by B. V. Larson
Harris wandered over to me after he’d gone. “That was just plain rude,” he said.
“Sure was.”
I sat down and moved to finish Helsa’s plate. Unfortunately, the girl was a pig. She ate everything. I guess living on moss and moss-fruits all your life left a person with a deep hunger.
Harris eyed me for a few seconds and sat down in Helsa’s spot without being invited. “So…” he said. “You stole back the armor, right?”
“Naturally.”
Harris released a deep belly-laugh. It rumbled out of him, and it went on and on. I didn’t even look at him, but I was glad I could entertain my subordinate officers now and then.
An hour later found me strapped up in my armor and ready to launch. The goop had been hard to wash out, but I hadn’t wanted to spend a mission squelching around in Fike’s internals.
The skinny harness was wrapped around my armor, and it just barely fit. With a worried expression, I fondled the ignition button.
A buzzing started under my armor about then. It was my tapper.
I almost pushed the launch button on the harness. After all, the incoming call might be some nosy superior or other—maybe even Fike himself. If any of them caught sight of me wearing this kit, well sir, they were likely to jump to some conclusions.
The buzzing was persistent. It didn’t let up, as if the caller was hitting the transmission key over and over—really leaning on it.
What convinced me in the end to answer was the fact my arm didn’t just start talking by itself. My superior officers had the power to force my tapper to open, making contact with them unavoidable if they really wanted to push it.
But this determined person didn’t do that, meaning they probably weren’t high brass.
At last, I sighed and took a peek. The call was coming from Specialist Natasha Elkin.
I opened the channel, and she stared out at me. “James? What are you doing?”
“Listen, Natasha, I don’t have time for—”
“Are you going on some kind of mission? If so, don’t do it.”
My finger had been hovering over the launch button, but I moved it away a fraction. “Why not? What do you know about it?”
“You remember that task you gave me, to figure out how to listen in on deep-link calls?”
“Yeah.”
“Well… I’ve gotten better at it. I didn’t tell you before because… you know… it’s a serious crime, and everything.”
“I get that. What did you overhear?”
“Your name. Someone has been talking about you.”
I laughed. “That’s nothing new, girl! I’ve got all sorts of people who like to talk about me. Some hate me, some love me—it’s a mixed bag.”
“No James, it’s not like that. The people talking—one of them is from the Shadowlander town.”
“Yeah? Huh…”
“Right. And the other party to the call, well, it took me a while to figure that out. I didn’t have his deep-link rig’s ID on my list of known stations, you see.”
“You’ve been tracking deep-link station numbers?”
Natasha shrugged shyly. “This listening-in thing—it’s become something of a hobby.”
“That’s wrong and dangerous, girl. But go on and tell me anyway. Who’s on the other end of these secret phone calls from the Shadowlanders?”
“Tribune Maurice Armel.”
-66-
After Natasha told me who the Shadowlanders were talking to, well sir, I got kind of angry.
“Are you telling me they’re traitors? That they’re talking to the enemy? They’re selling us out?”
“I don’t know, James. All I know is that someone in their town is communicating with the enemy. Does that mean they have a spy in their camp? Maybe. Does that mean the whole alliance is suspect? Maybe. All I know is that something is happening.”
I began to pace and curse. Fike’s blood was pooling up in my left boot, which I hadn’t cleaned properly, and it was starting to squelch with every step like churned butter.
“We’ve got to tell somebody,” I said finally.
“How can we? We’re not supposed to be listening in. No one even knows we can do that! If you tell them… I don’t know what kind of trouble I’d get into.”
“Doesn’t matter. Graves has to know—or Turov.”
“You tell them with your name on all of it. Leave me out of the story.”
I laughed. “So, I’m supposed to tell them I hacked into a deep-link machine solo? I think they might have some doubts.”
“You’re right… they’ll know it was me.”
Natasha looked glum, and I was real sorry about that, but I just couldn’t let this pass. Treachery was one of those things that really stuck in my craw. What’s more, Helsa had been leading me on the whole damned time. I was even beginning to wonder if she’d known I was leering at her out in that desert. By damn, she was one tricky woman.
“Where do you think that teleport suit would have jumped to, James?” Natasha asked me.
“I don’t know, but I bet it’s somewhere unpleasant. An alligator pit, maybe. Or maybe some lonely spot on this planet where I’d either burn up or freeze to death.”
“Hmm… What if we decided to handle this ourselves?”
“What do you mean?”
Natasha shrugged, and she looked a little shy. “What if we rigged something up and sent it to them? A little surprise?”
I stared at my tapper, and I considered the possibilities. I began to grin.
“All right. I like that. One dirty trick deserves another. But what if it leads to the Nairb ship? Or our ship? I don’t want to cause any mayhem where we don’t want it.”
“Right… I’ll put a computer chip on it. A few if-statements, that’s all it would take. It won’t go off if the package arrives in our territory, or off-planet.”
Smiling at last, I started nodding. “Okay. Let’s rig-up the biggest bomb we can steal from armory. They’ll get the message, loud and clear.”
“I’ve got just the thing. Come over to the lab in Gray Bunker as soon as you can.”
She dropped the channel, and my tapper went dark. As I marched across the camp, I got another call.
This time, it was Helsa.
“James?” she said, and she sounded kind of sweet. That was a change. The woman had never spoken to me in a gentle tone before—not even when she’d kissed me as I lie dying in her arms.
“Helsa! It’s just the person I wanted to talk to. Is this harness functional? I tried the button, but nothing happened.”
She blinked twice, then frowned. “Are you really the imbecile they say you are?” Suddenly, she caught herself and forced a fresh smile. “But no—of course not. You’re just confused. You must press the safety lock at the same time as the transport button. There are only two buttons, after all.”
“Ohhhh, I get it! Thanks a million!”
She managed a fluttering smile. “Don’t keep Armel waiting. There aren’t many hours left before the dawn touches our domes.”
“Don’t you worry your pointy little head.”
This last comment made her frown a bit, but she managed to push that expression away and turn it into a smile again. I was reminded of the poor attitude she’d exhibited when we’d first met. I now suspected that was her true personality. Everything else was just an act.
After she signed off, I grumbled rude things about Shadowlanders and made my way to Gray Bunker.
Most of our encampments had some form of lab accompanying the base. That wouldn’t have been the norm for armies of the past, but we faced unknown aliens and environments on a regular basis. There always seemed to be a surprise or two in store in the areas of science and technology.
Natasha greeted me at the bunker entrance. “This way—hurry before one of the techs sees you.”
She led me down spidery tunnels that leaked dust from a thousand years back onto my armor. She trotted into the last lab on the bottom floor,
and I followed her, shutting the creaky door behind us.
Looking around, I immediately liked the dark cubby. It had real possibilities. “You sure you didn’t bring me down here just to have your scandalous way with me?”
She gave me a twisted frown. “Get that thought out of your head, James. We’re on a mission. Can you stay focused?”
“Uh…” I said, watching her putter with a football shaped object on her workbench. “Is that what I think it is?”
“A small A-bomb, yes.”
Now in my time, an A-bomb wasn’t a poor-man’s excuse for a nuclear weapon. Far from it. An A-bomb came with an antimatter warhead, which meant it released more force than normal fusion warheads when it converted itself into a ball of expanding energy.
“But… what if the harness just goes to one of our own bunkers—or the middle of their town? We don’t want to kill their whole population.”
“Don’t worry. It’s got an onboard computer. When the system figures out where it is, it won’t detonate unless it’s at least fifty kilometers from here.”
“Hmm… Okay then. Let’s do it.”
Never having been a man who liked to overthink these things, I began arranging the harness to encircle the football-sized bomb. I had to cinch it up and then some, working to take the slack out of the straps. It wouldn’t do for the bomb to roll away just as we were launching it.
“Hey,” I said, getting an idea. “What if we attached a camera, and we have it transmit what it sees?”
Natasha looked up at my grinning face. “Are you sure you want to see that?”
“I sure as hell do!”
She sighed and went back to working on the weapon. Soon, she had something rigged up. The camera was so small it was like a coin she’d pasted on the side of the bomb.
“Just don’t show me the file if… if it’s really bad,” she said.
“How could it be bad?”
“I don’t know. What if this lands in a nursery or something? We don’t know what we’re shooting at, James. We have no idea at all.”
That gave me a moment’s pause. I realized she was right. Sure, the odds were this would land in a trap of some kind. Something that would neutralize me and make me Armel’s prisoner. Maybe he wanted my armor, I don’t know.
But there was a chance, a small chance, that this would appear in a populated area. Was it really right to take the risk?
I sighed and took the harness off the bomb. “We can’t do it. Not with a booby-trapped switch. I’m sure your script is perfect, but…”
Natasha stood up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. “I’m glad you couldn’t go through with it. The longer I’ve been thinking about it, the less certain I’ve become, in fact…” She broke off, watching me in concern. “James? What are you doing?”
“I’m stripping off my armor and strapping this on.”
“You’re going to fall into their trap?”
“Sort of. The bomb is a kind of conversation piece. If I don’t like what I see, I can press the detonator—or not.”
Natasha looked worried all over again. “This is crazy.”
“A bit.”
“Why are you taking your armor off?”
“I don’t want it to get vaporized, or scuffed up, or something.”
“Right… well, don’t set off the bomb until you’re sure it won’t kill any civilians, okay?”
“You got my word,” I said with an absolute certainty she seemed to buy. It made me marvel when people who knew me well accepted my random statements. It was as if they hadn’t been paying attention for decades.
In Natasha’s case, I knew it was sheer sweetness. She couldn’t have blown up a town—not even a town full of mummies—and so she figured I couldn’t do it either.
That thought made me sigh and doubt myself all over again. I almost scrubbed the entire illegitimate, haphazardly planned operation.
Then, however, I remembered how Helsa and Armel had played me. How they were probably out in the desert somewhere, cackling with excitement, taking bets on when that idiot McGill would fall into their hands.
Showing my teeth in a tight grimace, I activated the harness and teleported away.
-67-
The teleportation experience was a bit odd using the alien light-weight harness. It kind of… tickled.
That’s right, it made every individual hair on my body stand up at attention, as if I’d been run through a dryer without an anti-static sheet thrown in.
Such minor discomforts were soon forgotten, however. When I arrived at my destination, I was all ready to squint in bright sunshine and get blasted with heat—but that didn’t happen.
Instead, I was hit with a chilling effect. The skies were as black as a coal pit, with a scattering of brilliant diamonds sprinkled all over. There was no moon, as Edge World didn’t have one, and that fact just made it all the darker and colder.
A whole bunch of somethings slithered around me. At first, I could sense them rather than see them. I knew right off by the sound of leathery pads rasping over frosty rocks what they must be—the spidery night-siders.
“Back, back! No, you fiends!” a familiar voice said. “Don’t eat him… not yet.”
It was Armel. It took a second for my eyes to adjust enough to see him. My breath blew out in white blasts, and I almost shivered. When I sucked in a fresh puff of air, it burned my lungs it was so cold.
“Damnation, Maurice,” I said. “You should turn up the heat a notch.”
“Funny, very funny. You always play the fool, McGill. But I’m disappointed. Why aren’t you wearing your armor? I was certain you’d bring it to meet with me today.”
“Not a chance.”
“Why not?”
My hands fidgeted over the bomb. I was already considering setting it off. After all, I didn’t care if we were in an inhabited area. I didn’t think these frosty spiders loved their young, or each other. It might be for the best to dust off the lot of them.
“Because I knew this was a trap,” I said.
“Really? And you came anyway? Is this some new level of ignorance, or do you have a plan?”
“Sure do. You see this thing here?”
I hefted the bomb. It could have been my imagination, but the half-seen spiders around me seemed to react. They didn’t like the look of my toy.
“What is that?” Armel asked in a dead tone.
“I think you already know.”
“You will be permed, McGill,” he warned. “No one can confidently revive a suspicious case here. You remember that the Galactics are watching, no? The Mogwa, the Skay and the Nairbs.”
“Then they’ll bear witness to my death, and I’ll catch a revive all the faster.”
“No, no, no,” he laughed. “It doesn’t work that way. None of the Galactics give a shit about you. They’ll tell your legion nothing.”
“Well then, I guess you and I will go to Hell together.”
I don’t think Armel liked that comment. Maybe he’d miscalculated. I couldn’t see his face, as it was pretty dark, but I got the idea he wasn’t convinced he could avoid a solid perming either.
“There is no need for this animosity,” he said after a pause. “Let us part ways. I’ll simply go back to my lodge—they have no tents here, you must have lodges built with heavy leathers. I will retrieve a charger for your harness. Then you can be on your way without—”
“Stand where you are, Armel,” I said firmly. I could see he was backing up, moving away from me and my circle of growling spiders.
“But McGill, surely an imbecile such as yourself is capable of grasping the fact that your harness hasn’t got enough charge to leave this place. The battery is whisper-thin. It was calculated to take you out to this spot—and no farther.”
“I believe that. Helsa is as devious as they come. She wouldn’t leave something like that up to chance.”
“Very well then, we are in agreement. I’ll simply return to—”
“You’re not
going anywhere if you want to keep breathing. I’m in charge here. If I drop this bomb, or I release this trigger, the whole area will go up. These spiders will finally get the warm-up they’ve been dreaming about.”
Armel sucked in a breath. “Very well then, we are at an impasse. Will you kill us now, or later?”
“Later. I want some information first.”
“I’m in no mood to give it.”
With my left arm clamped over the bomb, and my left hand holding the trigger, I drew my pistol with my right. I fired a bolt, which punched a hole into the nearest spider.
The monster didn’t seem to like that. None of them did. They went into a kind of frenzy, and they began hissing and bubbling and carrying on. The one I’d shot sank down, shivering and flowing out stinky liquids, but the others surged closer.
One of them clamped his mandibles on my right boot. Another snapped at the gun in my hand. I lifted this to fire again.
“No! Hold it! Cease, you fools!”
Armel stepped closer, waving his hands over his head. He beat back his spider-friends with the butt of his pistol. Growling and rattling their mouth-parts, they retreated with poor grace.
“Bad-tempered spiders you’ve got here,” I said. “You should burn out these nasties, Armel. They all look like something that should be on the bottom of my shoe.”
“You half-wit animal!” he complained. “You’re not fit to die among any of these people. Why didn’t you wear your damned armor?”
I laughed. “You wanted it that bad, huh? Don’t worry none, it wouldn’t have fit a skinny little fop like you anyway. Now listen, we have to come to some kind of arrangement without killing each other this time around. We’ve done it before in the past, why not today?”
“Because it isn’t just your armor I wanted by bringing you here, McGill. I want you out of the way. You’ve caused my legion and my clients a great deal of harm. Now, answer a question for me.”
“Okay.”
“How will Graves finish this? How will he go for the kill and take the battle to my legion?”
“Uh… I don’t rightly know.”
“Are you serious? You expect me to believe that? You can’t win a war by staying on the defensive forever. You must know something.”