Wasteland of Flint

by Thomas Harlan

  "Yes..." Hummingbird seemed suddenly older, the brief flicker of interest and tension ebbing away. He visibly slumped "Everything made new, green shoots rising from desolation. You did well to destroy what remained, no matter how inert it seemed."

  Gretchen nodded, and fought to keep from looking down at her boots. Got to get these into secure storage, she thought guiltily, and figure out some way to keep them alive for study.

  "I have sent the Cornuelle away," Hummingbird said, abruptly changing the subject. "As Thai-i Isoroku informs me this ship will be able to make gradient to hyperspace within the day." The tlamatinime looked to the two Marines. "Ship's records indicate there is an unused Midge in storage in cargo ring two. Please assist our engineer in readying the aircraft for operations on the surface."

  Fitzsimmons cracked his visor and pulled off his helmet. Gretchen noticed the Marine's hair had become a tangled, dark mass and had to stifle an amused smile. "Yes, sir. How many days' fuel and food?"

  "As much as will fit," Hummingbird said wryly. His composure had returned, the brief appearance of fatigue falling away. "You will also need to rig for a high-altitude aerial insertion—I believe the Midge class has the proper mounting brackets."

  Fitzsimmons nodded sharply and motioned with his head for Deckard to leave the room. The other Marine backed out, lowering his shipgun, and Fitzsimmons followed. Hummingbird nodded to Gretchen and the others, and then picked up the bag.

  "What are you doing?" Gretchen said in a disbelieving tone.

  "That is my business," he said, giving her a sharp look. "But your project here is at an end. There will be no further flights to the planetary surface and Mister Parker should prepare this ship to make the jump back to Ctesiphon Station."

  Parker, seated on the bridge of the Palenque in the pilot's chair, a mess of tabac butts, printouts of ship's systems and partially torn-apart comp panels strewn around him, stared at the Méxica as if he'd sprouted a forest of eyestalks. "You can't possibly be serious."

  "I am," Hummingbird said in an entirely reasonable voice. "These Komodo-class shuttles have flyout tracks in the cargo bay. Isoroku assures me he can mount a Midge on a breakway pallet. These are technical matters—easily solved by sweat and concentrated effort—but you concern me."

  "Damn right I'm a concern!" Parker fumbled a tabac out of his vest pocket and jammed it, unlit, into the corner of his mouth. "You'd better explain to me why I have to make an unpowered, ballistic skip approach to the upper atmosphere of Ephesus—without active instruments—and then let you bail out the back of the shuttle—with the cargo doors open in a six hundred-k slipstream."

  The pilot squinted at the Méxica, then lit his tabac with a sharp snap on the stubble underneath his chin. "Fitzsimmons there could shoot you just as dead, right now, without risking anyone's hide with such a reckless stunt."

  Hummingbird looked consideringly at the Marine, who shook his head in answer to an unasked—but apparently understood—question. "Sir, our other pilot's Fuentes," the Marine said, "and he's not as steady on the stick as Parker. Neither Deckard nor I are qualified on a Komodo or anything like it. Ground crawlers, sure ..."

  The Méxica turned back to the pilot, his eyes flitting across Gretchen—who was holding position with her hand on the back of the pilot's chair—without a pause. "Parker-tzin, circumstances have conspired to put you in a position of responsibility. I need you to fly that shuttle—in the manner described—and I need you to return safely to this ship, so it can jump out to Ctesiphon Station as quickly as possible." As he spoke, the tlamatinime's voice hardened by degrees, making Parker sink deeper and deeper into his shockchair. "Given another alternative, I would relieve you of these tasks, but you are the tool to hand, and you will serve."

  "But... no sensors? An unpowered drop into atmosphere? That's—"

  "Necessary, Parker-tzin . It is necessary." Hummingbird looked around at Gretchen and Magdalena and Doctor Lennox—who was looking entirely pale and washed out, like a cotton sheet left to hang in the summer sun for far too many days. "This is within my authority," he said, raising his voice very slightly, drawing every eye to him as iron filings to a lode-stone. "As nauallis, as judge, as the voice of the Empire in this godless place. We have blundered into uncompromising danger and we will be lucky indeed to escape without harm."

  Gretchen heard a stone certainty in the man's words and felt a chill wash over her. What does he know? Something about Russovsky's spooked him—and why not? Something duplicated a human being, down to memories and language. Did the same something send the eater cylinder aboard? Is the other cylinder a trap?

  In all the busy confusion since her return from the surface, she hadn't had a chance to resume her translation work on the embedded slab. Thinking of it now, of the secrets which must lie concealed within, she felt a painful hunger wake. Those translation runs must have finished days ago! I'm so stupid—they could be waiting for me right now.

  "More than this," Hummingbird said coldly, interrupting Gretchen's train of thought. "I will not explain. You will obey without question or dispute. In this way, you may yet live. Now Parker-tzin—during the next day, while Isoroku completes his preparations for the flyby, you will move the Palenque, very quietly, out of orbit. Minimal burn on the main engines, and you will do so by orienting us away from the planet. Anything we do must be unremarked from the surface. We are going to take care to leave no trace of our visit here."

  Gretchen stirred, drawing the Méxica's attention. "Hummingbird-tzin, your pardon, but if Palenque leaves the system, and Cornuelle has already departed, how will you leave the planet? And what about the base camp at the observatory? There are hundreds of tons of equipment, supplies, vehicles there. What about the observation satellites?"

  "Those things," Hummingbird said with a steely lightness in his voice, "will be taken care of. And in the meantime—no scans, no active sensors on the ship, no experiments, no communications traffic. Nothing."

  Gretchen started to speak again, but the nauallis gave her a fierce look, dark eyes glittering.

  "We are mice," he said sharply, "creeping in a field of maize. We must step gently, or the stalks will rustle."

  THE CORNUELLE, OUTBOUND FROM EPHESUS III ORBIT

  The pitch of the vibration humming through the deck and walls shifted and Susan Koshō looked up from her v-panel, head cocked to one side. "We've reached safe distance," she said, turning her attention back to the schematics on her display.

  With their gravity signature pared down to the absolute minimum by shutting off the g-decking, the Cornuelle creaked and groaned with odd noises. The main hull had picked up little tics and squeaks over time. In the depths of ship's night, you could hear her speaking, if you were quiet.

  Hayes nodded absently, chewing on a stylus, pale blue eyes sunken in dark hollows. Susan pushed a cup of tea toward him, letting the sealed container slide across the worktable in the senior officer's mess. "You should drink that—you need to eat."

  "Yes, mother," he replied, still paging slowly through the schematic. He set the cup aside. "This thing is a monster. Look at the shielding... and these mining beam rigs look like a Mark Ninety-Six proton cannon refitted for a civilian power plant."

  Susan nodded, then took a long sip from her own cup. The tea was very strong and thick with honey. She was certain the steward had added stimulants and some kind of vitamin supplement. There's an undertaste, she thought, stealing a glance at her medband. The thin, flesh-colored circlet around her wrist was quiescent, indicating a lack of toxins. Of cinnamon.

  "Don't fool yourself," Susan said aloud, tapping a section of the Tyr blueprints on her panel. "The power plant for one of these has more in common with our drive than any civilian liner. See? This report from the Mirror says a Tyr has three reactors, each capable of output matching or exceeding our own. She has to, to move so much mass."

  "Wonderful," Hayes grumbled, finally putting down the pad. He retrieved his tea, which had slid back along the tab
le toward the rear bulkhead. Grimacing at the bitter/honey taste, he downed the whole thing in one gulp. "So let's consider—she's surrounded by ore carrels which—if they're full, and loaded properly—give her the equivalent of a hundred meters of low-grade armor plating. Not a reactive shield, no, but enough to shrug off most of our lighter penetrators and beam weapons. Then her core section is clad in enough radiation shielding for a battle cruiser and she mounts the most godawful huge cutting beam assemblies I've ever seen. These are nearly dreadnaught-strength mounts!"

  Susan nodded, finding a page she recalled from the Seeking Eye—Fleet Intelligence—report. "Pursuant to the Treaty of Rostov," she read, "the macehualli pochteca—or industrial combines—have been required to turn all armaments and munitions factories, orbital yards, workshops and other means of naval production to nonmilitary use. This they have done." A brief, fierce smile flickered across Susan's face. "In the case of the Tyr-class mobile ore refinery, the core of the civilian ship is a stripped down Kaiserschlacht-class heavy cruiser. Some of the early refinery models, in fact, are physically built around decommissioned K-schlacht hulls."

  "Sister bless!" Hayes tabbed to the same page. "They didn't leave the original sensor net and ECM intact, did they?"

  Susan pursed her lips and pointed with her stylus at another section of the report. "Navigating in an asteroid belt, or an Oort cloud, is a tricky business. This requires the refinery to carry advanced avionics and sensor equipment. The targeting systems and main comp aren't supposed to be military grade, of course. Just civilian models."

  Hayes leaned back against the bulkhead, his broad face looking tired and pudgy. "Easy enough to replace from the black market—if the originals were ever actually removed in the first place."

  "Or to upgrade," Susan said quietly. "K-schlacht hulls are over a hundred years old. Even a modern civilian rig would be superior in head-to-head with the old Royal Navy gear. And these ships are straight out of the Norsktrad yard at Kiruna—which means they have the very latest comp and scan on board."

  Hayes rubbed his face and made a groaning sound. Koshō wanted to laugh derisively, but she felt a certain sisterly affection for the senior lieutenant. He was quick on his board, and quite adept at handling dozens of incoming threats and targets in the thick of the action—but he hadn't quite the taste for the hunt a commanding officer really needed.

  "So," she said, in a brisk voice, "how do we kill this thing?"

  Hayes stared at her, then leaned his chin on clasped hands. "Right. Kill it... well, the firing aperture of those mining beams is restricted—they can't have full traverse with the ore carrels in the way—so there are blind spots if we can get a target lock and proper orientation."

  "Good." Susan laid down her comp pad and fixed him with her full attention. "And?"

  "And ... they probably don't have any missile capacity, unless they're hiding some kind of pods in the carrels—which they could be! But that wouldn't pass muster anywhere they docked—and they did come here to mine, didn't they?" He seemed to perk up at the thought.

  "Yes, they did." Susan rolled her stylus between middle finger and thumb. "The ship's power-to-mass ratio is also against them—they will have a hard time outmaneuvering us, and a harder time hiding from us if they do move."

  "Yeah." Hayes made a face. "So we have to maneuver for position, get into one of their blinds and just hammer them, knock out engines, break through the armor. ... Could be messy."

  "No, we can't be messy," Susan said, flipping the stylus deftly in her hand so the sharp point pointed down at the table. "We must be exact—" she made a sharp stabbing motion with the writing tool "—and swift. One blow, thrust past all that armor will—"

  "—not be necessary." Hadeishi's voice was soft from the hatchway. Susan stiffened, aware her hair was unbound, her uniform jacket untabbed at the neck, and she sat up straight. Hayes had also come to attention. The chu-sa stepped into the room, nodded to them both, and drew a tea from the automat. "You two should get some sleep. We will be busy later."

  "What about the Tyr?" Hayes said, betraying a little confusion. "We have to be ready to deal with this brute when we—"

  Hadeishi waved him to silence, settling into a chair at the end of the table, hands curling around the warm cup. "If we engage the refinery in any kind of shooting match, we've failed. I am under strict orders to secure the miner without the use of any kind of missile, beam weapon or weapon producing an electromagnetic signature."

  He smiled gently at both of them—particularly at Hayes, who was staring gape-mouthed.

  "What is the pinnacle of a warrior's skill?" Hadeishi turned to Susan, his mellow brown eyes capturing hers. She felt a chill shock, as if he'd splashed ice water on her face. But her mind was quick, and she remembered both the question and the traditional answer.

  "To subdue the enemy without fighting." She frowned in distaste. "You're quoting from—"

  Hadeishi raised an eyebrow and finished his tea. "That does not mean," he said quietly as he stood up, "it is not true. Good night."

  Koshō watched the chu-sa leave and wondered how he'd gained access to a copy of the Ping Fa. She was a little disturbed. I'm very sure all those books were destroyed.

  IN GEOSYNC OVER EPHESUS

  Pacing was almost impossible with the bridge of the Palenque in z-g, so Gretchen resorted to staring moodily at an image of the planet filling the main display. Parker and Magdalena were working under the main control board—grunting and cursing by turns as they rewove the power and data fibers snaking up from under the floor and into the control surfaces.

  Anderssen had rarely felt such distaste for another human being. Even the thoughtless racism of her instructors at university had not inspired such a bleak mood. I will find some way, she thought, letting fantasies of outlandish torture devices blossom in her mind's eye, to make him suffer. What an arrogant bastard!

  Gretchen had been annoyed when Hummingbird took the remains of Russovsky away into "Imperial Custody," though her reaction had been mild compared to Sinclair's. The xenobiologist had begged to examine the strange dust, but the Imperial judge had flatly refused. The rest of the scientists were confined to quarters, which greatly reduced the possible range of disputes. Gretchen had been a little smug—she could go where she wished—but all of her good humor had evaporated when she finally made her way down to airlock number three.

  Which was empty. The steel cradle remained, but her good field comp, the jury-rigged sensor panel, the cylinder and its attendant limestone block were gone. For once, when she turned around snarling, Fitzsimmons was nowhere to be found. But Gretchen still knew who'd stolen her artifact.

  "What does he think is down there?" Gretchen rattled her feet noisily—now in stiff-bottomed shipshoes—against the railing separating the captain's station from the rest of the crew positions. "Leave no trace of our visit? It's just not possible."

  Magdalena peered over the top of the navigation panel. Her yellow eyes were bare slits. "What a whiny kitten you are," she declared with a sharp yrroowl in her voice. "Either ask him yourself or be a good packmate and help pull cable."

  Gretchen ignored her to stare sullenly at the planet. Most of her hair was twisted into a thick corn-tassel plait. She started to bite at the braid, head cocked to one side. "He must believe something's down there, something that can see us...." She paused, thinking. "No—it can't see us now, but it might see us in the future? Something which will notice satellites, spacecraft ... but why wouldn't his precious something find the observatory camp?"

  Magdalena's tufted ears disappeared with a disapproving growl. Parker managed a subdued laugh, but his hands were filled with bundles of conduit. The power leads to the navigator's station were proving difficult to restore. The substandard cables had ended in metallic connectors, which were still embedded in the panel sockets. Sitting flush, without the usual cable run to grasp hold of, Parker was forced to remove them one at a time with a hand tool. He'd already wrecked one panel by
shorting the connector with too much pressure.

  "Maggie? How did Russovsky communicate with the Palenque when her ultralight was on farside?" Gretchen poked some of the buttons on the captain's panel and a variety of plotted routes, icons and little winking glyphs appeared across the live image of the planet. The routes of the geologist's flights vanished over the curve of the world, then looped back again. "Does she have some kind of a relay station?"

  A low, ominous growl trailing away into a hissing snarl answered Gretchen's question. Magdalena crawled out of the utility space under the floor, her fur slick with sweat and snarled with bits of wire and the particular brand of sealant grease used by the Imperial Navy. The Hesht shot Anderssen a fierce, quelling look—an effort entirely lost on Gretchen, who was staring fixedly at the main v-pane.

  "If I tell you, witless kit, will you be quiet?"

  "Sure." Gretchen nodded, though even Magdalena could tell the human woman hadn't heard her. "Do you have a log of her transmissions? Could we find the relays that way? Does he have a copy? I mean—what if she dropped a threesquare bar somewhere, would he have to clean that up?"

  Magdalena swung herself over the comm station—her tool-bags and tail drifting behind her—and dug a claw into the back of the captain's chair to anchor herself. Gretchen finally looked at her with something like full attention.

  "I think the dust would take care of litter," Maggie said, voice rumbling deep in her throat. "The base at the observatory—that's a problem—or our mystery shuttle—there's another difficulty."

  "Why?" Gretchen gave the Hesht a puzzled look, then she grinned. "Oh, do you think the miners will come back? That would spoil our crow's plan to leave no trace!"

  Magdalena twitched her ears. "They don't have to come back. I've been running nonstop image searches on Smalls's weather archive." One long arm reached out and tapped a command on the panel. "The mining shuttle didn't leave like everyone expected."