The Relativity Bomb

by Arlene F. Marks

  “First of all, he’s not a kid.” Holchuk’s stern voice cut through the discussion like a razor. “Second, not everything is new to him, or a pleasant surprise.” He stood up, and in three long strides the Hub’s resident Nandrian expert was standing beside Townsend’s desk. “I’m supposed to be teaching him about the aliens’ culture so he won’t get us in trouble the next time a Nandrian ship docks here. We’ve had three sessions together, and I can tell you, from a couple of details that he’s let slip, that man knows a lot more about Nandrians than he’s willing to reveal. If he’s even close to being able to defeat a Nandrian warrior in battle, that makes him the most dangerous person on the Hub. Without knowing who sent him and why, I can’t see us ever being one hundred percent certain of his loyalties. So, if my gut gets a vote here, it’s for moving him the hell off this station, preferably via an airlock.”

  Angry voices exploded all over the deck:

  “Space him? Over my dead—!”

  “Who’s going to do it, Holchuk? You?”

  “Hold on! Drew’s already said—”

  “This is insane! We can’t murder a man just because—”

  “We can’t just stand by and let—”

  Townsend let them blow off steam for about a minute before getting to his feet and hollering, “Enough! You’ve had your turns to speak. Now, if none of you has anything else to add, it’s mine.”

  Grudgingly, they all fell silent.

  “When Karlov arrived, he brought a message for me. Apparently, someone on Earth felt that I needed protection, so they sent him here as my bodyguard. When I questioned him later, he told me he’d accepted the assignment in exchange for his life — his words. What exactly that means, I don’t know yet. Am I prepared to accept what he says at face value? Not for one second.” Townsend gazed around the room and saw heads bobbing in approval. “There is something … unusual about Max Karlov, something he himself may not even be aware of.” Townsend shot a warning look at the Doc, who had begun shifting her weight forward as though to stand up. She glared right back at him but, to his relief, remained seated and silent. “In any case, I need to know the whole truth about him — who sent him and why he’s really here — before I can decide what to do with him. I was hoping we could arrive at an answer by putting all our pieces together, as we’ve done before. Apparently, that isn’t yet possible. So, I’m afraid the status will have to remain quo where Max Karlov is concerned. That doesn’t mean we do nothing.”

  “You’ve got a plan, Chief?” said Ruby. The air around his desk began effervescing with curious murmurs.

  Townsend paused, turning the details of the con over in his mind one last time. It had sprung from his imagination fully developed as he listened to Karlov being described by the others. It was brilliant. Best of all, nobody in the assembled group could disagree with it, not even Holchuk.

  “What do you do when you have a child on your hands and want to keep him safely out of your hair while you work? Think Alison Morgan,” he added, addressing Lydia directly.

  Her face lit up with comprehension. “You distract him. You keep him busy having fun.”

  “For whatever reason, it appears that Max Karlov is experiencing Earth’s culture for the very first time. He’s got a lot of catching up to do, wouldn’t you say? Lydia, you’re going to program a whole slew of SPA wafers for him, every sport and physical activity you can think of. Whenever he’s not otherwise occupied, I want him in that room having fun.”

  “You’ve got it, Drew.”

  “Holchuk, get Teri to introduce Max to the joys of U-Town. The damned thing’s addictive. If he’s hooked on the activities of a bunch of fictional characters in a virtual community, odds are he won’t be paying much attention to what we’re doing.”

  The Chief Cargo Inspector’s lips quirked briefly. “That just might work, boss man,” he remarked.

  “Nora, you and Fritz are going to teach him about all the different Earth cuisines. Emphasis on sweets. I suspect soldiers don’t get to eat a lot of those.”

  “Fun in the kitchen. Gotcha,” she declared.

  “Doc, the black and white rat is now his pet. Let him care for her.”

  “What? She’s a lab animal,” the Doc protested. “I can’t just—”

  “Fine, then,” he cut in. “Don’t. But remember that everything is brand new to him. If water reclamation is now a mystery solved, turning litmus paper red might be his next great adventure. Just work with the crew to keep him distracted and away from any sensitive information. Above all, he mustn’t find out about our immortal rat or her clone, so stash the daughter somewhere safe and let O’Malley hide Yoko in his quarters.”

  “Are you certain that’s a good idea, Mr. Townsend?” asked the Doc.

  She was right to be skeptical. The ratkeeper had already demonstrated his inability to keep secrets.

  “No, but it’s the best one I’ve got at the moment. With luck, O’Malley is going to be plenty distracted himself.”

  — «» —

  Two hours later, with Operation Fun and Games well under way, Lydia sat at the communications console on AdComm, scanning for Rodrigues’s ship. As it came within range, she swiveled her chair and called out, “Ranger short-hopper Endeavor is on approach, Drew. Where do you want him to dock?”

  He considered for a moment. The Rangers had no idea Karlov was aboard the Hub, and for the time being that was how things had to remain. “Where’s Max right now?”

  “With Nora. They’re making cookies in the shapes of alphabet letters. She said to tell you that she’ll be bringing you a plate of them when they’ve cooled, and that you’ll find some of them extremely interesting.”

  The kitchen was on D Deck, just two levels below AdComm and three south of the short-hopper landing deck, but a safe distance away from the Hub’s docking modules. “Okay, assign Rodrigues a portal on A Deck,” he told her. “And let him know that I’ll be meeting him there.”

  “Your wish is my command,” she responded with a smile in her voice. He heard her open a comm channel and relay his instructions to the pilot of the approaching shuttle.

  Rodrigues had said he would be delivering important news. News from the Zoo. How fitting, since life aboard Daisy Hub was rapidly becoming a circus. They even had a carousel to take them in never-ending circles — the Nandrian field generator. Together with its emitter, the alien device squatted gracelessly over a quarter of the shuttle deck, mocking their every attempt to figure it out.

  “What the—? Why is he stopping?” exclaimed Lydia. She pushed a button and repeated, “Endeavor, you are cleared to dock. Please proceed to module 3.”

  “I’d love to,” came Rodrigues’s clipped, dry voice over the comm. “So where the hell is it? And while we’re on the subject, where the hell are you?”

  “Where am I? What are you talking about?” she demanded.

  “Come on, Lydia. I’m on official business and we’re too old to be playing hide and seek. Bring the station back.”

  Hearing this, Townsend launched himself out of his chair. He covered the distance to her console in four strides. She’d already muted the comm.

  “It’s the stealth cloak,” he said, making no effort to disguise his displeasure. “It has to be. Gouryas was supposed to inform me before they ran any demos. All right, tell Beale and Oolalong and whoever else is on the short-hopper deck to quit messing with the field generator. They’re to shut it off immediately. Then put me on with Rodrigues and I’ll see if I can talk us out of this.”

  Several moments later, Lydia turned troubled eyes to Townsend’s face and told him, “You’re not going to believe this. They’re telling me the generator activated by itself. They never touched it. And they’ve been trying their best, but they can’t seem to turn it off.”

  Of course, they couldn’t. This was Daisy Hub, after all, where Murphy’s Law was strict
ly enforced.

  He gestured to Lydia to unmute the comm.

  “—hell is going on aboard your station, Townsend? Talk to me, dammit!”

  “Paul, I’m sorry about this,” said Drew in his most conciliatory tone of voice, “but we’ve been having some problems with our Meniscus field generator. That’s why you weren’t instructed to park on the short-hopper deck. Are we visible to any of your onboard instruments at all?”

  “Not to any of them. You were there and then — poof! — you were gone. Am I visible to you?”

  Interesting. Townsend glanced a question at Lydia, who was now grinning wickedly. Tell him no, she mouthed.

  “Sporadically,” he decided, and watched her grin reverse into an exaggerated pout. “This glitch with the generator may have compromised other systems on the station. We might be able to talk you in, if you want to take the chance. Or we can have our conversation over the comm and you can return once we’ve identified and fixed the problem.”

  There was a heavy pause. “Townsend, if I didn’t know better— Damn! This alien technology is going to put us all away. You’ll notify me if your generator malfunction is something we need to worry about on Zulu.” It wasn’t a question. The Rangers had an identical device installed on their own landing deck and would naturally be concerned.

  “Of course, I will. Now, what was the news you wanted to tell me?”

  “Nestor Quan was arrested three or four intervals ago. He was extradited back to Earth to stand trial, but they lost him somewhere between the airfield and the slammer. The little weasel apparently had friends waiting for him and they set up an ambush on the road that Security would be taking. So, he’s at large again. That’s the first piece of news. Here’s the second: I’ve been promoted to captain and given command of the detachment on Zulu.”

  Lydia mimed clapping her hands and leading a cheer. Townsend suppressed a smile.

  “Congratulations, Paul,” he said. “I’m sure you could have wished for a better posting—”

  “Actually, I requested this one. When I come over there for the mandatory new commander’s inspection tour tomorrow, you and I are going to sit down for a chat. I’ll explain to you why I would actually choose to remain in this godforsaken corner of Earth space, and then I’ll give you the message that I was told to deliver to you in person, in person. Now, while you’re mulling over this conversation, I’ll just head back to Zulu and wait to hear your good news about the field generator. Rodrigues out.”

  Lydia’s spine had gone rigid. When the comm channel was finally closed, she leaned back wearily in her chair. “Well,” she remarked, “that could have gone better.”

  She was putting it mildly, Townsend thought. And just to make things interesting, the Ranger captain also had something eyes-only to impart. First Karlov, now Rodrigues. Well, he decided, while this latest secret message could wait one more day, the problem with the field generator couldn’t.

  “We’ve got until tomorrow to figure this out,” he declared. “Inform Gouryas I want him and Singh in front of my desk within the hour, ready to report. Find out when the next tekl’hananni scoreboard goes up and whether Trokerk is still leading. And we need to make damned certain that Karlov spends the day in his quarters tomorrow, in case Rodrigues decides to inspect the SPA room while he’s here.”

  “Why would he do that? None of the previous Ranger commanders have given it more than a cursory glance,” Lydia pointed out.

  “Which is exactly why I’m sure he’ll be extra thorough tomorrow. Bonelli ruled the Zoo with intimidation and brute force. Rodrigues is more like us. And now, thanks to that damned generator, he’s annoyed and smelling a con.” And he was right, Townsend had to admit. There were several cons currently in play, one of them on the Rangers.

  As if on cue, the tube car door slid open and Nora Duvall stepped onto the deck, holding a loaded serving platter in her hands. “Cookies, anyone?”

  CHAPTER 16

  “Unbelievable.” Communications Specialist Lydia Garfield sat at her console, nibbling at the last of the alphabet cookies and scowling in disgust at the readings on her screen. For the past half hour, Ruby had been flying Devil Bug back and forth, approaching and then retreating from the Hub in an effort to duplicate what had happened earlier to the Endeavor.

  Townsend walked over to stand behind Lydia’s chair. “Anything?”

  “Nothing. No matter how close she comes or from which direction, the field refuses to activate.” She took another bite of her cookie.

  It was one of those strange-looking ones that Nora had been so excited about, Drew noticed, the ones shaped like stylized trees with oddly broken branches. The ones Karlov had told her were used to spell out his name. Maybe he’d just been having fun with her. Townsend hoped so. There were already too many things in his life that didn’t add up. In any case, the problems posed by Karlov’s presence on the Hub paled in comparison with the potential fallout from the flakiness of that damned field generator.

  The tekl’hananni scoreboard would be going up soon and the first ship full of Nandrian warriors would arrive shortly thereafter, expecting to dock, board, and celebrate, as usual. If Daisy Hub disappeared from their screens as the Nandrians approached, they were certain to interpret it as an insult. And insulting a Nandrian, even if he belonged to a House allied to one’s own, was tantamount to suicide. Rodrigues had been speaking figuratively at the time, but he’d been correct. If the techs on Daisy Hub couldn’t get a handle on that pile of alien hardware before the Nandrians showed up, it would probably be the death of all of them.

  The tube car door slid open then, disgorging onto C Deck the four people who had been front of Townsend’s mind for the past hour: Engineers Devanan Singh and Spiro Gouryas, and Field Technicians Vera Beale and Ray Oolalong. They were uncharacteristically subdued. A frown was etched into Gouryas’s normally bland features, and Singh’s habitual smirk looked frozen onto his face. Drew felt an answering chill deep in his core. It appeared the news was not going to be good.

  “Take a seat and give me some answers,” Drew ordered them as he returned to the chair behind his desk. Lydia pulled her own chair over to join them. “Karlov?” he asked her.

  “U-Town, with Teri. They’re binge-meddling. Something about tampering with the jury at Brock’s trial.”

  That part of the plan seemed to be working, at least. Townsend permitted himself a moment of satisfaction. Then he said to the group assembled before him, “So. What’s going on with the field generator?”

  They spent long seconds passing looks back and forth. Finally, Vera Beale cleared her throat and told him, “Bottom line, we think it’s a hardwired factory setting.”

  “First thing the manual said to do was reset everything to default, and that’s what we did,” chimed in Oolalong.

  “Wait! There’s a manual?” Lydia demanded.

  “There’s always a manual,” Singh replied with a shrug. “Usually we ignore it and figure things out empirically.”

  “Or we ask someone with more experience to explain them to us,” added Beale. “But when you’re working with alien technology—”

  “—following the instructions can still get you in trouble,” Gouryas bristled.

  Interesting. There had evidently been a difference of opinion down on L Deck, one that still wasn’t resolved.

  “Walk me through this,” said Townsend. “I want to know what went wrong and how you intend to fix it.”

  “Nothing went wrong, sir. The generator is working to specs,” Oolalong informed him mildly.

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” cut in Gouryas again, simmering anger in his voice as he leaned forward to throw dagger-like looks at the young tech.

  Townsend had to agree with the senior engineer. The last time the generator had “worked to specs”, Drew’s predecessor had frozen to death in his own quarters.

 
“Well, the invisibility shield is being activated when we don’t want it activated,” he pointed out, in a tone of voice he’d last used to admonish a pair of four-year-old guests at the precinct house for playing hide and seek in the detectives’ ward room. “Clearly, the specs don’t apply to our current situation, which happens to be something of an emergency. So I would suggest that for the time being, you drop everything else and focus on doing whatever it takes to disconnect that stealth cloak.”

  The group of four exchanged worried looks.

  “That would not be advisable, I’m afraid,” said Singh. “Not until we have a better understanding of this technology. We might be disabling who knows what else.”

  “Or possibly activating something in place of the cloaking field, which could make things much, much worse,” added Gouryas.

  Worse than being blown up by a salvo from a Nandrian ship? Townsend didn’t think so.

  “Funny,” he mused aloud, “you people had no qualms about fooling with this device earlier on. You even traveled to Zulu and stuck the molecular paintbrush into the Rangers’ field generator, just to see what would happen.”

  “That was then, and we were half an orbit away from the Hub,” Singh reminded him. “Whatever we do to this generator could have disastrous repercussions for us in the here and now.”

  “You mean further repercussions, don’t you?” Drew pointed out tartly.

  The engineer did not respond.

  “Part of the problem is that we’re not working with the original manual,” said Beale. “It’s a translation from Nandrian into Gally, and some of the syntax is really convoluted.”

  Oolalong took instant exception. “That first instruction was crystal clear: Select default for all settings.”

  Staring pensively at the center of Townsend’s desk, Lydia asked, “Does the manual include a description for each of those default settings?”