HE DIDN'T WANT TO HEAR IT, BUT HE KNEW IT WAS INEVITABLE.
Crichton had ordered them here, and Haxer now approached the eatery openly, for this world catered to his kind – pirates – and there was no law enforcement – officially – of any kind. It wasn't hard to spot his crew or their table, for there was a respectful distance around it and them. He saw the white splash on Chak'sa armor of their new 'insignia' – the skull and crossbones like the one on the Vengeance. He wore his on his back, square between his shoulder blades. He rather liked it. Shiv wore hers in the same place, which had surprised him. He'd figured she'd have refused it – being in/famous - but she hadn't.
That skull and crossbones was already known across the Uncharteds.
He strode up, tossed Chak'sa a smile that was returned, and sat down on the chair waiting for him. He slid the datachip across the table at his Captain.
"I checked it." He told Crichton. "Like your contact says, it hasn't been tampered with – it's as legit as it gets." Across the table from him, sat a small winged creature that looked like a cross between a huge moth and a koala – a B'ee'l - crouched about motra away. It had brought the datachip.
On their way to the Hoj Mocai Cartographer's – the supposed finest mappers in the Uncharteds - the crew of the Vengeance had been diverted and stopped here – Torgarta, a so-called 'Pirate planet' - at a call from one Gofru Haree, local info-broker, and someone Crichton knew through his past association with Reihna Karadandidos.
"This one's free, Crichton, and damned peculiar. Part-payment for past services." He'd told them. "I'll send Mo'ka to fill you in." Mo'ka, the B'ee'l.
Crichton eyed the chip suspiciously. He looked up at Haxer.
"The data's clean?" Haxer nodded, ordered food.
"Timestamp and drone-signal confirm it." Someone – most likely info-pirates – (in an age of high- tech electronics, it was only natural there would be those who would pirate and sell that information) had intercepted a Peacekeeper data courier drone – a robot mail system, in essence, that had had High Command insignia on it – "Eyes Only" to Special Services. Special Services meant Scorpius. "The local watch-station tracked the drone coming through the system yesterday, local time."
Crichton fingered the disc.
"What did you get off it?"
Haxer shrugged. "Apparently, Special Services have had teams scouring space around the T-varia and E-varia Asteroid ranges."
"Why are they special?"
Haxer gave him a sideways smile.
"They were the scene wherein several cycles ago an unknown spacecraft supposedly appeared from nowhere and destroyed a Peacekeeper prowler doing its duty attempting to recapture an escaping Leviathan prison transport. Those teams are there looking for … something."
"Sonofabitch." Crichton shook his head. Looking for the wormhole Johnny first came through, eh? Crichton had to admire Scorpius' determination. The half-breed bastard never gave up. He scratched his chin with his thumb, looked over at Mo'ka, thumbed a small gold cylinder in his direction, which the B'ee'l deftly caught. "Thanks." Mo'ka chittered and buzzed away. Haxer's food arrived and he proceeded to wolf it down.
"Why is that important?" Shiv asked, sipping a pink-crimson drink, watching Haxer eat. Shiv required only one large meal every two weekens, and was days away from being hungry enough to eat it. If she had to, however, Shiv could go far longer without, but not by preference. Haxer ate as if he had been starved. "You have said that it is doubtful they can exploit wormholes in any meaningful way."
"It's the one Crichton came through the first time – and split through – the implication is that the damn thing is stable."
"Thus usable?"
"Close enough."
"They must really be desperate." Haxer said, polishing off his plate. "All battle-channels talk about is the Scarran preparations."
"A whole frelling planet with rudimentary spaceflight, shortsighted leaders and a backward, superstitious, media-controlled populace." Crichton shook his head. "The dumb bastard's a sitting duck."
"If Scorpius can use it, that is."
Crichton nodded, said, "Yeah, if.", snagged a waiter as he went by and ordered a Raslak. Haxer ordered a Cojan – the UT equivalent of coffee - and Chak'sa ordered a Reshaan 'bloodwine' – neither blood nor wine. Haxer caught a whiff of Shiv's drink, looked at her cup and wrinkled his nose.
"Shiv – what the frell are you drinking? It smells like Riken."
"It is Riken." Shiv told him, matter-of-factly, and Haxer's eyes bugged, he reached for it, but Shiv deftly avoided his hand.
"Are you farhbot? That can kill a Sebaceanoid in less than fifty microts! That stuff's poison!" Crichton looked over at Shiv, who looked back and simply said,
"Not to me.", to which Crichton went back to contemplating the datachip. "I may look Sebaceanoid, but I am not Sebaceanoid."
Haxer stopped trying to take it away, just watched Shiv incredulously as she stared at him and took another sip.
"I appreciate your concern," she told him dryly, "but I am immune to most kinds of toxins. My digestive system is very selective."
Haxer looked on with a kind of morbid fascination as she sipped again.
"Just interesting to see you imbibing." A pause. "Uh… what… what's it taste like?"
Shiv stopped and thought for another moment or two.
"Like it smells."
"It smells like blood." He told her. "Sebacean blood, anyway."
Shiv crooked an eyebrow at him, took another obviously deliberate sip, and he looked at her oddly, wondering if she were actually actively 'bantering' with him, shook his head over the vagaries of females, reached for his Cojan as it arrived.
"I think I'll stick to what I like – and can safely ingest."
"That is usually wise in these instances."
"Hax…" Crichton asked after a gulp of his Raslak. "Any way to completely verify the information in this?"
"Not really – not absolutely. You'd have to grab the drone – and they tend to self-detonate when you try – but if you could, you'd have to pull its storage, check the data, track the drone back to whatever depot it came from, and check the data there to see if it matched."
Crichton snorted.
"Right." Not frelling likely. He took another drink. "So I can assume its legit?"
"Your contact was right – it is peculiar – just peculiar enough to be true. From what I can tell, it's legit. All the decryption algorithms and idents match up."
Crichton scratched his stubbly chin.
"He must be closer than I thought." He muttered to no one in particular. "Still… without proper calculations and trajectories, he's just going to get his Carrier and his own necrotic ass crushed – and good riddance."
"He won't risk that," Haxer said, gulping his Cojan.
"Nope, but if they're as desperate as you say, they might."
"People do seriously crazy things when they're really desperate," Haxer told him, to his nod. He knew that all too well.
"True enough," Crichton waggled a finger at their drinks. "Finish up, we're still on our way to the Cartographer's." Nods, and they were soon done and on their way.
It was about an arn into the trip when Haxer had the misfortune to comment – off-handedly:
"Y'know – there's no guarantee that Scorpius will go first."
"Hax – you're rapidly becoming a large pain in my ass." Crichton growled at him, and altered course.
MIRIYA SCREAMED A SCREAM THAT COULD NOT BE HEARD.
White-hot agony speared through her entire body, arcing her in a bow of pure pain. She didn't know where she was; somewhere on a Carrier somewhere in some nebula. Every nerve in her body was immersed in burning acid hotter than hellfire. It felt as if her body were slowly being shredded. There was no way to articulate such pain. She screamed, but no sound came out – the pain was beyond that.
The white-clad torturer, over three metres tall and with skin a grey-green – (like a corpse, she'd thought on first seeing the alien) frowned with its lipless mouth on a flat face and looked down at its aide with large dark, pupil-less eyes.
"Your reading?" It asked in a ratcheting voice. It frowned deeper as Miriya gasped out another silent scream.
The aide, a creature that looked as if someone had stuffed dozens of half-melted, half-filled beach-balls into a green plastic bag, sniffed and replied,
"9.2 ergstans, D'g'sta."
"Remarkable, Blio. Remarkable. She is strong. Very strong." It stroked the control panel before it, and Miriya felt a wave of cold wash over her, bringing sweet relief, it too almost painful.
"I said you are very strong," D'g'sta told her, seemingly rather pleased. "The strongest yet."
Miriya's head lolled, her violet eyes rolling loose in their sockets.
"Is she conscious, Blio?"
"Barely. I would estimate that she could withstand 9.5 for perhaps fifty microts. Any higher would result in either permanent coma or termination, regardless of exposure."
"No, no, we mustn't have that, no, no. She is very strong, she has been very informative." D'g'sta waved at two Sebacean guards nearby. "Take her to her cell, nourish her and allow her to sleep." They nodded, gathered Miriya and left. She had no bones or muscles and had to be carried.
"You have mapped nearly all of her neural patterns. Your induction technique works quite well." Scorpius' voice floated down from above them. D'g'sta bowed its head briefly in acknowledgement.
"Many think the pain is simply to 'soften' the subject, but this is not true – the pain itself focuses conscious thought away from the mind, from the ability to raise any mental blocks. Behind that wall of pain, we may scan and map at will."
"Most efficacious." Scorpius nodded down. "Is it a new technique?"
"For Sebaceans, yes," D'g'sta replied. "My people – The Kr'shah – have used this method for many hundreds of cycles." It stroked a long-fingered hand across Blio's back. "My companion's race, the N'ka, have perfected the scanning technique and translation matrices. Blio here is a master of the intricacies of the scans."
Scorpius nodded again, looking at the translations of Breannados' neurologic scan. They were extensive and highly informative, but there was little interest to him. His Aurora Chair could do the same thing without the dangers. The two below were Grayza's dogs, and Breannados had been given over to her; why – he neither knew nor care.
Scorpius merely observed from sheer curiosity's sake. Breannados was on a Security Directorate Watchlist – and thus immune from Scorpius' Aurora Chair. Why she was on the list was a mystery, but not one Scorpius cared enough about to follow on. This induction technique was Grayza's toy, and since Scorpius could not be officially curious in Breannados' mind…
Breannados' memories of times spent with this 'pirate version' of Crichton were especially vivid, but Scorpius didn't linger – he was no voyeur, as interesting as they might have been. No, what he was far more interested in was this Crichton's attitude, as it were, how he operated, how he thought. He was not, Scorpius had begun to discern with some small disquiet, behaving according to type.
Piracy? Unlike him. Nothing seemed to jibe. From what Scorpius had sieved from Crichton previously, what his acumen and discernment could uncover was that Crichton seemed to have two overriding motivations: wormholes, and a way back to his home planet. It seemed now, that since one Crichton had done precisely that – return home via a wormhole – this one seemed to have abandoned both objectives.
He was not, frankly, acting as one expected a Crichton to act.
Had Furlow been incorrect – and had Scorpius miscalculated so badly?
No. Everything in Miriya's memories indicated that this Crichton was indeed a Crichton – if somewhat… muted, darker. Naturally. It was going on two cycles, which can change anyone – if it is tumultuous enough, and Crichton had always the potential to become a rather formidable foe – or ally, if one could play it correctly, which he doubted Grayza was doing. Crichton as a willing ally? Would this one, now, be open to such a possibility? Scorpius was prepared to pay much to achieve that aim – if it were at all possible. If he failed.
"Scorpius," Braca, on ship-comm.
"Yes, Braca?"
"Deruga has completed his report."
"I shall read it in full later. Summarize it, if you would."
"Point-by-point sector analysis has given out tentative confirmation of the position of the wormhole you requested the team seek. However, it appears to be somewhat erratic in its position."
"It's moving?"
"It would appear so, sir. Tech Jahee surmises it may simply be the mouth of the wormhole shifting position. There is a large EM source in the area."
"A star?"
"No, sir. It is apparently coming from an asteroid cluster in the vicinity. The composition of the majority of rocks is carheliandum and rhodiaium." Scorpius nodded to himself. Both elements together gave off strong electromagnetic fields. It was usually nothing more than a hazard to navigation, but now it was a beacon.
"Tell them to concentrate on the region of densest concentration in that field, Braca. That should be the strongest loci point for the wormhole's mouth. I want it timed to the millimicrot."
"Yes, sir. It will take time, sir."
"As long as it is precise, Braca. We cannot afford mistakes at this late date. Prepare Nerada Lamm's team."
"She is down to only two, sir, since the accident."
Yes, of course. One of the preliminary tests.
"Tell her she may recruit replacements as she sees fit. I trust her judgment in this area, Braca. Once done, there are to be on constant standby, and ready to go at a microt's notice. We'll use the new Marauder."
"Yes, sir – at once."
Scorpius smiled down at an image of the one-eyed Crichton displayed from Breannados' memories. This Crichton was, in this venue, useless to him. Even his enhanced Aurora Chair was unlikely to crack the encryption in his head. The induction technique had potential, but… no. This Crichton would make himself a corpse first. There was, however, no need to bother with this particular Crichton at all.
If he was correct – and he usually was – he had at last found the wormhole to Earth.
IN HER CELL, MIRIYA WOKE FROM A FITFUL AND ACHING SLEEP.
She groggily checked herself over for wounds – sure that whatever device she'd been placed in had wrought terrific havoc on her flesh – and found …nothing. Nary a scratch, yet she knew she'd not imagined that mind-searing agony.
Frell. Pain by nerve induction. Of course.
Not the Chair, and although Scorpius had been there he'd seemed to have no interest in her.
What the frell was going on?
She lay on the cot, closed her eyes, watched the red and orange fireworks pop on the inside of her eyelids.
There was no need to interrogate me. I don't know anything. Unless… Crichton. Naturally. Why the torture, though? And with nerve induction? Makes no sense. That's not Scorpius.
Miriya rolled painfully away from the door of her cell, faced the wall as a guard strolled by. There was nothing to gain from torturing her, other than some perverse pleasure. Any intelligence she had on Crichton was of interest only to anthropologists, not strategists. She knew little of his plans, and nothing of his agenda. She had not gotten inside of him. Well, he had warned her, and she couldn't really blame him for her predicament, although she was going to, anyway.
Frell, frell, dren and frell! Despite it, she found herself wishing quite mightily for him to get her out of this mess.
She heard the cadence of footsteps change outside, lighter, yet purposeful. They stopped at her door.
"Miriya," a voice she didn't recognize said though her cell door. Miriya rolled over. In her doorway was a tall woman with dark brown hair and the dark blue uniform of the notorious Enhanced Infiltration and Tactical Subversion division of Special Services – better known in popular parlance as "Disruptor Command". It was odd to see a EITS operative on a Carrier. They were not particularly popular with the average Peacekeeper. Their tasks were always necessary, allegedly, but their methods were not always appreciated.
"What do you want?" Miriya said wearily, rolling away. "I'm not a talker."
The woman merely said, in an odd musical cadence: "Nerrimandi".
Miriya stopped as if struck, suddenly rolled back, sat up –
…and smiled.
"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FRELLING KIDDING ME."
"Lo, 'tis true, I tell thee in all candidness." The old one told him, rheumy eyes squinting at him through the pulse-proof shield. Like a bank, there was a small gap in front for transactions.
Haxer eyed the old man, scowled. Brogan Ladas was, on the surface, the ancient and harmless proprietor of an equally ancient computer mod shop. No one, however, ever bought a mod from the man.
"Who sent this information?"
"I cannot say, Sire."
"How can you insist on its authenticity if you don't know who sent it?"
Ladas pointed a twig-like finger at the screen that Haxer was now directing a scowl – at three characters in particular. He didn't look at the screen.
"Frell. E.I.T.S. Surveillance." Hax glanced back at Ladas. "You've got one Hezmana of a network."
The old one shrugged and Haxer swore he could hear his bones rattle.
"How may one know the value of information unless one hears for oneself? I cannot tell the trivial from the serious." Another slight shrug. "This thou must determine for thyself."
Haxer slid a small bag under the partition.
"That enough for this particular trivia?"
The old one's fingers crawled over the bag like a spider, rested there. A moment and a nod followed. Haxer handed his small portable data carrier over and Ladas uploaded the information.
Back on the Vengeance, Haxer played it for Crichton. It merely confirmed that the information he'd received on Alsati was true. Scorpius was close. Too close.
Decision time.
Technically, it wasn't his knowledge, his planet, or his damn problem. He'd be risking ship, crew and life for people who simply didn't or wouldn't care.
He'd been left behind to be the sacrificial goat for Scorpius.
Scorpius hadn't bitten.
Too bad for Johnny.
Crichton pondered. Then he pondered some more.
"Desperate, you said," Crichton said at length. "Will he risk a Carrier, though?"
"Not right away, he won't." Haxer told Crichton, who nodded. "Are we going first? Using the wormhole?"
"No." Crichton told him. "We won't be using it. Neither will anyone else." He programmed coordinates into the Nav board. What the hell – he supposed it wouldn't kill him to do something.
"Next."
The Vengeance slashed through the starry night.
THE OLD ONE SQUINTED OVER AT HIM.
"Why do you trouble me?" She asked Crichton with all the air of someone not that troubled, used to trouble.
The Vengeance hovered motionless outside her door. The front landing gear was down, as it doubled as the access stairs for the main hatchway. Haxer stood in it. At its end, Crichton stood solidly on the foot-plate, buffeted by the wind. Far below, he could just make out the silver ribbon of a river. The stone home he looked toward was perched high on a spire of rock, seemingly inaccessible by any means other than he now employed.
Standing in her doorway, the venerable and formidable Ainye Mirada Synwynd, age indeterminate but great, as steady as the spire she inhabited. She resembled a huge crow with a humanoid face, with the same large pitiless yellow eyes, cloaked in heavy black feathers and faded finery. Until unseated by Reihna Karadandidos, Synwynd had been the one true Pirate Queen of the Uncharteds.
For thirty cycles she had roamed and plundered without let or hindrance, unchallenged until one day her ambitions led her to the small but wealthy system of Hashane-Miliam. Synwynd had her pirate fleet and her cunning. Hashane-Miliam had their own admittedly small but well-trained and provisioned fleet and commissioned Peacekeeper protectors.
They should have won. Synwynd attacked anyway. Some reports said she had only thirty ships, some said she had five times that number. Three solar days later, she'd occupied the capital with only three thousand pirates and proceeded to loot the place. The fabulous wealth she stole, they say, she hid on some secret planet, waiting to be found. No one could say how she'd really done it, but it made her an eternal legend.
She hadn't cared. She'd made and thrown away a dozen 'fabulous' fortunes, led thousands and killed fifty thousand foes - and now sought only solitude.
Karadandidos could have it – if she could hold it.
"Who else should I trouble with this, Ainye?" Crichton shouted over the wind. "You're the only one who has what I need."
"You've come far." She told him. Her voice seemed to have no trouble carrying through the wind. For some reason he could never fathom, Ainye was quite fond of him. He'd done her some small services, saved her life unknowingly from a couple of bounty hunters, but he'd done nothing he could see that warranted such affection. She could …see things, he'd learned, and he no longer questioned it. Still, he'd long since decided not to look gift horses in the mouth when he had no need. She had vowed to him – for saving her life – that someday he could come to her and ask anything in return.
That someday was today.
"You'll die on your own soon enough - why stick your head in the M'redag's jaws?"
Crichton just shrugged and she regarded him awhile.
"Ghosts and ideals?" She asked quietly.
Crichton shook his head.
"The dead are dead, Lady."
She seemed to sigh, or perhaps laugh, he couldn't tell.
"You will soon be dead, Crichton. I see this, I know this. It is perhaps regretful."
He just send her a crooked smile. His life meant little, and his death would mean precisely nothing.
"I won't be missed."
She fluffed, settled.
"Good. That's good. Leave nothing for the bone-pickers." She contemplated him for another moment, then held out something that resembled a large silver square, cut here and there with irregular shapes. "Destroy it when you're done, John. Don't allow anyone else to have it."
Crichton took the object, shoved it in his pocket.
"Are you sure?" She nodded.
"My heart is a graveyard," she told him, with something that might have been a sad smile. "I await only to be buried therein."
Crichton saluted her, nodded, climbed back toward the hatch.
"I'll see you there, Lady." He paused. "Thank you."
She halted him, bade him back, handed him a datachip. He looked at her quizzically. She smiled.
"Hashane-Miliam." She cackled. "You can give them a legend they'll choke on."
Crichton nodded, pocketed it as well. Later, he told himself.
"Yet, I have done you no good, Crichton." She turned, shrugged as she went, perhaps sighed, "Crêe'la nev'mev'la. Ove hõl'la dol." She closed her door.
Crichton stepped through the hatch, closed it behind him, commed Shiv and told her to proceed to their next destination. She acknowledged. He looked at Haxer. "You and Chak'sa are up to speed on what I need you to do from here on out?"
"Absolutely." He paused. "I …know languages, Boss." Haxer said, as Crichton passed him. "That was a new one on me."
Crichton looked back at the hatch.
"That language is dead, Hax. She's the last of her kind, and the last to speak it." He sounded almost sad. "She said, 'Where death goes, I have gone. When we meet it shall be sweet.'"
"Interesting." Haxer said, securing the hatch.
"Prophetic," Crichton muttered.
"Are you certain that this is the best way to proceed?" Shiv asked him when they'd returned to Peacekeeper space.
"Every plan has its pitfalls and uncertainties." Crichton seated himself comfortably and gazed out the forward portal. "This isn't something I pulled out of my ass just last night, Shiv – I've been thinking about this for quite some time. I've modified it a bit, but it'll work."
"I do not believe this is wise." Her skepticism was evident. Crichton just eyed her and said coldly,
"So much for our frelling oaths."
"My oath is my oath." She told him, as coldly, after a moment of contemplating him. "It is not a lack of confidence in you. Where you go, I shall frelling go." One eyebrow arched slightly. "We may simply be asking for a great deal of trouble."
He stared back, then looked back into the starry night.
"If I'd wanted a critique, I'd have asked for one." He said after a moment, without heat. "All you have to do is trust me and do what you do best."
Shiv's voice had returned to normal when she replied.
"I can do little else." Shiv looked thoughtful, then said, "If this phenomena is as dangerous as you say…"
"If the Peacekeepers manage to get Crichton – if Scorpius manages to get his stupid unencrypted ass into the Aurora Chair – if they can build a viable wormhole weapon, even if they just master travel through one – or any or all - we're all screwed. Apocalyptically screwed."
"That is a great many if's."
"I'd like to think that I'm right – that they won't crack it or reach Earth or grab Crichton. I'd like to think that." He sighed. "I just can't risk it."
"Are there any choices?"
Crichton laughed a laugh without humor.
"Yeah. All bad."
"Which will you choose?"
Crichton laughed that flat laugh again.
"Probably all of 'em."
