*
It was incredible to think that for all those people walking along the gangway, it was destined to be their last day on Earth, their last day anywhere for a few trillion miles. All the passengers were tall, young and very fit looking. The sleek white uniforms looked good. The sleeves carried the gold insignias of the European Space Union and the Thousand Year Skin brand name on the other. To Renaissance’s mind the uniforms were little more than glorified space pyjamas. After all, they would be spending the next thirty years in hibernation, undergoing daily bathing in protein soups to prevent them from liquefying, which had been the fate of many in the first incarnations of the deep space hibernation regimes. And according to the research Renaissance had been reading up on, it was still yet to be perfected. The brains were the most vulnerable areas, the proteins not always being absorbed deeply enough to prevent madness or cerebral slop. Renaissance wondered if these risks were in the thoughts of the passengers calmly marching in single file towards the Space Weaver 180f launch pad. But mostly she was wondering if one of those passengers was Mas.
Renaisance was sitting in a luxurious leather reclining chair alongside her right hand man, Spiros Pardos, in the office suite of the European Space Commissioner, Geth Barzius. The suite was situated within the central tower of the Belgium base and afforded an exceptional view of the launch site and the awe inspiring Space Weaver upon it. Renaissance stood up and leaned forward on the window, her attention fixed on the flow of passengers on the gangway less than twenty metres below. It occurred to her that despite all the damage Mas had inflicted upon the world, there was still no verified images of her apart from grainy images taken from long distances - nothing to make her attempted identification any easier now.
‘Damn it,’ Renaissance said, thumping the glass with a fist. ‘We’re the prisoners in this damned suite while the criminal is allowed to walk free. What kind of world is this?’
‘It’s a hurt world,’ muttered Pardos. ‘Why else would people fly thirty years across nothingness for a planet that has never been anything more than a blimp on a telescope? Or, more to the point, why would the European Space Agency fund such a project? It’s long since been a dream of humankind to colonise other planets. But now it seems we’re getting desperate.’
‘Well, the Hurt World Agency’s priority is to save this one,’ said Renaissance determinedly. ‘That is why I would hate for Mas to leave it without telling us her secrets. For example, who did just try to start the Second Arctic War?’
The last of the passengers were passing by now, which meant if Mas were one, Renaissance would have seen her, would have been less than twenty metres away from her. Blast had not stirred from her spot curled up on the floor at their feet. If only she could have smelt through thickened glass. Not that much could have been done even if Mas was identified. As luxurious as the office suite was, its security systems really were impregnable. The doors were triple-bolted and the windows were made of the same Silicone Z glass that shielded the White House from nuclear attack.
Renaissance pressed her cheek against the glass to follow the train of passengers moving along the gangway and across the retractable loading bridge to the enormous spacecraft. The base rockets were smoking as its fuel core was brought to the very brink of atomic splittage. A manned spacecraft had never gone as far as would this, and if its navigation systems miscalculated even a fraction, it would be forever lost.
The door to the office suite opened abruptly and Geth Barzius strode in, wearing the same white uniform as the Space Weaver passengers.
‘Thank you for your patience, Renaissance,’ she said, ‘and congratulations on your promotion.’
‘I haven’t been promoted,’ replied Renaissance.
‘That is not what I have been advised. I was intending to place you under arrest under Section 4.31 of the Space Exploration Act, but my friends in the US Government have warned me that you are moving up in the world. Apparently it has become necessary to treat you as hospitably as possible. If that’s not a promotion, what is?’ Barzius stopped in the centre of the office and looked over her three guests with a cool, calculating thoroughness. ‘Apparently you have recently thwarted an attempt to instigate a major international conflict.’
‘And you have been thwarting us from identifying the chief suspect in the plot,’ said Renaissance. ‘Doesn’t it bother you that someone as dangerous as Mas is likely among your would be colonists?’
Barzius shrugged. ‘We are sending our hardiest plants and animals on the mission. The same standard needs to apply to the people as well. A poacher who has spent her whole life in the wild, hunting and living off her wits - could there be a candidate more ideally suited for what we have in mind? Besides, from what the Americans are telling me, there is not enough evidence to connect her with any crime of significance. Suspicion is not enough, certainly it is not enough to mar such a momentous occasion as this. But I will allow your signature dog to sniff the gangway for her scent. At least then the Americans will know whether or not they can end the dragnet they have placed around Alabama Island. And if your subject has managed to slip through the net to us, it is merely further indication of the kind of ingenuity we would most certainly love to have on the voyage to come.’
‘And it does not faze you that she just may be a killer as well?’
‘Again, I would require more evidence than your dog wagging its tail. Speaking of which, we should hurry. We only have minutes before launch.’
Renaissance stood her ground. ‘So you will allow us to identify Mas so long as we agree to give her up?’
‘That’s right. Give her up to limitless possibilities of space.’ Barzius smirked. ‘Perhaps you’ll even consider it a favour, for I am doing what your technicians have been unable to do and what your lawyers won’t be able to do: expunge your poacher from the world forever. And possibly even put her to good use in the process.’
Pardos walked up beside Renaissance, murmuring, ‘I don’t think we’ve got any choice. If we can tie up this loose end, the mission will go down in the annals as a complete and overwhelming success. The destruction of the Meltman’s Heroin 3 empire, the prevention of a high tech missile hijacking and the neutralisation of its main suspect. And in so doing, satisfying the primary charter of Hurt World One: protecting the world’s animals from her greatest enemies, humans.’
‘Even if those creatures happen to be genetically modified snakes and zombie rats?’ Renaissance muttered. ‘Very well, then.’ She clicked her fingers at Blast. ‘Come on, girl.’
The black Jack Russell terrier sprung excitedly to her feet.
‘I’m glad you’ve agreed,’ said Barzius, heading to the door. ‘To be honest, I’m quite curious to know myself.’ She led the way to the glass elevator and they rode it down to the narrow steel gangway. Blast squeezed between their legs to be the first out the elevator. She was near hysterical upon the gangway, barking wildly with her nose to the floor and her tail shooting straight up into the air. Renaissance and Pardos turned sharply to the Space Weaver just in time to see its doors close for the last time on Earth.
Hurt World One and the Zombie Rats Page 38