by James Axler
"And where else?" asked Kane.
"And Mars." Ignoring the incredulous stares directed at him, Lakesh took a deep breath and spoke rapidly. "The abductees served as mind-controlled slave-labor construction workers, not for aliens but for a covert, ultrasecret arm of the government. According to this theory, NASA was simply a smoke screen, diverting attention from a U.S. and USSR joint space program."
Grant rumbled, "That makes no sense."
"It does if the schemers behind the program had advance knowledge of Earth's impending doom," Bri-gid observed. "Whether caused by an ecological catastrophe or the nukecaust." She paused, then added, "And we know some people did have that forewarning."
No one commented on her statement. All of them were aware that due to the temporal dilations opened by Operation Chronos, a select few predark power-wielders gained advance warning of the atomic mega-cull.
"Space stations were envisaged as staging points for launching deep-space exploratory craft," continued Lakesh, "but I suspected that once Project Cerberus began mass-producing gateway units in modular form, conventional spacecraft would be rendered obsolete."
"How so?" Kane inquired.
"Think about it. Instead of clumsy, fuel-wasting and slow-moving shuttles taking years to reach one of the outer planets, a mat-trans unit set up on the Moon or a space station could move personnel, materiel and natural resources back and forth with relative ease."
"That might cover mat-trans units on the Moon or in Earth orbit," Brigid argued, "but not any celestial body beyond it."
Lakesh replied, "There was a theory"
Kane groaned.
"And experiments were conducted," Lakesh continued doggedly, "regarding the teleportation of gateway components through space along carrier-wave guides, placed at equidistant intervals to the projected destination. It's possible that such wave guides were launched from the station."
"But it's only possible and it's only theory," declared Kane stolidly.
"Yes," Lakesh admitted.
Grant gusted out a skeptical breath. "Putting together what you and Brigid have said, do you believe Parallax Red is an operable station on the dark side of the Moon, full of monkey-pawed midgets?"
Lakesh inclined his head toward the schematic on the screen. "The diagram for Parallax Red was in the database, and it appears to be the only likely destination of the carrier beam from Redoubt Papa. AH the evidence points to the existence of the station."
He wheeled his chair around to look at Brigid. "And your postulation regarding the. ..troll living in a low-gravity environment lends more credence to the undeniable reality of Parallax Red ."
"We don't know for sure where he comes from," Brigid stated. "DeFore is reluctant to agree with me."
"Sounds like her," remarked Grant sourly. "Tell me this, thoughis there any tactical reason why we should be concerned about this? If the trolls are visiting redoubts through a space-based gateway, I can't see what difference it makes to us. They can't lock on to our unit and jump in here, right?"
Lakesh's seamed face showed a sudden discomfit.
"Right?" Grant repeated, sharper this time.
Lakesh lifted his hands, palm upward. "I wish I could provide you with a take-it-to-the-bank assurance, but at this juncture, facing a wholly unknown and unexpected random element, I won't pin myself down."
"They've got their handsall four of 'emon some pretty nasty tech," Kane declared.
"Like what?" demanded Grant.
Lakesh spoke briefly about the remains of the Mag-istrates found in the redoubt and his conjecture that a molecular destabjlizer was responsible.
Grant's face displayed his difficulty in visualizing such a weapon. He didn't quite believe it, not even comparing it with the commonplace scientific miracles he had witnessed in the past half year.
Kane's lips quirked in a thoughtful smile. "If we could get our own hands on a piece of ordnance like that..."
He didn't complete his sentence, but he didn't need to. Everyone in the room easily pictured what he did. An MD gun could make Cerberus itself not just impregnable to assault, but they could take their war directly to the baronies, even to the Directorate itself.
Lakesh waved the attractive notion away. "It's too soon to make such plans. Let's wait for the good doctor's final report before we embark on a course of action."
Chapter 13
When DeFore announced the autopsy was complete, Lakesh convened a briefing in the dining hall. Although the third level held a formal briefing room, it was depressingly sterile and disturbingly cavernous, with seats for at least a hundred people.
The dining hall was more intimate. Grant, Brigid, Kane, DeFore and Lakesh sat at a table in a corner, sharing a pot of one of the few perks of living in Cerberus. Real coffee was one of the casualties of skydark, almost completely disappearing from the face of the continental United States. A bitter, synthetic gruel known as coffee sub had replaced it. Whether the name derived from substitute or substandard , no one knew. The Cerberus redoubt had tons of freeze-dried caches of the genuine article, stockpiled for the original residents of Cerberus.
DeFore's report had little to recommend it as the basis for a course of action. The examination of the troll proved that though he possessed more organs than a normal human, and a few that were modified, he was essentially Homo sapiens .
"I found signs of decreased blood circulation," she said, "and a reduction of oxygen and nutrients in certain organs, particularly the liver. He also had a small secondary lung connected with the primary two, with very muscular walls to control expansion and collapse.
If the dwarf did not come from a low-gravity environment, he certainly lived in one with a rarefied atmosphere that did not provide the proper electromagnetic fields to ensure healthy cellular growth."
"Do you have an alternative theory?" Brigid asked.
DeFore folded her arms over her ample chest and eyed both Brigid and Lakesh with an attitude akin to defiance. "I know speculation is almost a religion in this place, but I don't feel comfortable in engaging in it as to the subject's point of origin."
"Understandable," replied Lakesh mildly. "From a medical point of view. However, under the circumstances, I hope you don't object if we do."
DeFore's dark eyes glittered. "It wouldn't matter if I did. There's your report. Speculate, postulate and hypothesize away."
She pushed her chair back from the table and stalked from the hall.
After she was gone, Lakesh remarked conversationally, "Is it my imagination, or do certain members of my staff seem unusually on edge these days?"
Brigid fixed a penetrating gaze on Lakesh. "It's not your imagination, and you don't need me to tell you that."
Kane and Grant glanced curiously from Lakesh to Brigid, but said nothing. Lakesh cleared his throat noisily. "As for the dwarfs most likely point of origin, the database yielded very little on Parallax Red itself, beyond what it was supposed to be, not what it became after it was built or what it is at present."
"So you're not absolutely sure it's there." Grant was not asking a question; he was making a statement.
"No, not absolutely. I'll have to qualify my assertion and say there is a ninety-eight percent certainty that it's there."
"Why would this space station be kept secret," inquired Kane, "if it was supposed to be, as you said, a Utopia?"
Lakesh shrugged. ' 'Your question is its own answer. As a citizen of the late twentieth century, imagine how you would feel knowing that a select group of people were allowed to escape all the sociopolitical instabilities, the fear of war or ecological catastrophe, economic hardships, the hunger for food or sex or power.
"If such a floating paradise was built and inhabited, the people in power had very good reasons to conceal it. They feared an uprising among the rank-and-file citizenry, a revolt of the so-called useless eaters that might result in civil war."
"Judging by the dwarf, Parallax Red doesn't seem like much of a paradise to me," growled
Grant dourly. "Floating around weightless all the time."
Lakesh chuckled. "The spinning of the station would produce the effect of Earth gravity around its equator, much like a gigantic centrifuge. However, if the rotation cycle was adversely affected, gravity would fall off in proportion to the decrease of the spin, with zero G at the axis. It's likely the revolution cycle was interfered with."
Kane linked his fingers together on the tabletop. "Presuming we do have a mat-trans jump line to the place, what would we find if we went there?"
Lakesh shrugged. "Worst case, a zero G atmosphere, perhaps only one half of Earth gravity. It may be uncomfortably cold or intolerably hot. The air may be so thin you cannot breathe it."
"Why don't we teleport a vid probe first?" asked
Brigid, "just to make certain we can establish a retrieval lock?"
''Like a note in a bottle?" Lakesh smiled at her fondly. "I contemplated that, but if Parallax Red is indeed occupied, we would be forewarning its inhabitants of our arrival."
Grant scowled. "If we manage to move around in a weightless environment without puking our guts out, how do you figure we can keep from freezing, burning up or suffocating?"
Lakesh smiled and pushed himself to his feet. "That was the first problem I addressed, friend Grant. All of you follow me, please."
He led them from the dining hall, down the corridor and into the big square room that served as the Cerberus armory. As Lakesh entered, he pressed the flat toggle switch on the door frame, and the overhead fluorescent fixtures flashed with a white light.
Stacked wooden crates and boxes lined the walls. Glass-fronted cases held racks of automatic assault rifles. There were many makes and models of subguns, as well as dozens of semiautomatic blasters, complete with holsters and belts. Heavy-assault weaponry occupied the north wall, bazookas, tripod-mounted M-249 machine guns, mortars and rocket launchers.
All the ordnance had been laid down in hermetically sealed Continuity of Government installations before the nukecaust. Protected from the ravages of the outraged environment, nearly every piece of munitions and hardware was as pristine as the day it was first manufactured.
Lakesh strode purposefully past the two suits of Magistrate body armor mounted on steel frameworks to a row of metal lockers arranged against the far wall.
Kane, Brigid and Grant had noticed them before, but since they had been nearly hidden by boxes of materiel, they assumed they contained nothing of importance.
The crates had been shifted to one side, and Lakesh opened one of the locker doors. He removed a dark one-piece garment from a hook and showed it to them. It was gunmetal gray in color, and the light glinted from the many zippers and metal apertures on the sleeves and legs.
"Suprotect3 and neoprene weave," announced Lakesh. "Damn near indestructible, constructed in a multilayer format, affording atmospheric integrity, thermal and humidity controls. It's lined with a layer of lead foil to prevent radiation contamination. With all the openings sealed and the helmets and breathing apparatus attached, they're airtight."
Kane eyed the suit doubtfully. "How old are they?"
"Over two centuries, but like I said, the material they're composed of has an almost eternal shelf life. Designed as rad-proof environmental suits, the personnel here used them shortly after the nuke whenever they left the installation."
Lakesh unzipped a sleeve, pointing out a network of tiny filaments on the inside lining. "Internal thermostats that will keep you comfortably cool or toasty warm, depending on the external temperature or pressure."
He fingered a cylindrical pouch on a leg. "Secondary oxygen tanks slip inside here. The helmets are equipped with their own self-contained circulation equipment."
"That solves the breathing and temperature problems," Brigid said. "What about the gravity or lack thereof?"
Lakesh returned the garment to the locker. "If these were space suits, they'd have magnetic boots. Unfortunately they aren't, so they don't. However, there should be handholds on the station's bulkheads that you can use in case of zero-G conditions."
He swept his gaze over them. "Any further questions?"
"Just out of curiosity," spoke up Grant, "just how far away is Parallax Red from here?"
Lakesh shrugged and smiled wanly. "In astronomical terms, only around the corner. Approximately 250,000 miles."
No one replied. They struggled to conceive of such a vast distance, trying to find personal frames of reference.
Finally Kane ventured, ' 'That seems an awfully long way for a gateway jump."
"Distance is relative when you're dealing with quantum mechanics," said Lakesh. "There is no relativistic range limitation on hyperdimensions."
"That you know of," Brigid argued. "So far, the transit pathways have followed the curvature of the Earth, from jump point A to reception point B. Therefore, measurements can be made from gateway to gateway, so distance is not relative."
Lakesh evidently wasn't hearing anything new. Diffidently he responded, "The gateways form interstices and interfaces between linear points, regardless of the distance between them. Utilizing hyperdimensional space, there is little difference between a mat-trans unit in Cuba and one in Australia. The same principle applies to the gateway here and one on the dark side of the Moon."
When no one responded, Lakesh inquired, "Anything else?"
"Just this," Kane replied. "When do we leave? Or is that relative, too?"
At 0700 the next morning, they convened in the ready room adjoining the jump chamber. Brigid, Kane and Grant had made their preparations the night before, filling flat cases with special equipment, rations and water. All three of them wore the formfitting environmental suits, all the seals zipped up and complete with the secondary oxygen cylinders.
The only modifications Kane and Grant had made to the suits were the additions of their Sin Eaters holstered to their right forearms. Their combat daggers hung in scabbards from web belts.
Brigid carried a stunted Ingram Model 11 subgun, slung over a shoulder by a leather strap. She examined one of the helmets resting on the table, turning it over in her hands. Dark gray in color like the suits, it was made of a lightweight ceramic-alloy compound. The treated Plexiglas faceplates polarized when exposed to light levels above a certain candlepower.
On each suit, squat oxygen tanks were attached to the rearward part of the headpiece. The Suprotect3 lining hung down from inside the helmet, to be attached to the suit's collar by an arrangement of tiny snaps and zippers.
The suits were hot, despite their internal thermostat controls, and none of them felt comfortable. Although the fabric hugged the contours of their bodies, it was stiff and a little unwieldy. The swelling in Kane's knee had gone down overnight, but the suit's tight leggings constricted it to an annoyingly painful degree.
Lakesh and Domi came to see them off. The albino girl's lower lip protruded sullenly, and the up-from-under stare she gave Grant was reproachful. Brigid and Kane wondered if she had tried to persuade him to take her along on the mission. If so, Grant must have adamantly refused. Still healing from the gunshot wound and reconstructive surgery and bound in the body brace, Domi's presence on any op more complicated than drinking a cup of coffee would be a definite liability.
Grant did not make eye contact with her, instead putting into words what his teammates were thinking. "These rigs are hotter than hell, Lakesh. I'm sweating like a pig."
Lakesh smiled patronizingly. "You could stand to lose a few pounds of water weight."
"Maybe it's best we all sweat out a couple of gallons," Kane muttered, "since according to the autopsy, the trolls can go for days without having to pee. There's probably no toilets where we're going."
Brigid started to laugh but stifled it when Lakesh rapped sharply on the table for their attention. Expression grave, he said, "Listen up for a moment. Don't default yourselves into thinking your suits are armor. They're tough, resistant to penetration, but they can be breached by something strong or sharp enough.
Be careful.
"Secondarily, since the unit to which you're transporting is not part of the Cerberus network, it may not be equipped with an LD setting."
Kane crooked a quizzical eyebrow. The Last Destination program was a fallback device offering jumpers a way to quickly return to their departure point without entering the exact coordinate codes, providing they activated it within a half hour of materialization.
"Why wouldn't it be?" he challenged. "Even if the unit on the station isn't official, it was still manufactured according to the standard specs, right?"
"More than likely, yes," agreed Lakesh. "But inasmuch as we're dealing with modified humans, we may be dealing with modified tech, too."
Brigid touched her arm. "What about our transponders?"
Lakesh shook his head. "The telemetry won't be able to reach us because it'll be blocked by the Moon, unable to bounce off the Comsat. We won't be able to monitor your vital signs. Therefore, if you find yourselves in difficulty, we won't be able to send a rescue party."
Grant snorted, picking up his helmet. "That'll be the day. Since when have you ever sent out the cavalry?"
Lakesh didn't reply.
Brigid, Kane and Grant slipped on their helmets, helping each other zip the collar attachments securely. Oxygen hissed into the headpieces, and it required a few moments to regulate the flow and adjust their respiration patterns. They heard not only their own, but each other's breathing over the UTEL comms built into the helmets.
Lakesh performed a final check on all the seals, then gave them a thumbs-up sign. Impishly Domi leaned up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on Grant's faceplate, leaving an impression of her mouth in the aquamarine shade of lipstick she favored.
"Goddammit," he growled, but she couldn't hear him through the helmet. Kane wryly noted that he didn't wipe away the smudge. He would wait to do that when he was out of her range of vision.
They trooped to the jump chamber, all of them a little annoyed by the constant sound of respiration echoing within their helmets.
The translucent armaglass walls of the Cerberus gateway bore a rich brown tint. Right above the keypad encoding panel hung an imprinted notice, dating back to predark days. In faded maroon lettering, it read Entry Absolutely Forbidden To All But B12 Cleared Personnel. Mat-Trans.
