To Do or Die (A Jump Universe Novel) Page 8

  “Yes,” she said, with a defiant frown at the now-blank-faced Marine beside her.

  “I suspect we all have things to do,” the political officer said, and left.

  * * *

  President Milassi worked his way through his nightly reading. Most of it bored him to tears, but he left tears to those who displeased him. Knowledge was power, and power was something Steffo Milassi liked very well.

  Eyes glazing over from one too many reports from fools who couldn’t tell a rebellious citizen from a tired worker just having a bad day, Steffo called up the Bear’s report. It usually was enjoyable reading.

  So the woman had just smiled like an empty-headed mannequin and walked away. He highlighted her name and had his database check her history. Born and raised where? Hurtford Corner. What kind of name was that? Another data call.

  Did country-bumpkin places like that still exist? Apparently so!

  Steffo read the rest of Bear’s report and started to go on to the next one.

  Then he paused.

  This Ruth was married to a Marine officer. Lots of Milassi’s henchmen had quiet women to come home to, to raise the children, show up at formal parties . . . and make no waves about what happened elsewhere.

  Had the Marine chosen such a zed?

  This woman was not staying home. Raising crops on a warship! Again, Steffo shook his head. The worlds of men were strange. He tapped the Marine’s name.

  The database started immediately providing him with news clippings, published and private reports that the man figured prominently in. It took a long time for the database to complete its report to him . . . an unusually long time.

  So this was the man who had cause Peterwald so much trouble on Riddle. Steffo allowed himself a belly laugh at the thought of how Henry would have taken the news of yet another failure.

  Steffo’s laugh died quickly. He had that man here. Now!

  His minions had reported on this man. Trouble he called himself. His agents said he was just another little boy who liked to play soldier. Just another time server.

  Hadn’t they checked him out? Milassi noted that the Riddle material had just been added to the database. He had the database search those files for Ruth’s name.

  Nothing.

  “Where were they married?” he asked.

  The database promptly answered Riddle.

  “Search the files of slaves on the farm that owned Trouble.” Yes, there was a Ruth. Different last name. He didn’t bother checking her maiden name.

  He already knew enough. That woman was no innocent child on a strange planet.

  “Bear, tell me everything about this woman,” Steffo growled at the report. “If you need more men, get them. This Marine and his woman are up to something. Hunt until you find it.”

  TWELVE

  RAY LONGKNIFE SETTLED his back firmly against his seat, tightened his straps, and rested his hand where his thumb could flip on his seat’s high-gee switch in a split second.

  The Second Chance was about to make its fourth jump this voyage; everything was working perfectly. But the memory of a bad, a very bad jump, just three months ago still burned.

  Now, Ray entered each jump cautiously. Probably would for the rest of his life. Caution, a strange word for an old warhorse. Still, he was alive, and caution seemed a good watchword for him and the baby Rita was carrying.

  “Coming up on the jump,” the Second Chance’s jump master announced.

  “This puppy’s got more wiggle than I expected,” she added in a low mutter.

  Ray frowned; Sandy had drained Ray’s head of all the information about this particular point. She knew it orbited eight different solar systems. She’d seemed confident that she now knew all there was to know and that she’d have no problems plotting the strange meanderings of this jump point as it orbited this one star.

  Interesting.

  The stars on the main screen flickered, went out, and came back—different.

  Ray took his usual deep breath and waited while experts on the ship’s bridge did their job.

  “Star matches expectations,” sensors reported first. Ray let out his breath and took another.

  “No electronic emissions on the usual communications frequencies,” came from the radio shack.

  That was usual, but for this system, it puzzled Ray.

  “We’ve identified ten planets. Do you want a close-up of the fourth on main screen?” the helm asked.

  “Do it,” Captain Mattim Abeeb, beside Ray, ordered.

  The fourth planet in this system haunted Ray’s dreams. It should have been a nice Earth-like orb, blue-green with water and life, orbited by one large moon.

  The picture that came on screen showed a yellow-brown planet with a halo of dust.

  “Enhance,” Matt ordered.

  Ray watched as the computer remapped the picture two, three, four times. The color resolved itself into patches of red, yellow, brown, blue, and black. There was none of the fuzziness around the edge that planets with atmospheres had. Splotching the patches, adding to them and dividing them, were craters.

  “Some of those holes must be hundreds of miles across,” someone breathed.

  The skipper glanced at Ray with a raised, questioning eyebrow.

  Right, what next?

  Ray was just as puzzled. This was supposed to be a quick duck in, take a few pictures, and run.

  If the system were still teeming with the people who’d built the jump points, one or two million years ago, Ray would have reported back to Humanity that it was time to make a first contact.

  Now?

  “Sandy”—Matt turned to his jump master—“could the orbit of the fourth planet’s moon have decayed in a million years?”

  The woman shook her head, short, red curls flying in their low-gee acceleration.

  “I’ve been looking that over. It was good for a billion years or more. Don’t know anything about its interior, though,” she added, answering the next question. “No idea what could have cracked it like that.” She nodded toward the screen.

  “Captain, this is real interesting,” a diminutive woman in midshipman grays muttered.

  Ray suppressed a groan; Matt was less successful.

  When this tiny member of Matt’s brain trust found something “interesting,” it usually meant the next month was blown.

  Kat turned to them. “Captain, you really ought to see this. Can I put it on the main screen?”

  “Do it,” the skipper said with a sigh.

  The main screen changed; a gas giant filled it with a wild kaleidoscope of colors.

  The screen began to zoom. A tiny dot grew and took on form.

  “It looks like a space station. It’s orbiting the nearest gas giant to this jump. Just a hop, skip, and jump away,” the middie explained. “But look at what it’s trailing!”

  The whole bridge took a careful look.

  “It can’t be dragging that through the upper atmosphere of that gas giant?” The helmsman said, shaking his head.

  “I think it is,” Sandy said from beside Kat. “That station has an electromagnetic field. It’s strong enough to protect it from that giant’s radiation, and solar noise, too.”

  “Still?” Matt said.

  Kat started to shoot an answer back, but Sandy elbowed her young assistant in the ribs as the jump master rubbed her eyes with both hands.

  In the following silence, the two women went over their board again, fingers flitting from one readout to the next.

  “Yes.” Sandy finally answered. “Assuming a million years has passed since the data in Ray’s skull was updated, that planet down there has been rocked to hell by its fractured moon, but this station is still electronically active.”

  Sandy frowned. “And it’s still towing something through a gravity well that sucks to beat Sol’s old Jupiter.”

  “How long to get there?” Matt asked.

  “Nineteen hours at one gee,” the helm answered. “Less at one point five.” />
  “You good for one point five gees, Colonel?” Matt asked.

  Ray nodded.

  This mystery was too much to walk away from. His arrival at Savannah would have to wait.

  Later, the Second Chance settled into an orbit well above the . . . something.

  While that something might be protected from the radiation coming off the gas giant below, the exploration ship was most definitely not. Exploration of the . . . something . . . would have to start with remotes.

  Probes were launched, and while most held back, one slowly made an approach to what began quickly to look like a space station, complete with docks and other paraphernalia that you’d expect on a transit base.

  And since any such place in human space would have a good selection of defensive gear, the lead probe was very expendable.

  But nothing happened.

  Nothing continued to happen while the probe approached and actually parked itself a bare fifty meters from the longest dock.

  The station was not turning.

  “Folks were either weightless on that thing, or they’ve got or had controllable gravity,” the middie seated beside the jump navigator whispered.

  “So it seems,” Mattim agreed, but softly, not wanting to disturb anything or feed Kat’s voracious mind.

  Still, the middie preened at the praise.

  “Well,” Ray said, “do we sit back here, or do we go in and see what they left for us?”

  “What we, sir?” the captain said.

  “I’ve got a good pair of legs under me. If there’s gravity aboard that station, I can walk. And if there is not gravity, I can float as good as anyone.”

  “Mr. Minister,” Mattim began.

  “Don’t give me any of that Mr. Minister stuff. You think I’m getting the taxpayers of Wardhaven to pay for all this exploration just so you folks can have all the fun. I get some of the fun, or you can find yourself another sugar daddy.”

  “You get yourself killed, and our sugar mommy is going to string us all up by our balls.”

  “Even those of us who don’t have any,” Sandy added.

  “I’m going over there,” Ray said, brooking no opposition.

  The captain and the colonel stared at each other for several seconds.

  “Mary, report to the bridge,” announced Mattim, leaving the question hanging.

  Mary, the chief of security was formerly a captain in the Society of Humanity Marine Corps. Her platoon of Marines had defeated the colonel’s proud 2nd Guard Brigade in the recent unpleasantness.

  So, would Captain Mattim order her to pump the colonel full of sleepy darts or escort him off to be outfitted with a space suit?

  THIRTEEN

  DESPITE THE SCOWL on Captain Abeeb’s ebony face, the space suit won. Though later he would claim it was a close call, only settled on points.

  A very few points.

  However it was, Ray found himself suiting up and surrounded by a big chunk of the crew that had defeated his proud 2nd Guard Brigade. Mary had called in the miners from the Second Chance’s security detachment.

  “Du, you better come, too,” Mary said. “I’ve got to have someone from the street kids or they’ll think I’m dissing them. You want anyone else?”

  “Bruno, report to the drop bay.”

  “Why Bruno?” Mary asked. “If you don’t mind me asking?”

  “He reads a lot of that science-fiction shit. I figure he’ll love the chance to see some of it up close. And if not, he deserves it for bending our ears all the time.”

  Bruno arrived, with a tiny slip of a woman right behind him.

  “Kat, what are you doing here?” Mary demanded.

  “I’m going, too,” she said, and if there had been any gravity, she would have put her foot down. “Me and Bruno are a team. He’s got the imagination, and I got the book learning.” Kat seemed a bit taken aback by what she’d just said. “At least that’s what he says.”

  “Did you ask Captain Abeeb’s permission?” Ray asked as he settled his suit around him.

  “I figured I’d ask forgiveness later. That seems to work best around here,” she said with a most angelic smile.

  “Do we even have a suit that will fit you?” Mary asked.

  “You think I’d head out to explore the galaxy and not have a space suit?” the scientist said. “It wasn’t easy, but I found a place that made suits in any size. They even had a can for babies.”

  Kat headed for a locker and began pulling on a suit that was perfect for her diminutive frame.

  Shuttle 3 had been rigged with a compartment that could be opened to space without dunking the pilots in vacuum. It took them over to the longest dock projecting from the station and waited patiently as they disembarked.

  Mary went first and used her experience in the mines to jet over to the dock’s hatch with a tether line. In a few moments, she had it attached to a metal loop that looked like it had been put there just for the purpose.

  Lek went hand over hand across and joined her, staring at the hatch. There was a pressure plate that looked like it would have opened it if it had power.

  Being Lek, he pressed it.

  Nothing happened.

  However, as he felt around it, a small door opened and the two of them found themselves looking at a lever. He and Mary discussed it, but not for long.

  Lek worked the lever up and down several times . . . and the door opened a crack.

  “Keep it up, Lek. It’s working,” Mary said.

  The hatch gaped more and more inviting.

  “I’m the first in,” Ray said, and found he’d fallen into his command voice.

  “Like hell you are, sir,” Mary shot back. “I broke your back once already, Colonel. Don’t make me break your head. Du, you’re my best shot. You go first. How good a shot is Bruno?”

  “Better than him,” came back fast.

  “Not yet, Little Brother, but you come second.”

  “I’m third,” piped Kat. “If it’s a bug-eyed monster, you shoot it. If not, I’ll identify it and figure out what we can do with it.”

  “Okay,” Mary said, sounding exasperated to Ray.

  How did this bunch beat the 2nd Guard with this kind of a command lash-up?

  “Lek, you go in right behind me, and, Colonel, then you can come in. Okay?”

  “How come you make me follow orders when the rest of this mob doesn’t?” Ray demanded of Mary.

  “Because you, sir, know what an order is when it bites you, and you, sir, have a loving wife and baby waiting for you. Enough said?” Mary said, as she waved her first trigger puller through the hole.

  Ray sat back to wait his turn, assuming no bug-eyed monster tried to gobble down the first two through the hatch. No bloodcurdling screams came on net, and Kat’s tiny form wiggled her way inside.

  Lek kept pumping, and the hatch gaped wider. Now it was Mary’s turn. Rifle at the ready in one hand, the other on the side of the portal, she moved herself slowly through the opening.

  “Lek, it looks okay in here. Come on in, and, Colonel, you come, too. It’s a sight to see.”

  Ray waited patently while the old electronic wizard made his way in, then pushed off from the wire and glided through the hatch.

  Mary was right. It was a sight to see.

  The corridor, or whatever it was meant to be, was wide and high. Along what Ray took for the ceiling was something that glowed softly.

  “Did someone turn on the lights?” Ray asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Du answered him. “We just flashed our own lights around, and those things started glowing when our lights touched them. The more we put light on them, the more they glow, and the farther down this hall the light goes. Ain’t that something?”

  “Not as interesting as the way there ain’t no hatch here,” Lek said. “What do these folks do, drain the station every time someone goes outside?”

  “Will you look at that?” Bruno marveled on net. “If you ask me, they had something that star
ted here and kind of kept in the air as you walked out to the hatch.”

  “What kind of crazy are you, Dude?” Du said. “You read too much shit.”

  “No,” Kat said. “It makes sense. There’s all this writing on the wall, and a big line here on the floor. At least I think it’s the floor. If those really are lights, that would make them the ceiling, right. I read about some ideas like this.”

  “That’s crazy,” Lek said. “They’ve got to have an air lock.”

  “But they don’t,” Mary said. “Maybe the kids have it right.”

  “Old lady, you going crazy on us, too?” Du asked.

  “No, Du, I’m not crazy, just fitting what we’re seeing to what the kids think it might be. Lek, there is no air lock, but there is a hatch. Either they had something here to keep the air in when they opened that bugger, or they drained the air out of this place every time they opened the door. Colonel, how dumb do you think these people were?”

  “Not dumb at all. Let’s assume for the moment that the kids have the better explanation of this than we’ve heard so far. Whatever it was, it clearly isn’t working now, so let’s move along. There’s a whole lot of stuff left to see. Let’s see it.”

  “You heard the colonel,” Mary said in a straw-boss voice. “Let’s move.”

  In a loose formation, with gunners out front, they drifted along the huge corridor. As they got close to the station, it got really strange.

  “They definitely had artificial gravity,” Ray said as the entire passageway did a twist and the ceiling with the lights switched over to where a wall had been.

  The new floor was where the other wall used to be.

  With that rearrangement, they found themselves moving into the main station.

  On a human station, the A deck was the outer wall of the station. As the station spun, people walked on the outer hull. Occasionally, a window in the floor would let them look down and see the stars.

  On this station, down was where you’d expect it, and the windows with the stars were on the walls, where they belonged.

  “Nice,” Mary said. “I wonder how they did it?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Ray said.

  The floor here was wide open and huge, except for a small spindle at the center of the station, and several ramps up and down to the next decks. As they approached the nearest one, Mary asked, “Colonel, up or down?”