Most of those present got up, ready to leave. Cordez motioned Fedic to follow him, and the two of them headed for Cordez’ private office. There they would go over Fedic’s reports on the Invardii mining bases.
CHAPTER 24
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“He’s gone where?” said Cordez, looking up at his admin assistant.
“The form doesn’t say,” said the poor girl, obviously flustered.
“He must have filled out an annual leave form for the next two months, at some stage. He’s got months of leave owing to him, you know.
“Someone must have signed off on it, or it wouldn’t have been accepted and filed,” she said defensively.
“Look at the authorization signature,” said Cordez. “Ever seen it before?”
The admin assistant looked at the bottom of the page. No, she hadn’t seen it before.
Cordez smiled to himself.
“This is what will have happened,” he said decisively.
“Fedic will have lifted this form when you weren’t looking, weeks ago, and filled it out so the two months leave starts on the day he thinks I’ll first notice he’s missing.”
He looked at the starting date on the form. “Except I’m two days earlier than he figured, so he’s underestimated me.”
That felt good. He smiled to himself again.
“The authorization signature will be bogus, of course, but that won’t matter because he will have distracted you at the time and filed it himself. It’s just a little detail to remind me he’s the best there is.”
“I don’t remember him coming into my office,” said the girl, getting more and more confused.
Cordez chuckled. “That’s the whole point, of course you don’t remember him. He’ll have made sure of that.”
He looked her in the eye. “Fedic Vits doesn’t exist, he’s not on any payroll, and he certainly doesn’t have ‘annual holidays’. This was his little way of reminding me he’s a free agent.”
The girl was now completely out of her depth. She was standing in front of him with her mouth open.
Cordez spoke again, thinking out loud. “When I told him he couldn’t go to Mentuk, he just put it off until he figured it was more important than whatever I assigned him to do.”
What had Fedic said? ‘There could be something there, one piece of information that makes all the difference.’ Well maybe the stealth operative was right.
Still, Cordez worried about his old friend. Who knows what trouble he might stir up on the ancient planet where the Caerbrindii first rose to power. It didn’t help that it was deep in what was now Invardii territory.
Cordez shook his head. He didn’t so much lead this band of talented, volatile personalities, as nudge them in directions more useful to the Alliance. Well, most of the time, anyway. Sometimes, though, you just had to let them go off at a tangent.
He called in his admin head, and told her what he wanted. “Clairinda, bring this one up to speed will you, and after that explain, once again, why it’s important we have non-disclosure agreements.”
Clairinda raised her eyebrows. It wasn’t often Cordez criticized her work.
“Your assistant here doesn’t know who Fedic Vits is,” he said, looking up from his desk at her raised eyebrows, a silent request for clarification.
Clairinda pressed her lips together. She nodded curtly, and marched the girl out of Cordez’ office.
Many light years away, Fedic yawned and stretched. The Lucky Streak hummed quietly to itself, hidden under the photon deflection shield fitted by the Mars miners. She was running silently, and the two of them were deep in Invardii territory. It was good to be back in the old girl.
Mentuk lay dead ahead. The only other planet in the system was a large gas giant far from its sun, and Fedic had slipped past it earlier in the day. Well, the shipboard day. It had taken him more than a week of careful navigation through the Spiral Arm to get here.
The Mentuk system was at the edge of the Core, and Fedic had left the scattered suns of the Spiral Arm a day ago, and was now approaching the more densely packed stars of the Core. So far he had escaped notice by the Invardii, and now he was planning the final leg of his trip. It was a descent onto the fabled site of the first intelligent life in the galaxy, Mentuk.
“Planet’s a damned wasteland,” he muttered to himself, as he gathered increasingly detailed pictures from the Lucky Streak’s sensors. Mountain ranges ran across the surface in continuous chains. The only sea was a shallow affair, and looked stagnant. In fact there were no major life sign readings from any part of the planet.
The cities were a different matter. They weren’t inhabited, but they had been maintained. What was that about, he wondered. Was the planet some sort of reserve, a whole planet given over in memory of the ancestors, the first ones?
The cities were coming up in more detail now, and he didn’t like the look of them. They were ringed with electronic arrays, and there were small mobile units down there – electronic hounds most likely.
He thought about his best course of action as the Lucky Streak started its first bypass of the planet. The cities were small, and far apart, and there was still no sign of permanent habitation. What he needed was a point outside the cities to aim for, something that might lead him to the information he was seeking.
When the Lucky Streak was abreast of the planet, Fedic took a closer look at something on the main screen. An oblong structure had come into view below him. It was a solitary building and it sat on a high plateau in one of the mountain chains. The answer couldn’t be that simple, could it?
It was a data base – concentrations of rare metals used for storage banks confirmed it – but its energy reading was zero. It looked well maintained, like the rest of the buildings on the planet, but did it still function?
He looked at the composition of the ground under it, and noticed with interest the caverns and passageways that ran through the plateau. Some of them ran right under the data base. He stored that information for later use.
The Lucky Streak swept past Mentuk, and continued on an elliptical path that would bring it back past the planet in a few hours. Fedic had decided by then that he would land near the data base. If it wasn’t active it might still lead him to another data base, or it might show him a way into one of the cities. He might also be able to cold start its memory banks. Then he started his preparations for the descent.
On his next pass of the planet, something resembling a meteorite detached from the Lucky Streak, and fell away into the darkness on the dark side of the planet. The Lucky Streak continued on a course that would take it out round the gas giant, and bring it back past Mentuk in a few days. Fedic hoped to discover something useful in the data base by then.
The meteorite flamed across the sky, shedding bits of itself as it lost speed to the increasingly dense atmosphere. Fedic couldn’t see anything through the heat haze, but he was content to rely on his instruments. The meteorite curved around the planet, and emerged on the day side. The data base came into view ahead of him.
One side of the mountain range fell away into a chasm that could have rivaled the Grand Canyon on Earth. The meteorite burned brightly as it passed over the data base, and disappeared from view into the wilderness of the canyon. Fedic jettisoned the last of the fire-resistant shielding around the glider, and pulled up sharply as the floor of the canyon came into view.
Banking into a turn that scraped along one side of the canyon, he converted the last of the glider’s speed into a gentle climb that brought him out on the flanks of the mountain range not far from the oblong building. The glider bounced twice on a gentle slope, and came to a creaking, hissing stop.
Fedic closed down the glider’s systems while the outside of the craft cooled to a more ambient temperature. This part of the mountain range was a wilderness, bounded on all sides by more ranges, and devoid of cities or other signs of habitation. Not that it appeared anyone lived on the planet, but it was important to be well
away from electronic eyes as well.
Fedic left the glider on standby. He could call it to himself if he needed to, but that would be a very large statement of his existence, and he wanted to avoid that if possible. The color of the glider would adjust to its surroundings through the days and nights that followed.
Then he climbed out of the cockpit, and repaired the scuffs on the slope the glider had made during landing. After that he assembled his field equipment.
Fully kitted up he weighed almost half as much again, a good amount when he was heading uphill. He would be glad when he could set up a camp near the data base, and dump most of it. Ever cautious in new terrain, Fedic set the ID codes for the glider, engaged several electronic locks, and turned his attention to the climb onto the plateau.
It was dry country, with tangled bluey-green bushes that looked like they were made of old whips. There were many clumps of something like dry grasses, interspersed with low, round mats of a succulent plant. Some of these had been browsed, and that meant there was a herbivore here, and some sort of food chain.
When Fedic came across nervous little creatures eating the grasses, he noted the fact carefully. Where there was prey, there would be predators. When they disappeared down holes the moment they saw him, his internal alarm bells went off. Whatever the predator was around here, it was something they were terrified of.
His right hand slipped down to the wide belt packed with instruments at his waist, and activated his personal shields. Some of the little creatures, watching him from a safer distance now, keened a shrill note of pain and loped further away.
The first level of his defenses was working well. It was a combination of sonic and electrostatic fields that would deter most animals from approaching too closely.
It was late in the day when Fedic scrambled up the last incline to the edge of the plateau. He came upon more of the little creatures, browsing the grasses around the last of the bluey-green bushes on the mountainside. They bolted at his approach, same as the others.
It was then he noticed the long, sinuous shape that had been stalking them. It made a half-hearted run at one of its prey as they bolted, blurring as it covered the distance faster than the eye could follow. Then it halted, realizing Fedic had been the source of alarm.
It made a fast whistle-whack sound, like a whip being cracked in the distance. When it didn’t approach any closer, Fedic continued on his way. It wasn’t long before he saw others of the same kind converging on his position.
Dammit! A hunting group. A group would follow different laws to those that applied to a single predator. A pack didn’t mind if one or two of them got hurt bringing down game for the rest. Fedic snorted to himself. He had always found pack behavior had a perverse similarity to mob psychology in Humans.
Now he had to figure out a way to avoid being the centerpiece in a feeding frenzy.
CHAPTER 25
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Fedic looked at the long, sinuous creatures. They were ranging ahead of him now, and there were a number behind him. He knew this was going to get nasty. He stopped and turned, studying the group more closely.
The predators were lizards, of a sort, but the limb joints were much better articulated, lifting them clear of the ground. Scaly hide was hidden along their backs by thin strands of hair, and tufts of the same material marked their long tails in random patterns. It seemed an odd mix.
Fedic guessed they weren’t cold-blooded.
A truly gruesome set of teeth, like something out of the ocean depths, set off a snake-like head. Their bodies were as long as he was tall, and they came above his knee when they straightened their limbs for running.
The pack kept pace with him, strings of them on either side as he set off across the bare landscape of the plateau toward the data base. It showed up as a rectangular shape highlighted by the evening sun. The lizard pack emitted high-pitched squeals as they got closer to him, backing off as they came in contact with the sonic field.
The effect of the field wasn’t going to last, he knew that. They were psyching themselves up. They were preparing to go past the pain barrier, and attack him in one concerted rush.
He flicked an energy weapon into his hand, and lined it up on the largest of the brutes. When he squeezed the hand grip the creature dropped without a sound, its chest cavity flayed open. The others flinched, and backed away for a moment. Then they came resolutely came on.
Fedic cursed loudly. He couldn’t kill them all, and they weren’t put off by the death of one of their own. When he lined up on another of the lizards it dodged sideways, and when he followed it with his weapon it moved so fast it became a blur, before it dropped into a fold in the ground. He tried to line up on some of the others, but they reacted in the same way.
They were quick learners. They’d figured out what the weapon could do, and even that it had to be pointed directly at them.
Another of the creatures made a short rush at him, ignoring the sonic discomfort and the stabbing sensation, like pin pricks, from the electrostatic shield. He fired from the hip, wasting several shots until he disabled one of its legs, and then he killed it with a clean body shot.
Goddammit these things had a hell of a high pain threshold! He looked up. The data base wasn’t that far now, but the pack was surging and retreating, typical pack behavior before the final rush.
Fedic knew his last line of defense, the force field, would probably see him survive, but it would take most of the energy out of the power pack that drove his high-tech instruments and his defenses. He had yet to examine the data base, or return to the glider, so that was not a desirable option.
Another of the beasts made a short rush, closer now, and ran up against his force field.
It died with no face left. Fedic looked away. The effects of the energy discharge were never pleasant. A smell of fried chicken assailed his nostrils, and Fedic almost laughed, it was so incongruous.
Ahead of him the ground folded, and he saw the entrance to a narrow defile in the fractured plain. Judging the data base too far away to help him, Fedic trotted down the slope into a sandy basin, and passed between crumbling walls of sandstone. He figured he could find somewhere to make a stand further in.
The narrow passageway ended in a natural amphitheater, surrounded on all sides by a roughly circular sandstone escarpment. One of his instruments beeped, and Fedic looked at it curiously. According to the readout, he was under some sort of surveillance. Perhaps it was an old security system from the data base, but the data base hadn’t registered any electrical activity from orbit.
The first of the lizard creatures crept cautiously into the narrow entrance, then stopped, and began the same high-pitched squealing he had heard earlier. More of them backed up behind it. Fedic’s eyes narrowed.
They’re frightened of something, he thought. Then he realized the amphitheater could be the den of some larger, more aggressive creature than the lizards. He flattened himself against the sandstone escarpment, and flicked his eyes between the lizard creatures at the entrance and the surrounding walls. There was an opening, set further up the escarpment on his right. The place did not have a good feel about it.
One of Fedic’s instruments beeped again, and he carefully slid it out of its pouch, not taking his eyes off his attackers. His instrument said something nearby was powering up. He swore sharply. This was going from bad to worse.
Fedic ran his eye round the sandstone walls again. He wasn’t going to be climbing them in a hurry, not without some basic mountaineering equipment. He turned his attention back to the pack at the entrance. He might have no choice but to take them on.
The instrument beeped again, and Fedic watched the readout go up by a factor of ten. A shield jumped into place across the entrance to the amphitheater, and the lizard creatures began wailing, scrambling over each other in their attempts to get away. Fedic could feel the tingle of the charge in the shield from where he was. The creatures must have been damn near cooking in it.
When that ‘someone’ did not appear in the next few minutes, Fedic made his way to the opening in the sandstone escarpment he had noticed earlier.
It was a natural tunnel in the sandstone, protected by an overhanging ledge and well up off the ground. Fedic could just reach the lip if he stood on his toes. Sighing resignedly, he took off his pack and utility belt and flung them up into the tunnel.
Then he stood a good distance from the tunnel mouth and waited, the energy weapon once again fitting snugly into his hand. Nothing happened. Nothing came to investigate the strange new items that had entered its domain.
When he was sure his actions hadn’t aroused any curiosity, Fedic put the weapon away and took several steps backward. Getting a good run up he jumped, took the lip of the tunnel on his hands, knees bent, and vaulted to a standing position. The energy weapon re-appeared in his hand the instant he touched the floor of the tunnel.
He looked around. It was a tunnel, nothing more. An old waterway worn in the sandstone by a stream millennia ago. There were no signs of intelligent adaption, no markings, nothing on or in the side walls. Fedic shrugged, and picked up his equipment.
When he was kitted up again, he took out an optics headset and put it on. Switching to infrared, he started down the tunnel. His flexible soles made no sound on the rock floor, and the special weave of his equipment was equally silent. At least the tunnel appeared to be heading in the direction of the data base.
The walls of the tunnel passed by with monotonous regularity. Neither climbing nor descending, the tunnel occasionally narrowed until he had to squeeze through, and once it opened out into a gorge, with the stars of early night above. Fedic surmised the layer of sandstone on top of the plateau was not deep, and underpinned by a harder layer, one of the more permanent materials of the mountain range. The combination had produced these shallow galleries.
Invardii Box Set 2 Page 15
