by Tom Holt
“Yes, but you have to pay money.”
“Fine. We’ll get some out of a bank.”
Her brother pursed his lips. “Like I said, all our gear’s in Novosibirsk. Including the interface module I used to hack into the bank computer.”
His sister stopped dead. “No money?”
He shook his head. “Not till we get our stuff back. No money, no communications. No change of clothes,” he added significantly. “All we’ve got to work with is what we’re standing up in.”
His sister closed her eyes. He got the impression she was counting to twenty under her breath. If that was the case, she didn’t make it beyond twelve. “You moron,” she snapped. “What the hell were you thinking of, dumping us here? The other place was bad enough, but this—”
“I said,” her brother interrupted defensively, “I was in a hurry, I didn’t have time to set co-ordinates. I just twiddled the dial and hit the Go button. A second later and we’d have been toast.”
His sister looked down at herself, her eyes dwelling for a moment on the contours. “Toast would’ve been better,” she said with feeling. “Toast doesn’t have, you know, all these bits. Look, are you sure we can’t change out of these bodies? I don’t think I can handle it much longer.”
He explained again, this time including extracts of the relevant maths. When he’d finished, she nodded slowly. “Promise me one thing,” she said.
“What?”
“Next time you plan on saving us both from certain death, leave me out.” She clawed at the right-hand coil of hair, until it came loose and flopped down on to her shoulder. “There’s worse things, OK?”
“You don’t mean that,” her brother said firmly. “It’ll all be all right, you’ll see. Just as soon as we can get back to Novosibirsk.”
“How, exactly? Walk?”
Her brother shrugged, causing a tentacle to poke out from the folds of his robe. “I look at it this way,” he said. “We just succeeded in burglarising a R’wfft-class missile vehicle in planetary orbit using nothing but a few salvaged components and a dead fish. Once aboard, we neutralised the security lock-outs and put the bomb out of action, albeit only temporarily.” He grinned, and slapped his sister on the back; she snarled, but he ignored her. “Face it, kid,” he said, “we’re hot stuff. If we can do all that, somehow I don’t see travelling a few thousand kilometres as an insuperable problem. After all,” he added, “if humans can do it, can’t be all that hard.”
“And once we get there?”
“We call home,” her brother said, “and ask Dad. He’ll tell us what to do.”
41
?????
The director of the Institute for Interstellar Exploration sighed and felt in his pocket.
“There you go, Spot,” he said, and threw his human a treat. Spot jumped, caught it in his mouth and swallowed. “That’s all,” the director said. “Good boy. Sit.”
Spot, of course, had no way of knowing how lucky he was. No other human on Ostar got treats like that; it was a genuine Earth delicacy, long, thin slices of the potato root, deep-fried in animal fat and smothered in salt. He’d had potato plants brought back specially by the second Pathfinder probe, and cultivated them secretly in a purpose-built ecodome where Earth’s climatic conditions were exactly duplicated. You spoil that human, his wife said, but she had no idea of the extent of his indulgence.
Spot was gazing at him hopefully, just in case there might be another slice of fried root. No pressure, but … The director realised he was grinning; he couldn’t help it. “Oh, go on, then,” he said, “but it’s the last one.” Spot snapped the root slice out of the air, gobbled it up and sat on his haunches, jaws open. It was almost as if he was grinning too.
The sound of a buzzer made the director look up. It was time. They were here.
“Stay,” he told the human, and got up to answer the door.
There were four of them, one more than he’d expected. The fourth Ostar was a stranger.
“Who’s this?” the director asked suspiciously.
“T’rrrft, PDF,” said the elderly female. “We think he ought to hear this.”
Planetary Defence Force. The director growled softly. “I don’t think so,” he said. “How do I know he’ll keep his mouth shut?”
“You have my word on that,” the female replied. “Well, are you going to let us in?”
The director stepped back and they walked past him into the main living area. Spot jumped down guiltily from the window seat and curled up in his basket.
“You keep a human,” the PDF officer said.
“What about it?”
“Nothing. It’s just, I’d have thought, knowing your views on—”
“That’s got nothing to do with it,” the director said. “Sit down, all of you.”
The visitors sat stiffly on the long bench-seat. There was a large bowl of bones on the occasional table next to it. The director didn’t offer them round. “You said there was something you needed to tell us,” said a small male, in a high, rather nervous voice.
The director nodded. “It can’t have escaped any of you that something’s gone wrong with the Earth project.”
“The planet’s still there,” said a large young male. “I looked through the big telescope at the university last night. Even allowing for relativistic distortion, we should be seeing digamma radiation from the blast corona by now. May I take it that the mission has failed again?”
The director nodded. “We lost contact with the missile vehicle approximately twelve hours ago,” he said. “Prior to that, there was no indication of a systems malfunction. The bomb had sent down a type-6 probe, mostly to find out what sort of defences the planet has, and to account for the loss of the first missile. We received some data, inconclusive and mostly garbled, but there was some reason to believe that Ostar technology is part of the defence system.”
There was a long pause. Then the female said, “Salvaged from the first missile, presumably.”
“No.” The director shook his head. “I have — other sources of information. I have reason to believe that our efforts are being sabotaged; not by the humans, but by someone right here on Homeworld.”
“The Ethical Treatment brigade,” the large young male said, perhaps a little too eagerly.
“They would appear to be the most likely candidates, yes,” the director replied. “Now, that’s a separate matter. Political,” he added, with distaste. “I don’t concern myself with that sort of thing,” he went on, “I’m just a scientist. But if someone, some misguided person, is trying to interfere with this project, obviously we need to do something about it. Or rather,” he added, with a sour look at the PDF officer, “you do. I can’t overstate the importance of this operation. It has to go forward.”
The PDF man cleared his throat. “I wanted to ask you about that,” he said.
There was a long, awkward silence. Then the director said, “I thought you might. I take it the others haven’t—”
The female shook her head. “We thought you’d be the best person to explain, Y’f. After all—”
“Quite.” The director could feel his ears go back. Some Ostar, he knew, had learned to control their instinctive reactions — ears, rising hackles, wagging tails — but he’d never been able to do it himself, and he couldn’t help despising those who could. An Ostar shouldn’t have to conceal his emotions. An Ostar shouldn’t want to. “And I guess it’s time we brought the military in on this. After all, they have a right to know, they’ll be the ones flying the warships.”
The PDF man looked up sharply. “That’s an interesting remark,” he said. “What warships would these be?”
“The missiles would appear to have failed,” the director said quietly. “Therefore, we must send a fleet. I’m not a military man, but I believe a dozen heavy cruisers with destroyer and fighter escorts ought to be able to get the job done.”
“To destroy a single planet.” The PDF man nodded. “I should think
so, yes. It would depend on what sort of resistance we’re likely to encounter. But that brings me to the point I wanted to ask you about.”
The silence took on a sharp edge. The other three guests assumed invisibility-cloak expressions; they weren’t there, and they had no idea who this strange person was. But the PDF man gave no sign that he’d noticed.
“Destroying the planet,” he said. “It’s a rather drastic step, isn’t it?”
The director didn’t answer straight away. “You’ve seen for yourself the havoc their music is causing—”
“Ah yes.” The PDF man nodded briskly. Either he could control his ears or he wasn’t afraid of anything. “Actually, that’s quite near the top of my list of things to ask about. You see, our pack at Military Intelligence have been doing a bit of investigating on our own account, and guess what? All those dreadful, infuriating, mind-destroying Earth music transmissions—”
The director growled, quite loudly. Maybe the PDF man was deaf.
“They come from Earth all right,” the PDF man went on, “but when they reach Ostar they’re pretty harmless, really. You can just about pick them up on a really sophisticated polaron spectrometer array, but you certainly can’t hear them with the naked ear, so to speak. No, what’s causing all the trouble is the fucking great big signal-booster station tucked away down there at the tip of the W’rrgft peninsula. It’s picking up the Earth signal and belting it out at several million times amplification.”
Dead silence. The director’s face didn’t move, but his ears were flat to the sides of his skull.
“At first we assumed it was an accident,” the PDF man went on. “But then we looked into it a bit closer, and someone ferreted out the design specs of the booster. You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn that array was purpose-built, to do precisely that job. By your department, as you perfectly well know. Couldn’t have been, of course, because it was commissioned five years before the first signal reached us. Or at least,” he went on, “before we became aware of the first signal; aware as in people falling down in the street screaming, ‘make it stop!”‘ The PDF man shot a pleasant smile at the director. “Now then,” he said. “You may be wondering why, if we have reason to believe that our entire civilisation is being crippled by a nuisance that doesn’t originate on a faraway world of which we know little, but instead is being ramped up to agony level by a facility built and run by your organisation —” the director’s hackles had risen so much, they were pressing his collar tight enough to his neck to impede his breathing. But he said nothing — “why, if that’s the case,” the PDF man went on, “we’ve done nothing about it. I mean, by rights we should’ve turned the thing off immediately and arrested everybody in this room. Well, shouldn’t we?”
The director nodded slowly. “Strictly speaking,” he said.
“Quite. But we haven’t. We thought, The director of the Institute is a highly respected scientist with so many letters after his name you could play S’krabel with them. If he’s done something like this, maybe just possibly he’s got his reasons. And maybe we should ask him what they are before hauling him off to trial for crimes against Ostarkind.”
The director nodded once, a very slight movement. “You finished?”
“Not quite,” the PDF man went on. “There’s another thing. You knew the signals were fake and Earth isn’t a problem, but you went ahead and, using those signals as a pretext, persuaded the Alpha Council to send a bomb and blow the planet up. Now, a clear and flagrant breach of the D’ppggyt Accords is humanfeed compared with driving the entire Ostar race crazy with amplified Earth music, but I can’t help wondering why you’re so keen to do it. Just to satisfy my curiosity, director, what the hell did they ever do to you?”
The significance of the faint click in the background wasn’t lost on the PDF man. Better than anyone he knew the sound of a KXK 7000-series phaleron blaster safety catch being flipped off, and it was a reasonable assumption that the blaster in question was now being pointed at his head by one of the guests sitting next to him. He decided to pretend he hadn’t heard it.
“What did they do to me?” the director repeated, and his face split into a wide, tongue-lolling grin. “You really want to know.”
“Well, yes. Oh, and could whoever’s pointing that gun at me be very careful not to rest a claw on the fire preheat button? The 7000 series is still in development, and there’s a few glitches we haven’t ironed out yet, like overheating the capacitor and blowing the coil. If that happens, you’ll really annoy the Institute of Cartographers. They’ll have to redraw all the maps of the city.”
The director nodded at someone the PDF man couldn’t see. “It’s a long story,” he said.
“Oh good. I like stories.”
“Very well,” the director said. “One hundred million years ago …”
42
Novosibirsk
The probe designated Bob materialised in a dark alley. As soon as the beam lifted off him, he shook himself, assessed the immediate vicinity for threats, checked his weapons and transmitted a coded message to let the missile vehicle know he was down safely. Then he unclipped his omicron-band pulse scanner from his equipment belt and studied it carefully. Immediately, he found what he’d been looking for: Ostar power-wave signatures. They showed up as bright red splodges on a grey background. He narrowed the focus, superimposed a GPS grid and set the scanner to tracking mode.
Scanner in one hand, therion blaster in the other, he walked quickly through the streets. For some reason, humans he encountered took pains to keep out of his way. He took no interest in them, once he’d assessed their threat potential and dismissed it. In his mind, the mission statement wound in an endless loop: Locate and retrieve the probe designated Mark Twain; force level 5 authorised. It was a simple core for a functional existence, and he asked nothing more. At that moment, he was probably the most contented humanoid on the planet.
The PaySoft compound proved to be a large cluster of white buildings on the southern outskirts of the city. He paused on the nearest available high ground and ran a tactical analysis. Defence systems appeared to be negligible. He noted the extensive area of grass and flowering plants that stood where his strategic database suggested minefields, force curtains and blaster-emplacements towers should have been. Because it wasn’t what he’d been expecting, he took a moment to run a search-and-analyse program. But the grass was just grass, the flowering plants harboured nothing in the way of biogenic nerve toxins or hyperallergenic pollen; defensive capability nil, he noted, and dismissed them. There was a flimsy wire fence with a modest electric current running through the top strand; one shot from the therion blaster would melt the wire and break the circuit. There was a sentinel beam, but if he broke it and set off the alarm, so what? Men with primitive projectile weapons would come running, but the worst they could do would be to tickle him, a level-2 threat to his gravitas and dignity but no physical danger whatsoever. In any event, there was a gate in the wire, manned by a single unarmed human. He could simply walk in.
He did just that. The unarmed guard smiled politely at him and asked if he could help him. The probe designated Bob considered his request.
“Your assistance is not required,” he replied. “This probe is adequate.”
The guard kept smiling. “Who was it you wanted to see?” he asked.
“I seek the type-6 probe designated Mark Twain,” Bob replied. It could see no reason to lie.
“Sorry, didn’t quite catch that. The type what?”
The probe designated Bob ran a swift efficiency analysis. It would be efficient not to have to use violence. On the other hand, prolonged verbal interaction would cause delay and possible unforeseen complications. He ran a cultural-database search to see if there was anything he could do, any social amenity or culturally approved ritual, to ameliorate the disruptive effects of initiating violence. Match found.
“Six,” he replied, and bashed the guard on the head. As the guard groaned
and dropped to the ground, he added, “Have a nice day.”
He paused and scanned to see if his initiation of violence had significantly altered the strategic position, but nobody seemed to have noticed. A young human female in a tracksuit jogged past him and smiled. He walked on.
He found the building the signal was coming from without difficulty and paused to check for hidden threats. There were surveillance cameras, but he couldn’t care less about them. The door was locked, and could only be opened with the appropriate access code. He spent a thousandth of a second debating whether to hack the lock with a spider protocol or kick the door down. The spider seemed the safer option. He ran it, and the door swung open.
A too-easy alert triggered an anxiety protocol, and he hesitated. The missile vehicle had reason to believe that the Mark One missile had been neutralised by Dirter defence technology, but had been unable to identify such technology; therefore, it stood to reason, Dirters had advanced defensive capabilities, but they were too advanced or too alien to show up on standard Ostar investigative scans. Since the building he was about to enter was the operations centre of the biggest and most important IT and communications hub on the planet, it was unthinkable that the defences consisted of nothing more than CCTV, a locked door and a polite, ineffectual gate guard. The fact that he hadn’t encountered the defences yet didn’t mean they weren’t there. The next step, the one that would take him over the threshold of the hub building, was the most likely to bring him into contact with the best Dirt had to offer.
He ran that past himself one more time. These creatures would appear to have knocked out a R’wfft-class missile. Logic would suggest that he was about to enter one of the most heavily guarded locations on the planet.
Um, he thought.
He ran through the various strategic and tactical options available to him, taking account of his offensive and defensive status, his operational assets and the intelligence and archived data relevant to the current situation. His option-selection subroutines identified the likeliest optimum course of action. Implement, he ordered.