by Ben Bova
“Why did you do that?” Adela asked.
He shook his head, dismissing the question. “It’s just procedure.”
She moved a few steps away from Tideki, her expression a mixture of aversion and doubt, and Eric began to get a sense of how disconcerting these agents were to her and Anmoore. And to his sons, for that matter.
“Here they come,” Ettalira announced, floating above their heads. The incident already forgotten, Adela turned her attention back to the sky. Tsing was low on the horizon now, the oblique rays reflecting off the two airships in a way that made them gleam almost fluorescently in the air.
They were magnificent. Like the others that had been observed and recorded, these consisted of a main top cylinder, tapered on the ends, with a system of guiding vanes on the tail portion. The gondola slung below was like those from Jour Nouveau in size and shape, but appeared to be made of some solid, light wood rather than the woven material they were used to seeing. Also, where the airships in the recording had been colored for stealth—dull shades of green and brown on top, lighter colors below to help it blend in with its surroundings—the cylinders of these two stood out well against the sky with a pattern of alternating orange and white striping that blended into a deeper shade of burnt orange toward the tail section. As Tsing fell lower on the horizon, the sunset hues it radiated played brilliantly against the airships’ coloration. Perhaps these were not, like the others, intended for warfare but for some other purpose—scientific research? Passenger craft? Then again, maybe the city-state from which these airships originated held a different philosophy about coloration for its attack vessels. Eric was glad that Anmoore had remembered to get extensive recordings of this flyover for later study and analysis.
The steady thrumming grew to its loudest as the airships passed directly overhead; then they lost sight of them over the bulk of the hopper looming above them. Just before they disappeared, Eric could see the diminutive natives inside. Everything about them, and about their flying machines for that matter, he had already seen in the recordings. But seeing it like this, with his own eyes!
They circled the hopper, walking around to the rear of the vessel to watch the airships as they proceeded on up the rift valley.
“What did I tell you?” Adela’s face glowed, he noticed, as she smiled up at him. “The recordings, even the holographic ones, simply can’t convey the wonder of this.” He thought a moment of the last time he had seen her for any length of time, back at Woodsgate, and of how troubled she had been then. The loss of Javas while she slept, the disturbing news of what Jephthah had done in her name, Billy’s unhappiness—it all seemed to have melted away, and she looked more at ease with herself than he had seen in too long a time. Even the emotional conflict caused by the appearance of the liaison in his father’s likeness had served to help resolve many of the issues that had weighed upon her since she had come out of cryosleep.
As they watched the two airships begin to dwindle in the distance, the movement of her hair in the warm breeze caught his attention and he looked at her again. His mother was just as lovely as he had remembered, even lovelier now that the burdens of two centuries had been lifted from her. Not realizing that he was looking at her, she played her fingers alluringly through her hair, pulling it away from her face and tucking it momentarily behind an ear to keep it from blowing into her eyes.
His mother was happy again and, pleased that he was able to have played a part, he felt a warmth flow over him that somehow lifted much of his own regret at what had transpired.
He closed his eyes, listening to the fading sound of the airships, and inhaled deeply of the warm air. The scent of the surrounding greenery, mixed with just a hint of salt and moisture from the sea that lay to the south, came pleasantly to his nose. No wonder the airships traveled this rift valley—the easy, steady wind would make for excellent sailing.
“Are they slowing?” Ettalira asked, still above their heads, the loftier vantage point giving her a better view of the airships.
They all watched the two craft more intently and, yes, it did appear that they were not receding as quickly as they had been.
“Maybe it’s just a trick of the distance that—” Adela started to say, but as they continued to watch, the answer became obvious to all of them: The two airships were turning. “Wait—it’s all right. From what we’ve been able to observe, they frequently will follow the valleys for a distance, riding the air currents or simply using them for easy navigation, and then bear off toward their destination.”
“But they’re making a complete turn,” Lewis countered a few moments later, a note of concern in his voice. “I think they’re coming back this way.”
Eric was about to say something to his son, then again noticed Adela, standing between them, pulling a wisp of hair from her eyes. Her hair should not be blowing, he suddenly realized, feeling the breeze playing across his cheeks. Not if the shield is at its highest setting.
“The shielding,” Lewis said, as though reading his mind. He, too, had noticed the anomaly.
Eric concentrated a moment, accessing the flight deck, but according to what his integrator told him the shield setting had not changed. He took a step forward, but Lewis put his hand on his arm, grasping him firmly.
“Wait a moment.” His son confronted the agent, who was speaking through his collar pickup in a voice to low to hear. “What’s happening here?” Lewis demanded.
“I’m checking it now, sir.”
Lewis nodded, his lips a tight, thin line. “Stay here, everyone.” He walked forward slowly, his hand stretched out before him, and stopped a few meters away. Bending down, he grabbed a piece of wood and tossed it away as hard as he could. Tumbling end-over-end, the stick sailed unimpeded in a wide arc to land rustling in trees that should have been far outside the shielding. “It’s not there,” he said, turning back. “Ettalira, come here a second.”
The sphere sailed quickly to him.
“Can you go out about a hundred meters and make a complete circuit of the area, then tell me what you see here?”
“Of course, Commander.”
With that she started to arc above his head, but before she had risen even two meters her silver surface shattered explosively, a sharp crackling sound coming to their ears. Lewis crouched at the blast, his hands thrown protectively over his head. The entire area for several meters around him was instantly showered with hundreds of tiny splashing metallic globules that broke apart on impact, leaving the grass sparkling with little dots of silver that reflected the waning sunlight.
“Ettalira!” Adela yelled, immediately moving forward. “Lewis! Are you—?”
“Hold it! Stop!” She froze at Tideki’s order, and turned to see the needle gun he pointed at them. “Don’t anyone else move. This fires charged flechettes,” he warned. Depending on the charge, the flechettes could paralyze or kill. And judging from the effect a single one of them had had on Ettalira, the setting was not low. The agent said nothing more, but motioned with the weapon for Lewis to return to the group.
“What is this?” Eric demanded.
Tideki kept the gun high, but said nothing to them. Instead, he squeezed his collar pickup and asked, “Did you see what happened?” He touched the earpiece with his free hand and nodded, then remained silent.
“The Emperor asked you a question!” Lewis shouted. Although the agent brought the gun to bear on him as he joined the others, he did not answer.
The thrumming of the airships grew louder, and Eric turned slowly to find that they were almost on top of them. They moved sluggishly against the wind, but made steady progress in their direction, and it was clear that one of the pair was coming to a halt altogether. Staying back to what its crew must have thought was a safe distance—based, Eric guessed, on what they knew of their own weaponry—it hovered motionless. The other, meanwhile, came nearer still until it, too, stopped and pointed itself into the wind to hover at a point close enough that they could distinctly see the f
rightened, but curious, furred faces of the occupants.
“They’re coming right in, as I expected.” They turned back at the new voice, and saw that Hanson had left the hopper. He walked forward, his hands tucked casually into the pockets of his coveralls, and stood before them. Like Tideki’s, his headset was in place over his ear. “Your research here on the planet has been exemplary, Dr. Montgarde. Not only was I able to learn of their aggressive nature through you, but also of their innate intelligence and curiosity. I knew they’d turn around the moment they saw us here.”
Hanson was sweating, although whether it was from the seriousness of this confrontation or the warm air, Eric could not tell. He undid the collar and opened the top of the coveralls to allow the breeze to cool him.
“I’m sorry for what has happened. It wasn’t really in my plans—at least, not quite this way—but I think this will work for the better.” With his collar open, and the electronics of the IPC tone shifter disengaged, his voice was different than it had been moments earlier, and was now even deeper and more resonant. And instantly recognizable.
Eric took a step toward him, but stopped abruptly when Tideki raised his needle gun a few centimeters higher.
“Jephthah,” he spat. The single word was a curse.
35
FIREFIGHT
The three of them sat cross-legged on the ground. Tideki, his needle gun still leveled in their direction, stood a few meters away. Behind them Jephthah supervised as another of the agents brought out the hover platform and floated it to the ground, while a third agent walked around the hopper with a handheld camera in one hand, calmly recording the two airships and the area around the shuttle. He carried a shield gun cradled across his chest with his other hand. They had no idea where the fourth IPC man was, but assumed he must still be inside holding Anmoore, his copilot and the liaison.
The nearest airship still hovered in place against the gentle wind, the rhythmic thrumming of the steam engine still clearly audible. There remained sufficient daylight for them to see its occupants at the edge of the gondola, looking down.
“I don’t know what his plans are,” Lewis was saying as he stared back up at the craft. “But it’s clear to me now that he maneuvered us into an encounter with them. He coordinated everything with the detailed information they sent from orbit on the whereabouts of any natives here on the surface, and deliberately had us follow a course taking us close to them.”
“Without it appearing obvious,” Adela put in.
“For all I know, he’s known about these two airships for days, long before we asked for the orbital scans. They weren’t flying when the information was sent down, so naturally they didn’t show up; but he knew they were there. I’m sure of it.”
Adela touched Eric’s arm. “Any luck?”
“I’m linked to it right now,” Eric said. “But it still shows the shielding to be in place, even though we know that to be untrue. The comm system is also working properly, but I have no idea why there hasn’t been a response to the emergency hail I’m sending.”
“He’s done something to it,” Lewis stated quietly. “That’s clear enough.” He stood, slowly and carefully so as not to alarm Tideki as his needle gun traced his movements. “We’d like to talk to him.”
The man shook his head. “Sit back down, or I’ll shoot you.” His tone was not threatening, but carried an air of certainty that told them he meant what he said.
“You wouldn’t—” Adela started to say.
“Yes, he would,” Jephthah called out as he walked over, cutting her off. “You three are not to be killed, but the charge the flechettes in his weapon are carrying would put you under in a second. I’d just as soon he didn’t—I need you three up and about—but he has my instructions not to hesitate if you don’t listen to him.”
“What’s happening here,” Eric demanded.
“You mean, why does your integrator seem to indicate that everything is as it should be?” He smiled, one eyebrow lifted, then squatted down to his level. “I’ve disabled the direct comm system on the flight deck so you can’t access it. Other than the main voice channel on the flight deck—a manual system I’ve been using to make reports—there is no link to the outside. You’re reading nothing but recorded information, just as those monitoring us from orbit and South Camp are.”
Eric ignored him for a moment and turned to Adela. “Mother, do the spheres sleep?”
“What?” The out-of-place question surprised her for a second. “Uh; yes. Yes, they do, in a sense. Why?
“Is the information in the main system at South Camp?”
“Yes, but—?”
Eric understood. “I’ve been cut off for some time now, haven’t I?”
There was a call from the agent at the platform, and Jephthah waved for him to wait. “Since we left Jour Nouveau you’ve been able to access nothing that isn’t in the memory of this shuttle. You can utilize almost any system on board if you’d like, but with the comm link disconnected from the rest of the Imperial computer net … you’re disconnected from it as well.”
Eric tried to contact the Imperial net again, and found that it still seemed normal. He concentrated again on one of hopper’s other systems, and was gratified to see that the plastiglass of the canopy opaqued at his command in such a manner that they all could clearly see it. Jephthah was telling the truth, for all the good it would do him. He hurriedly tried several of the other hopper systems, testing his limits.
“Enough game playing, Your Highness.” Jephthah stood, his knees popping loudly, and spoke to the man on the platform. Although they couldn’t make out what he was saying, they could see him gesturing and pointing at the more distant of the two airships. The platform rose and floated northward slowly, but steadily, in the direction of the craft, while the agent with the camera continued to record everything he saw.
Jephthah headed back, bending to the ground to pick up a small solid object, one of several scattered across the area. He turned the gray metal glob over in his hand, then tossed it away.
“Why did you order her killed?” Adela asked angrily.
“Several reasons,” Jephthah said as he approached. He didn’t look at them where they sat on the ground, but instead followed the movements of the hover platform nearing the far airship. “I couldn’t have that silver thing flying around, getting in my way here. Or have it take off into the woods, for that matter, imprinting everything she would have seen on the first sphere she came to.”
“You probably wished you could have done it yourself,” she said.
“Is that right?” he replied sarcastically. “You’ve got me all figured out, haven’t you? Well, this may shock you, but I hold a great deal less animosity toward both the Sarpan and these … new aliens, than you might think.”
“You expect me to believe,” Eric asked, “that your campaign of hatred against them, the way you’ve poisoned the minds of everyone who listened to you, was a lie?”
“Please, please.” He held up his hands, laughing at them. “I’ve never considered the Sarpan a threat, any more than I expect these primitives to give us any trouble. But the Empire is changing, Your Highness, and you know it. You saw it coming years ago, just as I did, and knew that the Empire would have to adapt in order to survive.” He shrugged, and glanced up to check how far the platform had traveled, then looked down at them again. “I decided to help it change in a manner that would enable me to have the most control over what happened. You know, I suspect that our ideas for what the Empire should become are probably not that far apart, but I like the idea of being able to exert a ‘personal touch’ in the direction it will ultimately take. There were others who saw the advantage to what I wanted to do, and their financial support was easy to come by—you may know at least one of them, in fact, although I’m afraid my relationship with her has come to an unfortunate end.” Jephthah chuckled softly, enjoying the macabre joke before continuing.
“But the Sarpan? They were little more than a
n easy way to unite people, that’s all. With their mysterious ways, repulsive appearance and biological needs, they made the perfect common enemy. And all I had to do was point out how guilty they seemed to be whenever any convenient accident happened near them where humans died without explanation.”
“Except when you did it yourself, like on Mercury,” Adela said.
“How many other ‘convenient accidents’ did you cause,” Eric asked, “and then blame on them?”
“I created my own opportunities, yes, whenever it was possible; much as I’m doing here. But not nearly so many as you’re imagining now.” He leaned down to him so close that Eric felt his breath on his face. “Paranoia and fear are marvelous things, aren’t they, Sire? With only a few hints from me about what I’ve done, you’ve already let your mind convince yourself of all manner of horrors I never even thought of.”
He was right, Eric realized. With only a few admissions from this corrupt man, his own mind had conjured up many new suspicions and fears … just as the people of the Hundred Worlds had, based on what few facts Jephthah had told them. It was no wonder that the man’s efforts had been so effective on the weak-minded.
“I know you think that what you’ve managed to do at Tsing—the research, the interspecies friendship, the discoveries—will all somehow sidetrack what I’ve done. But with what I can gather here in the next few minutes, I doubt even that will be able to undermine the spreading sense of apprehension and distrust I’ve already been able to create for the Sarpan, and now these Gatanni.” Jephthah put a hand to the earpiece, gazing skyward, then pointed at the farther of the two airships. “Wait, I think it’s time for the show to begin.”
He called to the agent with the handheld camera, and motioned him over with a quick wave of his arm. “We have enough on number two,” he said, “and the hopper cameras will get anything else we need. Keep your unit trained on number one.” Jephthah took the man’s weapon, and he trotted to the far side of the hopper, taking up position for his shot.
