Trident's Forge (6 page)

Kexx was mesmerized. Zer question entirely forgotten, ze moved to touch the enchanted rock again, but Mei slapped zer hand away.

“No toy play,” she said, getting the word order wrong, but close enough.

Kexx pointed a wavering finger at the rock. “What is
that
?”

“Tool,” Mei answered simply, apparently not wanting to waste time explaining.

The moment passed and Kexx remembered the immediate crisis. “What do you mean ‘the rest of us,' Mei? There are more of you?” The human nodded. “How many?”

“Many, many. Greater,” Mei paused, struggling with a word, “Greater two hands villages.”

Ze meant to say two
fullhands
, Kexx was certain of it. They'd only started on numbers in the last few days. Ze swallowed hard. Two fullhand villages of humans? With numbers like that, they weren't just a wayward tribe that had washed up on the shore, they were as numerous as the entire village network, maybe more. The sudden realization blanked Kexx's skin with fear.

“And they're all coming right now?” ze said carefully, afraid of the answer.

Mei shook her head, a negative signal. “No. Maybe, ah…” Ze looked around, then pointed at the human shelter and made a big, all-encompassing circle motion, “…two hands of this, multiple.”

Kexx nodded, borrowing the human expression. Mei was trying to express multiplication, if Kexx was to judge. There were just over thirty humans in the village. Thirty times two fullhands, around six hundred on their way. That was at least a number their warriors could deal with, if it came to that. Which, glancing down at Mei's “tool”, Kexx sincerely hoped it wouldn't.

“If there are so many of you,” Kexx spoke slowly, trying to give Mei time to digest the words. “How do you know so few are coming now?”

“That only fit in shuttle.”

Kexx grimaced at the unfamiliar word. “Shuttle?”

Mei squinted her eyes, frustrated. “Ah… bird. That only fit in bird.”

Bird again. The rover used the same word, not that it made any more sense the second time around. Kexx hovered near incredulous.

“What kind of bird carries six hundred people?” The moment the question left zer mouth, a low rumbling sound came from the ocean. Quiet at first, more felt than heard, but it grew quickly. Every face in the village turned to try to spot what came from the horizon. The sound grew like an approaching storm, but impossibly fast.

Then, all at once, the sound exploded into a fullblown hurricane. Thunderous winds buffeted everyone caught outside as an enormous wedge, black as the deepest cave, soared just above the halo trees, blotting out the sun as it casted a shadow over fully half the village. G'tel left in the open ran for the safety of their homes, dropped to the ground and covered their heads, or simply froze in abject terror. As quickly as it appeared, the black triangle covered the length of the village and disappeared on the other side of the trees.

Horrified and operating at the very edge of zer wits, Kexx looked down to see Mei pointing at the nightmare.

“
That
kind of bird.”

I
t took
all of the three days preparing for the mission before Benson finally committed himself to actually getting on the shuttle. Whoever had been in charge of assigning the seating arrangements had given him a place of honor near the front of the shuttle's passenger compartment in a window seat. Whether the choice was out of ignorance of his discomfort with flying, or a devilishly cruel sense of humor, Benson couldn't say.

The shuttle's enormous interior was almost completely empty. To keep things simple, the diplomatic mission to meet the Atlantians had only a half dozen members, another half dozen support staff, and a four-member security detail. Add in the pilot, copilot, flight engineer, and com officer, and the entire compliment only reached twenty people out of the shuttle's full capacity of just over five hundred.

It was, in a word, overkill, but it was also the only viable option. Shambhala had a small fleet of quad-rotor helicraft among the equipment delivered by the Ark, but they were small, four-seat affairs powered by quick-discharging capacitor banks in place of traditional fuel-burning turbine engines. This made them phenomenally efficient and pollution free, but severely hampered their range before they had to be plugged back into the city's electrical grid for a recharge. They were built for scouting and surveying duty, not transoceanic voyages.

So a shuttle it would be. By pure happenstance, the
Discovery
was picked for the mission, as she had the fewest flight hours on her clock. She was the same bird Benson and Theresa had ridden down to the surface three years ago. She was named after one of the original quartet of NASA space shuttles from the late twentieth century, and one of only two that hadn't met an unfortunate and fiery end.

Benson counted that as a good omen, but still took great care to strap himself into his flight web so tightly that he could only breathe through his stomach. Then he shut off the false window panel and closed his eyes.

“What's the point of the window seat if you can't enjoy the view?” The voice was Korolev's. Benson looked over as the young constable sat down in his own seat on the aisle with an empty chair between them. The mission's entire compliment couldn't even fill the first two rows.

“The only view I'm going to enjoy is the outside of this beast while I'm standing safely on the ground. If you want my seat, you can have it.”

“Thanks chief, but you look like you'd explode if anyone hits the release on your harness.”

“I'll risk it. I'd rather be sitting all the way in the back anyway.”

“Why?”

“It's the last part to crash.”

Korolev snorted at that. “What is it with you and flying, anyway?”

“The only other time I went flying, I had a maintenance pod blow up with me inside it.”

“But you spent your entire life flying through space at fifteen thousand kilometers per second. It doesn't make sense.”

“They don't call them
phobias
if they make sense, Pavel.”

His friend smiled and shrugged, then strapped himself in for takeoff. Korolev had been Benson's only choice in the composition of the expedition's personnel. He'd lobbied hard to borrow the constable from Theresa's force and get him assigned to the security detail. Korolev was a good kid, and he had a history of loyalty and an aggressive streak about a kilometer wide that had only grown since he started playing defense for the Mustangs' infant football team. It was probably the Russian blood in him boiling up to the surface.

He'd even saved Benson's life during the Kimura incident by ignoring orders to stay out of the bomb vault where the final showdown had taken place. Korolev took a few lungfuls of plutonium dust in the process of dragging Benson's unconscious ass out of the irradiated compartment before he started glowing. All things considered, Benson was relieved to have him along.

The expedition's leader, on the other hand, filled him with somewhat less confidence. Administrator Valmassoi was a decent enough politician. He'd maneuvered the colony through several domestic crises ably enough, including the quasi-uprisings among the group fighting to leave the surface and go back to living on the Ark. They were called Returners, but they weren't going anywhere.

Valmassoi was already campaigning for Shambhala's first actual elections coming in the next year and was polling very well. That was mostly a matter of knowing which squeaky wheels to grease to keep the whole rickety contraption hobbling forward. But that required an intimate familiarity with the players involved and the intricate web of relationships, favors, patronage, jealousies, and vendettas that bound them all together.

What Benson had trouble with was seeing how that skillset dovetailed with the task at hand, where everyone was basically walking in blind.

“You look preoccupied. Still nervous about the flight?” Korolev whispered.

“Hmm? Yes, but no, just thinking about how ridiculous this whole thing is.”

“Again?” Korolev smirked. “Aren't you bored with that yet?”

“It's hard to ignore, and our leadership isn't inspiring a great deal of confidence.”

“Any particular target today?”

Benson cocked his head back to where Valmassoi sat two rows back and on the other side of the aisle.

“What's wrong with him?”

“Apart from shanghaiing me into this mission? I'm concerned about how he's going to kiss alien ass when we don't actually know where their asses are.”

Korolev nodded sagely. “A valid concern.”

“That and he's leaving Merick in charge of the colony for however long this expedition lasts.”

“Merick is deputy administrator, you know.”

“He's a glorified personal assistant, at best. What if something happens while we're gone? Like the Returners start up again?”

“Those whiners? They want to go back to the Ark because life is too hard down here. Not exactly the building materials for a violent mob. Theresa can handle whatever comes up, you're worrying too much.”

“I hope you're right,” Benson said and looked at his feet.

The sudden banshee cry of the shuttle's six immense turbine engines spinning to life cut their conversation short. An airliner of old Earth would have bothered with sound-deadening insulation for the cabin and efficiency-sapping modifications to the engines and contours of the fuselage to reduce noise over populated areas. The Ark's shuttles weren't built for such delicate sensibilities. They were constructed to be light and powerful workhorses, with no regard for the comfort of either their passengers or the people living outside.

The flight engineer emerged from the cockpit and checked the crash webs of every passenger in turn, tightening straps where needed, then giving them a thumbs up before moving on. Once she was sure her cargo was secure, she announced one minute until takeoff and disappeared back behind the flight deck door.

Benson shut his eyes once more and tried to pretend the rest of the world didn't exist. The brakes released, and the shuttle rolled forward, gently at first as the pilot centered the immense craft on the runway. Amazingly, the shuttle was capable of vertical takeoffs using a network of ducts that diverted engine thrust to nozzles at its three corners. The maneuver burned a staggering amount of fuel, of which there was precious little surplus to begin with. There wouldn't be an opportunity to refuel during the trip, and chances that the Atlantians had built a serviceable runway on the other side of their destination seemed remote. They were cutting close to the shuttle's maximum range as it was, so every drop counted.

The engines throttled up as the shuttle charged down the runway. Really, it was just a straight patch of hard-packed dirt that had been scraped level with interlocking metal strips laid across it to improve traction. It was far from smooth, but the shuttle's undercarriage had been designed with improvised fields in mind.

Benson's kidneys and spine, however, had not. The vibrations grew as the
Discovery
picked up speed, causing his teeth to clatter together and sending his eyes bouncing around in their sockets. Relief and anxiety fought it out in Benson's stomach when the lumbering giant finally did lift off from the ground and take to the air. Anxiety won as the shuttle pitched upward and threw him into his seat, clawing for altitude.

“You're looking pale, chief,” Korolev said. “Need a bag?”

Benson shook his head and squeezed his eyes tighter. A small tremor passed through the fuselage as the shuttle slipped past the sound barrier and continued piling on airspeed.

The hull creaked a bit as the turbines were spooled down and the scramjets came online. This was followed by another round of acceleration. Even through his nervousness, Benson couldn't help but be impressed. The only other time he'd been strapped into the bird, it had been for the reentry flight. There was no acceleration then. Indeed, the shuttle's engines had only been powered up during the descent to the landing strip in case of emergency.

The shuttle was immensely powerful. The only thing in his experience that matched it had been the month they'd all lived through after the Ark had flipped over to decelerate for Gaia, a pulse of atomic explosions going off every other second for weeks. The entire population had lived crowded onto the surface of Avalon module's forward bulkhead. Thirty thousand people stumbling around on 3.14 square kilometers, living in overcrowded apartments set ninety degrees in the wrong direction, eating nothing more glamorous than algae and tofu rations and fighting lines at the toilets during the trio of hour-long breaks they were afforded each day.

It wasn't a fond memory for most.

The weight pressing on Benson's chest eased as the shuttle reached its cruising altitude and speed. Soon thereafter, the pilot got on the intercom and announced that everyone was free to unbuckle their webs and move about the cabin. Benson pulled out a tablet and passed the time watching highlights of old NFL games, looking for new plays and defensive arrangements for the Mustangs to try out in practice.

[Important Implant Software Update, Fixes Audio Integration Bug #3947-B-56. Install Now?]

The alert floated in the augmented reality environment in Benson's field of vision. Audio bug? Was that the infernal ticking sound he'd been hearing for the last week?

he thought. The update downloaded, and the slight but persistent tick disappeared.

The flight was short. Almost as soon as Benson's anxiety had returned to a manageable level, the pilot got on the PA system and announced that they were beginning their descent and to get back in their webs. The engine whine dulled as the pilot throttled back. Benson's stomach lurched with the shuttle as it pitched into a shallow dive.

“Nothing to worry about, chief.” Korolev cinched up his lap belt. “We'll be on the ground in ten minutes.”

“That's a little vague, don't you think?”

Korolev just smiled and shook his head. “No pleasing some people.”

Benson gritted his teeth and focused on his breathing, his mission with Mei and the Unbound, his team's troublesome third-down conversion rate in practice, basically anything but the rapidly approaching ground.

“Can you turn on the window panel?” Korolev asked.

“No.”

“C'mon, chief. You're keeping your eyes closed anyway.”

“Are you going to continue pestering me like a poorly disciplined five year-old until I relent?”

Korolev pondered this. “That seems probable.”

“Of course it does.” Benson reached over and switched the virtual reality display back on. The shuttle's hull had no real windows, aside from those in the cockpit put there in the extremely unlikely event the pilots lost instrumentation and had to make a dead-reckoning landing. Instead, the inside walls of the cabin were coated top to bottom with displays so hi-def, it wasn't like looking out a window, it was like there was no window at all.

Benson had enough trouble dealing with the mere existence of the sky. Flying through it brought a whole new world of dread. But neither could he really tear himself away from the view. The shuttle glided over the vast, sapphire ocean. The color was breathtaking. Benson had spent some days at the beach with Theresa and seen the ocean, of course, but the vantage from up here was totally different. He could see the white caps of waves, but the expanse of water was so vast it was impossible to get a sense of scale. Benson wasn't even sure how high above the waves they were.

It reminded him of floating in the space outside the Ark, except here, infinity had shape and form.

The shuttle slowed as they passed the first barrier island. A smattering of scrub brush among the dunes gave Benson some idea of altitude. They were coming in low, no more than a hundred meters. The hull groaned gently as the exhaust from the turbines was redirected through ducts in the fuselage and took the shuttle's full weight. They were hovering. The landing site had to be very close by.

Gaia was, as a general rule, a flat world. It was over a billion years older than Earth had been. The core was still molten enough to maintain a weakened magnetic field, but volcanism was rare, and plate tectonics had slowed to, well, even slower than plate tectonics usually were. The world's mountain ranges weren't being built back up nearly fast enough to keep up with the erosion and gravity dragging them down. Canyons and valleys, however, were the opposite. Rivers had been cutting through the landscape for hundreds of millions of years longer than on Earth. Canyons were deeper, wider, often reaching all the way down to solid bedrock. One such enormous canyon snaked through the high plains a few tens of kilometers north of where they were now.

“There it is,” Valmassoi said loudly from the other side of the cabin. The seatbelt light forgotten, Korolev unbuckled himself and scooted over to the other side to get a better look.