Chaos Cipher (75 page)

‘
Pardon my
ignorance,’ said Kelly again, ‘but you keep saying Chronomancer.
What does that mean?’

‘
It means
this girl can see the future.’ Nitro explained.

‘
Her name is
Avenoir.’ Raven said in a low voice, grabbing one of the ship’s
ladders to hold himself steady in the free-fall
environment.

‘
She can
speak for herself, right?’ Kelly asked.

And Avenoir
dipped her chin and shook her head, her face tightening
painfully.

‘
She
refuses,’ Raven explained, ‘much of what I know from her I have
seen only in vivid dreams alone. But she lost her ability to speak
when she was very young due to trauma. She is guiding us a safe
passage to Earth, hence we are here with you for such
reason.’

‘
Where are
you from?’ asked Nitro.

‘
The
Kyklos
,’ said Raven. ‘An
arc station that had settled near a planet we called Amora out in
the Suntau system. We no longer have a home. There is nothing to
return to but a black hole. Your kind destroyed it to make
Obsiduranium.’

‘
The
Kyklos
?’ Nitro uttered
in wonder. ‘We’ve never heard of such a thing. I swear it I haven’t
a clue what you’re talking about.’

‘
The class of
Starnavis chosen for this mission,’ Raven recalled, ‘were Jackal
Dreadnaught. They launched Arrowhead strike-ships and nuclear
phoenix missiles. I hath since found much more out about this
mission. They had called it heat beat and treat, a vernacular not
uncommon to thy violence of language. How easily you divorce thy
words from thy deeds, that you call mass murder something as
insipid as heat, beat and treat. Or that you’d name individuals as
mere targets.’

‘
That’s
standard,’ Nitro shrugged. ‘But this was nothing to do with The
Shield of Spheres.’

Raven looked
over to Avenoir and Nitro suddenly realised the young Chronomancer
had been watching him, listening carefully to their conversation
and Raven told him he believed him. Then their proximity alarms
began to siren through the bridge and Caspian’s voice pierced
through the speakers.

‘
Whot da heil
ees goink on up there?’ he snapped. ‘Weiv been waitink down heir
fore whot feils like yeirs, whots de plan, ah?’

‘
Shut him
up!’ Nitro told Kelly.

‘
Caspian
just-’ Kelly stuttered uncertainly, her eyes steadily on Raven,
watching the intimidating creature lurking through the dark with
his sullen whispers and promises of death, and those fierce radium
eyes shining like malachite rings. ‘Just stay calm, captain. We are
still sorting things out.’

‘
We are
entering asteroid field,’ Pawel alerted. ‘I’m slowing
down.’

‘
Whenst thou
reaches the planet Earth,’ Raven’s voice spoke lightly. ‘there will
be many defences. I believe that fate is indeed on our side Nitro
Harbeck. I believe thou canst get us through.’

‘
Yeah,’ Nitro
nodded. ‘I believe I can too. The only way you’re getting down to
that planet is by registering as a Shield of Spheres agent. It’s a
privilege not everyone has.’

‘
A
commonality,’ said Raven, considering carefully. ‘A shared
accomplishment. I deem it important that we establish something of
a rule for our agreement. After all, if I am contracted to work
beside thee then thou may discover my real clause is to work
against thee.’

‘
What is your
real cause?’ Nitro pressed, his face all the more serious. ‘What
are you here to do?’

Raven was
smiling in the dark. A faint passage of sunlight from outside
slipped over his face as
The Griffin’s
Claw
’s orientation shifted and they saw
his wild grin.

‘
I seek an
artefact.’

‘
An
artefact?’

‘
Something
that was stolen from the
Kyklos
,’ he explained. ‘Siphoned
from the vast remains of its demise.’

‘
Name it.’
Nitro stated.

‘
A sacred
emblem,’ said Raven. ‘Three orbs, no bigger than a human fist. I
must retrieve them once more. And more…I seek the Galileo Coterie.
They must hear what your Atominii world is doing to life
everywhere.’

‘
And what do
you intend to do?’ asked Nitro. ‘Assemble an uprising?’

Raven didn’t
answer. He glared at Nitro with cold blinkless eyes and awaited his
decision. Nitro sighed and huffed a while, then laughed as he came
to a conclusion.

‘
We’ll set
you up with Shield of Spheres,’ said Nitro. ‘If the arc station
really was destroyed as you said it was, then technically whoever
did it committed a terrible crime even by Atominii standards. We
can only target stars with no colonies, alien life and all that
sort of stuff. If it was your home and they destroyed you for this
cause, then we could have a good reason for defending you. We could
come down heavy on the military operation responsible for doing it.
But, I promise you, that wasn’t us.’

‘
Thou wouldst
help me find those responsible?’

‘
If it is
considered a defence matter, the Shield of Spheres is there. If the
contract is worth it, we’ll be present.’

Raven became
taciturn as he began to cogitate on just how the Shield of Spheres
would be compensated for their services when the very people they
would be taking on, they were contrariwise also sworn to protect;
the Atominii state. Raven had no means of paying them, but it
seemed what Nitro was saying was becoming more and more clear all
of a sudden.

‘
What
compensation?’

‘
If I do this
for you,’ said Nitro. ‘You and the girl work for us. We’ll protect
you, give you interstellar access to our bases and train you
both.’

‘
Yes.’ A
demure voice suddenly stated from the darkness of the ship. Raven’s
face suddenly became ashen, as though some ghost had appeared and
all present turned to face Avenoir. Her big eyes one green and the
other red looked around each of them nervously as she said again,
just above a whisper.

‘
Yes. We
accept your proposal, Mr Harbeck.’

‘
Avenoir?’
Raven gasped in astonishment. ‘Didst I hear thy voice
or-’

The hull
of
The Griffin’s Claw
began to vibrate and more proximity alarms sounded. Pawel
worked to navigate, occupied in his neurosphere he reported from
the neurological correspondence with the ship verbally.

‘
Sorry…but
we’ve got debris flying in. Asteroids are usually stable here but
something is rattling them.’

‘
What is
it?’

‘
Not sure,’
said Pawel. ‘Everyone to your inertial places.’

As she
strapped herself in, Kelly thought about the Martian colony and the
huge terraforming effort being done to Phobos and Demos. She’d
found an interesting neurophase mnemonic that he stored in her
memory for general interest once but it was a little hazy now.
Something about the asteroid field being harvested to make the two
Martian moons bigger.

‘
Hey, does
anybody know about the terraforming mission on Mars?’ Kelly
asked.

‘
Sure,’ said
Nitro strapping in. ‘What do you wanna know?’

‘
There was
something about making the moons bigger using the asteroid field.’
She said. ‘Could something have happened?’

‘
No,’ said
Pawel. ‘You’re talking about lunar-scaping. The Martians use drones
to pull asteroids and drop them onto Phobos and Demos. They do it
so the moons will be one day strong enough to circulate the
planet’s future oceans. Only the problem is not coming from the
inner solar system.’

Pawel felt
the huge distortions rippling through space as material flocked
towards the asteroid field. He manoeuvred the shuttle through the
scree and they heard the diminutive clattering against the hull as
dust collided, ticking and rustling like the patters of hail. Pawel
looked deeply worried.

‘
We’re
alright,’ Kelly whispered, ‘aren’t we?’

‘
I wish you
could see what I see.’ Pawel whispered back.

And he
watched something frighteningly familiar flying into the asteroid
field. It was a large burning section of the
Omicron
station, a curved habitation
ring cruising into the flow of dust, drifting off to encompass the
remote sun and doomed to cycle around in an eternal plummet. Pawel
took several image displays from the external sensors and displayed
the segment into a photonic hologram field for them to
witness.

‘
Jesus,’
Nitro uttered.

‘
The
Omicron
?’ Kelly joined
incredulously.

‘
What in
god’s name could have done this?’

And Pawel
immediately tightened as the reach of his neurosphere became
disturbed by the impetus of some vast moving force pushing through
space. Then he saw the Xenotech machines rippling space-time as
they cruised into the asteroid field, crashing through huge rocks,
as though they were bullets passing unmitigated through breeze
blocks. And the tumultuous hurtling of colossal and aleatory
collisions went seen but unheard in the massive expanse of the dark
cosmic field. Dust and matter spayed about in uncontrolled waves
and vectors in the wake of the menace as the whole ringular
arrangement now became fragmentary.
The
Griffin’s Claw
could only watch silently,
dipping down into the rocks to hide as the dangerous and deadly
trio advanced towards the red planet beyond the scattered sea of
stones.

-59-

T
he twittering and chirping of birds
sang through the rustic mellifluous air as the avian creatures
frolicked in the ferns. Scott Barnes sat in the tubular habitat and
listened sedulously to the tranquillity of the area he was in.
They’d dressed him in a specific black and orange robe that seemed
to drizzle with information along the latitudes of the material’s
colour segments. He liked feeling the grass between his toes and
requested to walk bare foot around the habitat for a while. The
environment projection suddenly paused. Scott Barnes looked up to
see a robin redbreast trapped in time mid-flight, nose diving
towards a distant birch. The sounds had all at once returned to the
usual clack and drum of the vast space of
Orandoré’s
habitation sector. Yerma
had led Max onto the grass and he walked calmly and nodded his head
with a mild greeting.

‘
Doctor
Barnes,’ she said, ‘you remember Colonel Max Elba?’

Scott nodded.
He had a faint and nervous smile on his lacerated and
self-mutilated face.

‘
Well,’ she
sighed with relief as Max genially shook hands with Barnes. ‘I’ll
leave you to it, then. Call me, if you need anything.’

Colonel Elba
waited until Yerma was out of sight and he nodded to a small wooden
park bench.

‘
Wanna sit
down?’

‘
I’d rather
stand, thanks,’ said Scott, his head bowed and he looked at Max
from a side angle as though he’d been clipped around the ear too
many times. Max took a seat and breathed out as his backside
landed, and he threw his arm over the backrest and looked
around.

‘
How do you
like this place?’ he asked.

‘
I find this
place very strange,’ he stated. ‘I didn’t expect to come home to so
much technology. I’m still getting used to the language shifts. I’m
learning neo-English and Cosmonian tongues slowly. Language was
always a specialty for me, syntax is a pattern like…like most
things. Still learning what all these neologisms mean. But I
appreciate most people speak to me in English.’

‘
Good. Of
course. Look, I know you’ve been through a lot lately,’ Max Elba
digressed. ‘But I need some information.’

‘
Lately?’ he
laughed. ‘What do you mean lately? Lately for whom? For you? For
me? Time is nothing but some distant memory now. Time doesn’t
matter.’

‘
What do you
mean, time doesn’t matter?’

‘
Time and
matter, matter and time,’ he postulated, dipping his head
nervously. ‘M-Malik Serat used to say that a lot. He bu-believed
time was a dimension that existed as a reflection of material. He
saw a relationship between radiation producing material and
material in motion producing time. It all sounded a little
counter-intuitive to me, but then he always did have a creative way
of seeing things. Studying chaos can make even the most astute
mu-minds think a little discordantly, even in abstract
terms.’

‘
Can you help
us?’

‘
With what?’
he asked worriedly.

‘
We need you
to explain to us what the chaos cipher is.’ He said, ‘there is an
investor of the Erebus who still wants to know. Apparently, he told
me to tell you that Malik has already provided many details, he
would like to hear your side of the story.’