‘I am fifteen seconds out. There are armoured vehicles heading in your direction, but I will be there at least forty-three seconds before they arrive.’
‘Put down outside and prepare for immediate dust-off.’ Aneka turned the ring on the grenade she was holding to sixty seconds and then set three more before turning and walking swiftly towards the doors. Her cloaking system cut in on the second stride and she vanished from sight in a flicker of distorted light.
Gwy, 7.11.559 FSC.
Aneka watched from the flight chair as Gwy carefully manoeuvred herself into the hangar bay of a light wormhole carrier. The smaller transports were primarily designed for cargo and shuttles; sliding a larger vessel like Gwy into the bay and locking her down took precision and time. However, the smaller ships were also designed for more discreet insertions. The Elspans were not going to notice the cloaked vessels as they got ready to leave.
‘At least we’ll be back home soon,’ Aneka said, sighing. ‘It seems like years…’
‘A little over two hundred standard days,’ Gwy informed her. ‘Not even one year.’
‘I said it seems like years.’
‘Yes. Sorry, I’m concentrating.’
‘Gwy, you can perform routine operations while calculating pi to a billion places.’
‘I do not want any scratches on my hull when I see Aggy again.’
Aneka smirked. ‘No, of course not.’
‘Docking clamps are in place. Wormhole transition in one minute, seventeen seconds. I have received a message that Cassandra is aboard the transport and on her way down.’
Frowning, Aneka slipped out of her seat and started for the gravity lift at the back of the room. ‘Cassandra’s here but not Ella?’
‘Yes. Cassandra needs to speak with you, urgently.’
The tall, blonde android was as beautiful as ever, long legs on show thanks to the simple, white mini-dress she was wearing. The frown she was wearing was unlike her, however, and the fact that she did not immediately hug her friend and the host of her boyfriend tended to indicate that something was very wrong.
‘Cassandra,’ Aneka said as soon as the AI was out of the airlock, ‘what’s up? Winter doesn’t want me somewhere–’
‘We’re heading out from the Junction as soon as we get there, but it’s not for Winter,’ Cassandra interrupted. ‘You know that Ella was going to a dig on Lacora?’
‘It was in the final planning stages when I left.’
‘Yes. Something’s happened. The site was attacked. The Amethyst Hyde is out there now trying to determine exactly what happened, but… Ella’s missing.’
Aneka stared at her for a second and then looked up. ‘Gwy? Where’s that fucking wormhole?’
Lacora.
The camp facility which had been set up on Lacora was extensive. There was a mystery surrounding the planet, a mystery which had wiped out the native sentient species and two attempts at Human colonisation before and after the Xinti War. The base had been set up to prevent the same fate befalling those investigating it and, as far as Aneka could tell on first viewing, it had failed.
That impression lasted long enough for her to take in the damage properly. No form of natural disaster had hit the prefabricated structures. She could see impact points from particle beam weapons, evidence of explosives. Someone had attacked this place with fairly sophisticated weaponry. Someone from off-world.
Winter was there, standing in what appeared to be a ruined laboratory when Aneka found her. ‘I want everything shipped back to Shadataga for analysis,’ the AI was saying. ‘All of it. Maybe there’s something…’ She trailed off as she spotted Aneka. ‘We’re doing everything we can,’ she said.
‘I’m sure you are, but what do you have?’
‘Unfortunately, very little. Whoever is responsible for this went to a great deal of trouble to eliminate the evidence.’
Aneka looked around. Laboratory equipment lay on the floor, broken for the most part. What might once have been a computer server, the main processor for the base, looked like it had been broken open before someone set off a plasma grenade inside the case. There was blood on the walls…
‘You think you can get anything out of the computer?’
‘Unlikely,’ Winter admitted, ‘but we may be able to get scraps from the memory. We have the reports of their progress, but there was nothing indicating any problems before they missed their last check-in. I came out on the Hyde as soon as we failed to raise them.’
‘Cassandra said Ella was missing.’
‘We’ve identified all of the bodies. Ella is the only person unaccounted for. We’ve scanned the entire planet and there’s no sign of her.’
Aneka looked at her. ‘The only one? How many–’
‘Thirty-two. Several died in the initial attack, but most of them were executed. This was brutal, Aneka.’
‘Then why keep Ella alive? Never mind that. How much of a head start do they have?’
‘We think they were hit the day after their last check-in. The twenty-first–’
‘Sixteen days… They could be just about anywhere. Maximum of about fifty parsecs out, but that’s going to cover a lot of space.’
‘I would suggest more like thirty parsecs, but probably much closer. I don’t believe it was coincidence that the attack happened so soon after the check-in. I think they were being watched. It gave them almost ten days before we noticed–’
‘They were checking in every ten days? I normally set a five-day period for potentially dangerous sites.’
‘You were not here. Ian Devor was the lead facilitator. Was being the operative word. He was one of the ones we found executed.’
Aneka gave a grunt of displeasure. ‘Devor? How did that sloppy bastard get this?’
‘Ella requested him,’ Bashford stated as he walked into the room. He came in through a wall: using the door seemed pointless. ‘I know you don’t like him, but she seemed to get on with him well enough and he’s not as incompetent as you think. Besides, you were busy.’
Aneka looked around and then back at the bald, muscular Head of Vocational Training. ‘I’m going to reserve judgement on his competence until you’ve worked out how this happened.’
Bashford gave a slight shrug as though conceding the point and then said, ‘This was a military operation. If you’d been here… maybe, but…’ He turned to look at Winter. ‘Have you told her what happened to this building?’
‘No. It was a missile strike, we think. Tore open the side and killed at least three people. It also hurt Ella. We found blood, but no body so–’
‘Ella’s tough,’ Aneka stated flatly. ‘We made her tough. What’s the plan?’
‘We’ve combed every inch of this place,’ Winter stated. ‘I’m having the entire facility boxed up and taken back to Shadataga. We’ll recreate it there and go over it with everything we have.’
Aneka nodded sullenly. ‘Where are the bodies?’
‘On the Hyde,’ Bashford said. ‘What’s left of them anyway.’
‘I want to see them.’
Amethyst Hyde.
Each of the corpses from Lacora had been sealed into an individual container and placed in one of the Hyde’s cargo bays, and even then the only reason Aggy was allowing Aneka in to see them was that she was immune to every known viral and bacterial agent.
‘This… looks unnervingly familiar,’ Aneka said as she looked down at the twisted shape through its casing. There was a crystalline shimmer to the skin, as though something had skimmed the body over with silica.
‘Ella believed the agent which killed the Lacorans was the original virus upon which the Chuck Virus was based,’ Aggy replied. She was a hologram, standing beside Aneka as much to give her company as for information.
‘Shit. Thirty years on and that’s still coming back to haunt us. I thought that was artificial, based on Xinti tech?’
‘It is. Artificial anyway. This is a simpler nanovirus than the one we’ve met before. Someone enhan
ced its capabilities and made it more species specific. This one affects more or less any organic life form, aside from plant life.’
‘Why the Hell would someone make something like that? Uh, that was rhetorical. I know why.’
‘Indeed. Warfare. Our own nanotechnology was keeping it off the researchers while they were alive, but when they died it began eating. It seems that it simply converts the body into a viral production machine rather than a chuck. These bodies are showing minimal signs of biological activity even now, but it seems that converting a corpse is not effective. Still, we’ll need to ensure the virus is dead before we can perform proper burials.’
Aneka nodded. ‘Lena Freemont. She was only seventy. Younger than Ella was when I first met her…’
‘You’ll find her, Aneka. I have every confidence in you doing so.’
Aneka looked at the golden woman standing beside her and nodded again, more slowly this time. ‘I’m going to have to take Gwy away from you again. Sorry.’
‘I know.’
‘You’ll have tonight. I need to review a few options. I can’t run off hunting for her without somewhere to start.’
‘No, of course not. I have assessed the situation and sent the most probable targets to Gwy for your consideration.’
‘Thank you. Fast work.’
‘Not really. As soon as we found out Ella was missing, I knew you would be going after her. None of us expect you to sit around and wait.’
Aneka managed a bleak smile. ‘I’m that obvious?’
‘Under the circumstances, yes.’
‘Al,’ Aneka said silently, ‘you’d better make sure you’ve said farewell to Cassandra–’
‘If you honestly believe she won’t be coming with us,’ her AI interrupted, ‘then I’m going to have to believe that worry is incapacitating you to an unacceptable degree.’
Gwy.
‘I love her too,’ Cassandra stated firmly, ‘and you will need all the help you can get to find her.’ She was looking calm, but determined, and Aneka had already figured out that there would be no dissuading her, but she had to try…
‘But–’
‘And I have been apart from my own love for quite long enough. Not wishing to make this sound like a hopeless task, it could require months of searching to find Ella and I am unwilling to be separated from Al for that long when there is no need. I am coming too.’
To emphasise the point, the android settled her head on Al’s shoulder. She was perched on his lap on the bed in Gwy’s cabin. It had the advantage of privacy, if you discounted the fact that Gwy would tell Aggy what had transpired. Since everyone seemed to consider what was going to happen a foregone conclusion, that did not seem like an issue.
‘I have already made the necessary arrangements,’ Cassandra went on. ‘Everything is covered. My students have been allocated new tutors. Other lecturers can handle my timetable. I started arranging everything as soon as I heard she was missing.’ She shifted slightly, her brow wrinkling a little. ‘There is something… I debated whether I should say anything, but keeping it secret seems… wrong.’
Aneka raised an eyebrow. ‘Cassandra?’
‘Ella was having an affair.’
‘Oh.’
Cassandra’s frown deepened. ‘You do not seem particularly shocked.’
‘I… Maybe later. There were signs. When she came back from the planning trip to Lacora she was behaving… There was something not right. Hindsight suggests guilt. Please tell me it wasn’t Devor.’
‘Uh…’
‘No wonder she was going behind my back! Damn, I thought she had taste! Cheating on me is one thing, but Devor… Jesus.’
‘Does this change–’
‘Of course not!’ Aneka shook her head. ‘We’ve been together, what? Thirty years, give or take. We were both getting complacent. I should have done something when I noticed she hadn’t complained about me wearing clothes she couldn’t see my boobs through.’
‘Aneka, it’s not like you overdress…’
‘Huh. Maybe not, but… Anyway, no, we’re still going to go find her, and then I can ask her when her standards dropped to rock bottom.’
Part Two: Standards
Lacora, 21.10.559 FSC.
Ella looked at the morose face in front of her. The green eyes looked sad and she was convinced there were worry lines showing on the brow. It was not good.
‘Your standards have dropped alarmingly, girl,’ she said. ‘The stress is getting to you as well. You’re distracted. Your work is slipping. Pull yourself together or you’re going home. Clear?’
There was no answer, of course, and she turned from the little mirror hung over her sink and headed back into her bedroom to get dressed. She was going to pull herself together and get on with her job. Breaking up with Ian had been the right thing to do, even if he was still trying to persuade her otherwise. Now she just needed to stick by her decision, get the job done and hope she got back to Shadataga before Aneka did. Because if Aneka got there first, she would come straight out to Lacora to do two things: see how Ella was doing and rip Ian a new one for his project plan. And if that happened it would all come out in… She decided to describe it as ‘an uncontrolled manner’ even if that sounded far too clinical. Sometimes being a psychologist was a pain.
Dressed in a light environment suit, she let herself out through the airlock and started across the camp’s square to the main laboratory. The camp was set up on four sides of an open central area which they used for parking vehicles and storing non-essential equipment. The prefabricated buildings were not linked, you had to exit one to enter another, and the airlocks were there to keep the world’s atmosphere out, originally. They had discovered that the viral agent which seemed endemic to the world was carried in water, so now the airlocks were only required because Lacora’s atmosphere was thin, breathable, but thin enough that it left you breathless if you had to exert yourself. At least a full helmet was not required for short-term exposure.
Ian appeared at her side as she walked and her spirits sank. It was stupid, and annoying. A few weeks earlier she had felt exhilarated whenever she saw him, attracted. He was easily fifty years her junior, handsome, with a full head of blue-black hair and piercing, blue eyes. His body was firmly muscled and he was tall, and lying in his arms had been a thrill. He had been so… enthusiastic. He had been something fresh and new, and…
‘I was wondering whether we could have a drink tonight and talk–’
‘No,’ Ella interrupted him.
‘You haven’t even heard what I want to talk about.’ And there was the thing which had convinced her she was right to break off their relationship. He sounded like a sulking child. There was a whining quality, a hint of recrimination; he was a teenager given the codes to a fast grav-speeder who considers it unfair when they are taken away again. He had been so attentive on the planning mission, but when she had started up with him again after Aneka had left… It was a lot like he had decided he had got the prize and did not need to put in the effort any more.
‘I know exactly what you want to talk about, and you already know what my answer will be. Now pull yourself together or I’ll be requesting a new lead facilitator on the next check-in call.’
He stopped and she kept on walking, trying not to hunch her shoulders or show too much tension. She was still not sure she could do that to him. This was his first big operation as leader and sending him back early would break him, but she had a feeling Bash’s evaluation of his work would not exactly include glowing praise… Then again, she had been the one pushing for him to run the mission. She had seen him and wanted him to be there, and she had ignored his lack of experience for the opportunity of a fling. Stupid, stupid… Aneka had never liked the man, and Ella had the horrible feeling that part of the reason he had been so keen on the affair was a desire to hurt Aneka.
The lab’s airlock finished its cycle and Ella stepped through into the room. Lena Freemont was there, peering through a binocular
microscope and chewing on the end of a stylus. She liked writing notes by hand for some reason rather than using a neural transcriber or dictation. Ella allowed her the eccentricity since her work was excellent and the computers still managed to decipher the scratchings Lena made.
‘Anything new and exciting?’ Ella asked.
Lena lifted her head, blinked and then smiled. ‘Nothing really… Oh! Well, there was one thing. A bit strange and not exactly new, more like ancient.’
‘You’re being more than usually opaque, Lena.’
‘I’ve been running the protein sequences through the databases, yes?’
Ella nodded. ‘You sequenced the proteins used to construct the viral machines and you were having the computer see if it could find anything similar in the biological databases.’
‘Uh-huh. You were paying attention. I wondered as you looked distracted when I told you.’
‘Yes, well, that’s in the past, and I assume you’ve got a result.’
‘Several, but most of them I discounted.’
‘Because?’
‘Fragmentary elements of much larger structures. Only one protein matched when the virus has several structures. But two of the matches came back with wider similarities. One is the nanovirus you encountered on Eshebbon. As I indicated earlier. I now have a more thorough analysis. The two share about sixty per cent of their functional proteins.’
Ella’s face straightened and she pushed back an urge to evacuate the planet immediately. ‘The other one?’
‘That’s the really weird one. It’s a seventy-two per cent match… to the virus which the Xinti fell victim to. I need to run more tests, but I’d put money on this place being the original home of the virus that forced the Xinti into artificial bodies.’
‘Gopi! Are we safe? That virus was supposed to be–’
‘Some of the differences would make the Xinti virus more virulent and harder to isolate, and we have a few generations of advancement on the Xinti. The countermeasures we have are way better. We’re safe. Though…’
‘Lena?’
‘Well, even with the mutations… I took a good look at the Xinti virus when the match came up. I don’t get how they failed to stop it. I don’t get how these machines mutated into that form either. It’s almost like someone did it on purpose and then decided not to put their best efforts into countering it.’
Aneka Jansen 7: Hope Page 2