The Alien Web (Masters of Space Book 2)

by Robert E. Vardeman

  “Those of Interstellar Materials?”

  “Yes.”

  Quixx hunched over and rolled his head down. Kinsolving saw how the spider worked around to use his hands, but he could not see what Quixx did. The clicking of fingers working on control keys sounded above the rising howl of the wind across the tarmac. After several seconds, Quixx straightened.

  “Much has been learned. You are not on this planet legally, although you were permitted to land. Why do you take this risk when it is well known that we punish severely such crimes?”

  “The Box of Delights,” Kinsolving said. “Brain burners. Call them what you like. Those are what bring me here. Hundreds, even thousands of them.”

  Quixx bobbed up and down on strong legs. His head turned from one side to the other, as if trying to bring Kinsolving into sharper focus. “These surrounding us are drones. No hearing, no thought, only obedience to this one’s whim. They study the wreckage and the human thing’s body. What do you believe the conclusion is?”

  “Nothing, if they’re that mindless. But I know what yours has to be. Garon Andrianov was murdered.”

  “You admit to this heinous crime?”

  “No!”

  “You speak of the Box of Delights. You confess to knowledge of Consul Andrianov’s poisoning.”

  “Poison?” This rocked Kinsolving. He had thought that Cameron would use a hunter-killer robot to electrocute the consul.

  “Cleverly administered. A slender, flexible metallic sliver laden with a quick-acting neuron-disrupting protein entered the side of the ocular cavity, slipped around the eyeball and pierced the retina. An autopsy will confirm this.”

  “I didn’t know how he died.”

  “This seeming accident with the clumsy vehicle drew my immediate attention. The murderer did little to convince this one that the vehicle collision caused the death. It is as if the murderer wished for this one to probe more deeply.”

  Kinsolving went cold inside. Cameron had to know that Kinsolving and those aboard the von Neumann had escaped Gamma Tertius 4. Cameron would never assume that his robotic killers had left a lifeless hull drifting in hyperspace.

  Kinsolving turned cold when the thought hit him that Cameron might have found evidence of his spying in the IM warehouse when the arachnoid had broken into the crate and taken the Box of Delights. A faint outline of a footprint, a small thread, even a whiff of pheromone might have been enough for Cameron’s hunter robots to lock onto his presence and follow his trail through the escape tunnel.

  “This will look like my doing,” Kinsolving said in a dull voice.

  “A partial fingerprint has been lifted from the door panel.” Quixx seized Kinsolving’s hand and lifted, peering intently at the middle finger of the left hand. “The print and yours match.”

  “How can you — ” Kinsolving stopped. He had no idea about the arachnoid’s senses. If the spider being meant to frighten him, he had succeeded.

  “You claim you had no knowledge of Consul Andrianov’s death?”

  Kinsolving explained how he had been in the consulate resting when the computer had alerted him to the drop in Andrianov’s body temperature. “I know nothing more than this.”

  Quixx nodded. “This one believes your story.”

  “What? But you said my fingerprint was found on the doorframe. I’ve never touched his vehicle!”

  “This one is aware of such. The print was chemically etched by a process not unknown to those of this planet. Reconstruction: An unknown one made a photo template of your print and etched it into the metal. The chemistry of your skin oils does not match precisely that of the print, indicating to this one that the print was not made by you.”

  Kinsolving tried to absorb all this, but some sixth sense kept him from fully concentrating on Quixx’s words. He turned and stared at the arachnoid drones. They worked skilfully and silently. The wind had died down a little, but a distant whirring sounded.

  Machines?

  Robots!

  Kinsolving jumped when he caught the flash of a silvered flying robot. But before he could shout a warning, ten emerald-green laser beams converged on it in mid-air. Not even a trace of dust floated to the ground from the destroyed assassination weapon.

  Kinsolving simply stared. Each of the drones had pulled a weapon and fired simultaneously.

  “How…” His voice trailed off. Quixx held a tiny weapon, also, the arachnoid’s pink fingers delicately curled around it. He had rocked back and supported himself on his four hind legs to give better sighting.

  “This attack confuses me. It is either very astute or very stupid.”

  “Cameron knows you don’t think I killed Andrianov. He tried to kill me.”

  Quixx said nothing to this.

  “Are you going to arrest him?”

  “This Cameron of whom you speak with such fear?”

  “He’s responsible for Andrianov’s death.”

  “Another reason this one does not believe your print on the doorframe is real: No other print exists. Such purity of purpose would erase a print in such an obvious location.”

  “There are no others?”

  “Only those of the consul.”

  “The brain burners,” Kinsolving said with emotion. “Cameron knows where they are. I’m positive he wouldn’t keep them in the IM warehouses. He’ll have moved them, but he’s in charge. No matter that a company director is on-planet. Cameron is the mastermind.”

  “Ah, the Box of Delights. It is this one’s need to learn more of the source of such evil machines.”

  “I don’t know much about how they’re built. The electronics causes a single crystal of cerium to oscillate. When it hits resonant frequency, it does something to your species’ brain.”

  “That is a succinct description of its functioning,” agreed Quixx. “The cortical membrane of our brains becomes excited by the resonance. This produces intense yearning.”

  “Yearning?”

  “Box of Delights is imprecise but colourful as a description. Those who use the device are prone to romanticize it.” Quixx bobbed up and down. It took Kinsolving several seconds to realize that this motion directed the drones pulling apart Andrianov’s vehicle.

  “It’s part of a master plan. The Stellar Death Plan, they call it,” Kinsolving hurried on. “They intend to get everyone on your planet to use the brain burner. These devices are stronger, more powerful. Everyone within a certain radius will be affected. When enough of your populace is brain-dead, chaos will reign.”

  Quixx looked at Kinsolving with a quizzical expression in his face. “This one has seen your entertainment tri-vids.

  Are you engaged in producing one? Such a fantastical story!”

  “It’s true! The Stellar Death Plan. They hate all aliens. They call you Bizarres. Bizzies.”

  “And this planet is known as ZOo.”

  “What?”

  “Your astronomical name for it is Zeta Orgo 4. Many human things shorten it to ZOo. This one has studied the odd word. Your zoo is a place to imprison animals that once roamed free. This reasoning is not understood, but calling us ‘animals’ is common, especially among those who control work robots loading and unloading freight.”

  “Chairman Hamilton Fremont is behind the smuggling. He’s responsible for ordering the Box of Delights onto Web, and Cameron is carrying out his orders.”

  “The Box of Delights presents problems to society other than the fanciful one you pose.” Quixx clacked mandibles together, lifted one taloned leg and scraped at the serrated edges, then tucked his chin down, the mandibles closing into his mouth.

  “What problems? Fremont intends to destroy all intelligent life on this planet by burning out your brains!”

  Of this Quixx could not conceive. But the arachnoid did say, “The social structure on this world is extremely rigid. The Box allows those of the wrong class to shift status, for a brief time.”

  “This isn’t status we’re talking about!” shouted Kinsolving. “Y
ou’ll be a lump of protoplasm. No thoughts. Nothing going on inside your skull! The damned brain burners will have short-circuited every synapse in your head!”

  “Our brains do not rest within the head, as do yours.” A leg came up and tapped the abdomen. “The seat of our reason lies here.”

  “I don’t care if you carry it in your hands! It’ll be turned into a cinder!”

  “Such emotional outpouring,” said Quixx, startled at Kinsolving’s outburst. “Do you human things always carry on in this unseemly fashion?”

  Kinsolving tried to control himself. He had found Quixx, and the arachnoid seemed to have the power of a policeman. Quixx could stop Cameron. Quixx could save his entire race, if only he would listen to the facts.

  “Look,” said Kinsolving, “what difference does it make why you stop the flood of brain burners? Do it for preservation of social structure, do it to prevent your entire species from being slaughtered. But do it!”

  “This one is unable to understand your interest. Other humans would cheer our demise. Their taunts fill this one’s hearing cavities. Why are you different?”

  “I don’t like what they’re trying to do. I don’t like the idea of genocide.”

  “You do not enjoy the status gained in your own society,” added Quixx. “You will prepare for deportation. There is no need for your presence during this time of searching for truth.”

  “Deportation? Where?”

  “To what planet will we send you? Your identicards, although in several names, say you are of Gamma Tertius 4. It is to that human planet we send you.”

  “No!” Kinsolving dared not be sent back to IM’s corporate headquarters planet. “Send me to Earth, anywhere else.”

  “Why do you carry many different identicards?”

  “How do you know?” Kinsolving touched the pocket containing them.

  “Our scanners are able to work at distances greater than yours. We do not allow clues to go untested. This one works to find a murderer.”

  “Cameron. Check him out. Use your probes. But watch out for his robots.”

  “Deportation,” Quixx said firmly. “As quickly as possible. You will report to the Hall of Leave-taking immediately.” The arachnoid turned and stared at the drones still going over the consul’s vehicle, their taloned legs moving the heavy wreckage with ease.

  “Wait, Quixx. You’re not putting me into jail until then?”

  “No.” The arachnoid sounded puzzled. “This imprisonment psychosis of you human things. This one has noted it in other species, but not to this degree. Where would you like to be locked up? This one might be able to find another to watch over you. This one cannot also provide perverted sexual congress to go with this imprisonment, if that is your intent in asking the request.”

  “You’d trust me to go to the, uh, Hall of Leave-taking on my own?”

  “You have been notified of deportation. You will obey, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Kinsolving.

  “Wait!” called Quixx. “In your voice is rebellion. There is nowhere on this world for you to go. You will leave.”

  “I’ll leave,” said Kinsolving.

  Quixx’s mandibles moved soundlessly and the arachnoid’s legs all twitched, as if extreme consternation shook his entire body. Kinsolving walked away, trying not to look back — or break into a dead run. Quixx could not understand his motives.

  Kinsolving was not sure he understood them himself. But he was not going to be sent back to Gamma Tertius 4. And he was not going to let Cameron sear the brains of a planet filled with unsuspecting aliens.

  CHAPTER XIII

  “They blew it up! They stopped your invincible robot!” cried Kenneth Humbolt.

  Cameron nodded and idly ran his fingers along the hem of his cerise and orange cape. Small, hand control toggles passed under those knowing, dextrous fingers. The slightest touch on any one would remove Humbolt permanently. Cameron had scores of his obedient, intelligent robots stationed around the office and warehouse.

  The question that Cameron could not decide was whether to use a large robot to crush the life from Humbolt or use a smaller one that gave instant death.

  He activated neither waiting robot. As much as the assassin hated to admit it, he still needed Humbolt. For a short while, but the need remained.

  “The Bizzies are more adept at detection than I thought. A sensor on the robot reported back ten laser hits before destruction.”

  “Ten! But that’d mean one beam from each of them.”

  “True.” Cameron frowned. “From observation of how they approached the wreck, only the one with mottled red legs had any intelligence. The others simply obeyed his commands.”

  “Slaves?”

  “Possibly. Or a modified life-form. They might even be inferior species.”

  “They’re all inferior.”

  Cameron said nothing. At times it amazed him that Humbolt seemed to believe every detail of the Plan’s credo. Cameron was too new to it to accept it as anything other than a way of gaining power — and he had been off-planet more than Humbolt. He had seen much, learned more from a wide variety of aliens. But he obviously had not learned enough. His probe had been well armed, installed with the smartest block circuit programming he could devise and had sensors enabling it to avoid detection by all but the most sensitive equipment, yet the Bizarres had destroyed it easily. Their form might be strange, but Cameron vowed not to underestimate their talent with microelectronics.

  “Why did you send the robot killer anyway?” asked Humbolt. His voice rose until it almost broke with strain.

  “The consul’s death was nothing more than a lure, a trap. When Kinsolving appeared, I wanted to be certain he did not slip away again — as he did from your laser barrage.”

  “He’s here,” said Humbolt, shifting to attack. “That means your robots failed to blow up his ship in midflight. You failed, too. And now you’ve failed again!”

  “I prefer to look at this as an experiment. We know Kinsolving is alive and on-planet. The consul has been removed as a source of aid. There isn’t another human he can turn to.”

  “I’ve checked the ships in docking orbit,” said Humbolt. “You were right. The von Neumann shifted away soon after it arrived. But the Landing Authority didn’t know its destination.”

  “It matters little. The women with him — Rani duLong and Lark Versalles — are not significant.”

  “Lark Versalles is,” said Humbolt. “You know that she’s connected to GPMT. And the duLong woman’s brother heads TerraComp.”

  “They are nothing,” Cameron said, dismissing them totally. “It is Kinsolving who poses the true problem. He has been lucky. That will stop.”

  “Send your damned killing machines after him, then. He couldn’t have gone far after the Bizzies blew up your robot.”

  “I don’t want to send out my hunters prematurely. If the police official investigating Consul Andrianov’s death sees them again, he might decide to pursue the matter further than blaming Kinsolving. Their microelectronics technology is superb.”

  “They’re Bizzies.”

  “And inferior to you?” Cameron’s cold stare caused Humbolt to look away.

  “Stop him. Stop Kinsolving. That’s an order.”

  “Yes,” Cameron said in a soft, venomous whisper. “Chairman Fremont’s order.”

  Quixx stood beside the wreckage while his drones finished their meticulous sifting. No scrap had gone unseen. No clue had been missed. The human consul had been killed cleverly, then placed in the vehicle in such a way as to mimic an accident.

  Why? Quixx’s mind turned over the possibilities. The human things did not function in an orderly fashion. Their thoughts must be jumbled heaps of emotion and ideas and primitive superstitions. But they usually followed some logic, no matter how twisted.

  Quixx had many hypotheses, a few facts, no conclusions. He watched as the human Kinsolving walked away. The human had said he would go to the Hall of Leave-taki
ng and depart the planet immediately, but Quixx had seen the signs of falsehood in the man’s posture. He would check later with the exit drones to be sure that Kinsolving found the proper vessel to take him away.

  Quixx had to believe that the consul’s murder had been inspired by Kinsolving. Had Andrianov died as bait for a trap? With Kinsolving as the prey? That presented a likely hypothesis since the futile attack by the aerial robot had been launched. But the attack was so poorly conceived and executed. Quixx clacked his mandibles in frustration. Did the consul’s killer believe that such a device would not be instantly detected and destroyed?

  Even his drones had reacted to it. A simple robot, hardly worthy of the name. Yet Quixx knew little of the human things’ mores and beliefs. He knew even less of their pitiful technology. It was time to report on this dire matter to the Supreme Web. He left the drones to restore order on the landing field and walked off, clacking to himself.

  How primitive the humans were! How truly primitive!

  CHAPTER XIV

  The back of Kinsolving’s neck itched as he walked away from Quixx. The arachnoid had some reason for not sending guards with him, Kinsolving thought. A test? Kinsolving did not want to arouse the spider being’s ire by openly arguing to the point of belligerence, yet he was not going to let himself be deported. What worried the man the most was the apparent understanding on Quixx’s part that Kinsolving was not going to obey — and yet nothing had been done to enforce the edict.

  Or had there? Kinsolving’s eyes worked along at ground level seeking anything unusual. He slowly worked upward, straining for a trace of a killer robot arrowing in at him. Nothing. As he rounded the corner of a building he hazarded a glance back. Quixx had returned to the work of directing his drones.

  No pursuit. No guards. Kinsolving ducked low, spun and waited, thinking that Cameron might use this instant to attack. He felt silly when nothing had happened after five minutes.

  He wondered if Quixx was testing him, if the arachnoid had surveillance sensors scattered around the landing field. Kinsolving took a deep breath and decided that he had to act. Standing and waiting for someone to catch up with him would only ensure that someone would.