*
Things seemed pretty subdued in the ops center when he walked in. If any excitement had been generated by his disappearance, it seemed to have died down by now. Two of the mining dispatchers glanced his way in momentary curiosity, but he just nodded back with his very best expression of unconcern, and they didn’t give him a second glance. Only Georgia Patwell, who had apparently just taken over the exo-op comm seat, flashed him a brief, quizzical smile before turning her attention back to her console. It would have been nice if he could have reported to her, but there would be no such luck.
Lonnie Stelnik was hunkered down in the back of the ops room, drinking coffee and poring over sector reports. He was tall and lanky, with vulturous eyes, a beak-shaped nose, and an expression that discouraged conversation. When Stelnik looked up, the expression changed from boredom to condescension. As the exo-op who’d been on duty, he was Bandicut’s super for the work shift and therefore the one to whom Bandicut had to explain himself.
/// You don’t like this man? ///
/No./ Bandicut nodded to Stelnik.
/// May I ask . . . why not? ///
/Let’s just say he’s not afraid to step on people’s necks to get to the top./
/// ??? ///
“Bandicut.” Stelnik crossed his arms over his chest. “What the hell happened out there? You vanished without a word. And we interrupted a lot of work to go looking for you. Then here you come, riding in like a knight from battle.”
“What, would you rather I hadn’t made it back?” Bandicut snapped. “I had an equipment malfunction!” Great, he thought, it takes exactly ten seconds to blow up at this jerk. Gotta keep a lid on it.
Stelnik shrugged. “We sent out the robots, didn’t we? Now, do you mind telling me what you were doing way out past position Wendy?” Stelnik leaned back, stretching out while peering down his nose at Bandicut. His eyes glinted. “Plus, I’ve got this report here from Rawlins in maintenance, saying you did some serious damage to your rover. You want to tell me about it? Jackson’s not gonna like this, you know.”
Bandicut felt a second flash of irritation. “I didn’t do anything to the rover. Don’t blame me for equipment failures, all right?” He swallowed at the half-truth.
Stelnik shrugged, unfolded his arms, and flicked on a holoscreen. “Okay, you can give me the whole story in a second. You can tell Cole at the same time.”
Bandicut groaned inwardly.
/// What’s wrong? Who’s Cole? ///
/Cole Jackson. Director of Survey Operations./
/// You don’t like him, either? ///
/Let’s just say, between Stelnik and Jackson, it’s hard to say who’s the more self serving. Cole’s going to be mad as hell, because we screwed up his nice, neat work charts./
The quarx seemed to twitch nervously.
/// You aren’t going to try to tell them
about me, are you? ///
/These guys? Not on my deathbed. If I turn you in, it’ll be to somebody I trust a lot more than these two./ That answer did not entirely soothe the quarx, he realized. He shrugged inwardly. /I hope you’ve thought of a good explanation for that damage to the electronics./
/// Uh . . . working on it . . . ///
Bandicut cleared his throat. “Listen, you mind if I sit?” It wasn’t really necessary, in one-thirteenth Earth gravity, but he wanted to call Stelnik on his bad manners.
With an annoyed look, Stelnik twisted around and found a short stool under the counter, which he hauled out for Bandicut to perch on. Meanwhile, a woman’s face had appeared in the holoscreen. “Janie—get me Jackson, will you?” Stelnik said. He tapped his fingers on the table until the screen blinked and a middle-aged man’s face appeared, wearing old-fashioned eyeglasses. “Cole,” said Stelnik, “I’ve got Bandicut here with me.”
“So I see,” said the face in the screen.
“He was just about to tell me how he fried the electronics in that rover. You got the report, right?”
“I did. I must say, John—I hope you have a good explanation.” Jackson peered out of the holoscreen, stroking the underside of his chin with his fingertips.
Bandicut cleared his throat. “Well, I—”
“It says here that you were out of the approved sector, as well,” Jackson said sharply. Stelnik, his eyes shifting back and forth between Bandicut and the screen, barely concealed a smirk. Was he hoping to add the firing of a negligent driver to his record of tough-minded management?
Bandicut stirred and tried to think fast. “Well, as I said, I had an electrical malfie. I was just telling Lonnie here, I don’t know exactly what went wrong. But the first thing that went was my nav. I missed the markers—and I, uh, don’t know that particular stretch out there as well as some of the others.” That last part, at least, was true.
“Nav, huh?” Jackson did not look entirely convinced.
“Nav and comm.” He was thinking frantically now. “Something crisped itself in the electrical system, and eventually stopped me altogether for a while. And I, uh, just had to patch it together as best I could to get home. Napoleon came along right after I got the thing running again.” He felt his face hot with anxiety as he struggled to sound convincing.
/// You’re doing fine. ///
/I’m a lousy liar. I don’t like lying. Why am I doing this?/
/// Because if you tell people about me,
our chances of success will diminish markedly. ///
/Success?/
/// Saving the Earth.
I promise, I’ll explain later. ///
Bandicut sighed, not replying. Neither Jackson nor Stelnik had responded to his explanation. Stelnik’s gaze was slanted down his nose again; Jackson looked worried, as though he might have to log something inexplicable on his reports, and how would that look on his job review? It was Jackson who spoke first. “The report from Pacho Rawlins called it the most . . . unusual . . . malfunction he’d ever seen.”
Stelnik cackled and rocked forward. “That wasn’t the way he phrased it in the report I saw.”
“Well, weird might have been the word he used,” Jackson said.
“Fucked was the word he used, Cole. He said it was the most fucked power compartment he’d ever laid eyes on.”
Jackson adjusted his eyeglasses. “Whatever. There’s certainly no need to repeat Mr. Rawlins’s vulgarity.” His gaze shifted. “In any case—John, what can you tell us about that?”
Stelnik rubbed his nose.
Bandicut thought hard, and a possible explanation welled up in his mind. “I’m hardly an expert, Cole, but I figure it might be that some of those components, like that cable that broke loose that I had to arc-weld back together”—he couldn’t believe he was saying this—“weren’t quite as cryo-ready as they were supposed to be. You know, we have had trouble with that sort of thing before.”
Stelnik snorted, looking away. But Jackson squinted as he met Bandicut’s gaze in the screen. “Well . . .” he said after a moment, “it’s true, we have had our fair share of low-temperature problems.”
And if that were the explanation, it would make the work audit a lot simpler, wouldn’t it? Bandicut thought, waiting for Jackson to bite. He could see Jackson trying to decide whether it was sufficiently credible for his superiors to accept.
“I don’t recall the robot’s diagnostic report saying anything about cryo-failure,” Stelnik said, making a sucking noise with his lips. “I’m not saying it’s impossible, Bandicoot, but—”
“But what? I had the thing running again by the time the robot got there.” Bandicut shook his head in exaggerated disgust and hissed silently to the quarx, /What is Napoleon going to report? If it says that it fried the circuits, that won’t square with what I’m claiming!/
/// Napoleon has no memory of what it did.
I took care of that already.
It’s a very simple machine, very easy to reprogram.
We’re okay, I think. ///
r />
/You think?/ Bandicut cleared his throat again. “Anyway, Napoleon didn’t run his diags on it until I’d fixed it already. I mean, as much as I was able to.” He held out his open hands as if to rest his case.
Jackson peered out of the holoscreen. “John, the robot’s name is Recon Thirty-nine, not Napoleon. Use nicknames in the field, if you must, but please—when we’re trying to get our information straight—”
Bandicut caught himself about to roll his eyes in exasperation. “Recon Thirty-nine. Right, that’s what I meant.”
“Well . . .” Jackson said with a shrug. “It seems as though we might have to credit you with a field repair.” Stelnik’s eyes bulged, but before he could interject, Jackson continued, “Nevertheless, until we complete an investigation, I think we’ll have to reassign you from survey to mining ops. As a temporary measure, just so there are no questions. Fair enough?”
Stelnik relaxed and smiled faintly.
Bandicut swallowed. Mining ops. Great. Bad enough he’d been demoted from piloting because they’d fried his neuros; now he was going to be dropped from survey driving and put in the mines. He cleared his throat. “You’re saying, just until we have a report, right? This isn’t some kind of demotion, is it?”
“John, if the report puts you in the clear, we’ll have you back out there as fast as we can,” Jackson promised. “Lonnie, you’ll forward John’s written report to me ASAP, won’t you?”
“Yeah, roger wilco,” Stelnik said.
Jackson peered at him for a moment, as though trying to decide if he were being sarcastic; then the screen went blank. Stelnik grunted and swung a keypad terminal around to Bandicut. “Type, please. If you don’t mind,” he said. No question this time; he was being sarcastic.
Bandicut nodded and poised his fingers over the keypad. He looked at Stelnik, who was continuing to stare at him, and said, “You can be the first to read it when I’m done, okay?”
Stelnik shrugged and wandered away. Georgia, working the exo-ops communications, barely concealed her irritation as he hovered over her shoulder. Nevertheless, she caught Bandicut’s eye and winked in sympathy.
Bandicut typed a cryptic, fictional account of events, thinking the whole time that he had never before lied on an official form, and he didn’t like starting now. He stared at what he had written.
/// Looks good.
That should jibe with the robot’s diagnostic.
Will they buy it? ///
/How the hell should I know? Do you mind if I just add, “P.S. Discovered alien artifact and living alien”? It would make me rich, you know. We could retire to Costa Rica./
There was a sound like a sigh in his mind.
/// If you file what you have now,
will it be possible for us to go somewhere
and talk quietly? ///
/I guess so./
/// Then . . . may we do that, please? ///
Bandicut scowled, hesitated, and pressed FILE. He caught Stelnik’s eye, hooked a thumb at the terminal, and left the ops center without another word.
Chapter 5
Some Answers
THE DORM ROOM, thankfully, was empty. Crawling into his bunk, Bandicut pulled the curtain flap closed around him for privacy from the other five bunks. Lying back, he drew a deep breath and sighed, closing his eyes to a sudden, overwhelming weariness. He had a thousand questions to ask the quarx; but really, for just one moment, all he wanted to do was rest his eyes and his mind.
It was impossible, of course. Visions of the ice cavern rose in his thoughts like ghosts haunting him even in the privacy of his own mind. And not just the cavern: the artifact danced before him like a jeering clown, its spheres whirling and eyes winking. /Jesus!/ He sat up abruptly, bouncing to the ceiling of his bunk, blinking his eyes in the near-darkness.
/// I’m not Jesus. I’m Char— ///
/I know you’re not Jesus!/ he snapped. /It’s just a fucking figure of speech, okay?/ He sank back again groaning, feeling that he was floating, even though he was motionless in his bunk.
/// Oh. ///
The quarx seemed puzzled.
/// You seemed disoriented and confused.
I thought maybe you thought . . .
Never mind.
Do you want to talk? ///
Bandicut drew a deep, slow breath. The darkness was crowding in around him, making him suddenly, extremely nervous. He knew what that meant: he needed the neuro, badly. He was on his way into another silence-fugue. /Charlie!/ he whispered urgently. The darkness was crowding closer still, and he heard the distant muttering of unreal voices . . .
/// What is it?
Are you in distress? ///
/Uh . . . oh damn, I need the neuro . . . if only I could link into something . . . can you, can you stop this—ohhhhhh, jeeez—/
Before his outcry was finished, everything around him changed with a flash . . .
>
>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>——>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>——>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>
>——
It was like a holo-image flicking on, transforming the darkness into an array of images: information sources, pulsing and waiting. He gasped, heart pounding. He had just flipped over from impending fugue to . . . data-connect! But how? And to what?
/Is this better?/ asked the quarx, from somewhere within the link. Its voice sounded different, like another human in the neuro.
He could not speak. His heart thundered with joy. He was trembling. He hadn’t really imagined that it was possible, hadn’t dreamed—
/Take it easy now. It’s not—/
/You connected me! You did it! Jesus, it’s—it’s—/
/John, listen to me!/
The array twinkled around him like a series of gleaming panels, beckoning his inquiries in the dark. He reached out with a tentative finger of thought and—
/It’s NOT WHAT YOU THINK!/
—touched an unyielding, unliving surface. There was no connection here, no source, no pulse; it was just an illusion.
/John, don’t flip over into fugue . . . it’s . . ./
/Nothing! It’s nothing!/
The quarx was struggling for words. /It’s a . . . stage set, John!/
/What? Stage set?/ His frustration rose like a cloud of toxic smoke in the image. /A stage set for what?/
/I had to act fast. You were slipping away, and this was the best I could do. It was the best I could do!/
/Best you could do!/ he moaned. /It’s a fake!/ A crushing depression was settling around him as he realized the full emptiness of the illusion . . .
/Look—give me a moment, John! Let me see if I can make it real! Hold on a moment longer. Try it . . . wait! . . . now./
One of the data-connect panel-images was pulsing bright emerald, against an aura of sunset red. Bandicut’s anger twisted around him and finally blew away, leaving him breathless but clearheaded. He suddenly realized what the quarx was trying to tell him. The illusion had short-circuited the fugue; and that blinking light was the one connection that the quarx could make for him, without his neurolink. It was a connection to the quarx. Alien as datanet.
/Link in and ask me questions,/ the quarx said softly.
Nodding to himself, swallowing, feeling a little ashamed for his anger, and wanting desperately for this to be more than he thought it possibly could be, he reached out with his thought toward the pulsing panel, and he plugged in, and his remaining outward senses fell away as he was fully enclosed by darkness, but a darkness filled with energy . . .
——
/Are you here?/ he whispered in astonishment.
>> Ask me what you want to know. >> r />
It was the quarx’s voice, but altered . . . deeper and more resonant, exactly like an information-source replying through the datanet.
He sighed with unexpected pleasure, and a tremendous feeling of need welled up and then as quickly ebbed away. Dizzily, he whispered, /I want to know where you came from and why. And I want to know exactly what you want of me./
>> I shall try. Where would you like me to begin? >>
He shrugged mentally. /At the beginning, I guess./
>> Of time? I wasn’t there. >>
He began to retort angrily, then realized that the quarx was attempting humor, attempting to lighten things up; and despite himself, he chuckled a little. /All right, you can start later than that. Let’s stick to your personal lifetime. Unless, of course, you’re really long-lived, in which case, you can start by telling what you want with me, and work backwards./
There was a moment of uneasy silence.
>> I’m . . . no . . . not long-lived, certainly not in the way you’re thinking. It’s true I was . . . in a sense . . . alive, millions of years ago, but that’s . . . well . . . because I was in stasis in the translator . . . >>
Bandicut tried to follow that, frowning. /You’re not long-lived, but you were alive—in a sense—a million years ago?/
>> Yes, but the millions of years don’t count, you see, because of the stasis . . . whereas, to understand a quarxian life cycle, the first thing you need to ask is . . . >>
Bandicut felt himself sliding toward mental quicksand, and interrupted, /All right, wait! How about if you explain all that later./ He paused, sensing the quarx’s discomfiture at the interruption. /Let’s start with the present, and this “mission” of yours. What is it you’re planning to do here? What is this about Earth and some sort of danger?/
The quarx hesitated, as though uncomfortable with the question. Bandicut began to grow impatient, but before he could ask why, the quarx finally spoke.
>> You see . . . that’s difficult to explain fully just now, because I don’t have all of the information yet. The first thing I must do is gather additional data for the translator to process . . . >>
/Gather data?/ Bandicut asked suspiciously, visions of alien invasions dancing in his head.
>> No invasions, I assure you. Not from us, anyway. There may, indeed, be something heading for your home planet; but, I believe, it’s more in the nature of cosmic debris—and it is my job, and the translator’s, to identify that hazard and act to prevent it from striking. With your help, of course . . . >>
/Of course,/ Bandicut muttered. /What sort of help? And what kind of debris are we talking about?/
>> Well . . . I can’t give you the specifics on the debris until we have the rest of that data. I can guess, but— >>
/Guess?/ Bandicut felt a rush of anger. /Quit bullshitting me, Charlie, or I’m going to go to our company quack Dr. Switzer and have him cut you out with a knife!/
He immediately sensed the quarx’s affront.
>> I’m not “bullshitting” you, and I thought you understood that I have no physical presence as you think of it, so your doctor’s knife could only harm you, not me. >>
Bandicut sighed in annoyance. /Look, that was just another figure of speech, okay? Now, do you want to continue?/
>> Oh. Very well. Here is what I was given: a picture of small, orbital-dynamical shifts somewhere in your solar system, leading to the potential hazard. I suspect it’s some sort of sizable interplanetary rubble. Listen, John, you must understand that I’m not . . . “sitting in the left-hand seat” on this one, as you pilot-types would say. So I can’t— >>
/Then who is sitting in the left-hand seat?/ Bandicut interrupted.
>> The translator. And once it has the data it needs to positively identify the danger . . . it will pass that information on to me. And I’ll pass it on to you. >>
Bandicut thought he sensed a certain hesitation in the quarx’s voice. /Wait just a minute,/ he said. /Who controls the translator? You do, right?/
>> Me? Hardly . . . >>
Bandicut felt dizzy, and he sensed an eruption of troubled feelings in the quarx. /You mean there’s someone else here? Damn it, I knew it—/
>> John, no. It’s not what you’re thinking. It’s just the translator and me, and the translator is just a machine. But it’s . . . sent by others who are, I assure you, very far away. And I’ve never known it to attempt anything that wasn’t . . . helpful to those it visited. >>
It seemed to Bandicut that the quarx was more than a little hesitant when it spoke about the translator. He wondered why. /Well, that doesn’t sound like such a big deal—identifying some space rubble,/ he said cautiously. /But I have to say, you don’t sound entirely convinced about it yourself./
>> What? No, no—the translator is trustworthy. But it’s not . . . always easy . . . to do what it wants, is the problem. Look, would it help if I filled you in with some background? >>
/Isn’t that what I’ve been asking for?/
>> I thought you . . . never mind. Just watch, and listen . . . . >>
—— . . .