Genellan: Planetfall

by Скотт Г. Джир

  He would deal with the nobility at a more convenient time. The government was his and now he would govern.

  * * *

  Hudson watched Longo and his soldiers leave the agricultural dome.

  "Colonel Longo was polite," Hudson said, relieved to have the confrontation behind him. The meeting had been short, the temperature in the dome uncomfortably cool for the kones. And anticlimactic—Hudson had agonized through the long hours prior. Et Silmarn, Kateos, and Dowornobb said nothing until Longo and his subalterns had departed the dome.

  "Be not-ah deceived, Hudsawn," Kateos said in Legion. "Colonel Longo is a senior security officer, a trained liar. You must-ah be careful."

  "But Mistress Kateos, my people must deal with your government some time," Hudson replied. "There are so few of us. Why would your government not let us settle on Genellan? We could not exist on Kon. What other option is there?"

  "There is at-ah least-ah one other option, Huhsawn," Et Silmarn said, speaking the human's tongue. "It-ah is not-ah a good one."

  * * *

  Longo dismissed his soldiers. He cantered into the austere quarters reserved for visiting dignitaries and looked out the window. Blue shadows raced over snow-covered ground, the overcast shattered by the sun and wind. Longo shivered and turned his back. His distaste at being on the forsaken planet was deep.

  "A miserable place," he said aloud, but he was not really in an ill mood. The meeting with the alien—the human—had gone well. Longo was impressed with the alien's ability to speak the konish tongue. The buzzer on his entry sounded.

  "Enter," Longo said. A messenger stood at attention on all fours.

  "Colonel Longo! We have received word General Gorruk has taken control of the government. Emperor Jook is dead."

  Longo' s mouth dropped open, and then his gape turned into a opportunistic grin. General Gorruk was a formidable kone yet a known entity. Longo's smile broadened—Emperor-General Gorruk would, of course, be interested in his mission. The security officer drafted a message reaffirming his loyalties and summarizing his activities.

  "Send this through your most secure means. And retransmit the latest summaries of our interrogations—and the videos. Include the videos," Longo commanded.

  Gorruk' s response arrived four hours later:

  TO: SECURITY COL. LONGO FM: EMPEROR-GENERAL

  CLASS ONE SECURITY/COL. LONGO'S EYES ONLY

  AM AWARE OF YOUR ACTIVITIES. ALIENS REPRESENT THREAT. LOCATE AND ELIMINATE USING ALL MEANS AT YOUR DISPOSAL. REPORT STATUS DAILY. IF ADDITIONAL RESOURCES REQUIRED, SO STATE.

  GORRUK

  Longo stared at the short message. An idea sifted into his consciousness. It was risky, but he would dare to send a counter suggestion. The intelligence officer sat down and drafted a reply:

  TO: EMPEROR-GENERAL GORRUK, SUPREME LEADER FM: SECURITY COL. LONGO

  CLASS ONE SECURITY/GENERAL GORRUK'S EYES ONLY NO ADDITIONAL RESOURCES ARE REQUIRED.

  UNLESS YOU DIRECT OTHERWISE, MY PLAN AS FOLLOWS. WILL PRESERVE LIFE OF THE ONE ALIEN IN MY CONTROL. WILL USE TO ASSIST IN GETTING CLOSE TO REMAINING ALIENS. IT IS WINTER AND TOO COLD FOR OPERATIONS WHERE ALIENS ARE LOCATED. IN LOCAL SPRING (KON DATE: 13M26) AN EXPEDITION TO THE ALIEN ENCAMPMENT WILL BE MOUNTED. ALIENS WILL BE LIQUIDATED OR CAPTURED AS YOU DIRECT.

  LONGO COL. SECURITY

  Longo coded the message into the burst transmitters and, with burgeoning trepidation, punched the transmit button. Gorruk's response arrived two hours later:

  TO: SECURITY COL. LONGO FM: EMPEROR-GENERAL

  CLASS ONE SECURITY/COL. LONGO'S EYES ONLY

  KILL THE ALIENS. HOW YOU ACCOMPLISH THAT TASK IS UP TO YOU. DO NOT FAIL.

  GORRUK

  * * *

  "Is winter never going to end?" Buccari sniffed. She stood shivering in front of the lodge fireplace. Her feet were wet and her toes were near frostbitten—again.

  "It's almost over," MacArthur whispered, teeth chattering. They had bravely attempted a patrol of the perimeter. The biting cold had turned them back before reaching the palisade wall. "I don't give it another month. It was balmy outside."

  Buccari looked at his windburned features and laughed softly. As Buccari and MacArthur talked, Tookmanian made a rare appearance outside the labor room to add wood to the galley fire. To no one's surprise, the tall saturnine man had taken charge of the birthing. A tarpaulin hung across the entrance to the water room, isolating it and converting it into a labor room for Lee. The dried wood crackled and popped as it ignited. A gust of wind rattled across the roof. Tookmanian disappeared behind the curtain.

  "How's Les doing, Nance?" Buccari inquired.

  Dawson lay drowsing next to the fire. She and Goldberg had alternated waking hours through the night. The pregnant female's water had broken in the early morning hours, and Lee had been in painful labor ever since.

  "Don't know, Lieutenant," Dawson yawned. "She's asleep, but I don't know if that's a good sign or not. At least it keeps Winnie quiet."

  Fenstermacher lay bundled in a corner, sound asleep. Sleep had been hard to come by, and most of the men were upstairs in the loft trying to recover from the long night. Mendoza and Schmidt sat at the table helping Tatum and Shannon take care of the babies. Miraculously, both infants napped. During the previous night and day they had efficiently taken shifts whining and screaming. The confined space of the lodge had never seemed smaller or more crowded.

  The silence ended. Everyone's attention was collected by a gulping, gasping groan followed by loud grunts. Fenstermacher leapt awake and dove through the slitted opening. Dawson, moving more slowly, followed. Agonizing minutes crawled by.

  "Okay! Okay!" came Tookmanian' s deep voice. Lee yelled and gagged.

  "Don't hold back, Les," Dawson encouraged. "Go ahead and scream."

  "Okay, momma. Push!" Tookmanian growled. "Okay! Okay! Okay! Okay!"

  "Come on, Les," Goldberg gasped. "You can do it!"

  Lee screamed—a deep, throaty roar never expected from the shy medic. Outside the curtain everyone stared with grieved wonder, unable to shut out reality by simply closing their eyes. It was a prison. Deathly cold beyond the stone walls of the lodge, it was too cold to leave; they were trapped! They shared! If not the pain, all hands shared the uncertainty and the stark terror of the suffering mother's plight. They were joined in tribulation, and they prayed—prayed with all their might to whatever greater power they could invoke.

  "Oka-a-a-y-y-y!" Tookmanian announced, a statement of triumph.

  Courage and hope welled. The inmates bravely made eye contact with their fellows. The newborn baby's lusty cry was a clarion call for life, and collectively held breaths were expelled, forced out by joyous cheers. The older infants added to the bedlam with frightened cries.

  Dawson appeared, finger to her lips. "Shhhh! It's a girl! Shhh!" she admonished, but she was smiling as she disappeared into the water room.

  Buccari looked about. The realization that she was the only woman not involved in the birthing caused discomfiture, and she did not know why. She did not have time to ponder. Dawson, leather apron bloodied, burst from the curtain with two pots. "Fill up the water pot with snow and get it boiling. Quick! We need more hot water!" she brusquely ordered, to no one and to everyone. Mendoza and Schmidt hurried to obey.

  "Is everything all right?" Tatum asked.

  "She's hemorrhaging," Dawson muttered as she went behind the curtain.

  In her hurry Dawson left the curtain partially open, exposing a forceful firelit tableau. Tookmanian, an expression of stoic resolve set firmly on his craggy features, bent over the exposed body of the mother, tense arms bloody to the elbow. A frightened Goldberg stood at the head of the bed, the raw newborn in her arms, displayed for the mother to see. Dawson, wild red hair tangled and bedraggled, stood erect, holding clean rags at the ready, bravely awaiting her next assignment. Fenstermacher, his back to the opening, knelt on the wooden floor.

  "Oh, Leslie. We have a baby, Leslie. We have a baby," Fenst
ermacher sobbed. The little man put his cheek next to Lee's and held her hands. "I love you, Leslie. Oh Les, I love you so much. Don't leave me."

  Chapter 39. Return of the Fleet

  Admiral Runacres deployed his motherships in staggered columns, line ahead, with Tasmania in the van at two tactical spans, and Eire, carrying his flag, next in line. All active signal emissions, except for directional laser communicators, were suppressed. All passive detection systems indicated that their hyperlight arrival was undetected.

  R-K Two, the home planet of the belligerent aliens, spun in its orbit on the far side of the system, and Rex-Kaliph, the blazing yellow sun-star, masked the fleet's approach to R-K Three. Runacres ordered a flight of three corvettes to probe the system's defenses and to explore the suspected alpha-zed planet.

  After a three-day transit Peregrine One descended into a survey orbit. Two more corvettes stood off from the planet, acting as pickets and communication links for directed laser transmissions. Crowded in the corvette's science laboratory, Cassy Quinn's survey team intently scanned the planet with every passive means available. After ten orbits they had detected no radar or communication signals, alien or friendly.

  "It looks cold down there," Jake Carmichael, the corvette's pilot, said over the science circuit.

  "It sure is, Commander," said Nestor Godonov, Quinn's geological assistant. "The planet has an eccentric orbit. Practically the entire planet is experiencing winter conditions right now. It's very cold. The good news is that spring should be breaking soon."

  "Tell Commander Quinn to find something soon," Carmichael replied. "We're a sitting duck."

  "You'll be the first to know, Jake," Quinn replied.

  "I better be," Carmichael said. "Good luck, Cassy."

  "Thanks," Quinn signed off and pushed over to the master console, rechecking the emission scans. She cursed softly. "Something wrong, sir?" Godonov asked.

  "No, Nes. It's just I wish something—anything—would show up. There's nothing here!" Exasperation was manifest in Quinn's voice. Her frustration generated a contagious despair.

  "Come on, sir," Godonov replied. "It's the most encouraging planet the Legion has ever seen—alpha-zed beyond doubt." Quinn said nothing.

  "We'll find them, Commander," Godonov said. "We've only overflown thirty percent of the planet. The IR target backlog is still building."

  "Nothing but volcanoes and lots of those," Quinn sighed.

  An alarm sounded. The officers jerked, gyrating in null gravity.

  "We're being lit up!" Carmichael's tense voice came over the command circuit. "I have solid radar tones and repeatable signals. We're being localized!"

  Quinn moved to the master console and verified the emissions.

  "Roger, contact," she said over the science circuit. "Our systems are picking up pulses. We're definitely being painted. It appears to be standard search radar and not target acquisition. Source position is coming out now."

  * * *

  "Huhsawn, we think-ah your ship-ahs come back-ah," Dowornobb said.

  Hudson had to concentrate on what Dowornobb was saying before he allowed the meaning to sink in. He had reconciled himself to never being rescued.

  "What are you saying, Master Dowornobb?" Hudson replied, in konish.

  "Your people are back, Master Huhsawn," Dowornobb said, grateful to speak his own language. "We have detected an object in orbit. Not a konish ship."

  "Not a konish ship?" Hudson gasped. "Does Colonel Longo know?"

  "I know not, though it can only be a matter of time. He has soldiers stationed in the control areas. Mistress Kateos is checking."

  "I could try talking to them on the radio," Hudson said excitedly. The realization drove home. His scalp crawled. The fleet was back!

  Hudson noticed Dowornobb flinch and subtly adjust his posture.

  "Yes, you could," came a powerful voice—Longo's. Bareheaded, but wearing a burgundy Genellan suit, the officer cantered into Hudson's camp. Four soldiers armed with blasters and wearing full combat suits trailed behind. "But I would rather you did not."

  Hudson tried to think. Why not? he wondered. It was the nightmare he had been warned of. He swallowed and stared Longo in the eyes.

  "Good afternoon, most excellent Colonel," he said. "Of course, as your guest I would be at your pleasure to communicate with the, eh…" He could not come up with the correct konish word. "With the, eh. not known… spaceship."

  "Your cooperation is appreciated, Master Huhsawn," replied Longo, inadequately civil. "The, eh…unidentified spaceship will be contacted at the appropriate time. We will certainly call you to assist us. For now I request that you remain in our dome. I leave soldiers to keep you company. I am sure you understand my meaning." He turned and departed without waiting for a reply. The soldiers deployed to the entrances.

  Kateos and Et Silmarn had quietly followed Longo into the agricultural dome. Kateos bowed her head and lowered her eyes, as was expected. When Longo was comfortably by their position, she cast an overtly obscene gesture at his receding form, much to the surprise and poorly concealed delight of Et Silmarn.

  "My mate!" Dowornobb begged, looking nervously at the sentries. "Do not antagonize authority. Your disrespect will be reported."

  "I apologize, my mate," Kateos said. "Of course you are correct. I will harness my feelings." She checked that Longo's sentries were out of hearing.

  "I am happy for you, Hudsawn," she said. "They will rescue you."

  "I wish I were as confident." Hudson walked over to the dome and stared out at the wintry view. "Colonel Longo may have other ideas."

  "Wha' do-ah weee do-ah nex'?" Et Silmarn asked. "One of us needs to get to a transmitter," Hudson said.

  * * *

  COMINT alarms sounded. Something had been intercepted, something that qualified as intelligent communication. Quinn jerked awake at her station and watched Godonov move to the monitoring system and disable the alarm. He cleared the system and began interrogation. Quinn's intuition screamed. She floated over to watch. She was frightened.

  Godonov turned so quickly they collided.

  "Contact!" he yelled. He returned to the console. "What tha—? It's just a series of pulses. I wonder what the computer thinks it is? I need to pull the logic analysis." Godonov paused for several seconds, staring at the output. "Would you look…It's Morse code!"

  "What does it say?" Quinn asked, her stomach fluttering.

  "I'm running it through a conversion. I can't read ditty code." He punched his keyboard, and the screen changed format. Quinn was afraid to look. She closed her eyes and prayed. An eternity passed.

  "What does it say, Nes? What does it say?" she cried. Godonov hit keys. The decoded message raced across his console:

  EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION—REMAIN PASSIVE—YOU ARE STANDING INTO DANGER—SEVENTEEN SOULS HARRIER ONE CREW ALIVE—CHECK LATITUDE FOUR THREE DASH FIVE FOUR NORTH AND INTERSECTION OF BIG NORTH SOUTH RIVER—HUDSON TLSF

  "Nash!" Quinn whispered.

  "Commander?" Godonov asked.

  "Nashua Hudson. My husband's second officer. Anything else?" she asked briskly. She moved to her console; her fingers trembled.

  "That's all. It was repeated a dozen times and then nothing."

  "Patch the message to Commander Carmichael. Have him maneuver to optimize coverage of the reported latitude, and tell him to drop to low orbit. Get the rest of the survey team up here." Quinn felt bitter panic welling within.

  * * *

  Dowornobb finished running the program that generated the peculiar sequence of dots and dashes. He had expected Longo' s soldiers to be guarding all radio access, but it had been ridiculously easy to transmit the radio message. He strolled nonchalantly from the planet's surveillance center. Colonel Longo and a squad of soldiers loped down the corridor toward him. Dowornobb swallowed and kept walking. It made no sense to run; there was no escape. He made an effort to pass in the wide hall, but one of Longo' s flunkies stepped in front of him, pushing him against
the windowed wall. The thick glass vibrated with the force of impact.

  "Scientist!" Longo said, his voice venomous. "What were you doing?"

  "Huh… I was, eh… I was—," Dowornobb struggled to invent an alibi.

  "He was reestablishing a datalink to our photo satellites—on my orders," Et Silmarn shouted from behind the soldiers. "I am updating our research. We have many scientific projects underway, as I am sure you know. most excellent Colonel." The noblekone elbowed his way through the crowded corridor. Kateos meekly followed him through the soldiers.

  Longo gestured impatiently. A soldier stood to attention.

  "Sir, the transmissions are not satellite commands," the soldier barked.

  "Ah… because the link was malfunctioning," Dowornobb stammered, trying desperately to support the noblekone' s thin excuse. "I ran a narrow portion of a subroutine used to reset parameters within our internal program. The program is not related to actual satellite mechanics, so it is unlikely your technicians would be familiar with the program calls." Dowornobb continued with a tirade of technical jargon until Longo held up his hand. Longo stared at his technician.

  "Well?" Longo demanded.

  "Sir, I am only a communications technician. The scientist speaks of matters that I cannot comment upon. What I understand seems reasonable."

  Longo dismissed the technician. He turned to Et Silmarn.

  "I will not dispute this thin rationalization, Your Excellency, but it was specifically ordered that no one was to use the radios. I am annoyed that you have seen fit to avoid cooperation. To illustrate my irritation, I am placing Scientist Dowornobb under official arrest. He will be confined until I decide what to do about this."

  Kateos burst forth, "But you have no right. He has done noth—"

  "Arrest the female, also. I have had enough of her bad manners." Longo turned his back on the unfortunate kones. "Take them away."