The Ninth Circle (27 page)

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Authors: R. M. Meluch

BOOK: The Ninth Circle
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Glenn felt the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. “I’m going to guess that you do know.”
“The Myriad rescue was my project for three years,” said Benet. “Trying to save all those beings. All those species. When Rea went into the singularity, I broke down. I admit it. Then, for my next project I was given paradise. Zoe. This is an extraordinary, beautiful world. I have been conservator and administrator of the LEN expedition here for five years now. And now the damned
Merrimack
is coming
here
. Forgive me if I react with hostility. No. Don’t forgive me. I don’t need your forgiveness.”
“Here I thought you wanted to play this game to get to know me.”
Benet seemed to reconsider his approach. He asked, “Tell me. Are you sorry?”
“For anything I did at the Myriad? No.”
“Then I was right about you and your
Merrimack
in the first place. You come in peace and shoot to kill.”
That’s not true. We’re a space battleship. We rarely come in peace
, Glenn thought. Said, “We only shoot if something wants shooting.”
“To kill,” Benet specified. “You shoot to kill.”
“Always,” said Glenn.
 
The United States space battleship
Merrimack
passed through the Boomer in literally no time at all.
“Boomerang” was the Pacific consortium’s term for its long-distance displacement system between Earth local space and the outer arm of the galaxy.
One moment the battleship was in Port Chalai in the Orion arm of the galaxy, the next instant she was two thousand parsecs away, in Port Campbell in the Perseus arm of the galaxy.
“Shotgun” was the U.S. term for the instantaneous connection between their two space forts. The Shotgun displaced ships in the opposite direction from the Boomerang. The Shotgun displaced ships from Earth local space toward the heart of the galaxy.
But the major difference between the Pacific Boomerang and the U.S. Shotgun in Captain Carmel’s mind was that the Pacific internationals allowed Romans to use their Boomer.
The United States had originally protested the construction of the Boomerang. The Pacific nations ignored the protest.
And wish all she wanted, Calli just wasn’t allowed to shoot allies.
The U.S. had a thin presence in the Perseid arm, and no military presence at all before
Merrimack
’s arrival. During the colonial frenzy of the last century the U.S. had expanded toward the galactic center. Asian nations had dominated human exploration outward into Perseid space.
More recently, just before the war, Rome had spread into the Perseid arm. Rome secretly rebuilt her legions on far-flung colonial planets during the Subjugation. Mad Caesar Romulus had been behind that project.
Romulus, the former Caesar, existed now in an induced coma, racked by crazed nightmares.
A disturbing number of people called him Romulus the Great.
Calli Carmel resented America’s so-called allies granting passage to the Legions of a belligerent Empire that to this day claimed the United States as a Roman colony.
The gatekeepers of the Boomerang never checked the contents of Rome’s so-called freighters, which looked a lot like Roman troop carriers. The consortium just collected the high tariff and sent the Roman ships through.
The Boomerang’s displacement terminal in Port Campbell was a titanic cubical region of space scoured clear of particles of any size. Photons and cosmic rays were deflected away from it, leaving the purest black nothingness in which to displace entire spaceships across the kiloparsecs between Port Chalai and Port Campbell.
The engineers didn’t wrap the ship when it displaced through the Boomer as they did when a ship displaced through the Shotgun. But the experience was the same. The traveler still saw, felt, sensed nothing at all. Departure and arrival were the same moment. The surroundings were identical at each terminus—nothingness. The ship came into existence in a lightless cubic area of vacuum exactly the same as the one it left.
Only when the port tug pushed the arriving
Merrimack
out of the pristine nothingness into the light could
Merrimack
see the port with all its stations. And all the cameras of all the stations of Port Campbell saw her.
Merrimack
was the size of a large freighter, but she didn’t look like one. She glided into camera view as a majestic barbarous spearhead. She had a few light-years on her, but she was still a grand, proud ship.
Captain Carmel had expected some resentment at the arrival of her belligerent ship in the trading center. But U.S. flags were out all across Port Campbell, and there was a welcoming light show.
Port Campbell was a new outpost. Its stations had grown up fast as desert blooms, all bright, shiny, beautiful. Expensive.
The tug guided
Merrimack
on a procession between stations.
Merrimack
ran in bright mode, lit up like a minor sun. Proud. Arrogant, some said.
She passed close enough to the stations for the inhabitants on the observation decks to see her with the naked eye.
The observation decks were crowded.
Merrimack
was accustomed to hate, fear, and admiration in equal parts. Calli had expected some apprehension and suspicion. But these folks were inordinately happy to see her.
“They like us,” said Commander Ryan, surprised. “Why do they like us?”
“They
are
happy to see us,” Calli had to admit, puzzled. Port Campbell greeted
Merrimack
like a liberator. “Something’s going on here.”
 
Patrick Hamilton presented a mammoth feather to the senior of the two resident physicians in the expedition camp. “I want to run this through the DNA analyzer.”
“You will not!” said Dr. Cecil and walked away from Patrick.
“Can you do it for me?” Patrick asked.
“No!”
“How about Dr. Wynans?” Patrick asked glancing around the medical hut. “Is WhyNot in here?”
“No!”
Dr. Wynans was here. Patrick could hear him in a back room.
“Did anyone determine the base structure for life on this world?” Patrick said at Cecil’s back.
Cecil spun round. “Oh, no! No. No. No and no.” He plucked the feather from Patrick’s hand and threw it aside. “You are way out of your specialty, Hamilton, and you will not push your project in front of mine. And you won’t use this analyzer! This is a medical diagnostic tool, and it analyzes DNA-based organics
only
.”
“That’s what I’m looking for,” said Patrick. “DNA.”
“The aliens don’t have DNA!”
“You are shouting,” said Patrick. “Why are you shouting?”
“Because you are an imbecile!”
“Imbecile is an obsolete term and inaccurate, and what has my intelligence quotient to do with the volume of your speech?”
Dr. Cecil chased Patrick out of the medical hut and threw his mammoth feather out after him.
Patrick retrieved his feather from the ground.
Melisandra Minyas overheard the exchange. She couldn’t help but hear it.
She ran after Patrick and plucked the long skinny feather from his hand. Winked at him. “I’m game.”
“Thanks,” said Patrick and nodded toward the medical hut. “Don’t get bit.”
She twirled the long feather, making it flash golden in the light. She said, “You’re looking for DNA? Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Dr. Minyas rolled up on her toes and rocked back down on her heels. “You know you could have picked
anything
from any animal or plant as a sample for a base code analysis.”
“I know,” Patrick said. “I just like the idea of bull feathers.”
Dr. Minyas’ freckles spread in a perky smile. “Around here? Yeah. Everything’s made of bull feathers.”
 
“You are here to kill The Ninth Circle.”
Captain Carmel gave the port governor a blank blink. Afraid she looked clueless. Because she was clueless.
She stared at the holo image of Zander Kidd, Governor of Port Campbell. Calli didn’t know what he was talking about.
I’m here to do what?
Merrimack
had picked up some outpost chatter on her way to the main station. All the stations of Port Campbell were buzzing in fear of something called The Ninth Circle. Calli hadn’t paid attention to it.
Calli answered the governor, “What is The Ninth Circle?”
“Pirates,” said Governor Kidd. “Vicious. Vicious. Vicious. Came out of nowhere very recently. Now they’re the terror of Perseid space.”
“
Merrimack
is not here for pirates,” Calli said.
“It’s true then. The United States
is
staking colonies in Perseus space.”
“No, sir. Not that I’ve heard.”
“Why are you here?”
“Passing through to the Outback.”
“Can I talk you into delaying your departure,” the governor asked.
“I can step on a pirate if he’s here,” said Calli. “You point, I’ll shoot.”
“That’s the hell of it. The Ninth Circle aren’t here. And it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.”
Zander Kidd had bought himself devilish good looks. He had big, white even teeth and a shock of thick dark hair with a rakish wave. His eyes were brightest blue with sunray irises. Even under a conservative business suit the man was obviously muscled like a racehorse and probably quite tall, but he was sitting behind a desk here. His bronze skin had a middle-aged texture to it, so he didn’t look like a beach toy. Records said he was seventy years old.
The handsome man looked harried.
“The Ninth Circle are not here. They have never been near here, best I know, or I would have killed them myself. Some bastard in that gang of bastards knows how to play up an image. Not that they are not bad. They’re ghoulish. But it’s
one
pirate ship, and they’ve paralyzed trade across one tenth of the bloody galaxy! All my stations are hemorrhaging business.

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