The Engines of Dawn (29 page)

Vees soon reconfigured his nexus projector and plugged it into an amplifier that had been gathering power in modest increments over the last few hours. He donned the headset, reclined in his special chair, and switched on his system.

Vees let his mind drift with the theta-wave rhythms the nexus beam picked up as it probed the sacrosanct world of the Auditors. The nexus probe drifted as light as a dream through walls, down corridors, into rooms-quiet as a shadow searching for the theta waves in the main Auditor box. High Auditors and bishops could spend as much time as they wished in the Auditor box, listening to Mazaru doing His work across the galaxy. Lower Auditors had to wait their turn, but wait they did. Patience was an Ainge virtue. Patience and obedience.

Vees was neither patient nor obedient.

Within minutes he found an intense source of magnified theta waves and knew that he had found it. The box. The Auditors more commonly called it the "station," and, to Jim's surprise, it wasn't a "box," but instead a simple chair-comfortable and plush-with a large headset. It was enclosed by four walls, giving it the appearance of a box from the outside.

And the Auditor taking his turn at the station was Orem Rood, one of the most privileged Auditors. Vees could feel the man's solemn pride mixed in with the headset's peculiar effects.

To Jim, it was like being in an opium den. Rood was nearly unconscious with the prolonged orgasmic titillations of the machine.

Vees focused on the endorphic charge Rood felt, letting his mind expand far enough to grasp the immense, impossible, energy-charged infinities of trans-space.

He saw God.

At least as Auditor Orem Rood saw Him.
Mazaru.

He gasped with euphoric revelation, for he could actually sense God at work fifty light-years away in one direction, four thousand light-years in another, five hundred light-years in still another.
Dollops of joyful pleasure lightly touching here, lightly touching there throughout the galaxy. And it was intelligent, knowing, and all-powerful….

The mind of Orem Rood was calling out to God. A prayer. He was gently beseeching God to swing His righteous wrath back to their little corner of the Alley in this time of crisis. Time was of the essence, the situation deteriorating…

Crisis? What crisis?

A loud
bang!
slammed against the door to Vees's room, the sheer violence of it yanking him out of his trance. He ripped off his helmet in time to see long, slightly curved swords tear through the door to the second suite as if it were merely a paper partition. The swords, slender as those used by ancient Japanese samurai, had edges that were molecule-thin. And so did their axes. These came next and the door was sliced away from its hinges within seconds.

Alien soldiers came crashing in-four Accusers in then- dark-green battle chitin and shielded faceplates, swords ready to slice up anything that got in their way.

"Jesus Christ!"
Vees said, leaping out of his chair.

For the first time terror,
real
terror, gripped him. They came at him like a line of fullbacks. They had unexpectedly powerful hands and they snatched him from his chair as if he were a three-year-old.

"Help!"
Vees shouted as the battle-armored Enamorati dragged him to the nearest transit portal. Four spiders. One fly. And no witnesses.

In the hallway, filled with the disappearing vapors of sleep gas, were the forms of six or seven unconscious students, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Jim and his captors vanished into the transit ring.

Cutter Rausch stepped from his private apartment into the ShipCom Arena, busily wiping his hands with a small towel. The fastidiousness he'd learned from the monks of the Kobe Gardens had stayed with him over the years. He did not like messes. But it would take several days to wash away the oil and grease from underneath his fingernails.

"Lisa, the diagnostics. What's the word?" Rausch asked his second-in-command.

Lisa Benn and several of Rausch's closest staff had been at their boards running a series of diagnostics on the entire data-bullet system, now that the problem with the system had been identified and fixed.

Lisa Benn said, "Just came in. The test bullet we sent seventeen minutes ago to Vii Vihad 4 arrived intact and returned intact. The system's back to specs."

Rausch sat at his chair and pondered the strange device that had apparently caused all of their communications problems. Between his thumb and forefinger, he held a gizmo about the size of a one-credit coin, three-fourths of an inch in diameter, an eighth of an inch thick. They had found no defect, or sign of sabotage, in their bullet compression software or in the magnetic suspension holding queue. That left the rail gun itself. Rausch had been on his knees for the last hour or so, wending his way through the maintenance tunnels that their servicing robots couldn't get into. The device he had found had been placed close to the center of the rail gun, but outside the antimatter barrier that surrounded the gun housing. It was a blind spot in the rail gun's construction.

"Do you know what it is?" Maree Zolezzi asked, pointing to the wafer-sized device in Rausch's hand.

Rausch nodded. "It's a computer chip designed to exert a slight magnetic pull on the antimatter shield surrounding the rail gun. When the gun powered up, this guy here would tug on the shield, warping it, causing the bullet to go into a wild spin. By the time the bullet arrived at its destination, its cohesion would have completely failed. Dead bullets."

Rausch passed it around the room.

Ms. Zolezzi pondered the little device. "I've never seen anything like this before," she said, passing it on to TeeCee Spooner. "Is it… one of ours?"

"Is it human, you mean? I'm sure we'll find out when we take it apart," Rausch said. "Unless an Enamorati got a human to make it, then we'd be in for a long and complicated investigation and I don't want-"

The door to the Arena suddenly hissed open. Lieutenant Ted Fontenot, two of his associates, and the Kuulo Kuumoottomaa appeared. The Kuulo, Rausch noted, was encased in a kind of e-suit he had never seen before.
Battle armor,
he realized.
No more charades. No more fooling around.

Rausch turned to TeeCee Spooner and gave her the strange device that had fouled up their rail launcher. "Scan this and add it to your report, intern. Then proceed on that other matter we discussed."

"Yes, sir," TeeCee said. She placed the small device on their molecular scanner and turned it on. All this was done with a careful sense of nonchalance and business-as-usual regularity. Neither Mr. Fontenot nor the Kuulo Kuumottoomaa seemed to have noticed the transaction.

However, Rausch's attention was on the distinctive chevrons on Mr. Fontenot's collar: they were those of a ship's captain. By university charter Rausch had to obey the ship's captain, regardless of the particulars of succession. He could do nothing but obey the man's commands.

Or
pretend
to obey.

"Mr. Rausch," Fontenot said perfunctorily.

"Yes, Captain Fontenot," Cutter Rausch said, the words tasting funny on his tongue. "What can I do for you?"

"By direct order from the Plenary Council, I have been given command of the ship and am told to oversee the installation of the new Engine. We are then to proceed to Wolfe-Langaard 4, where Mr. Cleddman, several faculty, and a few students will stand trial for possibly violating the Enamorati Compact."

"I see," Rausch said. "And why are you telling me this?"

"Because," Fontenot said, "I want a total communications lock-down, nothing in, nothing out until the new Engine arrives and the Enamorati have completed their insertion ceremony. President Porter and I will have, by then, composed several communications to the worlds of the H.C. Everything will go by protocol from now on, because I will
not
let any of our actions further jeopardize our relationship with the Enamorati."

"I see."

"In the meantime, I want all transit portals switched off to human traffic and I want you to announce to the students, staff, and faculty that they are to return to their living areas until further notice. The Engine escort will be appearing soon and we don't want any interference this time from anyone."

Fontenot turned to walk away.

"Then shall I keep the transit portals open to Enamorati?" Rausch asked dutifully.

Fontenot paused, looking at the Kuulo Kuumottoomaa. The Kuulo said, "We have no use for them. You may include us in the shutdown, if you wish."

"As a show of good faith," Fontenot interjected, "we will allow the Kuulo full use of the portals, even if he does not avail himself of them." He made a slight bow to the chief Enamorati.

Rausch considered a light, now blinking, on his board.

"Then what about members of the Avatka class?"

Fontenot stood puzzled. He looked at the Kuulo. The Kuulo said, "The Avatkas are busy. None would be allowed anywhere until the
Sada-vaaka
is completed and the ship under way."

Rausch pointed to his data board. "Well, I'm showing that one of your Avatkas transited to the physics wing, oh, about ten minutes ago. What about him?"

The Kuulo looked about as perplexed as an Enamorati could be. Fontenot looked at the Kuulo Kuumottoomaa.

"Which Avatka would this be?" the Kuulo asked Rausch.

"The Avatka Viroo," Rausch said. "At least that's what we registered from his pager/transit chevron."

The Kuulo seemed surprised by this information. "There is a mistake in your tracking computer. Our Avatkas are preparing for the insertion ceremony and are in seclusion."

Before Rausch could respond to the Kuulo's obvious falsehood, Lisa Benn raised her hand. She had been pondering a new series of lights on her board. "Sir, I've got four unregistered Enamorati in Babbitt Hall. They've just arrived."

Rausch came over. Even Fontenot was taken off-guard by the revelation.

But then Benn retracted her remark. "I'm sorry. My mistake. They just transited back to the Enamorati compound. Never mind."

Fontenot and the Kuulo Kuumottoomaa looked wordlessly at one another.

Benn kept on speaking, however. "Oh, but now it looks like they were accompanied by a human being, a student. His com/pager is off but the transfer signal he left behind suggests the weight and mass of a human being. Male, I'd say."

"They transited back to the Enamorati compound with a
human being
?" Maree Zolezzi asked. She looked at Cutter Rausch. "Is that… allowed?"

Fontenot said, "The only way a human could transit into the Enamorati compound would be if an Enamorati allowed it. And none would. Like the Kuulo said, you're mistaken."

"Mr. Fontenot…
Captain
Fontenot," Rausch said. "Four Enamorati entered Babbitt Hall a few moments ago and returned with a male human student. Are you and the Kuulo trying to conceal the kidnapping of a human being through the transit system? If you are, I am duty-bound to prevent it.
I
oversee the transit portals.
You
don't. Now what the hell are the Enamorati doing in Babbitt Hall?"

Fontenot considered the Kuulo Kuumottoomaa. "Were you aware of this?"

The Kuulo seemed hesitant. He then said, "Of these four Enamorati, yes, I was aware of this. I cannot say for the Avatka in the physics wing."

"What were the four doing in Babbitt Hall?" Fontenot asked.

"A minor matter, Captain," the Kuulo said. "We are merely detaining those responsible for violating our
Makajaa
ceremony of a few days past. You and your agents have enough to do in securing the ship."

Cutter Rausch then said, "Unless you have a different perspective on this, I'd say that at the very least you've just earned a case of illegal entry, destruction of personal property, assault on a human being, and possible battery. Then you've got a charge of possible kidnapping that could be thrown at you, if that's what's happened."

Rausch and Fontenot had their eyes locked, but the Kuulo stepped in between them. He said, "I know this seems extreme to you, but we believe we are well within our rights to protect
our
privacy. The student taken from Babbitt Hall is the only human we know who is now capable of eavesdropping on us. We will return him when the insertion ceremony is over. We will detain him no longer than forty-eight hours."

"I don't think that's legal," said the intern.

Fontenot faced the Kuulo. "I insist that I know at all times what your people are doing. Do you understand? We live by the rule of law here. I
can't
have you acting on your own accord. Someone might get hurt or killed."

"I understand perfectly," the Kuulo said.

"All right, then," Fontenot said.

He turned to Cutter Rausch. "The Kaks have calculated that the new Engine will arrive in less than fifteen hours. One was much closer than they originally thought. We want all of the gondolas recalled immediately and the ship secured. This means students in their dorms, staff and faculty in their homes, and crew at their stations. Send that message out to everyone immediately."

"I can do that," Rausch said.

The Kuulo added, "It is also advisable that all of your probes and mapping satellites be destroyed."

"We can shut them down," Cutter Rausch said. "Their orbits will eventually decay and they'll be destroyed on reentry."

"I would prefer they be destroyed now-unless they can be captured and returned physically to the ship," the Kuulo said. "If the inbound crew escorting the Engine detects a satellite or probe nearby, they will withdraw and take the Engine with them. We will be stranded."

"Then those are your orders," Fontenot said to Rausch and his crew. "I want a communications blackout and every human accounted for in six hours. Do you understand?"

Rausch nodded. "And what about Captain Cleddman? Where is he?"

Fontenot said, "He has been ordered back to his quarters. He has demonstrated a willingness to follow this change of command, which will look very good for him, I'm sure, when we take this to court."