Misfits (6 page)

The monitor she indicated displayed a
looping series of images, first in false-color infrared mode, then
in visible wavelengths. It repeated: an area of relatively lush
valley giving way to random buildings, then to an actual urban
conglomeration dominated by a bright-lit structure all out of
proportion to the rest. Suddenly smoke--or possibly fog--intruded,
deepening from a vague white mist to a frothy greenish mass,
drifting down from the hillsides, filling the valley and the town
until only the top of the building remained visible. The image cut
back to infrared--

"An unusual flow," Brunner said slowly. "It
seemed very dense. Were this some backworld I would say smog. But
this is Klamath, after all; fluke winds might conceivably have
trapped a sulfur exhalation and created such a fog."

"Not fog," the intern moaned, half-bent over
the counter, like a bird favoring a broken wing. "Not fog. Not
fog."

Brunner turned to her, keeping his face
politely neutral, which was the least he could do for her distress.
He'd had little enough to do with Estrava, the planetologist having
laid claim to the bulk of her hours, and she nervous of Liadens in
any case.

"It's not fog," she said shrilly,
straightening to stare directly into his eyes. "Look at it! The
spectrum is wrong, the flow is wrong-- people are dying!"

Brunner looked as directed, frowning at the
lack of definition.

"What have we, then?" he asked the room at
large, stepping forward, his fingers already on the fine
controls.

It was the Scout who answered.

"Death," he said, his voice neutral to the
point of aggression. He bowed, firmly, a bow of duty required.

"As we need to know for certain, Ichliad
Brunner. First, please confirm that what we see here is a poison
gas. If this is the case we will wish to know of its dispersal
range, potential mixing, and to track it if we might--"

"Scout, this station is to remain neutral!"
The station chief gestured with his hands, not with sense as the
pilots might, but conveying urgency nonetheless. "The treaty
requires that we not interfere."

"I require information!" the Scout
interrupted. "Your station is here at my whim, Chief Thurton."

"I think Phaetera might have something to
say to that, sir!" the chief snapped.

Brunner turned from the monitor and raised
his hands, one to each combatant, seeking instruction.

Chief Thurton drew a hard breath, turned his
back on the Scout, and walked away.

"Do as he says, Brunner. You'll give me a
full report of all actions you perform for this man, and we will
both sign a statement that you act under duress, as I do."

Brunner bowed at the retreating back.

"And these coordinates," he said to the
helpful room, "do I have them?"

"In the south," the intern whispered.
"Chilonga Center."

* * *

On civilized worlds, among civilized people,
disasters are accidents or acts of nature; they are not
premeditated.

In such times, a meteorologist's declaration
of disaster insures the issue of world-wide warnings and unleashes
a gathering of willing assistance. Emergency plans bring together
medical teams, rescue teams, housing teams--

Klamath hung below the station, uncaring,
uncivilized.

Still, it was his necessity as meteorologist
to confirm and declare the wind-borne poisons, the act of
intentional war, a disaster.

Perhaps someone would be listening, and thus
be warned and saved.

So his thoughts went, and he recorded the
thing, and set thumb to it.

The Scout bowed.

"A disaster declared, I hereby interdict and
quarantine Klamath as a hazard to space travelers."

Brunner stared at the Scout.

"You cannot," he said, hearing the protest
as if it was spoken by someone else.

"I can and I do," the Scout responded,
weariness and sorrow apparent on a worn face. "Believe I do it
lightly if you must."

Brunner brushed the words aside. They were
alone in his lab and had been for several hours. Brunner had
backtracked the flow; the Scout, on an auxiliary machine, had taken
to himself the tedious task of identifying the chemicals by their
spectrographic signatures and dispersal fugacity.

"The mercenaries," Brunner said now,
arguing, gods, with a Scout! "The off-world techs serving the
Chilongan government. The natives who have filed for
immigration--…"

The Scout slid off the stool and bowed the
bow of accepting necessary burdens.

"I must," he said, and waved unsteadily at
the microphone.

"Tell the girl--you see? I take that burden,
as well. Tell her, then get some sleep, comrade. You will be needed
at your board soon enough."

* * *

"Quarantined," Brunner said into microphone,
taking especial care with his pronunciation of the Terran.

"I repeat, the Scout has interdicted
Klamath, and placed it under quarantine." He took a breath, knowing
his words were potentially recorded in records besides that of the
Stubbs unit.

"Poison gas has been deployed against
civilian targets in contravention of general usage of warfare."

The planetologist's equipment was powerful
enough to allow him to see bodies lying on the streets, to see
fires burning in the city, to watch Klamath's fickle winds sweeping
the vapors out of the city in a strong flow to the south.

Not one, but three aerosol dispersants had
been loosed upon Chilonga Center. The first sank rapidly,
displacing oxygen, and suffocating some quickly. The second gas,
more mistlike, hovered and flowed in every breeze, torturing the
lungs and eyes of any who survived, eating at their skins. The
third hung higher, and featured a potential late-stage
crystallization so that it might precipitate and leave a residue of
skin-dangerous toxics.

Cursing the winds under his breath, he had
checked the Stubbs' last reported location, all but weeping when he
found it east to northeast of Chilonga Center. Miri Robertson,
Corporal Redhead--the winds blew past her. In a planetary day,
perhaps two, the chemicals would have dispersed entirely, and what
was left of the city could be entered.

All of this he told the Stubbs, remote and
unreachable, and when he was finished, he whispered, "Please
acknowledge."

There was no reply. He told himself that it
was the middle of her night; that her pattern was to report in the
evenings, and sometimes very early in the morning. He told himself
that she was safe, well away from the destruction in the city; that
she would call, if she had need of him.

He kept the line open anyway, the microphone
clipped to his shirt, the Stubbs' uplink window open in the corner
of his work screen.

In the meanwhile he started literature
searches: toxic flows, aerosol dispersal, plume pollutants, plume
tracking, micro-climactic poison control, history of planetary
quarantines and interdictions, general usage of warfare, strategic
poison, tactical toxics, history of Terran Mercenary Units.

The histories held an uncomfortable number
of references to merc units being lost without record. He put them
aside for later reading and turned his attention to those things he
might do that would increase the chances of one particular
mercenary unit surviving its odds.

* * *

His work was twice interrupted by crew
looking for updated information for the on-going betting. He dealt
with them--not as they deserved--locked the door, disabled the bell
and returned to the literature. Eventually, he found a treatise
specifically on defensive meteorology and the tracking of dangerous
atmospherics. In the information about aerosols there were
unpleasant images, but also some useful approximations he could add
to the station's regular monitoring.

He might even be able to--but motion
distracted him, and then sounds.

Information was flowing from the Stubbs to
his monitor; from the speaker came sharp cracking sounds,
then--

"You there, Brunner?"

He touched the microphone. "Here,
galandaria."

"Good! Hey, nothing like a little gunfire to
get you focused, right?" Despite the cheery phrasing, she
sounded--… breathless. Worn. Brunner frowned, closing his eyes so
that he might hear her better.

"Yeah, that was bad, what happened in the
city. We lost a couple of ours in the hospital over there. I--not
the way I'd wanna go, y'know? Anyhow, business--Liz wants to know
what that means if we get a recall, that quarantine. She sent it
upline to our employer but no answer yet. Got anything you can tell
me? Before I forget--this Stubbs? It's great! Got some dings in it
but it took a couple for me and bounced 'em right out. Pretty open
here, don't think Liz is gonna keep us--Right. Gotta go. I'm glad
you was there. Out."

She was gone, pushed by her necessities, and
he had not even said--What? he asked himself. Go carefully? Be
alert? Don't breathe tainted air?

Perhaps he should have demanded a fuller
accounting of the damage to the Stubbs--but to what end? A glance
at the screen told him that the self-test had registered no
warnings, so the station's unit must be intact. Unlike Redhead's
unit, which had "lost a couple of ours--…"

As to Commander Lizardi's query--certainly,
there was nothing he, caught between the station chief and the
Scout, could tell her. Chief Thurton was adamant in neutrality,
while the Scout--… while the Scout played whatever game the Scout
was embroiled in.

What he could do was have available the best
possible wind charts, produce the most accurate weather forecast,
and not forget that down there were people relying on him. On
him!

* * *

Liz didn't say a word: just nodded as she
went by.

And what was Liz gonna say anyway, Redhead
thought, not much more than half worried. Skel was a Lunatic, she
was a Lunatic--… and--… and. Damn. She sighed and finished sealing
up her uniform.

She'd drawn first clean-up, and now here was
Skel already, washed up himself and holding a cup of coffee out to
her like it was a prize. That was nice, she thought. Warming. So
she took the cup like it was a prize, grinned at him, and worried a
little more.

There was plenty to worry about, and not
just maybe Liz not liking it that she'd partnered up with Skel.
Folks had been skittish before word about Klamath being under
blanket quarantine had gotten into the general need-to-know pool.
Now--hell, Liz was skittish, Skel was skittish, Auifme was
downright dangerous, and the liaison the Chilongan government'd
given them was scared out of his prayer beads. 'Course, he'd been
that way since day one, on account of being stuck all by his
lonesome with a buncha Unpious, Outsiders, Orbiteers, Freelovers,
and--damn if there wasn't a dozen more not-exactly-appreciative
names the man had laid on the Lunatics. Scandal'd said it was a
good thing they were on his side, else he'd really be calling in
the long guns, which had made the knot of 'em crouched together
over quick rations laugh, and the liaison rattle his beads.

Now Skel, Redhead thought, turning her mind
to cheerfuller things, he'd kinda surprised her last night; caught
up to her right after she'd tucked the rig in with proper
camouflage and getting ready to tuck in herself. Sat his pretty
tall self down right there beside where she'd been going over her
vitamins to make sure she was up to date and said it right out.

"Hardly like it's a fancy invite, Redhead,
but you know, we get along right well and there ain't no time
presently for Liz to approve us a proper Hundred Hours to get all
perfumed and slinky and everything."

She'd blinked at him, not believing, on
account of there was an unofficial moratorium on asking Miri since
the Grawn brothers had cut each other awhile back about who was
going to ask her--… and she'd have told them both no, anyhow. Sorry
about them, sort of; died in that damn hospital the liaison got
them sent off to.

But Skel'd said his piece, pointed out that
weren't neither of them on guard schedule, and that he did have
coffee, smokes, and stringent cloth too, among other supplies what
could clean the sweat off and give them some distance from this
land that moved like water and the 'way too many crazy people who
were trying to kill them.

She'd smiled, felt her heart beating
faster--and faster again, when he lost a bit of his serious and
smiled, too.

"Hundred Hours is right expensive," she
said. "Don't know I could buy in to it--…"

He'd laughed, and relaxed some more, like
she'd said something right.

"Oh, hell, I'd pick up the Hundred Hours. I
mean, I know what a newer 'cruit's got to worry with, 'spense wise.
But like I say, as is, even if we get to town down here ain't none
of these folks'll rent us a side-by-side lunch seat much less a big
soft room with a big soft bed--…"

He'd paused, looking some tentative, and she
was sure feeling the same. It was funny, kinda, to see him that way
when he could pick up four launch tubes and a long-arm and go
wading into battle. She liked Skel fine--always had, and she
wouldn't mind--… but the man had a right to know.

"Not sure," she said, glancing down at her
boots, her uniform slacks, her shirt-front. "Umm--… Not sure I can
give you the best time, see? It'd be learning on the job mostly for
me, kinda, not like--… I mean."

He didn't say anything but he'd rearranged
himself, getting cross-legged, and close enough she could see the
scrapes on his boot soles and the slot where he'd been knocked off
his feet the other day, the bullet just creasing the shoe. Hell, if
the shot had struck true he could have been back there in Chilonga
Center with the Grawns.

"Your call, Miri. We can bunk up here if you
want, or I got me a spot with three ways out and some quiet, down
in a little hollow. You want, you can just sleep."