Seeds of Earth

by Michael Cobley

  'Hermes to Pilipoint Station - still awake down

  there? What's yer name, by the way?'

  'Still here, Hermes. My name is Axel, and we've got

  you on satellite tracking . . . my God, and we see those

  missiles! Bail out, Captain . ..'

  'Wish I could, Axel, but I'm stuck here for the dura-

  tion - right, here we go ...'

  On the external monitor Donny saw a huge spread-

  ing cloud of silvery chaff while a decoy dropped away

  on a dying curve towards the moon's green face. And he

  grinned as both missiles took the bait and plunged after

  it.

  'Very smart, Hermes, very cunning . . .' said the

  Pilipoint comsman. 'You're like the magician, yes? The

  hand is quicker than the eye . . .'

  'Maybe so, laddie, but I don't reckon that wee shell

  game'll work a second time . . . and he's just launched

  another pair . . .'

  'I see them, Captain - tell me, are you the man who

  stole the Earther's shuttle?'

  'Heard about that up here, Axel? Aye, that was me

  a'right, a bad yin through and through!'

  'We've heard what's been going on downstairs, all

  those Brolturan troops working hard to keep Darien

  free from unrest and protest and such nuisances as free

  speech,' said the comsman. 'I have no doubt that in time

  we too will be similarly blessed. But tell me, why are you

  doing this?'

  'What, bearding the lion in his den, y'mean? I guess

  ye could say I was overcome with a sense of public duty

  and a calm appraisal of the crisis ... but that wouldna

  be true.'

  'It would not?'

  'Nah, it was pure, unadulterated loathing. Ye know

  what I really hate? - being lied to. Soon after the

  Heracles arrived, that Hegemony envoy Kuros toured

  the colony, giving speeches about the Sendrukan

  Hegemony's deep sense of liberty and freedom and their

  boundless desire to spread freedom throughout known

  space and beyond .. . aye, right! All the time he was

  coming out with that self-important, sanctimonious

  cack, him and his minions were planning how to get us

  down on our knees, how to make things so bad that

  we'd be happy to have their boots on our necks, just so

  long as the bombings stopped . . .'

  'I saw one of Kuros's speeches,' said the Pilipoint

  comsman. 'It was a real performance but it did not seem

  right for us, as if he was performing for another audi-

  ence ...'

  'Excuse me, Axel, got some missiles to take care of

  here ...'

  Donny could feel the sweat trickling down the side of

  his face as he watched a dark blue display where two

  bright specks moved nearer to his position while associ-

  ated readouts gave figures for velocity, distance and

  altitude. In the cockpit's enclosed darkness, the pilot

  console was a strange, muffled cubbyhole crammed with

  glowing, touch-sensitive controls and displays, with

  small vidscreens showing external views while the over-

  head holo gave the wider tactical sweep. The next

  countermeasures sequence was running, suspensors and

  thrusters were online and ready, and the navigationals

  were tracking the enemy interceptor. From the previous

  encounter the shuttle's expert system overlay had quan-

  tified the missiles' minimum turn radius so now it was

  down to timing.

  And a mountain of luck.

  Then the missiles, gaining with every microsecond,

  crossed a certain trigger boundary and the countermea-

  sures activated, another chaff burst, silver clouds of

  glittering, reflective strips spreading behind the hurtling

  Hermes like a silver comet's tail. As before a decoy was

  dropped, but this time the missiles ignored it and stayed

  on target while the interceptor began moving closer, as if

  the end was near. Then it too crossed an invisible line

  and the shuttle's forward suspensors came to life, kick -

  ing the shuttle's nose up and over as the thrusters

  roared. The combination of momentum and extreme

  force vectors threw the Hermes into a brutally tight ver-

  tical turn.

  G-force shoved Donny down into his couch. Over the

  wheeze of his breathing he heard the infrastructure com-

  plain before the autoalerts began - 'Warning, exceeding

  performance tolerances ... minor structural failures in

  subassemblies 19a, 21d, 37k . . . major structural failure

  will occur in thirty seconds or less . . .'

  Then the Hermes was out of the turn and heading

  back, upside down. The Brolturan pilot had seen

  Donny's crazed attempt at an acrobatic manoeuvre and

  had merely banked slightly to avoid a repetition of the

  earlier force-field collision. But Donny was still ahead of

  him and about to cross over his oncoming flight path.

  And that was when the countermeasures released the

  last of the chaff on maximum dispersal. And when the

  interceptor plunged into the spreading, silvery, instru-

  ment-fogging cloud he met his own missile coming the

  other way.

  On his rear external monitor, Donny saw the dual

  explosion flashes, an eruption of light and ignited gases,

  and an expanding shell of vapour and wreckage mixed

  with glittering fragments of chaff. He was about to

  breath a sigh of relief when he noticed that one of the

  flying pieces of debris was leaving a hot gas trail and

  curving round in his direction.

  Cunning dog, he thought. Must've fired that at the

  last moment, knowing that I'd got him ... well, ye've

  not got me yetl

  He nearly made it, at the tail end of a long, twisting,

  dodging pursuit down through Nivyesta's atmosphere,

  seeking every advantage, trying to lose the missile in

  clouds, even trying to shoot it down with the laser

  cannon. But on it came, doggedly undeterred and unwa-

  vering. And as the chase descended, he kept up a

  running commentary to Axel the comsman at Pilipoint

  Station, never letting on how desperate his situation

  was, livening up the discourse with merciless caricatures

  of certain public figures, like Kuros who was 'the

  Hegemony's interstellar bile duct', and President

  Kirkland, 'the bowel movement that walked like a man'.

  When the end came it was quick. He was flying north

  at about 900 feet over Nivyesta's southern ocean, less

  than 100 kilometres from Segrana's coast. Fuel was low,

  most of the suspensors were burnt out, and he was getting

  continual structural alerts as a result of the contorted

  manoeuvres he had attempted. His last throw of the dice

  was to try and ditch in the waters, but the missile found

  him 50 feet up, rushing across the waves. There was a ter-

  rible brightness... then a terrible darkness ...

  Then forever claimed him.

  55

  CATRIONA

  Through a black night of rain they searched for the

  downed ship. A casing collector had spotted its descent

  in late afternoon while he was ransacking the hi
gh web

  festoons near Overglowatch. A wedge-shaped craft trail-

  ing ragged flags was the description that was relayed to

  Catriona, from which she knew that its braking chute

  had torn after deploying. The chances of someone sur-

  viving a crash landing under those conditions were not

  good. However, there was a lot of dense, deep foliage to

  absorb such a craft's kinetic energy, so assuming it didn't

  hit an outcrop or an especially large tree, the odds

  maybe weren't so bad.

  Like most of her twenty-strong search party, Cat was

  wearing a cowled coat made from a mixture of plain

  fibre and silk - it was light and kept her cool and dry as

  she rode on trictra-back with the rest. Following the

  casing collector's directions, they were heading north to

  the wide valley that lay between Girdle Ridge and the

  Northern Uplands while water dripped, trickled and

  spattered all around them. A cold, black night of rain,

  with lamplight and the piercing beams of battery torches

  striking clusters of gleams from wet leaves, turning

  droplet-strewn webs into flashing regalia, rivulets into

  rippling, silver snakes.

  After another hour, one of the search parties reported

  finding a trail of damaged forest foliage. Everyone con-

  verged and hastened along the path of snapped branches

  and severed trunks until it became a ragged furrow

  gouged in the ground which finally terminated at the

  foot of a big prul tree. The craft was small, less than fif-

  teen feet long, so it had to be an escape pod from one of

  the ships seen dogfighting far up in the sky earlier. Small

  thruster nozzles were spaced along its curved stern,

  while its hull tapered to a flat, narrow prow that was

  solidly wedged under a gnarled prul root as thick as a

  Uvovo's waist.

  For a moment all the scholars and their Listener

  paused and stared wide-eyed at the escape pod while

  sending expectant glances her way.

  Hmm, okay, so Mummy Pathmistress has to make sure

  the alien box is safe, she thought, dismounting from the

  trictra. By the time she reached the pod, with light from

  lamps held nearby, she could see from the characters and

  symbols on the hull that this had to be from the Heracles.

  Without hesitation she rapped her knuckles on it.

  'Hello - anyone in there?'

  Immediately there were a few thuds in response, and

  a man's voice:

  'Thank God you found me! - please, can you help?

  Something is jamming the hatch on this thing ...'

  Cat laughed, realised that the big prul root was hold-

  ing the pod shut.

  'I can see what the problem is,' she said. 'We'll have

  ye out of there in a wee bit.'

  With a dozen Uvovo lending their strength, they man-

  aged to drag the escape pod out from under the prul's

  roots. A moment later the upper hull was pushed up

  from within and locked into an open position. A grey-

  haired man in a hunting jacket and camouflage trousers

  climbed wearily out and sat on the edge of the recess,

  pulling lumps of something white off his clothing and

  tossing them into the pod. It took Cat a moment but

  suddenly she recognised him.

  'You're Greg's Uncle Theo,' she said.

  He straightened in surprise, then peered closer in the

  meagre light and nodded.

  'Ah, Doctor Macreadie - an unexpected pleasure,

  here in the middle of the forest.'

  'What is that stuff?'

  'Crash foam,' he said. 'It smells terrible yet I find

  myself most grateful.' He looked at her and smiled. 'In

  case you were wondering, Greg is alive and well, mostly.

  He was slightly wounded yesterday ... or perhaps the

  day before . . . but some of my people told me he's

  mending well ...' He looked about him at the Uvovo

  and the drips and trickles coming from above. 'Did

  someone see me come down here, Catriona?'

  'Aye,' she said, half-wishing he had said more about

  Greg. 'An Uvovo from a town several miles away saw

  your pod swooping over Segrana after those explosions

  in the sky.'

  He became more alert at this. 'Do you know what

  happened up there? Did Pilipoint Station have any con-

  tact. . .'

  'I'm sorry, Theo, I've not been in touch with

  Pilipoint but I did see some of the big show and heard

  about the rest from others. Late in the afternoon there

  were a few contrails high up, then there was a bright

  explosion and, a few minutes later, halfway across the

  sky, there was another. Not long after that your escape

  pod crash-landed, and a short while later some Uvovo

  on the south coast saw a huge explosion far out at

  sea.'

  Hearing this, his manner turned sombre. He nodded

  and smiled sadly. 'It was supposed to be both of us in

  this pod, but he tricked me and sent me off on my own.

  Stayed behind to fight two Brolturan interceptors, from

  that giant warwagon of theirs. And he beat them! - he

  must have . ..'

  'What are you talking about? Who beat them . . .'

  'A brave man called Donny Barbour.' He looked

  at her. 'Can you help me get to Pilipoint Station?

  Perhaps someone there knows exactly how it all turned

  out.'

  Cat nodded. 'I can do that, Theo, though you might

  like to stop off at one of the Uvovo towns for a rest and

  a bite to eat.'

  'That sounds good.' Feeling weariness in his limbs, he

  wiped some water droplets from his beard and brushed

  away a few more fragments of foam. 'I've heard that

  folk on Nivyesta get around on the backs of giant tric-

  tra - is that true?'

  'It is, aye - you've not got a fear of spiders, have

  you?'

  'No, not as such.' He gave a rueful smile. 'I'll be okay.

  So - which way?'

  The Uvovo moved with them in unison as Catriona

  led the way back to where the trictra had been tethered,

  her own flashlight picking out a path through the wet

  undergrowth.

  'You must feel hardly involved in what's been going

  on down on Darien,' Theo said.

  'I wouldn't say that,' Cat said, smiling in the dark-

  ness. 'We caught two Ezgara commandos yesterday.'

  He stared at her, his pace slowing. 'You captured

  them . . .'

  'The first one exploded, killing several Uvovo . . . did

  ye know that they have a binary explosive in their

  bloodstream? Aye, very cunning, very vicious. Oh, and

  they're Human too.'

  Theo nodded gravely. 'Yes, that I knew. It raises a lot

  of questions.'

  'Doesn't it? We got to the second one and sedated

  him before he could trigger himself, then we used some

  extraction roots and what the Uvovo call a cleansing sac

  to filter the impurities from his blood. Now he's awake

  and alert - he understands Anglic but doesn't speak it

  that well. Still, we managed to get a few interesting facts

  out of him.'

  She recalled how they'd ha
d to restrain his arms and

  legs with padded leather straps. He seemed so completely

  at the mercy of his fear and anger, as if he had no under-

  standing of self-control, and she and the rootmasters

  suspected that the cleansing sac had removed something

  else from his system besides the explosive component.

  'His name is Malachi,' she said. 'He's from a colony

  of Humans called Tygra, a highly militarised society,

  going by a few things he let slip.'

  'My God,' Theo said. 'Were they abducted by the

  Hegemony?'

  'Not abducted, Major. It seems that his colony was

  established roughly 150 years ago.'

  'A hundred and fifty years? But Humanity had

  not. . .' He broke off, frowning for a moment before his

  eyes widened. 'Doctor Macreadie, you're not suggest-

  ing . . .'

  Smiling she nodded. 'The Tygra colony was founded

  by a ship from Earth called the Forrestal.'

  Theo was silent, the astonishment in his face replaced

  by a growing horror as he absorbed what she had said.

  'The Forrestal's crew and colonists were a mixture of

  northern and southern Americans, and Australians,' he

  said. 'How could they be turned into the Hegemony's

  shock troops?'

  She shook her head. 'We're not getting much out of

  Malachi at the moment, so these questions remain open

  to speculation. But for now I think we should keep this

  to ourselves. If it got out, how would the people of

  Earth react? And what would the Hegemony do to the

  Tygrans if they decided that the alliance with

  Earthsphere was more valuable than a cadre of Human

  janissaries, no matter how loyal?'

  'You have a point,' he said. 'My God, I cannot imag-

  ine what they went through.'

  'Makes you wonder what happened to the third

  ship, the Tenebrosa,' Cat said, and even as she spoke

  the words she felt a quiver in the perceptive bond she

  shared with Segrana. Was it anticipation? A hint of the

  truth, or the echo of some lost possibility, fading

  amongst the water-veiled trees? She smiled inwardly,

  knowing that Segrana had a liking for convoluted

  mystery.

  'Well, if any of their descendants show up here,'

  Theo was saying, 'we can start a club!'

  She laughed out loud at that, thinking, Aye, would-

  n't that be just amazing?

  56

  KAO CHIH