The Icerigger Trilogy: Icerigger, Mission to Moulokin, and The Deluge Drivers (108 page)

“What if we kept the women here as hostages?”

“Too risky. It would only take one to give us away. The ones we allowed to return to the outpost might harbor hidden dislikes for those we held here. We absolutely cannot allow any of them out of the installation.”

“So what do we do?” Antal put his feet up on the couch. Bamaputra eyed him distastefully, but said nothing.

“If we cannot persuade them to join us and we cannot dispose of them, we will simply have to keep them alive and quiet. There is no hurry. They will not be expected to return for some while and so we will have time to think. In time we will come up with an appropriate solution. Or they may. For now let us do this: We can have them make a recording. Let’s say our studious guests have encountered an unexpectedly advanced Tran community boasting a unique social order which they wish to study while they pursue their investigations of local meteorological anomalies. The Tran in question have agreed to put them up until they have completed their studies. All of this can be put on a recording chip and sent back with some of our own Tran in a small ice ship. These people did bring recording equipment with them, I trust?”

“Yeah. We’ve been through all their stuff. Gauges and samplers and so forth. What you’d expect. No weapons.” He grinned. “Can’t break regulations, you know. They had a good field recorder.”

Bamaputra nodded approvingly. “Everyone on the recording will be all smiles and contentment. Its arrival should allay any worries on the part of both the outpost scientific and government administration. And I understand the new Resident Commissioner has arrived. She will be too busy settling in to concern herself with a group of explorers who by their own admission are in no danger. What do you think? Will they cooperate and make the necessary recording?”

“I don’t think there’ll be any problem with that. I’ll stick a beamer in somebody’s ear and threaten to pull the trigger. That ought to eliminate any hesitation. This doesn’t strike me as an unusually brave or foolhardy bunch.”

“Fine. Meanwhile we will continue operations normally. When the next supply vessel arrives we will relay news of this awkward development back to headquarters. Let them chew on the problem and come up with a final determination. That way it will be out of our hands. I don’t want the responsibility. Our task is to see that our work here continues uninterrupted.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“What kind of watch do you have on them?”

“Watch?” Antal sucked in smoke, exhaled a small cloud. “They’re well secured. Standard camera surveillance. You want me to put guards on their rooms? They’re not going anywhere, and I’d rather not spare the personnel.”

“If you’re sure …”

“The Tran are sealed in an empty perishables storeroom and the others in a safe dorm. Now and then I have somebody check on them and they’ll be fed three times a day. The Tran don’t know enough to start looking for a way out and that dormitory has magnetic seals on the door. No locks to pick. The cameras make thirty-second room sweeps. They’re unbreakable, regular security equipment. Why take somebody away from his job so he can go to sleep in front of a door with a beamer in his hand? These are machinists, programmers, and fusion engineers, not peaceforcers.

“If anyone in either room tries to fiddle with the door, the cameras will show it to security central. We’d just tell the fiddlers to knock it off or else. They’re as aware of their predicament as we are. I doubt they’ll try anything.”

Bamaputra hesitated, then nodded. “This isn’t my area of expertise. You know best.”

“It’s not my specialty either, but I wouldn’t worry. They can’t go to the bathroom without being seen. There’s no camera in the Tran dorm but they wouldn’t know how to break a magnetic seal even if they were told what it was.” He pulled a fresh narcostick from his vest pocket and extended it toward the administrator. “Sure you won’t try one of these: Helps you forget where you are.”

“I prefer to know where I am.” He sniffed disdainfully. “What is the point in distorting your perceptions when there is so much of interest to observe while they are functioning properly?”

Antal sat up. “Maybe mine aren’t functioning right, then, because it beats the hell out of me how anyone could find anything of interest to observe on this spherical ice cube. All I’m interested in observing are my quarterly credit transfers. I’ve gotta check Number Three. Been having some overheating problems. Minor stuff, but I want to look into it. You know how temperamental those magnetic containment fields can be.” He rose, started toward the exit.

“You going to stay here and stare at the steam?” he asked curiously.

Bamaputra had turned to face the windows. “For a while.”

“Suit yourself.” Antal left the administrator to his contemplation. What a weirdo. He’d long since given up trying to understand the smaller man. For a while, Antal thought he might even have been an extremely well-built, cleverly programmed robot. The theory was quickly disproves He’d encountered a few pure humanoid machines and without exception every one of them was friendlier and warmer than Bamaputra. He was too distant, too cold to be a robot.

September lay on two bunks placed end to end and put his hands behind his head. “Well, young feller-me-lad, how do we get out of this?”

“I don’t know,” Ethan told him as he stared at the single door, “but they daren’t kill us.”

“Daren’t say daren’t. Anyone willing to sacrifice a few tens of thousands of intelligent locals to further a commercial end is more than capable of bumping off a few members of his own species.”

“I don’t doubt they’d do it in a minute if they thought they could get away with it, but they must know we’d be missed back at Brass Monkey.”

“I’m sure they do or we’d probably be sucking ice by now. The longer we sit here and don’t report back, the more curious Hwang’s colleagues back at the outpost will become. So whatever this Bamaputra fellow decides, he’s going to have to do it pretty quick. You’re right about one thing, though. I don’t think our imminent demise is one of their primary options. There’s plenty to dislike about our captors, but they don’t strike me as rash. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them try to co-opt Hwang and her people.”

“Surely not.” Ethan was shocked by the suggestion.

“If you work on somebody long enough, it’s been proven you can alter their attitudes no matter how dedicated they are. This Bamaputra’s sharp. And he’s a scientist himself. He can talk to folks like Blanchard and Semkin in their own language. He might eventually be able to convince some of our friends that what he’s doing really is in the best interests of the Tran, his backers’ ulterior motives notwithstanding.”

“You know, that whole business still bothers me.”

September turned to look at him. “How do you mean, feller-me-lad?”

“Well, I’m in the same sort of business. Trade, commerce, you know. There are other, less expensive ways to secure a trade monopoly than by changing around a whole world’s climate.”

A broad grin spread across the giant’s face. “I was wondering when that would occur to you.”

Ethan was startled. “You’ve been thinking along the same lines?”

“Have to be blind not to see it, lad. For instance, your company could simply apply for such a monopoly. Even though getting it’s an outside shot, if you paid off the right people and demonstrated your good intentions to the rest, you just might get permission. At least you try.”

While they mulled over the obvious, Hwang and her colleagues were engaged in animated discussion across the room. When it concluded, Williams and Cheela Hwang came over to join them. They brought confirmation of Ethan’s suspicions, but not in the manner he’d hoped.

It was much worse than anything he’d thought of.

“We’ve been doing calculations.”

“Isn’t that what you always do?” September quipped.

She didn’t even glance in his direction. Her expression was ashen. “We’ve been plodding through what we know and combining it with what we can extrapolate in the absence of actual raw data about the actual rate of melting of the ice sheet and the warming of the atmosphere in this region. We’ve had to guess as to how long this installation has been in operation. We do know, of course, that it can’t be longer than the existence of Tran-ky-ky has been known. The chances of it having been discovered by these people prior to the first official Commonwealth survey are slim.” She looked at the scientific calculator on her wrist, shoving back the sleeve of her survival suit to expose the small rectangular readout. It was filled with dancing figures.

“We’re pretty sure of our results. I wish we weren’t.”

Milliken Williams looked stricken. “They show that this Bamaputra is being much too modest when he says they’re going to change things on Tran-ky-ky over a period of time. The surface will indeed warm rapidly once the ice sheet begins to retreat. The trouble is that Tran physiology can’t adjust nearly as fast. The climatological shift will occur much too quickly for our friends to adapt to it.

“Those who live close to the equator have a chance of surviving, with help and care. Those in the northern zones, from the temperate to the subarctic, will die of heatstroke long before they can reach the southern continent, despite anything short of massive intervention on the part of Commonwealth authorities. Even if such intervention is forthcoming, we don’t see how a relief effort of that size can be mounted in time.” He made a disgusted sound. “Politics.”

“We’re not talking thousands of deaths here,” Hwang whispered. “We’re talking millions. Genocide. Not mass extinction, but close. Those Tran who survive will do so as government wards, not as the progenitors of a new ‘golden age.’ ”

All Ethan could do was gape at the two of them and say, “Why?”

“I’ll tell you why,” said Hwang evenly. “You recall what Bamaputra said about this Massul and Corfu being in charge of refugee relief efforts? This is going to simplify their work. Massul will be emperor of nothing.”

September was nodding his head understanding. “All adds up, don’t it?” He looked at Ethan. “What happens, feller-me-lad, to a world that gets warmed right up real quick, too quick for the Tran to handle the change? What’s the result down the line when the ice melts and the temperature starts staying above freezing day and night?”

“I don’t follow you, Skua.”

September tapped the side of his white-haired head with an index finger. “You gotta learn to think in global terms, lad. See, if it gets too hot for the Tran, it becomes, real comfortable for humans. You end up with a nice, temperate, attractive, watery world where what’s left of the native population is confined to a single land mass much larger than they need to support them. A native population so reduced and weak that it would be dependent for its very survival on the largess of the Commonwealth.”

“Precisely,” said Hwang. “This installation has been carefully concealed so that the change in the climate can be made to appear the result of natural causes. Giving the prevailing ignorance about this world that is still possible to do. The Commonwealth will be forced to step in to insure the survival of the Tran as a race. In the confusion many relief organizations will be establishing footholds here. Bamaputra’s people will be the first of many and the best positioned to take advantage of the catastrophe.”

“Maybe Bamaputra’s fooling everyone under him. Maybe they’re not aware of what he’s really doing here.” Ethan knew it sounded naive but felt it had to be said.

Hwang shook her head. “The calculations are too simple, too obvious. People like this Antal aren’t stupid. They must know what the end result of their operation here is going to be. It is possible that the lower echelon workers are being kept ignorant.”

“Don’t you see, young feller-me-lad? Bamaputra’s backers aren’t interested in commerce. They aren’t interested in trade monopolies. They’re interested in real estate. A world’s worth. Colonies are allowed on uninhabited worlds and Class I worlds with the consent of the dominant race, but not on anything in between. Tran-ky-ky’s real in between. Not that anyone would want to settle on Tran-ky-ky the way it is. But raise the temperature fifty degrees or so and melt the ice and this could be another New Riviera.”

“For the Tran it would become a literal hell,” said Williams. “For those who managed to survive, anyway. The racial remnants would eventually change into the Golden Saia state, but their numbers would be too reduced to object to an influx of settlers.”

It was quiet for a long moment, each of them lost in their own private contemplation of a horror greater than any had previously encountered or ever expected to.

“Are you sure about the rate of warming and melting?” Ethan finally murmured.

“Even if we are off by a factor of ten or twenty percent,” Hwang told him softly, “it still spells doom for the Tran as a developing race. They will never have the chance to build the advanced civilization Bamaputra talks about because they will not have the numbers to do it on their own. They will become wholly dependent on Commonwealth refugee agencies—or on this project’s backers.”

Williams smiled humorlessly. “I can see Bamaputra’s people displaying great concern for the survivors. It will be excellent public relations for them.”

September nodded knowingly. “They’ve figured it down to the last weld. Right from the start—except for us. We shouldn’t be here. At least we’ve managed to start ’em looking over their shoulders. Not surprised they’re handling us so careful. They know any of us gets back to Brass Monkey and starts talking, the Commonwealth itself won’t be big enough for them to hide in.”

“Then they’d better start running,” said Cheela Hwang softly, “because we’re leaving.”

“I’m willing. There’s just one problem or two.” Ethan nodded toward the exit. “We’re stuck behind a metal door with magnetic locks on it, under constant video surveillance and imprisoned deep inside solid rock
.
” As he finished, his objections were punctuated by the gentle whir of the spy-eye motor drive swiveling the camera across the floor.

Cheela Hwang reacted as though she hadn’t heard a word he’d said. “Getting out of here is the easy part.”