Roget had heard of the squirrel runs through certain sections of the belt. Despite the best efforts of the Federation Interstellar Service, independent operators, often piratical, still tended to pop up—or be discovered or rediscovered among the smaller bodies scattered through the Asteroid Belt, or the Oort Cloud, or the Kuiper Belt. Most of these tended to die off, literally, because they’d escaped the Federation’s outsystem control with too little equipment, but there were some who persisted … and some who raided outsystem mining outposts for hard-to-get technology or supplies when their own failed or were exhausted. The unofficial Federation policy was to leave well enough alone unless the belt colony appeared to be prosperous and growing, or unless the unapproved colonists had turned to piracy.
Not so benign neglect, thought Roget.
Lieutenant Castaneda exchanged looks with Lieutenant Braun, but neither spoke.
“Is this a pirate colony, sir, or an unapproved one?” asked Roget. “Does it matter, Major? Orders are orders.”
“Yes, sir. It does matter. A pirate colony is more likely to have amassed various arms and armament systems. An established and unapproved colony will be heavily dug in and fortified but is likely to have older weapons systems.”
The senior major nodded. “It is older and unapproved and a pirate colony. You will carry a full range of armament. You are not to attempt any rescues, regardless of possible distress calls, because this colony has used that ruse to capture vessels and savage others for their equipment and supplies.”
“Yes, sir.” Roget appreciated that information. He would have wagered it wasn’t laid out that bluntly in the official briefing materials.
“Major Roget will be the flight leader. Briefing consoles five, seven, and nine are reserved for you and will respond only to your IDs. You have two hours before you’re to report to the attack boat locks. That is all.”
The three stood.
“Best of luck, gentlemen.”
Once the three were outside the ops section in the main wide corridor beneath the surface of Ceres, Lieutenant Castaneda glanced at Lieutenant Braun. Then both looked to Roget.
“Squirrel run, sir?”
“Think of tree rodents. They’re hard to find in a forest. They duck in and out of things, and when they have a ship, they can circle around an asteroid or a chunk of rock as fast as you can, just like a squirrel around a trunk. They can dig in deep, so deep that all you can do is seal the entrance, and if they survive, they’ll just dig out somewhere else. That’s unless you take in really massive weapons and fragment the rock that holds the whole colony—and then FIS gets hell because you’ve scattered all sorts of missiles across the system that will have to be tracked to make sure that they don’t impact other installations.”
“What’s the point, then, sir?”
“To keep the squirrel population down and wary,” replied Roget dryly. “And to give all new pilots a solid idea of their limitations.” He walked with long and low strides along the blue-walled corridor that led to the ready room—and the briefing consoles.
The two lieutenants followed.
A good standard hour later, Roget was fully suited and standing in the surface lock, ready to enter the needleboat he’d been assigned. He pulsed his ID and authorization code to the lock receptor, and the bar on the lock plate turned green. Then he twisted the wheel through three full turns—all locks on the station that could open to vacuum had manual wheels—before again pressing the plate. The lock opened, revealing the closed outer lock of the combat needleboat.
Roget pulsed his authorization codes and the outer lock door of the needleboat opened.
Once he’d closed the outer station lock door and then stepped into the needleboat, sealing it behind him, Roget began his preflight in the cramped needleboat lock. A good fifteen minutes later, he settled into the pilot’s couch, where he linked to the boat’s systems. His preflight check had revealed that the needleboat was one of the newer ones, and fully armed—not one of the worn and tired craft usually assigned to student pilots. The tiny single cabin area was also clean and the replicator fully stocked for a full four weeks, although the mission was scheduled to last slightly less than two weeks.
He took his time with the full system checks. Finally, he pulsed the others.
Digger two, Digger three, this is Digger one. Interrogative status. One, two here, status green. Ready to launch. Digger one, three is ready to launch.
Roget nodded, then pulsed, BeltCon, this is Digger one. Digger flight ready for departure and launch.
Digger flight, this is BeltCon. Cleared to linear this time. Quadrant Orange is your departure lane.
BeltCon, Digger lead, understand cleared to linear. Orange Quadrant. Digger flight delocking this time. Roget switched to tactical. Digger flight, delock this time. Form on me.
Digger lead, Digger two, stet. Digger three here, stet.
Roget released the maglocks on both sides of the needleboat and used a burst of steering jets to ease it up from the docking cradle and toward the intake chute for the orange quadrant linear accelerator.
Orange Control, Digger one, approaching intake.
One … cleared to enter and take position.
Roget checked his suit and all the connectors, then the system integrity indicators before he used the steering jets to ease the needleboat over the accelerator’s magnetic cradle.
Orange Control, Digger one, in position this time.
Stet, One … stand by for lock-in.
Standing by.
Roget felt the needleboat drop, and a dull clunk echoed through the hull, a sound that Roget felt as much as he heard as he checked his suit once more.
Outbound velocity wasn’t limited by the linear accelerator’s capabilities, but by the design limits of the needleboats—and their pilots—as well as the need to decelerate at the destination, particularly if the destination didn’t have a mag-grav attenuator net. No pirate colony had that. But because the force of the linear accelerator could stress the needleboats and possibly cause a pressure loss, all pilots were fully suited for launch.
Digger one, locked in cradle. Interrogative ready for launch. Roget ran a last set of checks. Orange Control, Digger one, ready for launch.
A wall of blackness pressed Roget back into the pilot’s couch, an inexorable pressure that seemed to last forever before releasing him to the light gravity of the needleboat, set internally at one-third T-norm. Most of the training boats didn’t have internal gravities, but gravitic control systems were required for any flight lasting more than four standard hours, and most training hops were far shorter than that.
He checked the EDI as the accelerator launched Digger two and then Digger three.
Digger flight, close on me.
Digger lead, two here, closing this time. Lead, three here, closing.
Digger flight, understand closure. Run systems checks this time.
Once Roget verified the integrity and pressure of the needleboat, and his outbound course, Roget removed his helmet, slipping it into the overhead rack where he could reach it immediately if the boat lost pressure.
Now all he had to do was endure six days of boredom before he and the others reached their target.
31
25 MARIS 1811 p. d.
Another day passed with more medical tests and screenings before Roget was transported to the WuDing. Once there, he was subjected to even more tests, and his pack was thoroughly screened as well, although no one actually opened it. Roget didn’t bother to point out that shortcoming. After all the tests, he was escorted to the stateroom he’d occupied once he’d been revived on the way inbound to Dubiety. He was told to wait there.
Since he had left the dropboat, Roget had not been allowed near any screens or instruments that would have updated him on what the Federation fleet was doing. Even so, he had no doubts that they were preparing for some sort of strike against Dubiety. He also had no doubt that such a strike would be catastrophic— and not for
the Dubietans. Of course, he couldn’t prove that, not to the colonel’s satisfaction and probably not to his own.
He didn’t even look inside his pack, since he was certainly under observation, nor did he call up the flash image of Hildegarde.
Three hours later, two ship marines arrived and escorted him forward to see Colonel Tian.
Once Roget stood inside the small space off the operations bay, the colonel looked up from where he sat behind the folded-down console and motioned to the other chair. “Good afternoon, Major.”
Roget’s internals confirmed that it was late afternoon Federation baseline time, but how good the day was happened to be another question. “Good afternoon, sir.”
“You’re one of the two who were able to return. Or allowed to return.” Tian’s voice was as emotionless as ever. “According to what you said the Thomists told you, only one other dropboat made it through the haze. Do you believe them?”
“My dropboat was badly damaged,” Roget pointed out. “The commanding officer of the ZengYi confirmed that dropboat five disintegrated immediately upon reaching the outer orbital shell. It’s almost a certainty that the other two suffered great damage and were destroyed in the middle layers. I don’t see that the Dubietans would have anything to gain by lying about their fate.”
“You trust these … aliens too much, Major. I would have expected better from you.”
“I don’t trust them at all, sir, except where I can verify for myself what may have happened.”
“You dismiss rather lightly that your perceptions may have been … affected.”
“I did think, sir, and I continue to think about whether everything I saw or felt had been mentally induced.” Roget smiled, ironically. “The more that has occurred, the less I think that is likely.”
“That is a most interesting conclusion. Would you care to explain why you think it so unlikely?”
“Any society that could launch a dropboat with the velocity and accuracy with which I was returned, not to mention the ability to repair the dropboat and create the material for the pressure suit I wore, as well as create the orbital shields, would have little difficulty in dealing with the ships you’ve gathered. Therefore, what exactly would be the point of going to all the trouble of inducing all that detail, especially with the depth of sensation. If they do not have the technology that I have seen and whose results our ships have documented, then they have the ability to change the perceptions of all of us, as well as affect our instrumentation. Therefore, they either have the ability to do that or they have the advanced technology. In either case, attacking or angering them is unwise.”
“Oh? You were planetside some nine days, and you know their psychology and strategies so intimately?”
“I’m not talking about psychology, sir, but about technical capabilities.” Roget paused, just briefly. “Have you had a chance to go over what I brought back?”
“I’ve gone over your reports and the materials you brought back. All of them are quite unbelievable.”
“That may be, sir. It’s also what happened.” Roget kept his voice level.
“No. It is what you believe happened. Whether what you believe is what actually occurred is another question. Have you considered that?”
“Yes, sir.” Roget laughed softly. “I considered it almost every day, if not every hour.” Why doesn’t he want to understand?
“And you don’t think your thoughts were manipulated?”
“Everyone’s thoughts are influenced by what they observe, or what they think they observe, sir. While I was planetside, I was fully aware of the complete range of human senses and sensations. Also, the Dubietans were not hesitant to suggest that they believed that they were essentially going through the motions in letting me see what I did and in sending back the materials that they did. You’ve tested me every way you can. Didn’t the tests show I was planetside?”
“Isotope analysis of your hair indicates you were somewhere earth-like, yet very different. There were too few contaminants for you to be on a human-industrialized world capable of the kind of technology that could create orbital shields and high-speed launching facilities.”
“Sir, given their emphasis on environmental costs, such a world wouldn’t have a high level of contaminants.”
“No human civilization has yet managed that degree of environmental control. Just how likely is it that an isolated world could do so?”
Roget had the strong feeling that Dubiety wasn’t that isolated, but, again, all he had to go on was inference from what Hillis and Lyvia had said, and Tian wasn’t about to take inference as proof. Not when he wouldn’t take what proof there was and logic. “And the devices? How do you explain them if they don’t have a high-technology capability?”
“Interesting, but hardly convincing. One projects a modulated form of energy that doesn’t scatter.”
“They apply that everywhere. There’s not even light-scatter from streetlights, and my internals wouldn’t pick up anything.”
“Oh? There are other possibilities.”
“What? Such as the fact that I was somehow mind-controlled from the moment of touchdown? That they’re totally alien and planetbound because of other factors? That they fed everything I thought I experienced into me? I thought of those. If that’s so, then they’re no danger. At most, all the Federation would have to do would be to avoid Dubiety.”
“That is not a possibility.”
“All they’re suggesting is that they be left alone.”
“That is not possible,” repeated Tian.
“Why not, if I might ask, sir?”
“You may ask. I will even tell you.” The colonel leaned back ever so slightly in his chair. “Some three thousand years ago on earth, there was an ocean admiral named Zheng He. This admiral commanded the largest fleet in history. In terms of numbers of vessels, it may have been the largest ever. It dominated earth’s oceans for three decades, until a rebel uprising led to the creation of a new emperor—Hongwu. Hongwu burned the great fleet and turned China away from the world. Why did he do this? Because the fleet only explored and destroyed. It never provided any significant gain to China, and the harsh conditions of the time only led to the conclusion that the fleet was useless and a drain on the people. That is the first lesson.”
Roget waited.
“The second lesson concerns the relationship between the ancient United States and the Tojoite Japanese Empire. Japan had closed itself off to the world, much as China had. But when the emperor was forced to open Japan to American traders at cannon point, the Japanese embarked on nearly a century of frantic industrialization and modernization. In the end, they attacked and destroyed much of China and invaded and occupied all the American lands west of the Hawaiian Islands. For years the entire world was at war. In the end, the Tojoites lost, but the devastation blighted the world for more than a century and led to the eventual fall of old America. That is the second lesson.”
By his choice of those examples, Colonel Tian was obviously suggesting that the Federation Interstellar Service was to be used for far more than mere exploration and that any isolated world posed a potential threat that the Federation could not ignore.
“There are other examples from history, sir,” suggested Roget.
“They are not from our history and are therefore less applicable.” The colonel’s eyes hardened. “What else did you learn about their technology, if anything?”
“I detailed all that I could determine, sir, and brought back all that I could.”
“You provided little of technical value, Major.”
“I supplied you with maps, with a detailed description of the structure of their industry and transport systems, as well as how their communications are structured.”
“You provided not one word about how this technology operates.”
“I brought back a small transmitter, the technical material that documents how the orbital shields work, how some other transport systems may be possible…�
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“I had the chief engineer study the material. He says that’s all technical gobbledygook. There’s no way that it could work as you say it can. Nor can the so-called transmitter.”
Roget realized, abruptly, that there had been not one word about the language implantation technology. In his report, he had definitely mentioned what Director Hillis said about that being a technology that the Federation already developed. Yet the colonel had avoided asking about it. Because it had been suppressed and was being used covertly by the FSA and other security types? For more than language training? He wouldn’t get an answer if he asked. Either Tian didn’t know or wouldn’t say. But he could try another approach. “Sir… how old is this solar system?”
The colonel frowned.
“According to my original briefing materials, it’s considerably older than the Sol system, yet Dubiety has a molten core, a core supposedly reenergized by their technology. If you can measure the planetary magnetic fields, you’ll find three sets of magnetic axes—all offset to each other. Those fields have something to do with the structure and operation of the three levels of orbital shields. To me, sir, that suggests that their technology is anything but gobbledygook.”
The colonel frowned. “We’ve already established that the magnetic field is odd, but many planets have different or off-angled fields.”
“Three separate fields, sir? I doubt that.”
“Doubts are not facts, Major.”
“Sir… I am an agent, not a scientist or a theoretical physicist. I was never allowed more than limited access to their commnet, nor to any written material that might explain how they have accomplished what they have, except for what I brought back. Even so, I am a trained observer, and what I saw suggests great caution in dealing with the Dubietans.”
“Tell me.” The colonel’s voice was soft. “What do you think that they have accomplished?”
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