Mission: Tomorrow - eARC

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

  In another diversion from the serious, Mike Resnick’s most wanted man in the galaxy is just looking for a place to hide from the authorities when he stumbles into far more on . . .

  TARTAROS

  by Mike Resnick

  Tarter looked back, which didn’t help much since he was in the pilot’s chair of the small ship. He cursed and turned back to the computer.

  “Anybody on our tail yet?”

  “I do not possess a tail, Jerome Tarter,” replied the ship reasonably.

  “Is anyone following us, and you don’t have to use my name every goddamned time you speak,” growled Tarter.

  “No, no one has been following us since I took evasive action in Saturn’s rings.”

  “Okay, just keep going, and let me know when we get near anything you can land on.”

  “We are entering the Kuiper Belt,” answered the ship.

  “Fine,” said Tarter. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It houses hundreds, perhaps thousands, of minor planets and dwarf planets, many of them not yet identified or catalogued,” said the ship.

  “And beyond that?”

  “Nothing I can reach in less than six human lifetimes,” answered the ship. “Until faster-than-light drives are developed, the Kuiper Belt is the physical limit for human travel and exploration.”

  “Big whoopee,” said Tarter. “I don’t want to go to another star system. I don’t even want to stay where we are. I just need to lay low until the cops find someone else to bother.”

  “You realize,” said the ship, “that if they do apprehend us, I will be forced to testify that I had nothing to do with your crimes.”

  “Crime,” Tarter corrected it. “One crime. It got a little out of hand, and I had no idea there’d be so many bystanders, but it was one crime.”

  “Your biographical record shows that you were convicted and sentenced for theft, extortion, murder, and crimes against humanity on Earth, Mars, Venus, Ganymede, and Triton, and that you escaped from incarceration in all five instances, leaving a trail of dead and maimed bodies behind you.”

  “It really says all that?”

  “You’re quite famous, Jerome Tarter,” replied the ship. “Or perhaps infamous.”

  “Makes a man feel proud to know he’s been all written up in song and story.”

  “I did not mention song, Jerome Tarter.”

  “Sooner or later they make up songs about everyone in my line of work,” answered Tarter. “And if you insist on calling me by name, make it Jerry.”

  “Yes, Jerry. I will remember to do so, Jerry.”

  “And go easy on it.”

  “I do not understand you, Jerry.”

  Tarter signed. “Never mind.” He looked ahead. “Show me where we are.”

  A screen appeared.

  “Ain’t much out here, is there?”

  “There may well be tens of thousands of minor or dwarf planets, Jerry.”

  “I can only see one,” said Tarter.

  “That is not a planet, but an escaped moon from a minor planet, Jerry.”

  “Big difference,” said Tarter. “Okay, it’s time to find us a world to hole up in for a while.”

  “I do not understand ‘hole up’ or ‘a while,’ Jerry,” responded the ship.

  “Then suppose you let me worry about it.” Tarter looked at the screen. “Are we the first to get this far?”

  “No, Jerry. There are scientific or mining communities currently on the minor planets of Eris, Haumea, Orcus, Makemake, and Sedna.”

  “Makemake?” repeated Tarter, frowning.

  “It is from the religious tradition of the Rapanui people of Easter Island, Jerry,” answered the ship.

  “Wherever that is,” muttered Tarter.

  “It’s one of the few places on Earth where you have not committed a felony.”

  “Bully for them,” said Tarter. “Now stop using my name for a while, and concentrate on finding a world—”

  “A dwarf planet,” the ship corrected him.

  “Whatever. Just start looking.”

  The ship fell silent for almost fifteen minutes, then uttered two words: “That’s odd.”

  “What’s odd?” demanded Tarter,

  “We are 104 astronomical units from the Sun, and—”

  “Translate that into miles.”

  “We are approximately five billion miles from the Sun,” continued the ship, “and yet I detect a world with a core that is even hotter than the sunward side of Mercury.”

  “And all the other worlds are as cold as you’d figure them to be when they’re a hundred times as far from the Sun as Earth is?” asked Tarter.

  “Precisely. That’s why this is so odd.”

  “Take us there. At least we won’t freeze to death.”

  “I cannot freeze,” replied the ship, “and not being alive, I cannot die.”

  “Thanks for that information, which is doubtless vital to my survival,” said Tarter sardonically. “Okay, you say the whole planet isn’t that hot?”

  “Just the core.”

  “So the surface might be livable.”

  “For creatures that do not require oxygen and water.”

  “I’m not staying there forever,” said Tarter, “just long enough for the fuzz and the military to get tired of looking for me and go hunting someone else. And I’ll bet none of the other worlds out here has any oxygen or water either.”

  “That is true.”

  “So let’s go. What did you say the name of this world is?”

  “It has no name. According to all available records, no one has ever touched down on it.”

  “Then I guess I’ll name it after myself.”

  “Jerome Tarter?”

  “What now?”

  “Is that what you’ll name it?” asked the ship.

  “Sounds a little formal. Maybe just Jerry.”

  “Shall I enter it in my records as Just Jerry?”

  “Let me think about it,” answered Tarter. “You just get us there. I’ll worry about naming it.”

  It took another five days, but finally they were close enough that Tarter could observe the world on his viewscreen.

  “Doesn’t look like much,” he noted.

  “It looks like all the other dwarf planets,” said the ship.

  “That’s what I mean,” answered Tarter. “I figured with that molten core it might, I dunno, maybe glow a little, or something.”

  “That’s curious.”

  “What is?”

  “The core should be molten, but it isn’t.”

  “I thought you said the world was hotter than Mercury?”

  “It is.”

  “Well, then?” demanded Tarter.

  “I need more data.”

  “Then land and start acquiring it.”

  “I’ll try,” said the ship. “But . . .”

  “But what?” replied Tarter sharply.

  “But after you stole me during the massacre . . .”

  “It was a bank robbery,” interrupted Tarter. “The bloodletting is just what happened to a bunch of do-gooders who tried to stop me from making a living.”

  The ship was silent for a full minute.

  “Well?” demanded Tarter.

  “I am trying to equate your notion of making a living with the definition of morality that is in my data banks.”

  “Forget that shit and tell me why you’re hesitant about learning why the core isn’t molten.”

  “I am not hesitant about learning,” answered the ship. “I am hesitant about acquiring the knowledge. When you stole me and the police began firing to stop me, they destroyed some of my sensing mechanisms.”

  “Improvise,” said Tarter. “That’s what I do.”

  “I know the definition, of course,” said the ship, “but I have never actually improvised before. I don’t know if I can.”

  “Work on it,” said Tarter. He shrugged. “Or don’t. As long as the damned planet doesn’t blow up whi
le I’m on it, I don’t much give a damn about what’s causing the heat.”

  “But if it doesn’t obey the laws of the Universe . . .” began the ship.

  “Then me and the planet are brothers,” replied Tarter. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t obey them either.”

  The ship entered orbit after another two hours, searching for the best place to land.

  “Uh . . .Jerry,” it said suddenly.

  “Yeah?”

  “I hate to bother you . . .”

  “I can tell,” was Tarter’s sarcastic reply.

  “But someone on the planet has contacted me and is giving me landing coordinates.”

  “I thought it was supposed to be uninhabited,” said Tarter, frowning.

  “That’s the problem,” said the ship.

  “What’s the problem?

  “It is uninhabited. I have done a thorough scan, and my instruments confirm that there is no life form, at least not any I am programmed to recognize as such, down there.”

  “But it’s giving you coordinates, not telling you to go away?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Then what the hell, let’s land.”

  “Without knowing what it is or what it wants?” asked the ship.

  “There are four armies, two Solar Patrol units, and a couple of thousand cops from various worlds looking for me,” responded Tarter. “I know exactly what they are and what they want. We’ll take our chances with this guy.”

  “I do not know for a fact that it is a guy,” said the ship. “In fact, everything I do know tells me that it isn’t.”

  “Just land where he tells you to.”

  “Where it tells me to,” the ship corrected him.

  “And shut up until we’re on the ground.”

  They descended in total silence, and finally the ship touched down.

  “I don’t see any spaceport,” noted Tarter, staring at a screen.

  “There isn’t one,” answered the ship.

  “Then why the hell did you land here?”

  “You ordered me to.”

  “I ordered you?

  “You told me to land at the given coordinates.”

  Tarter frowned. “Then where the hell is everybody?”

  Suddenly, the ship shuddered.

  “What was that?” demanded Tarter.

  “An enclosed ramp has risen out of the surface—I hesitate to call it the ground, since it consists primarily of molten rock—and has attached itself to my hatch.”

  “So I’m supposed to walk out through it?”

  “I presume so.”

  “Safe?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I mean is the environment within the enclosed ramp safe?” said Tarter.

  “Oxygen/nitrogen ratio similar to 3,200 meters on Mt. Everest, temperature 19 degrees Celsius, gravity 97% Earth Standard.”

  “Sounds good,” replied Tarter. He began checking his weapons. “Laser pistol, fully charged. Sonic pistol, fully charged. Bullets: 19 in the gun, 25 on the belt. Yeah, I’m ready.” He walked to the hatch. “Open it, and don’t move except on a direct order from me.”

  “Roger and aye-aye,” replied the ship, wishing Tarter would simply let it say “Affirmed.”

  Tarter walked to the open hatch and peered ahead. The corridor, or so he thought of it, was dimly lit, and seemed to go directly down into the bowels of the dwarf world.

  He paused for a moment, then withdrew his laser pistol, switched off the safety, and began walking slowly, carefully, down the gently inclined corridor.

  He’d gone almost a mile, and when he had still encountered nothing but more corridor walls, he stopped.

  “Come along, come along,” said a hollow-sounding voice. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Tarter spun around, looking for the source of the voice, but found he was still alone in the corridor. “Show yourself!” he grated.

  “Soon,” said the voice. “You’re almost here now.”

  “I’m almost where?” demanded Tarter.

  “Your destination, of course,” said the voice.

  Tarter looked around, couldn’t see any sign of life, and proceeded cautiously.

  “By the way, you can take off your helmet,” said the voice. “The air is quite breathable, and the temperature is an ambient 73 degrees Fahrenheit.”

  “Come on!” snapped Tarter. “According to my ship’s readout, you’re closer to a couple of thousand degrees!”

  “Well, yes, part of my domain is,” agreed the voice. “But that won’t affect you.”

  “Your domain?” repeated Tarter. “You sound like you rule the place.”

  “Do I now?” replied the voice in amused tones.

  “What do you call this world?” asked Tarter.

  “Home.”

  Suddenly, an agonized scream pierced the air, and Tarter froze. “What the hell was that?” he demanded.

  “Do you really not know?” asked the voice. “You’ve certainly heard your fair share of them.”

  “Answer my question.”

  “Someone’s not very happy,” replied the voice with no show of concern.

  “That makes two of us,” said Tarter, frowning and stopping again.

  “Come along, come along,” said the voice. “You’re almost here.”

  “Where the hell is here?” demanded Tarter.

  “Just follow the chain.”

  “Chain? What chain?”

  But even as the words left his mouth, Tarter turned to his left and encountered a row of naked men and women, their bodies covered with welts and puncture marks, many with eyes and organs cut or gouged out, hanging in a seemingly endless row from a chain that stretched across the top of the corridor for what seemed like miles. A few of them became aware of Tarter’s presence and begged for help, but in a language—a score of languages—which were incomprehensible to him.

  “What’s going on here?” said Tarter.

  “Please do not expect me to believe you are at all shocked or dismayed by such a sight at this late date,” said the voice. “Just keep walking. I assure you they cannot impede or harm you, any more than they can impede or harm me.”

  Tarter recommenced walking down the corridor, noting what should have been fatal wounds on still-active bodies.

  “To your right now,” said the voice, and suddenly there was not a doorway but an open space to Tarter’s right, and he walked through it. Seated upon a golden throne was a man clearly showing some of the effects of age. His hair was gray, his face was lined, and his muscles had lost some of their tone. He wore a single-piece white outfit—Tarter identified it as a toga, but it wasn’t quite—and he got stiffly to his feet to face the newcomer.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for you to get here,” he said.

  “I only landed an hour ago,” replied Tarter.

  “Nevertheless.”

  “All right, I’m here, I’ve walked by your handiwork in the corridor, and I’m not putting down my pistol until I know what’s going on.”

  The older man shrugged and gestured to the corridor. “As you see.”

  “I see a bunch of men and women who’ve been tortured, and by all rights ought to be dead,” replied Tarter.

  The older man smiled. “And it didn’t bother you at all, did it?”

  “What bothers me is not knowing what’s going on.”

  “I’m showing you my domain,” replied the older man. “But this is just the outskirts of it. To see the truly remarkable part, we have to go deeper beneath the surface.”

  Tarter frowned. “According to my ship’s instruments, it’s thousands of degrees down there.”

  The older man looked amused. “Celsius or Fahrenheit?”

  “Who gives a goddamn?”

  “Oh, very well said. Not to worry, my boy, I promise you will not feel the heat at all.”

  “The ship was wrong?” said Tarter, frowning.

  “That is not what I said.”

 
Tarter stared at him, neither speaking nor moving.

  “Come along,” said the man. “If it doesn’t hurt me, it won’t hurt you.”

  He began walking, and Tarter reluctantly fell into step behind him.

  “You got a name?” he asked.

  “Of course I do,” was the answer.

  “Care to share it with me?” asked Tarter.

  The man laughed.

  “What the hell’s so funny?”

  “I admire your choice of words,” said the man. He paused before a section of wall, waved a hand at it, and it vanished, leading to a ramp that plunged down into the innards of the planet.

  “All right,” said Tarter, coming to a stop. “Tell me your name, or I’m going back to the ship right now.”

  “No, you aren’t,” replied the man with a smile. “There are hundreds of warrants out for your arrest and capture, you are wanted dead or alive—preferably dead—on half a dozen moons and worlds, and you are standing in perhaps the only place in the solar system where you are safe from detection and apprehension. But if it will make you happy, my name is Typhoeus.”

  “Typhoeus?” repeated Tarter, frowning.

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s a hell of name.”

  Typhoeus smiled. “Precisely.”

  They walked deeper into the planet, and came to a huge pit, filled with fire and perpetually burning and screaming bodies.

  “Who are they?” asked Tarter.

  “That one’s King Sisyphus,” answered Typhoeus, pointing to a lean man who was writhing in agony. “And this one’s Ixion, and over here is King Tantalus.” Another smile. “And I believe you might recognize this one.”

  Tarter peered at the man whose eyes had clearly been gouged out, and kept walking blindly into hotter and hotter flames, screaming in agony. “Hitler?” he asked.

  “How nice to know such a monster’s face hasn’t been forgotten after only a couple of centuries. And this is Caligula, and this—”

  “Is this hell?” interrupted Tarter.

  “Certainly not,” answered Typhoeus. “Hell has literally billions of inhabitants. Where would they all fit here?”