The Genius Asylum: Sic Transit Terra Book 1 (21 page)

Chapter 32

“I’ve got
them on the screen, Drew,” Lydia sang out from Ruby’s station. “Two short-hoppers, point of origin Zulu. They’ll be asking for docking instructions in about ten minutes.” She turned and shot him an inquiring look.

The dominos were falling now in rapid succession, each one a tiny missile capable of blowing the con to kingdom come.

Fighting the urge to mop his brow, Drew dragged in a deep breath. His gaze wandered involuntarily toward the viewport, but there was nothing to see there. The Rangers were approaching the Hub end-on, as Ruby had done the day he and Teri had arrived. And as long as they continued to approach the Hub, then it was a safe bet that they hadn’t detected
Devil
Bug
.

Mentally crossing his fingers, he told Lydia, “Direct them to A Deck, modules 2 and 3.”
No point in letting them see that vacant parking
spot on the shuttle deck.
“Tell them not to debark until I’ve spoken with their commanding officer. Then seal the archways and activate the surveillance vidcams. And send about a dozen of our biggest and strongest up there, just in case.”

“I hope you’re wrong about this,” she observed, frowning.

“So do I, Lydia. Just follow my instructions, please…”
…and hope the Rangers
do the same.
Drew would have preferred to turn away their shuttles, deny them docking privileges, until he knew what had recently happened on Zulu. But he couldn’t. The mission had already begun, and the mission had to take priority. Besides, as had already been pointed out to him by both Bonelli and the Doc, the Rangers were armed. “Once the shuttles have docked, watch the surveillance screens carefully. If you see anyone forcing the archway doors or drawing a weapon, evacuate our people from A Deck. Then seal it off and send out a mayday to any Earth ships in the sector.”

“Now that Gavin’s been adopted, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to send a mayday to any Nandrian ships in the sector?” Lydia suggested. “I know some of their comm codes.”

Drew shook his head vigorously, his imagination leaping from one scene of mayhem to another, much worse one. “That alliance is a secret,” he reminded her. “We can’t afford to tip our hand. Besides, the Nandrians wouldn’t just rescue us — they’d kill all the Rangers and then blow up Zulu to emphasize their point. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see who steps off the lead shuttle.”

“I’ll compose the message anyway,” she persisted. “You can decide whether to send it once we have a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”

He couldn’t very well argue with that.

Ten minutes later, the leading short-hopper identified itself as the
Tripoli
and requested docking instructions. Two minutes after that, the second shuttle, the
Bonaventure
, contacted them as well.

Drew’s thoughts turned briefly to
Devil Bug
. If they were on schedule, the incursion team ought to be approaching Zulu’s short-hopper docking bay by now.

Gazing over Lydia’s shoulder at a two-by-two bank of surveillance screens, Drew saw Orvy Hagman and ten other men pile out of the tube cars on A Deck. The resolution of the vidcam images was sharply defined — Drew could see the steely glint in the eyes of the dockworkers as they took up their positions around the deck’s circumference. They looked as though they’d been posted to guard duty at all the docking arches, not just the ones the Rangers were using. That was good. It suggested that the Daisy Hub crew was vigilant and prepared to deal with intruders. With luck, it would make the Rangers think twice before they tried anything.

Lydia pressed a button on the comm console, listened for a moment, then swiveled in her seat. “Mr. Townsend, I have the new commanding officer of the Ranger detachment on the comm. In compliance with your instructions, he’s waiting to speak with you, in the airlock of docking arch 2.”

“Did he give you a name? A rank?”

“Major Cisco.”

Drew felt a sudden chill. Cisco? Or was it SISCO? This couldn’t be a coincidence. Had Ridout decided to stir the pot a little? Or was it someone else on the Security Committee, grown impatient with Townsend’s lack of progress? Either way, it appeared that things were going to become very interesting on Daisy Hub, very fast.

“All right. Inform him that I’m on my way up. And copy to Orvy Hagman. If anything nasty happens up there, you know what to do.”

“Yes,
sir
,” said Lydia, throwing him a mock salute.

As Drew stepped off the tube car on A Deck, all the dockworkers snapped to attention. Surprised, he paused momentarily, wondering whether someone besides Lydia was watching them. Then he realized: they’d been rehearsing. Teri’s concert had introduced a whole new mindset to the rebels on Daisy Hub, and appropriately so, because it was show time, and not just for Teri Martin and the Powwow.

Drew turned to face the nearest vidcam and announced, “All right, Ms. Garfield, unseal the archway and let the major through.”

As the doors slid aside, Drew assumed his most uncompromising stance and expression. Behind him, he could sense Orvy’s men forming up, preparing for trouble. He imagined Lydia down in AdComm, anxiously gnawing her lower lip as she watched events unfold on her surveillance screens.

As they all stood there, adrenaline-pumped and braced for conflict, a short, slight man with straight black hair stepped hesitantly past the archway doors. If this was a Ranger officer, he was completely out of uniform. In fact, his navy blue business suit looked stained and slept in, suggesting a very hasty departure from wherever he’d been before Zulu. He blinked a couple of times, then smiled and walked up to Drew, his hand extended for shaking.

Stunned, Drew accepted it, alarms going off at the back of his mind. He’d already seen this man, on the Daisy Hub crew manifest. Either Nestor Quan had an identical twin brother, or their Disease Control Officer was leading a double life.

“Major Cisco, I presume?” he said at last.

“Greetings, Mr. Townsend.” The rumpled little man appraised him with cold, dark eyes that belied the warmth in his voice. “I thank you for your generous offer of hospitality to me and my men. I see that you have chosen not to underestimate me — a wise decision. However, we are guests on your station, and I promise you, we shall behave with all decorum.”

Or else
?
Drew couldn’t help thinking of Bonelli, with his broken nose and black eye. If they’d been dealt to him by the new commander, then, clearly, ‘Cisco’ was not someone to be trifled with. If SISCO had sent him, he’d probably been trained in several martial arts. In any case, Drew was certain that the Zulu detachment would do precisely as he ordered. The question was, what exactly had he ordered them to do?

The dominos are falling. Enter the Trojan horse.

Drew pinned on an answering smile. “I appreciate that, Major. These gentlemen are here to assist in the orderly debarkation of your men. They will escort them down to K Deck, where our chef has set out a buffet supper. Following the meal, they will be ushered to their seats for the concert.”

Cisco bowed deeply and said, “You are too kind, Mr. Townsend. And while this is going on, perhaps you and I could have a word in private?”

Privately, Drew wanted nothing more than to return to AdComm and check on Lydia — it must have been a shock for her to see Quan’s face on the surveillance screen — but he trusted his instincts. Right now they were telling him not to let ‘Major Cisco’ out of his sight; so, Townsend nodded and gestured toward one of the tube cars.

Chapter 33

Zulu was
a stumpy cylinder clad in energy conversion panels, with a dish antenna at one end, a gravity field generator at the other, and landing deck ports in its middle. Seen through the viewport as
Devil Bug
approached it, it distinctly resembled a mushroom wearing an overcoat.

Holchuk wasn’t the only one who made the association with food. Beside him, O’Malley’s stomach had begun to growl.

“Hey, we’ve been out here for hours,” he pointed out. “My tummy’s entitled to a grumble or two.”

“I’ve got dinner on board for everyone after we complete the mission,” Ruby announced. “Meanwhile, brace for gravity: In three, two, one…”

Forewarned, her passengers all made sure they had stowed their gear and were right side up when
Devil Bug
entered the Zoo’s gravity field. This was the part of weightlessness that Holchuk hated, even when he was cushioned by a well-upholstered chair. It wasn’t his back or his legs that he worried about — it was the fact that the Human body was mostly water. If the mighty oceans on Earth could be moved side to side by gravitational flux, it chilled him to think what might be happening inside him right now, to his stomach and kidneys and intestines. The Nandrians didn’t have to put up with this; all their ships were equipped with artificial gravity. Maybe, when this excursion was over, he could negotiate a retrofit for
Devil Bug
.

Ruby halted the shuttle a hundred meters from the landing bay doors. “Okay, Rob,” she called out. “It’s time for you to work your magic.”

Rubbing his hands together gleefully, O’Malley activated his compupad and began punching keys, as everyone else in the cabin crossed their fingers in unison and held their breath.

If the codes were wrong or out of date, the AI minding the Zoo would lock the platform down and begin transmitting an ‘under attack’ message, and the mission they’d trained so long and hard for would have to be aborted. But that wasn’t the worst that would happen. The jamming field would prevent the Rangers from receiving the distress signal only as long as they remained on K Deck. As soon as they left the concert hall, they would know that someone had tried to board their station. They would realize at once that the show had been nothing more than a diversion. And then…

Holchuk shuddered. He had been an agnostic most of his life, but now he prayed:
God help this
cocky kid if his luck runs out tonight.

“Done,” declared O’Malley, sounding very pleased with himself.

The incursion team stared for a long, silent moment at the landing deck doors. Nothing.

“Done what?” Holchuk demanded.

“I’ve put the AI to sleep. Even if I convinced it we were a passing long-hopper with a parcel to deliver, it wouldn’t let us remain aboard Zulu longer than half an hour. This way, we can take our time, get the job done, and put the AI back online as we’re leaving.”

“That’s great, O’Malley,” said Smith, and clapped him on the shoulder, hard enough to make him flinch. “But the job doesn’t start until we’re inside. So why don’t you see what you can do about those doors?”

As O’Malley worked, the tension in the cabin grew thick enough to spread on a slice of bread. It seemed to be taking him forever to force-feed Zulu the right codes. Finally, however, he leaned back in his seat with a sigh of satisfaction. “We’re in,” he announced. “We just have to wait for the Meniscus Field to form.”

Sure enough, less than a minute later, the shuttle bay doors began to slide apart. The mission team could see the slight bulge of the Meniscus Field, like a delicate silver veil billowing through the opening.

“Good work, O’Malley,” said Smith. “All right, people — we’ve practiced this a hundred times. Let’s do it.”

Ruby focused on the task of parking
Devil
Bug
while the others installed their earmikes and prepared to suit up. As the little ship settled onto the deck, the bay doors slid ponderously shut behind them.

Suiting up for space was serious business, demanding total concentration. A PLS suit was more than just a shiny one-piece garment. It was an entire life support system, providing twenty-four hours’ worth of breathable air, warmth, and hydration. Every connection had to be solid and correct. Every fastening had to be airtight. Once on, each suit had to be inspected by two other people and pronounced space-ready before its wearer was allowed near an airlock. From start to finish, the process could take half a standard hour. With practice, the mission team had cut their time down to less than twenty minutes. Holchuk’s time was even shorter, since he was one of the few crewmembers tall enough and broad enough to simply step into a PLS suit without having to adjust it for size. By the time the air temperature in Zulu’s shuttle bay had normalized, the team was ready to go into action.

Singh was carrying the paintbrush. O’Malley had the compupad tucked under his arm. Gouryas had both hands full of recording devices. Smith had taken charge of all the charts and specs. Ruby, their getaway driver, remained aboard the shuttle, monitoring the mission over the comm system and ready to lift off at a moment’s notice. Holchuk briefly considered volunteering to carry something, then thought better of it. He was the one who would have to explain this little escapade to the Nandrians if things didn’t go as planned, and that was burden enough.

Loaded down with their gear and hampered by the bulk of their PLS suits, the team filed out of
Devil Bug
and down the narrow ramp, then began making their way across the landing bay. Smith had ordered them to hurry; unfortunately, there were strong magnetic plates in the soles of the PLS boots, making it hard work to walk, and impossible to run. As they slogged along, all conversation ceased. Holchuk heard nothing inside his bubble helmet but the heavy breathing of five people and the muffled syncopation of their footfalls. Casting monster-like shadows against the deck and bulkheads, the mission team lurched and staggered in an uneven line toward a large black object — the Meniscus Field emitter — that glittered like a pile of glass shards at the far end of the shuttle bay. The Doc had once referred to it as “obsidian with acromegaly.” In fact, the emitter did resemble an overgrown crystal, with dozens of chaotically positioned facets of various sizes. Almost touching the wall, it sprawled asymmetrically over at least ten square meters of deck space. Beside it sat the mission’s actual objective, the Meniscus Field generator. Like the one on the Hub, it was a featureless black cube about as high as Holchuk’s waist.

Suddenly, a loud metallic blurt from an unseen speaker reverbed right through his helmet, yanking his heart up into his throat.

“It’s about bloody time you got here!” said a familiar, angry voice.

Holchuk turned and met four incredulous stares. “Rat’s ass,” he muttered, “it’s Bonelli.”