Mission Zero (Fourth Fleet Irregulars) (23 page)

‘Nobody is saying that they’re
cognitive
, let’s be clear on that.  Only total nutters think that cores are ‘alive’ in that sentient way.  But superlight fuel is very strange stuff, you know – actually an impossible substance in this reality, artificially created and sustained here only by the use of incredible forces.  We’ve been researching it for two thousand years and still haven’t fathomed all its mysteries. 

‘If you ask an engineer if cores are alive, we will tell you that’s a meaningless question.  A particle of superlight fuel exists outside the parameters of our reality.  It creates and destroys itself simultaneously.  You can’t apply four-dimension limited labels like ‘alive’ or ‘not alive’ to something that strange, it is beyond our definitions.  Cup of tea?’

‘Yes, please,’ Mako said, feeling somewhat in need of one and glad to sit down after the intensity of that experience.  Tea was provided – and it was traditionally tea in engineering.  It was made in a pot using water from a steam valve, which Morry told him was a custom so ancient amongst spacers that the Fleet had nearly mutinied when a First Lord had tried to outlaw the practice more than a century before. 

‘He wanted to install
vending machines!’
  he said, with a tone that effectively conveyed the Fleet’s reaction to that.  ‘Even now, he’s known as ‘Kettle’ Donovan.  He’s been dead fifty years and the Fleet’s barely forgiven him yet.  We don’t take kindly to people meddling with our ancient rights and customs.  Engineering is also, traditionally, a haven for skippers – for any officer, come to that, but especially for skippers, as just about the only place on the ship where they do not have to maintain command aloofness.’

Mako saw that for himself, not long afterwards, as Morry was telling him a funny story, legendary in the Fleet, about a very important admiral, VIP passenger on a warship, who’d been discovered in engineering playing poker with ratings.  That, Morry explained, was
so
not allowed under Fleet regs that personnel caught gambling for money were liable to serious disciplinary action.  Legend had it that as the appalled skipper had looked on at his VIP superior running a poker school, the admiral had remarked genially that it quite took him back to his own days in starship command, and had invited the skipper to join them.  According to legend the skipper had done so, though accounts varied as to whether he’d cleaned up or been cleaned out.

‘That old chestnut.’  Alex von Strada commented, coming into engineering as Morry was finishing the story.  ‘I’ve told you, Morry, it never happened
. 
Pure
myth.’  

‘Official Admiralty line.’  Morry told Mako confidentially, at which Alex grinned, swinging easily to sit on the steep open-grid stairs that formed part of the complexity of walkways and gantries interlaced through engineering. 

‘Well, you believe what you like,’ the skipper observed.  As one of the crew on duty there poured out a mug of strong brown tea and handed it to him in the kind of freefall safe mug used in engineering, he nodded thanks and smiled at Mako.  ‘You’re not looking too shell-shocked,’ he said.

‘No,’ Mako said, having recovered his composure now.  ‘It’s fascinating.’

Alex gave the LPA inspector an amused look.

‘Your hair is still standing on end,’ he observed.  Mako put up a hand and felt his hair standing out from his scalp.  His skin was still tingling all over and it would be hours before the sense of energy surging through him finally vanished.  As he yelped at the realisation of what a sight he must look, Morry and the engineering crew cracked up too.  So, more astoundingly, did the skipper.  He could relax here in this sanctuary aboard his own ship.  For the first time, Mako heard him laugh properly instead of the discreet little snurge he usually used.  For years afterwards, whenever Mako heard Alex von Strada being described as a chillingly unemotional and ruthless man, he would remember him sitting there in engineering, drinking tea out of a battered mug and laughing.  When he laughed like that, he looked hardly more than a teenager.  Mako was suddenly aware that Alex was, in fact, only a few years older than his own son.

When he came to write that experience up, though, he found it difficult to put official words around it.  LPA report writing protocols did not lend themselves either to recording the experience of having twenty four dimensional energy surging through your body, or to the revelation of seeing the skipper open up and show the mischievous kid within.

If that was hard to write up, though, then what he found out the following day was just downright impossible.

It was not the best of days to begin with.  They’d overtaken a freighter not long after breakfast and a request had been signalled for a medical check on one of their crew, if convenient.  Mako had been shocked to see that the patient was a woman who was heavily pregnant.

He had, then, made a remark that had caused offence.  Exclaiming in amazement that a heavily pregnant woman would head into space on a freighter he’d commented that he was surprised that the authorities allowed it, at which a certain frost developed in the atmosphere.

‘Perhaps you’re not aware, Mr Ireson,’ said Martine Fishe, tactfully, ‘that that is an issue which spacers tend to feel pretty strongly about.  Several of our own crew were, in fact, born and raised in space.  Including,’ she glanced over to where the chief petty officer was studiously pretending not to be aware of the conversation, ‘Hali Burdon.’

‘Oh.’  He’d apologised of course, admitting that he’d spoken in ignorance and expressing himself as very willing to learn, but it clearly
was
a very touchy subject.  A good many hedgehog spikes emerged the moment the words ‘Social Services’ entered the discussion and everyone was keen to tell him how well spacers looked after and educated their kids.  He was grateful to Hali Burdon for inviting him to go have lunch with her at the end of the watch, clearly with an intention to show no hard feelings.  He was relieved, too, to find that they were joined by other members of the crew who were pleasant and friendly with him.  They didn’t harp on the subject, either, but were very willing to let that go and just chat about other things.

Unfortunately, this brought up a subject which later that afternoon had him asking if the skipper could spare him a moment.  Since this clearly meant privately, Alex agreed at once and took him into his cabin.

‘Problem, Mr Ireson?’  He asked, as they both sat down.

‘Well… yes, frankly.  I don’t quite know what to make of it.’  Mako admitted.  ‘The thing is, skipper, someone has obviously told Ty Barrington that the secret facility underneath the prison on Cestus is actually ‘Base 19’, with alien bodies there and everything.  My concern is that when I asked Lt Fishe to assure him that it isn’t true, she told me that it
is
.  I have until now regarded Lt Fishe as an entirely reliable source of information, and I’m not sure what to make of this at all.’

He looked suspiciously at the skipper, who was sitting there with his hand over his mouth and his eyes rather bright.  ‘Are you
laughing
, Skipper?’

‘Forgive me.’  Alex said, composing himself with a visible effort.  ‘I know this is going to come as a considerable shock, Mr Ireson, but they are in fact correct.  Since you have been told it already, I will do the decent thing here and confirm it.  That is exactly what is under there.  Though the army doesn’t call it ‘Base 19’.  The myth of Base 19 was actually something they created themselves on Canelon in order to draw attention away from the real facility when activists at the time were getting rather too close to it.  The army name for it is ‘C-Storage Facility’.  But yes, it is the reality that the myth of Base 19 is based on.  They are not having you on.’

Mako stared at him.  ‘But…’  He protested, feebly.  ‘Come on! 
Aliens
?’

Alex gave him a curious look.  ‘Amazing,’ he commented.  ‘You are an intelligent, educated, professional man, Mr Ireson.  You know for a fact that non-human species are a reality.  You know about the Marfikians, of course, and you’ve surely heard of Quarus, if not that much about it.  And you must, I am sure, be aware that human space is bounded by an impenetrable barrier we call the Firewall, beyond which there is clearly some kind of highly advanced civilisation.  And yet you say ‘aliens!’ as if the very notion is preposterous.  That’s an attitude we do see a lot in groundsiders.  It’s quite astounding to us that even intelligent, educated people like yourself can be so closed minded and blind on this issue.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose, theoretically, I’d have to concede the existence of some kind of advanced life out there.’  Mako agreed reluctantly.  ‘But that’s, you know, out
there
, way beyond our reach!  Not here on our own worlds!  It’s only people like conspiracy theory nutters who go on about aliens secretly visiting our worlds and all that!’

Alex grinned.  ‘And what is there in that, that you find so hard to believe?’ he queried.  ‘The existence of non-human civilisations, their visits to our worlds, or that our government would keep that a secret?’

‘Well, the government secrecy thing, I suppose,’ Mako said, having considered it.  ‘I don’t believe you
could
keep something like that secret, not really, and I don’t see why governments would do that anyway.  But you’re not seriously telling me that that’s true?’ he looked reproachfully at him.  ‘Skipper!’

‘I’m telling you the stone cold honest truth.’  Alex said, positively.  ‘The Fleet does, in fact, have a secret base just a few days from Chartsey.  It’s an entry port for visitors from the only world we have so far established contact with across the Firewall.  It is a world we know as Solarus Perth, and its people are very definitely not human.  They are hugely more advanced technologically than we are.  We have been in established diplomatic relationship with them now for more than a century.  They maintain an embassy at the secret base and their visitors are brought on from there to Chartsey by specially adapted Fleet ships in joint operations with the Diplomatic Corps.’

‘You’re
serious!’
  Mako gasped, as he saw the conviction with which the skipper was speaking.

‘Totally.’  Alex confirmed.  ‘That, in fact, is one of the functions of the raptor class destroyers.  That’s what’s so special about them and why they always have very senior skippers and top end crew.’

‘But…’  Mako was still trying to find a way for this not to be true.  If it was, it would mean many things he believed about his world were wrong.  ‘You know this for a
fact
, do you?’ he asked, clutching at straws, ‘I mean, it’s not just something you’ve heard in a bar?’

Alex smiled.  ‘I had my first exo-encounter when I was eighteen,’ he said.  ‘Every year, all of the sixty seven League Academies across the League send their top rated cadet to Chartsey to sit their finals there.  There’s an intensive month of exams and assessments in a moderating exercise ensuring that all the academies are teaching and grading to the same standards.  But as part of that, the cadets are competing with one another for graduation rankings, with that determining very directly what opportunity you get in the final year shipboard placement.  The absolute pinnacle of prestige, given to the cadet who comes out top across the entire League for that year, is a placement aboard an exodiplomatic vessel. 

‘I won that, the year I graduated.  I was aboard Falcon.  That’s a raptor class destroyer, very new.  It’s officially part of the Second Irregulars R&D division but actually attached to the First Irregulars exodiplomacy service.  There are VIP quarters on board fitted out for the comfort of non-human passengers.  Diplomatic personnel escort them back and forth between the entry station and the embassy provision for them on Chartsey.  I was aboard when we took a party of nine visitors back to the entry station, and had the honour of meeting them, yes. 

‘It was a strange experience, thrilling and yet strangely dull at the same time.  I mean yes, obviously, amazing to meet aliens from beyond the Firewall.  But they seem to function at a fraction of the speed we do with very slow, long silences.  They spend hours just sitting with gauzy veils wrapped about their heads.  The ship had to be kept extraordinarily quiet, too.  They find loud noise of any kind distressing so Falcon is fitted with noise dampeners on buzzy tech, the ship’s company are issued with silent footwear, and there is a whisper protocol for talking.  It felt like walking on eggshells for four days, and the whole ship erupted with noise when they’d gone and the diplomats gave us a ‘thank you, good job’.  

‘They are humanoid, by the way, though very tall and thin, with quite different skeletal joints which means they move very distinctively.  There’s no way they can be blended in amongst humans, they’d be spotted at once.  So they are taken to the exhibits and things they want to see in soundproofed blacked out vehicles, disguised as vans and things like that, which slip them into the museums and galleries which are closed for them to visit. 

‘And yes, that is true too,’ he said, as Mako’s eyes widened at that.  It was a common claim by conspiracy theorists that if you monitored closures of museums and galleries for the cleaning of exhibits and the like, every now and again you would see something that looked like the itinerary for a two or three week holiday.  This, they claimed, was evidence that aliens were secretly there on visits. 

‘I was called on to escort such a party myself once, as a Lt.  A great honour and an interesting experience.’  Alex said matter of factly.  ‘But yes, all that is true.  If we went out that way, there would almost certainly be one of their ships in port at the secret base.  They’re enormous, fifty times the size of the biggest ships we’ve built, and may only have three of them aboard.  They don’t travel like our ships, either.  They use some other means of propulsion than superlight.  Their ships just, to our eyes and scanners, seem to appear out of nowhere and vanish just the same way, just there one instant, gone the next.  But we’re not going that way, of course.  That’s a restricted area, which you will find on star charts marked off in red as ‘too dangerous for starship navigation’.  We’re not going to see any alien ships where we’re going.’