The World Game

by Allen Charles

  The rotational sequence only took forty five seconds and went through five cycles, the transport image dwindling away each time until by the sixth time, the thread dropped as Zardooz turned off the tendril to conserve the bot’s limited power.

  “What now?” Shaw asked Fuller.

  “My only concern is that he may use the bore hole to send another bot, if he has one, or possibly cut through in another location and all of that does not take away the possibility that he does have a self destructive device down there. We need to go on the offensive and neutralize him as quickly as possible, before we consider taking off for Alpha Centurai. Let’s get back to the ship and see what we can do.”

  CHAPTER 61

  In the transport.

  In the cabin, Fuller and Carver pored over the cargo manifest looking for something that could be used as a weapon to stop Zardooz. “I would prefer to use non-lethal methods,” remarked Fuller, “but if all we have is lethal, then so be it.”

  “Look!” Janine pointed to a line in the list. “What’s that?”

  It was a listing in the medical re-supply section. A drug called Medalizam.

  Janine queried the computer for more detail and it came up with a short description followed by detailed pharmacology. They read the brief description together and Fuller underlined the key attributes and possible delivery methods.

  It was a development of the old amnesia inducing drug Midazolam but with added enhancements. The short term memory, permanent amnesia effect was still the principal focus, however the current version was also an effective anaesthetic and anti-depressant agent. It had the added benefit that it could be used to induce coma long term without side effects.

  “It says that the drug can be delivered by ingestion, intravenously, inhalation or by skin absorption. The effects are directly proportional to the dosage applied and all methods are equally effective in the end result, but vary in the time to take effect.” read Janine.

  “It is kind of perfect for what we want to achieve. I don’t want to kill the bastard as unfortunately, we may need his genes in the future for the sake of human survival. Question is how to deliver a decisive dose.” Fuller ran his finger down the dimage page. “How do we push the amnesia effect to the maximum. Aha, there it is.” His finger stopped and they put their heads together and read.

  “We need to see the layout of the complex.” said Tom. “I may have been President, but before that I was a Marine and I know a little about strategy, and strategy is all about how good your intelligence information is.”

  They looked at the schematic based on the entrance tunnel and the vents. There wasn’t much to go on.

  “Would the repair bot have the complex layout in its on board memory?” asked Felicity. “If something broke down it would have to be able to act independently to some extent.”

  “Felicity! That is brilliant thinking!” congratulated Fuller. “Shaw, we know the bot model. Get everything you can on it from the computer. Our little friend is going to help us again.” Fuller looked at his watch. “By the way, he didn’t blow us up.” he said with a grin.

  A few minutes later Shaw came back to the meeting and pulled up a dimage of the repair bot model. “It is a standard NASA repair bot from about eight years ago. They were replaced by a bio mechanical model based on the same principle as our youniforms. This fellow was in service for about twelve years.

  He runs on a fuel cell pack that gives him around forty eight hours of average use, say moving about and doing small repairs. If he is pushed to extremes with heavy work and space activity he drops to about twenty hours. He has a Level two artificial intelligence module and is capable of making simple survival decisions and routine repairs without human intervention. He communicates with his base via multi frequency radio or direct conduction vibration such as audio or surface contact.”

  “What is his G-mass?” asked Fuller.

  “On Earth he would have weighed eighty kilograms, about one seventy five pounds.”

  “More detail on his radio comms please.”

  Shaw skimmed the file until he found what Fuller wanted. “Without atmospheric bounce or satellite relay he is line of sight like our suit comms.”

  “So how is Zardooz communicating with it now?” wondered Tom.

  Fuller pointed at the vent mounds and the obs points. “Maybe relayed through antennae in those things. but he wouldn’t have known if they were working or not, so one assumes conduction.” replied Fuller.

  “Our camera view of him has to be by radio transmission. Conduction couldn’t carry the data stream in real time for images. Sound yes, moving pictures, no.” countered Shaw.

  “You’re right!” said Fuller. “Where is his antenna? Its not the vent mounds or the obs stations. We would have picked that up. Has to be something the bot brought out of the tunnel. Maybe dropped a surface wire that we missed. We better go look.”

  “What happens when we find it?”

  “Mr Shaw, you may have the pleasure of snipping off well below surface level.”

  “But Zardooz will know its us!” said Shaw.

  “No he won’t because we are going to give him a meteorite shower show on the tendril camera and bounce a few rocks off the bot before we snip the antenna. Then we will bounce some large rocks near the bot to give his conduction comms something to chew on, and then...”

  Fuller, Tom, Felicity and Shaw had carefully made their way over to the bot. They avoided radio comms in case Zardooz was scanning. Shaw waved his hand and picked up a fine wire that draped over the edge of the bore hole and lay in the direction of the bot. He scouted around and made sure it was the only one.

  Fuller started a new image sequence in the pilot helmet that still lay in front of the hole in the cover. Now every so often there was a flash and puff of debris as the fragment ran into space debris. Fuller signalled Tom and Felicity to start throwing small rock chips at the bot. Not an easy task as they had to gouge up the rocks and compensate for the fragment spin. Still some of the pieces hit and the vibration alerted Zardooz. The little thread changed position as the camera came back to the hole.

  Fuller picked up a large rock he had dug out and smashed it into the surface near the bot. Then another, this time closer and showering the bot with particles. The next one was a direct hit, shaking the bot enough to cause the tendril to lose its position. Fuller signalled Shaw to cut and grabbed the bot in a bear hug and lifted it.

  Botnapped! Zardooz was deaf and blind, thinking a meteorite had blown the bot off the surface. But more important, Fuller had the bot and could download its data.

  The others came over and released the pitons holding the bot cover down. Fuller had a few inches of free play to keep the bot off the surface. It needed solid contact for conduction. Fuller’s body did not fit the bill.

  Together with Shaw’s thrusters and the other two guiding, they drifted their prize back to the ship and inside, where they set it down on a bed of foam seat cushions.

  Shaw brought up a schematic dimage and located the memory module, which he removed and handed to Fuller. Then he turned off the bot’s power and it almost slumped like something dead as lights went out. Fuller headed for the control cabin where he could plug the memory module into the ship’s computer.

  CHAPTER 62

  In the Iranian complex.

  Zardooz wasn’t taking things at face value. He knew he was facing his nemesis, the Great Satan, the very President of the United States himself. No, nothing would be as it appeared, but he was very confused. The bodies of the women had vanished; could the Americans have done that? But they would have had to enter the complex. No, something else was at play here. Did the Americans really leave?

  He might have been a corrupt official of an evil regime, but that was the normal for Zardooz. Even within the criminality of his way of life, he was still faithful to his country’s interpretation of the words of the Prophet. He should martyr himself before he could fall into the hands of the unbelievers and take t
hem with him, but if they had left, really left, then it would be a pointless ending and of no service to Allah.

  He had to get eyes on the surface somehow and make sure they were gone. He did not have another repair bot and the RABI was only good for boring. There were no space rated suits in the complex as this had never been anticipated.

  He sat, slumped in front of the computer and then suddenly straightened in the restraints. He brought up the complex stores manifest and started scanning it, running down the list which was written in Farsi. There was no generic term in Farsi for “Space Suit” but they did have a need for deep water pressure suits when building the complex. What would they be called in Farsi?

  He scrolled down, looking for a clue and stopped, finger on a line. “Paragon Diving System” was transliterated into Farsi. Now, was the diving gear actually in the complex and would it work for the vacuum of space? He located the listed storage bay and compartment on the schematic and saw that it was on the periphery of the complex. There were basic security cameras scattered about the area, but nothing directly in sight of the storage bay, so he had no idea if the area was safely pressurized or open to the vacuum of space. The nearest camera showed a dimly lit corridor heading towards the storage area, but that did not mean there was breathable atmosphere down there. The fact was, the diving suit was there because of the deep fissures and caverns that riddled the strata below the site. This maze was probably exposed to space and the storage area was the deepest point in the complex and directly above the caverns.

  Zardooz scratched his head in thought as it hit him. Maybe if the storage bay was intact and he could get to the suit, the caverns might give him a way out that would surprise the Americans. A back door! He called for any information about the caverns and was rewarded with a new schematic. They had been explored and recorded with the intent to store nuclear weapons outside the actual complex. This was shown to be impractical as the water table for the entire region was the source of the flooding in the caverns, so one small radioactive leak could have killed the whole population. It was deemed that this was not martyrdom to die in such a way, just sheer stupidity. The caverns were left to themselves.

  He looked carefully at the map. As he had no idea where the system was open to space, he would have to explore until he found a way out, or he could try the RABI once he had some idea of the remaining depth of the fragment. Nevertheless, his first job was to secure the diving suit and rig it for a space walk.

  He leaned back in the chair and stared at the red self destruct button that would blow the complex to molecules. There were enough demolition charges placed around to vaporize everything. It was his final option, the question being whether he should do it now when he surely could, or do the exploration and risk being captured or stopped by the Americans.

  No, he would wait. He really didn’t feel much like being a martyr. That was Arjmand’s job. He, Zardooz, wanted to live and experience whatever was happening, however strange and however contrary to the will of the prophet. He had always been a rebel deep down.

  He got up to go check on Arjmand who was calling from his room. As he drifted towards the doorway, he could see Arjmand moving his limbs about, the leg in the cast immobilized against the bed frame. “Zardooz! Zardooz!” came the weak cry. “Where are you?”

  “Here Arjmand. What’s the problem?”

  “I want to get up.”

  “You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “No I won’t. My leg is in a cast and we are weightless. I want to get up.”

  Zardooz thought about it for a minute and decided to let Arjmand up. He released the straps holding the cast and moved away as Arjmand gingerly pushed away from the bed. The spinning forces of the fragment drifted him against the wall, which was “down” in this part of the fragment. Arjmand was still groggy from the doses of painkillers Zardooz had administered, but he was able to pull himself along the wall towards the doorway.

  “Where are you going?” asked Zardooz.

  “To the bathroom.”

  “It doesn’t work anymore. The toilets are all on the ceiling. You have to use a pot with this artificial gravity effect.”

  “Oooh! Get me something! Quick!”

  Zardooz grabbed the pot he had been using for Arjmand while he was out and handed it across to him. “Good luck!” He said and went back to the control room. He strapped in and brought up the inventory list again, scanning for useful items and other obscure entries like that of the diving suit. He was specifically looking for weapons that could be used against the Americans or laid down as anti personnel traps.

  He saw a listing for hand grenades that he marked, and another for small arms and ammunition, the Iranian made Satan Stopper nine millimeter pistol, as well as the hundred year old Kalashnikov rifle copies. There were no modern Taser electric shock weapons nor any of the recently developed particle guns that used nano technology. He wondered what the Americans had at their disposal as he consolidated the location information and ordered the server system to deliver all the arms to the same room that the RABI had been sent.

  The server system did not reach the diving suit storage which was essentially a dump for useless items. I was easier to leave stuff there than haul it back to the surface, so the area had basic lighting, but that was it.

  “Oaahh!” Arjmand moaned as he clumsily made his way in to the control room. He looked a mess, with a strapped up wrist and a leg in a cast, his face a deathly white pallor from the trauma and drugs, accentuated by the shadowed bags under his rheumy eyes. He awkwardly secured himself into a seat and put his head back, sighing in relief. “What is going on?” Was his simple question.

  Zardooz looked up from his list and thought to himself, “What a wreck!” then said, “The Americans landed on our property and got into the access tunnel. I was using the RABI to bore through and place another camera at a surface node, but they were waiting for me. We spoke and I warned them to get off our land or I would martyr us and take them along for the ride. They think we have a nuclear device. It appears that they left, although I am not entirely convinced. If we must destroy them, our self destruct charges should be more than enough and we will take the Great Satan with us in our martyrdom.”

  Arjmand looked at Zardooz with horror written across his already ghastly features. He was, for once, speechless.

  Zardooz continued, “I am going to do a recon of the surface using a deep water diving outfit that was left behind after construction. There are caves below this complex that may open out to what is now the surface away from the access tunnel. If the Americans are still here and it was a trick, then they will not expect anything from that side. I will take grenades, a pistol and several magazines of ammunition and blow them to pieces.”

  “And if they really are gone?”

  “Then I will place as many cameras as I can carry over the surface wherever I am able to move. Because of the spin, I will need to use rock climbing gear for the most basic travel. I am not sure that I will be able to reach the American’s last known position. It may be too far from the caves. I don’t even know if the caves open to the outside.”

  “How long can you be in the diving suit?”

  “It uses a re breather so air is no problem. Other bodily functions are maintained for up to six hours then you are on your own. I will go to the bathroom before I leave. Yes?” Zardooz raised an eye at Arjmand, wondering if the man saw the droll humor in his comment.

  “Yes, yes. You should do that. What shall I do while you are away?”

  “You will watch the monitors and listen to my instructions. If the Americans come back and you see that they are entering the complex, you will push that red button.” Zardooz pointed to the self destruct button that was now without its safety cover. He had preset the release codes earlier and they would not automatically reset for another twenty hours. The button was live.

  “What will it do?” asked Arjmand in a quavering voice. He half knew the answer.

  “It will blow
this rock of ours to dust and the Americans along with it.”

  “Bu-but it will blow us up too!”

  “Of course! We will be martyrs for the sake of Allah!”

  “Oh.” Arjmand slumped into his chair, staring dejectedly at the red button. “That will be nice.” he said insincerely.

  Zardooz released and moved to the door. “Time to make this happen. I will trail a cable antenna as a guide through the caves and a way to talk with you. I am counting on you Arjmand.” He finished grimly. Arjmand was still fixated on the red button.

  “Arjmand!” screamed Zardooz and made him start, grimacing in pain as he jolted his arm. “Get with it!”

  “Yes... yes.” he flustered as the spasm wore off and he started to watch the monitors, occasionally glancing at the red button.

  Zardooz went to the delivery room and examined the ordnance and weapons the supply system had delivered. He already had four camera modules which was about all he thought he could safely transport due to their individual bulk and shape. He hefted the pistol in its holster, slipped it out and checked the mechanism. It sounded perfect and looked perfect, so he slid a magazine into the handle and hefted it. It would do, especially in weightless conditions. He would need to compensate for the fragment spin and intended to test fire in the caves. He took four more magazines and looked at the Kalashnikov. The only advantage it gave was the weight of the round and its ballistic energy. It might be enough to penetrate the skin of a space transport that was designed to counter space debris. Or it might not. He took it with two magazines anyway. He really wanted it for its grenade launching capability.

  Finally he looked at the box of twelve grenades that lay before him. These were multi launch, by hand or by the Kalashnikov. The box was too awkward to lug, so after ensuring that each explosive was on safe he popped them into an over shoulder carry bag.