Echo (49 page)

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Authors: Jack McDevitt

Tags: #Science Fiction, #General, #Adventure, #Fiction

BOOK: Echo
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“How’s your leg?”
He smiled. “I’d have a little trouble down at the dance. Otherwise, it’s okay.”
“You know what you’re going to say tonight?”
“More or less.” He rearranged himself in the chair. The leg was propped up on a footstool. “We can provide all kinds of help. Supplies. Medical assistance—Did you hear? They have another case of the Sickness to contend with—”
“I heard.”
“I keep thinking how different it might have been here had someone back home, twenty-eight years ago, spoken up.”
 
Alex was an accomplished speaker. He had a sense of humor, was good at winning an audience over, got to the point quickly, and kept it short. He was exceptional that night. The dining hall was filled when Viscenda introduced him. “We all know him,” she said, “as one of our two friendly aliens. Let’s welcome Alex Benedict.”
The crowd stood and applauded. I was struck by the similarity of social customs, retained even after thousands of years of separation. Or developed separately, whichever it was.
Alex walked to the lectern and thanked Viscenda. Then he turned to the audience. “Chase and I owe all of you a debt of gratitude. You provided a home for us when we were in trouble. And I should also say thanks especially to Turam—Where are you, Turam?” He knew perfectly well where Turam was because I knew he’d pinpointed him before going up there. “Ah, there you are. Turam, stand up, please. He’s the man who pulled us out of the fire. Don’t know where we’d have been without you, partner. Well, in fact, I guess I
do
know.”
The audience applauded, and from that moment, they belonged to him.
He described his reaction to Akaiyo, how fortunate we’d been to come down near the facility. “There are places,” he said, “that don’t like strangers very much. This is not one of them.
“To the degree that we can, we’d like to reciprocate. We can never do for you what you have done for us. But we
can
help. We received information a short while ago that a rescue vehicle has arrived and will be taking us off, probably sometime tomorrow morning.” They sat quietly. “We’ll be leaving for a short time. But we’ll be back.” Fist-pumping and cheers. “With supplies. With help. I can promise you that you will never again have to worry about where your next meal is coming from.”
That blew the roof off.
He waited until they quieted. Then he continued: “Something else. I’m sure the word has gotten around that we’ve been saying your ancestors developed a method to travel to other worlds. I know it’s hard for you to believe, but it’s true. You, your forebears, visited Zhedar. It happened a long time ago. So long ago that you’ve forgotten it. But we’ve seen the evidence. We’ve been there.
“I’ve heard some of you wonder whether your lives are worth living. Whether it isn’t time to give up. But we would not wish to lose you. And I suspect that
you
would not allow it to happen even if we were not here to help.
“But we are. When you get up tomorrow, it’s possible Chase and I will be gone. But we’ll be back.”
 
We hadn’t heard from Belle during her last few passes. It might have been because she knew Alex would be speaking, and we hadn’t given her the precise schedule, so she wouldn’t have wanted to interrupt. We spent an hour after the address talking with our hosts. They were ecstatic about what we were saying, and I think we shook hands with everybody in the place. Including the kids.
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that, since the nights were several hours longer than the nights on Rimway, we ran on a different cycle from the general population. We were often exhausted in the daytime and awake half the night. It was the middle of the afternoon, but our bodies were at about their 3:00 A.M. point in the sequence. I’d lost count, but it felt like it. When the event was finally over, and we were back in our quarters, Alex carefully lowered himself into a chair, and I said something about how glad I’d be to get off Echo III. StarCorps couldn’t arrive too soon.
I glanced at Belle’s schedule and thought I’d say hello. So I called.
But got no answer.
I took another look at the schedule and tried again. “Belle, you there?”
Alex glanced up at me.
“Belle, respond please.”
We listened to the yells of some kids playing ball just outside the window. Then Alex shook his head and held both hands up, palms out, while he mouthed one word:
Stop
.
He signaled me to pass him the link. But keep quiet while I was doing it.
I removed the bracelet and held it out for him. He took it and studied it for a moment. Then he spoke into it: “My God, Chase. Get down! They’re here!”
My reflexes took over, and I hit the deck.
FORTY-TWO
There is no shock that can rattle the household quite like the approach of an unexpected visitor.
—Harley Esperson,
Cringing in the Lodge
 
 
 
 
 
Alex shut off the link, gave it back to me, and fumbled for his crutches. “Chase, it’s imperative you stay off it until I get back. If there’s a call, don’t answer.”
“Alex, what—?”
“Do what I say. Please. I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”
He hobbled off. I ran over to the window and looked out. Nobody seemed to be coming from that direction. And there was no one in the corridor except Alex. So I sat down, put the bracelet on the table beside me, and watched it. As if it were a spider.
My heart was pounding. The Mortician had neutralized Belle. Must have done it when she was out of range and couldn’t warn us. Minutes ticked by. Then, finally, I heard approaching voices.
Alex came back in with Turam, Barnas, and five or six others. Three had rifles. The others had pistols. “Everybody ready?” he asked.
They checked to make sure the weapons were loaded.
“Okay. Chase, here’s what we need you to do—”
 
The people who’d arrived with Alex began screaming. I turned on the link. “Belle, answer up, please!” Turam pounded on the door. Outside, I could see a couple of older people herding the kids away. One of the others threw a chair through the window. “We’ve got an emergency, Belle,” I said, trying to sound desperate. I don’t think I had to try hard. “Please respond.”
Alex jumped in: “Quick, Chase. Out the back! Get out while you can!”
Barnas broke in: “Too late, bitch,” he said, “you’re dead.”
Two of the guys stuck their rifles out the window and blasted away at the sky. I screamed, “Alex!”
More shooting.
“You’ve killed him,” I shrieked. “You bastard.” I tried to burst into tears.
Turam said, “Sorry, baby. Good-bye.”
I screamed for him not to shoot. Then Turam fired his weapon at the sky again. I cried out. Alex signaled for me not to overdo it, and I went silent.
Alex and I stayed quiet, while Turam and his people laughed and said how they’d take the bodies outside and burn them.
“Praise to the All-Father,” said one of them.
Alex pointed at the door. Everybody out. We left my bracelet on the side table but didn’t turn it off. Outside, in the hallway, a crowd was gathering. They looked a little scared. We shushed everybody and got clear of the area.
 
In one of the side rooms, Alex thanked everybody for helping. Every now and then, someone went back to our apartment and screamed something unintelligible that sounded bloodthirsty. Then, finally, we stopped.
Barnas and the others congratulated one another and took turns assuring us that if anybody showed up who wanted to give us trouble, they’d deal with him properly.
“What do you think?” said Turam. “Did it work?”
“You did a good job,” Alex said.
“Now,” Turam continued, “what happened to the rescuers? Who is this who’s coming to get you?”
“Yeah,” Barnas said. “How about enlightening us?”
Alex sat down. “Belle’s not responding. That tells me that whoever’s up there with her isn’t StarCorps. And I can only think of one other likelihood.”
“The Mortician,” I said.
“Yes—if I’m wrong, I’ll apologize later.”
“It won’t work, Alex.”
“Why not?”
“The Mortician doesn’t speak the local language.”
“She’s probably been doing the same thing we have: letting her AI listen in and act as an interpreter. Even if not, it doesn’t matter. She couldn’t possibly have misunderstood the point of all the shots and screams.” He stopped. Touched the silver chain. “We’ve got an incoming call.”
“It’s probably Belle.” That was my optimism working overtime.
“Text message.” Alex looked at it. Showed it to me.
Benedict:
 
 
You can’t seriously expect that ploy to work again? Talk to me. Or I’ll take out your little social center down there.
“It might be a bluff,” I said. “She has no way to be certain we’re not dead.”
Alex shook his head. “No, but she has nothing to lose by destroying the compound.”
“Sure she does. She wouldn’t be able to tell whether she’d gotten us.”
“You willing to bet that’ll stop her?”
“I guess we’d better call.”
We were speaking in Standard, and Turam had figured out
that
wasn’t a good sign. “It’s not over,” he said. “Is it?”
Alex delivered a casual nod intended to suggest everything was under control. But he didn’t want to mislead anyone. “Probably not, Turam,” he said. He activated his link. “This is Benedict. What do you want?”
“Mr. Benedict.”
The female voice in the link was not Belle’s happy-go-lucky tone, but was rather a combination of amusement and mockery. The room fell silent, and I saw the surprise on faces that had grown accustomed to talking jewelry but expected it to use a familiar language.
“I wasn’t sure we’d ever get a chance to discuss matters.”
“What happened to Belle?”
“I shut her down.”
“Why?”
“I’m sure you can guess why. Let’s not waste time on details.”
“Who are you working for?”
“I’m not at liberty to reveal that.”
“So what do you want?”
“Unfortunately, we can’t have you spreading what you know back home. I will be at your facility in precisely three hours. You and Ms. Kolpath will present yourselves outside the front door. Then we’ll try to work out an agreement. If we’re successful, I’ll return control of your AI to you, and you can await the arrival of StarCorps. That should be about two days, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Three hours, Benedict. I’ll see you then.”
“Just a minute: What happens if we can’t reach an agreement?”
“I don’t think there should be any difficulty on that score. I’m prepared to buy your silence, and to be very generous about it. Let’s let it go at that. Oh, and one more detail: I know you might be tempted to leave the facility, to hide in the forest. If you do that, you can almost certainly stay out of sight until the authorities come, and there would be little I can do to find you. However, if you choose that course, be advised I will have no choice but to destroy your new friends. All of them. Do you understand?”
“Yes. We’ll be here when you arrive.”
“Good. I’m sure we can reach an amicable agreement. Oh, by the way, please be sure you bring your links with you.”
“Why’s that matter?”
“I don’t want any formal record of this transaction to show up later.”
She disconnected.
“Alex,” I said, “there’s no way she’s going to make a deal.”
“I know.”
“If she can get us into the open, we’re dead. She’ll have something mounted on the lander. Probably a blaster or a proton gun. And she’ll just take us out from the air.”
“She can’t. At least, she can’t if she’s serious about silencing us.”
“Why not?”
“It’s why she wants the links. If she just blows us up, she has no way of knowing that we haven’t handed them off to someone here. And that we haven’t recorded everything. StarCorps comes, the information gets passed over, and her client is compromised.”
“We don’t even know who he is.”
“I think we do. In any case, we know enough. She has to make sure the links get destroyed, too. Or maybe she doesn’t. But it’s all we have.”
We’d lapsed back into Standard, and everyone in the room was staring at us. Turam took a deep breath. “What was all that about?”

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