by Allen Steele
Nash hesitated, then sucked on the straw. Cool water, sweeter than any wine he had ever tasted, flowed into his parched mouth and down his dry throat. He drank more greedily, but suddenly choked and began to cough, spraying the sheet with saliva.
‘No no no,’ L’Enfant cautioned. ‘That’s too much.’ He pulled the bottle away from Nash’s mouth, then picked up his limp right hand and placed it around the bottle, letting the cold bottom of the flask rest on Nash’s chest. ‘When you’re ready, there it is, but take it easy for a few minutes. Okay?’
Nash didn’t say anything. L’Enfant was a solid black mass hovering over his bed; he stepped back a couple of feet, and now the glow from the lamp surrounded his head and shoulders like a corona, giving density to his figure but rendering no detail to his face. A dark god of madness and torture.
‘They told me you were brave,’ L’Enfant said. His voice was a low monotone, as metronomic as the ticking of a clock. ‘You didn’t talk, you seldom cried out. Sergeant Marks was particularly impressed by your performance. I can’t honestly tell you that they’re sorry for what they did, but if it makes you feel any better, the sergeant said…’
‘Fu-fu-fuck you,’ Nash managed to whisper.
L’Enfant said nothing for a minute. He finally let out his breath. ‘I shouldn’t have expected anything different.’ There was another pause. ‘For what it’s worth, though, I’m proud that you were once a member of my old crew. I despise whimperers.’
Nash didn’t speak. He expected L’Enfant to disappear, having said his piece, but the commander remained next to the bed. ‘I think now,’ he continued, ‘that you were only a half-liar. That you had heard of the seventh protocol, but didn’t know what it meant. When we found the gun, I was certain that you had been sent to kill me, with the protocol being used as a rather tenuous rationale. I’ll ask you again, but this time I’ll amend my question. Do you know what the seventh protocol is?’
Nash shook his head slightly. The motion made his head ache, but L’Enfant didn’t respond. He was waiting for a verbal reply. ‘No,’ Nash murmured. ‘I don’t know.’
Another long pause. ‘I don’t think you would have the stupidity to lie to me now,’ L’Enfant said, ‘so I’ll tell you.’
He crossed his arms. ‘When the possibility of discovering alien life forms was still only theoretical,’ he began, ‘a group of SETI researchers met in England and developed procedures regarding first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, should it ever occur. This was eventually synthesized into a declaration of principles, which was then submitted to the United Nations as a draft memorandum. Although this declaration was never formally ratified regarding international space law, it served as the basis for an informal treaty on first contact. When the Cooties were discovered, the declaration became the statute by which the Security Council and the World Court were able to judge and rule against the CIS when it attempted to take military control of this base. Although it was not legally binding, it served much the same purpose. Do you understand so far?’
Nash nodded his head; this time, L’Enfant didn’t require him to speak. ‘There were seven amendments to this declaration,’ he went on. ‘A set of protocols. The last of these, the seventh protocol, has become the most important of all in our present situation.’
He raised a finger. ‘I quote: “In the event that extraterrestrials appear to pose a threat to human health, well-being, or peace, no nation shall act without consulting the Security Council of the United Nations.” End quote. Do you understand now?’
Nash thought about it for a few moments, but it was hard for him to make the connection. ‘No,’ he whispered, ‘I don’t.’
L’Enfant turned and walked back to his chair. ‘I suspect that Dr. Kawakami told you much about the Cooties,’ he said as he sat down, ‘but since his theories tend to be rather orthodox, I doubt he has told you of my own conjectures.’
He crossed his legs and folded his hands in his lap, as leisurely as if he were enjoying a parlor conversation with an old shipmate. ‘Far be it from me to interpret his work for you, but based on what he and his team have uncovered since I’ve been in command here, I’ve reached my own inescapable conclusion that the Cooties pose just such a threat.’
His head rocked back a little as he gazed up at the ceiling; in the dim light, Nash could see that his eyes were half-closed, almost meditatively. Nash noticed that, twice already, he had referred to the aliens as the Cooties, not pseudo-Cooties. Was this merely a slip of the tongue, or did it have a larger significance?
‘And here is the irony of our situation,’ L’Enfant mused. ‘The UN allowed us to come here to act as a peacekeeping force against further Russian aggression. Indeed, if the CIS did attempt to put military units on Mars again, we would have carte blanche to deal with them…the old agreement would be instantly nullified. The Pentagon even secretly provided us with guns and the necessary equipment to make the old STS fighter flight-ready again, in the case of such an event, unlikely though it is.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘But the Russians are the very least of our worries. They no longer pose a threat…it’s the Cooties which are our main concern. Several people have already died making contact with them, yet because of the seventh protocol, we supposedly cannot act to counter aggression by an advanced alien species without consultation and permission from the UN Security Council.’
He sighed and raised his hands expansively. ‘This place is a beachhead, August. The safety of our race…the entire human race, not just the Americans or the Russians or the Japanese…is on the verge of utter extermination, with Cydonia Base as the starting point. Yet if this were to be brought to the attention of the Security Council, they would not act on it until the last possible moment. And by then, it would be much too late. Our window of opportunity, our chance to make a preemptive counterstrike, would be irretrievably lost. All because the politicians, the scientists, the…’
L’Enfant shook his head with infinite disgust. ‘The free-thinkers,’ he finished, spitting out the last phrase as if it were poison on his tongue. ‘They want to believe that the Cooties mean us no harm. They cling to the naive supposition that an advanced species must be warm and cuddly and peace loving, just as Kawakami waves Drake’s Equation in front of me and claims that this is proof that the Cooties can mean us no harm only because they mastered interstellar flight.’
He bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together, his shadowed face now looking directly at Nash. ‘But I’m a military man,’ he said, his voice growing more intense. ‘A soldier. I make no apologies for the way I think. This is an alien culture and therefore we cannot assume anything, least of all peaceful intent. Given the fact that the Cooties deliberately lured us to this place, then have murdered nearly everyone who has come in direct contact with them while concealing their own actions and motives, I have to assume that they mean nothing but harm to us.’
He paused; his head turned slightly to one side, as if he was lost in his thoughts. ‘Are you familiar with the sundew plant?’ he abruptly asked.
Nash knew of it, but he shook his head instead. ‘The sundew survives by luring insects onto its leaves with sweet pollen-like smells,’ L’Enfant explained as he spread open the palm of his right hand. ‘When the unwary insect alights, it gets stuck in the plant’s adhesive leaves. By then, it is much too late, for the plant has already begun to close in upon its prey.’
He closed his hand into a fist. ‘Suffocating it, then slowly ingesting it.’ He looked up at Nash again. ‘The Face is much like the sundew. Do you see?’
Nash said nothing. There was another long pause as L’Enfant gazed down at the floor. ‘There are those on Earth who agree with me,’ he said slowly, ‘and they have given me…my men and I, that is…the means to make certain that we do not suffer the same fate as the insect in the sundew. Do you understand now?’
L’Enfant looked up at him again, clearly waiting for an answer. Nash licked his dry lips. ‘The same way as you
dealt with the Takada Maru?’ he ventured.
It was a risky question, loaded to the hilt, and he was not at all certain how L’Enfant would react. The commander didn’t reply at once; he looked away once more, this time as if he was embarrassed. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, almost inaudible.
‘You despise me for what I did, don’t you?’ he asked. ‘Even though I acted to save your own life…yes, seaman, I know that you were on deck when I ordered the torpedoes…you still hate me for that.’
Nash made no reply. L’Enfant chuckled deep in his throat. ‘That’s all right, sailor. I’ve become accustomed to the recriminations, and from better men than you.’ He sighed. ‘Yes, just like the Takada Maru. And again, a flimsy UN resolution is used against me. Only this time, there will be a major difference.’
L’Enfant stood up from his chair and slowly walked toward the bed. ‘You were sent here as a spy,’ he went on, ‘and this is precisely the role which you shall perform. You will be my witness…this is the sole reason why you’re still alive now. I won’t tell you what will be done or how, but when you return to Earth, you will carry the full record of what was done here.’
He thrust his right hand into a pocket, pulled out something, and tossed it onto the bed next to Nash. ‘Here. It may still be useful to you, but let me know if you need better photographic equipment.’
Nash prowled the bedsheet with his left hand until he found the object; he didn’t need to lift it to the light to recognize it. It was his wristwatch, with its built-in miniaturized camera.
‘So what are you going to do, Commander?’ he asked.
‘I won’t tell you now,’ L’Enfant replied. ‘I don’t want you to ruin things for everyone else.’ He stepped back from the bed. ‘I trust Dr. Isralilova paid good attention to your injuries, so you should be able to walk again by tomorrow morning.’
He turned and began walking toward the hatch. ‘Be in the monitor center, Module Eight, by oh-eight-hundred tomorrow. You’ll see the beginning of the operation.’ He stopped and hesitated for a moment. ‘For future reference, its official code name is Kentucky Derby. Someone in the Pentagon has a good sense of irony, don’t you think?’
L’Enfant opened the hatch; caught for a moment in the shaft of light from the access corridor, he turned and looked back at the man in the bed. ‘Good night, Mr Nash,’ he said. ‘Sleep well.’
Then he exited the module, shutting the hatch behind him.
Are we safe?
Miho Sasaki wrote the three words on a slip of paper and passed it to Tamara Isralilova.
They were alone in Module Five, lying in bed on opposite sides of the bunkhouse. The overhead lights were switched off, but the sullen amber glow of Deimos shined through the slot windows at the far side of the module. Each woman had a penlight hidden beneath her bedcovers, illuminating the scratchpads on which they furtively communicated.
As Isralilova reached out to accept the paper, they heard footsteps in the corridor. She snatched the note from Sasaki’s fingertips and snapped off her light; Miho could hear the paper being crumpled into a wad as Tamara prepared to eat the message. Sasaki switched off her own penlight, and they lay still until they heard the footsteps pass their hatch, heading for the command module.
Marks, probably, since he was on watch right now. Or perhaps L’Enfant himself. Isralilova’s penlight clicked on again; Sasaki watched as she uncurled the wadded paper, read her last question, and scrawled a reply on the opposite side. Miho’s crotch itched from the small wads of paper she had already shoved down the front of her panties; when this conversation was concluded, she knew that she would have to eat them all.
Thinking of this, she pulled out one of the paper-wads and thrust it into her mouth, chewing it into a pulp.
Tamara completed her note and passed it back to her. Yes I think so, but your new so who knows? it read in her badly-spelled English. Akers came in here ounce but I screamed loud until Swigart came to help me. Do same if he trys again.
At first Miho didn’t understand what she meant, then she hissed as she re-read the note. Charlie Akers had attempted to rape Tamara; it was a blessing that one of the other Americans was a woman. But that wasn’t the answer to the question she had intended to ask.
Picking up her own pen, she wrote beneath Tamara’s hand-script: Sorry it happened. Thanks for advice, but not what I mean. Are we safe tomorrow? All of us? She underlined ‘tomorrow’ to stress the point, then passed it back to Tamara.
While Isralilova read her note and formulated her reply on a fresh scrap of paper, Sasaki listened intently for the sound of the sentry in the corridor. She recalled nights like this in her teenage years, when her parents had sent her to an exclusive girls’ boarding school outside Hiroshima. Lights-out in the dorms had been at nine o’clock, and although there were prefects who had prowled the halls in search of those who dared break the rules, it had never prevented her from carrying on similar written conversations with her roommate. This was not very different from those giggly nights, but she had no warm feeling of nostalgia. Back then, the subject of late-night notes in the dark had been boys and teachers and adolescent homesickness; tonight, it was the continuance of their lives.
Tamara finished writing and stretched out her hand; Miho plucked the new note from between her fingertips and unfolded the paper beneath her penlight. No!! L. has something planned for after V.’s trip into tunnel. Dangeros. Has to do with secrets (?) in Mod. 1—think a new CAS in there, do not know details. A. and M. in their alot. Trouble!
Sasaki gnawed at her lower lip. Tamara knew little more than what Shin-ichi had already told her, except to confirm that Paul Verduin’s sortie tomorrow morning was instrumental in L’Enfant’s plans. She had the odd suspicion that Nash might have learned something new—despite the horrendous beating he had endured this afternoon, he had been separated from her for more than twelve hours now—but there was no way she could get to Module Nine, where Tamara had treated him.
She still had the keycard-decoder, though. She had continually switched its hiding-place since Nash had been captured, but except for Marks’ discovery of the bugs in her jumpsuit, no one had yet subjected her to a full-body search—although she now suspected that Akers would love to do so.
More importantly, though, she was beginning to understand that L’Enfant’s paranoia was his main weakness. Despite his seeming omniscience, the commander had developed a blindspot toward her, apparently dismissing Miho as a simple-minded accomplice to Nash’s own schemes. Whether he had overlooked her previous role at Cydonia Base a couple of years earlier, distracted by his efforts to expose Nash, or whether he simply believed that she didn’t pose a significant threat to him, Miho didn’t know—or care—even if he’d insulted her by grossly underestimating her intelligence. L’Enfant’s arrogance and ignorance were her sole advantages at this moment, and she needed to find a way to use them.
If she could only get to Module One and use her decoder to unlock the airlock hatch…
No. She had a higher priority, although it wasn’t the one which JETRO had intended when they sent her back to Mars. She picked up her pen, hesitated, and wrote: Most important! Destroy this at once! We leave tomorrow on the airship. B. will take you, me and others aboard after
…Again, footsteps in the corridor. Tamara immediately switched off her penlight. For an instant, Miho was tempted to ignore the risk and keep writing. Then the footsteps stopped right outside the hatch, and she quickly snapped off her own penlight and shoved it beneath her pillow.
She was barely able to wad the note into a tiny ball and shove it into her mouth before the hatch opened. Faking sleep, she squinted through her eyelids as a shaft of light came through the hatch. Her heartbeat thudded in her eardrums as a jumpsuited figure stepped through the doorway. For a terrifying moment she thought that Charlie Akers was coming for her; she pulled her knees closer to her chest, curling into a protective fetal position…
‘Pardon me, ladies,’ Mega
n Swigart said as she came in. ‘Mind if I join you tonight?’
Feigning drowsiness, Miho sat up in her bunk, holding the dry wad of paper in her mouth. Across from her, she could see Tamara wincing in the sudden light, holding up her hand as if she, too, had been suddenly awakened from a deep sleep.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Swigart said as she closed the hatch again. ‘The commander thought you might want a little company. That okay with you?’
In the renewed darkness, Miho heard the lieutenant walk through the module and settle down on one of the unmade bunks in the rear. If Swigart intended to sleep, she was going to do it fully dressed; Miho didn’t hear the distinctive sound of clothes sliding to the floor. Indeed, Swigart didn’t even take off her boots.
Miho tucked the wad of paper into her cheek with her tongue. ‘That is fine,’ she replied, pretending to be half-awake. ‘Good night.’
Swigart didn’t answer. Miho laid her head down on the pillow, masticating the note as quietly as she could. L’Enfant wasn’t taking any chances; she and Tamara were to have their own personal sentry tonight, and their single line of communication had just been severed.
Tamara was right. The situation had become extraordinarily dangerous.
17. Breakout
IT WAS VERY different from operating the spider. In virtual reality, death was only an abstraction, a cessation of function by the teleoperated machine at the other end of an electromagnetic channel. This time, though, the stakes were far higher; as Paul Verduin watched the canopy hatch being lowered into place by Marks, he was uncomfortably reminded of seeing a tomb being closed—from the inside.
‘Cut it out,’ he whispered to himself. ‘You’re not going to die.’
‘Pardon me?’ Shin-ichi Kawakami’s voice came through the comlink as a thin, static-filled crackle. ‘Did you just say something?’
Verduin let out his breath. ‘Negative,’ he replied. ‘Ready for power-up.’
He reached up to the overhead console and toggled a series of recessed switches; there was a harsh whine from the rear engine compartment as the Jackalope’s turbines engaged. Multicolored lights flashed across the consoles within the tiny cockpit, and on the secondary flatscreen between his knees, the main onboard computer scrolled a long sequence of status checks. He could hear Akers climbing off the hull; he hoped that the lieutenant didn’t accidentally rip loose one of the external electrical conduits with his boot heels.