by Ed Charlton
But she could see in the generals’ lack of faith something of wider concern. The Raeff would lead, of course, but it was the generals and politicians who would govern. She could see the danger to the Raeff of being called far ahead by the spirit, while those who did not hear lagged behind. He could be cut off by their ignorance. His power rested on their active support. What fate awaited a Raeff who led but whom no one followed? It made her cold inside to see the foundation of her life—the reason for her sacrifices—being, at best, ignored, mocked behind her back, and perhaps one day forgotten by all. How had the teachers failed with these current generations? Was it just the influence of other worlds?
A longing welled up in her heart to have lived a century or more before. How much clearer and stronger the calling was. How much less influence the military and the politicians had. How much more governance was in the hands of those closest to the Raeff!
She remembered when she was younger, before she had heard the call to the Luminancy, she had played such a game with her first-father. He had laughed and rolled with her, imagining the house they would have had a hundred years before, the clothes they would have worn, the strange foods that grew in the open in the old days. She smiled at the memory. They had been so close. He had kept her close—she had been the only female of the litter—and her brothers would have held her back if he had not protected her. He was devastated when she told him of her calling. He could not accept the fact that she would never bear a litter of her own. He could not understand her lack of desire to mother her own pack. She tried to explain the other things she felt: the call of the spirit, the wonder of exploring the ancient teachings, the camaraderie of the Luminant life, the excitement at the chance to excel at something only a chosen few can do. These were always more real to her than the dull expectation of motherhood. It grieved her still that he had never understood.
She had excelled; she had studied and learned; she had lived and thrived in the segregated world of the Luminants. And now here she was in the private chambers of the ruler of the world: alone with Paun Mic Loff.
She had, of course, never spoken to him. Until now, her place had been in the shadows, unseen and unheard. Now was her time to be seen, to speak, and to be heard.
Oh spirit, blow through me and guide me!
She began—as she had been taught she must every morning— with the ritual words, “The spirit has swept through the darkness. Let the sleeper awake and allow its dreams to rise through his words.”
He rolled over and licked along his mouth, still sleeping. She spoke louder, “Let the sleeper awake! Allow your dreams to rise; give them voice. Speak them out into the day!”
“Ah...again I am in the ground...” His voice came hoarse and thick with sleep.
She waited. He had yet to notice it was not Calna’s voice that greeted him.
“The scent is still in my mouth...in the long burrow...still I have not caught it...soon. I know I am close.”
He yawned and stretched his long arms.
“Before that, though...I was with my mate...another litter, bright-eyed and white-toothed. It was good.”
She looked away, a little embarrassed, and took a deep breath.
“Is there a dream that must be written?”
“What? Who are you?”
The Raeff sat up and stared hard into her face.
“I am Ajeer. Calna’s time came in the night. She has blessed my appointment. I am here for you to light your way.”
She was disappointed to see one so strong whimper so weakly. She reached out a hand to touch his arm to find him already shaking in his howl of sadness. Within a few moments, he was sobbing in her arms. Her work had begun.
Chapter Ten
Tella transmitted the prearranged greeting to the drone. It sent back a complicated reconfiguration specification.
Tella pointed to the screen. “Okay, Jim. All yours.”
“Thanks a heap. I hate doing this stuff.”
“But you’re so good at it!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Jim began to follow the instructions. The drone required Jim to open a permanent link between the drone’s navigation system and the flier’s. It took a few minutes.
“Wait a minute...,” said Jim to himself.
“Something wrong?” asked Tella.
“Something not quite right.”
“Go on.”
“I don’t know. Something’s missing from the spec here.”
“Can you make it work?”
“Oh sure, it’s working. That’s not the problem.”
Tella sat next to Jim, ignoring the screens and the text and diagrams displayed on them. It watched Jim study them. It watched Jim bite his lip and tap his fingers lightly next to the keyboard. It took a calming breath and waited for Jim to finish. Tella was still confident in the decision to keep Jim close; among all the other reasons for doing so, Jim’s skills would always be useful.
“It’s just that...what happens when...,” Jim muttered to himself.
His frown deepened in the reflected light of the screens.
“Who built this flier?” he asked quietly.
“Praestans Rapax.”
“Who built the drone?”
“Praestans Rapax.”
“All this is to link the navigation systems.” Jim pointed to the screen between himself and Tella. “This is a link to something else.” His finger rested below a line of text. “I don’t know what this system is. Do you?”
Tella looked at the screen. “No, I have never heard of it.”
“This spec contains the disconnect setup for the navigation link. It doesn’t have a disconnect for this one.”
“An omission?”
“Unlikely. This is the PR we’re talking about.”
“A surveillance system?”
Jim nodded. “I’d bet the price of lunch on it.”
“Will the drone notice if you don’t activate it?”
“I don’t think so. Let’s find out.”
Jim worked for a minute more and then nodded for Tella to begin their journey. The drone moved in close to the underside of the flier. The first coordinates flashed up on the navigation console, and the craft moved off together.
“So, what do we make of it?” Jim asked.
“Nothing serious. I think it would have been a bonus to them if they could get it to work, but they weren’t counting on it. If they had really needed it, I think it would have been more difficult to find.”
“Yeah, it was clever, in a clumsy sort of way.”
Tella saw it as a test, a test the highly regarded R546 was expected to pass. Without Jim, the mission could have begun badly.
***
Their journey lasted several days. Tella constructed a display of their course. It marked Earth and the home system of the Rapaxans, and it marked their position every few hours. They were not going directly to the Oraga cluster.
***
“Where, do you think?” asked Jim at the end of the second day.
Tella shook its head. “We are being given no clues. The early part of the trip was enough to throw off any pursuit. Now we seem to be on a real course, but I know of nothing special in this direction. We have bypassed several trading centers and are avoiding the main shipping lanes.”
“They aren’t taking us to anything they own?”
“Who knows? Not their manufacturing facilities, but their reach is wide.”
Another day passed before their destination became clear.
“Stap-Bal-Ird, a triad of stars, about six light-years apart. Several inhabited worlds, all part of an alliance. A large industrial producer. It looks like we are to visit the planet Stap Nard.”
Tella pointed to the display for Jim to see.
Jim shook his head. “Maybe they do components fo
r them?”
“Perhaps.”
To Tella’s surprise, the drone brought them to a halt at the very edge of the planetary system of Stap. They felt their flier’s chemical jets firing.
Jim swore. “What’s going on? We’re not in orbit of anything yet!” He looked out of each window. “And there’s nothing out there.”
Tella went to work on the sensor panel. Nodding, it called to Jim, “Yes, there is: an asteroid belt, millions of wayward rocks, clouds of debris, fast-moving grains of silica.”
“Great. Who in their right minds would go anywhere near a place like this?”
Tella smiled.
“Yeah. Perfect, isn’t it?” Jim agreed.
The drone waited for an hour. A small alarm buzzed at Jim’s console.
“It’s sending a message.”
“To anyone in particular?”
“I guess so.”
Within a few seconds, the flier’s communications system flashed to life. The shape of a head appeared on the screen. There was little light to show the face, and it wore a helmet with a visor concealing its eyes.
“Identity.”
Tella and Jim looked at each other. The voice contained no emotion and no cadence to tell them if it was a statement, request, or order.
“Identity,” the head repeated.
Jim frowned. “Is it going to send its identifier, or is it expecting us to?”
“We can wait and see.”
“Destruction.”
“Wait a minute!” called Jim to the screen. To Tella, he said, “I think we’d better reply.”
“Agreed. Send the Standard message opener.”
Jim sent the message and began to speak.
“This is James Able of Sol Earth. I have no hostile intent. Please respond in Standard.”
The shape looked to its left as Jim spoke.
“Regard,” said the voice.
The image of the head was replaced with a view of their flier. The drone was highlighted in a short series of negative and color-reduced images. One of them showed symbols on the drone that were not visible in normal light.
“Message Boy.”
Jim looked at Tella for inspiration.
Tella looked at the screen and thought out loud. “They must have been expecting at least the drone. They know what it looks like, but perhaps they were not told what to expect along with it. That’s probably the confusion.”
“Apart from not speaking the language,” Jim muttered.
“Message Boy,” the voice repeated, again without inflection.
Jim transmitted again. “We were asked to accompany this drone by the Praestans Rapax. Who are you?”
The figure immediately became agitated. “No name. No name. Silence.”
The communication ended.
“What did I say?”
Tella shrugged. “Either it’s shy about its identity, or we’re not supposed to mention the PR. Perhaps both.”
The drone moved them forward slowly in among the rocks.
“What have we let ourselves in for?” asked Jim, shaking his head.
The drone maneuvered under and around many asteroids before stopping once more. As Tella watched on the forward viewer, a series of fast-moving rocks cut across their path. The drone continued to take them farther into the belt.
It said to Jim, “We are definitely under local control. They are bringing us in.”
“In where?”
They watched in silence.
“There!” said Tella, pointing to a large asteroid in the center of the viewer.
“Is that it? It looks like all the others.”
“No, it has been shaped to look like the others. The patterns on the surface show the hands of its makers. They have tried too hard to make it look natural.”
Jim looked sideways at his boss.
“If you say so.”
“In such things you can trust a Neraffan.” Tella returned the sideways glance and smiled. “See?”
A soft light shone from under a deep cliff in the rock. The drone took them directly toward it. More lights came into view: a landing strip. The drone moved behind the flier, and Jim disconnected the navigation link. He brought the flier to rest on a dusty strip with no buildings visible in the faint lights.
The landing strip lights went out. The communications screen flashed briefly into life. Instead of the image of the helmeted head, they saw a series of diagrams. The first was of a space helmet.
The voice said, “Suit.”
The next image was of a green square. The voice said, “Lift.”
“What is that?” asked Jim.
“I don’t know,” said Tella. “But we obviously have to get suited up and go outside.”
The third image was of a column above a square. In the square were two small red circles. The voice said, “Wait.”
Tella shook its head and said, “Let’s go out and look for our ‘lift.’”
“Weapons?”
“Hmm. I’m inclined to say yes, but discreetly. What is your feeling?”
“Absolutely. We’re somewhere no one will ever come to find us.”
“Discreetly, then.”
Jim and Tella dressed themselves in their own tailored EIA spacesuits. The handheld weapons fitted in concealed pockets with no discernable bulge.
They walked down to the dusty surface and stared out into the dark.
“Any ideas?” asked Jim.
“Turn left. That’s what one of the other agents says. ‘Always turn left’!” joked Tella.
“Okay. It’s as good as the alternative.”
They walked toward the front of the flier in the glow of its landing lights, shimmering on the lowest setting. Around the other side they found a square in the dust, about ten feet to a side, small green lights marking its edges.
“Ah!” said Tella, stepping over the lights into the middle.
“Yeah, right,” said Jim, hesitating slightly.
As soon as he had stepped onto the square, it began to descend. The ceiling closed above them. Jim felt his suit adjust to a change in pressure. Suddenly there was light all around them. They were in a transparent chamber within a larger room. A fog of decontaminating gases enveloped them. After several minutes the treatment ended, and a door opened to let them into the room.
“Wait,” said Jim, imitating the expressionless voice of their instructions.
Tella checked on the atmosphere. “It is breathable.”
“Do you want to show yourself yet?”
“Hmm. Perhaps not. Let us stay as we are for now.”
The room held a disorderly collection of boxes and open crates. Jim looked into a couple of them, but there was no indication as to what the contents had been.
They heard booted footfalls echoing down a corridor at the far end of the room. The figure from the screen stood before them. Its helmet gleamed in the artificial light. The visor gave no hint of the eyes that hid behind. It was a biped standing a little shorter than Jim. Under a green-and-gray tunic, it gave the impression of great physical strength.
“Follow.”
It turned and marched back along the corridor without checking to see if its charges had obeyed.
“Good morning, nice to meet you,” Jim muttered and followed after Tella.
They were taken into a room. The furniture was sparse: two low benches on either side of a bare table, a single light panel in the ceiling, two chairs against the wall by the door, another collection of boxes.
“Who’s interviewing whom?” asked Jim, not expecting an answer.
“Message Boy see Dog now.”
“Excuse me? What do you mean?”
“Message Boy.” The figure pointed at Jim and then at Tella. “Rapaxans say, ‘Message Boy come.’ Rapa
xans say, ‘Message Boy see Dog.’ See Dog now.”
The helmeted alien turned to leave.
“Wait,” said Jim. It stopped and turned its hidden eyes to him.
“Message Boy sees Dog, or Dog sees Message Boy?”
There was a pause. The alien raised its hands in a gesture of balance. “Yes.”
Jim looked at Tella. “Oh God.”
Tella stepped forward in front of the alien. “Is Dog Rapaxan?”
The alien made a noise that might have been a laugh.
“Rapaxans bring Dog. Dog stays. Message Boy sees Dog. Dog stays.”
Giving them no further opportunity for discussion, it turned and left them in the interview room.
“Okay. What do we do with this?” asked Jim in a low voice.
Tella nodded. “What do we know? First, the PR have arranged for us to meet a canid. Second, they have arranged to keep it here. Third, it isn’t a PR official.”
“It’s not an official but they keep it here.”
“It’s a source of information for us.”
“Okay. We’re in charge. We’re here to interview it on their behalf. Its job is to cooperate with us.”
“Agreed.”
“You strip off. I’ll do the questions.”
“Agreed.”
Tella removed its suit and robe and disappeared against a wall, where it would have a clear view of the interviewee.
Jim stripped off his suit and attached his weapon to his belt. He hid Tella’s clothes in an empty box and then sat on one of the benches.
As he set out his record pad and stencil on the table, all was silent. “What goes on here that we can’t hear anything? There’s not even a buzz from the light.”
“They’ve taken great efforts to conceal themselves. The facility is dampened against all emissions. It’s been done with great skill.”
Tella’s voice came from somewhere against the plain wall. Jim smiled, enjoying the Neraffan’s ability to camouflage itself.
Footsteps returned to the corridor outside. A lone canid threw open the door, glanced around the room, and with quick and confident movements went straight to the bench opposite Jim.