Lord Banshee- Fairy Dust

by Russell O Redman

  Sergei looked at me oddly. “Were you the Ghost?”

  “There were many agents on Mars, and the Ghost gathered blame for everything any of them did. In that event, yes, I was the Ghost. But the legend of the Ghost includes all of us who fought undercover on Mars at the time.”

  It was the standard company line, a boilerplate excuse to be trotted out whenever necessary, and I refused to elaborate. We were silent for a moment, then Morris said, “I think this may be an appropriate moment to give the two of you your new charges. These will not be written in any document, so remember them carefully. As I mentioned earlier, we fear that we are at war again. We believe we have the military strength to prevail, but Martians can be devious. Senior Agent Douglas, your experience on Mars may have been traumatic, but it demonstrated that you are capable of functioning under dire circumstances with minimal support.

  “Your initial task is to follow the leads provided by the Fairy Dust, the Laika, and the Hanuman, but your ultimate goal is to seek out and neutralize any Martian forces that may infiltrate the Earth. That was hinted at in the initial charge to the Fairy Dust Investigation Team. We are now making it explicit.

  “Agent Chou, we are aware of your distaste for Martian culture. Your extensive study of the Martian factions will make you invaluable in this effort. However, Agent Douglas has lived and worked amongst the Martian people and has a much deeper understanding of their motives and methods. Your charge is to learn from him everything he can teach you about the Martian people. This will give your study of the factions a depth that they previously lacked, and strengthen your already impressive ability to anticipate their next moves.

  “Specifically, and in detail, you are hereby released from all previous requirements and limitations regarding your terms of service. Agent Chou, you need to start eating and drinking with your space-based colleagues, and you must learn to move amongst them as though you had been raised in space.”

  “Sir,” I said, “I am not sure you understand what you are asking. Even I do not like what I became on Mars, and it required a year of psychotherapy before I could work with other people at all. This morning, one small part of that therapy broke. If we are back at war, I will serve as best I can, but please realize that you may be sentencing Agent Chou to learn from a psychopathic madman.”

  Morris nodded. “Oddly, I do understand that, Senior Agent Douglas. I have confidence, perhaps more than you do, that your therapists installed sufficient controls that you will adapt to the coming conflict without going insane. You may be one of our most powerful weapons.”

  Flattery, so thick that Sergei looked like he might vomit. I felt that way too.

  “Agent Chou, have you read 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu?”

  “Of course.”

  “You think I exaggerate the talents of Senior Agent Douglas. I do not. Sun Tzu taught that government requires the mastery of the conventional and the unconventional. In times of peace, good government requires the conventional, so we develop writing, rituals, laws, and standards. War requires conventional power through large armies and destructive weapons, but far more important is the unconventional, the surprise that places armies where the enemy does not expect them, that prevents the enemy from moving their own forces, or draws critical information out of unsuspecting informants without their even knowing what they have said. Senior Agent Douglas is a master of the unconventional. Study him. I know your opinions and backgrounds are very different. You have much to teach each other, but you have more to learn from him than he has from you. Together, you may save the Earth.

  “Agent Douglas, do not imagine that this is praise. You have done many things that were despicable and in a just universe you should have been executed as a war criminal after the Incursion. But you were successful when everyone else failed. We were successful, to the extent that we were, largely because you completed jobs that no one else could do. I understand that you hate yourself and what you have become. If our worst fears are realized, you may well be torn to pieces psychologically, despite the best efforts of your therapists. Agent Chou has a very different background, but has also survived traumatic circumstances and exhibited great loyalty, determination and good sense in the process. He may be able to help you resolve your issues. Teach him what he must know, and learn from him what you must know. I hope I am wrong and this is all resolved by next week, but all the omens I see are dark.”

  Sergei and I were both scowling. He asked, “Could I have some time to think this new charge through?”

  Which was a polite way to say, “This is stupid and offensive. NO!”

  Morris replied, “Of course. Captain Wang, perhaps we should review the developments that have taken place over the last twelve hours. Our two agents deserve to know why we have reached this uncomfortable conclusion, and why their talents are so urgently needed.”

  Wang took over, “Certainly. These images were taken by a distant sentinel guarding the approach to L2.”

  A display appeared on a wall showing two square images. On one, there was a star field containing a pale nebula. Crossing the nebula was a slender, dark object, tapered towards the leading end. The object took several minutes to traverse the nebula. The second image showed a different star field with a different nebula. The tapered object appeared as a short needle, faintly glowing as it entered the image but again appearing as a dark silhouette as it crossed the brighter streamers of the nebula.

  “We believe the object in both images is the same. The first image is in visible light, the second was taken in the thermal infrared. If that object had been steel, it would have been brilliant in the thermal IR. Instead, it is barely detectable at our most sensitive infrared wavelength. It is as though the whole ship was just a wire frame, or was a rock one tenth of the size it appears to have in silhouette. It was first noticed in silhouette against the emission nebula in visible light.”

  “With only these two images separated by such a short interval of time, it is difficult to determine the distance or trajectory of the object, but it is consistent with a narrow vessel roughly fifteen meters long moving towards the Earth. From its speed and direction of motion, we are ninety percent sure it will not stop near any of the factories in L2. The most likely destination is the Earth, but it could also have been moving towards L1 with a lower probability, but not the Moon unless it changes course very soon. If we assume it was approaching the Earth, it will arrive in about a week.

  “We have never seen anything like it. It is too small to have conventional crew quarters, so we are assuming it is unmanned. We only saw this one, but if it had not moved across a nebula we would not have noticed it. It was also close to the sentinel at that time. Much farther away and it would have been too faint in the IR and too small in visible light to detect.”

  Sergei looked disturbed. “Captain, have you ever studied the weapons used in the Final War? I am thinking especially of the aircraft.”

  “No, why?”

  “They used radar to detect aircraft at long range, since visible and infrared light are easily blocked by clouds. Military aircraft were designed to ensure that radar signals bounced sideways rather than back to the receiver. This gave quite large aircraft a radar signature that was much smaller than expected and sometimes allowed the craft to fly past a radar site without being detected. They referred to such designs as 'stealth', and used the technology quite widely.

  “The same principle can work in space. If the surface of a spacecraft is extremely reflective, say coated with a very well-polished silver surface, it would reflect almost no sunlight back towards the Sun or at wide angles to the side, and it would emit very little infrared. It would still have to radiate heat, of course, but the radiator might be mounted in the back and cowled so it is visible only from a vantage point behind the spacecraft.

  “Can the sentinels capture images looking towards the Earth? There might be whole formations of these craft coasting undetected towards us.”

  Captain Wang looked thou
ghtful. “I am fairly sure they can be directed to search different parts of the sky, but generally avoid looking towards the Sun because the heat and light would destroy the instruments. I will make the request.”

  I added, “Martians have a strong interest in history. I remember seeing many lists of books that had to be examined in case they contained hidden designs for weapons. Every modern historian has a lurid fascination with the years leading up to the Final War, but the technologies they describe were either so advanced that they were lost in the conflict, or so obsolete that no one would use them. Books were outside my expertise, so I never thought much about it, but principles and concepts last longer than technologies. You mentioned Sun Tzu, who wrote the Art of War almost three thousand years ago, yet his principles are as valid now as they were then. I am wondering how many other obsolete concepts still have military significance.”

  “A week, Sirs,” Morris said. “Please focus on how little time we have to prepare for what might be a devastating invasion force.”

  “Pardon, Sir”, I replied. “As you say, those craft seem too small to be manned, but also too large to be self-guiding bombs. During the Incursion, the Martians hid their bombs inside freighters disguised as cargo, but they could have tossed them out of the hold half ways from Mars and still hit the same cities. Hiding them inside freighters was just a different form of stealth. If those are just missiles, why do they have to be so big?”

  Sergei rumpled his forehead. “Our missiles are pretty big, probably about the same size in fact.”

  “True, but that is because they need powerful engines to boost away from our ships and outmaneuver a target that will itself be shooting back and trying to escape. If all you are trying to do is hit a city on the Earth, aim is important and timing is important, but fuel requirements are almost trivial. A bomb big enough to devastate a city might only be a couple of meters across and the guidance system need not be much larger. No, I think that object has a different purpose. We should discuss this with Raul.

  “Before we start brainstorming too wildly, perhaps you might tell us the other things that precipitated your decision? What is happening on the earth stations, the Khrushchev and the Deng in particular. What is the status of the Mao? Or the Earth, for that matter? We have been starved for information for the last couple of days.”

  Captain Wang continued, “Well, you have just seen the big news, but there is a lot of smaller news. The Mao is now quite secure. Thanks to your timely warnings, we have arrested and formally charged Pilot Sailor Lejeune and two members of his squad. We seized his stock of chikki, analyzed it and isolated the drug it contained. Another ten members of the crew were addicted, but we believe they did not yet know they were addicted because he had kept them supplied with chikki and the drug has no obvious symptoms until withdrawal sets in. We should be able to supply them with medication when we are fully resupplied, and until then can draw on the stock of chikki to tide them over. Aside from the addicts, we have identified nine other sailors and four marines who had questionable loyalty. All these people have been transferred to the Deng. I expect they will be moved to the Kamehameha soon, which does less business and has larger facilities that can be used to hold prisoners securely.

  “That might take a few days, however, because the earth stations all seem to be in turmoil. There are riots on the Kennedy, Khrushchev and Gandhi, even here on the Deng. The Magellan and Kamehameha are sending Station Security personnel trained in crowd control to help quell the disturbances. The other four earth stations are transferring administrative and detention staff to the Magellan and Kamehameha to make space available. All the transfer shuttles seem to be filled with StaSec and management people moving around to try to keep a lid on things.”

  “That does seem strange,” I commented. “I have lived on the stations for years and have rarely seen a fist fight, much less a riot, outside the seedier bars. What is causing these disturbances?”

  Singh answered, “Mostly bad temper. Often the security agents could not even determine who started the fight after watching the surveillance records. The only common thread is that many ships are responding to the trouble by requesting immediate clearance to leave. On the ESK, ESKEN and Gandhi, most of the fights seem to have been crew returning to their ships who could not get past the new StaSec checkpoints. Those people were often held for causing a disturbance, but were released quite quickly because their only real offence was arguing with StaSec that they had a right to return to their ships. Without any other cause to hold them, they were completely right. There were fights, but for different reasons, on the Deng. I am not sure what has happened on the ESMAG and ESKAM.”

  I wondered whether the people trying to leave were just scared by the turmoil or had better reasons. Were they honest merchants trying to protect their people, ships, and cargo? Perhaps they were smugglers, afraid of being inspected in a security sweep? Or did they know something that was still hidden to us?

  And why would StaSec even try to detain them? An automatic ID check should have cleared them for passage through the checkpoints. Odd. Very odd.

  “Can we get a list of the ships that have asked for immediate departure? I expect the port officers are heavily overloaded right now, but even a snapshot of the traffic might reveal something.”

  Singh shook her head. “I do not think any of us are authorized to inquire into the private affairs of the corporations until a declaration of war has been issued. I suppose we could route such a request through Commerce, but it would have to be very carefully phrased.”

  I brightened up. “If it must go through Commerce, I can just ask Agent Pinter to make the request. Commercial Intelligence has a justifiable interest in the safety of commercial shipping during a time of unrest.”

  Singh continued, “On a more personal note, we have located the agents who used to be part of your team investigating the Fairy Dust. They are now guarding the ministerial delegations on the ESK who were preparing for the meetings we are now holding here.”

  That took me aback. “Why are they doing that? They were supposed to continue investigating the Fairy Dust under the auspices of StaSec, not standing outside someone’s door. My apologies to the marines waiting outside our doors, but that seems like a misuse of extremely skilled talent.”

  Morris smiled a bit grimly, “Ordinarily I would agree, but since my staff are amongst the people being guarded and StaSec is so heavily occupied with the riots on the ESK, I have a hard time making that case, even to myself. Do you have any words you would like to pass on to them?”

  My current name and ID would mean nothing to my former team. “Yes. I cannot identify myself properly, but they may understand if we send an open message to all of them, with the text, 'Miss you all. Keep your suits pressed and ready, and stay close to a warm, airy space. Hope you get to play there routinely.'”

  Chou grunted, “Not too subtle. Keep your pressure suits handy and practice evacuations to the airtight rooms regularly.”

  “You might have made a good spacer after all,” I replied. “Actually, it is a standard piece of Martian wisdom. Martian cities, like space ships, must be pressurized with oxygen. The cities are carved out of rock and fused sand, lined with a low-grade ironcrete. Leaks and ruptures are common. Every house, office and market has an airtight room where people can take refuge when the pressure drops, just like the earth stations and every ship with a human crew. Most parents put their children's nursery and play space in the airtight room, then teach their children that the pressure alarm means 'run to the playroom and shut the door'. That way they are far less likely to hide under a bed when the scary alarm sounds.

  “I guess after last night I am still thinking about how Angela's family died. In a Martian city, each neighbourhood is isolated by airtight bulkheads with big doors on the traffic corridors. Sergei, you must have seen them when you were on Mars? When the alarms sound, the doors close and everybody races to the nearest airtight room. That works if the leak is small and
the pressure drops slowly. When the Governor fired in the bunker busters, the lid blew off the whole neighbourhood surrounding the meeting hall and the pressure dropped to Martian ambient almost instantly. People who were not vaporized or burned would have been stunned by the explosion. They would have had little chance of reaching safety before they passed out from lack of oxygen. Hopefully, they were unconscious before their lungs boiled and their skin froze. Of course, the few who did get to the airtight rooms would still have died from the radiation. Those bombs were small nukes. Oh, Angela, forgive me.”

  Singh looked puzzled. “Is this the Angela you were calling for this morning?”

  “Oh... Yes. I forgot you did not know the rest of that story, which I told to Sergei and the rest of the team after our breakfast. I believe that the terrorist who attacked the Mao was a girl named Angela. I targeted a meeting that was to be held near her family's home. The bombs killed everyone else in her family, but she somehow escaped. Not surprisingly, she became radicalized and is now determined to kill the Ghost and all his followers, at any cost to herself.

  “I also do not want to repeat that story again, at least until we can confirm whether she really is the girl I met so long ago. I also do not want to interrogate her in person anymore, in case she identifies me as the man who showed up and then disappeared just before the bombs fell. To Angela, I am the Ghost personified. Where is she now?”

  The captain replied, “Still with us, I am afraid. Her crime is specifically against the military and she is an intelligence resource. Until we get to a facility more secure than the ESDENG currently is, she will remain in our brig.”