Nathan said, “Everything else is open to attack? Is that what you’re saying?”
The skinny brunette heel-and-toed her way carefully along the central aisle from one of the rear sections. Neither Devis nor Kenzy paid her much attention as she passed through, though afterwards when Kenzy thought about it she realized that the young woman had walked with a movement that was practised but not expert, as if she’d done it before but never for real. She wondered too if that was why the announcement was not a total surprise.
“There is a message for passenger Wilberforce.” The computer voice was as bland as ever. “Will passenger Wilberforce report to the flight deck, please. Passenger Wilberforce to the flight deck, please.”
“What’s the matter?” Devis asked, as Kenzy stirred in her seat. She was frowning. “That’s a security code,” she said.
“What is?”
“‘Wilberforce’.”
“You sure?”
“Crime in progress,” she said.
“‘Passenger Wilberforce to the flight deck’? Christ, you know what that sounds like, don’t you?” said Devis.
Kenzy said, “Nobody hijacks these things. Where the fuck is there to go?”
“Rich boy makes good again,” Devis said, more or less to himself.
“There it is.” Chandri extracted the speck from the control system and placed it in the analyzer beam. He watched the screen for a moment, and then said, “As I thought. It is silicon. Old fashioned, uncomplicated, robust. A chip which sits in the door lock, waiting for a code message to activate it. The code is Blake’s poem, a line from which prompts the chip to use power from the unit to send programming instructions to the main computer down this.” He indicated an optical fibre. “One of my father’s innovations was a simple, control interface between his lock and any computer.”
“It’s an old fashioned virus programme?” Nathan asked.
Chandri inclined his head in a small nod. “It kills the computer and then it self-destructs with a second line from the poem.” He looked up. “Elegant.” His tone asked for approval.
Devis had released himself from the seat harness and drifted upwards to peer round the section. “What sort of security have they got on this thing?” he asked.
“What do you think?” Kenzy said pulling the gun case from the under seat locker and unclipping the laser pistol.
Devis tugged himself down. “No reaction so far,” he said, and then he saw the pistol. “Christ, how did you get that on board?”
“I used my Star Cop ID.”
“That’s been cancelled.” She shrugged and adjusted the setting on the pistol. He nodded. “The lazy bastards didn’t bother to check, did they? You know impersonating a police officer is an offence.”
“Yeah, I was worried about that.”
He held out his hand. “I’ll take the gun, Kenzy.”
“Go fuck yourself,” she said, concealing the pistol carefully in the knee pouch of her coveralls.
“You’ve got no official standing here,” he said.
She pushed out of her seat, floated neatly past him and tugged herself down onto the aisle’s Velcro strip. “Your standing’s pretty shaky too by the look of it. I’m the one with the experience in zero-G.”
Devis knew that arguing would be a waste of time – and anyway, she was right. “Okay,” he said, “but we’ve got to decide what we’re going to do.”
“What do you expect me to do?” Nathan asked.
“Crimes have been committed,” Chandri said. “A railway tunnel, a chemical complex, airports. People have been killed.”
Nathan looked at him steadily, and said, “To what end, Dr. Chandri?”
“Soon, perhaps, someone will say ‘do as we tell you or more people will die’.”
“And how did you find all this out?”
Chandri began to rummage through the drawers of his desk. “It was the last thing our intelligent listening system discovered.”
Nathan nodded. “Before that virus programme got in and destroyed your machines?”
“Yes.”
It was time, Nathan thought, to confront him. He had led him as far towards confession as he could, now he had to accuse. “No,” Nathan said flatly.
Chandri straightened up and pointed a laser pistol at him. “Yes,” he said equally flatly.
Devis and Kenzy slid the curtain aside just enough to get a look into the next section. Passengers were stretching and relaxing much as they themselves had been doing before the security alert. Devis set his face in a scowl and then folded the curtain back with a flourish. As he began to heel-and-toe his way through, he glanced back over his shoulder and said in a loud voice, “I don’t care what your ticket said, madam, that berth is mine.”
Following behind him Kenzy snarled theatrically, “I’m not going to argue with you, no-neck. Let’s just find us a flight attendant and they can sort it out.”
No-one in the section showed them anything more than casual curiosity. If the hijackers had left anyone on watch, they obviously weren’t this far back from the action.
“Why could you not just take my word and go?” Chandri asked. “I suppose you knew all along that the intelligent listening project was a failure.” He was having difficulty holding the gun on Nathan while tapping in the verse line that he needed.
And –
Nathan tried to edge closer. “The information you gave us was what the military had given you wasn’t it? They wanted you to find that anarchist group as a demonstration of your progress.”
– his –
Chandri gestured him back with the gun. “But we had made none,” he said. “I had the briefest hope that you might buy us a little time.”
“Dr. Chandri, this is pointless,” Nathan said, trying to keep the tension out of his voice. “I mean, how would you explain all this if one of your project team walked in right now?”
– dark –
Chandri stopped touching out the code and switched on the screen links with the rest of the outpost. In various work cubicles what had been four men and three women were sprawled and stiffening. Most of them had been shot in the back. “You did that?” Nathan asked and when Chandri did not reply asked, “Why did you do that?”
“I had no choice. I knew what they thought. They had begun to question my authority.” Chandri returned his attention to loading the code.
“Is that why you bugged them?” Nathan asked sharply, hoping to get his full attention. “Bugged coveralls? A bit paranoid that, surely?”
Chandri looked up, surprised. “You knew about that?”
“Of course. You were right. I didn’t come here because of your personnel file. We know all about you and what you’ve done.” It sounds thin, Nathan thought, he’s a long way from sane, but he’s further from stupid… keep talking. “The engineers who installed those chips for you are being arrested right now.”
“I installed them myself. And I tracked the consignments.”
You don’t lie with specifics, you idiot, he’s not stupid, keep talking, “Tokyo makes them responsible.”
But Chandri had already gone back to the code.
– secret –
“Why are you doing this?” Nathan almost shouted. “It can’t be because you’re afraid of failure.”
Chandri looked up again and smiled. “But I won’t fail, don’t you see? There are already rumours linking what has happened in the tunnel with the chemical plant and the airports. A conspiracy is suspected.”
“So they’ve asked you to find the conspirators,” Nathan said, the realization clear in his voice, “I see.”
“Do you also see that when my computers are destroyed in an identical way it will prove that we found what we were looking for. We found the worm and it killed us
. It will prove that we were a success.”
“And at the same time, eliminate all evidence of failure. Bravo.” Nathan clapped ironically. “Your father would be proud of you. If he didn’t already know what a pathetic and feeble failure you are and if he wasn’t already deeply disappointed in you.”
Chandri looked stricken. He lowered the pistol. Then, as pain turned to rage and he raised his aim again, Nathan jumped at him and grabbed the hand holding the pistol and slammed it down onto the desk top and held it there while he punched and smashed furiously at Chandri’s wrist and arm. When Chandri’s hold loosened Nathan stopped hitting and wrenched the pistol away from him. He stepped back breathing hard. “Right,” he said. “Enough of this shit.”
Ignoring him Chandri completed the code line.
– love –
“Every system in this outpost,” he said, “is linked to my computers. When they die…” He made a small gesture with his hands like releasing a bird – and then, before Nathan could react, he cued the transmission signal.
In the reception chamber the normal function indicator on the airlock hatch flickered.
Nathan tugged at Chandri’s arm in a vain attempt to get him to his feet. “We have to get out of here. If the control systems do fail, explosive decompression will take this place apart.” Chandri leaned back in his chair like a wayward child. “You are too late, Commander Spring,” he muttered stubbornly.
Nathan reached past him and keyed the main control. “Open the surface access lock,” he instructed. “Security computer, open the cargo bay surface access lock.” There was no acknowledgement from the machine and he watched in horror as on the monitor screen was flashed up: And – his – dark – secret – love – each word fading into the next.
Without warning, Chandri snatched at the pistol and pulled it to him, holding it against his chest. Nathan felt his soft fingers pluck at the trigger. The flash was barely discernible even when Chandri dragged the muzzle across his chest cutting through tissue and bone, puncturing his lungs, searing his heart.
“I count three,” Kenzy whispered.
Devis looked over her shoulder. There were three that he could see; two men and a woman. One of the men was talking over the bulkhead communicator to the flight crew, obviously demanding access to the control deck, which – equally obviously – he was not about to get. The second man was watching the silent passengers in the crowded section. Devis swayed around, trying to see more through the tiny crack in the curtain. His view was obscured and he couldn’t see what exactly was happening. What did these scumbags have to negotiate with? Why was everyone so still and silent? “I can’t see any weapons,” he murmured. As he said this, the man at the communicator gestured angrily at the girl, and she hauled a female flight attendant into view, and shoved some sort of transparent blade at her throat. So that was it. “I bet the security scanners don’t look for glass.”
“The operatives should,” Kenzy breathed.
Devis smiled. “Nobody’s perfect. You of all people should know that,” he said softly, and thought, but one crystal blade’s not enough for all this attention.
Nathan shambled with clumsy haste down the corridor. He couldn’t control-hop, and his attempts to run bounced him against the sides, and stumbled him onto his knees. The spacesuit was hot and awkward and he was already breathing hard and sweating. Around him, the lights dimmed briefly and then brightened again. Was it real or was it just the sweat dripping into his eyes?
He reached the reception chamber and pressed the airlock hatch release. Nothing. He pressed it again, and without waiting to see the result, turned away and crossed to where he had left his gauntlets and helmet. He struggled to push his shaking hands into the stiff gloves. Calm, he thought, be calm. He fumbled at the first of the wrist seals. He was desperate to turn and look and see whether the hatch had opened. Pointless. If it hadn’t, he was dead anyway. If it had and he couldn’t get these fucking gloves on, he was dead anyway. “Stop it!” he said aloud. “Stop thinking like that, and get the fuck on with it!” The lights dimmed. This time there was no doubt about it.
Devis flexed his neck and took a couple of deep breaths. “You ready?”
Kenzy nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Devis started forward then paused and looked back at her. “And listen,” he said softly, “don’t bother with any of that ‘armed police officer, drop your weapons’ bullshit, right? Just shoot the fuckers.”
She held the pistol vertically in front of her in the ready position, and nodded again.
Devis took a last peek at what was going on. The frightened flight attendant was talking into the communicator.
At the third attempt, Nathan sealed the second gauntlet. The lights were bright again. And getting brighter. He lifted the helmet, ducked his head into it, slotted it home. He switched on the suit systems, glanced at the telltales, all green, he was ready, he had to turn now, and look, and see if he was dead. He turned. The airlock hatch was still closed.
Devis pushed his way past the curtain, sliding it only half way open so that Kenzy remained hidden. “Look, what the fuck is going on here?” he demanded loudly as he heel-and-toed his way uncertainly towards the hijackers. He avoided looking at them by concentrating owlishly on his unmanageable feet, and he declaimed as he struggled to make progress, “I’m dying for a drink and bursting for a piss and some disembodied voice tells me to stay in my seat. Then they go away for fucking ever.”
The man by the communicator shouted, “Hold it!”
“That’s just my point, I can’t,” Devis complained still watching his feet. “And a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, right? How the fuck do you walk on this stuff?”
Nathan felt nothing. The rush of panic and despair did not come. The worst had happened and it was a sort of relief. There was nothing he could do. Slowly he walked across to the hatch. Behind him a lighting circuit blew out as the systems began overloading. He stared at the airlock hatch, and it opened. He continued to stare at it. He still had a chance. He might just be able to outrun the explosion. He stood transfixed, paralyzed with hope. And then terror hit him. He plunged into the airlock and stabbed furiously at the controls.
Devis approached the hijackers and finally looked up. “Well, I’m buggered!” he said, affecting to see the flight attendant for the first time. “A hostess. I began to think there weren’t any.” Now that he wasn’t looking at his feet, he deliberately tangled them up and got himself detached from the aisle. “Oh fuck it!” he yelled, flailing his arms.
The three hijackers were momentarily mesmerized by the performance. They did nothing as Devis grabbed at the flight attendant and used a seat grip to pull himself and her to one side. Kenzy’s shout from the other end of the section took them completely by surprise.
“Freeze! Nobody move!” she yelled.
Only the girl reacted. Without any change of expression, she thrust the blade at the flight attendant. Devis twisted to deflect the blow with his arm. Kenzy fired. The shot was a tiny flare on the side of the girl’s head, and the force went out of the blade as she died.
Nathan clambered into the cab of the MoRo. He was shaking with exhaustion. He didn’t wait for the greens on steps and door seals but strapped himself straight in and powered up the systems. Only when the motors were humming did he acknowledge to himself that the cargo bay access cover had not fully retracted. Tension ached through him. He opened a communications channel. “This is Moonrover Seven, Moonrover Seven, open main cargo hatch please.” To his surprise, the cover started to move. It rolled back a little, it rolled slowly and jerkily, and then it jammed.
“Shit!” he shouted. “Shit!” He pounded numbly on the joystick. “Stop fucking me about, you bastard!”
With a flash and a spray of dull sparks, the bay lights went out and the movement died.
The corpse of the
girl slouched over Devis like a sullen drunk at a bad party. He pushed her aside. “Thanks a lot, Kenzy,” he complained. “Why didn’t you do like I said?”
Kenzy was holding the weightless pistol parallel with her shoulder and sighting down her arm at a point midway between the two remaining hijackers. “Give it up!” she shouted at them. “I’ll kill you where you stand!”
The tension went out of the two men, and they raised their arms in surrender. Devis noticed for the first time how young they both were. Not a good sign, normally. Testosterone was not the reasoning hormone.
“Get their weapons,” Kenzy said.
Throughout the section, passengers began to unbuckle themselves from their seat harnesses. “Everybody stay where you are,” Devis ordered loudly, grabbing the closer of the two young men and binding his arms behind his back with self-tightening plastic wristlinks. “Stay in your seats! It’s not over yet!”
“You got that right,” the other one said and held out his fist towards Devis.
“Move again and you’re dead and gone!” Kenzy shouted, aiming the pistol.
Unmoved, the man opened his fist a little and Devis saw for the first time the real threat. “Easy!” he called to Kenzy. “Take it easy. He goes, we all go.”
Star Cops Page 37