Haze and the Hammer of Darkness (32 page)

Drop three, maintain course. Zee one will rendezvous. I say again. Maintain course. Zee one will manage link and dock.

Stet. Maintaining course this time. Will await instructions from Zee one.

Within two standard minutes, the EDI screen indicated a ship accelerating away from the fleet on an intercept course. The parameters indicated that the ship was an attack corvette.

Roget smiled. No one wanted his dropboat anywhere close to the main body of the fleet. That suggested the colonel hadn't expected anyone to return … or perhaps not the manner of his return.

Another minute passed, then another.

Drop three, this is ZeeControl. Interrogative power for decel.

ZeeCon, power adequate for phased decel.
He had to assume that the same would be true for Drop four.

Three, request ID this time.

Roget pulsed the transponder. The return link identified the oncoming ship as the
ZengYi,
one of the newer attack corvettes.

Several minutes more passed.

Three, maneuver to link. Maneuver to link. Leave your lock closed for examination and possible decontamination.

ZeeCon, Drop three. Understand maneuver to link. Will leave lock sealed for decon.

That's affirmative, three.

As he maneuvered the dropboat toward the
ZengYi,
Roget realized he did have more significant proofs than he'd thought. First … the Dubietans had literally hurled or transposed his dropboat from somewhere beneath the planetary surface … and literally dumped him right in front of the Federation ships. He also had a different pressure suit, not to mention the documentation sent by the Dubietans and the repairs to the dropboat. He even had city and local maps printed on local paper or the equivalent that should reveal something.

Yet Director Hillis and the others had seemed to think that no amount of proof would suffice to deter the Federation from attacking or attempting to annex Dubiety in some form.

Roget feared that they might be right, but he'd have to see.

 

28

21 DONGYU 6744
F. E.

In the end, Roget only spent three days in Fort Greeley, and another two at the Estes Park nature reserve, expensive as it was, before he returned to the Federation base in Cheyenne. As he'd anticipated, Meira had protested his giving her credits but did eventually accept them for Neomi. As he'd also expected, Wallace was polite and reserved, as he always had been to Roget.

The remaining nine days of his leave were long, but he really didn't want to spend credits like water on hotels and resorts. So he read, rested, and tried not to think too deeply about his last mission—and the possibility of more memory flashes—and what might await him on his next assignment.

He also spent more than a little time talking to Hildegarde, but only to the image on his flash and only when he was somewhere alone, away from Federation buildings, and not likely to be snooped. He had no doubts that all officers' rooms were fully monitored.

Finally, after another full day of tests at the FAF medical center, he was back at the FSA building at Cheyenne base, sitting across from the same unnamed colonel who had debriefed him after the St. George mission.

“Agent-Captain Roget, you're in good shape, according to medical. There don't seem to be any lasting physiological effects from the events of your last assignment.”

“Yes, sir.” Roget still worried about the false memories. The first he'd ascribed to dehydration. And then, especially after Marni's dying words, the second memory-flash had hit hard. Still, he hadn't had another episode, and he sincerely hoped he wouldn't have. For all their probing, doctors hadn't found any sign of anything wrong with him, thankfully. That didn't mean everything was resolved. Roget just knew he'd have to cope … somehow.

The colonel smiled.

Roget distrusted the expression, even as he returned the smile.

“You did some research immediately after you were debriefed. Some rather interesting research. Tell me about it, Agent-Captain.”

“Yes, sir. I was curious. One of the Danites muttered something about a Joseph Tanner. I'd never heard the name, and I wondered what he'd meant.”

“You didn't put that in your report.”

“I should have, but I didn't remember that until later. At the time, I was much more concerned about trying to find a way to keep them alive so that they could be questioned. After that, as you may recall, the dehydration left me a bit disoriented. All I could find about Tanner was a historical reference.” That was certainly true, although the colonel obviously knew what Roget had found, but Roget wasn't about to make that point. “Do you think he might have been one of the founders of the Danites, sir?”

“That's rather unlikely. The Danites date back to the original Deseret, before it was conquered by the old Americans.”

“I didn't realize that, sir.” Roget tried to sound properly chastened, hoping that would divert the senior officer.

The colonel looked coolly at Roget. Roget returned the look calmly, but without challenge.

“And the woman?”

“I was thinking she might have some connection with Tanner, in some way. She didn't, not from what I could determine. I do wonder why a biologist would walk away from a university position.”

“Cults can do peculiar things to people, especially to women.”

Roget nodded. “I did see that in St. George.”

The colonel waited a moment before speaking. “It's a most unpleasant aspect of those who don't understand the benefits of the Federation.”

Another warning, thought Roget.

“In view of your situation,” continued the colonel, “your next assignment is particularly appropriate. We're going to send you outsystem. This has advantages and disadvantages for you. One advantage is that you've been approved for promotion to major. Another is that the assignment will broaden your experience base. The disadvantage is that you'll spend six months to a year in intensive training learning to fly various small orbital craft. Since you're already a trained atmospheric pilot, it shouldn't be too difficult a transition, and flight status also includes incentive pay. Another disadvantage is that there is often some time dilation, particularly in fleet-related assignments. You have no close family, and you work better alone. That combination makes you an ideal candidate for several assignments once you finish your additional training.”

Roget felt a chill deep inside. Outsystem attachment to the Federation Interstellar Service was where FSA sent expendable agents. “I wouldn't know, sir, but it sounds interesting.”

“I'm certain you'll enjoy these assignments far more than you would in spending years in data analysis as a permanent captain, Agent-Major Roget.” The colonel smiled politely.

Data analysis wasn't a choice; it was a veiled death sentence, if not by disappearance when everyone had forgotten him, then by sheer boredom, or by bankruptcy and/or extreme poverty by being forced to live in the Taiyuan area on a captain's stipend.

“When do I start … and where, sir?”

“I thought you'd like the opportunity, Major. You'll leave on Saturday for Xichang. There you will undergo a three-week indoctrination into FIS customs and procedures and be fitted for equipment. Certain internals will also have to be reconfigured for space applications. Then you'll be sent to Ceres station. That's where the IS trains its small-craft pilots. You'll also be brought up to speed on deep-space station systems and datanets, as well as a few other technical applications.”

If the FSA wanted to spend that many yuan on providing him with such intensive additional training, Roget reflected, it was likely that future missions might be highly risky but not necessarily suicidal. The FSA mandarins still had to justify their expenditures to the Council.

Besides, what realistic choices did he have?

 

29

24 MARIS 1811
P. D.

While Roget had waited inside the dropboat, his outer hull had been tested, inspected, prodded, and probed with every device known to the Federation—or so it had seemed. Then they had started in probing within, still from outside the dropboat, accessing all data and scanning the interior of his craft. An exterior physical inspection of the dropboat hull and systems followed. Hours later, he had been allowed into the corvette's loading lock, where he'd been scanned, remotely, along with all of his gear, and all of the documentation he had brought back. Then he'd had to strip and be inspected once more. He'd been allowed to dress in his shipsuit, but the Dubietan pressure suit and his helmet remained behind.

Once he'd been cleared onboard the corvette, he'd been immediately escorted into the small squarish comm room off the corvette's tiny ops bay, where he had been left by himself. The consoles were all locked and on remote, and so quiet was the space that he could hear his own breathing. He could also smell his own sweat, not from fear, but from the heat and the time waiting in a pressure suit. A large water bottle sat in a holder on the right side of the console bay. Roget took a long swallow, then sat waiting, knowing that all manner of scanners and the like were trained on him. His eyes dropped to his pack, still holding the emergency shipsuit in its packet. The maps had been removed, but not his personal items and clothing. While the pack had been scanned, no one had removed the shipsuit. Was it transparent to Federation scanners? Or had the techs merely considered it as a shipsuit?

Abruptly, the image of Colonel Tian appeared, sitting behind his console on the
WuDing.
“Greetings, Major. Welcome back. You appear to have weathered your landing and the time on Haze.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell me what happened. Begin just before your dropboat reached the orbital shield. Please take your time. No detail is unimportant.”

Roget had doubts about that, but replied, “Yes, sir. The orientation imparted by my initial course allowed insertion in the same orbital pattern as the upper orbital shield, but I had to increase my relative speed considerably…” From there, Roget continued through his rocky descent and landing and his time on Dubiety. He had to stop more than a few times for water, and he was hoarse and raspy when he finally finished his summary.

Colonel Tian gave a last nod but did not say anything immediately.

Roget understood. The colonel was getting the interpretation of all the data obtained from observing Roget.

Finally, the colonel did speak. “Your physiological workup indicates that you have been in a gravity well that matches that observed of Haze. Since there has been no indication of any mass large enough to generate artificial gravity anywhere else near here, it does appear likely that you have indeed been on the planetary surface. Likewise, you have been physically active, and your hair samples and tissue analyses indicate exposure to a T-type world, but one with a similar but differing ecology.” The colonel paused. “Those results suggest that you were physically present and active on Haze, since replicating those results otherwise would require an extremely advanced technology at variance with what we have observed. Also, the sample distribution supports your presence on-planet.”

The fact that the colonel continued to use “Haze” in speaking of Dubiety suggested his own doubts about Roget's account, but Roget merely replied dispassionately, “My own observations suggested that counterfeiting my experiences would have been difficult.”

“But not necessarily impossible.”

“Anything is possible to a sufficiently advanced technology, sir.”

“To their technology?”

“I don't believe that they went to that extreme, sir, but there are certain aspects of their technology that appear unique, as I have mentioned.”

“Which do you think are most unique?”

“The high-speed subtrans system is one, both its operating speed and its extent, especially the deep tubes between continents. Their ability to communicate without any stray radiation is another. The ability to create multiple artificial magnetic poles with enough power and variance to use to control the levels of orbital shields is a third.”

“The first two are mere adaptations of existing Federation technology. Why do you find them so unique, Major?”

“The amount of additional resources and effort required to construct them suggests that there well may be other reasons for their use and existence.”

“And what might those be, do you think?”

“I have no idea, sir. But the Dubietans I met seemed very pragmatic.”

“It seems less than pragmatic to return any agents, especially one in a disoriented state.”

“I doubt they do anything without a reason, sir.”

“Nor do I, Major. Why do you think they returned you?”

“To show good will. To demonstrate that they could.”
To warn you.
“To suggest they have advanced technology.”

“That is certainly what they would wish you—and us—to believe. If they have such, why not use it in a way that leaves no doubt?”

“They claim that they do not wish to be the ones to offer any hostile action against the Federation or any action that might be perceived as hostile.”

“A most convenient excuse not to show their supposed advanced technology.”

“Sir … it would seem to me that the course line and velocity with which my dropboat was returned suggests an advanced technology. So do the orbital shields. So do the repairs to the dropboats.”

“Comparable technology, Major, not advanced technology.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I've not seen any Federation technology that is comparable to that.”

“Begging your pardon, Major, how would you know?” The colonel's tone was flat.

Roget decided to offer another approach. “The Dubietans also stated that no amount of proof would convince the Federation if it were not disposed to be convinced.”