“Yeah. But we need some financiers here. I can balance my own accounts but a planet? It boggles my mind.” Mahmoud paused to concentrate on landing as Akira took some aerial photographs. “This looks like a millionaire’s playground. The buildings look luxurious. A super-duper luxury complex — but no swimming pools or Jacuzzis, I note. I wonder how they made their money.” They both looked around, fascinated. This stop, like the others, was brief and uneventful.
Each Defense System power plant took less than an hour to remove. Akira figured, “The Loridsyl must have put back doors on all the software, as Kasjeindid seems to be inputting codes as we get near each location. Presumably to stop it automatically firing on us. Nice of the Loridsyl to be so considerate. Kasjeindid then seems to get into each system on the ground within minutes to make it safe for us to go in. I’m impressed.”
“I wonder how often instances like this occur.”
“Yeah, I wondered that. Does he have the individual back door codes to each system? I tried asking but got ignored. Not surprising.”
They made notes at each location. But it was their last stop, the island, that had them both most interested. This held the lab. Everyone went in and had a quick look around. Then while the Loridsyl and the others headed for the power plant, Akira wandered around photographing while Mahmoud headed further inside for a better look at the equipment. Akira followed, still slowed down by his injuries. So it was Mahmoud, well in the lead as usual, who spotted survivors as he managed to open yet another locked door. He was getting good at getting locked doors open. Seeing something moving, he froze.
The creature, a Ridianit, stared back at him as another scooted away. It did not seem to be armed. It might look like a giant pure white emperor penguin with feet and no beak, but there was a menace in its stance. Mahmoud’s mouth was dry. This was a lab. There could be anything here. He now wore a Translator permanently, as did all the Terrans. He held it up and slowly walked towards the creature. The Ridianit stood its ground. Mahmoud carefully handed the Translator up. The Ridianit adjusted it and handed it back.
“The war is over,” Mahmoud said. “The aggressors were the Keulfyd. They were defeated by an Alliance of Races, including mine. We are trying to find survivors but we are also busy reinforcing the Defense Shield which arrived after the war finished. We did not know there were any survivors here. You can come out now if you wish. Or you may like to stay if you have sufficient food and supplies.”
“What Races constitute the Alliance?”
“Priskya, Cats, Terrans, Okme and Niseyen.”
“What are Cats and Terrans?”
“Both are formerly unknown species. I am a Terran.”
“Who is in control?”
Mahmoud hesitated. “Well, I guess we are. The Terrans. Of the land, anyway. The Niseyen aren’t here yet. The Cats and Okme have their own plans and the Priskya have left the problems of the Terrestrial survivors and the land to us, although the Cats are helping. They are finding the survivors for us to deal with. The Priskya have directed that the planet is to be looked after and we are quite happy to do that. The Niseyen are on their way and we are hoping they will help too.”
“What is our position here?”
Mahmoud looked uncomfortable. “By law, this all belongs to us now.”
“What will happen to us?”
“You can leave if you have a way to do so. We won’t charge exit fees. We can help you contact your own People to come and get you. How many of you are there?”
The Ridianit did not answer. Mahmoud didn’t know how to read its body language so felt increasingly uncomfortable. He had no idea what was going on nor what he should do. And he was unarmed. Was the Ridianit? He needed to talk to Sarah.
“This laboratory is ours,” said the Ridianit.
“I’m sorry but it isn’t now. But you will be all right under our rules. We are trying not to kill anyone else. More than ninety million have died. We think that’s enough. We have a Ridianit with us. Would you trust that one to talk to you?”
Again, the Ridianit did not answer. Mahmoud said, “I will go and get the Ridianit for you.” He turned and walked away, his knees wobbly. This Ridianit and this place were giving him the creeps. He felt an enormous threat, but from what? The Ridianit, his imagination or the facility?
Reaching the rest Mahmoud said, “There are survivors here.”
“That is not possible. We scanned.”
“I have just been talking to a Ridianit. There are others but it would not say how many. I saw one other.”
Kasjeindid was shocked, “A Life Shield! Enormously expensive to buy to cover a whole island! This facility must have a huge secret. We go. Now!” Kasjeindid led the way, moving with impressive speed. The others followed, grabbing equipment that had been disassembled.
Akira had been earlier watching the Loridsyl and helping them dismantle the power unit. He just happened near a Ridianit who was packing items up when the order to leave came, plus some other information that was given in another language and not translated. The Ridianit seemed furtive. It was watching the others and trying to do something until it saw Akira watching it. Instinct guided Akira as he directed the Ridianit to leave the equipment alone and move away. They all boarded the plane and Mahmoud flew them back to where Kasjeindid directed.
Kasjeindid was busily communicating. “What’s going on?” Akira muttered.
“There are survivors inside. The Loridsyl say they scanned. They missed it. I saw a Ridianit inside and spoke to it.”
“What’s inside?”
“It’s a lab. I didn’t see an awful lot of it but if I hazarded a guess I would guess it’s a chemical or biological warfare lab.”
“Why?”
“Secrecy, top of the range Defense System, some type of a Shield against scanners, maybe against Loridsyl ones. Kasjeindid called it a Life Shield. There were also Hazmat suits. From the layout, the equipment, the menace, the attitude of the s/he Ridianit, whatever — do they have genders? — I got a real bad feeling.”
Akira pondered. Whatever was going on, the Loridsyl seemed not to be bothering to inform the Terrans. It seemed better not to interrupt: they looked definitely disturbed. It was so frustrating when you couldn’t read body language! He watched as the communication went rapidly back and forth. The minutes passed. Quietly, Akira communicated with Sarah and got Mahmoud to explain to her.
“Why do you think it was a biohazard lab?”
“There were double-door systems with rubber-looking seals, what looked like a Bioreactor, what I’m sure was a Level Four lab with those things you use for individual breathing supply. It scared me! It looked like a weird movie set. There were other rooms of growing things, weird things. The rooms were different temperatures. I opened the door of one and it smelled all yeasty, which could mean they were growing bacteria. The Petri dishes were square and stackable but the stuff sure looked like bacteria cultures. Some fluffy stuff, some rod-like plant stuff and funny colors and all and other rooms had some fungi and some—”
“You didn’t go anywhere near a Bioreactor!”
“Hell, no! It was on the other side of a room, a glass room with a one-foot air gap between the glass walls. The reactor was placed facing the glass so it could be checked without entering the room, I guess. It was a tank inside a tank, with liquid that looked like blood in the middle tank and a fancy glass ventilation system piping stuff into another glass tank and more blood-like stuff in there. That second tank looked detachable so they could have one main breeder tank and have stuff spreading to the other tank and then detach that tank and move another one into its place. There were instruments and digital readouts coming off it but I didn’t have time to try to translate anything. Other stuff in glassed-in rooms also looked like it was facing out so it could be checked from the outside but I couldn’t figure out what it was.”
“How come you know these things?”
“I read it in a book. It had pictures too, photos.”
<
br /> “Oh. Silly question. How many e-books have you got?”
“Thousands on flash drives. I down load all the free stuff I can find and my parents have university library access and I go with them sometimes. I’m allowed to download anything that’s free. I use my parents’ cards and then transfer it across.”
Finally Kasjeindid said, “We have informed the people inside that they must come out.” Akira absorbed that. He wondered if Torroxell’s Defense System was somehow involved in this. Probably. “Come out or we’ll shoot.” Well, it would be a good test firing of the system. Sarah had told him her concerns that the system itself might have been sabotaged. He thought that unlikely —the Loridsyl would have simply sold it on to someone else. But if they had, they couldn’t tell Sarah that as it would reveal that they knew it wasn’t supposed to get here in time.
Akira muttered to Mahmoud, “I wonder what the political and economic ramifications are here. These Ridianit paid for a Defense System that has now been immobilized by the manufacturers, who are in the process of repossessing their system to give to the victors to be used in defense against their aggressors, formerly their customers. Interesting.” He laughed softly. “I bet the Ridianit will be decidedly disgruntled.”
Mahmoud chuckled. “I wonder if the Keulfyd ran this facility. I saw two Ridianit. I wonder how many are actually here and what other Races are here.”
Kasjeindid spoke again. “We need to get back to supervise the loading of these prisoners.” He paused. “This would not normally be asked of you, but we did not come equipped to deal with this many prisoners. Or any prisoners, in fact. It will not put you in danger, I think. We are well-armed.”
Now that was an interesting admission! Akira had seen nothing that looked like a weapon. “Let’s go,” said Mahmoud and started up the plane.
Kasjeindid was relieved. This situation was appalling and now they had to ask for assistance from their customers, who weren’t originally their customers but now seemed be assigned as such. One would have preferred the fish as customers. But they couldn’t shoot. Or fly. These Terrans were a little more useful. But too smart.
Mahmoud landed and watched with the others as eighty-seven People came out of the lab. From a distance they looked like all-white emperor penguins waddling along. All Ridianit? Carrying nothing, he noticed. Intriguing. As apparently ordered, they entered a large plane that had just landed. One of those formerly used as a gas plane. This could be ominous. He decided not to ask.
The Loridsyl and others went back to their dismantling after Akira told Kasjeindid his suspicions about the Ridianit. He noted it was now assigned to loading and was not let back into the building housing the system.
“We are ready to return,” announced Kasjeindid about forty-five minutes later.
“There will be a delay of a few minutes. We are waiting for someone,” said Akira and pointed at the plane in the distance. They watched as the plane landed and Sarah, Helkmid, and most of the rest of his Okme contingent exited the plane. Miyuki came over and politely announced that she would fly them back as Akira and Mahmoud were to go with the others. Akira wondered what the Ridianit thought now. He suspected it had been trying to conceal something.
Helkmid’s eyes gleamed as he tried to take it all in at once. “This is indeed a biological warfare lab and a state-of-the-art one at that. It will be extremely useful for any medical work. The set-up is brilliant.”
Sarah had been thinking. “Would you like it?” she asked ingenuously.
“I would very much like it. On what terms?”
“Many of the incoming refugees will need treatment. Kelly said one day she would love it if children with birth defects or birth trauma could be treated soon after birth. And how cost-efficient it would be, apart from humanitarian considerations. Donny told me how you said eight or ten babies could be treated at once for the same price as one adult. So I was wondering what this is worth in terms of treatment. And if you could provide us with a few years of free inoculations. Or if that sounds too much, cost price for the vaccines.”
Helkmid thought, this was fantastic! He could pay off this lab with just his ordinary work. This was a gift. He would organize that any Okme could use this lab if they helped pay, again in work. They would all agree once they saw this!
“Most inoculations are cheap to make and we have all the bugs for the Niseyen ones which you Terrans need,” he said. “Production won’t take long, not in this facility! Free for two years for the Niseyen ones. It will take a bit longer and may be very expensive to make up Terran vaccines, especially in the number required if the Niseyen come in quantity.”
“We could ask the incoming ships to bring quantities of all known vaccines and treatments. Could you copy all our inoculations and antibiotics?”
“I certainly could! You bring those and we will reproduce them for free. For the inoculations we need healthy bacteria and viruses and we will make them ourselves. We may be able to use them for other Races. This type of technology is normally sold to us but it will be fun just to swap samples for treatment.”
A tax inspector would be driven crazy by all this barter, but Torroxell didn’t have a tax system now. Oh, this was fun. Helkmid was enjoying himself. He pulled his mind back onto the job. What had she asked for? Treatment for newborns. “Also for two years, one Machine load of people, every week, in every city containing Okme, a full day. You can probably get twenty to thirty babies treated in one day, as your newborns tend to have one to three problems very seriously rather than multiple problems as adults do. Some of them will need only a few hours’ treatment, possibly even less. We will adapt a Machine to take many little bodies. I’ll leave it up to you to select the people.”
“That’s great. I’ll choose until we get hospitals going again. We can then hand the responsibility over to them. We could start the two years once the refugees arrive. Would you like to move into here now?”
“I would! This is superb. Top of the range as you would say.”
“Would you like to borrow Akira and Mahmoud to help?”
“Yes. They would be useful. They would be careful and bring another perspective. I will assign them and two of my people to work out what the Ridianit were doing here, but I do not like our chances. They will have destroyed most of the evidence. The Loridsyl told Akira they had informed these new prisoners that if there were booby traps that killed anyone, that many of them would be killed. At random. They are unlikely to have set personal booby traps but they will have set information ones. Never mind. What they were doing was obviously something they wanted to hide.”
Helkmid felt like a child in a toyshop. This was a dream come true. The equipment was top quality — he was seriously wealthy but this was beyond anything he could ever normally have gained, even as a part-owner. What a gift. And now there were so many of them available to work on various plans he had in mind. Fewer of them were now needed to look after the sick as the sick were recovering and looking after themselves. The other Okme off the Keulfyd ships were recovering and most were working at least a few hours a day; the Cats were going home in large numbers. Helkmid had scored nearly half of the Okme off the Keulfyd ships; the rest had gone off to Terra, working to own their Machines, or were setting up Healing Centers ready for Niseyen customers who were the first anticipated.
He still needed to do a lot of work on the Keulfyd virus and now had had a sudden influx of Okme who were of like mind regarding the Keulfyd. Now they had a purpose-built facility with which to take them on: a long overdue debt to be repaid, he thought grimly. The Keulfyd had to be exposed and stopped. The task was already started and on no other planet could he get away with this. What he intended to do now would be outlawed anywhere else, including on his own planet. He wondered if he should tell Sarah but decided not to. Not yet.
What the Okme could do with this place! Yet this was a good place to put this lab, on Torroxell. Here it was well hidden. The Cats and Priskya thought the reason the Ridianit had made t
he Priskya’s transport devices so they had to be pushed was to restrict where the Priskya could go, so they couldn’t see the damage being done to their world. But what if it was done to hide this facility? He thought this much more likely. It was well inland. But would the Priskya be able to access it via the river? Maybe there were shallows or rapids. He was certain they didn’t know about this. They would have banned it. No, they would have tried to ban it. It was doubtful they would have succeeded.
Later, when Akira casually answered Kasjeindid’s questions, if Kasjeindid had not had iron self-control it would have gnashed its teeth! It was furious! It had been desperate to get inside the lab and see what it was. But those Terrans had called in the Okme. The worst possible Race to evaluate it, if it was what it thought it was. It had considered buying it off the Terrans. It had customers who would pay huge amounts for the contents and the lab itself, even if it had to be dismantled and relocated, and now those Terrans had sold it to the Okme. They had no idea how valuable it was. Kasjeindid was seething. Its temper was not improved when, later that day, Helkmid casually put in an order for a new power unit for the Defense System for the lab — and organized the deposit with money paid directly to one of the Loridsyl factories. So much for its plan to offer to buy the lab, pay in money the Terrans so badly needed then onsell it for ten times the amount. This Okme had some serious financial resources to be able to afford a replacement power unit.
Chapter Seven
That evening, Sarah went over to Harsha and said, “My next priority is food. Can you go tomorrow with your parents and find Paswalda’s ship again, please. See if you can find the trade goods we gave him, especially all the seeds. I want to see if we can grow them here.”
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