“I doubt they’re here to answer you,” Harry joked. The place unsettled him. He turned and peered into the depths below them. A darker patch on the opposite wall, at the very depth he’d estimated, showed the other end of the tunnel. “Whatever it is, it continues on the other side of the fissure.”
“And it goes down a long way from here.” Roberta Klonowski watched the technician. “The surface lining of this tunnel is manufactured, but it seems to be organic. Come, my friend, I want to get these samples into the laboratory.” She joined Harry. “I’m sure Dr. Palmer is already making demands for the protection of the inhabitants of this place, wherever they are.”
Harry laughed. “If he can find any, he’s welcome! This place has a most uncomfortable feel to it.” He looked around. “Something is not right, but I don’t know what. Let’s get out of here.”
“I agree,” said Roberta. “This lining isn’t natural—it’s too regular and smooth.” She chuckled with a wry grin. “The infamous Dr. Palmer will have to examine it, of course—first dibs if he gets his way—but I doubt he’ll find any living aliens to protect here.”
As Harry anticipated, the discovery started something of a scrum among the science teams, and most of them wanted to visit the surface to see it for themselves.
The Commander studied the list of examinations and research that the scientists around the table thought vital and necessary. Dr. Palmer was the most demanding, Harry noted, and he had made some serious enemies among those whose claims to the allocation of research resources were more legitimate.
“We’ll have to set up a surface post for some of these,” said the Commander.
Dr. Palmer took a breath and was about to launch into one of his self-important tirades when the Commander cut him off. “As the likelihood of there being any remaining life on this planet is slim to none, I am giving the geological and archaeological teams priority, though all the other teams will have the opportunity to share the data they gather and to undertake specific short-term visits as well.”
Dr. Klonowski got in ahead of the others. “I appreciate that, sir.” She smiled at the group. “From what we saw on the first visit, I’d say there was a massive impact at some point, and the tunnel is not natural. It has a sort of lining that is non-metallic and non-organic, and is similar to cement.” She looked across at Dr. Palmer. “We can upload video of everything we found, but from what I saw, there was nothing other than the tunnel, and we didn’t have time to penetrate farther than the first few metres.”
“So you say,” Dr. Palmer snapped, his face flushed, and then he looked directly at Harry. “But I’m not happy about the Lieutenant’s involvement, given his past record of interference with the indigenous populations of whatever planet he sets foot.”
Regidur and Sci’antha both reacted, but the menacing Canid was on his feet and leaning across the table, his eyes blazing. “You are an ignorant fool!” He barked, the translator almost deafening the gathering.
Harry had a restraining hand on the Canid before anyone else could move. “Thank you, Regidur. What interference would that be, Doctor? I think I have a right to take exception to these continuing slurs upon my character and my intentions.”
The Commander banged his fist on the table. “That will do, Mr. Heron, Regidur.” Turning to Palmer, he added, “Doctor Palmer, I remind you that Mr. Heron is an officer with a remarkable record. Given his origins and his background, your remarks are offensive, and I insist that you withdraw them and apologise immediately.”
Dr. Palmer glowered at the gathered scientists and correctly gauged that he could expect no support from them. “Oh, very well, then. I withdraw the objection. However, I insist that any life forms discovered must be accorded the full protection of the Protocol.”
The Canid made an angry noise, but caught the Commander’s eye and subsided. Harry, with a glance at his superior, nodded. “You may rest assured, Doctor, that I have no desire to interfere with any life forms that I might stumble upon—unless, of course, they attempt to kill me.” The anger was plain in his face as he held the doctor’s gaze. Harry’s reputation in the art of fencing had been more than adequately demonstrated in the months that the ship had been in transit, but now his contempt was also showing, as was his refusal to be cowed by this bullying scientist. Those who knew him well also knew not to cross him when he had the expression that seared his face as he glared at Dr. Palmer.
Dr. Palmer looked away, fiddling awkwardly with his tablet. “As long as we are clear on this, Commander, I have every intention of advising my sponsors of this unsatisfactory situation as soon as I am able to obtain a hyperlink.”
The Commander nodded, his face showing his annoyance. He already knew that the doctor had been making daily contact with the LPSL headquarters in London and that a considerable amount of material, none as yet sensitive, was being transferred to that organisation, and not all of it the intellectual property of the doctor’s team. “I would like to discuss that with you privately, Dr. Palmer. I’d like a moment of your time when we’ve finished today. The Captain has some concerns that I want to bring to your attention.” He looked at Harry. “Is there anything else your people will need for this surface stay on Vogon?”
Harry put his anger aside and gathered his thoughts. “Yes, sir, but I think it can all be sorted out fairly quickly. I’ll transfer the full requisition to your terminal if that suits you.”
The Commander nodded. “Do so, please.” His gaze swept the group. “Dr. Klonowski, Dr. Abbott, Dr. Knop, perhaps I can leave you to work out the details of the equipment and personnel you need to land with Mr. Heron. Thank you. There’ll be the usual security detail landing with you, Mr. Heron. See the master warrant for their needs.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Good. See me as soon as you’ve got everything sorted.” He signalled the meeting’s close, and everyone dispersed, leaving Dr. Palmer alone and seething with anger.
The Commander wasted no time after closing the door. “Now, Doctor, I have several serious issues to discuss with you regarding the activities of your team.”
“The man is an insufferable bully, Mr. Heron, but you can and must ignore his constant gibes.” The Commander hesitated. “If he wasn’t just about the only man on Earth who can decipher alien scripts and languages almost from scratch, we’d have had him shipped home and replaced within days of setting out. Now, I will say only this at present: I have every reason to suspect that he and his pals are trying to find something they can use against you. That means you need to be on your guard at all times, no matter what the provocation.”
“Yes, sir.”
Harry’s reluctance to offer any additional comments nudged the Commander to explain the situation further. “Dr. Palmer is a dangerous man—more dangerous than you know. His sort always manages to twist the truth and put a spin to it so that it’s not quite untruth, but it’s not the complete truth either.” He gauged Harry’s expression; the haughty mask was back, and the Lieutenant’s eyes were bright and hard when he finally offered a reply.
“I think I have some experience with their manipulations, sir. I have several times been ambushed by their propagandists during live interviews.”
“Then you know what I mean.” The Commander stood up. “Don’t make remarks like the one you threw at him about sentient life forms trying to kill you. You can be damned sure that he or one of his people will have recorded it, and when they can insert it into something unrelated that shows you in a bad light, they’ll do it.”
“Surely there are laws that prevent them doing these things, sir.”
“There are, and then again, there aren’t. The onus is always on you to prove they’ve done it. As far as what matters right now, you’ve got a job on your hands. One more thing: Dr. Klonowski knows that one of her people is also an LPSL sympathiser, so be careful.”
Mary read Harry’s latest letter with eager anticipation. As usual, he provided some interesting insights about some of the p
eople he was working with. What he didn’t say conveyed a great deal that he probably didn’t intend, but she was good at reading between the lines. She frowned as she read his description of Dr. Palmer and his associations with the League for the Protection of Sentient Life. A feeling of unease prickled her skin, and she had the distinct impression that this man was dangerous somehow.
Her attention focused on the holo display, a talk show hosted by the popular ‘Monty’ Montaigne. One of the panelists was expounding on the subject of exploration, and the search for habitable planets. Another cut in with the view that studying ‘dead’ worlds was a waste of resources, mentioning the NECRS Beagle, currently visiting a patently uninhabitable planet. The remark led to a heated discussion about the need to extend scientific knowledge, the urbane host deftly steering the opposing views. Losing interest, she returned to her letter.
Mary studied the watercolours that Harry had included. This crop were all of some of the scientists, and beneath each was the name of the person and his or her job title. Mary lingered for a moment over the sketch labelled Roberta Klonowski – Head Geologist. It showed a woman in her mid to late thirties. She had dark hair and eyes filled with laughter. Hers was a strong face; her expression was relaxed, but there was an air of authority to it.
She probably adores Harry, she mused. What woman wouldn’t? No doubt, Harry had worked his charm on this Roberta woman, but Mary was certain that she was just a work mate and a friend—nothing more than that—at least she hoped so. It was not easy being separated by vast amounts of time and distance. She read his letter again to reassure herself of his love for her and only her.
Yanik Hallam considered himself unbeatable when it came to gaining access to protected data. The fact that he’d so far succeeded in getting absolutely nothing in his attempts to access Lieutenant Heron’s link made it an irresistible challenge. The glimpse he’d caught of Harry’s memory of Mary intrigued him. Who was this beautiful woman astride his lap? Was she a real person? Maybe she was Harry’s girlfriend. Or was she an erotic fantasy he conjured up when he thought no one was looking?
It frustrated Hallam that he’d got so close, and then been kicked out of the system altogether. “Let’s see you beat this, Lieutenant …” Tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth, he entered a series of commands then leaned back and watched as code began to stream on his display.
“What you up to, Yan? Got what the boss wants yet?” The petite woman parked herself on the edge of his worktop and glanced at his screen.
“Not yet, but I’m close, Josie.” He grinned. “Just uploading a little trick program I threw together. As soon as Heron uses that link of his, it’ll latch on and keep him linked to me. I’ll soon know what he’s hiding from us.”
Josie frowned. “But that’s …” She hesitated. “I thought they said he’s permanently linked to the AI.”
“If he is, all the better,” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen. He sat up suddenly, his expression incredulous. “What the hell? It’s rewriting my program! Shit, shit, shit!” He entered a few commands to no avail. “Now it’s …” He stared at the display. “I’ve never seen anything like this. The ship—the bloody ship!—is telling me to mind my own business and stop attempting to access data and information that I have no right to!”
Josie burst out laughing. “That’ll teach you. The Boss won’t be pleased, but you’ll have to try a different approach, Hal. It looks like they’re on to you.”
“No damned way.” Hallam fumed. He had more than one trick up his sleeve. Lieutenant Bloody Heron would soon learn that Yanik Hallam wasn’t going to be beaten. Heron was hiding something. He was sure of it now, and he was definitely going to find it.
Alone in his comfortable suite—a luxury enjoyed by all the unit leaders of the science teams—Greg Palmer let his mind run over the work of the day. He’d have to watch Hallam; the fellow was becoming far too sure of himself. He sipped the drink he’d poured, very conscious of the threat he felt to his status from some of his own team.
“Those damned creatures always supporting Heron don’t help either. Damn the man. So damned efficient, so sure of himself …” He gulped the drink in hasty anger, and choked, which led to a flurry of coughing and spluttering.
“Damn!” he muttered as he wiped his shirt. He couldn’t fathom Heron out. He landed in the twenty-third century straight from the nineteenth, for crying out loud! He shouldn’t be so damned comfortable with an eight-foot-tall wolf man or a female creature that resembled a dinosaur and spoke with a wispy, lisping voice like a 1940s Hollywood bombshell.
He couldn’t bring himself to admit it, but aliens terrified him. Sure, their languages and scripts fascinated him, but their physical presence made him uncomfortable, like he wanted to bolt for the nearest exit.
In part, this was the reason he supported the LPSL—to keep alien races away from Earth. His “humanitarian” work—a misnomer indeed, but for lack of a better term, that’s what everyone called it—was also very useful for gaining the attention of starry-eyed followers whose brains could be employed to his advantage. Downing the last of his drink, he prepared for bed, the memory of the confrontation with Regidur making him shudder as he tried to find a comfortable position.
Chapter 3
First Contact
The exploration of the tunnel showed that it wasn’t natural.
“It’s part of an extensive network, Harry,” the leading archaeologist told him as he joined him deep inside the tunnel. “We can find nothing to indicate who or what created this, though about half a kilometre down that lead, there’s a chamber that looks sort of like a honeycomb.”
“No sign of any living organism? Nothing Dr. Palmer’s team would want to examine?”
The archaeologist smiled inside his helmet. “Not a thing. Yanik Hallam has examined it and recorded everything. He and another of Palmer’s team—Du Bois, I think—are with the advance team at the end of this branch.”
Harry hesitated. Something about these tunnels made him very uneasy. He had a feeling of being watched, yet there was absolutely no sign of life anywhere, and with no atmosphere at all, it seemed unlikely there could be. “I’ll leave you to it then. Just keep everyone within a kilometre of the entry point in case I need to recall you.”
“Understood. I don’t think we can do much more down here anyway, so I’ll pull everyone out. It would take years and a much bigger team to examine what we’ve seen so far, and that’s probably a mere fraction of how far this thing goes.” He stopped as an excited voice broke in.
“You have to see this, George! It’s amazing. Looks like a whole city—non-human, but a city.”
Harry laughed. “I think you spoke too soon, George. I’ll leave you to it! Don’t let anyone get lost.”
Harry left the tunnel and used his lift pack to soar clear of the chasm. He’d just landed next to his transport sled when the Commander’s voice sounded in his helmet audio link.
“Get your people packed up and back on board, Harry.”
“What will I tell the people, sir? The scientists are not going to be happy. They’ve just uncovered what could be a city at the end of that tunnel.”
“Tell them we have a security alert, and I want everyone back up here ASAP.”
“Very good, sir. It will take an hour at least to demount and remove our living and working units.”
“Leave them in place. Just get everyone up here. Tell them to bring their data and their samples. We’ll retrieve the equipment later.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Harry turned to his warrant officer. “You heard that, Warrant? Good. You round up the inside teams while I deal with the outside crews.”
The warrant officer closed and sealed his EVA suit, and Harry did the same. He had just activated his comlink when the Commander contacted him.
“Can you communicate with the ship from there?”
Puzzled as to the reason for this question, Harry responded with confidence nonetheless. “Of co
urse, sir. The link is functioning.”
“No, I meant that trick of yours.”
“Yes, sir.” Harry frowned, puzzled at his need to clarify. “I can communicate with the ship as long as I am linked to a computer that is also linked to the ship.”
“Okay. I’m not sure this will work. Give me a moment, please. I suggest you establish whatever it is you have to do, but act as if everything is normal. I’ll explain in a moment.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” He completed his suit checks, and as he operated the airlocks to leave the command module, he let his link to the computer slide to what he considered his active mode.
“Beagle, do you know what the Commander wants?”
“Yes, Harry, but he will tell you himself. He has asked me to link his voice-com to you. If it is too loud, I will adjust it.” The ship hesitated. “He does not appreciate the sensitivity of my voice connections and thinks he must speak loudly and carefully.”
Harry almost guffawed. He knew exactly what the ship meant. The Commander almost shouted when not using his personal link to speak to the ship. It was comedic the way he enunciated each word with excruciating clarity. “Please tell him to use his link then. I do not think my aural nerves could stand it otherwise.”
He grinned at the ship’s response to this remark as he made his way to a transport sled, started it, and followed the beacon to the farthest of the geological teams. Suddenly the Commander was inside his ears, and Harry wondered what else his superior might be able to hear of his thoughts.
“Harry, chase it up down there. We have a possibly hostile contact on approach, and they definitely know we’re here. It’s a ship of human origin—possibly one of the old Consortium renegades they supposedly lost at the end of the war.” There was a pause, and Harry could sense that the Commander was taking a moment to think. “That shadow of yours is still about as well. No indication of who or what yet. It’s keeping its distance, but we’re aware of it.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Harry replied, and then he hesitated. “If you send down the pod carriers, sir, we can load everything into the pods and lift the lot in one go. It will save time, and it will mean that we don’t lose any of the kit or samples if we can’t get back.” He stopped and waved to the geological team. “Pardon me, sir, but I must speak to the team leader briefly. The ship will keep us linked.”
Awakening Threat Page 3