are a little cloudy. There might be an open area under the structure, but they can’t be sure.”
“Do you really think it’s a base or mining facility?”
He shrugged. “I’m not going to prejudge. Whatever it is, we’ll know in a few minutes.”
The lifter made short work of circling the comet. Harry spotted the unnatural lines of the target as they were settling in and the lifters lights played over it.
It was a cross between a dome and a rectangular building. It wasn’t very tall, and had a number of flat triangular panels fitted together. Definitely artificial, and it looked intact.
“Holy shit,” Jess whispered. “We’ve really found something.”
“Looks like. All right everyone. Listen up. We’re treating this as a potentially hostile entry. Don’t touch anything and be wary of booby traps. If someone opens fire on you, light them up. Clear?”
His team quickly confirmed it was.
“Do you really think we’re going to get into a shootout on a comet that hasn’t been visited in hundreds of years
?” Jess asked.
“Not really, no.” Harry unstrapped and held onto the back of his seat. “But if the unexpected happens, we’ll be ready.”
She sighed. “I suppose I can’t blame you. Our luck with this hasn’t been the best. Everyone, link up your lines. I don’t want someone getting all excited and jumping off into deep space. That would be embarrassing for all of us. And be ready for any use of those pistols to send you flying. Use them only as a last resort and brace yourselves.”
Jess was the resident expert on zero-G operations, so Harry deferred to her leadership in getting everyone out of the lifter. Frankly, he couldn’t imagine anyone being up here. The others had abandoned this facility long ago.
Harry had seen pictures of the Apollo astronauts walking on the moon. This was nothing like that. The comet didn’t have enough gravity to pull them down very well, so they used their suit’s thrusters to behave as though they were working outside the ship in flight. Honestly, this was about the same.
The structure had an obvious entrance. Two of them, actually. A large one that certainly looked big enough to allow the crashed ship they’d found to pass through and a smaller one that seemed suitable for people. Both doors were flat and rectangular, standing at ground level.
“We’ll check out the personnel lock first,” he said.
They floated over to it as a group. It was made of the same metal as the crashed ship. The wall panels seemed to be the same makeup as the comet’s crust. He supposed they’d used local materials as much as possible.
The hatch was just like the one on the crashed ship, except it seemed geared to going down instead of sideways. He found the dimple where the key they’d found would fit. He pulled it carefully from a pouch at his waist. The chief engineer had attached a line to it for him, so even if he let it go, it would stay right there with him.
Harry slid the key into the lock until it clicked. The hatch came to life and slid down into the comet, revealing an airlock very similar to the one on the crashed ship.
“They still have power,” Jess said. “That’s a very good sign.”
“Rex, you and Sandra take lead,” he said. “Cycle inside and call us back with a status. If for any reason you can’t reach us, come back out.”
“Copy that,” his scout said. “Come on, Sandra. Time to make the donuts.”
“Really?” Sandra asked. “That’s what you have to say on an important occasion like this?” The sniper sounded disgusted.
“What would you like me to say,” Rex asked as he went into the lock. “This is one small step for man, and that chick that came with him?”
“You’re going to pay for that.”
The two of them were still bickering as the airlock cycled. Since Harry could still hear them, he knew the building wasn’t blocking their signals.
“Are they always like that?” Jess asked.
“You have no idea.”
The two inside went silent, their bickering ending abruptly. That wasn’t natural.
“You two okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Sandra said. “The inside door is open now and something unexpected happened. As soon as the airlock closed, something pulled us down to the floor. It feels like we have normal gravity in here. I’d have expected there to be air, but it’s still reading as a vacuum.”
“Holy cow,” Jess said reverently. “Artificial gravity. Do you have any idea of the implications this has?”
“Not a clue,” Harry admitted. “And it doesn’t matter right now. We’re exploring a potentially hostile area. We can celebrate once we’re sure it’s safe.”
“It looks clear in here, Liberty Six,” Rex said. “The personnel lock leads to a short corridor beside what looks like a hangar. There’s a clear window looking into it. There’s no ship there, but it’s the right size for the one we found.”
“Pity,” Jess said. “It would’ve been nice to find one intact.”
“True,” Harry agreed. “Rex and Sandra, does it seem safe?”
“Come on in,” Sandra said. “The water’s fine.”
“And you were giving me shit about my little speech?” Rex asked, starting the two of them off again.
Harry led the rest of them into the airlock and took the key with him. Honestly, that seemed like a crappy way to get into and out of things. There had to be something they didn’t understand about opening these doors. Some kind of remote manner of accessing them.
A fine layer of dust covered everything in the interior of the building. It didn’t show any footprints beside their own. The room on the other side of the glass did look like a hangar. Racks of containers and bins covered the wall beside the larger door. It reminded Harry of a garage.
They’d have to examine it at some point, but he was more interested in what else the building contained.
The short hallway ended at another door. This one had a button they could press. He mentally shrugged and pressed it.
The door slid open revealing what certainly appeared to be an elevator. The panel beside the door had ten buttons with alien characters beside them.
He recognized them as numerals from the book. The restoration specialists had been hard at work cracking the language used in the Voynich Manuscript and the book. They still had a ways to go, but some things were becoming clear, based on their last report.
“These are numbers, right?” he asked, just to be sure.
Paulette Young nodded. “We’ve figured that much out. One through ten. Just like an elevator.”
“So, the question now is do we work our way down one level at a time or go for broke?”
Jess reached past him and pressed the button for level ten. “Let’s live dangerously.”
The doors slid closed with slow finality.
* * * * *
Nathan Bennett made his way through customs and looked for his driver. He spotted the man negligently leaning against a late model black sedan holding a sign with Nathan’s name on it. Misspelled, of course.
The man barely moved when Nathan dropped his bag in front of him.
“Signor Bennett?” the man asked with a strong Italian accent.
“No, I’m Leo Tolstoy.”
“Sorry, not your car.”
Nathan counted slowly to ten. “Yes, I’m Bennett.”
The man frowned. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“Take my damned bag and let’s get going. I’ve been up for hours and have people to meet. And breakfast. I’m hungry.”
Mother’s private jet had taken him across the Atlantic quickly. It was just after eight in the morning here, though his body thought it was almost 1 AM.
“Of course.” The man picked up Nathan’s bag and negligently tossed it into the trunk. He didn’t bother to open the door for his passenger. He’d better not expect much of a tip.
“Where to, signore?”
“Regina Coeli prison. I need to see a man.”
The driver put the car in gear and pulled out of the airport. He seemed unconcerned as other drivers cut him off and, in two cases, almost smashed into the front of the car. Nathan had forgotten how insane Italian traffic was.
The driver’s curses at the other maniacs seemed pro forma. As if he was required to yell at them, but his heart really wasn’t in it.
“Who are you going to see, signore?” the man asked.
Nathan considered telling him to bugger off, but decided it didn’t matter.
“Alessio Romano.”
The driver perked up a little. “The judge? Ah, now there, signore, is a story.”
“Why don’t you tell me? I like stories.”
“Of course. The judge, he has friends that do bad things. He is very wealthy. Well, more like he was wealthy. He gave a lot of his money to his daughter.”
“And this matters to me how?”
“Ah! Because he swore he did no such thing. He said some woman drugged him and made him give it up! And the police, they found drugs. The woman, she was there. Her voice was on a re
cording the police in Rome received where Romano confessed to drugging and raping women. Big scandal.”
Nathan smiled. It was always gratifying to see someone else screw up worse than him. “Is that all?”
The driver shook his head. “No. The woman, he says she stole papers from him. Art.”
That sounded odd. “What kind of art?”
“Manuscript pages. Like those in old books.”
Nathan sat bolt upright. Those sounded suspiciously like what his mother had been griping about. “With strange writing no one can read and pictures of plants that don’t exist?”
The man grinned. “Yes! Exactly! How did you know?”
“That’s not important. How long until we get to the prison?”
“I will check.” He pulled out his cell phone and called someone. They spoke briefly for a few moments before he hung up. “There is a problem.”
Of course there was. “What kind of problem? Some kind of accident?”
“The judge, well, he has killed himself. Or someone who didn’t want him talking made it look like it. But there is a positive side to this.”
“I can’t imagine what that would be.”
The driver pulled to the side of the road and stopped. He turned in his seat before Nathan could say anything and pointed an automatic at him. He held the pistol in what looked like a competent manner.
“It’s good for me that you can explain what those manuscript pages mean and who the woman was,” the driver said, his accent much less noticeable now. “Alessio might have been a fat pig, but his death leaves a gap in our ranks. Someone will pay for that. What you need to worry about, Mister Bennett, is convincing me to start looking for someone else to bother. I suggest you do so promptly. I’d hate to have to shoot off parts of you to make you talk.”
Chapter Four
Queen sat in a fury as his plane headed back to Washington, D.C. How dare that bastard speak like that to the United States of America? Preening and thinking himself invulnerable because the Chinese were running to help him. Rogers thought the US was whipped. That he’d sent them packing.
