Gibraltar Sun (9 page)

“The gate suffered an overload and shut down automatically. The repair report indicates an energy weapon strike.”

“Weapon? An ambush, perhaps?”

“That is the theory. Security investigated and concluded someone on Vith, possibly a rival clan, tried to prevent Sar-Say from reaching his destination. There is no record that his ship left the Nala system, or arrived at Vith.”

“He must be in one system or the other, if only in the form of an expanding cloud of plasma.”

“Not necessarily. The gate may have jumped to second-order transport mode when struck, which would have thrown his vessel into unknown space.”

“And therefore, caused his irretrievable loss.”

“It would seem so.”

“This freighter. What class?”

“Type Seven outfitted to be operated by a mixed crew of Vithians and Frels.”

“And what sort of vessel were these Vulcans in when they visited Klys’kra’t?”

Dal-Vas consulted his record keeper and after a few moments said, “Another Type Seven.”

“Coincidence?”

“If so, not a great one, Huntmaster. That is one of the more popular types.”

“Did any of the Voldar’ik see the interior of this ship?”

“If they did, it is not in the records.”

That was another problem with Civilization. It was too damned big! Even automated recorders and a mania for record keeping couldn’t adequately catalog events.

Take these Vulcans, for instance. How could they possibly have misplaced an entire race of subservients? There had to be a record of them somewhere.

After a long pause, Ssor-Fel muttered, “I don’t like to float unsolved problems to the Home World, but in this case, I think it prudent. Bundle up everything we know and send it on the next ship. Include all of the biometrics we have concerning these Vulcans and emphasize that we have been unable to identify them.

“Point out that this Sar-Say seems to be in their company, although he was not seen at Klys’kra’t. Perhaps he is hiding from his attackers. Also, send a copy of this report to Sar-Ganth. It may be that he will have a personal interest in seeing this mystery solved.”

“It will be as you say, Hunt Master.”

“Now, please leave me. I have this matter of Master Val-Vos to consider.”

#

Captain Dan Landon sat on the bridge of the
Ruptured Whale
and contemplated the news that some idiot had transferred Sar-Say to Earth. Someone, it seemed, was prepared to flirt with disaster. Having lived with the pseudo-simian ever since his crew had rescued him from this very ship, Landon wasn’t particularly concerned about alien diseases. If Sar-Say and humans could support the same sort of bugs, they would have discovered that fact long before now.

However, as any imbecile should have known, disease was not the only worry where Sar-Say was concerned. Being the only representative of his species currently in human hands, Sar-Say was uniquely valuable as a study subject. What if someone assassinated the silly looking little monster?

Nor was assassination out of the question. According to news reports, emotions were running high on Earth, with every politician talking about the advisability of confronting the Broa. (Landon was amused in a cynical way about the politico’s avoidance of strong, clear verbs such as “attack,” “do battle with,” “conquer.”) Most seemed to be unsure of where to come down on the issue, with not a few of them coming down strongly for both sides.

Then there was the problem of Sar-Say himself. Despite being a prisoner, he had proven himself a skilled manipulator. Somehow he had managed to get them to send thirteen starships to the Crab Nebula and back — a roundtrip of 14,000 light-years! Once in the Klys’kra’t system, he had nearly convinced Landon to allow him to join the contact party. The captain still shuddered that he had even contemplated bending mission rules to accede to the alien’s request.

The intercom chose that moment to beep for attention.

“What is it?” Landon asked.

“Incoming message for you, Captain,”

“Read it, Mister.”

“It’s from Admiral Carnes, sir. He is asking you to join him in his quarters at 14:00 hours.”

“Does he say why?”

“No, sir. Just the request that you join him and the time.”

Landon chuckled. “When an admiral ‘requests,’ it’s an order. Acknowledge the receipt and tell them that I will be there. Then have the Exec break out the landing boat.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

#

High Station was the headquarters of the Stellar Survey, where starships prepped for their missions and to which they returned from the deep black. It had been unnaturally quiet around the station for the past three years. Now the fleet was back from the Crab.

There was
Magellan
, Landon’s previous command, its great globe floating serenely against the limb of the Earth, half in light, half in dark. Beyond it was
City of Tulsa
, one of the great colony ships. And beyond that was
Ponce de Leon
,
Magellan’
s sister ship. The fleet had returned home, leaving only two starships to guard humanity’s first outpost in the Sovereignty.

Just before the fleet’s departure from Brinks, there had been a great shuffling of crews. Those who would stay behind were culled from the full fleet. They were largely unmarried, male and female, with few ties to Earth. Manning the rear guard meant that they would not likely see home again for five years or more.

High Station lay ahead as his landing boat moved across traffic lanes filled with vacsuited bodies and small intra-orbit craft. There were the local workboats, along with the ungainly ferries that never entered atmosphere. There were even two sleek winged craft whose journeys took them from ground to orbit. These were a rarity since most passengers for High Station passed through Equatorial Station en route, shifting to the extra-atmospheric shuttles. The winged landing craft were docked at the station, their dorsal airlocks hooked to the non-rotating docking sphere like two lampreys on a shark.

The station itself was a long cylinder spinning slowly about its central axis. The cylinder’s length was four times its diameter, with a long pole sticking out the end pointed toward Earth. At the other end of the station was the docking sphere. Cylinder and sphere were coupled together by a large bearing and a complex rotational joint, allowing the habitat to rotate while the docking sphere remained stationary.

“We’ve been cleared straight in to Docking Bay Alpha-Nine, sir,” Melissa Trank, the landing boat’s pilot reported to Landon, who sat strapped into the copilot’s couch.”

“Very well, Pilot. Take us in.”

The docking procedure was uneventful, with the
Ruptured Whale
’s landing boat floating from sunlight to floodlight as it passed through the oversize rectangular landing port. A few jolts from attitude control jets sent their nose into a waiting docking arm, which took over and positioned their dorsal airlock against one of the numerous station locks. A series of clanking sounds echoed through the boat, followed by the hiss of compressed air.

“How long will you be aboard, sir?” the pilot asked in a tone that carried another question altogether.

Dan Landon smiled. “Want to hit the shops on Level Seven?”

The young spacer smiled back, “You read my mind, sir.”

“Go ahead. Keep your comm on and I’ll call you if the admiral finishes early.”

“Yes, sir!”

#

The admiral’s cabin cum office was aft six decks and on the outer station hull, which meant that he could look out. As Dan Landon waited in the one-half gravity of the station’s outermost deck, he stood at attention and absently watched the view in the deck while wondering what the old man wanted with him. He had a ship to repair. Two years of voyaging had taken its toll on the
Whale
, a consequence not helped by the fact that the ship was an alien design that had been shot to pieces when they salvaged it.

Admiral Carnes entered the compartment from his living quarters at precisely 14:00 hours.

“Dan, good to see you again,” he said, striding across the floor viewport to shake Landon’s hand.

“Good to see you, too, sir. It’s been a long time.”

“It was a long voyage. Come, sit down. Refreshment?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve been thinking about how good an orange juice would taste for two years.”

“Orange juice it is!”

The admiral retrieved a real groundside glass filled with orange liquid and had something brown and alcohol smelling for himself. He handed the glass to Landon, moving with the exaggerated care required to keep liquid in a glass in reduced gravity.

“That was a damn fine job you did out there, Dan. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a star in it for you somewhere in your future.”

“Thank you, sir,” Landon replied. He wasn’t sure he deserved his own flag, not after what had almost happened at Klys’kra’t. He had been in the service long enough, however, to keep his opinion to himself.

They both sipped from their glasses. The admiral watched him over the rim of his drink, then set it down on a table. “I imagine you are wondering why I summoned you today.”

“Yes, sir. My curiosity has been getting the better of me.”

“Tell me your impressions of the masquerade you people pulled off. How successful was it?”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Did these Voldar’ik buy it? Were they even a little suspicious of you?”

“No, sir. They had no reason to believe that we weren’t precisely who we said we were, a species called the Vulcans from a planet named Shangri-La. Nor did they have any curiosity about it. There are so many species in the Sovereignty that no one can meet all of them. Having a ship of strangers show up on one’s doorstep is fairly common. Besides, the Voldar’ik can best be described as tripods. I imagine every species with two arms, two legs, and a head appears the same to them.”

“Do you think we will receive a similar reception elsewhere in the Sovereignty?”

“I don’t see why not, so long as we present them with what it is that they expect to see.”

“What about your Q-ship?”

“Q-ship, sir?”

“Sorry. Ancient reference. In the days of the First World War, the British built armed merchantmen with hidden gun mounts. Their job was to lure a German U-boat into range and then unmask and sink it before it had a chance to submerge.

“Yes, sir,” Landon said. “I see the reference. The
Whale
is a standard Broan Type Seven freighter. That is what Sar-Say said. Outwardly, we looked just like any other ship of the class.

“And inwardly?”

“None of them came aboard, Admiral. We could have had an exhibition of naked dancing on the bridge and they would have been none the wiser.”

“What if they
had
gotten onboard?”

“Then they would have seen just what they expected to see. A standard Broan freighter outfitted for Vulcan physiques. Our displays are capable of showing the Broan script. In fact, the crew got so good at reading that crap that they sometimes didn’t switch back to default mode on the voyage home.”

“So, having no reason to expect that you came from beyond the Sovereignty, it did not occur to the Voldar’ik to ask the question?”

“No, sir. It did not.”

“That is good, Captain. What if we build copies of the
Ruptured Whale
from scratch? Is the first
E.T.
who sees one of our homegrown models going to start screaming for his master?”

“I don’t see why, Admiral. So long as our ships can communicate on the standard bands, look like the real thing, and jump through stargates, they have no reason at all to suspect that we come from outside the Sovereignty.”

“Jumping through stargates is a problem. We’ve learned all we can studying the operation of your stargate jump generators. To make any more progress, the engineers tell me, they are going to have to disassemble them.”

“They’re planning on taking the
Whale
apart, sir?”

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to. It’s the only working model we have.”

“Yes, sir,” Landon replied. Disassembling the
Whale
didn’t sit well with him. A captain becomes very attached to his ship.

If the admiral saw the sudden flash of dismay in his features, he gave no sign. “What about variety, Captain? Won’t they get suspicious if we show up solely in Type Seven freighters?”

Landon shook his head. “Sar-Say says the
Whale
’s type is common throughout the Sovereignty. Besides, we can build other types if we wish to. We were able to obtain some quite good holograms of the other ships in orbit at Klys’kra’t. We can duplicate their outer looks quite closely. The interiors might give us problems, although if we use the
Whale
as a basis for extrapolation, we ought to be able to pull it off.”

The admiral sat back and considered for a moment, then asked, “Have you thought about what you will do with your ship being cut up, Captain?”

“No, sir.”

“Surely you have considered the next step, Dan,” the Admiral said. “If we decide to take on the Broa, we’ll need hundreds of ships, including Q-ships for reconnaissance into the Sovereignty. If nothing else, we are going to have to find another system where we can obtain that database you were negotiating for.”

“Yes, sir. I had already figured that out.”

“The Coordinator doesn’t want to wait. She believes that the time to get started on the fleet is now, and I agree with her. I would like you to lead the effort.”

“Me, sir? I’m no engineer.”

“You know what it is like to trust your life to a design that has to fool the enemy into thinking it is one of his own. Also, there is no one else with your experience. That makes you the logical man to build the fleet, and frankly, command it once it is completed.”

“Command it, sir?”

“Why do you think I invited you here today?  Tomorrow, you will receive orders promoting you to Rear Admiral and directing you to take command of the New Mexico shipyards. Your team will immediately begin design on at least three different models of Q-ships. I want to be able to lay keels this time next year.”

Landon thought about it for a moment. Flag rank and one of the most important assignments available in the coming fight against the Broa! The prospect was daunting. The learning curve would be ferocious.