Читать книгу Earth Star - Janet Edwards, Janet Edwards - Страница 11

I was scared stiff when we arrived at the door of Colonel Riak Torrek’s quarters. I’d seen vid scenes of formal Military dinners, with tables large enough to land a fighter on, covered with gleaming genuine glassware and surrounded by hundreds of officers. My own dining experience was limited to the chattering chaos of eating with the other kids in Commons at our Next Step, and with my classmates in our dome hall.

Once inside the door, I was hugely relieved to find only three officers lounging in comfortable chairs. There was a table, but it was tucked away against a wall, and just held drinks, a stack of flexiplas plates, and some trays of food. I’d been a nardle to panic. The Colonel wouldn’t be holding fancy dinner parties when Alien Contact programme was active.

There might only be three other officers in the room, but Fian and I were in very select company. One Colonel and two Commanders. Colonel Riak Torrek looked extremely tired, and was wearing a rather crumpled standard uniform. As commanding officer, he could wear whatever he liked of course.

The two Commanders were in dress uniform. One of them was the woman from the briefing, Commander Nia Stone. The other was a dark man with an angular, thoughtful face.

Fian and I saluted, Colonel Torrek pointed at a couple of empty chairs, and we sat down.

‘Jarra Tell Morrath and Fian Eklund, I think you know my deputy, Nia Stone, already. This is her husband, Mason Leveque, our Threat team leader.’

We exchanged nods to acknowledge the introductions.

Colonel Torrek looked at me with amusement. ‘Jarra Tell Morrath causes as much chaos as her grandmother. Since your suggestion at the briefing, we’ve created an Ark team, and we have any number of people working on preparations to portal the civilian population into Ark if the situation worsens. You’ll notice I haven’t had time to shower or change.’

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘Don’t be. I was having nightmares because we couldn’t portal the Handicapped off world. In the event of hostilities, they wouldn’t just be vulnerable to alien attack, but there could be casualties from our own weapons’ fire. Ark has its own self-contained atmosphere and a shield of solid rock. If you have any more bright ideas, I want to hear them.’

He paused. ‘What’s your situation analysis, Jarra?’

I was grazzed by the question, and needed a moment to organize my thoughts. ‘In theory, Earth is the best defended of all our planets, because it has five solar power arrays instead of the usual one. If the sphere’s hostile and came here deliberately, it must have defences that can stand up to planetary power beams.’

He nodded.

‘It may not be hostile though,’ I continued. ‘The sphere could be a random exploration probe. Perhaps it isn’t trying to communicate because the aliens don’t expect there to be other intelligent life in the universe.’

Colonel Torrek leaned forward in his chair. ‘No one has suggested that before. Is it credible? Surely if they’re exploring space they’d realize there’s at least a possibility of meeting another civilization.’

I shook my head. ‘Not necessarily. During most of pre-history, humanity believed it was totally alone in the universe. Once we had drop portals, we discovered hundreds of thousands of worlds with varying forms of life, only a small percentage of which were suitable for human colonization. Our mathematicians decided centuries ago that intelligent aliens had to exist, and we’ve already discovered two planets with neo-intelligent life forms.’

I shrugged. ‘We’re naturally prepared to meet intelligent aliens, but aliens will have a different historical perspective. They could have developed technology far in advance of ours, without stumbling across the key to basic portal travel, let alone drop portals. If they’ve been limited to conventional space travel, they may have very little information on other worlds.’

‘We’re naturally considering the possibility they don’t have interstellar portals,’ said Colonel Torrek, ‘but to actually believe they’re the only intelligent life in the universe …’

He glanced across at Mason Leveque, who nodded and spoke in a deep, relaxed voice. ‘Minimal effect on our current numbers, sir, but still worth incorporating into the probability analysis. At any moment, we may have new information that radically changes the weighting factors of the zonal nets.’

I didn’t understand a word of that. There was a moment of silence, so I risked speaking again.

‘Since you’re recruiting a History team, sir, it’s obvious you’ve already thought of another possibility. Aliens could have visited here before, at a time when humanity only lived on Earth, and they’ve simply come back to the same place to see how we’re progressing.’

The Colonel smiled. ‘You’re absolutely right, Jarra.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Fian, hesitantly. ‘You say you’re considering the possibility the aliens don’t have interstellar portal travel?’

Colonel Torrek turned to him. ‘Yes, we don’t know if the sphere portalled into Sol system or travelled here conventionally. Monitoring team are watching for the energy bursts of drop portals now, but we don’t know what we missed earlier.’

‘But …’ Fian shook his head. ‘Physical laws limit the size of portals. We’ve only managed to create them 4 metres in diameter so far, and 4.4 metres is possible, but the sphere is 4.71 metres. That’s over the maximum limit. The sphere definitely didn’t portal here. That must mean the aliens didn’t have drop portal technology when it was launched, or they’d have made their sphere a bit smaller and used a drop portal to send it at least part of the way here.’

Mason Leveque raised an eyebrow. ‘Captain Eklund, are you by any chance related to the Jorgen Eklund who wrote “Physical Constraints on Portal Development”?’

‘He was my great-grandfather,’ said Fian, looking surprisingly defensive about the admission.

‘Interesting,’ said Leveque. ‘Our Physics team seems to have rejected his work in favour of the more recent Devon theory which would allow portals to reach in excess of 16 metres. Possibly they’re swayed by the fact Gaius Devon is on the Physics team and has a forceful personality.’

Fian shrugged. ‘Gaius Adem Devon the third … Well, if you think it’s good science to introduce a constant from nowhere just to make your equations add up … My uncle says it shouldn’t be called the Gaius constant, but the garbage constant.’

Since I’d always struggled with science at school and given up studying it as soon as possible, I didn’t know about any of this, but I was naturally on Fian’s side against the unknown Devon.

‘I must admit to being intrigued, Captain Eklund,’ said Leveque. ‘Why is a descendant of Jorgen Eklund studying history? Please don’t tell me you’re working on time travel. I’ve always been deeply grateful that it’s supposed to be impossible.’

Fian flushed, with either embarrassment or annoyance, possibly both. ‘My great-grandfather may have been a brilliant physicist, but I’m not, and I happen to like history.’

He paused and his chin developed a familiar stubborn tilt. I watched anxiously as he continued speaking in a determined voice.

‘I understand the Military like the idea of bigger portals, so you could have battleships rather than just fighters, but it isn’t possible. That’s very important right now, because if that sphere came to Earth conventionally, it took a long time to do it. I assume you’re already double-checking the star systems closest to Earth for signs of intelligent alien life?’

Leveque nodded, his eyes studying Fian’s face. ‘We’re gradually working our way out from Earth, checking every star system in Alpha sector. Humanity could conceivably have overlooked something among the vast numbers of systems without Earth type worlds, especially in the first chaos of Exodus century. So far we’ve found no possible origin world for the sphere.’

‘Then it came a very long way and took a very long time to get here,’ said Fian. ‘Hundreds or even thousands of years. You mustn’t make the mistake of assuming it represents the aliens’ current level of technology. They could have made huge progress since they launched that sphere. Just compare the weapons we have now to the ones humanity had a thousand years ago in 1789.’

He was speaking with passionate urgency now. ‘The aliens didn’t have portal technology when that sphere was launched, but they could have discovered it by now. That means more spheres might appear at any moment. Smaller ones, that can fit through the maximum possible size of a portal, and are far more advanced. I know you don’t want to hear that, because it’s unpleasant, but it’s the truth.’

‘I assure you, Captain Eklund, that a Threat team leader is always interested in hearing every possible theory,’ said Leveque. ‘Particularly the unpleasant ones.’

Fian was obviously disconcerted by Leveque’s calm reply. There was an awkward silence which was broken by Nia Stone.

‘I suggest we all eat now, Riak, and then you should go to bed.’

‘Seconded,’ said Mason Leveque. ‘You’ve had no rest since the sphere was first detected, Riak. We’ve taken the base off alert status so people can sleep and that includes you. If the sphere does something, or a whole armada of smaller spheres portal in, the last thing we need is a commanding officer who’s half dead from fatigue.’

I blinked with surprise as they calmly ordered the Colonel around. This was obviously an informal meeting, but even so …

‘You’re right, both of you. We eat.’ Colonel Torrek stood up with an obvious effort.

Everyone else hastily stood up as well, and formed an orderly queue behind him for food and drinks. There was wine, there were some fancy drinks I didn’t recognize, and there was frujit. I played safe and stuck to frujit.

The food was real food, rather than reconstituted, so I piled my plate high. There were some tempting desserts too, but I might not get a chance at those. If the Colonel went to bed, Fian and I couldn’t hang around in his dining room stuffing our faces.

We all sat down again, and concentrated on eating for a few minutes. I glanced across at Fian. Having said what he wanted to say, he seemed to have calmed down a bit.

Colonel Torrek’s forearm lookup gave a chime to indicate an emergency message, and I stopped eating and waited tensely. Had the alien sphere responded to our signals, or done something hostile, or …

‘I thought I was a patient man,’ said the Colonel, ‘but I’ve just about hit my limit here. Don’t these people realize I’m too busy to pamper their precious academic egos?’

I’d no idea what he was talking about, but I wasn’t risking asking questions when a full Colonel looked that annoyed.

Colonel Torrek closed his eyes for a few seconds and then opened them again. ‘Well, if that’s what they want, they can have it!’ He paused for a moment before speaking in a calmer voice. ‘That was a representative of the History team. Apparently, it’s impossible for them to work with a team leader who knows nothing about the history of Earth. They’re demanding I replace Major Tar Cameron immediately.’

‘Rayne Tar Cameron doesn’t exactly love them either,’ said Nia Stone. ‘She says it’s like babysitting a bunch of 2-year-olds. If she turns her back on them for ten minutes to do her Command Support work, they do something stupid.’

‘Something stupid like sending me emergency messages,’ said Colonel Torrek. ‘For the second time! Well, if they want a team leader who knows Earth history, they can have one.’ He turned to me. ‘Jarra, you’ll be the new History team leader, with Fian as your deputy.’

I dropped my fork on my plate, and stared at him. ‘But … We’re only pre-history students, sir, not experts.’

‘You’ve already proved you’re far more use to me than eight leading civilian experts on the pre-history of Earth,’ said Colonel Torrek. ‘It was only after my experts arrived that I discovered most of them had never even visited Earth before.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Yes, well, it was only twenty years ago that they changed the rules to make history students spend a year working on Earth’s dig sites.’

Colonel Torrek sighed. ‘Even if they’d never actually been to Earth, surely at least one of them knew Ark existed, but none of them had the tactical sense to tell me about it. It’s not enough to have a lot of knowledge. I need someone who can look at a mountain of irrelevant information, and spot the single tiny fact which rates giving me an emergency call at any hour of the day or night. You’ve shown you can do that, Jarra.’

Nia Stone laughed. ‘You should have seen the desperation on Jarra’s face, Riak. Sitting in that briefing, about to explode if I didn’t let her speak.’

I blushed. ‘Sorry, sir. I’d just realized you wouldn’t know about Ark.’

‘It was essential information,’ said Mason Leveque. ‘Our only question is whether we evacuate people as soon as Ark is ready, or whether we wait. We’ve gone up to 49.3 per cent threat level, but evacuating the entire planetary population on the basis of one small sphere that’s doing nothing seems excessive and has political implications. Announcing the arrival of aliens is likely to cause significant public concern.’

Colonel Torrek smiled. ‘That’s putting it mildly. High Congress won’t like an announcement, but they may have to accept it. The General Marshal says he’ll back me all the way rather than risk the civilian population of an entire planet.’

He sighed. ‘Commanding the Earth solar arrays was supposed to be a quiet retirement job, but first I get a solar super storm and now aliens. I’ll need an extra week in a rejuvenation tank after this. If you can find any evidence the aliens have been to Earth before, Jarra, it might give us some clue whether they’re friendly or hostile. I’d be grateful for anything, because I’m making decisions blind.’

‘They may have been here before, but no records were made or they’ve been lost. We can only check through what records still exist.’ I frowned. ‘Leading pre-history experts won’t like a Foundation course student telling them what to do.’

‘Then get rid of them and replace them with people who realize the survival of humanity is more important than their egos,’ said Colonel Torrek.

‘You’ll need to make Jarra a Major if she’s taking over as History team leader,’ said Nia Stone. ‘Her team wouldn’t take a Captain seriously after having a Major in charge of them. Promoting her would also make the Artemis situation slightly less embarrassing. I’m told that when she walked into Orientation Hall 1 earlier today, every officer there, including Commander Shirinkin, reacted as if the General Marshal had arrived.’

I gave a shocked gasp of understanding, and everyone looked at me.

‘Sorry, sirs. It’s just I’d been wondering why everyone kept madly saluting me. It makes sense now.’ I grinned. ‘They weren’t saluting me, they were saluting the Artemis!’

Colonel Torrek laughed. ‘Only eleven living people are entitled to wear the Artemis, so most of my officers haven’t seen it before. Hopefully, they’ll calm down in a few days time, but Nia’s right.’

He swapped to a formal Military manner for a moment. ‘Captain Jarra Tell Morrath, you are hereby promoted to the rank of Major. Congratulations.’

I gave him a dazed salute. Nia Stone went across to a shelf, picked something up, and handed it to me. It was a set of insignia for my new rank.

‘How many field promotions have I given out today?’ asked Colonel Torrek.

‘I’ve lost count,’ said Nia Stone.

‘Either twenty-four or twenty-five,’ said Leveque, ‘depending whether you count Jarra’s promotions as two separate ones or combine them. I’m sure Command Support will save effort by sending it through channels as a single promotion.’

‘This must be the highest number of field promotions handed out in one day since the Thetis chaos year,’ said Colonel Torrek, ‘and my chain of command still breaks every possible rule of seniority.’

Nia Stone smiled. ‘It certainly does. I’m currently giving orders to a General out in Kappa sector. Very polite orders of course.’

Colonel Torrek glanced at her. ‘If General Hiraga gives you any trouble, Nia, tell her I’ve had to create one of the largest command structures in history within hours. If she thinks she could do better, I’d be delighted to hand over command of the Alien Contact programme to her.’

Nia Stone shook her head. ‘You aren’t going to escape from this, Riak. If the General Marshal wanted a member of his General Staff to take over from you, he would have sent one within the first day.’

Colonel Torrek groaned. ‘Why did he leave me in command?’

It was more a complaint than a question, but Leveque answered it anyway. ‘Because you handled things too well during the first few hours. It’s always a mistake to replace a good commanding officer in the middle of a crisis situation. The General Marshal knows you’ve a reputation for keeping your head under pressure, which is precisely what’s needed here. Acting quickly and decisively is much easier than patiently waiting and doing nothing.’

‘It certainly is.’ Colonel Torrek returned his attention to me. ‘Jarra, you weren’t just called in because of the History team. I …’ He broke off, seemed to hesitate, and then glanced across at Nia Stone. ‘It’s probably best if you handle this, Nia.’

She nodded. ‘Jarra, Fian, we’d like you both kept fully informed about the tactical situation, so we’ve put you in the same accommodation area as the Attack team. If there’s anything you think I should know, or you have any problems, please contact me at once.’

Colonel Torrek put down his plate at this point and stood up. ‘I’m going to bed. Nia, you have command. Fian, Jarra, you were staring longingly at the desserts earlier. Please take some with you.’

We all scrambled to our feet as Colonel Torrek left the room, and then Fian and I made a confused and undignified exit carrying two plates of cake. I was puzzled by that last exchange between Colonel Torrek and Nia Stone. There’d been something odd about it that …

Fian interrupted my train of thought. ‘You’re a Major now. I’m a Captain.’

‘Yes. Does that bother you?’

He was frowning. ‘I was just wondering. Are different ranks allowed to …?’

I worked out what he meant and giggled. ‘Fian, over 90 per cent of Military are born into Military families. Where do you think all the little Military come from? You heard the Colonel say that Commander Leveque and Commander Stone are married. Do you really think Twoing contracts and marriages end every time someone gets promoted?’

‘Oh, that’s all right then.’

Despite his words, he still seemed worried about something. We went back to our quarters, put the cakes on the table, and he gave them a depressed look.

‘Fian, what’s bothering you?’ I asked.

He sighed. ‘It just keeps getting worse. First, you turn out to be a Military Honour Child, with a Colonel for a grandmother. Next, you get the Artemis. Now you’re a Major in the Military, with Commanders and Colonels eagerly wanting your expert advice, while I’m just a clueless civilian interrupting to tell them things they don’t want to hear.’

‘You’re a Military Captain yourself, Fian. Why haven’t you mentioned this famous great-grandfather of yours before?’

He sighed. ‘My great-grandfather got in a lot of trouble with the Military. They exiled him to Hercules, where he helped found the University with a group of …’

He broke off for a second. ‘They’re obviously pulling in people so fast for the Alien Contact programme, that Military Security hasn’t had time to do background checks and find out I’m Jorgen Eklund’s great-grandson. Now they know, I’ll probably get thrown off the base, or put in prison.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t believe Colonel Torrek would blame you for something your great-grandfather did, and he certainly wouldn’t invite you to help yourself to cake if he was planning to arrest you.’

Fian hesitated for a second before speaking again. ‘Jarra, my great-grandfather was involved with Cioni’s Apprentices.’

I gave him a blank look. ‘With who?’

‘You haven’t heard of them?’ Fian seemed startled. ‘Vast amounts of scientific knowledge were entirely lost in Exodus century and the Earth Data Net crash, and there are other things we blindly accept as fact because they were once proved, but all record of the original proofs has been lost. Archaeologists look for old stasis boxes in the ancient cities to try and find that lost knowledge, but Cioni’s Apprentices were taking the other approach of trying to recreate the ancient science themselves. They named themselves after Leonardo da Vinci, who was an apprentice of a painter called Cioni.’

I shook my head. ‘So why would that get them in trouble with the Military? Lots of scientists do that sort of thing.’

‘They got in trouble with the Military because they were prepared to do anything to help their research, including breaking the protection of humanity laws.’

‘Oh.’ The protection of humanity laws prohibited things like robots, cyborgs, clones, and genetically engineered human beings. I knew some of the historical events that made people pass those laws, and … ‘Yes, well, that’s very bad, but Leveque obviously knew all about your great-grandfather so he must have known about these Apprentices too. If he was going to arrest you, he’d have called Military Security before you left the room.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ said Fian. ‘I felt I had to point out the aliens could be far more advanced now than when they made that sphere, but I was wasting my time. Leveque enjoyed making fun of me, pointing out I was only a history student and making sarcastic jokes about time travel.’

I’d seen Fian in this dark mood before, after his sister was nominated for an award. It had worried me until I worked out what was going on. Fian’s relatives were all brilliant scientific researchers. Fian had stood up for himself, chosen to study history because he loved it, but he knew his family considered him a failure. Now Leveque’s comments had stung him in a sensitive area. I tried my best to help.

‘I saw the way Leveque was watching you. He was listening to what you said and taking it seriously.’

Fian shook his head. ‘No one’s interested in anything I have to say. The Colonel only brought me here because I’m your boyfriend. Judging from what he said after the Solar 5 rescue, he was very fond of your grandmother. You’re her Honour Child, so he takes an interest in us. He knew this base would be full of Military officers, all admiring the girl wearing the Artemis, and he wanted to give me a chance to hang on to my girlfriend.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. The Military officers won’t be interested in me, and I’m certainly not interested in them. Why should I be when we’re Twoing?’

‘We’re halfway through our three-month Twoing contract, but we’re still not wearing rings,’ said Fian in a pointed voice.

I felt sick. ‘We’ve been around this before and I explained I’m not the sort of person who wears jewellery.’

‘Couldn’t you try being the sort of person who wears my Twoing ring?’

My best chance of escaping another ring discussion was by using shock tactics. I carefully gauged Fian’s position relative to the couch, went in low, and threw him over one shoulder. He made a perfect landing on the cushions, and I pinned him down. He didn’t put up any resistance at all as his startled face slowly changed to a grin.

‘Do you know why you don’t need to worry about me being interested in other men?’ I asked.

‘Why?’

‘Because you’ve got the nicest butt in the Military.’

‘Jarra!’ The poor little Deltan looked quite grazzed. ‘That’s … rude.’

‘There were times in pre-history when that word could be used in polite conversation,’ I told him, smugly. ‘Haven’t you seen the ancient vids from back before Exodus? They didn’t just use the words for the restricted body areas, they sometimes showed them too!’

‘Those vids were censored in Delta sector,’ said Fian. ‘They edited out inappropriate words and covered up the body areas.’

I gave him a suspicious look. ‘I only saw the censored versions at school too, but now we’re history students we can access the originals if we want. Didn’t you look at some when you started the course? I know Krath did, because I overheard him telling Joth about a vid he’d found with lots of swimming pool scenes.’

‘I never understood why Krath and Joth are such friends,’ said Fian. ‘Krath’s got no sense socially, but he’s quite reliable on practical things, while Joth’s exactly the opposite way around.’

I was even more suspicious now. ‘Fian Andrej Eklund, stop dodging the question!’

He sighed and spoke in a morally superior tone of voice. ‘What people said and did back in pre-history is irrelevant. Only people in Beta sector use that word now. Everywhere else people just say legs, and you can tell which bit they mean by the tone of their voice when …’ He broke off his sentence. ‘Stop giggling at me!’

‘You did! You watched the vids!’

Fian gave up pretending he was a virtuous Deltan. ‘Well, yes, I did look at a couple of vids, but it was just out of curiosity and because Krath said … You really think I have nice legs?’

‘Definitely,’ I said. ‘I’ve been waiting for hours to undress Arrack San Domex. Of course, you don’t have to do anything that’s against Deltan moral standards. Candace is worried that I push you around.’

Fian donned an expression of martyrdom. ‘Go ahead. You’re a Major. I’m a Captain. You can push me around all I like.’

I frowned. ‘Didn’t you get that last bit wrong? You said I, when you meant you.’

He laughed. ‘I said exactly what I meant, Jarra.’