by G. H. Holmes
Both young men looked fatigued, but the gleam in their eyes showed that while their bodies might be tired, their spirits were wide awake.
"Thanks for the offer," the general said, "but unless you have an advanced degree in electronic engineering, computer programming and quantum physics, you won't be much help. Do you have any kind of degree like that?"
"No, Sir," Rambler admitted. Both pilots were much too young for that.
"You won't do me much good then," Harrow said. "Embrace your limitations. Come back in a couple years. In the meantime get some rest, because in six hours you'll be flying again. That's where you excel right now."
He turned around and walked off into the tunnel. The guard reengaged the Xylon shield and its green glow illuminated the pilots' faces as they watched their general disappear in the gloom.
"You reckon he knows quantum physics?" Gargoyle asked when he was gone.
"I guess…" Rambler answered.
There were times when Ben didn't understand himself and marveled at his giftedness. Ever since Professor Dr. Joshua Davidson had thrown him into his boiler in the twenty-first century, Ben had been able to adjust his appearance anyway he pleased. He also could expand and consequently disappear at will—just like Davidson himself—to be borne on the wind. Right from the start he'd been able to filter through walls, even to enter human beings. He could repair some of their bodily malfunctions. Yes, in some pretty dramatic cases he'd healed people. Where exactly the knowledge came from at those moments, he couldn't say. A superior intuition guided him then and he was a mystery unto himself.
But he seemed to have developed.
In the last three hundred years Ben had gradually learned to understand and manipulate all kinds of sophisticated Human Union technology.
Such as these mainframes.
Right now Ben was the ghost in the machine as he worked the computer banks of Kasa Station's command center, whose technology was positively human in origin by the feel of it. There were layers and layers of old familiar coding; there were familiar flow-patterns of electric impulses below the new patterns. He'd analyzed the system thoroughly and was currently disabling the module somebody had added after everything else was already in place—engrafted was the word. The module and its active denial systems were an afterthought.
This simple fact showed Ben once again that the station had been taken over by an outside force at some point in time. He just couldn't believe that Vlad Jones and his people would have prepared the station in a way that would make it inaccessible to visitors—unless they were hiding something up here.
But what could that possibly be?
Once again Ben wondered who might be behind all this. Once again he ruled out that his old friend Joshua Davidson had anything to do with it. Joshua was not a hostile person. He was one of the most benevolent beings Ben had ever met. Josh was beyond reproach.
Besides him and Josh there was only one other person in the universe who'd been similarly treated, and that was Delilah Loud, daughter of Professor Delmar Loud, tenured member of the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—back in the twenty-first century. If Delilah Loud's treatment had only been partial and not complete like his or Josh's, she should be long dead by now.
But was she?
Delilah had once been Davidson's personal assistant. She knew many things that Davidson knew, too. But that didn't mean that she understood matters as well as the brilliant scientist, much less that she could replicate his results.
Still.
Could Delilah Loud be behind all this?
Ben admitted, this was nothing but a wild guess. Whoever set Kasa Station up like this, however, knew human technology and, more specifically, knew him.
Once again he remembered the singing Invisibles.
They'd sung a ditty in Old Western English. Only a handful of people on Terra Originalis still spoke Old Western nowadays. The galaxies parleyed in Common Speech. Ben just couldn't imagine that this had been a coincidence.
Somebody was sending him a message.
Ben dashed around in the circuitry of the mainframe, checked and evaluated the flow of energy impulses that was the machine's language—and finally succeeded in disabling the engrafted module. If he'd done it right, the denial systems that had menaced his troops were now history.
Immediately Ben became aware of a source of strong radiation. A powerful beacon was broadcasting to Kasaganaan, the planet. He surged over into the communications unit of the computer, where he flowed into the sender and exposed himself to the radiation in an attempt to read what it was broadcasting. But Ben couldn't decipher what it said.
He immediately disabled the signal.
A question exploded in his mind: who was on the receiving end of his broadcast?
Who was listening?
And what would happen now?
His work done, Ben left the computer through an outlet and re-materialized in the command station. Once the glow had subsided and he was solid again, he put on his clothes and immediately strode over to the command chair, where he sat down and switched on the terminal. After a second all three monitors came online, something they wouldn't do before.
The tabletop came alive, too, and turned into one big screen. He discovered a series of small pictures along the top, sitting in a row.
They were icons of camera feeds.
Nosy, he searched the icons' labels. One of them said Armory. Ben immediately touched it and it jumped into the left hand screen, where it turned into a live camera feed. With the help of control icons on the desktop, Ben was able to manipulate the camera and to look around in the Armory, which he noticed was a domed building, remarkably like its 3D-holo model. Harsh sunlight was coming in through the round vitrum panels of the dome and Ben saw Marine soldiers lying on the ground, halfway submerged in what appeared to be a lake of… dust?
What was that?
He stood.
Did Chaos Company run into a trap worse than what his own Aleph Company had experienced?
The troops didn't move. Were they dead?
One thing they weren't doing was manning battle stations.
He needed to get to them!
Then Ben thought of Berlin Company, the troops that had disembarked in the hangar bay. How were they doing? He quickly scanned the row of mini-pictures along the edge of the tabletop and found an icon labeled Hangar. His finger stabbed at it right away.
On the middle screen right in front of him appeared the dimly-lit transport bay. Ben noticed that the big hall was not entirely empty. The fighter docks were all vacant, but right in front of the airlock sat a round transport craft. He knew the build. It was equipped with powerful tractor beams.
But there was no trace of his Marines. They hadn't established a base by the gate like they were supposed to do.
Wait!
Ben zoomed in on a pillar with speaker-horns in the back of the big hall. A man—a Marine!—was sitting in front of it. When Ben zoomed in even closer, it became obvious that the man was tied to the pillar with a sturdy cord. His head hung down, but Ben quickly figured out that he was looking at Captain Wakka Wakka, commander of Berlin Company.
Great.
The troops in the hangar had probably run into another mood killer, which had prompted them to scapegoat Wakka for some perceived evil.
Where was the company now?
Who was its new leader?
Was Wakka still alive?
Ben inhaled deeply. His gaze went from one monitor to the other and back as he pondered his obligations. Both companies needed his help. But which one needed it more? Ben decided that Wakka was comfortable enough right now. He was alone.
The others were many.
Pere Gruzka and his troops lay half submerged in the dust. They'd probably been inhaling the stuff—if they were still alive. What might it do to them?
He'd look after them first.
Once again the command center was illuminated by a brilliant flash of blue light.
A second later Ben was back in the electric grid of the station. He surged through its lines like a lightning on his way to the Armory.
Chapter 17
Invisible like a ghost, Ben Harrow hovered by the giant howitzer in the middle of the domed Armory and scanned the room. Below him in the dust lay no less than two platoons of Marines, motionless like stone-cold corpses.
The dust around them was undisturbed, as if they'd never walked into this room earlier today, as if they'd lain here forever.
Ben descended and floated above the sturdy form of Pere Gruzka. The captain lay on his side, half of his face sunk in the dust. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was open. The dust had flowed into it like water and now it sat there like it belonged.
Gruzka wasn't breathing.
Fearing the worst, Ben slowly filtered into the man's tissue—but found it still warm, though cooler than was normal even in humans from ice planets. Gruzka's lungs weren't moving, but there was oxygen in them, as if they were in a state of perpetual inhalation. His heart was beating, but much slower than normal. Through the spinal cord Ben flowed into Gruzka's brain, where he found the blood to contain enough oxygen to keep the man from sustaining damage from sanguinary asphyxiation. All this was very peculiar. Ben marveled. He'd never seen anything like it.
Gruzka was hibernating.
No doubt the other Marines were in the same state.
Somebody was conserving them until further notice.
Until they could be retrieved.
Ben felt sick to his stomach when he pondered what caliber intelligence he was up against.
Sooner or later somebody would come to collect these troops. Mindful of the beacon he'd interrupted back in the command center, that somebody might already be on his, her or its way.
He needed to wake the troops!
But how?
Maybe it was the contact with the dust that kept them in this… vegetative state. That was Ben's best guess.
Ben materialized until there was enough of him to lift Pere Gruzka into the elevated bucket seat of the howitzer, which was completely free of powder. The man was heavy, but Ben managed. Tilted back, the captain sat like a marionette whose cords had been snipped. He was fast asleep.
After turning ethereal again, Ben went through the man and pushed all foreign particles—except those on his eyes—into Gruzka's mouth. It wasn't very much really. Then he waited.
After what seemed an eternity, Gruzka started and began to cough. He sat up, rolled his shoulders and began to wipe his eyes with thumb and index finger.
"Don't move," Ben meant to say. But because he wasn't fully materialized, his voice sounded more like the wind in the trees on a warm summer night than a Marine general giving an order.
"Who's speaking?" Gruzka croaked and turned his head.
"Doesn't matter," the rustling voice replied. "You are sitting in the bucket seat of the howitzer you've surely seen when you came in here. If you don't watch it, you will fall down two meters and sustain a sprained ankle."
With wide-open eyes Gruzka stared into the void.
The man was blind.
Just the way Ben wanted it. For the moment.
"Who put me in it?" the captain asked.
"I did."
"And why? And why am I blind?"
"How do you feel?"
"Overall?" Gruzka wiped his face. "Fine."
"Hungry? Thirsty?"
He shook his head, once. "No."
"You will not be blind forever," said the voice, which now sounded like a bubbling brook. "Only for a short moment. You've been hibernating. And I woke you up."
Gruzka's hard features relaxed in a miniscule way. His jaws were pulsing. He elected not to say anything that might put him out of the good graces of the being that he was talking to.
"Are you what we call an alien, or are you a machine?" blind Pere Gruzka asked. He figured he was talking to the red ghost that had manifested in the Armory right before he'd passed out.
Had the ghost knocked him out…?
"I'm human like you," the voice replied, now sounding more like a man's.
One reason, and not the least one, why Ben couldn't show himself to Chaos Company was the fact that he had no clothes to wear. His uniform, which he couldn't bring with him through the grid, lay on the ground back in the command center, far away.
What would the troops say if they saw their general prance around in front of them naked?
Nebuchadnezzar the Emperor might get away with stuff like that, but not Ben Harrow, general of the Terra Gemina Space Marines.
"Why am I blind?" Gruzka repeated.
"Because I want you blind for the moment," the voice answered.
"Isn't that kind of harsh?"
"Not from my vantage point," the voice said. "Like I said: you will not be blind for long. In the meantime, trust me."
"Easier said than done," Gruzka replied.
"What choice do you have?" the voice asked. Without waiting for an answer, it went on, "I will now lift you out of the seat you are sitting in. I will put you back on solid ground. But do not sit down. The dust below your feet is not normal dust. It will do strange things to you. You can sit down in it, but don't lie down in it. Understood?"
"Aye, Sir," Gruzka said, thinking it best to treat the person behind this strange voice like a commanding officer.
"I am not going to wake up your troops at this time," the voice said. "They will sleep on. But for you I have a job to do."
"Oh yeah?"
"Oh yeah," Ben whispered. "In a few minutes you will be able to see again. By then I will be gone. Once your eyesight is back, leave the troops alone. Don't try to help them. You won't be able to. Instead, familiarize yourself with the workings of the howitzer. It's an important job. The Armory is also the main battle station of this entire outpost, and if we get attacked, you'll be the first line of defense."
"Aye, Sir," Gruzka replied.
A sneaking suspicion crept into his mind that made his hackles to rise. Could it be that mysterious General Harrow was speaking to him? He and the former Emperor of Neo Babylonia—a historical figure—were alone in the same room together?
And the man was talking to him?
"Sir?"
There was no answer. Ben was already back in the grid, on his way to the command center.
One glance at the center monitor revealed to Ben that Berlin Company, at least part of it, had returned to the hangar bay. Chattering loudly, they were loosening Captain Wakka Wakka from the stake to which they had tied him in their collective moment of derangement.
The mood amps—now defunct—were wicked instruments.
Ben frowned and crossed his arms. Strictly speaking, he should punish Berlin, should even court-martial the ringleaders for tying up their commanding officer. A rebellion of armed men, whatever the reason, could not go unavenged. To do nothing was to court disaster. People carrying lethal weaponry had to be held accountable. They had to obey at all times and quickly, or they'd turn into a menace. Because groups with weapons couldn’t be resisted.
It was a power thing.
Unchecked power make for bad character. It had a peculiar taste—especially when enjoyed as a group. And it was hard to wean folks off of it.
Ben huffed.
Space Marines couldn't be allowed to behave like marauders, even under duress.
He relaxed a bit when he saw how eagerly they tended to the exhausted man. Once his rope was untied, they eased him away from the pillar and laid him on the no-skid ground. As soon as he was down, one private propped him up again so he could drink from one of the many bottles that were held out to him. A female troop knelt down by his side with a kerchief in her hand and wiped the captain's forehead.
Wakka Wakka, still dazed, let it happen.
Somebody now poured water on his face, prompting Wakka to snort. The lady private wiped the dripping mess away. Others in the back shouted instructions to those close to the captain. Berlin Company was a squirmi
ng mass. A beehive was a quiet place compared to the hangar.
Ben meant to address them loud and clear through the speakers mounted on Wakka's torture pillar; his finger hovered over the virtual intercom button below the glass of the tabletop. But Ben saw that they were trying to make amends. When the troops helped Wakka up and he walked around, steadied by two men, he decided to let them go. He'd consult with the officer before settling on consequences for their deed.
Juggernaut popped into the general's mind. Jug had access to the drone feeds and monitored possible threats arising from the planet. So far he had reported nothing extraordinary. Perhaps the planet was as deserted as the station and the broadcast had gone nowhere. Ben still wanted to have a look at the drone feed for himself. Besides, the kid had been on duty for endless hours by now and deserved a break. He touched his earpiece and dialed himself into the fighter channel.
"Juggernaut, this is the general. You there?"
Static scratched before Jug came on. "Aye, Sir."
"You okay?"
"More or less, Sir," Jug answered, sounding bothered.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, Sir…" A moment went by before Jug went on. "For the first time in my life as a jock I've… taken advantage of the advanced features of my flight suit."
The young pilot didn't have to explain. Ben understood. He suppressed a chuckle.
"Well, you're being relieved," he said. "No pun intended. If you fly up to the cutter dock where the other jets are parked, I'll let you in."
"Aye, Sir." Jug suddenly sounded upbeat.
A few minutes later Juggernaut's x-jet arrived by the small dock outside the command center. Through the top-to-bottom vitrum panels Ben watched him hover there, waiting for the gangway to come down over the door of his craft.
Ben touched a button on the control panel and the hydraulics began to whine.
The gangway was a flexible hose. Usually retracted, it grew out of the station's wall now like a squirming caterpillar, its wide-open mouth ready to swallow the jet's glass bubble—which it wasn't supposed to do! For a few seconds the caterpillar swayed to and fro as if it were alive and searching for prey, then it moved away from the canopy and pounced on door in the jet's side. The craft shook on impact.
