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north shore. Periodically a human shuttle secretly carries it into orbit for
transshipment to Haluk worlds."
"I'm surprised you take the risk of doing any genetic engineering here on
Cravat."
"It was not my decision."
We had crossed the cavern and were on the verge of entering the large,
well-illuminated tunnel leading to the hospital and the security rooms.
Abruptly, I stopped the alien female and swung her around so I could see her
blue-skinned face. "Milik are you a transmuted human being?"
"Of course I'm human!" she said, her voice breaking. Then the words poured out
in a rush.
"I've been waiting for a chance to escape ever since 1 found out the real
purpose of the demiclones. I was such an incredible fool! Thinking I'd be the
great benefactor of a worthy, misunderstood race. It was all my idea, you see.
I was motivated by pure altruism, but the cost of my project made
participation by the Concerns necessary "
"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "Who the devil are you?"
Scientist Milik said, "I
was
Emily Blake Konigsberg."
"But... you're dead!" Matt exclaimed.
"My demiclone is dead. The one who would have returned to Earth on a
Galapharma starship and " She caught herself. "We have no time for this!
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Follow me."
She began to run. Matt and I did, too.
Chapter 20
Physician Woritak was sitting in a swivel chair behind a desk that bore a
nameplate saying .
A
H WHITE DUTY OFFICER
.
, .
Chalky & Co. were gone, of course, and in the security office there were
definite evidences of a hasty departure: an upset coffee cup on a second desk
making a drying mess of some printouts, a kicked-over wastebasket, a shelf of
data-dime containers wildly disarranged as if someone had rummaged among them,
and a large weapons locker with the door gaping and the racks empty.
The interrogation machines were gone, too. They were probably Bronson Elgar's
personal property that he carried along everywhere with him on assignment like
golf clubs.
Woritak once again wore a translator. The first thing he did when we burst
into the room was ask how I was feeling.
"Scared," I said. "My health is excellent. Where's the bomb?"
He pointed economically to the communications room adjacent to the main
office. I went in and winced at the smell of ozone. Someone had methodically
drilled almost every piece of com equipment with a Kagi blue-ray electron
zapper, isolating the facility from the external universe.
The lone untouched unit was smallish, appropriately colored black, and bore
the manufacturer logo of Carnelian Concern. It squatted in a corner, looking
neglected, segregated from its defunct and harmless compeers. Its telltales
gleamed dully, and the screen of its integral computer badly needed a
cleaning. Perhaps no one had done more than bump into the infernal machine and
curse
it as a useless dustcatcher from the time it had been installed.
Until today, when it finally found its use.
The display showed only the countdown: -102:33 minutes. I removed the handmike
and tried to enter the computer in the conventional manner. Access denied.
After racking my brains for a moment, I came up with the ICS official override
for Carnelian models, tapped a few pads, and recited it.
Tah-dah!
I was inside, able to ascertain the device's mode of dedication and read the
directories even though the file contents remained locked away. I studied and
I frowned while
Matt looked over my shoulder. Physician Woritak found another place to sit
down. He ignored us, reading an alien slate and occasionally whispering into
his wristcom. The once (and perhaps future) Emily Blake Konigsberg leaned
against the doorframe, her bright blue inhuman eyes shuttered and one
four-fingered gracile hand pressed tightly against her mouth. Perhaps she was
praying.
If so, heaven wasn't listening.
"Well," I said at length, "to quote a very ancient cliche, we have good news
and bad news. The good news is that there is no bomb."
Konigsberg's eyes flew open and she uttered a joyous little cry. Woritak only
stared at me inscrutably.
"The bad news is that we have something worse. If I read this computer
correctly, we are dealing with a contingency demolition setup called a
photon-blast camouflet system. When it's triggered, multiple generating units
scattered throughout the underground facility will discharge wide-angle
actinic flares, vaporizing or melting down everything inside the caves. The
camouflet feature means that surrounding rock strata will not be significantly
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damaged. Neither will the
Nutmeg factory. There won't be any sort of rupture at the surface of the
ground. All traces of
Haluk occupation will tidily vanish, and so will we."
"Can you stop it?" Matt asked.
"I've seen a similar system just once before. It was years ago when I was a
young field agent,
just starting my career in the ICS. We were raiding an underground
contraband depot on
Gemmula-5 in the Orion Arm that reputedly belonged to a shadow division of
Carnelian
Concern. They were suspected of trading high-tech equipment illicitly to the
Y'tata Empire. Our team had a whiz hacker, but she couldn't disarm the
cam-ouflet modules or stop the countdown.
We all ran for our lives."
"You're saying you can't deactivate this system, either," Matt said.
"Noway."
"It was to be feared that a dire outcome would prevail," said Physician
Woritak through his translator. He rose from his seat, making a gesture toward
the exit. "Let us leave this place. This one did not wish to communicate
pessimism earlier to Scientist Milik, for which reason she was encouraged to
release you two humans. Now, however, you might wish to consider how you will
spend the time preceding your imminent death. This one has just now summoned
all of the people to the main cavern, adjacent to the genetic engineering
complex. After they are informed of the situation, Administrator Ru Lokinak
will lead us in the ritual of docile thanatopsis, since there is no Anointed
Elder in the company. Perhaps you humans will wish to participate."
"Thanks. But we're not quite ready to die yet." I was glad that the translator
would extract the sarcasm from my reply. Woritak did seem to be a well-meaning
soul.
I turned to Konigsberg. "You said the elevator shaft and the connecting tunnel
leading to the next Nutmeg facility were sealed off. How?"
"Elgar's men used their Harvey blasters to collapse the rock, blocking the way
with thousands of tons of rubble."
"I don't suppose the Haluk troopers have any heavy-duty photon weapons." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]