Jaunt (14 page)

Pausing his work, Louris set his pickaxe down and consulted his holobook. Two hours had gone by and there was still no sign of the debris. Looking at the holograph, the team should be just centimeters from the metal clumps.

“Chief.”

Louris’ eyes left the device and met Constantine, who pointed out a spectral glint in the black soil. Taking radiation gloves out of his pockets, Louris slipped them on and scooped the shard from the permafrost. The metal-encrusted jewel soon made its way from Louris to the portable lockbox, which Mason had strapped around his waist for the duration of the dig. Behind his partner, Gilmour sampled the surrounding soil, placing the humus into small bags for later analysis.

More perspiration yielded another metal shard, larger this time, from the permafrost. Deeper down, the rock-saturated soil proved quite immune to pickaxes, so Constantine jumped into the meter-deep hole with shovel in hand, ramming the floor like a posthole digger. Despite his renewed vigor, Constantine managed to dig no better than the men had before.

He sighed, then glanced up to Louris. “Damn if this permafrost ain’t moving. Anybody else?”

Louris frowned. He alone had decided to leave this target, one of the few sites almost never to see the weakened sun, until the very end. Here they stood, exhausted to the breaking point, sweating while throwing their backs out to retrieve the final half-dozen or so objects from this damned basin, and the ground rejected each try past one meter. Louris signaled for Constantine to come out of the hole.

“Is it time?” Constantine asked, soothing his left tricep.

Louris nodded. He stepped away from the group, towards his backpack. Opening it, his hand sifted through various unseen objects before pulling out a dull grey tube, complete with hinged handlebars at the top and a bulky, cone-shaped device at its bottom.

He carried The Liquidator back to the site, cradling it over his forearms like a cumbersome bouquet. Louris paused at the hole’s edge, eyed the floor, then proceeded to the bottom. With Louris unfolding the tube’s appendages, the device blossomed to its full width of twenty centimeters, handlebars and a pair of stabilizing legs at the end included.

Louris first placed his goggles on, then rested The Liquidator’s cone flat against the stubborn permafrost, aligning the device like a fulcrum into the soil to achieve the optimal angle. Tweaking a series of switches along the tube’s top collar, he charged the quantum battery. After determining he had properly prepared and attuned The Liquidator, Louris said, “Gilmour, you’ve got monitoring duties.”

Gilmour routed his holobook to scan The Liquidator’s progress and vital statistics, making absolutely certain Louris didn’t overdo the sonic assault on the permafrost and running the possibility of attracting Confederation seismological surveys.

A green light between the handlebars flashed on The Liquidator’s top collar; the device was synchronized to go. Louris flexed his right hand on the handle’s palm trigger, activating the first pulse. A muffled thump sounded in the permafrost, reverberating throughout the ground, even under the feet of the four agents. Another thump, and two more followed, before Gilmour signaled with an upright thumb that all was functioning below threshold.

On Gilmour’s display, a holograph of the permafrost layers, overlayed by the agents’

scans of metallic debris, showed blue isobars spacing out in sequential waves. Beside that graphic was a tally of the site’s sonic threshold, which peaked every few seconds as another blue isobar appeared.

Gilmour scrolled down on the holobook, revealing a second holograph, this time of the soil’s density. Each isobar increased the distance between the earthen particulates, slowly transforming the ground from nigh steel to manageable topsoil consistency.

One by one, the metallic debris sifted out of the earthen cocoon, rising to the floor of the hole. After Gilmour’s signal, Louris deactivated the device and hoisted it up to McKean, who returned it to Louris’ baggage. Constantine joined him below, and the two shoveled the loose soil, taking only minutes to retrieve the first few objects.

Mason’s portable lockbox now brimmed with additional extraterrestrial samples, more than enough to justify the expense of The Liquidator on this last target. Holobook in hand, Gilmour confirmed the exhaustion of material at two-point-eight meters, at which his fellow agents exhaled thankfully.

Their cleanup of the final site took an hour, in which time the five men had redeposited the spoil back into the hole, and for good measure, topped with small boulders found nearby to help conceal their activities for a long, long while.

With camp broken, the agents scurried to collect their gear and ration out the specimens piecemeal; each man would carry a share of the load, in the event one or two became lost, or victims of a greater catastrophe. Final thermal garb was slipped on and food rations ingested as the sun drew close to the horizon, throwing a curtain on the sky. Once again, the group would be traveling at night, as they had done entering the country.

Fully loaded, the men descended the Ulahan-Sis, reaching a lower altitude and a blanket of warmer air, although at night temperature was all relative. The land of forested spruce and willow would soon give way to distant peaks, leaving them in open country until they could reenter the core of the Keremesit valley, the southern end of the Kondakovskaja Vozvysennost’, about three nights hence. There, the naturally mountainous terrain, while not as looming as the Ulahan-Sis, would conceal their exit route from any powerful surveillance in the Indigirka River villages.

Eight days into the return journey, the five men set foot on the frozen Keremesit’s final curve around the northeastern quarter of the Kondakovskaja Vozvysennost’, a shallow cradle of hills allowing excellent viewing of three out of four of the largest Indigirka villages. Gilmour’s steady capturing of the activities from the forty-to eighty-kilometer-distant hamlets prepared the agents for any municipal surprises, such as mass fishing expeditions or clandestine mining of the diamond hills. So far, no reason for deviating from the planned leg to the coast had been warranted.

Gilmour, aching step by step, returned from the hill summit. “Negative,” he whispered to the waiting men.

Louris took the point once more, leading the group towards the frozen river bank ahead. Moving past the highlands, murmuring insects fluttered in and out of dank crevices, becoming constant companions along the winding river branch until dawn flexed its rays over the horizon.

Another night stirred the agents, impelling them to begin anew. Gilmour broke from the group, finding the highest point in the region. The task was not easy, given the depth they had descended to, but he continued on until a suitable clearing allowed him to spy just two of the villages. Again, he saw no one, and no traces of any equipment. On one hand, he felt relieved that their trek could continue unabated, although an unease soon gnawed within him. If a people subsisted in the wilderness for centuries, in one of the remotest and most unforgiving regions of the world, wouldn’t they make routine and periodic expeditions out of the community for hunting and trading purposes? His observations didn’t lie, but they couldn’t answer the subtlest questions his mind thought they should.

Pausing a second longer to unequivocally rule out activity, he doubled back, the gnawing only beginning to deepen. Gilmour relayed his report to Louris, who then moved the men forward. Once on the icy banks, Gilmour gestured to Mason, bringing his partner within earshot.

“I can’t keep these observations out of my mind,” he uttered.

Mason looked on, beckoning him to elaborate.

“Instinct...doesn’t seem natural that no one’s home.”

“We all know what happened to this country; the government didn’t hesitate to drive them out.”

Gilmour nodded. He granted Mason his point, but that still didn’t assuage his gut.

Mason’s gaze drifted ahead. “Come on, we’re falling behind.”

The pair accelerated, putting themselves a few paces behind the other three. Mason hadn’t lent too much thought to the inactivity of the distant villages, crediting it to the coming season. Now that Gilmour had brought his worries to his partner only, however, he committed them for consideration. Gilmour wasn’t one to voice minor troubles; if anything, the fact that he went to Mason and not Louris should have distressed Mason even more than it did.

Mason checked Gilmour’s body language the next few hours, attempting to gauge his partner’s thoughts. He remained agitated, his hands flexing and balling into fists while his eyes scoured the taiga; the entire display, despite its extended period, was palpable.

Gilmour then halted, his right hand brushing Mason’s forearm. He squinted, scanning the frozen Keremesit. “Insects....”

“What?”

“There aren’t any insects...no fauna to run into, either.”

By now, Gilmour had aroused the other three, who turned back.

Mason scanned the hills also, wondering if his partner had finally cracked, before realizing, “He’s right.” He looked at the others. “It’s been quiet the entire three hours we’ve been out here.”

“Wait a moment,” McKean said. “Gilmour, you said the villages were nearly deserted. The bugs out here wouldn’t be quiet unless they're weren't any animals to prey on.”

Mason eyes locked with Gilmour’s.“Then where are they? We sure as hell haven’t scared them off before.”

“Something has.” Gilmour swallowed. “We’re not alone.”

Soft thumps approached from beyond the nearest crest of hills, scattering the agents among the low brush. Gilmour and Mason hit the permafrost chest first, rolling onto their sides to retrieve the sidearms hidden inside their parkas. Mason was the first to produce his holobook, using its meteorological lidar to scan for the location and nature of the gaining intruder.

Mason held up the holobook’s screen at half-arm’s length, allowing Gilmour a look.

“Goddamn it.”

Gilmour’s finger traced the object’s trajectory; it was making quick time—fifty meters per second—straight to them. “
Akilina
-class.”

“Troop carrier...perfect.”

Six meters away, Louris signaled his parallel assessment with a rough gesture of his hand, mocking a zooming aircraft.

The thumps grew quiet again, before mechanized rips tore through the air five minutes later, echoing into the night. Peeling tires cut into the taiga, followed by the roar of hyped up engines.

Crouching low, Mason and Gilmour watched the lidar representations of the vehicles bound over the river bank, before raising their heads to see the real machines, silhouetted across the near horizon. Five in all, the squat vehicles—too small and fast to be armored fighting vehicles—slowed to unleash beams of infrared energy into the valley, scanning for the illegal party.

Each of the five agents, outfitted in their IR-desensitized thermal garb, froze in place while the vehicles meandered over the rocky valley. Exchanging glances, Gilmour and Mason readied their respective sidearms. Once the vehicles—now clearly ATVs—drew within optimal range, the pistols were gradually raised, tracking their quarry until the vehicles gained speed, spitting stones out from underneath in pursuit.

Gilmour and Mason hardened their stances, commanding their vox activated sidearms to project blue laser sights onto the marauders. Finding worthy targets on the lead vehicle, the sidearms fired, connecting with the vehicles’ riders before the agents themselves could be marked.

Swift return fire from one of the backup vehicles lit the valley. Mason grunted as a round nicked his abdomen; a quick swipe of his fingers revealed that the gash didn’t penetrate his skin. Motioning that he was fine, the pair and the three agents at their right flank separated, opening up their spacing to misdirect the oncoming fire.

Gilmour ran to the left, then landed hard on the ice, his winter head gear protecting him from a fractured skull. After sliding a meter on the permafrost bank, he gathered his wits and timing, recovering the location of the circling band of submachine-gun-armed ATVs. He squatted and fired his pistol once more, but unable to attain knowledge of a positive hit, kept plugging at the closest marauder, five meters at his eleven o’clock flank. A sickening squeal followed by the crunching of metal on metal silenced the customized engine, beckoning Gilmour to investigate.

Rising to his feet, he approached the collapsed mass within seconds, both hands clutching his pistol while he roamed for survivors. A groan, coupled with shuffling boots, answered his question.

“Hello,” Gilmour said, less than warmly, in his best Russian. “Identify yourselves.”

Two lean soldiers, one hampered by a limp, went to their feet. The maimed one, no doubt attempting his best poker face, rubbed at his thigh and replied, “You are under...under arrest, by the authority of the Confederation of Indepen—” His hand felt up the wound again. “Independent States,” he blurted, as if scripted.

The agent drew nearer, his eyes giving a cursory glance to the leg. “How badly are you hurt? It looks broken.”

A hand belonging to the other man flashed towards Gilmour’s left flank, which the agent promptly pulled to his chest. Wresting the leverage away from the young Russian, Gilmour pinned the soldier’s arm behind his back, so that the boy faced his injured companion.

“I wouldn’t do that, son,” Gilmour spat in the boy’s ear.