Through the relayed image, Zach could see two off-roaders racing away along the road at high speed, bouncing over the bumps. In their panic, they were driving too fast for such an uneven road. When they reached the first fork, they turned different ways and rapidly parted from each other. The old strategy of running off in different directions. Zach smiled wryly at such naivety. Tricks like that wouldn’t do them any good.
He enlarged the image, the better to see those sitting inside. There were two in the passenger compartment of one vehicle and one in the other. The three silhouettes remained in his memory, making it easier to look for any others. It seemed they were all in the vehicles. They had been waiting for him, so they must have sniffed out something about the package inside. Such witnesses could not be left alive, and he didn’t want to do that anyway...
“Targets on the road,” he said softly. Bright target indicator circles appeared around the vehicles, which were jumping about like mad on the field road, leaving a long strip of dust behind them. The robot was taking aim.
“Shoot to kill!”
The deafening whoosh of missiles being fired was heard from above. Two shining points could be seen on the relay, soaring up in an anti-aircraft manoeuver, then swooping down like hawks on their prey. In the ravine, a muffled clap echoed back from the nearby hills as the missiles blew the off-roaders into little pieces.
The entrance to the cave led to an artificially constructed tunnel. Traces of building machines could be seen on the stone walls, showing where their metal drills had cut a passage of almost perfect circular form. Embedded in the floor were two rails, covered in a layer of rust but showing fresh scratches. Something had been carried on these rails quite recently. Whoever had done it, their actions had apparently attracted the attention of the gang Zach had just dealt with.
He left one robot to guard the entrance and sent the other one ahead. It stepped boldly into the unknown, illuminating the tunnel with powerful lamps. The light from the lamps ran in all directions, mixing with the red beams of the laser scanners.
The road led downwards. After about a hundred meters, it ended in massive gates. Zach looked around. There were no handles on the gates, nor any hole in which a key could be inserted, nor any visible scanners or code locks.
“Do you not have a key?” he asked the robot.
The robot did not reply. Although robots were poor conversationalists, it was definitely more pleasant crawling around this dusty hole in its company.
Zach got out the tablet with the holographic cube inserted in it and went right up to the gates. Nothing changed. He slowly moved along them, without taking his eyes off the screen. There ought to be some kind of signal...
“Use code?” A message suddenly came up.
“Do it.”
Something clicked resoundingly in the gates, the metal screeched briefly and the two halves crawled slowly sideways, creaking due to the sand in the rails. The entrance to a dark hall opened up in front of him.
He signaled to the robot to take the lead. The robot moved forward at once, but as soon as its two metal feet stepped over the threshold, a bright light flared up inside.
“Stop!” ordered Zach.
He cautiously glanced inside. In the center of the hall, reaching almost to the ceiling, stood a dark grey spacecraft. Just a brief look was enough to determine what sort of craft it was. A combat drone – a predator among flying machines – patiently awaited him, its polished sides shining.
Zach whistled in delight. In terms of all the latest toys involved, this job was unlike any other. His employer was obviously not short of cash. He walked around the spacecraft, studying it from all sides and slapping its cool dark belly. Craft like these did not need a man to pilot them, but had several seats so that they could be used as shuttles for short passenger flights. Intended mainly for automatic flights, they were not renowned for comfort, but were fast and stealthy with respect to radar, particularly civil radar...
“Not bad, not bad at all,” he said, addressing the infantry robot waiting patiently at the tunnel entrance. It did not seem to share in Zach’s delight and made not the slightest sound in reply, but just indifferently felt out the flying machine with its laser scanner.
After completing authorization with the crypto-key stored within the holographic cube, the drone opened a hatch giving access to its cabin. Zach sat in one of the seats and connected his tablet to the onboard computer. A map appeared showing him the flight plan. It indicated that the route was to Mercury. There were no further details. This mission was becoming more and more mysterious...
Before he had time to think, the drone, without any explanations, began a countdown. Zach tried to get into the system, but the onboard computer seemed to be carrying out a completely automatic program and would not allow its passenger to alter it.
The hatch was still open. Zach looked out.
“Quick march to the cargo hold,” he ordered the robot, “and call your friend.”
The robot obediently went towards the belly of the drone, where shutters opened upon his arrival. It was cramped inside. There was hardly room for a man in there, let alone a two-meter monster, but the drone and the robot had been created to work as a team. The steel warrior extended his manipulators, gripped special locks, and pulled itself into the hold. It folded its legs, retracted the projecting part of its metal body inward like a spider, and reduced itself to the size of a large trunk. In this shape, it fitted ideally into the cavity.
The heavy tread of the second robot could be heard from outside. This one fitted itself into a second compartment in the other side of the belly, the shutters to which had already been opened by the drone.
Zach flopped back into his seat and strapped himself in, keeping an eye on the countdown. His work always included an element of secrecy, but he usually had some idea of the mission from the very beginning. After all, it was up to him to decide whether he could take on a new job, but not this time. He knew precisely nothing about this assignment. He had not intended to retreat from his principles and had stated his position clearly.
“You know, it’s really not in your interests to hire me blind. I value my reputation,” (Zach could hardly keep a straight face as he said this), “so I only undertake work I know I can do. If I don’t know what the mission is, I can’t give such a guarantee. So...”
His explanations had been interrupted by a number on the screen of the videophone on which the conversation was taking place.
“I told you, I have to think about it. You certainly shouldn’t be revealing any coordinates to me until...”
“Those are not coordinates, that’s what we’ll pay you.”
Thinking later about what had happened, Zach could not think of a single reasonable explanation, except that his brain had simply switched off. With that sort of remuneration, he would no longer need his reputation as a man who could do anything.
So Zach had agreed and now he had to stick with it and be ready for anything. And he was actually ready for most things, but Mercury!? Hell and damnation, he would never have thought of Mercury!
Apart from a number of completely automatic industrial complexes, the planet closest to the Sun was empty. The radiation emitted by the nearby star was so high that it was virtually impossible for people to stay there. Massive protection against the deadly radiation was required constantly. It was only possible to go out onto the surface of the planet in certain latitudes, or on the night side, and as dawn approached it was necessary to hide deep under the surface. And although night on Mercury lasted half an Earth year, what tasks could there possibly be in such conditions, in this fiery desert, particularly under such secrecy?
The countdown reached zero. The drone rocked, and the platform on which its feet, like the claws of a bird of prey, were resting, rolled out on the rails. Zach touched the sensor on the pulse gun display to check how full the magazine was. It was full to its total capacity. The more that was paid for a job, the less you could afford to rela
x your vigilance. He laid the gun across his knees, keeping his finger near the trigger.
He was almost shocked to find that no surprises were waiting for him outside. The drone unhurriedly left the cave, stopped and closed the hatch. It then initiated the brief starting sequence. Such machines were not accustomed to having fragile flesh-and-blood creatures inside them that could barely withstand even 10 g, but knowing about the passenger, the computer brain decided to keep the acceleration down for a smooth start.
It was only relatively smooth, of course. Zach’s eyes went dark and he could hardly keep his mind from jumping out of his body as the drone picked up speed, a grey dot moving up into the sky. At such overloads, the drone only had to get beyond the atmosphere and reach escape velocity, then it would switch off the engines and the flight would proceed smoothly thereafter. Being virtually unable to see anything, Zach began counting out loud the seconds of flight remaining until they had enough kinetic energy to escape the embrace of Earth’s gravity.
The sky outside the thick glass quickly became black. The atmosphere had been left behind, but the drone, controlled by its installed program, had no intention of slackening off. The speed continued to increase rapidly, but as if that were not enough, it decided it was time for maneuvers. It began to transform its flight trajectory into an arc of ever-decreasing radius.
“What the hell?”
Zach’s shout of desperation came out only as a suppressed croak. With the last of his strength, he began tensing his stomach muscles. Once tensed up, his sight cleared for a second, but he only had to slacken the pressure for his field of vision to fill with darkness again, as if ink were being poured into his eyes. At the same time, he was slowly but surely losing consciousness.
He gritted his teeth and exerted all his force. His clothes were as soaking wet as if he had been out in torrential rain. His ability to see details returned for an instant and he immediately turned his eyes to the radar display. There was a bright spot on the broken line of the trajectory. Or was he seeing spots before his eyes?
He was beginning to lose it again. The image became blurred and Zach made an effort to fill his lungs with oxygen and give the muscles forcing blood to his brain a short rest. Then he clenched his fists and repeated the effort.
Meanwhile, the spot on the screen had grown noticeably. It was the radar echo of a big passenger liner! It appeared to have lifted off from the nearby spaceport and was now heading towards the orbital station for transfers and refueling. Zach had no strength left. He slackened his stomach and was now completely blind. The sounds gradually died away. He had almost lost consciousness...
It returned, along with violet flames flaring from the front jets, easily visible from the pilot’s seat. The drone reduced its overload and was now steadily slowing down. Its nose was pointing directly towards the spot of light.
They were rushing towards each other. Were they going to ram it? What was this, a terrorist act? That would explain the sky-high reward. It made no difference how much you promised if you wouldn’t have to pay anyway...
But the drone had no intention of ending its existence as a kamikaze. It continued to reduce speed and as it reached the rendezvous point, it was almost synchronized with the liner. Approaching tail first, it was now pressing itself very carefully to the liner’s belly, the fire of the giant ship’s terawatt engines just a few meters away. Against the huge passenger liner, the drone looked tiny, like a pilot fish next to the tail of a gigantic shark.
Consciousness returned and Zach’s head began to return to normal, as if after a tough fight. It was clear now what was going on. The drone was hiding in the radio shadow of the liner. When leaving the atmosphere and until leaving near-Earth space, civil radars thoroughly searched every cubic meter of space, in which there was a great deal of traffic of various kinds. But under the belly of a big passenger liner, there was a good chance of leaving Earth unnoticed. Only military spacecraft could perform such tricks, and not even all of them.
If he couldn’t set off openly from Earth, what the devil sort of meeting was he flying to? Having gotten himself involved, he felt like a fly caught up in a web spun by a huge experienced spider. The job not only reeked of danger, but of death too and now he had no choice. Even if he managed to survive to the end of the mission, he would not escape his employers alive. Still, we’ll see. There’s always a chance...
For now, however, he simply lay back and settled in comfortably to enjoy the flight. Not only had the drone flown on a completely automatic program, it had also blocked all the control systems. Zach had been given the role not so much of a passenger, but more of a prisoner. Even access to radio communication was cut off. That was not good, not good at all. All kinds of things might happen in space, but he would be unable to call for help.
He partly closed his eyes. Why go into details? They would only spoil his mood. When you have to take a big risk, it’s better not to think about it. Yes, thinking about a risk he could not control would only spoil his mood...
11
The strict secrecy conditions imposed on the mission gave it an element of surprise for all those taking part in the expedition. With the exception of the captains and first pilots of the spacecraft, no-one knew exactly from which part of the Solar System they would be making the jump to the Gliese system.
As on the last mission to the gravitational anomaly, Steve and Clive were at the head of the scientists. Their previous experience of communicating with the aliens had resulted in them being given the authority to take difficult decisions and have the last word in unclear situations.
Also on the ship were the crew, with the addition of a platoon of SSS for security, and some of the mission’s scientific personnel. The astrophysicists accompanying the expedition were not the most numerous group, but were under a restriction that did not apply to the other scientists: they were the only ones who were not allowed to travel together on the same ship up to the very moment of their return to the Solar System.
This rule was based on the value of their knowledge of deep space. If something went wrong and the ships in the convoy ended up scattered all over the Galaxy, each of them would be able to determine their location in unexplored space and send an emergency signal to Earth. Their knowledge, unlike that of the pilots, was not restricted to navigation only within the limits of the Solar System.
After leaving lunar orbit, long hours of waiting followed. Clive made good use of the time by trying to absorb as much information about the Gliese system as possible, but Steve decided it would be much better to have a long deep sleep. Twelve hours later, having slept well and with his stomach full of food from the ship’s galley, he immersed himself in a novel. When would he get another opportunity for some light reading?
Pacing around in his cabin a few days later, Steve suddenly sensed that the ship was changing course. They were finally turning onto their set trajectory.
He did not have to wait long for things to get started. Forty minutes later, the captain assembled everyone on board except the guards in the pilot’s compartment. Steve was one of the last to arrive, after all the seats had been taken. Just after he entered, the pilot looked inquiringly at the captain, who shook his head.
“We’ll wait for the others,” he said quietly. “In the meantime, you can open the windows.”
The pilot nodded, pressed something on his console and the armor plating over the front windows slowly slid aside. The starry sky became visible through the multilaminar glass and although no planetary landmark could be seen and neither could the Sun, Steve soon worked out their direction.
On the left was the constellation Scorpio, on the right Virgo, and between them, directly on their course, was Libra, towards which their route lay. Steve could not determine by eye from where in the Solar System they were starting, however, and his thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the other two crew members, breathing hard. It seemed they had run from the very tail end of the ship.
The captain lo
oked at those present, counted them and, satisfied with the result, cleared his throat.
“So, we’re all here.”
The pilot took this as a signal for action. After a few rapid manipulations on his console, he nodded to the engineer sitting next to him.
“We’re ready, sir,” reported the engineer. “Final synchronization on your command.”
“Begin.”
Through the window, they could see that a small shaft had opened up on the bow end of the hull plating. A massive object of cylindrical shape, fixed to a long rod, poked out of it. The telescopic tube began to open up, extending forward like a sword.
At first it seemed to Steve that its tip was grey all over, but then it suddenly began to rotate. Reflections of their own ship and of the Sun shining behind them flashed by in it. It turned out that the cylinder was not a single solid object, but that its surface was broken down into a system of mirrors. It gradually increased its rate of rotation, spinning faster and faster.
“That thing out there is the synchronizer,” explained the captain in a loud voice. “We use it to carry out what we call deep synchronization. This means synchronization in speed and relative position of our group’s ships in space.
“In case you don’t already know, we have to fly in the form of a certain geometrical figure – all at the same speed and every ship strictly in its position. Because we shall all jump to Gliese together, and for us all to arrive together, our position relative to each other must be very precisely calibrated.
“We shall be making the interstellar part of our journey on the crest of a wave. All the ships have to be exactly where the very same phase passes through. If someone makes a mistake in speed or position, in the best case he will fly off the crest before reaching Gliese and in the worst, he will end up God knows where...”
“Or will disintegrate,” added the pilot softly, earning an angry look from the captain.
“Are those mirrors inside it?” asked Clive.
Fundamental Force Episode One Page 7
