Morgan's Return (41 page)

His fingers clutching rough rock, Ravindra backed around slowly, the laser-lance held like a magic sword in front of him. Had it flickered? Oh, Kotluk, he hoped not.

"A bit further," Morgan said. "There's daylight up ahead, around the next bend."

He'd never heard sweeter words. The laser-lance sputtered, flashed, and died. A flurry of movement rose in the darkness in front of him. Morgan ranged up next to him, brandishing her laser-lance. The eyes blinked out. "Just a few more steps."

He inched around the rock, feeling with his feet, the light a glimmer of whiteness to his left.

"Looks like those things don't like daylight." Morgan shut down her lance.

The eyes didn't follow. Ahead, brightness flooded through a crack. Suppressing a sigh of relief, Ravindra picked his way over the rocky surface, while the distant boom of the ocean hitting the rocks grew louder. He'd be glad to get out of here, and back to space. Cool air moved around his face, smelling of smoke and brine.

"Why is it we always end up underground?" he said.

Morgan snorted. "I guess if you go looking for old stuff, that's always a possibility."

She reached the crack first, a gash wide enough to easily allow their bodies to pass. The wind blew here, tossing her hair around her shoulders. The expression on her face when she looked back worried him. "What?"

"I'm not too sure how we're going to get down."

He joined her, gazing out over the seascape. Not a klick away, the other island that formed the channel towered out of the sea, if anything even steeper, and more forbidding, than the one they stood on. From their perch, a perpendicular cliff fell sheer for ten meters to a rubble-strewn plateau. From there, the mountainside tumbled down to the sea until it reached a final sheer drop into the ocean. Smooth waves rolled in, and disappeared from his line of sight until a boom heralded an arch of spray rising above the rocks far below. The sky seemed strange, the light more orange than he remembered, no doubt due to the smoke in the atmosphere.

"Were you proposing we abseil down there and fling ourselves into the sea?" he asked.

"No. I think I might just call the lander, get it to come up here. But abseiling down to that ledge might be a good move. It's a more protected spot, so it'll be easier to get inside."

He stopped his jaw from sagging. "You can do that?"

"Abseil? I'm not very good at it—"

"No. Bring the lander here."

Grinning, she shrugged. "Does that surprise you? All I need is a connection to the systems."

"But you've activated cloaking."

"Not completely. I've programmed a poll at random intervals for a directional signal. It would look like an equipment malfunction for anybody monitoring." The grin disappeared. "I'm relying on you for the abseiling bit."

That he could do, although his muscles weren't going to like it. "I'll let you down, first."

He looped one end of the rope around her waist. "Walk yourself down the wall. I'll let the rope out."

Morgan blinked, squared her shoulders, and stepped to the edge, her hair flicking around her head. After a moment's hesitation she turned around, and stepped out, her expression resolute. Good. He didn't have to tell her to lean, to walk slowly. He played the rope out until she could let go, her feet skidding slightly on the rubble.

He pulled the rope back up again, fashioned a grapple from the dead laser-lance, and wedged it tightly in the crack. With one end of the cord tied securely around his waist, he threaded the loose end around the lance. The activity reminded him of home, hunting in the mountains when he was a boy. Playing the rope out through his gloved hands, he walked down the cliff until he stood on the ledge beside her. If you could call an angled, rock-strewn slope barely a long stride wide a ledge. His arms shook with fatigue. What he'd give for a massage.

Morgan had already called the lander. It approached over the ocean, along the channel between the two islands, its matte black surface barely visible.

"It can't land here, surely?" he said.

"No. I'll get it to hover as close as I can, and then we'll have to jump."

He wouldn't need to go to a gym for a day or two after this workout. "I'll go first. And you will have this rope around your waist."

She bobbed her head. "
Srimana
."

The lander rose, steady as a lift despite the breeze swirling around the rocks. The hatch bay opened. He smiled. He should have known better, it was like walking up a flight of stairs. He stepped into the ship, Morgan a heartbeat behind him. He turned when he heard the muffled snigger.

Her silver eyes twinkling, she handed him the rope.

Chapter 35
 

M
organ told the lander to rise as soon as she'd closed the hatch behind them. The look on Ravindra's face when she gave him the rope was absolutely priceless. She grinned again. "Better go sit down."

Ravindra treated her to another baleful stare, and then he slid into the passenger seat in the ship's tiny cockpit. When she'd sat and connected the harness, he said, "You never told me you could do that." His tone was positively reproachful, as though she'd forgotten to tell him something important.

No, she hadn't. "It's not something we advertise, and it isn’t something I'd often do. Sure, you can pilot a ship remotely. Even an ordinary human can do it, sit in a room with a screen that plays what the sensors can see, and react to that. But the human factor adds…" How to explain? "A level of unpredictability. A remotely controlled ship is programmed to perform. You can't take over manual control. Besides, we were always told to emphasize we're not that much different from unaltered humans. I suppose that's why, whenever I can, I let Davaskar and Jirra run the ship. I don't want them to be entirely reliant on me. It's not healthy." They called it showing off at the Academy, trying to prove you were better than everybody else. Sometimes it had been difficult not to show off, without even trying.

"Do you think the domes are being operated remotely?" he asked.

"Yes. Which pleases me."

Morgan kept her mind on the sensors. Soon she'd have to drop the cloaking to arrange the rendezvous with
Vulsaur
. No sign of the mother ship, and no domes either. A worm of doubt wriggled in her stomach.

"Looks like they're gone."

Ravindra shot a look at her. "Hmm. Where to?"

She didn't bother to answer. The question was rhetorical, anyway.

Space junk still cluttered the orbital sphere around Ushas. Morgan let the lander pick its own way, while she made the call to
Vulsaur
. Davaskar acknowledged. They would meet past the planet's last moon in thirty-eight minutes.

"Is there anything from the planet?" Ravindra was looking at the screens where Ushas was girdled in an orange-brown, roiling mass of cloud. Burning. Almost like Artemis, all over again, except they hadn't landed armies of little soldiers.

"Not out here." Morgan wondered how they were coping, how many had died, how long it would take to rebuild. Their fault, hers and Ravindra's. If you wanted to think of it that way. If they hadn't meddled, hadn't gone down to the laboratory.

Ravindra reached across and placed gentle fingers on her chin, turning her head so he could look into her eyes. "Don't. You're blaming yourself—us. There's no point. What's done is done. And there are so many ifs. If Eastly hadn't been a fool, if Cruickshank hadn't sent a missile into something she didn't understand—"

"If I'd never come back." She sighed. "I know. But that's what makes me human, isn't it?"

His lips stretched in a smile. "That. And a few other things."

"You don't feel… responsible?"

He turned back to the screen, gazing for a moment before he answered. "It has crossed my mind. But then, who knows? This might have happened anyway, at some other time. And what difference will it make if I flagellate myself with 'if only'? All we can do is work with what is placed before us. I've had to make some hard choices as an admiral. It's part of the job. Commit a ship when you know it will probably not survive, attack a planet, knowing there will be civilian casualties. 'Collateral damage', as if that sanitizes the facts."

Morgan put a hand on his thigh. What was there to say? He was right.

"And now, your Coalition admirals will have to decide what to do," Ravindra said, placing his hand over hers. "Where has the mother ship gone? What is its purpose? How can we stop them?"

"We?"

"What I said earlier was true. If these aliens have decided to destroy humans, then I cannot imagine they will not take aim at the Manesai."

"If they can find you."

"Yes."

There was nothing more to say. He'd slipped into his analysis mode, where he was thinking through problems, considering alternatives. She'd learned not to disturb him when he was like that. Instead, she made kaff, the rich aroma filling the cabin. She left a cup within his reach, then sat in her chair watching the terminator line inch its way across Ushas's scarred face.

***

M
akasa waited for them, eager for news, when they made their way into
Vulsaur's
common room. "All done?"

"The mother ship is gone," Ravindra bit into a pastry Tullamarran had set on the table for them, chewed and swallowed. "We have coordinates for where we think they arrived here, assuming the theory about the model ship is correct."

The fat man's eyes widened. "How did you manage that?"

Morgan sat down next to Prasad, Davaskar and Jirra and told him, with a few additional comments from Ravindra.

"Have you been in contact with your fleet?" Ravindra asked.

"I have," Makasa said. "A task force is on its way."

"Excellent. Well now, we have an alien encounter to set up. Morgan, do you know where we have to go?"

Of course she did. He knew that. Still, she'd play his game. "Yes, coordinates are locked away. Just give the order."

Makasa's eyes narrowed. "You're going to this place?"

"That's the idea. If we can find out how they get in, we might be able to close the door."

Morgan could almost see the wheels turning under Makasa's tightly-curled, black hair.

"Best if we send the fleet, don't you think?" Makasa said. "If the aliens have left, we could be doing something to help the survivors on this planet."

"Negative," Ravindra said. "This is not your ship, Admiral, it is mine."

Leaning forward, Makasa jabbed a finger at Ravindra. "The people on this planet need help now. We have a Supertech who can help with communications and so on. This is a humanitarian consideration."

"Still trying to keep his Supertech?" Davaskar said in Manesai, his voice bubbling with humor.

"Over my dead body," Ravindra growled in the same language.

Morgan's heart jolted. She stared at one admiral, then the other. She'd almost decided Makasa was right, that they should stay. "What?"

Ravindra's lip lifted in a mocking smile. Glancing at Makasa, he spoke in Standard. "Oh, my love, you didn’t think he'd let you go so easily, did you? Some of that fleet coming here will be aimed squarely at
Vulsaur
."

Makasa rocked back, and placed his elbows on the table, his fingers intertwined. "You're being absurd."

Ravindra raised an eyebrow. "Am I? Oh, no, Admiral. Rest assured, in your position, I would be doing the same thing. The most valuable asset on this ship is sitting opposite you."

The fat admiral's eyes glittered. "True. Especially now, when I've just lost two others."

Morgan couldn't believe it. He'd as mush as admitted he'd take her by force. Back to the Coalition, whether she liked it or… She leaped out of her seat, lunging at him, fuelled by the anger rising from her gut. "You oily, fat, fucking, bastard. You'd kill them. To keep me."

Ravindra caught her, and forced her back into the seat, his grip on her shoulder painfully tight. "Perhaps not, my dear. Aliens are useful. But I don't think he'd let us share a bed."

Fighting against Ravindra's grip was futile. "Well, let me tell you something, Admiral." Morgan made the last word an insult, throwing it into Makasa's face. "If you ever, ever hurt any of them, you'll find out what a bad Supertech can really do."

Slowly shaking his head from side to side, Makasa tutted. "You're overreacting, Morgan. It was always a failing of yours." He turned to Ravindra. "It seems I'm your prisoner, then."

Ravindra snorted. "I'm not taking you along. You're staying here. In the lander."

For the first time, Morgan detected a hint of fear in Makasa's eyes. "You're not serious," he said.

Savage triumph surged up her spine. Served the bastard right.

"Why not? It's perfectly serviceable. ETA for the Coalition Fleet is… what?" Ravindra flicked his fingers at her.

Allowing the gesture to pass without comment, she checked the messages. "Less than a day." And she hoped the bastard sweated every miserable hour.