The Centauri Surprise

by Alastair Mayer

  “The bottom line is,” Ducayne continued, “nobody knows where Rico and his traumapod got to, or exactly who picked him up. This was about six weeks ago, when you were on your way to Tanith.”

  “But that was over a month after he was shot, wouldn’t he have recovered by then?”

  “Apparently the local cops weren’t quite sure how to deal with him, and it was easier to leave him in storage, as it were, than let him out and have someone who may or may not have been either a government agent or a criminal, or both, ranting about his rights. As long as he was in the pod, they could claim medical contingency. I’m speculating; I don’t know that for certain. Maybe whoever did retrieve him had a finger in that, too.”

  “No tracker on the pod?”

  “If there was, it was disabled. It certainly hasn’t logged itself onto the network as far as anyone knows. I have a couple of our own people on it now, of course. Sooner or later we’ll find him.”

  “Could it have been the Velkaryans?”

  “I don’t think that’s their style. They’d be more likely to just kill him than kidnap him. I’m not sure what use he’d be to them. He certainly doesn’t know as much about us as they probably do already. But I can’t rule it out.”

  “Strange.” Carson had thought he was getting used to the weird ways of the espionage world he’d fallen into, but it continued to surprise him. “It is good to hear he’s not dead. I hope he’s not wishing he was.”

  “I doubt that. Rico is a survivor. Besides, he’d probably sell us out first.”

  “Maybe. I don’t think he has any love for Velkaryans, although I’m not sure why.”

  “No idea. Anyway, you need to focus on that pyramid, and let me worry about Rico. I do hope we get him back; I have people looking. He has useful skills, and it will be interesting to hear his side. That is, assuming he hasn’t reverted to his old tomb-raider ways and is somewhere out on the frontier with a new alias.”

  “Indeed,” Carson said.

  CHAPTER 11: DIFFERENT PLANS

  UDT Headquarters, Sawyers World

  JACKIE ROBERTS WAS on her way to see Ducayne when she ran into Hannibal Carson in the corridor.

  “Jackie, just the person I wanted to see,” he said.

  She frowned. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to ask her about the new talisman here, would he? Unless he’d decided to go ahead and tell Ducayne already? She gave her head a shake, but smiled and said, “Hi, Hannibal. What’s up?”

  “Are you available for dinner tonight?”

  She hadn’t been expecting that. “Dinner?” she asked. “What’s the occasion?”

  “Do I need one?” Carson said. “When’s your birthday?”

  “You’ve forgotten? That’s just like you.” In fact, as best as she could recall, she had never told him.

  “Hah, no,” he said. “The first time I asked you that, I distinctly remember you saying, ‘In what planet’s calendar? The place I was born doesn’t even have one, and I don’t remember how long its year was.’ Although that might have just been your way of saying that it was none of my business.”

  “You do remember!” She was impressed. Sometimes it seemed that his attention to detail only extended to archeology; it was nice to know that she might be an exception. “Technically, it really wasn’t any of your business. Ships’ officers aren’t supposed to fraternize too much with the passengers.” When they’d first met, she had been the first officer aboard the passenger ship Arabella; Carson had been heading out on one of his expeditions.

  He grinned. “Is that what we were doing? Fraternizing?”

  It had become a bit more than that, actually. “Look how it turned out,” she said. “I should have followed the rules.”

  “Then you’d probably be captain on some boring regular passenger liner run, instead of owner-operator of your own ship.”

  “There’s something to be said for boring,” she said.

  “You keep saying that. And yet you keep stumbling into adventure.”

  “Stumbling? Dragged kicking and screaming, more like. Let’s see . . .” she held up her hand and started counting off on her fingers. “Trapped in an alien pyramid.” She pushed her left forefinger up with her right thumb. “Shot at with air-to-air missiles.” Another finger. “Had my warp drive damaged. Almost blown up by an alien disintegrator. Twice.” Two more fingers and her left thumb. “Kidnapped by Velkaryans on that ice moon.” She held up her right thumb. “I’m probably forgetting something, but that was just our little trip to Chara III.” There had been other incidents, both before and since.

  “And you loved every minute of it.”

  Jackie clenched her teeth and her fists. She wanted to hit him. “I most certainly did not!” Then she relaxed, remembering some of the other times. “Although it did have its moments.”

  “Ha!”

  Jackie cuffed him across the shoulder. “You still haven’t said why you’re inviting me to dinner.”

  “Do I need a reason? I’m sure you’re as tired of autochef food as I am. The cafeteria on campus isn’t much better, and nor is that at Ducayne’s headquarters. When was the last time you went out?”

  She grinned. He had a point about autochef food, but when she was planetside she didn’t limit herself to that. “On Tanith, and on Skead before that, if you don’t count the campus pub on Taprobane. So, more recently than you, I imagine. But I’m not turning you down; that was weeks ago. What did you have in mind?”

  “Rick’s Café.”

  Had she heard him right? That was one of the most exclusive restaurants in Sawyer City. “Rick’s? When, next month? I hear it takes that long to get a reservation. I’ll probably be off-planet.”

  “Tonight, if you can. You’re not planning on flying in the next twenty-six hours, are you?”

  “Not if it meant I’d have to pass up drinks with a dinner at Rick’s. But what’s this about? Who did you have to kill to get a reservation at Rick’s, and why?” A ludicrous thought crossed her mind, and she choked back a laugh.

  “What?”

  “Just a crazy random thought. You’re not going to propose to me, are you?”

  “What? No! But why would that be funny?”

  “You don’t have to sound so horrified! We did have a thing before you dumped me, but it was funny because it would be so out of character.”

  “That again? You dumped me.”

  They’d had this discussion before, and Jackie raised her hand to forestall an argument. “Never mind. Let’s just call it an unfortunate series of miscommunications. You did rescue me on that ice moon, although I rescued you at Zeta Reticuli, and got myself shot in the process.”

  “A ricochet, and I was rescuing myself.”

  “Oh? And just how were you planning to get off-planet without a ship?”

  “I— Never mind, you’re right, this is silly. But it goes to show that we do make a pretty good team.”

  “Why, Hannibal Carson, you say the sweetest things.” Before he could react, she pulled him to her and kissed him, quickly, on the lips, then pushed him back. Why did I do that?

  “Wha?” Carson was speechless for a moment, then gave his head a brief shake. “All right, let’s start over. Jackie, would you like to join me for dinner tonight?”

  “Why yes, Hannibal, I’d love to.” She smiled at him to cover her own confusion at her earlier action. “Rick’s still has the dress code?”

  “Yes. Is that a problem? Your ship’s-captain dress uniform would be acceptable.”

  “No problem.” Then she had an idea. “But I think I can do better than that.”

  “Great. Are you still staying aboard the Sophie?”

  “I am. Ducayne offered me a dorm, but I prefer to stay with my ship. Short term berth at the spaceport.”

  “Pick you up there at seven?”

  “Roger that. Does that mean you trust autocabs now?”

  “More or less. They can’t hack them all.”

  Jackie wasn’t so sure abou
t that, but didn’t say anything. She might consider bringing along a few discreet tools, though.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  After Jackie left her meeting with Ducayne—he’d wanted her to do a short courier run—she found herself wondering again what Carson’s dinner invitation was about. If it was just dinner, there were plenty of options less expensive than Rick’s and fancier than the campus cafeteria. Somebody he wanted her to meet? Surely he would have said something. Discussing the new talisman? They could do that almost anywhere, and certainly somewhere less visible than Rick’s. And it wasn’t her birthday. Was it his? No, she didn’t think so.

  Well, if Carson wanted upscale and dressy, she could do that. She checked the time. Yes. Even if there wasn’t something appropriate in her wardrobe, she’d recently discovered how versatile her ship’s fabber was when it came to making clothing. This would be fun. How long has it been since I last wore a dress? They’re not very practical for. . .almost anything. Well, perhaps for one or two things. Do I even want to go there? But what kind of dress? It was time for a little research.

  CHAPTER 12: REID

  Alpha Centauri, Kakuloa, New Darwin

  REID DISEMBARKED FROM the passenger ship Southern Cross at the recently reopened New Darwin spaceport on Kakuloa. It would have been simpler to fly straight to Sawyer City, flights were more frequent, but sometimes a circuitous route was best.

  The formalities here were minimal. He cleared the port and headed to the local office. Not the official one, of course. That was probably under constant watch, at the very least by a discreet camera. There was no point in making it easy for anyone surveilling the place.

  He tapped out a message on his omni. “This is Reid, just in from Earth. On my way.” He hit encrypt and sent it. The message would be encrypted, broken into several different packets, and each sent to a different address. From there they’d be routed through various hops, eventually being reassembled and decrypted when they reached the local safehouse. It could probably be intercepted if somebody was looking hard enough, but then if somebody knew enough to look that hard, they were already compromised. It wasn’t something he worried about.

  He arrived at the safehouse a half-hour later, an apartment above a non-descript restaurant near downtown New Darwin.

  “Mr. Reid, welcome to Kakuloa,” said the agent who met him. “I’m Dalhousie. Will you be here long?”

  Reid appreciated that Dalhousie didn’t ask him why he was here. In fact, there was no real reason, but it obfuscated his trail, and let him hand-deliver a few messages from headquarters on Earth. Not that Reid himself knew what those messages might be, if in fact any at all. He was just handing over the data device.

  “Not long,” Reid said. “I’m just touching base. I’ll hang out for a day or two and then head to Kreschets Landing. Is there anything exciting going on here?”

  Dalhousie snorted. “Your ship landing was probably the high point of the week.” At Reid’s alarmed look, Dalhousie said: “Relax, I’m exaggerating. Traffic has picked up since the spaceport reopened last year. We get two flights from Earth a week, and two a day from Sawyers. Almost everything from anywhere else though lands at Kreschets, except for private stuff. But you just missed the annual Crab Festival.”

  “Well, thank goodness for that.”

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds. There’s a massive crab cookout on the beach, and everyone gets drunk and parties. It gives us a chance to gripe about how we can’t do that on South Island.”

  New Darwin was situated on one of two large islands that straddled Kakuloa’s equator. While human habitation was technically allowed on South Island, activities—especially anything related to the beach—were restricted. Further south, the large continent—imaginatively named Southern Continent in the same naming tradition as the Western Ocean—was completely off limits, being home to several colonies of a species of tree squid related to, but apparently even smarter than, the squids which flourished around the old berry plantations between Kakuloa City and Chandrasekhar Valley.

  “Well, I’m sorry I missed it then,” Reid lied. “But I’m glad you got an opportunity to spread the good word.” Agitating against impositions on human activities because of concessions to intelligent aliens was a routine Velkaryan activity. And in this case, nobody had even proved that the squids were intelligent. Smarter than dolphins, maybe, but Reid didn’t think that was saying much.

  “Sure,” Dalhousie said. “Well, let me know if you need anything, and other than that, I’ll stay out of your way.”

  CHAPTER 13: ACADEMIA

  Drake University, Sawyer City

  CARSON GLANCED AT the text message on his omni, and grimaced. “Come to my office—Matthews.”

  Dean Matthews was head of the Archeology Department, and Carson’s boss. Somehow, meetings with him were rarely pleasant. Carson acknowledged the text and made his way to the office.

  “You wanted to see me?” Carson said as he entered.

  “I did. Close the door and have a seat.”

  Uh oh, Carson thought as he sat down.

  “I’ve been going over the department’s recent publications,” Matthews said.

  “Oh, yes?”

  “Yes. Tell me, what are you working on right now?”

  “You mean, for publication?”

  “Exactly that. Lately your average paper count is the lowest in the department, and I must say the quality isn’t what I would have expected from you. ‘Stone Fences of Chara III’? ‘A Unique Tomb of the Late Verdigris Neolithic’? Those were catalog papers a grad student could write. What’s the point of you gallivanting all over T-Space if that’s all you come up with?”

  That hurt, but Carson could see his point. “I can only work with what I find. Those tomb-raiders on Verdigris hijacked our artifacts. At least they left me the recordings.”

  “Spare me your excuses. Look, Hannibal, I appreciate that your—great-aunt was it?—left money to endow a chair in your name, and I’ve cut you some slack because of that, but the Board of Regents expects a bit more from our professors than what we’ve been seeing from you. All this travel takes a lot of time away from your work.”

  “It doesn’t, really,” Carson protested. “I do research and work on papers while I’m aboard ship. After all, there’s not much else to do.”

  “Hmm, well, with all that time to work I would expect more output. I hope you’re not wasting it on that von Däniken nonsense again. Listen, there’s plenty of good archeology to be done here on Sawyers World. We’ve barely scratched the surface here; we still don’t know definitively what happened to the paleolithic aboriginals.”

  “We don’t even know definitively what happened to most of the paleolithic hominins on Earth. But I see your point.” The dean’s comment gave Carson an idea. “You know, the Anderson Wildlife Preserve is adjacent to known aboriginal hunting areas, and probably overlaps them. Maybe it’s time someone did an archeological survey of that area.”

  Matthews blinked at the turn in the conversation. “No doubt, but these things take time to plan, and funding. I won’t complain if you want to look into that at some point, but right now you need to get your head out of the clouds and focus on your day to day responsibilities to this university.”

  Carson knew when to make a tactical withdrawal. “You’re right, of course,” he agreed. “Which reminds me, I have a class to prepare for. Was that all, sir?”

  Matthews harrumphed. “Yes, that was it. You’ve done some great work in the past, Hannibal. I just don’t want you to start resting on your laurels. All right?”

  Couldn’t you come up with some more clichés to throw in there? Carson thought, but said, rising, “Of course. Thank you.”

  CHAPTER 14: RICO RELOCATED

  Elsewhere

  “ALL RIGHT, RICO. You can get up now,” Rico heard Agent Friday, or whoever he really was, say.

  Rico blinked his eyes against the light as the traumapod slid open. He moved to sit up and found it easier
than he had expected. However long he’d been lying in the traumapod, it must have been doing something to combat the muscle-wasting he would have expected from all that inactivity. Probably something similar to the zero-gee treatments, but he wasn’t aware of the details.

  “That’s a nice change,” he said. “Did you finally decide you had nothing to hold me on?”

  “Hardly that, but you’re more useful awake than asleep. We’ve got a nice little room for you.”

  “Let me guess. Bars on the windows, locked from the outside? Where am I, anyway?”

  “Oh, there are no bars on the windows,” Friday said. “In fact, there aren’t any windows. As for where, you’re somewhere safe.”

  “Safe, huh? From what? And how long have I been out?”

  “Quite a while, as a matter of fact. We’ll bring you up to speed in a bit. You’ve recovered nicely from your multiple gunshot wounds, but you need a few days out of the pod to recover from freezer burn.”

  “Freezer burn? What the fu—”

  “That was a joke. I mean TDS, traumapod deconditioning syndrome. Yes, your muscles aren’t too bad, but your circadian rhythms will have been messed up to hell and gone. You’ll start to feel it in a bit. Like the worst case of jet lag you can imagine, and then some.” Friday gestured to the med-tech, who handed Rico a plastic bottle filled with orange liquid.

  “Here, drink this,” the tech said.

  “What is it?”

  “Mostly nutrients and sugar. It will help your GI tract get used to handling food again, and give you a bit of energy.”

  Rico took a cautious sip from the bottle. It wasn’t horrible, although it reminded him of something like orange-flavored chicken broth. He grimaced, then swallowed several large gulps.

  “I’m sure I’ve tasted worse, although I don’t remember what. How about a little vodka in this?”