The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy (4 page)

He poured the wine. It was delicious, cold and crisp with a hint of spritz.

“How’s your work going?” he asked.

“Work? Oh, yes, not too bad.” The story of the diary lay like a lead weight in her brain, clamoring to be shared. She wouldn’t tell Sean or any of the other people here, but Jarrad was a scientist. Besides, the horror of it all was too much to bear on her own.

“You know what you said about the thranx venom? How it kills cells?”

He stared at her, his hand holding his glass suspended in mid-air. “Yes?”

He must think I’m crazy. “It’s just that… It sounds like something I read about. In my room.” She

swallowed a shudder. Just talking about it sent worms of revulsion creeping in her abdomen.

“What?” he said, eyes alive with curiosity.

“You know this planet was abandoned by the ptorix?”

“Yes.”

“A virus killed them. All the ptorix here. It must have been terrible.” She told him what Fyysor had

written, describing the progress of the disease.

He frowned, his wine forgotten. “It sure sounds like a necrotoxin. Were they sure it was a virus?”

“I don’t know. But Fyysor mentions a cough.”

“True.” He had a cute habit of putting his head to one side when he was deep in thought. He turned the glass in his hand, round and around. “The cough suggests it’s airborne. The necrotoxins get into the nasal passages, throat, lungs. And the time period is significant. You said a few days before it developed past a cough?”

She nodded.

“So the cough spreads the virus, the victim breathes it in but doesn’t know he’s sick until the virus has spread sufficiently. Then,” he spread his hands like a flower opening, “it explodes.” He stared at the table top. “That would explain how it could spread easily, by people who didn’t know they were sick.”

Allysha shuddered. Imagine the havoc that would cause on planets like Carnessa or Chollarc? “Just as

well it didn’t get any further.”

“Did you say the first death was somebody who’d recovered from a thranx attack?”

“That’s right.”

He frowned, gazing into his glass. “It sounds almost as if something crossed and combined,” he

muttered. “It’s intriguing.” He shook his head as if to flick the thought away. “I’d love to see the diary.

And the musical instrument you mentioned.” He gave her a tentative smile. “Could you show me?”

She wavered for a moment. But why not? She wanted to share what she’d found. “Okay. Come on.”

She took him up to her room, feeling a little like a student sneaking a man into the dormitory after hours.

She fetched the books first. He admired them and commented as she had done on the quality of the

paper. Theghabra riveted his attention. He turned the instrument over with gentle hands. “This is

incredible. How is it played?”

Allysha grinned. “They use their top mouth to blow into here and then block the holes with their

tentacles. It’s quite astonishing to watch a really good player; their tentacles are a blur.”

“What does it sound like?”

“Like half a dozen cats fighting.” She laughed. “But that’s just us ignorant humans.”

Jarrad had his head on one side. “Maybe you should get this sterilized before you take it anywhere.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I guess as a precaution, really. If the mine manager played this while he was ill, there might still be traces of the virus.”

“After thirty years? Surely not.”

“Viruses are tough and this environment is ideal for them. Moist and warm. You’re probably right but is it worth the risk?”

Allysha stared at him. The very idea that Xanthor and his family might contract this horrible disease was too ghastly to contemplate.

“Let me take this. I’ll sterilize it for you and bring it back.”

She nodded. “Take care of it. And keep it secret, yeah? You’ve seen what these… these vandals do to

ptorix artifacts.”

“Of course.”

She let him kiss her goodnight, not tongues and passion, but she put her arms around his neck.

“You’re very beautiful, Allysha,” he whispered. “I love your eyes.”

She smiled. “Thanks for the evening, Jarrad. It was fun.” She had enjoyed herself. He was nice,

enthusiastic, interested in her and where she came from, and in the ptorix and their culture. Yes, he was nice.

“See you tomorrow?”

“Fine. Same place, same time?”

“For sure.” She walked to the mine entrance with him and watched him walk away, wondering why her

body wasn’t thrumming with anticipation.

Chaka Saahren, currently using the identity Brad Stone, alighted from the shuttle on the Tisyphor landing platform along with the other new arrivals, three men and a slatternly-looking young woman who’d tried to attract his attention on the day-long flight. The heat hit him like a wall. This would certainly try his fitness. He hadn’t spent much time planetside anywhere for years, let alone a steamy, jungle location.

“Take the lift down to the ground,” somebody shouted.

He crammed into the waiting car with his fellow travelers, jammed tight next to the girl. She pressed her breast against his arm and simpered at him. The smell of cheap perfume competed with body odor.

He stepped out of the lift with the others and breathed a sigh of relief when an ugly woman with hair scraped back from her face gathered up the girl. A big, florid man welcomed the three men while a

thickset fellow with the look of a bully stepped toward him, arms folded.

“Brad Stone, right?”

“That’s right.”

The fellow gazed up at him, chin jutting. “I’m Seth Ludovic. You can call me ‘boss’.”

Saahren nodded. “Understood. Boss.”

“Come on. I’ll show you the barracks and get you a uniform, then I’ll show you around.”

He jumped into a ground car, flicked his fingers at the passenger seat and waited while Saahren swung inside.

The car rose and drifted along a road overhung by jungle, almost like a tunnel through thick, red-green foliage.

Ludovic stopped at the barracks, a line of prefab rooms, sparse, clean and adequate, two men to each

room with shifts organized so that the two were on opposite rosters. Saahren pulled on the uniform, dark grey with a light grey undershirt. The trousers were tucked into short boots. The fit wasn’t bad, not that it mattered.

He presented himself to Ludovic, who waited outside, leaning on the verandah rail. “You know, you

look a bit like Admiral Saahren,” he said.

Saahren snorted. “If I had a credit for every time somebody said that, I’d be pretty well off.”

He wondered how his body double was faring, on a hunting trip in the mountains. Fleet Intelligence

would trot him out occasionally to say some orchestrated words to the media to keep the illusion going.

But the truth of it was that hardly anybody had given him a second glance, out of uniform in an

improbable location.

“Huh. True enough. They say everybody has a double somewhere. Handled one of them before?”

Ludovic nodded at the Emson beam pistol in the holster on Saahren’s belt.

Fleet issue, no doubt obtained illegally. “Yes.”

“It’ll be enough for most things. Unless you have to go outside the perimeter fence. Then you’ll need one of these.” Ludovic lifted an AR70 assault rifle, also standard Fleet issue. “You’d have handled these?”

“Yes. What’s out there to need an AR70?”

“Ah.” Ludovic turned to a screen. “These.” A large, bipedal beast with long, strong forearms sporting three wicked-looking claws appeared. “They’re smart, they hunt in packs and we encourage them

around the perimeter. Helps convince the workers they should stay inside the fence, know what I mean?”

He chuckled. “Your main job here is to make sure there’s no pilfering and that the perimeter stays

secure. Van Tongeren’s very particular about who goes where. Here’s the tunnel layout for patrols.”

Ludovic handed him a tablet. “Come on and I’ll give you the tour.”

Saahren attached the tablet to his belt. They walked through the settlement’s main square and up a road through the jungle to the mine’s entrance.

The well-lit main access tunnel looked newly cut; or at least, newly shaved. Saahren had noticed ptorix carvings, flowing and evocative, around the door surrounds but none of their characteristic decoration was visible here. Signs on the walls gave destinations and distances; canteen three, control room point five.

“This here’s the medical center,” Ludovic said, ushering Saahren through swinging doors. A man

dressed in loose blue pants and shirt raised his head from a console.

“Just showing the new man around,” Ludovic said.

The fellow nodded and returned to his work.

Saahren glanced around at an examination couch, sterilizing units for instruments, shelves stacked with bottles and packets. All perfectly ordinary, except for the sign on the door behind the counter that read

‘Authorized Personnel Only. Strictly No Admission’. “What’s in there?”

“Pharmaceutical experiments. Technical types doing some tests on the wildlife here. Seeing if they can make some useful drugs.” Ludovic shrugged. “Though what you could get out of karteks and thranxes is

beyond me. Anyway, you don’t have to worry about this place unless somebody tries to get in there

without permission. The sick rooms are down there.” He gestured at a short passage.

Back in the main drive, Ludovic showed Saahren the tunnels leading to the external exit, the hangar, the equipment bays where the excavators were kept and the entrance to the deep mine where all miners

were routinely searched. They moved on to the store room.

“The biggest risk is in here,” Ludovic said as they walked between shelves holding lights, diggers,

clothing, boots, ropes, clamps. “We don’t want pilfering.”

Ludovic stopped in front of a locker. “This is the explosives cupboard. You need authorization to open it. If anybody tries to break in, an alarm goes off in the control room and on your tablet and the store room locks itself down so the person can’t get away. That alarm comes on, you come running, got it?”

“Got it.”

They returned to the main drive, following the signs back to the control room. His guide stopped outside.

“You’ll spend quite some time in this room. We conduct surveillance from here in between periodic

patrols.”

He opened the door and his demeanor changed. He sucked in his stomach, straightened his shoulders.

“Oh. Miss Marten, isn’t it? Pleased to meet you at last. I’m Seth Ludovic, in charge of security.” He thrust out a hand, an oily smile on his face.

Saahren looked past him, at the woman. He’d never seen eyes like that. The bright green of new leaves shaded to a dark green pupil. It was almost as though the colors blended together, instead of that stark definition between pupil and iris. Her skin was the color of cream and the dark, slightly wavy hair that hung around her shoulders held a hint of red. No slatternly serving girl, this one. Slim and lovely, dressed in simple pants and a shirt. The expression on her face was unreadable.

“Mister Ludovic. Don’t let me hold you up.”

Ignoring the hand she stepped past him, flashed a glance up at Saahren that sent his heart hammering and slipped out the door.

“Phew. Haughty piece.” Ludovic turned to stare after her. “Quite the ice maiden.” His voice oozed

sexual innuendo. “I wouldn’t mind melting her.” He jiggled his hips in a thrusting motion.

“Who is she?” Saahren asked. He was staring, too. He’d met a lot of women in his day, women who

threw themselves at him at official receptions but not one like this. She had an accent, one he didn’t recognize.

“Oh, she’s not on the menu. More’s the pity. She’s an expert on information systems, here to do some

work for van Tongeren. Integrating the systems. Hard to believe somebody so good-looking would have

brains. Except for those creepy eyes. Still, you wouldn’t see ‘em in the dark, would you?”

Those eyes. They were beautiful. She was beautiful. If she threw herself at him, he might even consider catching her, something he hadn’t done for many, many years. But somehow he didn’t think she was the

type to throw herself at anybody.

“Right, Stone, here’s the surveillance station.” Ludovic’s voice brought him back to the mine. “It handles most things but for now it can’t control all the doors. When the lovely Miss Marten’s finished we’ll have control of the old ptorix systems as well. Or so van Tongeren’s been led to believe.”

Saahren followed the man’s instructions almost mechanically. Someone who could understand and

program ptorix systems? That was an art only the very best of the Fleet’s experts had managed. The

ptorix coding was so very different, not helped by the fact they saw different emission spectra. The Fleet had InfoDroids that could interpret ptorix systems but they were kept closely guarded. And she could do this? He needed to know more. And he definitely wanted to see her again.

He noticed something oddly familiar in a corner. He shifted position to get a better look at the dull grey sphere hovering just above the ground. An InfoDroid. With the familiar spiral galaxy symbol of the

Confederacy Fleet etched on the side.

Allysha squared her shoulders and marched across to the tavern, ignoring the stares and whistles. Sean would be here, for certain. And no, she didn’t want a drink, didn’t want to sit down. She wished Jarrad was still here; he’d been a good friend, someone she’d been able to talk to.

“Hello darlin’.” A miner smelling of an afternoon’s worth of beer tried to put an arm around her.

She shrugged him away and strode over to the blond-haired figure at the bar.

“Got a minute?” She had to shout to be heard above the music.

Sean turned around and his eyes lit up. “Ally. Sure. Sit down.” He patted the stool next to him while the barmaid with the boobs scowled at her.