McCollum - GIBRALTAR STARS Page 11

  A successful defense required close coordination. Holes had to be plugged quickly and orders followed with instant obedience. This led to an authoritarian ruling structure within the clans, leaders whose task it was to defend the forest. It was only natural for Zel-Sen’s ancestors to extend the forest culture to the whole of the planet following the Great Consolidation.

  With central rule came the decision to build a single grand capital, one worthy of a newly unified Race. Once the site for Old City was chosen, no expense was spared. The greatest architect of the day was put in charge of building the new city, to be named Valar.

  Yet, grand as the city was, it was too small for the modern era. Constrained by its defensive wall, Old City could not be expanded. Beyond the walls, a wide greensward encircled the battlements. The cleared approaches had once been a defensive killing field. They were now a park, a place of flowers and stone sculptures.

  At the end of the green lay a ring of modern office buildings constructed by the Great Clans in the diverse styles of their home regions. Beyond the towers lay another green barrier, and encircling all, the sprawling warren where the subservients lived.

  Tradition prohibited powered vehicles within the battlements of Old City. During the day, foot traffic congested the broad avenues. The overcrowding was not the fault of the genius who designed the city. He built for his own time and built grandly. He could hardly be blamed for underestimating the growth that would take place with the coming of the stargate.

  #

  Zel-Sen gazed out over the assembled clan masters from his perch high above the council floor. What he saw was controlled chaos.

  The Council Chamber was a huge circular hall with a raised island at its center where Zel-Sen stood. He scanned the full circle and found the hall near its capacity. As custom demanded, the surrounding floor of polished pink granite was unadorned by furniture or accoutrements. It was merely a place for the Rulers of Civilization to congregate and debate matters of importance. Today, the assembled clan masters milled about shoulder-to-wide-shoulder in a random molecular motion that never ceased.

  The chamber was large enough to have a distinct echo when empty. It did not echo today. Not only was it filled with bodies, but the building’s sound suppression field was running at full power, giving the crowd noise a curiously dead aura — much like the dense fogs that often blanked the capital of the Eastern Islands.

  Immediately after Consolidation, membership in the Ruling Council was limited to only the most powerful clans. However, over the many great-gross cycles since, history conspired to broaden council membership far beyond the original two dozen.

  The modern council barely fit in the ancient building. There were periodic suggestions that a larger hall be constructed, but custom decreed the laws of Civilization be made only in this place. Nor had it proved viable to reduce the size of the membership. Individual clans were too protective of their hard-won privileges to give them up voluntarily.

  With the discovery that pathways could be driven beneath the substance of space-time to nearby star systems, the Ancestors went exploring. What they found was that life is ubiquitous, and intelligence is found in many of the star systems where life has developed.

  The Ancestors took what they learned fighting pelen and applied it to each alien race. A threat that cannot be controlled is one that cannot be allowed to exist. And so it was that the Great Consolidation was taken to the stars.

  The stargate proved the perfect instrument for conquest. No species lacking the gate could stand against them. Each race was locked into its home prison of space and time, and only the Race had the key to the cell door. If a species resisted, Broan war craft appeared without warning in their skies. Nor was post-conquest resistance effective. The Ancestors quickly developed strategies to handle recalcitrant species. Usually, the Race was able to turn an alien population docile within a generation or two. Those who could not be tamed were exterminated.

  But a successful conquest was not without its problems. For once a world has been captured, what exactly does one do with it?

  In the case of most worlds, the answer was “not much.” Each world was organized to provide the most benefit to the Race. However, many planets could not be occupied directly… either because of inhospitable climate, or chemical poisons, or dangerous microorganisms. Even worlds that proved hospitable were usually not permanently occupied. The Race’s low birthrate did not provide sufficient snouts each generation for Ssasfal to exercise direct control over its widespread holdings.

  It had been inevitable, then, that lesser clans would be given suzerainty over conquered systems when the Great Clans were unable to provide personnel to do so. Slowly, Those Who Once Served transformed themselves into Those Who Now Rule and demanded a place on the council.

  Zel-Sen let the history of this place run through his mind while he waited for the time mark that would signal the start of the session. Soon battle horns sounded, as they had for generations in the middle forest. It was time to begin.

  He moved forward to stand on the dais that let him be seen by all. In many ways, the announcement platform reminded him of a traditional stage, where the performers balanced on a net spread taut across the vine tangle of the mid-layer, and the audience gazed down from their perches overhead. However, Zel-Sen was the one gazing down from on high. The arrangement did not feel natural, perhaps because it was the arrangement used by so many strider species.

  He stood erect, pulling himself to his full height, and began to speak. His amplified words echoed back to him from the far corners of the hall.

  “Clan Masters, you will note that only members of the council are present today. There are no staff members recording this meeting, nor are there subservients anywhere in Old City. This is a sealed conclave and you are sworn to secrecy by ancestor oath. I ask you all to acknowledge your understanding of these strictures.”

  He waited for each master to thumb his personal computer and record his acknowledgement. Within a dozen heartbeats, a buzz in his ear indicated that all present had acknowledged their responsibilities.

  “I will now tell you why you are here today. The news is as startling as it is disturbing.

  “Clan Masters. We believe there is a wild species loose in Civilization!”

  #

  Along with intelligence comes the power of speech, or at least, of communication. It was a logical necessity. Without the ability to communicate, intelligence is of little use.

  While taciturn when supervising subservients, Masters were highly vocal among themselves. As he knew it would, Zel-Sen’s announcement set off a storm of exclamations. The sudden roar was so quick that the sound suppression field took a moment to deaden it.

  Zel-Sen touched a hidden screen. Dos-Val ascended a ramp into view of the clan masters. As the scientist knuckle-walked to the podium, the furious chattering died away.

  Zel-Sen scanned his screen and selected the name of one of the oldest councilors to be first to speak.

  “Bal-Tan of the Bal-Col,” his words echoed through the hall. “You wish to comment?”

  “An inflammatory statement,” the grizzled oldster called. Like the Prime Councilor, his words were easily picked up by the sound sensors in the domed roof and directed to all present. “I presume you have evidence.”

  Zel-Sen made the gesture of the affirmative. “I will ask Dos-Val of the Ministry of Science to explain what we have found.”

  The Prime Councilor stepped aside and Dos-Val took his place. The scientist quickly sketched the situation. He told of how the fugitive bipeds came to the attention of Those Who Rule, and how the same two individuals were identified on two different planets a dozen jumps distant from one another.

  “They called themselves Vulcans at Klys’kra’t, the first planet they visited, and Trojans at Pastol, the second. They used different epidermal paint schemes, but their biochemistry was identical. Apparently, the coloring was an attempt at disguise. Naturally, we originally thought we we
re dealing with a shipload of known criminals. That perception changed in the Etnarii system. The biped ship left its parking orbit about the agricultural planet of Pastol just as Commander Pas-Tek’s ship arrived…”

  Dos-Val recounted the long chase by the Avenger Blood Oath as the bipeds fled toward the system’s stargate. “The fugitives made it to the star gate just in front of our ship, and began the jump sequence. Then, their ship appeared to explode, vaporizing the surrounding gate.”

  Dos-Val pressed a control and the holographic image of the explosion appeared over his head. The assembled clan masters watched in silence as the freighter entered the gate, began to charge its generators, and then vaporized.

  “Note that I said ‘appeared’ to explode,” Dos-Val exclaimed, picking up the narrative. “The explosion was extraordinarily violent and destroyed the gate. However, I do not believe the aliens were caught in it. Commander Pas-Tek made meticulous recordings and took readings of the local density of the gas cloud afterward. When we integrated his readings, we found only the mass of the gate. Of the Type Seven freighter, there was no trace.”

  “That’s impossible,” an unidentified master called out. His words wafted upward to Dos-Val naturally. “How could a ship explode and leave no trace?”

  “We do not believe it exploded. The aliens we seek somehow created the illusion after leaving the gate.”

  “Do you suggest they left a bomb behind after they jumped?”

  “They did not jump,” Dos-Val said. “No gravity wave was detected and Blood Oath was close enough that they would have been able to feel the disturbance without instruments.”

  “Then where is it?” the heckler shouted. This time, his words were picked up by the sound system and wafted over the assembled masters. There was a general murmur of agreement.

  “That is a very good question,” Zel-Sen said, returning to the stage. “Answering it may well be the most important challenge the Race has yet faced.”

  #

  Chapter Fourteen

  For the third time in his life, Mark Rykand sat in the wide, comfortable seat of a bullet car on the short trip from Zurich to Meersburg. The first time he’d ridden this line had been that awful morning after he’d learned of Jani’s death. He barely remembered the journey, consumed as he had been with grief and a burning desire to learn the truth. Of the rocket-like sprint through the Swiss countryside and under Lake Constance, he had no clear memory at all.

  The second time followed the return of the first expedition into Broan space. He and Lisa had cuddled together one bright summer day and watched green fields filled with cows and vineyards slip by at 500 KPH, while soft rhythmic jolts pressed their bodies together as the car leaped from accelerator ring to accelerator ring, with nothing but Newton’s three laws to hold it aloft in the intervening gaps.

  The trigger for that previous trip had been a summons to Stellar Survey Headquarters to report in person on what the expedition had found. It had been a journey as emotion-filled as the first, although less debilitating. Mark remembered being sad then, too; partly out of remembrance for lost Jani, but also because of the news they were delivering.

  And now they found themselves summoned once more. Amethyst barely made parking orbit when the orders came through. The message on each of their comm units was written in the usual clipped Navalese: “Lieutenant-Commander Mark Rykand is relieved as Executive Officer and ordered to report in company with Lieutenant Lisabeth Rykand to Fleet Headquarters, Europe, on or about 15 February 2353 for debriefing and reassignment.”

  Captain Borsman had one of those I Told You So! looks in his eyes as he read the order. His only comment was, “That didn’t take long, Commander. They must be in a hurry.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well good luck. I’ll forward my evaluation on to Fleet HQ once I arrange for Amy’s re-supply. You have nothing to fear from it.”

  “Thank you, sir. It was good serving under you.”

  “It’s been good having you aboard. Better get moving. You’ve less than two hours before that shuttle docks.”

  The shuttle was crowded. In addition to Mark and Lisa, half the Project Stargate scientists were aboard. The party split up at Sandia Spaceport, with the scientists hustled off to God knows where, while he and Lisa made their way to the suborbital rocket terminal to catch their flight to Zurich.

  As usual, returning to Earth and breathing real air, even the air of the spaceport concourse, was exhilarating. The feeling didn’t last long. As they passed through the transfer tube gate, they found an Ensign waiting for them. He carried supplementary orders and two garment bags. Mark accepted the data transfer and read the orders while Lisa unsealed the bags, first one and then the other.

  “We’ve got to hurry,” Mark said, closing the cover of his communicator and tucking it back into his uniform coveralls. “They’re holding the suborbital for us.”

  “These are dress uniforms,” Lisa said, checking size labels. “And they’re our sizes.”

  “We’ve orders to arrive in Meersburg by 20:00 Local, and be in them.”

  Unlike his previous two visits, this time they arrived at Zurich Space Terminus just as the sun was setting. For once the weather was clear enough to see the surrounding Alps, their snowcapped peaks aflame with a red-orange hue.

  By the time they boarded the bullet car, evening had descended on the world beyond the curved glass of the observation blister. A half moon low in the west wanly illuminated fields of skeletal vines topped by white blankets of newly fallen snow. In the distance, the lights of sturdy farmhouses marched into view and then disappeared astern with a familiar alacrity. Each passing second brought with it an electric-blue flash, accompanied by a gentle shove, the visual and physical cues that the car had traversed another accelerator ring.

  “There’s the lake,” Lisa said, pointing to a wide, flat blackness in front of them. Dots of colored lights marked the location of various watercraft out for a nighttime sail, while the blinking strobes of a vehicle ferry could be seen near the southern shore. The scene was only visible for a few seconds.

  Mark patted her hand and ordered her to take a breath. “If you don’t, you are going to pass out.”

  To his surprise, Lisa’s mood had changed at Sandia Spaceport. She was excited on the trip down from orbit, despite the sheath of superheated plasma that danced a few centimeters from her nose. She literally squirmed against the restraining straps. Her joy seemed to peak when the first breath of real air washed over them as the airlock opened after landing.

  That joy persisted until they encountered the ensign in the concourse. Their supplemental orders had changed her mood. Her excitement morphed into a slowly increasing tension that grew the closer they got to Meersburg.

  He’d asked her what was wrong, and received the standard answer known to husbands down through the ages: “Nothing.”

  In the intervening hours, nothing had grown into something, but she still refused to say what. She answered his comment with a non sequitur.

  “I really don’t see why we have to…” she said, her voice petering out as she gazed pensively beyond the car. Each time they passed through the focus of a ring, her features were put in stark relief by the accompanying flash. It should have hurt their eyes, but didn’t. The plastic of the observation dome absorbed the spark’s ultraviolet wavelengths.

  “Because the Admiral said so,” he replied, attempting to cajole her out of her mood. “The orders read, ‘Report to Fleet Headquarters – Meersburg in full dress uniform.’ When you raise your hand and take the oath, that means you have to do what the admiral says. If we don’t, they’re liable to ship us back to Brinks.”

  “At the moment, I wish we’d never left,” his wife said, looking at him with a scowl.

  Soon, the outer darkness became a lighted tunnel. At the same time, their ears popped. The Count Otto Von Zeppelin Tunnel was the last stage of their journey. Beyond lay the glass and steel pyramid that had once been Stellar Survey He
adquarters and was now Space Fleet HQ – Europe.

  #

  Save for the different holographic sign in the terminal, Fleet Headquarters might have still belonged to the Stellar Survey. No, that wasn’t right, Mark thought. There were a lot more uniforms in evidence than there had been. In fact, the ratio of uniforms to civilian attire was essentially reversed from his first visit.

  “Where do you suppose we go?” Lisa asked. Mark had both kit bags containing their effects in one hand and the other looped around his wife’s waist.

  “I suspect this clean-cut young man is about to tell us.”

  In front of them, making his way through the crowd, a youngish man in the uniform of a Space Marine Lieutenant strode with the air of someone who knows where he is going. His uniform bore the insignia of a Dog Robber, an Admiral’s Aide. And if that weren’t enough, he was looking right at them.

  “Commander Rykand? Lieutenant Rykand?”

  “Yes,” Mark answered for both of them.

  “Lieutenant Renaldi. I’m here to escort you upstairs. Do the uniforms fit?”

  “They do,” Lisa answered. “How did you know our measurements?”

  “Fleetcom got them from your ship about the time you were embarking. I had them whipped up before you hit atmosphere.”

  “What’s this about, Renaldi?” Mark asked.

  “The admiral’s planning a small ceremony and a dinner afterward. You two are the guests of honor.”

  Their guide scurried off and they had to move briskly to keep up. He led them up the escalator, across the cavernous foyer with its polished marble floor, to the V.I.P. lift. The first time Mark visited this building, he’d been whisked all the way to the top. This time, they stopped on the sixth floor. Renaldi ushered them to a three-meter tall door that seemed to have been cast out of single block of black crystal.

  “Toes on the balk line, backs straight, stand at attention, Commander, Lieutenant. When the door opens, march straight forward until you reach the steps. Stand at attention until your names are called. Do you understand the instructions?”