The Engines of Dawn (25 page)

An electric storm cloud the size of a large asteroid had seemingly coalesced out of vague vapors and high-altitude winds. And it had done so in the space of twenty minutes. Around its edges sparkled balls of brightly colored lighting. In the distance, they seemed to Julia like angry gnats.

One of the students at the hovering field kit turned to them. He looked very frightened. "I tried reaching our gondola but all I got was static. Then I tried to reach Eos. The call wouldn't go through."

Thunder started trampling the landscape, coming up from the south, and Julia felt the living presence of negative ions in the air.

"Everybody inside!" Holcombe rapped. "The field kit, too!"

She stood there, mesmerized, by the strange formation of clouds. It almost seemed alive. It seemed … familiar.

The students maneuvered the floating field kit into the opening of the hidden cave. Julia came in last, reluctant, tugging at the rope that held the fall of ivy-grass. They were completely concealed. But concealed from
what!
A mere thunderstorm?

She looked at Professor Holcombe and saw that he had been thinking the same thing. He nodded at her without saying a word: The bizarre lights that were being generated by the massive buildup of clouds seemed to resemble what Seth Holcombe and his StratoCaster friends had encountered on Kissoi 3.

Julia's intuitions had been sparked by the memory of Seth's own terror that had been ingrained on the StratoCast tile Professor Holcombe had shown her.

Holcombe turned to Julia. "The Mound
may
protect us. But we'll turn the field kit's personal shield up to its highest setting and use it to block the entrance to the tunnel."

"Do you think it will work?" Julia asked as the students looked on, perplexed.

"It better," Holcombe said. "Because we don't have any anti-gravity shoes to outrun it. In the meantime, I want to show you something."

When Captain Cleddman was a little boy, he had dreamed of piloting a space vessel. The reason? Life was so boring. Humanity no longer seemed to be
achieving.
But the Ainge would say that humanity no longer
had
to. It had
arrived.
The starving were fed; the homeless were housed; the sick were healed; and anyone who wanted to go to another world could. The Ainge, the largest Christian religion sect in the H.C., would even pay their way. Still, Cleddman found life boring. Only space held the promise of excitement, discovery, and adventure.

Now he had all three. In spades.

Cleddman undoubtedly surprised everyone on the Council by taking the news calmly and walking out when it appeared the meeting was over just a few minutes later. According to university charter protocol, Cleddman would continue overseeing the daily functions of the ship. But actual command relating to traveling would be given over to someone of Nolan Porter's choosing. This could be anyone, from Rene Udice, the ship's usual second pilot, to someone in campus security or even the physical plant. There were about six or seven individuals who could stand in for a debilitated pilot. So it was Porter's call.

This didn't mean that Cleddman walked away angry. He simply had an ace or two up his sleeve.

To President Porter's credit, he did not place a guard on Cleddman, thus allowing him to go back to his quarters unescorted. Also part of protocol: Porter was kind enough to give him the letters that had supposedly come from the Earth just hours before from Mason Hildebrandt, permitting him to redirect the university to another part of the Alley.

Once in the outer hallway and finding that he was alone, Cleddman opened his com and in a quiet voice said, "Mr. Sammons, this is the captain. Could you and Mr. Wangberg meet me on the command deck as soon as possible. I would appreciate it. Out."

Once inside the nearest transit portal, Cleddman went directly to the command deck rather than his own quarters. Had Nolan Porter any military experience, he wouldn't have allowed him to roam free at all. Trust and docility, though, were stock Ainge characteristics-virtues in earlier Christian eras, vices when an infinity of death surrounded you. He would personally see to it that Porter was hoisted on a lanyard when this was over.

Cleddman exited the portal nearest the command deck and, to his surprise, he did not find anyone standing guard.

However, stepping inside the command deck-the door still recognized his chevron-Cleddman found three of Mr. Fontenot's guards unconscious on the floor. Cutter Rausch, still in his gi, was just now calming down. The man's hair was slightly mussed.

The second-shift crew was looking on in absolute amazement.

"What happened to them?" Cleddman asked.

And Rausch said, "One guy accidentally hit the ceiling. That guy there hit that wall over there. And this guy was bounced upside down on the floor. Several times."

"It probably won't matter, in the long run," Cleddman said walking around the unconscious guards.

Cleddman then explained the situation to them, showing them the falsely constructed letters that had been allegedly sent from the Plenary Council all the way from the solar system.

"Do you think the president knows what he's doing?" Rene

Udice asked.

Cleddman nodded. "He does if he concocted these letters. And I think he did."

"But
why
?" Lawton Blythe asked.

"The Ainge view the Enamorati as kin," Cleddman said, "probably because they commune with the same God. It's inconceivable to Porter that the Enamorati would do us harm. He thinks we'll be exonerated when we go to trial."

"There is a rumor," Rene Udice said, "that when Porter's stint as president of the university is over he wants to be elected Highest Prophet in the Ainge Church."

"Ix," Lawton Blythe mumbled. "What do we do?"

Cleddman said, "I've called Wangberg and Sammons, but those guys might not be able to help us if we do end up taking off for Wolfe-Langaard 4."

"But those letters are fakes," Rene Udice said.

Cleddman handed Cutter Rausch both of the letters. "Porter says they're fully restored uncompressed bullets. As you can see, their time of receipt by Eos is at the top of each letter. As you can also see, both bullets arrived just hours ago and they arrived intact."

Rausch had by then brought his breathing under control from the tussle with the three guards. He said, "These letters are frauds. And even if they weren't, Mason Hildebrandt could never have convened the Plenary Council in less than a week. They meet face-to-face and in real time on Luna. They would probably debate the issue for a week. By that time, Mom and Dad would have heard what was happening out here and created a firestorm of criticism. Hildebrandt would have called us
in
to stand trial, not
out
to Wolfe-Langaard 4. Do we even
know
where that is?"

Lawton Blythe indicated his screen. "I've just brought it up. It's way the hell in toward the galactic center."

"What do you think the Rights Advocacy Office can do?" the second pilot asked.

"If we can get the data-bullet system up and running," Cleddman said, "we'll need all the clout we can get."

He turned to Cutter Rausch. "For whatever reasons, Porter's concocted this letter so he can take over the ship. What I want you to do, Cutter, is facsimile both of these letters down to the last molecule. They've got Porter's fingerprints on them and maybe the people who actually made them. So if he denies ever seeing them, then we'll be able to nail him in court."

Rausch nodded. "I'll remove mine, then."

"But first we've got to fix the data-bullet system and get word out to the nonaligned worlds and let them know that Porter just took control of the ship when there was no reason to do so, particularly when the Kuulo hasn't registered a violation of the Enamorati Compact. Somehow Porter's convinced that he's doing this in
our
best interests."

"A show of good faith?" Rausch said.

"Perhaps."

"Then could it be possible that the Enamorati sabotaged the data-bullet system?" one of the techs asked. "They could have sent out their mayday,
then
hit the rest of the system."

"But that begs the greater question 'why,'" Cleddman said.

One of the techs, who had been listening to the conversation, had been sitting idle at her console. Suddenly, she sat up as a yellow warning light appeared on her board.

"Captain!" she said. "I think someone's trying to override our boards."

"I've got it, too," Rene Udice suddenly announced, swiveling around in her chair.

Cleddman stepped around to Udice's station.

The female tech who had announced the first alarm said, "I'm tracking a systems signal diagnostic. It shot right through my board like someone was testing it. It's gone now."

Rene Udice said, "It looks like someone activated the auxiliary power network."

"Where did the signal originate?" Cleddman asked.

"Not from the physical plant," the female tech said.

Cleddman smiled wryly. "I'd say somebody's testing the system to see if they can bypass the entire command deck up here."

"But why?" the female tech asked.

"Probably to see if they can take control of the ship if they need to at some point in the future," Cleddman said.

"But who would be doing such a thing?" she asked.

"Lieutenant Fontenot," Cleddman said.

"But he couldn't do anything without power from the physical plant," the tech said. "Is Lewis Arendall one of them, too?"

Cleddman frowned. "If Fontenot could convince Lewis of the legality of this coup, then Lewis would be bound to go along. I know Lewis very well. He would never do anything to endanger the students."

Cleddman turned to Rausch. "Cutter, get those letters duplicated. Get copies to the Rights Advocacy Office, get copies to the student newspaper, if you can find them; then, when you figure out what's wrong with the data-bullet system, get copies into the Alley with a summary of what's going on. Include the facsimiles. Fire it to every nearby ship and outpost."

The door to the command deck hissed open and two men stepped in. They wore their usual black tunics with shouldercams and they carried with them their quasi-intelligent briefcases.

"Ah, Mr. Sammons. Mr. Wangberg," Cleddman said.

The two lawyers stared down at the guards spread-eagled on the floor and still unconscious.

"We've got a problem," Cleddman said. "And it involves these gentlemen here."

"I should say so," Sammons said in a voice resonant and commanding.

"But not in the way you think," Cleddman said, pulling the two men inside. "Let me explain-"

30

Holcombe had seen enough of the approaching storm to comprehend the magnitude of what was about to befall them. He should have known it from the sly frizziness in the air while he was walking across the ivy-covered fields. But
Homo interstellaris
had long lost the intuitive hunting skills that had gotten them out of the plains and jungles and to the stars.
This
was the somatic caress of the Ennui, just now something very real.

Holcombe pushed the kit's force shield to its maximum setting, which would easily protect them and much of the Mound as well.
But for how long?
He wondered.

By the time they were all back inside, the storm had already begun to spit upon the land. Wind and rain started pushing at the Mound, but inside, silence reigned.

"We never checked the sky for predators," Marji Koczan said, hunkering down by the dim light of a floater.

"What about the gondola?" someone else asked.

"The deadman might have seen it coming," Holcombe responded. "One of the landsats might have seen it forming. Someone in Eos could have gotten word to it."

"Is that storm out there …
alive
?" someone asked.

"Perhaps not as we would understand it, but living nonetheless," he admitted.

Julia, he noticed, had been looking at him as well, but she was merely waiting on his lead. "Why don't you tell us what you think is out there, Julia."

Julia faced the watchful students. "Professor Holcombe had a clone-son who was part of a group of StratoCasters. They were sky-runners and had encountered a cloud formation like the one outside. Except that this one was on a planet called Kissoi 3. It chased them but they managed to outran it."

"You had a StratoCaster clone-son?" a student asked. He was a freshman and came from a prominent Ainge family on Tau Ceti 4. "He was in
your
family?"

Ainge rarely listened to StratoCasts. They did not go in for deep-mind introspection. To them, all a person needed was an Auditor, a church nearby, and a beneficent Mazaru to guide him.

The ivy curtain concealing the cavern began to shudder with the storm's fury. "If what I
think
is out there, it's been reported in scientific journals as appearing on two other worlds-Pahad Suuva 6 and Konaean 4. I think we can now add Kiilmist 5 to that list." And he hadn't even told them yet what lay at the other end of the tunnel.

"This thing couldn't be indigenous to
all
of those planets," Marji Koczan said. "That would imply that it's a phenomenon that goes from planet to planet. Is that what you're saying?"

"Yes," he said.

A deeper
rumbling
began to resonate through the Mound, coming from above. It danced and harried the Mound, but the structure, protected by the kit's shield, seemed to withstand it easily. Unfortunately for the expedition, as long as the kit's shield was up, they couldn't contact Eos or any of the other gondolas for assistance.

"Bobby," Holcombe said. "Print out a star map of the inner Alley. Highlight Konaean, Pahad Suuva, Kissoi, and Kiilmist. I want a top-down view."

Young Gessner eagerly drew up the map from the kit's data banks and printed put a two-foot-square map. He then spread it on the gravelly floor of the tunnel so all could see for themselves. He then drew a line connecting the stars of Kissoi, Pahad Suuva, Konaean, and Kiilmist. The line resembled a nearly perfect "wave" or ripple that might have emanated from the galactic core itself. Earth was approximately 120 light-years out ahead of the "wave" front.