Four Tomorrows: A Space Opera Box Set

by James Palmer

  Two of the beings on the ground crawled away into the safety of the adjoining corridor, leaving their weapons behind. The third remained senseless and unmoving.

  “I can’t take it,” yelled the first mercenary. “He’s going to kill us. We don’t have a chance.”

  He turned and ran into the corridor where his comrades had fled. That way lay an exit from the ship, Rebani knew.

  The stalwart soldier, acting despite his fear, fired twice into the darkness that sheltered Rebani, then stepped out, and nudged the mercenary on the floor with a foot. This seemed to rouse the fellow, for he grabbed his fallen weapon and crawled to cover.

  Rebani heard the crash of a blaze gun from the direction of Bal’s cabin, behind one of the mercenaries, and it broke his concentration.

  Looking down the corridor, Rebani Kalba saw a third mercenary come from the direction of the blast, and, as the remaining soldiers sprayed plasma toward the Sabour’s position, the retreating mercenary crossed to the adjoining passageway where his comrades had fled. Rebani rushed toward the corridor that would take him to Bal’s cabin, seemingly ignoring the mercenaries between him and the hallway.

  As Rebani approached them, the two soldiers flew aside, as if flung by some great invisible hand. The Sabour sped through the pathway between the reeling mercenaries, and continued down the passageway toward Bal’s stateroom.

  A burst of hot plasma struck the wall beside Rebani as he turned a corner toward Bal’s quarters. Far behind him, the Udehe Monitor heard one voice say with relief, “We’re done here. Let’s go.”

  The Sabour sensed the mercenaries retreating as he found Bal Tabarin’s cabin.

  The door swished open, and Rebani found Bal sitting on the bed, smiling remarkably like the cat that has just eaten the household’s missing pet canary, and then volunteered to help look for it.

  Rebani’s expression was harsh as he asked, “What’s so amusing? I thought you might be injured.” His emerald eyes burned with anger.

  “The mercenaries have stolen the gem,” explained Bal, having trouble containing a laugh.

  “What do you mean?” asked Rebani puzzled. From under his cloak a hand came forth. In it was the gem Bal had obtained on Jabareen. “I still have the gem.”

  Bal laughed, unable to restrain himself any longer. “The mercenaries stole one of the fakes I had made,” he explained.

  “All right,” said Rebani, losing some of his anger. “But what’s so amusing about that?”

  “That’s not the amusing part,” explained Bal Tabarin, still smiling. “The case the fake was in contains a transmitter. We’ll be able to follow them back to their base.”

  Rebani Kalba smiled slightly, as much as Bal had ever seen him, at this news.

  12 In Which a Chicken

  Flies Its Coop

  Bal Tabarin held the welding torch delicately, as if it were a surgeon’s scalpel, as he fused the plasteel webbing to Josef’s duraluminum frame, covering the gash made by the mercenary’s blaze carbine; the metal along the wound had beaded where the hot plasma had struck. Josef rested against a cabinet, limbs awkwardly splayed, recent repairs on them clearly visible. Rebani Kalba stood behind Bal in the workshop, quietly observing the procedure.

  “At the first opportunity, I should like this shell replaced with one composed of pure durasteel,” Josef’s holotronic voice hummed petulantly. “I have been blazed quite enough for one lifetime.”

  “Quit complaining,” Bal growled. “And hold still. This patch may have to last a while.”

  “Of course, sir,” drawled Josef. “I am not an Organic, and therefore should not expect immediate and complete repair.”

  Bal shot the valet-bot a venomous look, causing Josef to lapse into silence. Rebani gathered that this type of conversation had been played out before.

  Bal finished welding the patch into place, and stood. Studying his handiwork, he said, “That’s as good as I’m going to get it.”

  “I seem to have forgotten exactly how many years of experience of ‘bot repair you have had, sir,” Josef put in snidely.

  Bal seemed to ignore the comment, and said, “Run a self-diagnostic on your brain.”

  Looking over his shoulder at the Sabour, he added, “I think he’s suffered personality damage. We may have to erase it and start from scratch,” Bal Tabarin said meaningly.

  “That will not be necessary,” Josef hummed quickly. “I have a memory loss of twelve percent, but no loss of personality.”

  Over his shoulder, Bal grinned at Rebani. “Still, it couldn’t hurt, just to be safe.”

  “Your attempts at humor never cease to amuse me, sir,” Josef drawled sarcastically. He stood hesitantly, like a newborn colt trying its legs for the first time. “Mobility at seventy-eight percent.”

  Josef shuffled about the workshop, limping slightly. When it was evident he would not fall, Josef said to Bal, “I apologize for not warning you of the intruders.”

  Bal smiled gently in return, laying a hand on the valet-bot’s metal shoulder. “It’s all right, Josef. I know you would have warned us if you could have. None of us expected to be attacked. We were all caught off guard.”

  “That’s correct,” added Rebani, from behind Bal.

  “Restore your memory from back-up,” Bal instructed Josef, “then find a place in town where we can get your limbs fully repaired.”

  “Yes, sir,” drawled Josef. He turned and shuffled from the workshop.

  Bal glanced at Rebani. “Even though his brain box is protected by a pure durasteel shell, Josef periodically backs up his personality and memory,” he explained. “This has happened before. That ‘bot has the worst luck of any being I know. That’s why he rarely leaves the ship, if you’ve noticed.”

  “He’s been with you a long time,” suggested Rebani.

  “Ever since I was a kid,” agreed Bal.

  “You must have been wealthy to have your own ‘bot.”

  Bal’s voice had a hard note to it when he spoke. “My family was wealthy. There’s a difference.”

  “We all have families,” said Rebani, uncomfortably.

  Bal pondered this comment for a moment, then laughed.

  Rebani Kalba scowled at Bal. “What do you find so amusing?”

  Bal grinned at the Sabour. “You were trying to comfort me just then, weren’t you?”

  In a haughty voice, Rebani said, “I made a statement of fact. How you interpret that statement or my act of stating it is not under my control.”

  Still smiling, Bal said in a non-committal tone, “All right.”

  After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Rebani said, “How do you plan on tracking our attackers? Communication from hyperspace is impossible.”

  “True enough,” agreed Bal. “But the transmitter beacon is tuned to the frequencies used by the relay buoys of the Communet. When the ship drops out of H-space, the beacon’s signal will be relayed as a garbled but otherwise routine communication, along with everybody else’s transmissions from that cubit of space, wherever it is.”

  “Very clever,” observed Rebani, nodding his approval at Bal’s foresight. “But what if their ship comes out of hyperspace too far from a buoy for us to receive its signal?”

  “That’s not very likely, is it?” retorted Bal.

  Untitled

  Rebani didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “While you’re attending to Josef’s repairs in town, I’m going to visit our new ‘partner’, and see what connection, if any, he has with this attack upon us.”

  “All right,” Bal said casually, wondering if there was a particular reason the Sabour didn’t want him along.

  “Your mistrust of your fellow Sentient is exceeded only by my own,” Rebani laughed grimly. “But you hide it well. I imagine you excel at games of chance involving bluff.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Bal said uncertainly.

  Rebani nodded slightly. “By all means.”

  The Sabour turned toward the door. “I shall r
eturn as soon as possible.”

  “You do that,” Bal Tabarin called out after him. The idea nagged at him: He was fairly certain Rebani wouldn’t intentionally betray him; it was how Rebani might unintentionally betray him that worried the Corruban adventurer.

  Rebani Kalba found the ramshackle warehouse much the way it had been hours earlier, except now he sensed no life presence within the structure.

  Silently, the Sabour studied the darkened building. Now aware of the machinery inside, he sought out the defenses of the warehouse with his mind. The Udehe Monitor found that they were active, and waiting for an intruder.

  Untitled

  Rebani chose a twisting course toward the building, designed to avoid attacks by the automatic weaponry of Batrachian’s warehouse, and implanted this path into his subconscious, in effect programming his reflexes – a skill unique to a few races, the Udehe being one of them.

  Rebani ran quickly toward the structure, then dodged to his left as a burst of energy shot from a hidden weapon in the building. A weapon fired again, but again Rebani Kalba was not in its path when it struck. He veered an instant before the automatic defenses could react, over and over, until he was against the building’s outer wall, and out of the firing arc of the weapons.

  In the safety of the umbra of the wall, the Monitor realized the weapons were designed to stun, not kill.

  Rebani Kalba probed the door with his mind. He found that it was barred with a simple, if powerful, bolt. Batrachian had relied on its mass and magnetic lock to repel intruders, rather than installing an intricate mechanism.

  Untitled

  With his mind, Rebani felt along the length of the bolt, gauging the magnetic field as if he were running a hand near a hot poker. The mechanism was designed to shunt impact perpendicular to its length, the Sabour realized, such as that from a ramming vehicle or force beam. The outer wall was tempered against the hot plasma of a blaze weapon, as well. The door was virtually unbreachable by conventional means.

  Rebani Kalba closed his eyes, and concentrated his will at the end of the bolt, pushing against it with the force of his mind. Slowly, the bolt withdrew from the locking mechanism.

  Rebani’s breath deepened as he fought the magnetic field holding the bolt in place. The bolt receded further, finally coming to rest in its sheath in the wall.

  Admitting defeat, the heavy metal door swung slowly open.

  The Sabour stepped into the dark building, and felt an alarm go off. It was silent, and subtle. His entry had set off some safeguard; this much he knew.

  No weapon came to bear on him.

  As Rebani probed the holotronic machines, he sensed that they were self-destructing. Not only were they erasing any information they might possess, they were rendering themselves incapable of any further action. They would be useless junk in a matter of seconds, and there was nothing he could do to stop the process.

  From a pocket, Rebani removed a small, shell-shaped object, numerous tiny studs dotting its surface. He pressed one of these, and the device opened, like the two halves of a clam parting.

  Untitled

  Bal Tabarin, leaning idly against a wall in a ‘bot repair shop as a technician tended to Josef’s damaged limbs, heard a small buzzing sound emanating from one of the pouches on his belt. He fished out a small oval object. It opened in his hand, and Rebani Kalba’s holographic image appeared in the opening.

  “Batrachian has abandoned his warehouse,” Rebani reported.

  “Any idea where he went?” asked Bal, half watching the technician at work on Josef.

  “He has been very thorough,” Rebani’s image said. “Batrachian has erased all clues to his whereabouts.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” replied Bal. After a moment, he added, “Actually, it sounds pretty incriminating.”

  “I agree,” came the Sabour’s voice over the device. “You’ll recall I sensed he was withholding information from us.”

  “Do you think what he did tell us about the others involved in looking for the gems was false?” asked Bal.

  “Not entirely,” the Sabour assured his new partner. “They are involved in the search, somehow. Only time will tell how accurate Batrachian’s information is,” said Rebani Kalba.

  “Do you think he was behind the attack?”

  Untitled

  “Not directly,” said the Sabour. “He is not a violent Sentient – if it can be avoided. That doesn’t preclude him from telling someone who is violent that we have one piece of the Heart, however.”

  “Then our best lead is still the transmitter beacon,” Bal Tabarin said thoughtfully. “Until we can track down Batrachian’s supposed former partners.”

  The six men, dressed in their blood-colored paramilitary fatigues, marched from their small ship like a line of ants, across the spacious landing bay to a pressurized hatch. The one in front carried a small case.

  When they reached the hatch, the soldier carrying the case said loudly, “Plaibus reporting. I have the gem.”

  The hatch door hissed as it opened, sliding up out of the way. Plaibus, followed by his men, went through the open portal, and entered a passageway that ran perpendicular to the hatch.

  “I’ll meet you in the mess after I’m done with Colonel Morion,” Plaibus said to the others. There were murmurs of general agreement as Plaibus went left and his subordinates walked to the right.

  Untitled

  The corridor was unusually wide. Plaibus knew the ship had been built to the particular specifications of its owner, a Duhame named Arga Cilus. Everything about the ship – euphemistically called a “yacht” – was big. The average Duhame rarely weighed less than two Human males. Arga Cilus had to be huge to need the enlargements on the yacht. But Plaibus had never met Arga Cilus; he had always reported to a being called Morion, who had a military bearing and said he was a colonel.

  Plaibus had never heard of Morion prior to being hired by Arga Cilus, through a blind. There was speculation among the men about Morion. He had probably never been a soldier. Certainly, he was not a colonel.

  Arga Cilus had money; that was evident in the way the operation was being run. Plaibus believed the enormous owner of the ship was on board, but wasn’t certain. He knew the Duhame were an indolent race, descended from aquatic mammals, and thought that this might be behind Arga Cilus’ non-appearance on the yacht.

  Plaibus arrived at his destination, the special room.

  The special room was “special” because no being on board had ever been allowed in the room, as far as Plaibus knew, except for mysterious visitors who came and went like morning fog. One of these visitors was Colonel Morion.

  Plaibus didn’t know what was in the special room.

  Plaibus held his hand up before a small scanalyzer to one side of the door, and waited.

  Untitled

  Shortly, the door opened, and dim crimson light spilled out into the hallway. Sharp, moist air enveloped Plaibus as he peered into the chamber. He coughed once as he inhaled the harsh air.

  In the red gloom, a voice rumbled. “Xiten’s preparations for his mission to Covenant are complete.”

  After a moment, Plaibus realized he was not the one to whom the words were being spoken.

  “Colonel Morion?” Plaibus called out uncertainly.

  “Over here,” came Morion’s nasal voice from somewhere in the gloom.

  Plaibus squinted, and found Morion in the semi-darkness. Beside him was a lump of enormous proportions.

  Arga Cilus, Plaibus realized suddenly. He stepped into the room.

  A claxon sounded, barely audible to Plaibus. He looked about for the cause of the alarm.

  Through the gloom, Morion sprang at him, and tore the case from Plaibus’ grasp.

  “Didn’t you sweep this before you brought it aboard?” Morion snarled, an unsuspected strength in his voice.

  “It’s the gem that was described to me,” protested Plaibus.

  “Not the gem, you fool,” spat Morion, “the case.
”

  Untitled

  Morion tore the case open, and removed the gem. He flung the case to the floor, and stepped on it with one hard heel. The small case “crunch”-ed beneath Morion’s black boot, and the claxon lapsed into silence.

  “A transmitter beacon,” Morion said in a steely voice. His small black eyes were cold as he looked at Plaibus.

  Plaibus heard a slight buzzing noise, like a small insect flying too close to his ear, but the noise was not coming from near his ear, and there was no insect. A moment later Plaibus felt sharp pain in his abdomen. With his last moment of life, Plaibus realized Morion had stabbed him with a vibroblade that had been concealed up the colonel’s sleeve.

  The blade of the weapon ate its way up through Plaibus’ torso, carving it like a roast. Plaibus’ body trembled slightly on the vibrating blade as it tore through Plaibus, cutting through bone as easily as flesh. Once clear of the deadly blade, Plaibus’ body slumped to the floor, a pool of blood spreading slowly from it.

  Arga Cilus’ voice rumbled in the gloom like distant thunder. “Deal with this, Colonel.”

  “Of course,” replied Morion. He shut off the vibroblade, and retracted it into the forearm sheath under a sleeve of his oversized uniform. Colonel Morion stepped over Plaibus’ carcass, and exited the special room.

  13 In Which the Hounds

  Lose the Scent of the Fox