by Chris Bunch
“Let me tell you something,” Wolfe said dryly. “So far your little scheme isn’t working. A Chitet ship jumped me when I was offplaneting … the last place I was at.” He ignored Cisco’s start of surprise.
“And you best be careful on your own right,” he continued. “Not that I give much of a shit, but if the Chitet inside FI figure out what you’re doing, you could end up on the short end of a rope.”
“I’m careful,” Cisco said. “I’m always careful. I’m using clean cutouts. Like our mutual friend who helped set up the meeting.”
“You still haven’t answered the question,” Wolfe said. “What do you want from me?”
“I want information,” Cisco said. His voice rose from his customary monotone. “I’ll ask the same questions I did before. What is the Al’ar looking for? Why was he wandering from homeworld to homeworld? Does he know what the Chitet could be after? Come on, Wolfe. I need help.”
Wolfe stood motionless for a space, then walked off, toward his ship.
“Wait! Goddammit, Wolfe, this can’t be a one-way pipeline!”
Wolfe stopped, didn’t turn. “Right now,” he said slowly, his voice sounding muffled, “I’ll play the hand you dealt. I’ll let you know when I need more cards … or have something to discard.”
He went on, and the form of his suit disappeared into the dust.
Ten minutes later, the ground shook under Cisco’s feet. He turned on an outside mike and heard, dimly, the whine of a shipdrive.
The Grayle lifted through the dust and soared toward space.
Cisco watched the flare of its drive until it vanished, then walked back to the Styrbjorn.
CHAPTER SIX
The Grayle whispered through the darkness between stars. The only sound, beside the ship hum, was the dry voice of a man dead more than a thousand years:
“The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
And reconciles forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars …”
Wolfe swung his feet off the bunk, touched the sensor, and the man’s dusty voice stopped. He went toward the control room.
• • •
“I am sorry,” the ship said, and Wolfe imagined pique in the synthesized voice, “but the task you require is beyond my capabilities, even if I were to shut down all non-life-support duties.”
“Disregard. Resume normal functions,” Wolfe said. He tapped fingers on the control panel, thinking. “You’re sure you haven’t got the vaguest idea where these Guardians might be located?”
“As I have said, that was why I was going from homeworld to homeworld, seeking clues,” Taen said.
Wolfe frowned, then brightened. “What we need is a computer. A big goddamned computer.”
“There is such a device on Sauros.”
“Which you can run?”
“Because I was working directly for the Command On High when I was hunting you, I was given a special, direct access code. I can use that to avoid the computer’s safeguards and, from there, should be able to use the device, assuming standard coding, standard controlling,” the Al’ar said. “We should have only one problem.”
“Yeah. You told me. It’ll try to kill us without proper access.”
“I do not think the computer itself will attempt our deaths. When our Planners set up these devices, allowing for emergency use, I would assume they thought a user might not have full access information.
“Where the computer will try to kill us is on the way in, I suspect.”
“Big difference,” Wolfe said. He thought for a space. “Maybe I know a better way. All this one will do is make me feel like a worthless asshole for a week.”
• • •
The bonemike against his chest vibrated.
“No one told this man his brother had been killed by our forces?”
“He was told,” Wolfe said shortly. “He went mad. He retreated into a world where he had not been told.”
“And he is allowed to remain free, to live completely alone? No one in your society has rechanneled his mind to the truth? Or else, if that is not possible, ended his life as a gift?”
“We aren’t as altruistic as the Al’ar,” Wolfe said in Terran. “Now shut the hell up, Taen. Something’s wrong.”
The tottering old house was dark, quiet, dead.
Wolfe moved across the street, stopped at the stainless-steel tube that was the mansion’s pneumatic delivery system. When he’d last seen it, less than a year earlier, it’d been new. Now its sleekness was marred, gray. Someone had chalked an obscenity on it. Wolfe tried the access door. It had been jammed shut with a stick.
Wolfe went through the sagging gate and up the weed-grown path onto the sagging porch. He touched the com sensor once, then again, waited for almost half an hour.
Breathe … the earth reaches up … steady, unmoving …
He took two small, bent pieces of metal from his beltpouch, held the knob steady, hissed surprise as the door came open.
A gun came into his hand as he moved to the side and waited. On the other side was nothing but silence. Silence and a familiar, too-sweet stink that rose above the customary smell of decay.
“The man’s a rotten housekeeper,” he murmured. “But still.”
He took a tiny light from his pouch, went quickly through the open door, flattened himself against the wall.
Nothing happened.
He moved his hand down the jam, found raggedness where a jimmy had pried, slid the door almost closed, snapped the light on, swept it around, turned it off.
“Mister Davout,” he said loudly. “It’s me. Joshua Wolfe.” Silence.
Again, he turned the light on.
The hall was still stacked with years of high-piled coms. Davout had saved everything, from news, to entertainment, to devices in the sure and certain hope that one day his brother would return.
Wolfe moved the beam to illuminate one of the front rooms. Sealed boxes that had held music-fiches had been ripped open and cast aside.
He went down the hall toward the back stairs, keeping close to one wall. He walked in a strange fashion, crouched, centered, each leg sweeping toward the other in an inward arc, foot touching down toe-first, hesitating, then the full weight on the heel and the next leg moving forward.
The kitchen was still stacked with forgotten, unwashed dishes. But no odor came from them. Even the mold that had grown over them like a blanket had withered, died.
Wolfe took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled and started for the stairs.
Davout had cleverly used the newscoms kept for his brother’s eventual reading as a booby trap, the papers baled, stacked precariously with barely visible wires here and there that, barely touched, would bring tons of paper cascading.
The stairs were a shambles of paper. A man’s legs stuck out from under the bales. The smell came from him.
Wolfe grimaced, held the light between his teeth, lifted two of the bales away. Others threatened to tumble but didn’t move.
The man killed by the trap had worn pants, not Davout’s customary coveralls, and black boots, badly worn on the edges of the soles.
Wolfe touched the dry, withered skin.
“Dead two, maybe three months,” he said softly.
He lifted away more bales, pulled the man free, ready to jump to the side if more papers came down.
He turned the body over, shone his light on the face. He didn’t recognize the man.
He went through the man’s pockets, found lockpicks, plas cuffs, a folding stiletto, a few bills, an inhaler half full of a brown powder. He opened the vial, sniffed, wrinkled his nose, tossed the drug aside.
He stood, flashed his light up the stairway. Metal, not quite rusted, reflected the light. It was a long jimmy.
He stepped over the burglar’s body and started up the stairs.
Davout lived in one long
room on the top floor, windows painted black against the light and the world. In the center of the room was the strange mélange of electronics that was Davout’s computer, a bastard concoction of mostly military components the man had put together. There was a dim light from four screens, still scrolling endless numbers.
The little man lay on his back beside it, next to his overturned office chair.
Wolfe went to him and shined the light on his face.
Davout’s skin was dry, withered. His lips were drawn back in a grin. His eye sockets were black, and something, rats perhaps, had nibbled away most of his ears.
His body showed no signs of violence.
His right hand was clasped over his chest, holding a piece of paper.
Wolfe gently lifted his hand and took the paper.
It was as brown, desiccated, as Davout’s skin.
• • •
The Federation deeply regrets to inform you that no signs of your brother, Mister Stephen Davout, have been found in any of the worlds retaken thus far. We therefore have determined his status must be considered no longer missing but presumed dead.
A representative of the government and a trained therapist will be calling on you to assist you in your hour of bereavement, and should you …
• • •
Wolfe put the years-old com back on Davout’s chest, folded both his arms over it, and stood.
“I wondered if he always knew …” His voice trailed off.
He put the gun away, turned, went swiftly down the stairs and out of the house.
• • •
The shattered Al’ar battleship spun in the orbit it had found when the Federation warships left it in its death throes. The system’s sun was very dim, very distant.
The killing blast had smashed the drive section of the crescent-shaped warcraft, and most of the crew had died in that moment.
The rest of the Al’ar had been left to their doom. There were blackened sears here and there on the odd reddish-violet metal skin, where destroyers had come close to the fangless monster and blasted away the lifeboat stations.
Wolfe floated out of the Grayle’s lock, set his helmet sight on the center of the battleship, touched a stud at his waist. White spray came from his suitjets, and he moved slowly across the half-mile distance toward the ship. He reversed as he approached the Al’ar ship and landed lightly, feet first, near the oval hatch.
Old memories came back, and he found the outer lock controls, pressed them. Nothing happened. Wolfe muttered a curse, took hold of the emergency toggle, and pulled.
Dead machinery came alive, and the hatchway yawned.
He saw the reflection of his face against the faceplate. It was white, drawn. He heard nothing but the rasp of his breathing.
Joshua floated inside.
After a long time, he came out. He pulled behind him an Al’ar deep-space suit and a second garment he had rolled up.
He knelt clumsily, and his lips moved soundlessly.
He pushed himself free of the ship, set his sight once more, triggered the suit drive, returned to the Grayle.
He did not look behind him.
• • •
“I do not understand why I will need a suit, especially not an on-planet outfit on my own world.”
“You will. Be silent. I do not wish to have speech with you at this time.”
“What is troubling your mind?”
“If you wish to have knowledge,” Wolfe said, “it wasn’t the happiest day of my life boarding that ship. There were a … lot of corpses. Some of them didn’t die for a long time after the Federation ships finished with them.”
“But why should that bother you?” the Al’ar wondered. “They are not your people. And dead is dead. Perhaps you are just upset at that Davout friend of yours.”
Wolfe gazed steadily at Taen.
The Al’ar met his gaze. Then Taen’s head snapped back, as if he’d been struck.
He rose and left the compartment.
• • •
The Grayle plummeted toward the surface of Sauros, flared less than one hundred feet above the open ground, then settled toward the surface. It stopped about five feet above a flat, metalloid area that had once been used for the Al’ar polygonic “dances.” The ship’s lock opened.
Bulky packs were tossed out, and two space-suited figures followed them. The lock closed, and the Grayle lifted for space.
The two shouldered their packs and ran, stumbling awkwardly, toward a nearby building, careful to follow the winding path.
They disappeared inside.
The echoes of the shipdrive died in the streets of the city, a half-shattered wonderland of multicolored glass, stone, and metal, hues dulled by time and abandon.
No animal moved in the parks, no beings walked the streets.
Two hours later, another noise came, a rhythmic buzzing.
A small winged craft soared down a high corridor of stone, under an arching roadway, through the park, which the Al’ar had called a “reaching-out” place. It orbited the park three times quickly, then another dozen times at its slowest speed, almost stalling.
Its operator reached a decision, and the robot banked and, at full speed, went back down the avenue, echoes of its passing dying as it went.
The two space-suited figures came out, returned to the path, and went through the park, into the city, the taller leading the way.
Neither spoke.
Sometimes the way was clear, sometimes rubble blocked their passage. Storefronts had collapsed, strange goods spilling across the road. But there had been no looting.
They walked for almost half an hour, then stopped in front of a half dome over a smooth ramp that led underground. They went into the cover of the dome and took off their suits.
“You appear to have taken the long way,” Wolfe said.
“Not at all,” Taen replied. “We could have used the first burrow entrance. But then we would have had to use the civilian ways to reach this military entrance, and I do not know what shape they are in. I wonder that none of your people appears to have landed and collected the spoils of war.”
“Some might have,” Wolfe said. “But not for long, and it would’ve been in the first days after the war. The Federation has all the homeworlds under watch now.”
“Ah. I did not know that. That is why the drone found me so swiftly when I first came to Sauros. I merely assumed my ship had been detected somewhere in space and followed.”
“No. They’re scared shitless of whatever’s still here. That’s why we wore the suits, so their sensors wouldn’t pick up any heat or other signs. We’ll put them on again when we come back,” Wolfe said.
“If we come back this route,” the Al’ar added.
“You could also say if we come back at all.”
“I could. But I have confidence.”
The Al’ar opened his pack, took out what appeared to be a block of white plastic. He unfolded it until it became a thin square about eighteen inches on a side.
He touched a sensor, and the lines of a crudely drawn map appeared.
“The machine we seek, this computer, is one of three used by our Command On High. I learned of it only because the unit I headed that hunted you was assigned directly to them, and I filed my reports here.
“With luck, no one will have discovered it, and our task will be simple,” Taen said. “I shall lead. Perhaps my presence will prevent any protective devices from activating.”
Wolfe nodded and shouldered his pack.
The two went down the ramp, disappeared from sight.
• • •
There was a neat hole in one corridor wall and, on the other side, a gaping, jagged opening.
“I do not like this,” Taen said. “Someone who did not know the code came this way and triggered the weapon.”
Wolfe knelt, touched the deck, and felt around him. The Lumina in its hidden pouch warmed to his touch. He rose.
“Someone … maybe two, three peopl
e died when they set off this trap.”
“Terrans?”
Wolfe nodded.
“Yet there is no sign of a body. Still worse,” Taen said.
“Renegades don’t worry about corpses,” Joshua agreed. “These people would’ve been part of some organization.”
They went up a winding, curved corridor. The Al’ar abominated straight lines in length, so their buildings turned, swept, as did their roads and tunnels.
Wolfe had to stop three times to reorient himself as they went.
They went on another half mile. Twice Taen touched a blank section of wall, then told Wolfe it was safe to proceed.
The corridor ended abruptly. Taen stood in a certain place, took two steps at the side, and the wall lifted, revealing a high, rounded chamber. But no lights came on, and Wolfe smelled the old stink of seared flesh, ozone, felt fear and agony.
There were control panels ranked around the walls, but blaster bolts had torn and ripped them.
Taen made a soft noise of pain.
Once more Wolfe felt around him.
“Men were killed here,” he said softly. “There aren’t any bodies, so this must’ve been a Federation Intelligence group, not renegade looters. Probably one of our Analysis teams. Scientists, engineers, mostly. I guess they found this, tried to operate it.”
“And the machine killed them,” Taen said.
“Killing itself in the process.”
“No,” the Al’ar said. “This is but an operating station. The computer itself is safe far away, far below us. But what upsets me is that I was wrong. I told you that the computer itself would have no safeguards. I was wrong. I wonder what else I am wrong about.
“We must seek one of the secondary stations. I know the approximate location of one.”
• • •
They stopped twice, ate rations from their packs that Wolfe hardly tasted, stopped a third time, slept briefly.
Wolfe woke with the memory of buzzing, felt the burns on his arm.
• • •
The man sprawled on his back, a look of mild surprise still visible. His build was slight, thin, and the face was that of a scientist, a thinker. His cheeks had begun to pull back into a rictus.
