by Ian Miller
"Oh, you do, do you?" Natasha asked.
"Yes, I believe the tide has definitely turned. Naturally Defence will be asked to clean up the last resistance, but I think our position is far more secure than it was before, so there is no need for extra powers. "
"Then if the threat has been removed, you will have no qualms about visiting Mars, to speak to the settlers?"
"I'd be very pleased to go. It would be very interesting to go on one of those alien vessels."
"I was thinking more of one of our freighters," Natasha said. "You know, the sort that the Council insisted go against my better judgement, and which got destroyed within the first hour or so of travel."
"Don't look so concerned," Marcellus interposed. "I am sure you could go on the Actium. The price would be high, though. I would say, four billion fecus."
"Four billion!" the President protested. "That's extortion!"
"It's market forces," Marcellus replied. "It's the premium for safety. Of course there'd be another four billion if you wanted to get back."
"On the other hand," Natasha shrugged, "you might have difficulty explaining why such premium is needed to ensure your safety when the battle is over. Also, I don't recall any budget allocation for travelling on alien vessels."
"Of course there isn't," the President protested. "There weren't any until very recently."
"If you'd realized that before charging through my door," Natasha said, "we could have saved ourselves a lot of strife."
The President gave Natasha a very black look, but eventually he decided to discretely withdraw. After he left the room, Natasha was surprised to see Marcellus chuckling to himself.
"You're laughing!" Natasha exclaimed.
"I hope you don't think I am being rude," Marcellus replied, "but I thought that was funny. I hope you don't feel insulted?"
"Of course not," Natasha replied. "I just didn't expect an android to laugh."
"I am a Companion," Marcellus protested. "We are made as close as possible to the species we accompany, to make them feel content. If I could not laugh at Gaius' jokes, or tell him jokes myself, what use would I be?"
"Then you can feel hurt?"
"Well . . . yes," Marcellus replied hesitantly.
"I hope I haven't inadvertently –"
"Of course not," Marcellus interrupted. "Had you bowed to that buffoon, then yes, I would have been."
"Marcellus, can I ask you a question, without your getting hurt?"
"Of course you may," Marcellus replied, with almost a glint in his eye, "provided you can tolerate the answer."
"Marcellus, why are you male?"
"I'm not," Marcellus replied with an almost stunned look. "Androids are made; they don't reproduce like . . . Oh! I see what you're getting at. You're asking about Gaius, aren't you?"
"Yes," Natasha replied, her face going almost crimson.
"A Companion must be the same gender as their partner," Marcellus said soothingly. "A Companion must try to make life as easy as possible for the partner, but under no circumstance is any sensual or sexual involvement permitted."
"Oh," Natasha said, almost as embarrassed by the obviousness of the reply.
"Nor may a Companion hinder or assist a romantic liaison," Marcellus went on. "There is the potential for such a relationship between you and Gaius, isn't there?"
"There's nothing between us, apart from the conduct of this war," Natasha replied.
"That did not answer my question," Marcellus said. "Nor, for that matter, is it true. Natasha, if I may make a request, please, do not hurt Gaius. He's had a very difficult time, and –"
"I thought you said you were not to get involved in any liaison?" Natasha asked, as she stared at Marcellus.
"I'm not perfect."
"What do you mean, you're not perfect?" Natasha replied with a look of puzzlement.
"I do not have to be logical or self-consistent all the time," Marcellus said, with a grin of enjoyment.
"How can an android not be logical?" This time, the question was said in a tone of sheer amazement.
"How can an android be totally logical and survive?" Marcellus asked. "My task in life is to assist Gaius. To do that I must survive. To do that, I must be immunized against falling into a variety of logic loops, and to do that I must be able to perceive the problem and break out of it. You attempted to trap me; I have to resist the trap."
"I didn't try to trap you," Natasha protested. "I'm just astounded. You have emotions just like us, don't you?"
"No," Marcellus replied. "I have consciousness, I have emotions, and I have powers of information handling very much deeper than yours. But I am not like you; in some ways I am better, in others, worse. In most ways, I am different. Now, if I may change the subject, I have the following materiel recommendations . . ."
Chapter 17
"Elizabeth. I've got to talk to you, privately. It's important."
"You can talk, Lorenz. What's the matter?"
"It's that money we got from Munro," Lorenz Kleppe said, as he sat down. He was clearly agitated.
"Why? What's the problem? I thought you said you could put that through so it would be untraceable?"
When they had received their money, for it to be untraceable the normal electronic fund transfers had to be avoided, and consequently the rather antique paper transfers were employed. But when they received the money, it was in new, high value notes with consecutive numbering. Had these notes been banked directly, Munro would have known from whom his threat came.
"That's trivial," Kleppe said, shrugging the issue aside. "The account you specified can be used judiciously whenever you wish. The problem is Imre."
"How come?"
"He has not handed me the money."
"Perhaps he realizes that since Munro knows him, it doesn't matter."
"It still matters, and he knows it. It is a stream of evidence to other parties. No, that's not the issue either. It is my opinion he won't give it to us, because he can't."
"What do you mean, he can't? He hasn't spent it already, surely?" Elizabeth asked. She was stunned by this news.
"I think he can't because he never got it."
"Why not? We did?"
"He wouldn't take it if he could get a better deal, would he?" Kleppe said evenly.
"You mean he's sold us out?"
"Not necessarily. He's probably kept our anonymity to preserve his own position, and that's probably why Munro went to that trouble to find us. But I think he's done another deal, and that could be dangerous."
"So you think that rat's gone off on is own?" Elizabeth's eyes flared. "If that's the case, we're somewhat forked!"
"I agree. But what do we do?"
"For the moment, nothing," Elizabeth said. She was now back in control. "You will go back to Zurich, and loyally raise more money for the war effort. I shall try a little investigation. We each do our jobs, and avoid each other for a while."
"It seems to me," Kleppe said quietly, "that we can't continue with your original plan."
"I agree," Elizabeth replied quietly.
"So what can we do?"
"For the time being," Elizabeth replied, "we do our jobs, and await developments. I think it is now quite likely that if that Roman or Kotchetkova wants to take power, we simply don't have the resources to stop them, so we wait and see what develops."
"What do you think Halas's up to?"
"That," Elizabeth said firmly, "is what I intend to find out."
* * *
Elizabeth Garrett felt lonely. She was, for the first time since she became Commissioner and was away in another city, locked away in a hotel room. She had always had someone to give her what she wished, but suddenly her wishes had become more complicated. What she required was loyalty. Kleppe was loyal, but outside the financial area, he was weak, and Elizabeth needed strength. In a way it was ironic; all her working life she had known that she could trust nobody, but then it had not mattered. She had been in control. Now, for the first
time, events were out of control and she had to rely on others, but there was nobody to rely on.
There was a Defence SecMes waiting her attention: Message understood and appreciated. Action being taken. N.K. She had decided to let Defence guard their own man; if nothing happened, she would at least get some points for trying, and if something did happen, Munro could never be sure of her involvement. At least she could trust Kotchetkova not to be in bed with Munro.
She could not be sure of Reiner, but then, she could be sure of very little. The man was frightened, but not exceptionally frightened. Even if the information was true, it might mean little more than that Reiner hated Munro, and was using her. But if that was the case, so what? If it helped to bring down Munro, that had to be a benefit. But to whom?
To some extent to her, but more likely to Kotchetkova and that Claudius. And that was the nub of her problem. Whatever she did to weaken Munro strengthened Kotchetkova and brought the likelihood of a military dictatorship that much closer. And to make matters worse, if Earth won this war, only the combined power of all the corporations could stop Kotchetkova. But there was no possibility of their combining; Reiner now hated Munro so much, and with justification, that there was no hope of their cooperation. So perhaps she would have to get used to the idea of a Kotchetkova rule, and get better positioned for it.
But how? That was, in essence, the problem with Kotchetkova. There was simply no way that she, Elizabeth Garrett, could arrive at a deal. She had nothing to offer, except the ability to run Justice. Which meant that she had to rely on Kotchetkova's giving her that job. True, Kotchetkova would need someone, which suggested she should make some effort to win Kotchetkova's respect.
What a simply dreadful thought that she was reduced to this!
Chapter 18
The view from the surface held the attention of most of the soldiers, even after three weeks. In the foreground was a white-grey plain liberally sprinkled with small craters, as if struck by a virulent pox. In the distance were small ice hills, glistening in the pale light, every feature with the crystal clarity only achieved in a vacuum. There was ice everywhere, untouched for billions of years. Ice that was bitterly hard; it felt like rock, and it acted like rock; a skier's hell. Above the ice was the jet black of space, with its myriad of crystal clear unblinking lights. Just above the horizon was perhaps the most wonderful sight of all; a huge pale yellow ball, with pale horizontal bands, four times the size of a full moon on Earth, which cast a ghostly light over the frozen scene. Surrounding the ball the spectacular set of rings glowed brilliantly in the front, only to mysteriously disappear at the back.
Iapetus was almost certainly the strangest place any of them had ever seen. The planet Saturn was so bright in the sky, and the sun so unexpectedly feeble. They had been told the temperature, but the figure was meaningless; all excursions were made in heated pressure suits. They knew the view was special, since only Iapetus and Phoebe got this view of the rings of Saturn. But the strangest sight of all was just over the far horizon; the ice stopped in virtually a straight line, to be replaced by thick black dust. The reason appeared to be Phoebe, that peculiar satellite that was three and a half times further out from Saturn and which orbited in the "wrong" direction. If struck by a meteorite so that its dark soil was knocked into space, the dust automatically spiralled inwards to be swept up by the leading face of Iapetus.
Behind the pressure locks was a tunnel leading down to further pressure locks, and behind these were the primitive quarters. There was little effort made to bring luxury; everything that was necessary for survival and efficient work was there, and not one tiny piece of additional material. The troops were assembling in the hall; the Spartan existence and the continual training were beginning to take their toll. Quite a level of discontent was beginning to swell. Not the least of this was through the continual practice with primitive weapons. It was to quell this, and give the troops a sense of purpose, that Gaius was to address them.
"Gentlemen, please be seated," Gaius announced, and waited for the clatter to subside. "I realize some of you are wondering what you are doing here. The short answer is, you are training, and getting acclimatized, if you ever can. As you will have noticed, we're a bit short of gravity here, so it is most important you keep up a strict exercise program, both to keep fit, and to stop the bones from decalcifying. You are being given special food to deal with this problem. Eat it! I understand that some of you dislike the type of weapons we are training with. I now intend to show you a video of the effect of various weapons on the standard M'starn armour."
The lights dimmed, and an image of a dummy in M'starn attire appeared on the screen. A second dummy appeared, with a standard laser weapon. This was fired at the M'starn dummy, and immediately the attacking dummy became a fireball. There was a similar sequence, with the attacking dummy using an old fashioned machine gun. Again, the attacking dummy was cut to ribbons. Finally, a further dummy was shown attacking with a dart, fired from a small crossbow. The dart penetrated the armour, and sat embedded in the clothing.
"Ouch!" someone said. "We've pricked them."
"We've done more than that," Gaius said evenly. "Suppose we use darts which contain a tiny crystal of strange matter, and this is injected into the armour through the needle, where it decomposes. Next, I shall show you the effect on the M'starn it was used on recently." The video was turned on again, and a small line of dead M'starn were shown. The corpses were rolled over, and the armour was gradually removed. Inside the bodies were liquefied, and a highly viscous mess oozed out.
"The armour is a double-edged asset," Gaius remarked evenly. "It keeps high velocity particles out, but equally it keeps them in. When the strange matter decomposes into its shower of pions, which in turn degrade, there's nowhere for the particles to go. There's also nowhere for the energy to go. In case you're wondering, this little weapon was designed back on Earth, and as far as I know, nothing like it has ever been used anywhere in this part of the galaxy. So this is going to be an interesting surprise for the M'starn.
"Now, why Iapetus? The answer is very simple. You are training in a low gravity environment. Following this, you will train on Hyperion or Phoebe, which have even lower gravity. After that, we shall launch a ground attack on the M'starn base on Miranda." There were gasps, and suddenly the discontent was removed, to be replaced by intense excitement.
"Why can't we train on Earth? Well, some of you have already demonstrated enough clumsiness here to guess. You have to be able to move quickly and effectively. We can't afford stupidities. I believe we can attack the M'starn base successfully, and at least do some damage, but unless you all learn some basic skills, and quickly, the M'starn won't have to defeat us. We'll do that ourselves.
"We shall have three objectives. The first is to rescue the conscripted labour from Mars. This shall be our prime objective, and the easiest to achieve. The second is to damage their fleet. This will be more difficult, but I believe we can make some headway, and we can also immobilize them for some time by destroying their entrances. While burying them will not be a final solution, it will at least let us get away unhindered, which is a further objective. The final objective is to attempt to capture the essentials of the base and destroy it. If we can achieve that, we win the war then and there. My personal view is that will be too difficult, because they'll have automated defences and we have no idea of what and where they are.
"Now, let's consider the effects of low gravity. Some of you think you're supermen, and up to a point you are. Suppose on Earth you could throw an object thirty-three meters per second; this is not impossible, although not very many can do it. On Earth, if you gave it an elevation of thirty degrees, and neglecting air friction, which you cannot on Earth, you'd throw it about ninety-six meters, and it would be up there for three and a third seconds, thereabouts. The same throw on Iapetus would give you a range of four point eight kilometers, the ball would get nearly seven hundred meters up, and it would stay up nearly one hundr
ed and seventy seconds. On Miranda it would travel twenty-four kilometers, rise about three and a half kilometers, and take eight hundred and forty-five seconds.
"It might occur to you to lower your sights. Suppose you elevate it by one degree and assume the land is perfectly flat. On Iapetus you would throw almost two hundred meters, and it would rise nought point eight-five upwards; on Miranda the figures are nine hundred and seventy meters, and nearly seven meters up.
"The next problem to come to grips with is the vertical. Some of you have tried the high jump, and as you've seen, you get high. But there's a danger. Although the gravity is weak, the rock is just as hard, and if you hit it at high speed, your legs will break just the same as on Earth. Going up is all right, because when you come down, you'll have the same kinetic energy as when you jumped up, and your legs can take that. It's dropping that's a problem.
"Suppose you could take a speed of seven point seven meters per second, which corresponds to a drop of three meters on Earth. Now that's not impossible, but you could be hurt if you don't land properly. On Iapetus, you get the same velocity by dropping for thirty-nine seconds, and you've fallen one hundred and fifty meters; on Miranda you'll have dropped a full one hundred and ninety-six seconds, and will have fallen three quarters of a kilometer. That may seem a big number, but there are many canyons several kilometers deep there, so don't try flying without a licence." Strained laughter broke out.
"Now, some advice. As you'll probably gather, you can long jump very nicely on these low gravity moons, although you will have a major problem in coordinating your footwork. As you'll have noticed, your run-up will see you taking gigantic leaps into the air. Your problem is to make contact with the ground in a way that generates thrust. On Miranda you'll have some extraordinarily steep and high cliffs to face. We're going to give you a special mechanical device for moving around, but sooner or later there's a danger you'll have to foot it, so take note. There is no problem as far as strength goes, but you will have a problem keeping to a wall. As a general rule, use your arms to generate the thrust for your leaps; they're more efficient at being accurate with direction. You'll also be linked together with fine nylon cord. It doesn't look much, but it'll hold your diminished weight. Parties will have to be linked together, and at least one person must be fixed to the wall with a good grip each time. Use proper pinning techniques; you must learn to use the equivalent of the piton and the karabiner. Don't laugh," he said as he held up two items about the thickness of safety pins, "these have plenty of strength.