Michael Cobley - Humanity's Fire book 1

by Seeds of Earth

  wine. 'But I do know that of the government's secret,

  hush-hush projects, there was one whose success rate

  was way out in front, and that's who I think Pyatkov's

  got with him. Probably wants them moved to a safe

  house near Trond, or further north, knowing my luck.'

  'Enhanced,' Akesson muttered darkly. 'It was terrible

  what they did to those children.'

  Solvjeg sat forward. 'When I was young and still at

  school, one of my closest friends got herself pregnant by

  a young man from a neighbouring town, a very pretty

  boy who could dance most dashingly and play the

  bala . . . anyway, she and her parents were distraught,

  but at that time Zhilinsky was promoting his New

  Children's Programme, with government backing,

  encouraging women not to have abortions but to

  donate the unwanted offspring to his Programme, even

  before they had reached full term.

  'They never admitted in public that Zhilinsky's sur-

  geons were trying to create Human computers - they

  used words like adjustment or modification or enhance-

  ment. Eventually the whole truth was made public when

  the failures could no longer be concealed. One of them

  was especially heartbreaking, a young woman of nine-

  teen who had tried to kill herself forty times or more,

  even though assessments showed her to be a calm,

  rational mathematical genius - 95 per cent of the time.

  The other 5 per cent she was monomaniacal, self-hating

  and self-destructive. When she was discussed on the

  radio and in the papers they showed her picture and

  gave her first name, which my close friend recognised

  right away as her daughter . . .'

  A name emerged from Theo's memory. 'Maria . . .

  Groenvold,' he said.

  Solvjeg smiled. 'Yes, that's right, and her daughter

  was called Ulrike - perhaps some of Mr Pyatkov's com-

  panions might remember her.-..: .'

  Akesson held up a hand for silence, and a moment

  later Theo heard the sound of a vehicle outside, tyres

  crunching on gravel.

  'I'll make sure,' Akesson said, heading out to the hall.

  Donny, meanwhile, was already on his feet and standing

  closer to the other doorway. Theo and his sister looked

  at him askance.

  'Hey,' he said. 'Just in case.'

  Then Akesson appeared at the door, beckoning them

  to follow.

  The hallway was busy with Akesson giving orders to

  some of his staff while Pyatkov, wrapped in a fur-trimmed

  greatcoat, ushered several unsmiling people, three men

  and two women, through to another room off the hall.

  The Enhanced were wearing thin indoor clothes which

  probably accounted for their morose expressions, yet

  there was also a certain hauteur to their demeanour and

  they regarded no one else as they trooped through the

  hall. Solvjeg watched them a moment then put a hand

  on Theo's arm, smiled and followed the newcomers.

  Observing this, Pyatkov shrugged.

  'I'm afraid that your sister may find them a little

  close-mouthed,' he said to Theo. 'They've exchanged

  barely a dozen words with me since I got them out of

  the Delta Facility, and that was over twenty-four hours

  ago.' He loosened his coat. 'In any case, this is a short

  stopover, five minutes then we have to get back on the

  road. And I need both of you to come with us, and any

  help from your Diehards, Major, if there are any in the

  area.'

  Theo and Donny exchanged puzzled looks.

  'Expecting trouble on the road north, Vitaly?' said

  Donny.

  'Not north, Captain, but east,' Pyatkov said stiffly.

  'President Sundstrom reached a secret agreement with

  the Imisil ambassador that, in the event of a de facto

  takeover by the Hegemony, particular researchers would

  be offered political asylum by the Imisil. Their ambas-

  sador is currently in talks with Kuros, which means that

  an Imisil shuttle is sitting on a runway at Port Gagarin

  right now - we have to get there with all speed, bypass

  security and see the Enhanced safely on board that shut-

  tle.'

  'Is that all?' Theo said. 'What's so special about these

  people?'

  'Aye,' said Donny. 'What's their gimmick?'

  Pyatkov's lips were set in a thin line. 'I cannot reveal

  what I know, but I can tell you that the Hegemony must

  never find out what is in those Enhanced minds.'

  Donny looked at Theo. 'Must be that recipe for rein-

  deer haggis - telling ye, the rumours I've heard . . .'

  'Barbour, can you be serious for . . .'

  'Okay, Pyatkov,' said Theo. 'Then why are we hand-

  ing these people over to the Imisil? Are they really to be

  trusted?'

  'Yes - the Imisil government has nominated a

  member of the Intercessor Council as their guardian.'

  'The who?' said Donny.

  Pyatkov frowned. 'An interplanetary organisation

  which, I'm told, has a high reputation for honesty and

  impartial arbitration.'

  Theo shrugged and glanced at Donny, who rolled his

  eyes then took out his handgun.

  'A 50-calibre Chokhov,' he said. 'Just the thing to

  encourage honesty and impartiality.'

  Checking the magazine, he snapped it back in, then

  winked.

  Theo laughed and turned to Pyatkov. 'Some of my

  men will be waiting at the observation point near

  Membrance Vale.'

  'We can divert to pick them up without losing time.'

  'Also I don't even have a weapon.'

  'That will not be a problem,' Pyatkov said. 'I brought

  a selection.'

  A few minutes later, as the Enhanced filed back out,

  now wearing scarves and hats donated by Akesson,

  Theo went to say goodbye to his sister. She was standing

  with one of the Enhanced, a slender woman with short

  black hair and attractive if sombre features. As Theo

  approached, she solemnly shook Solvjeg's hand and

  went to join the rest outside.

  'Her name is Julia,' Solvjeg said to him. 'She remem-

  bers Ulrike and said that she was like a comet among

  shooting stars . . .' She faced him. 'Are you going too?'

  'Yes,' he said. 'It seems that Pyatkov still has need for

  an old dog of war ... we're going to break into Port

  Gagarin and get these folk aboard a shuttle that is wait-

  ing to take them up to the Imisil ship in orbit.'

  She nodded, gnawed her lip, then shook her head. 'I

  cannot tell you that you're too old for this, because in

  truth it's only your body which is too old for it!' Just

  then, Donny handed him his coat, which he put on. 'I

  am not your wife, only your sister, but that gives me the

  right to tell you, Theodor Karlsson, to come back alive,

  with or without your shield!'

  'Ja, little spear-maiden - who would dare disobey

  such a command?'

  They embraced, then Theo hurried out to where

  Pyatkov's transport, a battered-looking freight bus, was

  waiting with its twin flatwheels running. Fine ra
in was

  sweeping and swirling down with a gusting breeze,

  making golden haloes of flying motes around the farm-

  house pathway lamps. He leaped up the entry steps, the

  door concertinaed shut behind him and they drove off

  into the night.

  51

  KAO CHIH

  He stared with a kind of morose hope out of the view-

  port at the hazy stars, which were few and far between -

  only the nearest were bright enough to pierce the cloudy

  veils of the Huvuun Deepzone. Also, they allowed the

  navigationals to make some kind of approximation of

  their position after each microjump - the last three had

  zigzaggingly carried the Castellan towards the subsector

  where the Darien system was most likely to be, going by

  the ship's archive of tiernet news.

  But those were the last three out of twenty-four

  microjumps. The hyperspace jump from Shafts to Yonok

  with its midjourney dropout to normal space had not

  gone as planned when the exit left them dozens of

  lightyears inside the Huvuun and unable to get an accu-

  rate fix on their location. That was a day and a half ago,

  since which time Drazuma-Ha* had been employing

  point-phase variations in the microjump computations

  while the jumps themselves had to be 42.8 minutes apart

  because that was how long the tesserae power cells took

  to self-recharge.

  And for Kao Chili, it was stressful, the waiting, the

  build-up to the six- or seven-minute microjump, the

  moment of stomach-churning disorientation at the start

  and the end, then the moments it took the navigationals

  to plot their unreliable position. No, it was beyond

  stressful. As he sat there, staring at those few, haze-

  haloed stars, he could feel a tide of impatience starting

  to swamp his reason.

  'Have the concise data been computed, Drazuma-

  Ha*?'

  'Yes, they have, Gowchee.'

  'Then let us make the jump, now - we're getting

  closer with every jump, so let's not waste any more time

  than we have to.'

  'I must point out that engaging the hyperdrive before

  the power cells have recharged will cause a drain on

  our irreplaceable fuel reserves. And there is no guaran-

  tee that we will maintain our progress towards Darien,'

  'I realise that, but just this once I feel that we should

  go, now, without delay, immediately.'

  'The cells will be recharged in another twenty-eight

  minutes, Gowchee. Can you not wait that long?'

  'I'm afraid not.'

  'If you wish, we could play one of the ship's games to

  help pass the time for you.'

  'Thank you for the offer, Drazuma-Ha*, but I would

  be incapable of concentrating. Please engage the hyper-

  drive - we may even be lucky enough to come within

  range of one of those cloud-harvesters.'

  Three times during the earlier microjumps the

  Castellan's sensors had picked up at the outer limits an

  occasional solitary vessel with an odd emission curve,

  which suggested that it was sometimes 150 metres

  long and other times 2.5 kilometres long. By the third

  sighting Drazuma-Ha* had identified them from a

  popnet infodoc he had archived years before as cloud-

  harvesters, ships that scooped up the interstellar dust

  and debris with kilometres-long energised fields. They

  were industrial vessels owned by large-resource corpo-

  rations and operated by AIs or small crews. More

  important, their drives were T2-capable, as were their

  shuttlecraft - one of those could execute far more accu-

  rate microjumps.

  'We can rely on that occurring with as much certainty

  as arriving perfectly in orbit around Darien,' the mech

  said. 'However, I perceive that my refusal may lead to an

  unpredictable outburst on your part. . .'

  'I protest, Drazuma-Ha"' - I am merely . . .'

  'No, I do not wish to be the cause of any extreme

  reaction . . .'

  'That is quite ridic—' Kao Chih began to say, but

  Drazuma-Ha"" activated the hyperdrive and the words

  and sounds in his throat ran together into a fluttering

  slur. Then there was that vaguely numb period lasting a

  few minutes before he was tilted into the exit-surge of

  spinning-sliding-vertigo, and when it faded he was still in

  his couch, waiting for the mech to announce their new

  position.

  'I am sorry to have to tell you that we are now 7.9

  lightyears further away from the target subsector,'

  Drazuma-Ha'"" said.

  Kao Chih made an inarticulate sound that was equal

  parts anger and despair. 'How much longer can this

  take?' he groaned. 'How much more can I stand?'

  'At the current rate of consumption, fuel reserves will

  be exhausted in eleven months and seven days, and the

  air will remain breathable for another eight months and

  twenty-four days, assuming that scrub filters are used.

  Unfortunately, your food will only last for another three

  months and nine days, provided that you restrict your

  intake to quarter-rations.'

  Kao Chih listened and nodded soberly while striving

  against an urge to burst out laughing at the idiocy of the

  situation. It was irrational, he knew, and a wild mood

  swing away from the grimness he had been feeling just

  minutes ago.

  'Alternatively,' the mech went on, 'I may be able to

  adapt one of the large equipment lockers for use as a

  cryo-unit, or at least something that will lower your .. .'

  The mech stopped in mid-sentence and bright field

  rods stabbed out at the console. Screens flickered and

  symbol arrays pulsed.

  'A ship,' it said, 'has just appeared 1,823 kilometres

  away. Its profile is that of an Erdishi midhaul freighter

  but there is no ident signal and the thrust motors seem

  to be only partly shielded. Their sensors have just found

  us . . . they have ignited their thrusters and are heading

  straight for us.'

  'Have we got them on visual?' Kao Chih said as the

  viewport hypershield rolled back. 'Are they responding

  to hails?'

  'Too far for realtime depiction ... and no comm traf-

  fic at all.'

  'What about the computations? Are we ready to

  jump?'

  'Yes, Gowchee, the computations are complete but

  another premature jump would further deplete our fuel

  reserves.'

  'You may recall that we have no weapons with which

  to fend them off, unless you want me to sit out on the

  hull and throw empty gas canisters at them . . .'

  'Their acceleration curve is very steep,' the mech said.

  'That and the degraded state of the superstructure

  means that the crew cannot be organic'

  One of the screens flashed up an image of the

  freighter and to Kao Chih it looked like a wreck. Those

  parts of the hull still attached were charred and holed,

  while pipes, feeds and cable sprouted from exposed and

  shattered bulkheads. Something, either a collision or
a

  weapon, had sheared off a slanted portion of the prow

  while the port side was disfigured by a ragged gouge

  from the bridge to the midsection. Seconds ticked past

  and as Kao Chih watched, something bulky and metal-

  lic clambered up that gouge, through torn and twisted

  plating to the gaping bridge where it was met by another

  two large mech shapes.

  Recognition and an awful sense of dread made Kao

  Chih's stomach feel hollow.

  'Those are the droids from Blacknest!' he said.

  'Your debt collectors! How did they track us here?

  Why . . .?'

  'Because they are very cunning and very persistent,'

  Drazuma-Ha * said. 'There may not be sufficient time

  for the cells to recharge. Brace yourself, Gowchee!'

  And his senses spun and swung and plunged, then a

  few minutes of stability, then another surge of dizzi-

  ness . . . and he opened his eyes, holding onto the

  armrests. Another jump, another shot at Darien.

  'Why are they going to all this trouble for a bad

  debt? . . .' Kao Chih paused, thoughts assailed by

  suspicion. 'You said they were cunning and persistent -

  how much do you know about these droids, Drazuna-

  Has"? And exactly why are they chasing you?'

  'I have encountered them before, in circumstances

  not conducive to negotiation and polite behaviour . . .

  Gowchee, the answers to your questions would demand

  careful exposition. Please, allow me a few moments to

  set up the jump computations then we may discuss the

  matter.'

  Frowning, Kao Chih sat back in his couch and folded

  his arms. Then his bad temper waned as the tiredness he

  had ignored made itself felt, and when he sighed it

  turned into a yawn.

  'If you are weary, Gowchee, perhaps you should rest,'

  said the mech.

  'My mind is unable to relax when faced with mortal

  peril, Drazuma-Ha*. It is a Human foible.'

  'How inexpedient for your species - perhaps you

  should consider cyber-augmentation after all . . .'

  Suddenly a console alarm started pinging. 'A ship has

  appeared at 1,560 kilometres ... it is the freighter and it

  is altering course in our direction . . .'

  'This is not a coincidence, is it?'

  'No, Gowchee - they are tracking us through hyper-

  space somehow. Engaging hyperdrive - now.'

  Again the disorientation, senses gyring, the pause,

  the vertigo surge, and that momentary impression of