“This is my point exactly,” said Dev. “If it’s not a natural occurrence and it’s not inadvertently manmade – if we eliminate those two possibilities – then we have to look somewhere else. So how about moleworms? Why not them?”
“I thought you were working on the theory that Polis Plus were behind this.”
“Bear with me. I might still be. The moleworms might not have moved to this area of their own accord.”
“As in they were guided? Herded?”
“Conceivably.”
Kahlo gave a sceptical grunt. “Trouble with you, Harmer, is you spout such nonsense most of the time, I can’t tell if you’re in earnest now or just bullshitting.”
“You too?” said Trundell, pleased. “I thought it was just me. I never know whether I should believe him or ignore him.”
“The latter’s usually the safest,” said Kahlo. “His mouth’s moving but nothing worthwhile is coming out.”
“All I hear are phrases he doesn’t mean. It’s really confusing.”
“He amuses himself. I suppose that’s something.”
“I am actually sitting right between you two,” said Dev. “It’s rude to talk about me over my head.”
“We know,” said Kahlo. “But it was nice, just for a moment, to act as if you weren’t here.”
Trundell smirked. “I think I like you, Captain Kahlo. You know, everyone says you’re blunt and emotionless and a real stickler for the rules. But you speak your mind, and that really works for me.”
“And the prize for backhanded compliment of the year goes to...” said Dev.
“Blunt is good,” said Kahlo. “Blunt gets things done. And in that spirit, Harmer, let me tell you – bluntly – that this moleworm idea of yours is as harebrained as they come.”
“And I disagree,” said Dev. “Look, you can’t deny that there at least could be a causal connection. Answer me this. When did the earthquakes start?”
“A month or so ago.”
“What was the date stamp on the Xanadu moleworm footage?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Ten days ago. You mentioned that that sort of thing happens now and then. How many incidents like it have there been recently?”
“I can’t say I’ve been keeping track.”
“Give me a moment. I’ll look it up.”
Dev ran a general search for moleworm sightings, then narrowed the parameters by date and location.
“Seventeen in the past four weeks. What’s the normal average?”
“About once a month, if that.”
“So we have a clear statistical anomaly: an abrupt and marked uptick in the number of times moleworms have strayed onto human-developed areas. The professor here told me yesterday that they prefer, as a rule, to stay down in the lower lithosphere. Patently they’re not doing that now.”
Kahlo gnawed her lip. “A fair point. But can we assume from that that they’re behind the quakes somehow? Mightn’t you be looking at it the wrong way round? Mightn’t the quakes be what’s making the moleworms behave unusually?”
“I’m not discounting it,” said Dev. “Either way, the influx of eastern moleworms onto this side of the planet, a long, long way away from their natural habitat, has to have some bearing on the earthquake situation. It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise. Two simultaneous, out-of-the-ordinary events can’t exist in isolation from each other. It defies logic.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” said Trundell. “In zoology we’re trained never to study the animal without considering the environment as well. The two are inseparable. One invariably impacts on the other, and often it’s both ways at once, mutual. Animal affects environment, environment affects animal, back and forth, constantly. If one changes, we have to ask ourselves how the other might have changed too, and which change came first.”
“There you go. The man has letters after his name, whereas I didn’t even make it past senior school. Listen to him, Kahlo, even if you won’t to me.”
Calder’s Edge’s chief of police turned away and paced the room for a couple of minutes, deep in thought. Dev took the opportunity to pour himself a glass of water – he was parched after so much talking – while Trundell nervously tamped down a lock of hair that refused to stay flat.
Eventually Kahlo halted and said, “Okay. I don’t totally buy the moleworms-make-quakes theory. I accept, though, that there may well be a link and it’s worth checking out, in the same way that if someone is seen running away from the scene of a crime, it’s worth checking them out in case they’re the perp. They might have a solid alibi, but at least that means you’ve eliminated a suspect and you’re one step closer to finding the real culprit.”
“Spoken like a true-blue cop,” said Dev.
“Where that leaves us, therefore, is me asking you how you’d like to go about following up this idea of yours.”
“My first instinct is that I should go where the moleworms are from.”
“Deep down? Can’t be done. Those buggers build their nests in places where the temperatures would roast us.”
“It’s true,” said Trundell. “Moleworms can cope with levels of heat stress and dehydration that’d kill a human, even one with thermoregulation adaptations like an Alighierian. Their resting metabolic rate is phenomenally low for their body mass, allowing them to conserve water and energy when asleep or sedentary, and they have a thick layer of subdermal brown adipose tissue that provides insulation for their inner organs. They thrive where we’d die.”
“You could always borrow a shieldsuit, I guess,” said Kahlo, “but the other problem is difficulty of access. The moleworms’ own tunnels are there to use, but they go on for miles and miles, completely unmapped. Sometimes moleworms burrow vertically, too.”
“I’m not talking about any of that,” said Dev. “I doubt I’d discover anything down there except how it feels to be a chargrilled side of beef. I’m proposing, instead, that I head over to Lidenbrock City.”
Kahlo did a double take. “Lidenbrock? What for?”
“That’s where the eastern moleworms hail from. Why have they left? What impelled them to migrate here?”
“You think you’ll find the answers in Lidenbrock?”
“It’s as good a place as any to start looking.”
“Well, be warned. Folk aren’t what you’d call hospitable there. I’ve not visited myself, but everyone I’ve known who has says don’t bother. You’ll get treated like dirt, and if you’re lucky, you’ll come back intact, though most likely minus a few personal possessions.”
“Calder’s hasn’t exactly welcomed me with open arms so far. Maybe in Lidenbrock I’ll be a better fit.”
“Don’t count on it. Truth is, I should be advising you against going there altogether. It’s genuinely dangerous. The murders rates are insane. There’s no law to speak of.”
“That’s okay,” said Dev. “I’ll be taking Trundle with me to look after me. He’ll have my back.”
“Wha-a-at?” squeaked Trundell. “No!”
Dev yoked an arm around his neck and ruffled his hair. “I need my sidekick, prof. My zoology expert. I can’t do it without you. Who’s going to ask intelligent questions about moleworms if not you?”
“But... but...” Trundell floundered.
“It’ll be fine. Don’t you want to follow in Professor Banerjee’s footsteps? See where the great man did his work?”
“Yes, but not in... not like...”
“That sentence began with a ‘yes.’ That’s good enough for me.”
Trundell didn’t quite concede defeat, but he was too bewildered and taken aback to continue protesting. Dev knew he would be able to talk him round eventually, breaking down the last of his resistance. The xeno-entomologist was nothing if not biddable.
“If he’s going with you,” said Kahlo, “then I’m sending you out with a police escort. I won’t allow an off-world civilian to be exposed to Lidenbrock unprotected. I won’t have that on my conscience.”
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“You’re offering to come too?” said Dev.
“Not me. I have to stay here. Calder’s needs me more than ever. But I’ll rustle up a team for you, and make the travel arrangements too. Might as well do this properly. Otherwise, knowing you, it’d be some half-cocked effort, liable to end in disaster.”
“Astrid Kahlo, you’re a star. In fact, I could kiss you.”
“Better men than you have tried, Harmer,” Kahlo said. She wagged a finger. “Just promise me this. He comes back in one piece.” She pointed to Trundell.
“You have my word.”
“I wonder how much that’s worth,” Kahlo muttered. “And,” she added, “you had better come back in one piece too, Harmer. You’re a right royal pain, but you’re starting to grow on me.”
“Like a yeast infection.”
“You said it. Also, if you get yourself killed, the paperwork’s going to be a bitch.”
Dev laughed. “The paperwork or the person doing it?”
Kahlo hauled back and socked him in the jaw as hard as she could.
And, to be fair, he deserved it.
23
“LOCKED INTO THE ejector tube and ready for launch,” said Wing Commander Beauregard, leaning through the narrow opening that joined cockpit to cabin. “Hope you’re all buckled in back there.”
Dev glanced across the aisle at Trundell. The xeno-entomologist had his eyes tight shut and was gripping the armrests of his seat. Ashen-faced, he looked like a man awaiting execution.
“Hey, Trundell.”
Trundell’s eyes snapped open. “You got my name right,” he said, startled.
“Don’t worry about this. We’re going to be fine.”
“Yes? And how many ejection takeoffs have you done, Harmer, if I may ask?”
“It’s my first.”
“Then how do you know we’re going to be fine?”
“Because Wing Commander Beauregard must have done hundreds, and he’s still alive, isn’t he?”
Beauregard’s status as a living person was not in doubt. Whether he was sane, though, was another matter.
Beauregard was wild-eyed and unshaven, and his uniform, if uniform it was, had seen better days. A threadbare leather flight jacket hung over what had apparently once been a League of Diasporan Short-Haulers shirt, although the breast pocket that would have carried the LDSH insignia had been torn off. For a belt he had a length of twine, and a peaked Air Force cap sat slantwise on his head, its cloth crown mapped with sweat stains, much of its braid missing.
A pilot’s appearance was supposed to instil confidence in his passengers. Beauregard’s did not.
The hip flask he kept sipping from didn’t help either.
Nor did the religious paraphernalia with which he had festooned his control console: crucifixes, Buddhas, Stars of David, tiki gods, miniature ikons, a kitschy Virgin Mary statuette, a bobble-head Jesus. They might have been there as a joke, but it was a joke in poor taste.
“Pressure’s at its peak,” said Beauregard. “Commencing countdown. This’ll get bumpy, but think of it as an amusement park ride. I do. Ten.”
Also in the cabin with Dev and Trundell were two police officers. They had been hand-picked by Kahlo, or so she said. One of them, Deputy Zagat, Dev knew nothing about, but the other was Sergeant Stegman, and he could only think that Kahlo had selected him out of sheer perversity.
“Stegman’s a jerk,” Dev had protested when Kahlo announced who would be escorting him to Lidenbrock City.
“So are you. It’s a match made in heaven.”
“Can’t I have Patrolman Utz instead? I like him, and he’s actually not a complete tool. He also seems to know what he’s doing, so that’s a bonus.”
“You need someone reasonably senior with you. Plus, prickly personality notwithstanding, Stegman’s reliable.”
“Reliably pigheaded.”
“He won’t put up with any of your shit, Harmer. Which makes him perfect for the job. If it’s any consolation, he’s bitching about it as much as you are. He’s all ‘Why me? Anyone but me, ma’am!’ I think, the two of you together, you’ll keep each other honest. And on your toes.”
“Is this negotiable?”
“With me, nothing is, Harmer.”
Stegman was managing to keep his anxiety in check better than Trundell, but only just. His fingers were tapping out a rhythm on his knee. He was probably listening to loud distracting music.
Meanwhile, Deputy Zagat had overcome his nerves, if he had any, by the tried and tested technique of falling sound asleep. He was a big man, and his snores were commensurately deep.
“Five,” said Beauregard. “Four. If you’ve got prayers, say them now. Ha-ha!”
Beneath the arcjet’s hull, huge forces were mounting. The suborbital craft was about to be propelled out of Calder’s Edge via a conductive launch armature set within an array of parallel electromagnetic rails. The aim was to get her through Alghieri’s crust and lower exosphere as quickly as possible, in order to minimise the time her heat shielding was exposed to the excessive temperatures on the planet’s surface.
It was first thing in the morning, a half-hour before dawn. This region of Alighieri was at its coolest then. Even so, it was a little over six hundred degrees Celsius topside, hot enough to melt aluminium.
“Two,” said Beauregard. “One.”
There was silence.
Then a massive jolt that shoved Dev down hard into his seat. The arcjet thrummed like a giant didgeridoo. Dev’s head became difficult to hold up, pressing onto his spinal column as though it had quadrupled in weight.
Above, at the top of the ejector tube, huge tantalum-zirconium doors sprang wide. The arcjet popped up through them, accelerating to a speed of one kilometre per second. The doors slammed shut behind her.
The vertical axis g-force would have been unbearable, even lethal, to the five people aboard, had the arcjet not been fitted with a modified Riemann Deviation drive. This was an inverted version of the gravity warping drives that shunted starships sideways into infraspace. It briefly set up a negative-gravimetric field which counteracted some – though not all – of the g-force, turning what would otherwise have been an eyeball-enucleating experience into a merely very unpleasant one.
Beauregard chortled throughout the ascent like a teenage boy watching his first pornstream. He hadn’t just got used to the sensation of having his body crushed as though beneath a piledriver; he actively enjoyed it.
Trundell, meanwhile, was letting out a whine that threatened to become a high-pitched wail.
The arcjet – Milady Frog – achieved close to two kilometres per second, Alighierian escape velocity, before a touch of the thrusters from Beauregard converted her perpendicular trajectory to an angled one. She hurtled in a rising parabola that took her almost to the limit of the planet’s gravity well, heading due west.
As the momentum of takeoff began to wane, boosters kicked in. The sheer rocketing climb became a near-horizontal glide through Alighieri’s all-but-nonexistent atmosphere.
“You can unbuckle your seatbelts now if you like,” said Beauregard. “Unpucker your sphincters, too. It should be smooth going from here on. Next stop, Lidenbrock. Journey time’s three hours, so make yourselves comfortable, settle in, and take in the view while you’re up here.”
Porthole covers retracted and dim light infiltrated into the cabin from both sides.
Milady Frog soared across Alighieri’s night side, slightly faster than the planet was turning. Craning his neck, Dev could just make out a rim of daylight to the rear, flaring around the horizon like a halo. The terminator between night and day was chasing them, but wouldn’t catch up.
Alighieri’s shadow was protecting them from the full, searing glare of Iota Draconis. Milady Frog was built to withstand excessive temperatures. Her boron carbide hull panels would keep out the worst of the solar thermal radiation. But to fly during the daytime was a risk all the same. Just one chink in the arcjet’s armour, the me
rest crack, and some vital piece of avionics might be flash-fried to a cinder. What would follow didn’t bear thinking about.
Night flying was by far the wiser option.
Beauregard engaged the autopilot and rested his feet on the control console. For a while, he toyed with an Eye of Horus emblem made of jade, walking it across his knuckles. Then he fell asleep.
Alighieri stretched below, an expanse of darkness.
The arcjet soon gained enough altitude that Dev could make out the planet’s tectonic layout. The plates were demarcated by glowing orange lines, zigzagging cracks where magma blistered up through from beneath. Bursts of brightness were strung along the lines like pearls on a necklace. There, at these hotspots, the volcanic emission activity was intense, huge coronas of lava spurting out one kilometre high.
He had to wonder why anybody would come to this planet voluntarily; indeed, why anybody would have thought it worth colonising. Oh, yes, sure, helium-3, most valuable resource in the galaxy, blah-blah. But the place was as barren and forbidding as you could imagine.
Hell might not exist as an abstract concept any more, but if you were looking for it in reality, you could do a lot worse than start at Iota Draconis C.
Dev snuggled back into the foam-padded contours of his seat and prepared to let the drone of Milady Frog’s engines lull him into a doze. Beauregard thought it okay to sleep, so why shouldn’t he too?
He’d had a restless night, after all. The hotel which Kahlo had recommended was none too luxurious. It was little better than a flophouse for migrant miners who were skimping on their living expenses so that they’d have more money to take home at the end of their tours. The walls had been cardboard-thin, so that every snore, burp and fart from the adjacent rooms came through. As for the mattress, it was a slim, tatty slab of contour foam that had lost most of its springiness, made even more uncomfortable by the constant nagging pain in his back and belly, legacy of the Ordeal.
On top of which, he had had to get up horribly early this morning to be at the launch complex to catch the flight.
All in all, he was dog tired.
“Uhm, Harmer?”
World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01) Page 14
