“Weren’t you listening to me at all, Owen? You can’t make deals with Hadenmen. You deliver yourself into their hands, and at best they’ll kill you. At worst they’ll make you into a Hadenman. No, Owen, we’re going to have to be a little more subtle than usual this time. We tried fighting an army on Mistworld and nearly died, for all our powers. We need a strategy, and that means more information about what’s currently going on dirtside. Like how many Hadenmen there are, where they’re situated, that kind of thing.”
“I’ve got Oz scanning. Any luck, Oz? ”
“Not a damned thing. There are shields everywhere. I can’t even pick up something as basic as life signs. Whatever’s going on down there, they don’t want anyone to know about it.”
“He says no,” said Owen. “Which means we have to go down there in person if we’re to get any new information.”
“All right,” said Hazel, scowling. “But we go in undercover, stick to the shadows, and keep our heads well down.”
“I’ve been trying to explain that principle to you for what seems like years,” said Owen. “I’m delighted to see some of my teachings have finally taken root.”
“Don’t get smug again,” said Hazel. “I do have a few brain cells of my own. Look, we have one advantage that the Hadenmen don’t. I learned a few things about Brahmin II’s main city while I was working there. Unless these things have changed drastically in the years I’ve been gone, I should be able to sneak us into the main city unnoticed, so we can do a little clandestine spying. Sound good to you?”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” said Owen. “I’m impressed. Really. Oz, put us into low orbit around Brahmin II, maintaining full power for all our shields.”
“Damn right I will,” said the AI. “Get comfortable. This could take a while. I’m going to have to very cautiously ease us through the Hadenmen ships surrounding the planet, and hope like hell our shields will hold up at close range. If they don’t, I doubt very much that we’ll get a chance to ask for our money back. Feel free to pray to any gods who might owe you a few favors.”
The golden ships filled the viewscreen as the
Sunstrider II
edged slowly forward, slipping through the cordon like a minnow swimming among whales. The golden ships were vast and forbidding, bigger than cities and more dangerous, with enough firepower to back down an Imperial starcruiser, but one by one they slid slowly past, silent and unconcerned, knowing nothing of the slender silver needle slowly threading through the defenses. Finally the last Hadenmen ship fell behind them, and the
Sunstrider II
moved into a secure low orbit over Brahmin II. Hazel let out a triumphant whoop, and Owen stopped crushing the armrests of his chair with his hands.
“Well done, Oz,” he said aloud. “Theoretically, I was pretty sure the shields would hold, but obviously I had no way of testing it in advance.”
“Wait a minute,” said Hazel. “What exactly made you so sure? Do you know something about this ship that I don’t?”
Owen smiled just a little condescendingly. “You seem to have forgotten this ship was rebuilt by the Hadenmen. Since we know they incorporated their advanced tech into other parts of the ship, it seemed only logical that they would also have rebuilt the ship’s shields to their own exacting standards. Seems I was right.”
“Well, yes and no,” said Oz in his ear. “The shields were powerful enough to hide us from the golden vessels, but the Hadenmen have much more powerful devices dirtside. Their sensors punched right through our shields the moment we emerged inside the protective blockade. Luckily, I was able to back up our shields with a little creative thinking. When you had me take over control of this ship from the original—and I might add, highly inferior—AI that the Hadenmen installed to run things, I was able to access all kinds of interesting information in its memory banks. Using the old AI personality as a mask, I was able to slip unobtrusively into the computer nets down on the planet, and instruct them not to register our presence. The program I’ve set running won’t last forever, but it should last more than long enough for you and Miss Death-on-two-legs to make your investigation below. Feel free to applaud and throw roses.”
“Well done, Oz,” said Owen. “I didn’t know you could do things like that.”
“There’s lots you don’t know about me,” said Oz airily. “I am large. I am magnificent. I can work miracles.”
“Don’t you start getting cocky too,” said Owen. “Keep monitoring our shields and your program, and let me know the instant there’s any sign they’ve been detected. Now, what’s the situation on our sensors? Can you use your computer link to sneak us some information on the planet’s surface?”
“Don’t see why not,” said Oz. “Of course, it does increase the probability that someone’s going to notice my program sooner rather than later.”
“Tough. I need information. Show me what’s going on down there.”
“You’ve gone all quiet again,” said Hazel. “And your face has gone through all kinds of changes. Are you talking to that ghost AI again?”
“Ah,” said Owen. “Sorry. I didn’t realize I was subvocalizing. Oz has found a way to run sensor scans on the planet’s surface. And he’s not a ghost.”
“Then how come you’re the only one who can hear him?”
“She’s got a point,” said Oz.
“Shut up, Oz,” said Owen. “Look, maybe it’s something to do with the Madness Maze. He was there in my head when we all went through. Maybe the experience . . . changed him.”
Hazel sniffed. “I still say it’s damned spooky.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Oz. “I try not to think about it too much. Otherwise I start worrying about awkward questions like where the hell my hardware is these days.”
“We can argue about the nature of existence later,” said Owen firmly. “Sometime when we’re not surrounded on all sides by a whole army of cybernetic killers. Now, put the sensor scans on the main viewscreen, dammit.”
“All right, all right,” said Oz. “Sensor displays coming right up.”
“Colonization never really got started again here after the first colony was wiped out,” said Hazel as they waited for the first pictures of the planet’s surface to come in. “Population never really rose much above a million. Local ecosphere is pretty bleak, making farming difficult, and the mines are hard work, without much in the way of payoff. And after the Hadenmen attack nobody would volunteer to come here. Eventually the powers that be had to promise extra land, higher bonuses, on-site troops, and permanent Fleet protection. They really wanted those mines working again. In the end, enough of the truly desperate allowed themselves to be persuaded by the new package to make a new start on Brahmin II, and the colony was up and running again. Only the Fleet had to be called away during the rebellion and never went back. And while we were all preoccupied with other things, the Hadenmen just walked right in and took control all over again. The colonists were sitting ducks. Poor bastards. It must have been their worst nightmare come true.”
“Another price we paid for victory,” said Owen. “Another mess for us to clear up. And something else for me to feel guilty over. Sometimes I wonder why I started out on this road.”
“Because otherwise you’d have been killed. Don’t beat yourself up, Owen. There’s any number of people back on Golgotha who’d be only too happy to do it for you. We overthrew the Iron Bitch and put an end to a system based on oppression and brutality. In the end, that justifies everything we had to do.”
“Everything?” said Owen.
“Damn right,” said Hazel.
Owen looked back at the viewscreen and changed the subject. “I wonder why the Hadenmen came back here. Everyone knows why they wanted a rich prize like Madraguda. But from what you’ve said, it’s hard to see what makes Brahmin II so attractive. What do they mine here? Anything important?”
“Not really,” said Hazel. “Some minor minerals. Useful stuff but not valuable.”
“So what brought the Hadenmen back here to make it their new base? What makes Brahmin II so special?”
“You got me,” said Hazel. “Maybe that’s one of the things we need to find out on our little trip dirtside.”
The viewscreen finally flashed up the first pictures, and Owen and Hazel fell silent as they saw what the Hadenmen had done to Brahmin II this time. The cities had been devastated, blown away by concentrated disrupter fire. Not even ruins remained, only shallow craters in the earth. The only exception was Brahmin II’s main city and starport, still standing, but the Hadenmen had put their mark on that too, transforming it into something new and alien with strange structures and unfamiliar technology.
“This is worse than the last time,” Owen said finally. “A scorched-earth policy for the outer cities, and then setting up shop in the main city. They’re here for the long term. And I made it all possible.”
“Will you stop putting the weight of the universe on your shoulders!” snapped Hazel. “Not everything that happens is your fault. Let’s concentrate on the matter at hand, namely sneaking into the main city, getting our information, and sneaking out again with all our important parts still attached. Anything else can wait till later. When we know what’s going on here, we can come back with what’s left of the Fleet, launch a surprise attack, and open up with everything we’ve got. That’ll wipe the smile off their faces.”
“We can’t leave,” said Owen. “Look at those figures on the side of the screen. Those are life-sign readings. The majority of the population are still alive, and being held in the main city. A human shield against Empire intervention. The Hadenmen have always understood human weaknesses, even if they don’t share them. We have to rescue the colonists. We’re the only hope they’ve got.”
Hazel sighed. “There’s always something, isn’t there? Why can’t things be simple anymore?”
“They never were,” said Owen. “Except in retrospect. And the movies. How well do you know this city?”
“Very,” said Hazel. “Our one lucky break. This is the city I was planning on breaking into anyway. I used to work there; it was the capital and main administrative center. Even ran the mines from there.”
“Then that’s probably why the Hadenmen preserved it. What’s it called?”
“Brahmin City. They weren’t the most imaginative colonists I ever ran across.”
“Then take us down, Oz. Find a landing place reasonably close to the city outskirts, but far enough away that a boundary patrol won’t stumble over us.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” said Oz. “As far as my scans can tell, there are no border patrols. Nothing’s moving outside the city. Damned fools are relying entirely on their sensors. Hadenmen always did put too much faith in tech. Hold on to your chairs. Here we go.”
The
Sunstrider II
fell slowly out of orbit, drifting down like a solitary silver leaf unnoticed in the forest. Owen and Hazel studied the viewscreen intently as Brahmin City finally loomed up beneath them. New buildings rose among the old, tall silver shapes with sudden bulges here and there. Outgrowths of brightly shining tech piled on top and around each other, as though they had grown to their present shapes rather than been planned and constructed. The battered city looked as though it had been infected by some vast silvery parasite, shooting up in every open space and choking the old human remnants of the city that was. The Hadenmen were building themselves a new home, and there was nothing human in its form or nature.
Nothing at all.
They parked the
Sunstrider II
in one of the lesser craters, all that was left of one of Brahmin City’s suburbs. Owen and Hazel disembarked with gun and sword in hand, just in case Oz was wrong about the border patrols, but all was still and silent. No birds sang, no insects buzzed, and nothing at all disturbed the dusty air. Owen looked slowly around him, taking in the desolate landscape. It was every shade of gray, from scorched earth to beaten stone, and nothing lived in it for as far as the eye could see. A cemetery plot with no grass, no flowers, and no headstones, and nothing left of the dead to bury.
The end of time will look like this,
thought Owen.
When we are all gone and life itself is gone to dust.
It reminded him very much of Virimonde, and he wondered if he was always fated to arrive too late. Just once he would have liked to be a savior rather than an avenger. He put away his sword and gun. They felt small and useless in the face of so much death and destruction.
Hazel was mooching around, kicking the gray ground to see the dust rise up in clouds and slowly settle. She had also put away her weapons, and looked distinctly annoyed that there’d been no one around for her to use them on. Owen took in a breath to call to her, and then coughed harshly as the dust floating in the air irritated his throat. The air everywhere was thick with it, a shifting gray haze like the ghosts of powdered buildings. It was even thicker higher up in the atmosphere, and the light of the falling sun shone through it in a gorgeous haze of faded colors, like a rainbow bought secondhand from a market stall.
“Come on, Owen, there’ll be time for sightseeing later.” Hazel was impatient as always. “Brahmin City is just over that ridge on the horizon. An hour’s walk tops.”
Owen fixed her with a suspicious gaze. “You said you knew a way into the city that the Hadenmen probably wouldn’t have covered. Are you ready to discuss that yet?”
“Well,” said Hazel, not meeting his gaze. “It’s a way in, but you’re not going to like it.”
“I haven’t seen a single thing about this planet that I’ve liked so far. What’s wrong with this way in?”
“ It’s . . . through the sewers.”
“Of course,” said Owen. “It would have to be, wouldn’t it? How come you know about it?”
“My job here was part of city security. The rebuilding of the colony was finally getting under way, with new cities springing up everywhere, but the cost was going way over budget, and I mean way over. So they hired a whole bunch of security experts with nasty, suspicious minds to find out where all the money was going. Sounded like an interesting job when I took it, but it turned out to be mostly paperwork and computer time. But I got there in the end. I hacked into files I wasn’t supposed to know about, and found hard evidence that one of the main contractors was working a scam with one of the main unions. The contractors arranged for extra overtime, none of which was actually done, and the contractors and the union bosses split the take between them. None of the poor working slobs ever saw any of that money, of course.