“Inanias?” No answer. Of course—without direct contact with the ship’s side, he could just barely hear the onboard computer, or not at all! He felt around, but the ship’s hull wasn’t within reach of his arms. His sensitive eyes adjusted slowly to the dim lighting conditions down here. Since enough indirect sunlight fell from above, he could soon see where he was, or rather, in what. The question momentarily flashed through his mind of how in the profit he would manage to get out of here, but he quickly dismissed the thought: everything in order! First, reestablish contact with Inanias. He crawled forward on a carpet of supply lines, hoses, and cables of varying thickness until he reached the inner hull with his head, and quickly pressed his skull against the cool wall.
“Inanias! What now?”
This time the onboard computer took a noticeable amount of time before answering. A deep hum vibrated through the metal. Inanias tried to plumb his own innards using sound waves to find a passable way for the Teladi. All other ship sensors were out of order—the computer used the only alternative left to him.
“Quite simple,” Inanias finally whispered. “The cable harnesses you find yourself on are only three fists thick; pry them apart and go in between. Below that is the ejection chamber. It is cramped, but you will fit in.
“Good!” Nopileos whispered. And indeed: the cable harnesses were stiff, but he could finally push them aside enough to force his way through. The ejection chamber that lay beneath offered just enough space to stand while bent over. Here, the conveyor mechanism of the drone archive behind the wall reached the ship’s side wall, where a tiny shaft opened to the outside where the drones were usually released. Through the circular opening, enough light fell in to see that the drone archive was deformed and inaccessible. Nopileos’s gaze wandered in horror to the narrow basket: just as there should have been, there was a single drone ready, prepared for automatic ejection which the onboard computer could no longer initiate.
“I really hope you work!” Nopileos muttered. Only this one messenger drone was at his disposal; if it was broken, he wouldn’t have any chance to get to the other miniature spaceships behind the deformed walls of the archive. His legs begin to tingle slightly; he put his head on the side wall.
The computer spoke. “Did you say something, Captain?” Nopileos explained the situation to Inanias and let him describe a way for him to get out of the body of the ship. A solid quazura later and with aching limbs, the Teladi once again hung on the slippery outer hull of the Nyana’s Fortune, eight lengths above the jungle floor. He shouldered a handle that was built into the tail end of the drone, which was exceptionally heavy for its size.
“I can’t do it!” Nopileos gasped. He felt around with his left, clawed foot, but couldn’t find any ledge or warping to use as a foothold.
“Hold on!” the sidewall whispered back.
It seemed like his arms and legs were made of rubber. The shouldered drone rubbed hotly on the thick black soot that now almost completely covered his body. When he attempted to lower himself further down, it finally slipped out. He lost his balance, saw scraps of sky fly by, trees, ground, and then let go of the drone involuntarily. While he still struggled to find a handhold, he saw and heard the valuable device bang down; two or three times it bounced off the domed side wall with loud, metallic rings, then it slammed down with a dull thud crash below. Nopileos had no view of the final fate of the messenger drone, because he was fighting with all his might to get his own fate under control so that he wouldn’t immediately follow the drone all the way down. At last, he caught himself enough that he regained a reasonably safe position, with horror-blanched forehead ridges that were hidden under the smears of soot.
“Inanias! Inanias!” he screamed with all his might; out of the burned jungle, some invisible animal answered.
“Calm claws, Captain,” came the onboard computer’s voice. “Messenger drones are designed for higher G shocks than it could have sustained in such a low fall, and it will not be harmed if it did not fall directly on its engines into a puddle of mud.”
“And if it has?” gasped the Teladi. Inanias simply replied with a synthetic hiss that Nopileos had never heard from him before. After a few moments of taking deep breaths and trying to calm himself, he started the rest of the descent. When he reached the bottom, he looked around breathlessly. The drone was not stuck in the ground, but lay shimmering a few lengths beyond the curved shadow cast by the wreckage. A detailed examination of the miniature spaceship didn’t reveal even the tiniest scratch. Relieved, Nopileos placed the drone—which resembled an inverted flashlight—on its widened tail and opened the small hatch under which the switch for voice input was located.
“Message?” the drone snapped without hesitation. It worked! Nopileos’ eyes lit up. For a moment he considered, then spoke a very brief description of his situation in the message storage.
“Coordinates!” the drone demanded to know.
“Company Pride! CEO!” Nopileos answered. The stupid messenger drone, however, was not happy with this information.
“Coordinates!” it demanded again. Nopileos was startled. It looked as though the device was requesting the recipient details in numerical notation! He went over to the ship’s side and asked Inanias for the information. The computer gave the requested format. This time the messenger drone accepted the input without any complaint.
“Stand back at least five lengths,” the device demanded, and closed the operating panel with a whir. Nopileos obeyed in silence. A faint hiss indicated that the messenger drone had turned on and was making flight preparations; Nopileos blinked in confusion as from one moment to the next, the miniature spaceship disappeared. He hadn’t seen the drone take off: in one moment it still stood there, in the next it was gone. Only a very gentle trail of smoke, which extended some lengths in the air before it frayed to nothing, revealed that the aircraft had indeed launched. Even though messenger drones were as commonplace as anything, there were seldom opportunities to experience a launch with one’s own eyes. Even the initial speed was already high enough that the sluggish optic nerve could no longer follow. Just outside the atmosphere, the drone would accelerate to 95% the speed of light; a passive guidance system guided it through the jumpgates it had to cross in order to reach its recipient in an astonishingly short time. Nopileos stared blinking into the sky for a few more stazuras before turning. And froze in shock.
Chapter 25
Nobody gains when you die a heroic death for your comrade and best friend! That doesn’t make matters any better, you see. Nobler, perhaps, but better? Nonsense. So always stay calm and better think twice!
Lt. Keiju Dante,
Trainer, Argon Prime
Elena found no time to ponder how the Split woman knew how to interpret the complicated vector information the tracking device provided, because the computer flashed an incoming transmission.
“What is it now?” she mumbled. “All right, give it to me.”
When the computer didn’t respond immediately, she clarified her command. “Accept!” Over the main console, a video field sprang into view.
Elena first had to close her eyes and open them again; she was tempted to interpret what she saw as a disruption of her optic nerve caused by the previous flash of light: two gray lips surrounding shallow mandibles, spilling out into spilling out into a snout or small trunk. Above it, two pearly white and one yellow spot, circular, on short stalks, surmounted by a narrow, high forehead. All this framed by a transparent field, or a transparent film that most closely resembled a fishbowl. “Kalmanckalsaltt!” she finally realized. The Paranid looked bizarre enough, but recorded by a camera inside his helmet, he looked even more alien. The search party returned! “Where are you?”
“We are approaching from the west and are just over the landing field. We are requesting Uchan t’Scct to speak.”
Uchan switched the conversation to his console. A smaller video field opened in front of him, but the picture above the main console persisted,
so Elena and Ghinn could still see the Paranid.
“We got in the middle of a coup attempt. A Rhonkar t’Ncct helped destroy the power generator to allow the FL Raindragon to launch. Open lock four on both sides and start the engines. We’ll be at the hip in a couple sezuras.” With these words, the Three-eye broke the connection. Uchan did what he was told without hesitation. Elena had the computer display an image of the lock interior on the console: the hinged bulkheads of the medium-sized cargo lock had just stopped at their final positions. Moments later, a heavily laden floating platform shot into the ship, on which Elena saw Kalmanckalsaltt rush by in his figurehead pose just before he slipped past the camera’s angle. The engines roared. The spaceship rode into the night sky atop a pillar of fire, before the inner and outer bulkheads completely closed.
“Look out, ships are approaching!” Ghinn shouted, watching the events on the gravidar.
“Come on, ship, come on,” Elena cheered the FL Raindragon on. The heavy freighter struggled only slowly upward. If they were involved in combat now, their chances would be bad.
Uchan followed similar lines of thought. “Occupy the firing control station,” he snarled without addressing anyone in particular. Ghinn threw the Earth astronaut a negatory gesture. Elena nodded. After all, she had become so familiar with the controls of the FL Raindragon during her flight that she could control the gun. A jolt, and the console slid up on its swivel arm; the device was very sophisticated. Whether pilot, copilot, or navigator, anyone could take over the weapons control if necessary.
“Now! Contact!” Ghinn said with a calm voice. The stereo image projected from the weapons console onto Elena’s retinas, whose rendering was as clear as though it were not even night, also reflected two plummeting combat space ships at mid-range. The weapons computer drew the outlines of the two combat ships in blinking green. Elena only now recognized the make; they were ships of the same model that had escorted the FL Raindragon on her approach to Nif-Nakh. The probability of scoring a hit was currently estimated at one hundred percent according to the computer, but to hit one of the critical systems that would bring one of the dangerous ships out of the sky was less than seven percent. Elena swallowed hard. The warships sank past the upward-striving FL Raindragon without taking the slightest notice of the freighter.
“Keep your hands on the controls!” Uchan warned, shouting over the strained roar of the engines at full capacity. Correct, two more attack ships waited at the border between air and space!
Elena thought of Nopileos for a moment. Were Kalmanckalsaltt and Nola Hi able to locate the Teladi? Was he on board the FL Raindragon? “Hopefully not,” she whispered. Because she slowly saw through the tactics of the Split. They wanted to catch the FL Raindragon in a pincer attack, two ships from behind, two from the front. A clumsy cargo ship like the FL Raindragon had no way to counter such overpowering odds.
And that would seal their fate.
Chapter 26
Siobhan (female given name); archaic form of Jawn (Argono-Roman), Joan (Old English);
Meaning: God is gracious; Pronunciation: she-VOHN
Encyclopedia of Knowledge,
172nd Edition, Argon Prime 528, zuran time
Dr. Siobhan Inja Norman was an unusually good-looking woman. She was tall and slim, and had a graceful, female form. High cheekbones lent her oval face a slight Indian appearance; a distinct but pretty nose hinted at old nobility. The most striking thing about Dr. Norman, however, was undoubtedly the long, light blue hair that fell down her back, glistening and smooth. She hadn’t dyed her hair, as was currently fashionable among young Argons, but inherited the natural blue color from her mother. She wore a silver, fish-scale dress that hugged her body, emphasizing her figure without revealing too much. It was once her favorite dress, and she still liked it even today. But it hadn’t meant that much to her for a long time. When she saw herself today in a mirror field these days, she just shrugged her shoulders. Yes, she was attractive. But she had lived far too long to be proud of it. Because there was yet another genetic trait that was often missed, one that wasn’t visible, or even suspected: she was a long-lived. Even though she appeared scarcely older than sixteen jazuras, eighteen at most, she had actually seen the light in the world for more than eighty-seven jazuras. The gene for longevity was only ever transferred from mother to daughter, for many generations, but as far as Dr. Norman was concerned, she’d be fine and happier without it.
Once, a long time ago, she had been a famous astrophysicist. Nearly ten jazuras of her scientific career had been devoted to working on a paper on quantum entanglement in gravitons, that she knew, and almost looked forward to it, would sweep away and kill off an entire branch of research. She had also succeeded in doing so, but she had never been proud of it. Most of her colleagues considered her theorem, despite being emotionally unsatisfying, scientifically indisputable—an assessment that the media and public had never shared. Because Dr. Norman’s paper seemed to fully demonstrate mathematically that the multi-dimensional physics needed for jump technology must inevitably and forever remain out of reach for humans and other peoples in the community. No one had ever been able to fully disprove these postulates mathematically, although numerous attempts had been made. The theses of their work found their way into the public domain of astrophysics over the decazuras and were better known to the wider community as Norman’s Law.
At the height of the uproar she had triggered, Dr Norman suddenly, without any apparent external cause, packed her few belongings and resigned, as if she no longer cared about any of it. Of course, her conscience also played a role, in that she constantly remembered that she had knowingly and deliberately mislead an entire generation of researchers—if only for their own benefit, as she constantly assured herself.
But the real reason for her escape was a problem that only the long-lived knew: life partners, friends, and colleagues became older, then old, and finally rapidly deteriorated, while she herself always remained young. Dr. Norman felt terrible panic at the thought of watching those admired and loved friends die of old age, because this had happened too often in her life. She preferred to break off all contacts and start completely new somewhere else. So she went underground, leaving her contracted marriage partner Dr. Ruuf Vondran and the entire scientific community to simply sit in the misery she caused, and wasted no thought on whether or not her behavior was morally justifiable. She knew only too well that it was not.
A few years on, she had entered into a new contract marriage on Kendai VI, which shortly thereafter produced a daughter, Deirdre, and twin brothers Dric and Telder. The twins had been fatally wounded not quite thirty years ago, and Deidre, who blamed her mother, had never spoken a word to her since then and moved away.
All these events were now far behind, nearly an entire lifetime, and yet the distance past had caught up to Dr. Norman: Dr. Ruuf Vondran, her spouse from her first contract marriage, had somehow managed to track her down and asked to meet her. She already regretted made such a hasty promise.
Siobhan sighed and smoothed the fish-scale dress over her thighs. She had now been sitting on the green lawn in the Garden of Eternal Weather for half an inzura. Not far away an Argon couple on a bench dreamily enjoyed the last few rays of Sonra, the central star, while elsewhere, a Teladi was conversing with a Boron. Even for humans it was often not very easy to have a meaningful conversation with a Boron—how hard must it be for a saurian trader? But she was not in the mood for laughter. She just wanted to get this whole situation over with as quickly as possible. Tell Ruuf Vondron why he shouldn’t care about her, and then go home to give in to her emptiness again. But the longer Ruuf made her wait, the more she tensed up inside and an inexplicable nervousness crept through her. When a small hovering platform finally approached, Siobhan stood up. She was astonished to find that her knees were shaking and her teeth were chattering slightly. She didn’t want that! She smoothed the dress again, this time over her stomach.
The man on the floating
platform was short and spindly. His snow-white hair blew from his eroding hairline like thin cobwebs in the slight wind, his cheeks were sunken, his eyes lay deep in their sockets. Siobhan remained dumbstruck at first, unable to move, and watched as the old man warily released the steering control of the platform and waited for the transportation device to sink to the ground. He then set foot deliberately on the ground. Only then did Siobhan realize that he wasn’t really small, but he was walking bent. When his eyes found hers, an icy horror ran through her chest. She wanted to run away, didn’t want to see more, but she stood rooted to the spot.
“Siobhan?” The voice was weak and rough, it rasped and trembled with poorly concealed emotion. “Siobhan?”
“It was a mistake,” Siobhan whispered as if to herself. “I shouldn’t have come here. You’ve become so horribly old.” In her mind’s eye she saw a faint image of the young Ruuf, with whom she had entered into the covenant of a contract marriage so long ago: black, chin-length hair, a three-day beard, a little furrow in his brow, and always a smile on his lips. Nothing of him remained.
The old man giggled hoarsely and shuffled closer. If her words had hurt him, he didn’t show it. “Modern gerontology works wonders, doesn’t it? Sixty-three jazuras, and still in full possession of my facilities. But you, Siobhan, you’ve changed yourself. You don’t like look an Indian girl anymore…”
“I should really go,” stammered Siobhan, whose knees were not noticeably shaking. She felt ice code despite the warm evening sun.
Nopileos: A novel from the X-Universe: (X4: Foundations Edition 2018) (X Series) Page 21
