by Rick Partlow
“That’s a rare attitude among Patrol officers,” Priscilla observed, picking through a pile of hand-woven rugs at an outdoor shop. The owner, a short, grizzled Earther, frowned at their Resolution uniforms but said nothing. “Most seem to resent the Consensus, and everything that goes with it.”
“Earth isn’t the Consensus, and the Consensus isn’t Earth,” Sam replied, trying not to notice the glare from the rug merchant. “We are all humans, and we all come from the same place, and long after the Consensus and the Resolution are gone, that will still be true.”
She glanced at him sharply. “You speak so casually of the Resolution ending.”
“I may not know all I wish to of history, Priscilla,” Sam told her quietly, deliberately moving away from the Earther merchant, “but I do know of a parable that predates the Collapse as long as the Collapse predates us. A powerful ruler once commissioned a sage to come up with a phrase that would fit all occasions, whether sad or joyous, momentous or trivial. The man thought about it for many months before returning to the King with his choice. The phrase he chose was ‘This too shall pass.’ I try to remind myself of that whenever I get too proud of human accomplishment.”
“I see when I return to Aphrodite,” Priscilla said in obvious amusement, “that I must make plans to institute a new branch of the Patrol to be populated entirely by philosophers.”
“All humans are philosophers. We live our lives by personal philosophies, spoken or unspoken.” Sam smiled, idly running a finger over a statue of pure nickel iron imported from the solar Belt. “Patrol officers just have more time to think about it. Though the more I study it, the more it seems that the longer humans live, the less they think about how they live. Back when death was an imminent reality for all adults, people were more concerned with living ethically.”
“Sam,” Devon called to him from further down the street, waving him toward a small shop. “Come look at this.”
Sam and Priscilla followed her into the darkened recesses of the corner shop, through a maze of hanging tapestries inlaid with holographic displays, their light sending out arcane shadows in the confines of the little building. In the back of the shop, they found Danabri, Arvid and D’jonni huddled with a plainly dressed woman with a particular ageless look that Sam associated immediately with a Resolutionist.
“Sam,” Devon introduced, “this is Jeddah Valley. She’s originally from Demeter.”
“I saw your crew, Captain, and had to say hello.” The woman took his hand. “It’s so rare to find anyone from home here in Tarshish.”
“How did someone from Demeter wind up running a shop in Tarshish?” Priscilla asked the woman.
“I worked as crew on a freighter to the Belt, fifteen years ago,” Jeddah told him. “They had a containment problem out near Ceres and had to dump their reactor. The rest of the crew hired passenger space on a ship home, but I had something of the wanderlust, so I decided to take the hop to Mars. I hooked up with a merchant, worked for him till he decided to move on, and then I bought out his shop.” She shrugged, smiling. “I imagine someday I’ll move on myself, but I’m not quite tired of this place just yet.”
“Sam,” Devon said, her voice emphatic, “you need to look at this.”
Sam followed her gesture, stepping through as the others parted. Hanging from the back wall was a tapestry inlaid with the holographic display of…
Sam blinked.
Inlaid on the tapestry was the image of the starship, the Bussard ramjet they had seen in the Centauri system. Not one like it, not merely the same design, but the same ship.
“How the hell…” Sam began, but words ran out.
“Citizen Valley,” Priscilla demanded, “where did you acquire this image?”
“Yes, Devon was telling me you would be interested in this.” Jeddah nodded. “My old boss, the previous owner here, bought this off a crewman on a Belt freighter, one of the new ones with the Transition drive they bought off the Resolution a few years back. The navigator said they saw this out in some unnamed system where they were making a connection, but no one ever believed him. He used to make these tapestries for a little extra money, so he made one of what he saw.”
“Why wouldn’t anyone believe him?” Sam asked. “Surely the ship’s captain could back it up with the sensor log.”
“Apparently,” Jeddah said with a sly grin, “they were running Resolution technology to the Earthers and the captain wasn’t too keen on keeping an accurate log.”
“Gaia’s Teeth,” Sam muttered. “How long ago did he say he saw the thing?”
“Not sure, really,” she admitted, shaking her head. “Danaan, the old owner here, talked to him more than I did. But it was ten years ago when he came in here, and he must have seen it a few years before that…his story was already a joke in the city by then.”
“Devon,” Sam said tightly, “do me a favor and use our discretionary fund to buy this tapestry. Then take it back to the ship and have Raven run a comparison scan with the images in her memory.”
“Yes, sir,” Devon said with a nod. “Where should I meet you?”
“We’ll be back at the guest house. I would imagine Citizen Priscilla just got something new to think about.”
***
“You know what this means,” Priscilla said quietly to him as they paced quickly back through the merchant district.
“We weren’t the first people to see this thing,” Sam said with a nod. “Which means, there’s the possibility that at least the Martians already knew about it.”
“I wonder if they’re the only ones,” Priscilla murmured. “Come on.” She suddenly tugged at his arm, leading him off down a side street.
“Where are we going?” Sam wondered with a confused frown, quickening his pace to follow her.
We’re being followed, she told him over his neurolink. For the last half a kilometer. At least three men, fifty meters back…don’t look yet.
Raven, do you read? Sam tried to call the ship’s computer using his implant transmitter. Raven? Devon, can you hear me?
We’re being jammed, Priscilla guessed. Take this next left turn and you can get a glimpse of them…don’t be too obvious though.
Sam followed her through a sharp left at the next surface street and allowed himself a brief glimpse of their pursuers: there were three men, dressed in the manner of an independent insystem freighter crew. Sam knew that was a deception because they all had the build of men who lived at or near standard gravity. They couldn’t be Resolutionists, so that left either Earthers or Earther colonists.
Priscilla, we should try to lead them back to the Collective administration district.
If we do that, she protested, we’ll lose them and we’ll never find out why they’re following us.
Yes, but if they intend us harm, we’re helping them out by heading this way; we’re nearly to the edge of the city.
Priscilla looked around for the first time at where they were: in a nearly deserted section of Tarshish surrounded by automated utility centers. The hum of generators and water pumps and the scuffle of their own feet on the pavement were the only noises. And then Sam heard the footsteps behind them starting to increase in pace.
“Too late,” Sam said out loud as he turned to face them.
The three men halted abruptly in their charge at Sam’s motion, pausing to glance questioningly at each other, and then back at Sam and Priscilla.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Priscilla demanded.
Sam didn’t wait for an answer; instead he used the distraction of her question as an opportunity to launch himself into the nearest of them, a broad-bodied man with a single stripe of hair running from his forehead down past his collar. Taking advantage of the low Martian gravity, Sam leaped from a standing start into a jump side kick that took the Earther directly in the sternum and sent him flying backwards, had over heels.
Touching down from the kick, Sam spun into an elbow strike at the second of the group, a tall, rangy f
ellow with a tattoo of a wolf running down his right cheek. But the element of surprise was gone and the man had enough time to dodge to the side, turning a devastating temple strike into a blow to the side of the neck that still sent him stumbling away off-balance and in pain.
The third Earther grabbed for something at his belt as he turned toward the Patrol Captain, but both he and Sam were surprised when Priscilla lashed out at him with a vicious round kick that broke his forearm with a sickening crack. The device he’d been attempting to retrieve clattered to the pavement, but before Sam could either get a look at it or go to Priscilla’s aid, the tattooed man was back on his feet. In his hand was a black, cylindrical device like the one the third attacker had dropped. Tattoo angled the thing toward the ground and touched a button on its side and Sam heard a faint hum issuing from it, could just barely see an interruption in the air below it.
Sam had a sickening feeling he knew what it was, and he threw himself backward as the Earther swung at him with the device. He rolled onto his shoulder and flipped back onto his feet in time to dodge Tattoo’s next charge. Leaping to the side, he caught a glimpse of Priscilla finishing the assailant she’d already disarmed, executing a series of elbow and knee strikes so quickly he couldn’t follow them.
He had little time to ponder her unexpected abilities, because Tattoo was circling around, trying to get an angle on him, swiping his weapon back and forth in a threatening figure eight. Sam quickly retreated, not sure of the thing’s reach but knowing what it would do to him if he guessed wrong. As Tattoo advanced on him and he continued to backpedal, Sam suddenly felt a tingle along his spine just as he heard Priscilla’s mental call, Behind you!
Acting on a combination of instinct and training, Sam ducked to the side as Tattoo swung his weapon and saw out of the corner of his eye the Mohawked Earther he’d kicked rushing him from behind. Tattoo, unable to control his swing, slashed his weapon right across Mohawk’s upper torso, which separated from the rest of his body in a spray of arterial blood. Before the two halves of the dead Earther hit the ground, Sam and Priscilla were both in motion, coordinating their attack through their neurolinks.
Sam feinted a high kick, and before Tattoo could bring his weapon around to guard, Priscilla slammed her heel into the side of the man’s knee. Sam heard the Earther’s kneecap shatter, saw the man’s mouth open in a scream, saw his hand open involuntarily around the grip of his weapon, held over his head in a defensive gesture…
As the device fell, it sliced through the top of Tattoo’s skull, cleaving it neatly in two before sliding out and falling to the ground. Sam stepped back as the body collapsed in front of him, spraying blood across the pavement.
“Come on, let’s go!”
Sam grabbed Priscilla’s hand and set off at a sprint back towards the Collective government sector. He didn’t know if there were any more of the Earthers around and he wasn’t about to wait to find out.
“Shouldn’t we call the authorities?” Priscilla asked, pacing him without difficulty.
“Once we’re somewhere safe,” Sam replied.
Devon, Sam called over his neurolink, hoping they were out of range of the jamming. Devon, are you there?
Nothing. Raven, he called, do you read?
Captain Avalon, I am gratified to hear from you. There has been trouble.
An attempt was made on our lives, but we’re both okay, Sam told the ship’s computer. Is everyone else all right?
Lieutenant Commander Conrad was also attacked, sir…
Devon? Sam interrupted, so surprised he almost stopped running. Is she all right?
She sustained a serious injury, but she will recover; she’s in the medical unit here on board. No one else was hurt, but they are all here as well.
Contact the Collective authorities, Raven, Sam ordered the AI. Inform them of both attacks and tell them they need to pick up the bodies of the men who tried to kill us. Sam gave him a feed of the coordinates at which the attack had occurred. Let them know we’ll be waiting for them at our ship.
Yes, Captain Avalon. If I may say so, I am glad you’re unhurt.
Thanks. Tell the crew we’ll be there in a few minutes.
“We need to get back to the ship,” Sam gasped out to Priscilla, still running. “There’s been…”
“Yes, I heard,” she interrupted. “We’d better find a transport.”
Sam was almost too distracted by the turn of events with his crew to be shocked that Priscilla could listen in on private neurolink conversations. He shook off the thought as he saw a private Offworlder-run cab sitting at a corner and began waving at it…
***
With the way things had been going, Sam half-expected Raven to be under missile attack when he arrived, but the spaceport was the very model of serenity. Sam absent-mindedly shoved a handful of Tradenotes at the cab driver, not caring if he was overpaying, then followed Priscilla out of the open-top vehicle and trotted toward the ship.
The boarding ramp lowered to meet them and they clambered up it, finding Lieutenant Arvid waiting for them in the utility bay, a frown describing his brown face.
“Thank Mother you’re both all right,” the weapons officer sighed. “When we couldn’t reach you by neurolink, we thought the worst.”
“How’s Devon?” Sam asked. “Is she going to be okay?”
“She got a nasty slice right through the left shoulder blade,” Arvid shook his head, “but we got her to the ship in time and the med unit is working on her now. Raven says she should be good as new by tomorrow morning.
“After you two left, Devon paid Jeddah, the Resolutionist shopkeeper,” Arvid explained, “and then she started back for the guest quarters. Carlos and D’jonni talked with Jeddah for another minute while Danabri and I looked around the stands in front of the store. That’s when we heard someone scream. We all ran out and found Devon being attacked by two Earthers…at least they looked like Earthers to me. They took off when they saw us coming, and we didn’t chase them because we weren’t sure if there were more of them and we wanted to get Devon to the ship.”
“Why didn’t you have her taken to a Collective medical center?” Priscilla wondered.
“We weren’t sure about their technology,” Arvid told her. “They can’t have nanotech, not with the Consensus breathing down their necks, and I knew what we had on board ship.”
“Good decision,” Sam told him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Did you call the Collective authorities and let them know what happened?”
“Yes, sir, they have people on the way to interview us and we called in descriptions of the attackers.” He frowned more deeply. “I don’t expect anything to come of it though. No one would plan something like this without some way of escaping capture.”
“The ones we encountered won’t be escaping anywhere,” Sam muttered, leaning back against a workbench. The adrenaline rush was beginning to fade, and Sam could feel himself slipping into post-traumatic shock. He clenched his fists to keep his hands from shaking, not willing to use his pharmacy organ to dose himself with a sedative. “Maybe the Collective can find something on the bodies.”
“I just wish we could have caught the guys that hurt Devon.” Arvid shook his head. “At least we could have gotten the picture back from them.”
“What?” Priscilla snapped. “What picture?”
“I’m sorry,” Arvid stuttered hesitantly. “I thought someone told you. It was the tapestry we bought, the one with the alien ship on it. The Earthers…they took it.”
Chapter Five
“What the hell do you mean there were no bodies?” Sam exploded, earning a sharp glance from Priscilla.
“As we have indicated,” the Martian investigator repeated unflappably, “we did a thorough search of the area and found no signs of the men you claimed were injured in the altercation.”
“What about security scanners?” Priscilla asked the man, holding up a hand to still protests from the other members of the ship’s crew gathered
in the meeting room with the two Martian officials. “Surely you run security scanners in the Offworlder districts.”
“The scanners were scrambled,” the Martian told them, “undoubtedly by the same interference that disabled your neurolink communicators. The same thing happened to the scanners near where your Navigator, Devon Bishop, was attacked.”
“Have you interviewed witnesses of that attack, at least?” Sam wanted to know.
“They corroborate what your people said,” the second Martian official replied, nodding---it was as if the two were interchangeable. “However, we have been unable to find any record of anyone that matches a description of the attackers. We did collect DNA samples from blood on the street near where you were attacked, and we will process them against those visitors who are registered, but if they managed to get onplanet without being recorded…”
“So that’s it then,” Sam muttered bitterly. He wasn’t so upset with the inability of the Martians to find the attackers as he was at their cheerful and blasé attitude. “At least two people dead, one of my crew badly injured, and that’s it.”
“We shall, of course, do our best to find those responsible,” one of the two assured him. “In the meantime, we urge you to be cautious. If these people are able to evade our security procedures, there is no telling what resources they have.”
“How about letting us carry weapons then?” Arvid suggested.
“Personal weapons are strictly forbidden in the Collective,” the Martian said sharply. “There are no exceptions.”
“That didn’t seem to bother those bastards that attacked us,” Carlos snapped. “I guess it’ll be some comfort if one of us is killed that at least the murderer will get arrested for illegal weapons possession…if you can catch him, that is.”
“Medical Officer Raines,” Sam hissed, eyes turning cold as he came to his feet, “if you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head, you can confine yourself to your quarters immediately.”
