Flashpoint (Hellgate)

by Mel Keegan

  “With every tool we possess,” Belczak affirmed. “Whatever it is, we can’t even scratch it.”

  It was Zunshu alloy – it could be nothing else.

  If it were a mine, it was unexploded, and the danger was so immense, Travers’s heart seemed to freeze in his chest. “Call Jazinsky,” he said, hearing the raw quality of his own voice.

  Belczak swung toward him, and fixed him and Curtis with a glare which was filled with accusation. “You’re not Fleet, you and Marin. You’re agents, with an agency that sets you far apart, and far above anything Fleet knows, especially out here. I know a little about Dendra Shemiji. And you,” he stabbed a finger at them, “know about this.”

  “Do we?” Marin was smooth as velvet again.

  “Don’t play with me,” Belczak snapped.

  “Then we’ll tell you the truth.” Marin padded to the table and stooped to study the device. “Things like this are scattered throughout the Deep Sky and on into Freespace. I’m surprised you haven’t seen something like it before. Then again, not many people who encounter these things survive. They’re more dangerous than you know.”

  “This, or something like it, destroyed Silverlake?” Belczak’s eyes were wide, demanding.

  “Yes. And it’s not of human construction,” Marin said, truthfully and evasively.

  “Resalq,” Belczak whispered. “Damn, I knew it had to be something like this. Alien. A weapon?” He looked from Marin to Travers and back.

  “Probably not,” Marin said carefully. “More likely a very delicate piece of equipment which is far ahead of our science, and won’t stand a lot of tampering. Someone messed with this one, or something like it. It might have been a power source – unstabilize it, and it melts down, and there’s your disaster. Consider the impenetrable case this one’s wearing. Such cases are installed for good reason. I wouldn’t like to try prying it open.”

  “And beyond that,” Travers added, “we don’t know what the hell it is, and Hubler’s right. The only person who might know is Jazinsky.” He gestured at the big threedee which idled in the corner of the office. “Call her. Let her image it. You realize, we could all be sitting on a bomb that’s been on a long, slow countdown since Silverlake.” He glanced at Marin, saw the compressed line of his mouth, the only expression which betrayed the turmoil of his thoughts. “In fact, with this object sitting anywhere within five thousand kilometers,” Travers added, “we’re leaving. Rodman?”

  She had taken an involuntary step back from the table. “Yeah, Travers, I think you’re right. Move it, Roark, we’re out of here. Nice visiting with you, Belczak. If you make it out of this, give me a call, we’ll drink some more tea.”

  They were all moving, and Belczak’s voice cracked like a whip. “One moment. At least let me call Jazinsky.”

  “So call, goddamn it,” Hubler barked.

  The combugs were still open, and Travers had been listening to the Wastrel’s loop since he slid out of bed. He could not take his eyes from the device as he said, “Etienne, is Jazinsky available?”

  “In the lab,” the AI told him. “Please hold.”

  Moments later Jazinsky cut into the loop, obviously working, preoccupied, and in no good mood. “Yeah, Neil, what is it? Make it quick. I’m busy.”

  “There’s a device down here,” Marin said quietly.

  She skipped a beat. “What kind of a device? You mean, Zunshu?”

  “Yes.” Marin swallowed audible. “Belczak’s people were opening up another load, a day or so deeper in Freespace. They lost it, the same way colonies have been vanishing along the frontier. The scout that went to investigate found some kind of a device.”

  “And you think it’s Zunshu.” Jazinsky had dropped whatever she had been doing. They had her complete attention.

  “We’re sure it is,” Travers told her. “You need to image it. Fast.”

  “Get me Belczak on threedee.” She paused. “I’m calling the bastard right now. Just tell him to answer this time.”

  The threedee had shifted from blue tones to red, and the house AI was signaling the incoming call with a soft, discreet pulse of gold in the top right of the display. Marin stepped aside and gestured into the smoky depths of it. “There’s your call, Mister Belczak. And in all seriousness, I advise you to respond.”

  “I’ll take it, Jardys,” Belczak said to his AI. “Open a data channel also … Miss Jazinsky. Doctor Jazinsky. Of course I know you by reputation.”

  She had appeared in the vast threedee, life-sized, clad in a bronze skinthin which had the surprise value of apparent nakedness at first glance. The white-blond hair was clasped back, and her sleeves were pushed up, her hands gloved for some delicate work. “Same as I know you by rep,” she said shortly, “and I don’t hear much that’s good. They told me you’ve got a device. You don’t know what it is, so you can’t describe it. Just get out of the way and let me see it.”

  The old man bristled, but did as she asked. Jazinsky reset the vid pickups via the data channel Belczak had enabled, and for some moments she was intent on the feed. At last she whistled softly and stepped back from her own display. “You’re lucky. It’s damaged, inactive. Just dormant energy signatures coming off it, mostly from a power cell that’s almost exhausted. You could have been so dead.”

  “Then it’s a weapon,” Belczak guessed.

  “I have no idea,” Jazinsky admitted, “but I do know this part of space is littered with this crap, and none of it’s safe. The more humans get out into these systems, the more they screw around with the artifacts of the civilizations that were here long before us, the more often you’re going to get these incidents. And they’re happening all the time now.”

  Travers had begun to breathe again. “You’re sure it’s inert?”

  “Sure enough,” she mused, “but I wouldn’t trust it. It’s damaged, which means it could be unstable, which means it could do anything without warning. It needs,” Jazinsky said acidly, “to be in containment.”

  In fact, it needed to be studied, but the only safe way to study Zunshu devices was the super-cool them into complete dormancy, image them, and work with the virtual device. She was itching to get her fingers on this one, and Travers knew it. He was far from surprised when she said,

  “I’ll send an engineer’s tractor down. Neil and the rest of you, keep your hands off it. Let Tully Ingersol get it into a cold box, and then you can start to breathe properly again.”

  No opportunity slid by Belczak unnoticed. “You want it?”

  “I study them.” Jazinsky regarded him with scorn.

  “And I’ll just bet you collect them,” he mused. “What’s it worth to you, Jazinsky?”

  She actually laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hand you the bill for taking the thing out of there, making Celeste safe again.”

  “But you want it.” He tilted his head at her. “I asked what it’s worth to you. If you want to study it so badly, and you collect them … I’ll take an extra three hundred drones and we’ll call it a fair trade.”

  Her face hardened. “Damn you, Belczak, you know we don’t have that many drones.”

  “But you can get them,” he said smoothly. “I have containment tanks at the mine. I’ll have my people transfer it to a hot box rated to contain a major fuel spill, and we’ll wait for the drones.”

  The challenge of containment was nothing so simple as sealing a tank on a radiotoxic event, but Belczak was no tech, he could not imagine the risk. Travers was keenly aware of Mark Sherratt’s message. There was no more time to sit here idly at Celeste while the Wastrel went to Alshie’nya, broke several containers of drones out of storage aboard Lai’a and returned with them, and the Shanghai slave labor force worked in intolerable conditions.

  The threedee fluttered with movement, and Travers glanced back into it, in time to see Richard Vaurien step into range of the vid pickups. He was smiling, his manner pleasant, conciliatory. “Good day, Mister Belczak, we meet at last. And you’re right,
we do want the device – we do collect them, because the study of these odd items will most likely yield new technologies which will make my operation obscenely powerful and just as obscenely rich.” His smile widened, and perhaps only Travers saw the snake-like twist of the expression. “I’ll give you another fifty million in gelemeralds.”

  “You’ll give me three hundred drones,” Belczak retorted.

  “A hundred million,” Vaurien offered.

  But Belczak’s head was shaking. “The gelemeralds are no use to me. It’ll take me six months to get them to an exchange in the Middle Heavens, turn them into cash, place a legit trade order with Murchison, and actually get the drones as far as Ulrand, before I can transfer cargo to a ship heading into Freespace. It’s drones I want, and I want them now.”

  “You can’t have them now,” Jazinsky began.

  Vaurien’s hand on her arm stopped her. “Yes, he can. Of course he can. We have them aboard … we’ve been hoarding them, remember? It’s easy to forget what’s been pushed away in the back of Hold 4. It’s only good business, isn’t it?” He gave Belczak another smile, filled with bonhomie. “We’ve been tracking your vehicles, shuttling the slaves – your pardon, the hostages. Thermal signatures at your loading zone show enough human bodies to account for them, plus your guards, so we’re quite ready to make our exchange.”

  The patter was smooth as a professional cardsharp. Travers had played folgen with Vaurien, and he had learned the hard way not to take him at face value. Belczak was far from trusting, but he had set up the play and he could only run with it now.

  “Hands off the device,” Jazinsky said acidly. “You’ve already poked it around enough to bring it back online a dozen times. Don’t push your luck. There’s a tractor coming down, let Ingersol handle it. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.” Belczak stepped back from the device. “The hostages are at the loading zone, I have my gelemeralds, and I’m waiting for the drones.”

  “On their way,” Vaurien promised. “In fact, we can load the first hundred or so on the tractor. Your people can check them out, assure you of the quality, while our specialist is getting the device into containment. The rest of your shipment will be on a cargo sled, remote piloted, delivered to any location you want to nominate.”

  “The main mine site,” Belczak said slowly. “You won’t load the Shanghai laborers, Vaurien, till I have my drones. All of them.”

  “No problem,” Vaurien said easily. “The tractor can accommodate the Shanghai veterans, the moment you’ve approved the cargo sled, and then we’re out of your hair. You’ll be rid of a major threat to Celeste, and sitting on enough drones to keep you out of the slave labor market for a couple of years.” He turned to Jazinsky, smile still in place. “Why don’t you organize containment, and let Tully know what he’s picking up, and I’ll have the sled loaded.”

  He stepped out of the scan-radius of the vid pickup, leaving Jazinsky framed in the threedee, looking furious enough to scorch Belczak to cinders with a glare. “An hour, Belczak. Neil, Curtis, you’re needed. Ride with Rodman.”

  “Will do,” Travers said guardedly, and a moment later the threedee reverted to the shifting blues of its idle patterns.

  With an animated shudder, Rodman turned her back on the device. “Shit, Belczak, you could have killed the whole lot of us. You didn’t think to mention you have alien tech in here that might have destroyed a mining colony?”

  The man was deeply thoughtful, wary as an old, lame wolf. “It’s inert, inactive. Jazinsky’s making a major issue out of it because she wants it, and she wanted to acquire it for loose change.” He waved them away. “Leave, all of you. I’ll give the containment crew access, and then all I want is to see my drones delivered and your tailpipes lighting up as you get out of my system.”

  “Done deal,” Hubler growled, and marched away with that heavy, ungainly gait without even a glance back at Rodman.

  A few paces behind, Travers and Marin waited till they were in the courtyard before speaking, and Travers kept his voice to the barest murmur, close to Marin’s ear. “There’s trouble. I know for a fact the Wastrel doesn’t have that many drones.”

  “Not even forgotten in Hangar 4?” Marin whispered.

  “Hangar 4 is optimized for decontamination.” Travers took a breath of the dry, thin air, which was far from the human optimum even under the fields in the courtyard. “It’d be the last place on the ship you’d store delicate machinery, because it’s very likely to be irradiated six ways weekly. Citing Hangar 4 was a safe way for Richard to tip me off.”

  “Trouble,” Marin concluded.

  Then they were in the same truck which had brought them in from the landing pasture, and Travers maintained a stony silence until they were on the ramp of the Hong Lung, and Belczak’s long-range sensors were effectively scrambled by the ship’s own security systems. Only then did he touch the combug and say,

  “All right, Richard, what’s the plan?”

  A crackle, a hiss of interference, and Vaurien was there at once. “Are you clear to speak?”

  The ramp was grinding up even then. “We are,” Marin told him. “And according to Neil, the extra drones are a fantasy.”

  “Nice way of putting it,” Vaurien said in arid tones. “I would have paid the man his hundred million in Shapiro’s gelemeralds! Now, he’ll score the drones we can load aboard the tractor, and he’ll open a freight container on the sled and find it empty.”

  Travers groaned. “It’s going to turn into a shooting match, isn’t it?”

  “A shooting match,” Vaurien affirmed with an audible sigh. “Asako, are you listening?”

  She and Hubler had just joined the loop, and Rodman was cautious. “This bucket of bolts isn’t up for a major fight. Be warned, Richard. They can shoot us right out of the sky.”

  And Jazinsky: “We just scanned every ship insystem. There’s only five you need to worry about. The Wastrel can handle three of them, including the big one – probably Belczak’s own ship – and van Donne’s going out. The Mako can take the other two. Damn’ good thing he’s aboard, after all.”

  The Mako was one of the more powerful ships Travers knew, and no matter what else he thought of van Donne personally, the man was extremely good in a firefight. “Where do you want us?” he asked as he and Marin took the seats in the rear of the cockpit and watched Hubler run through swift preflight checks.

  “Get out of Belczak’s local airspace,” Vaurien mused, “but keep in striking range. Tully’s launching the tractor right now. He has two of his guys with him, and the best containment box we can transport. There’s about 120 drones crated, in the pods, which’ll keep Belczak busy while we get the device loaded, and Tully’s going to give me a coded signal to launch the cargo sled the second we have it locked down. It’s all about timing, people.”

  The sled would arrive at the mine at the same moment the tractor dropped into the loading zone, and there would be five, maybe ten minutes of ‘fudge time’ in which most, perhaps all, of the Shanghai laborers might be hustled aboard before the shout went up.

  Jazinsky was still talking to Rodman, and Travers forced his thoughts back into gear. “Fourteen ships are insystem,” she was saying, “but they’re mostly civvy junk with a few guns tack-welded on. The Capricorn could take them. You ought to be able to swat them, if they get too close.”

  “Ought to –?” Rodman echoed.

  “Just let van Donne earn his money keeping the hard boys busy,” Jazinsky insisted, “and let the tractor cover you. Tuck in behind it. It isn’t armed for much of a fight –”

  “Neither are we!”

  “ – but it’s got thicker armor plate and better Aragos than the Mako,” Jazinsky finished, “because of the insane places we keep sending it. All right?”

  “You buggers owe me,” Rodman said loudly.

  “Us,” Hubler corrected. “Shit, lady, I swore I was out of the firing line for life when I quit Fleet. I didn’t come here to take on Freespacer t
rash.”

  “None of us did, Roark,” Jazinsky retorted, “but you’re getting bloody well paid, which is better than Fleet ever offered you. An hour, and we’re out of here, if you just earn the goddamn’ paycheck!”

  The Hong Lung was lifting as he spoke, and the trace marking the position of the tractor was already on the screens. Travers leaned forward, the better to read the data. “Tully, you there?”

  “Yo,” Ingersol called. “On descent procedures, tracking you, and I see the loading zone. Big, big bunch of heat signatures. Looks like an ant farm. I’m loaded, Travers, drones to the eyeballs. I have two of the lads with me, and Bill Grant.”

  Not for a moment was Travers surprised. Grant was the best battlefield medic he ever worked with, and even now, while he plowed through formal medical studies, if there were men in the field, Grant would be there.

  “The mansion just gave us a hoy,” Ingersol added. “I have an acquisition beam. They want me to set down at the mines, maybe a hundred kicks east of your position, and unload. Then I’ll be with you – I’ll set down again just outside the walls and all those comm arrays and break out the containment vessel. Standby, Travers. Hey, Rodman.”

  “Hey, kiddo.” She adjusted the bug in her right ear.

  “You and Roark, and me and my tech gang,” Ingersol reminded, “tonight, aft observation deck – folgen and beer.”

  The tractor was a big, fat icon in the top left of the navdeck display, dropping in fast on a heading for the mansion. Every signal was densely encrypted. Belczak would be outraged that he could not get a syllable, nor a skerrick of data, but he knew Vaurien’s operation as well as any Freespacer did. Richard worked with talent and resources that were far beyond even Fleet, and it was not for the likes of Henri Belczak to know that much of the technology was derived from Resalq sources –

  And Zunshu. The device in Belczak’s study soured Travers’s belly, even at this distance. The Hong Lung fell straight up into the green-gold haze of Celeste’s dim, smoggy sky, and he watched the video feed from the belly scan platform.

  Great ocean floors stretched out past the horizon – long dried away to deserts in the geological processes that had desiccated the surface and contaminated the atmosphere. Volcanoes half the size of a small continent thrust from the planet’s dusty surface on the other side of the world, and their smog darkened the sky. The greenhouse process was rapidly heating Celeste. In another century or two, even the Mazjeet would be uncomfortable here, and if the planet were to be any use to humans, it must be radically terraformed.