Labyrinth of Night (29 page)

The exobiologist shook his head. ‘No. That’s part of it, but not entirely.’ Despite his decrepitude, Kawakami was still an animated talker. ‘My working hypothesis is that the Cooties came to this system deliberately, but on the basis of false information.’

He paused, clearly relishing the confused expressions on Nash’s and Sasaki’s faces. ‘I think the Cooties first sent an automated space probe through this system many millennia ago, a scout in search of a colonizable planet. For some time I thought they had selected Earth as their prime candidate and simply couldn’t settle there because of the differences in surface gravity, but now I believe that their probe may have selected Mars as its first choice. Indeed, when that probe found Mars, it could have still had free-standing water and an atmosphere which was far more dense. Coupled with its one-third Earth-normal gravity, which seems to be correct for the physiology of the aliens, Mars may have strongly resembled a life-supporting planet in orbit around a G-zero class star.’

‘Yes, but…’ Miho hesitated, as if reluctant to question her mentor’s theories. ‘
Sensei,
your own studies determined that it has been almost three and half
billion
years since Mars had an ocean.’

Kawakami raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes, but the distance between our system and Achird Cassiopeia is enormous.’ He steepled his fingers together. ‘It would take more than nineteen years for even a radio signal to travel from here to that system. Even a hypothetical matter-antimatter drive can only attain twenty percent of the speed of light at its maximum velocity, and there is no reason to believe that the Cooties had developed technology of that magnitude. But if they made the journey in a generation-ship or in suspended animation…’

He shrugged. ‘Who knows? Hundreds of millions of years could have passed between the time the probe transmitted its findings to its planet of origin and the time the Cootie colony ship arrived in Mars orbit, and in that intervening period, this planet could have gone through enormous climatological changes that the Cooties simply didn’t anticipate…’

‘Leaving them marooned on a planet which could no longer support their sort of life,’ Sasaki finished.

Kawakami nodded his head. ‘If their ship was designed for one-way travel, yes.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve tried to get the others into renaming the aliens the Cassiopeians, but I’m afraid that your old boyfriend’s nickname has stuck.’ He chuckled as he picked up his tea again. ‘Paul thinks that they may be from 82 Eridani, but the spectral type is all wrong. Yet he remembers reading a science fiction story in his childhood about insect-like aliens from Eridani and it’s clouding his outlook.’

He suddenly frowned and gazed out the window at the immense crevasse in the northeast side of the D & M Pyramid. ‘That romanticism may yet be his undoing, I’m afraid,’ he said quietly. ‘He intends on taking that…ah, the machine you brought us, the MRV…down into Mama’s Back Door first thing tomorrow morning. Tamara and I have both attempted to talk him out of it, but several months ago he…’

Nash gently cleared his throat. This was all very interesting, but at the moment he had matters of higher priority that he wished to discuss. Miho glanced sharply at him, then looked back at her mentor. ‘Shin-ichi-san, we need to talk about Commander L’Enfant and his men.’

She hesitated, her eyes darting again toward Nash. ‘This is August Nash. Andrew Donaldson is only an assumed identity. He works for…’

‘The Americans, yes.’ Kawakami’s attention moved back from the window; he favored Nash with a long, impersonal stare. ‘Probably in the employ of Skycorp. No?’ He didn’t wait for a response from Nash, but looked again at Miho. ‘Just as you yourself are now working for JETRO, on behalf of our government and Uchu-Hiko. Or am I still making groundless conjectures?’

Miho was openly astonished. Nash found himself grinning. ‘Actually, you’re only half-right,’ he said. ‘I’m from Security Associates, a private intelligence firm. I’ve been retained by Skycorp to investigate what’s going on up here, though, so you’re at least partly correct. How did you guess?’

Kawakami seemed to be insulted. He slowly shook his head and drank from his mug. ‘Mr Nash, I did not receive a Nobel because I make guesses. Your arrival at this particular time is too far beyond the range of simple coincidence.’ He carefully placed the mug back on the table and reached out a hand to pat Sasaki’s wrist. ‘And you, dear, should have given me coffee instead. This was a waste of an innocent teabag. Forgive me, Miho, but that was wretched.’

She was completely nonplussed by now; Kawakami, on the other hand, was obviously enjoying himself. ‘Now that you two youngsters are through indulging a senile old man, perhaps I can explain everything that has occurred here lately…’

Terrance L’Enfant’s eccentric behavior, Kawakami explained, did not manifest itself immediately upon his arrival at Cydonia Base. The purpose of his mission was quite clear—to prevent the science team from revolting again—and it was evident that his three ‘observers’ were with him merely to act as enforcers should another attempt be made to derail the expedition.

Yet L’Enfant had not been a hard-liner from the outset. He had accepted his role as the new American co-supervisor with unimposing equanimity, preferring to stay out of the way and allow Kawakami to lead the further exploration of the City while he and his men took care of the more routine housekeeping chores, which had been largely neglected after most of the base personnel had left following the Steeple Chase raid. Although the science team still resented L’Enfant for being forced upon them as Arthur Johnson’s replacement, and vaguely distrusted him because of his military standing, they soon discovered that he was, at least, not working
against
them…at least, not then.

By this time, however, the scientists had worse things to worry about than their new American co-supervisor. The investigation had stalled; a critical window of opportunity to establish communications with the pseudo-Cooties had been lost because of the ‘labor strike.’ Exactly twenty-four hours, thirty minutes and 35.25 seconds after Ben Cassidy established first contact—precisely the measurement of a Martian day—the pseudo-Cooties had closed Room C4-20 again.

They left alone a single sensor pod, but dismantled the portable airlock and TV cameras and rebuilt most of the chamber’s walls, leaving a single man-sized opening. Yet, when Paul Verduin ventured down to the chamber in a skinsuit, he found his way barred by several of the metallic robots; they did not attack him, but neither would they permit him to go any further than the entrance to C4-20. It appeared as if an unspoken deadline had been reached, and passed, for human contact: now the pseudo-Cooties—which Kawakami now believed to be autonomous self-replicating robots, similar to the conjectural Von Neumann machines theorized in the last century—had locked themselves away in the catacombs beneath the City.

‘Catacombs?’ Sasaki raised an inquisitive eyebrow. ‘Why do you think they have catacombs down there?’

‘We placed a series of seismographs around and within the City,’ Kawakami replied. ‘After monitoring them closely for some time, we observed an irregular series of vibrations emanating from beneath the pyramids. After computer modeling, we believe that this is coming from underground tunnels, converging in the central area between the four City pyramids.’ He shrugged. ‘What these tunnels are for, and what the Cooties are doing down there, is a complete mystery. We spotted what looked like machinery when C4-20 was first opened, but what it was, what role it performed…’

He opened his hands. ‘Completely unknown, if it was even machinery in the first place.’

However, he told them, the seismography did establish that the subsurface vibrations extended as far to the south-east as the D & M Pyramid, leading the science team to believe that a tunnel might lead straight from the catacombs to the tomb of the Cooties. This proved to be correct, and further surveys and computer modeling revealed what turned out to be a lucky break: the meteor which had destroyed the northeast wall of the D & M Pyramid had also formed a deep pit just above the tunnel, resting at the bottom edge of the meteor crevasse. L’Enfant requisitioned drilling equipment from Arsia Station, and after months of patient digging in the pit, they managed to break through into the tunnel, creating a narrow shaft straight down from the surface into Mama’s Back Door.

Sasha Kulejan had volunteered to explore Mama’s Back Door. Wearing Hoplite II recon armor, he was lowered by cable into the tunnel, with the intention of making his way back toward the City and, hopefully, locating the catacombs. Yet this was not on the cards; the Russian scientist only managed to advance less than fifty yards down the tunnel when he reported seeing movement ahead.

His suit’s TV camera caught a brief glimpse of pseudo-Cooties coming toward him. Then visual transmission was interrupted; after a final scream was recorded on the audio track, all further contact with Sasha was lost. When a remote-controlled spider-probe was sent down the shaft after him, no trace of Sasha Kulejan was found—no body, no blood, no fragments of his armor—before the probe itself was attacked and destroyed.

‘It was then that L’Enfant began to be…’ Uncharacteristically at a loss for appropriate words, Kawakami’s voice trailed off.

‘Weird?’ Nash supplied.

Kawakami nodded, then quickly shook his head. ‘Paranoia is the most accurate description, Mr Nash…’

‘Call me August.’ He smiled tightly. ‘So long as you call me Andy when L’Enfant and his men are around.’

‘Whenever we’re in the base, even by ourselves, I will have to call you Andy.’ Kawakami’s face was grim. ‘We have some reason to suspect that our quarters may now be under electronic surveillance. Our private communications have to be written on slips of paper, which we afterwards chew and swallow.’

Sasaki hissed between her teeth; Kawakami glanced at her with sad eyes. ‘Yes, Miho, it has gone that far. We can trust no one except ourselves, and even if we could establish candid communication with Arsia, I’m not sure whom we could trust at the station.’ He paused, then added. ‘I believe L’Enfant may have informants there, but I cannot be certain.’

It was a disturbing revelation, but Nash didn’t want to get side-tracked now. ‘Go on, please,’ he prodded.

In the aftermath of Sasha Kulejan’s death, Kawakami revealed, L’Enfant took several actions, all of which he claimed were to ‘assure the security of the expedition.’ First, he assumed total command of the base; since Kulejan had been the Russian co-supervisor and Kawakami’s illness prohibited him from making more than token resistance, this was an easy task. It was also enforceable by his aides; it was then that the assault rifles, which had been hidden from the science team, made their first appearance. From thereon, at least one of the four Americans was awake at all times, taking shifts in the command center.

Then L’Enfant imposed a communications blackout; all messages and reports had to be cleared by him in advance. At first, L’Enfant allowed the science team to file technical memoranda with Arsia Station, until he became convinced that the briefs themselves contained encrypted communiqués (‘And he was not incorrect in that assumption,’ Kawakami added, ‘but he managed to figure out what we were doing before they were transmitted’). After that, only the most routine status reports were sent to either Arsia Station or Earth.

Then, one by one, came more restrictions. A CD-ROM copy of all new scientific data had to be given to him. No one was allowed on the surface by themselves or within the City without military escort, and an EVA curfew was imposed from sunset to sunrise. Similarly, either L’Enfant or one of his aides had to be in the monitor center during all important researches.

Finally L’Enfant demanded that he himself be formally addressed by his naval rank; by now this was only a redundant formality, since it was obvious that he had taken paramilitary control of Cydonia Base.

And there was another change, albeit one which was not imposed by regulation: at odd moments, L’Enfant had taken to referring to the Cooties as ‘the enemy.’

Kawakami rested his elbows on the table and placed his forehead on his palms. ‘We have tried as much as possible to work within his guidelines,’ he continued wearily, rubbing at his eyes, ‘but it has been very difficult. Our only hope has been that someone at Arsia Station would notice the absence of regular communications and report to Earth that something was amiss.’

Miho reached across the table and cupped his hands within her own. ‘We did, Shin-ichi-san,’ she said soothingly. ‘That is why we’ve come.’

She glanced at Nash, and he found himself nodding in agreement. Yet the word
paranoia
didn’t do justice to L’Enfant’s mental condition. Judging from Kawakami’s story, it appeared that the man had become xenophobic, irrationally frightened by the Cooties and the vast unknown which they represented.

Perhaps the condition was nothing new and had been part of L’Enfant’s psyche for many years; it would account for his torpedoing the
Takada Maru,
all those many years ago aboard the
Boston.
But, like many phobias, his state of mind could have been misconstrued as something else…even as a positive quality if one wished to see it that way. Preparedness. Being alert to possible danger. Willingness to take charge. The good old Annapolis gung-ho spirit. The Pentagon might have known all along what he was doing up here and, taking L’Enfant’s own interpretation of events as gospel truth, had quietly decided to give him a free hand. After all, in the minds of many people in Arlington and Washington, he was a responsible officer who had once already demonstrated the ability to take decisive, split-second action. This was a high-risk situation forty million miles from home, where it took fifteen minutes to transmit a simple radio message to Earth; they needed someone out there who could think for himself.

And were these not
aliens?
Their intelligence had evolved within a frame of reference far beyond the planet Earth; even the first exobiologist to receive a Nobel could not provide conclusive answers to their many mysteries. In the absence of knowledge comes fear, and fearful men are only too willing to fire blindly into the darkness. Or trust someone who will stand guard for them.