by Scott Rhine
“Roger.”
“Max, stay by the airlock with the emergency evac gear and keep Kesh in sight.”
Over the radio, he replied, “Yes, Generala.”
“Kesh, if you come back without my man—”
“You’ll chop me into pieces,” said Kesh in good humor as he cycled open the airlock. He shouldered his massive backpack. Though short, he could lift half again as much as the Humans.
“And put the pieces back together crooked,” Max recited from memory as he entered the lock with a pack and medical bag.
“With the tail in front, so everyone will mock him for the rest of his life,” concluded Reuben as he joined the other men in the cramped lock. The recording media sphere floated next to him, feeding intelligence back to the military base. The Library of Xerxes was a mystery to them as well.
In response, Roz said, “Keep in mind that things tend to fall on people who mock me.”
Max grinned. “Love you.”
The inner door closed. Her voice over the speakers announced, “Museum temperature and air pressure are consistent with a high-altitude resort in Shangri-La. Equalizing. Reuben, this is your last chance to don the emergency suit hanging next you.”
“Pass. I’m not going to give the bastard the satisfaction. Besides, my DNA is the key to this thing.”
The inner door slid open to reveal a giant room. Kesh held his breath at the opulence. The barrel-vaulted ceiling was thirteen meters high, eleven meters wide, and seventy-five long. Artwork and gold leaf covered everything. One wall was filled with mirrors and the other with windows that looked out on a maze of hedges. The greenery had to be holographic.
Reuben explained, “Xerxes modeled his final resting place after the Sun King’s Palace of Versailles—but bigger. The original had seven hundred rooms like this, designed to make the visitor feel insignificant.”
“Works,” admitted Kesh.
Max extracted a suction-cup-and-pulley apparatus from his pack and clipped a safety line to Kesh’s belt. “This is an ascender used to infiltrate high rises. The moment we’re inside, I’m clamping it to the entry arch. Shout the word ‘squeeze’ in Saurian, and the winch will reel you back to me in three seconds. Be sure to grab our hairy friend before you fly back.”
Kesh grunted his approval at the sleek design. “What will you be doing while I’m on the amusement ride?”
Max pulled a hefty Magi rifle out of his bag. “Making sure you’re not followed. This thing could take down a tank.”
“You’re a very untrusting man, which is why I respect you so much.” Kesh gripped the sash around Reuben’s waist.
Sculptures of naked, golden females from several species held up crystal lamps, and elaborate chandeliers dangled from above. Reuben closed his eyes in concentration. “This side of the hall is called the Salon of Peace. The far side holds the Salon of War, where we’re most likely to find what we need.”
Max said, “All right. Speak the magic word and enter the cave of wonders.”
9. The Study
Poking his head inside the memorial, Reuben located a rack of thin, black wands on the wall beside the entrance. He pulled one out and examined it. “This looks like a translator unit common at tourist sites.” He turned the dial to the Goat setting and listened. “Greetings travelers. I’ll know my children by their deeds and welcome them to my embrace.”
Max searched the ceiling. “This place is riddled with sensors, but how do we convey Reuben’s deeds?”
“Maybe we have to describe the list of improvements he’s made in the daily lives of the common Goats.” Kesh examined and replaced another wand. “I wonder what the message would say in Phib?”
“Probably paralyze them with feedback and then explode,” joked Reuben. He stepped boldly into the vast room. At one-eighth Mnamnabo’s planetary gravity, only his magnetic ship boots held him to the floor. “What’s this blank setting?” He clicked it over, and his voice echoed throughout the hall. “Reuben has entered the building.” Then he proceeded to sing a Human song about a brothel entitled “House of the Rising Sun.”
Disgusted, Kesh tried to snatch the microphone from his hand. “Would you be serious?”
A beam of bright blue light lanced from the ceiling. The explorers froze as the laser scanned both Reuben and Kesh.
The translator asked in a deep voice, “Child of Xerxes, state your name.”
“Reuben Black Ram.”
“Are you under duress?”
“No.”
“You want my secrets?”
“No. I’m forced to learn one. You can keep the rest.”
“You and your general may enter.” The library computer said.
It listened to us over the radio or media sphere. The AI thinks I’m Generala. Trying to sound imperious like his father, Kesh asked, “Do you know why we’re here?”
The computer ignored him. To Reuben, it said, “I set before you the wisdom of peace and the desperation of war. Choose wisely.”
Reuben traveled the length of the gilded hall to reach the Salon of War. On the way, he passed an alcove of polished, black stone that appeared to be Xerxes’s final resting place.
Kesh followed. He bounded along, clinging to the statues and ornamentation on the wall. “Is it my imagination, or am I getting heavier?”
“No change at my end,” Max volunteered.
Roz clicked a few buttons. “The asteroid isn’t spinning or accelerating, but your jumps are becoming shallower. I’m reading a grav generator at the far end.”
Kesh slowed his progress. As he reached the end of the hall, double doors on the left opened automatically, revealing a 10-meter-cubed meeting room with stylized maps of the Union covering the ceiling. Kesh crept inside first, keeping the safety line taut. Three smaller doors provided egress, one on each wall. Somehow, the gravity in the room was increasing. He jiggled the handle on the rightmost door, but it remained locked. “You try it.”
Once the Goat stepped inside, the decorative doors closed, and a blast shield dropped into place.
Kesh tried to contact Max and Roz, but the radio was dead. “Jammed.” The pinched safety line felt like a leash, denying him access to the far side of the room.
“My media sphere can’t broadcast either. Now what?”
The disembodied voice replied, “Based on your identities and the date, I infer something has gone wrong with Glory Point.”
“Yes.” Reuben stood in the center and addressed the ceiling. “How long until execution is supposed to complete?”
“As little as 680 days. Depending on solar flares, the operation could take longer.”
Reuben said, “Insufficient. Something’s gone dangerously wrong. Tell me about the plans.”
“This unit has no access. We can’t risk key information falling into the wrong hands. Too much hangs in the balance.”
“With all your brilliance, you didn’t plan for a last-minute emergency?”
After a delay, the voice responded, “Look in the study for the improvisational aid.”
“Lead me to the study.”
The far door dropped down, revealing a hideaway bed. The opening behind it was hidden by a curtain. Kesh strained but couldn’t quite touch the foot of the bed. “If you get any closer, I can’t rescue you.”
“Oo. Ominous sleeping surfaces. Please.” Since the gravity was ship normal, Reuben pushed aside the draperies at the head of the bead. An antique, beveled mirror and a porcelain sink were tucked in an alcove.
Kesh kept one claw on his carabiner clip in case he needed to disconnect. He crouched for the three-meter leap.
The wand explained, “All original plans and components are stored there. This includes a list of people we need to make amends to. We’re enough alike that you should be able to puzzle out what you need from these breadcrumbs.”
Reuben shouted a profanity. “I’m nothing like you!” Using the wand, he shattered the mirror. Then he swore again.
Kesh unclipped. B
efore he could jump, Reuben held up a hand. “It’s okay. The mirror hides his stash.”
Heart pounding, Kesh reconnected his line. “I guess you’re more like him than you want to admit.”
Reuben flipped him an obscene gesture.
“Password accepted,” chimed the unit. “Be aware that this information is rated eyes-only and BAR.”
“Burn after reading,” Reuben explained. Reaching into the cubbyhole, he pulled out a thick pair of virtual-reality goggles. The sides had protective flaps so no one else could see what they projected. The device dangled from a lanyard connected to an elaborate collar. He read the instructions attached. “This clips around my throat so I can give subvocal commands. The device will self-destruct the moment I remove it or I die.”
“Bad idea.”
“We’ve come too far to chicken out.” Reuben raised the collar to his throat.
“No!” By the time Kesh reached him, the deed was irreversible.
As Reuben slid on the eyepieces, the goggles scanned his DNA with a laser. He turned his head as if examining a new room. “This is a memory palace. Massive amounts of data represented as books on shelves. He pulled a phantom book off the shelf. “It’s written in another language. Looks like Saurian except rounder, with little bubbles.”
“Modern Phib. Is there a translate function?”
The Goat fiddled with the controls. “No. I guess I have to learn a new language to crack some of these clues.”
“I’ll help with that. Cold-blooded languages share phonemes and symbols with Turtle. Modern Phib has diverged for the last millennium,” Kesh explained. “Do you see anything written in a language you do speak?”
“Star charts, but I don’t know how to use them.”
“Roz can help with that. Keep going.”
“The desk blotter has a copy of our loan agreement in several languages. A few sections are highlighted. He left a small, handwritten notebook beside it. Oh, wow.” Reuben lifted an invisible booklet and flipped pages. “Black-market bank accounts. A last-minute checklist to preserve the Goat economy. He wants us to use the terms of the loan agreement to stall. He likens my role to a magician who provides a distraction while the trick is being completed elsewhere by my assistant.”
“Nothing on fleet routes?”
“No.”
“Payment schedules?”
Reuben moved his head, and the bulbous goggles focused on something else. “I found a ledger from Tansdahl where a lot of damaged ships were refitted as troop carriers for the mission. I have specs on the hull thickness and number of sleeper berths required. Those things are flying deathtraps. If a meteorite hits the wrong location, a whole room full of people loses air. He makes up for some of this with redundancy. Most of the ships have no long-range offensive capability.”
“The assault relies heavily on surprise.”
“A series of deep-space tankers were commissioned to refuel the fleet so they wouldn’t need to stop at space stations. This is another reason he had to plan this over a century in advance. The tankers had to extract and process fuel in the field.”
“Do you see any coordinates?”
“Roz might be able to guess star locations based on ranges and ETAs, but the locations are all encoded: alpha, beta, and so forth.”
Kesh looked around. The room had fallen eerily silent. Fresh air was no longer cycling. “The others are probably worried about us. I think we should leave and pick up later when you have more training.”
“What if the study doesn’t work outside this room?”
Picking up the Goat, Kesh dashed for the door.
“Hey!” Reuben objected.
“Tell it to open the blast door. Now.”
“What’s the rush?”
“The room’s too warm.”
“Crap. Open!” The door obeyed. The yellow-orange gas planet filled the far window, and the distinctive hurricane on the surface grew steadily larger.
Max was shouting, “Abort!”
Unable to clip in, Kesh wrapped the safety line around his right arm. “Squeeze!”
The rope whirred, jerking him off his feet. The cable bit into his flesh as they flew through the glamorous hall. A few bounces scuffed his boots and tail, but Kesh ignored the pain as he wrapped his body protectively around Reuben.
The moment the line reached the airlock, Max bellowed, “Inside!”
Kesh shoved the Black Ram toward Max. Amazingly, Reuben’s media ball clattered in beside him.
The asteroid tumbled. The rumble of the shuttle engines shook the ground as Max dragged them both into the tiny airlock.
Unfortunately, the rope tangled around Kesh’s right arm, and his suit had a cut above the wrist-glove coupler. “Close the hatch!” He had a foam grenade in his right leg pouch but couldn’t reach it or pull the pin one-handed.
The irising door was unable to seal completely due to the cable. A narrow crack remained as Roz blasted off from the pad. The crack under Kesh made teakettle sounds as air escaped. He frantically unwrapped his arm. The cable jerked taut, and the force snapped the bones in his forearm. He roared while the pressure threatened to slice his limb off entirely.
Cool as ever, Max cut the cable with a single shot from the massive rifle.
The bright flash left purple afterimages on Kesh’s vision. Red emergency lights flashed as the shuttle pulled five gs to escape the gravity well. His whole body was pressed in a waffle iron.
When they could breathe, Reuben pried off his new goggles. “What happened?”
Max applied sterile foam to the arm abrasions, causing Kesh to scream through gritted teeth. “While you were inside, something attached to the yacht’s hull activated. It remotely hacked into the library’s computer systems.”
“Someone triggered a snoop fail-safe,” said Reuben. “The library would rather destroy itself than give an outsider access. Another government probably planted it during our overhaul at Filangis. Would’ve been child’s play. The question is, who wants information on Xerxes badly enough to risk our lives.”
Kesh grunted as they peeled off his damaged suit. “Unless our deaths were the desired result.”
Max ordered the Goat, “Open the regen tank and bring back the gurney.”
Painkillers prevented further interaction. Kesh’s last memory was immersion in the viscous fluid of the tank.
10. Rude Awakening
Max opened the regen tank prior to the jump to the scrapyards. “Wake up. We need to put you in bed. Cryo may inhibit healing, but we’ve given you all the time we could.”
Grumbling, Kesh staggered to the cold sleep container across the room. His skin was whole with pink streaks. He looked at the chronometer on his nightstand, noting they’d been on the mission two months so far. While Max wrapped the still-tender arm in a cast, Kesh tried unsuccessfully to make a fist. “No more sword sparring for me.”
“The swelling will take six months to go down to normal. Your hand will need physical therapy to recover full use.”
“I’ll so miss being the punching bag.”
“No offense. There’s no substitute for a live target with cunning.”
“None taken. Did you take those stupid goggles off Reuben?”
“No. He’s stuck with them for the duration. When he permanently deactivates the device, he has three seconds to toss it like a grenade.” The doctor chose a dark-green fabric fiber for the cast so the Saurian could blend into the jungle better while hunting. “I’d prefer to wait until we’re planetside and have an experienced disposal team with a lake nearby. Daisy says if we try to bypass the mechanism prematurely, the BAR charge will blow, taking Reuben’s head with it.”
“Then we can’t talk about stopping the invasion around him. The goggles might overhear. The library AI listened in on our suit radio traffic and made deductions.”
Max winced at the possibility. “I’ll tell the others.”
“Did you move the computer pad on my nightstand?”
�
�What? No. Why?”
“Someone read it and put it back two centimeters to the right.”
The doctor didn’t seem convinced. “You’re pretty groggy. The Magi bots moved your regen tank in and out of this room. One of them might have bumped it. Don’t make any accusations until you wake up.”
“If I wake. Max, we have to assume whoever endangered our lives by planting the spy device is still lurking inside the ship. I always put my pad in the same place. Always.”
“I’ll poke around.”
“Where did the hacker box come from?”
“No clue. When Daisy removed the device, the electronics inside vaporized.”
“So it’s probably a government or a big corporation like Llewellyn or Blue Giant Hydrogen. Could be anyone.”
Max put away his scissors and the remaining roll of cast fiber. “Not the Goats. If they’d wanted to probe the library, they would’ve done so before now.”
“Unless they eavesdropped through the kid’s media ball and know what we’re doing. You don’t think their government wants revenge on the Bankers?”
“Right, but we can rule out the Magi.”
“Unless they have a faction among them that would prefer we disappear, leaving them the prototype.”
“Go back to sleep,” Max ordered.
****
Kesh awoke to the doctor cursing, beating on his chest. He wanted to roll over and go back to the comfortable darkness. Suddenly, every muscle in his body seized at once. Pain and electricity arched him off the table.
When he could breathe again, Kesh muttered, “Why?”
“I had to shock your heart into beating. You’re too old for this constant abuse, and the freezer is past its warranty.”
“Don’t cut me from the mission,” the Saurian begged with slurred words.
“You’re going to need regular cardio exercise.”
“I’ll work out with the Bat. He can design the exercise program.” Kesh dreaded punishment from the skinny freak, but he’d endure anything to keep his honor.
