by Alex Deva
* * *
The move came after fifteen minutes of tense waiting. It wasn't a volley of rockets, it wasn't a hail of bullets, and it wasn't even blinking navigation lights; it was a small, red box.
It came out of the airlock of a transport ship. They saw the outer door open, and then someone in a space suit simply hurled the box towards them, like a goal keeper restarting the game after a catch.
Only this wasn't a projectile. It was flying at about seventy kilometres per hour, slowly rotating, in a slightly curved trajectory. By itself, it would've reached the starship in maybe half an hour. Not very practical for a projectile.
"Fuck's that?!" asked Aram.
"Doi, can you enlarge, please?"
The girl gestured and their projection focused on the red flying object. It was rectangular, like a small case, and at magnification, they could see it was trailing something.
It was a piece of paper.
On the piece of paper there was written, by hand, in black marker:
NOT A BOMB.
XXXVI.
Doina looked at Mark with admiration.
"You were right," she said.
He gave a small smile, and didn't say anything.
"You really are good at this sort of stuff," said Aram, too.
"I've done it a few times before," he said.
"That thing will miss us by a lot," said the girl. "I'll have to move to intercept, just like you predicted."
"Yes, let's," said Mark. "But slowly and unmenacingly. An obvious intercept trajectory please, there's plenty of time."
The starship changed its position relative to the space station, and moved towards where the red box was predicted to arrive in a few minutes. It moved slowly, at about one hundred kilometres per hour, but to get at that speed, it accelerated for less than a thousandth of a second. To a nearby outside observer, it would've looked like a fly taking off.
"I wonder what else she's told them," said Aram.
"Who? Lawry?"
"Yeah."
"Well, if she told them we don't have a radio, obviously she knows pretty much everything we gave away to the Americans, plus her own deductions."
"So... a lot, then."
"I'd go for 'a lot', yes."
"Right."
They watched the projection in silence.
"Almost got it," said Doina. "Should I open the airlock now?"
"Yes, Doi. Thank you."
"I'm moving to the door," said Aram, and jumped out of the command room.
She opened the starship's central iris, and the red box floated gently inside the airlock, which looked like it swallowed it as it closed back up.
Aram brought it a few seconds later. The object was a nondescript box with a handle and two snap fasteners, like any regular case. The paper sheet with the "NOT A BOMB" message written on both sides was frozen crisp.
Right, time to see if I've been horribly wrong, he thought, betraying no emotion.
He undid the fasteners and opened the box, holding his breath.
There was, indeed, no bomb. What there was instead was a data tablet. It looked rugged and space-ready, but familiar enough to Mark.
"So, that's a radio," said Doina.
"No. Well, yes, probably. This is a little more complex than a simple radio."
The girl was puzzled and about to ask something, when the screen lit up by itself.
A face appeared on the screen, of a man seen from the chest up; a second later, in a picture-in-picture, their huddled figures came up too, in a corner window.
Here's sodding Skype, even in outer space, thought the Brit.
Doina and Aram had a short, uncontrolled reaction as they saw their faces in the small mirror image. They were looking at themselves and jerking from side to side, as if checking that their image was doing the same. Mark stifled a smile. He'd done exactly the same when he'd faced a webcam for the first time.
The man on the screen appeared to be in his thirties, and was wearing a dark red uniform, with strange insignia on his shoulders. On his chest there were two black patches, but the actual labels were missing. He had short hair that had once been black, and now had thick white strands in it. His eyes were brown and looked tired; generally, he looked like he needed a shave. He wasn't smiling, but somehow that didn't make him particularly unfriendly. His eyebrows went up, but he said nothing.
"Hello," probed Mark.
"Hello," answered the man, in what Mark immediately identified as a German accent.
For the moment, he said nothing more; but a tired smile ventured across his face, and for an instant he seemed like a child playing a silly game.
The Brit decided to play along.
"How do you do?" he said.
"Good, thank you, mister Gardener."
So much said in so few words, thought Mark.
"My name is colonel Karl Tiessler," added the man, after a few seconds.
And, with that silence, he'd managed to communicate: I know what your real name is, I know your story, I probably know more about you than you think, but I'm playing this nicely and I expect you to do the same.
Mark stuck to the rules of the game.
"Hello, colonel. You already know miss Doina and mr. Aram." Message received and acknowledged.
"Nice to finally meet you," said Tiessler to all of them.
"That was a good throw," commented the Dacian.
"And you would know, wouldn't you," said the German. "I'll pass your compliments to major Petrov. He has a good arm."
A German and a Slav, noted Mark. It was like a game of top level diplomacy; each word being said had implications. And those implications had implications on their own.
"Thank you for the tablet," he said.
"You are most welcome, mister Gardener. However, if you liked the tab, you'll love this," said the German, and brought Mark's HTC One in front of the camera.
The Brit had last seen his phone when it'd been confiscated by the American Special Forces soldiers. To see it again -- if it was, indeed, his own phone, and not a similar thing -- came as a surprise indeed, and spoke volumes of the resourcefulness of the people he was talking to.
"I'd be very happy to return this celltelephone to you," said Tiessler, misusing the archaism. He continued:
"We've even taken the liberty to recharge its power source. I hope you don't mind."
Meaning, you've downloaded every single byte there was in it, thought Mark. Of course, his phone had been sterile since he'd left England -- there were only a few numbers in its memory, some games and a lot of music.
And a couple of photos of a young girl who was now dead.
"That is a nice surprise, indeed," he said, carefully. "I appreciate your effort to return it."
"Not at all," said the German, smiling genially. "It's a valuable piece of technology. Old, but valuable. We are only too happy to return it to its rightful owner," he finished, using the plural for the first time. Mark noticed the transition.
"Far too valuable to entrust to major Petrov's space throw, efficient as it turned out," added Tiessler.
Here it comes, thought Mark.
"I am talking to you from the Eurasian space station Yǒngqì." He pronounced the Chinese word with practiced care. "On behalf of the director of the station, I would like to extend to you an invitation to visit and recover your goods."
The Brit played by the script.
"The Yǒngqì --" he strived to reproduce the other's pronunciation, even though he had no idea what the word meant or how it might be spelled -- "looks like a positively amazing place, colonel, and I am sure we would love to visit it some day. But I am equally sure that you are curious about Doi, our ship, and in gratitude for recovering that stolen item, we would like to instead invite you here... for further talks."
Tiessler smiled, as if he'd been expecting it.
"Most gracious of you. Very well, then. I would like to bring along a party of two people, the purpose of whom I promise will become clear."
"Unarmed, of course."
"Of course. Can we discuss docking arrangements?"
"Actually, it would be preferable if your party did a short space walk between your transport and our ship." Mark felt sure Doi could come up with something that would help them dock with pretty much anything, but they did not want to make a show of their capabilities too soon.
"Why not. I'm sure you have your reasons. Let's say... forty-five minutes?"
"That would be very well, mister Tiessler."
The German smiled again.
"See you soon, miss... and gentlemen."
And then the screen went black.
XXXVII.
Mark and Aram waited at the airlock door for repressurisation to complete. The three guests had arrived in one of the bigger, winged ships, which was still parked above. They'd done a quick EVA through the open iris, and now they were all inside.
Doina joined them, in a hurry.
"Three people, unarmed, just like they said."
"Anything odd?" asked Aram.
"Just their space suits."
"What about them?"
"Well. One's dark red, one's dark blue, and one is dark green."
The Dacian looked at Mark. The latter shrugged and said:
"Could be to differentiate between their respective nations."
"But the Americans all had black suits."
"Exactly. And they're all from the same country."
"Must be big," mused the blond man.
"It is," said the Brit.
They formed into a line, with Doina in the middle. In their black suits, jackets done all the way up, they looked smartly official.
Doina looked at the wall icons and waited for the one that confirmed opening the inner door was permitted; then, she opened it.
The three people inside were engaged in private conversation, and turned towards them. Their faces were obstructed by the reflective visors, but they proceeded to undo their helmets.
They indeed wore space suits of different colours, but there were also other, more subtle differences between them. They had name tags on the right breast, and ship designators on the other one.
The man in the red suit had a name tag that said "K. TIESSLER" and a horizontal tricolour of black, red and yellow stripes. His ship tag read "EASS MONNET".
The man in the green suit was "G. JING" and his flag was a red rectangle, with a ship tag that said: "YǑNGQÌ".
And, when the third helmet came off, it revealed the black-haired head of a young woman, whose name was: "I. TOMA". Her ship tag also designated her as a space station crew member.
Doina, Aram and Mark did not wear name tags. And they were fine with that. They were the entire crew of three, and the very absence of tags told that story well enough.
Tiessler looked straight down at Doina and spoke, with soldierly precision:
"Permission to come aboard, miss."
The girl was prepared. With a serious face, she nodded slightly and said:
"Permission granted. Welcome aboard Starship Doi."
It was Mark's turn to speak.
"Colonel, allow me to introduce Doina and Aram."
The Dacian nodded, impassibly. Then, Tiessler made the rest of the introductions:
"This is lieutenant-colonel Jing, commander of the Yǒngqì," he said, introducing the bald Asian. "And this is captain Toma, of the same."
Jing and Toma nodded without speaking.
"This way," said Mark and gestured towards the spoke.
They led their guests into Twelve, which they'd prepared with a big, round table with six chairs, and another smaller table with water and meal bars. There was no small-talk on the way, just a brief warning about gravity shifts, which the guests negotiated easily enough.
They took their seats around the table, and Tiessler opened an inner pocket, pulling out Mark's phone.
"We bear gifts, mister Gardener. Number one, your celltelephone."
Mark accepted it with a nod, and put it on the table, next to the tablet they'd used to communicate. The German reached in again, and produced another device. It was shiny on both sides, and from one edge a wire extended, ending with a small plug.
"Number two, here is a solar charger for its power source. Just in case you happen to have... difficulty generating the correct current." An implication was, again, left unspoken.
Mark put the solar charger on the table, too, next to his phone.
"How did you get it back?" asked Aram, with interest.
"Actually, we intercepted it on its way to the black market," said the colonel, smiling a little. "So we simply bought it. I don't mind telling you, it was quite expensive. But it was the easiest way."
"Mark tells me it won't work here."
"Not in its original function, no. The technology to support it hasn't been around for over a hundred years."
"We could revive it, though," said Jing, speaking for the first time.
"How?" asked Doina.
"Why?" asked Mark.
"Well. If it is your preferred means of communication, we could work with that. We have people who could easily put something together."
Mark pondered.
"It's an interesting option," he said. "We appreciate it and we'll consider it."
They're offering us everything they think we could want, he thought. I wonder when they'll start asking for things in return.
The conversation wasn't advancing very fluidly. Mark felt almost tempted to bring in the weather.
Tiessler, apparently, felt the same. He smacked his lips and turned towards the woman in the dark blue space suit.
"And now for number three," he said, with a hand flourish that had just a trace of irony in it. He nodded at the captain, who had been completely silent until then.
"Bună ziua," she said, suddenly.
Doina and Aram looked up, in complete amazement. Mark took a second longer, but then he got it, too.
"Știi românește?" asked the girl, grinning widely.
"Da, sînt româncă," answered the woman, also grinning. Then she looked at Tiessler and spoke, in German:
"Sie hatten recht, her Oberst. Es scheint dass diese Leute verstehen meine Sprache."
Jing coughed slightly and said: "Perhaps the English language is in order."
"Of course. Please excuse me," she said.
"You're Romanian," said Mark matter-of-factly, noticing the flag on her name tag.
"I am, indeed. I speak the native language of Doina, and to some extent, Aram's. Out of interest, mister Aram, did you understand me just now?"
"When you said good day? Yeah, I got that," said the Dacian.
"Amazing. I didn't know my language was understandable to an actual Dacian."
Jing coughed softly, but it was too late.
"Now, how would you know he's a Dacian?" asked Mark, looking at her pointedly.
She looked at her superior. The bald Chinese nodded slowly.
"His DNA," she said. "The Yanks had a sample sent to Washington, and... well. Our sources obtained the genome. We performed an autosomal test and so we are reasonably sure that he comes from the third century native Carpathian arc population. In other words, he's a Dacian.
Aram raised his eyebrows, exhaled sharply and said:
"Or you could've just asked me."
"Yes," she smiled. "I suppose so."
"What is your specialty, captain?" asked Mark.
"I am a biologist, sir. But you could say that history is my hobby."
"We were fortunate to have her on board the Yǒngqì," said Jing. "There are only two Romanians on rotation, on the space station or on any of the ships docked here."
"The... ships?" asked Mark, softly.
"The Eurasian Space Ship Monnet, which has had the pleasure of your voluntary or involuntary assistance -- it doesn't matter now -- in that unfortunate clash with the USS Kennedy." Tiessler spoke clearly, but, again, there was fatigue in his voice.
"And the EASS Cameron," s
aid Doina.
"As in... David?" asked Mark.
Jing smiled. "Indeed," he confirmed. "You were contemporaries. It hadn't occurred to me."
Mark suppressed a tiny shudder.
"So, mister Gardener. Was it?" asked Tiessler.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Was it voluntary? Did you show up on purpose to help us escape?"
The Brit glanced at his two companions, then looked the German in the eyes.
"I am aware that a positive answer would buy us some credit with you, but as it happens, our involvement in your conflict was purely coincidental."
"Ah. I see." If they were disappointed, they didn't show it. That actually gives them the upper hand, Mark realised. They don't have to feel like they owe us anything.
For a while, nobody said anything.
Aram stood up and poured himself some water.
"Water, anyone?" he asked.
"No, thank you," said Jing.
"Yes, please," said captain Toma.
"Colonel?"
Tiessler looked at the meal bars.
"Is that your food?" he asked.
"Such as it is," said the Dacian. "Green or red, take your pick."
"I'll try a green one, with some water, please."
Aram brought them the water and put the whole bowl of bars in front of the colonel. He took one, smelled it, then tasted a corner. He chewed carefully, then took a larger bite.
"May I?" asked Jing.
"Help yourselves," answered Aram, gesturing towards Toma, too.
The German kept a neutral expression, but chewed the whole thing up. Captain Toma had a bite, then put it back on the table in front of her; however, Jing ate a red one and then a green one, mumbling appreciatively.
"So," said Aram, chewing with his mouth full. "How's the war?"
Jing almost choked, and Toma suppressed a chuckle. Tiessler stayed serious.
"What do you know of the Moon War?" he asked Aram.
"What your spy told us. You found stuff on the Moon, you knew how to mine it, Americans knew how to take you there, next thing you know, you were killing each other over it."
The German looked at his hands.
"Well, I don't think I've ever heard it put quite as simple as that." Then, he looked at Mark and asked:
"Are you familiar with the events of the past three centuries, mister Gardener?"