Empire & Ecolitan

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  XL

  “FINE. WE’VE GOT hulls for another fifteen needleboats. We’ve got drives and basic screen units. And no controls and no jump units.” Jimjoy looked at Mera, then at the console blinking back at him.

  The small office, with two consoles side by side and its single ventilator and rough-melted gray mineral walls, smelled of ozone, oil, and stale Ecolitans.

  The apprentice who had just recently been a fourth-year student looked back at the Ecolitan professor. “Not bad, considering how little time we’ve had.”

  “Right,” he snorted. “Except that without the micros for the screens and the grav-field controls, all we have is well-designed junk. There’s still no response from the Institute. If we had just two lousy chip bloc machines…”

  Jimjoy stood up and glared at the console, as if it were the nonresponsive Institute. He shrugged. “Going over to the magic shop.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “Whenever…whenever.”

  “Don’t forget that fax cube.”

  “Oh—thanks.” Jimjoy picked up the cube he had made for Jorje. For the past day it had rested on the console because he had kept forgetting to send it.

  “Do you think Jason can do it?”

  “I can hope.” He shrugged again, then lowered his head to clear the hatch, easing it shut behind him.

  His boots echoed in the empty corridor, the sound bouncing from the melted rock beneath to the melted borehole walls and back again. This latest addition to Thalos station had not been developed with long-term comfort in mind, but with cobbled-together equipment as a manufacturing/staging/facility.

  While some of the Impies had probably learned the Institute had hidden facilities off Accord, trying to locate and neutralize them without an in-system base would require more resources than they could afford, not to mention better intelligence. Not even Harlinn knew exactly where the new facility was located.

  Jimjoy looked back over his shoulder. Mera had not left his/their office.

  At irregular intervals, hatchlocks punctuated the corridor. Jimjoy entered the third hatch on the right, south of his office. Inside, before a small console from which ran a handful of silvery cables, sat a youngster with short, nearly stubbly black hair. He did not look up from the console, which displayed a three-dimensional circuit bloc design.

  Jimjoy watched as the bloc was rotated on the screen, broken apart, and reconfigured. Finally, he coughed.

  “Oh—Professor!”

  “Jason.” Jimjoy inclined his head. “Any luck?”

  “Yes and no. I think I can adapt standard fax transceivers and an obscure design probe, plus other assorted junk, into a screen controller…or a reasonable facsimile thereof.”

  “But we only have enough of that stuff for one or two boats?”

  “Maybe three—if the shop doesn’t make any fabrication errors.”

  “Forget that.”

  Jason nodded slowly.

  “What about grav-field and jump units?”

  “Do we need grav-fields on all the boats?”

  Jimjoy pursed his lips. “Probably not. But that means heavier hulls and more reliance on the screens.”

  “We can design around that.”

  “The jump units?”

  “That’s the hardest. I can build one from the subcomponents, but I don’t know enough and we don’t have the documentation to redesign from other stuff.”

  “I was afraid of that. Who makes them?”

  “Veletar, Osmux…”

  “That’s Imperial?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where do Halston and the Fuards get theirs?”

  Jason shrugged.

  “If I can ever get the grounders to answer, I’ll see what we can find out. Can you rebuild faulty units?”

  “If the two central blocs are intact. Those you don’t play with.”

  “Maybe we can find a good scrap merchant…” Jimjoy took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Thanks, Jason. Go ahead and cannibalize anything extra to get two of the new boats semioperational.”

  “What about Ecolitan Imri?”

  “I’ll talk to Imri.” Jimjoy repressed another sigh. The mining/research station commander was not going to be too happy. Then again, she’d be less than happy if an Imperial fleet were to plow through the system.

  He shrugged as he bent over again and left Jason in front of his screen, designing another way to accomplish the impossible.

  XLI

  THE TALL MAN eased the laser into position, readjusting the settings.

  Hssstttt…

  Nodding, he eased the laser into the next position, resetting the equipment, wishing he could shake his head, but not daring to. The basic equipment was good, but precision microcontrollers would have made the job easier—much easier. The Institute had never considered Thalos as a mainline production facility, only as a source of those few raw materials not easily available on Accord—and mainly for orbital or outsystem use.

  All the controls and microblocs had been produced planetside or imported. Now the imports weren’t possible, and microengineering equipment was scarce, even for the few independents that dared circumvent the Imperial embargo.

  Hsssssttt…

  He continued the laborious process until the two sections were welded together. After carrying the assembly to the storage area, he began the equally laborious process of storing and racking the laser and the welding heads. The morning shift would be arriving shortly and one more unit would help—some, at least.

  With a last look at the equipment, he slipped on the more formal green tunic he would need for the rest of the morning.

  He shrugged as he eased out through the crude lock into the main section of Thalos Base.

  “Good morning, Professor.”

  He looked up sheepishly at Mera. “Good morning, Mera.”

  “A little midnight welding? Along with the twilight electronics? Or the lunchtime power systems?”

  “Not midnight, just early morning. They needed a little help.”

  She shook her head, then turned and left him standing there. Mera did not argue, but left her position clear, quite clear, without ever raising her voice.

  He took a deep breath and let his feet carry him toward the mess. His stomach growled, reminding him that he had not eaten since…had it been the afternoon before?

  If they only had micros, or chipbuilders, or—But why not ask for an entire fleet? The needleboats would be fine for delivering biologicals, if they got the biologicals, if they could build the boats. If…if…if…He shook his head angrily.

  He’d sent two messengers to Thelina, and still no answer. No answer at all, but he couldn’t leave yet, not until the standard defenses were functioning and the station had managed to damp all EDI detectable radiation.

  He slowed as he approached the mess, his steps dropping to a mere quickstep. His stomach added another sound effect to the echo of his boots.

  “Morning, Professor,” called a voice. Gilman, about to become an apprentice and another member of the needleboat framing crew, waved as he headed back in the direction from which Jimjoy had come.

  “Good morning, Gilman.”

  This time he pulled at his chin, then ducked to step into the mess-room. Most tables were empty this early.

  On the heat counter were various hydroponics. No synthetics. The Institute did not supply synthetics. You ate real food of some sort. Better real dried kelp than tasty synthetic beef.

  Jimjoy chose real and dry muffins with a large dollop of pear-apple preserves, a slice of cheese that seemed more holes than cheese, and an empty mug. Carrying the mug to the beverage table, he filled it with old-fashioned tea, a variety even more bitter than liftea, and scooped in enough sugar to rouse departed dieticians from graves parsecs away.

  He sat at the end of an unoccupied table.

  “Good morning, Professor.”

  His mouth full, Jimjoy only nodded to the stocky man who eased himself into a chai
r to Jimjoy’s right.

  “How is your needleboat project coming?”

  Jimjoy took a sip of the tea, so bitter that even a mug saturated with sugar could not remove the edge. “Well as expected.”

  “Do you really think needleboats can defend us against a fleet?”

  “We can build needleboats. Can’t build cruisers. No one’s selling any these days, not that I know of.” The muffin crunched as he bit into it and sprayed crumbs over the green cloth covering the table.

  “Do you think the Impies will attack Thalos or Accord first?”

  Jimjoy shrugged as he devoured the second dry muffin.

  “They say you were once an Impie. Is that true?”

  Jimjoy stuffed the hole-filled cheese into his mouth, wishing Thelina would send the equipment he wanted, and wishing Imri’s deputy would stop making a practice of quizzing him at meals. “Yes. I’ve also been a Fuard, a Halstani, a true-believer, and a Swartician.”

  “A Swartician? Where…”

  “On Swartis, of course.” Jimjoy almost smiled. As far as he knew, there was no Swartis system. He stood. “Have a good day, Ecolitan Ferbel.”

  Now all he had to do was figure out how to get hold of three dozen jump units. Too bad you couldn’t fit people in torps…

  He dashed toward Jason and the magic shop. The micros had to be the same, and that was what they needed, not all the power and hardware connections. At least that was what he hoped, but Jason would know, and three dozen torps, or even ten dozen, shouldn’t be impossible to find. Obsolete ones might do as well, might even allow them to develop new torps.

  XLII

  “GO AHEAD, ECOLITAN.” The shuttle copilot, doubling as disembarking officer, nodded.

  Raw damp air gusted into the shuttle, and the copilot edged toward the protection of the corridor to the control area as she continued to watch the handful of passengers—virtually all Ecolitans—line up to file out. The single exception was a woman nearly two meters tall, wearing the beige and blue of the Halstani diplomatic corps. She stood halfway into the control area, talking to the shuttle pilot.

  Jimjoy stepped onto the landing stage. He had carefully avoided the Halstani diplomat, and his tactics team had not volunteered his role, other than as an Institute instructor. Jimjoy’s hands were empty as he glanced across the white ferrocrete—almost grayish in the winter light—before heading down the half a dozen wide steps from the shuttle.

  Thelina—why hadn’t he heard from her? Before he had left for Thalos, she said she would let him know when he should return planetside. That had been nearly three tendays earlier, and he’d heard nothing. He pulled at his chin, continuing to study the port area as he reached the bottom of the shuttle steps.

  Roughly thirty meters in front of the port terminal, a single figure paced slowly back and forth on the pavement. Beyond the terminal waited several groundcars painted green, and a sole commercial taxi.

  Two flitters with Institute insignia rested on the ferrocrete. One was for Jimjoy, but he did not head directly toward either, but toward the terminal and the Ecolitan in greens. Even with the Empire’s blockade on Imperially based traffic, there should have been more activity.

  The man in greens turned toward Jimjoy.

  Jimjoy took in the deliberately slow steps, caught sight of the face, took a step left, then dived into a roll right, pulling the knife from his belt.

  …hsssstttt…

  Thrummm…thrummm…

  Whunnk…thud…

  EEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…The shuttle’s siren began to scream.

  Jimjoy covered the remaining open space between him and the nearest flitter in a zigzagging and irregular sprint, ignoring the woman in greens with the knife in her chest and the stunner by her outstretched hand. A woman dressed deliberately like a man.

  The flitter pilot already had the turbines turning by the time Jimjoy threw himself through the crew hatch.

  “Lift it!” Jimjoy cranked the crew door shut from a prone position. Had someone already gotten to Thelina?

  “Yes, ser. Lifting!”

  Jimjoy finished cranking the crew door as the rotors began their regular thwop, thwop. Then he eased up into the space between the pilot and copilot.

  The pilot, a chunky black woman with “Iananillis” stenciled on her flight suit, lifted the flitter, asking without looking at him, “What next?”

  Jimjoy glanced at the copilot, a thin, sallow-faced younger man with limp black hair. His name patch was blank, but Jimjoy noted the partly unsealed flap of the right thigh pocket.

  “Field unit three?” he asked Iananillis, suspecting the worst.

  “Yes, ser. Do you have a destination?”

  “The Institute will be fine…for now.” He looked at the copilot. “Jimjoy Whaler, Tactics.” He had raised his voice almost to a shout to override the sound of the turbines and to penetrate their flight helmets.

  Both a knife and a stunner were in his hands, so quickly that neither pilot had seen them appear.

  “Set it down! There!”

  Iananillis looked at Jimjoy, then at the other pilot, her hand tightening around the throttles.

  Crack!

  Her face paled as she looked at her suddenly limp hand, wrist fractured from the unbladed edge of the knife.

  “Don’t try it.” He doubted that either heard his words, but both respected the weapons. Either that or the look on his face. His head nodded toward the pad at the end of the shuttleport. “There! Now!”

  Iananillis glanced at her copilot, who gingerly took the controls and began a slow flare into the pad.

  Jimjoy grinned. In the other’s place, he would have done exactly the same.

  Thwop…thwop, thwop, thwop…

  As the flitter settled onto its gear, Jimjoy’s hands touched the harness locks. “Out…leave the helmets…”

  The unnamed copilot left holding his ear. Jimjoy had been rougher than necessary in insisting that his helmet remain with the flitter.

  Before the two had cleared the rotor path, Jimjoy had the pilot’s helmet in place, although it was tighter than he would have liked, even with two of the shim pads quickly sliced out. Harness in place, he torqued up the turbines.

  “Greenpax one, terminus. What is your destination?”

  “Terminus, one here. Lifting for Diaplann.”

  “Understand Diaplann.”

  “Stet.”

  Jimjoy kept the flitter low, below two hundred meters, and well clear of the shuttleport, noting as he circled south that both the former pilots of his flitter were running toward the terminal and waving at the second flitter.

  Diaplann was southwest of Harmony. Although Jimjoy did not intend to go there, he eased the flitter into a southwesterly course and began a transition into full thrust and rotor retraction.

  As the turbine whine increased and the forest-green flitter screamed over the southwest highway, he began to cross-check the course line for the Institute against the rising hills beneath him. Harmony sat farther north of the mountains than did the Institute, even though they were at roughly the same latitude, because the range curved gently south about fifty kays east of the Institute.

  Once he got beyond the first hills, his course line would change.

  He shook his head, automatically increasing altitude to maintain his ground clearance. Seeing Sabatini in greens at the shuttleport, dressed as a journeyman and carrying a stunner, was a good indication that Harlinn had made a decision, a very unofficial decision. The flitter pilots had just confirmed that. Earlier in the year, Thelina, Meryl, and Geoff—he winced at recalling Geoff—had begun to shift personnel in the field training divisions, partly on skills and partly on loyalties.

  None of them would have sent a pilot from field unit three. Unfortunately, that and Sabatini’s presence meant Harlinn had his own organization.

  Jimjoy smiled faintly. Nothing like a civil war within a revolution. He wondered if all revolutions were this messy.

  “Green
pax one, Greenpax one, this is Harmony control, Harmony control. Request your course line and elevation.”

  “Hades!” He dropped the flitter’s nose and inched up the throttles, leveling out less than fifty meters above the conifers on the rugged hillsides below. Still another ten kays before the first plateau lines.

  “Greenpax one, this is Harmony control. Request your location. Request your location.”

  He eased the flitter even lower, not that Harmony control had ground-to-air missiles. He’d checked that out earlier. But he didn’t know who controlled Harmony control at the moment.

  In fact, stupid as it sounded upon reflection, he didn’t know who controlled what. Accord was so libertarian—so disorganized—that once you got beyond basic principles of liberty, it was difficult to get more than a small group to agree on any specifics. Any good revolutionary was going to have to sell his or her wares under basic principles and avoid discussing specifics, or be discussing specifics still when the first Imperial fleet arrived.

  Underneath the flitter flashed a narrow road. The conifers began to thin, showing reddish sandstone as the hills steepened. Beyond the tabletop mesa covered with native gold grass and scattered ferril thorns, conifers, and bare red sand, the ground dipped into the transverse interrange valley. The valley stretched northwest, eventually paralleling the Grand Highway, to a point twenty kays short of the Institute. Without detailed satellite coverage, which Accord didn’t possess, he would be virtually invisible to Harmony control for that part of the trip. They might guess, but they wouldn’t know.

  “Harmony control, terminus. Do you have a location on Greenpax one?”

  “That is a negative, terminus. Negative.”

  “Thank you, Harmony control.”

  Jimjoy smiled behind the dark plastic face shield of the too-tight helmet. That seemed to answer one question. The controller at the shuttleport was on his side, getting Harmony control to indicate they had no idea where he was headed. Either that…He shook his head. The possible mind games weren’t worth the effort. He’d know when he got to the Institute.