Desert Planet (THE RIM CONFEDERACY Book 6)

by Jim Rudnick

  But as a part of the deal, broached by the Baroness herself to get the Master Adept to come over to support the Barony side in a recent RIM Confederacy issue, it was a done deal.

  The Baroness came back from the window and put a calming hand down on the shaking shoulder of the woman from accounting. "There, there ... um, Mindy, right?" she said and ignored the correction. "You'll just gather up those docs and then send them back to me in electronic format so that I can chip a few pennies off. Will you do that for the Barony, please, Mindy?" she said as she patted her shoulder again and then returned to her desk chair. Sitting, she waved the woman away and then said to her private office's AI, "Find me my aide," and sat back.

  Moments later, that aide passed the woman from accounting who was just leaving, and she sat in the same chair and clicked on her wrist PDA once to record the session.

  The Baroness thought for a second and then said, "Send the following off to Enki—EYES ONLY for our Captain Scott. Inform him of the following, please," she said and then held out a hand and counted with her fingers.

  "One, that I hereby empower him to use whatever he needs to do to get me—well, correction, to get the Barony—the probe metal. Even on a shared basis, but we must be at least a part of the RIM syndicate that gets the metal for our use," she said. She nodded to herself, and that was an easy one, she thought.

  "Two, that Captain Scott is also to use his position, as the most senior Barony representative on that planet, to gain us whatever we can win from the ambassador's negotiations. This I realize will not be much, but if he can work his magic on Harmon, then so be it ..."

  That she thought would allow him to stay as close to the negotiations as he could and perhaps even closer.

  "And lastly, third, I suppose, I want Captain Scott to use his Adept Officer—Bram, I believe, to help him in any way that he might need to. Read those Enkians and read them well is what I'd suggest. Anything he needs, we'll—I'll—provide. Just have him ask," she said and that was it.

  She looked at her aide and smiled just a bit. "Get that out, Mindy, and I mean STAT. And tell my sommelier I want to see him STAT too. I think some wine would be nice as it's lunch time somewhere," she said and walked back to the window.

  Here, tucked in one of the central cores of the palace where she actually did spend her time, the windows pointed out to a large courtyard where the gardening was exquisite and an ongoing usual daily occurrence. Today, there were more than a dozen palace gardeners out there cutting, mowing, hoeing, raking, trimming, and pruning. The list was long and she watched for almost a whole minute before she was bored.

  Now, where was that sommelier, she wondered as she tried to put those huge numbers out of her mind. We really do need that probe metal to come to the Barony so that I can replenish our treasury ...

  #####

  It was supposed to be over lunch, but instead of meeting at one of the Officers' Mess cafeterias, Tanner had Bram come see him personally. They both left the bridge to go to the ready room that sat off to one side.

  Tanner dragged up one of the extra chairs in the room and sat with his Adept Officer at the small round table in one corner. As the Atlas was passing over the Enkian planet in low orbit, at this particular moment, the ship was on the outer edge of that orbit, and while the planet filled part of the screen, there was nothing but black on the rest. As the UrPoPoian system lay at the very tip of the RIM, where the end of the arm was, there was only deep space, black as coal that stretched out for millions of lights. True, there were a couple of local system galaxies out there, and one was close enough it was a smudge of light no bigger than a cough drop, but they couldn't see it now. Instead, just the black of outer space—deep black they called it usually. Nothing but empty outer space and perhaps dark matter, Tanner thought, but that was best left to astrophysicists, as we have other fish to fry.

  He gestured at the ice water in a big frosted glass pitcher he'd had his steward supply just a few minutes ago, and Bram nodded, his face still very sweaty from his trip just a bit ago across the sands of Enki. And of course, he'd had a fresh tea brought for him, and he took a sip.

  He leaned forward. "Bram, give me the whole story—leave nothing out and hit all the points too," he said.

  Bram nodded. "First, I checked—or rather had Lieutenant Irving check for me—the whereabouts of our stonecraw friendly. He is on a flight over to one of their Militia training camps—so he'd be out of the way."

  "Smart thinking, Bram—dunno if I'd have thought about trying to find out where he'd be. And then?" Tanner said.

  "Next, I walked very casually over to the Resources pyramid. I was ostensibly taking sand samples. I had a kit and stopped every few hundred feet to fill up one of those little bottles. Took me almost an hour and a half to walk that half mile or so, but eventually I got to their pyramid and entered through the grade-level access door.

  "Again, smart thinking …" Tanner, said and he meant it.

  "Once inside, I inquired as to where there might be a public washroom, and I was directed to the unisex facility on that level. I pretended to get lost twice, in case they have interior security cameras, but we don't have any proof that might be true, do we?" he queried.

  Tanner shook his head. "No idea really, but they have mentioned that they do not record court cases, so I'd doubt it," he said.

  Bram went on. "So, I found the same stairs down and went all the way to the big door that leads into the food treatment center. Once there, I just entered, like I had business there, and from what I could see, there was only a single Enkian Resources techie there in the control station in the middle of the conveyor system. Not the one I knew, of course, a new one, and he just looked at me. I went right up to him, and by luck—didn't really consider this beforehand—he too spoke our English. I asked if the tech from yesterday was around and got the answer that I wanted—that his shift started in a half hour so I said fine, I'd just wait and that got a simple nod. So I stood off to one side as tray after tray of food pellets came up to the chem imprinting station. They entered and a few minutes later, the trays come out with their sprayed-on coating and then back down to the far end of the treatment center. But really, while I watched, I kept an eye on the area behind us where the full immersion of the feather coloring was to take place and saw that the seven caged racks were still standing on their respective pools, as yet un-done. It was an anxious half hour, but soon the Enkian I had met came in, and seeing me, he grinned right away and hustled his workmate out quickly."

  Bram smiled and took a drink out of his plas-cup, before continuing. "Then, he asked me why I had come back, and I said to enjoy his first-ever food pellet immersion process and to congratulate him too. That seemed to work for him as he showed me on his console monitor the notes on what he was supposed to be doing—he did the translations as good as he could, I expect, and then it was time."

  Tanner nodded.

  "I reached inside his head and made him think that the button had been pushed and that the tanks were slowly sinking into their specialized tanks. Pretty easy, really, if I will offer that not only does an Enkian not react at all—but that they seem to really be quite malleable too. We watched those tanks sitting there, unmoving, and I made him think that they were totally immersed. We chatted about other stuff for those five minutes—did you know that Resources has only five mines that they use for ore extraction? I didn't have the time to drill down to find the probe metal mines, but with only five, it can't be that hard an investigation—sorry, I mean, for later," he said and slurped another big drink out of his glass.

  "Then, I went back into his brain and showed him that the caged racks had risen back up and were standing there dripping all the excess liquid chems back down into their tanks. I held him there and made sure that we both commented that the racks were almost dry and ready for whatever was next. And that was it. We turned back and noted that the automatic conveyor had been processing the food trays just fine, and there were no flashing icons on the
console monitor. No sign at all that a major event had been left out of the process. I wouldn't have written that AI like that, but the Enkians did.”

  Tanner nodded and poured Bram a big refill from the ice water pitcher.

  It all looked like it had worked.

  "Seems like we got away with this one. No mistakes and no way—unless it's recorded—for them to know. What happens now to these phony food pellets?" he said.

  "Yes, I asked, thinking that it might be important too. At the end of his shift, my techie wheels each of those caged racks—they are all labeled by the way with huge colored muse icons—down to a special catering truck, I was told. Those folks take them to the Words Muse pyramid, and on graduation night, each of the graduating younglings eats just one and wakes up the next day with a fully colored feathered crest on their heads. At least that's what is supposed to happen—but not this time."

  He smiled and leaned back. "And, if we understand how things work here—the one that will get the blame is the Words Muse leader—the Enkian in charge, Uigoeri Qor. Not the Resources section nor your techie either—but the man in the big chair. That should cause enough of an uproar that can, of course, be straightened out in a few days. But enough, we believe, to hurt the election chances of Qor to win the election to the position of head juror in a few days too. We got our mission done without anyone dying—and as you know, that's important to me. To the RIM too," he said.

  "We're good to go, I think, Bram," he finished off and took a sip of his tea.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As the Atlas shuttle slowly set down on the landing pad, Tanner, Bram, and Kondo were all in shock—technology shock that was. They had left the city only a couple of hours back and had climbed up to go sub-orbital halfway around the planet. They came down near a huge spaceport tucked in an area near a set of mountains in the temperate zone of Enki.

  Tanner saw more than three dozen rockets standing by their gantries, before he lost count. Older styled, solid fuel chemical rockets from technology more than a thousand years old stood there. Interspersed among them, they could see some liquid fuel trucks filling those rockets and cold-gas rockets along one side.

  Against a long wall that was more than forty feet tall were satellites of some kind on racks. The satellites were round with antennas projecting in various directions, some with what looked like primitive solar panels of some type, and there must have been a hundred of them. Next to them, a row of probes sat in cradles in groups of threes. Tanner noted they were the same dull red color as the one that had made it to Juno after almost sixty years in space, and that meant the red metal must be this mystery metal. That at least was interesting, Tanner thought, as they continued to stare at the visible equipment, the huge hangars, and various buildings.

  "Sir, this stuff is, well, plain old, Sir," Kondo said as he shook his head.

  "That might be, but it still gets the job done. The Enki are anything but technology buffs, XO," he said, and yet, he too was shaking his head.

  Stonecraw Qew chimed in. "Please be aware that this is just one side of the whole port; we have much newer missiles and the like ahead, friends," he added, and all four of them smiled.

  As the shuttle put down, Tanner thanked their pilot, Lieutenant Jenkins, and they disembarked as a group. Stonecraw Qew led the way, and they left the pad area and walked to a small bus. Onboard, the corporal said something in Enkian. Stonecraw Qew responded and they went down a small alley to a main throughway and got in line behind some trucks and a Jeep. As they went, Stonecraw Qew pointed out some of the various equipment depots and what the Resources or Militia sections used them for.

  While riding the bus, Tanner thought about the probe metal, so he tried to steer the conversation in that direction but in such a way so as to not let the stonecraw know what he was angling for recon-wise.

  "StoneCraw, the pieces of equipment we see here are, well, totally functional. I mean, already made. Are they also manufactured here too?"

  Stonecraw Qew shook his head. "No, Captain, not at all. All of the equipment is manufactured in various centers around Enki under the auspices of the Resources section, of course."

  Tanner nodded but drilled down a bit. "For instance, where were those satellites built?" he asked.

  "Over at Manufacturing Center Number Eight about, um, three hundred miles north of here. Shipped down as fresh builds, I think, twice a month, maybe three times, I really don't know for sure."

  "And the probe-sized missiles, what about them," Tanner added.

  "They come from much closer, I think, 'cause the mines for that outer shell are mined just over there," he said as he pointed at the range of mountains not too far away on the horizon.

  "The ores are mined, probe shells created right there in the foundry, and then the missile engines get their outer shells and then are shipped here. If we needed 'em daily, that could happen easy, but then how often do you need a probe?" he said.

  Tanner, Kondo, and Bram all made a mental note of that and filed it away, but Tanner tried to push.

  "If we're done here quickly, could we go and see the mines?" he asked politely.

  Stonecraw Qew nodded. "We can do that, sure, my friends. But first, over here," he said as he pointed off to one side at some equipment and went on and on about those pieces.

  Tanner let it go in one ear and out the other. In an hour and a half, Stonecraw Qew had finished his monologue. They'd moved hundreds of yards around the port and had seen just about everything one could imagine.

  And now for the probe metal mines, Tanner thought as he broached the topic once more.

  "Absolutely," Stonecraw Qew said as he led the way back to the bus, "and it's, as I said, pretty close too."

  On the bus, the stonecraw regaled them with stories about how the spaceport had grown over the years and how new technology was always coming along. The three Atlas officers raised their eyebrows. He really had no idea, Tanner thought, but that was fodder for another conversation.

  As the bus moved away from the spaceport, it took a lateral roadway that slowly veered off to the left. Miles later, those mountains were much closer and then almost upon them. The road once more veered to the left, and then directly ahead was a large group of buildings and trucks. There was also a huge berm of foundry supplies, like fuel or items needed for the forging of the probe metal from ore through to metal. Tanner had no idea what anything was, as his experience in mining was almost naught. He had little knowledge of foundry and the workings of it either. But he knew the basic process was that ore was heated, mixed with other items or supplies, and then poured out of a furnace to become metal once it cooled.

  As the bus pulled up next to a building, Tanner noted one thing.

  "Security? There is no gates or fences or for that matter, any way to keep people out, is there?" he asked.

  "Why would we need security, Captain? All there is here is ore, and it's metal when it comes out of the foundry. Resources is usually the only people you'd ever see here—sorry, I've no idea then why security would be needed," he said, and Tanner could tell he was truly out to lunch when it came to a reason why it'd be needed.

  At the door, Stonecraw Qew preceded them through and went down a long central corridor to a door near the end. Above the door hung a small sign that read, “MILITIA OFFICE.” He turned to his left and went through the door. Inside, a few feet away, sat a Militia corporal at a desk. A bookcase and a couple of filing cabinets finished off the total furniture in the room.

  "Sir," the corporal said as he quickly rose and gave the double-hand-to-chest salute.

  "At ease, Corporal," Stonecraw Qew said, and he saw there were no chairs for his guests to be seated in.

  He looked a bit upset but he nodded as the three RIM guests stood with him opposite the desk.

  "Corporal, these are visitors from off-planet—you've heard that we are hosting a diplomatic team from the RIM Confederacy, no doubt?" he said.

  The corporal nodded vigorously, which matche
d the sudden ripple in his feathered crest, and he clicked his beak once..

  "Well, these are three of same—and we'd like to see the mines and a tour too, if possible?" he inquired.

  "Sir, yes, Sir," the corporal replied, "and would you like a tour guide too, Stonecraw?"

  Stonecraw Qew nodded, and the corporal got on his console and made some quick keyboard strokes. The visitors in his office could hear the sound of footsteps running down the hall outside the office. A moment later, a breathless Resources Enkian, his black and lavender feathers all standing straight up on his head, entered the office and gave the traditional two-handed salute to Stonecraw Qew.

  Introductions were made and Bram gave a "got it" hidden sign to Tanner to let him know that he could read the Enkian named Qal fine.

  They moved off with guidance, turned to their left and went down the remaining hallway to a door in the back area. They went down the stairs and to their left again for a few hundred yards. At the entrance to what must be the mine, it seemed wrong in Tanner's mind, and he said so.

  "Qal, I must ask, since this kind of a mine I've never seen before. Where is the major shaft down, the head-frame, the hoist buildings that are a normal part of shaft mining?" He'd seen just that kind of setup years ago when he'd been fighting the pirates on ITO, where the major industry had been underground hard rock mining, but he did not see any of that here and now.

  "Ahhh ... yes, that is a long story, Captain, but here's the short form. We do not need to do shaft mining for the Xithricite metal—oh, that's the name of the find. About a billion years ago or so, a large asteroid plowed into Enki, it lies right ahead of us right here," he said as he pointed to the large mountain in front of them.

  It looks nothing like an asteroid, Tanner thought.

  "Of course, after a billion years or more, any shape that the asteroid did have would be weathered and acclimated to be a part of Enki, would that make sense?” Bram asked their guide.