by Dan Simmons
Sproul’s eyebrows rise toward his crew cut. “Yes, sir,” he says, bringing the thopter up and around in a final circle before heading back north.
“That platform looks as if it’s been damaged recently,” says de Soya, leaning farther to his right to look down from the blister port.
“Yes, sir,” agrees the lieutenant. “I have a friend who just rotated in from that plat … Station Three-twenty-six Mid-littoral, it’s called sir … and he told me about it. They had a poacher try to blow the place up a few tides ago.”
“Sabotage?” says de Soya, watching the platform recede.
“Guerrilla war,” says the lieutenant. “The poachers are the indigenies from back before the Pax got here, sir. That’s why we’ve got troopers on each of the plats, and regular patrol ships during the height of the fishing season. We have to keep the fishing ships sort of herded there, sir, so the poachers don’t attack them. You saw those boats tied up, sir … well, it’s almost time for them to go fishing. Our Pax ships will escort them out. The Lamp Mouth, well, sir, he rises up just when the moons are just so … you see the big one rising there, sir. So the legal fishing ships … they have these bright lights they shine when the moons are down, luring the big ’canths up. But the poachers do that too, sir.”
De Soya looks out at the empty expanse of ocean between the thopter and the northern horizon. “Doesn’t seem like too many places for rebels to hide,” he says.
“No, sir,” says the lieutenant. “I mean, yes, sir. Actually, they’ve got fishing boats camouflaged to look like yellowkelp isles, submersibles, even one big submarine harvester that was rigged up like a Lamp Mouth, believe it or not, sir.”
“And that platform was damaged by a poacher attack?” says de Soya, speaking to stay awake now. The drone of the thopter wings is deadly.
“Right, sir,” says Lieutenant Sproul. “About eight Big Tides ago. One man … which is unusual, the poachers generally come in groups. He blew up some skimmers and thopters—common tactics, although they usually go for the boats.”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant,” says de Soya, “you say this was eight Big Tides ago. Could you translate that into standard?”
Sproul chews his lip. “Ah, yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I grew up on Mare-Eye, and … well, eight Big Tides is about two standard months ago, sir.”
“Was the poacher apprehended?”
“Yes, sir,” says Sproul with his youthful grin. “Well, actually there’s a story there, sir.…” The lieutenant glances at the priest-captain to see if he should go on. “Well, to make it short, sir, this poacher got apprehended first, then he blew his charges and tried to get away, and then he was shot and killed by the guards.”
De Soya nods and closes his eyes. In the last day he has reviewed over a hundred reports on “poacher incidents” spread over the past two standard months. Blowing up platforms and killing poachers seems to be the second most popular sport—after fishing—on Mare Infinitus.
“The funny thing about this guy,” says the lieutenant, finishing his story, “is how he tried to get away. Some sort of old flying carpet from the Hegemony days.”
De Soya snaps awake. He glances at the sergeant and his men. All three are sitting up, staring at him.
“Turn around,” snaps Father Captain de Soya. “Take us back to that platform.”
“AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?” SAYS DE SOYA FOR the fifth time. He and his Swiss Guard are in the platform director’s office on the highest point of the platform, just beneath the radar dish. Outside the long window, three unbelievable moons are rising.
The director—a Pax captain in the Ocean Command named C. Dobbs Powl—is overweight, florid, and sweating heavily. “When it became apparent that this man was not in either of the fishing groups we had on board that night, Lieutenant Belius took him aside for further questioning. Standard procedure, Father Captain.”
De Soya stares at the man. “And then?”
The director licks his lips. “And then the man managed to escape temporarily, Father Captain. There was a struggle on the upper walkway. He pushed Lieutenant Belius into the sea.”
“Was the lieutenant recovered?”
“No, Father Captain. He almost certainly drowned, although there was quite a bit of rainbow shark activity that night—”
“Describe the man you had in custody before you lost him,” interrupts de Soya, emphasizing the word “lost.”
“Young, Father Captain, maybe twenty-five or so standard. And tall, sir. Real big young guy.”
“You saw him yourself?”
“Oh, yes, Father Captain. I was out on the walkway with Lieutenant Belius and Sea Lancer Ament when the fellow started the fight and pushed Belius through the railing.”
“And then got away from you and the lance private,” says de Soya flatly. “With both of you armed and this man … Did you say he was handcuffed?”
“Yes, Father Captain.” Captain Powl mops his forehead with a moist handkerchief.
“Did you notice anything unusual about this young man? Anything else that did not make it into your … ah … extremely brief action report to Command Headquarters?”
The director puts the handkerchief away, then pulls it out again to mop his neck. “No, Father Captain … I mean, well, during the struggle, the man’s sweater was torn a bit in front. Enough for me to notice that he wasn’t like you and me, Father Captain.…”
De Soya raises an eyebrow.
“I mean he wasn’t of the cross,” Powl hurries on. “No cruciform. ‘Course, I didn’t think much of that at the time. Most of these indigenie poachers’ve never been baptized. Wouldn’t be poachers if they had, now, would they?”
De Soya ignores the question. Pacing closer to the seated, sweating captain, he says, “So the man swung down under the main catwalk and escaped that way?”
“Didn’t escape, sir,” says Powl. “Just got to this flying dingus that he must’ve hidden there. I’d set off the alarm, of course. The whole garrison turned out, just like they was drilled to do.”
“But this man got the … dingus … flying? And off the platform?”
“Yes,” says the platform director, mopping his brow again and obviously thinking of his future … or lack of it. “But just for a minute. We saw him on radar and then we saw him with our night goggles. That … rug … could fly, all right, but when we opened up on it, it come swinging back around toward the platform—”
“How high was it then, Captain Powl?”
“High?” The director furrows his sweaty brow. “I guess about twenty-five, thirty meters above the water then. About level with our main deck. He was comin’ right at us, Father Captain. Like he was going to bomb the platform from a fly in’ rug. Of course, in a way, he did … I mean the charges he’d planted went off right then. Scared the shit out of me … excuse me, Father.”
“Go on,” says de Soya. He looks at Gregorius where the big man is standing at parade rest behind the director. From the expression on the sergeant’s face, it appears that he would be happy to garrote the sweating captain in a second.
“Well, it was quite an explosion, sir. Fire-control teams started running toward the blast, but Sea Lancer Ament and some of the other sentries and I stayed at our post there at the north catwalk.…”
“Very commendable,” mutters de Soya, the irony audible in his voice. “Go on.”
“Well, Father Captain, there’s not much more,” the sweating man says lamely.
“You gave the order to fire at the flying man?”
“Yes … yes, sir.”
“And all of the sentries fired at once … upon your order?”
“Yeah,” says the director, his eyes glazed with the effort to remember. “I think they all fired. There were six of them there besides Ament ‘n’ me.”
“And you also fired?” pressed de Soya.
“Well, yeah … the station was under attack. The flight deck was a burning mess. And this terrorist was fly in’ at us, carrying God knows what.”<
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De Soya nods as if unconvinced. “Did you see anything or anyone on the flying mat other than the one man?”
“Well, no,” says Powl. “But it was dark.”
De Soya looks out the window at the rising moons. Brilliant orange light floods through the panes. “Were the moons up that night, Captain?”
Powl licks his lips again as if tempted to lie. He knows that de Soya and his men have interviewed Sea Lancer Ament and the others, and de Soya knows he knows. “They’d just risen,” he mumbles.
“So the amount of light was comparable to this?” says de Soya.
“Yeah.”
“Did you see anyone or anything else on that flying device, Captain? A package? A backpack? Anything that might be construed to be a bomb?”
“No,” says Powl, anger moving under the surface of his fear now, “but it only took a handful of plastique to blow up two of our patrol skimmers and three thopters, Father Captain.”
“Very true,” says de Soya. Pacing to the brilliantly lit window, he says, “Your seven sentries, Sea Lancer Ament included—were they all carrying flechette guns, Captain?”
“Yes.”
“And you yourself carried a flechette pistol. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And did all of these flechette charges strike the suspect?”
Powl hesitates, then shrugs. “I think most of them did.”
“And did you see the result?” de Soya asks softly.
“It shredded the bastard … sir,” says Powl, anger winning over fear for the time being. “I saw bits of him fly apart like gull shit hitting a fan … sir. Then he dropped … naw, he flew backward off that stupid carpet like someone being yanked by a cable. Fell into the sea right next to pylon L-3. Rainbow sharks, they came up and started feeding within ten seconds.”
“So you did not recover the body?” says de Soya.
Powl looks up with defiance in his eyes. “Oh, no … we recovered it, Father Captain. I had Ament and Kilmer sweep up what was left with boat hooks, gaffes, and a hand net. That was after we’d put the fire out and I’d made sure there was no further danger to the platform.” Captain Powl was beginning to sound confident of his own correctness.
De Soya nods. “And where is that body now, Captain?”
The director steeples his pudgy fingers. They are shaking only slightly. “We buried it. At sea … of course. Off the south dock that next morning. Brought up a whole school of rainbow sharks, and we shot some for dinner.”
“But you are satisfied that the body was that of the suspect you had put under arrest earlier?”
Powl’s tiny eyes become even smaller as he squints at de Soya. “Yeah … what was left of him. Just a poacher. This kind of shit happens all the time out here on the big violet, Father Captain.”
“And do poachers fly ancient EM-flying carpets out here all the time on the big violet, Captain Powl?”
The director’s face freezes. “Is that what that dingus was?”
“You did not mention the carpet in your report, Captain.”
Powl shrugs. “It didn’t seem important.”
De Soya nods. “And you say now that the … dingus … just kept going? That it overflew the deck and catwalk and disappeared out at sea? Empty?”
“Yes,” says Captain Powl, pulling himself erect in the chair and straightening his wilted uniform.
De Soya whirls around. “Sea Lancer Ament says otherwise, Captain. Lancer Ament says that the carpet was recovered, that it was deactivated, and that it was last seen in your custody. Is this true?”
“No,” says the director, looking from de Soya to Gregorius to Sproul to Kee to Rettig and then back to de Soya. “No, I never saw it after it flew past us. Ament’s a fucking liar.”
De Soya nods to Sergeant Gregorius. To Powl he says, “Such an ancient artifact, in working order, would be worth quite a bit of money, even on Mare Infinitus, would it not, Captain?”
“I don’t know,” manages Powl, who is watching Gregorius. The sergeant has walked over to the director’s private cabinet. It is made of heavy steel and it is locked. “I didn’t even know what the damned thing was,” adds Powl.
De Soya is standing at the window now. The largest moon fills the entire eastern sky. The farcaster arch is quite visible, silhouetted against the moon. “It is called a hawking mat,” he says softly, almost in a whisper. “In a place called the Valley of the Time Tombs, it would have made just the right sort of radar signature.” He nods at Sergeant Gregorius.
The Swiss Guard noncom smashes open the steel cabinet with one blow of his gauntleted hand. Reaching in, he brushes aside boxes, papers, stacks of currency, and comes out with a rug, carefully folded. He carries it over to the director’s desk.
“Arrest this man and get him out of my sight,” Father Captain de Soya says softly. Lieutenant Sproul and Corporal Kee lead the protesting director from the office.
De Soya and Gregorius unroll the hawking mat on the long desktop. The carpet’s ancient flight threads still glow gold in the moonlight. De Soya touches the forward edge of the artifact, feeling the cuts and torn places there where flechettes have ripped the fabric. There is blood everywhere, obscuring the ornate designs, dulling the glow of the threads of superconducting monofilament. Shreds of what might be human flesh are caught in the short tassels in the back of the carpet.
De Soya looks up at Gregorius. “Have you ever read the long poem called the Cantos, Sergeant?”
“The Cantos, sir? No … I’m not much for reading. Besides, ain’t that on the list of forbidden books, sir?”
“I believe it is, Sergeant,” says Father Captain de Soya. He moves away from the bloodied hawking mat and looks out at the rising moons and the silhouetted arch. This is a piece of the puzzle, he is thinking. And when the puzzle is complete, I will have you, child.
“I believe it is on the forbidden list, Sergeant,” he says again. He turns quickly and heads for the door, gesturing for Rettig to roll the hawking mat and bring it along. “Come,” he says, putting more energy in his voice than he has had for weeks. “We have work to do.”
33
My memory of the twenty minutes or so I spent in that large, bright mess hall is very much like those bad dreams we all have sooner or later: you know the ones I mean, where we find ourselves in some place out of our past but cannot remember our reason for being there or the names of the people around us. When the lieutenant and his two troopers walked me into the mess hall, everything in the room was tinged with that nightmare displacement of the formerly familiar. I say familiar because I had spent a good part of my twenty-seven years in hunting camps and military mess halls, casino bars and the galleys of old barges. I was familiar with the company of men: too familiar, I might have said then, for the elements I sensed in this room—bluster, braggadocio, and the sweat-scented ointment of city-nervous men in the throes of adventure-bound male bonding—had long since grown tiresome to me. But now that familiarity was offset by the strangeness—the smattering of dialect-laden speech I could hear, the subtle differences in clothing, the suicidal smell of cigarettes, and the knowledge that I would give myself away almost immediately if there was any need to deal with their currency, culture, or conversation.
There was a tall coffee urn on the farthest table—I had never been in a mess hall without one—and I ambled over there, trying to look casual as I did so, found a cup that was relatively clean, and poured myself some coffee. All the while I was watching the lieutenant and his two men watch me. When they seemed comfortable that I belonged there, they turned and went out. I sipped terrible coffee, noted idly that my hand holding the cup was not shaking despite the hurricane of emotions inside me, and tried to decide what to do next.
Amazingly, I still had my weapons—sheath knife and pistol—and my radio. With the radio I could detonate the plastique at any time and make a run for the hawking mat during the confusion. Now that I had seen the Pax sentinels, I knew that there would have to be s
ome sort of diversion if the raft was going to get by this platform without being seen. I walked to the window; it faced the direction we had been thinking of as north, but I could see the “eastern” sky aglow with imminent moonrise. The farcaster arch was visible to the naked eye. I tried the window, but it was either locked in some form I could not see or nailed in place. There was a corrugated steel roof of another module just a meter or so below the window level, but there seemed no way I could get to it from here.
“Who you with, son?”
I turned quickly. Five men had come over from the nearest group, and it was the shortest and fattest who was speaking to me. The man wore outdoor garb: checked flannel shirt, canvas trousers, canvas vest not too dissimilar from mine, and a fish-scaling knife on his belt. I realized then that the Pax troopers might have seen the tip of my holster poking out from under my vest but assumed it to be one of these knife sheaths.
This man had also spoken in dialect, but one quite different from the Pax guards outside. The fishermen, I remembered, were probably offworlders, so my strange accent should not be overly suspicious.
“Klingman,” I said, taking another sip of the sludge-tasting coffee. The one word had worked on the Pax troopers.
It did not work on these men. They looked at each other a moment, and then the fat one spoke again. “We came in with the Klingman party, boy. All the way from St. Thérèse. You weren’t on the hydrofoil. What’s your game?”
I grinned. “No game,” I said. “I was supposed to be with the group—missed it in St. Thérèse—came on down with the Otters.”
I still hadn’t got it right. The five men spoke among themselves. I heard the word “poachers” several times. Two of the men left and went out the door. The fat man poked a fat finger at me. “I was sittin’ over there with the Otter guide. He never seen you before either. You stay right there, son.”
That was the one thing I was not going to do. Setting my cup on the table, I said, “No, you wait here. I’m going to go get the lieutenant and have a few things straightened out. Don’t move.”