by Paul Kidd
The posts gave off a high-pitched sonic scream. Xoota and Shaani clapped their hands to their ears in agony. The rock landed in the grass, apparently unharmed. Shaani emerged from the grass, her pupils dilated and her white fur standing stiff as a brush. Xoota was in worse shape, her hands and teeth jittering in shock. She looked appalled.
“What the hell was that?”
“S-some sort of sonic attack.” Shaani had to sit down and put her head between her knees. “Triggered to sense intruders. Motion and h-heat.”
Benek seemed only slightly affected by the sound. He looked at the two animals and sneered. “Designed to keep out beasts, perhaps.”
Xoota waved at him. “By all means, walk right on through.”
The man strode toward the fence then thought better of it. He stopped, reached out a hand as if to put it between the fence posts, then retreated and looked at the fence in thought. “Shoot the fence posts. Take the gun and blast a way in,” he suggested.
“I think that might be a gun turret on top of the building.” Shaani adjusted her glasses and motioned to the guns. “Let’s forgo damaging the fence for now, shall we?”
The fence posts were easily four meters high—too high to jump. There were no handy trees or timber with which to make a ladder. The ground was a thin layer of soil over a foundation of solid rock, so making a tunnel was out of the question.
Shaani shook her ringing ears and pondered. “Did anyone develop teleportation or time-stop abilities overnight?”
“No,” said Xoota and Wig-wig from behind a cactus.
“Well, it never hurts to ask.” Shaani hemmed and hawed. “This is a bit of a poser.”
Wig-wig suddenly sat up, looking clever. “Wig-wig knows. We can throw one teleporter through the fence. Then we can teleport Wig-wig through inside the compound. Then Wig-wig can find controls and shut off fence.”
Shaani eyed the bugs. “How do we know the teleporter actually teleports living matter?”
“Ah.” Wig-wig wilted a bit. “Maybe we can experiment.”
Shaani mused. “It’s certainly worth a try.” Shaani seemed enthused. “Back to the ship and let’s give it a shot.”
They party trundled back up to the hillside and climbed aboard ship. Shaani stopped to gather some cacti from the surrounding terrain and hauled the plants carefully on board. She set up the two teleport units on opposite sides of the deck.
Xoota watched with interest as she set the whole experiment up. “What range does this thing have, anyway?”
“No idea.” Shaani placed a cactus inside the unit beside her. “We haven’t tried it at more than a kilometer. Might be quite good, though; otherwise, what was it for?”
“What was it for?”
“Not sure. Maybe a sort of alien postal box. You know, small parcel delivery.” Shaani sent Xoota chasing off over the deck. “All right. I’ll send this through, and we’ll see what happens.”
Shaani closed the door of her teleporter unit. Xoota immediately opened the other unit and peered inside. “Oh.”
Shaani looked across at her. “What?”
“Well, it’s sort of inside out.” Xoota was not happy. “And upside down.”
“Ah.” The lab rat was undeterred. “All right, chins up. There are some sort of settings and slides on the unit here. Let’s see what we can do …”
It took them half an hour of careful meddling while Benek chafed over in a corner. It seemed that both units needed their settings to be synchronized perfectly; then all was well.
With both doors open, and a switch held in place with hairy string, the teleporters went into continuous operation. Wig-wig ran his merry, little swarm in one end and out the other, in the sender and out of the receiver. He ran round and around, teleporting in a happy loop until the others finally called the game to an end.
It had been an hour well spent. Shaani was extremely pleased. “All right. Time to head back. Come along; don’t dawdle. Science ad excelsior and all that.”
Rustle carried the two teleporters, and everyone traipsed back down the hillside. They reached the fence line and set up their next attempt to enter the grounds. Shaani used the boat hook to carefully push the open-doored teleporter though the fence, seating it as far as she could into the far side of the compound. “I’d love to know what powers these things. It doesn’t seem to be electrical.” The rat was careful not to let her hand come close to an imaginary line drawn between the fence posts. She set the teleporter up with its rear tilted high, so that anything within the compartment would naturally fall out onto the ground. “There. That should do it.”
Wig-wig gathered in a happy swarm. “Wig-wig will go in.”
“No, no, one final test.” Shaani teleported another piece of cactus. It appeared in the teleporter unit inside the compound. The cactus rolled out to fall onto the ground. The fence did not trigger. No alarms rang and the cactus seemed intact.
Shaani pronounced herself satisfied. “All right, Wig-wig. Through you go.”
The earwigs poured into the first unit. They teleported across to the unit inside the fence line and scurried quickly out into the long grass. When he had finally gathered all his buggy selves together, Wig-wig gave a wave from atop a grass stalk and set merrily off toward the buildings.
The building had a single entrance at ground level at the middle of the Y. The earwigs explored the grass and found another dead bird before emerging onto the concrete path near the entryway.
A skeleton lay facedown on the concrete. The body was dressed in rigid armor. The bones were old and flaking. He had a red bracelet on one extended arm and a shattered pistol in his hand. Sitting on the concrete a few meters away, there was a squat, metal cylinder festooned with lumps, bumps, and tubes. As Wig-wig scurried across the concrete, the cylinder suddenly gave a jerk.
“Halt. Identify.”
The earwigs all sat up most politely and chorused in unison. “Hello. I’m Wig-wig.”
“Identity. You have thirty seconds to comply.” The robot tried to move but only wobbled slightly in place. Its lower half seemed badly damaged. “This is a prison zone, maximum security level ultra. Lethal force is authorized.”
“Don’t shoot Wig-wig” The bugs began to chase each other around. “I told you who I was.”
“Twenty seconds. Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen …”
The earwigs ran for the nearest cover, hiding inside the armor of the long-dead skeleton. The skeleton twitched and writhed as the bugs moved around inside. The mechanism out on the concrete immediately settled back in place.
“Apologies, Officer Kierkegaard. Identity acknowledged.”
Earwigs peeked out from the dead man’s helmet. They tried to make a deeper voice. “Um, don’t shoot anybody any more. Is an order.”
“Order acknowledged, Officer Kierkegaard. Standing down.” Gun barrels withdrew back inside the damaged robot. “Have a nice day.”
A few minutes later, a skeleton dressed in armor appeared at the fence line. He moved across the ground while lying prone, transported by a carpet of earwigs. The bugs waved happily to their friends.
“Look. I be Officer Kierkegaard. No one will shoot me.” The bug came right through the fence, utterly unmolested. “Glee.”
Shaani stooped to examine the ID bracelet on the arm of the corpse. It was red with one gold stripe. She removed the bracelet and held it up in thought. “ID bracelet. The defenses must be keyed to it.”
Before anyone could stop her, she had walked through the fence.
Nothing happened to her.
The rat happily tossed the bracelet through to Xoota. “Come on. Don’t dawdle.”
One by one, they all crossed the fence line, tossing the ID bracelet to each new person to cross. As a final thought, Shaani walked back to the fence. Donning her blue and gold bracelet, she waved her hand near the fence and walked back out of the compound. Again, nothing happened to her. The rat waved her bracelet. “Oh. These ones would have worked too.”
Xoota watched her with lowered eyelids, seething in annoyance. “Do you mean to say we could have just walked through that fence the whole time?”
The rat seemed to take it in her stride. “Never mind. Look at what we learned about the teleporter.” She walked past the others heading for the entrance to the building. “Come on.”
Xoota fumed. “There are days when you are heading exactly the right way for a smacked bottom.”
They walked across the grass, finding yet more corpses of birds that had failed to identify themselves to the guard robot. It even seemed to have blasted a couple of butterflies and moths. The robot turned a turret load of sensors in their direction as the party approached. Wig-wig was still happily carrying the helmet of the unfortunate Officer Kierkegaard, as well as his ID bracelet.
Xoota walked over to the robot and waved her blue ID bracelet. “Robot, who are you?”
“I am security monitor 2, Bay Reach Transfer facility. Currently standing down. Request maintenance and repair to drive systems.”
“Right you are. We’ll see to that.” Xoota was triumphant. “Hey. We have us a security robot. If we mount this on the main deck, no one will ever mess with us again.”
Shaani walked over to the main doors. A security camera emerged from a little hatchway and looked at her. A calm female voice spoke from a grill beside the massive entry doors.
“Please identify.”
Shaani waved her blue and gold ID band. “Here you go, old bean.”
“ID registered as Sergeant Yoshitomo Watanabe. Please provide retinal scan.”
Another hatchway opened, and a flash of light caught Shaani right in the eyes, she staggered back and frowned, rubbing at her eyelids.
The female voice spoke again. “Retinal scan negative. Access denied.”
Xoota tried the door, armed with the red ID band.
Again there was a flash. Again the female voice blandly denied them entry. “Retinal scan negative. Access denied.”
The party stood on the concrete and pondered. Xoota hefted the magical go-away stick in her belt. “What if we used this to blow a way in?”
“It might not do any good.” Shaani rapped on the door. It felt quite thick and made of an alloy she couldn’t identify. “This jolly thing feels tough as a fortress.”
Xoota let her eyes rest on the robot. Her antennae lifted up in sudden inspiration. “I’ll bet the robot can get inside if it wants to.”
They had Rustle pick up the robot and dangle it in place before the security camera.
Shaani held up the red ID band. “Robot, dear heart. Please request entry into the building.”
The robot whirred softly. Suddenly the main doors opened. Xoota sped inside and found a manual locking bar that jammed the doors in place. She fixed the doors open, and stepped back with a smile. “Perfect. Okay, Rustle, you can put him down.”
The big plant carefully put the robot back in place on the concrete, then waddled over to join the others as they cautiously moved inside.
Within the building, the dark gray antechamber slowly grew visible as their eyes grew accustomed to the low light. Luminescent strips ran along the ceiling, slowly glowing brighter as the party moved indoors. Xoota led the way, soft footed and cautious, with her clever antennae feeling for dangerous futures.
The entryway was a cylindrical room. A row of what looked like metal cupboards lined one curved wall. Shower stalls lined the other, and single door was at the opposite end. Right beside the door at the far side of the room, there was a flat platform that came up out of the floor. The top glowed a welcoming emerald green color and held two hand imprints recessed into its surface.
Benek strode over to inspect it. Xoota saw him move and waved him away.
“Careful. There might be weirdness about.”
Benek looked at her in annoyance. “This is the culture of my own people.” He grandly laid his hands on the green tabletop. “I would not expect you to understand.”
Something went click. Benek’s hands were suddenly linked together by two bright orange bands. He jerked and fought, but the bands seemed to constrict even tighter. The man struggled then looked to Shaani in panic. “They won’t come off.”
The rat bent down to look at the wrist restraints in interest then examined the table, seeing the hand imprints and dispenser slots beside them. Finally, she touched the wrist restraints with the red ID badge and pressed a control.
The wrist bands fell off.
“There we are. All done.” The rat took possession of the wrist restraints and bagged them. “Now do be careful. None of you chaps are really omega qualified.”
The lockers turned out to contain mostly scraps and rags, but there were several pairs of bright red overalls made from a tough, artificial material that had ignored the march of time. Rustle was handed the loot bag, and he happily stuffed the various finds into his sack.
Finally they examined the door at the far side of the room. It opened at the touch of a button. Inside, there was small chamber only a few meters across. Another single button stood beside the door.
Shaani kept the others out of the room. She examined it carefully then touched the inner button. The door slid shut. Xoota waited patiently then began to feel nervous. She keyed on her radio headset.
“Shaani.”
“Right here.” The rat’s voice came with the usual crackle of static. “Oh, I say. Right. Here I come.”
The door slid open again. Shaani waved the others in. “It’s a moving room. Goes up and down, up to the next floor.” She crooked her finger, coaxing the others aboard. “It’s perfectly safe. Come along. Come along.”
There was no way to fit Rustle into the room on the same trip as the others. He came up all by himself, immensely pleased by the ride. The huge plant shuffled out into the upstairs room, where his companions were already fanning out cautiously across the floor.
A single large, round room formed the junction of all three arms of the building. There was an upper ring of balcony four meters above, where several chairs were set into the floor beside some metal desks. The positions had several small windows on the wall before them, each one flickering with images and views.
Two bodies lay on the floor—skeletons clad in flesh mummified by the cool, dry air. One wore armor and had apparently had its head twisted one hundred eighty degrees around on its neck. The other was dressed in a red jumpsuit and had a fractured skull. The armored body showed several broken bones. It had an empty pistol holster, a broken helmet headset, and no ID bracelet.
Shaani carefully examined the body. The corpse’s plastic armor might possibly be useful. As she rolled the body over, she found a small, plastic egg that was equipped with a metal ring. She sniffed it, read the writing on the bottom of the egg, and put it in her sample case for later.
The doors into the three main arms of the building were all made of clear, transparent material. One was lined with several smaller rooms, all with their own transparent doors. Another seemed to contain what looked like kitchens and a dormitory. The third one …
The third one was decidedly weird. Writing on the door identified it as E wing. The area seemed to be a single wide corridor. There were several pedestals lining the walls, one of which had shimmering blue column of light extending up from it. Stuck inside the column was a metal cube about the size of a human fist. Xoota peered through the door, shrugged, and walked back to join the others.
Shaani climbed up the stars to the second level. She called back to the others. “Stay in pairs. Nobody leave the room. We’ll stick together.” She headed for the little glass screens surrounding the various chairs. “Now let’s see what we have here …”
The little windows were all views from distant cameras. One showed the robot outside the main door; one showed the fence line. Another showed the corridors in the main building. Shaani wandered to another station. There were several other views. They showed images of a vast, concrete field, covered in sand and weeds and buildings. But
one camera showed a line of different structures—spacecraft standing in a row along the concrete field.
It was Benek’s spaceport. It matched his photographs. The time of day in the pictures seemed to match the present hour. They were views taken in real time. Shaani beamed in satisfaction.
“Benek, we have live camera feeds to your spaceships. This facility is linked in to your target.” Communications links must still somehow be up and running. “Can’t be far away.”
Benek paid her no attention. He had found more lockers and was rummaging inside. Shaani worked some controls and flicked between images.
There.
It was a view across the mysterious starport. The hill they had crested was in the distance, clear as day in the camera. Benek’s base was only perhaps twenty kilometers to the east.
Behind her, Xoota had been flicking through images on other monitors.
There were pictures of a cold, terrible hall. Cryogenic chambers were ranked in the gloom—the home of Benek’s brides-to-be. The chambers were frosted, glowing an icy blue.
In another screen, she found an image that made her fur stand on end. She swallowed. “Shaani? Here, look at this.”
The screen showed a round chamber. Seated in the chamber, there were several armor suits, massive things with sealed helmets; sleek, armored plates; and hulking bulk. They looked as big as sand sharks. Dust covered them. The armors had power gloves festooned with weapons.
There were other cameras showing similar images: rifles in racks, heavy guns, weird tubes, magical go-away sticks … It was an ancient armory, left rotting in the gloom.
There was enough to equip an army. Xoota quietly switched the screens to another view. She had not seen photos of the old armory in Benek’s photograph collection. She wondered why.
