by B. V. Larson
Marvelena’s face underwent a transition then. Her rage faded, and she took on the look of a lost victim. I was immediately impressed with her ability to shift expressions like a chameleon and her range of emotive displays.
“You can’t arrest me! No wonder you get endless bad press. Take me to an embassy, or something.”
Sandra chuckled. It was a mean sound.
“Marvelena,” I said. “Have you been in trouble spots back on Earth? Areas that are lawless and in the midst of an upheaval? Something like a civil war?”
“I was in South America before Star Force leveled it,” she said.
I winced. The ill-fated South America campaign was a sore point for everyone in Star Force. The press had never forgiven us for the loss of a continent. The human species had survived, but a billion armchair generals would forever second-guess every decision we’d made on the ground in the old days.
“I have to know what’s in that case,” I said. “Is it a weapon of some kind?”
“No.”
“Then why are you going to such lengths to hide it? What are you afraid of?”
Marvelena licked her lips. “I’ll make it up to you,” she said suddenly. “The report will be quite favorable. Just give me the unit, and I’ll return to Earth immediately.”
Sandra and I looked at each other. Sandra smiled predatorily. “Can I arrest her now?” she asked.
I nodded. Marvelena squawked in outrage as Sandra sprang toward her and grabbed her from behind. She pulled back her arms and lifted them up slightly. I turned and headed toward the beach, Sandra and Marvelena followed. The reporter produced quite a bit of noise.
“You’re under arrest for suspicion of possessing contraband on this base,” I said formally. I had to shout to be heard over the woman’s protests. “As the commanding officer in this system, I’m placing you in custody until your guilt or innocence can be determined.”
We headed back to the spot with the little stack of black stones and the dark case. Lying there in the sand, it looked quite innocuous. I couldn’t help but wonder what was inside it.
Sandra gave the girl a shove and she stumbled close to it. She gave us a venomous glare.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she wailed. “They made me bring it here, and they said it was harmless.”
“What is its purpose, then?”
“It has no purpose.”
Sandra laughed. “You lugged this box all the way from Earth and hid it carefully. Then you tried to seduce Kyle. I think it is a camera or something. A system to record data. You’re trying to blackmail us, or make us look bad.”
Marvelena gritted her teeth. “I demand to be sent back to Earth.”
“You will open the case,” I said.
“I can’t.”
“You don’t know how?”
“I do, but they told me not to.”
“Who are they?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. She looked worried now, she was cornered and she knew it.
“Marvelena,” I said. “Perhaps you are only now realizing how far you are from home, and how helpless you are against us. There are no cameras out here recording every event as they do in the old cities back on Earth. There are no world tribunals, no powerful elites who can pull in a favor with a phone call. All you have on the frontier worlds are the people you deal with every day.”
“That’s why you don’t screw with us,” Sandra added.
I took a step toward her, and the waves lapped over my ankles. Sandra put a hand in front of me. “Let me do it,” she said.
I considered. The spectacle of me manhandling a woman like Marvelena while she was barely dressed, cameras or not, wasn’t something I wanted anyone on the base to witness. I nodded to Sandra.
She trotted into the surf, grabbed the woman, who screamed, and the case with her other hand. She eyed the case critically.
“It’s blinking,” she said. “Blinking with a green light. Just an LED—no nanotech.”
“You shouldn’t touch it,” Marvelena said, she squirmed in Sandra’s iron grasp. “The Agent said not to.”
“What agent?” Sandra demanded.
“Someone from the Ministry of Trust.”
We both stared at her. We’d never heard of such an institution. What was Crow doing back home?
“What the hell is the Ministry of Trust?” Sandra demanded.
Marvelena looked confused—and terrified. “That’s where I work. I’m a reporter.”
I frowned and opened my mouth to ask another question, but Sandra shouted triumphantly at that moment.
“Ah-ha!” she said. She’d lifted the case and turned it over. “There we go, here is a second opening. You—put your hand in here. I think it is touch-sensitive.”
Marvelena did not cooperate. Sandra finally took her hand and shoved it into the opening. Marvelena screamed again, and I thought I heard a new note in her voice. It was the sound of sheer terror.
Everything changed after that. I saw a blur of motion, and a flash of released energy. I was knocked down into the wet sand.
I blinked up at the pale disk hidden behind the omnipresent clouds of Eden-6. I couldn’t hear anything.
It really was a bomb, I thought. My mind was numbed and I recognized the sensation. I was in shock.
-13-
I climbed to my feet and swayed unsteadily. I was shouting Sandra’s name, but I couldn’t hear my own voice. All I heard was an intense ringing sound. In my body, I knew the nanites were rushing to injured spots. I could feel them, tickling in my veins and under my skin the subcutaneous layer.
I squinted and peered at my surroundings. It had been a long time since I’d been injured this badly. One of my eyes, my right one, seemed not to operate at all. My left was clouded by blood and the images coming in of my surroundings were dim.
I knew I should seek help. I should be trying to save myself. That was the first mission of every soldier when injured on the battlefield. Guarantee your own survival, then tend to the lives of those around you. But I kept looking for Sandra, heedless of the blasted bits of shrapnel and sand that had riddled my body.
There was a big bloodspot in the water, staining an area perhaps twenty feet around a dark color. I knew it was blood and gore. I dipped my hands into it, and found a foot. I looked it over numbly. I saw the painted nails—lavender and silver. I shook my head and dropped the foot. It wasn’t Sandra’s.
I kept digging until Kwon showed up. He and about six other marines rushed into the water and lifted me up, carrying me toward the bunker. I resisted feebly. They were saying things to me, but I wasn’t able to hear or understand them. I was dragged down into the bunker like a scrap of food carried by a pack of industrious ants.
In a cool, dark room under the base a dozen skinny metal arms went to work on me. I was unfortunate, in that they didn’t turn off the nerves first. Nanite medical tables didn’t always worry about pain and suffering. I passed out before the stitching was done.
* * *
Awakening from a bad dream, I found I could see with both eyes again. How many hours had I been lying on this slab like a stiff in a morgue? I didn’t know, but I saw there was another body lying next to me. It was Sandra, I could tell in an instant.
With a tremendous effort, I climbed off my slab, tripped and fell on my face. After several minutes of groaning and heaving, I managed to get to her on my knees. I touched her hair and then her cheek with the back of my mangled fingers. I thought I felt warmth there.
Her jaws moved, and after a moment, I could make out quiet words. “I’m going to get Crow for this,” she mumbled.
I smiled and leaned back against my own slab. I closed my eyes and laughed until I choked. We’d both survived another attempt on our lives.
A few days later, we were sore but functional. Nanites and microbes had done amazing things once again. We headed back toward the beach. This time, Kwon hovered near.
“I should never h
ave left you,” he complained to himself. “I was a moron, just like Jensen says.”
I shook my head. “No, Kwon. I was the moron. I had my head turned by a pretty face. I skipped protocol and I paid the price.”
“That wasn’t the first time,” Sandra said in a scratchy voice. Part of her throat had been damaged by the blast.
“It was luck you guys both lived,” Kwon said.
I shook my head again. “Not really. Sandra bounded away like a jackrabbit when she heard the device click, and I was far enough away. We would have both died anyway, if it hadn’t been for the work of nanites and the body-edits performed by the Microbes.”
Kwon muttered something I didn’t catch. I could tell he still blamed himself for this security lapse. He’d set up automatic turrets along the beach now, which twisted and scanned us occasionally as we passed by.
“This is the spot,” I said when we reached the collection of rocks. Marvelena had led me here the first time we’d met.
Sandra stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the scene. “I get it,” she said. “This place is very private. You can’t see the bunker from here. You brought her out to this spot and screwed her, didn’t you Kyle? Don’t lie to me.”
I grimaced. “She led me out here. And no, I didn’t do it—but that might have been her intention.”
Kwon looked alarmed. “You two aren’t going to fight now, are you? We only just got you put back together!”
“We’re here to see why she led me to this spot.”
We searched, and quickly found another device like the first one under the waves, but further offshore. These devices seemed adept at staying put. We examined this one at a safe distance.
“What I don’t understand is how she got these boxes out here into the ocean,” I said. “They’re too heavy for a normal woman—and she didn’t seem nanotized.”
“Ah…” Kwon said hesitantly. “Maybe I recognize that box-thing, now that you mention it.”
We both stared at him.
“Well, she said she needed help. I might have carried a box for her—or two of them.”
“You did?” I asked. “And you didn’t feel like bringing this up before? What were the boxes supposed to do?”
“She said they would monitor the planet, track eco-data. Some bullcrap like that. I didn’t listen.”
“What did she give you in return for your help, Kwon?” Sandra asked.
“Uh…she was a very generous and friendly woman.”
“That little witch,” Sandra said. She turned on me, her eyes flashing. “She tried to lead you out here Kyle to screw you, or kill you—or both. Right off, the moment after you’d met!”
“Maybe,” I said.
“We should burn this second box with hand-beamers until we’re certain it can’t detonate,” Kwon suggested.
“Then we won’t learn what it is,” I said.
In the end, I contacted Marvin and requested he come to the island base and take a look. To my surprise, he showed up within the hour.
“That was quick, Marvin,” I said. “I thought you were stationed in space, orbiting Eden-11.”
“A mistaken assumption, Colonel. I’ve been working here on Eden-6.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“Because there are subjects here who I need to examine.”
“Subjects? What’s here that triggers your overly-curious mind?
Marvin shuffled his tentacles and paused. I knew that meant he was thinking up a dodge, if not an outright lie.
“Don’t bother to bullshit me, Marvin. Just answer the question.”
Almost every camera he had studied me. “I was about to explain that I’ve been studying the Microbes. They are native to this world, as I’ve explained in the past.”
I did seem to recall him telling me the Microbes came from this planet. I frowned in concern. We’d been swimming in these oceans. I hadn’t thought about getting some kind of infection from the water.
“Are these creatures dangerous, Marvin? My people have been swimming these oceans for months.”
“Yes and no,” Marvin said. “Only the intelligent Microbes could damage humans, and those colonies are relatively rare.”
“But they’re in the water, right?”
“Yes.”
I heaved a sigh. “Is the ocean teeming with these little bugs? Trillions of them?”
“Trillions is an insufficient numerical concept in this instance. I have calculated we are dealing with numbers in the octillions.”
“The octillions?” I asked. “Isn’t that a one with about twenty zeroes after it?”
“Twenty-seven zeros, sir.”
“Right. Well, I suppose when you have a trillion micro flora in a single human body, an ocean would have a population with a count many orders of magnitude higher.”
“Correct.”
“You still haven’t told me why they aren’t dangerous to humans.”
“They aren’t all the same species,” he said. “The vast majority of them don’t know we exist. Just as on Earth, there are a millions of species of bacteria here. On Eden-6, a few species have developed intelligence. Most are literally mindless, wild microbes, just as they are on Earth. My point is that the odds you have encountered intelligent colonies just by occasional bathing are low.”
I nodded. “I guess it is a very large ocean. But don’t they travel around and interact?”
“Not as humans do. They are very fractious, due to their small size and short lifespans. A solitary traveling Microbe, should it survive the journey from one colony to another, would find the trip took multiple lifespans to complete.”
“Hmm, so…they don’t interact at all? Each colony is a world unto itself? That will make it harder to deal with them as a single society.”
“They are not a single society. They are not even a single species. They vary dramatically from warm water types that float in cycles around the world, following various currents, to cold, deep-water types that anchor themselves to the sea bottom.
“I see,” I said thoughtfully. I’d always planned to get around to adding the Microbes into my list of biotic allies. Now, I wasn’t sure if such a thing would ever be possible. Marvin had been right when he’d once told me the Microbes were like the living form of the Nanos.
I looked at Marvin again, sharply. “You’ve found some of them then, here on this planet? You’ve encountered the smart ones?”
Marvin’s tentacles writhed. “Not exactly. Can I get on with my investigation of the crime scene now?”
“No,” I said. “What do you mean by not exactly?”
“’Not’ is a negative logical operator, reversing the true-false state of a Boolean value. ‘Exactly’ qualifies as an adverb.”
“I know that, you evasive robot! What I want to know is what your vague reference means in this instance.”
Marvin squirmed some more. I figured he was dreaming up a new half-lie.
“Never mind,” I said suddenly. “Let me guess what it means.”
“Be my guest.”
I glared at him. “You haven’t exactly found intelligent Microbes here. That means you have encountered them, but not in the manner described. Are they different Microbes? Maybe proto-intelligent ones?”
“That would be very exciting, but no.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t believe I was playing twenty questions with Marvin, standing on this patch of beach. The odd thing was it was probably a faster way to get to the right answer when dealing with him. I could see by his body language he was excited and intrigued by the contest. Could Colonel Riggs figure out what Marvin was hinting at without losing his mind? For Marvin, the very process was stimulating.
I considered giving up the thread in frustration, but didn’t. Becoming stubborn, I pushed ahead. I was going to match wits with this bucket of nanites and I was going to win.
“Second point,” I said, “you don’t want me to know the truth. That indicates I might not approve of your methodo
logy. Let’s put this together. You’ve met smart Microbes here, but not in the manner I described. And, you aren’t sure I’ll be happy about what you did…I’m still not getting it.”
I looked at the Marvin, who’d come close and seemed agitated. His cameras were eyeing me from a dozen angles and his tentacles were restless, causing little sprays of sand to shoot up from under him as they squirmed.
“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” I asked him. “Is this all an experiment you’ve set up to test me?”
“No, this incident is spontaneous. But it is very stimulating.”
I took another deep breath, closed my eyes, and thought hard. Finally, I opened them again and nodded. “You brought colonies back here from Eden-11. The creatures the Macros used as a biotic weapon—you returned them to their home planet. That’s it, isn’t it? Do you have them somewhere on the island trapped in a tiny pool?”
“I’m very impressed, Colonel Riggs. I’m not sure that I could come up with the same conclusions, given the same input.”
“Thanks, I guess. What the hell are you up to, Marvin? Playing god again with the Microbes?”
“To answer your earlier more coherent inquiry: yes, I did transport Microbes from Eden-11 to Eden-6. I’ve returned them to their homeworld, just as you for did the Centaurs.”
“Yes, but they aren’t the same as when they left,” I said. “You told me yourself the Macros bred them to kill the Centaurs. Then you fooled with them further, breeding them to effect changes in human physiology.”
“They should pose no danger to the indigent population.”
“Should? You have no idea if that’s true or not. I suggest you dump your pools and go looking for native colonies again. But I don’t want you to trap them and abuse them. Try to contact them and arrange a peaceable trading system for us to use their special biological talents.”
Marvin squirmed. “You are ordering me to kill several trillion individuals? I’ve brought them all the way here, to their fabled homeworld. They like it here, even if they find it too warm. They are adapting and thriving. I’m surprised that you would be so ruthless with a population of refugees.”
