The Eridani Convergence (Carson & Roberts Archeological Adventures in T-Space Book 3)

by Alastair Mayer

  “So, where do they say they’re going?”

  “Delta Pavonis. Verdigris.” She looked at Carson. “The New Toronto spaceport.”

  “That has to be for our benefit,” Carson said.

  Burnside looked from one to the other. “Why do you think so?”

  “Last time we were there,” Carson said, “New Toronto refused us landing with a rather lame excuse. Turned out there’s a pyramid in the jungle nearby. Someone else had gotten to it first. I assume the Velkaryans were involved; it didn’t look like regular tomb raiders.”

  “Which makes New Toronto a logical place for them to be going,” Jackie said.

  Burnside nodded. “Okay. Now we get to play the game of ‘does he know what you know, and if so, is he really going there because you’ll think he won’t, or . . . .’ Well, you get the idea.”

  “Does it matter?” Jackie asked. “It’s not like we can get there before him, not by much anyway. But we can be close behind them, and figure out a plan on the way.” She looked at Burnside. “How soon are you ready to leave?”

  The traumapod chose that moment to beep again.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Aboard the Carcharodon

  “Well, you guys sure drew attention to yourselves,” Vaughan said, an edge in his voice. “That was supposed to be a nice quiet operation. With any luck nobody would have noticed the crate was missing for days, but you had to go in shooting.”

  “It would have been, boss. There wasn’t supposed to be anybody there. And then that fuzzball shows up. If it was just her we could have dealt with it, one little timoan ain’t much—”

  “Don’t be so sure. They’re fast.”

  “Whatever. But then that Smith guy shows up and tries to interfere. I guess they planned the pickup for today. Next thing I know, shots are fired, the timoan is lying in a pool of blood, and Smith is behind a pile of crates with weapons free.”

  “And yet you got out.”

  “Mignon keeps him there with suppressing fire while I grab the crate. Then I cover him while he gets clear. Once we’re out of the way Smith goes to see to the timoan, but he takes a couple of shots at us. Just to keep us moving, he wasn’t taking time to aim.”

  “It’s a good thing we were leaving anyway. Staying would have been awkward after the ruckus you raised.”

  “Come on, boss, we got the crate.”

  “You did. Okay, stow it for takeoff. Let’s head back to Verdigris.”

  CHAPTER 36: DIVERGENCE

  Aboard Sophie

  JACKIE STEPPED OVER to the beeping traumapod. The status lights were green, it had finished its surgery, although it was still providing Tevnar with intravenous fluids to stabilize her. It had already discontinued the anesthetic. A question blinked on the display:

  “Keep sedated Y/N?”

  “We should probably let her rest,” Jackie said.

  “If she’s stable and able, I have questions,” Burnside said.

  “So do I,” added Carson, “but they can wait.”

  “Let’s wake her,” Burnside said. “I wasn’t there for the whole thing, she may have information.”

  Jackie weighed that. As captain, everyone aboard, especially anyone in a traumapod, was her responsibility, even if they weren’t in space. But Burnside had a point, it might make a difference to their plans. And she had questions of her own. “All right.” She touched the NO button.

  There was no immediate change. She hadn’t expected one. The pod terminated the low-level sedative feed and injected just enough volume of an antagonist to neutralize it. Depending on the timoan’s constitution, and where she was in her sleep/wake cycle, she would wake up soon.

  Sooner than Jackie had thought. Tevnar’s eyes flickered, then opened. Jackie thumbed a control and the pod door opened and the patient bed slid out part way.

  “How are you feeling?” Jackie asked.

  “I’ve been better,” came the reply, her voice stronger than when she’d gone in. “My injuries?”

  Jackie skimmed the log screen on the side of the pod. “Bullet in the left thigh,” she said, reading aloud, “removed. No bone damage. No major artery or nerve damage. Wound sutured. Dressing applied. Bullet in the—” Jackie paused, and said “oh my” in a low voice.

  “What?” Tevnar asked.

  Jackie resumed reading. “Bullet in the lower left breast—which explains all the blood—impacted and cracked ninth rib. Bullet removed. Sutured, some tissue loss. Dressing applied.”

  “No wonder my left side hurts like a son of a bitch. That’s going to leave a mark.”

  Jackie winced. She could only imagine.

  “Good thing we’re not as fussy about symmetry there as humans are.”

  “Well,” said Burnside, “you’re certainly sounding more like your old self. What happened? Vaughan’s preparing to leave, I assume he got the crate?”

  Tevnar started to laugh, then winced and stopped. “Damn rib. Anyway, I sure hope he did, after all that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It doesn’t have the real artifact in it. It’s a fake. I hope he’s halfway to hell or wherever he’s going before he realizes.”

  Jackie choked back a laugh. This sounded familiar.

  “A fake?” Burnside exclaimed. “You were selling me a fake?”

  “Not you. The real one is back at my ship. This one was a decoy, just in case. I hate those guys. Didn’t expect to get shot over it though. I think you startled them.”

  “Me? I . . . crap, I’m sorry.”

  “I should have let you in on the scheme. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that. You’d pick up me and the fake, and then I’d hitch a ride back to my ship with you. Give you the real one there, nice and isolated.”

  “Just where is your ship?” Carson asked.

  “About five hundred kilometers from here, hidden from view. One of my sisters has a farmstead there. You don’t think I was going to land at the spaceport, do you?” She coughed, and winced again. “That is not fun.”

  “You should get back in there and get some rest,” Jackie said. “You have just been shot.” The sister’s farmstead was a surprise, although Jackie had known there were scattered small timoan settlements on several terraformed planets.

  “Roger that, captain. Sorry, never asked permission to come aboard.”

  “Permission granted,” Jackie said with a smile. “Now get some rest.”

  “Wait, so you’re sure it’s okay for Vaughan to leave?” Carson said.

  “Yes, sonny.” From outside the ship came the roar of a ship’s thrusters throttling up, the higher frequencies muted by the Sophie’s hull. “And that might be them leaving now, I hope.” She looked up at Roberts. “All right, Captain. You can pop me back in the oven. Please wake me if anything interesting happens.”

  “Roger that,” Roberts said, and let the pod retract and close.

  She turned to Burnside, smiling sweetly. Too sweetly. “You were saying,” she said, “something about the Curtis Maneuver?”

  Burnside again had the grace to look sheepish. “Me? No. Curtis? Never heard of him, it, whatever.”

  “Right answer,” she said.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Aboard the Carcharodon, an hour out of Tanith

  The Velkaryan ship had just gone to warp when Vaughan unstrapped and said, “All right, now that we have gravity back, let’s go take a look at what we’ve got. This artifact better be worth the trouble.”

  He made his way to the small cabin where they’d stowed the crate for take-off. The captain had the Carcharodon under constant acceleration toward where they’d go to warp, so there was fractional gravity.

  It wasn’t a crate in the nailed-together-boards sense, it was a typical small shipping container, a meter long and maybe seventy centimeters wide and high, molded plastic with built-in handles, a hinged lid, and latches. A standard design that could be manufactured anywhere that had a fabber.

  It was locked, of course, but the hinges parted eas
ily under the persuasion of a power wrench.

  “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.” Vaughan knelt down and pulled the lid off, revealing a layer of foam padding. He pulled that off and tossed it aside. There was layer of loose plastic film beneath that, part of a large bag wrapping the artifact itself. He peeled that back.

  Beneath it lay a metallic-looking cylindrical object with a flat rectangular area, perhaps a display panel. Beside that were smaller rectangles which might have been controls. They were marked with odd linear symbols. The whole thing was nestled in rigid plastic foam which had been molded around it, poured in as a liquid and then left to expand and harden. The rest of the object was hidden by the foam.

  “Well, well. That looks interesting.” Vaughan had been half expecting just a pile of bricks for the mass, if this whole thing had been some kind of scam the timoan was pulling.

  “Now, let’s see what all this trouble was about.” He began probing around the edges where it was embedded in the foam. It felt odd. It looked like metal, but it was not as cold to the touch as he would have thought. The small rectangles weren’t buttons, they didn’t depress, but they might just be touch sensitive. It looked in surprisingly good shape, not like something someone had found on a dig. Any power or other connectors must be on the lower side. He began to pry the packing foam away from the cylinder, feeling his way down the sides in case there was a hidden protrusion. He didn’t want to accidentally pry anything loose.

  Then there was a sharp crack! as of something breaking.

  “Damn it, what was that?”

  “Uh, boss, look at the display.”

  The rectangular display area had a crack running through it. Worse, the crack extended beyond that and into the body of the cylinder, almost like they were a single unit. That was odd. With a growing suspicion, Vaughan took a knife and scraped at the edge of the crack on the side of the cylinder. It wasn’t metal, it was plastic. He rapped on the cylinder’s side. The sound was a flat tap, not a ringing sound like metal. In fact, it sounded hollow.

  “God damn it!” Vaughan stuck the knife into the crack and pried. The cracked widened and a piece of the plastic shell broke off. Inside was . . . nothing.

  “It’s a fucking fake! It was a scam after all.” On closer examination, the thing had obviously been made on a fabber, with different colored plastic to simulate the display, and some kind of bronze-colored fill on the body.

  “Maybe it was a decoy. Shall we go back?”

  Vaughan was tempted. It could well have been a decoy. His earlier thought of a couple of bricks made more sense for a scam, although this fake was good enough to have held up to a cursory look if the buyer was rushed. Something this elaborate had to have been modeled on something. A real artifact? If he did go back, they’d grab Smith and the timoan and make them talk. But he also had his orders. Still . . . .

  “I hope those shots of yours counted,” Vaughan said.

  “Blood everywhere, boss.”

  Vaughan bared his teeth. “Good,” he snarled. “We do have to report back to New Toronto. Something big is up. But maybe there’s time.” There was no telling where Smith and the timoan had got to by now, but if Mignon was right, it might well be the nearest emergency room. Vaughan went back to talk to Captain Stinson.

  CHAPTER 37: PACKING IT UP

  Aboard Sophie, at the spaceport

  ROBERTS, CARSON, AND Burnside sat around the galley table, considering their next move. The galley was across the corridor from the traumapod; Jackie Roberts was keeping an eye on it, although it would signal if there was a problem.

  “So, what’s next?” Carson said. “Sooner or later Vaughan is going to discover he doesn’t have what he wants, and come back to get the real thing.”

  “If he even thinks there is a real thing,” Jackie said. “He may decide the whole deal was a scam.”

  “Then he’ll come back to finish whatever other business he had here on Tanith,” Burnside pointed out. “I don’t think that’s over.”

  He was probably right. Jackie nodded. “And if it’s sooner rather than later, I’d just as soon not be here. Tevnar said her ship was five hundred kilometers away. We should get out of town.”

  “Are we ready to leave?” Carson asked.

  They weren’t yet. In a pinch, Jackie could get the Sophie ready to go in a few minutes, she had made sure of that shortly after she landed, but that wasn’t the only consideration. “We have a car to return,” she said, “and we need to clean the blood out of the back. Jordan, do you have stuff you want from wherever you’re staying?”

  “Not much. I can abandon it if we have to, but if there’s time I’d like to grab it.”

  “Okay.” She thought for a moment, prioritizing. “Okay. We clean the car, drop Jordan where he needs to go, have the car return itself, and then I’ll bring him back here on the bike. Wait, Hannibal can clean the car then have it return itself. I’ll give Jordan a ride.”

  “I can drive a bike,” Burnside said, “if you don’t mind, that is. I can get that done while you take care of the car.”

  “That makes sense. Hannibal, can you start on the car while I finish prepping the Sophie and port paperwork? I want our departure to look as routine as possible. You know where things are stowed.”

  “Sure,” Carson said, and got up to get cleaning supplies from an aft storage locker.

  “Okay. Burnside, let’s get you the bike.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  An half-hour later, Jackie Roberts had finished her checks of the Sophie and filed a flight plan for Tau Ceti. She could amend it from space before going to warp, if needed. It wouldn’t be the first time. She and Carson had finished cleaning the worst of the bloodstains from the interior of the car. It wouldn’t pass forensic analysis by a long shot, but it was good enough to get by at the rental return. From the condition of it when she’d got it, they weren’t too fussy. Expedition vehicles were expected to get a bit messed up, although usually not in less than a day.

  Jackie watched as the car drove itself out of the port, and then Burnside pulled up on her bike, this time wearing a backpack and with a small hard-sided case, more of a utility box, strapped to the rear seat.

  “That’s it? You do travel light.”

  “Trick of the trade. Let’s get this aboard,” Burnside said, dismounting the bike and wheeling it the rear cargo door.

  Jackie went on ahead to help secure the bike, then closed the cargo door while Burnside went around to enter via the starboard hatch. With the bike stowed, she went on forward to where Carson and Burnside were sitting at the galley table.

  “How’s our patient?” she asked Carson.

  “Stable and resting. Vital signs look good. Lucky for her, neither bullet hit anything critical; her ribs protected her internal organs.”

  Jackie wondered about his definition of “critical” considering where the second bullet had hit, but he was technically correct. “Good. All right then, unless you gentles have a reason not to, I’m going to do a walk-around and then get us out of here.”

  “No, that sounds good,” Burnside said.

  Carson nodded agreement, then said “Wait, we don’t need to secure for zero gee, do we?”

  “Negative, just seat-belts. I’ll keep her in atmo for now, just a short hop to get clear of the city.” With that she stepped through the airlock door to do her final check.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  A few minutes later, Jackie was back in the cockpit with the ship buttoned down. She keyed the radio. “Sophie to Harp Spaceport Ground, requesting clearance to the active for takeoff.”

  “Ah, wait one, Sophie.”

  “Roger.” That was odd. Maybe the guy in the tower was in the middle of something else. It wasn’t like there was enough traffic to justify someone just sitting around twiddling his or her thumbs most of the time. Or maybe there was something more sinister. Carcharodon may not have left the system yet. Had they radioed back and asked for a traffic hold? Vaughan might have the local con
tacts to make that happen. Roberts preferred not to have to blast vertically out of the parking area. Besides putting the Sophie on a shit-list that would eventually propagate to other spaceports, it might damage ships parked nearby. But if it came to that . . . .

  “Sophie, this is ground. Sorry about that. I’m sorry, there’s a bit of a delay—”

  Crap, Roberts thought. Here it comes.

  “—while the Speedwell moves out and clears the pad. Wouldn’t want you caught in its downwash. Hold five or so until the active is clear.”

  Jackie felt a release of tension she hadn’t known she had. “Roger that, ground. Sophie will hold until active is clear. Thank you.”

  “Problem?” Burnside called from aft.

  “We picked the wrong day for all this. The Speedwell is about to take off. She has priority, we need to wait until she clears. Five minutes.”

  It was a long five minutes.

  “How are we doing?” Carson said at three.

  “Just fine,” she called back, an impatient snip in her voice. This is ridiculous, she told herself, I’ve had longer holds than this. She set up a sensor diagnostic program on her console, just for something to do.

  The radio sounded again. “Sophie, this is Harp Ground—”

  Jackie’s gut clenched. Oh crap, now what?

  “—please continue to hold. Slight problem with the Speedwell . . . oh, wait a moment. They’ve cleared it. False alarm, sorry about that.”

  “Harp, Sophie. Roger that,” and though she didn’t mean it, added, “No problem.”

  The diagnostic scan was still running when a growing rumble, turning into a roar, came from beyond the ship. At last. The Speedwell was lifting. The sound reached a crescendo and then faded away. A moment after that the radio sounded again.

  “Sophie, this is Ground. You’re cleared to the active, runway two-zero, and departure at your discretion. Report clear.”