Outer Bounds: Fortune's Rising (28 page)

“No!” Magali screamed.  Magali
shifted her weight and kicked the knife out of the woman’s hand.  Then, as the
woman stood there, her face dropping to look down at her empty hand, Magali
twisted, pivoted on one foot in the slime, and slammed her heel into the
woman’s face.  The woman collapsed instantly, and, seeing the way she crumpled,
Magali felt an immediate pang of regret for the strength she had put into the
kick. 

As the second guard fell, the
first guard bent for the fallen blade.  Magali leveled the gun on her head, her
finger on the trigger, the little READY light flaming green in the space
between them.  Though Magali’s heart was thundering, the gun remained
absolutely steady in her grip.

Utter silence filled the cavern.

What would Anna do?
a
little part of her wondered.  Then, with reluctance, she thought,
Tell the
truth.

As the first guard remained
poised over the knife, watching her, Magali said, “I’ve been trained to wield
every gun that’s made it to the Outer Bounds, from scrapyard junk to Coalition
issue to black market spitfires, to projectile pistols and long-dis beam
rifles.  I’ve fired this class of weapon—an A1550-Y, named as such for the
distance in meters that its energy beam will accurately travel through
Aquafer-rated atmosphere at sea-level—approximately seven thousand and fifteen
times, with a ninety-nine percent kill rate at four hundred yards on moving
targets.  If you don’t back up, right now, you’re going to figure out just
where you rank in that percentile.”

The guard glanced down at her
fallen comrade, who was sprawled out and unconscious in the slime, and then
back to Magali.  Like a woman who had accidentally crawled into a snake pit,
she slowly straightened and took a step back.  Her index finger was hanging
awkwardly, still cradled by her good hand.

Magali took a deep breath,
feeling as if her entire body were alive with electric current.  Her legs,
especially, wanted to collapse on her.  It was all she could do to keep
standing.  Somehow keeping the tremor out of her voice, she said, “Now the
three of you are gonna pick up your sacks and your prybars and you’re going to
go in there and harvest nodules and you’re going to hope nobody kicks your ass
while you’re at it.”

The third woman paled.

“You think this is funny?” the
wounded guard snapped.  She took a step toward Magali, pointing at Joel, “He’s
gonna be dead by tomorrow night and a few nights after that,
we’re
gonna
be back on watch.  You think we’ll just forget something like this?  When we
get back on shift, you’re gonna go missing.”

Magali’s only response was her
best imitation of her sister’s most psychotic smile.

With a seething look, the two
guards still standing bent down to pick up their harvest sacks.  Casting Magali
a long, spiteful look, the wounded guard departed for the inner hatching
chambers, cursing at the third woman to follow.  Magali waited until could hear
them scrabbling in the slime in the dim caverns beyond, then she lowered her
gun, relief flooding her every tissue.

A moment later, Magali realized
the Shrieker mounds had descended into absolute silence.  No one was moving. 
Many of the eggers were watching Magali as if she had grown glittering golden
circuitry. 

Feeling uncomfortable under their
stares, Magali bent to help Joel.  Instead of standing, Joel grabbed the wrist
of her gun-hand and held it firmly.  Automatically, Magali loosened her grip on
the weapon and held it out to him. 

Joel didn’t take it.  Instead, he
squeezed her wrist once and grinned, peering up into her face.

He’s saying thank you,
she
realized.  Magali blushed, and, seeing Joel didn’t want it, had to resist a
powerful urge to drop the weapon in the Shrieker mucus.  She would have felt
better had Joel been carrying it.  She hated the feel of it, hated its weight,
hated the way its rubber grip dug at her skin.  She wanted to throw it as far
away from her as it could get.  Yet, she also knew that she couldn’t just leave
it.  Someone else could pick it up and have the same idea as the guards, and
this time they wouldn’t give Magali a chance to get close enough to stop them.

Still holding the gun in one
hand, she pulled the smuggler to his feet, then offered it to him again.  Joel pushed
the weapon aside, shaking his head with what Magali thought was amusement.   He
then gave her an elegant bow over her other hand, one that made her cheeks heat
up with embarrassment as he kissed the top of her knuckles in an Old Earth
fashion.  Looking up at her from his bow, he winked.

Even naked, bruised, and
speechless, Joel Triton still had the same charismatic charm that he’d had
since the very first day Magali had met him in the foreman breakroom.  She felt
her chest leap like a schoolgirl, despite the fact he was easily a couple
decades older and graying at the temples.

Joel straightened, patted her
hand, and turned away.  Dumbfounded, Magali watched him as he strode off
towards the now-blocked exit.

Eggers hastily got out of his
way.  Halfway there, Joel stopped and glanced over his shoulder at Magali. 
When she continued to stand there, her heart still hammering six different
beats of confusion, he gestured impatiently with his good hand. 

Reluctantly, she fell in behind
him, itching at all the eyes on her, wishing she had never broken the guard’s
finger and taken the gun.  Her dread was resting like a lump in her throat. 
Whatever happened, the guards were right.  She had marked herself.  If she
survived the Harvest, it would only be to find herself woken up in the middle
of the night at the end of a rifle muzzle, to be marched out into the peat bogs
and shot. 

Joel went to the stacks of
supplies the robots had left by the door and squatted to begin sorting them
out.

As everyone watched, he grabbed
one stack of red cardboard and stood up.  He glanced at Magali, then pointed at
the eggers, then jammed a finger at the floor.

“He says stay here,” Magali said,
giving them a helpless shrug.

As soon as she spoke, Joel hefted
the stack of cardboard over one shoulder and trudged off into the depths of the
hatching chambers.

Wary of the small shapes moving
beyond, Magali followed him.

Chapter
27

Decibel
Levels

“How long until the next flight?”
Anna asked as she alternately flipped through channels on the two separate
wall-screens.  Despite Doberman’s wishes, she had activated both the large,
content-censored screen for recruits and the small password-protected screen
for full military officers and state officials.  The unfinished node sat on the
nightstand in front of her, dismantled to its most basic parts.  The r-player
into which he had uploaded the node schematics lay on her thigh, playing a fast
electric guitar instrumental as she hummed along and tapped her fingers on the
table beside the jumble of parts.

Doberman, for his part, was
sitting on a chair in front of the door, one shoe off, his big toe folded back
and a power adapter extending from the wall transmitter to his foot.  As per
Anna’s request, he checked the time, still irritated that it now had to be done
consciously instead of with an automatic time-stamp.

“Eleven hours and fourteen
minutes until we need to be on the boarding ramp.”  That they had missed their
flight to Eiorus did not bother Doberman.  After all, a simple excuse on his part
and the camp computer had adjusted their departure accordingly.

What bothered Doberman was that
Anna Landborn was surrounded by illegal materials whose discovery would get
them both executed if they were ever discovered, and she had the volume on the
two entertainment screens turned up as high as it would go, producing a hundred
and nine decibels of wall-vibrating noise in an otherwise quiet barracks hall.

“You don’t have to sit in front
of the door like that,” Anna said, pausing in her fiddling with the officer
screen to peer over her shoulder at him.  “They think there’s an admiral in
here.  Nobody’s going to barge in.”

“The door has no lock,” Doberman
said.  He reached behind him and smacked the rickety metal barrier with a palm,
making it rattle.  “And you are surrounded by sensitive materials.” 

Anna Landborn raised an eye-brow
a half-centimeter.  “Dobie, think.  If your camp computer told you an admiral
was staying in one of the barracks rooms, would you have bothered to tell him
to correct his decibel level?”

“Probably,” Doberman said. 
“Besides, it’s a privacy screen, nothing more, and you’ve got the volume loud
enough that even a passing human would come investigate.  One look at the
materials scattered on that desk and they’ll have us both dismantled by
Nephyrs.”

“Correction,” Anna said, as she
pried open one of the inner chambers of the central node apparatus.  “One look
at the materials scattered on this desk and you’re going to kill them.”

“I’d rather it didn’t come to
that,” Doberman said.  “Please lower the volume.”

Anna snorted and, plucking the
tiny inner chamber free of the apparatus, haphazardly flicked it into the waste
unit.  “Dobie,” she said, wiping lubricant from under her fingernail.  “What do
you
think
an admiral would do if he was booked in a room on a boring
little station like this?  Play ping-pong?  Call his mother?  Quietly read the
latest five-year-old issue of the Coalition Times?”  Anna snorted.  “You really
think he’d give a shit if he was keeping the new recruits awake?  No.  He’d
turn up the volume and make sure the whole barracks knew he was there.  Coalers
are like that.  So just sit there, recharge, and be happy.”

“Our agreement was that you
wouldn’t put us in danger.”  He jerked a thumb at the sources of the noise.  “
That
is definitely putting us in danger.  It is fourteen decibels above base
regulation for sound pollution.”

Anna sighed deeply.  “Who
would’ve guessed the robot would turn out to be a prude?”

“Change the feed, or I will
change your face,” Doberman said.  He carefully made a fist and smacked it
against his palm.

“Look,” Anna said, her facial
capillaries expanding rapidly.  “This room is registered to an off-duty
admiral.  We neutralized the cameras before we went in.  The Nephyrs are
still
running around in Sector Seven, looking for the perps.  Nobody’s going to come
looking for us, so you can just calm down.”

“Now,” Doberman said.

Muttering, Anna turned down the
volume on the two wallscreens, bringing the total decibel level to only a few
points over regulation levels.

“I wish you’d let me get rid of
that,” Doberman said, nodding to the parts strewn across her nightstand.  “Or
at least concentrate on it fully, instead of splitting your attention with the
news feeds.  I don’t see how having three separate stimulus inputs are helping
you understand the schematics of that node.”

In truth, the multi-tonal
screeching of the electric guitar combined with the financial chatter of the
corporate news feed and the heated discussion on the Coalition Free Press were
splitting his processing power as he digested and stored them, causing him
worry that Anna was doing it with that exact intent in mind, so that she could
use the distraction to slip another EMP grenade into his body.  As of yet,
however, Doberman had not mastered the ability to ignore an input, and
intentionally overlooking sensory details left him with gaping holes in his
memory, so his choice was to analyze and store every individual sound, or turn
off his auditory receptors and black out a good portion of the evening.

“It’s background noise,” Anna
said, flipping another channel.  “I concentrate better with background noise.” 
Seemingly satisfied with the latest feed, she picked up another piece of the
node apparatus and compared it to the specifications on the r-player.  “Aanaho. 
The Neanderthals put that in the
brain.
”

“I would also feel more
comfortable if I were sure that you weren’t turning that thing into some sort
of bomb,” Doberman said.

Anna waved him off.  “I told
you.  I’m done trying to kill you.”  She held up the ringlike part for him to
inspect.  “Look at this.  See the drainage holes there?  Those idiots were
injecting Yolk directly into the brain.  Talk about Frankensteining their way
through things.”

“Was there an alternative?”
Doberman asked.

Anna snorted.  “Of course.  It’s
not the Yolk that makes the Shrieker.  It’s the Shrieker that makes the Yolk. 
They’ve got everything backwards.  They’ve got the apparatus rigged right to
induce the same multi-wave emanations, but the Yolk wasn’t what creates the
Shriek.  It’s the Shriek that creates the Yolk.  Kind of like sitting a basket
of eggs next to a basket of plutonium and having the eggs set off a Geiger
counter afterwards.”  Anna was shaking her head, pressing her lips together. 
“Think of it like mental radiation.”

“You can’t possibly be listening
to both of those news feeds
and
the music at the same time,” Doberman
said.  Splitting his attention four ways was beginning to annoy him.  “And if
the apparatus is unusable, give it to me and I will dispose of it.”

“Oh, it’s usable,” Anna said,
“They put an awful lot of time into studying the insides of dead Shriekers to
just throw it all away.  They even got a few of their theories right.  It’s
definitely got a use, but not in the way they think.  They’re trying to use it
as a weapon, and it
could
be used that way, if they weren’t complete
imbeciles.  But what they’ve got wrong is only a Shrieker can Shriek.  Period. 
Human genetics just don’t have what it takes to produce that kind of mental
radiation.  Period.  Besides, even if they succeeded, the poor test subject
would end up being the center of the Shriek emanations.  Even augmented with
something like this, all they could do would be kill themselves unless they had
some sort of neutralizer in their system.”

“Which was what was happening,”
Doberman said.

“Exactly,” Anna said.  “And if
you read the logs, it wasn’t even very dramatic.  They registered approximately
twenty decibels on the mental radiation scale before they died, when a Shriek
would
start
somewhere around two-forty to two-fifty.  Basically, if
asked to justify their work, the technicians couldn’t prove that the emanations
were any greater than the Yolk they pumped into their experiments.”

“Sounds like a failed
experiment.”

Anna grunted.  “In a way, yeah. 
What they’re not considering, however, is
why
a Shrieker Shrieks.  We
already know they can communicate amongst each other, and that they have no
external sound-producing organs.  They can luminesce, but I think you and I can
both agree that it’s not the luminescing that does the talking, right?”

Doberman reviewed his
Shrieker-corrupted files and nodded.  “So instead of a weapon,” he said,
nodding at the strewn parts, “You think that can be used as an untraceable
means of communication?”

Anna gave him what appeared to be
a genuine smile.  “And you did that with both feeds
and
the music on in
the background.  I’m impressed, Dobie.  Maybe there’s some hope for you, after
all.”

“Stop trying to calculate my
processing capacity,” Doberman said.

Anna snorted.  “I already know
the processing capacity of a Ferris Unit.”  She gave him a smug grin.

Doberman crossed his arms and
leaned against the rickety barrier.  “How about the processing capacity of a
self-modified Ferris Unit?”

Anna’s facial features contorted
and her jaw opened slightly.  “Seriously?”

“Even as we speak, the camp
computers on both this base and Yolk Factory 14 are trying to determine why a
handful of robots have gone missing over the last couple days.”

Anna gave him a predatory look. 
“You need help installing some parts?”

Doberman sighed deeply.  “Anna, I
assure you, I did plant two bombs in your—”

“Yeah whatever,” Anna said.  “I
just want to see you get bad-ass.”  Her facial muscles twitched into a smile
that even Doberman considered sinister.  “Do you
realize
the kind of
stuff I could do to you?  We’re talking seriously cool shit.  Like lasers in
your eyes and poison in your fingertips and rocket launchers in your arms.”

“Maybe later,” Doberman said. 
“So far, I’ve been able to manage on my own.”

Anna’s face fell in a pout. 
“Yeah, but—”

“I’ll think about it,” Doberman
said.  He gestured to the dismantled node in front of her.  “So you believe the
apparatus can be used in communication?”

Anna shrugged.  “Depends on how
well the subject responds to mental radiation,” Anna said.  “You get someone
who can’t handle the noise, they’ll probably go comatose.  You get someone like
Wideman, then…”  Anna’s breathing and heart-rate hitched only a moment, but it
was enough to make Doberman take note.  Then she quickly sighed and leaned away
from the apparatus as if completely bored, saying, “But all this is moot,
really.  We don’t have any test subjects, and I’m sure as hell not using it on
myself.”

“Who is Wideman?” Doberman asked.

Anna narrowed her eyes.  “I
misspoke.”

“A man who got Egger’s Wide and
survived?” Doberman suggested.

Anna’s interrupted biorhythms
betrayed her shock.  “You’ve heard of him?”

“I guessed,” Doberman said. 
“Based off of the name.”

“Well, you guessed wrong,” she
said, immediately going back to her work, “Because I misspoke.”

“Who is Wideman?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking
about,” Anna said.

“Do I have to do a records search
of men who’ve survived the Wide?” Doberman asked.  Then, when her rhythms
remained steady, and considering the conversation they had before, he added,
“Or survived a Shriek?”

Anna didn’t respond, and after
forty-five seconds of silence, Doberman retracted his power connector, left the
door, and began striding across the room toward the dataport.

When Doberman put his hand upon
the transmitter, Anna cursed and set down her r-player.  “Don’t bother, I’ll
tell you.”

“You mean you’ll give me some
delightfully thoughtful lie,” Doberman said.  Then, when she plucked a magnetic
disc from the debris atop the desk and started to stand, he added, “Stay on the
bed.”

Anna lowered herself slowly, her
eyes riveted to his hand as it hovered over the transmitter.  “I don’t know why
you think you’ll find him in the government records.  Coalers don’t give a damn
about eggers.  Five hundred thousand of them get the Wide every year and nobody
cares.”

In reply, Doberman said, “Joseph
Whitecliff, of the Fifteenth Carrier Squadron.  Assigned a ten year enlistment
on Fortune.  Married to a Fortune-born colonist, Vala Healthmore, in an
unapproved ceremony on-planet.  Fathered triplets thirty-two years ago, Patrick
and Milar Whitecliff, identical, and a girl, Caroline Whitecliff, fraternal.  One
year later, Whitecliff’s command refused to recognize colonial marriages,
ordered the Fifteenth to take a group of seventeen sedated Shriekers back to
the Inner Bounds for study.  There was a mishandling in the cargo bay, leading
to a ship-wide Shriek by the transported aliens.  Joseph Whitecliff was the
sole survivor.  Command discharged him to the colonies in the care of his wife,
at that time living in the town of Deaddrunk Mines.  Is this Wideman?”

“No.”

“Now this is interesting,”
Doberman said.  “Both of his sons have had their DNA, prints, physical, and
biometric data all wiped clean.  Yet Joseph’s DNA is a close paternal match to
one Miles Blackpit, the only man in Fortune history who escaped the Nephyr
Academy on Eiorus, and one of the eighteen fugitives on the Constant Vigil
alert system.”

When he looked, Anna’s
capillaries had constricted, leaving her coloration several shades lighter than
usual.  “Stop giving me reasons to kill you, robot.”

“Very well.”  Doberman lowered
his hand from the transmitter.  “I only mention it because the same Miles
Blackpit was just apprehended by the Nephyrs not two days ago.”