In Earth's Service (Mapped Space Book 2) Read online

  “Counter-harmonic resonance.”

  It wasn’t anything I’d ever heard of, which made it my ticket out of here.

  “Do humans have such technology?” I asked, knowing the answer but wanting Katinuuk to acknowledge the obvious.

  “No. Sirius Kade Human to identify weapon users.”

  “They were humanoid, maybe human. That’s all I know.”

  Katinuuk studied me a moment, then made a short strumming sound. A drone retrieved the tray displaying the JAG-40 slugs, then I was lowered to the rock floor and freed from the suspension field.

  “This drone security to guide Sirius Kade Human to surface. Landing rights revoked.”

  The attendant headed off into a tunnel as one of the drones near the rock wall approached me carrying my gun in one of its antenna-manipulators and a dull gray circular device in the other which it unceremoniously aimed at me. I holstered my P-50, then it motioned its weapon toward a tunnel to the right. The combat drone was not fitted with a vocalizer, so expecting no conversation, I moved in the direction indicated.

  The tunnel was wide enough for two drones to pass each other comfortably and was lit by dull gray illuminator panels. Several times, the tunnel opened onto ramps leading down into vast galleries filled with multilayered metal frameworks linked by single arch bridges. They swarmed with tens of thousands of worker drones operating machines and carrying raw materials, parts and finished products. The industrial galleries were crowded and chaotic, yet frighteningly efficient. Each time I tried stopping to take in the frenetic activity, the security drone would motion for me to move, giving me no time to loiter.

  Soon we were on a ramp leading up to a circular door which rose on four telescoping pylons. The drone stopped, sending me up toward the gray light. I emerged in the center of Nisport at an intersection of metal grill covered roads. The door lowered back in place behind me, melding into the center of the intersection as four men approached. They’d obviously been waiting for me to appear. The leader was well dressed and unarmed, while his companions wore dark clothes and aimed pistols at me.

  “Captain Kade,” the leader said. He was a swarthy, silver haired Indo with a short manicured beard and a diplomat’s polite bearing. “I’m Ambassador Singh and you sir, are under arrest.”

  One of the Ambassador’s security men reached down and retrieved my gun, unaware that the Nisk had unloaded it before returning it to me.

  “While the Nisk normally do not allow weapons fire on their planet,” Ambassador Singh informed me, “my security men are exempted from that law providing they shoot only humans. I trust that exemption will not need to be exercised in your case.”

  I smiled grimly and raised my hands in surrender.

  There were no holding cells in Nisport’s tiny Earth Council embassy so with restraints on my wrists, I was ushered into the ambassador’s well appointed office for questioning. Two guards stood watch while Ambassador Singh took his seat behind a modest simwood desk and activated a holofield displaying several official looking data forms.

  “The Nisk proxy has advised me,” Singh began, “that they have no direct evidence against you, however, they have lodged a formal complaint with Earth Council stating that human citizens have violated the terms of our concession. Do you know what that means?”

  “No more niskgel anti-aging cream for the super rich?”

  The Ambassador gave me a dark look. “It could cost us our landing rights. At worst, they may declare humans to have murdered two of their citizens. It would be up to the Forum to decide if that qualified as an Access Treaty violation which could very well extend our probationary period.”

  I was well aware of the consequences, although the lack of evidence would save us from any sanction and I suspected the royals cared more for our sugar than for the lives of two insignificant drones. Even so, any complaint to the Forum could complicate mankind’s forthcoming admission to the Galaxy’s big table.

  “One of our citizens was also killed,” I added.

  “By Union Regular Army ammunition! Humans killing humans is our problem, no one else’s, but humans killing nonhumans is another matter entirely!”

  “They can’t prove humans did the shooting.”

  “The charges pending against you are carrying a weapon in a prohibited nonhuman jurisdiction, being implicated in the deaths of one human and two nonhumans and damaging relations with a major nonhuman power. Should the Nisk lodge a protest with the Forum, additional charges related to initiating an Access Treaty infringement will be laid.” He gave me a stern look. “These are serious charges, Captain Kade, charges that come with heavy penalties.”

  It could have been worse. Infringements bought mostly jail time. Only genuine violations were punishable by death.

  “I’m an innocent victim in all this.”

  “You’re a smuggler and a trouble maker,” Singh said, unconvinced. “You’ll be held here pending transportation to Draconis Station where a formal court of inquiry will be conducted by the appropriate authorities. Do you have anything to say?”

  I considered telling him UniPol civil law orbitals were a little dull for my tastes and Draconis Station was no exception, but decided a more direct approach was needed. “I’d like to make a private statement.” I glanced at the two guards meaningfully.

  The Ambassador looked surprised. “My security team are fully apprised of the circumstances of this case and have full diplomatic clearance.”

  “I’m bashful,” I said, making it clear I would not utter another word until the guards were gone.

  Singh gave me an irritated look, then nodded for the guards to leave. When we were alone he touched a control on his desk, activating his holorecorder. “OK, what do you have to say?”

  “No recorder.”

  Singh looked surprised. “I thought you wanted to make a statement?”

  “I do, to you. Not to that,” I said nodding to his recorder.

  “This is highly irregular,” he said, switching it off.

  “Do you have an eidetic implant?”

  Singh arched his brow curiously. “Of course.”

  Eidetic implants were standard equipment for senior diplomats. It allowed them to retain every document they read and every word of every conversation they heard with perfect accuracy for both diplomatic and intelligence gathering purposes.

  “Good. Listen carefully.” I retrieved a highly classified, fifty character recognition code stored deep within my bionetic memory and repeated it to the Earth Ambassador. The astonished look that appeared on his face was hardly surprising, considering he would never have received such a code in his life and never would again. “Check that against your diplomatic ciphers. Save yourself some time and start at the highest level.” I leaned back, relaxing into the padded chair. “I’ll wait.”

  He was gone less than ten minutes, returning with one of the guards. “Release him.” When the guard gave the Ambassador a puzzled look, Singh added impatiently, “And give him back his weapon.”

  The guard removed my restraints and returned my P-50, then Singh nodded for him to leave. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, once the door closed. “I wasn’t advised you were coming.”

  I sometimes took a perverse pleasure in pulling rank on self important bureaucrats, but the Ambassador had only been doing his duty as he understood it. “Nothing to apologize for. You weren’t advised because of the sensitivity of my mission.”

  “Is there anything you require from me?”

  “Yes. Recover Tiago Sorvino’s body immediately.” If we froze it and shipped it to Lena Voss, the regional EIS commander, her people could tap Sorvino’s bionetic memory and reconstruct his movements.

  “I can’t,” Singh said uncomfortably. “The Nisk have already processed it.”

  “Processed?”

  “When the Nisk die, they are rendered down into elementary biomatter for dispersal on the surface.” He shrugged. “The Nisk are a remarkable species, but they have no regard for the cus
toms of other races.”

  So the only clue as to what Tiago Sorvino had been doing was the encrypted data block locked in my bionetic memory. “Do you have an identity register?”

  “Yes sir, updated monthly.”

  “How secure is this facility?”

  “The entire embassy is protected by quantum suppression fields.”

  “No guarantee the Nisk can’t penetrate that.”

  “Scrambling quantum signatures is the best we can do. If they can read through that…” he shrugged helplessly.

  He was right and I was in a hurry. “I have three DNA scans I want checked. Your eyes only. Don’t use any of your staff. Once the search is complete, give me the results and destroy all record of it. The name of one of the subjects is Domar Trask. I have nothing on the other two.” If the Nisk saw what he was reading, it would do them no good. Trask’s hit squad would already be long gone.

  “I’ll do it at once, sir.” He gave me a curious look, clearly wondering if they were the three who’d killed Sorvino, but he had enough sense not to ask.

  “And I need to send a message.”

  “We get a fortnightly data sync. The update ship is due in four days. I could send your message out with our diplomatic traffic.”

  “Good. And not a word of my visit, even to your superiors.”

  “What if the Nisk protest to the Forum?”

  “That’s no longer your problem.”

  “Yes sir,” he said with a hint of relief. “Are you ready to record your message?”

  I nodded. “Switch off your eidetic implant.”

  “It’s off,” Singh confirmed, then activated his holorecorder.

  “Message begins. To Lena Voss, care of Earth Navy, Paraxos System. I regret to inform you that Tiago Sorvino is dead.” He’d whispered aleph-null into my ear. It was enough to prevent me sending a copy of the encrypted data block to Lena, not without knowing what was in it. With two dead drones on their hands, the Nisk would be reading our diplomatic traffic no matter how cleverly encrypted it was. Their tech was so far ahead of ours, I had to assume no secret was safe, except perhaps for what my bionetics hid within my body’s own cell structure. My greatest fear was the Nisk would realize Sorvino was anything but an innocent victim and decide to prevent me leaving. It was a risk I couldn’t take, why I couldn’t tell Singh that Sorvino was EIS. For all I knew, the Nisk were listening in right now, even through the Embassy’s suppression field. Just giving my recognition code to Singh was a gamble, one I couldn’t avoid, but perhaps not enough to trigger a Nisk response. “Wait for me in Paraxos. Aleph-null to you and your family. Message ends.”

  When the Nisk read that message, as I was sure they would, they’d have a hard time figuring out what it really meant. Lena would not. She’d know the mission was blown, that I had something too hot to risk in diplomatic traffic and no matter what happened, she had to stay in the Paraxos System where I could find her in a hurry.

  With aleph-null in the message, the entire galaxy could go to war and she wouldn’t budge.

  After finishing with Ambassador Singh, I ventured back into the drizzle and headed for the spaceport. Almost immediately, my listener detected footsteps behind me, confirming the stride pattern matched the large humanoid who’d tailed me earlier. I’d assumed he’d been connected with Trask’s hit squad, perhaps responsible for suppressing the Nisk sensors.

  So why was he still here?

  On the image of Nisport’s street grid floating in my mind’s eye, a flashing sonic marker indicated he was closing fast, and me with an empty gun and the Nisk already suspicious. He appeared several blocks away, lumbering toward me like a freight loader in a hurry, making no effort to hide his presence. I broke into a run, trying to put distance between us but soon realized he was faster, not by much, but enough to catch me before I reached the terminal.

  I cut into a side street, sprinted one block then turned and drew my P-50, taking aim as he came charging around the corner. He took one look at my gun, not realizing it was empty, and leapt high into the air. A soft blue glow appeared beneath his boots, carrying him across the street to the roof of an octagonal structure, then a moment later, he launched himself in another tech-assisted jump across the rooftops.

  He might have looked like a large human, but his speed and tech told me he was anything but. The humanoid was bigger and faster than me and tech assisted in ways I wasn’t. Tangling with him with an empty gun was likely to be a one way ticket to the wrong end of a beating. Not wanting to be flanked, I started running toward the spaceport. Each time he landed on the roof of a building a sonic marker flashed, warning he was racing to cut me off.

  When he started to pull ahead, I slipped into a side street, hiding under an awning extending around a long, U-shaped building. The script on the grimy walls was faded Cor Carolian, a local Orion power. It looked deserted, then a short rectangular device emerged from above the sealed door, shimmering from a micro acceleration field enveloping it. It floated down, scanning me with a laser thin green light.

  “Not now,” I whispered, trying to swat it with the butt of my gun. The alien scanner dodged and continued drifting toward the ground, completing its scan as a heavy thud sounded from the roof.

  The alien was directly above me!

  My listener tracked him as he walked to the edge of the building, searching the street for me. Most alien buildings in Nisport were sensor hardened to block all the eavesdroppers. I hoped the Carolian structure was no exception. I hardly dared breath as I realized he didn’t know I was below him. My listener amplified the click of his metal boots as he prowled the side of the building while the Carolian scanner approached the ground beside me. I lifted one foot out of its beam, then as it scanned my other ankle, placed the heel of my boot on top of it and silently pushed it into the ground, hiding its green glow. Above, the humanoid waited for me to show myself, then he tech-jumped across the street. I remained with my back pressed into the entrance alcove as he searched the road, then thinking I’d eluded him, he leapt away toward the spaceport.

  The Carolian scanner pushed up against my boot, trying to free itself. I lifted my heel, letting it shoot back up to its home above the door. In my mind’s eye, the sonic marker winked out as the humanoid moved out of range. I waited several minutes, but it didn’t reappear, then I crept down a side street and circled around the spaceport so I could approach from the opposite direction.

  When the terminal came into view, I searched for any sign of my pursuer. Finding none, I ran to the two Nisk security drones stationed at the entrance. It was the first time since landing I was glad to stand beside a giant beetle. To the southeast, the silhouette of the barrel chested humanoid stood on a roof watching. I glanced at my two stoic guardians then gave him a triumphal wave. He made no response, but turned and jumped out of sight.

  Filled with a great desire to get off this bug infested quagmire, I hurried through the terminal back to the Silver Lining wondering who the humanoid was and why was he tracking me?

  Whoever he was, I suspected I hadn’t seen the last of him.

  “Those thieving, six legged bandits!” Jase declared angrily as I visited the flight deck on the way to my stateroom. My blonde copilot sat on his acceleration couch seething as he watched a live feed from the cargo hold. “They’re saying five containers were contaminated.”

  “Accept their count.”

  “No way, Skipper! I supervised that load. Those containers were sealed tight. They must have damaged them.”

  Ories were known for their stubborn combative natures and I couldn’t alleviate his anger by telling him I’d sabotaged the containers myself.

  “Tell them to load whatever gel they owe us. I want to get off this rock.”

  Jase glanced in my direction, then furrowed his brow in confusion as he saw the dark stains on my flight jacket. “Is that blood?”

  “Yeah,” I said sourly, feeling the back of my head. The Nisk doctor had shaved it to the scalp, but the skin
and bone showed no sign of the injury thanks to Nisk regenerative tech. “Long story.”

  Before he could start probing, I headed for my stateroom. After shedding my jacket and mud covered boots, I flopped onto my bunk, feigning sleep. Since Lena had brought me back into the EIS as a freelance asset a year ago, I’d added countermeasures to my cabin to disrupt eavesdropping. I could rely on it to jam human snoopers, but had to assume it was ineffective against alien-tech, which was why I couldn’t use the ship’s datanet, not with bug eyes on me.

  I relaxed, regulated my breathing, then summoned Sorvino’s data block and the required encryption key from my bionetic memory. When I put the two together, the data block transformed from meaningless fractals into legible characters. It was a surprisingly simple message: a set of astrographic coordinates to a planet I’d never heard of, a latitude and longitude, and a date. If there was more, Sorvino hadn’t had time to transfer it. At the end of the data block was the same security classification he’d whispered in my ear, a rating so high I’d never before encountered it in the field – aleph-null!

  Derived from mathematics, aleph-null was an infinite cardinal number used by the EIS to describe the highest possible threat. The data block gave no indication what the threat was, but Sorvino had sacrificed his life for it, leaving me in no doubt it was the real deal. All Lena had told me was that Sorvino had been in deep cover for two years. Whatever he’d found was important enough for her to be waiting with Earth Navy in the Paraxos System, squarely in the middle of Outer Draco. From there, they could hit any target in the region. The problem was, Paraxos was three weeks away at maximum bubble. The date in Sorvino’s message was just six days from now. If we launched immediately, we could make Sorvino’s rendezvous, but Lena would have to wait. Once she received my message, saw the aleph-null reference, that’s exactly what she’d do – until Breega froze over.

  I wanted to review Ambassador Singh’s report on the three man hit squad, but I didn’t dare put it in my reader with the Nisk watching. Instead, I rolled over and activated my bunk-side intercom. “Jase, is that niskgel loaded yet?”