CHAPTER SEVEN
I’d half expected barks of derision, cries of outrage, or gasps of disbelief. But these were the people who’d successfully snuck the original Icarus out from under the collective nose of the Patth, and who had played a quiet and mostly successful game against them ever since. They were people of thought, consideration, and speculation. Reflexive sounds of anything weren’t how they were built.
Ixil was the first to speak. “I assume,” he said, “there’s more to it than that.”
“Oh, there is,” I assured him. “Selene?”
“We ran some numbers,” she said, pulling up the file on her info pad and handing it to Ixil. “This is Alpha’s orbit now compared to what it was eight years ago when you first found it.”
“Yes, I’ve seen these,” Ixil said, glancing at the numbers and diagrams and then handing the info pad to McKell. “Nearly perfectly circular, strongly implying it was deliberately placed in orbit rather than being the result of gravitational capture.”
“Indeed,” I agreed. “But look again. The distance to the planet hasn’t changed so much as a millimeter in the past eight years.”
“That sounds right,” McKell said, handing the info pad in turn to Tera.
“But it should have changed,” I pointed out. “The atmosphere two thousand kilometers up is thin, but it’s still there. Not to mention solar wind and possible micrometeor impacts. Even in just eight years the orbit should have shown a noticeable decay. If you’re right about the Icari having disappeared ten millennia ago, Alpha should have fallen out of the sky by now.” I raised my eyebrows. “So why hasn’t it?”
“It’s possible it started out much higher,” Ixil suggested.
“And was able to maintain a nearly circular orbit the whole time?” Tera pointed out. “Seems unlikely.”
“It also doesn’t work,” I said. “At least not if our backtrack program is correct. If we take the theoretical air resistance into account and run the timeline backward, we get Alpha to a distance where it would be too far away to have been gravitationally bound to the planet at all.”
“I presume you have an alternate explanation?” McKell asked, handing the info pad back to Selene.
“We have an explanation,” I said. “Whether it’s the correct one we’re not yet sure.” I gestured to Selene. “Selene?”
“We know the portals have their own internal gravitational fields,” she said, pulling up a different page and again handing the info pad to Ixil. “Fields with two distinct focal points, one at the center of each module. I don’t know how to do the physics properly, but the simulation I was able to create suggests that the portal would interact oddly with a planetary gravitational field.”
“You mean like it disconnects from it?” Tera asked, frowning.
“Not disconnects, exactly,” Selene said. “The planet’s gravity still holds it in a stable orbit. It’s just that small perturbations like air resistance seem to be compensated for.”
“You may be right,” Ixil said, peering at the info pad. Pix and Pax, I noted, were crouched with unusual stillness on his shoulders. “Yes, I see where you’re going with this. If the portal resists changes in its orbit, then nudging it inward might result in a measured path to the surface instead of an uncontrolled death-spiral crash.”
“That would be handy,” Tera agreed. “It would also be suspiciously convenient.”
“Maybe not all that suspicious,” I said. “I mean, there have always been hints in that direction. All the other portals we’ve found have been undamaged, with no indication that any of them blasted to the ground at an uncontrolled eleven kilometers a second. We’ve also never found one in the center of the kind of crater an impact like that would normally throw up.”
“Though ten thousand years adds up to a lot of erosion,” McKell said, taking the info pad from Ixil. “Alternatively, the portals could just be really, really indestructible.”
“Which would get us to the same end,” I pointed out. “It would put Alpha on the ground where Kinneman’s HOTSPUR team or whoever could come and go at will.”
“At least once they climb out of the two-hundred-meter crater they just made,” McKell said dryly.
“Actually, Jordan, I think Gregory’s right,” Tera said thoughtfully. “Even if the blast rim eroded away, there should be tectonic cracks or subtle ray systems or something still measurable if an object that big hit the ground that hard. In fact, now that I think about it, I remember reading a report a few years ago where that absence was noted and that exact question was raised.”
“Maybe,” McKell said doubtfully as he handed the info pad to Tera. “I’m still not ready to buy into this.”
“McKell—” I began.
“So let me get this straight,” he interrupted, locking eyes with me. “You want us to smuggle a bunch of explosives to Alpha, figure out where to put them so we can knock it out of orbit, set them off, and hope like hell it doesn’t end up a pile of twisted alien metal that we’ll never see or use again. That about sum it up?”
“Mostly,” I said cautiously. Put that way, it did sound pretty insane. “Except that you won’t need any explosives. Everything we need to change Alpha’s orbit is already in place.”
“Wait a minute,” Tera said, frowning up from the pad. “You’re not talking about the grav generators, are you?”
“I am,” I said, nodding.
“I thought the beams were too weak to do anything at that distance.”
“They were strong enough to haul the bioprobe up from the stratosphere,” I reminded her. “No, Selene and I just cranked down the power when we swirled the clouds.”
“He’s right,” Ixil said. “All we need to do is point them at something solid like a mountaintop, fire them up—”
“At the right mountaintop,” McKell muttered.
“Yes, the right mountaintop,” Ixil agreed, “then just let Alpha and the planet pull themselves together. If you do the calculations and positioning properly, you should be able to land the portal wherever you want.”
“Which I assume is how the Icari settled them onto their designated planets in the first place,” I said.
For a long minute the room was silent. I watched Selene, but whatever she was getting from their scents all I could read in her pupils was nervousness.
“I assume you understand the full range of possible consequences of what you’re asking us to do,” Tera said at last. “If you’re wrong, Kinneman ends up with a tangle of useless scrap metal on a distant planet that we’ll never see again, and we end up executed for treason. Even if you’re right, we’ll probably still be brought up on charges.”
“And if you’re half right,” McKell added, “Alpha survives the landing but something breaks loose and it no longer functions properly. Depending on the specific damage, we may never be able to use it again or—worse—we can go through but can’t get back.”
“Again stranding the landing party,” Tera said. “Only there’d never be a way to get them a shuttle.”
“Or anywhere for them to go if we did,” Ixil pointed out.
“Exactly,” Tera said soberly. “Nor could we send them supplies unless someone hand-delivered each package.”
“Why not?” I asked. “Can’t you just strap something to the extension arm and let it go?”
McKell shook his head. “You can’t send inanimate objects through all by themselves. You need a living hand to trigger the launch sequence.”
He paused, and I saw that all three of them were staring at me. “I agree it’s a horrible risk,” I said into the silence. “Graym-Barker gave lip service at least to the idea of his underlings taking the initiative. I’m guessing Kinneman doesn’t even go that far. That’s why all we’re asking you to do is run some numbers, or just get us access to a program that’ll let us figure this out on our own. After that, we’ll ask you to go off somewhere and establish alibis. Selene and I will do the rest.”
“What about the Marines outside?” McKell asked, nodding toward the door.
I shrugged. “We get past them, we get to Icarus, we get to Alpha, and we get it done.”
“And we all hope together that it works,” McKell said.
“Yes,” I said. “And whether it does or not, Selene and I take the consequences. At least we’ll have the consolation that Kinneman didn’t send a bunch of elite soldiers on a one-way mission when we go to the gallows.”
Again, the three of them looked at each other, and I could sense the wordless communication. “All right, we’re in,” McKell said as they turned back to us. “You still have those knockout pills you used to carry around?”
“That I still carry around,” I corrected. “How many do you need?”
He pursed his lips, apparently doing some private calculation. “Five should do it.”
I frowned, throwing a sideways look at Selene. Whatever he was up to, she apparently wasn’t getting any details.
Still, if this was a ploy to confiscate every weapon at my disposal before he handed me over to Kinneman, he really ought to have asked for all six. Pushing up my sleeve, I worked the release at the wrist of my artificial left arm and popped open the hidden compartment. “You sure you don’t want all of them?” I asked as I pulled out five of the pills.
“No, five should do it,” he said. “How fast do they work?”
“Pretty fast,” I said as I handed them to him. “Always within a minute, usually within a few seconds. Be sure you bear that in mind when you work out your lead time.”
“Got it,” he said, carefully tucking the pills away in an inside pocket. “How long does the target sleep?”
“About six hours,” I said. “A bit more or less if his body mass is smaller or bigger than average.”
“Or you can put one in a bottle of wine and make everyone extra groggy,” Tera offered.
“Thank you, I do remember that one,” McKell said dryly as he stood up. “Okay, Roarke, you’re on. We’ll be in touch. Probably not for four or five days, though, so be patient.”
“All right,” I said, eyeing him closely. There was something in his voice and expression I didn’t like, but I couldn’t pin it down. “Remember: the numbers or the program. We’ll handle everything else.”
“Got it,” McKell said. “We’ll be in touch.”
I watched as they filed out of the room, their speech and manner suddenly back to the casual banter they’d been faking on their way in. If they were planning to turn us in, at least they weren’t going to sic our Marine guard on us here and now.
I waited until the door was closed. “What do you think?” I asked Selene.
“They mostly agree with our plan,” she said, her pupils running through several expressions as she sifted through the changes in scent she’d experienced over the past few minutes. “Though I don’t think any of them particularly like it.”
“Well, that makes five of us,” I said. “The big question is whether this agreement of theirs is going to translate into action.”
“I think it will,” Selene said, her pupils settling into a frown. “But there’s something more. Something I can’t get a handle on.”
“Well, work it out as best you can,” I said. “But do it fast.”
I looked at the door. “If McKell’s pulling one of his famous off-kilter surprises here, I’d prefer to know about it before we get to the hey presto! part.”
* * *
The next two days dragged by. We spent most of that time in our suite, only being let out for meals. My requests to our guards to allow me to see or at least message my father were politely received, then completely ignored.
Still, it wasn’t a total loss. Selene found a computer file she was able to access that showed part of the base’s floor plan. It only included the areas we’d already been allowed into—the rest was marked as classified—but still it gave us more of an overall perspective and feel for the layout than we’d had before.
I also found a way to use one of our water glasses to enhance the muffled sounds coming in through the door. I usually couldn’t get full conversations, though I could pick up individual words here and there if the Marine in question was talking loudly. But the varying tones were clear enough, and I made copious mental notes as I gauged from the casualness or precision of the voices which of them took their boring guard duty perhaps more seriously than the others.
The enhancement was also good enough for me to note the additional foot movements and multiple voices that signified a shift change. I made careful mental notes on that, as well. By the time McKell was ready with the data, I would hopefully know which ones I had the best chance of sneaking past.
In the popular mind, the middle of the night was an ideal time for jailbreaks and other forms of mischief. What the popular mind failed to realize was that prison guards and other security types also knew that, and therefore made it a point to be extra alert during the hours of darkness when most people were asleep. I naturally knew better than to try anything that blatantly obvious.
McKell, apparently, didn’t.
* * *
My only warning was a sudden whisper of air wafting across my face warning me that my bedroom door had just been opened. I got my hands under the blankets, preparing to loft them up into my visitor’s face while I simultaneously rolled off onto the floor and hopefully out of immediate reach. I heard stealthy footsteps approaching—
“Don’t just lie there, Roarke,” McKell’s stage whisper came in the darkness. “Up and at ’em.”
“You’re joking,” I protested, still lofting the blankets but now only far enough for me to get out from under them. “At—?”
“Two-thirty in the morning,” he supplied, flicking on a flashlight whose beam had been adjusted to be just bright enough to remind me where I’d left my clothes. “Come on. Alpha awaits us.”
“Alpha?” I echoed, grabbing my trousers and glaring into the darkness behind the pale glow where I estimated his face would be. “I told you to get us the numbers and then get out of the way.”
“I don’t recall ever being told to take orders from you,” he said. “Come on, snap it up. It’d be very embarrassing if Selene’s ready before you are.”
“You woke her up first?” I demanded, pulling on my shirt.
“Didn’t wake her up at all,” he corrected. “I’m pretty sure she got the message without any help.”
I muttered a curse under my breath. Of course Selene already knew McKell was here. The suite’s air flow system was quite efficient.
She wouldn’t just have gotten the simple fact of his presence, either. The urgency I could hear in his voice would have also altered his scent in a way that she would have picked up on and correctly interpreted.
I didn’t mind losing a dressing race to my partner. Actually, the idea of such a contest struck me as pretty stupid. What I objected to was McKell dragging her into whatever the hell he was up to without clearing it with me first. She might well be indispensable to Project Needle, but there was no guarantee Kinneman would remember that when he found out what we’d done. As my father used to say, Enlightened self-interest often goes out the window when that cheery light turns into the blaze of white-hot fury.
McKell waited until I was ready. Then, gesturing me for silence, he led the way into the conversation room. Sure enough, Selene was waiting by the door, fully dressed. “Jordan?” she asked softly.
“We’re heading to Alpha,” he murmured back. “Just play along.”
I couldn’t see Selene’s pupils in the dim light, but I knew she’d already have sampled my scent, run her analysis of my thoughts and mood, and concluded that McKell and I had already discussed this and that I was on board.
Which was unfortunately only partially true. But with him already halfway to the door, any reticence or confusion on our part would only risk sabotaging whatever he was planning.
Losing was bad enough. Losing by default was always worse. All we could do now was hang on tight and hope he could pull this off.
He reached the door and pulled it open. “Sergeant,” he said briskly as he stepped out into the small cluster of Marines waiting in the corridor. “We’re heading out. Should be back within the hour.”
“Yes, sir,” one of them said, his eyes flicking to me and then Selene as we followed McKell through the doorway. Other than the four of them, the corridor appeared to be deserted. “You sure you don’t want us to accompany you? I’m told this character can be a handful.”
“He can, and if it were up to me you’d all be invited,” McKell said, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “But the admiral insisted we keep this quiet, and the last thing we need is for someone to wander past and notice their guard is missing. Don’t worry, I can handle him.”
The sergeant gave me a cool once-over. In return, I gave him my best mix of no-nonsense determination and driven-snow innocence. “Whatever you say, Colonel,” he said, still clearly not happy with the arrangement. “Whistle if you need us.”
“I will.” McKell gestured to us. “Come on, you two.”
I waited until we were well out of earshot of the Marines. “You didn’t really rope Graym-Barker into this, did you?” I muttered.
“Of course not,” McKell murmured back. “He just cut the orders I needed to get you out of your cell.”
“The admiral did that?”
“Maybe not him personally,” McKell conceded. “But his computer did. Close enough. Selene?”
“No one else nearby,” she said, her eyelashes fluttering. “Six more Marine guards down the corridor around the next corner. Two are at the next intersection past the corner, the other four are about fifty meters farther. What do you mean, ‘his computer did’?”
“Don’t ask questions,” I advised, visualizing the partial floor plan we’d been able to pull up. The intersection Selene had mentioned would be the cross corridor heading off to an area I’d tentatively tagged as either the base’s administration complex or officers’ quarters. Typically, I’d noted, there were one to two pairs of Marines watching that point. The four guards farther away were almost certainly standing at the entrance to the Icarus ready room and the portal beyond. “It’s called plausible deniability. You have a plan, McKell?”
He nodded. “Same one you just saw.”
“The admiral’s computer talking to them, too?”
“Something like that. Ready for Act Two?”
“Do we have a choice?”
“Do you want Kinneman to maroon Selene on Alpha’s planet?”
I glared at the back of his head. But he was right. Especially since this whole thing had been our idea in the first place before McKell and the others started tweaking it. “Point taken. Lead on.”
I’d expected this next pair of Marines to be more disinclined to let us pass than the group outside our suite, if only because we were heading into genuinely sensitive parts of the base. But they merely exchanged nods with McKell as we approached and let us continue on without challenge. Apparently, McKell had prepped the ground on his way to our suite. The ready room door and its four guards, who’d come into view the second we rounded the corner, eyed us as we approached, and I found myself wondering if McKell had an exit strategy if this group didn’t buy his Admiral Graym-Barker story.
But whatever message had come down the pike from the admiral, it had apparently been something no one was willing to argue with. Once again, the Marines made no move to impede our activity. They exchanged silent nods with McKell, watched as he keyed in the door’s passcode—it would be changed daily, of course, possibly even hourly—and as the lock snicked open they stood aside and watched us file in.
“Where is everybody?” I asked, looking around as McKell led the way toward the rack of vac suits. The last time Selene and I had been here the place had been buzzing with techs and Marines prepping for their upcoming trip to Alpha. Now, it was like a small, self-contained ghost town.
“I assume they’re all tucked away in their beds,” McKell said. “Dreaming of sugarplums or however that poem goes. Kinneman put all bioprobe operations on hold, remember?”
“And no one thought it strange that you and two questionables suddenly were being ordered to go in?”
“Never underestimate the power of bureaucratic mud,” McKell said. He pulled my suit off the rack and handed it to me. “Triple that if it’s a military bureaucracy. Generally speaking, orders only go to the people who need to know or who those orders supposedly affect.”
“And such orders can always be overridden?” I suggested as I started to climb into my suit.
“Not always, but usually,” McKell agreed as he handed Selene her suit and then got his own. “It helps if your name has a senior rank in front of it, of course.”
“Or if you can borrow someone else’s,” I said with a grimace. “Poking Kinneman with a sharp stick wasn’t enough for you? You had to poke Graym-Barker, too?”
“No way around it.” He gave me a tight smile as he started putting on his suit. “I’m waiting for the appropriate aphorism from your father’s collection. Something like, It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission, maybe?”
I shook my head. “Too easy,” I said. “Probably more like, If you push people hard enough and long enough, sooner or later you’ll find yourself in so much trouble that there’s really nothing more they can throw at you. At that point, you might as well just relax and keep going.”
“Ah,” McKell said. “Nice.”
“But inaccurate,” Selene said quietly. “There’s always something worse someone can do.”
“Such as?” McKell asked.
“There are still Marines inside Alpha.” She pointed at a rack of armored vac suits with five missing. “One of them might shoot us.”
“You want to respond, McKell?” I asked.
“Don’t worry,” he said, a hint of humor in his voice. “They’ve been dealt with. Very cleverly, too, if I do say so myself.”
But to my ears he didn’t sound entirely certain. I looked at Selene, saw my same doubt in her pupils. “What if they haven’t?”
“They have,” McKell said, more confidently this time. “And if they haven’t…like your dad said, we just keep going.”
“Fine,” I growled. I sometimes forgot how irritating McKell’s confidence in himself could be. “Just remember that when the shooting starts, you’re the one Selene and I will be hiding behind.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said, all hints of lightness abruptly gone. “You two are indispensable to finding RH. I’m not. If it comes to a life-for-life trade, that’s exactly how it plays out.”
I looked at Selene, saw her pupils flinch. “I suppose we’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t come to that kind of trade,” I said.
“Certainly wasn’t something I had my heart set on,” McKell agreed. “Ready? Good. Let me double-check your seals and we’ll go.”