McCollum - GIBRALTAR STARS (29 page)

 “Definitely, Admiral.”

“That’s why I want a man with experience in command, someone who can say ‘no go,’ if things don’t feel right.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about me, sir?” Lisa asked. “Do I go on
Sasquatch
?”

Landon shook his head. “No, that would be putting too many eggs in one basket. You go with
Galahad
, the detector ship. You will monitor all communications frequencies. If you so much as hear a peep you don’t like, notify Mark and all of you get the hell out of there.”

And so it had been. Mark and Lisa joined Operation Easter Egg that afternoon. Two days later, six other task forces, consisting of three ships each, spaced for their assigned stations. A week later,
Sasquatch, Galahad,
and
Yeovil
moved out of Sutton orbit, climbed out to where gravitational curvature would no longer interfere with their stardrives, and jumped to superlight.

#

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The cargo bay of
TSNS Sasquatch
was brightly lit with flood lamps as Mark Rykand and Susan Ahrendt hung like two spiders from a pair of extended hydraulic braces. Around them, the dull throb of the superlight generators could be more sensed than heard.

They had been underway faster than light for twelve hours, en route to Sabator, the most powerful Broan system of which humanity was currently aware. The system consisted of a yellow-giant sun with twelve worlds. Karap-Vas, the fifth, was the sole inhabited planet, although there were extensive industrial facilities in an oversize asteroid belt and on the moons of three of four gas giants. These latter were primarily devoted to “Jupiter-diving,” the scooping up of complex organic molecules from deep within the giant planets’ atmospheres.

The xenologists were relatively certain that the pseudo-simians were not native to Karap-Vas. They judged this by the warnings to travelers (Broan travelers, of course) they’d found in the Pastol database. Inhabitants of Karap-Vas, advisories warned, must remember to take their dietary supplements.

However, the planet had been colonized by the Broa so long ago that evidence of the original inhabitants, if there had been any, had been lost. Not that there weren’t plenty of non-Broan residents on the planet now. They outnumbered the masters. However, these, too, were immigrants, brought in to serve the Broa.

Xenologists on Earth studied Karap-Vas extensively after first discovering it in the Pastol data base. With its large mixed population of Broa and slaves, they suspected the world was a microcosm of Planet X, the Broan home world.

It was not their destination that interested Mark and Susan at the moment. Rather, it was the object suspended from a dozen shock cables at the focus of the flood lamps, an iridescent egg wrapped in holiday party paper. Visible through the translucent wrapping was an angular gash in the smooth hull with scorching on each side.

Around the egg, several large, spherical tanks had been anchored to various hard points. These were filled with a potent mixture of gases and anti-bacterial agents, all under high pressure. The tanks were to flush the cargo bay prior to the egg’s protective wrapping being peeled away. Nothing would give away the little starship’s true origin faster than the Broa finding a piece of dead human skin adhered to the little ship.

“So this is what the excitement is about,” Mark commented, his words muffled by the surgical mask he was wearing.

“This is it,” Susan confirmed.

“It looks just like the ones you showed me in New Mexico.”

“Outwardly identical, as is the interior. However, I’m told the engines have been extensively modified for this mission.”

“I’ve read the specs. I didn’t understand a word.”

Susan laughed in response. “Now you know how I’ve felt my whole time with Trojan Horse. You’ll have to ask Felicia.”

Mark nodded. Felicia Godwin was your typical elderly lady with a Ph.D. in superlight engineering. She was the resident expert on all things stardrive.

As Mark gazed down on the egg, he pondered, not for the first time, on how quickly his life could change. One moment he was comfortably in the groove; the next, the universe was upended around him.

It had happened to him three times now. The first time was when he learned of Jani’s death; the second when he peeked into a viewport aboard PoleStar to find a naked woman and a yellow-eyed alien staring back. The third had come when Admiral Landon and his wife conspired to get him to that damned meeting!

#

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Mark asked Felicia Godwin, noticing the twinkle her eye as the two of them sat in
Sasquatch’s
mess. They were strapped to a bench, with the full range of microgravity eating accoutrements magnetically attached to the table.

“What’s not to enjoy?” Felicia Godwin responded. “In microgravity, my arthritis hardly bothers me at all, my lumbago is completely gone, and my heart is working at one-quarter its normal effort. Who knows, if the Broa don’t get me, I just may live forever.”

“It’s nice to see someone happy in their work, unlike some people I might mention.”

“Who, Gordon? Don’t let him bother you. He doesn’t resent you personally. Well, not much. It’s a primal instinct with scientists, you know.”

“What is?”

“The tendency to resent the military. Haven’t you seen any of the ancient monster holos?”

“Some.”

“Then you know the plot. Scientist wants to study the monster, military wants to destroy it. Scientist usually doesn’t survive through Act II.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Gordon’s been on a dozen of these missions. He doesn’t see why we need a babysitter. The ship captains have always given us a free hand before.”

“And Captain Vanda will give you a free hand on this one. His job is running
Sasquatch.
My job is to decide if it’s safe to release the egg.”

“I know that. So does Gordon. The difference is that I don’t resent the necessity. He does. However, that isn’t why you asked me to lunch, is it?”

“No, it’s not. Tell me about what we are going to be doing out here.”

She shrugged. “What’s to tell? The big thinkers at home have pulled a rabbit out of a hat.”

“A what?”

Her giggle was girlish. “Sorry, ancient reference. It used to be a standard trick with magicians. I understand it worked a lot better with rabbits than with rattlesnakes.”

“I’m having trouble figuring out how the allusion relates to what we are doing.”

“What is it that is bothering you, Commander?”

“I guess the thought that we are going to track the Easter Egg inside the hold of a Broan transport.”

“Why?”

“Well, because it’s basically impossible.”

“It wouldn’t be impossible if we put a big radio transponder on the egg and then ran an antenna to the outside of the Broan ship, would it?”

“No, but the Broa would notice.”

“Exactly. So we arrange for them to notice and not think anything about it. It’s a bit of misdirection…essentially, a magic trick.”

“How are we pulling it off?”

“Well, the egg won’t be superlight at the time. That’s important because, as we all know, it’s impossible to track a ship in superlight.”

“So how can we track it?”

“We track it the same way we would if we had a big radio beacon on it. We just use different instrumentation. The engineers have learned to produce a signal the Broa can’t detect. We do that by energizing the stardrive just enough for it to begin rotating the gamma dimension. We can then detect the small volume of rotated space inside the Broan ship and track its movements.”

“Why would they take a ship with an energized drive field aboard one of their freighters?”

“They wouldn’t, not if they had ever seen a starship before. But they don’t know the condition is abnormal, not to mention dangerous. They’ll assume the little tingle they get when they touch the hull is how it is supposed to work.

“Think of a blind man carrying a lantern around in the stern of a rowboat. He can feel the heat, but he can’t see the bright light streaming away in every direction. He thinks it is something to keep him warm.”

“So we just follow the blind man and his rowboat home?”

“That is our hope,” Felicia agreed. “
Galahad
will spot the beacon in the Sabator system and note which stargate it uses. The ships at the other end will pick it up when it emerges and track it to the next stargate in the sequence. Then, because our ships cross the gulf between stars in about the same time it takes a Broan ship to get from one stargate to another in-system, it may be possible for our hunter to track the freighter all the way to Planet X.

#

Chapter Thirty

Lisa Rykand lay strapped to an acceleration couch, alone in Observation, a compartment lit only by night lights. It wasn’t night aboard
Galahad
. In fact, it was just before lunch. However, the blue lights soothed her and allowed her to concentrate more fully on her task.

Beyond the cruiser’s hull, large antennas were pulling in every coherent electromagnetic signal that intersected their gauzy golden mesh. These signals were decoded and filtered through specially-designed computers in the cargo hold. Those that met certain exacting parameters were passed along to the human translators. Lisa was one of half-a-dozen aboard.

So much data was being received that it would be impossible to read all of it in real time, even the portion selected for review. Lisa sampled the signals sent her way. She did so by immersing herself in the cacophony of sound that issued from her speakers, listening to each for no more than 15 seconds before going on to the next.

The Sabator system was markedly different from those she spied on during Q-ship missions. Typically, ninety percent of intercepts were in the language of the native species. In those systems, it had been sufficient to concentrate only on those signals transmitted in trade-Broan.

However, Karap-Vas was a Broan world. All the signals leaking from the planet were in High Broan. The computers forwarded only those messages that seemed to bear on their mission, such as information from the local orbital traffic control net.

Monitoring enemy communications was done in two-hour stints, which was about the length of time a human translator could be on the job and remain sharp. She then rested for two hours before doing another two-hours. After that, she had six hours off for eating, sleeping and taking care of sanitary needs before starting all over again.

“Lisa,” a voice called out in her right ear.

“Yes, Glenn?”

Glenn Humphreys was the other translator this watch. He concentrated on space traffic control signals while Lisa handled the filtered output from the planet.

“Check Channel Seventy, please.”

She quickly switched over and listened to the dry orders emanating from one of the computers that controlled the space lanes.

“Sounds like a routine course correction,” she said.

“I was wondering if it might have something to do with
Sasquatch
.”

“Where is the ship doing the maneuvering?”

There was a short pause. When Humphreys spoke again, she could hear the sheepish tone in his voice. “The ship is on the opposite side of the system. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Better to err on the side of caution. We’re coming up on drop time. If you get anything else like that, let me know.”

#

Mark Rykand was also strapped into an acceleration couch. The Trojan Horse team had taken over Auxiliary Control aboard
Sasquatch
.

In addition to Mark, Susan Ahrendt, Gordon Smithson, and Felicia Godwin were in their vacsuits (sans helmets) and strapped into control stations. Three other team members in full vacsuits were visible on screen. They were carefully disconnecting the web of cables that had powered the small starship since leaving Brinks Base.

 “Ready to disconnect power!” Spacer Toland announced.

“Stand by,” Gordon Smithson ordered from the couch two places to Mark’s left. “Felicia, bring the internal generators online.”

The power schematic on the auxiliary screen changed. The green line that showed power feeding into the small starship from
Sasquatch
went gray. At the same time a small sun at the egg’s heart began pulsing.

“Generators are online and holding steady,” Felicia reported. “External power has been cut off. Ready to disengage power cable.”

“Okay, Toland. Pull the plug!”

“The plug is pulled.” The figure on screen disconnected the last remaining cable running to the small ship. Despite having no remaining visible means of support, the egg did not move. The normal space generators had powered up with the rest of the systems and the Trojan Horse was now station keeping.

“All right, clear out. We’re ready to depressurize,” Dr. Smithson ordered.

On screen, the three figures moved from view. A moment later, the airlock readouts announced that the bayside door had opened, then closed, followed by the shipside door doing the same.

“We’re clear,” came a voice over the annunciator.

“Status check on the egg,” Smithson ordered.

There followed long series of scrolling numbers on the screen as the computers checked the health of the small starship. Within two minutes, they reported the egg ready in all respects.

“Captain,” Smithson said into the intercom. “We are ready to launch.”

The answer came back from Captain Vanda on
Sasquatch
’s bridge, “Very well, Doctor. Stand by.”

There followed a raucous klaxon alarm, followed by the order for all hands to prepare for vacuum operations. Mark slipped the helmet into place, engaged the neck ring, and gave it a twist. His ears popped as the suit pressurized.

Mark activated the control that told the captain that he was ready. On the screen, icons lit up all over the ship to indicate compartments secure for vacuum.

One red spot remained stubbornly lit. Captain Vanda’s sarcastic voice echoed in his ears. “Anytime you are ready, Miss Comstock!”

A very young female voice responded, “Sorry, Captain. I had trouble achieving pressure integrity.”