The Engineer ReConditioned Part 9

"Schrodinger's Box destroyed. Am receiving extreme range runcible transmission."

"Seal containment sphere. Maximum security."

"Done."

Alexion looked around and Diane shrugged once again.

"Best guess as to what is coming through?" she asked him.

The AI answered her. "They are through. I have a Golem android, Box, and an armed Confederation soldier ... Disarmed."

Diane grinned. She turned to go.

"May I come with you? I think my studies have ended for now," asked Alexion.

Without stopping, Diane nodded. Side by side, they entered a drop shaft.

"In time that soldier may come to think of himself as very lucky," she said.

Dropping through the irised gravity field Alexion looked at her questioningly.

"In ship warfare there's little room for mercy and less room for prisoners. He may be the only one we leave alive."

Alexion shivered. Shortly after, in the containment sphere, he observed the Golem Rhys holding a pulse-rifle on the Confederation soldier. But the man was not up to much. He was flat on a four-gee gravplate, groaning weakly as blood ran from his flattened nose. Smith surmised that though the man might be glad to be alive, he was not particularly enjoying the experience just then.

The night sky of Haden was black and starless but light was provided by strange luminescence under the sea, igniting and going out, lighting large gla.s.sy shapes. The two human bodies lay on the sand, swarmed over by finger lobsters and flat black cruciform creatures moving as slowly as starfish. Abaron and Chapra sat inside the back of the gunship with the coolers on and their visors open. They had intended to eat here, but the mess in the c.o.c.kpit and the smell circulated by the coolers scotched that idea.

"What other jobs did you do before you studied xenology then?" asked Abaron.

Chapra grinned. "I was an Earth Central Enforcer for twenty years, then a Monitor for another six."

Abaron tapped the controls before them with the metal spoon he had intended to use. "So you should be able to fly this."

"Yes, I can fly this ... You don't seem surprised."

"I'm beyond surprise."

The communicator beeped and a voice spoke out of it in gibberish.

"That's Faculan. He's asking someone called Beredec to respond."

"I wonder which one he was."

"Who knows? Anyway, there'll be more gunships down here before long."

"What next?"

"Back into the jungle. We - "

"What is it?"

Chapra wordlessly pointed out the screen at the naked figure striding from the sea.

"That didn't take long, not long at all," said Abaron.

Jane grinned up at them then disappeared from sight as she went to the airlock. They turned in their seats as she entered the ship.

"You've grown," said Chapra.

Her hair was longer. She was bigger. She had the body of a p.u.b.escent girl, only there was a hardness to her musculature that did not look quite right.

"Whole body growth accelerated the repair process," she said, then, "The artificial human, Judd, will be coming here in his shuttle to lead you to a place of safety."

"Lead?" asked Chapra.

"It might be prudent to bring this gunship."

"How long before he gets here?" said Abaron, climbing to his feet.

"Judd will be here in ten minutes."

Chapra stared at Jane. She looked so different. She was beautiful, and she would make a beautiful adult. "Do you want clothing?" she asked, then wondered at her impulses.

"That won't be necessary."

Abaron grinned at Chapra, who ignored him.

"Let's get out of here for a while," she said, looking around at the blood-bespattered c.o.c.kpit.

"Don't you need to familiarise yourself?" Abaron asked.

"No need."

They filed back outside after Jane. The sand was now swarming with the thumb-lobsters and cruciform fish, and watching these sc.r.a.pe up the gory sand they did not attend to their surroundings closely enough. One of the giant wingless mosquitoes attacked Jane. She caught it, almost negligently, then tore it in half without a word before pointed out the shuttle as it glided toward them just a few metres above the sea.

"Strong," said Abaron.

Chapra only nodded.

The shuttle beached with a deep grinding crunching as the AG cut and allowed the full weight down on the sand. Judd came out through the airlock.

"I am here to lead you to a place of potential safety," he said.

Chapra thought that a strange way of wording it. The Golem also seemed twitchy to her. There was something wrong with it. Had the Jain damaged it?

"We only need to hide for a day or so." She checked her timepiece. "ECS are punctual if nothing else and I can't see that ship standing up to a dreadnought."

Judd stood there blinking at her.

"What's the problem, Judd?" she asked.

Judd said, "I do not have Box to advise me so I do not know if facts should be concealed from you. I have very little practical or theoretical human psychology."

Chapra absorbed that but Abaron looked shocked. Chapra remembered how she had felt on first discovering that AIs could lie, cheat, and kill just like humans. The only difference was that AIs did it with firm purpose, and were better at it.

"If it concerns our survival then facts should not be concealed. Trust me, I'm a scientist," said Chapra, then felt a sinking sensation when Judd did not acknowledge humour. It was bad.

"The situation is not amenable to survival," said the Golem.

"Clarify."

"The Cable Hogue arrived forty hours ahead of schedule and now stands within striking distance of the Separatist ship. It will not strike because the Separatist ship is carrying CTDs and is threatening to use them on the planet."

"Sounds like a stand-off to me."

"The Separatist in charge is General David Conard. His gunships are even now entering atmosphere. I project that he intends to destroy us and the Jain. If he does not succeed with the gunships he will use atomics. If he does not succeed with atomics he will use the CTDs. If the Cable Hogue intervenes he will use the CTDs anyway."

"But that's crazy!" said Abaron. "If they do that they won't get away from here."

"Who ever accused Separatists of sanity?" said Chapra, and turned to walk to the gunship. Jane went with Judd. Abaron followed Chapra. We humans should stick together, she thought, we get on so well.

Kellor stared at the read-outs. Nothing.

"Any reply yet?" he asked communications officer Speck.

"Nothing for us, and I can't pick up anything else through those scramble fields."

"Any idea of what cla.s.s we're up against?"

"Not a clue. It could be a shuttle behind that chaff or an Alpha dreadnought. At least they're holding off."

"Yeah, but for how long?"

"They'll hold off," said Conard. "This is a cla.s.sic terrorist hostage situation."

Yes, thought Kellor, and we all know the usual messy denouement of such situations: no win for anyone but the fanatics. And this situation was getting messier every moment. First the four soldiers taken out in the CTD blast just, as far as Kellor could see, because they were at the top of Conard's s.h.i.t list. Then the loss of contact with the shuttle planetside. Now this. It was time to resolve a thing or two. Before he could turn his attention to that Speck said, "Wait a minute. We've got a communication coming through."

"Put it through on holo," said Kellor, and turned his chair to a flickering cylinder appearing in the middle of the floor. In it resolved a woman's face. Kellor thought the captain of the ECS ship very attractive, in an Amazonian way.

"Who am I speaking to?" she asked.

Kellor glanced at Conard. Conard nodded.

"Speck, let the General talk to her," said Kellor.

Speck operated the controls to the ceiling holocamera. The woman's image turned toward Conard. In the bridge of the ECS ship Conard would now be projected.

"Conard," she said, and Kellor immediately noted a hardness to her face.

"Sergeant Windermere, you have risen through the ranks."

"No doubt they still call you The General."

"They do. What can I do for you, Windermere? You know the situation and you can do nothing. If you bring your ship any closer or intervene in any way, the three CTDs, which were stolen from the Droon complex on t.i.tan, will be fired at this planet."

"I had hoped to appeal to some source of common sense there. You realise, Conard, that you won't get away from this one unless I allow you to go."

"What do you mean by that curious statement?"

"I've been authorised to allow you to pull away and leave unmolested so long as you do it now. So long as you call back those gunships."

"That would be so fine for you," spat Conard. "Then ECS can just drift on in and pick up a science to subjugate us all."

Ah, thought Kellor, now this conversation is getting interesting.

"What science? You destroyed the Jain and its machine when you destroyed the Schrodinger's Box."

"I cannot believe that your scientists learned nothing in that time."

"They learned a great deal and it was instantly transmitted into the net. By now the things they learned are common knowledge to thousands of researchers."

"I am supposed to believe that? ECS would not allow such technology into the public domain. No. I will make certain."

Conard signalled for communications to be cut.

The cave was huge. The sea flowed into it and the roof was fifty metres above. Chapra followed the shuttle inside and before it was necessary for her to turn on the gunship's lights, Judd put the shuttle down on a stony sh.o.r.e.

"I'm not sure I want to go out there," said Chapra.

Abaron nodded in agreement. On the sh.o.r.e stood two lobster creatures, each about three metres long.

"I bet they've got triangles on their backs," he said to Chapra.

They both remained seated as Judd and Jane came over from the shuttle and boarded.

"The other gunships are very close. Why have you remained in here?" asked Jane.

"We were a little worried about them," said Abaron, pointing.

"They are the equivalent of your PSRs. They are here to demount the guns from this ship and set them for defence."

"Okay," said Abaron, and stood.

Chapra noted he had acquired a handgun from somewhere and tucked it in his utility belt.

"Come with me," said Judd once they were outside the ship, and he led them to the dark mouths of caves worn into the stone at the head of the dark beach. From behind them came a ripping crash. They turned to see that one of the lobster-things had ripped a gun turret out of the gunship. They turned back when Judd took up a veined sphere and shook it to produce a chemical light. As they entered the cave, Jane pa.s.sed them on her way out. There must have been another entrance. When two Janes came walking toward them carrying objects like living rifles, they began to understand.

The Junger twenty-eight was a square-sectioned stubby cross with a spherical c.o.c.kpit at one end. On the arms either side of the c.o.c.kpit were sideways projecting gun turrets each containing one rapid-fire ten millimetre cannon and one pulsed laser. The cannon's rate of fire was adjustable from one to five thousand sh.e.l.ls a second. Each spherical sh.e.l.l contained enough explosive to vaporise a human being. The lasers could cut a human being in half. Slung underneath were missiles that could not be used in the close confines of the cave for fear of collapsing it on the ship. The opposition had no such fears.