The Cunning Blood

by Jeff Duntemann

  Snitzius allowed himself a grim chuckle. "And when has that not been the case?"

  Like witches in some ancient Earth myth, twenty-seven men and two women approached the flat iron face of the Hans Moravec, their limbs wrapped around metal tubes that flared to small thrusters at one end. One man had a transparent plastic bag lashed to his tube, within which a sullen-faced woman lay quietly, naked but for bra and briefs, watching without moving.

  Mostly, the blue-gray expanse of metal was empty, crossed here and there by rows of pipes. Four great fifty-meter clamshell doors were arranged around the center, all sealed. A few tanks and other clusters of skeletal girders could be seen, and at various points delicate antennae pointed at the starry depths.

  Not all of this is on the drawings I have, the Sangruse Device told Peter, who was marveling at the glint of undimmed sunlight on such an immensity of bare metal. We are working from two-hundred-year-old plans.

  |So? It's just hardware.|

  I would feel safer if I knew what every device we see here actually is. That tank, for example. Very close to the center of the flat face was a glinting silver cylinder that looked much newer than the devices around it. There was a black girdle around its equator. I view any cylinder with a ring around it with some alarm.

  Peter puffed out his cheeks for a moment, sizing the cylinder up. Distances and scales were hard to estimate in the emptiness of space. It looked far too small to be any kind of starcraft. |Hey, it's bolted to the iron wall. The ring's probably a heater. Stop borrowing trouble.|

  I needn't ever borrow trouble. It follows you around like a newborn puppy.

  At the very center of the Moravec's 850-meter flat face was a collection of antennae and hydraulic hardware, surrounded by a ten-meter perimeter of chain-link material like fencing. A bright meter-wide circle set into the iron drew frustrated interest; it was an access port that the Moravec's plans stated could be opened only from inside.

  "Those hydraulics are an extendable mooring boom for a species of shuttle that no longer exists. However, notice the winch-in machinery beside it. The specs indicate that the drum carries over a kilometer of Kevlar rope. If the controls still work, we'll make good use of it." The superregenerative radio whispering Snitzius' voice in Peter's ears had a scratchy quality, with an irritating hiss ever-present in the background. Hell's micropower helmet radios were brand new and still stone-age simple, not yet committed to microelectronics nor even frequency modulation.

  Snitzius rotated his pogo and touched down lightly against the iron wall within the fencing perimeter. The others followed suit, quickly gripping the fencing material to match the Moravec's once-per-minute rotation. A team of three sicarii began checking the mooring mechanism for operability.

  At two opposite points in the fencing perimeter, gaps opened "downward"—toward the rim—to bright metal steps. Peter looked down one of the staircases, and saw it curve gently away in a shallow spiral, eventually out of sight toward the rim.

  Almost six hundred meters' worth of steps. Long walk.

  |If we can't winch down, well, so be it. Unless…|

  Peter turned to Snitzius. "Sir, even if the winch works, we have no idea how fast it is. So shouldn't we get teams started down the stairs right away?"

  Snitzius considered for a moment, and nodded. "But remember, all of you: Go over the railing and no one will be coming after you. The pogos don't have that kind of delta-v. It's a one-way trip—and a long one."

  You're up to something, aren't you?

  |You'd be the last one I'd tell!|

  The first hundred meters were difficult. Peter and his teammate Conrad Siebert stumbled down stairs against minimal downward force, and had to consciously moderate the power of their leg muscles to keep from bounding clear away from the stairway. Peter tried many different stances, including a kind of bouncing hands-and-knees sprint.

  The centrifugal force of the Moravec's spin increased gradually as they descended. In time it was strong enough to make the familiar action of descending steps possible. Peter and Conrad began taking long, careful strides, soon leaping downward six steps at a time.

  They passed one of the four clamshell doors opening into the Moravec's main cargo spaces. A branch stairway descended toward it; Peter considered.

  No. The plans indicate there is no control from outside. And the holds may be pressurized. Keep going.

  Another hundred meters down the staircase, and their helmet radios yelped for attention. "Abbot! We're being fired upon!"

  The scratchy voice was Freedom's copilot. Peter looked toward the rim, but saw nothing. Two hundred meters from their perch on the long staircase, the Rotons were changing attitude. Vengeance was closest to them. Peter saw a spherical puff of fire from its nosepoint cannon. There was a flash from far below. Moments later, Peter felt the concussion through the metal of the stairs.

  "Enemy at the airlocks! Have two on visual!"

  Snitzius' voice responded. "Return fire but don't damage the airlocks!"

  Peter turned, and put his helmet up against his teammate's. "Conrad, we can't let them take out the Rotons! Watch what I do and follow me!"

  Peter took a deep breath, then lunged down the stairs. He put one hand on the smooth steel tubing of the railing and vaulted on top of the rail. The canvas skin of his pressure suit offered little friction. Leaning back and regulating his speed by the pressure of his knees, Peter slid down the railing.

  This is insane! One bolt head to catch at your suit and we'll be over the side and beyond rescue!

  |This whole stairway is a nanoextrusion. There are no bolts.|

  We can hope!

  Peter took a quick look over his shoulder. Conrad was following him, though leaning forward and intermittently gripping the railing with his gloves. The two men gradually accelerated as they refined their balance.

  Eight meters per second! You're practically falling freely!

  The Rotons fired several more rounds at their unseen attackers. Peter felt the rounds strike through his knees. Helmet traffic was furious. Justice had taken two hits, Vengeance one. Neither had been punctured, but Vengeance's large airlock door had dented badly, and its copilot was uncertain it could be opened.

  "Peter and Conrad arriving by banister express ETA twenty-five seconds—just like Christmas morning!"

  The last hundred meters Peter eased up on his knee pressure, and hurtled downward as quickly as the now-considerable spin-gravity would take him. Thirty meters from the airlock, he caught sight of the enemy: Two men in pure-black suits with long rifles. Both were sighting on the Rotons, and only in the last few seconds did one turn and look up the staircase.

  One rifle spit fire in Peter's direction. The round struck the railing in front of him with a sharply felt twing! Peter shoved himself inward, off the railing. He struck the Moravec's rippled iron hull hard and slid down several steps barely in control of his motion. His helmet radio crackled, squealed, and went silent.

  Conrad took longer to leap from the rail. He passed over the point where the bullet had struck the rail, then threw himself inward, away from the railing, with much flailing of limbs, as though trying to avoid a live wire. In weird silence Peter watched him flatten himself against the hull and slap one hand hard against his right thigh.

  |My radio's dead. Can you hear Conrad through the antenna in my back?|

  Yes. I've been monitoring the frequency for some time. He says his suit is torn and leaking. The last round must have raised a bad burr in the steel.

  |He has patches in his shin pouch. We need to cover him while he works.| Peter had his assault rifle in hand and fired a burst toward the airlock to drive the two men back. One attacker sought cover behind the outjutting semicircle of the airlock platform. The other fell prone on the stairs and fired upward, toward them. Peter saw one round glance off the iron hull above his head. He fired another burst and missed.

  Then Conrad screamed. Peter turned and saw blood spraying from a suit puncture near his colla
rbone. The attacker fired again, and a second red fountain opened over his heart.

  Peter fired another burst. One must have hit home, for the man jumped upward and tried to run for the airlock, leaving the rifle behind. Peter leapt the last few steps and fired point-blank at the man's chest. The attacker convulsed in a death-spasm and fell backwards, striking the railing and spinning over. He fell away from the platform quickly and was soon lost in the Hans Moravec's shadow.

  Finally, the rim. Peter leaned against the semicircular wall of the airlock deck, where it met the iron hull. Below the deck on which he stood was empty space, and the great globe of Hell slowly moving around them as the Hans Moravec rotated, its flat face in the plane of Hell's equator. Meters away was the corrugated black skin of the Hilbert ring, running completely around the circumference of the ship's flat face.

  Weapon at ready, Peter began to edge around the curve of the airlock deck, keeping close to the wall. He was nearly to the main airlock port when two black-suited men blundered out of the port, fighting. One held a length of pipe; the other held a long rifle like a quarterstaff, fending off blows from the pipe. The man with the rifle was shorter than his assailant, and acting confused. He backed away from the taller man as far as the railing, but with no further room to retreat was at a disadvantage. The taller man struck a strong blow to where the other man's hand held the rifle's stock; the rifle spun away into starry blackness. The pipe came around one final time and shattered the man's faceplate; the taller man then hoisted the writhing victim and tossed him over the railing. Peter watched the figure silhouetted against white clouds along Hell's equator, falling away until lost from sight.

  Peter stepped forward, leveled his assault rifle at the tall man's chest. The man threw the pipe away into the void and raised his hands.

  I am monitoring his suit radio. He is surrendering. His name is Filer Fitzgerald...

  |I thought that pipe-swinging arm looked familiar!|

  He says he is now the absolute ruler of the Moomoos...

  |What!|

  ...and that Nutmeg is in command of the ship.

  The Hans Moravec was riddled with wormholes. During its construction, nanomachines had bored a network of four-meter wide tunnels through the iron. Cylindrical wheeled transports were built to travel the tunnels—with two sets of wheels in an "X" configuration, all sets sprung to bear against the tunnel walls.

  One such transport carried half of Hell's strike force toward the Hans Moravec's bridge. With one ankle wirecuffed to a stanchion, Filer Fitzgerald sat on the soft leather seat opposite Snitzius and told his tale. Geyl sat beside him, wrapped in a blanket, her ankle similarly cuffed.

  "…by now McGaughey has hundreds of sons; he attempts to impregnate a woman almost every night. If he's feeling particularly spry, he'll go for two. He goads his sons to challenge one another, and keeps track of who beats who. The one who loses least, it was understood, would succeed the Boss, and continue the difficult work of impregnating all the Moomoo women." Filer smiled and shrugged. "I took on my brothers. I beat them all. And then I accidentally killed one. No great loss, the Boss said. Lots more where he came from. But it made me think hard about the whole wretched business. I told him I was finished, retiring from the contest, and spent the next three years in the mountains looking for lead deposits. I thought a lot. I read a lot of books. And every so often I had to stop and take out teams of sicarii the Boss sent after me."

  "So you weren't at the center of this IAR business." Snitzius was leaning forward, listening with interest.

  The tall man shook his head. "It happened while I was out in the wilds being a prospector. I only heard about it after I'd slabbed the third sicarii crew who came for me. The Boss offered me an interesting job: Lead an invasion of Earth. I told him he was crazy, and he could lead it himself. The world would be better off without him, but I realized that whoever led the invasion, thousands of Moomoos would most likely die. I wasn't sure what to do. Most of them are fools—but most of them are family. I feel an obligation to them."

  "But what is the IAR?"

  Filer shrugged. "Mutineers who stole some starships, I think. They snag landers full of convicts bound for Hell; I'm not sure how."

  Jamie Eigen!

  |Yikes! And the notched software you found in the lander! Think about the sequence: Go into a tumble, make the drops think they're about to die, then straighten out, and let the drops think they were rescued by the brave Interstellar American Republic. Instant loyalty to the very people who set it all up.|

  That would make sense—except that we were not 'rescued.'

  |The last lander contains the women. If women stopped landing on Hell, somebody might start wondering why.|

  Nobody who matters. It's more likely that the IAR doesn't want women. Women cause fights; recall our conversation with Bilenda. Or, if the IAR only has time to snag a handful of landers—say two or three—they would understandably prefer strong backs and a surplus of testosterone.

  "They have a colony. As I understand it, there are Earthlike planets everywhere there's a star like the Sun. They sent the Hans Moravec here to pick up a load of Moomoo fighters, who would be sent down over Canada in a flood of adapted lifting body landers, the ones they stole, only adapted to launch cruise missiles."

  Snitzius turned to Geyl. "And your part in this?"

  Geyl's look was vacant, her thoughts obviously elsewhere. "I came to gauge Hell's danger to Earth. Peter was supposed to be my bodyguard. What I never told Peter was that the Hans Moravec would return to pick us up, and that it was carrying enough missiles—stored in modified landers for re-entry—to level all of Hell's cities. If I felt the danger extreme enough, those missiles would be used."

  "Someone is lying." Snitzius looked from Filer to Geyl and back. "We will eventually discover who."

  "Hold on," Peter said. "It's pretty obvious to me who's lying." Everyone looked toward him.

  "And that would be, Peter?"

  "The Governor General of America."

  "That's insane," Geyl said, but Peter felt that her statement lacked conviction.

  "No, think it through: Sophia Gorganis wants to get out from under Canada's thumb. So she fakes the disappearance of three major starships and plants a colony somewhere. Her own moles in the SIS slip notched software into some of the landers bound for Hell, to help her people steal them to build up a force. This takes awhile. When did Yellowknife vanish? Four years ago?

  "Sooner or later she figures she's ready. So she tells 1Consensus that Hell is developing a high-tech civilization in spite of the MGIDs, and that's the only true thing she needs to say. She uses the threat of aggression from Hell to coerce 1Consensus to outfit the Hans Moravec with missiles and send it to Hell. But it doesn't go straight to Hell. It makes an unscheduled detour to wherever the IAR is hiding, replaces the SIS crew with an IAR crew, and then comes to Hell to pick up a load of expendable Moomoo fighters. Once the fighters are on board, she brings the Hans Moravec back to Earth orbit, to a hero's welcome—and then she unleashes an attack that wipes out every significant Canadian city and SIS peacekeeping base. She does it, furthermore, without losing more than a handful of her loyal IAR forces. The poor Moomoos take all the casualties."

  "And where do I fit into that pretty little scenario?" Geyl's look toward Peter was pure poison.

  "You're a convenient excuse. Sophia Gorganis tells 1Consensus that one of her best people is being sent to Hell to look around, and report back. But she doesn't need you to come back, and actually doesn't expect you to come back. You served your purpose by lending credence to the big lie she put in front of 1Consensus. After that, well, you're as expendable as the Moomoos."

  "I see no reason to believe that." Geyl was looking at her bare feet, her voice flat and without emotion.

  Geyl has figured it out. I'm certain of it.

  "It's an easy enough thing to verify," Snitzius said. "We find out where the IAR colony is, and go there. We have all the missiles we need ri
ght here to convince them to spill the details of the plot. We only need to find which system they're in."

  "It's 109 Piscium, wherever that is." Filer grinned. "Nutmeg found the leader of the IAR crew, and gave him a dose of Agonil. He screamed for half an hour. After that, he was her slave. He actually rounded up the rest of his crew for her. We only had to slab two of them. Start to finish, it took us about three hours to consolidate the whole ship except for a couple of strays. I was cleaning them out when you folks arrived. We decided to pull in the landers to keep the traverser pilots from loading up any Moomoos and attempting to retake the vessel. Whoever may have been behind this crazy plot, it's all over. Rho Alpha Delta has a starship packed full of missiles. And as new Boss of Mu Mu Mu, I humbly sue for peace."

  Filer Fitzgerald leaned forward, exposing his neck to his ancient enemy. Tofir Snitzius stood, and laid both hands on the back of Filer's head.

  The old man nodded. "So be it."

  Filer raised his head, and met the old man's steady gaze. "Until such time as we return to Hell, I offer you what help you might accept."

  Snitzius crossed his arms. "Forgive me if for now that might be limited to passive consultation. You're dangerous enough without a weapon, I've heard. We will have our Roton pilots relay the message that attacks on Moomoo facilities are to cease immediately."

  Filer nodded. Some idle time would be good; he had some hard thinking to do. More than one of his brothers would object to an alliance with the Ralpha Dogs. His worst fights—in any of several senses—might still lie ahead.

  The transport gradually slowed on automatic, and eased to a stop. A sliding steel door retracted between the vehicle's walls. Snitzius, Peter, and most of the others exited first. Filer heard Nutmeg's voice, describing how the remaining IAR crew were locked up in a storeroom.

  Why should it be this easy? His hunchmaker was suggesting that there was trouble to come, but he couldn't get an image to come clear. Something small. Something close.

  One of the Ralpha Dog sicarii stood guard, weapon loosely held, while another unlocked the wirecuff around Geyl's ankle. Geyl stood, wobbling for a moment and holding onto the vertical stanchion beside the seat.