Seeds of Earth (52 page)

'They never admitted in public that Zhilinsky's surgeons were trying to create Human computers - they used words like adjustment or modification or enhancement. Eventually the whole truth was made public when the failures could no longer be concealed. One of them was especially heartbreaking, a young woman of nineteen who had tried to kill herself forty times or more, even though assessments showed her to be a calm, rational mathematical genius - 95 per cent of the time. The other 5 per cent she was monomaniacal, self-hating and self-destructive. When she was discussed on the radio and in the papers they showed her picture and gave her first name, which my close friend recognised right away as her daughter . . .'

A name emerged from Theo's memory. 'Maria . . . Groenvold,' he said.

Solvjeg smiled. 'Yes, that's right, and her daughter was called Ulrike - perhaps some of Mr Pyatkov's companions might remember her.-..: .'

Akesson held up a hand for silence, and a moment later Theo heard the sound of a vehicle outside, tyres crunching on gravel.

'I'll make sure,' Akesson said, heading out to the hall. Donny, meanwhile, was already on his feet and standing closer to the other doorway. Theo and his sister looked at him askance.

'Hey,' he said. 'Just in case.'

Then Akesson appeared at the door, beckoning them to follow.

The hallway was busy with Akesson giving orders to some of his staff while Pyatkov, wrapped in a fur-trimmed greatcoat, ushered several unsmiling people, three men and two women, through to another room off the hall. The Enhanced were wearing thin indoor clothes which probably accounted for their morose expressions, yet there was also a certain hauteur to their demeanour and they regarded no one else as they trooped through the hall. Solvjeg watched them a moment then put a hand on Theo's arm, smiled and followed the newcomers. Observing this, Pyatkov shrugged.

'I'm afraid that your sister may find them a little close-mouthed,' he said to Theo. 'They've exchanged barely a dozen words with me since I got them out of the Delta Facility, and that was over twenty-four hours ago.' He loosened his coat. 'In any case, this is a short stopover, five minutes then we have to get back on the road. And I need both of you to come with us, and any help from your Diehards, Major, if there are any in the area.'

Theo and Donny exchanged puzzled looks. 'Expecting trouble on the road north, Vitaly?' said Donny.

'Not north, Captain, but east,' Pyatkov said stiffly. 'President Sundstrom reached a secret agreement with the Imisil ambassador that, in the event of a de facto takeover by the Hegemony, particular researchers would be offered political asylum by the Imisil. Their ambassador is currently in talks with Kuros, which means that an Imisil shuttle is sitting on a runway at Port Gagarin right now - we have to get there with all speed, bypass security and see the Enhanced safely on board that shuttle.'

'Is that all?' Theo said. 'What's so special about these people?'

'Aye,' said Donny. 'What's their gimmick?'

Pyatkov's lips were set in a thin line. 'I cannot reveal what I know, but I can tell you that the Hegemony must never find out what is in those Enhanced minds.'

Donny looked at Theo. 'Must be that recipe for reindeer haggis - telling ye, the rumours I've heard . . .'

'Barbour, can you be serious for . . .'

'Okay, Pyatkov,' said Theo. 'Then why are we handing these people over to the Imisil? Are they really to be trusted?'

'Yes - the Imisil government has nominated a member of the Intercessor Council as their guardian.' 'The who?' said Donny.

Pyatkov frowned. 'An interplanetary organisation which, I'm told, has a high reputation for honesty and impartial arbitration.'

Theo shrugged and glanced at Donny, who rolled his eyes then took out his handgun.

'A 50-calibre Chokhov,' he said. 'Just the thing to encourage honesty and impartiality.'

Checking the magazine, he snapped it back in, then winked.

Theo laughed and turned to Pyatkov. 'Some of my men will be waiting at the observation point near Membrance Vale.'

'We can divert to pick them up without losing time.'

'Also I don't even have a weapon.'

'That will not be a problem,' Pyatkov said. 'I brought a selection.'

A few minutes later, as the Enhanced filed back out, now wearing scarves and hats donated by Akesson, Theo went to say goodbye to his sister. She was standing with one of the Enhanced, a slender woman with short black hair and attractive if sombre features. As Theo approached, she solemnly shook Solvjeg's hand and went to join the rest outside.

'Her name is Julia,' Solvjeg said to him. 'She remembers Ulrike and said that she was like a comet among shooting stars . . .' She faced him. 'Are you going too?'

'Yes,' he said. 'It seems that Pyatkov still has need for an old dog of war ... we're going to break into Port Gagarin and get these folk aboard a shuttle that is waiting to take them up to the Imisil ship in orbit.'

She nodded, gnawed her lip, then shook her head. 'I cannot tell you that you're too old for this, because in truth it's only your body which is too old for it!' Just then, Donny handed him his coat, which he put on. 'I am not your wife, only your sister, but that gives me the right to
tell
you, Theodor Karlsson, to come back alive, with or without your shield!'

'Ja,
little spear-maiden - who would dare disobey such a command?'

They embraced, then Theo hurried out to where Pyatkov's transport, a battered-looking freight bus, was waiting with its twin flatwheels running. Fine rain was sweeping and swirling down with a gusting breeze, making golden haloes of flying motes around the farmhouse pathway lamps. He leaped up the entry steps, the door concertinaed shut behind him and they drove off into the night.

51

KAO CHIH

He stared with a kind of morose hope out of the viewport at the hazy stars, which were few and far between only the nearest were bright enough to pierce the cloudy veils of the Huvuun Deepzone. Also, they allowed the navigationals to make some kind of approximation of their position after each microjump - the last three had zigzaggingly carried the
Castellan
towards the subsector where the Darien system was most likely to be, going by the ship's archive of tiernet news.

But those were the last three out of twenty-four microjumps. The hyperspace jump from Shafts to Yonok with its midjourney dropout to normal space had not gone as planned when the exit left them dozens of lightyears inside the Huvuun and unable to get an accurate fix on their location. That was a day and a half ago, since which time Drazuma-Ha* had been employing point-phase variations in the microjump computations while the jumps themselves had to be 42.8 minutes apart because that was how long the tesserae power cells took to self-recharge.

And for Kao Chili, it was stressful, the waiting, the build-up to the six- or seven-minute microjump, the moment of stomach-churning disorientation at the start and the end, then the moments it took the navigationals to plot their unreliable position. No, it was beyond stressful. As he sat there, staring at those few, hazehaloed stars, he could feel a tide of impatience starting to swamp his reason.

'Have the concise data been computed, DrazumaHa*?'

'Yes, they have, Gowchee.'

'Then let us make the jump, now - we're getting closer with every jump, so let's not waste any more time than we have to.'

'I must point out that engaging the hyperdrive before the power cells have recharged will cause a drain on our irreplaceable fuel reserves. And there is no guarantee that we will maintain our progress towards Darien,'

'I realise that, but just this once I feel that we should go, now, without delay, immediately.'

'The cells will be recharged in another twenty-eight minutes, Gowchee. Can you not wait that long?'

'I'm afraid not.'

'If you wish, we could play one of the ship's games to help pass the time for you.'

'Thank you for the offer, Drazuma-Ha*, but I would be incapable of concentrating. Please engage the hyperdrive - we may even be lucky enough to come within range of one of those cloud-harvesters.'

Three times during the earlier microjumps the
Castellan's
sensors had picked up at the outer limits an occasional solitary vessel with an odd emission curve, which suggested that it was sometimes 150 metres long and other times 2.5 kilometres long. By the third sighting Drazuma-Ha* had identified them from a popnet infodoc he had archived years before as cloudharvesters, ships that scooped up the interstellar dust and debris with kilometres-long energised fields. They were industrial vessels owned by large-resource corporations and operated by AIs or small crews. More important, their drives were T2-capable, as were their shuttlecraft - one of those could execute far more accurate microjumps.

'We can rely on that occurring with as much certainty as arriving perfectly in orbit around Darien,' the mech said. 'However, I perceive that my refusal may lead to an unpredictable outburst on your part. . .'

'I protest, Drazuma-Ha"' - I am merely . . .'

'No, I do not wish to be the cause of any extreme reaction . . .'

'That is quite ridic—' Kao Chih began to say, but Drazuma-Ha"" activated the hyperdrive and the words and sounds in his throat ran together into a fluttering slur. Then there was that vaguely numb period lasting a few minutes before he was tilted into the exit-surge of spinning-sliding-vertigo, and when it faded he was still in his couch, waiting for the mech to announce their new position.

'I am sorry to have to tell you that we are now 7.9 lightyears further away from the target subsector,' Drazuma-Ha'"" said.

Kao Chih made an inarticulate sound that was equal parts anger and despair. 'How much longer can this take?' he groaned. 'How much more can I stand?'

'At the current rate of consumption, fuel reserves will be exhausted in eleven months and seven days, and the air will remain breathable for another eight months and twenty-four days, assuming that scrub filters are used. Unfortunately, your food will only last for another three months and nine days, provided that you restrict your intake to quarter-rations.'

Kao Chih listened and nodded soberly while striving against an urge to burst out laughing at the idiocy of the situation. It was irrational, he knew, and a wild mood swing away from the grimness he had been feeling just minutes ago.

'Alternatively,' the mech went on, 'I may be able to adapt one of the large equipment lockers for use as a cryo-unit, or at least something that will lower your .. .'

The mech stopped in mid-sentence and bright field rods stabbed out at the console. Screens flickered and symbol arrays pulsed.

'A ship,' it said, 'has just appeared 1,823 kilometres away. Its profile is that of an Erdishi midhaul freighter but there is no ident signal and the thrust motors seem to be only partly shielded. Their sensors have just found us . . . they have ignited their thrusters and are heading straight for us.'

'Have we got them on visual?' Kao Chih said as the viewport hypershield rolled back. 'Are they responding to hails?'

'Too far for realtime depiction ... and no comm traffic at all.'

'What about the computations? Are we ready to jump?'

'Yes, Gowchee, the computations are complete but another premature jump would further deplete our fuel reserves.'

'You may recall that we have no weapons with which to fend them off, unless you want me to sit out on the hull and throw empty gas canisters at them . . .'

'Their acceleration curve is very steep,' the mech said. 'That and the degraded state of the superstructure means that the crew cannot be organic'

One of the screens flashed up an image of the freighter and to Kao Chih it looked like a wreck. Those parts of the hull still attached were charred and holed, while pipes, feeds and cable sprouted from exposed and shattered bulkheads. Something, either a collision or a weapon, had sheared off a slanted portion of the prow while the port side was disfigured by a ragged gouge from the bridge to the midsection. Seconds ticked past and as Kao Chih watched, something bulky and metallic clambered up that gouge, through torn and twisted plating to the gaping bridge where it was met by another two large mech shapes.

Recognition and an awful sense of dread made Kao Chih's stomach feel hollow.

'Those are the droids from Blacknest!' he said. 'Your debt collectors! How did they track us here? Why . . .?'

'Because they are very cunning and very persistent,' Drazuma-Ha * said. 'There may not be sufficient time for the cells to recharge. Brace yourself, Gowchee!'

And his senses spun and swung and plunged, then a few minutes of stability, then another surge of dizziness . . . and he opened his eyes, holding onto the armrests. Another jump, another shot at Darien.

'Why are they going to all this trouble for a bad debt? . . .' Kao Chih paused, thoughts assailed by suspicion. 'You said they were cunning and persistent how much do you know about these droids, DrazunaHa
"? And exactly why are they chasing you?'

'I have encountered them before, in circumstances not conducive to negotiation and polite behaviour . . . Gowchee, the answers to your questions would demand careful exposition. Please, allow me a few moments to set up the jump computations then we may discuss the matter.'

Frowning, Kao Chih sat back in his couch and folded his arms. Then his bad temper waned as the tiredness he had ignored made itself felt, and when he sighed it turned into a yawn.

'If you are weary, Gowchee, perhaps you should rest,' said the mech.

'My mind is unable to relax when faced with mortal peril, Drazuma-Ha*. It is a Human foible.'

'How inexpedient for your species - perhaps you should consider cyber-augmentation after all . . .' Suddenly a console alarm started pinging. 'A ship has appeared at 1,560 kilometres ... it is the freighter and it is altering course in our direction . . .'

'This is not a coincidence, is it?'

'No, Gowchee - they are tracking us through hyperspace somehow. Engaging hyperdrive - now.'