"I know the psychology of the rank and file," Kieran told him. "They're like mercenary military anywhere, rootless and insecure underneath all the imagery. It makes them suggestible and superstitious—like old-time sailors."
Rudi eyed him dubiously. "And you think you can exploit something like that to our advantage?"
"You'd be surprised," Kieran said, and smiled gaily.
15
Crunch . . . crunch . . . crunch . . . crunch.
The sound of Trooper Slezansky's footsteps came hollowly through his own suit as he slowly patrolled through the warren of caverns and diggings below the camp. This far underground, it shouldn't have made any difference that his and Delaney's was the 2:00 A.M. to 4:00 A.M. watch, but the gloom and somberness of the surroundings somehow intensified the bleak feelings that came with the hour. He had turned his local area channel off because of intermittent interference from somewhere that had become persistently more irritating, cutting himself off from base except for emergency band. Maybe that was adding to the sense of isolation that he was feeling.
Still, he'd had worse assignments in his time, before taking a tour with the Lowell-based enforcer service that had sent them here on this job. The mission to take out that bandit stronghold on an asteroid out in the Belt somewhere, for instance. The officers who were supposed to know about these things hadn't allowed for alliances among the enemy, and a counterattack from the rear had cost some good men. Thieves protecting each other. The incursion force that Slezansky was with had to pull out, and he'd never found out what the final outcome was. And then there was the fringe settlement that they had defended, who then wouldn't pay, or whatever the disagreement afterward had been about, and the protecting force had turned around and taken what they said they were due. That had left a bad taste in his mouth for a long time. But the job to be done was the job, was the job. . . .
The passage Slezansky was following opened into a wedge-shaped chamber that narrowed into shadows above the dim glow from a couple of the lights strung on a cable running along one wall. He stopped to run his flashlamp around and up, revealing a slab of rock leaning drunkenly across the space overhead. It looked as if it had fallen away from one side of a fissure extending upward into darkness beyond. Slezansky wasn't sure if it was his eyes playing tricks, but he thought he could see wisps of greenish light among the rocks and crevices up there. Should there be lights down underneath a plateau on what was supposed to be a dead planet? He didn't know. But it seemed eerie. He swung the flashlamp beam over tumbled rocks looking like skulls sticking out of the sand; shadows twisting and writhing upward out of sight among the silent, brooding pillars. . . . This whole place was eerie.
He carried on through to a larger cavern of branching passages and shafts, past the partly uncovered remains of what looked like something that had been built by somebody, to the place where they had placed the monitor panels for the security systems deployed through the area. The routine check showed all ultraviolet transmitters and sensors functioning; motion detectors reset by his ID signal after registering to his progress; infrared fences live and intact. He updated the log and tried local again to report to base, but again the transmission was swamped before he had exchanged more than a few words. He delivered his opinion in the form of some chosen and well-practiced obscenities, killed the circuit, and carried on.
At least, there were no plasma bolts here, or smart munitions homing on you out in a void with no cover you could trust. Running a few professors, or whoever they were, out from where they had no business being had a lot more going for it than some of the action he'd seen. He needed to think seriously about getting out of this business while he was young enough to make a go of something else and still in one piece to do it. Something where he could market the skills he'd picked up, but less violent and with a lower wastage factor. A corporate security outfit, maybe, or a private bodyguard; even a bouncer somewhere. But in the meantime the pay was good, so the life had its compensations. Horrocks and Malotto could laugh if they wanted when he talked about his plans and how he'd have it made one day. He'd show them.
They tried to unnerve him with jokes about the unreality of his plans, or maybe air rumors about a job they were due to go on. Even on this one. Horrocks had told him about some kind of fortune-teller or wise guy who was with the professors, calling Major Cobert, the unit's CO, and saying that the workings were haunted by spirits of ancient alien builders . . . or something like that. Slezansky wasn't sure if it was true, or just something they'd made up to rattle him.
He came to the gallery leading back toward the entrance cuttings. As he rounded a corner into brighter light, a grotesque shape flew at him, speeding silently over the walls and across the ceiling. Stifling a shout of alarm, Slezansky recoiled against the wall, at the same time fumbling to unsling his weapon; then he realized it was Delaney's shadow being cast ahead as he advanced from the direction of the main access shaft, patrolling his half of the route. Flustered at the thought of appearing foolish, Slezansky hastily pulled the rifle back onto the shoulder grip of his suit and moved forward. But Delaney hadn't even noticed. The expression on his face, when Slezansky flickered the flashlamp briefly across his visor, was distracted and tense.
"What is it?" Slezansky asked—communications worked in this kind of proximity.
"Something strange . . . I'm not sure. This whole place. Come see what you make of this."
Delaney led the way back along the gallery, then into an opening on one side, beyond which a wide, irregular cavern lay between an undulating floor of boulders and rubble, and a roof of rock shapes hanging low and oppressive in the dim light from the gallery. He stood to one side, letting Slezansky peer past him. Even though Delaney's figure was in shadow, Slezansky could sense the other trooper watching him, waiting for his reaction. Slezansky's brow knotted as the doubts and premonitions that he had felt earlier came flooding back.
This place they were in was no mere hole dug into something dead, like a disused tunnel or an old mine. The very rocks around them were alive. As his eyes accommodated from the brighter gallery they had left, he could make out strange, softly glowing tongues of violet and blue, and in other places, ghostly background streaks of yellow, pink, and green, adding an ethereal depth to the surroundings and throwing intervening edges into starkly outlined silhouette.
"What do you make of it?" Delaney's voice asked again.
Slezansky was about to reply, when he became aware of other sounds on the circuit—not more static or interference, but something that swelled and faded in sighing cadence like the surging of an ocean, distant yet hypnotically insistent, as if bringing fragments of voices from the far reaches of space or of time. What they were saying was beyond comprehensibility. Or—he could feel, now, the presence of the ancient beings who had created this place—was it something that required the comprehension of a different, totally alien kind of mind?
Slezansky stared fearfully, as if expecting apparitions from the past to arise out of the rocks, and glanced back the way they had come, unconsciously checking that their way out was clear. "How long do we have left on this watch?" he asked. His voice had turned dry and croaky.
"A little under an hour," Delaney replied.
"I say we go back up now," Slezansky said. "Tell 'em we've got a communications glitch."
Delaney didn't argue.
* * *
By the time they returned to the Venning troop carrier, Slezansky was already feeling that they had overreacted. But it turned out that the atmosphere there was far from settled either. Communications problems had been intermittently affecting the long-range link too, not just local channels. And the Zorken scientists in the Mule were puzzling over strange emissions of vapor and colored mists from places on the slopes above the camp. It seemed that things like that shouldn't be happening. Even Horrocks didn't have a wisecrack or disparaging remark to offer. There was a rumor that the fruitcake who was with the professors that the troops had kicked out had call
ed the Zorken bigwigs at their headquarters to warn about some kind of plague breaking out.
"Maybe there's something to it," Malotto hazarded when he heard Delaney and Slezansky's account of their experiences below. "I'll tell you one thing: I don't like the sound of this."
Horrocks rallied himself enough to retort, "What kind of troopers do you call yourselves, getting jumpy over a few lights and some puffs of smoke? Haven't you ever been down a cave before? I'll believe it when we start coming down with the plague that the lunatic out there was raving about."
Delaney thought about it, then nodded decisively. "Yeah." He had chirped up noticeably since being back in daylight and among familiar faces. "Yeah," he said again. "I go along with that too."
An hour later, Major Cobert came back from the Mule and announced that its occupants weren't feeling or looking very good at all. Every one of them, including the flight crew, were complaining of nausea, fever, and diarrhea. Cobert described their appearance as "seasick."
* * *
A little under three miles away, Kieran and the others had followed Cobert's dialogue with Banks and the other Zorken people via the bugs planted inside the Mule. The tap on the external antenna line brought an outgoing message to Asgard describing the latest developments. Shortly afterward, Kieran, bypassing Banks, called Cobert in the military scout vehicle directly, citing his position as the archeological team's doctor, whom he decided to christen Kineas O'Toole. Making free use of military jargon from his own previous experience, he stated that he had heard via the medical grapevine that the Mule's occupants were afflicted by a sickness. Cobert was flabbergasted. "But Banks only reported it back to his management within the last half hour," he protested.
"The medical community takes pride in the efficiency of our communications," Kieran agreed modestly. He went on to recite the symptoms; Cobert confirmed them.
"What is it?" he inquired gravely.
Kieran mustered his most studied professional look. "Probably pulmonary lenticular encolitis—otherwise known as closed-cabin infection," he replied. "I've seen a lot of it out in the Belt and on long-duration trips. It's a microbe that gets into the bloodstream via the lungs, caused by an unbalance in the chemistry of closed recirculation systems. Very infectious."
"How serious is it?" Cobert asked.
"Disfiguring and debilitating, but not permanently. They'll look bad for a while, though. . . ." Kieran paused, as if considering a delicate matter. "Was anyone from your unit over there recently—in the Mule?"
"I only just got back myself . . ." Cobert's voice trailed off as he saw what Kieran was implying. "Do you think I might have brought it back here?"
"It's very likely."
"Oh no!" The major's face fell. He groaned.
"But there's a chance I could stop it—if we move fast. It incubates in no time."
"How?"
"I'm an old space medic. I carry the right antibiotics. If I get over there and give you and your men a shot right away."
"Sounds good. I'll clear it with Banks."
"Why?"
"He's the Zorken chief here."
Kieran made a face. "I would prefer not to lose any time, Major. You know what corporate bureaucracies can be like. He probably can't wipe his nose without permission from head office. Better to keep it between ourselves. Anyway, who's in command of the unit there—you or him?"
A pained look crossed Cobert's face, but he took the point. He nodded. "Very well, Dr. O'Toole. Get over here as quickly as you can."
And so, Kieran drove back to the Troy site on one of the Juggernaut's "scooters," approaching the two military flyers on the blind side of the Mule. For good measure, Harry and Dennis back in the Juggernaut timed more interference and some spectacular communications effects just as he arrived, to provide a distraction.
The "preventative" that Kieran administered contained, of course, a measured amount of Pierre's concoction in each dose. Zorken's military force was thus set up to be rendered ineffective whenever the moment suited.
And the plan was advanced that much further, accordingly.
16
Justin Banks looked ghastly. His face had a greenish, gangrenous hue and was mottled with purplish, warty blotches. He looked something like a corpse that had clawed its way out from under a tombstone in a horror movie. Even Kieran was impressed as he took in the unhappy visage framed in an image window on one of the Juggernaut's screens. The codes that he and Dennis had figured out from the information supplied by Pierre had worked well enough indeed—and then some.
Kieran himself, cast as the wild-eyed persona of Keziah Turle, was speaking from another window. "It is as the testaments of old describe: The Plague of Akhnaton has come upon ye! `And their skins became as the diseased flesh that clothes the undead; their eyes became as limpid, yellow swamps. . . .' You who would not heed the warnings passed down through the ages must now bear the price. . . ." It was the message he had sent earlier to Gilder personally, and which to his admitted surprise had evidently gotten through. Gilder, appearing alongside Thornton Velte in the two remaining windows, was replaying the message for Velte's and Banks's benefit.
"How do you know that anyone of old ever said it?" Velte challenged. "Turle could be making it up. I've got people checking for some other references. They haven't come up with anything."
"He does seem to be a man of obscure and specialized knowledge," Gilder commented.
"Too much of a coincidence," Banks mumbled. "Didn't you say you got this before any symptoms developed here?"
"How could he have known about it, Thornton?" Gilder asked Velte.
Velte's mouth twisted while he searched for an explanation. "Wasn't he in the vehicle there?" he said finally. "He could have spread something around. Who let him in? What kind of security are we operating down there?"
"Boy, if he only knew how close he is," Kieran murmured to the others with him, enjoying the show.
"Is Gilder going to buy it?" Harry asked.
"Someone like him doesn't bend so soon," Juanita said.
"He looks like he's taking it more seriously than Velte, though," Walter put in.
"Right now, he doesn't want to get involved," Hamil told them. "He's too preoccupied with his daughter's wedding."
On the screen, Gilder seemed to accept that this was not going to lead anywhere immediately. He glanced around moodily, as if searching for a different tack. "What's this about trouble among the military force down there?" he asked.
"Major Cobert says they're on edge over the interference problems we've been having, and the fluorescent effects down in the workings," Banks replied. "Also, the gas emanations. Somehow they've gotten it into their heads that we're all in a tizzy about it."
"Hm. So where are we?" Gilder asked.
"Clarence agrees that the fluorescence is surprising—but it would hardly be the first time that a theory needed updating. Tran admits he's mystified by the emanations. They shouldn't be there."
"Can't somebody go up there and look?" Velte asked irascibly.
Banks raised a discolored face appealingly toward the camera. "It isn't something that's exactly top of our list right now, Thornton," he said, admonishing his immediate chief rather than the boss directly.
Gilder shuffled uncomfortably. "Well, I'm too wrapped up in other business right now. We've got those squatters out of the way, at least, so that's something. Thornton, can you take charge of this and get to the bottom of what's going on down there? Fly a doctor in from Lowell. It's probably just some kind of bug that's gone around. I've always said these small-scale systems are closed petri dishes. This idea about that Turle zealot bringing something in strikes me as too farfetched. From what I've heard, he doesn't have the coordination to get a hat on his head. Talk to Cobert too, and tell him that if he can't maintain discipline in his unit we'll have it replaced."
"Leave it to me, Hamilton," Velte replied.
* * *
An ambulance bearing medical specialists arri
ved from Lowell less than an hour later. On seeing the condition of the Mule's occupants, Farquist, the doctor in charge, confessed himself baffled. He'd never seen nor heard the likes of this before; neither did the literature contain a description of anything resembling it. Preliminary scans and biological tests using the equipment aboard the ambulance yielded nonsense results. After consulting remotely with various specialists and getting nowhere, Farquist told Banks that he proposed calling out a larger transporter to take all of the Mule's occupants back to Lowell and have them placed under observation there. By this time, Banks and the others were feeling too miserable to care. Then Major Cobert reported from the Venning carrier that he and his men weren't feeling or looking too spiffy either.
* * *
A grin of pranksterly delight adorned Kieran's face as he watched the latest exchanges within the enemy camp.
"What?" Banks managed, in the nearest he could manage that would otherwise probably have been close to a shriek. "He was there? You let him in? Why wasn't I consulted?"
"The health of the men of my unit was at issue," Cobert's voice replied distantly and primly—Kieran didn't have a tap on the local link to the Venning, so he had to make do with a relayed transmission of the audio coming through inside the Mule. "I decided that the possible risk of undue delay by involving external parties was unacceptable."
"Do I have to remind you that you are under our commission?" Banks seethed.
"Matters subject to direct military orders are still my prerogative," Cobert retorted.
"Who was this doctor of theirs, again?" Farquist asked, from inside the Mule with Banks.
"You said his name was what?" Banks queried.
"O'Toole," Cobert answered.
"Never heard of him," Farquist growled.
"You don't mean Turle?"
"I said, O'Toole."
"What did he look like?"
"From what you can tell in a suit: tall, well built, lean face—tanned, brown hair. Late thirties, maybe forties."
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