Greener Green I: Where Does the Circle Begin
Page 16
I glanced around the vehicle. It was spacious and luxurious, but then that was to be expected. The first Cousin of the Second Galactic District Administrator was so rich he had people to count the money his money counters were paid.
The board showed all green and I relaxed a bit. I shouldn’t have. A glance at the rear screens showed a Brenesi, which I recognized as Junior gaining on me. Their massive long legs made for great speed. I could have simply shot him dead, but things were screwed up enough already. The Treaty said no off worlder would ever step on Brenesi soil in exchange for the Oceans’ mining rights. The do-gooders back at Nr.2 Hq. would make an intergalactic case out of it. So I decided to use my needle pistol to put some dissolving Anathese darts in him. By the time he woke up I would be over water. I pulled back on the power lever and the skinner with it’s anti-gravs and inertia nullifiers stopped. He couldn’t stop so quick. I opened the side door and put a max burst into his belly. He looked at where the darts had entered, collapsed and rolled along the ground. I was about to go on when I saw his head bang against a rock.
Motherless, motherless day of infamy. I thought.
A glance at the screens said no one for kilometers around. I stepped out of the skimmer to see what damage he’d done to himself. Dead Brenesi would bring the Overseers down on us quicker than territorial incursions. A lump was forming on his bloody head but it wasn’t split open. His two hearts were beating faintly. Mother, mother, mother, it wasn’t my day for sure. I dragged him over to the skimmer and stuffed him in through the doorway. After setting the autopilot and power lever I bandaged his head.
After that, I opened some compartments looking for something to restrain him. The forth compartment, surprisingly, held restraints distinctly fashioned for thick legs and arms. I put the hobbles on his fetlocks and the electrified waist strap with extra strength buckles for his arms. There was even a wide belt for around the knees. What reason for these to be in the locker? Maybe Cousin had some peculiar sexual practices. He and his party of two men and four women had been an odd intense bunch.
The proximity alarm went off as we sped out over open water. I set the board for auto-docking. The yacht was about four kilometers off shore. The skimmer fit into its stern niche smoothly and the ship’s doors opened along with the skimmer doors. I felt cool canned air with a pleasant scent and compared it to the sweaty mess I was.
But what to do with Junior? I had no real knowledge of his physiology, or what was considered normal for him. I put some more plasti-cord belts on his legs. There were recessed rings in the skimmers floor almost like I had wished them into position, most curious. I tied him to the rings, covered him with a light blanket, and went to see what my new world consisted of. There would be no rescue parties for me. I was as on my own as I would have been in a lifeboat in deep space, worse, lifeboats had beacons and eventual rescuers.
The yacht was about a thousand meters in length and two hundred wide at its widest part. I discovered it had five decks. The planning it would have taken to get it down in sections unobserved and put together bottomed out my mind. There was food aplenty and water, and a water purifier. I wouldn’t go hungry for years. I ran across an arms locker, and ship defense systems which had never seen a customs inspection.
In the library there were many volumes on the Brenesi and medical advisories. The Quick Look UP said, ‘leave them alone, they heal themselves, or they die’.
Tiring suddenly, I shed my uniform, showered, and put on some slinky clothes I found, mostly because I’d always wanted to wear such clothes and never could afford them. After a quick meal I was a new person, totally uncertain about my future, but looking forward to it no matter what.
Being in his Lordships Marines had been my future. That life was quite directed, and didn’t leave much room for personal decisions.
I went back to the gymnasium I’d glanced at earlier. It was an example of what one could do with money. It had a multi-grav field in the floor which one could adjust and anti-mag boots to go along with it. Any size was on hand.
I looked in on Junior. He was restless. Eventually he was going to do what all creatures do so I untied him from the floor rings and dragged him across the corridor to a shower room. The ever-convenient rings were in that floor too. A hose on the wall was rolled up neatly.
The rings were too convenient. I went to the Bridge, flipped on the computer, and read through the trip log, boring.
Then I went to the Infirmary and read through the entries there, some lumps and bruises and cold symptoms, nothing more.
Calling on my Intel training I pulled out the middle door of the computer desk and flipped it over. There it was, file names and passwords.
Two hours later I had a terrible hatred for the Cousin and his party. The whole expedition had been organized as a Brenesi hunt. Fourteen specimens had been captured, put to countless tests, then killed, and dissected.
The only positive was, I knew about Junior. His head injury wasn’t serious. The Brenesi had very thick skulls and a dense fatty layer around their brain. His injury was simply a swelling, which would resolve its self in a week, or ten days. The Anathese dart dosage would wear off in six hours or so leaving him hungry. Lots of data was included about tribal customs and hierarchy but I left that for another day.
But what to do, after that. I couldn’t leave him go. He’d seen too much already, and he’d have quite a report to make. I might figure out what dosage would keep him knocked out, but I might burn out his brain too. Bloody damn, I didn’t need a baby at my age. That was for later in life, after retirement, when one had time for such amusements.
Well, the Master had said,”Give it to the Inner. It knows more than you.”
So I went to the Bridge, familiarized myself with the Ship Defense System, and then set the proximity alarm for fifty kilometers. After that I went to the stateroom with the slinkiest sheets and said, "Wake me up in five hours."
Chapter 24
Jill
A harsh ringing interrupted my dream of soft sheets and slinky night wrappers. The events of the past hours returned in a rush. It was the proximity alarm. Something had come within fifty kilometers of the yacht. I jumped from the bed and raced to the Bridge in my bare feet. Radar had a blip forty nine kilometers out. Recognition systems said it was a Survey Ship for Blesdoe Mining. But no ship should be within thousands of kilometers of my location. Evidently it was a backup ship for the yacht. Some impulse led me to switch to sonar, which I hadn’t activated because I thought there weren’t any submersibles on the planet. It showed two torpedoes, headed for me. They were of the Drifter Class, which imitated fish patterns instead of coming directly at you. I sent out Anti T's and brought the ship-to-ship missile launcher up out of the deck and waited. The Antis sought out the Drifters and there were two flashes on the distant horizon. Nuke me, you motherless clones. I launched a ship-to-ship missile. It screamed away. Three seconds later an immense flash like a sun dawning showed on the horizon. I’d have no more trouble from our visitor. I recessed the launcher. I knew it would reload automatically. So much for that episode. I caught a glimpse of myself in a wall mirror, odd-looking Marine in my slinky pajamas. Running my fingers through my short hair I practiced posing, left face, right face, sultry, wide features, but not coarse, mine, oh well, no video career. I straightened and reminded myself I was still Jill Clelland, late of his Lordship’s Marines.
Someone was trying to kill me, or blow up the yacht. I wandered to the mess, dawning sunlight coming through the portholes. This meant that the Cousin and his crew were safely off world and gone out of the system taking the results of their expedition with them, or had they. Maybe, what I found underneath the drawer was the fruit of their expedition. What purpose would such information have? I thought the worst and let it filter into my consciousness. The miners/ Cousin/ Lordship were not realizing enough profit from Bren and wanted to mine on land, which they couldn’t do under the treaty. But if the Brenesi were ‘accidentally’ exposed
to some sickness and all died, the groups that wanted natural settings on undeveloped worlds left alone would not have any legal standing. I.e.: some company could ravage Bren realizing much profit. I was sure I would be visited again, probably with the assistance of the space station’s cameras.
Of course, Cousin could have been a sicko out on his own…later.
Meanwhile I was hungry, which I solved heartily. That reminded me, I had a prisoner, Junior. He was going to be a bother, or maybe an asset.
Recalling the last week and the pre-mission briefings, I remembered the observation satellites had a blank window on this location from 0900 to 1700. Time to escape to somewhere, anywhere out of sight, fat chance.
Well, first things first, take care of Junior. I got a daily portion of Brenesi food rations, which the group had concocted, from the Rations locker, and walked to Junior's shower room, needler in hand.
He was backed into a corner. As anticipated, I needed to hose the room down for cleanliness. While I was at it, I hosed him down too. He didn’t like it in spades. I aimed the needler and he looked at it knowingly. I watched him compute, weapon that had shot him, not dumb. I laid rations on the counter, and turned the water off and on in the sink, until his bulb went on. He wanted to drink right away but I held up a hand and he waited. Keeping one eye on him and one eye on the built in view screen over the doorway I scrolled through the offerings until I tuned in Basic Language/ Brenesi/ English. I motioned to the screen and the food repeatedly. He acknowledged the connection by a nod of his square shaped head. I pressed the button on the shackles remote control freeing his arms and exited the room. He would be fine until tomorrow, if not comfortable.
Returning to my stateroom, I put aside my slinkeys and put on a fresh coverall uniform from my pack. I’d started the custom of putting everything necessary into each uniform pocket in advance. Most of my fellow Marines now copied my method.
I slowly walked to the Bridge observing every detail around me. Once there, for practice I sat in the Pilot’s chair, then the Navigator’s, then the Captain’s, to observe the surroundings and the instrumentation before me. In the Nav chair I saw the controls of a Sky Viewer with its multiple- view screens, six in all. A half-dozen eyes above would help if I could get a plan together.
My first thought was, how easy it had been to get aboard and use the various systems. The Cousin evidently wasn’t concerned about anyone stealing his yacht. Which meant anyone attempting to, would meet with sudden death.
Calling on the endless classes I’d had in demolitions and booby traps I searched—and searched—and searched. In the end it was so simple that most would have overlooked it. If pilot’s wheel turned, twenty degrees without disengaging the trap, a circuit shut the room’s three doors, isolated the ventilation system, and sprayed the room with poisonous gas. All the while the turner was locked to the wheel by an electrical charge. There were assuredly more traps, back-up traps, which would activate if the wheel one failed, but they weren’t an immediate problem if I could get around this one.
Some combination on the console would render the Bridge safe but I didn’t have time to find it. I simply wired around the activation circuitry. I also put in a simple knife switch to return the circuit to its previous function if that became desirable. Blocking the Bridge’s doors open, I turned on Main Engines power and spun the wheel to maximum, left and right. No movement of the doors. I decided to leave the doors blocked open in any case.
At 0930 I was underway. The cold fusion power plants, which activated the main props, could propel this thing to eighty kilometers per hour, at least. Adding the steering props, which fed from auxiliary power plants, I concluded I could make around one hundred kilometers per hour for sure. Where to?
There wasn’t much choice. With my speed versus the non-visibility window, I was limited to a stretch of mountainous coast line, which began one hundred and thirty kilometers north of my present location.
I got underway, half expecting the yacht to blow at any moment. I set my face and resolutely calmed my worries. It was this possibility, or missiles from above eventually.
When I’d gone one hundred KM I sent up the ‘eyes’. Their rocket engines shot them to a thousand feet, where wings and tails unfolded and a prop engine took over and they flew in tight circles. I watched the view screen, marvelous engineering. I had ninety-three to use. They sure hadn’t come through the Customs House either because they had an explosive payload of ten kilotons.
Putting the yacht on autopilot I concentrated on programming the ‘eyes’ to investigate the rivers with enough depth. They were all fed by year round snowcaps. I was looking for a fjord, with overhanging rock. Bren had a history, geologically speaking, of recent lava flows. That was the reason for the planet’s value. Minerals which hadn’t had time to wash down into the deep irretrievable sea yet.
The ‘eyes’ searched up the various inlets, as far upstream as the depth of keel factor allowed and raced northward to another river, skipping over those already under scrutiny. The time grew ever shorter. The yacht raced northward reaching more turbulent waters. I didn’t reduce speed. It would hold together or it wouldn’t. Growing hungry, I found a drink in the Captain’s fridge which claimed to be nutritious, and calming. Just what I needed. It wouldn’t have much effect on a heavy- worlder with our racing metabolisms but what did? We had ration cards for five meals a day and we still stayed hungry.
Number three’s view screen going blank yanked me out of my musings. I examined its function readout, all-normal, and it was still flying an up river course at the height of thirty meters.
I switched to infrared. The screen showed a channel two hundred and ninety-seven meters wide and a ceiling seventy meters high. Automatically my fingers linked the Autopilot to the Number three ‘eye’s’ coordinates. The course shifted and the ship rushed madly onward with undiminished speed.
I typed in commands, recalling all other ‘eyes’ to the yacht. They’d land by an automated system.
Nr. Three’s view screen showed entry into a domed over lake, which was fed by countless inlets. I tried to make out the high water mark but the infrared couldn’t focus that distinctly. I took over manual control and flew it twice around the lake. Then I did a figure eight and flew the reverse heading. The cameras would record for minute study later. I put NR three on ‘return to ship’ also and left the Nav’s chair. I shifted to the Captain’s chair and watched the location designator equate with the available time. It was going to be close. Nothing I could personally do to help but go down to water level and row. Not much sense to that.
I got more of the drink from the fridge and sorted through internal view screens until I found Junior. He was eating calmly and interacting with the language lessons. I found his uttering to be almost intelligible. Personally, maybe irrationally, I wanted to find out why the Brenesi stayed away from water. No telling what he would do if he realized he was on a ship. From the way his strong leg muscles adjusted to the waves the ship hit and cut through I couldn’t imagine why he would assume anything else. Maybe he simply didn’t know what it was like on a ship. But I was assuming he was capable of reason. I would have to watch, if I were alive long enough, more of the discs the Cousin’s scientists had recorded, no matter how disgusting that would be.
At 1645, we reached our inlet. I was glad to see it was no different from any other inlet openings. With sonar on and depth finders set to maximum we raced up it. In ten minutes all went black. We were under cover and safe. I took over the helm and shut down the main props, leaving the steering props to maintain our location in the middle of the stream while I dropped anchor. We had five minutes to spare.
The cousin was going to be surprised when he read the report. Either the torpedoes had done their job, after their launching platform was sunk, and that after the view window had closed, or maybe the Gods had intervened. Of course some smart person was going to realize I’d gone up a stream. Maybe that person wouldn’t like said Cousin.
Not wanting to leave the Bridge I had some more of the drink and ate most of the snack cabinet’s contents.
Finally, I let myself relax in the Captain’s chair and realized how worn out I was. I needed rest, but what to do with Junior? I felt bad about keeping him restrained. I tried to recall from Cousin’s tapes whether the Brenesi slept erect or lying down. What was to be done with him?
Calling the schematic of the ship to the screen off to my left side, I surveyed the ship deck by deck. Immediately noteworthy, was the amount of room's labeled storage, roughly one third of them. I was too tired to puzzle out the viewers control box for them. Those were added to my task list.
A room called Habitat caught my attention, so I put the ship’s proximity alarms on twenty KM and went to see it. The huge room was meant to portray a Brenesi encampment with their round slightly domed tent. Artifacts were strewn about and there was a fire pit with an oven above it.
Thinking it would do Junior fine, I went next door to the observation room. Not surprisingly there were controls, which sprayed gases into the main room. The one outlined in red caught my eye. I figured it ended lives.