Only then did he notice something on the floor: a black coil of chain around a black box. He bent down and picked up the necklace that Bria usually wore. It must have broken off when he had wrestled Bria into the autodoc.
A crack stretched along one seam of the small black box. Considering where it lay, he likely had stepped on it when he had heaved Bria into the autodoc. He pressed on the sides of the box, making the crack open so he could peer inside. There, three white fangs lay atop a thick patch of gray fur. Both were Sussurat by the look of them, the teeth relatively small and pale white, the fur downy with youth.
Tarkos knew he should not do this, but he felt he stood on the edge of understanding something, anything, about Bria’s sullen fury. From a drawer by the autodoc he took a small scalpel. He lifted one of the teeth from the cracked box—a Sussurat child’s tooth, he now felt certain. Perhaps such teeth fell out naturally like the teeth of baby mammals on Earth. He scraped the blade along the scored underside of the tooth, where he hoped the abrasion would be least noticeable. Then he put the flat of the blade under his nose and inhaled the dust.
The sequencer built into his skull automatically began decoding the DNA in the sample. It was fragmented code, but the quantum computer in his gut began testing permutations at instantaneous speeds. Tarkos experienced the new sensation that his implants enabled, something most analogous to tasting, although like sight he could focus closely, or move his attention away to large scale features. He determined in seconds that the tooth belonged to a Sussurat female. A few more seconds and large patches of the DNA matched Bria’s own. But not all of it.
It could only mean one thing: a daughter. These were from Bria’s daughter. Tarkos had not even suspected Bria had a child.
Out of reflex he looked into his implant’s personal data space, considering but not actually committing to a search on Bria’s personnel records.
And there in his personal data space a message waited for him, sent by the ship as a result of some system request. It quietly blinked in the corner of his field of vision. He checked the tag, and read “Briaathursiasaliantiormethessess: Death Requests.”
Her death, once detected by the ship, had triggered her last requests. The autodoc had revived her, she might even survive now, but the ship had not been programmed to retrieve such a message once sent.
Tarkos opened the message.
“Should body be recovered, ask to be buried next to daughter Treuntilliasussarius, on Sussurat, on the Island of Sorresisily.”
Tarkos frowned. The daughter was dead. Now he did check Bria’s personnel records and found, in the portion open to his clearance, her family records. A mate, back on Sussurat. A daughter, deceased at the age of four Sussurat years. Cause listed only as disease.
Tarkos looked down at the tiny bit of clipped fur, and the three baby fangs. There could be only one explanation. Children did not die from disease on Galactic worlds unless they were victims of the wily engineered diseases, complex and combative pathogens that could rewrite their own code and slip around the best defenses of Galactic medicine. And the only source of such diseases was the poisonous legacy of the Ulltrians, through the biological weapons that the Ulltrians had used against worlds like Sussurat.
Tarkos touched a panel by the autodoc, and it slid out to accept the personal effects of the patient. He set the necklace inside.
Behind the thick glass, Bria still had the unnerving appearance of a corpse, her mouth open as if in rictus, her eyes open a tiny crack, and her limbs held up as if locked into rigor mortis. But her chest rose and fell, rose and fell, the fierce spark of life moving her still.
“Harmonizer?” Eydis called. She stood in the doorway to the cockpit, watching him closely, frowning in concern.
Tarkos nodded, both his hands still flat on the autodoc glass.
“Right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
_____
The starsleeve drifted, unharassed, where he had left it. Tarkos let out a long breath when he saw it with his own eyes. He had half expected to find an Ulltrian ship floating above the starsleeve, waiting to destroy them. Instead, there the starsleeve floated, a lonely silver thistle, and it radioed that all systems functioned well.
Tarkos docked the cruiser, put the ship pair under an e-gee thrust out of the plane of the system, and then he walked back to the closet where his armor had stowed itself. He told the armor to open the thigh holster, and he took the laser pistol that it extruded, one of the sentient weapons. He felt it in his hand, satisfied with the heft of it. He rarely held the weapon against his real flesh. The handle narrowed and elongated, accommodating his grip.
The ventral hatch opened above him, and the starsleeve extruded a stair down into the cruiser. Tarkos stood at its foot, and opened the airlock. He waved the weapon at the three remaining parts of Gowgoroup.
“Upstairs,” he said.
He followed the OnUnAn up the steps and into the starsleeve, walking in its slimy foot trail. He interfaced with the ship as he followed the three slugs along to its quarters, and gave commands that would make its room a prison cell, closing off all external controls and exits. At the door, he waited while the slugs slipped inside.
When they were all across the threshold, the slugs turned and faced him. Their color was not good, a pale green that he took to be hypothermia. The foul smell of sulfur and rot washed over Tarkos, emanating from its quarters. But Tarkos did not close the door. Instead, he lifted the laser.
“Why did you do it?” he asked. “Ki’Ki’Tilish had done you no harm.”
The leader slug looked at him with drooping eyes. The functionary, with its eyes still retracted, reached out and touched the leader, as if seeking or giving reassurance.
“You wave your eyes out but see nothing,” the leader finally said. “You move your parts in all directions but only come undone as a result.”
Tarkos found there was something strange about hearing the OnUnAn speak with a single voice. He was surprised to discover that he could understand, in some intuitive way, how badly the colony being had been diminished.
“Here is the truth, Predator,” the slug gurgled on, “none can stop the Ulltrians. They have prepared for many lifetimes. As soon as you find them, they will destroy the Alliance, with a new weapon that none have ever imagined possible. They will kill your worlds. If you want to live a little while longer, abandon this mission. I tried to save you for a short while, by silencing the astronomer. But your species will die now.”
“My species is about to surprise you, OnUnAn,” Tarkos said. He raised the laser, and pointed it at the slugs. Three targeting dots appeared on their faces. The gun signaled to him that it fully recognized the targets. Tarkos shut the door. He dropped the gun. It sprouted wire-thin legs from the handle as it fell, and landed with a springing wobble. It shifted slightly, testing its legs, and then stood, aimed at the door to Gowgoroup’s room.
“Kill the targets if they come through the door,” Tarkos told the weapon.
Eydis and Tiklik were waiting on the bridge as he entered. Tiklik balanced unevenly on its three legs. It looked like a piece of wreckage. Eydis was pale and had dark rings under her eyes. There was a sore red line around her mouth where the breather had rested for days. She still wrapped herself in the crinkling silver blanket, and shivered every few moments, struggling to warm herself.
“Get the book,” he said.
Eydis nodded and went back down into the cruiser. She returned with the book, and dropped it onto the deck. Water seeped from the pages. She kneeled and opened it, turning the heavy sheets, until she found the page that Gowgoroup had killed Ki’Ki’Tilish over.
“Tiklik,” Tarkos said. “You’re our astronomer now. What can you tell us of this? It says the World Hammer, the wandering planets, went past or toward a blue star.”
“These name constellations,” Eydis said, pressing a finger on the wet page, “and degrees apparent motion with respect to the Kriani’s Eye, a bright star in the constella
tion. It says the twin worlds went towards the blue star. About one degree galactic north of it. Here.”
Tiklik seemed to wobble in place, but the black lenses of its eyes zoomed and changed focus. “From the perspective of this world, that pattern of stars would include a star that might appear blue to some eyes. Onus, homeworld of the OnUnAns.”
Tarkos slapped a fist into his open palm. “That’s it. That’s why Gowgoroup killed Ki’Ki’Tilish. The Galactic Alliance is searching in the wrong place. They think the World Hammer went in the opposite direction. This finding would have told them otherwise. And it also would cast doubt on the OnUnAns: the Ulltrians have been in their vicinity for centuries. If the Ulltrians were to infiltrate any world, Onus would be the first target of opportunity.” He frowned. “How fast were the planets going? How far would they be now?”
Tiklik wobbled, staring at the page. Finally it said, “Eight light years, margin of error one light year.”
Tarkos nodded. He walked over to the captain’s chair and sat. The chair shrank and changed shape, fitting to his smaller form. “Thank you, Tiklik. You should retire to your quarters and attempt whatever repairs the ship can assist you with. After, we will need you to learn everything this book can tell you.”
“I will need magnesium,” the robot said. It shambled through the door.
Eydis watched it go. When the door closed behind it, she asked Tarkos, “What now?”
“If the Ulltrians could control the situation, if they were cheating the data, giving the Alliance wrong directions, then they could have just as easily stayed hidden.”
Eydis shrugged. “Maybe they were already hoping to attack soon, and are just trying to maximize their tactical advantages.
Tarkos nodded. “By getting the Executive forces amassed in the wrong place. Exactly. And Gowgoroup said that they will attack when they know we know where they are. So the question is, how do we tell the Alliance where they are, without tipping off the Ulltrians, or any spies?”
“They’ll know eventually. There were loyal Kriani down there. We have to assume they’ll hyper-radio the Ulltrians.”
Tarkos nodded. “But would they be able to discern what we have done?” He thought for a moment, and then nodded his head, coming to a decision. He pointed at the door opposite the one Tiklik had used. “The ship can make you some quarters in the spare room, and the ship can make you some clothes. Meanwhile, my quarters are the first left. You can use my fabricator. I’ll explain my plans when you come back.”
_____
Tarkos called one of the general ship robots into to the bridge, a small bipedal form of pale gray metal, with dextrous arms and a head full of lenses. He showed it how to turn the pages of the book, and photograph each. While it scanned the pages, he composed a brief and very minimal report in Galactic that explained only that important data was following. Then, he added to it a message in English, calling up an old-fashioned keyboard program and typing a personal note to Pietro Danielle.
Tarkos appended these messages to the visual images of the Book of Disordered Skies, and then sent them by hyper-radio to The Savannah Runner. He knew that Danielle would understand his message before any translators or AIs on the Savannah Runner decoded the images of the Ulltrian book.
The door opened behind him. He turned, and found Eydis standing in a simple white jumpsuit, something the ship had manufactured on short notice.
“We’re almost at the point where we can dive into hyperspace,” he told her.
“We’re going to Neelee-ornor, the Neelee homeworld?”
“No,” Tarkos said very softly.
Eydis nodded. She watched him poke at controls for several minutes before she said, “We’re going to the World Hammer.”
Tarkos looked up at her again and frowned apologetically. “Yes.”
“Why? You’re a wise young man, Amir. Think. This was a suicide mission you were sent on. Two Predators to spy on Ulltrians? I don’t know why they consider you expendable, but you survived. I assume you’ve reported to your superiors. So take your winnings and go home. Otherwise this whole thing is symbolic, if not absurd.”
Tarkos waved an arm, indicating the whole bridge. “Everything here is symbolic, if not absurd. Sending real organisms—people!—into space instead of robots. Building ships like this with a bridge, when it could fly itself or I could fly it laying on my back in a coffin sleeper. And the energy! Dear Allah, we’ve already used more power to get here than the whole United States used in the twentieth century. This is all crazy. But we do it because we believe life—real, biological life—must spread itself and must take the lead. And we do it for the symbolism. To say that life can and must do it.”
Eydis said, “You can’t make this decision alone.”
Tarkos shook his head in frustration. She was trying different arguments now. It seemed unfair, like they were not having a discussion but rather she was bombarding him with words. “I have a duty. And I have to make the decision alone, until Bria is whole and awake.”
“I’m a citizen also. I should get a vote.”
“Yes, you are a citizen. But a secondary citizen. You haven’t pledged your allegiance the Alliance, as I have done. But that’s not the issue. The issue is: I’m responsible for this mission now. And I know what Bria would say, were she conscious right now.”
“Do you want to be as bad as that Sussurat, with its personal vendetta?”
Tarkos felt his solar plexus sink. He’d told Eydis that Bria took the Ulltrian threat personally because he’d felt such empathy with her, one human being to another, alone and far, far from Earth. Besides, sometimes he just wished he could complain to someone about how Bria and the other Galactics treated him as the product of some pariah race. But now, having learned what Bria’s loss had been, he felt only like he’d betrayed his partner. He felt ashamed. “Don’t make me feel like I made a mistake, confiding in you, Eydis.”
“Then tell me if you have another reason.”
“OK. The Savannah Runner is probably still within the Qualihout system. So, that’ll take… about twenty e-days for our message to get to them by hyper-radio. I’ve hyper-radioed to Neelee-ornor also. Same time debt. Meanwhile, the whole Executive fleet is searching on the other side of the Well of Furies, a good ten light years out. They expected this mission to only help narrow their search, not completely revise their search. It will take the Executive a while to get a fleet here, and into the path of the World Hammer. That’s basically an advantage of weeks that the Ulltrians have. We can’t allow that. We are the closest force to the Ulltrians.”
“We are not a force. We are one conscious and one unconscious Predator, two civilians, and half a prisoner.”
“Whatever we are, we could be there in, what, maybe sixteen e-days. We have to go.”
“And do what?”
“Discover their plans. Report their disposition to the Alliance.”
Eydis shook her head. “You’re a true believer, you are. You’re a real convert.”
“You and I may disagree about how to best protect Earth,” he said. “But this is my responsibility. I’m sorry you’re caught up in this. I truly am. But you’ve got to play it my way.”
“Alright,” she said, softly. “I can respect that. But I’m not a believer. And I have a demand. I will report to Earth. I will send my data, the things I found on the Well of Furies, and I’ll tell them what’s happening now. I need only a few terabytes, hyper-radio tightbeam to Terra.”
Tarkos shook his head. “I have an official request from the Corp to forbid any such outside communication.”
“Orders be damned. You have a duty to your species, and to Earth-clade. We send my message.”
Eydis raised her left arm. She pointed her hand out, palm flat, fingers together like a pointed blade. She aimed their tips at Tarkos.
They stared at each other a long minute.
“You have an embedded weapon,” he said. “A laser in your bones, I assume.”
“
More than one,” Eydis said.
“It’ll hurt.”
“Yes. It will hurt. I’ll lose two fingers. So send the message. That way you live, and I keep the fingers, and I go with you to the World Hammer and I die there. Because if we find the Ulltrians we will die, Harmonizer Amir Tarkos. So I’m offering a lot. I’m giving you my life. And all you have to give me in return is one message.”
Her tone was conciliatory, but Tarkos noticed that she did not shake. Her fingers pointed at him rigidly. Her pale eyes watched him closely. Her shoulders were relaxed, ready for smooth motion. She was a professional.
“Hyper-radio can be intercepted,” he said. “Your message could be decoded. The receiving planet of the message could be located and made a target.”
“That’s unlikely.”
“Is it? There’s an OnUnAn consulate on Earth.” Tarkos sighed. “I’m sorry, Eydis. I like you. But, your threat is useless. This ship is slaved to the cruiser, and the cruiser is quantum locked to obey only Bria and myself. You shoot me, and you can’t send any message anywhere.”
“I’m far better with computers than you suspect, Predator.”
“Well, that might be true. How about this. My gun is on the other side of that door. That’s not an airlock door, but just the privacy door. It’s thin. My gun has calculated your location based on my vision. It will fire through that door and cut your arm off if I just think of it. And it will kill you if I am killed.”
Her eyes slipped sideways, involuntarily glancing at the closed door. Then she looked back at him a long time, her blue eyes unblinking.
She lowered her arm. “Alright. We play it your way, Harmonizer. But I am not pleased.”
“Neither am I,” he said. “I’m very sorry to have gotten you into this.”
“Was your gun really on the other side of that door?” she asked.
Tarkos’s eyes unfocussed as he interfaced with the ship. The bridge door slid open. His gun stood on the other side, on spindly legs. It walked towards him, turning sideway as it stepped, to keep the barrel aimed at Eydis. Its targeting laser painted a red line across her left arm, just below the elbow.
Well of Furies Page 16
