The Reticuli Deception (Adventures of Hannibal Carson Book 2)

by Alastair Mayer

  “So what’s the approach?”

  “First, we make some innocent queries about related phenomena that might have linked to Blue Book.”

  “Related phenomena? What the hell is related to people thinking they were abducted by aliens?”

  “Mass psychosis, for one. The latter half of the twentieth century were crazy years. People believed a lot of strange things.”

  Rico snorted. “Still do.” He considered the situation. It was unlikely that this was all an elaborate ruse to extradite him to Earth. If they’d wanted to do that they could have just stuffed him in a traumapod—he’d travelled most of the way back from Chara in one—and shipped him to Earth as cargo. On the other hand, he hadn’t stayed alive and at large all these years by not being a bit paranoid. It might be worth making a stop first.

  “Inbound starships still do preliminary clearance at Luna, right?” he asked Brown.

  “They do. Why?”

  “I have a couple of contacts on the Moon, guys in the alien artifact trade.”

  “Smugglers and contraband, you mean.”

  “What else?” The accusation didn’t bother him. It was certainly true, and as far as he was concerned he, or rather his old boss’s outfit, was just filling a need. “Anyway, if these files are that hard to come by, and that weird, it seems to me that they’re the kind of thing some of our collectors might be interested in.”

  “Your point? You’re not planning to try selling th—”

  “No, no,” Rico protested. Well, probably not, he thought, but now that Brown had mentioned it . . . no, he was going to try playing this one straight. “But someone in that community might know where to find them. I could make like I have a potential customer.”

  “You’re not you anymore. You don’t want to let anyone know you’re Rico, and why would they trust a stranger?”

  “No, of course I’m not Rico. Geez, Brown, I’m not exactly new at this kind of thing, except for the government angle. No, I’m not even a friend of Rico. I’m someone who has done business with Hopkins, and a couple of other names they’d know.”

  Brown rubbed a hand along his chin, considering. “That might be worth doing. How long would it take?”

  “A few days. You go on ahead to Earth and I’ll catch up with you.” When I’m reasonably sure I can get away with it.

  Brown nodded. “It will take me a few days to set things in motion Earthside anyway.” He turned to look Rico in the eyes. “But don’t get any ideas. We know who you are, and we have people on Luna. Don’t think about skipping out.”

  “Nah, this caper is just starting to get interesting. I wouldn’t want to miss it.” The funny thing is, Rico thought, I really mean that. But we’ll see what happens when the stakes get higher.

  6: To Taprobane

  Deep space, aboard the Sophie

  Ducayne’s people hadn’t changed the interior of the Sophie much either. Carson assumed there were some additional panels and displays buried in the control software, but there was nothing obvious to his relatively untrained eye. Jackie was right, space flight was boring if you were doing it right.

  He sat in the command chair; it was a change of scenery and Roberts hadn’t objected as long as he’d promised not to touch anything while she went back to the galley. Carson assumed that the controls were probably locked out anyway.

  There was nothing to see out the window, save for the occasional sparkle of an interstellar dust particle tearing itself apart at the warp boundary, and the control panel was nearly as boring. Wait, what was that?

  A blinking on one of the control panels caught his eye.

  “Uh, Captain, there’s a red light on life support!” Carson called back.

  Roberts made her way forward to the control cabin. “It can’t be too serious, critical systems would raise an audible alert.” She quickly scanned the screen. On the monitoring panel, a window which was divided into a grid of text and green circles, one of the green circles had turned red. The legend beside it read “LifeSupp (Recyc)”

  “Okay, that’s the recycle subsystem. Let’s see what the problem is.” She leaned over Carson’s shoulder. Carson was acutely aware of Jackie’s chest against the back of his neck. Was that on purpose? She reached out to touch the red circle on the screen, then slid it to a clear area of the console where it expanded to a window displaying an array of charts and graphs of different sensor readings. The time scale showed that each chart covered the previous ten minutes.

  “Okay, these are different classes of sensors or monitoring algorithms for this subsystem. See, Flow Service, Sludge, ppO2, ppCO2, temperature, pressure, and so on,” she said, pointing out different charts.

  “All right.” Carson noted that each chart had two horizontal lines, one yellow and one red, at different settings, the red always higher than the yellow. The actual data was displayed as a different-colored graph of connected symbols. “The red and yellow lines, they’re the alert thresholds?”

  “That’s right.” She pointed to one box that was outlined in red, marked Errors.

  “This is the one triggering the overall alert.” There were several data lines on the chart, and one in particular showed a steady rise, crossing the red line and now above it, over the last few minutes.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  Roberts tapped the line to open another window, displaying detailed data. She skimmed it and said “Impeller two in the waste line, looks like the RPM is getting intermittent speed drops.”

  “Serious?”

  She chuckled. “Not unless it continues and the RPM keeps dropping. That could indicate a failing impeller. Nothing we couldn’t live with for a few days, but unpleasant, and a messy job to fix.”

  She shook her head. “But no, look.” She touched the panel again and widened the time scale to several days. The line was mostly horizontal at a low level, with a few well-separated peaks above the red line.

  “See, it normally fluctuates like that for a while every day, when processing mixed solids. It should drop back to normal soon.” She closed the display window and straightened up. “Theoretically it shouldn’t rise above the yellow line, but this ship is getting old, and it does that. The work Ducayne’s teams were doing focused on the drive systems and hull, not things that were working. Like I said, a failure would be messy but not life threatening. I’ll check it again in a little while.”

  “Oh, all right. Thanks.” Carson thought for a moment. Solids? Impeller? “Wait, so you’re saying it alerts like this when the sh—”

  “Hits the fan, yes. Welcome to the romantic world of starship operations,” Jackie said, and grinned.

  Carson wondered if he were blushing.

  7: Rico Arrives

  Denver, Earth

  This is it, thought Rico. The inbound Lunar shuttle had just touched down at the Denver Spaceport. He wasn’t sure why Brown had wanted to meet him in Denver, but it was as good—or as bad—as anywhere else on the planet. At least, anywhere he could get to by commercial flight.

  It had taken him three days on the Moon to connect with any of his old contacts. He’d avoided any he knew too well; he wasn’t sure how well he could avoid giving himself away despite the body-mods. But he’d gotten the word out, and now had a couple of possible contacts here on Earth. But first he had to get through border control.

  In theory it was a formality. He’d surely been scanned and rescanned several times back in Conrad’s Landing—Beantown, as the locals called it—but now he was in line for the uniformed officers on Earth.

  “Next,” one of them called.

  Rico—Richard, dammit—stepped forward, handed his omni to the official, and placed his hand on the print scanner. He felt a tightness in his gut.

  The officer looked up at him, then back down at his console. He touched Rico’s omni to a pad beside the console, then looked up again. “Mister Lee, is it?”

  “That’s right,” he said, returning the gaze but not too directly.

  “I
nbound from . . .?”

  The info would be with the travel documents on his omni, of course. The agent just wanted him to say something, to see if there was hesitation or nervousness in his voice. “Sawyer’s World, by way of Luna.”

  The officer looked down at his console for a moment, then back at Rico. “Welcome to Earth, Mr. Lee.” He handed the omni back.

  Rico, or rather, Richard Lee, began to relax but then stopped himself. A sudden release of tension after clearing Customs and Immigration was a tell, a giveaway, something scanners looked for. He wouldn’t really be safe until he’d left the spaceport.

  There was a group of demonstrators just beyond the security zone, a half-dozen young men and a couple of young women, walking in a circle and carrying signs. At least one of the signs was on smart paper; it changed messages as he watched. The group’s chants echoed the slogans on their signs. “Terraspace for Terrans!” and “Colonize Taprobane!” and “Liberate Kakuloa!” and the like. Kakuloa? Rico wasn’t aware that the planet needed freeing from anything, unless that referred to the restricted zones reserved for the possibly-intelligent native lifeform.

  One young man, scruffier-looking than the rest but also holding a sign, wore a black tee-shirt with the text “Conquer Space and Rule!” above an image of a mailed fist grasping a planet. Something about the body language of the others suggested that they weren’t happy with him; his shirt was probably off-message. Rico wondered if and when it would degenerate to a fight, but there were uniformed police nearby. He kept on walking.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Velkaryan Headquarters, Earth

  “You say Hopkins’ man Rico was on the Southern Sky?” Hubble demanded of the new arrival. The man, Reid, had arrived from Sawyers World the day before and had mentioned seeing someone he thought was Rico on the ship.

  “I’m not completely certain,” Reid replied. “It didn’t look like his face, but he was about the same height and build, and there was something about him, his mannerisms, which seemed familiar. He cleared Immigration Control on Luna with no problem, though. I don’t know if he continued on to Earth.”

  “He could have had body-mods. But he’d need government-level mods to clear the border, even on the Moon. Any sign of Hopkins?”

  Reid shook his head. “No.”

  “Do we know who Rico is working for now?” As far as he knew, Rico had still been working for Hopkins when the latter had disappeared. Hubble didn’t really care about Hopkins, but Maynard had been important, at it looked like their disappearances were connected. And if Rico had been with Hopkins and Rico was back, well, that ruled out some deep space accident. Had Rico sold Hopkins—and Maynard—out?

  “If it was Rico,” Reid said. “And no, nobody has even seen Rico for sure in months either.”

  “Did you bring the surveillance data?” One of the tasks of Velkaryan agents out-system was to keep tabs, as best they could, on Homeworld Defense offices.

  “Of course. We’ll review it and see if this character shows up.”

  “You got a comparison image?” If they had a picture of this character that Reid thought might be Rico, the computers could compare that against images of anyone coming or going from a Homeworld Defense office. At least of the entrances to such offices as the Velkaryans knew about.

  “Aboard ship? Yes, a couple of them at different angles. Also of the man he seemed to be talking with.”

  “Oh? Anyone you recognized?”

  “Not right away, and he continued on to Earth by himself. But I’ll check the surveillance data for him, too.”

  “All right, get on it. There may be nothing to it, but if there is, we need to find out what.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Denver

  “There you are, Mr. Lee, room six one four. Enjoy your stay.”

  “Thanks.” Rico turned away from the registration desk, slung his bag over his shoulder, and tapped out a quick text to Brown on his omni. Here.

  His omni beeped back at him by the time he’d reached the elevators: 412, Brown’s room number. Rico took the elevator to the sixth floor, found his room and gave it cursory once over before tossing his bag on the bed. He’d sweep the place for bugs later. He left the room and took the stairs to the fourth floor to join up with Brown.

  “Any problems?” Brown asked Rico as he let him into his room. “And any luck?” Brown then raised his fingers to his lips in a shushing gesture.

  Rico nodded. Assume they were being listened to.

  “No problems,” Rico said. “I managed to put out a few feelers. Mostly non-responsive but there are some possibilities. I’m expecting to hear more in the next couple of days. How about you?”

  “I’ve been renewing old acquaintances. It’s slow going but you never know when a friend will be able to do you a favor. Do you have plans for the next few days?”

  Unless his own contacts came up with something, Rico had figured Brown would be driving this trip. But there were some things he could do. “I was thinking I’d catch up on some computer work now that I have real-time access to the net. I may do a little shopping or renew some acquaintances myself.” Meaning he’d be doing some network hacking and might need a little illicit help.

  “Ah. Well, things aren’t what they used to be, keep out of trouble.”

  Rico took that to be a reminder that he was now Richard Lee and to be careful not to break cover. Not that he needed a reminder, he wasn’t stupid.

  “I always try to, Doc. I always try to.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Velkaryan HQ

  “They’re looking for Blue Book.” Reid reported.

  “Are they now? How do you know this?”

  “I put the pieces together. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to bug Lee’s hotel room—he sweeps, and we don’t want to be too blatant—but it turns out that his contact, ‘Brown’, is actually a Malcolm Peck, who as a grad student wrote a paper titled ‘Archeological and Forensic Techniques in Evaluation of Close Encounters of the Second and Third Kinds’.”

  “That’s a mouthful. So he was once interested in UFOs, that doesn’t prove anything.”

  “No, but it fits with some of the people and offices he’s been contacting. Those are all one-level removed, though; it’s like he’s trying not to call attention to himself. He wouldn’t have if it weren’t for his contact with Lee, and the fact that we know him from surveillance of the HD offices on Sawyers.”

  “Fair enough. But Blue Book specifically?”

  “We’ve been following up on contacts Lee made back on the Moon. Seems he’s trying to acquire the files or some part of them for an anonymous collector. That latter fits with Lee possibly being Rico, given Hopkins’ line of business.”

  “That is interesting. So what do you suppose they know so far?”

  “Obviously, from their actions, they don’t know where the collection is.”

  Hubble considered this. “We do, we just can’t get at it.”

  “Do you think they could get it if they knew where it was?” Reid asked.

  “Not officially,” Hubble said. He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “No, the American government wouldn’t hand something like that over to the Union de Terre, and these guys are nominally UDT representatives. The US doesn’t trust the UDT, and the UDT has no authority to make them do anything.”

  “What about planetary security? They are Homeworld Defense.”

  Hubble scoffed. It was true that the UDT took priority over local governments for planetary security matters, but that was generally limited to potential pandemics or large asteroid impacts. “Well, yes, but if they try to make that case, they’re spilling whole cans of worms that they’d probably rather not. We’ll have some of our guys laugh them down. Hundred-and-fifty-year-old UFO reports? With no sign of technologically advanced aliens anywhere in T-space? It will be seen as some kind of turf grab. Most people think of Homeworld Defense as a joke, a couple of guys in back office somewhere, if they think of it at all.�
��

  “But we know that none of that is true,” said Reid.

  “Officially, it still is, at least the part about technological aliens.”

  “Okay, so they can’t just ask for them.” Reid paused, frowning slightly. “Could they get them some other way?”

  “If that is Rico, he could be willing to use unorthodox methods.” Hubble had read some of the reports of his work for Hopkins. “If he’s got Homeworld Defense backing, anything is possible.”

  “So why don’t we tell him where to find the files, then take them from him?”

  Hubble raised his eyebrows. Now there was an interesting possibility.

  “Think about it,” Reid continued. “We can’t get them where they are. It has to be easier to hijack them from Rico, especially if he thinks we’re on his side—”

  “Why would he think that?” Hubble thought Reid might be on to something, but the details could be tricky.

  “I don’t know,” Reid said. “We need to figure that out. But if he fails, it’s no loss to us. If he succeeds and we don’t manage to get them from him, are we any worse off?”

  “Depends what’s in them. They’re obviously looking for something, and we may not want them to find it first. But no, I can’t think of anything specific.”

  “So let’s do it.”

  Hubble liked the idea, but was more cautious. “Give me a day to think about it. Meanwhile, I want you to step up surveillance on this ‘Mr. Lee’ and ‘Dr. Brown’.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Denver

  “I hope you’re making better progress than I am,” Brown said as he closed Rico’s room door behind him.

  Rico looked up from his computer. It was festooned with gadgets not ever part of the original manufacturer’s designs. Some were Homeworld Defense gizmos, some were things he’d managed to pick up on the local black market. Between them and the labyrinth of network nodes he was going through, his searches would appear innocuous to all but the most concerted counter-hacking. Or so he’d been told; he had some skill but was no expert.

  “I’m getting mixed results. Some tell me the data is just lost, some suggest it was deliberately hidden. But it’s all old enough that it’s hard to be certain. I’m finding too many references to the digitized microfilm copies, but you already knew about those.”