Eric Flint's Blog, page 216

Through Fire – Snippet 18

Through Fire – Snippet 18

And Now You Don’t

I saw. It started like all adventures in a stealthy and convoluted way. We went back to what had once been the Good Man’s palace, but Martha didn’t approach it the normal way. Or, frankly, in any sane way. She seemed to think it was very important to get in without anyone seeing us, even though she had a job within the building and I was a guest there.

“No, you see,” she said. “If they know we went in, they’ll track us, and figure out where we went. And while Lucius wouldn’t want you to die in Liberte anymore than I do, any more than I want Simon to die, it’s very important that he be able to deny that he gave you any help, much less allowed you to get help from our expert in disguise and makeup.”

“Expert in disguise?”

“Yes,” she said. “What else? Oh, he would hate it if he heard himself referred to that way. He has a fancy title, something about tactical deception and infiltration, and yeah, what he does is way more than physical disguise. You’re going to need way more than physical disguise. But yeah, that’s what it comes to.” We were walking up a steep, winding street, towards the palace. To be precise, towards the back of the palace. I trusted her, because you had to trust someone, but I thought the whole idea was a little mad. No, a lot mad. It would be the equivalent of breaking into your own living room. “Royce is an Usaian, a convert, and a civilian contractor with the armed forces of Olympus. He is under the purview of the Daughters of Liberty, which are, roughly, under Luce’s control. If we use Royce’s services, it must be without Luce knowing it.”

And now we were on a beach, and I was wondering exactly why, and what this had to do with going to the palace. It was a very pretty beach, with golden sand, probably imported and set on the black dimatough frame of the seacity, once it was poured.

If I hadn’t known that the seacity was artificially built, grown on a poured dimatough frame, I’d have thought it was natural. Of course the seacity had been built more than two hundred years ago, and it would have been at the mercy of natural forces ever since. This was a little beach, with golden sand extending to the ocean, a few boulders — real or artificial, I couldn’t tell — and, to the inland side, a growth of shrubs and trees near the rising black wall of a cliff that formed the structural support for the rising tiers of the rest of the seacity.

Martha plunged doggedly into a cluster of bushes, and it took me a moment to realize that she was doing it carefully, too, so as not to bend or break any of the branches, not to tear any of the leaves. I followed her, imitating her as best possible. She punched a part of the black wall that looked like every other part of the black wall, and then did something. There was a dancing of fingers on the dimatough, as though it were a screen and she were entering a complex code. I couldn’t see anything, and the movements were so intricate, it would take a long time learn, I thought.

Part of the cliff slid away. She reached back, without looking, grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me in. I don’t like being touched by strangers. I really don’t like being touched by strangers. I ground my teeth together and endured.

She pulled me into a tunnel of sorts, as the unconventional door we’d used closed behind us. It was a tunnel, but it looked far more like the corridor inside a well-appointed home. The floor was some sort of tile, the walls and ceiling were off-white ceramite, and there was diffuse light from somewhere.

“Where?” I said.

“It leads to the palace,” she said. “To Luce’s room.” She looked over her shoulder. “It’s a great secret, and I only reveal it to you because I know you’d never–Because I trust you. It would be easy–”

It would be easy to send an assassin. Which meant that either Martha Remy was out of her ever loving mind to be showing it to someone who would shortly be going into a place where she might be subjected to torture; or that Lucius Keeva was not as important to their war effort as one would assume. And then I started wondering if Lucius had told her to do this. It seemed unlikely, I thought, that she would dare reveal a secret of this importance, one that could lead to a neat assassination job, without his permission. It felt wrong.

This is how paranoid you could become when everyone was playing secrecy games. I started wondering if I was crazy or they were.

At the end of the tunnel there was another code typed on an invisible screen. It made me realize you’d have to have your hand just so, and in just the right place. I wondered what would happen if you were slightly off, and had a strong feeling it was the sort of thing I didn’t want to know, not really.

“It’s not as unsafe as it seems,” she said. “If more than two people are detected in here, and if at least one of them isn’t familiar to the surveillance AI, everything will lock, both sides, and Luce will know.”

“Surveillance,” I said. “Won’t there be recordings?”

She shook her head. “No recordings. Only an automated system. In the same way,” she said, in a low voice, as the door started to slide open, “this door won’t open if there’s anyone but Luce in there.”

“But Luce–”

“He won’t be there,” she said, and once more I wondered exactly what he knew, what she knew, and if they’d arranged all this together.

We left the hallway for a large, white-carpeted bedroom, furnished in polished pine furniture. It looked much like the guest room where I’d changed after showering, but the bed was larger. Then again, Lucius Keeva was a large man.

There is something intrusive, I think, about seeing the bedroom of someone you’re not intimate with. Bedrooms are so much a part of a person, a place where you remove your clothes, where you are yourself, and safe from intrusion from the world outside. There’s always something, in anyone’s bedroom, that will surprise those who don’t know him very well.

In Lucius Dante Maximillian Keeva’s room, it was the stuffed giraffe. I’d met the man, I’d heard his history, I’d even seen him in action as part of an expedition to commandeer a strategic asset. The last thing I expected of Lucius was that he would sleep with a stuffed giraffe. And yet, there it sat, three feet high from chest to head, with a too-happy smile on its face, looking out at the world with shining glass eyes.

Martha saw me staring. I couldn’t help staring. I thought she was going to explain the giraffe, but then she shrugged, as though thinking that no explanation would be enough.

To this day I have no idea why Lucius Keeva has a giraffe on his bed. And I don’t intend to ask.

We crossed the bedroom, and then she got cautious. We went out of the bedroom, turned a sharp right, went through what looked like a closet, then upstairs that had a distinct “maintenance area” look and down another set of stairs, then through another closet, and into a different hallway. Every step of the way she looked out before we emerged, to make sure no one was around.

Not only didn’t we come across any guards, we didn’t come across anyone, until Martha knocked at a door at the end of a hallway lined with shelves piled with anonymous boxes.

From the other side, a voice said, “Yes.”

 

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 42

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 42

CHAPTER 16

Newtown on Peltry

“Six, the boarding bridge is fast to the dock,” Barnes announced from the main hold. He was bosun of the Princess Cecile for now because Woetjans was still aboard the Katchaturian.

“Release the liberty party, Barnes,” Daniel announced, using the general push rather than relying on the command channel. Faint cheers came up the companionway. The bosun would still give the formal order, but it pleased Daniel to be an open part of the process.

He got up from the command console and stretched. He, Adele, and Cazelet at the astrogation console were the only officers on the bridge. Sun and Chazanoff had gone on liberty. Strikers in the Battle Direction Center with Vesey were covering the gunnery and missile slots, but that was to obey regulations rather than for any practical purpose.

Turning again to face the console’s mike, Daniel said, “Ship, I am turning command over to Lieutenant Vesey. Six out.”

He had switched back to the Princess Cecile on Benjamin because he wanted to personally examine the outriggers in space. Cory was in titular command of the Katchaturian, but Daniel and Cory had agreed to let Captain Schnitker bring her back unless there was an unexpected problem.

The shakedown cruise had been a thorough success for both the destroyer and her personnel. Now that they were back on Peltry, Daniel would confirm most of the Nabis officers in their original ranks. He was still of two minds whether or not to leave some of his Sissies as warrant officers on the Katchaturian. In large measure that depended on the mission of the Nabis Squadron…when somebody told Daniel what that was.

“I’m off to the Katchaturian to accompany Captain Schnitker in his post-mission walk-through,” Daniel said, smiling at Cazelet. “Midshipman Cazelet, would you like to accompany me?”

Cazelet wasn’t back to 100% physically, but he never would be. The stiffness in his right leg might improve further; but equally, it might worsen. Some of the feeling in the leg was gone forever, and the flashes of phantom pain would always be with him also.

Daniel’s personal response to a problem was to face it head-on: if a muscle hurt, use it more. He wasn’t sure that was good physiology, but it was good for him mentally. Offering Cazelet a chance to push himself was the only thing Daniel could think of that he himself would be thankful for in the same situation.

“Ah, thank you, Six,” Cazelet said, turning at the console, “but –”

Daniel was prepared to hear, “– I’ll wait aboard until Lieutenant Vesey goes off duty.”

What Cazelet actually said was, “– I’m to accompany Officer Mundy on business in Newtown.”

“That’s right,” Adele said. She’d gotten to her feet. She had already changed into civilian clothes, Daniel saw; they were similar enough to the utilities Adele wore on duty that he hadn’t noticed the fact until now. “Rene has kindly offered to give me some help while he’s off duty.”

“Oh!” said Daniel. She’s giving the boy a change of scene. She’s his guardian, after all. The guardianship was unofficial, but neither the Mundys nor the Learys needed an official decree to know their duty. “Well, you’re in good hands, then, Cazelet. Ah — Officer Mundy, is there an update on Robin?”

“Master Walters says that the Minister of War will be able to fit you in at four pm today,” Adele said. “That’s three Standard Hours from now.”

Daniel grimaced. “Did he say that the minister ‘graciously agreed to see me’?” he asked.

“I took that as the implication,” Adele said. “Minister Robin appears to be afraid of your competence, and of course the success of your operation on Benjamin isn’t going to reassure him.”

“I don’t want his bloody job!” Daniel snapped.

“No, you don’t,” Adele said. “But you really can’t blame a former quartermaster from Kostroma for thinking you’d be tempted.”

Daniel grimaced. They were talking in front of Cazelet, which didn’t disturb either of them. Daniel suspected that Adele’s other employers might be distressed, but the less he thought about them, the happier he was.

“I’ll be sure to arrive on time for my appointment,” he said aloud. “If we leave the Tarbell Stars abruptly, it won’t be because the Minister of War has rescinded my appointment for good cause.”

He and Hogg started for the companionway. He was interested in Schnitker’s assessment of the Katchaturian’s thruster nozzles, particularly the four on the aftermost truck.

“And who knows?” Daniel said over his shoulder to Hogg. “Maybe the Minister will have had a change of heart in the time we’ve been gone.”

Hogg snorted in contempt. That was probably the correct response.

* * *

The large gray ground car waiting at the end of the dock for Adele and her companions wasn’t the vehicle the Mignouris owned. The man who’d brought it waited at the driver’s door. He was the same one who had driven Adele and Tovera from the Residency to the Princess Cecile for the mission to Benjamin.

“It’s all right,” Tovera said. “Hogg told me his friend couldn’t return the blue one just yet but this one was nicer.”

“It’s a limousine!” said Cazelet. He was walking stiffly and the smile on his face looked forced, though Adele realized that she wasn’t an expert on smiles. In any case, Cazelet was maintaining a normal pace and demeanor, which was all that anyone had the right to expect. Adele’s own mental state probably wouldn’t pass a psych evaluation, but so long as she did her job, that was her business alone.

“If you’re satisfied that it’s safe, Tovera,” Adele said. “Worst case, I’m sure Hogg will avenge us.”

Tovera giggled. “I trust Hogg’s judgment,” she said.

The driver tipped his billed cap and said, “She’s got a full charge. I’ll send word to Hogg when he can have the little ‘un back. Or if you like, you can keep this ‘un. The previous owner doesn’t need it any more.”

His short laugh sounded like a deeper version of Tovera’s.

“Thank you,” Adele said. “You’ll be informed.”

She didn’t know what the Mignouris would want — or the widow would want, very possibly. This car was worth at least twice what theirs would sell for, but there might be other reasons not to accept the trade.

Cazelet handed Adele into the passenger compartment. She took one of the three front-facing seats; he sat kitty-corner facing her with his right leg stretched out straight. Tovera drove away sedately, though she overcorrected even more noticeably than she had with the Mignouris’ smaller vehicle.

The wood inlays of the car’s interior were real. “I’m guessing that this would cost four or five times as much as the car it replaces,” she said aloud. “I suspect the Mignouris will find some way to accept what they’re being offered, even if they believe it’s a proceed of crime.”

Tovera pulled into the parking space of the Residency. She didn’t hit either of the posts, but she did tap the wall of the house with her front bumper because she was concentrating on the sides behind her.

“This is a private house?” Cazelet said as they got out.

“This is the 5th Bureau Residency in Newtown,” Adele said as she led the way to the front door. “It’s administered through the Bureau’s Third Diocese, whose director is General Storn. I suspect you’ve become familiar with that name, though I’ve never discussed him with you.”

Tovera closed the door behind them. She immediately disappeared toward the garden with the vase of — now very dead — cut flowers.

“I…” Cazelet said. “Cory and I in our researches, ah, came across the name, yes. But we were just getting general background on the work we might be called on to do in the course of our duties.”

Storn had been instrumental in the satisfactory outcome of Adele’s business on Tattersall. Adele had been certain that she had trained Cory and Cazelet well enough that they would have followed up some of the loose ends of that operation and found where they led.

“The Princess Cecile and her personnel are aiding the government of the Tarbell Stars at Storn’s behest,” Adele said. “The Peltry Resident was to help me in this task — he reports to Storn.”

She shrugged. It bothered her to simplify the situation so coarsely, but her statement was accurate and sufficient for the purpose. “Unfortunately,” she said, “the Resident has had a stroke, so until he can be replaced I’ve taken it on myself to keep the Residency running.”

 

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 33

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 33

“Please, Dr. Gribbleflotz, you must come,” Peter said between gasps for breath. “They think Katarina murdered Ludwig Schaub.”

“Is Katarina okay?” Johann demanded as he grabbed Peter.

“Settle down!” Phillip ordered as he pulled Johann from Peter. “Now, Peter, can you tell me what has happened?”

Peter took a deep breath and slowly released it. “Katarina’s mistress married Herr Ludwig Schaub yesterday, and the bridegroom died before the marriage could be consummated. Herr Schaub’s family is insisting that he was poisoned, and they’re claiming that Katarina and Frau Beck did it.”

“Calm down, Peter,” Phillip said, “the guard isn’t going do anything to your sister just because someone claims she poisoned someone. They need evidence.”

Peter nodded. “That’s why you have to come. I told Captain Brückner how you and Professor Bauhin determined what killed Elisabeth Brotbeck. Both the Becks and the Schaubs have agreed to let you examine Herr Schaub and Captain Brückner sent me to get you.” He paused for a moment. “The Beck family will pay for your time,” Peter added as an afterthought.

“I don’t have the reputation in Basel to carry enough weight with the courts,” Phillip said. “We need someone with a higher public profile.” He turned to Peter. “I want you to find Professor Bauhin and tell him what you’ve told me. No.” Phillip stopped speaking and shook his head. “That won’t work. I need you to lead me to Herr Schaub’s house.”

“I know where it is,” Johann said.

Phillip looked questioningly at Johann.

Johann blushed under Phillips gaze. “I’ve been walking out with Peter’s sister, and she showed me where she would be living after her mistress married.”

That was good enough for Philip. He turned back to Peter. “Quick as you can, find Professor Bauhin and give him the message. Johann will lead me to Herr Schaub’s house.”

Peter nodded and made for the door. Seconds later his wooden shoes could be heard clattering along on the cobblestones.

Phillip turned to Johann. “Help me collect my medical bags. We’d best take a bit of everything.”

****

Even though it was bigger than most bedrooms, Ludwig Schaub’s room felt crowded. Captain Daniel Brückner of the city guard was there with Sergeant Heinrich Schweitzer. Katarina and Maria were sitting huddled together on a settee as far away from the bed where the body was lying as they could get. A man Phillip assumed was the dead man’s personal servant stood by the bed, and members of the Beck and Schaub families lined opposite sides of the room with their respective lawyers in attendance.

“What are we waiting for?” Professor Dr. Johannes Thomas Cludius, counsel for the Schaub family demanded. “Herr Dr. Gribbleflotz is here. Let him get to work.”

“A woman’s life may be at stake, so I’ve asked that Professor Bauhin join me,” Phillip said.

Professor Dr. Kaspar Bitsch’s eyes lit up. The counselor for the Beck family obviously appreciated the inclusion of the professor of the practice of medicine. “I’m happy to wait for Professor Bauhin to arrive.”

So wait they did. No more than ten minutes later Professor Gaspard Bauhin, his son, and Peter entered the room.”

“It’s a bit crowded in here,” Gaspard said to Phillip.

“Maybe some of them will leave when we start the autopsy,” Phillip said.

“Where were you proposing to hold it?” Gaspard asked. He waved towards the bed. “If nothing else, that’s an awkward height.”

“There should be a big table in the kitchen. Failing that, there’s always the dining room,” Phillip said.

“You can’t cut open Ludwig in his own dining room,” one of Ludwig’s relatives protested.

“I hardly think he’s going to mind,” Phillip said. “Still, I’m sure his widow will allow us to do whatever is necessary to discover what killed her husband.”

“She killed him,” one of the Schaub wives said, pointing an accusing finger at Maria.

“Maria didn’t kill Ludwig,” one of Maria’s family countered.

It quickly degenerated into a yelling match between the two families, which Phillip tried to ignore as he looked around the room looking for clues.

Gaspard joined him as Captain Brückner and Sergeant Schweitzer separated the two families. “What are you looking for?” he asked.

Phillip nodded towards Ludwig’s personal manservant. “He said that his master complained of abdominal cramps, and burning pain in his stomach and throat before he went into convulsions,” Phillip whispered.

“That’s consistent with poisoning,” Gaspard whispered back.

“I know. I’m hoping that if it was poison, it was self-administered, and somewhere there should be a pill box of some description.” Phillip crouched to look under the bed. The stink of urine hit him as he lifted the cover. He reached out for the chamber pot and pulled it out from under the bed. Phillip smiled at the sight and glanced at Gaspard. “Blood in the urine.”

Gaspard examined the chamber pot. “That certainly had to have happened before the real pain set in.”

“What are you two whispering about?” Dr. Cludius demanded.

“Let me handle this,” Gaspard whispered to Phillip. He got back to his feet and faced Dr. Cludius. “It’s very simple, Johannes. We noticed the smell of urine and were looking to find the source.” Gaspard lifted up the chamber pot so everyone could see. His innocent sounding statement calmed everyone down. “Now, can we get the body moved to the kitchen? I’d like to get started on the autopsy.”

Chamber pots were such innocuous devices that no one noticed that after Gaspard passed the pot to Phillip he poured the contents into a flask from his medical kit. Meanwhile footmen carried the body down to the kitchen where it was laid out on the kitchen table. Ludwig Schaub’s bed gown was removed to reveal a corpulent and hairy body. Phillip handed the flask to Johann and told him to put it away before he joined Gaspard in examining the now naked body. They walked around it, taking turns to poke at the fat belly.

“Where would you suggest we start?” Gaspard asked.

Ever since he’d seen the bloody urine Phillip had been thinking about the combination of blood in the urine and a brand new, and young, wife. He had an idea of what might have killed Ludwig Schaub, now he just had to collect the confirming evidence. “The stomach.”

Gaspard turned to the people encroaching on the space around the table. “I’d appreciate it if everyone would give us some room,” he said as he attempted to shoo them away from the table.

Everyone took at most half a step back, until Gaspard started unrolling his autopsy equipment. Not to be outdone, Phillip found room on a work bench to lay out his own tools of his trade. The sight of the various saws and blades had the onlookers stepping well clear of the two surgeons.

“After you?” Phillip suggested to Gaspard, gesturing to the naked belly of Ludwig Schaub.

“No, after you, Phillip. Today I’ll assist.”

To have Professor Bauhin assisting him was a great honor, and Phillip had no intention of declining his offer. He selected a scalpel and made a long incision from Ludwig’s groin right up to his neck. He followed the vertical incision with a couple of horizontal incisions at rib level to form a cross and the two surgeons started to peel back the skin.

Finding the stomach took a little time, but soon afterwards Phillip was able to cut it out and drop it onto a silver platter that had been requisitioned for the purpose. Together Phillip and Gaspard opened it and examined the contents.

“Look at those flecks,” Phillip said.

Gaspard scraped some small iridescent flecks from the stomach lining. “What do you think it is?” he asked.

Phillip examined them under a lens. With everything else he had seen he was pretty sure he knew what had killed Ludwig, but there was one sure way of confirming it. “I think it’s what killed Ludwig,” he whispered. “I need to conduct a test. Let’s find a kidney.”

The kidney was a little harder to find in amongst the fatty tissues, but eventually Gaspard was able to cut one free. He dropped it into a bowl. “Now what?” he asked.

Phillip looked and the fat encrusted kidney. “If what I think is right, if we cut that open and rub it on skin, it should raise blisters.”

Gaspard glanced at the interested onlookers. “Well, we can’t use any of these people. Would a rabbit do?”

Phillip nodded. “Although it would probably be better to have two — one for the Becks and one for the Schaubs.”

Gaspard grinned before turning to the onlookers and requesting a couple of live rabbits, with large patches of their fur shaved off.

While Gaspard gave instructions Phillip cut open the kidney and proceeded to mash it up some of it, while being careful not to touch it with his bare skin. He was finished well before a kitchen hand returned with a couple of rabbits.

While Gaspard described what was happening Phillip used a pair of metal tongs to take some of the mashed kidney and smear it on the shaved flanks of the rabbits. Then they sat down to watch.

“What are we looking for?” Dr. Bitsch asked.

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 18

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 18

That gave the jinau a few seconds.

“Fall back!” Tully ordered over the com. As the jinau made an orderly retreat past him, Tully reached out and grabbed one particular trooper.

“You locked and loaded, Corporal Johnson?”

“Betcherass, Colonel!”

“Wait for my signal, then let them have it.”

Johnson, who was a very large human, said nothing more; he took his position in the center of the passageway, and waited, weapon in hand, as the last of the jinau trickled by him.

****

The last of the Ekhat heavy ships ceased firing and broke apart. Lieutenant Vaughan pumped a fist silently, then flushed as Dannet looked over at him. He quickly scanned his readouts, and opened his mouth to bring something to the Fleet Commander’s attention when the communications officer beat him to it.

“Vercingetorix reports that they have lost atmosphere on two more of their weapons spines–two of the laser decks.”

Flue shaped a silent whistle. Fifty percent of the battleship’s offensive capability lost in one battle. He started querying the Vercingetorix for more details on their damage.

“Vercingetorix should withdraw to the photosphere transition and take station on the support ships,” Dannet ordered. “Lexington and Arjuna shape course to join Pool Buntyam in supporting Ban Chao. Subordinate squadrons, continue neutralizing the Ekhat debris.”

****

“Crazy ass Ekhat,” Tully muttered. None of the attackers, Ekhat or slaves, carried anything other than hand weapons–blades for the most part. No guns, no lasers. It had been that way in the Valeron boarding action as well. He didn’t understand it–maybe it’s against their religion, he thought–but he was thankful for it. It let him wait an additional few seconds before giving the order.

“Now, Johnson!”

The big human was standing three meters in front of the rest of Alpha Company. He leveled his weapon at waist height, and pulled the trigger.

Johnson was carrying a new weapon, one only recently cleared for jinau use, and only for use in space or in dealing with Ekhat. It was a recognizable descendant of the flamethrower, but it was nastier–much nastier.

Twin streams of clear liquids jetted from the nozzle of his weapon, flying over and past the attackers. An instant later, holocaust arrived.

There was a massive flare. Billows of flame rolled back down the passageway, stopping short of Johnson and the other jinau, although Tully thought he could feel some heat transferred through the faceplate of his suit.

The twin tanks in Johnson’s backpack contained the two components of a hypergolic propellant–aerozine 50 and nitrogen tetroxide–easily storable as liquids at room temperature, yet absolutely guaranteed to explode or flash into flame when combined. Tully had seen them demonstrated in the open. Their effect in the confined space of the passageway was almost indescribable.

Of course, the components were incredibly toxic, and in an on-world situation would undoubtedly create some nasty pollution.

On the other hand, Tully considered, the weapon worked whether in atmosphere or the near-vacuum of space, and the Ekhat had no room to complain about cruel and unusual tactics.

One lone Ekhat came out of the dying cloud, droplets of flame dropping from the joints of its suit. It staggered, but still headed toward the jinau with obvious intent.

Johnson leveled his weapon again, and gave a short burst that landed directly on the Ekhat. When the flash of light cleared, there was only a huddled mass lying on the passageway floor with flames licking up from it.

The big human pointed his weapon nozzle up, and looked back with a large evil grin visible through his faceplate. “Ekhat flambé,” he pronounced.

Tully gave the flames time to die down, and to make sure that nothing was stirring down the passageway. “Move out, Captain Kobayashi,” he finally ordered.

The jinau picked their way through the blackened remains of the attackers with comments like “Crispy critters” and “Hey, Johnson, does flame-broiled Ekhat taste like chicken?” But they dropped the humor when they got to where their fire team had been overwhelmed. Several of the Jao troopers took up the task of carrying the bodies. None of them, Tully included, wanted to leave them there.

****

Descant-at-the-Fourth hurtled down her chosen passageway, followed closely by a couple of immature Ekhat and a throng of the Trīkē servients.

Jao! The other group had reported Jao among the invaders!

The greatest mistake ever made by the Complete Harmony faction, deny it though the harmony masters might, was the uplifting of the Jao. And now that mistake was challenging her harmony in her system.

There was no further report, but she knew where the invaders were, where they had to be. She began a new statement of her aria, singing with force. The youngling Ekhat with her picked up on it immediately, and she felt the harmony begin to strengthen again.

She halted her mob before it exited the passageway, waiting for the harmony to crest . . .

Now!

****

Alpha Company had exited their passageway, carrying their dead, and were halfway across the open space when the XO shouted, “Behind you!”

Tully spun to see a mob of Ekhat and slaves pouring toward them from one of the side passages.

****

Twelve depleted uranium sabot penetrators slammed into the World Harvester ship in quick succession in an extremely tight grouping. The liquefied metal plasma that erupted in the ship’s engine room vaporized all Ekhat and slaves present, and destroyed all of the control equipment in the room.

The ship’s drive shut down.

So did the artificial gravity.

On the gun deck of the Pool Buntyam, Kaln’s posture slid to one of iron-retribution.

****

Descant-at-the-Fourth screamed as she felt the harmony crumble. She lunged toward the invaders, but found herself floating in mid-air. No matter how she struggled, she could not put a foot to a surface. Slowly spinning, her rage finally overcame her, and she screamed again and again, atonally, with no thought to harmony.

****

“Recoilless, take out the Ekhat now!” Tully ordered. “Forget trying to save one for the science guys,” he added as an afterthought. “Just nail them.”

Three Jao and three humans moved up with the heavy recoilless rifles, while the rest of the jinau cleared the back blast lanes. Tully watched as they quickly and methodically eliminated the floating Ekhat. Even one of those monsters couldn’t shrug off the impact of an explosive charge.

Tully saw someone move up beside him from the corner of his eye. His display showed the symbol for First Sergeant Luff. They watched the jinau absorb and overwhelm the remnants of the final charge. Many of the slaves were taken out by the explosions that finished off the Ekhat. But capturing those few that remained in one piece turned out to be a bit of a challenge.

“Looks like we need to schedule some zero-gee drills, Colonel,” Luff said finally.

“Yep,” Tully responded. “See to it after we get back, Top.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s all over but the reports,” Tully said to the officers. “Major Liang, get us back on board.”

“On it, Colonel.”

****

“Ban Chao has separated from the World Harvester, Fleet Commander,” reported Lexington’s sensor officer.

Caitlyn sat up straight at the news she had been waiting to hear. “What success did they have?” she asked. And is Gabe alive? was unspoken for the moment.

“Colonel Tully reports nine Ekhat slaves captured and an estimated thirteen Ekhat and an unknown number of slaves killed in the fighting. Six jinau dead, fifteen injured.”

Caitlyn relaxed, and looked up to see a grin on Caewithe Miller’s face that looked to be a match for the one she felt stretching across her own visage.

She looked around as Dannet gestured. “Finish it,” the Fleet Commander said.

The three battleships moved in concert like a lion pride, closing on the wounded Ekhat vessel.

 

Castaway Odyssey – Chapter 03

Castaway Odyssey – Chapter 03

Chapter 3.

Tavana stared at the screen, where Lieutenant Haley and the severed boarding tube from Outward Initiative were dwindling out of sight, and felt cold horror spreading through him. He’d seen the readouts, known how bad LS-88 was damaged, but this – a living person, now cast away into the endless void so that they could get some systems back online – hammered home the terrible situation in a way that no words could have.

He found himself shaking and gripped the arms of the seat so hard he saw his knuckles whitening. He was barely aware of the fact that the tumbling of the shuttle was slowing, had stopped, and the distant, somersaulting tube was steady in the middle of the screen.

There was the sound of a harness unsnapping, and Sergeant Campbell rose slowly, and then brought his hand up in salute, gaze focused resolutely on the receding wreckage, far enough now that it was almost impossible to make out the figure of Lieutenant Haley.

Tavana heard another harness release, and Xander was rising, taking the same stance, and Tavana followed suit; he knew this wouldn’t change anything, but somehow the gesture, the effort meant something. As he stood there rigid, his boots keeping him firmly attached to the deck, he saw Maddox and finally even little Francisco do the same, sniffling and clearly not really sure of what the gesture meant, but that it was something important.

They stood immobile together for long moments, until the tube had become a near-dot and there was no way, in the feeble starlight, to see any details. Then Sergeant Campbell slowly lowered his arm and turned.

Tavana saw surprise and a moment’s gratification on the usually controlled face… and also saw water sparkling in the air near the Sergeant’s face.

“Thank you, all. Now we have to make sure her courage doesn’t get wasted, understand?”

Tavana swallowed hard. “Yessir.” The others echoed the agreement. He tried to shove the thought of the Lieutenant out of his head; it wasn’t easy. “Sir… if we get things running… will we be able to find her?”

Campbell nodded. “We know exactly at what speed, and on what vector, her piece of wreckage separated from us. In space, that’ll stay constant. Plus here in interstellar space? She’s gonna be the only thing within millions of miles bigger than my thumb, and even on absolute lowest power setting she’ll still be radiating heat we can spot. Yes, son; if we can get things running, we’ll find her.” He made it sound like an order. “We good, now?”

He nodded, feeling a tiny bit better. “Yes, sir!”

“Right, then. Tavana, get back here and talk to me. I need to know what our condition is.”

Without the shuttle tumbling it was easy to switch seats. He slid into the pilot’s seat and locked in, noticing how much the straps had to pull up to secure him. Sergeant’s a big man.

There were some more green lights, and some of the reds had turned amber, but still… merde. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first, sir?”

“Stop calling me… ahhh, never mind.” The Sergeant shook his head and grinned, something Tavana found astounding given the situation. “Gimme the bad first, son; I like to know how deep it is before I take an inventory of the shovels I have.”

“All right, sir.” Que Dieu nous aide, he thought. There was so much bad news he might have to summarize, because doing it in detail would take a long time. “Well… the worst news is that right now we’re running on stored power, the reactor’s dead. Even if we had power, the Trapdoor Drive is completely down. I’m going to have to do more diagnostics before I know what’s really wrong. Nebula Drive basics show green, but dispensers won’t respond and I’m getting yellow status from the smart dust for the dusty-plasma; why, I’ll need more time to do diagnostics. In fact, whenever I say I don’t know the details, just repeat that. Um… environmentals are borderline; I think what I’ll need to do is figure out something to kick the air exchangers into activity every so often, because usually it’s controlled by the onboard AIs.”

“AIs still down?”

“All of them that were in the main ship and operating, anyway – which means all of the LS-88’s system AIs. My guess is that the Trapdoor Pulse disrupted the systems. Worse, it took out the advanced interlocks – not AI systems but using some of the same core technology – between the automated and the manual systems. Without those, a lot of systems won’t work at all until we figure out how to force the switchover to manual. Sensors… I think most of the cameras and other sensors got fried by the pulse, certainly the ones on the belly and sides. Communications are totally down; even the emergency distress beacon’s dead, which isn’t even supposed to be possible if the beacon wasn’t just crushed or something.” He paused; the litany of things gone wrong was even worse when he listed it out loud. I haven’t seen a sign of a sun anywhere on the screen, and if we’re between stars with no Trapdoor Drive…

“Good news?”

“Ummm… well, the front camera’s still working, and that one’s actually got a lot of sensing and control capability, so we’re not totally blind. The reactor… I’m not seeing anything that says the reactor’s damaged, and controlling its operation doesn’t require an AI – or at least not one any more capable than that of a standard omni, and we’re all wearing one of those, so I think we’ll be okay there if we can just switch control and safety over. Storage coils were fully charged, so we’ve got… um, weeks at least, before power runs out.”

The Sergeant scratched his head. “What’s the reactor for this thing?”

“This model’s got a Toshiba-IEM FP-300M,” Tavana answered, the data sheet shimmering in his internal display.

“Really? Well now, I helped maintain a 300M back some years on Piper colony. You tell me what needs doing, I think some of that might come back.”

“Dieu merci!” The relief was astounding. “I’ve never actually –”

“Not a surprise, son. You’re still studying; no one’s gonna want you playing with neutrons this early in your career, no matter how good your medical nanos are. Still, you’ve got most of your propulsion degree, right?”

“Er… yes, sir. Most of it. I think I can figure this out, especially with some help.”

“No rush, we got time. What’s our cargo like? I’m especially interested in food, water, medical supplies, things like that.”

“I think I can get the manifest –”

“Got it!” Maddox Bird said, his voice still a little thick from crying, but now wearing a smile. At Tavana’s startled glance, Maddox said, “Well, I was already looking for it before the Sergeant asked.”

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense, then,” Sergeant Campbell said. “What’s our cargo?”

“There’s the standard emergency rations for a lifeboat…” Maddox was squinting at the invisible listing in his retinal display, even though squinting wouldn’t help. “Um… oh, there’s a bunch more in the cargo! Two pallets. Water… don’t see anything, sorry. But… there’s emergency medical kits, quantity… two hundred.”

Tavana noticed the Sergeant stiffen a bit. “Those kits, they have medical nano injections as part of the standard supply?”

“Yessir. They’re military issue, too – new as of our departure.”

Campbell murmured something Tavana couldn’t catch, but it sounded hopeful. “Good news. What else? Together that stuff wouldn’t take up much space.”

“Well… looks like power equipment, digging, construction type stuff. Plus some finished materials that’re hard to produce on new colonies, a bunch of other things, but nothing I think’s helpful right now.”

“We’ll go over that list in detail later, though.” The Sergeant nodded. “Tavana, I think first order of business is to figure out the environmentals. Don’t matter how much equipment or food or medical supplies we got if the air goes bad. Can you handle that?”

Tavana looked at the board. The readings were suddenly intimidating. He knew what his answer would be if this were just some test, but this was real. If he screwed up this answer…

“Tavana?”

With a start, the French-Polynesian realized he’d been just staring at the lights and indicators for a minute without moving. “S… sorry.” He shook himself. “I… sir, I’ve never actually done this kind of work…”

“I know, son. But we’re kinda short on professionals, so you, me, Xander, and maybe Maddox for a couple things is pretty much all we got. Francisco’s a good kid, but he’s not quite ready for the job. Can you do it?”

“I… I’ll try.”

“All any of us can do, as long as it’s our best try. Now get to it. Francisco, why don’t you come with me and we’ll see what’s in the rations we can reach?”

Francisco nodded reluctantly and followed Sergeant Campbell. I’m not sure how much he understands of what’s going on yet, but he’s already figured out that he’s not seeing his parents for a long time.

Neither am I. Or any of us. The truth tried to sink in, and he gritted his teeth, shoved it aside. I can’t afford panic now.

Mouth dry, Tavana turned to the board and adjusted the controls to accept direct I/O from his omni. My brain already trying to tell me the air’s getting stale. Stupid! The cabin’s big enough for more than twice this number of people, and the environmentals aren’t actually completely down.

At the same time, they were down. While the main system showed that it was operational, there was no indication that the recycling system had done anything since the disaster, and it really should have.

Okay. Think of it like a test. “Given this situation, consider what element or elements of the system could fail to produce this situation. Remember to apply Ockham’s Razor.”

That meant to choose the simplest explanation first. Okay, simplest explanation was a power failure. That wasn’t the case here, though; board showed that the environmentals were getting power from the storage coils, and connectivity was good. So that wasn’t it. Next… the relay? But those relays were pretty much foolproof, and showed green anyway. As long as they weren’t physically damaged, they should activate whenever the sensors –

The sensors. That made sense. The air-quality sensor suite was actually a distributed network of sensors all interconnected for comparison in a way that could have received enough energy from the pulse to damage the sensors.

Tavana got up and carefully moved to the rear of the cabin; his retinal display highlighted the service panel he was looking for. “Sergeant Campbell, can you authorize me to open service panels?”

“Done.”

The panel popped open, showing several of the control relays, including the environmental control relay. If I can force it to trigger…

Examining the panel’s design showed him that there were, as he hoped, subtle but definite holes meant for test points during manufacture and installation. Which I don’t have the probes for. But…

He called up data on test procedures from his omni – given that this was one of the vehicles he’d expected to be maintaining on Tantalus Colony, he had the complete maintenance handbook. It didn’t take long to get data on the test probes.

Tavana felt a cautious trickle of optimism. The test points had been designed for relatively crude methods of interface, since they might be maintained in far less than optimal conditions. He had a pocket TechTool – similar to the typical pocket Shapetool, except designed for electrical testing and engineering work, so it had several elements of different composition to work with. He thought the TechTool might barely be able to make test probes small enough to fit the holes.

After a few minutes, though, he was tempted to curse in Tahitian, something he didn’t do unless he was really mad. Instead, he settled for “Merde!” again.

“Problem?” Xander asked from nearby.

Tavana grimaced. “This TechTool me fait chier, as my mother would say. I need probes half a millimeter wide and it stops at one millimeter.”

Xander pulled out his own TechTool and checked. “Sorry, mine’s not even as good as yours; then again, us structural engineers don’t need your fancy gadgets.”

“But then how am I going to get to these circuits?”

“Hold on, don’t get all frustrated again. Let’s ask Maddox.”

“Maddox? He’s mechanical all the way. And,” he lowered his voice, “still a kid.”

“Don’t sell my brother short, Tav. Hey, Maddox! Tav’s TechTool’s not testing.”

Maddox bounced up – and immediately bounced into the ceiling with a grunted oof!

With scarcely a pause in his examination of the rations stored in the LS-88‘s cabin, Sergeant Campbell snagged Maddox and dragged him back down until the boy’s boots touched the deck.

“Watch yourselves!” he snapped. “You do that kind of damnfool trick too often, someone’s gonna get killed. And I ain’t joking, Maddox; that little stunt you pulled, I’ve seen rookies in training do it and hit a little harder and break their goddamn necks! You understand me? Zero-g maneuvers are no joke, and if you don’t take ’em seriously I’m gonna lock you in your seat for as long as it takes us to get to a planet! You understand?”

“Yessir! Sorry, sir! I won’t do it again, Sergeant!”

“All right, then. Carry on.”

Maddox made the remainder of the little trek without incident. “What’s wrong with your TechTool?”

“I don’t know if anything’s wrong with it, I just may have hit its limits, that’s all.”

He explained the problem to Maddox, who nodded and asked if he could access the TechTool; Tavana allowed it, and didn’t let any of his doubts show in his voice. No point in making Maddox feel bad.

After a few minutes, Maddox grinned, and then handed him the TechTool; two glittering probes were visible, seeming barely wider than hairs in the cabin light.

Tavana couldn’t conceal his surprise. “Are you serious? No, wait, hold that thought. Let me see if this works.”

According to the manual, if he put a pulse of 3VDC through those test points, it should…

There was no sound – the relay wasn’t a physical switch – but he could immediately detect a shift in the flow of current, and more importantly an instant later a gentle breeze began flowing through the cabin – a breeze noticeably cooler and fresher than the now-obviously-stale cabin air. “Yes!”

“Good work, son. Breathing easier means we can breathe easier. Can you automate that, or does someone have to kick it every so often?”

“Um… When I don’t need it, I can leave the TechTool to do that every couple hours, sure.”

“Good. Do that whenever you’re not using the thing, then.”

Tavana turned back to Maddox, who was still grinning. “Okay, I admit it, I didn’t think your brother had a clue when he called you over. How’d you do that?”

“I love tools. I have a collection of TechTools, Shapetools, and a lot of old-fashioned regular tools…” his face fell. “Well, I had a collection. They were on Outward Initiative. Anyway, I’m not into software or use design in most things but I really dug into the controls for the tools. Link up and I’ll show you.”

Tavana connected his omni with Maddox’ and suddenly saw the interface for the TechTool – with layers visible he hadn’t known were there. “What –”

“Yeah, see that? What you ran into is over here – see that?”

“It’s a handholding limit,” Tavana said slowly, hearing the disgust in his own voice.

“Well… it’s a limit to keep the user from damaging the tool, yeah. Below a millimeter thickness it gets real easy to do damage to the controlled conductive alloy that’s hard to repair, so it normally doesn’t let any component go below that thickness. But here’s the overrides; you can pretty much tweak anything in here.”

Tavana grinned as he realized how much he hadn’t known about his own TechTool… and how much more he could now do with it, precisely when he was going to need it more than ever. “C’est genial! Awesome! Thank you very much, Maddox!” He nodded to Xander. “And you – for insisting we call him over. I would’ve started trying to rip things apart for tiny wires next.”

“Word of caution,” came Sergeant Campbell’s dry voice. “No ripping anything apart without my permission. No matter how much you think it might be necessary.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“No problem. And now that we’ve got our air for sure, me and Francisco have our next problem covered.” He gave an exaggerated bow and indicated a small stack of ration packs. “Dinner is served.”

 

Castaway Odyssey – Chapter 02

Castaway Odyssey – Chapter 02

Chapter 2.

“Sergeant!” came a half-panicked call from above, and Samuel Campbell turned from the mostly-unresponsive board.

“You see something, Xander?”

“It’s… It’s Pearce Haley, Sergeant!”

“What?” Of all the answers he’d expected, that hadn’t been one. Given the timing, a part of him had thought that Pearce might have been killed at the interface, but the idea that she was just outside… “Is she alive? Her suit intact?”

“Yes, sir.”

Alive? And outside? “What the hell’s she standing on?”

“Looks like the whole entrance tube,” Xander replied, his voice still incredulous. “The far end’s open though, so she’s definitely in vacuum.”

Samuel switched to the private channel. “Pearce? Pearce, you copy me?”

There was no response. “Tavana, you’re a comm whiz, aren’t you?”

The French Polynesian boy straightened a bit in his seat. “I’m pretty good at them, yes, Mr… Sergeant Campbell.”

“I can’t get through to Pearce on my own comm. Are all comms out?”

“Permission to unstrap so I can see the board, Sergeant?”

“Permission granted. Just make damn sure you hook on securely with every step.”

He watched the broad form of Tavana Arronax make his careful way across the cabin, and nodded approval. Kid may be mostly an egghead, but he knows when to be careful and follows instructions. I’ve had lots worse recruits. As Tavana got close, Samuel locked himself to the console and unstrapped from the seat. “I’ll move back one seat, let you get a look. Actually, while you do that – Xander, you come back down and strap back in. I’m going up.”

By the time he managed to get up the ladder, he heard Tavana grunt. “Yeah… sorry, Sergeant, all comms except the interior relays and personal nano-based and omni networks are out. And I’ve got a lot of other bad news coming up.”

“Wonderful.” He lifted himself the last half-meter and looked into green eyes that immediately looked slightly less worried. She’s not looking sick; that’s good. Must’ve thought of activating her nanos right away. Good soldier. He gave her a smile and a wink, and mouthed “We’re working on it” through the glass.

“She’s only a couple meters or so away from me; why can’t I hear her personal net?”

“I don’t…” Tavana paused, forehead wrinkled in obvious thought. “Windows and the airlock include a lot of shielding. No transmissions directly through them, supposed to be relayed through the antenna layers cross-connected with the interior. But with even the backup software down, there’s nothing to tune the antennas to our personal frequencies, which you really need to do with the low power our personal nanos and most omnis can generate.”

“Got it. So… can you tell me the natural frequencies for these antennas?”

“What?” Tavana’s face suddenly lit up. “Ohhh, of course. We can adjust our own transmit frequencies. Let me see, I think that’s in my internal manuals… yeah! It’s a three-layer antenna design… two of the main resonant frequencies are too low for us to reach, but you should be able to get through the airlock with a transmission on four point two gigahertz.”

Samuel checked his omni controls. “Yeah, I can transmit on that band. Hold on.” He triggered his omni’s external display and had it display “4.2 GHz”, then pressed his wrist up to the window.

Pearce grinned broadly and nodded. A moment later, he heard a warm contralto voice: “Sam, can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, PG,” he said, feeling cool relief spreading through his chest at that simple exchange. “You okay?”

“Well… for now. The airlock won’t open from the outside; can you exhaust it? Once pressures equalize it should open.”

“Tavana?”

“Sorry, Sergeant. That’s part of the bad news. I’m getting almost nothing. If you hadn’t deployed the physical controls we’d have nothing at all, but whatever happened… I’m not sure I understand all of what I’m reading, but it’s taken all the AIs offline, most of the instrumentation, the drive systems are reading yellow at best and none of that will work unless we can get the external locks to release… I think we’ll have to just wait until Outward Initiative gets back –”

The boy’s words made Samuel wince. Kid’s trusted his technology all his life, never been in a situation where it’s failed like this.

He took a breath, let it out, then shook his head. “Sorry, son, but we can’t plan that way. What if that instability didn’t end when we dropped off? We saw at least two other bites taken out of the ring? If Outward Initiative isn’t completely wrecked already, they’ll be diverting to the nearest colony.”

Francisco’s head snapped up. “No! My mama wouldn’t leave without me!” The panicked exclamation was actually spoken in Spanish, but that was one of several languages Samuel’s omni would automatically translate.

Blast it. Tavana reset everyone’s comms. I hadn’t wanted to get into this conversation yet. “Xander, I hate to drop this on you, but try to explain to Francisco why his momma’s not going to override the Captain and the regulations. And that it doesn’t mean his family wants to desert him.”

He tried to tune out the tearful discussion that followed – one that got Maddox crying also – and focus on the problem at hand. “Do we have atmosphere reserves? If we could all button up suits and blow our own atmosphere –”

“Sergeant, really, it’s worse than that.” Real fear was audible in the underlying tones of Tavana’s voice. “Maybe we do have atmosphere reserves, but right now I’m not even sure the environmentals are working right. Dumping our atmosphere and bringing it back? I don’t think we can. And there’s some alerts on the medical systems…”

He hadn’t even thought to check the medical systems; aside from the freefall and tumbling nausea, it seemed obvious everyone was physically fine. He switched channels, tapped into the internal alerts.

Holy mother of god. I’ve never seen a radiation pulse like that. For a moment, despite his lifelong training to never put off looking at bad news, he couldn’t quite force himself to look. He hadn’t been prepared for a literal lifeboat situation when he did this drill – stupid of him, but after twenty or thirty drills you did start treating them like routine.

When he checked, he finally was able to relax a bit. The dosages were high, but he had the military combat parameters for internal nano treatment of radiation damage; he could transmit that to the kids, and Pearce would already have –

He froze. Pearce… Pearce was outside the hull. He turned his head back to look at her questioning face.

This time he set it to private communication, and spoke quietly enough that no one else could hear him – not that anyone was likely to, with Francisco crying and the others talking. “PG… Look, hon, can you check your medicals, especially –”

Her smile faded. “Already did, Sam.” Her voice was apologetic, as it always was when giving someone bad news.

“The tube –”

“– probably shielded me some, but… the burst seemed to happen along the interface, and that meant it had a straight line on me from the end that got cut. Sorry, Sam… Sergeant Campbell, I’m walking dead. I’d just hoped…”

… hoped to be able to die comfortably inside, not in a vacuum suit in the middle of space. “Yeah, I know. Is it really that bad? Internal nanos –”

“– got partly fried themselves, Sam,” she said quietly. “If my omni wasn’t a top-flight military model, it’d be dead too. Even if they hadn’t gotten toasted… I had some surgical tech training, I know what I’m looking at. I’ve got a little while before it hits, but only a really, really heavy infusion of top-flight medical nanos – within a few hours – would give me a chance.”

His mind cast about, desperately trying to figure some angle, a way to keep this from happening. He’d lost soldiers before – after over twenty years in the business, you couldn’t help it – but he’d never failed to save someone who hadn’t been killed outright. “I don’t know the whole cargo of this boat, there might even –”

“Sam!” her tone was sharp, and her green gaze caught his with anger and sympathy. Then she smiled and shook her head. “I heard that boy’s report. You can’t even stabilize LS-88 right now. It will be many, many hours before you could get to the cargo, if there’s anything there for me at all. You can’t help me, Sam. I’m sorry. But maybe I can help you.”

He swallowed, feeling the rough, acid tightness that came from suppressing tears. “Help us?”

“This piece of junk I’m standing in is what’s keeping your remaining systems from running, if I understand what Tavana’s saying correctly. Well, there’s a manual disengage mechanism out here, meant for being able to launch a lifeboat in the event of power failure.”

Samuel closed his eyes, then sighed and nodded. “That should do it. It would sever the connections and let the manual interlocks register that the lifeboat was free, so we could work the attitude jets and drives, at least.”

“Then I’ve got a job to do, Sergeant.”

“Wait!” He took another breath, thinking. “Look… you’re right. But… give me access to your nanos and omni?”

“I… guess? All right, Sergeant.”

He linked up and surveyed the display. Yeah, as bad as she says. Maybe four, five hours before she starts really feeling it. But there’s enough nanos still up for something else…

He checked his own systems, assembled the code he’d used a few times before on badly-injured comrades. “Here. Program this in. Once you… once you cut us loose, make sure you’re locked well down and then start this program running.”

“I don’t read nano code; what’s that for?”

“Either a comfortable way to die, or a real, real long-shot at living. It’s called field suspension – suspended animation using your nanos and your suit environmentals. You never got deployed to active combat duty or you’d probably already have it; me, I’ve had it, and watched it get upgraded, for more’n twenty years. This’ll give you weeks, maybe a couple months, before the damage can’t be fixed… and…” he heard his voice almost break, got it under control, “… and it’ll put you to sleep once you activate it. So if you don’t get rescued…”

She smiled wanly. “… at least I don’t die puking my guts out inside my suit. Thanks, Sam.”

“If there’s any chance… we’ll come back for you.”

“I know you will.” She stiffened her spine, held by her boots so she could stand ramrod-straight, and saluted. “Sergeant Campbell.”

He saluted as best he could. “Lieutenant Haley. Do what you have to. Give me a few minutes to get to the controls; this bird’s going to shift a lot when you blow the tube.”

“Yes, Sergeant. And… goodbye and good luck, Sam. Take care of those boys.”

“I will, PG. I promise.”

Samuel turned and immediately, methodically, began making his way back down the ladder, shoving all the grief and anger away. “Tavana, move back. I gotta get to the controls.”

Tavana nodded. “Okay, Sergeant. But nothing’s working –”

“It will be in a minute. Lieutenant Haley’s going to use the manual launch controls to disengage from LS-88. That should at least give us back attitude jets, and maybe other systems will come online once the mechanical linkages confirm complete isolation.”

“That’s good,” Tavana said, a little relief in his voice.

Xander Bird, however, had already recognized the flaw in the plan. “But sir – Sergeant – if she does that, she’ll –”

“– be flying away with the boarding tube, and we might have a long, long time before we can catch her, yes. But my responsibility – and hers – is to keep you, the passengers, safe.”

He looked horrified. Too much imagination, that boy; he can figure out what drifting through space alone in a spacesuit would be like. “But Sergeant –”

“She has to do this, son. We’ll save her if we can, but she reminded me what my job is, and that’s to keep you four alive. Now be quiet and let me do that job… and let her do hers.”

Xander bit his lip but said nothing more.

“Lieutenant, I’m at the controls. You may proceed when ready.”

“Roger that, Sergeant. I am now unlocking the manual controls.” A pause. “I have grasped the release wheel. Beginning to turn. Please be braced.”

“Everyone – Francisco, I mean you! – sit straight, make sure your harnesses are on correctly. This could be rough.”

A few minutes went by, silently, with the faintest sound of exertion being transmitted from Lieutenant Haley’s suit.

“Manual clamps disengaged; go for CAD actuation?”

CAD; short for Cartridge Actuated Device, and a military euphemism for “controlled explosion”. For this, that meant detonating explosive bolts that finalized the separation. “Lieutenant, we are all prepared. We are go for CAD actuation.”

Almost instantly, a sharp, loud BANG! echoed through the cabin of LS-88, and the tumbling of the forward view twitched, shifted, now slower and along a different line; across one edge of the view he could see, for a moment each revolution, a metal tube, trailing ragged lines of severed pipes and wires, spinning with slow deliberation away into space.

“Separation achieved. Good job, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. Activating suspension protocol.” There was already heavy reduction in signal from Pearce Haley; it would not take long for them to be out of range entirely.

“Good luck and Godspeed, PG,” he said.

“You too, Sam. And…”

The signal faded to nothing, and he closed his eyes. Later, he told himself, but for a few seconds it was all he could do to not cry, to not break down, and a part of him realized with surprise just how very much he had cared about Pearce Greene Haley.

But then he shook himself, put his hands on the board, and – not without a prayer – touched the controls.

The attitude jets rumbled to life.

 

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 41

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 41

This time a woman carrying an infant did step forward, calling something unintelligible. A Sissie raised his impeller to butt-stroke her, but Wright — still a common spacer, but that would change as soon as the Katchaturian reached Peltry — caught the gun by the receiver and held it long enough for the woman to come to her senses and scramble back.

“We ought to hang them all!” snarled Chidsey. “They killed my son! Shot him down!”

“I’m sorry,” said Daniel truthfully, “but my family has presided over one massacre in my lifetime — ” the Proscriptions following the Three Circles Conspiracy ” — and I don’t choose to add a second.”

Chidsey muttered curses as he watched the villagers marched off for the meal Daniel had promised them. The merchant captain had no more power at present than those villagers did, if the truth were told, but so long as he showed that he knew his place Daniel had no reason to jerk him to heel.

Chidsey’s son had been the mate of the Mezentian Gate. He had either mouthed off or tried to take a weapon from the pirate boarding party and had been shot. It might have been possible to learn who the shooter had been, but it would have taken time. The Nabis Contingent wasn’t going to spend any longer on Benjamin that it took to re-step the Sissie’s antenna, and Daniel would have been willing to let that wait for Peltry if the job hadn’t been going so well.

Daniel had never asked his father if he had any regrets over the Proscriptions. By the time Daniel was old enough to appreciate what it meant to send thousands of people to their deaths without trial, he was no longer on speaking terms with his father.

He probably had the answer already. So far as Daniel knew, Corder Leary wasn’t on record as having expressed regret about anything.

The villagers were marching off glumly to the swale where they would be fed. Spacers watched them, some of them obviously eager to use their weapons. The spacers didn’t have any particular malice, but this raid was the most excitement many of them had ever imagined. Daniel hoped that nobody would get trigger-happy, but this was war. Bad things happen in wars.

Two men remained between the warships under the guard of Evans and Dasi, the latter with bandaged hands. The trigger guard of Dasi’s sub-machine gun was latched down as it would have been for use while wearing a rigging suit.

“Let’s go down and take care of the rest of our business,” Daniel said to his companions. He started down the ramp, noticing as he did so that Woetjans had left the corvette’s spine and was coming over to join them.

The bosun called, “The Sissie’ll be ready to lift by nightfall, Six. Sooner if we jury-rig it without a base section, but we can get the kink outa the base if we have a little time with it.”

“I want to get off Benjamin,” Daniel said after a moment’s consideration, “but we’ll be here for that long anyway, refilling with reaction mass. The well here doesn’t have as much flow as I’d like, but unless it dries up completely I want to top off both ships.”

The two prisoners were watching Daniel expectantly as he talked with his bosun, though the former Nabis spacer’s face showed a degree of nervousness as well. The city-dressed civilian had regained his composure, though handfuls of gravel hadn’t cleaned all the vomit from his tunic. He offered Daniel a bright smile and said, “Captain Leary, I –”

“In a moment,” Daniel said, his eyes on the spacer.

“But –” said the civilian. Evans grabbed the fellow by the shoulder to anchor him with his left fist and cocked his right.

“Stop!” Daniel said, grabbing the big tech’s right wrist. “I need to talk to him, Evans. Just not now.”

“Sure, Six,” Evans said equably. He smiled and let go of the civilian, who had lost the ruddiness of his cheeks again.

“You’re Easton,” Daniel said to the spacer, “and you’re an engine wiper. Right?”

“Yeah, port watch on the Katie,” Easton said, bobbing his head in agreement. “Look, I’m sorry about it all but I was drunk, you know?”

“What I know at this moment,” Daniel said, “is that you’re a rapist. Right?”

“If you say so,” Easton muttered, staring at the ground.

“Not a lot a doubt about it,” Woetjans said. “I came over because she was screaming like a stuck pig and dragged him off. She can’t a’ been but twelve.”

“Look, I’d had a couple tots of working fluid,” Easton said, snarling now but his eyes still on the ground. “I’m not a bloody soldier, and I didn’t like the notion of going out and getting shot! Anyway, I relaxed some when things quieted down, all right?”

“No, not all right,” Daniel said calmly. “I think the best thing to do with you is leave you on the ground here where you won’t be tempted by engine-room alcohol.”

“Hey, you can’t do that!” Easton said, looking up in horror. “What am I going to do here on this pisspot world?”

“I’ll take him,” Captain Chidsey said. “I can use another tech. My boy handled most of the Power Room, and we’re short-handed besides.”

“No,” said Daniel without looking at the merchant captain. “If you want to come back for him later, that’s your business; but not now.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Easton bleated, dropping to his knees. From his tone, that was true, as sure as sunrise. “You can’t leave me here!”

“If you don’t chase after those villagers right away…” Daniel said. “Evans is going to hit you. And if he does that, you won’t be able to get up before the line is well out of sight. I’m not leaving another compass with you.”

Easton blubbered for a moment, but when Evans raised his fist slowly — it wasn’t a threat; he was choosing the right target — the Nabie turned and stumbled off in the direction of the villagers. Daniel watched him for a moment.

“What do you suppose they’ll do with him?” Vesey said quietly.

Daniel shrugged. “They might marry him to the girl,” he said. “Or they might eat him because food’s short. I don’t really care, except that he’s off my ship.”

He turned to the remaining prisoner, who had lost his previous bonhomie. “Now, what’s your name, fellow?” he said.

“I’m an Alliance citizen,” the civilian said, “Charlie Platt, and I’m just here by accident. I’m sure –”

“He’s the shipbroker,” said Chidsey. “He was bargaining for my Gate. He talked to the village chiefs on the bridge for privacy, that’s how I know for sure. He was cheating them too.”

“Pretty much what I thought, Captain,” Daniel said, smiling faintly.

“Look, there’s money in this for you!” Platt said. “Lots of money, more money than you can dream. All you have –”

“Shut up, Platt,” Daniel said.

“– is take a message to my –”

“Hit him, Evans,” Daniel said.

Evans smashed Platt instantly in the jaw; apparently he regretted not swinging in time to drop Easton. Platt flew backward. From the amount of blood, his tongue must have been between his teeth when the punch closed his mouth.

“There are things I won’t do for money,” Daniel said, his voice suddenly hoarse. “Quite a lot of things, actually.”

He took a deep breath, then turned to Chidsey and said, “Captain, you said you were shorthanded. Would you care to take aboard a landsman?”

“How do you know I won’t put him out the lock as soon as we make orbit?” Chidsey said, his tone challenging.

“I don’t know, Captain,” Daniel said, “and I don’t care. Though I’ll point out that Master Platt probably could make you very wealthy.”

“Being rich wouldn’t bring my boy back, would it?” Chidsey said.

Daniel smiled, for the first time warming to the merchant captain. “No sir,” he said, “I don’t believe it would.”

He hooked a thumb in the direction of the moaning Platt. “I’ll send your crew down to you,” Daniel said. “You can get him to the Gate, I presume. I’ve checked, and you’ve got plenty of reaction mass for the run back to Peltry.”

“Then I guess we’ll take ourselfs off,” Chidsey said. “I’d guess we’d lift to orbit in an hour at the outside.”

“Then I’ll leave you to it,” Daniel said. He nodded to his companions and walked toward the ramp of the Katchaturian. He was whistling, “The Fair Maid of Xenos Town.”

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 17

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 17

“Tully to command: open the front assault doors.”

“Opening doors now,” came the response over the com channel.

Tully felt more than heard the big outer doors opening. “Alpha Company go!” he heard Sato order.

The leading jinau raced down the ramp into the Ekhat ship. Tully and Sergeant Luff followed. Expecting something like the madhouse of the boarding action in the Valeron campaign, he was surprised to see Alpha Company faced with very little resistance. No Ekhat were visible, and only a handful of other life-forms, most of which seemed to have been riddled by the shrapnel generated when the Ban Chao had burst through the hull of their ship. Their spacesuits had irregular holes in them, anyway, and they were leaking bodily fluids of various colors.

Tully looked around while Bravo and Charlie Companies exited the Ban Chao and pushed the perimeter out further. They were in a relatively large open space. There was no clue why it was there or what it was used for, other than the existence of a lot of flat panels strewn around the deck. But there were what appeared to be doorways scattered around the perimeter. He started marking them on his heads-up display, and as soon as the last jinau hit the deck he sent the diagram to the rest of the troops and started barking orders.

“Alpha take the red door, Bravo the green, Charlie the yellow. Throw sensor packs through the blue doors as you go by them so that the troops who stay back can get a heads-up if something is heading that way. Stay in contact, and yell if you need help. One hour out and back, but keep an ear open for the XO or me to call it quits early. Go!”

****

Flue Vaughan’s head came up as the communication officer said, “Fleet Commander, Ban Chao reports successful ram and penetration of World Harvester hull and entrance of jinau into ship. Minimal damage to ram portion of hull, but remaining hull integrity good.”

He checked the data-stream from the Ban Chao. So far, so good. The damned design actually worked! Now, if Colonel Tully and his jinau assault team can just grab a few prisoners and get off again safely.

Vaughan didn’t know it, but his thoughts were being echoed by others in the command deck, notably Caitlin Kralik and Caewithe Miller.

****

The harmony had been replaced by shrieking fear. Descant-at-the-Fourth picked herself up from the heap of servients she had landed upon when the whole ship had lurched and rung like a colossal tone bar, chittering with rage. The surviving servients scuttled for cover, adding to the cacophony as they ran.

Second-Strong-Cadence was floundering nearby, all his left legs broken from being snapped by the torque applied in the whiplash of his body as it was caught between two pillars. Their mental bond was broken. She completed him with her forehand blade as she stalked by. His distracting noise ceased after that moment.

She gathered herself, but before she began to attempt to establish a new harmony, to attempt to win back her system, one of the immature Ekhat sang out, “Intruders on the ship! Lower hall! Moving through the passages!”

Descant-at-the-Fourth sang a tone so high, so sharp, so savage that it could have cut glass.

“Death!” she intoned. “Complete them all! Let them be silent in the face of the Complete Harmony!”

She launched herself at the nearest door, which dilated just barely in time to allow her to pass, followed by the four surviving immature Ekhat and as many of the Trīkē servients as could keep up.

****

By Tully’s suit sensors, Alpha Company had moved almost half a kilometer. Not in a straight line, of course. They had taken several turns, leaving paint markers and communication links every time. As it turned out, the com links were a necessity, because something in the halls kept the com units from passing the walls.

They had yet to see another living being. It was almost eerie, walking through the oddly proportioned and doorways that followed swooping lines and intersected at something other than right angles. Twice they had dropped off fire teams to cover major intersections and provide some coverage of the advancing company’s back.

“Talk to me, Shan,” Tully murmured into his comm.

“Charlie Company has about a half dozen of some small slave species,” the XO replied. “They don’t want to come quietly, so it’s all the troops can do to keep them controlled even with their limbs tied down.”

“Tell Boatright to pull back,” Tully ordered. “He can leave sensors behind and leave a fire team back up the hall in case something ugly comes that direction, but he needs to get those prisoners back to the ship ASAP.”

The XO passed that order on, then continued his report with, “Bravo Company has no prisoners. But Torg reports that they’ve had several attacks by slaves of more than one type, none of which survived. He said, quote, “This is starting to remind me of Chicago.'”

That last gave Tully pause. Chicago had been the site of the bitterest battle between Jao and humans during the conquest of Earth. The Jao had learned then to hate humans’ inventiveness and improvisational ability with what passed for passion among the stolid folk. If Torg was feeling that kind of vibe…

He looked at his display–49 minutes since they started. “Tell Bravo to return to ship. Same orders as Charlie: leave sensors and a fire team in the hall. I’ll pass the order for Alpha to reverse direction as well.”

“Understood.”

“Oh, and Shan? Keep everyone on their toes. We ain’t out of the woods yet.”

“Right.”

****

Kaln krinnu ava Krant had walked down the gun line in her gun deck and triggered the load process for each of the guns one at a time. They were now loaded, and she was back at her deck commander station. From there she watched the tactical display on her station as the Pool Buntyam engaged the World Harvester. The Krant ship’s lasers were proving to be more powerful than the Ekhat’s, which meant they were doing more damage than they were receiving. Kaln watched the battle, and at one particular point began using her command station to aim the guns.

Once the guns were aimed, she stood loosely, posture neutral, waiting.

There came another point, and she pressed a command button. The twelve guns fired in rapid sequence.

The last gun had no sooner fired than a com signal came through at the station.

“Kaln, what are you doing?” The peremptory demand was from Krant-Captain Mallu, and she had expected it.

“Supporting Ban Chao,” she replied.

“Are you going to do that again?”

“No.”

The captain said nothing in reply.

Kaln leaned toward the tactical display, posture slowly shifting to anticipation.

****

The attack came ten minutes after Alpha Company had begun to retrace its steps through the almost-maze of corridors back to their entry point. They were in sight of the second fire team they had detached, ready to pick them up and continue rolling down their path, when what seemed like a horde of Ekhat and other creatures burst out of three small doorways and overran the detachment. There was a flurry of yells over the com band and a flurry of shots, but it was over in a few seconds. The fire team didn’t sell themselves cheaply, surrounding themselves with dead slaves and even an Ekhat, but they went down. The surviving attackers continued on down the corridor toward the main body.

There was no time for orders. The leading jinau troopers dropped to one knee and began shooting. Servients began to drop, but the Ekhat–all too many of them–continued hurtling toward the troops.

“Grenades!” Captain Kobayashi yelled, anticipating Tully by a split-second. Several flash-bang and fragmentation grenades flew from the jinau in the rear.

Having had at least a couple of seconds warning, the jinau were braced and prepared when they were hammered by successive waves of concussion. The attackers were not so fortunate. Tully watched several of the servients literally blown asunder by grenades that landed under their feet. One of the smaller Ekhat was picked up and slammed against the passageway ceiling by another one, and even the largest of the great aliens was staggered by the blasts.

 

Through Fire – Snippet 17

Through Fire – Snippet 17

Which was why when I reassembled the machine and turned it on, and the holo of a rather plain young woman, with scraped back dark hair and wearing a tunic as non-descript and grayish as mine floated in front of me, the first words out of her mouth were, “I’m sorry, the picture is not very clear. Can you move to another booth, please?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, I don’t wish to move to another booth,” I said.

There was a silence, and she looked like she would like to ask me why not, but instead, what she said was, “We like to have visual verification to protect your account integrity.”

“You have a genlock for verification,” I said.

The holo of the supervisor wagged its head, then looked away. I got the impression she was consulting something. “But why wouldn’t you wish for–”

“I’m comfortable in this booth, and I don’t wish to change,” I said, and infused my voice with that tone of I’m being unreasonable and prepared to make your life difficult that is the nightmare of anyone in a service position.

There was a long pause, then she said, “Very well. Is your account with us?”

I said no, and gave her the code for the bank in Liberte. I could have given her the name, but it was less likely she would remember what and where it was by the code, and I’d memorized the code, in case I ever needed to draw money elsewhere. Then I put my finger in the genlock, let it read it.

“Where would you like the money transferred and how much?” she asked.

“I would like it in to-go unmarked credigems,” I said. Simon had introduced me to these, and even given me a few, with instructions that I was to use them whenever I didn’t want the whole world to know about my purchases, since all the other records were tracked.

There was a silence. “We’d prefer to transfer it to an account in our bank,” she said. “We can offer you very competitive rates in–”

I repeated my request for pay-to-the-bearer gems. The hologram of the representative didn’t sigh, but gave the impression she wanted to; however presently, the little chute atop the machine ejected three glittering gems while a slit in the machine spit out a receipt telling me the account in Liberte was now closed.

The hologram of the bank employee vanished with the suddenness of something turned off, and I opened the door to the booth and walked out.

Slipping the gems into the pocket of my pants, I started making a mental list of what I needed and where I could find it.

One thing was sure, either on Earth or in Eden. I wasn’t going to find the cheapest prices in the brightly lit streets, with the beautiful buildings and the shining shops. And I’d learned something about seacities, too. In seacities, the lower levels correlated with the cheaper properties and the less expensive shops.

I ambled to an area where there were stairs down, then took them. I needed a broomer suit, not expensive but good, because I intended to fly at high altitude and fast, and the cheaper suits might not be well insulated enough to prevent my losing appendages. I probably had enough money for a flyer, but it seemed to me that if I took one, I’d be painting a huge target on myself. Much easier to see a flyer land. A broom could take advantage of any little bit of beach, or even, for that matter, go underwater, if needed.

What I was wearing would do for under the suit. I was still a little worried about sticking out, or being memorable, but assumed I’d pass more easily in my present clothes than if I had been properly attired and–

And I careened into someone, stepped back, started to apologize, and stopped. Something about her — not very clear, but remembered, sparked my memory. She didn’t look like anyone I knew, but there was something to the way she narrowed her eyes, to her expression that was familiar. Her eyes too were familiar. Very dark and intent.

It clicked suddenly and I remembered I had met her, but in passing. She was Martha Remy, Nat Remy’s twin sister, a head shorter than he was and with mousy brown hair instead of his pale blond crop, but the eyes were the same.

I had a moment of confusion, the unreasonable feeling that I was “caught” and then I stopped myself taking a deep breath, and told myself I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was an adult, with adult autonomy. Lucius Keeva might not want to render Simon assistance and help, but that didn’t mean I was forbidden from doing it. It just meant that I was on my own.

So I smiled graciously — a thing I’d learned to do from-the-lips-out in all sorts of embarrassing situations with people who expected me to know how to behave on Earth — and said, “I beg your pardon,” as I started to walk around her.

She grabbed my wrist. I just stopped myself from breaking her arm. In Eden you don’t grab strangers, you just don’t. And if you attempt to do it, you might find your arm broken or worse, you might find yourself taken to a traditional court for compensation. Sure, among family or friends there’s touching, but you simply don’t physically restrain someone you’ve barely been introduced to. And I was faster, stronger. Which is why I didn’t break her arm. You didn’t hurt normal people. I’d learned that early enough.

My checking of my own movement must have been noticeable because she took a little step back, startled. “You must let me talk to you,” she said. It was all in a rush, as though it came out impelled by some violent emotion. “You must. Luce is going to send you in there and–”

“The Good– Lieutenant Colonel Keeva is not sending me anywhere,” I said. “He has told me he’ll give what help he can, but in fact he can give no help, so I’m free to stay and will be sheltered but there’s no help for Simon.”

She stomped her foot, hard. “That,” she said, “is just what I mean. He’s sending you in there with no help at all, and you can’t go. You just can’t. If you do, you’ll end up dead, and Simon will end up dead and it won’t do anyone any good.”

I stared at her. “Something wrong with your hearing?” I asked. I rarely allowed myself to be rude. It’s an expensive luxury. But talking to Martha Remy was like howling at a hurricane. “He’s not sending me anywhere. He’s not interested. I can please myself and do what I wish.”

She narrowed her eyes, but not at me, more like she was trying to sort through something. My rudeness glanced off her as though she had an invisible shield. “That’s how he’d do it. Luce, I mean. Oh, I don’t want you to think badly of him. I rather like him, in a way, which is good since I think he’s permanently attached to our family through Nat — but that’s how he does things. He no longer has any power, objectively. He never had any power, in a way, because before his father died, he had none, but the thing is, he’s learned to get people to do what he wants. He wants you to go to Liberte and rescue Simon. And he doesn’t want his fingerprints on it. But he’s being so clever that he’s stupid, because you’d just get killed.”

“That’s exactly what he said,” I said. “That it would be suicide.”

“Yes,” she nodded. “He would. But I don’t think he realized that he was exactly right. He’s not, you see, very worldly. Not really. You can’t be when your entire life was artificial, and you spent fourteen years away from all human beings.” She rubbed her fist under her nose, in a reflexive gesture that looked like something a young child would do. “He wouldn’t realize how you stick out, how odd you are.”

“Beg your pardon?” I asked, wondering if she were paying me back with rudeness for rudeness.

She looked at me, but I still got the impression she wasn’t seeing me. Not as Zen Sienna, not as a person she was talking to, but as a problem, a cipher, something to be calculated and weighed. “How could you not be?” she said. “You’re not from here. And you stick out all over.” She sighed, and seemed to focus on me, really focus on me for the first time. “Are you determined to go and rescue Simon, one way or another?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think I have to.” This was not the place to explain to her how I’d been raised with the idea that I owed normal humans service, nor the load of unspoken guilt in my mind because I couldn’t save the one normal human who meant the most to me. Len had trusted me, and all I could give him was death. I was not going to have another death on my conscience.

This time she was looking at me, looking into my eyes, evaluating me. She sighed. “Well, then,” she said. “You’re going to need Royce.”

“Who?”

“Royce Allard,” she said. “You’ll see.”

 

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 32

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 32

“Wait here,” the man said before closing and locking the door.

A few minutes later Peter turned up. “I hope it’s important,” he said by way of greeting. “I’m losing money just talking to you.”

“Your sister came round to the laboratory with a message . . .”

“Katarina’s okay?” Peter demanded.

Johann held up his hands. “She’s okay. She asked me to pass on the message that Elisabeth Brotbeck died an hour ago.”

“Brotbeck?” Peter looked skyward as he repeated the name a couple of times. Then suddenly he looked back at Johann. “Yes!” he said as he shot a fisted hand into the air. “I have to tell Professor Bauhin this.” Peter pushed past the door guard and disappeared into the darkened building.

Johann followed, ignoring the half-hearted protest of the man at the door. “What’s so important about someone dying?” he asked once he caught up with Peter.

Peter shot a glance at Johann. “Professor Bauhin needs bodies for his anatomy course,” he said.

Johann nodded. He knew that. “But I thought you already had as many bodies as he needed.”

“We do, but Elisabeth Brotbeck was with child.” Peter smiled smugly. “Professor Bauhin will pay well for such a cadaver. Wait here,” he said when they arrived at the curtained off entrance to the anatomy theater.

Johann twitched the curtain aside so he could watch Peter. First he slipped up beside one of Professor Bauhin’s assistants, and talked to him, and then the assistant attracted the attention of the older man leading the dissection. A few words were exchanged before the older man made his apologies to the audience and left an older assistant in charge while he followed Peter back behind the curtain.

“The woman still carries the child?” Professor Bauhin asked Peter the moment they were behind the curtain.

“Frau Brotbeck was over three months pregnant, Professor Bauhin. My sister would have said if she’d lost the child.”

Professor Bauhin licked his lips. He paused for a few seconds before nodding vigorously. “It’ll have to be a private demonstration,” he muttered aloud. “Stay here a moment while I get Jean,” he told Peter before disappearing through the curtain.

Less than a minute later Professor Bauhin returned with his son. “Jean, I want you to go with Peter to check out the body. You know what to look for?”

“That the body still contains the unborn child,” Jean said.

Professor Bauhin nodded. “Now, don’t pay too much for the body,” he said as he handed Jean a purse.

****

The three of them stepped out of the chilly dead room attached to St Ulrich’s Church and into the sunlight. Peter turned to Jean. “Do you think your father and Dr. Gribbleflotz could determine what killed her?”

“Of course,” Jean said. “Why do you want to know?”

“There’s no of course about it. Your father and Dr. Gribbleflotz were unable to work out how Hans the Boatman died.”

“That’s hardly fair,” Jean protested. “When Dr. Gribbleflotz failed to find river water in his lungs it opened a whole world of possibilities.”

Johann hurried ahead a few paces and turned to face his companions. “Hold it. Who’s Hans the Boatman, and what’s so important about water in his lungs?”

Peter and Jean stopped, and Peter took a deep breath. “Hans the Boatman was the cadaver Dr. Gribbleflotz dissected in his anatomy course back in December.”

“His body had been pulled out of the Rhine, so everyone assumed he’d fallen into the river and drowned,” Jean said.

“Except there was no water in his lungs, so Dr. Gribbleflotz and Jean’s father thought he must have been dead before he hit the water,” Peter said. “And over the next three days they failed to determine how he died.”

“Hans’ body had been in the river for several days before it was discovered, so a lot of the important clues were lost,” Jean said. He waved back towards St Ulrich’s. “Frau Brotbeck’s body is so fresh it’s still warm, so the clues should still be there.”

“Why are you so interested in how the woman died?” Johann asked.

“The families like to know,” Peter answered.

A week later

Johann was enjoying walking around with a delightful companion on his arm when he noticed Peter accepting money from a couple of guys. He turned to Katarina. “What sort of thing would Peter do for guys like those two?” he asked.

Katarina looked in the direction Johann was indicating and snorted. “He’s not getting paid for any work he might have done, he’s collecting his winnings.”

“Peter gambles?” Johann asked. That didn’t fit his image of the youth. He seemed too concerned with money to risk losing any on a game of chance.

“Only on sure things,” Katarina muttered. She looked at her brother for a few seconds more before tugging at Johann’s arm. “Let’s keep moving. I need to get some ribbon for Maria.”

Maria was Katarina’s mistress, and Johann had the impression they were good friends for all that Katarina was her maid. He let her lead him away from Peter, only glancing back once, to see Peter collecting money from someone else. “What kind of sure things?” he asked.

“The latest was that Dr. Gribbleflotz and Professor Bauhin would be able to determine what killed Elisabeth Brotbeck.”

“What kind of sick individual bets on things like that?” Johann muttered.

“Sick people like my brother and his friends,” Katarina said. “Look, there. They have ribbon just the right color for Maria’s wedding dress.” She tightened her grip on Johann’s hand and surged through the crowd.

Johann let himself be dragged along. Visiting haberdashery shops was part of the price of walking out with Katarina, but her company more than made up for any embarrassment he might have felt being seen in such a store.

Early April, 1623

Phillip emptied the maggots into the large glass bowl of warm water and gently swished them around. A quick glance Johann’s way caught him watching what he was doing. “Shouldn’t you be watching your retorts?” Phillip asked.

Johann nodded guiltily, but continued to stare at the bowl in front of Phillip. “What’re you doing?” he asked.

“Do you remember we talked once about ‘maggot therapy’?” Phillip asked.

Johann nodded. “You said that maggot therapy was surgical, and that if I wanted to learn about surgery, I should enroll at the university.”

“That’s true. However, what I’m doing now is more iatrochemical than surgical. While I was serving in the Low Countries I noticed that in patients having their wounds treated with maggots the wounds became flooded with a clear . . .”

“Treated with maggots?” Johann’s voice was high pitched. “What are you treating with maggots?”

“Battle wounds,” Phillip said. “While I was serving as a military surgeon and physician, I discovered, like many military surgeons and physicians before me, that soldiers who have been left for days on the battlefield with fly blown wounds often had a better chance of surviving than soldiers who receive timely treatment from a surgeon or physician.

“Well, if you were to inspect a wound that is full of maggots, you would see that they are immersed in a clear, thick, liquid. I looked at that clear liquid, and wondered at its properties.”

“What properties?” Johann asked.

“Well, why is it that maggots can live in rotten flesh?” Phillip asked. “Could it be because they live in a liquid that somehow protects them?

“Naturally, I conducted some tests,” Philip said.

“Of course you did,” Johann muttered.

Phillip ignored Johann’s muttered comment and continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I discovered that the liquor, when introduced into a wound not being treated with maggots, healed a lot faster than ones where it was not used. So I hypothesized that there was something in the liquor that is medically beneficial.” Phillip carefully siphoned off the slime from the surface of the water and poured it into an apothecary’s mixing bowl. “I now use it in my special wound ointment.”

Johann pointed to the maggots still struggling in the bowl of water. “What do you do with the maggots after washing off the slime?”

Phillip smiled. “You will now fish them out of the water and destructively distill them to produce the Quinta Essentia of maggots.”

Johann reluctantly collected the maggots and loaded them into retorts before setting them over the furnace. It wasn’t long before the Quinta Essentia of the maggots was dripping into the collection vessels.

“What do you want me to do with the remnants?” Johann asked sometime later as he removed the first of the spent retorts form the furnace.

“Empty the powder into a jar and seal it for later. I’ve got some fresh Quinta Essentia of the Waters of Wine due to mature in three months’ time, and I’ll see what I can extract from the remnants . . .” Phillip stopped speaking to listen. Yes, he had heard the clatter of wooden shoes on cobblestones coming down the street. He didn’t have much of a medical practice, preferring to work in his laboratory rather than treat patients, but he was on call for the guard. Maybe one of them had injured themselves. He just hoped it wasn’t Leonard Stohler again.

The footfalls slowed just outside, and then the door burst open.