The Borrega Test

by James Vincett

  “The American bison,” the computer said, “scientific name bison bison, also known as the American buffalo. Nearly hunted to extinction in the nineteenth century, present day herds are descendants of the wild herds sequestered in Yellowstone National Park and Wood Buffalo National Park for four centuries. With the creation of the North American Imperial Preservation District in 2439, terraformers returned the herds to a large part of their ancestral habitat after they removed most signs of Human habitation from the area over the course of a hundred and ten years. We are at our destination. I can transmit more information to your pocket computer, if you wish.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  The vehicle slowed and exited the roadway onto a narrow ramp. It pulled up to a large gray gate; a ten-meter high wall extended to the left and right. The gate retreated into the ground as the vehicle pulled up; after they passed through it rose again. Ahead were a number of low-rise buildings, grayish-white in color with several rows of mirror-like windows, the tallest structure perhaps fifteen meters in height. Antennae covered the top of the complex, the whole surrounded by a vast area of concrete.

  The vehicle turned down onto a narrow ramp in the concrete and drove over a quickly retreating door into a garage. There were several other vehicles here.

  A person stood beside a door, ironically, the first person he’d seen on a planet with a population in excess of twenty billion.

  The vehicle stopped and the door opened. Cyrus grabbed his bag from the back seat and exited the vehicle.

  A woman waited outside the vehicle: she had shoulder-length blonde hair, blue eyes, and a thin, pale face. She stood slightly shorter than his own 1.9 meters. She wore, as he did, a long black coat covering a plain suit and white shirt. She smiled and extended her hand. “Agent Yazdani. I am Agent Hoffman. I’m pleased to meet you.”

  “Likewise, I’m sure,” he said, shaking her hand.

  “Quarters are prepared for you. You will have a short time to refresh yourself before meeting with the Director-General. Follow me please.”

  Yazdani followed her up a short staircase and through a set of automatic doors. They immediately stepped into an elevator. The doors slid closed without Hoffman pressing a button or uttering a command, and the elevator car started downward.

  Yazdani couldn’t stand the silence. “I was in the middle of an important operation …”

  “Nothing is more important now than this mission,” Hoffman said.

  “What about my field operatives? I’ve hung them out to dry.”

  “They will be taken care of, Agent Yazdani.”

  I’ll bet.

  The doors slid open and Yazdani followed Hoffman down a long blue-gray hall with several sliding doors on either side. They stopped at one and Hoffman spoke. “Key to Agent Cyrus Yazdani, GID-7872364109-Z.” A metal arm appeared out of the wall, scanned Yazdani’s right eye, and retreated. It happened so fast that he wasn’t sure it happened at all. The door slid open.

  “I’ll return in an hour,” Hoffman said. “Eat something and rest. The Director-General is eager to meet you.” She gestured to the open door and Cyrus stepped through. It slid closed quickly but quietly.

  Cyrus dropped his bag, took off his coat, and sat in a soft leather chair. A hundred days ago, he was on Akaisha, supervising nineteen field agents gathering intelligence on that world. Then came the summons, one he could not delay or refuse. A Hermes class courier carried him the seventeen thousand plus light years all the way to Sol system and Earth. He spent much of his time studying whatever he could on the Naati, and when bleary-eyed and suffering from brain lock-up, he slept for twelve or eighteen hours straight. After three weeks of physical inactivity, he started spending several hours a day in the small cargo hold of the vessel, beating the pulp out of a makeshift punching bag and skipping rope until he just couldn’t move his limbs. The three times the vessel stopped for maintenance and re-fueling a Directorate agent boarded the vessel to bring him creature comforts and politely inform him he was to remain on board.

  He promptly fell asleep in his chair and then woke to Agent Hoffman shaking his shoulder. “The Director-General is ready to see you, Agent Yazdani.”

  “Mustn’t keep them waiting.” He rose from the chair and followed her down the hall. “I assume this is GID Headquarters?” His tone betrayed his annoyance.

  “Yes, Agent Yazdani. We are on the former site of the United States Air Force Academy. Pilots trained here probably bombed some of your ancestors six centuries ago.” She stepped into the elevator and Yazdani followed.

  Fucking bitch! “Listen, Ms. Hoffman, I’ve been pulled from active duty, cooped up in a small spacecraft, and now finally insulted by one of my peers. What the fuck is going on?” Just then, he realized how angry he was; sweat covered his face and his heart beat rapidly.

  Hoffman looked at him. “I was told by the Director-General to try and get a reaction from you. The naval personnel on the courier stated in their report that you were quiet the entire journey. Not once in your entire twenty-five year career have you applied for personal or stress leave. Despite having been kept in the dark about your next assignment, you followed orders without complaint, and only now, after a personal insult, have you lost your temper, and mildly at that. You have considerable self-control, Agent Yazdani; grace under pressure. You will need it.”

  The elevator doors slid open and Yazdani followed her down another gray corridor. Double-doors at the end of the hall swung open to reveal a comfortable lounge furnished with fine wood and leather furniture. A large sectional couch faced floor to ceiling windows looking out to the snow-covered peaks of the Rocky Mountains; the sun was just setting, the clear sky turning a deep blue. Beverage decanters and glasses stood on a small side table.

  “Take a seat, Agent Yazdani,” Hoffman said and sat on the couch. “I want to ask you some preliminary questions.”

  “I’d rather stand, Ms. Hoffman, thank you.”

  “You were born on Kursk, 2601?”

  Yazdani heard, and felt, a buzzing and ringing in his ears. He sighed and looked at Hoffman. “Ms. Hoffman, I’m sure the GID has all of this information on file. Why wouldn’t they?” He walked to the side table and poured himself a drink. “This ‘preliminary questioning’ is just to get me in the mode of answering questions. Plus, the telepath you are using to detect truthfulness really needs more practice.” He pointed at his ears as he said this. “So,” he said, sitting down very close to Hoffman, “let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? Considering all the trouble you took to get me here, I assume time is of the essence.” He took a sip of his drink; it was bourbon, very nice.

  Hoffman looked at him. “Agent Yazdani, there are certain protocols …”

  “You know, I don’t mind the long hours,” he began, and stood to look out of the windows. “The shitty pay, the months of tedium punctuated with moments of sheer terror, the difficulty in obtaining needed funds and equipment, the callousness with which field operatives are treated, the attempts on my life by assassins; heck, I don’t even care about the three failed marriages, or the six children that I barely know.” He swallowed the last of the bourbon and turned to look at Hoffman. “What really pisses me off is someone wasting my fucking time!”

  He shook his head and re-filled his glass. “So, point the first: the Director-General doesn’t want me dead. If that were the case, I would have died in my sleep. So obviously I’m the only person for an important job, or you wouldn’t have gone to the trouble and expense to have me shipped all this way.” He took a sip of his drink and started pacing. “Second: the op is extremely important, and secret, or you would have just sent me orders by encrypted hyperspace relay. Point the third: it is a covert op involving management of assets, a specialty of mine. Fourth: it involves the Naati, hence my orders to study everything I could about those fucking barbarians.”

  He swallowed the rest of his drink and grimaced. “Only one question remains: why am I the only person for the job? I’m sure y
ou can find someone somewhere closer to Earth with top-notch skills in managing assets and far more experience in dealing with the Naati, so that is not the principal reason, just a bonus. The only conclusion I can come to is there is something in my background that recommends me, some accident of my birth or heritage that lends an advantage.” He slammed the glass on the side table. “Is that a good summary?”

  Hoffman calmly looked at him and then spoke. “Mr. Pederson?”

  The doors to the room opened and a tall man in a finely cut dark suit entered. He approached Yazdani with an outstretched hand. “Agent Yazdani. I’m Lars Pederson, the Director-General of the GID.” The two men shook hands and Pederson gestured to the couch. “Please sit, Cyrus.”

  Yazdani sat. He knew of this man; his name was on many of the encrypted messages he received of late.

  Pederson looked at him in the eyes. “There are two questions for which we would like answers.”

  “Yes?”

  “Have you ever heard of the world of Borrega?”

  Yazdani’s mind filled with facts from his studies of the Naati. An independent human world in the Neutral Zone, settled since before the Union, the inhabitants…

  “The settlers were from the world of Kursk,” Yazdani said quietly, “and many originally from Asia.”

  “Yes, Cyrus,” Pederson said. “Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Caucasus; your ancestors. These are ethnic groups that have maintained many of their ancient cultural practices, yes?”

  Yazdani stood as his mind flooded with memories from his childhood; his mother, in church, wearing a white veil; his father in his colorful tunic; daily prayers with the priest; the heavy smell of incense in the air; the smells of curry and saffron. He learned Armenian and Persian as a child, but he had not spoken a word of either for over twenty years.

  “Yes,” Yazdani replied quietly, looking out of the windows. “And the second question?”

  “What do you remember, from your training, about the test of sovereignty?”

  Yazdani looked at them. “After the defeat of the Snirr, United Earth fell apart because the old grudges of the Secession were not settled, and the isolation of worlds distant from Earth. The Destillières created the test of sovereignty to annex these worlds separated from Earth, peacefully if possible, but by force if necessary. The test of sovereignty was later used during the Justified Conquest campaigns to annex worlds in the old Snirr Empire, and when Consul Nicolas conducted the Kalix Campaigns early in his reign.”

  “The Consul has determined Borrega will be part of the Union. You will be a key part of the Borrega Test.”

  McFinn

  Commander Joshua Andrew McFinn woke, his body soaked with sweat. The tent around him flapped in the wind, the light of the dawn showing gray through the hole in the top. He threw off the fur blankets and let the cold air wash over his naked body.

  I haven’t dreamed of her for years. The image of Captain Cavanagh, half of her head sheared away, faded from his mind’s eye.

  His pockcomp chirped. He let it go to voicemail, but it chirped again. He felt around for the device, grabbed it, and looked at the screen. He jabbed a button.

  “What is it, Lieutenant?”

  “Sir,” a female voice said, “I think you should come back up to the station. We have a priority message from Fleet Command. They say there’s a VIP in the system, and we should expect something.”

  “Is that all? You take care of it, okay?”

  “But sir, you haven’t been on station for weeks. There are forms to sign, transfers to approve. And scuttlebutt on the net says the VIP is an Admiral.”

  “Forge my signature, like you always do. And don’t worry about the Admiral; they’re all full of shit, anyway.”

  “I can’t keep doing this sir! I could lose my comm…“

  “Look,” what the hell was her name? “Alejandra, don’t worry about this crap. You’re an excellent officer. I have you on the fast track, okay? Just do what I say and I’ll get you a transfer to Finwarden. Just take care of it!” He jabbed a button and turned off the ringer. He scratched his bearded face, stretched, and then rose and donned his cold weather gear: electric skivvies, heated boots, red snow pants, down jacket, fur mantel, and hood.

  He emerged from the conical tent. The structure was ingenious: wiklik skins wrapped around a frame of long, collapsible, steel rods. The locals preferred an opening at the top to let out the smoke of a dung fire, but McFinn used a portable heater.

  The sky looked cloudless, the snow already gleaming in the morning light. The camp huddled in a high pass of a range of snow-capped mountains, a spiked wall of granite separating the high interior plain from the coastal lowlands. A dozen of the conical tents surrounded a low squat tent with a smoking chimney. Just before he entered the mess tent, he heard the yips and yowls of the dogs. Figures emerged from several of the conical tents and walked toward where the furry animals lay in the snow. It was feeding time.

  McFinn’s stomach growled as he entered the mess tent; he smelled coffee, bacon, and pancakes. Several other figures already sat at the folding tables and chairs. Most were locals, men McFinn had known for several years. The others were from off world, geologists surveying for more petroleum. Though mostly covered with snow and ice, millions of years ago Turrentine had been covered in shallow seas, the remains of ancient sea creatures now supplying base-chain hydrocarbon molecules to the Fifth Fleet for lubricants, pharmaceuticals and a myriad of other products.

  “Good morning, Commander!” Akiak called out as he raised his coffee cup. The man had a dark and wind-burned face, Asian features, and a wispy beard. His family had been on Turrentine for three generations, and his ancestors once wandered the frozen tundra of Siberia centuries ago. “You bagged quite a kukker.”

  “Three meters at the shoulder,” McFinn smiled. Kukker was the local word for a male wiklik. These fur-covered creatures wandered the high interior plain, using their large horns to dig through the snow to feed on the small burrowing mivits with their long raspy tongues.

  “How many is that, now?”

  “It’s my fourth. I sent the first rack to my father, on Earth. The second I gave to a friend and the third is in my quarters on station.” McFinn drank some coffee. “When are we due back at Sokol?”

  “We should get there by midday,” Akiak replied.

  Since appointed commander of the supply station in orbit around Turrentine, McFinn had spent most of the last seven years on the cold surface of the world. The station nearly ran itself, given automation and eager-to-please young officers, so McFinn spent much of his time hunting the local wildlife and climbing the glaciers.

  McFinn started to eat and Akiak sat beside him. “Got word from Sokol this morning,” the man said quietly. “Seems a squadron of fighters escorted an armored shuttle into the spaceport last night. Security was pretty tight; special forces all over the place.” The man raised his eyebrows.

  McFinn looked at him. “You think I know something about this?”

  Akiak shrugged.

  “Well, I don’t know anything, and I couldn’t care less. You said we would be back by midday?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I want to climb Thabas Glacier this afternoon. Might take along a tent and spend the night up there. The stars are beautiful.” McFinn drank some coffee. “Can you take care of the kukker? You can keep the meat and skins.”

  “Yeah,” Akiak replied, “I’ll get him taken care of. You sure you don’t want to do it yourself?”

  “I’ll leave it to the experts. I almost lost a finger the last time; your knives are too bloody sharp.”

  After breakfast they broke camp, the conical tents rolled up and strapped to two large sleds, each pulled by two-dozen dogs. The geologists rode in a wide tracked vehicle pulling a tracked trailer with most of the supplies, but McFinn preferred driving his own sled with a dozen dogs. He had finally got the hang of controlling the animals, and figured he would enter his first race next month.


  Just before midday, the party reached the outskirts of Sokol. The settlement clung to the foot of a large mountain, hundreds of prefabricated shelters clustered around the deep-water port. Icebergs dotted the sea beyond. To the south, on an artificial island, was the spaceport. Large pipelines ran down from the mountain pass to an automated processing plant on the coast. From here, a container-conveyer transferred secondary products to the spaceport to be loaded on freighters. Most of the population of ten thousand or so was Akiak’s people, descendants of Inuit, which once roamed Earth’s northern latitudes. They kept the processing plant running, and lived off the creatures of the sea.

  McFinn left the group and rode the sled to his Quonset hut on the upper edge of the settlement. He kenneled and fed the dogs, then started getting his climbing equipment together. He was inside the hut when the dogs started to bark and howl. He turned and saw a figure standing in the doorway.

  “Commander Joshua McFinn.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes? What can I do for you?” McFinn said. He couldn’t see the man’s face because of the contrast. His accent was definitely Earth.

  “You’ve experience climbing the local glaciers.” Another statement.

  “That’s right,” McFinn said as he threw some equipment into a large duffel bag.

  “I’m from off-world. I want to hire you as a guide.”

  McFinn laughed. “You’d do better to hire the local Innu. They’re much better climbers than I am.”

  “You have the highest recommendation.”

  “Who said that? Akiak? You and I are the victim of a joke, my friend.”

  “Admiral Feth.”

  McFinn stopped and looked at the man. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Gavin. David Gavin. I’m a friend of Feth’s. He was on Turrentine a little over two years ago.”