Against That Time

by Edward McKeown

  “Maauro,” he calls in the early morning hours.

  “Yes.”

  “Guild shuttle approaching. They’re here for the cargo.”

  “Understood. Are you prepared to deal with this?”

  “I would be happier if you unlocked the arms locker and I could pick out a laser.”

  “Very well.” I send the unlock code.

  “Ah,” he says apparently pleased and surprised that I have allowed him access to weapons. He quickly takes advantage, picking out body armor, a shock baton, stunner and a laser.

  “They will not know you are alone,” I remind him in the midst of his warlike preparations.

  “It does not do to underestimate Guild.”

  I remember one of Dusko’s operatives, Lostra, who planted a cyber-boobytrap that blinded and crippled me, almost leading to my destruction. “You are correct.”

  Dusko, armed and suspicious, greets his fellow Guilders in the shuttle bay after they establish a soft dock, their shuttle being too large for Stardust’s bay. Three Guilders come aboard along with a loading robot. Conversations are short as Dusko leads them to the bay and supervises their unloading of our illicit cargo of drugs, weapons and other materials I wish we did not need to inject into Cimer’s life. However, the biological imperative to violence and self-destructive impulses is a fact of life, just like gravity and pressure.

  We only relax our guard when the Guilders detach to make their way back in a surreptitious approach to the floating city below.

  “Return the laser to the arms room,” I direct. “You may retain the rest of the material if it comforts you.”

  “It does,” Dusko replies. “It surely does. As does being up here and well away from the insanity of this mission.”

  “Duly noted. Hope that it remains that way. Call me at need.” Contact ceases instantly. It is a measure of how concerned Dusko was that he opened the channel at all. The solitary Dua-Denlenn never seems concerned by a lack of company.

  In the morning we breakfast on the terrace of our room. Above us the roof of the city is projected in the rusty orange of the Okaran sun, the day is warm and Wrik is clad in a light robe as we both look over the city inside the dome below us. The buildings are of light construction, as they did not need to fear the elements. The wind is never above a breeze, rain rarely more than a mist, snow is reserved for certain winter holidays and then usually only for a few hours. Everything is built for “indoor” use from the rail cars and robocabs to the slidewalks.

  “Do you have any ideas for how to press our investigation?” I ask. “I am frankly at a loss unless Croyzer turns up some investigative avenue.”

  “If she does,” he says, running his hand through hair not yet dry from the shower, “we’d have to wonder if she would share it. We have to do something to change the situation. The longer we stay here the easier it is to contain us, or the more likely some part of our cover gets broken. We have to press the pace, we can’t lay back.”

  “Again, how? A clever enemy would ignore us, leaving us to run out our clock. You cannot pretend to investigate the stations habitability for much longer and all avenues we have looked at in regard to the project or the personnel have dead-ended about as quickly as we anticipated they would.”

  “We have seen signs our enemy is not so clever,” Wrik says, “or rather trying to be too clever for their own good. The elevator sabotage was an overthought plan. Since it would be detected that the elevator was interfered with anyway, why not go with a bomb? Much more likely to get the job done. There’s something amateur about our opposition.”

  “Yes,” I reply. “They are not hardened trained espionage agents like us.”

  He looks at me, startled for a second, then bursts out laughing. “Yeah, I suppose.”

  “I did not intend humor at your expense. I myself was designed as a direct combat unit. While I have skills at infiltration, it was usually merely a prelude to a direct assault.”

  “On Kandalor,” Wrik says, “you lived either like a hunter or the hunted. I was on the hunted side. When you live like that it gives you insight into spies, you see what others don’t, learn to see traps before they spring because you won’t be strong enough to get out of them after. You see the patterns that go with Guild, with spies, with those who are trying to avoid lawful oversight. What I perceive is a force here, as back on Star Central, that wants to attack us, but is having difficulty reaching us. Either they are simply not that good at it, or they are being blocked and forestalled by some other party and hence these half-assed attempts.”

  “Half-assed? How would—”

  “A colloquial expression for ineptitude,” he laughed.

  I wonder is full-assed was better or worse and then decided to simply drop it.

  Wrik suddenly put down his juice glass. “Croyzer did say that the elevator had been serviced on the Ribisan side of the city?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps it is time for Lieutenant Fels to pay a courtesy call on the Ribisan authorities.”

  I frown. “Is this wise? While they may use, or be in alliance with oxygen-breathers, there is no doubt that our enemies are Ribisans. We would be walking into an environment hostile to both of us and where my capabilities are markedly degraded.”

  Wrik grins picking up the glass again. “Getting cautious in your old age?”

  “No,” I retort, “merely trying to insure that you have an old age.”

  He laughs again but there is a bitter undertone. “My instincts tell me the sooner we get out of this tin can in a gas ball, the more likely an old age is for both of us. You’ve done your usual incredible job of hacking into systems and databases, but even you can’t invent friends and co-workers who know Lostly. Your interactions as a human mutant have improved immensely since those kids picked you out on Stauffer but the longer people are around you the more likely they are realize that you are not human, mutant or otherwise. Too many little clues and cues accumulate and bang, realization.”

  The bold tactic appeals to me, who was designed for direct combat. Yet I must balance my enthusiasm with the realization of how fragile my network members are in the corrosive gas and pressures of Cimer and of my own vulnerability.

  “Very well,” I say after considering the pros and cons. “I am persuaded. We shall attempt the Ribisan side. But how to go about it?”

  “What have you uncovered about it?” he asks.

  Beyond the fact that it is eighty-percent of the floating city and the basic schematics of the structures and major utilities, only what we both saw on the way down. Their systems are far more secure then Confed ones and I have not judged it safe to probe them. There is an interface zone between the O2 breather section and the Hydrogen section where the gravity is 1.2 gs and where the airlocks, cargo interchanges and changing stations for environmental suits sit. Think of it as a thin membrane covering our section, we are after all encapsulated in their city save toward the top where the power, and some of the industrial and landing sections are dual-use.

  “Where is the nearest interface entrance?”

  I stand and point to the far wall. “We are in the heart of the O2 commerce and residential section; the airlock is as far away as it can be and still be on this level. The entrance at Radial 13 is used for much of the diplomatic and light commercial traffic.”

  “Excellent. I say we get dressed and make our way there this afternoon.”

  “As you wish. But why wait?”

  “Because it will give you time to demonstrate your value to Mysol and Fenster. Call in. Tell them what I am planning and how scared you are. I’ll bet serious credit that when we get to the gate we find McCaffer waiting for us offering to take us to meet the Ribisan dignitaries.”

  “Won’t that eliminate the element of surprise?”

  “With our mobility and communications being so restricted and w
ith no contacts among the Ribisans, I doubt it will matter. Our purpose is more to stir and unsettle things than to actually detect anything. I’ll admit it’s all a longshot but you can’t hit anything until you pull a trigger.”

  “An apt analogy,” I reply.

  We finish our breakfast. Wrik suggests that I make my call from the lobby on the pretext of buying something in the gift shop. “Lostly would be too frightened to make a call from the room for fear I would walk in on her or overhear something.”

  After breakfast I slip out of the room and run down the hallway, which is monitored. This time I do not blind the sensors. I take the elevator to the lobby then find a darkened corner to make my call on McCaffer private line. He is excited to hear from me and reassures me that this is very important information, worthy of a bonus.

  “Go along with whatever he wants. Do you know what time he plans to go across and where?”

  I advise McCaffer that we will cross at the diplomatic door C-13 at noon.

  “I’ll be there. Don’t worry about anything and keep up the good work.” He clicks off.

  I buy a random item in the gift shop and return to the room.

  “We’re on,” I say to Wrik as I close the door behind me

  We made our way to the oval of the interface entrance, where the familiar and unloved visage of John McCaffer greeted us. He was too much of a professional to sport a smug smile, but he couldn’t completely conceal how pleased he was that the cat had made it to the mouse hole first.

  “Good afternoon, Lt. Fels, Ms. Lostly. How are you?”

  I gave Maauro a sour look for effect and she managed an abashed expression. “Apparently I’m predictable, Mr. McCaffer.”

  “Lieutenant, I believe you will find my presence a boon. I handle many of our negotiations and interactions with the Ribisans, who can be extremely difficult to understand. I can’t imagine that you planned to wander about in a -100C methane-hydrogen atmosphere accosting random Ribisans from inside of an environmental unit about whether they sabotaged our elevator.”

  “See,” Maauro said with an exasperated gesture. “I told you it didn’t make any sense!”

  This time it was my turn to act chagrinned. “As I said, I do not intend to be monitored.”

  “Of course, of course,” McCaffer said, “I can say as much or as little as you deem necessary, but I think you would find even locating things on the other side of the airlock rather more confusing than you can imagine. How would you even find the office of the Commandant or obtain an audience with the Pillar?”

  “The Pillar?” I replied.

  “They don’t use the terms mayor or manager. The actual position would best be translated as, “The supporting pillar of God’s own community.” The position is both religious leader and head of the civil bureaucracy.”

  “Very interesting,” I said with a sigh of defeat. “Well, as you are here it would seem foolish of me not to make use of your services. As the senior Confed officer of a visiting starship, I should make a courtesy call on the local military and civil leaders. You do not have the former and I have already met the latter. So now it falls on me to pay that courtesy to the Ribisans and while doing so investigate the disappearances, whatever they were working on and the attempt on our lives.”

  “We have raised those issues with the Ribisans already, some as a result of your requests and in our own investigations.”

  “Nonetheless.”

  “I assumed that would be the case. I took the liberty of arranging a meeting for you with the head of the Naval Landing Forces, who provide our planetary security. We can also have a brief audience with the Pillar, though I have to tell you that neither was pleased by the shortness of the notice.”

  He turned to Maauro. “There’s no need for you to go Ms. Lostly. I can look after the Lieutenant from here.”

  “Oh no,” I said with a nasty tone. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving Ms. Lostly out of this little picnic.” It hadn’t occurred to me that McCaffer would try to separate us. Of course he regarded her as merely a starstruck local girl, who’d attached herself to me. Hopefully he would write off my reaction as a petty revenge to her having informed him of my movements.

  Maauro stuck her tongue out at me. “You probably couldn’t find your way back without me.”

  Probably couldn’t, I thought.

  McCaffer gave a rueful smile, shook his head, and turned to lead us to the entry panel. Our palms confirmed our identities biometrically. I assumed Maauro hacked hers so that it did not register her as a machine. I’d so come to believe in her almost magical power over lesser computers and AIs that it hadn’t even occurred to me to worry.

  There were smaller personnel entrances set in the main pressure door. A group of Ribisans in environmental suits trooped out of one of them. I eyed them with renewed dread as they towered over us, for all that their suits were weaponless and without military armor. The Ribisans, despite their squid-like appearance, had little difficulty standing in our low G, though a suit breach would quickly be fatal due to the pressure and atmosphere difference. Their suits lacked the bulk of ours, as they did not need the servos and actuators that allowed us to move in Cimer’s 1.8 gravities.

  We entered the interface, staggering slightly with the 1.2 gravities of the interface area, which served as an intermediary step into the true high gravity waiting for us. We walked down a white hallway to a changing room for e-suits. An older man, heavy with muscle, served as the suit chief, he greeted us at the rack of powered exoskeletons.

  “No need to worry about you in suit, L-tee,” the chief said with a grin. I guessed him for old Confed Navy man. He looked on a screen then at McCaffer. “I see your suit certification is also up to date.”

  “Now to you,” he said turning to Maauro. “Ah good, I see you had suit experience on the Ribisan ship you came out here on.”

  Maauro shrugged. “There wasn’t much else to do, Chief. I got interested after the first day’s lifeboat drill. I figured with the drill they’d showed me just enough to get myself killed and I better get some real training.”

  The chief laughed. “You’re smarter than most young people I meet. You just saved everybody a two-hour wait while I certified you. All we need to do is go over the servos and weight supports, which won’t take more than twenty-minutes.”

  I assumed Maauro had uploaded a certification to the city database while we were talking with the chief. I listened to her lie about her weight to the chief as he set the actuators but that too was not an issue. Maauro could carry the suit’s extra weight without any trouble.

  The chief chatted amiably with Maauro as he showed her the mechanics of the unit she could have manufactured herself, if needed. She managed to charm the old vet as he fitted her. In many respects, posing as the naive Lostly had honed her human interaction skills.

  We were quickly suited up. McCaffer wore a white suit with a standard space helmet. I opted for orange and a bubble helmet similar to the ones the Ribisans used. I wouldn’t have used it out in space where a star might be slowly roasting the back of my head, but in the murk of Cimer it could give me a better view of what was going on.

  “Might as well check the sidearm, L-tee,” the chief said. “A Mark-Niner might last twenty-minutes out there but that’s about all. You’d need weapons kitted out for high-p and super cold to pack out there.”

  Reluctantly I handed over my weapon. He was right of course and in any event Maauro was my only real protection.

  Maauro too wore a bubble helmet. I suppressed a groan when I saw she had chosen a pink suit. She was beginning to get lost in her part I thought. The Chief checked our displays and seals and gave us the traditional helmet slap before exiting the chamber.

  I watched my pressure gauge as the O2 was sucked out. The 1.2 g wasn’t bad as I rose, the suits powered actuators doing most of the work. The light then changed from the
warm yellow-white to the wan blue of a Cimmerian afternoon. Our suit displays outlined objects, and supplemented with UV and infrared, but we couldn’t use headlamps. The brilliant white light would be blinding, even dangerous to a Ribisan. I found that realization cheering.

  The door opposite us slid open and we walked out into the nightmare landscape of the vast Ribisan side of Tir-a-Mar. I stood gaping at the odd angles of the interior of their city. Blue, green and red sodium lights glowed against the dark-green metal that was the shell of the floating city. Slabs of metal covered in lights seemed to jut at random angles. Vehicles, from teardrop-shaped air transports, to open hover cars, moved through the thick murk. Squat robo-loaders, full of crates and goods, rolled in all directions from the Interface Zone to unguessed destinations. The effect was of movement in all axes.

  Ribisans themselves twirled in their tripodial balancing act on the long tentacle-like limbs. Here they seemed vastly different, more fluid and alive. Their grape cluster heads glowed with phosphorescence. It seemed for a second as if these had vastly more limbs than I had seen before, and then I realized that the creatures were wearing clothes that seemed composed of streamers of…something. At these temperatures and pressures some things that were liquid or gaseous, in our environment, were metal here. For all I knew they could be ceramic, or the skins of some impossible animal. Bits of some metal or ceramic reflected sparkles of light and it seemed some wore colored lights on their clothes as well. What any of it signified was beyond me.

  I was surprised by sounds, transmitted both by speakers and by conduction in my suit: hooting, trilling, dull booms. Some of it came from Cimer itself, for while we were well down in the bowels of the city, the structure was open to the sky – just like any human city. Above us, I could see many levels, but in the distance, lightening flashed across openings to the outside world. Despite the fantastic blast of lightning, thunder was muted, either pressure or some science of the Ribisans.