Serpent's Gift (22 page)

"Ready," replied Heathertoo.

Quickly Heather repeated the greeting and inquiry from the fictitious Mr.

Hicks, then waited tensely.

Her idealized, age-enhanced image smiled politely, showing the tips of perfect teeth. "Good morning, Mr. Hicks. I wish to open an account with your investment company."

"What kind of account were you thinking of, Ms. Benson?" "Dwayne Hicks"

inquired. "We have several kinds."

"List types of accounts," Heathertoo ordered.

"Pause program," Heather snapped.
Damn! She still sounds so mechanical!

How can I get her to sound real?

She sat staring at Heathertoo's frozen image for several minutes, slowly realizing that in order to make Heathertoo sound
real,
she would have to merge her mind into the computer's while the program was activated. Then she could direct Heathertoo's speech and movements from within the program itself, pull Heathertoo's strings from
inside
the image, as it were.

That would require going deeper into the machine's short- and long-term memory and "thinking" processes than the girl ever had before. Heather felt goose bumps pop out on her arms, and she shivered slightly. Before this she'd only merged her consciousness

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with the computer for scant moments while she'd altered programming, accessed guarded storage for passwords, or tampered with memory. But this linkage would require deep, almost total immersion, for many realtime minutes.

For a moment she was tempted to forget the whole thing, trust that the programmed responses she'd given Heathertoo would do the job, but then the girl's jaw tightened stubbornly. She could do it--and the results would be worth it.

Little bitch ..
. she could hear Serge's words echo in her memory. Uncle Fred had called her that, too.

I'll show you .. . all of you!
Taking a deep breath, Heather closed her eyes and launched her mind ...

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The intercom on Rob Gable's desk had barely begun to beep before the psychologist reached it and silenced it. "Rob here," he said tersely. "Janet?"

"I'm here at the airlock with Jeff and his assistant. I'll bring them down immediately," she said.

"We'll be waiting," he promised.

Glancing up, he regarded the other two occupants of his office steadily.

"Janet's bringing them down," he told Esteemed Ssoriszs and StarBridge's Chhhh-kk-tu Administrator, Kkinfha ch'aait. "They'll meet us in my conference room."

"Have they already been out to the site?" Kkintha asked. The little furred alien appeared doubly small and compact next to the Mizari's sleek, elongated length. Her bright blue eyes studied Rob anxiously from a bandit mask of dark seal-brown, though most of her body was a pale fawn in color.

Her whiskers quivered as she nervously groomed her thick chest ruff with her tiny clawed fingers.

"I believe they were planning to do a quick site inspection before they met with us today," Rob said. "When Jeff got back, and whether he had time to go over the site, I don't know."

Rising, he headed into the room next to his office. He could hear the quick patter of Kkintha's feet behind him, as well as the sinuous whisper as Ssoriszs uncoiled his massive body and slithered after them.

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The neutral-colored, burgundy-carpeted conference room was fitted with a variety of seats and resting places that could accommodate most life-forms from the Fifteen Known Worlds. Each place was also equipped with a computer terminal and small holo-tank. Quickly Rob programmed the room's controls for three human-style chairs, plus seating for one Mizari and one Chhhhkktu. Moments later Kkintha scrambled nimbly up onto a high, padded stoollike seat that would bring her up to the same eye level as the humans, while Ssoriszs coiled himself into one of the boxlike Mizari compartments.

Rob himself was too keyed up to sit; he paced restlessly, then, remembering that Jeff was a coffee drinker, keyed the servo for a pot.

Before the coffee could arrive, the door slid open and Morrow entered.

Despite the smile he flashed, he looked haggard, as though he hadn't been sleeping well.

"Hello, Jeff," Rob said, noting the dark shadows beneath the engineer's eyes. "How are you?"

Morrow shrugged, giving his friend a "don't ask" look, then turned his attention to the Chhhh-kk-tu and the elderly Mizari. "Greetings, Administrator," he said, then bowed formally to Kkintha. Then, raising his hands over his head, Morrow addressed Ssoriszs in halting Mizari. "The stars shine upon you, Esteemed One." He bowed deeply.

"We are glad to see you again, Jeffrey," Kkintha said formally, "and we thank you for coming so quickly."

"You have been often in our hearts," Ssoriszs said, inclining his head in the Mizari greeting bow. "Greetings, Jeff.. . and to your colleague, greetings."

"I'm forgetting my manners," Jeff said, turning to present the tall, angular black woman who waited a step behind him. "I'd like all of you to meet Andrea Lynch, my assistant and crew boss. Andrea, this is Rob Gable, Esteemed Ssoriszs, and StarBridge's Administrator, Kkintha ch'aait. And, of course, you've already met Janet Rodriguez."

"Hi," Lynch murmured. No smile brightened her narrow, dark features. The woman wore a baggy tan coverall with the sleeves rolled up above her elbows. Her hair was cropped close to her skull, and that, coupled with her height and wiry thinness, might almost have caused her to be mistaken for a man . .. except for her eyes, which were large, the color of onyx and fringed with beautifully curled (and completely natural) lashes. Rob could tell from her body language that Andrea Lynch was tense, though she

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was trying to convey a bored aloofness.

She's wound like a spring,
he thought.
Why?
There were a number of possibilities, but he decided to reserve judgment for the moment. All question of blame or culpability over the radonium-2 monitoring aside, Lynch might simply be one of those humans who was uneasy around aliens. Or telepaths. The woman sported a teledistort cuff on her ear, one of the expensive Mizari models like Rob's own.

"Coffee?" the psychologist asked, taking the pot out of the servo. "Forgive me for saying so, but you look like you could use some, Jeff."

" 'No rest for the wicked,' " Morrow quoted with a wry grin, accepting a mug.

Lynch merely shook her head impatiently as the group gathered around the table. "First of all," Morrow began, "let me assure you that we're going to clear up this problem: as quickly as possible. We've just been out to take a fast look at the site. The bad news is that our preliminary analysis indicates that there is some radonium-2 activity in that smaller cavern. But the good news is that there are ways to contain and] control radonium breakdown, and we have the people and the equipment to handle that. It shouldn't take more than a few days."

Rob sighed with relief. "That's good to hear."

"Will the artifacts be contaminated by radiation?" Ssoris asked suddenly. His question, harmless enough in itself, was so abrupt that it sounded accusing.

Rob, accustomed to the Mizari Liaison's unfailing politeness, regarded his scaled friend with consternation.
He's really obsessed with this Lost Colony
quest..
.|

"Yes," said Lynch firmly, in reply to the Liaison's query.

"No," Jeff Morrow declared simultaneously, speaking with equal certainty.

A brief, awkward silence ensued. Rob broke it. "Well, which is it?" he asked curiously, glancing from Jeff's handsome features to Lynch's rather predatory ones. "Are the artifacts contaminated or aren't they?"

"Well, actually we're both right," said Morrow with a deprecatory smile. "I was referring to the artifacts that are resting in the stasis fields in the main cavern. Nothing in the main cavern shows any sign of contamination, as of this morning. But I believe that Andrea was thinking of the object in the smaller cavern." He glanced at his assistant for confirmation and she nodded, "The religious object... what's it called?"

"Star-shrine," Ssoriszs supplied.

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"Right. That item, I'm afraid, is contaminated, and will need to be neutralized before it can be removed."

"Is that difficult?" Ssoriszs asked.

"Not really. It will just take us a little time, since we'd have to order in a neutralizer to generate the necessary field. That would take several days to a week, probably. We'll let you know when your star-shrine is accessible again."

Janet Rodriguez leaned forward, brushing a lock of bronze hair back off her forehead. "I have a portable neutralizer here at the school, if you want to use that. However, even more important than those artifacts--if you'll excuse me for saying so, Ssoriszs--is the school itself. Can you tell how much of the radonium beneath the Lamont Cliffs is now changing into radonium-2? How quickly is the reaction spreading?"

"And, most importantly, could the school be in any danger from this radonium-2?" Kkintha ch'aait's whiskers twitched with concern. She was stil absently grooming herself, Rob noted, and small tufts of pale fur clung to her clawed fingers.

Jeff raised a hand, his fingers tucked into a fist. "One," he said, counting off his forefinger, "no, we don't know the percentage of radonium that is breaking down into radonium-2. We'll know that in a day or two . .. certainly by the end of the week. Two"-- he counted off his middle finger--"the radonium into radonium-2 reaction appears at the moment to be spreading slowly--which is lucky for us."

Morrow gave the Administrator a reassuring smile as he ticked off his ring finger. "And, finally, three: no, at the moment, and unless the situation were to change dramatically, the school is in no danger whatsoever. We should be able to contain this problem before there's even a hint of a threat to the Academy."

"Threat?" Kkintha was determined to hear the worst. "Then there is some danger, is there not?"

"Hell yes, it's dangerous," Andrea Lynch said bluntly. Her manner was patronizing as she spoke slowly, as though to a child. "Radonium-2 is nothing to, uh .. . mess around with. It's very nasty stuff, Administrator ch'aait."

"Before we continue, Jeff," Rob broke in hastily as he saw the Chhhh-kk-tu's small round ears flatten in anger. "Forgive me for making you go back to basics, but could you or Ms. Lynch possibly brief us nontechnical types on just how this radonium into radonium-2 reaction works? Ssoriszs and I were trying to remember our elementary physics courses, but we're still foggy on just what's going on out at the Cliffs."

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"Sure, Rob," Morrow
said. He keyed his terminal link for a
moment
in silence,
then
waved at it. "If you'll all glance at your holotanks..."

Rob did so, seeing an atomic representation of a three- dimensional molecular structure, showing individual atoms in a rainbow of hues, with the whole molecule outlined in glowing green. "This is stable radonium," Jeff said. "It's a compound, not an element. Normal radonium is a crystalline lattice made up of the indicated elements, which includes one transuranic"--

a vivid blue atomic structure brightened--"and a couple of superheavies that are--potentially--extremely unstable." The two atoms that glowed different shades of red brightened to highlight them. "You can see how, in this configuration, the lattice structure is delicately poised. The transuranic atom keeps those two superheavies balanced. Under normal circumstances, radonium is safe and stable. You could pick it up with your hand if you wanted to."

He keyed another command into the terminal, and Rob saw several small particles dive-bomb the lattice. One particle struck one of the delicate linkages near the superheavy atoms, knocking it away, and suddenly the entire structure lurched, slipped, then altered into something that was no longer symmetrical. A violet glow began emanating from the lopsided representation, pulsing brightly. "But. .." Jeff continued his explanation, "if you bombard basic radonium with neutrons, it becomes unstable, and that's what we call radonium-2."

The image of the radonium-2 mutated back into the stable molecule, then it shrank and was joined by others, until its distinctive crystalline shape appeared solid. A gentle, golden glow surrounded the radonium. "Normal radonium is the good guy of modern technology," the engineer continued.

"We power starships with it. Without radonium we'd never have the properties or
the
power to generate the field that allows us to make the transition to metaspace. A little radonium goes a very long way."

"I was told that the veins of radonium running through this asteroid could power the school for ten thousand years--at a minimum," Rob said. 'That's why the Mizari gift of this asteroid< for the site of StarBridge Academy was so incredibly generous,'" he said, smiling and nodding at Ssoriszs.

"This school is vital to the preservation of interstellar peace," the Mizari said slowly, his appendages trembling with deep emotion, "therefore our gift was not
generous,
it was
necessary."

"StarBridge means a great deal to all of us, Esteemed One," Jeff said, and for a moment Rob glimpsed something haunted

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behind his eyes. Without being told, he knew his friend was remembering how hard he'd tried to become part of StarBridge and its mission--and how devastating his failure had been.

After a bare second, Jeff was all business again. "Now watch what happens when radonium-2 begins to spread," he said. He keyed in a command and the radonium on the screen abruptly lurched, tilted, altering into radonium-2.

Then the individual molecule shrank until it was only one of many unbalanced molecules. A lurid violet light began pulsing hypnotically as it surrounded the unstable mass, which continued to grow like something living. "When radonium-2 forms, it sets up a domino effect, 'infecting' normal radonium, changing it... decrystallizing it. The instability grows quickly, almost geometrically. We call this 'breeding.' "

Morrow licked his lips, staring down into his holo-tank as if mesmerized, then he shivered and looked back up at the others. "Radonium-2
is
nasty stuff.