Biting his lip, Matt concentrated on the work at hand. Work always helped. Work cleared his mind, usually. But locks never stay locked. Like an ocean tide, emotions washed over him. Emotions from a dark, distant time. A time when he had not been a cyborg. When he’d been just a man . . . a man loved by a woman who cared for him.
Seven hundred thirteen milliseconds.
Zeus Station loomed large in the holosphere.
It didn’t look particularly hostile. Just a long cylinder pockmarked with Dock ports and sporting seven different bioenvironments, each with their own artificial gravity regimes. Docking went smoothly and normally.
Matt left Mata Hari encased in the bulky shell of Suit, its CPU updated with datafeeds on all the species resident in the station. Eliana walked ahead of him, striding down a narrow Dock corridor dressed only in a vacsuit and a troubled attitude. She’d chosen to make the vacsuit appear silvery, using electrocharge control to rearrange the suit’s molecules. Like a human mirror she stalked along the corridor, reflecting back the weirdly distorted images of nearby sapients, bar/dives, pumps, airlock control panels, and the red slashmark letters of Belizel, the Anarchate language. Nothing came into her suit and no sign of her personality left it. He wondered if she had always been so defensive, so wary of connecting with others. What was she afraid of?
They stopped before a large pressure lock leading to the Transport tubeways. The winding tubeways pumped people and packages from one end of the station to another like blood cells in a circulation system. With gravity fields generated as needed and bioenvironments tailored to specific requirements, a kilometers-long Trade Station like Zeus functioned like a very complex organism. Matt watched as Eliana touched a wall datapad and tapped in a coded sequence.
Above her head, a flat vid-display imaged on. A grey-haired man with a saturnine face scowled down at her. “Yes?” he said in demotic Greek, which Suit’s comdisk quickly translated.
“Grandfather Petros! It’s Eliana—don’t you recognize me?”
The man slowly smiled. “Eliana? Is it you behind that mirror? We had thought—”
“No! I survived Creon’s machinations.” She acted nervous, even a bit guilty-looking. “Uh, I’ve returned with a Vigilante. Someone who will solve all our problems. Does Ioannis still sit on the Dais of Power?”
“He does.” The old man looked aside, staring at Matt. Despite his own opaque faceplate, ancient eyes seemed to read him even better than Mata Hari. Eliana’s grandfather Petros pursed his lips. “A Vigilante? Good. Is he powerful?”
“Very,” Eliana said. “More than I expected.”
“Oh?” Petros looked suddenly alert. “Well, what do you need?”
“To see Ioannis,” she said. “The Vigilante—he calls himself Matt Dragoneaux—would speak with my brother about Halcyon, the Halicene Conglomerate, and how we may rid ourselves of its Stripper.”
On-screen, Petros sat back in a flexchair, the very image of an elderly patriarch who knew how to keep his own counsel. “Ioannis will return to the Dais in a few minutes. I’m sending a taxi tube for you. Ride it. And only it. There are . . . others about who have long memories.”
In his ear, Mata Hari commented on the overheard conversation between Eliana and Petros. “Matt, would you like a Defense Remote for backup?”
“Nod,” he said. “Just stay on-line and monitor. I detect nothing that Suit can’t handle.”
“All right,” Mata Hari sniffed. “But it’s harder to repair you organics than to debug a new program.”
Matt smiled. She was so protective of him. “I’ll be okay. Just monitor us from Suit’s uplink feed.”
“As you wish.”
He followed Eliana through the swiftly opening lock-door and up to the tubeway loading platform. A maglev taxi whistled to a stop in front of them, its yellow sausage tube free-floating beside the platform. He motioned for Eliana to wait and let him enter first. She fidgeted, her impatience poorly concealed.
Moving within Suit, Matt felt expanded, enlarged, empowered.
Hello, Suit. Sorry to be away so long.
Suit hugged him back the way a puppy might nuzzle its young master.
Time to work now, but at cyborg machine speeds. The speed he called ocean-time. With a thought, Matt changed his perception speed.
Forty milliseconds passed, according to Suit’s mind whisper.
Faceplate’s Eyes-Up display went Active. In the right quadrant scrolled a mech readout on the taxi and the transport platform. Long data columns listed taxi propulsion mode, vehicle registration data, its fabrication date, the equipment suppliers and subcontractors, the energy ambience for this Transport station, power fluxes lying behind the tubeway’s metal walls, the linear induction magfields that supported the taxi and propelled it along the station’s looping tubeways, and scores of other parameters.
On the left quadrant glowed a downlink from Mata Hari that showed the local space environment, the status of the six other starships docked at Zeus Station, the slightly varying distance—now at 30,431 kilometers—to Halcyon’s surface, ground-to-space shuttle launches from the planet’s human colony of Olympus, the ebb and flow of the planet’s meteorological cycles, its electronic noise emissions, and thousands of other data details. Most datafeeds were through-putted to his on-line nanoware subsystems and stored away in his cerebral nanocubes—for later recovery as needed. Finally, in the middle of the faceplate there floated a virtual-reality graphic of the tube taxi, already sectioned along its long axis and rotating in three dimensions.
Two hundred sixty milliseconds.
“Matt. When are—”
Nine hundred milliseconds.
Chemical sniffers and neutron activation sensors showed the taxi clean of any explosives or offensive weapons. Inside the taxi, Suit’s scanners likewise showed no gaseous incapacitation systems. It contained only a forward bench and a rear bench, facing each other, with side wall entry hatch in between. It also contained maglev machinery, a simple Go-Fetch control console, and the standard eco-comforts—all apparently safe. Suit stepped inside, taking the rear benchseat.
One and a half seconds.
“—you going to enter? Oh.”
One and three quarter seconds had passed since ocean-time.
“Step-down,” he mentally ordered Suit.
His senses slowed now, much the way one feels a slow turn around a roadway corner in an old-style surface conveyance. Centripetal force seemed so endless in such things. Matt blinked, clearing his faceplate for politeness’ sake.
Eliana sat down opposite him on the front benchseat, long legs pulled up underneath her. Her eyes shied away from him, focusing on a mid-air advertising holo. The hatch shut and the taxi jerked forward.
Time to find out how provincial she really was. And time to ask some direct questions. “Eliana, why are you so secretive with me? You’re the Patron, I’m the Vigilante. If I’m to do good work for you and your brother, you should be more confiding.”
She faced him, her look guilty. “I know. You’re right. But . . . secrecy is a way of life among the Halcyon Greeks. All we can count on are those of our Clan, and even family may use you, may make you a tool for their purposes.” She looked down at her lap, where she’d interlaced her fingers. “I . . . I thought my task was just to find a Vigilante and bring you here. But in being away from home, apart from the Derindl and my Clan, I’ve learned how uncontrolled life really is.” She looked up, her face a flood of mixed emotions. “I miss my Derindl Nest-mates. I miss the Mother Tree. And yet, I’m finding it hard to think of leaving your company.” She smiled awkwardly. “There, I’ve shared one of my secrets.”
Matt winced as her comment re-awoke vain wishes. This probing of motivations cut both ways. Time to change vectors. “Eliana, what did you want to be when you grew up? Before you chose to be a scientist?”
She looked surprised, then shy. “I . . . I wanted to be a teacher. Like my teachers at the Kostes Palamas school. It’s a school for cro
ssbreeds, in Olympus. I spent half my early years there, half with my Nest-mates at Mother Tree Corinne. “
“Why a teacher?”
She bent her head. “Because they liked me.”
“And your Greek Clan neighbors? They didn’t like you?”
“They were Pure Breed human,” she said flatly, eyes rising and fixing again on him. Aware once more of how he led her. “There was always a distance in how they treated me. A certain wariness.”
“Like the Pericles group?”
She half-smiled, as if she relished his testing of her. “Not like them. Like normal people who fear what is different from them. Blood ties help. But they didn’t make me the same as them.”
“And the pure Derindl?”
Eliana shrugged, averted her eyes a moment as the tube taxi whooshed through a curve, then fixed back on him. “They were kind to me. They let me roam across the many trunks of the Mother Tree, between school sessions.” Her look became intent. “And you, Vigilante. Why did you choose to become a cyborg?”
Good. A counterstroke, even if the move was rather obvious. “Lots of reasons.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
She looked confused, then irritated. “Hey. That’s not fair.”
“Right.”
Stiffness covered her face. “You enjoy teasing me, showing me that I’m oh so provincial. Don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.”
Her disbelief shouted through Suit’s armor. She eyed him sharply. “I think you’re afraid to admit how inhuman you’ve become.”
Ummm. Not bad. A bit tough, even. He swallowed. “That’s irrelevant.”
She slapped the benchseat. “That’s not fair!”
“Exactly.”
Keen intelligence shone through her anger. “Explain, please.”
Once more, he admired her ability to put aside her local bias against cyborgs and engage with him. “Patron Themistocles, life is not only uncontrollable, it is not fair. You should not expect fairness in this life. Especially not from strangers.”
She looked closely at him now, a bit too close. And not with pity but with empathy. “Matt, who hurt you so bad?”
“None of your business!”
Eliana flinched as Suit’s external speaker vibed her bones. Then she smiled daringly. “Still think I’m provincial?”
Humph. Though Matt carried a library of knowledge in his forebrain, thanks to cyborg modifications, he’d always taken every chance to learn directly from life. And his self-taught tactics told him that when confronted by a smart student, try a diversion. “Who is Grandfather Petros?”
She blinked, startled by his change of topic. “My grandfather, of course.”
Behind his faceplate, Matt shook his head. “I mean, who is he socially? Politically? Culturally?”
Eliana shrugged. “Oh, he’s just my Nest-mate Sponsor.”
“What’s a Sponsor?”
She sighed, as if exasperated. “You need a Sponsor to join any Derindl Nest. It’s like a marriage arranger, but applies most of all to crossbreeds who choose to live among the Derindl.”
“Don’t you like humans?”
“Of course I do!” Her eyes flashed as that Greek temper of hers flared up. “My mother was a Pure Breed human. As is Grandfather Petros. As was my Grandmother Miletus. I just prefer the company of Derindl. They’re . . . more even-tempered than most humans.” Something blinked on Suit’s chest-pack and reminded her of his cyborg nature. She looked away, her expression uneasy.
“Oh really?” If the Sigma Puppis Greeks were as patriarchally-inclined toward their women as recent Earth Greeks had been, that could explain her reticence around males, and her preference for the matriarchal Derindl. Suit’s Intelligence readout on the Greeks confirmed as much. Lost in thought, Matt ignored the first warning from Suit’s inertial-tracker. “And what’s the function of a Sponsor?”
Swallowing hard and forcing her eyes back onto him, Eliana tried. Tried hard, like she’d promised. She offered him a polite smile. “A Sponsor arranges for the necessary genetic donations to the Mother Tree so your presence won’t cause an antigen response. A Sponsor offers the necessary dowry of unique knowledge datacubes to the Derindl Nest clan that has voted to accept you. A Sponsor negotiates with other Nest clan leaders on a suitable mate for—”
“Why are we stopping?” he asked stupidly as Suit’s inertial sensor blared klaxon red.
Eliana looked startled. “What? The trip usually takes—”
“Whooosh!” The taxi’s hatch cycled open.
“Emergency Override,” said Suit.
Once more, the dam broke. Once more, ocean-time flooded over him. Once more, his perceptions changed. Time stretched from swift picoseconds to long nanoseconds.
Seven hundred eighty nanoseconds passed, Suit told him.
Light educated him first.
Instead of the well-lit, heavily guarded private dock of the station’s Trade Despot that he had been expecting, Matt saw a purple-lighted loading dock, deserted, with no one around. Shadows filled the dock, thick pillars held up the ceiling, and an air of decrepitude menaced him with its very banality.
Forty milliseconds.
Within Suit, preloaded, autonomous Defense algorithms searched scores of electromagnetic spectrums for offensive weapons, airborne or groundborne. At the speed of light, they searched.
Faceplate’s Eyes-Up display flashed on, all three quadrants filled with fast-scrolling datafeeds that immediately forced him into gestalt perception. Thoughts move faster than eyelids. He thought. Hard. Fast. Angrily.
Two hundred milliseconds.
Suit tightened as flexarmor inserts slipped into place on his arms and legs. Matt’s chest-mounted pulse Doppler radar kicked on, painting the dock enclosure with millimeter-wavelength radar. Both shoulder pulse-cannons tripped on. Bicep rocket launchers thumped with full magazine loads. He leaned forward.
Six hundred milliseconds.
Suit’s onboard intelligence CPU hurriedly took a tachyonic download from Mata Hari. It contained a recent map of Zeus Station, showing their place inside it based on the inertial-tracking sensor that had been computing up, down, forward and sideways vectors ever since he’d left the security and safety of Mata Hari ’s own lock. They were in the wrong place, which he should have noticed long seconds earlier.
Seven hundred milliseconds.
He stood up.
Eight hundred milliseconds.
Matt waved Eliana to sit still. Moving in Colossus Mode, with pressor beams preceding him in case KKP rockets were already on the way in, he stepped carefully out of the hovering taxi. His footsteps shook the loading dock as tractor beams in his boots grabbed the dock. Its dirty concrete fissure-cracked.
One second.
Sensors screamed to uplinked and adrenaline overload. Before he stepped away, Matt inserted a bayonet probe into the taxi’s Go-Fetch control console and dumped in a software virus. It would overcome any subversive programming as it reset the taxi’s guidance controls to home in on the Despot’s personal dock. Something he should have done earlier. He cursed mentally.
One and a quarter seconds.
A shadow moved in the distance.
One and a third seconds.
Four images danced on his faceplate. Mr. Shadow glowed in ultraviolet, infrared, far-infrared and yellow light wavelengths. Suit Tactical Locked-On with both shoulder lasers as his waistband nerve-gas dispensers cycled to auto-eject. Matt pulled a Magnum laser gun from his thigh holster for secondary targets. With his left hand, he reached straight out and stiffened his gauntleted fingers. Every fingertip now pulsed with powerful neodymium lasers, each keyed to a specific visible or invisible light wavelength. Some set for aluminum penetration, some for steel penetration, others for gold coating, with one for chitin-punch. And each powered up to 30 megawatts. But they were close-in weapons. On his back, Suit’s rocket launcher ka-chunked as it auto-cycled, searching among the kiloton nukes, plasma, ant
ipersonnel, and napalm warheads for a suitable match to the Fire-and-Forget rockets stored in his backpack. With an alpha wave pulse, he selected the napalm warhead—nuclear weapons in a confined space like this would only fry Eliana and overload his radiation shielding.
One and a half seconds.
Mr. Shadow spoke.
“Impressive. You are Matt Dragoneaux?” Mr. Shadow said in comdisk-translated Belizel.
The ocean-time partially withdrew. Matt existed half as a slow, very slow organic, and half as a lightspeed fighting system—with Interface problems.
He breathed more calmly. “Advance. Downlink weapons systems. Avoid hostile actions. Avoid death.”
“As you wish.”
Three seconds.
Mr. Shadow grew a form as it padded out from behind a nearby concrete pillar—moving on four clawed paw-feet.
It was a Mican.
Something one part bird and one part tiger stalked out into the loading dock, its four muscular legs moving like whips. Only half his size, the Mican resembled Earth’s mythical griffin, with brown-feathered wings rising from a muscle-rippling back. At the griffin’s front end rose a narrow head filled with sharp teeth. The head perched on a long, horse-like neck. But the true threat lay in its eyes. Three eyes, deep purple and deadly somber, fixed on him. Not on Suit, but on the being inside Suit. As if the Mican could see past his opaque faceplate. The eyes moved independently of each other, on small fleshy cones—like those of a chameleon lizard. Two now watched him while one looked around the dock.
Matt gulped, looking away from the eyes, to the rest of the alien’s body. Below the horse-neck were two small flexhands, their digits claw-tipped. Short arms supported the flexhands. The arms led to the wings and between the wings ran a blood-red feather ruff, ending in a long, needle-whiskered tail. The tail swished from side to side, malevolent in itself. He blinked, calling in datafeeds from the intelligence CPU. The Micans were one of the primary species sponsoring the Halicene Conglomerate. He had never seen a Mican, nor had he ever wished to. Their reputation for cold-blooded ferocity and mercantile rapaciousness made their acquaintance something fervently avoided by all sensible beings.
Star Vigilante (Vigilante Series) Page 6
