by B. V. Larson
“Why, we would detect them, sir.”
“They excel at stealth, let me assure you.”
“Stealth in space is very difficult to achieve with a non-passive system,” said Ensign Tolbert, beginning a lecture. She was unfortunately prone to do so. “Put simply, any ship capable of independent movement at a respectable rate of speed must do so by blasting hot gas out the aft end. Such a device is by definition highly visible in the cold, dark emptiness that is space. Without any haze or clouds or much of anything else to get in the way, visibility within a star system is essentially infinite. Even a small ship will emit enough light and energy to be detected within a hundred million kilometers or more.”
“Excellent to hear confidence from our officers, however—”
“Let me first tell you why we are so much more proficient here as opposed to Garm.”
Droad drew himself up, pursing his lips. He expected a long diatribe on the efficiencies of the famous militia system of Neu Schweitz, something that every school child had had relentlessly drummed into them.
“It’s not what you’re thinking, sir,” said Tolbert. She leaned closer, although no one else was in earshot within the command bunker. “It’s because of the raiders.”
“What raiders?” asked Droad loudly. He had become annoyed with the woman’s entire manner.
Tolbert waived his words downward, signaling for quiet as if Droad were shouting. “It’s not a popular subject. But I feel I should tell you, some things have changed drastically since you left. You do realize you’ve been gone for nearly a decade?”
“I believe my ward room was issued a chronometer, yes.”
“My point is that certain realities have changed. We’ve had a political upheaval.”
Droad was surprised. Neu Schweitz was usually a very orderly place. “And the source of the trouble?”
“The raiders, as I’ve said. Separatists from the Minerva colonies.”
Minerva was the only gas giant planet in the system. Truly a monster, half-again as large as Jupiter, Minerva had a rich ring of moons and asteroids all its own. The planet had long been the primary source for gases and mineral wealth in the system. It was far easier and more ecological to gather your minerals from floating, lifeless rocks than it was to drill them out of the green mountains that covered much of Neu Schweitz.
“Separatists?” asked Droad. “Oh, you must mean the Vlax.”
Tolbert reacted as if stung. Several conversations stopped and eyes swung toward them. Droad noted the disturbance with interest. He felt hostility at the mere mention of the Vlax Romani. He was somewhat taken aback. The Vlax Romani had been a troublesome element on the planet for a long time, never seeming to quite fit in with the rest of the population. What Droad didn’t understand was how their status had changed. They had always been a somewhat wild element of the population who preferred living in ships and domes rather than solid homes. But that had been a source of success for them, as they had gravitated naturally to the outlying domes and habitats around the system. Miners were always in demand in any new colony system, and they excelled at the occupation.
“What’s happened? Did they rebel?”
The officer nodded, still flicking her eyes toward the command staff as if fearful of reprisal for even discussing the matter. “It is something of an embarrassment. They have effectively established independence in the outer regions of the system. Thus, you see, we have been forced to build up our patrol ships and detection equipment.”
Droad nodded slowly, beginning to understand. If they required patrol ships to deal with them, they were a serious threat, not just rioters. For the first time, he decided to honor the woman’s obvious desire for quiet and to lower his voice.
“They harass the mining lanes?”
“With growing frequency. They have been cut off from trade with us, which hurts both sides. Our mineral and gas mining has been reduced. They struggle to produce enough food and replacement parts for their ships.”
“Have there been—confrontations?”
The other nodded. “They are turning into a race of pirates. At first, they took only wealth and supplies. Now, they take prisoners as slaves, or space them all.”
Droad nodded again. He weighed the pros and cons of the situation in the case the aliens came here. On the negative side, the humans were disorganized. On the positive side, paranoia and a ‘shoot-first’ attitude might save a large number of lives.
He leaned forward and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level. “Are there any plans to eradicate them soon?”
The officer stiffened and avoided his gaze. “Such information is outside the bounds of this briefing, sir.”
“Of course. Now, tell me why a small ship can’t sneak past your detection systems. The original alien invasion craft was quite small. It was organic, not metallic. A small ship can coast in at speed and is thus invisible.”
“We have passive scanning equipment on satellites parked around the system now, which gives us excellent detection capabilities. Upon approach, yes, they would be hard to see, but not upon deceleration. The sort of invasion ship you describe would necessarily need to reduce its speed, or it would smack into the planet it was attacking and be destroyed. The faster it’s going the longer it would have vent visible gases to decelerate. Interstellar vessels accelerate for the first half of their journey and decelerate for the later half. On the other hand, if it’s coming in slowly, we have longer to notice its approach.”
At length, Droad became mildly impressed. Neu Schweitz was indeed well-prepared for an invasion attempt. It was a much better situation here than it had been on Garm. In part, this was due to their long-standing need to stop space debris from smashing into their world. In the past, Neu Schweitz had been heavily-cratered on a regular basis. Their defenses had put a stop to that.
But still he felt uneasy. Garm had faced only a single enemy ship. No more than a scout, really, and they had almost lost an entire world. Where had those signals gone and what had they summoned? What if this time, the enemy came in real force?
He decided it was time to leave the command center. He would take the Senator’s bait next, and head up to Crom. He had become curious about what was up there. He’d asked around, but only learned something big and secret was under construction. Most did not know the full story, and those that knew more, spoke less. Over time, his curiosity had grown. It was time to learn the truth behind Senator Yannick Fouty’s hints.
#
On the seventeenth day, Sarah became bored. She had never been a kept woman, and she damned well wasn’t going to start now. Whatever this thing was between Lucas Droad and she, it had been on-again and off-again since the start. The man was, in all fairness, impossible to seriously connect with. He was heroic, intelligent and driven. But he tended to get caught up in bigger matters, in fact, he sought them out. He didn’t have time for a serious girlfriend.
Sarah, since her husband had died, had become a believer in ‘moving on’ when relationships weren’t working. Lucas had asked her to stay aboard the Gladius as he checked out the political landscape of Neu Schweitz. He promised to get back together with her, to take her around the lush green world on a grand tour. The two of them had earned a rest, and they could take their vacation together.
But that wasn’t how things had turned out. He’d gone down planetside, immediately gotten tied up in politics and his personal quest to tell everyone about the aliens, and had never come back. She thought the aliens were very important and dangerous. People should be warned of what might be lurking out there in the endless expanses of nothingness that surrounded all living worlds. She suspected, however, there was more to Lucas’ quest than good will. She suspected he felt guilty about Garm. Who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t want to make things right, after half the millions of people you had been placed in charge of were slaughtered?
She felt for him, and she knew it wasn’t his fault. Neither the slaughter nor the obsession to fix his reputation
. But she needed to think of her own life as well. She had to think of Bili.
It was time to move on.
She packed up Bili and Fryx, who still floated in his absurd little fish tank, and took them down the space elevator to the planet. Lucas could catch up with her when he found the time, if he ever did. She was no longer worried about assassins and the like. If they had been lurking, waiting for Lucas, they would have made a move by now. She couldn’t think of a reason why she would be targeted. If there was going to be a move made, it would be against Lucas Droad, not his ignored girlfriend. So far, nothing had happened to Lucas. Nothing.
Bili was overjoyed they were finally going to leave the ship.
“This is great! Will Lucas be down there? Will he?”
She shrugged. “He’s somewhere down there, I’m sure.”
Bili paused and eyed her appraisingly. She tried to look disinterested.
“Aw. Don’t worry about him, Mom. He’ll come back.”
“Probably.”
“Anyway, I want to get into a new school.”
It was her turn to look at him in surprise. “You do?”
“Yeah.”
“Since when have you ever wanted to go to school?”
Bili had a different light in his eyes. He had a plan of some kind, but she couldn’t fathom it.
“I just do. Is that so bad?”
“No,” she said, quickly. “No, that’s great. We’ll set it up.”
They rode the rest of the way in relative quiet. The scene of the planet, rushing up to them outside the windows, was breathtaking. It was quite unlike Garm. She could tell right away this world was smaller. They plunged through the highest cloud layer, and the planet stretched out in every direction beneath them. The world was dotted with tooth-like gray mountains, every one of them capped with ice. In between each cluster of mountains was a pool of lush green. Those were the valleys, she knew, where all the major settlements had been built.
The equatorial belt of oceans, far away, could be seen from this height. The slate-blue seas were hung with occluding mists. The storms down there, she knew, were the worst.
Looking to the northern hemisphere, where they were coming down, she saw the biggest city on the planet directly below their feet. It was quite a place, by Garm standards. An entire valley had been consumed by the sprawl. It was canton Bern, the center of the Nexus. Millions lived there, more than the entire population of Garm.
Then they fell into another layer of clouds and the world was swallowed up in fluffy whiteness.
She wished Lucas had been there to see it with her. She clamped down on that self-pitying thought. She would see him again, when events permitted. She was sure of that.
She watched Bili, who now held Fryx up to see the view. Fryx looked anything but happy about the experience. She wondered what that little creature knew about their surroundings. Could he sense, at least, that they were descending rapidly? Could he see anything? She doubted it. But maybe Fryx could read Bili’s thoughts or understand the explanations of the scenery he was giving...
She shook her head. She shouldn’t have let the boy get attached to that thing. But she had had little choice. He had been about the only kid on the trip, and in such a situation it was only natural for a child to find and adopt a pet, even one as detached as Fryx.
She looked at Fryx, ruffling his spines and floating up near the top of the tank. She squinted her eyes. She was going to get rid of Fryx soon, somehow. As soon as Bili became distracted with school or whatever else came up, that spiny little ball of jelly was going to become someone else’s problem.
They were going to move on, and Fryx was going to be left behind.
Fourteen
Aldo Moreno finally arrived in Bern on a slushy day in late spring. His leg had long since healed to a red scar. Modern medicine was amazing—when one had ready coin.
He hated the north. There were more people here, and that meant more noise and longer waits for everything. If you got into an aircar, there would be a delay somewhere along the line before you reached your destination. If you stopped at an Inn, the innkeep would not come to your table and greet your warmly. They would not have the time. They would bustle about and serve one customer after another as fast as they could, as if they were mechs themselves.
He sighed. The southern cantons were open, free, wild. He preferred the south, and not just because he had been born there. But for now, possibly for a year or two, he was going to have to stay on the north side of the oceanic belt. Hopefully, the Fleet people would no longer be looking for him after that, and he would be able to return home.
Aldo hadn’t fled because of the law, in truth. It wasn’t legal problems he feared. Certainly, they could be inconvenient. What he fled from were friends. Werner Goll, the Fleet Commander he had slain in his last duel, had friends. It was those men, men who might be driven to perform very dishonorable acts in the name of honor, which he ran from.
Aldo feared no man in a fair duel. One who was better than he was would be only marginally better. Such a man would not want to face Aldo, to do so would be to risk his life. A master of the blade preferred to fight those who were easy to defeat. That was precisely how masters lived through so many duels. Those who were not good were of even less consequence. They would die quickly, predictably.
But men from the Fleet who came for vengeance, they might learn they could not fight him fairly. They may well decide to treat him as a criminal, a dog. They could feel justified in their dishonor, telling themselves he had dealt dishonorably with Werner Goll.
In time, however, their resolve would fade. Those men from the Fleet would give up in time and come up with better things to do. They would forget about him, eventually.
Once he reached canton Bern, he sought out a quiet spot. The city still had some of the old quaint flare to it in the colonial districts, but each year more fields of green grass and whip-pine groves were covered over with gray bubble-crete. He found some areas, however, that had been restricted for development, especially among the oldest of the colonial neighborhoods. They were preserved for tourism, if nothing else.
In a park-like area ringed with old-fashioned wooden houses, Aldo found sanctuary. Each day, he flexed his body and his sword in the park. As it was a public park, his weapon could be drawn and thrust into an occasional darkwood without any legal violation. He did notice women frowning and hustling their children away when he practiced, but that was their affair. They could call the constable if they wanted, but he was within his rights. People in the north knew all about dueling, but it wasn’t as common and was more associated with thuggery than chivalry up here. Aldo threw his nose high and ignored the stares.
One evening while he practiced in the park, a stranger approached him. The stranger wore a gray octagonal cap and a stiff cloak of the same fabric. Two rows of gold buttons lined the front of the uniform. It was a Fleet uniform.
Aldo regarded the man briefly, and then went back to pronging his tree. The darkwood had thick bark that split apart like matted hair. The wood beneath, unlike the woods brought here from Old Earth, was not lighter in color, but rather an even darker shade than the bark itself. The sap ran like blood, and was as black as dirty motor oil.
“Aldo Moreno?”
Aldo paused. “Are you addressing me, sir?”
“I am. I would know your name.”
“I’m not accustomed to responding to rude youngsters in parks. Perhaps you’d best run along, Lieutenant.”
The Fleet man stiffened. He was indeed young. He had grown a broad mustache, perhaps to hide his youth from others.
“You claim not to be Aldo Moreno, the rogue fencer?”
Aldo thrust again. He did not have his plasma sword activated, of course. He might well have lit the park on fire if he had, and that would indeed be an actionable violation. He thrust more deeply than before, letting the tip sink a full foot into the tree. The darkwood ran with black sap as if it wept.
“I
know of such a man. Let me give you a kind word of advice: do not pursue him. He is not a man to be trifled with.”
As the conversation continued, the Lieutenant became increasingly restive. His elbow cocked and his hand went to the butt of a pistol he had at his belt. His eyes blazed at Aldo.
“Your insulting manner convinces me you must indeed be Aldo Moreno, the southern rogue.”
Aldo left his sword quivering, stuck deeply in the tree. He sauntered to stand near the Lieutenant. His sides heaved from his workout, and the air was fresh with the peppery smell of the trees.
“Is this not a fine evening? Why do you want to ruin it, Lieutenant?”
The younger man blinked at him. Aldo could see, for the first time, the nervous flickering of his eyes.
“Honor must be served,” said the Lieutenant.
Aldo nodded. He glanced down at the other man’s hand, which still clutched the butt of his pistol. He smirked.
“And do you propose to murder me with a shell here in the park? Perhaps I should turn my back, so as to make it less frightening for you.”
Aldo turned his back then, and his nose rose up into the air. His lips pursed together in a tight line. The young man had become tiresome.
The Lieutenant slipped his hand from the butt of his pistol. Aldo glanced back at him and nodded.
“Aldo Moreno,” said the young Fleet officer. “You have wrongfully slain another officer of the Fleet. I demand satisfaction.”
Aldo heaved a deep breath. Steam plumed from his nostrils. The challenge had been issued. There was no retreat for either of them now, not without dishonor. He nodded and retrieved his blade from the darkwood tree. He stood stiffly with the tip pointed down to the earth.
“If you insist,” he said. “As the challenged, I choose the sword. I also choose to duel you here. Now.”
The Lieutenant looked startled. “Without an arbiter? In twilight?”
Aldo nodded.
Rattled, the other man removed his cloak and set aside his weapons belt. From it, he drew a sword. Aldo eyed it appreciably. It was a Fleet weapon, standard issue. It had no power fields, no ability to burn. But it would be well-balanced and familiar to the boy’s hand. The edge would be a single molecule wide, just as sharp as Aldo’s rapier.