Spinneret

by Timothy Zahn

  Preoccupied with the gunfire and shouted negotiations,

  Hafner had completely forgotten about the Gorgon’s Heads. But the machines had obviously not forgotten them … and as he gazed at the six Gorgon’s Heads standing motionlessly between them and the Great Wall, Hafner had the eerie feeling he was seeing a new level of programming being brought into play. With their tentacles poised like angry rattlesnakes, they seemed unnaturally alert, almost as if they sensed the tension and danger and were preparing to do something about it. Even Hafner, who was used to the things, felt uneasy; the effect on Dunlop’s soldiers was an order of magnitude higher. The shocked expletives were punctuated by the clicks of rifles being put on full automatic.

  “Take it easy,” Dunlop snapped, pushing Hafner a step closer to the wall. “As long as we’ve got the doc here they won’t touch us.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Hafner put in, thinking quickly. “They’re armed, you know, and I doubt they like having a supervisor as a prisoner.” If he could get just a few steps ahead of the soldiers, on the pretext of calming the machines, and then duck behind one of them …

  “They’re not armed, and they wouldn’t understand what ‘prisoner’ means if you drew them a picture,” Dunlop countered. “Come on, men.”

  “Hell with that,” someone behind Dunlop muttered. “Meredith! I’m accepting your deal!”

  Dunlop swung around, releasing Hafner’s shirt as he brought his pistol to bear. “Back in ranks, you!” the major snarled—and Hafner leaped for the Gorgon’s Heads.

  He’d covered less than half the distance when something that felt and sounded like a small bomb blasted into his thigh, slamming him hard into the ground. A scream of pain welled up in his throat … but even as his clenched teeth blocked the escape he was deafened by a second thunderclap. He tensed for a new wave of agony, but it never came; and as the smell of ozone finally penetrated his pain-fogged consciousness he realized something else entirely had just happened. Raising his head with an effort, he looked back over his shoulder.

  Where Dunlop had been standing a charred figure now lay sprawled on the ground. Around it the rebel soldiers stood frozen, their weapons sagging in their hands. From the tower a new group of soldiers was running toward them. “Well, what do you know?” Hafner heard his own voice say, as if from a great distance. “I guess they are still armed.”

  And then, thankfully, the darkness took him.

  Chapter 29

  BUSY WITH THE TASK of straightening things out in the Spinner cavern, Meredith wasn’t able to get to the Unie hospital until nearly an hour after Hafner had been flown there. He arrived to find Andrews and Carmen sitting together in the tiny waiting room. “Any news?” he asked, sinking into a chair across from them.

  “It doesn’t look like he’s going to die,” Andrews said. “They’re not sure yet whether they’ll be able to save his leg—the thighbone was pretty badly damaged.”

  Meredith nodded tiredly. “Yeah. Carmen … I’m sorry.”

  “Wasn’t your fault, Colonel.” Her voice was under control, despite the strain lines in her face. “Dunlop had to be stopped. “

  “Stopped and a half.” He shifted his eyes to Andrews again. “You tell her?”

  The other nodded. “Any idea yet what that flash was?”

  “Simple old-fashioned high voltage, apparently. Probably grounded through a cable-material base or grid underlying the cavern soil.”

  “So now the supervisors have been raised to demigod status,” Carmen murmured. “Able to call lightning down on their attackers.” She sighed. “I don’t think I like the idea of Gorgon’s Heads equipped with offensive weaponry.”

  Andrews shrugged. “It’ll sure slow down any more would-be rebels.”

  “Oh, it’s fine now. But what about twenty years from now?”

  “We’ll have the whole system figured out by then,” Meredith assured her. “I’ve already made the supervisor/security programming a high-priority project. We’ll be able to make new supervisors long before we need them.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant,” Carmen shook her head. “I mean it’s just one more way the Spinneret’s resources can be applied directly to warfare. Is that what the Spinners originally planned for this place, or is it just our human viciousness that’s turning everything in sight to weapons?”

  “There aren’t a lot of things in this universe that can’t be used for both good and evil,” Andrews said. “If the Spinners were so morally pure that they couldn’t see the negative uses of their stuff, they would’ve been wiped out pretty quickly by the first group that did.”

  “Or enslaved.” An idea was beginning to brush the back of Meredith’s mind. “Maybe the Spinneret was built by slave labor.”

  Carmen shuddered. “That’s a horrible thought. To be living on a slave planet. …”

  “You make it sound like living in Auschwitz,” Andrews said. “Remember, whatever happened here it was all over a hundred thousand years ago.”

  “Besides which,” Meredith said, “I doubt that the overseers they would need to run this place would have needed a lifeboat as big as the one we found.”

  Carmen blinked at him. “A what? Where is it?”

  “It’s stashed away in a room just off of the volcano cone,” Meredith told her. “For the moment its existence is classified information—which is why Andrews is giving me such an odd look right now.”

  Andrews reddened slightly. “Sorry, Colonel, but I thought you weren’t going to tell anyone else about the ship.”

  “I wasn’t. I’ve decided, though, that we might want to try flying it … and for that we’ll need a pilot.”

  Carmen’s jaw dropped. “You don’t mean … you mean me?”

  “That’s right. I want you to start figuring out the controls first thing tomorrow. You’ll need the list of tentative translations that linguist—Dr. Williams—has worked out; I’ll see she makes you a copy.”

  “But why me?” Carmen protested. “You’ve got lots of pilots who’re better than I am.”

  “True,” Meredith said frankly. “But after Dunlop’s move, there aren’t hell of a lot of people on Astra I can implicitly trust. You’re the only one besides me with any flight experience; ergo, it’s your baby.”

  Carmen shook her head in disbelief. “Lieutenant, will you kindly explain to Colonel Meredith that the chances of my figuring out an alien ship from scratch are about the same as swimming the Dead Sea underwater?”

  “Actually, it shouldn’t be as bad as you think,” Andrews said. “If it is a lifeboat, it’ll be designed to be as easy as possible to fly, with a lot being done automatically. Though”—he added with a glance toward Meredith—“I don’t know what exactly we’d want to use it for.”

  “We’ll figure something out once we know more about it,” Meredith said, deliberately vague. “Incidentally, did the Whissst make their cable pickup okay?”

  “Yes,” Carmen nodded. “And I didn’t get a chance to tell you: the whole cable came out nonsticky.”

  Meredith’s heart skipped a beat. “Nonsticky? Uh-oh.”

  “Oh, there’s nothing wrong,” she hastened to add. “It’s just that the cable’s coated with about a millimeter’s thickness of a rubbery material that seems to absorb or redirect the surface attraction. They tried peeling some from one end; it comes off quite easily and the cable underneath is like every other the Spinneret’s turned out.”

  Meredith felt his tense muscles go limp with relief. “You had me worried for a minute. How are the Whissst taking it?”

  “Oh, you know the Whissst outlook on life—they think the whole thing’s a priceless joke. Do you suppose Dunlop’s people changed some tower settings?”

  “According to them, no one ever got up there,” Meredith shook his head. “We can confirm that with Dr. Hafner later, but I suspect we’re just seeing the result of getting that digging machine back on the job.”

  “Oh, right—I’d forgotten that.” Carmen shook her he
ad tiredly. “Brain’s shut down for the night, I guess.”

  “Then you ought to take your body home and let it do likewise,” Meredith said.

  “I want to wait here until they know for sure about Peter’s leg.” She hesitated, as if casting around for a less painful topic of conversation.

  Andrews saved her the trouble. “Colonel, what are we going to do about Msuya? Even if we can’t prove it, it’s pretty obvious the UN was backing Dunlop’s power play. Can we get the Rooshrike to throw him out of the system?”

  “Probably, but I don’t know if it’d be worth it. Whatever we decide about immigration or direct aid to poor countries, we’ll need at least halfway peaceful relations with the UN to make it work. Besides, Saleh’s suspicious enough of what we’re doing out here.”

  “But what if they try to stir up more trouble?” Carmen asked.

  “How? With Dunlop gone, who’s left for Msuya to work through?”

  “How about the five scientists Cris brought in? Surely they’ve been missed by now. What if Saleh threatens their families if they don’t cooperate?”

  “Again, how? Even a threat needs to be delivered, and our friends upstairs have no way of contacting them. “

  “They got to Dunlop,” Andrews reminded him. “Remember those high-band transmissions? Msuya got that radio to him somehow.”

  Meredith grunted. “I’d forgotten that,” he admitted. “We’ll have to figure out how that was done and shut down the pipeline.” An obvious possibility occurred to him, but he decided not to mention it. “We can ask the Orspham to monitor, that band, too, see if anything else shows up on it.”

  A motion through the swinging door’s window caught Meredith’s eye, and he turned as Astra’s chief surgeon came quietly into the room, his pastel green coveralls stained with dried blood. “Well?” the colonel asked, tensing up again.

  “I’d say he’s got an eighty percent chance of keeping the leg,” the doctor said with tired satisfaction. “A bad blood-flow interruption down there, but I think we got it restored in time. If so, the bone itself shouldn’t be a problem; we can build a porous ceramic implant the remaining pieces can grow into.” His eyes had drifted to Carmen. “He’ll be under sedation for at least another ten hours—longer if we decide he’s stable enough for an implant operation—so you might as well go home.”

  “Thank you, Doctor; good job,” Meredith said, getting to his feet. “Andrews, you may escort Carmen home and then hit the sack yourself. Good night, all.”

  Five minutes later, he was in his office. From the corner, his spare cot beckoned temptingly; turning his mind away from it, he sat down at his desk and punched for the Martello duty officer. “I want to talk to the Orspham officer-in-charge,” he told the other. “Get him for me on the secure radio channel. After that, see if you can locate a Rooshrike ship; I have a special equipment order that I need right away.”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Meredith checked his watch. The first contact would take several minutes to establish and perhaps triple that to get sufficiently deep into the Orspham hierarchy for what he wanted. And as long as he was waiting anyway … “Get me the UN ship, too,” he instructed the officer.

  There were several very salty things he wanted to say to Msuya.

  Chapter 30

  IT TOOK THREE WEEKS for Hafner’s leg to recover sufficiently for him to begin taking short trips without a wheelchair—and, coincidentally, it was after the same three weeks that Carmen finally threw in the towel on her own project. “I’m just not getting anywhere,” she told Meredith, slapping her notebook in frustration. “Loretta’s translations make sense enough when I read them, but I just can’t apply it all to the squiggles on the control boards.”

  “It’s not a different language, is it?” he asked her.

  She shrugged helplessly. “I can’t even tell that. The same forty-six symbols are used, but that’s all I know. If you want that ship figured out, you’re going to have to let Loretta come and work directly on the ship with me.”

  Meredith stared out across the cavern, and Carmen held her breath. If he turned her down she’d likely spend the rest of her life aboard that stupid lifeboat. “As a small inducement,” she said, “I can let you have Major Barner back for normal tower duty. Peter’s told me he wants to start picking up his share of the load again, and while he obviously can’t go running up and down the tower all day, he could certainly walk Loretta and me past the Gorgon’s Heads and sit in the boat while we work.”

  Meredith turned back to her with a wry smile. “I think you’ve been our trade rep too long—you’re getting entirely too good at this sort of bargaining.” He pursed his lips. “All right,” he said slowly. “As a matter of fact … yes, let’s do it. We’ll take them in to see it tomorrow morning; no word to either until then, understand?”

  “Yes, sir—and thank you. I know you wanted to keep the ship secret, but I really think this is the only solution.”

  For a moment an odd look passed across his face … and then he again smiled faintly. “Yes. I think you’re right.”

  Nodding, he turned and left. Strange sort of comment, Carmen thought as she headed toward the cavern exit. But she quickly put it out of her mind. So far, certainly, Meredith had proved he generally knew what he was doing.

  “A Spinner spaceship.”

  Msuya made no attempt to hide his satisfaction as he repeated Ermakov’s words aloud. At last—at long last—he had the key that would bring him the political power he desired even as he crushed Meredith down into final humiliation and defeat. “Is it operational?”

  “Williams didn’t know, but it’s obvious Meredith thinks so,” the Russian’s voice came from the speaker on the control panel. “She was shown the craft for the first time only two days ago. “

  “And she’ll be working with the others until all the systems are deciphered?”

  “She didn’t say.” Ermakov hesitated. “I think it would be wise to provide her with a new radio, if that can be arranged. She’s been rather cool toward me ever since Dunlop’s fiasco.”

  “Did you explain the radio in her tape player had been autovaporized and that there was no way Meredith could connect her with the revolt?”

  “As a matter of fact,” the other said dryly, “I believe it’s the revolt itself that has annoyed her. Perhaps a small talk with her would remind her of her responsibility to the UN.”

  Msuya smiled to himself, Ermakov probably saw his own duty on Astra as furthering the goals of Mother Russia, with his UN allegiance a convenient facade. Old habits die slowly, he thought, but the Soviets too will learn not to trifle with us. “You may inform Dr. Williams that there is a backup radio built into her hair dryer,” he told Ermakov. “Assembly and use are as she learned in her training. I will expect her to resume her normal contacts with me.”

  There was a short silence from the other end: Ermakov, Msuya decided, wondering if a second radio had also been planted on him … and wondering perhaps what else might be in his belongings. Msuya’s smile widened; these operations always ran more smoothly when the carrot of greed was accompanied by the stick of fear. “I’ll tell her,” the Russian said at last.

  “Good. Then let me hear your own report.”

  He listened with half an ear as Ermakov plunged into the arcane language of electronics, knowing the recorder would save the details for later scrutiny by the Trygve Lie’s experts. Little was new; that much even his layman’s ear could tell. Still, a breakthrough could always occur, so when the Russian had finished he avoided criticizing the lack of progress. Instead, he merely thanked the other and signed off.

  Afterward, he gazed for several moments out the porthole, watching Astra and the stars tumble by and savoring the news. At last—a piece of the alien technology that was self-contained and movable. A better chance to break Meredith’s monopoly would be hard to find … and Msuya had no intention of letting the opportunity pass. As soon as Williams learned h
ow the lifeboat worked, he would find a way to steal it.

  Glancing at the room’s clock, he rang the galley and ordered another pot of tea. It would be ten more minutes before the Indian computer man—Udani—was due to report in.

  Chapter 31

  MEREDITH READ THE REPORT through twice, feeling the tightening of his stomach muscles that had become almost as common as inhaling for him. The bombshell he’d known was coming had done so … and at the worst time he could have imagined. Flicking the page from his screen back to the secure file, he muttered a curse and leaned back, gazing at the snow outside his window.

  The timing was ultimately his own fault, of course, which was probably what rankled the most. Carmen had originally suggested Council terms of one year; it had been his idea to cut that to six months. At the time it had seemed harmless enough … but at the time there’d been no Spinneret and no Spinneret profits. Or hot debate as to what to do with them.

  The real problem was that both of the main factions had reasonable positions, a fact that made Meredith’s job as ultimate decision maker all the stickier. Perez, as usual, was pushing for immediate—if somewhat selective—immigration, arguing that while trapped in unfair sociopolitical systems the poor of Earth had no chance to improve themselves, no matter how much aid was given them. On the other hand, the group adopting Hafner’s “In Loco option” pointed out the vulnerability of the Spinneret to takeover and possibly sabotage, and claimed to have developed a method by which unfair Third World governments could be successfully bypassed in giving assistance to their people. With Hafner on his crutches as their symbol and most credible spokesman, they were successfully cultivating the xenophobia that had simmered at a low level ever since the UN had tried to take over back in August. With only three weeks left before the election, the campaigning was beginning to get uncomfortably warm … and relationships between the five supervisors increasingly strained.