“Indirectly. Maggi is the bullyboy in this case, ready to make me pay for laying down the law to her earlier this morning. A lot of spite in that little woman.” He grinned, shaking his head.
“I watched you pause and listen. You need to work on that tell, poker player. Telour might eventually figure out you’re listening to someone, and I know that’s one of your key secrets from him.”
“Good point, and while I have you here Thad, I want to offer you that same key to our secret com system. Willing to have an implant behind your ear, and give up a lot of privacy?”
“Oh goody, I get to join the club? Is there a secret handshake?” Greeves joked.
“In a manner of speaking there is sort of a secret handshake with our AI, and a com protocol to learn.” Mirikami informed him.
Telling Bob he’d be back to help him in an hour, he left with Mirikami.
As they walked towards the lifts, Greeves asked, “You don’t mean one of those simple AI’s you have in the couches or dining areas do you?”
“Nope, ours is a near top-of-the line JK series AI, and we naturally called him Jake because we had no imagination when Interworld received delivery of the new ship. He can be tedious, but a handy source of information. That was our ‘friend’ that talked to me out there on the ridge. He will be part of our surveillance source when we start our Testing Day.”
“I’m game.” Thad told him. “Pleased that you offered. Extracting some payback from the Krall, at a mere cost of privacy, is worth a great deal to me. Thank you. Does it take long?”
“About five minutes to insert, then a protocol briefing and some practice. Let me set it up while Dillon and I have to eat a pile of crud. Here’s a little demonstration of its use.”
“Link to Mister Rigson.” He waited a second before talking. “Mel, are you on the ship?”
“Yes Sir.” He replied promptly.
“Can you meet me in the Deck eight dining room, and escort Thad Greeves to the dispensary for one of our transducer implants?”
“I can be up there in about five or ten minutes Sir, after I dress. I’m in my quarters.”
“Fine, Mel. No rush. Mirikami Out.”
“Neat huh?” He looked at Greeves. “I probably caught him on the toilet or in the shower, so that’s part of what I meant about loss of privacy,” he explained.
“The other part is that Jake can, if requested by only me or Noreen, record everything that you say and hear, but only with your approval given first. If you request privacy from the AI, we cannot override that without Jake notifying you in advance. You can of course request that he record your conversations, things you say and hear. You’ll hear samples of him doing this this when you listen to the record how I set up the com protocol shortly after the Krall boarded us. Are you ready for this?”
“I don’t see why not. Is it reversible?” he asked.
“Oh absolutely. The device is barely the size of a grain of rice behind your ear, and it can be easily removed.”
“I still want a secret handshake,” he grinned, “but I’ll start with this.”
There ended up being quite a few people in the main dining room, so Dillon and Mirikami ate in a more private alcove off to one side. This was partly to avoid looks and questions concerning the types and amounts of food the two had to eat, and all the pills. It also permitted some private conversation.
Before they finished, Thad rejoined them, having first tested his new “toy” by asking for a Link to Dillon from the dispensary. Thad ordered a modest plate, but noticed that the two men were still working on the considerable remains of what had been an even larger meal.
Looking at Maggi and Noreen, who had half-finished simple sandwiches on their plates, he talked with them. Tet and Dillon kept their mouths full and chewing like it was a duty.
“Do those two always pack it in like this? They told me they ate a huge meal just before we went out in the shuttle. That was only four hours ago.”
He noticed Maggi and Noreen looked uncomfortable about answering, and looked to Mirikami for some reason. Approval?
Mirikami bobbed his head, and waved at them to indicate they should wait for him to swallow. After washing it down with a drink of grayish fluid that made him grimace, Mirikami looked around to see who might be siting close to their table.
“Thad, Dillon and I are on a special diet to feed our bodies extra nutrients that will help us build up a heat tolerance and boost our metabolism. This is to increase our ability to perform better on Testing Day. You already know about our Pep and Oxy pills, which lead to a physical crash in less than a day of heavy use. We are testing a method of bypassing the drugs. This is a longer term solution.”
“I should have figured with all your doctors and scientists you’d have some better ideas than popping pills. Is that why you both look flushed despite a cool room, and you both show sheens of perspiration?”
Damn, the guy’s observant, Mirikami thought. “Yes, it is. We’re each running a fever from the burst of absorption our bodies are being forced to endure.” He’d like to tell him the truth, but there were their own scientists that had not been informed of what they were trying to achieve genetically. In addition, it was criminal as hell everywhere in Human Space, bordering on Death Penalty serious. Of course, they weren’t actually in Human Space he thought, in a flash of irony.
“Dillon and I volunteered to be test subjects, and we can’t be sure if it will work. We don’t want it generally known because we don’t have resources do this for everyone.”
“I wish you success.” Was his only comment.
Maggi changed the subject. “Aldry had that thorn you gave us carefully studied. A spectral analysis and chemical breakdown shows that yellow wax coating is a potent neurotoxin of a different type than we can find in our very extensive reference library.
“We compared its effect on some cultured nerve cells of wolfbats that we killed and preserved from our first day here, and also on some skeeter bodies, and on one live skeeter we captured. The neurotoxin is very effective on both of their nervous systems, and interferes with the same basic neural pathway on the mammal analogue, and the insect analogue.
“The similarity of their two nervous systems indicates that there is an extremely ancient genetic link between these two very different creature’s biology and nervous systems. It probably reflects an early step in life here, and may be common in many life forms on Koban.
“We had previously determined that the nervous systems of wolfbats are almost impossibly efficient and fast at transmitting signals. They have organic superconductors connecting their brain to muscles at much higher than room temperature. We have superconductors at similar temperatures, but these are entirely manufactured and nonorganic. It explains their fast reactions, and low loss of energy controlling muscle movement. They can flap harder and longer for the same energy output in a heavier gravity that any animals we’ve ever studied.”
“The thorn’s neurotoxin is well tailored to suppress the superconductor ability, and slows or scrambles the wolfbat and skeeter nervous system signals. That probably causes them great pain. It severely represses a human’s nervous system, as we already knew, to where we can’t breathe or move and we would suffocate in great pain, unless our heart or brain is shut down first.
“Here’s the most interesting part. We have some limited samples of Krall blood, collected on the ship when they conducted mock combat exercises with one another. Even without samples of a Krall’s nervous system, we see some genetic parallels to Kobani animals that perhaps account for their own fast reaction times. They don’t have organic superconductor tissue, but we found a similar genetic structure where a relative few mutations might incorporate the heavier rare elements we found in the Kobani animals nerves.” She paused a moment, thinking.
“It’s possible that the thorn’s neurotoxin would have a similar effect on a Krall as it does on a wolfbat. It might not completely paralyze them, but it would probably slow them down dr
amatically and really hurt like hell.”
Thad said, “That matches with how carefully I’ve seen them behave around the Death Lime shrubs. They absolutely won’t touch them despite liking the fruit as much as we do.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t reproduce the toxin artificially. Not yet anyway.” She concluded.
“Well, when we can produce it we will,” said Mirikami. “We’ll make do with what we have now.”
“Speaking of what we have now,” Noreen added, “The relay transmitter is now near the top floor of the dome, so we have low power transmissions everywhere inside the dome for good Links to our AI friend and each other, and we can tie in some cameras for him if we want.”
“There’s second relay,” Dillon reminded them. “We don’t have the means to talk back to the ship by transducer from far out in the compound, not without using a standard radio. Can we use the relay out there on Testing Day?”
Mirikami squashed that notion. “We only have the one spare, and it would still stand out as a transmitter source out in the boonies. After all, it is a type of radio, so the Krall would probably find it the same as they can detect and home in on the com sets in armor. We can hear our friend from out there, and Telour already allows us to transmit from here, so all we lose is the ability to ask for information and Link back to the ship.
“Thad will teach us some simple hand signals to show to our friend if he can see us. I’ve also asked Thad to remotely monitor us out there, and help our friend make better decisions.”
“Tet, do you think the Krall will just stumble into your booby traps?” Maggi asked. “They have superb vision and those reflexes.”
“We are going to place a number of mechanically triggered devices where we hope they’ll hit them, but we have some special remotely triggered guns, mines, catapults and crossbows that we can set off when we have targets, or to serve as distractions.” He told them.
“And when I left the machine shop this afternoon, one new piece of under armor gear appears to be taking shape. Literally.” He gave them a sly smile.
“Remember the white Smart Fabric table cloths? They can be colored by slight burning via a tunable laser, to several shades of tan or deeper brown. The same lasers can cut them into pattern pieces, and melt the seams together to form an undergarment that is proof against stings from skeeters, and from the little kants that crawl into the armor. It will also resist punctures from bullet fragments that make it through the armor.”
Greeves hadn’t heard about this innovation. “Won’t it be hotter?” he asked?
“A little bit possibly, if you normally wore armor naked,” Mirikami acknowledged. “I believe you have some clothing on under you armor now, right?”
Thad nodded.
“Like clothing made from the more stylish stuff, it’s designed to allow perspiration to pass through, and for air exchange. I don’t feel any more uncomfortable in my best Smart Fabric uniform than in my utility clothes when I’m outside. We all wear something under the armor to prevent chaffing. I’ll just wear my underwear and a well-shaped table cloth.”
“How many sets can we have before Testing Day?” Even Dillon hadn’t heard about this surprise.
“The slow part was treating all the surface of the fabric to darken it by mild laser burning without weakening its strength. Chief Haveram spent a lot of time working out the technique. Our AI friend can now calculate a custom pattern for each of the eighteen of us going out, and operate as the laser control tailor when the pattern pieces are joined. If we bring the whole team over to the ship, everyone will get a suit of long underwear while they wait.”
“Are there any more surprises I’d like to know about Sir?” Dillon smiled.
“I hope so.” He replied. “Hold on while I check. Link all of us here to Mister Branson.” He told Jake.
“Cal, what did you learn about the Katusha’s?”
“Oh. Excuse me Sir, I was just running a range test on five people.” He answered. They heard him dismiss whomever he had been working with.
“Captain, these gadgets have a fixed range of just over one hundred twenty feet, no matter what you place between the device and a person with a tattoo you’re searching for. The detection is as strong through air as through metal or plastic, it even saw through the fusion bottle’s magnetic confinement field.” He sounded awed.
“None of our scientists have any real clue how they might work, but were all quick to remind me that they specialized in biology, not physics.
“Whatever is embedded in our tattoos, these gadgets detect it every time. One person or five of them, the intensity of the detection light when aimed at a tattoo, or a group of them, is always the same based only on the range, and how well aligned the device is. It’s like there’s an invisible beam, or something, that sees a tattoo through anything.
“At a hundred thirty feet you have no signal. At just over one hundred twenty feet, a dim light appears if pointed directly at a tattoo. It brightens steadily as you get closer, or if you aim more directly at the target. I tested on a Krall on the other side of a wall in the dome and it worked the same as it did on the ship using our people.
“The width of the detection zone seems to be almost a cone that is about fifteen degrees wide and twenty degrees tall. That’s about the same ratio of the oval mouth of the thing and the tattoos it gave us. Aside from looking for those lottery cheats, what do you think we can do with them before we have to give them back?”
“Nice report Cal. I’m thinking we may use a couple to watch for Krall sneaking up on us on Testing Day. But I really don’t want any Krall getting that close to us, so I can’t say for sure how useful they might be.”
“By the way, what did that female K’Tal look like when she gave those to you?”
“Huh? That was a female? It looked exactly like any Krall I’ve seen.” He paused briefly as he thought back. “But it had a more filled in tattoo than a novice, and it was a bit smaller than the other black clad warriors that returned with Telour. It also spoke a few words of Standard, and sounded as deep and growly as any male voice I’ve heard.”
“I guess only her mother would know,” Dillon cracked.
“Know what?” Cal asked.
“Never mind Cal.” Mirikami wanted to keep things on track. “I think you can take those things over to the dome now to seek out those hidden rats, but keep them in the hands of our people. I also don’t want any of us getting into a shooting match if they are located with those. We are not the aggrieved people, so allow the Primes to take their own vengeance. Mirikami Out.”
Turning to Maggi and Noreen, he asked, “I want you two to locate the sixteen people on the list and tell them about the protective under garments we can give them. Send them over when they are ready for a fitting.”
“Yes Sir!” Maggi saluted. “But Captain Reckless had better finish that now cold meal still lingering on his plate,” she warned.
Dutifully filling a fork and looking to his fellow lab rat, Mirikami winked. “Dillon, I begin to see why you are constantly sparring with this relentless woman.”
“At a minimum I recommend you get a cup Sir.” was his muttered reply.
That earned him an affectionate hard smack on the back of his head as Maggi stood to leave, causing Dillon to jab a lip with his fork.
“And a helmet.” He added.
Later, trying on the under armor garments, the fit was uncomfortably snug with the heavy meal they had just completed.
“Our tailor may need to let these out,” Dillon commented. “Many more of those meals and I won’t fit in my armor either. These feel warmer than I expected, despite what you said earlier. But I think that’s the fever causing that. I don’t know about you, Sir, but I not only don’t feel heat adapted, but I could use a nap. If our metabolism is revving up, I sure don’t feel it yet.”
“Patience Doctor. You’re the scientist, and certainly heard Aldry tell us we had perhaps thirty six hours before the effects could be felt. But t
he fever makes me drowsy too.”
They sensed commotion behind them, and heard Maggi’s voice. “Go through the door to your left, the scanner measurements have been used to cut the garment pieces, and it only takes a few minutes to assemble them for a fitting.”
“Captain Mirikami!” exclaimed Deanna Turner happily, as she caught sight of the men. “I see you are here to model for us. Very stylish.” She giggled.
The mottled brown and tan garments covered them from toes to neck, like dirty child’s pajamas with feet.
“Deanna, I’m delighted to see you…, and how many came with you?” He looked past her as people kept streaming into the former wardroom turned to fitting and assembly room.
“We have all sixteen Captain,” Answered Noreen, as she and Maggi brought up the rear of the group.
“Excellent. I’m sure you were told about the benefits of these finely made, beautifully colored, reasonably priced free body suits.” He grinned back at the group of men and women, some looking doubtful.
“We were told they could help protect us.” Deanna was acting as spokesfem for the group. “But none of us could ever afford Smart clothes. We’re nearly all from the Rim where fancy is too pricey. Pretty those are not, but Noreen say’s they’re also tough. Can we please see that demonstrated?”
“As a matter of fact Dillon and I had the same concern. In the corner,” Mirikami pointed, “is a plastic tailor’s dummy from our uniform stores. It has a homemade body protector like mine covering the torso. There are a couple of sharp knives and a short sword on a table next to it. Feel free to abuse the dummy with those.”
All of them took a turn whacking and stabbing the dummy, and every one of them failed to cut or penetrate the fabric. One man, of the five that had not applied to volunteer to work with the “Fancies,” ran the dummy and thrust with his full weight behind the short sword. He didn’t cut through the fabric but managed to knock over the dummy and bloody his nose on the wall as he tripped.
Deanna, barely suppressing a laugh asked, “Ben, are you OK? The dummy looks fine, and at least it doesn’t have a scratch.”
Koban Page 48