Soldiers Out of Time (8 page)

Jason turned away. “All right. Let’s get back. I’ve seen enough. Mario, Lizh’Ku . . . much obliged.” He couldn’t repay their help with much more than this. But he had a feeling the possibility of doing the Transhumanists one in the eye would be sufficient compensation for McGillicuddy. And as for Lizh’Ku, he couldn’t avoid the impression that the aged Zirankh’shi was in it for the sheer fun of it. “From here on, it’s up to us to pursue this matter further. Fortunately, we have the ship to do it with.”

“For which,” Mondrago reminded him, “we’ll have to get Major Rojas’ permission.”

“I know, I know,” said Jason unhappily.

CHAPTER NINE

Elena Rojas glared across the small desk in the office Patel had put at the disposal of the IDRF unit. “You might have involved me, instead of striking out on your own. Remember, I am in charge of this investigation.”

Jason, who had faced some truly formidable glares in his time, maintained his equanimity under this one, although he had to admit that Rojas was no slouch. “IDRF involvement would have frightened off my sources.”

“And you refuse to tell me what these ‘sources’ are?”

“That’s right. I’ve given my word to protect their identity—and I keep my promises. So you’ll just have to take my word for the fact that the Transhumanists, operating from an out-of-the-way hangar on the fringes of the spacefield, are sending the stuff they’re purchasing through go-betweens off-planet, by way of a surface-to-orbit shuttle that presumably has something to rendezvous with in orbit. That’s all I can tell you definitely. But the implications ought to be obvious.”

“Yes.” Rojas’ gaze turned inward, as though the possibilities temporarily banished her vexation with Jason. “So, we’ll keep the hangar under observation. And when the shuttle has returned, if it hasn’t already, we’ll raid the hangar.”

“I strongly advise against that, Major. Admittedly, you’d put a temporary crimp in their operations. But then they’d just fall back on something else, with tighter security, and you’d be back to square one. I might remind you that IDRF operations have already spooked them once.” Jason didn’t flinch under Rojas’ reignited glare at this bit of calculated tactlessness. “And even if you took any Transhumanist prisoners . . . well, we all know the uselessness of trying to interrogate them.”

“Well then, Commander, what do you suggest? That we do nothing?”

“Hardly. I suggest that we play them along and follow this trail wherever it leads.”

“Explain.” Rojas voice seemed to grow a couple of degrees less cold.

“We wait until my sources tell me the shuttle is getting ready for departure.” Jason reflected that he’d give Lizh’Ku a small communicator—a matched pair of them, in fact, and let him keep them in payment for services rendered. “Then we take the
Comet
class ship that brought us here into orbit and wait—remember, it has a state-of-the-art stealth suite. The Transhumanist ship is undoubtedly also stealthed, but watching the shuttle dock with it will enable us to pinpoint its location and get a lock on it with the
Comet
’s highly sophisticated sensors. Then we wait until it departs for wherever it’s going, and follow it there. That shouldn’t be a problem, as the
Comet
is as fast as anything in space.”

“It is also completely unarmed. What will we do once we track the Transhumanist ship to its destination? I hope,” Rojas added with what might have been a heavy attempt at humor, “that you’re not planning on any of the heroic deeds of derring-do for which you’ve been renowned in the past.”

“A twentieth-century North American acquaintance once told me, ‘A hero is nothing but a sandwich.’” Rojas blinked with incomprehension, and Jason decided he’d better meet her on her own literal-minded ground. “I assure you that I have no intention of trying anything reckless. We’ll just have to play it by ear. Probably we’ll simply observe and record, from within the
Comet
’s stealth envelope, then come back here. After which, we’ll be able to return to Earth with some concrete recommendations as to what action should be taken.”

“That all sounds eminently reasonable . . . except that you keep using the pronoun ‘we.’ It seems to me that this is a matter for the IDRF. It does not really concern the Authority.”

“I must beg to differ. Have you considered that this may mean that the Transhumanists have a temporal displacer on one of this system’s lifeless planets? It would have the gravity field it requires, and at the same time would offer great security advantages, since nobody pays any attention to any planet in this system except this one. It would at least explain what they’re doing here on Zirankhu. If they have a staff on such a planet, they’d need to bring in food for them; they couldn’t exactly live off the land!”

“What conceivable purpose would such a displacer serve?”

“I admit that I have no idea as yet. But we know they have the capability. And we know that they’re engaging in some kind of off-planet activity in this system. It may not be something time-travel-related—but that makes as much or as little sense as anything else!”

“Hmm . . .” Rojas cogitated a moment and then gave Jason a look of grudging acquiescence. “All right. I concede that the Authority may have a legitimate interest in this. You may accompany me.”

“I, and Superintendent Mondrago. And I must insist that Dr. Frey also come along, given her unique insights into the thought processes of the Transhumanists.”

“No!” Rojas reined herself in, as though is search of a reasonable objection. “I prefer to bring Captain Chang. And the
Comet
’s accommodations only allow for four passengers.”

“That’s right, in the two staterooms. Of course, with three men and one woman, depending on how long we have to wait in orbit, this may give rise to an awkward situation . . .”

Rojas’ glare was back at full force. “Very well. You may bring Dr. Frey, if you feel you must.”

The
Comet
’s crew consisted of captain-pilot Gaspar Van Horn, and navigator-electronics operator Juliana Tomori. Jason and Rojas, squeezed into the tiny control room, looked over the latter’s shoulders as she tracked the shuttle’s ascent from the surface of Zirankhu.

As Jason had more than half expected, the shuttle used only minimal thrust from its photon thrusters, relying on grav repulsion even as it drew further and further from the planetary surface and thus grew less and less efficient as a means of propulsion as opposed to lift. The Transhumanist underground’s obsession with security was practically inbred by now.

But of course something as small as a shuttle had no stealth suite. Tomori tracked it effortlessly.

“Are you sure they won’t be able to track
us
?” Rojas demanded of her, somewhat nervously.

“This ship has every stealth feature that could be built into it, including an invisibility field,” the young Eurasian woman assured her. “Nothing that a basic shuttle like that could mount could possibly crack it.”

“But what about the ship that, presumably, they’re going to rendezvous with?”

“We know nothing about that ship, Major, so I can’t answer that.” Tomori spoke distractedly, absorbed in her instrument readouts. “But no matter what they’ve got, they have nothing to point it at. They have no idea we’re here, and they can’t scan the entire sky at the level of detail that would be required to . . . Ah! The shuttle is using its grav repulsion to maneuver to a rendezvous. This gives us the kind of definite target we need for . . .
Yes!
Got it!”

Jason didn’t need Tomori’s triumphant ejaculation to know they had acquired the Transhumanist ship through all its layers of stealth. Columns of figures awoke on the readout screen, and he studied them. This was a larger ship than the
Comet
—almost all interstellar ships were, actually—but not very large. And certainly not a warship. A small-to-medium-sized transport, probably fitted for general merchandise, including passengers.

They continued to watch as the shuttle made contact and transferred its cargo, and then applied retro-thrust to depart low orbit and return to the planet below.

“Well,” said Rojas in a near-murmur, “now we wait.”

“Right,” said Jason, just as softly. Then he smiled at the irrationality of their low voices. It was a natural instinct, even though no conceivable—or even inconceivable—technology could enable the Transhumanists to detect sounds across the vacuum of space. He departed the control room and sought out Mondrago and Chantal. After bringing them up to date, he turned to Chantal. “Does any of this suggest anything to you?”

“No,” she admitted. “I have no idea what they could be up to.”

“Then we wait and keep their ship under observation. Hopefully they don’t have too many more visits from the shuttle before they—”

The intercom awoke, in Van Horn’s voice. “Commander Thanou! They’re moving.”

Jason grinned at the other two. “Sometimes you just get lucky.” Then he hurried to the control room.

The mystery ship accelerated outward on photon thrusters with the C
omet
following at a safe separation, cloaked in stealth. It passed Zirankhu’s Primary Limit and engaged its negative mass drive. Van Horn followed suit, and they surged outward at a pseudo-acceleration higher than they’d expected of a transport, and which seemed somewhat high for a mere interplanetary hop.

“Where are they going?” Rojas asked Tomori.

“Well, I can tell you one thing. They’re not headed for any planet of this system.” She brought up a system-wide display on her small nav plot, featuring the planets in their current positions. One didn’t have to be a navigator to see that none of them were anywhere near the mystery’s ship’s projected course. It seemed to be simply heading for the Secondary Limit as expeditiously as possible.

Jason and Rojas looked at each other. They hadn’t counted on an interstellar trip.

“Captain,” said Rojas, “have you already laid in supplies for our return trip to Earth?”

“Yes, Major,” Van Horn nodded. “It was one of my first orders of business after landing on Zirankhu.”

“Well,” Jason philosophized, “we won’t starve.”

“And I told Captain Chang not to expect us back at any particular time.” Rojas drew herself up and spoke unflinchingly. “Very well. We follow that ship wherever it goes.”

Their quarry reached the Secondary Limit of Zirankhu’s sun, formed its space-warping field, and outpaced light. Now, following behind it, they had no fear of being detected. Nevertheless, Rojas insisted on maintaining full countermeasures.

It immediately became possible for Tomori to infer the Transhumanists’ destination, for a ship under negative mass drive was impervious to outside gravitational influences, so its course could be a straight line. In this case, that line could be projected outward, deeper into the constellation Serpens, to intersect a star designated SS+28 9357.

“How long?” Rojas wanted to know.

“It’s seventeen light-years from here,” Van Horn replied. “At our top pseudovelocity of slightly more than 1600
c
, we could make it in less than four days. But that Transhumanist ship is doing not much more than 1000
c
, so we’re looking at about six days.”

“I see.” Rojas turned to Tomori. “What can you tell us about this star?”

“Not much.” Tomori brought up data. “At sixty-three light-years from Earth, it’s well beyond the periphery of human expansion. It’s a single K2v, which means that while it’s on the main sequence it’s near the lower limit of mass for stars likely to have a ‘Goldilocks’ world. Any planet orbiting close enough to it for liquid water to exist would probably be tidelocked, which means that—”

“Yes, yes, I’m not entirely ignorant of these matters,” Rojas snapped. She turned to Jason. “Do you have any insights as to why the Transhumanists would be interested in this remote, rather marginal star?”

“Absolutely none. And I suggest that we not theorize in advance of the data.”

“Still,” said Rojas with a trace of waspishness, “the chances of time travel being involved in their machinations would seem to be growing less and less.”

“As to that, I can only repeat what I said before: it’s neither more nor less likely than any other idea we’ve been able to come up with. Zero equals zero.”

Rojas had no answer to that, and they left the control room. Jason sought out Chantal Frey, and told her where they were going. “Can you think of any reason why the Transhumanists would be shipping food to this miserable cosmic afterthought of a star?”

“No. When I was among them, they never said anything to suggest they were engaged in any kind of off-world, much less extrasolar, activity. Of course,” she added with quiet bitterness, “given their obsession with secrecy, there were undoubtedly limits to what they’d say in the presence of a Pug.” She used the Transhumanists’ contemptuous term for humans in their natural state, an acronym for
products of unregulated genetics
.

“One thing,” said Mondrago, looking thoughtful. “If they’ve got people on a lifeless planet of this star, it makes logistical sense to bring in provisions for them across seventeen light-years from Ziranhku, rather than from Earth, sixty-three light-years away.”

“Besides which,” Chantal added, “on Earth they’d have to do all the transshipment under the eyes of law enforcement agencies that are alert for any sign of their activities.”

“Very valid points,” said Jason. “Which leave us with the basic question of what they’re doing in this system in the first place. “He sighed resignedly. “Well, we’ll find out soon enough.”

Nevertheless, they were no more able to refrain from fruitless speculation than a dog can resist chewing a bone. They had little else to do as the days went by and the sun of Zirankhu fell behind, merging into the star-fields, and the tiny glow of SS+28 9357 appeared and grew in the view-forward. Six days of this left them irritable and on edge by the time that orange-tinted glow waxed from a star to something resembling a sun.