by Chris Bunch
“Am I being listened to?” he said in Al’ar.
Nothing came for a long moment, then:
“You are being listened to,” the Grayle said.
Joshua sagged in relief. “It would’ve been a real pisser,” he muttered, “if this buildup hadn’t paid off.” Then: “Give location.”
“Just entering atmosphere. I have your location. Instructions?”
“As ordered, you’ll land two miles from my location, offshore, homing on this signal. Return underwater until you reach a point no more than a thousand yards distant from me, unless the water is less than a hundred feet deep. In that event, go to the nearest hundred-foot depth and remain on the bottom until summoned.”
“Understood.”
Joshua put away the com link to his ship and slid down from the pile of supplies. He looked out seaward, thought he saw the momentary flare of a ship’s drive braking, then saw nothing. He took a tiny bottle from his book.
“Now,” he said. “Now we CYA.”
• • •
“I should’ve known,” Wolfe’s shift boss muttered, “you were too goddamned good to be true.”
“Sorry, boss. But honest, I wasn’t — ”
“Hunt, don’t lie to me. I can smell the stink of the booze from here. What’d you do, swim in it? Where’d you get it, anyway?”
Joshua looked down at the deck.
“Forget it,” the man said. “There’s never been a logger who wouldn’t manage to get himself trashed if he was marooned in space. Go clean up, and in your bunk. I’m not putting you on the cutting head with a hangover. You’re docked the day’s wages, too.
“Lesser Eagle’s covered for you, so you owe him a shift.” The man scowled, then turned his attention back to the data scrolling past on his screen.
Joshua left the compartment and went down to the two-man room he’d been assigned to. His bunkie was out, working. Joshua ran a basinful of water, took off his coveralls, and began rinsing out the extract of bourbon.
• • •
“All for the shore who’s going ashore,” the coxswain sang out.
There were about twenty men strapped into the seats of the small submarine, and the compartment was about half-full. No one paid any attention to the disgraced shooter who sat at the rear, cased rifle across his knees, his travel cases beside him.
The coxswain touched controls, and the port slid shut. The air-conditioning went to high.
“You know,” a man sitting near Joshua said, “until you suck in good air, you forget how every friggin’ breath we take stinks of that goddamned jungle.”
“You been with Sitka too long,” Lesser Eagle said. He sat comfortably next to the three soft cases that held his gear. “This is ship air, not the real stuff.”
“And what do you think you’re going to be breathing down below?” the man said.
“The same stuff,” the former crane operator said. “But I’m going to be so busy making whoopee, I’ll never notice.”
“Bet you ten credits you’re broke and back topside in a month.”
“I’ll take the bet,” Lesser Eagle said. He grinned at Wolfe. “The man isn’t aware of my resolve.” He leaned toward Joshua. “You gonna look me up, in my new position of great importance, next time you come below? I’ll even buy the first round. Maybe try to decoy you into staying.
“You know, only about half of the contract people fill out their time. The rest get hired away, like me.
“The only reason Sitka knows I’m leaving is the Port Authority was nice enough to buy out my obligation. Otherwise, it’d be pfft … and no more Injun.
“No reason you can’t follow my lead. Slinging cargo nets down there’s a damn sight better than breathing wood dust and shit topside. Plus you don’t get called lice and worse by the whitehats below.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Wolfe said. “Thanks.” He looked out the port. The sub was pulling away from the dock, out of the shadow of the Centipede. Air hissed, controls clanged, and the ocean rose and covered the port. Green changed to black as the ship dove toward the sea bottom.
• • •
“Welcome to Tworn Station,” the woman said. One of the lumbermen bayed like a wolf in heat. The station greeter kept her expensive smile firmly in place.
The men swarmed out the lock into the undersea city. Wolfe stayed carefully in their midst.
The sub dock was next to the liner docks, where starships could port after they’d made the underwater approach to Tworn Station, the largest of Montana Keep’s five deep-sea settlements. There was a lavish terminal there, plush welcome to the Outlaw Worlds’ tourists who came to play.
Outside the terminal Wolfe noted a pair of soberly dressed, mild-looking men whose eyes seemed to meet everyone’s and then sweep on.
Wind, blow, soft, not moving the grass …
The Chitet’s gaze swept across Wolfe and moved on.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
There’d never been an Earth sky as blue as the roof of the dome. The “sun” was that of a spring morning. Wolfe consulted the map of Tworn Station he’d gotten from the Centipede’s rec room, oriented himself, and started down one of the winding streets. After a few moments he stopped, frowning. He looked up, checked his watch, then looked up once more.
He remembered one of the slogans of Tworn Station: “Where the Nighttime Is the Best Time.” Cleverly, while keeping to Zulu time, they’d modified it slightly. “Day” would be, he estimated, about seven-eighths normal, so the “sun’s” motion was slightly accelerated. The “moon’s” travel at “night” would be slowed to compensate.
From nowhere a bright ball of flame roared down. Involuntarily, he flinched just as the “comet” exploded and became flaring letters across the “sky”:
GIRLS
Beautiful
Friendly
Lonely
All Day — All Night
Visit Neptune’s Landing
Wolfe shook his head and continued walking.
Tworn Station was built in a series of not quite concentric rings. The streets wound and twisted, creating the illusion of a far larger area.
Contrary to what the logger in the submarine had said, he wasn’t breathing dry, sterile ship air. Instead it sang of cinnamon, musk, cumin, watermelon — spices that tanged his nostrils and appetites.
Music roared, hummed, soared around him, coming from shops, bars, apartment buildings whose doors stood open; in them men, women, and children lounged, sharp eyes calculating, smiles offering:
“Hey, lumberpig … how long you been down?”
“Read your fortune, handsome?”
“Get up, get down, get all around, guaranteed pure quill, no habit, no regrets …”
“Best lottery odds, right here. Six winners last cycle alone …”
“You look lost, my friend. Need a guide?”
Wolfe kept his smile neutral, his gaze unfixed.
A woman passed, smiling a promise that her charms would more than compensate for what she’d do to his credit balance.
The buildings were low, no more than three stories at the highest. Their plas was anodized a thousand cheery colors, but not, Wolfe noted, sea-green.
He paused at the entrance to a small square. Across the way was a bar with an open terrace.
Emptiness … void … all things … nothing …
The three Chitet were looking at him. One frowned, searching her memory.
Emptiness … nothing …
Wolfe felt warmth from the Lumina in its pouch hidden behind his scrotum.
One Chitet turned to the frowning woman. “Shouldn’t we be hurrying? I think we’re late.”
The other’s frown vanished, and she checked her watch. “No,” she said. “We have more than a sufficiency.”
“My apologies. I misestimated. It is this strange ‘sky’ we are under.”
The three went on.
Breathe … breathe …
“I think,” Wolfe said softly, “so
meone besides myself may have outthought Mister Javits.”
He crossed the lane and went through the outside tables and into the bar.
There was one man inside, his head on a corner table, snoring loudly. The three women at the bar spotted Wolfe. The blondest and fattest got up and came toward him, chiseling a smile through her makeup.
“Afternoon, big man. Are you as dry as I am?”
“Drier,” Wolfe said. “What kind of beer do you have?”
She began a long recital. Wolfe stopped her after a few brands and chose one. She went to the bar, reached over it, touched a sensor. A few seconds later the hatch on the bar opened, and a glass with a precisely correct head on it appeared.
“I’m partial to champagne,” the woman said, trying to sound throaty.
“Who isn’t?” Wolfe agreed. “Buy what you really like. I’ll pay champagne prices.”
The woman chuckled. “I drink beer, too. But it’s perdition on my hips. Easy on, hard off.”
Paying no attention to her wisdom, she tapped the sensor and drank thirstily when the beer emerged.
“So you’re with Sitka?”
“How’d you guess?”
“There’s nothin’ out-system due till tomorrow, and gen’rally, this close to the port, we get ‘em first thing. How long you been loggin’?”
“Three weeks.”
The woman looked disappointed.
“Something wrong with that?”
“I shouldn’t say … but the longer you been topside, bein’ chased by lizards, the readier you are to do some serious carryin’ on.”
“And the more credits you have to do it with,” Wolfe suggested.
“That, too, honey. That, too.”
Wolfe took a drink of beer.
“Who were those three prune faces that came past?” he asked. “Hard to believe they’re in a place with Tworn Station’s reputation.”
“Hell if I know. They call themselves Chitet. Some kinda straitlaced bunch from back toward the Federation. Dunno if they’re a religion or what. There’s a whole cluster of ‘em down here. Along with their leader.
“I read somethin’ on the vid says they’re here investigatin’ the possibility of settin’ up their own dome. More gold to ‘em, but I can’t see what they’d spend their time doin’ down on sea bottom.
“ ‘Sides poundin’ their pud. They surely ain’t the sort interested in ballin’ the jack, man or woman. I could have more fun with a vibrator.
“Damn dull. How many of you come from topside?”
“No more’n twenty,” Wolfe said.
“Damn.” The woman made it into a two-syllable word. “That ain’t enough for a circle jerk, let alone any kinda party. Hope to hell the liner’s got some hard-chargin’ folks aboard.
“So what’s your pleasure, mister?” She smiled hopefully. Her breath wasn’t the freshest.
“Another beer … and could I use your vid? I haven’t been paying much attention to the world lately.”
The woman looked disappointed. “Should’ve guessed something like that.”
She brightened a little when Wolfe handed her a bill. She got him another beer and the slender plas block he’d asked for. He found a corner booth where he could see the door, sat down, and keyed the vid.
• • •
The man’s expression was calm, assured. He was bald, looked to be in his early fifties, and appeared to be no more than a successful businessman. Wolfe looked more closely at the thumbnail on the vid. There must have been some glare from the camera, he decided, that created the strange glitter in the man’s eyes.
He touched the sensor for PRINT instead of SPEECH, then the tellmemore.
Chitet Master Speaker Matteos Athelsten, in an exclusive interview with the Monitor, said he was most impressed with the citizens of Tworn Station and was so delighted with the cleanliness and recreational opportunities available under our fair dome, he said he was allowing his entire detachment, from all three of the Chitet ships currently docked at Tworn Station, liberty.
He said he hoped the citizens of Tworn Station would take the opportunity to share their lives with his men and women and expressed hope that some of our people might be interested in the Chitet philosophy, particularly as it pertained to economics.
“Very quietly, we are practicing the way of the future, leading the way out of the ruins of the past,” Master Athelstan said. “Our way has already been embraced by many billions of people throughout this galaxy, and their changed lives have increased their liberty, clarity of thought, and, most importantly, economic well-being. Since my election three years ago, we’ve been able to increase our membership a thousandfold. In addition …”
Wolfe touched a sensor, and the screen cleared. He keyed CALENDAR:
New Show-All Spectacular at Rodman’s … Two-Way Theater Opens in Surround-Dome … Men-Only Revue and Dancing at Scandals … Holo-Poker at Newtons … Art Museum Hosts Second Mayan Empire Display … The Secrets of the Al’ar …
He hit PAUSE and reread the last entry carefully. He thought for a time, trying to decide if the trap was for him or for larger game.
Leaving his beer half-finished, he put the vid down, got up, and left the bar.
The heavy blonde watched him leave, a sad expression on her face. The man in the corner was still snoring.
• • •
Wolfe counted four Chitet around the main entrance to the prefab building that had been erected on the tarmac next to the ship and guessed there’d be more.
Breathe … breathe …
His soul divided.
Fire … burn low … burn quiet … embers only … ready to flare …
Nothingness … void … less than space … all matter is here … there is nothing … no particles, no sensation … the soul is vacant …
A knot of tourists came down the wide avenue leading to the docks, saw the color-flashing holobanner, and crossed to the entrance booth. Wolfe was unobtrusively among them.
He fed coins into the slot and entered.
• • •
An Al’ar in combat harness appeared in the darkness. Its mouth gaped and it spoke, but the words were not the real speech but instead a simulated garble. The purported translation hissed into Wolfe’s ears:
“You of the Federation … you have spent too long in your lazy ways … now we of the Al’ar have come to challenge you, to destroy you.”
Wolfe’s expression was blank.
• • •
“Little is known of the Al’ar ways or their culture. Only a few men and women learned their language, and even fewer were permitted to visit their worlds.
“Of those few, most were diplomats or traders, and unfortunately all too many of them were caught up and went to their deaths in the first days of the war.”
Figures ran across the screen. Wolfe lifted his hand until it was silhouetted. It was trembling slightly. He watched it as if it belonged to someone else.
• • •
“After the first surprise attack,” the narrator said calmly, as if the spinning, shredded Federation ships in the middle of the darkness did not exist, “and the total loss of four Federation battle fleets, humanity was put on notice that there could be but one victor and one loser in this war.
“So man girded his loins for the greatest battle that would ever be fought …”
• • •
There was a field of bodies.
“The Al’ar did not realize, or did not care, that these men and women were trying to surrender.
“But there was a worse fate than death. Some humans were captured by the Al’ar. No one knows what tortures they were subjected to, for only a few were rescued or managed to escape.”
The screen showed a slumped woman. Involuntarily, Joshua flinched. Twelve years before he had led the team that had rescued her and three others.
Breathe … breathe …
• • •
The red blotches on the starchart shrank and shrank.
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“Little by little,” the narrator went on, “we drove them back and back, off the worlds they’d conquered, back from their outpost planets, and we attacked what the Al’ar called their capital worlds.
“The Federation came in for the death stroke. Huge fleets, thousands of ships, many millions of fighting men and women closed in for the final assault on the Al’ar sanctuaries.
“And then … then the Al’ar disappeared.
“No one knows where they went. The ships offworld exploded as one, as if they’d all had bombs aboard, fused to detonate at the same time.
“The handful of Al’ar we’d managed to capture simply disappeared. No prison camp sensor showed any sign of where they could have gone.
“Similarly, when reconnaissance teams were sent down onto the Al’ar capital worlds, they found nothing.
“There are tales that food was found on tables, that Al’ar machinery was running, that their weather control apparatus was in operation.
“These are all false. In fact, it was as if the Al’ar had decided to leave and, before their departure, had cleaned, shut everything down … and then simply vanished.
“Where did they go?
“Why did they go?
“There are no answers.
“The Al’ar are gone … and they took their secrets with them.”
The starchart vanished. There was blackness, then the lights came up. There were only a handful of people in the circular theater with Wolfe. One of them was a Chitet who looked at Wolfe but did not see him.
“You are invited to visit our museum behind this chamber,” the synthed voice said. “Also, on your way out, we welcome you to our gift shop and hope you will recommend our exhibition to your friends.”
“Not bloody likely,” one of the tourists who’d entered in front of Joshua grumbled. “Secrets of the Al’ar … by Mohamet, I thought we’d find out how they screwed or something.
“This is just like friggin’ school and history shit!”
His friends laughed, agreed, and went out.
• • •
Joshua lingered in the narrow corridors of what the voice had called a museum, paying little attention to the mostly false relics, the battle souvenirs, the holopics, which were as tacky as everything else in the show.