The Centauri Surprise

by Alastair Mayer

  Rico considered overpowering the med-tech and making a break for it, but the guy had a good fifteen centimeters in height and twenty kilos mass advantage over him. In his still-weakened condition, and not knowing where he’d be making a break to or from, it was best to wait. He lay back on the cot. “Okay,” he told the tech, “go ahead and tuck me in.”

  The tech’s eyes narrowed, but wordlessly he touched a control and the cot slid back into the pod, which closed itself around him.

  What the fuck is going on here? Rico wondered as he heard the slight hiss of anesthetic gas introduced to the chamber. It came to him just as his consciousness faded. Oh no. Not more spooks.

  CHAPTER 2: TALISMAN

  Drake University, Sawyer’s World

  DR. HANNIBAL CARSON, Professor of Exoarcheology, heaved a sigh and looked up from his desk monitor and gazed at the wall. On the screen was yet another in a stack of virtual papers, the mid-term tests of his Archeology 201 class. They had already been checked and graded by his assistant, but he was the final arbiter and it was his responsibility to enter the grades into the records system. It was mind-numbingly tedious work, and he hated it. It wasn’t the tediousness per se, he could be diligent about meticulously excavating a site with a brush and trowel, it was the office he hated. He would much rather be in the field. Even hacking through the jungle on the planet Verdigris, mosquitoes and all, was preferable to this.

  He turned his attention back to the mid-term. He updated the student’s entry in the grading sheet, closed the file, and opened the next. The knock at his door was a welcome reprieve.

  “Come in,” he called.

  A young woman entered, green-haired, and dressed casually in ship coveralls. “Well, this is different,” Jackie Roberts said. “I’m not used to seeing you doing desk work.”

  “Jackie! I haven’t seen you for a while. What are you doing here?”

  She held up the small package she was carrying in her left hand and waved it. “Special delivery. It’s not really, I just saw your name on it and decided to bring it over myself. I just got back from the Solar System and it was among the packages I was carrying.”

  Jackie Roberts owned and operated a small starship, the Sophie, and was a licensed courier.

  “Solar System? You were on Earth? I thought you hated the place.”

  “Technically I was on Luna, I never set foot on Earth. Ducayne asked me to give Regina Elliot a ride, and this package was one of a handful waiting for carriage back here. I got lucky on the timing.”

  Carson reached for the package, but Roberts pulled it back. “You need to acknowledge receipt.”

  “Oh, sure.” Carson scanned his omniphone over the package, and the two exchanged digital signatures. Somewhere on the network, a database updated to indicate his receipt. Roberts released her hold on the small package. “Who’s Regina Elliot?” he asked as he took the package.

  “Haven’t you met her? She’s Ducayne’s deputy assistant, or whatever her official title is. His second in command.”

  “Oh. No, I don’t think I have.” He looked the package over. It was about fifteen centimeters square and five thick. It could have been a book, except it was unlikely anyone would go to the trouble and expense of shipping a book this far. He wasn’t expecting any packages. He examined the shipping label. It was indeed addressed to him, care of the university, but the sender information was a coded address that he couldn’t figure out.

  “Help me out here, Jackie. Where’s this from?”

  “I picked it up on Luna,” she said, taking it back to read the label. “It had just come in on another flight, I’m not sure where from.” With almost no exceptions, any flight coming in from another star landed on Luna first, still technically enforcing the quarantine regulations set down fifty years earlier, although these days that amounted to little more than a document and customs screening and changing to an Earthbound shuttle. Jackie scanned her omni across the package then read something off its screen. “My, my. It’s been transshipped a few times, originally it came from—” she scrolled down the display “—Wolf 25, by way of Eta Cassiopeiae. One Doctor Peterson, just care of the spaceport on Wolf 25 II.” She handed the package back to him. “Someone you know? Artifacts or something? I better not have just smuggled in something illicit.”

  He flipped the package over, looking at it curiously. He didn’t know any Dr. Peterson that he could recall. “It’s still sealed, wouldn’t your courier status protect you?”

  “It would, and I was joking. The whole cargo was scanned and inspected anyway, so you don’t have to worry about that being a bomb, either.”

  He glanced up at her sharply. He had been running into unsavory characters lately, and had escaped a kidnap attempt not that long ago. Would somebody want him dead that badly? “A bomb?”

  Roberts rolled her eyes. “No, I just told you. Lighten up, Carson.” She paused, then grinned and added, “But wait until I leave before you open it, okay?”

  “Funny. Very funny. Just for that—” he tore the package’s plastic wrapper open.

  A smaller package, an opaque, padded, specimen bag, fell out of the envelope. There was also a sheet of paper. He unfolded it and read the text printed on it.

  “Dr. Hannibal Carson,” it read, “I heard you were looking for things like this. Sorry, but I don’t know the provenance of any of them. I inherited these as part of a collection of alien artifacts, most of them probably illegally acquired, which is why I choose to remain anonymous. The rest are going to other archeologists or museums. Best regards, A Friend.”

  “What does it say?” Roberts asked.

  “Someone is getting rid of a collection of illegal artifacts they inherited, and thought I might be interested in these. We get such things from time to time. Unfortunately, with no provenance it’s not going to be very useful. But let’s see if I can at least figure out what planet they originally came from.” So saying, he opened the specimen bag and slid out a small folded cloth bundle onto his desk. He unfolded it to reveal handful of artifacts.

  “Oh, my,” Roberts said when she saw them. Carson himself was speechless.

  There was an obsidian arrowhead, a woven bracelet with small embedded shells that Carson recognized as coming from a planet orbiting Gliese 68, and a pair of small abstract figurines that looked to be made of fired clay. They were irrelevant. What had caught his attention, and Jackie’s, was the largest item in the small collection.

  It was about ten centimeters square—if the rounded shape could be called a square—and looked like it was made of stone, with a scattering of embedded cabochon-cut gemstones connected by engraved lines. Carson and Roberts had seen its like before. It was a talisman, just like—except for a different pattern of gems—the one they had used to both locate, and to open, the alien pyramid on the planet St. Jacobs, also known as Chara III.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “Is it real?” Roberts asked in a hushed voice. The network-wide search that Carson had run looking for items similar to his original find had turned up several others, a few of them fakes. With a demand for alien artifacts, suppliers weren’t above selling a few counterfeits. What could the buyers do, complain to the authorities?

  Carson glanced at the other items. They looked real enough, although the best fakes would. He picked up the talisman and hefted it. It was heavier than its stone appearance would suggest. If it were a real Spacefarer talisman, it would have sophisticated circuitry inside powered by a very long-lived technetium battery. This felt like other, real examples he’d held. The pattern of gems and lines—a star map—looked authentic too, but he wasn’t the expert on that. He held that up to show Jackie. “What do you think, does this look like a real star map?”

  “It does look similar to the real ones. I won’t know without running a comparison against my star charts. I wonder where it points to?”

  “I wonder where it was originally found,” Carson said, “but that’s a more difficult question. Anyway, run your analysis
against a picture of this one and we’ll know where it points to.”

  “Sure,” Jackie said, and used her omni to photograph the talisman from several angles. “Since I’m heading back to the Sophie, do you want me to take this one to Ducayne? He’s beginning to get quite a collection.”

  She was right. The partial talisman he’d found on Verdigris, and three others that had turned up in his earlier network search were now in Ducayne’s possession at Homeworld Security “for safe keeping”. Another, the talisman that Carson and his colleague, Marten, had found on a different dig, was now also in Homeworld Security’s care, with the team currently examining the pyramid on Chara III, to which that talisman was a key. It irked Carson that he was getting sidelined from following up on the discoveries he himself had made. He made his decision. “No,” he said, “I’d like to examine this one first. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to Ducayne just yet.”

  She looked at him and cocked her head, eyes narrowing. “What are you up to, Hannibal?”

  “Nothing, yet. I just want a chance to do some investigation of my own, without Ducayne’s ‘mission priorities’ getting in the way. For one thing, these other items might give me a hint as to where this came from.” That is, if they were all from the same planet, but as far as he knew, figurines like that did not come from Gliese 68.

  She peered at him for a moment, as if trying to read his intentions, and then relaxed and shrugged. “Okay. Not really my business, I’m just the delivery girl. They’re your artifacts. But I’m curious, so let me know what you come up with.” She grinned, and added, “Especially if you want me to tell you where the map points to.”

  “Fair trade. I just want to avoid any arguments with Ducayne about who gets to hold onto this,” he said, picking up the talisman, “which is easier if he doesn’t know about it.” He glanced at the time. “Anyway, I have a class to teach soon, and I really should finish up grading these mid-terms.” He folded the artifacts back into their cloth, put them into the sample bag, and put it away in a desk drawer. “Thanks for coming by, Jackie. I’d much rather talk to you than do this,” he gestured at his monitor, “but duty calls.”

  “All right,” she said. “I need to get back anyway.” She opened the door to leave, then turned to him, adding “I’d tell you to stay out of trouble, but I know that’s asking too much.” She winked at him and, before he could utter a reply, left.

  CHAPTER 3: RICARDO QUESTIONED

  Elsewhere

  THE LIGHT CAME on and Rico’s pallet slid out of the traumapod. He definitely felt better than when he’d last awakened, whenever that had been.

  “So, Ricardo, shall we continue our conversation?”

  Ricardo? Nobody had called him that in a long time. “You keep coming up with these names. Who is Ricardo?”

  “You are. The Lee alias aside, more usually known as Rico. But you were born Ricardo Alvarez Chang.”

  Shit. The name brought back uncomfortable memories. “Never call me that again.”

  His questioner must have caught the edge in his tone. He looked at Rico and raised an eyebrow. “We’ll call you whatever you want if you cooperate with us, Rico.”

  “Cooperate with who? You say you’re not cops, and you’re not Velkaryans. What’s your name, and who are you?”

  “You don’t need my name, and we’re the good guys, Rico.”

  “Everyone is the good guy in their own story. Who are you really?” Rico decided to call the guy Agent Friday. He had no idea what day it really was, but the guy acted like some kind of agent.

  “Department of Homeworld Defense,” Friday said.

  Ducayne’s outfit? That didn’t make sense. They’d know who he was and probably why he was here. Or was it Ducayne pulling the scam? Rico suddenly felt like a man out on a frozen lake who had just heard the ice crack under his feet.

  “I wasn’t aware the home-world needed defending. Who from?”

  “No, you need to answer some of our questions. Those guys you were trading shots with, who were they?”

  “I don’t kn..OWW!” Rico flinched at the shock. Damn, he’d forgotten about their lie detector.

  “Try again.”

  “Okay. I don’t know for sure, but I think they were Velkaryans.”

  “Who or what are Velkaryans?”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t know that,” Rico said. “They have a freaking political party. And you didn’t ask when I mentioned them earlier.”

  “What we do or don’t know is irrelevant,” Friday said. “I want to know what you know.”

  “Geez, all right.” Rico gathered his thoughts. How much, or rather, how little could he get away with telling? “Also known as the Church of Divine Providence, they don’t like aliens, and they think that T-Space planets were terraformed for humans. I guess technically the political party is separate from the church. They hired my boss Hopkins to retrieve some alien artifacts. Talismans.”

  “And did he? And you?”

  Technically no, not talismans. “No. We ran into problems. Maybe that’s why Reid was shooting at me.”

  Agent Friday frowned at the display, then looked at the med-tech, who shrugged. Rico tensed, anticipating another shock. “I think you’re lying, but there’s an element of truth there.”

  “So why,” he continued, “are the Velkaryans interested in alien artifacts if they don’t like aliens?”

  “Beats me,” said Rico. “Know your enemy?” That was weak. “Maybe they’re looking for something to prove aliens are dangerous? You’re Homeworld Defense, are there dangerous aliens out there?”

  “We’re asking the questions. What do you think? Are there?”

  “The most dangerous alien I’ve ever seen was an angry timoan, so no, not really. Although I’ve heard stories about what a squad of irritated tree-squid can do, and it’s not pretty.”

  “Tree-squids and timoans don’t have spaceships.” The latter wasn’t strictly true, but timoans had purchased those.

  “Nobody does but us humans,” said Rico. “The Terraformers are as extinct as dinosaurs.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. But I think you misunderstood. We’re not Earth’s Homeworld Defense, or the Union de Terre’s Homeworld Security.”

  The med-tech spoke up. “Flicker on that last, sir,” he said, still watching his instruments.

  “Oh? You know something about Homeworld Security? Does the name Ducayne mean anything?”

  Rico tried to evade the question. “What do you mean, ‘not Earth’s’?” Earth, via the UDT, also patrolled the settled planets. Except, wait, Alpha Centauri? Sawyers World? But that was where Ducayne’s headquarters were. Unless that was just a field office. . .Rico realized he didn’t know as much as he ought to about the outfit he was working for. The alternative had been jail.

  “Another flicker on Ducayne, then a burst of activity. I think he’s figuring it out.”

  Agent Friday looked at the med-tech then back at Rico. “Really? And what conclusion did you come to?”

  Rico realized he didn’t have any cards to play, so he just asked. “Does the Treaty of Alpha Centauri mean that Sawyers World has its own defense force?”

  “Interesting question. I’ll even answer it. Yes. Most people know it as Space Guard, and it’s generally confined to law enforcement and space rescue in and around Sawyers and Kakuloa.”

  “So you guys are the freaking Coast Guard? What are you doing on Earth?”

  “Not quite. And why do you think you’re on Earth?”

  “But, that’s where I was shot!” If he wasn’t on Earth, he was on some other Earth-like planet, from the gravity. Or in a ship in warp, except that there were none of the usual background noises of that. Then who had scooped him up from the spaceport?

  “That’s probably enough for now. You were in pretty bad shape, so a little longer in the traumapod wouldn’t hurt. We’ll have you out of there before long.” He
signaled the med-tech, who activated the retraction of the cot.

  “But—”

  “Next time.”

  As Rico drifted off under the influence of the traumapod’s anesthetic, it occurred to him that the Space Guard could merely be the most visible side of Sawyers’ Homeworld Defense, and if they were involved in anti-smuggling—and Rico knew they were, from experience—they probably had undercover operations as well. Is that what this was about? They wanted him to work an anti-smuggling operation? That still didn’t answer how they’d got hold of him, though. He was out before he could pursue that line of thought further.

  CHAPTER 4: PALEOGRAPHY

  Drake University, Sawyer City, Sawyers World

  HANNIBAL CARSON STRODE across the campus from his office to the Student Union building. It was one of the busier buildings on campus, and he could usually find an autocab that had just discharged its passengers there. Since the incident a few weeks ago, when a hacked autocab had tried to kidnap him, Carson was wary about using his own omniphone to summon a cab. Ducayne’s professional paranoia has started to rub off on me, he mused. At least he’d been off-planet for part of the time since then.

  A cab was letting someone out just as Carson reached the building.

  “Hold the cab, please!” Carson called to the young man who had just stepped from it.

  The student looked at him in surprise, then turned to the still-open door and instructed the cab to wait.

  “Thanks,” Carson said as he slid into the seat, more to the student than to the cab, but the former was already on his way into the Union.

  “You are welcome,” the cab said in its slightly mechanical voice. “Destination?”

  Carson shook his head. Stupid robot. “Sawyer Spaceport, main building,” he said, and tapped his omni to authorize payment. That should be safe enough.