Aneka Jansen 5: The Greatest Heights of Honour (2 page)

Beyond that room was a hallway which led to the sleeping quarters, and then a storage room at the far end which also housed the sanitary facilities. There were six rooms fitted out with sleeping cots and some basic comforts. Two also had some computers for the senior scientists, Adams and Indaia. If you wanted to wash or go to the toilet, you were stuck with using the communal facilities because there was nowhere else to go. It was a good thing that Jenlay were not shy.

Stopping at one of the doors, Aneka knocked and then pushed it open. ‘You wanted to talk, Indaia?’

The tall, slim figure turned in her seat and her thin mouth curled into a smile. Well, it was sort of a smile; some Torem were better at mimicking the Human expression than others. Indaia was a pretty typical Torem female, which meant stick thin with barely any nose and very dark eyes, and skin that was a greyish colour. No breasts, but she was also missing the only differentiator between their sexes: a bulge over the groin area. She was never seen out of her blue-and-white exoskeleton suit; it allowed her to function in normal gravity, though the gravity on Farrington’s World was closer to what she considered normal. There was no sign of Indaia’s roommate.

‘Thank you for attending to me so promptly, Aneka.’ Indaia had a soft, quite pleasing voice, though she spoke Federal with a slight accent, which Aneka assumed came from whatever her native tongue sounded like. ‘Now that Doctor Adams’ equipment is in place, I was hoping you could make time for mine. I am uncomfortably aware that you have been working for some twelve hours without a break, however. I do not wish to appear impatient.’

Aneka laughed, stepping into the room and closing the door. ‘You have been very patient. I’d have put up more of a fight after Adams monopolised our time the way he did.’

‘On a practical basis,’ the Torem replied calmly, ‘my equipment is active and will return results more rapidly. I admit that I am… anxious to see what my instruments can detect below us, but I can wait for you to take a break.’

Aneka made a show of considering. Indaia was right; she had been working for twelve hours straight. After eight she had sent Monkey and Delta back to camp to rest and carried on alone. A Federal standard day ran to twenty hours, though the length of the day was the same as an Old Earth day, so she had been going for over half a day without rest. On the other hand…

‘I run on a fusion cell, Indaia. I can keep going for a while before I need to worry. Your stuff is going to need all three of us though. I’d like to give David and Delta another hour, then we’ll go set it up.’

The Torem bowed her head. ‘That would be most acceptable, Aneka. Thank you.’

Nodding back, Aneka turned and left the room. Grumand, the seventh member of the team, was in the corridor, just leaving the room he shared with Garlan. He was a Scout, a member of the Survey Service, and he fit the mould nicely. Compact, fit, powerfully built, he had short dark hair, and deep brown eyes, and he was, of course, good-looking; every Jenlay was good-looking.

‘If possible,’ he said without preamble, ‘I’d like to get that survey of the structures here done soon. After the sleep period maybe?’

Aneka checked her chronometers. Farrington’s World was tidally locked to its only moon, which had a number of interesting effects. More or less all the water on the planet was on one side of it for one thing. It also resulted in almost a ninety Federal-standard hour day so they were having to stick to a more normal work-sleep cycle to stay sane, and they were trying to get as much done as possible during their forty-five hours of daylight.

‘We’re getting Indaia’s kit set up in the next few hours, then I’ll be offlining for a bit. I should be up whenever you are. Just grab me and we’ll go.’

‘Offlining… Uh, yeah, of course. I keep forgetting.’

Aneka grinned at him. ‘You’ve probably no idea how happy I am that I can say things like that openly, but it’s still nice when people don’t remember. Or when they don’t care.’

Grumand grunted a laugh. ‘I don’t care if you’re a Bemzol from the planet Yog as long as you do your job as well as they say you do, but it’s still difficult to see you as some sort of robot. I mean, you’re…’ He waved a hand absently.

Aneka’s grin broadened. Generally, even though everyone now knew she was basically a synthetic copy of Aneka Jansen’s mind running on a highly complex computer system in a robot body, they found it hard to react to her in the manner their basic instincts told them to. Jenlay had a distrust of robots and cyborgs stemming from the Xinti War. The Xinti had used cybernetic and robotic bodies, and they had built Aneka’s body, but they had done an exemplary job of copying the original barring a few details. What people saw was a very attractive woman with a lot of long, tight muscle. She had a slim waist, not overly wide hips, long legs, and a very expansive chest. The Xinti had looked at the Internet for inspiration regarding the ideal Human female, and so had added an extra cup size or so to her already ample breasts, and made them more pert. Her face could have graced a catwalk model with wide cheekbones and hollow cheeks, and very clear, bright blue eyes, and her hair was a smooth cap of silver-white strands.

Since she did not need a suit to deal with the heat outside, she was in her preferred outfit. That was an Ultraskin leotard that Ella had designed for her. It had one arm and was largely translucent, showing most of her body. There were also Ultraskin stockings and heavy, armoured boots. She was not wearing her customary gun belt, but she would be when they went to do the survey.

‘Thanks,’ Aneka said. ‘I get the general idea. It’s nice to be appreciated.’ She slipped past him, heading for storage and he carried on toward the mess.

The shower was running when Aneka got into the room where storage crates took up one side and a portable bathroom unit took up the other. The unit was self-contained, recycled the water it used, and handled waste management, which all made life far easier than it could have been. However, it was a cramped fit in there and the lighting was poor. Most of them left the outer door open unless they were using the toilet. Through the frosted Polyglass shower screen, Aneka could see a female shape and it looked too tall to be Garlan’s girlfriend, Bicks. The water cut off suddenly and the screen opened.

Sure enough, it was Rice, the team’s very bored biologist. She was above average height, and had better than average looks. Her hair was long and platinum blonde, her eyes were icy blue, her body was fit and smoothly muscled, and she had large, firm breasts, and yet Garlan had not given her the same looks he had favoured Aneka and Delta with. Rice was clearly not at all interested. She had been brought along in case there was any life on the lifeless, volcano-strewn rock. Life normally seemed to find a way to develop whenever it possibly could, but not on Farrington’s World.

‘Hi,’ Rice said. ‘You want this?’ She indicated the shower and then picked up a towel to dry herself. Most Jenlay were not at all shy, and Rice was no exception.

‘I figured a shower might freshen me up before I have to go out again,’ Aneka replied. She had not yet figured out whether Rice was not into Garlan, not into men, or not into sex. The second would have been mildly unusual, but not unheard of, the last would have made her almost unique.

‘I’ll be out in a second.’

Nodding, Aneka began pulling her boots off. ‘You know, if you’d be more comfortable, I could probably fly you back up to the Hyde tomorrow.’

‘No… Tempting as it is, and useless as I am for my specialisation, I may as well stay and try to be useful. I’m as good with scientific equipment as most here, better than some.’ She looked up and gave Aneka a slight grin. ‘And I’m good eye candy. Not that you don’t have that covered yourself. Besides, Indaia’s interesting to talk to.’ She put the towel to one side and stepped into some light slippers before leaving the cubicle carrying a light, Nusilk wrap. Slipping the wrap on, she leant up against a crate to watch Aneka undress, not bothering to tie it closed.

Aneka reached a conclusion. ‘What’s your problem with Garlan?’

‘He’s a shoo.’ The word meant ‘pig’ in Rimmic. Core Jenlay used it as an insult, but then so did the Rim Worlders. ‘I dated him for a few months last year. And then I found out he was spending his time with Trudy whenever he claimed to be working late. I wouldn’t have minded sharing if he hadn’t kept it secret.’

‘Can’t be fun being stuck here with him.’ Naked, Aneka climbed into the shower cubicle and started the water.

‘Less fun for him. Trudy never found out about me. I’ll leave you to it since there’s no room for two.’

Aneka shook her head as she heard the door open and close. Jenlay barely ever considered the idea that someone might not be interested, even if some of them had a more active libido than others.

‘Al, would you get me a connection to the Hyde?’ she asked in the silence of her head.

‘Connected,’ Al replied almost immediately.

‘Jansen to Garnet Hyde,’ Aneka said, her thought transmitted through her own internal radio to the base’s communications rig and so up to the orbiting spacecraft.

‘Hi, Aneka,’ Shannon’s voice came back almost immediately. Obviously the blonde pilot was on duty at the moment. ‘What can we do for you?’

‘Just checking in. How’s the mapping going?’

‘Smoothly. That is one topographically boring rock. Lot of young, fairly low mountain ranges, and there’s the volcanos, I guess, but the surface gets recycled too much to be very interesting and we’re seeing
no
signs of anything living.’

‘Yeah, we have a very bored biologist down here. I offered to take her back up to you, but she wants to stick around and try being useful.’

‘Shame, she’s gorgeous.’

Aneka laughed aloud. ‘You have Drake to keep you entertained.’

‘Uh-huh, and when we’ve wrapped the high-def maps I plan to let Aggy deal with keeping us in orbit and abuse our solitude outrageously.’

‘Don’t be mean. My partner’s back on New Earth.’

Shannon’s chuckle barely made it over the channel, but it sounded distinctly dirty. ‘Go see Monkey and Delta. She may look a bit shy, but she’s a minx once she gets going.’

‘Right… Call you if anything happens. Jansen out.’

Aneka was not going to do as suggested. Monkey found her attractive, sure, but he was still not interested in her in that way. His father had told him so many stories about Xinti combat robots that he still thought he might freak out if he went to bed with one. Not that she was really worried about missing out. It would make getting back to Ella that much better.

Turning off the water, Aneka opened the cubicle and found herself a towel. A cup of coffee and a little time relaxing in her room and she would be ready to go set up Indaia’s equipment. The shower had helped, but right now the coffee seemed like a
really
good idea.

~~~

‘What does this thing do?’ Delta asked as she helped Aneka manhandle the large central emitter unit into position. Monkey was busy positioning the four satellite receivers, which were significantly smaller and lighter.

That the women were doing the heavy lifting might have been considered odd, even in this day and age. Morphologically, the sexes could still be differentiated in a similar manner to the way Humans were in Aneka’s original time. Men, on average, still had greater upper-body strength in particular. Aneka and Delta were hardly average; Aneka was basically a robot and Delta had grown up on a heavy-gravity world.

Basically, Delta was an Amazon. Tall and heavily muscled, she was a pretty girl with a rather cute face which belied her physique. These days she wore her auburn hair long, which worked far better for her, and she wore push-up bras to compensate for the effect of thirty years of high gravity before leaving her home world. She was not quite the perfection of beauty that you expected to see from a core world citizen, but Monkey thought she was beauty incarnate.

‘Basically,’ Monkey said, ‘it’s a sonar system. Normal sonar uses audible frequencies or ultrasound; this thing uses infrasound, very low frequencies. That’s why the emitter is so big.’ Monkey was of a relatively slight build, especially compared to his two female companions, but having Delta living with him had resulted in a number of changes, including some increase in muscle mass. He still wore has dark hair as something of an unkempt cap, and he still sported a valiant attempt at a goatee beard, but his expression these days tended to be more content than unsure.

‘So it sends low frequency pulses into the ground and detects the returns, and that maps different density regions in the rock,’ Delta said, voicing her thoughts as she worked out the operating principle.

‘Uh-huh,’ Aneka confirmed. ‘Indaia has come up with some sort of novel focussing system which lets the pulses go deeper.’

‘And the receivers are a new design too,’ Monkey added. ‘She thinks she can get about a twenty per cent increase in resolution over previous versions.’

Delta and Aneka were carefully lowering the emitter into place over an area of ground they had previously cleared of debris and rubble. ‘Won’t the pulses mess with Adams’ seismometers?’ Delta asked.

‘Actually, Indaia’s using them as extra sensors; basically they create a synthetic aperture that raises the resolution of her kit, and the pulse returns can be filtered out pretty easily.’

Delta giggled. ‘I bet Adams is still iffy about it.’

‘He wants the data Indaia’s system can give him, so he has to put up with it,’ Aneka replied. ‘That’s why she’s here. She’s a bit of an oddity for a Torem, being interested in geology and planets, but she’s good at what she does.’ She checked the level on the emitter, made a couple of adjustments, and nodded. ‘I think this is ready. How are you doing, David?’

‘Uh… That’s the last receiver and it’s now… Yeah, it’s showing as active.’

Aneka nodded. ‘Jansen to Indaia. We’re ready to activate your emitter.’

‘Thank you, Aneka,’ the reply came back almost immediately. ‘I am receiving telemetry from the receivers. Please activate the emitter.’

Aneka flipped open the Molly guard over a switch, shifted the switch up, and then dropped the guard back into place. ‘Emitter is active.’ There was a slight pause and then Aneka heard it, a sort of throb in the air around the device. ‘Seems to be working,’ she said.