Earth Song: Twilight Serenade (30 page)

“Once we’ve been to Nexus,” Minu went on, “they’ve agreed to revisit the issue. Part of their problem is that as long as the Tog are responsible for us, anything wrong we do can be taken out on them.”

“Still short sighted,” Cherise growled. “I’ve read the same laws you did. There isn’t anything about undiscovered worlds.”

Minu gestured out the wide panoramic moliplas window installed to one side of the main promenade. “Looks pretty discovered to me.” Hundreds of buildings were visible even from the low height of the spaceport, just next to endless farms.

“Nothing in the Concordia registry of planets,” Cherise pushed.

“Nothing for almost a hundred lightyears,” Minu agreed, “and the closest are unusable star systems.”

“The Lost sure could pick a hideout.”

“We’ll just go with the ‘Big Ass Base’ planet,” Minu said, eliciting a snort of amusement from Cherise. Minu continued scanning the work Cherise had overseen.

“Is this right? Seventy-nine billion bushels of that hybrid wheat in inventory?”

“Only what we’ve inventoried so far,” Minu said.

“I hope you brought me some more staff,” Cherise said darkly. “It’ll take me the rest of my life by myself.”

“No, there wasn’t time.”

“Boss!” Cherise whined.

“Don’t fuss, they’ll be here in short order.”

“But it takes weeks round trip, even in Lilith’s little speedball. And she can only carry a few dozen at a time. I gave you a laundry list for several hundred staff, Chosen and civilian.”

“That won’t be a problem.”

Cherise gave her a skeptical look. Minu replied by reaching into a special pocket and showing he what it contained.

“What’s that?” Cherise wondered. Minu just waggled her eyebrows, annoying the hell out of Cherise in the progress.

“Is the special building I asked for ready?”

“Sure,” Cherise said. “You and your mysteries. Kal’at is there waiting for us.”

A brand new aerocar was waiting outside. Minu looked at it in surprise as Cherise opened the door for her boss.

“What, you don’t like surprises?”

“I wasn’t expecting this,” she said. “Where did you find it?”

“The factory at Moria,” Cherise explained. “Fully operational and with open format configuration. We brought down a few component blocks using a pair of Eseel gunboats and gravitic tractors. Lost control of one. There’s a new crater not far from Moria.”

Minu gawked for a second.

“The CI from the Fiisk helped figure it out. Later shipments went fine.”

The flight was quick, with Cherise’s capable piloting. They flew over the mostly quiet city giving Minu a chance to look at the way it was laid out. Concentric circles with radiating avenues, like most of the bigger cities in the Concordia. Except in those cities that central square would have been a portal spire. Here there was nothing. It was as if the builders had just copied an existing design and left out the spire.

“Where’d they build it?” Minu asked.

“Well there weren’t many open areas. We had some trouble with the airport, actually. The Rasa techs bulldozed the land one day. When they came back the next morning, agricultural bots were replanting the fields.”

“Stubborn robots,” Minu laughed.

“Yeah, it took a while to figure out how to stop them from undoing everything we did. Kal’at finally found the planetary central command. It’s a deep bore bunker, just like on Bellatrix.”

“I wonder how many Concordian worlds have them,” Minu thought aloud.

“Anyway, we decided to use the central square.”

Minu looked at the central square and saw a large dome there. She chuckled at the irony of their location choice.

As they came around to land Minu could see several more aerocars and a couple of heavy duty aerotrucks as well. There were a few Beezer there and a bunch of Rasa. It looked like most of Kal’at’s scientific team. Everyone looked up as Cherise’s aerocar came in for a landing.

“Welcome back, First,” Kal’at said with a bow as Minu climbed out. The Beezer all bowed as well.

“Glad to be back.”

Kal’at gestured at the building behind him, a brand new geodesic dome of dualloy sections. “Is this sufficient to your needs?”

“It should do fine.”

“What is your plan, First?”

“Come inside and I’ll show you.”

Minu’s requirements had been made considering that they might have to bring down components from spaceship salvage, and with that in mind she’d gone with simple. There was a single heavy duty door with a secure code control. As it swung open Minu could see the interior was well-lit with high energy lights, instead of the low intensity bioluminescent types common in the Concordia.

Because it was a geodesic dome there was no need for any internal support structure, but Minu had still had some added. Kal’at also took the initiative and put a section of internal structures near the door.

“Looks great,” she said as she walked inside and towards the center. Kal’at nodded in appreciation of her compliment.

“We just programmed the bots,” he said. “There are quite literally millions of tons of raw materials on this world.”

Minu kept walking until she got to the center of the structure. Just as she’d instructed, there was a mark there to clearly indicate the spot.

“Perfect,” Minu said. “Now everyone get back, please.”

The Beezer, Rasa, and Cherise all stepped back a few meters, making a semi-circle to eagerly watch what their leader was going to do.

She reached into her special pocket and removed the rod from inside. Picking up where she had left off many light years away, Minu touched the end and it came to pulsing blue life. Script appeared in air asking her if she wished to proceed. Minu touched the ‘yes’ icon and the rod went from pulsing blue to solid purple. Minu sat it on the floor and backed away.

“Is that PCR…” Cherise started to ask when the glowing rod lying on the floor suddenly increased in brilliance a thousand fold.

“Whoa!” Minu barked, throwing an arm up to cover her eyes and simultaneously backing another step, just as everyone else in the room was doing. She quietly asked whatever deity might exist to not let the thing explode and kill them all.

The floor began to vibrate and Minu could have sworn that the air felt charged with an other-worldly energy. She also thought she could still see her arm through her closed eyelids. Are those my bones?

After a few heartbeats the light simply disappeared. The room was cast into utter silence so deep and penetrating it reminded Minu of being in deep space within a space suit.

“Shit!” Cherise barked, filling the quiet with her expletive.

“What the fuck was that?!” Selain demanded from the doorway into the chamber. “We could see that damned light through the fucking walls!”

“I thought I could see the bones in my arm,” one of the Rasa technicians said.

Minu shook her head to clear it. When she looked at where she’d left the rod, there was now a milky white dais. Without hesitation she walked up the three steps. As her foot touched the top step, the portal sprang into life. She took out her PCR, pointed it at the portal, and pressed the activation key. Script came alive on the rod and she pressed a familiar sequence. The portal pulsed blue and a view swirled, then materialized.

Minu heard Cherise gasp as they were looking into the portal chamber in Ft. Jovich, with the rest of the Chosen council staring back. Minu stepped through back to Bellatrix, a thousand light years in second.

Dram shook his head, but his smile was huge and ear to ear.

“That was amazing,” Jasmine Osgood said, shaking her head as she looked over her shoulder at the other end of the new portal link between Bellatrix and Midgard. “How many of those can you make?”

“I’m keeping that information as First eyes only,” she said. Jasmine’s look darkened somewhat.

“Executive privilege?” Dram wondered.

“I suppose you could call it that,” Minu agreed.

“You’re not as different from you father as you think,” Dram said. This time it was Minu’s turn for her features to change. She became slightly brooding as she considered that. Sure, she had plans within plans. But she didn’t know what goals her father might have had, or did still have if he were still alive out there in the vastness of space.

Unnoticed by Minu, Ted was observing the portal and rubbing his chin. The look on his face was undecipherable.

Minu heard a half cry, half gurgle and looked past the group of Chosen council members and Ranger guards to see her husband balancing Mindy in one arm.

“If you’ll excuse me,” she said and they parted to make room. “Hi family.”

“Hi Mom,” Aaron said and took Mindy’s little hand and made it wave. Minu gave a half laugh. “Look, I’m sorry about being that way…”

“Don’t,” she said, cutting him short. Mindy was grunting and holding her hands out. Minu took her and cuddled the infant against her chest. “I could have had someone else do it. So you were right.”

He just nodded his head and kissed her gently on the cheek. Behind them Selain and his squad followed through the portal, the sergeant saluting the Chosen Council. Only a few of them returned it, still not used to the new procedure either.

The portal closed and a technician used the room’s built in portal control system to reopen it to Midgard.

“So what now?” Aaron asked.

The door to the portal vault was already open. In through it came dozens of people, all with heavy packs on their backs. Some were civilians, all being led by Chosen with the green stars of the logistics branch. They immediately began moving through the portal.

Minu could see Cherise on the far side waving to get her attention. Minu waved back and the other woman gave her a pronounced bow and mouthed ‘thank you’. Minu shot her a thumbs up.

After the parade of logistics people paraded through, a group of Rasa appeared. They numbered at least a hundred. A platoon of them were soldiers and the rest technical and professional types. Minu immediately saw that quite a few were small and looked around nervously. The first of the new generation of Rasa entering adulthood.

At the end of the procession was Var’at himself. He detached and came over to bow to Minu. “It is good seeing you again, First.”

“Good seeing you too, friend.”

“How is your offspring?” he asked and leaned over to look at Mindy.

“She’s doing just fine.”

“They why do you carry her? Let her run around and look for something to eat.”

Aaron and Minu exchanged glances, then laughed at his lack of understanding.

“Var’at, she cannot yet stand, or even crawl,” Minu explained.

The Rasa seemed dubious but finally gave a customary shrug. “As you will.” He glanced to see the progress of his people moving through the portal. “I thank you for the opportunity to occupy the coastal city on Midgard…what was it called?”

“Catchalot,” Aaron said quickly. Minu shot him a look and he just winked. Var’at bobbed his head.

“Just remember that this is not a colonization effort,” Minu said. “We are only there for research, exploration, and to work on the ships we’ve salvaged.”

“I understand.”

Another Rasa approached. Except for the semicircle of scar tissue on Var’at’s crest ridge, this one was identical so Minu knew it was one of his brothers.

“First, this is my other brother, Zar’at.”

“You are a doctor, if I recall correctly?” Minu asked.

“That is correct,” he said, obviously pleased she remembered even though they’d never met in person.

“So you are planning on another generation of children on Midgard?”

“We are hoping for that,” Var’at said. “Our reproductive system is dependent on environment, so we shall see how this new world treats us.”

“Best of luck, and keep in contact with planetary administration in the capital city where the portal there is.”

“We named it Plenty,” Aaron offered.

Var’at said he would keep in contact then, with his brother, followed the rest through to Midgard.

“You mean you named it, right?” Minu asked her husband.

He shrugged and gave a little grin. “Not this one,” he admitted. “One of the scout teams. Catchalot was mine, though.”

“Heinlein?”

“Alan Dean Foster. The one with whales?”

“I don’t think I’ve read that one,” Minu admitted.

“It’s in our library.”

“I’ll check it out.” She took her daughter and headed out of the vault just as they began to open the other access door, the big one used for vehicles. A group of Lancers were waiting there to go over Midgard. Minu checked her tablet for updates now that she was back on Bellatrix. A message was tagged as urgent. It was one she’d been waiting for.

“You asked what’s next?” Minu said to her husband, glancing up from the tablet and over her shoulder as they climbed into the lift as she coded for her office’s floor.

He nodded that he did.