Burnt Ice (43 page)

‘That’s just great,’ said Marko.

‘Did see one quite interesting
thing,’ the major said. ‘Veg had a senior station officer up against a wall. I
think that he was pointing out the error of her ways and he didn’t care who saw
it. He told her that if she did not pull her head in and start acting
civilised, he would personally see to it that she was permanently seconded to
the Games Board. She went very white and started apologising profusely. Must
have a word with him over that. No way for a captain to treat a brigadier! Now,
Marko. You’d better be on your way, chap. I do not smell bread cooking, and I
have missed having chocolate-chip cookies with my coffee.’

‘Yeah, no problem with that,
boss. But what do we do with that info we gained from Sirius’s base unit?’

‘Bugger! I’d forgotten all about
that. Thanks for reminding me. Do you have a suggestion?’

‘Yeah — pull in Stephine and Veg.
Let them have a look at it.’

‘Smart move. I’ll send them the
files once their lander is on board. Now, where is Fritz? I want his smart self
to work on a couple of little projects now that we are the centre of so much
attention.’

~ * ~

‘Hey,
Marko. You got much on?’

‘Not really, Fritz.’

Marko looked up to see Fritz
gesturing at his ear. He took the secure comms unit out of his pocket and
placed it in his ear.

‘Problem?’

‘The boss is real concerned that
there are electronic bugs in the ship. Wants me to build a bucket-load of
hunters and killers. Says to ask for your and Topaz’s help.’

‘So you need lots of these
things, right? Capable of recharging themselves and operating anywhere on
board? Think that I may have some of those on file. Tiny wasp-like creature for
the hunter and a little dragonfly as the killer. You get onto the software to
find what we need, plus any upgrades, because every time we visit a port they
will try something new. I’ll have the first ready for you in about fourteen
hours.’

‘Good, I’ll get back to you soon.’

‘You hear all that, Topaz?’ Marko
asked.

‘Yes. I am also carrying out a
rebuild of one of the repairs that was made to Ernst. I consider that the
station techs did not do a good job. But, yes, those hunters and killers are
simple builds. The first batch will be functional, a little on the rough side.
But I agree we need them sooner rather than later.’

~ * ~

‘Crew.
We can now speak more freely. I believe the bugs left on board by
Administration — and the Games Board — have been neutralised. We’re between
jumps and hopefully safer from eavesdropping. So I can release to you the
information that Marko thought to look for in Sirius’s base unit. It is all the
unedited material she created, then stored, before she was re-lifed. She
fortunately forgot to do anything about it once she was in possession of an
actual body; also that she had copied everything to Harry’s editing suite.
Stephine and Veg have had the info for some hours. They advise they’ll have a
report for us shortly. If it’s as important as I believe, then we will probably
be heading back to the Octopoid Library sooner than anticipated. We had
originally been tasked to go there in a month’s time as we were there first, as
in the protocols of finders/keepers, but I’m sure we can come up with a
convincing argument to go earlier. We can easily postpone the Harpoon tests.’

The crew were at their command
posts looking, through the data blocks that the major had released.

Patrick replied first. ‘I have
also delved deeply into the information, collating a great deal of what was
happening around us at the time, major. When I was a part of Lotus I was also
privy to all collective thoughts as an engineering AI and, by proxy, as an
intelligence AI. I must admit that due to the vast quantity and quality of the
information gained from the Octopoid Library, the artefact, and then Stephine
and Veg’s craft, we were a little overwhelmed and did not look seriously at the
planet. It is now my consideration that a large vessel of some sort is
submerged in a shallow part of that sea; it was from that source that the
images taken by Sirius were gained.’

Stephine’s image appeared on all
the screens.

‘We concur, Patrick. We also
believe that it may be the Gjomvik starship which took us to the library system
in the first place. Given the time, the corporations could have manipulated a
local species to behave as it did in the images. I also admit another fault —
it was much further out in the system when we became separated from that ship.
After they were forced to leave we returned to the Octopoid Library, then took
refuge in the artefact. In my heart, I have always believed that they had got
away. Time will tell the true story, no doubt. So decision time. How do we
tackle this, Michael?’

Harry smiled at the ‘Michael’.
Stephine and Veg had never called any of them by their ranks, or in the major’s
case, ‘boss’. It was always their first names.

‘Yeah, that’s the rub, isn’t it,
Stephine? OK, Games Board involvement?’

There was a chorus of ‘No’, and
even a ‘Hell, no!’

‘Yes, that’s a given. So what
about Administration support? We need something punchy. Don’t forget we have
about a year of leave time credited to all of us. And we can legally take
Basalt
wherever we want to go.’

‘How about some of the Gjomvik
bosses?’

‘Interesting idea, Jan. We all
have ways of contacting them — but how can we be sure we get the right bunch?’

‘There may be another way, boss.
How about I contact
Rick?’
Harry suggested.

‘Hey, now you’re talking!’ Fritz
said. ‘Can you do that, Harry? That would be excellent. I so want to meet that
joker.’

‘Surprisingly, it’s not all that
tricky, Fritz. You just have to know the right people — and I do. The
interesting part will be how far away he is.’

‘OK, Harry. Let’s do it. What do
you need from us?’ the major asked.

‘Get back to
Gamma
and
down to the resort. Put in a leave app. And let me talk to a man about a big
dog.’

‘OK, let’s do that. Stephine,
what did the pictographs from the planet surface say?’

‘That they were a human ship
marooned on the planet in a shallow sea and that all survivors were in cryo
sleep, excepting a specially constructed AI on the look out for activity in
orbit. That they were expecting a message to be sent to them if their message
was received, and the radio frequencies to be used. There was no identification
of who they were, what ship or where they were from.’

‘So were they Admin or Gjomvik
pictographs?’

‘Both. And encrypted styles, at
that.’

‘OK, Patrick. Take us back to
Cygnus 5 please.’

~ * ~

‘Hey,
Jan. As we discussed a few days ago, I need to have a talk with one Colonel
Greene. I know that you know where he is. Care to show me the way?’

Jan smiled at Harry as they swam
across the bay from the sergeants’ mess. The military occupants of the beach
mostly respected their privacy, unlike the civilians, who had mobbed them
whenever they went out of the compound.

‘Already done, Harry. He’ll set
things up but he wants Fritz’s comms system and full reports on whatever we
find. Can you swing it?’

‘Yeah, Fritz will give me the
plans and, if I ask him, he’ll probably chuck in a couple of his evolving
software systems for the encryption, as well.’

‘Good. By the time we swim around
the buoy and back, he’ll be ready to see you — he’s a bit of a fish nut, like
Marko. Just loves the things. I’ll show you where he’ll be.’

Marko was below them on the
bottom of the bay. He watched as they slid through the water, five metres above
him, admiring how Jan’s body effortlessly rode the currents. He smiled to
himself, noting that Harry was working hard to keep up with her. He put his
head back inside the small cave in the rock wall he was holding onto. He
increased the magnification in his eyes to watch the multi-coloured,
nudibranch-like creatures swim over the rocks, looking for prey.

Everywhere around him life just
carried on with the business of being and dying. Diving deeper down into a
crevice in the rocks he found the remains of one of the octopoid soldiers’ body
armour, now encrusted with coral forms; a pair of eel-like creatures inhabited
the empty shell. Not far away he found the remains of a waxeye drone that had
also become part of the coral-like reef. Swimming over it, he saw that the
power modules, weapons and engine had been stripped from the wreck, leaving the
remainder to be claimed by the sea.

Remembering the last time he had
swum in the bay, he could not help being on the lookout for octopoids. He found
himself wondering, yet again, whether the octopoid that had touched him had
left something of itself in his system.

A few hundred metres from where
Marko was making his way to the beach, Harry and Colonel Greene were sitting on
the seafloor, gazing up at the kelp-like forest of sea plants. To the outside
observer they appeared as a pair of individuals, simply contemplating the sea
flora and fauna. When Jan had pointed out the colonel to Harry she had also
passed across her crew comms unit, which he had given to the colonel.

‘So, Harry. It’s been good to see
you again. In spite of your wishes, you have become a bit of a cult hero among
the general population. Still, in some respects that’s not a bad thing. It’s
unlikely that the corporations will try to grab you, knowing that you would be
missed. What I’m going to do is watch with great interest as to how you will
fade back into obscurity again.’

‘Well,’ said Harry, ‘it certainly
was not by choice or design on my part, but I do enjoy working with Michael and
I know how important he is to you lot as well, sir. So I shall continue to keep
him as safe as I’m able. I am also well impressed with Jan. You trained and
equipped her beautifully.’

‘I would expect nothing less from
Jan and, yes, we are grateful for your continued care of Michael, and also
young Fritz. I do not have to tell you how important he is to the overall plan.
I’ll miss this, Harry — this sitting and watching. I know that you will keep
what I’m about to tell you to yourself; your timing is rather good.’

‘Why’s that, colonel?’ Harry
asked.

‘Next week I shall leave the
Sphere and start the journey to where the Haulers are grown, as I am to be one.
Not long after you left this planet for your latest adventures I was taken on
board
Rick
and underwent the final assessments. My new self has been
growing since then. The time has come for me to inhabit that craft and take it
to the next level of sentience.’

‘My congratulations, colonel. It
is an extraordinary honour to have, once again.’

‘Once again, Harry?’

‘If my intel is correct, you were
one of the Haulers’ attack craft a long time ago, were you not?’

The colonel sat motionless on the
sand and looked closely at Harry, who kept staring up at the flattened rope-like
strands of the large seaweed.

‘I like these comms units, Harry.
Please give my compliments to Fritz — if you believe that he will keep his
mouth shut. Indeed, old friend, you are well informed. Have
Basalt
wait
here for a week and a fast picket will give you the meeting place and time.
Please pass the comms tech to that drone when it arrives. Farewell, Harry. I
hope one day we will meet again.’

They nodded at each other, shook
hands, then swam off in different directions, heading up towards the sunlight
and the beach.

~ * ~

‘Basalt
crew, this is Patrick. Mail has
arrived from your hundreds of thousands of adoring fans. Actually, even I can’t
cope with it all. I note that you’re about to board the elevator. Are you sure
I cannot send the lander, Michael?’