View from Ararat

by Caswell, Brian

  A town of miners, its ring of defences has grown out of the skills of the miners, and standing on the crest of the last of a line of rounded hills overlooking the small but prosperous community, Mac Porter nods his approval. There is an unspoken kinship among rock-biters which spans the light-years between Jupiter and Deucalion, and he silently acknowledges the feat of engineering that has created the scene he sees before him.

  Using the huge machines that split the rock and tore the wealth from the ground in less dangerous times, the miners of Baden have gouged huge trenches in the barren land around their small town. Three or four metres deep, and maybe four across, they form an impenetrable circle around the settlement, with the extracted soil and rock forming a wall inside the huge dry moat.

  And behind the wall, spaced at intervals around the town, the huge machines, some of them two or three storeys tall, stand like guard towers – armoured gun-platforms manned by the town’s few armed defenders.

  ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’

  Cindy has come up behind him, unheard. He turns towards her.

  ‘Leave the talking to me,’ he replies, without taking his eyes off the scene below. She knows the signs. Mac is planning.

  As the others reach the crest, he begins his journey down to the valley floor.

  CINDY’S STORY

  There was a small gap in the wall of rock and soil, and a platform of thick timbers stretched across the trench in front of us, like a drawbridge over the moat of an ancient castle. For over an hour we had been approaching the town of Baden, and for all of that time I knew we were being watched.

  It made me nervous.

  I’d been using the punchboard to keep track of the political landscape, and I knew it was naive to think they’d be willing to accept us with open arms, so I was waiting for the inevitable confrontation.

  Finally, as we stood before the makeshift bridge, a man moved out to block the way. He was carrying a pulse-laser, and he spoke to Mac, who was closest to the bridge.

  ‘We don’t want no trouble,’ he began.

  ‘Good,’ Mac replied. ‘Then we are in agreement.’

  ‘So if you’ll just be on your way, nobody’ll get what they don’t want.’

  I looked at the control panel on the side of the weapon he was holding. The safety was off, a fact I was sure Mac would have taken note of. And though I didn’t look up, I was certain that there were other weapons trained on us from the cabins or the building-sized buckets of the two huge earthmovers that had been positioned at either side of the small opening in the protective wall.

  But Mac held his ground and his eyes never wavered. I don’t know too many people who could stare down a man armed with a pulse-laser that could blow a hole in you big enough to drive one of those earthmovers through – with room on both sides – but he did it.

  ‘Nice job of engineering,’ he said, as if they were old friends discussing home-renovations. ‘What did you use, the Tremont or the Oldfield?’

  I was watching the man’s expression. For a moment the steel wavered in his eyes, and he shifted his grip on the rifle.

  ‘The Tremont. You a digger?’

  ‘JMMC . . . Fourteen years on the Jovian moons. We ran mostly Tremonts and Fords. The Oldfields couldn’t handle the temperature deviations.’

  ‘They can’t handle shit. Show ponies . . .’

  Mac pressed the slight advantage.

  ‘Listen, man. We’ve been walking for days across the Ranges and through the Fringes and the kids are about spent. One digger to another, you wouldn’t send us away without a chance to rest, would you?’

  The man risked a look up at the cab of one of the huge machines, and I caught a glimpse of the tiny two-way hidden in his ear. He was taking instructions from someone else.

  I looked at Mac and he winked. He’d seen it too.

  The man turned back to face him. ‘Io or Ganymede?’

  ‘Both. Ganymede mainly. Crud-hole of a planet, but it’s a living . . . just. Look, digger, we’re clean. We’ve been out of touch with anyone but each other for almost a month, and not so much as an itch. Tell your boss we can help out. Cindy here is a computer/communications-whiz. Research-trained, but still one of the best young rock-biters I ever worked with. And Cox has seventeen years up – on Ganymede, Io and a stint on Titan with TMC – so he’s got the balls for a fight, if it comes to it. Tim and Krysten, Lexie and Jenna are his four kids.’

  He paused. There was no need for the man to say anything. Whoever was making the decisions had heard every word already.

  After a few seconds of silence, Mac added, ‘Oh, and a free bit of advice. If he doesn’t want to lose the Tremont in the first attack, I’d suggest he turns it around to shield the auxiliary tank. It’s not armoured. One direct hit with a pulse-laser and you’ll be seeing fireworks.’

  The man looked towards the huge machine on his right, then back at us. Then he smiled and lowered the weapon. He held out a hand and Mac shook it.

  ‘Boss says you’re welcome. What’s a team of rock-biters doing mountain climbing?’

  They turned and made their way across the drawbridge, discussing the relative merits of different makes of heavy machinery, and we followed, passing under the house-sized bucket of one of the machines in question. Behind me, I heard the sound of a huge engine starting as whoever was in charge of Baden’s defences took the advice of one of its newest inhabitants.

  23

  Samples

  NATASSIA’S STORY

  They could see the destruction of the Wieta camp from the bridge of the Pandora. Terry said there was a blinding white flash, then a red glow that lasted for the best part of half an hour before it faded away.

  Strangely, there was no word afterwards from the medical team. Jerome Hamita, the head medical officer of the complex, had reported the death of the last inmate and his intention to activate the fusion devices, but no one had heard from him since, and the sensors on the Pandora had picked up no vehicle leaving the area of the camp.

  It wasn’t until much later that we found out what had happened to him and to the others who had left Wieta in its last hours.

  There was a lot we didn’t know at that time that we found out later . . .

  Genetic Research Laboratory

  Carmody Island

  Inland Sea (Eastern Region)

  5/2/203 Standard

  CHARLIE’S STORY

  ‘Nice set-up, guys.’ Jerome had come straight from the hopper to the lab and he was impressed. Naturally.

  He’d been working in a well-appointed infirmary, but it’s not quite the same as a state-of-the-art genetics Research lab. The machinery we had access to existed only in the dreams of most professionals – even in Edison – but we were going to need every bit of it, if we were going to make a difference in the coming weeks.

  Already, in the five days since our visit to the cave, we’d run gas-spectrometer analysis and electron-microscans of the kids’ blood samples, and we were halfway through the gene-mapping process, looking for anomalies. The gene-maps we’d downloaded from their files on the Pandora were a start, but they were fifty-year-old technology, and in those days any ‘unknowns’ were approximated by the scanner. It was precisely the ‘unknowns’ that we were interested in.

  Galen was hunched over close to the monitor on the electron-microscope when Jerome walked in, and apart from a slight wave of his hand he didn’t change his position. Concentration was always one of his strong suits.

  ‘Make yourself at home,’ I said, as Jerome homed in on another piece of gleaming equipment. I walked across to where Galen was squinting at the image frozen on the screen. ‘Got something?’

  ‘Not sure.’ He spoke without looking up. ‘What do you make of this?’

  ‘What’s the magnification?’

  He checked the dial. ‘One-poi
nt-five million. I can bring it up a bit if you like.’

  I nodded, and he shifted to two million.

  ‘The Crystal,’ I said. ‘The intersection curve of two of the planes.’

  At that magnification you could see the tiny imperfections of the planes, and the stresses of the electrical charges holding the thing together. But we’d seen that a thousand times, so there had to be more.

  ‘What am I looking at?’

  ‘Nothing. That’s the point. No change.’ He looked up at me. It’s a sample from JD.’

  We couldn’t keep calling her the kid from bed seventeen, so we’d given her a name – sort of. Officially she was a Jane Doe, and she’d been found by our friend Jermone so she became JD Hamita.

  I think Jerome quite liked the idea. He’d become very attached to her. In an environment where your level of patient-loss was running at pretty near a hundred per cent, I guess it was natural to form a bond with the only survivor.

  So JD she was. And I was staring at one of her samples on the e-m, trying to figure out what Galen was talking about.

  ‘It’s not expanding its reach, and it’s not breaking apart. Total equilibrium. Now watch . . .’

  Behind the isolation screening the specimen train shifted, locking a different sample into the machine. Tapping a few keys, Galen focused the e-m and waited for the system to adjust to the new settings.

  ‘Two mill?’ he asked, and I nodded, as the screen resolved into an image similar to the last one except for one startling difference.

  As we watched, the line of intersection began to dissolve, as the charges holding the structure together disintegrated before our eyes and the Crystal disappeared from the screen.

  ‘I cheated a bit,’ Galen admitted. ‘That’s a video replay. I caught it earlier. It’s slowed down three hundred per cent. It happens too quickly to see it that clearly. That was a sample of Maija’s blood. We introduced the Crystal to it in the lab and recorded the results in the e-m. Ready for the scary bit?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘This is at point seven-five, so we can see a bit more of what’s going on around it. It’s your sample.’

  There’s something sick about making something like this personal. He must have read my eyes, because he went mock-defensive.

  ‘I needed a clean specimen. This is post-thirty seconds.’

  The machine showed a number of Crystal formations, and suddenly my blood ran cold, even though I’d seen it happen before. The molecules immediately around the formations began to rearrange themselves, moving into position like soldiers in a complex parade formation. Then they locked into place and a new Crystal was formed in each location. And as we watched, the process repeated again, each new Crystal forming new ones around itself.

  Galen realigned the machine again.

  ‘Now this is Élita’s sample. We introduced the contaminant two minutes ago. A massive dose. Back at two mill.’

  Again the Crystal filled the screen, and almost instantly it began to break down.

  ‘It’s reacting with something in the sample. Something that breaks down the intermolecular bonds. The damn thing simply disintegrates, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. There’s nothing unusual in the pH or the blood count and it’s at body temperature, but it smashes the things to pieces. Ramón’s does exactly the same. I’m doing a new scan of the blood-chemistry now. I just wish I had a clue as to what I’m looking for.’

  ‘You might try some kind of enzyme structure. That could draw electrons away and change the Crystal’s field charge, maybe . . .’ Jerome had appeared over my shoulder while I’d been concentrating, and his voice made me jump. I saw Galen’s eyes narrow as he looked at the doctor in a new light.

  ‘I thought you were a physician.’

  I am, but there’s no law says you can’t be interested in other areas.’

  ‘Enzyme?’ Galen was frowning, because it was an angle he hadn’t thought of and he felt he should have.

  He reached forward and tapped a few keys, bringing up a screen on the data frame.

  ‘New search,’ he ordered, leaning slightly towards the v-a pick up. ‘Amino acids, proteins, and’ – he looked at Jerome and half-smiled – ‘enzyme-structures.’

  ‘Ocra, anyone?’ I asked. I knew Galen wouldn’t think to offer.

  Al-Tiina Village

  Wieta Clan Lands, Vaana

  6/2/203 Standard

  ERIN

  The Healer looks down at them where they lie. They seem to sleep, but their spirits are further removed than mere sleep. Two human children. They live where the others could not, but it is through no action of the Healer’s art.

  Eriin kneels for a moment beside the sleeping platform, and places her hand again on one child’s chest. And again she feels the touch of Death. It tingles on her skin and creeps beneath the surface, then fades to nothing.

  With a final look at the young child, she stands and leaves the hut.

  24

  Baden

  Baden

  Western Fringes

  Edison Sector (Southwest)

  6/2/203

  MAC

  They sit facing each other across the narrow table. Mac looks at the huge frame of Gerry Wilson, then at the map of Baden on the table between them. Wilson is the man behind the defences that ring the town. He is the architect and the leader, and he is worried.

  ‘It’s not nearly enough,’ he confides. ‘It’ll slow them down, but if they want to get in badly enough, it won’t stop them. They’re well armed and they’re killers. You’ve heard the stories. We don’t have the lasers or the skills to win a firefight. We’re miners, my friend, not soldiers.’

  ‘Precisely!’ Mac slams an open palm onto the table. ‘So, we fight like miners. We do the things that miners do best and we use what miners know. We can win, Gerry. All we need is a bit of luck and enough warning. I’ve got Cindy working on that right now. What’s your status with tunnelling equipment?’

  Wilson rubs his chin, trying to guess where the question is leading. And failing.

  ‘Two Tremont five-metre models and an ancient Oldfield three-metre. Most of our work is open-cut quarrying. There’s only a couple of deep-seam deposits in the area.’

  ‘Three tunnellers. I was hoping for a few more.’ Mac looks down at the map in front of him. ‘OK, we’ve got to play the odds then . . . Look, they’re going to be confident. Arrogant even. You’ve heard the reports – nothing but minimal defence has been offered so far. All the towns caved in before them. They’re not going to expect anything but token resistance. They’re relying on their rep doing most of the fighting for them. That’s our ace.’

  ‘Our ace?’

  ‘Of course.’ He smiles at the town leader, hoping that the expression doesn’t look as false as it feels. ‘It means they’ll take the more direct options when they attack. They won’t sneak around through the desert to the west. They’ll attack from the north, along the Fringes, or come through the pass in the outcrop of the Ranges to the east. They’re the two routes we cover first. If we have time, we’ll cover the less likely options, but for now we’ve got to take an educated gamble. How soon can you bring the tunnellers into operation?’

  Wilson looks towards the hills. ‘They’re at the compound. We haven’t used them in a couple of months. Tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Make it tonight. And get your best operators. We’ll be working around the clock, and we don’t need any mistakes. This’ll need to be as accurate as we can manage, if the plan is going to work.’

  ‘And what plan, exactly, would that be?’ Wilson leans forward, waiting.

  ‘Operation Joshua.’

  ‘Joshua?’

  Mac Porter looks down at the map again. ‘As in the Battle of Jericho . . . How much do you know about ancient Old Earth battle techniques?’

>   Wilson smiles ironically. ‘Why don’t you remind me? I might have forgotten a bit since they threw me out of the military academy.’

  Baden

  Western Fringes

  Edison Sector (Southwest)

  6/2/203

  CINDY’S STORY

  Outside, the sky was blue – cloudless and smooth from horizon to horizon. I paused with my fingers poised over the punchboard and looked out at it. Then I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers and tapped in the final command. When I opened them again, the screen of the town’s primitive data frame had come to life.

  ‘Any luck?’ Tim Cox had entered the room. He stood directly behind me, watching the changing views on the screen.

  ‘No luck needed,’ I replied, smiling. ‘Just skill.’

  ‘Sorry, Oh Great One. I forgot I was in the presence of genius.’ He ruffled my hair as he spoke, and I smiled to myself.

  ‘I’ve ether-linked into the satellite download at the weather observatory outside Elton. It’s high in the Ranges and fully automatic, so no one’s likely to go there in the near future. It’d take a week to climb up there, there’s no food or water, and it’s hermetically sealed, so it’s still operating in spite of everything.’

  ‘Bingo!’ After days of frustrating failure, any success was good news. It was good to hear him happy. He sat down beside me. ‘But will it work?’

  ‘Like a dream. It picks up the relay broadcasts from every observation satellite around the planet – the whole weather survey network. All I have to do is a little reprogramming and we can realign the geo-static bird above Edison to keep an eye out for any approaching threats. No one at Meteorology’s going to give a damn. There’s no one at Meteorology any more. Nobody’s interested in next week’s weather forecast when they don’t even know if they’ll be alive to worry about it.’

  Suddenly he went quiet.

  ‘What is it, Tim?’ I asked. There was something on his mind. He was older than me by a year, but he couldn’t mask his emotions half as well as I could.