Against That Time

by Edward McKeown

  “I told you before, we are with Confed Intel—”

  “Bullshit. You people aren’t Confed military.”

  “Think of us as private contractors,” Maauro said, “with special talents.”

  “Special doesn’t even begin to cover you,” Croyzer replied. “I’m still trying to get over having actual conversations with an AI. I’ve served with Confed HCRs in the Marines. Compared to you they are kitchen appliances. Who made you? Where—”

  “The less you know about Maauro,” I interjected, “the longer you are likely to live.”

  “Answers, Wrik. You’re not going anywhere without them, killbot or no.”

  I winced. I’d called her a killbot once in a moment of anger. Before I knew she had feelings to hurt.

  I turned to Maauro. “It’s time to either call or fold.”

  “She’s human. I will leave judging her trustworthiness to you.”

  “Olivia, the price of learning this information can be high. What I tell you can never be repeated or it could literally mean war. Do you still want to know?’

  “I have to, if only for my own self-respect.”

  “Can any of the tactical team hear us?”

  “The Sergeant has a passive boom mike aimed at us,” Maauro said.

  “Ian,” Croyzer said. “Stand up and turn off the mike.”

  The huge sergeant stood, tossing off the top of the packing crate he had been hiding in. In his hands was a large bore triple-auto. A Confed military weapon I had not figured to see inside a pressurized station. The face under the ridged hair was not happy.

  “We are secure now,” Maauro said.

  I nodded. “We were sent here, ostensibly on a private commission, to find Diralia Shon, by her brother. Legitimate as that was, it was also a pretext to find out where the rest of the team was, what it was working on and why they hadn’t return to Confed space.

  “We found out. It’s something beyond anything we ever expected. The Ribisans have a way to predict future events in the multiverse. A small number of individuals with precognitive ability, at least as far as macro events go.”

  Croyzer barked a laugh. “Absurd. If they could do that they would have known about the Conchirri and the Evolvers—” she broke off, her mouth slightly open. The look of fury on her face made me twitch.

  “They did know,” I said. “It wasn’t strategic genius that kept them from suffering like the other races that encountered those two invasions. Nor was it the fact they are hydrogen-breathers. It was the knowledge that the invasions were coming and where. It allowed them to sidestep the worst of both attacks. Logically, it also allowed them to position their so-called allies in the path of the invasions, soaking up the blows, bleeding all sides but their own. I suspect that to some degree, they controlled the path of the Conchirri migration by funneling them, battling them only when they came near critical Ribisan interests. How unfortunate for the Confederacy that we were the next folks in line.”

  “Excellent strategy,” Maauro said. “By keeping the source of their intelligence concealed, they could join in the victories and avoid the worst of the defeats.”

  “The Vanians went extinct fighting the Conchirri, the Skurlocks and the Okarans nearly so,” Croyzer said. “When they finally reached the Confederacy, my homeworld was bombed. We took four million casualties. My grandfather was killed fighting in the landing zone. The Conchirri might never have come this way. They might have been stopped by the other races before they even reached us. Hell – if they could see the future, they could have seen us. They could have sent warning…THEY KNEW!” Olivia stood, the baton gripped in white-knuckled hands.

  The sergeant snapped up his weapon.

  “Maauro, no!” I said.

  But she had not moved and merely gazed impassively at Olivia trembled with rage above us. “This reaction is what you predicted, Wrik. I can only imagine that it would be the same Confederacy-wide, if this gets out.”

  Croyzer waved an imperious hand at her sergeant to lower his weapon. He did so with visible reluctance.

  “Yes,” I said. “They knew. They didn’t tell any of their allies in the old Nekoan-led Concord. They let billions die unwarned and they let them through to our space. Assuming they didn’t actively send them our way, figuring the Confederacy would destroy them. They might have stopped them short of us, or directed them into unoccupied space. But they didn’t.”

  “My God,” Croyzer said. “We ought to wipe them out.”

  “Should we?” I said. “Do you want to add a third interstellar war to the butcher’s bill? Maybe it would be just, I don’t know. It means millions more dead at the least, maybe billions. Nobody knows how many Ribisans there are and they’re the most technologically advanced race in the Confederacy. It would take all of us to bring them down if we can. And then what?”

  “The ability to predict the future is dying out,” Shon interjected. “There’s one individual left, well, one last brain left, capable of it. It was brought to this lab on the world closest to Confederate Space in the hope that our biogenetic engineers could replicate the ability. It’s a science that the Ribisans, being a silicate lifeform without DNA, never developed.”

  “Our mission,” I concluded, “is to get down to this secret lab and decide whether this work should be stopped or allowed to continue, and to do it without triggering a civil war between the Ribisan religious orders who oppose the work and the Reformists who support it. If the other races learn of the Ribisan’s foresight into the future and how it wasn’t used to help them, a war of vengeance could erupt.”

  “And now your decision,” Maauro said, “is whether we proceed with our mission or return to the Confederacy, our task undone.”

  Olivia stood considering, her eyes fixed somewhere in the distance. Then slowly she sheathed her baton. She jumped down from the dropship – a steep drop for all that she managed it easily. “What can I do to help?”

  “For now,” I said. “Let us go. We also have two other operatives on Tir-a-Mar: a Nekoan female posing as a Guild smuggler under the name Fyvia Minogue, her real name is Jaelle Tekala, and a Dua-Denlenn male named Dusko. Watch out for them. Back them up if they run into Guild trouble.”

  “They would be the ones off the small ship pretending to hide out from your vessel, the Pisces. The female must be the one I chased from that Guild weapons buy. She’s been busy coming and going off Tir-a-Mar. She should be landing with a shuttle soon.”

  Damn, I thought, does she miss anything? “Yes.”

  “I’d have gone after them, but they are in high orbit. My jurisdiction is only within the walls of Tir-a-Mar, not that I don’t keep an eye out beyond those walls.”

  “You know you might have a promising career in Confed Intelligence yourself. I think they could use somebody with a mind like yours,” I said.

  She shook her glossy blonde hair. “Not with my record.”

  I grimaced. “They are less interested in records than you think. Witness me.”

  Croyzer considered Maauro who returned the other woman’s gaze unblinkingly. “I don’t have your special friends either, but who can say?”

  She drew a deep breath. “Continue on your mission, Wrik and Maauro. But if I find out you two lied to me, I swear I will hunt you down.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Croyzer walked forward until she and I were shoulder to shoulder, facing opposite ways, then she paused. “I have a feeling that our paths are meant to cross again, we three.”

  “We may learn that below,” Maauro said.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  We took the dropship after Croyzer and her officers withdrew, wedging ourselves carefully among the cargo and supplies for the base below. It wouldn’t pay to be squashed by a loose crate, or sprain one’s back in the high-G before we arrived. The cargo pod was automatic, so the flight would be short –
more like an elevator ride than a flight, but I found my hands itching for the non-existent controls.

  “All is in readiness,” Maauro says. “Security is bypassed and the flight is balanced for our weight.” She turned away to seal the hatch.

  “She’s a wonder,” Diralia breathed as we settled on the padding Maauro had carried out for us.

  “Yep,” I said.

  “I never imagined a machine as anything other than a servant, even the best AI’s have only the personalities we create for them. Otherwise they are simply static, incapable of growth or change in their basic interface.”

  Maauro returned and settled in next to me. She, of course, had heard every word but with her usual tact, gave no indication.

  The cargo pod gave a sickening lurch as it dropped free.

  Diralia paled. “Well it’s one way to beat the effects of high-gravity.”

  “Free-fall?” I replied. “I don’t recommend it.”

  Lightning flashed in the dark sky visible through a plaststeel panel in the door.

  “I find myself with a new appreciation of the virtues of being inside a sturdy ship,” Maauro said.

  I laughed and she smiled back.

  Diralia gave us both a puzzled look.

  I shook my head. “Long story.”

  “The pod’s controls and systems are nominal. We are fifteen minutes from landing at our destination. Due to the fragile cargo listed on the manifest, the braking force will be bearable, if not comfortable.” Maauro added.

  “The trip down is a lot shorter than the voyage up, still I wish I were heading the other way. You are going to get me off this gasball, right?” Diralia asked, her face aged by the 1.8Gs.

  “First things first,” I replied. “There’s this predictor and its powers to sort out.”

  “You did take my brother’s money to rescue me, remember?”

  “Yes,” Maauro said, “the sum covered our hydroponics and food stores.”

  “Do you eat?” Diralia asked suddenly.

  Maauro turned toward her. “It would be best if you contained your curiosity about me. The less you know, the less interest Confed Intelligence will have in holding you to debrief about me when we return to Star Central. But, yes, I can ingest a wide variety of substances, including overly inquisitive humans.”

  “She’s very fond of sweets, though,” I added.

  Maauro sighed.

  “Well that gives us something in common,” Diralia added, trying for a lighter mood. “Wish I had your figure.”

  Maauro returned an enigmatic look, but said nothing more and we rode the pod in silence.

  I receive an alert from Jaelle. “Maauro, trouble.”

  I open the channel to her mind and eyes and immediately see the cause of the concern. Jaelle and Dusko are standing by the Stardust’s heavy-duty shuttle, preparing it for the flight down to pick us up. Facing them is Sheskaya, Hartain’s bodyguard and a Morok we have not seen before. I cannot use my sensors through Jaelle’s body but I am certain both are armed.

  “Sheskaya, what are you doing here?” Jaelle asks.

  “Hartain sent us,” she replied. “There’s room enough in the shuttle for us. He thought you might need help with the Confed officer.”

  With the small segment of my quantum brain I am using to monitor Jaelle, I realize the danger.

  “Dusko,” I send. “Are you armed?”

  “Stunner only. I don’t fancy my chances with two Guild gunmen.”

  I am struck by my helplessness. For all my power and armaments there is nothing I can do to affect the situation. Yet if Sheskaya boards the shuttle she will be in a position to forestall our escape.

  I switch to Jaelle who is arguing with the Guild gunners. I feel her body enter a state of readiness, not tense, but fluid and ready, capable of reaction speeds greater than human.

  “I do not need help,” Jaelle says again to the Guilders. “Your presence could alert him to trouble.”

  “Hartain covers his bets,” Sheskaya replied, her hand drifting to her jacket, “especially with people he has not worked with before. Frankly, to my way of thinking, he has been too trusting with you on the basis of too little.”

  The Morok grunted and he too seemed to be reaching for a weapon.

  Just as I was about to order Jaelle and Dusko to stand down, the Morok stiffened in the paroxysm of a stunner shot. From behind the shuttle, Olivia Croyzer and her sergeant broke from cover, weapons in hand.

  Sheskaya spun almost as quick as thought toward Croyzer, her weapon clearing its holster. But Jaelle, faster still, launched herself straight up. Her foot cracked into the Dua-Denlenn’s jaw. Sheskaya dropped soundlessly, stunned or dead.

  Jaelle and Dusko raise their hands as Croyzer walks up, negligently tapping the stunner on her thigh. “Well, well, that looks like the Guild gunner Sheskaya I’ve heard mentioned.”

  “It is,” Jaelle answers. “And you are Chief Croyzer.”

  “That makes you, Jaelle, and him, Dusko,” Croyzer said. “You and I almost met a few days ago.

  “Wrik told me about it.”

  Croyzer studies Jaelle for an extended period. “You’re on your way to pull their butts out of whatever fire they are jumping into.”

  “Yeah,” Jaelle replies, lowering her hands. “The usual.”

  “Having met those two I can believe that,” Croyzer growls.

  She turns to her Sergeant and points at the prone Guilders. “Cuff these two and drag them out of the way.”

  The huge sergeant grins and does so. He grabs both by their feet and drags them off.

  “I assume you can report this to Maauro, somehow,” Croyzer says.

  “Already have. She knows we are coming.”

  “Good.”

  “I have a gift for you,” Jaelle says. “Hartain mentioned a TAMPD officer who died earlier this year in what looked like an accident. It wasn’t. Sheskaya did it.”

  A terrifying look passed over Croyzer’s face. “I’ll need a verified statement.”

  “You’ll get it. Before we leave or through Confed military. But these two will turn on each other fast enough.”

  “Ok. Get going on your mission. Give my best to Wrik and Maauro if they make it.”

  “They’ll make it,” Jaelle insisted.

  “Be careful in the ascent,” I say to them both. “Your ship’s design parameters are only barely adequate to the deep lab levels.”

  “We’ll be careful,” Jaelle promises.

  “No, we won’t” Dusko grimaces, “but we will try to avoid the suicidal. Wrap up your business, Maauro. We won’t be able to linger at those depths.”

  “Understood. Do not anticipate further communication from me for a while. I must concentrate my powers now. Maauro out.”

  Wrik looks at me. “Anything going on? You seemed distracted for a minute there.”

  There is no point worrying him about it. “Nothing important.”

  The retros kicked on and the pressure was, as promised, bearable but not pleasant. Maauro stood with no evident difficulty and walked over to the small plaststeel portal at the front. Diralia and I stayed on the floor waiting for the relief of the AG field of the base.

  “I see it,” Maauro reported, “an oblong shape, similar to the giant submarine freighters that service the undersea cities on Star Central. It’s the usual green metal of the Ribisans and lit up like a holiday decoration. We are homing in on it.”

  “The central core is the 02 low gravity section. With this cargo, we should head right there.” Diralia managed.

  Maauro nodded. “That is the case. Doors are opening below us.”

  But she did not need to tell us. Seconds later the blessed relief of the AG field returned our weight to normal. We both rose easily, feeling light as feathers. Outside, the murky atmosphere and bl
ue lighting of the Ribisans disappeared, replaced by clean yellow-white light.

  “We are in and secure. I see unloading robos heading for us.”

  The shuttle locked down and the indicator on the door glowed green. I peered outside. The movement I saw was all mechanical, a variety of auto-loaders shuffled around. Several advanced on us.

  “From here,” Maauro said, “we move rapidly. We will overcome any opposition as we head to the lab, hopefully, with nonlethal force, but overcome it we must.”

  Diralia and I nodded. Her breathing was rapid and shallow and the hand holding the civilian model stunner I’d given her shook a little.

  My own mouth was dry and my heart slugged heavily in my chest. I made a conscious effort to slow my own breathing as I gave her an encouraging nod. I’d never be one of those nuts who enjoyed danger, but it least it was familiar to me. I wondered if those characters we all saw in entertainment, who thrived on this sort of thing were real. I’d never met one.

  Maauro looked at me and I shrugged off my thoughts. “We’re ready.”

  Maauro pushed open the hatch and stepped out briskly with us on her heels. I held a laser in my right and heavy military stunner in my left.

  The wheeled robots coming toward us drifted to a stop, their upper limbs drooping. Two humanoid models, figures of smooth white plastic, staggered and fell in a clatter of limbs as Maauro’s cybernetic attacks spread outward.

  “Problem,” Maauro said, as we rushed forward, “the barriers and encryption on the systems here are stronger than those on Tir-a-Mar. I cannot blind them quickly, but must disable them. Their biological supervisors will learn we are here in mere seconds.”

  We advanced in the widening pool of failing machinery.

  A shout came from the far end of the dock. Two humans and a Morok in dark overalls ran out toward us, gesturing angrily. None showed weapons. Overhead an alarm began to hoot in a blinking ceiling panel. I shot the alarm into silence with my laser as we broke into a trot.