A Talent for War

by Jack McDevitt

  “Yes, sir.” It was a female voice, and it sounded vaguely annoyed. “But it’ll take a while. We’re shorthanded, and this is our busy night.”

  “How long?”

  “It’s hard to say. I’ll send someone in as soon as I can.”

  I waited about twenty minutes, and then went up myself to the hangar area, which was located underground at the summit. The temperature had plummeted, and the rings, which had brightened the sky a half hour earlier, were now only a pale smear against a heavy overcast. Outside the hangar, I tried the service desk again. Still busy. Any time now, though.

  “Can you tell me where my skimmer’s located?”

  A pause, then: “Sir, guests aren’t allowed in the hangar area.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  A warning was posted on the door: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. I pushed through it into a sprawling cave that would probably not have looked so big if I could have seen some walls. It was illuminated only by a string of yellow lamps burning morosely out in the gloom somewhere. While I tried to get my bearings, a set of overhead doors opened, and a vehicle descended through a shaft into the hangar. Its navigation lamps sliced across rows of parked vehicles. I got only a glimpse before the lights went out. But the skimmer’s magnetics continued to whine, and its black bulk glided to floor level and accelerated. I felt the wave of cold air as it passed at high speed.

  My own aircraft was green and yellow. A bilious combination, but one that would be easy to see if I could get reasonably close to it. I waited for my eyes to adjust, and then stepped cautiously through the door onto a permearth floor, and turned to my left, on the ground that there was a little more illumination in that direction.

  Another skimmer dropped out of the shaft, lights blazing. I tried to get a good look around, but the lamps blinked off almost immediately. Then it accelerated down one of the corridors formed by the parked aircraft. I groped past a small airbus, and penetrated deeper into the hangar.

  There appeared to be three shafts, and vehicles were coming in at an alarming rate. Maddeningly, there was never quite enough time to organize my search during the few seconds of illumination that each provided. I became an expert on the placement of running lights that evening, and formulated Benedict’s Law: no two sets on any consecutive vehicles will point in the same direction. In the end, they only added to the confusion.

  In addition, once they reached ground level, the skimmers, now lost in the dark, moved at high speed. I had a bad time of it: I stumbled past wing struts and tail assemblies, banged a knee, and fell on my face.

  At one point, I was kneeling immediately in front of a skimmer rubbing a knee when I heard the magnets energize. I scrambled to one side as the thing rolled forward, but a wing caught me anyway and knocked me flat.

  I was by then having a few misgivings, but I’d lost my fix on the door, so I couldn’t retreat. I considered calling the service desk again to ask for help, and was about to do so—reluctantly—when I spotted a green and yellow fuselage.

  Gratefully, I hurried over, climbed into the cockpit, and called Chase to tell her the aircraft would be a few minutes late.

  “Okay,” she said. “Anything wrong?”

  “No,” I grumbled. “I’m doing fine. Just a minor problem with the skimmer. Stay with me a second until I make sure it works.”

  “Make sure it works?” She sounded skeptical. “Listen, maybe I better take the taxi.”

  I’ve thought since, many times, yes, there was my chance to head it all off. It’s what I should have done in the first place. And I never even considered it. Now, of course, I’d gone to too much trouble to take the obvious solution.

  You have to work at it to shut down a skimmer response system inadvertently. On the bilious special I had, it was necessary to take off a plastic cover and push a presspad. Simple enough, but you had to make a conscious decision to do it.

  How had it happened?

  Careless attendant, presumably. Odd, since the attendants don’t enter the aircraft unless there’s a problem. Still, there it was. I promised myself there’d be no tip. My God.

  I turned the systems back on, enjoyed the swirl of warm air in the compartment, tapped instructions in for the topside pads, and listened to the magnets engage. The vehicle lifted off the floor, paused while something sailed past, and entered the corridor. Then the skimmer accelerated, stopped (throwing me against the harness), and rose almost vertically into an exit shaft.

  I rode it up, out over the summit, and down again into the landing area. I got out and reset the guidance system for the roof of the Point Edward hotel. “On its way,” I told Chase, over the commlink. It lifted again, and accelerated seaward.

  “Good thing,” she said. “I’m getting hungry.”

  I watched it climb, its running lights blurring against the underside of a low cloud cover. It circled toward the south, and was swallowed in the night.

  “Storm building,” I told Chase a half-hour later from the hotel bar. “You’ll want to dress for it.”

  “You’re not going to be walking me through a lot of snow, are you?”

  “No. But the Perch itself is outside. Unprotected.”

  “Okay.”

  I was seated in a padded armchair. Thick carpets cushioned a stone floor, and the wall-length window which faced the ocean was circumscribed by dark gray drapes. Resistance Era patriotic art decorated the walls, world seals and frigates framed against lunar surfaces and Valkyrie mothers juxstaposed with portraits of their sons. “It’s lovely out here.”

  “Good.” Pause. “Alex?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve spent the day thinking about antimatter and Armstrong units and whatnot. We’ve assumed that Kindrel’s story might be true because maybe a sun weapon could have been built. But there’s another possibility: maybe the story is true, but Olander was a liar. ”

  I considered it. There was no reason I could find to dismiss the idea. Still it didn’t feel right.

  “You know what Kindrel Lee looked like,” Chase continued. “Olander’s sitting in that bar, probably half-tanked, and suddenly she’s there with him. What more typical of a man than that he should begin immediately to exaggerate his importance?”

  “That’s a side of you I haven’t seen before,” I observed.

  “Sorry,” she said. “No slur intended. It’s more or less the nature of things. Well, you know what I mean.”

  “Of course.”

  “The skimmer just came in. See you in a bit.” She signed off.

  The wind was rising, whipping flakes against the window.

  The storm arrived and began to build in intensity. I called the desk and reserved two rooms for the night. Not that the weather presented any serious danger to travelers: the skimmers were inordinately sturdy vehicles and, as long as the pilot stayed with the automatics, there was really nothing to fear. But I was drawn by the prospect of spending a stormy night on Sim’s Perch.

  I was enjoying a dark Ilyandan wine, lost in thought, when a hand pressed on my shoulder, and a voice that I knew cried, “My God, Alex. Where’ve you been?” The voice was Quinda Arin’s, and she held on tight. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” There was snow in her hair and on the shoulders of her jacket. She was trembling, and her voice shook.

  I stared at her in mild shock. “Quinda,” I said, “what the hell are you doing here?”

  Her face was pale. “Where’s your skimmer?”

  “Why?” I stood up intending to help her into a chair, but she waved me impatiently away.

  “Where’s the skimmer?” she demanded, in a tone that I could only characterize as threatening.

  “Somewhere out over the ocean, I guess. It’s bringing Chase Kolpath in from Point Edward.”

  She swore. “That the woman you brought with you?” Her eyes locked on mine: she looked wild, frightened. “You need to get in touch with her. Tell her to get off the skimmer. Keep everybody else away from it too.” She was having trouble
speaking and breathing. Her eyes lost their focus, and she wiped a damp brow with the back of her hand.

  Things started to go cold. “Why?” I asked. “What’s wrong with the skimmer? What’s going on?”

  She shook her head violently. “Never mind.” She got up as though to leave, looked about, sat down again. “There’s a bomb on board.”

  I could barely hear her, and I thought I’d misunderstood. “Pardon?” I said.

  “A bomb! Get her off. For God’s sake, call her. Get her off the goddam thing. Wherever you sent it, get everybody away from it.”

  “It’s probably a little late for that now.” I was slow to react: I couldn’t quite get hold of things, and Quinda was on her feet, anxious to go somewhere, do something. “How do you know about the bomb?”

  Her face was a white mask. Frozen. “Because I put it there.” She glanced at her commlink. “What’s her code? I’ll call her myself. Why didn’t you log onto the net while you were here so you could be found?”

  “Nobody knows us on this world,” I said. “Why the hell would we sign on?” I opened a channel and whispered Chase’s name into my own unit.

  Immediately, I could hear the hiss of the carrier wave, and the rattle of the wind against the aircraft. Chase said hello. Then: “Alex, I was going to call you. Order me a steak and baked. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Where are you?”

  She responded with amused suspicion. “Almost halfway. Why? Something come up? Or someone?”

  “Quinda’s here.”

  “Who?”

  “Quinda Arin. She thinks you have a bomb on board.”

  More wind. Then: “The hell she says.”

  Quinda was on her own system now. “I don’t think. It’s attached to one of the skids. It could go off any time.”

  “Son of a bitch. Who are you, lady?”

  “Listen, I’m sorry. None of this was supposed to happen.” I thought she was going to come apart. Tears started, but she shook them off. “It’s there, Kolpath. Can’t you see it?”

  “Are you kidding? In this? There’s a blizzard going on out there. Listen, I’m twenty minutes away. Is this thing about to go off or what?”

  Quinda shook her head no. Not no that there was no immediate danger, but no that she had no idea, no that she could promise nothing. “It should have exploded an hour ago,” she said. “Any possibility you could climb down and dislodge it?”

  “Wait a minute.” I heard Chase moving in the cockpit, struggling with the canopy, swearing softly. She got it open, and the wind howled. Then she was back, breathless. “No,” she said. “I am not going down there.” I caught a sense of panic around the edge of her voice. “How’d it get there?” she demanded in a voice whose pitch had risen sharply.

  I tried to visualize the aircraft. It would be a long step from the cockpit out to the strut, and then she’d have to lower herself maybe two meters onto the skid. All this in the face of a storm. “How about if you stop the skimmer? Can you hold it steady?”

  “How about if you come up here and do some handstands on the skids? Who the hell is this woman anyhow? Which of us does she want to kill?”

  “She’s got to get rid of the bomb,” said Quinda. “Or get out of the skimmer.”

  “Listen,” said Chase. “I’m going to go to manual, and make for the summit. You’ll have to come get me. But do it quick. After I get down, I’m going to get as far away from this thing as I can, and it’s cold out.”

  “How far off shore are you?”

  “About three kilometers.”

  “All right, Chase. Do it. But keep your commlink on. We’re on our way.”

  “I can’t believe you’ve done this,” I told her.

  Quinda was directing her skimmer to pick us up. She kept on until she’d finished, and then she turned on me in cold fury. “You dumb son of a bitch. You brought it on yourself. What right do you have, barging in and trying to grab things for yourself? And then blabbing to the goddam mutes. You’re lucky you’re not dead. Now let’s get moving and we can argue about it later.”

  We were both on our feet now.

  “You want to do something constructive?” she continued. “Call the Patrol. And tell Kolpath to activate her beacon.” She was having trouble controlling her voice. “I never intended anyone should get hurt, but I’m not so sure now that was a good idea.”

  I notified the Patrol, and gave them the situation. They were incredulous. “Who the hell,” demanded the official voice on the link, “would put a bomb on an aircraft?” Quinda was glaring at me. “On our way,” he grumbled. “But we’ve got nothing in the immediate vicinity. Take a while. Maybe forty minutes.”

  “We don’t have forty minutes,” I told him.

  “Alex,” Quinda said, as we hurried through the lobby, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t just go to you, and I’m sorry you’re such a damned fool. But why the hell couldn’t you have minded your own business? I may wind up having killed somebody before this is over!”

  “It was you all the time, wasn’t it? You took the file, and you left the loaded simulation. Right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Goddam shame you can’t take a hint.”

  It was too much. I believe, had there been time, I’d have thrown her against a wall. As it was, we had things to do. “Where’s your skimmer?”

  “It’s on its way.”

  “God help me, Quinda, if anything happens to her I’ll pitch you into the ocean!” We went through the lobby on a dead run. There’s a ballroom at the north end, which was corded off. The cord was flexible, and there was about twelve meters of it. I ripped it free, and coiled it as we ascended the shaft to the summit.

  Snow was falling heavily onto the pads. Our headlong rush stopped at the end of a line. People stood with their heads bent against the storm, hands jammed into the pockets of their thermals. Quinda pealed back the sleeve of her jacket, and glanced at her watch.

  No trace of the hangar was visible from the landing pads. We watched an aircraft rise out of the trees, and float in our direction. Overhead, a couple of incoming skimmers circled, waiting their turns to land.

  An airbus drifted in and docked.

  “This isn’t going to work,” she said, looking anxiously around.

  “Where was it supposed to go off?”

  “In the hangar. But something went wrong.”

  “Another warning?” She turned toward me. It’s the only time in my life that I can remember seeing violence in a woman’s eyes. “Quinda, why did you disconnect the automatics?”

  “To prevent anyone from using it,” she said stiffly. “Who would have thought you’d go down there to get the thing?”

  “What triggers the bomb?”

  “A timer. But either I didn’t set it properly, or it’s defective. I don’t know.”

  “Wonderful.”

  The storm beat down on us. I felt suddenly very tired. “Don’t you have any idea,” Quinda asked, “of the risk you’re running? For all of us?”

  “Maybe you should tell me.”

  “Maybe you should just leave it alone. Let’s get your partner, and the two of you can go back to Rimway and leave it alone.” She spoke into her commlink: “Control, we have an emergency. My name’s Arin. I need my skimmer immediately. Please.”

  They were slow to answer. “Your aircraft is on the way,” a computer voice said. “There is nothing we can do to hurry matters.”

  “Can you supply a vehicle?” I asked. “This is an emergency.”

  “Just a moment, please. I’ll put you through to my supervisor.”

  The bus passengers filed out, and hurried through the storm. When they were gone, the vehicle lifted, swung ponderously over the trees, and descended into the hangar. Moments later, a sleek, luxurious skimmer rose over the same grove and turned in our direction. It was steel blue, with inlaid silver trim, and tapering ingot wing mounts. A Fasche. An elderly couple hurried forward out of the shelter of the tube station.


  I considered trying to commandeer the Fasche, but Quinda shook her head. “Here it comes,” she whispered.

  A new voice from Control: “What is the nature of your problem, please?”

  “Aircraft in trouble.” Quinda gave them Chase’s code.

  Our skimmer lined up behind the luxury aircraft. Both floated toward us.

  Control again: “We are notifying the Patrol. We do not maintain rescue facilities here.”

  “We don’t need rescue facilities,” said Chase. “Just a skimmer.”

  “I understand.”

  My commlink beeped. I opened a channel. “Yes, Chase?”

  The wind was loud at both ends, drowning her voice.

  I turned away from the weather. “Say again!”

  “I think the damned thing has just blown.” She was struggling to keep her voice under control. “I’ve lost the son of a bitch. It’s going down.”

  “Do you still have power?”

  “Yes. But part of the tail’s gone. And something big came through the cockpit. The canopy’s popped and I have a hole in the deck big enough to fall through.” The wind screamed in the link.

  Quinda: “Are you all right?”

  Chase’s voice hardened. “Is she still with you?”

  “We’re going to be using her skimmer,” I said.

  “Going to be? You mean you’re not started yet?”

  “Starting now. Are you okay?”

  “I’ve been better.” There was a sharp intake of breath. “I think my left leg’s broken.”

  “Can you make the summit?”

  “No. I’m above it now, but I’m losing altitude too fast. If I try it, I’ll probably hit the wall.”

  “Okay. Stay clear.”

  Quinda turned worried eyes toward me, and put her hand over my wrist, covering the commlink. “The ocean’s cold. We have to get to her quickly.”

  The Fasche settled into its slot on the pad. Its owners passed us, walking backward against the storm. The man looked up, and took in the sky with a broad sweep of his hand. “Hell of a night,” he said. “Isn’t it?”