Chapter Fifty-Four
The Human mind contains a universe of secrets.
—Noah Watanabe
An electronic field veiled the assault ship, making it invisible to the security force on the space station. This was accomplished with a stealth skin that projected images from one side of the large vessel’s skin to the other, shifting seamlessly as the craft moved. The noise and heat signatures had been masked as well, and like a ghost the craft docked, undetected, on the underside of the immense orbiter.
A hatch door slid open on the vessel, followed by a large circular hatch on the space station, activated by a signal that kept the alarm system from going off. Hundreds of men in red uniforms slipped into a shadowy corridor, each of them made invisible by computerized images projected from one side of each body to the other, as if the person was not there at all.
All were Red Berets, the Doge’s elite, fiercely loyal fighting force.
Through visors on their helmets, the men saw their companions, all dressed in red uniforms with caps. Heavily armed, they rushed through one corridor and another, using silencers on their handguns to kill any green-and-brown Guardians they encountered. With holo-schematics of the orbiter, images that danced on the visors in front of their eyes, they thought they knew the proper route. The route program had not been updated for all of the changes that had been made to the modular station, however, and the squad ran right past an entrance hatch to the classroom section. They then took a high-speed elevator to a lower level, the wrong one.
The Red Berets also had not taken precautions to bring weapons whose projectiles would not penetrate the skin of the space station. Errant shots went through exterior walls, activating the orbiter’s emergency systems, which closed bulkhead doors and sealed holes to prevent catastrophic depressurization.
Alarm systems went off, and something in the jangle of electronics shut down their computerized image projectors. Suddenly the intruders were visible to guards, who fired stunner pellets at them, hitting one of the men and dropping him to the metal deck. The others ran on, leaving him behind.
* * * * *
Earlier, Noah had seen the artillery flashes, and his security advisers had confirmed to him that the second flash had been an intercepting shot. This had given him some measure of reassurance that Doge Lorenzo was not going to do anything rash. The first shot appeared to have been an equipment malfunction, which they had corrected immediately.
Now, as the alarms went off Noah stood in the school module, having just conducted a meeting with a number of his Guardians, trying to answer their questions and allay their fears. He had spoken truthfully to his loyal followers, not wishing to conceal anything from them.
None of his people had expressed any desire to abandon EcoStation, but he thought that might change when they were alone and not under the attentive eyes of their peers, not trying to prove anything to anyone or show courage they didn’t really feel. They were all brave enough, Noah realized, but few of them were trained fighters. Only the security personnel. The rest were students, and support staff for the orbital platform.
The meeting had just ended, and he had been conferring with Tesh and Anton, considering what to do next. In a few minutes, Noah was scheduled for a one-on-one conference with Subi Danvar to consider alternatives.
Just then, the three of them heard the screaming wail of alarm klaxons. On a wall-mounted security screen, they saw Red Beret soldiers running through the corridors, firing weapons. Activating sound, Noah heard the squadron leader shouting to his companions.
“We’re on the wrong level!” he shouted. “Glavine has classes on Level Four!”
“They’re looking for me!” Anton said. “Why?”
“Your father’s special forces,” Tesh said. “And they don’t look friendly.”
“Somehow they know your schedule,” Noah said, wondering how they had gotten the information, and what they hoped to do with it.
“My father either wants to kill me or kidnap me,” Anton said.
Noah took a deep, agitated breath. He remembered what his adjutant Subi Danvar always told him, that he was the soul of the Guardians and needed to survive for the sake of the organization and all they stood for. In his desire to fight back against his sister and the Doge, Noah had not wanted to follow the advice for his own welfare, and had only gone along with it reluctantly. Now he needed to survive and fight another day, for his vital cause and for the people who believed in him.
Some time ago he had asked the Doge for an emergency meeting to explain the attack against the ecology compound, and at last he had his answer. Noah saw no advantage in being taken to any meeting by force, or in dying here.
Speaking sharply into a lapel microphone, he told Subi to broadcast a general evacuation order to everyone on the station, readying ships that would disperse his people to predetermined locations on Canopa. Then he commanded the adjutant to prepare a grid-plane for him, and provided a short list of passengers he wanted to accompany him. Over the communication link, Danvar confirmed receiving the message, and said he would take care of it all right away.
“Hurry!” Noah urged, leading the way through a door at the rear of the classroom. The trio ran through a narrow corridor to a spiral stairway and bounded up four levels, taking two steps at a time.
They reached the top and ran through a wide doorway onto a metalloy platform. Grid-planes were tethered on the other side of a bubble window, their green-and-brown hulls floating in zero gravity. Guardians ran toward the three people on the platform, their boots making echoing sounds. Subi Danvar, moving quickly despite his broad girth, led them.
“I issued your evacuation order, Master Noah,” Subi reported, “and all ships are ready.”
Seeing Eshaz reach the platform, which was on his short list of priority passengers, Noah motioned for him to join them.
The group hurried through an airlock and boarded one of the grid-planes. Subi Danvar took the controls, and powered up the engines. The sleek craft surged out of the docking bay into orbital space.
Through a porthole, Noah saw two red gunships, more of the Doge’s force. One of them opened fire with automatic weapons, ripping holes through the cabin. Noah heard the hiss of escaping air, and the whistle of repair systems going on, sealing the holes in the hull.
“Get this crate going!” he shouted to Subi. “We’re faster than they are!”
“I’m trying!” Subi shouted. “Hold on. Here we go!”
The supercharged grid-plane picked up speed, and the passengers found things to hold onto: seat backs, bulkheads, railings. Through a porthole, Noah saw other escape ships scattering away from the station, using their superior speed and on-board scanning equipment to elude the Doge’s electronic grids. Noah knew that some of his followers would still be captured or killed, but all of them had the same opportunity to get away that he did.
“We need to get to a podship,” Noah said. “There’s a planet we can go where our environmental activists have a clandestine support network. I’ve told some of you about it … Plevin Four.”
“I’ll do the best I can,” Subi said, “but the Doge may already have gunships around the pod station.”
Anton asked a question about Plevin Four, said he was unfamiliar with it. Tesh told him it was an abandoned world, that it had a history alternating between Mutati and MPA control.
Just as Noah started to tell his nephew more about Plevin Four, projectiles ripped through the passenger compartment. He felt something sting his arm, and the side of his head. Then something tore into his left foot. Terrible pain, and dizziness. He lost consciousness and fell in a bloody heap on the carpeted deck.…
Sitting by Noah, Tesh held his bleeding head on her lap, as the grid-plane accelerated and automatic repair systems repaired the hull damage. A wall and ceiling of the cabin were torn up. Anton popped open a first-aid kit, began applying gauze bandages on the wounds. Eshaz came over and stood silently, looking down at the fallen Master of the Guardians.
Tesh had never understood Tulyans, the way they kept their emotions bottled up, never revealing their inner thoughts. She knew that Noah thought highly of this one, so she tried to show him respect. But it was not easy. Her own Parvii people and the Tulyans were natural enemies, ancient competitors for dominion over the galactic herds of podships. So far Eshaz had shown no indication of recognizing her—the Parvii magnification system was a closely guarded secret—but she didn’t trust him.
“We’re beginning to outdistance them!” Subi shouted. “Almost out of range now.”
Looking up, Tesh saw blue tracers zip by a porthole, but nothing more hit them. She heard Subi say the vessel’s on-board repair systems were continuing to seal the holes.
“Noah needs medical attention,” Tesh said. “His head is bleeding, and his foot is torn up bad.” She checked the bandages, and it occurred to her how Human bodies, like this ship, had automatic repair systems—but how much better it would be if people were capable of healing themselves from even the most serious wounds. She worried about Noah, having grown to admire him, and hoped for more between them.
“I’ll see what I can find,” Subi said, “but we need to leave Canopa as soon as possible. It’s too hot for us here.” He steered down into the atmosphere of Canopa, causing sparks to fly off the underside of the hull during reentry. When they were a couple of thousand meters above the planet, he leveled out and slowed.
Going over to a porthole, Tesh surveyed the trees and farms of the countryside below, then pointed and said, “Head that way: northeast, I think. I know a doctor.” She glanced at her wristchron, which had adjusted itself to their locale, and saw that it was late afternoon. “He should be home now, too.”
A few minutes later, they set down on a wide parking area between the sprawling main house and the tigerhorse stables. Half a dozen men emerged from the front of the house, dressed in cloaks and brocaded surcoats. Ladies in shimmering evening gowns stood on the broad porch behind them, some holding drinks.
One of the men, square-jawed, went down the steps and strode toward the grid-plane. Tesh recognized Dr. Hurk Bichette, her former lover. The two of them exchanged glares.
She led Subi and Anton, and introduced them. “Sorry to interrupt your dinner party,” Tesh said, “but we have an emergency. Noah Watanabe is on board, and he’s seriously injured.”
“Head wound,” Subi said. “But that looks like a glancing blow. His left foot might be the worst of it. He passed out after he got hit there.”
“I’ll get my bag,” Bichette said, in his deep voice. He ran inside the house, and emerged moments later, carrying a black bag and a large packet with a clear covering, showing a variety of healing pads inside, of varying sizes.
“Let me help you with that,” Tesh said, taking the packet from him and then following him aboard the grid-plane.
While Bichette kneeled over Noah and tended to him on the deck, Tesh helped. Looking up, she saw Subi step forward with a handgun. “I’m afraid we’ll have to borrow you for a while,” he told the doctor. “We’ll send apology cards to your dinner guests.”
“What do you mean?” Bichette asked.
“It’s no longer safe for us on Canopa,” Anton said, accepting the gun as Subi handed it to him. “We have another planet in mind, and you’re going with us.”
She looked over at Eshaz. The large, bronze-scaled Tulyan stood silently, watching, taking it all in as if he was looking into another realm, as if he were not actually here.
“But I can’t!” Bichette protested. “This isn’t an ordinary dinner party. It’s an important business meeting. My guests are wealthy investors, considering a business proposition I made to them.”
“Business can wait,” Subi said, as he slipped into the command chair. Safety restraints snapped automatically into place around him, but he shoved them away. “Lives can’t.”
“Listen to me. Noah needs a hospital. We can’t have him bouncing around in a grid-plane.” The vein on Bichette’s temple throbbed.
“I’ll take off smoothly,” Subi said. “We don’t have any way of securing him, of strapping him down.”
“Stop thinking about yourself,” Tesh said to Bichette, “and tend to your patient.”
The doctor glowered at her, but did as she demanded.
Tesh felt the grid-plane’s rocket system kick on, but as promised they made a smooth ascent. In a matter of minutes, they reached the upper atmosphere, then surged into orbital space, with the vessel’s gravitational system on.
“Where are we going?” Tesh asked.
“Plevin Four,” Subi said. “That’s where Noah told me to go.”
“But he’s been injured, needs a hospital.”
“They have a medical facility on Plevin Four,” Subi said.
Through the wide front window, Tesh saw the globular pod station ahead, floating. Subi drew near, then circled the station twice, without entering any of the docking bays. “Keep your eyes open for bad guys,” he said, looking at the ships that were lined up inside. Tesh only saw two, and neither of them was emblazoned with the Doge’s or CorpOne’s colors.
Warily, Subi guided the vessel into one of the docking bays and found a berth. “We got here fast,” he said, “but our pursuers aren’t far behind us.”
Just then, Tesh felt a pressure change inside the cabin, and heard a faint, familiar pop. Looking out a side windowport, she saw green luminescence around a podship as it floated toward the main docking bay of the station. As seconds passed, the luminescence dissipated, leaving the mottled gray-and-black exterior of the vessel. All of the sentient spacecraft looked essentially the same to the untrained eye, but Tesh recognized the characteristic streaks and other markings on this one. She had been in the Parvii swarm that originally captured it in deep space, more than five centuries ago. While the Parviis had taken control of the vast majority of podships long before that, there were always wild pods wandering through the cosmos, strays to be rounded up.
Presently, a wide door opened on the side of the podship. All three of the waiting vessels floated aboard into the cavernous cargo hold, and their crews secured them to tethers.
They got underway quickly, engaging with the podways of deep space, connective fibers so fine that they could not be seen by anyone except the podships, and a handful of other races. Parviis were among the select few, but in their case it was only while at the helms of podships. Tesh was not certain who the pilot of this craft was, since assignments changed regularly. She could go into the sectoid chamber and find out—perhaps it was an old friend—but it was risky to do so, since she might be observed while changing her personal magnification system, getting smaller and later getting larger again. Usually, she did not take the chance, and certainly not this time, when she wanted to be near Noah and do whatever she could to keep him alive.
At least he was breathing regularly, and from the expression on his face he did not appear to be in any pain. Such an attractive man, she thought, with his freckles and curly red hair. He was the strong, take-charge type, so certain of his purpose in life and able to inspire others around him.
You certainly inspired me, she thought. Gently, she touched his temple on the uninjured side of his head, and felt the reassuring pulse of his heartbeat.
She caught a hard gaze from Anton, who sat by a porthole, intermittently looking out into the cargo hold or at her. Since picking up Dr. Bichette, Tesh had noticed Anton acting irritably, as if jealous of her former lover. She felt nothing for Bichette anymore, not for months now. That relationship was over.
Or was Anton jealous of Noah instead? While expressing concern for his injured uncle, Anton might actually resent the attention she was giving him herself. And she really did care about him. Maybe Anton had noticed something. She didn’t care. In her long lifetime, Tesh had known many men, and always knew that she would have to end each relationship one day. Her lifespan was much longer than theirs, after all, and she didn’t want to stay with a person who was going to die. She didn’t think it was cruel on her part. In reality, she was overly sensitive and always tried to keep from getting too close to anyone, since that only made it more difficult. Her feelings for Noah were developing, but different from anything she had experienced before. She felt excitement at this, and fear.
The podship made only two brief stops along the way, at pod stations in remote sectors where there was not much activity. On board the grid-plane, Tesh and Dr. Bichette rounded up pillows, blankets, and anything else they could find to make the patient more comfortable. Once, Noah had moved his hands, as if gesturing with them while he talked, and his lips moved, without making any sounds. Then he became motionless again, except for his regular breathing and pulse.
Through it all, Eshaz said nothing, did nothing. To Tesh, it was very strange. She thought he should be doing something to help.
Only a few minutes after leaving Canopa and journeying far across the galaxy, the sentient spacecraft arrived at a pod station orbiting the planet of Plevin Four, in a belt of dead galactic stars. Subi provided details as he guided the grid-plane out of the cargo hold, then through a docking bay of the pod station, and out into orbital space. He shifted the propulsion system to conventional hydion, since they were away from the grid-system of Canopa.
“This world was stripped of its natural resources long ago by CorpOne mining operations,” he said. “PF—its common name—is technically still owned by the corporation but is valued on their balance sheets at virtually nothing. We Guardians have been ‘squatting’ here for years without detection, using it as a training station and bolt-hole.”
“Doesn’t look like much,” Anton said, studying a report on the ship’s computer. “Hardly any natural beauty, bad weather, irritable natives. I see why you weren’t noticed here.”
“It’s a good training ground,” Subi said.
The craft headed down through a hazy atmosphere, toward the surface of the planet, with its gray-and-yellow hills, rivers, and lakes. “We do terraforming experiments here, practicing our ecological engineering methods for use elsewhere.”
Through the front window of the grid-plane, Tesh saw a deep scar running for perhaps a thousand kilometers on the surface of PF. She asked about it, and when the adjutant did not reply Anton checked the on-board computer terminal.
“CorpOne leased it out to a strip mining operation,” he said. “Doesn’t say here what they took out, but whatever it was, they must have gotten all that was worth getting. Looks dead down there now.”
The grid-plane flew low over the terrain. In six hours they reached the dark side of the planet, and Tesh made out a dark, serpentine river below. They flew over it for a distance, then slowed and hovered in front of a high embankment, illuminated by spotlights from the aircraft. Two big doors yawned open in the river bank, revealing a large, dark chamber beyond. With the aircraft’s spotlights probing ahead, making fingers of illumination, they flew into the chamber. Looking back, Tesh saw the cliff doors close.
As Subi landed and shut down the engines, he said, “Centuries ago, PF was under Mutati control. How the MPA took it away from them, I don’t know. This is a military bunker. originally built by Mutati civil engineers. A short ways downriver, it empties into a swirling, pale yellow sea.”
“Sounds picturesque,” Anton said, his voice caustic. “Can’t wait to see it tomorrow.” He caught a sharp glance of displeasure from Tesh, who then went to check on Noah. She watched Dr. Bichette replace the healing pads on his patient’s injured foot.
“Head’s OK but his foot doesn’t look any better,” Bichette said. “It’s badly mangled and in need of more than these pads.”
Tesh felt tears welling in her eyes. She looked away. Through the portholes and front window, she saw that they had landed below the level of the river. Murky water could be seen through thick glax viewing plates and airlocks.
“Wonder where everyone is,” Subi said. He stood at the open hatch of the grid-plane, gazing out into the cavern. Behind him, a heavy plate slid over the control panel of the aircraft, apparently preventing anyone from stealing it. Tesh noticed him slip something into his pocket.
Deep in thought, the big adjutant bounded down the steps to the rock floor of the chamber, then ducked around the tail of the aircraft to the other side. She saw him open a heavy metal door and stride through, into what looked like a room, or perhaps a corridor. A while later, he returned. By then, Tesh and Anton were outside the grid-plane, looking around themselves. Dr. Bichette and Eshaz were still inside with Noah.
Subi said, “Hundreds of Guardians are supposed to be here, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for months.”
“What do we do now?” Tesh asked. “This doesn’t look like any place to stay, especially with Noah’s condition. You said it had a medical facility.”
“That wasn’t entirely true,” Subi admitted, rubbing the purple birthmark on his cheek. “They used to have a small clinic here, but I was hoping that Master Noah would come back to consciousness, especially after we got the doctor. Noah wanted to come here, so I thought I should do what he wanted.”
She frowned. “But you’ve been to other planets with him, all the ecological reconstruction projects around the galaxy. Surely one of them is better than this place?”
He shook his head. “They’re all well known, so the Doge probably sent forces to them, taking control of the projects. In fact, any of the main merchant princes worlds are a problem now, because of the dragnet that’s out for us.”
“I see.” Tesh felt frustrated, and angry that Noah wasn’t getting the care he needed.
She heard what sounded like an anguished cry, coming from the grid-plane. Worried, she ran up the steps into the passenger cabin.
Dr. Bichette held a bloody white cloth, wrapped around something.
“One of Noah’s feet was so badly shot up that I had to amputate it,” he said, in an emotionless voice.
Horrified, Tesh looked down at the unfortunate Noah, who lay on the deck, face up. His head rested on a pillow, and he had a thin blanket over him. Another bloody white cloth was wrapped around the stump where his foot used to be. He slept, as before, except now his face was a mask of anguish.
“You fool!” Tesh screamed. “Why did you do that?”
“I did what I had to do. It was either that, or infection would have set in and he would have lost his entire leg. Or his life.”
“But the healing pads …”
He shook his head. “They don’t solve everything. I had no choice.”
“Why didn’t you consult with the rest of us? Maybe we could have figured out another place to go, where they have medical facilities. Damn you, Hurk!”
“And you, Eshaz!” she howled, glaring at the motionless Tulyan. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I’m not a doctor, madam.”
Turning back to Bichette, she started beating on his chest. The doctor backed up, looking surprised and shocked.
Anton pulled her off him, and forced her to sit on the deck, where he knelt beside her. “You need to calm down,” he said. “The doctor only did what he thought was best. He couldn’t consult with us. As Eshaz said, we aren’t doctors. The decision was Dr. Bichette’s alone.”
“Let go of me,” she demanded, trying to pull free of his strong grip.
But he held on. “Not until you promise to calm down.”
Stubbornly, she shook her head, and Anton held tight.…
The surgical procedure had been a traumatic event for his uncle, but Anton couldn’t suppress feeling envy, having noticed that Tesh was overly interested in Noah.
It was driving the young man crazy.