‘Really?’
‘Really,’ Tao said. ‘I just need to find the hole in your infra-low and, as I already have your DNA signature, that shouldn’t be a problem.’ She hunted for the tell-tale reciprocal DNA signature that would indicate Adam’s route out of sub-quantal space and was surprised and a little disconcerted when couldn’t find any sign of it. She glanced at Josh. ‘Mind giving me a hand?’ The two of them searched together, but to no avail. There was nothing. ‘That’s strange,’ she said. The body’s ready and waiting. I don’t understand what the problem is.’
‘Try approaching it from the other direction,’ Josh said. Go back out and come back through Adam’s hole. I’ll keep a watch for you.’
‘That’s a good idea. Give me a minute.’
Tao re-entered her own infra-low and emerged to where Deira was still waiting.
‘No sign of Adam waking up,’ she said. ‘Problem?’
‘Might be. I’m going back down through his infra-low.’
‘You can do that?
‘You’d better believe it.’
She immersed again and entered Adam’s brain, rapidly descending through his levels and into his infra-low. Everything appeared to be exactly as she’d expected, with one exception. There was no sign of any hole.
She hunted about for some time, looking behind functions and in every hidden spot she could find. Unfortunately, her first impression had been correct. There was no hole. For a moment, she wondered whether they’d made an error in the body-construction process. Then it hit her. The hole must be a specific marker of a mentalic individual. The Founders had already intimated as much, since the vast bulk of humanity couldn’t reach sub-quantal space. Adam wouldn’t normally have had that ability either. He had arrived accidentally as a complication of the interplanetary PHASE he’d undertaken to Mars. And that surely screwed things up big time. Tao emerged to face a worried-looking Deira.
‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘Adam isn’t mentalic, so he doesn’t have a hole in his infra-low. There’s no way to get him into a body of his own.’
Deira was horrified. ‘You mean no way you know of right now, or no way under any circumstances?’
Tao’s look gave her the answer. ‘I need to tell him,’ she said, and dived straight back in again entering sub-quantal space through her own infra-low. Josh and Adam were waiting for her, and Adam was looking particularly anxious, as though he knew what she was going to say. Tao didn’t beat around the bush.
‘Adam, we can’t do this,’ she said. ‘It’s impossible.’
Adam said nothing, but Josh looked incredulous.
‘There’s got to be a way,’ he said. ‘What’s the problem?’
Tao explained about the lack of a hole and her assumption that this was due to Adam not being mentalic. Josh frowned.
‘You’re right. I’ve just checked with Swift and he concurs. But that means we can’t get him into a cloned body either. He’s stuck here unless someone agrees to let him occupy the back of their mind, so to speak.’
‘We’ll work something out,’ Tao said, worried for Adam, who was standing silently gazing down at his feet. ‘Adam, I’m sure something will turn up.’
‘I don’t think it will,’ he said morosely. ‘And I can’t even kill myself down here.’
He looked haunted, his photon body reflecting his underlying mood only too well. He was under no illusions. His position was impossible. He had no future as a flesh-and-blood human. If he could have killed himself, he would have, but even that option was denied to him down here. Josh took Tao to one side.
‘You’d better be getting back,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll take care of Adam. You’re right, something probably will come up. I’ll keep looking for a solution while you’re doing whatever it is you’ve got planned.’
‘Thanks Josh. Hope to see you soon.’
Tao shot back into the infra-low and up the levels to the outside world. Deira was still sitting where she’d left her.
‘We can’t re-house him?’ Deira was incredulous.
‘Doesn’t look like it. Josh will keep working on it while we’re off on our mission to the El ship, but it doesn’t look good.’
‘That’s terrible. Poor Adam. He’s been through so much. How’s he holding up?’
‘I think he’s suicidal, but since there’s no way to kill yourself in sub-quantal space, I guess he’ll be safe for now. Anyway, I’ve got the Founders’ data, and Jiao’s just downloaded it onto your wrist terminal. Deira, can I leave you to get it to Chayka?’ We urgently need to know what we’re going to do about the Founders.’ She took a deep breath, trying unsuccessfully to fight the tiredness that was threatening to overwhelm her. ‘I think I’m going to rest now, ‘
‘Don’t worry.’ Deira said. ‘I’ll see Chayka gets it.’
Deira helped Tao up the stairs and into bed, waiting until she’d slipped into a deep sleep. She stood for a while, watching the sleeping girl and wondering about the child inside her. She’d had revelations enough when Josh was yet to be born. What could Tao expect? Whatever it was, she was sure it would be wonderful – providing she had Josh to share it with.
She opened her wrist console and stared at the file that contained the Founders’ data. This was going to be critical in deciding how they were going to react in the very near future. Before that, though, they had to create more headroom – and that meant attacking that ship. Tao and Sol were going to very busy in the next couple of days.
She turned the wrist console off and wondered downstairs to Sol.
Chapter 34
Everyone was up at the crack of dawn the next day, keen to get the mission to the El ship under way. Even the most optimistic projection suggested they now only had three days until Sama activated his weapon, and it could be less than that. It was imperative that they move swiftly.
Tao made a quick visit to the Eich community to pick up the young agents and discovered there was at least some good news. Three of the remaining eight – Victor Borrego, Kadir Bhakta and Dominique Boucher – had achieved the time fold in the last few hours. It seemed that the pressure of events had produced the effect the Eich were hoping for. Tao quickly ran through the procedure for folding out from behind the folded-space barrier and watched as her three junior colleagues opened the time portals and assisted the others through. Once outside, they folded straight to the MacMahon sitting room, which had become the de facto centre of operations for this mission. It was time for a mission brief.
Deira couldn’t remember when she’d last had so many people in her sitting room and rushed around finding chairs and getting drinks for everybody. The last time she’d seen most of these young people was a couple of years ago when they were about to start agent training, and she was frankly amazed at how much they’d matured since then.
Of course, she’d seen Victor Borrego recently, during the asteroid crisis when he’d led the others in the main destruction mission. The swarthy Brazilian was almost as tall as Josh had been, and the others obviously looked to him as their current leader. Next to him was Kadir Bhakta, his Indian partner, looking as beautiful as ever, and Dominique Boucher, the statuesque blond French girl who was the third to have achieved the time-fold. Standing near Dominique was her Greek partner, Alesandro Simonides, a complete contrast to Dominique, being relatively slightly built and black haired. Finally, there were the other four: Polish Jakub Nowicki with his prominent hooked nose, together with his partner Chloe Burns, a vibrant red-haired American; and Russian Pyotr Kuznetsov and his partner, Iranian Fareena Alinejad.
Deira silently congratulated herself on remembering all the names and made sure she greeted each one personally. Then she sat them all round the dining room table and gave Tao a chair at the head. Tao let them chatter for a few minutes then knocked a couple of times on the table to call the meeting to order. There was immediate silence and a sense of great expectation.
It necessarily took some time for Tao to explain everything since there was a con
siderable amount of background information before she ever got to the mission proper. Finally, however, she reached the nub of the matter – the El rebellion, the weapon that was being developed, and their proposed attack and counter-mutiny.
‘I think you’ll see why we need all of you to help with this,’ she said. ‘We’re going up against a technically highly proficient race that has fought mentalic beings in the past and won. The only way I was able to escape was by physical means in the end – and by doing so, I’ve tipped them off about our abilities. That means they’re more than likely to be ready for us.’ She gazed around the group, at the eager young faces, and wondered at just what point she had become so world-weary. After all, she wasn’t much older than most of them here. ‘I’m hoping they don’t realise how few of us there are,’ she finished. ‘Okay. Any questions so far?’
There were none, so Tao launched into the plan she and Sol had come up with. This did provoke some debate, Victor being first with a question.
‘Can you clarify the situation regarding the mentalic blocking field?’ he asked. ‘Earlier in your presentation you described your construction of a blocking field suppressor when you were on the Cthon planet. Why didn’t you use that on the El ship?’
‘Sorry, I should have clarified that,’ Tao said. ‘The problem is that the mentalic blocker on the El ship works on a completely different principle to the one I developed a nullifier for. It’s very technologically advanced, generic in nature and seems to be able to block any type of mentalic ability in any species. Jiao doesn’t think it’s possible to design a new nullifier in the time available. Of course, we might have had a chance if I’d managed to store a field signature before I folded out, but I’m afraid I was rather … involved … at the time.’
‘I wasn’t criticising,’ Victor said. ‘I think you did remarkably well to escape unharmed. I just wanted to make sure there was no way of neutralising that field short of destroying the generator.’
‘Right now, I can’t see any.’
‘What about these maps you’ve given us of the ship?’ Kadir piped up. She’d been studying the map on her virtual screen for some time and the frown on her face had deepened considerably. ‘Can we assume they’re still accurate?’
‘I don’t think Sama will have had time to change much in the short time I’ve been away,’ Tao replied. ‘though its possible certain things might have been moved. That blocking field generator is one. It looked to be relatively portable, so we might have to go looking for it.’
‘That’s a big ship to be searching for something so critical,’ Kadir said. ‘If we can’t achieve site-to-site folding we might be in trouble. Do you know how many bad guys we’re up against?’
‘No, that’s another unknown.’ Tao inwardly groaned as she began to realise the enormity of the task ahead. ‘I think our best chance is to get Micha and his allies up and operational as quickly as possible. That’s why one team will remain in the stasis bay and protect them until they’ve recovered. Hopefully, the team assigned to the armoury won’t have too many problems. Its position shouldn’t have moved and, of course, it’s relatively near to the stasis bay, so if folding remains impossible, it’ll still be possible to get the weapons back to Micha.’
Kadir was still poring over the map of the ship.
‘Any idea what this huge void is for?’ she said. ‘It seems to run the whole length of the ship, and right around it, between the hull and the living quarters.’
Tao shook her head. ‘I hadn’t really noticed it. Jiao, any ideas?’
All the PWCs had been positioned in front of their owners and everyone now turned their attention to Jiao.
‘Inadequate data to make a logical suggestion. The most likely possibility is that it’s linked in some way to protection against cosmic radiation.’
‘I somehow doubt that,’ Kadir said. ‘There’s already a significant double-hull that’s stuffed with material of some sort. That’s probably the radiation shield.’
‘Then I don’t know,’ Tao said. ‘We’ll just have to hope it’s not mission critical. Now, we really need to get moving. Has anyone else got any other questions or comments that they think might be important? Everyone remained quiet. ‘Okay, almost time to go. First, though, I need to update Victor, Kadir and Dominique on the mechanism for time-space-folding that we’re going to be employing to get onto the ship. The rest of you … talk amongst yourselves, or something.’
She led the three young agents into the sitting room and took them through the basics of the specialised time-space-fold they’d employ to get on board the El ship. That included the procedure for folding to a rapidly moving object, as well as the specific space-time-folding process, which was markedly different to the one they’d just employed to fold out of the Eich enclave.
‘So, are you happy with those techniques?’ Tao asked.
They all nodded.
‘Easy when you’re shown,’ Victor said.
‘Yeah, makes you wonder why we didn’t see it for ourselves.’ Kadir said.
‘Not a problem,’ came from Dominique.
‘That’s always what it’s like with mentalic development,’ Tao said. ‘One minute you just can’t get it and the next you’re wondering why something so simple was hard to see. Come on, we’d better get back to the others.’
They trooped back into the dining room and Tao resumed the mission briefing.
‘I think we’re pretty much good to go, now,’ she said. ‘Victor, Kadir and Dominique can now do the time-space-fold necessary to get on board the El ship. That means, we have the capability of folding four teams to different locations within the ship. I’d have liked to have kept you with your regular partners, but since Victor and Kadir normally work together, that clearly isn’t possible. I’m sure you’ll all perform perfectly well with new partners for the duration of this mission. Now, if you’ll all concentrate on the map of the ship, I’ll take you through the details.
‘Victor, you’ll partner Chloe and tackle that blocking field. We’re pretty sure the generator’s housed in a facility not far from the stasis room, green on your map. Kadir, you’ll team up with Jakub and head to the armoury – red on the map. We’ll need as many weapons as you can carry, and I suggest you take empty backpacks to carry them in. Dominique, you’ll have your usual partner, Alesandro, and I want you to try to find and take down the weapon. We don’t know exactly where it is but given the amount of energy it’ll require when its fired, the AIs think it’ll either be in the engine room, or close by. Engine room is shown in blue.’
She gazed around for a minute, checking the teams were happy with their designated roles. When she’d received thumbs-up from them she finished the brief.
‘I’m sure you’ll notice that I’ve left myself with the largest team – Pyotr, Fareena, and Sol. That’s quite deliberate. We’ll be freeing Micha and his loyal crew from stasis, and we expect to encounter significant resistance. Even if we’re successful in freeing them, they’ll be relatively helpless for a while, so we’ll need the numbers to protect them. The rest of you should complete your sections of the mission quite quickly, though whether you’re successful or unsuccessful, I want you to liaise with us in the stasis room as soon as possible. The more numbers we have the better. Ultimately, this is all about Micha, and our mission will stand or fall on our ability to get him back in his rightful position as captain. Understood?’
There were excited nods from around the table. Although the young agents had taken part in missions before, notably the asteroid destruction mission, this was the first time they were to be involved in a major combat situation. This was what they had trained for. The hours of physical and mentalic effort all led up to this, and they were relishing the prospect. Tao could see the fire in their eyes and knew she’d got them in exactly the right frame of mind. She just hoped she could get them through the next few hours with no fatalities. She stood.
‘Time to go,’ she said.
§
; The first part of the mission, getting aboard the Earth survey ship, was the easy bit. Tao contacted Captain Sleeman and informed him of what was going down, and he agreed to employ the X-ray beam again to locate the El ship and obtain the new orbital coordinates. He was as good as his word and, when they arrived in the ship’s hold, Jiao informed her she’d already uploaded the relevant data and sent it to the other three team leaders’ AIs. Tao checked that Victor, Kadir and Dominique had mentalic access to the data and then prepared for stage two. The three teams were standing ready and waiting.
‘We need to arrive at our destination coordinates pretty much simultaneously,’ Tao said. ‘Our arrival will almost certainly set off an alarm that’s both loud and irritating, so we’ll go in with combat mode active, including audio-safe and polarising filters. The El have some sort of hand guns that fire an energy burst, and I expect our force fields to provide adequate protection against those. However, I’d try to avoid them if you can. If you must engage in combat, try to get in close and use the lasers. Any last questions?’
There were none. She hadn’t expected any.
‘Okay, fold on my mark. Three … two … one … mark!’
Four separate portals formed, and the four teams stepped through. A few seconds later, the portals disappeared, leaving the hold silent and empty once more.
§
Tao’s team folded into the stasis bay and, as expected, the ship-wide alarm came on almost immediately. Tao quickly checked that everyone had activated combat mode – audio-safe, polarising filters, and force fields – then positioned Pyotr and Fareena either side of the door, while she and Sol hurried over to the stasis chambers. There were only fifteen in operation, Micha and fourteen allies – far fewer than Tao had hoped for. She glanced at Sol.
‘Not as many as I was expecting,’ she said on tight agent-to-agent comm. ‘Any idea how many that’ll leave on Sama’s side?’
Sol was looking worried. ‘I didn’t meet many of them, but Chard estimates the total crew to be about eighty. Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us.’
Gods of Titan- The Cosmic Constants Page 28