Delivered final strategic review/pep talk, mostly for those younger children's benefit; then hug-and-go time. Briefly, second element proved problematic, but presently managed physically to unwrap Tasha's, Katia's arms, blot tears—only to be swept up in group hug as balance of kids suddenly realized also needed to wish godspeed; safe, successful castle-storming; many happy killings. Tender sentiments generated need for additional blotting all around before sendoff wound down.
Finally extricated self sufficiently to gather up gear, tell Maggie remain with Tasha, ease into night. Kids appeared impressed when became effectively invisible only about ten feet out, in what common sense told them should have been plain sight. “Later showing how doing that,” Tasha whispered after me. Smiled privately as contemplated girl's introduction to Zen of Wrist Rocket-Driven Acorns.
Made it possibly 50 feet out before saw Maggie whack Katia smartly in shins with Frisbee. Grinned. Wondered whether, with two dozen kids on hand, BC might actually get frisbeed-out for once before arms all fall off.
* * * *
Day XIII
Settled down to traveling invisibly, floating soundlessly, as one with darkened landscape. Using infiltration discipline, return to Serdtsevina Rasovyi lab took longer. Slightly after midnight before could begin final both-ends lab recon, identify luckless-of-draw security targets at doors.
As before, eight: four at each door. Three at east end snoring in chairs; fourth also seated, but awake. Of west-enders, split was two-two; again all in chairs. After observation, deliberation, concluded eastern crew likely to generate least commotion.
Curiously, found self hoping bully who thumb-poked bruise earlier wouldn't be among either group. Second day's bad conduct obviously result of embarrassment over first day's momentary display of compassion, which suggested potentially decent human being lurked in there. Somewhere.
Don't know; never found out. Took care not to look closely enough thereafter to identify individuals.
M-1's gerbil-cough slightly deeper-toned than Glock, though no louder. Results, however, identical: On-dutiest sentry twitched slightly at impact; then head nodded slowly forward onto chest. Victim remained unmoving in chair. Two seconds later, without waking, other three had joined comrade in final stillness.
Experienced briefest flashback to motor pool kid's sad blue eyes, which had focused on mine just as squeezed Glock's trigger; but quickly froze those feelings, packed tightly into small, horrid bundle along with new batch, tucked away in quiet, darkish corner of brain to deal with later. Pretty sure dealing will require many teary hugs in bosom of family. No doubt fair amount of throwing up, too. Hope will get opportunity.
Glided back to west end. Studied wakeful pair briefly. One seemed more alert than other. Beginning with him, then, put ugly business behind me as efficiently as on east.
Nearly succumbed to shakes at that point, but simply too much to do, no time to indulge human frailties. Besides, reminded self, technically not human; Homo post hominem—at war with humans. At least these humans.
Edged up to door, peeked in through window, saw no one. Eased open, took first step inside
—And almost bumped into Three Bears: two sturdy young Russians, first barely shaving; plus third, older, harder, more aware-looking; all with rifles in hand—emerging from office door immediately adjacent entrance on left.
Plucky Girl Infiltrator may not have understood actual word, but little ambiguity to youngest Bolshevik's hissed "Stoyat'!", accompanied by actual view of rifling lands visible inside hollow end of latest-model Kalashnikov. By whatever name, object of exercise abruptly had become immobility.
One step behind, Middle-Sized Bear slightly older; but his follow-up "Brosajte oruzhie!", particularly coupled with unmistakable drop it gesture with AK muzzle, required no translation either.
Unfortunately, however, on the heels of this command came emphatic upward twitch from Baby Bear's rifle, followed by even more insistent "Ruki vverkh!"Hands up indeed. (Dammit, guys—make up minds!)
Behind them, older man hadn't bothered to contribute or raise AK, but already busy looking around; clearly, from expression, Pappa Bear sentry trained, thinking.
Blood ran cold. Presence of additional personnel inside doors unlikely to be coincidence. Apparently Driutsk's disappearance had impacted security—at least in areas Khraniteli regarded as key. Evidently Daddy, or at least something inside lab, so qualified.
Worse, since outside security had been symmetrical, three interior guards here suggested three more at far end.
Whatever—this had to be concluded quickly, quietly.
Somehow.
And before any of them thought to sound alarm...
Moving slowly, one hand in air, keeping left side toward unanticipated uniformed complications in wan hope might not have noticed Glock yet, backed out door, squatted, laid rifle on walkway, gently so as not to disturb lovingly sighted-in scope alignment.
Three unscheduled Lab-Mart greeters followed outside—then froze as noticed comrades’ telltale limpness, sprawled in chairs. Baby Bear continued to cover me with AK in one hand as shook nearest dead sentry's shoulder with other. Of course head merely lolled.
Glanced wildly back at cohorts, said something that sounded like, “On dokhlyi!” Gun trained on me suddenly trembled as other two comrades moved forward quickly to check others.
Looking ever more distressed, my young sentry glanced back and forth between me and live, dead comrades, paying ever more attention to them, devoting less and less to keeping unblinking eye on baby bunny, despite patently caught-red-handed situation: camos, face paint, visibly silenced M-1—dead bodies...
At which point, noticed Baby Bear's AK safety still in on position; clearly young Russian didn't know or had forgotten. Despite moment's fundamental desperation, had to suppress impulse to shake head sadly: Idiot amateur genocide truly poster boy for untrained.
Couldn't tell about other two's weapons—not that mattered: Though not looking at Intrepid Special-Ops Girl at that very moment, tactically, both too far away...
Never mind; at this point had no choice: Could not afford to throw away opportunity merely because odds patently suicidal.
Figured angles: Tried to analyze which opponent likely to respond quickest, most constructively, versus how far out of reach.
Focused inward. Controlled breathing. As gathered, focused ki, found self experiencing momentary wistful longing for distraction. Any sort of distraction, however brief. Perhaps no more than momentary loss of balance for even one of more distant pair. Though if had druthers, would have preferred first to see alert-looking Pappa Bear stumble, trip, have stroke—whatever. Wished hard...
Still, last thing would have occurred to me to wish for was blur of darker blackness flashing out of night into iodine vapor lamp's cone of illumination. Detected flicker of gleeful, spooky blue eyes as shadow passed me at about shoulder height.
Then 45 pounds of spring steel and joyous spirits, traveling at least 40 miles an hour, landed squarely between older man's shoulder blades with all four feet. Impact very nearly forward-flipped Russian midair.
Without slowing—without even touching ground—Maggie ricocheted from initial target to another four-footed landing in Middle-Sized Bear's solar plexus, knocking victim gasping, heels-over-head backward, weapon flying from hands.
By which point older man had completed midair arc, landing on face, feet in air, then got all tangled up with two previously dead associates as further rotation, collision, spilled both from chairs.
And at that precise moment, right behind Baby Bear, left-hand door cracked, began to swing open; caught initial glimpse of white-coated figure beginning to emerge.
But even with new arrival to complicate equation, still obvious in which order sentries would get acts back together, become threats again. Time to go.
"Shazam!" Time slowed; hysterical strength surged through body. Effortlessly yanked safetied rifle from youngest Russian's grasp with one hand, fl
ung far out of reach. Simultaneously rammed heel of other hand upward into underside of young man's nose; object: driving nasal and/or ethmoid bone splinters straight up into brain.
Impact sent opponent stumbling backward against half-open door, momentarily pinning lab-coat—
“What the hell—”
—between door halves.
“—is going on here!” came muttered complaint.
In English.
Sudden, unexpected, on-the-fly recognition nearly derailed concentration as traversed distance to oldest sentry in single bound, katana leading way.
Half-hoped Middle-Sized Bear would be so stunned thereafter by sheer messiness of Pappa Bear's demise, might pause for helpfully fatal half second, allow time enough to get back to him, treat similarly. But no; was in fact already groping for sidearm.
Flicked glance then back at Baby Bear, who by rights should have been dead on ground from bone-splinter-induced brain hemorrhage. Instead, backward momentum interrupted by door, young Russian still upright. And notwithstanding fact that lower half of face now masked by blood cascading from shattered nose, despite eyes almost crossed from pain, he, too, clawed at holster, trying to pull handgun.
From where Special-Ops Girl had landed, would have had ample time to get to either separately. Two clearly impossible—time to shift gears: Left hand flipped back selected belt-pouch flap, extracted contents. Simultaneously, right hand dropped katana, snatched Glock, index finger ticking retention release in passing, reminding self to lift extra high to ensure silencer's added length cleared holster. Right hand brought up, leveled Glock even as left already drawing back, sweeping forward, ending in smooth, Danni-schooled wrist-flip just as gerbil coughed once again.
Mere inches from white-coated, inadvertent spectator's nose, Baby Bear again bounced off door, then began downward slide, shuriken embedded between brows. Simultaneously, new buttonhole appeared over Middle-Sized Bear's right ventricle. Russian staggered half step back from impact, expression went blank, then fell.
"Whoa," said onlooker in wondering tones, extracting self from between doors. Stared wildly around at scene; then turned speculative gaze on camo-clad, weapon-festooned, height-challenged Second Horseman, whose metabolism was only just beginning to slow after feverishly plying trade. Obviously recognition had yet to set in.
“Hi, Daddy,” I puffed, holstering Glock; retrieving katana, using victim's uniform to wipe off blood, zipping blade back over shoulder into saya without looking; wrenching embedded shuriken free from kid's skull, scrubbing bone bits, blood off in grass, tucking back into pouch, securing. “We have to go now.”
Announcement followed by seconds'-long silence, which could have served as training-film exemplar for term, pregnant; then: “Candy ... ? How on earth—”
"Now!"
To be concluded.
Copyright (c) 2008 David R. Palmer
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Reader's Department: THE REFERENCE LIBRARY
by Tom Easton
Singularity's Ring, Paul Melko, Tor, $24.95, 316 pp. (ISBN: 978-0-7653-1777-3).
Spider Star, Mike Brotherton, Tor, $26.95, 448 pp. (ISBN: 978-0-7653-1125-2).
Sunborn, Jeffrey A. Carver, Tor, $ 27.95, 384 pp. (ISBN: 978-0312864538).
Starship: Mercenary, Mike Resnick, Pyr, $25.00, 323 pp. (ISBN: 978-1-59102-599-3).
Valley of Day-Glo, Nick DiChario, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 240 pp., $28.95 hc (ISBN: 978-0-88995-410-6), $19.95 pb (ISBN: 978-0-88995-415-1).
Identity Theft and Other Stories, Robert J. Sawyer, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 386 pp., $28.95 hc (ISBN: 978-0-88995-411-3), $19.95 pb (ISBN: 978-0-88995-412-0).
The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Ellen Datlow, ed., Del Rey, $16.00, 402 pp. (ISBN: 978-0-345-49632-4).
Nano Comes to Clifford Falls and Other Stories, Nancy Kress, Golden Gryphon Press, $24.95, 324 pp. (ISBN: 978-1-930846-50-0).
* * * *
Paul Melko's very readable first novel, Singularity's Ring, adds some new thinking to the idea of the Singularity. Melko begins with something many contemplators of the Singularity have managed to overlook: technological progress is not an unbroken upward curve. It advances by fits and starts, marked by stumbles and even reverses. Given that thought, the change from pre-Singularity to post-Singularity may very well not be as sudden as many expect. Indeed, the leap from pre- to post- may fail, even catastrophically, and the attempt may have to be repeated, perhaps even many times.
In Melko's world, the Earth is girdled by a Ring, a vast construction once inhabited by the Community, a sizable portion of humanity who had elected to have brainjacks implanted so they could share access to each other's minds and to the artificial intelligence that ran the Ring. Some decades before the story, all members of the Community dropped dead. The Ring lay fallow, for non-members of the Community, lacking jacks, couldn't get in. The remainder of humanity figured that they had made the posthuman transition and vanished through a rift in space on the border of the Solar System. However, the folks left behind had other things to think about, for they were enmeshed in the Gene Wars. When that was over, a new technology developed, using genetic engineering to remake humans from individuals into small groups or pods linked together by pheromonal communication. Most pods are two or three. There are some quads. Apollo Papadopulos is a quintet—Quant, Strom, Meda, Manuel, and Moira—being trained to captain a starship intended to go through the rift and perhaps find the Community.
The tale begins when they are on a survival exercise in winter mountains. An avalanche threatens their camp, and there is a single clue that must rouse the astute reader's suspicions about whether the avalanche is natural. With a bit of good fortune and heroism, they survive. As they trek out of the mountains, they encounter a pod of bears. Such a thing is unheard of, as is their ability to communicate pheromonally with them (such communication is only within the pod, so far as they know). After their return to civilization, they encounter considerable suspicion of their report and searches fail to find the bears.
While waiting for their next training exercise, a last remnant of the Community (he was on ice at the time) seduces Meda and gives her a brainjack. Once in space, they encounter sabotage and an attempt by a military duo to kill or capture them. They escape, but now they have a long trek ahead, through the Ring (remember, Meda now has a jack), up the Amazon, past more attempts to do away with them, through the mountains, and more, to discover their own origins, the nature of the factions in their society, and the path to a second attempt at the true Singularity.
There is of course a great deal of detail and incident on the way to the conclusion, but I'll leave that for you to discover and enjoy. The book is a thoughtful addition to the genre and well worth your attention.
* * * *
Mike Brotherton's Spider Star has an interesting premise marred by main characters who can't get their noses out of their navels long enough to think ahead, leaving subordinate characters to make things happen. And yes, I do complain from time to time about characters who just plunge ahead and never have an introspective moment, but sheesh! Brotherton's heroes are something else again. (But see below for my moderating admission.)
As I said, the premise is interesting. It may even be the best part of the novel! We begin with a colony on the planet Argo, which once had indigenes. The prologue shows us an archeologist, Virginia, who is finding two-million-year-old things in a remarkable state of preservation. When she opens a box, it seems to be full of toys, demonstrating that in some ways the “Argonauts” were rather like humans even if they did look like big furry spiders. One of the toys activates and begins to tell a story. Later we will learn that the story had to do with the Spider Star, a mysterious place light years away, not a star, not a planet, where one faction of Argonauts obtained a superweapon to use against another faction.
Years later, meet Manuel Rusk. He is a mission specialist in training to lead an exploratory voyage. As part of the traini
ng he and his crew are looking for Argonaut remnants on Argo's moon, and of course they find some. It looks like a base, and here's the remarkable state of preservation again. There's a door, and when he lightheartedly knocks, he triggers something in the sun that sends a fireball heading his way. They have just time enough to cherry pick the base before it is destroyed. And then the fireballs start flying toward Argo.
On Argo, Virginia is now married to Frank Klingston. He's the only one around who has ever met aliens, for as an explorer he once ran into one and brought back a new space drive. Eventually we learn just how weird things can get when two lonely sentients meet a long way from home, but that is not germane at the moment. He gets offered the job of leading a mission to the Spider Star, rather annoying Rusk, who expected to fill that slot himself. The mission, of course, is to find the folks who supplied the superweapon and ask them how to turn the damned thing off.
And off they go. Once they reach the Spider Star—which is really quite an interesting place—they run into a variety of kinds of trouble, lose a few folks, and almost literally stumble into the answers they need. Rusk (especially) and Klingston are the navel-gazers, and to be fair I should grant that they are in over their heads and they do have some right to obsess over their inadequacies. Rusk was not trained to deal with aliens; he also feels unfairly bumped from the Numero Uno position he expected to have. Klingston was tapped because he got lucky once; he's left his wife and kids behind and knows he may never see them again; he also knows that his chief claim to adequacy as a leader is his age and whatever wisdom or patience he may have acquired over the years. It works fairly well, considering, and Rusk actually winds up learning a lot from him.
I didn't count up how many pages of the book were devoted to the navel-gazing, but it felt like the book could easily have been ten percent shorter and as a result fifty percent better. As it is, it's really better than adequate, and if you don't mind the navel-gazing, it's better than that.
Analog SFF, September 2008 Page 24