Caine's Mutiny, page 39
part #4 of Caine Riordan Series
Duncan’s eyes widened slightly. “That’s one smart nanite.”
“If it is a nanite.” Newton started walking fretfully along the row of cold cells, the others following. “Maybe it’s a microorganism specially geneered to perform that function, triggered by conditions of temperature and chemistry, such as elevated glycerin levels. Or maybe there’s a mini-lab inside the cryocell which maps the DNA of the subject and finds that part of their own latent code that can be activated to achieve this effect. And maybe that’s why I’m not finding these mystery organisms in bulk storage: because part of what the compound does is trick the subject’s body into manufacturing the chemicals that once supported this aspect of hibernation. And maybe it doesn’t need to produce very much because those chemicals naturally gravitate toward and collect in certain regions of the brain.”
Ike’s stare was dubious. “I was working alongside you all night and I didn’t see any of that. How did you get all that detail, man?”
“As I said, I’m only guessing. There is no way of knowing, not without extended analysis. But the Nazis did keep records which tracked the different reanimation sequelae particular to the different cyrocell types. I compared that to the monitors and biointerfaces in the cryocells themselves, on the hypothesis that the nature of the controls and gauges would indicate the crucial data required by a trained operator. From that, I’ve come up with a few hypotheses about what each particular type of cryocell does to its subjects, and how, and why. For instance, the subjects who came out of the cells equipped with the kind of brainwave booster I was talking about had zero short-term memory loss and vastly decreased reorientation and neural restoration times. And there’s no evidence of anything intrusive being embedded in or attached to them. So it’s got to be systemic. And that suggests either biologicals or nanites.”
They had arrived in front of the humans-in-amber cysts. “And these?” Caine asked.
Newton frowned. “The strangest and most unsettling of all the cold cells. Correction: this really isn’t a cold cell. It’s—call it a biococoon. No temperature reduction involved at all. Think of a fly trapped in living amber: slow moving, biomorphic sap or secretions that haven’t become rigid, just very sluggish. Whatever that fluid or gel is, it gets inside the human body and takes it over. Slowly. First it renders the victim unconscious, then insensate, then begins changing body chemistry. Deactivates bacteria, and just about everything else. Then it goes dormant. When that biological medium is reactivated, it reverses the process.”
Riordan stopped walking, found that he was staring at the biococoons, had to remind himself to inhale. “But how does it do that?”
“I don’t have the faintest idea. Literally. I have no idea where the fluid comes from. No idea how the outer layer of it knows to harden. No idea how it interfaces with these control systems that are either embedded in it or which it grows around. All I know is how to make it release the occupant and which of the interior lights indicate that its operating status is nominal, compromised, or near failure.”
Duncan stared up at the rows and columns of them. “So these are…living objects? Creatures, not devices?”
“Sort of. Maybe. Damn it, I just don’t know.”
Riordan had the urge to reach out and touch the nearest of them; he restrained that primitive impulse toward tactile exploration. “And is the chemistry of this, er, symbiopod natural or—?”
Newton raised his hands. “I can’t even guess at this point. Not only don’t I have the research facilities, I don’t have the skill set to begin to know how to figure out the right questions to ask. Three years ago, there were—maybe—a dozen people on Earth who could tackle a project like this. Maybe, given recent events, there are more now. But this is a very specialized question. With some very profound implications.”
“You mean, genetic implications?”
“Yes, that too, but the biggest impact would be upon our understanding of epigenetic interaction—still far from complete—and xenobiology. Because this thing, whatever it is, doesn’t have much in common with anything we’ve ever seen, either on Earth or in any of the exobiomes we’ve colonized.”
Riordan forced himself to look away from the eerie, inner lights that waxed and waned within the muddy amber objects. “Any more mundane data on the different varieties of cryopod?”
Ike nodded. “We found that the Nazis did have some code books stashed inside one of the empty units. The codes tell them how to start the reanimation cycle for each type of unit, detect either an impending system failure or excessive damage to the occupant, and reverse the process so that the reanimation can be attempted later.”
“Are any of the remaining cryocells in a compromised condition?”
“Yessir: twenty-eight, only one of which indicates that the occupant is wounded. The other twenty-seven either have mechanical warning lights that came on when someone tried to reanimate the occupant, or had potential system failures before anyone tried.”
Caine heard a slight hardening of Ike Franklin’s tone. “Sounds like you have a personal stake in there, somewhere, Lieutenant.”
“I do, sir. I wasn’t put on ice solo. My buddy is in here, too.”
“Another pararescue jumper?”
“No. Ground pounder. Special Forces. I was sent in to get him and the only other survivor from their five-man team out of Somalia. Up near the Ethiopian border. As dry and hot as hell and twice as ugly. Some of the locals spotted my drop. I’d jumped in, stabilized the other Green Beanie for medevac. But he was still in really bad shape.
“Our extraction was still thirty minutes out when we were surrounded by local clansmen. Fought them off, but we had next to no cover. Their fire killed the casualty, trashed the radio, badly damaged our ride home. Which had to abort.
“That was at dusk. We listened and watched for the weakest part of the surrounding forces, waited for night and hit them. Broke through, grabbed weapons, ammo, water from their dead, and booked. Kept ahead of the others until morning. But I guess they had radios. Just after dawn, we see dust on the horizon. Pickup trucks loaded with the local warlord’s favorite flunkies, mounting heavy weapons. ‘Technicals,’ we called ’em.
“We didn’t have any choice; we had to make for high ground. It’s rough, craggy country out there, so no trucks could follow us when we left the flats. But we were also trapped on a hill of bare rock with no vegetation, no water, and damned little shade. A day later, my bro J.P. and I were down to half a dozen rounds each and our last mouthfuls of water. And we were already as dehydrated as old leather. We were slurring our words and promising each other a mercy bullet if we got wounded when this guy in a suit appears downhill, hands raised, carrying a white handkerchief. Like it was some movie or something.
“Not that we’d have popped him, anyway. No way he was a local. Hell, he looked like he’d just finished a few cool drinks before walking up the slope toward us. Don’t know how he got past the Somalis, but I expect no one ever figured that out. They stopped making noise just a few minutes before he appeared. And then he gave us the same ‘I’ll save your sorry asses if you come with me’ speech that everyone else heard. And here we are. Well”—he looked behind at a nearby cryocell—“here I am. J.P.’s cold cell has a red light where there ought to be a green one, so he’s still napping. The lazy bastard.”
“Does the light indicate that it’s a mechanical failure, or is his body compromised in some way?”
“Malfunction. Looks like the Nazis tried to wake J.P. up, but the system signalled that the reanimation was going to go sideways. So they threw it into reverse, kept him in the bag.”
Riordan nodded. “I’m sorry.”
Ike smiled. “Hey, if you’re going to waste some ‘sorries,’ waste them on me. I’m the one who’s been awake, dealing with all the nasty shit on this planet. But it has been pretty reassuring working with Newt, here.” “Newt” glared at Isaac. “Until he, and you guys, came along, I was worried I’d never see J.P.’s ugly cracker mug again.”
“J.P.’s a ‘cracker’?” Riordan asked.
Ike snickered. “A Southern boy. You know, a way-down-Dixie-bred son of the Big Easy.” Apparently, Riordan’s own face was as much a picture of bafflement as Duncan’s. “Lieutenant Jean-Pierre Deveraux is from New Orleans, originally. A cracker was a term—a term I used to tease him. About his origins. Sir.” Isaac looked away, almost like a truant kid. “It wasn’t really appropriate, sir—but it was cool between us.”
“Lieutenant,” Riordan confessed, “I am getting more, rather than less, confused with every additional detail you are adding to your alleged explanation. But I think I get the gist of it, and we’ll do everything we can to get Lt. Deveraux reanimated safely.”
Ike smiled. “Thank you, sir.” His smile dimmed, became more thoughtful. “Sorry I confused you with the slang, sirs. Things sure have changed a lot, back home.”
“And with any luck, you’ll get to see that for yourself soon enough. Now, anything else?”
“There are twenty-two other cryocells which seem to have secret access codes which were never entered. Almost all of them are marked with the crayon symbol that the Germans used to indicate pilots or plane technicians.”
Newton made a dismissive clucking noise with his tongue. “The security code devices are a laugh. Put a sequential generator on any of them for a few hours and they’ll open up. The locking mechanism was an afterthought, I think.” He stretched. “Kind of like our getting food.”
Riordan looked from one man to the other. “Haven’t had any lunch?”
“Or breakfast,” Ike said, as if suddenly remembering the lack of it.
“Then let’s get you dinner,” Riordan decided, walking back toward the entry into the mausoleum.
* * *
An hour later, they emerged into the very cool night air of Turkh’saar. Even this close to the equator, the temperature fell faster than the horizon-reddened sun.
Ike was rubbing his belly. “That’s two days of real honest-to-god rations, not worm meat and low-carb fiber mush. Almost makes me feel human again—to coin a phrase.”
Riordan smiled. “Where are you from, Lieutenant?”
Franklin smiled fondly. “Suburbs north of New York City. Croton-on-Hudson. Born there in 1967. Looking back, it was a pretty sweet life: private school, played football, finished near the top of my class.”
And Riordan could tell from the sound in his voice that even having asked that seemingly harmless question was putting Franklin at risk of reveries that might easily turn to melancholy. So, time to redirect. “Not a lot of that prepared you for what you found here, I’ll bet.”
That did seem to swing Franklin around toward less homey memories. “Oh, I don’t know, Commodore. I worked in an inner-city ER, jumped out of perfectly good planes into hellholes worse than this, and watched lots of Star Trek. Frankly, I think I was better prepared than a lot of the other folks here.”
“Star Trek?” echoed Duncan.
Riordan, worried that the question might return Ike to intensely personal recollections, rushed onward. “Since you’ve been the CMO here, any advice I should pass along to our medics about this environment?”
Franklin looked down, thinking as he walked out toward the edge of the flight line and the cloudless night sky. “Tell them not to leave any wounds in contact with the ground for very long. The flora here is…well, it’s nasty. Not like ‘I’ll bite you’ nasty; more the ‘get off of my property’ variety. There are almost no flowering plants, so everything spreads by spores, molds, parthenogenesis, runners, budding. All noncooperative means of reproduction. So each species tends to saturate the soil with compounds that it can tolerate but its competitors can’t: toxins or extremely high or low ph excretions. Most of the toxins don’t care much about our bodies and vice versa. But high alkalinity or acidity doesn’t require any biological compatibility to inflict damage. That’s just basic chemistry. So don’t leave casualties on the ground any longer than you have to, and don’t lean on a gashed elbow or knee: you’re likely to regret it.”
“I’ll pass that along,” Caine assured him with a nod.
But Ike might not have heard him: he had noticed three figures sitting at the edge of the naked bedrock of the flight line, staring up into the night sky. “Well, how’s it going, my Magi?” he asked.
All three men rose. From the look of their clothes, one was a Japanese submariner, another a crewman from Swordfish, and the last, an older man whose turban marked him as one of the Afghanis. The first two saluted. The latter bowed, muttering almost inaudible greetings toward Franklin, but his eyes were fixed upon Riordan and Solsohn.
Franklin gestured to the trio. “They’re our three wise men.”
The crewman from Swordfish beamed widely. Not all the expected teeth were there, and many of those that remained were not in enviable condition. “As Colonel Paulsen says, we ahr the unit’s sky-pilots.” Seeing that neither of the newcomers understood the slang, he clarified. “We ahr self-appointed chaplains, suhs.” His drawl was pronounced, an exaggerated version of what Riordan had heard when his family had travelled to various parts of the American South.
“I imagine that has been a—a very challenging calling, under these conditions.”
The Japanese nodded somberly. “It is not precisely that for which the temple teachings prepare one. But all enlightenment begins in ignorance and humility. This place has been a constant instruction in both.”
Riordan smiled. “I presume you are a Zen Buddhist, Mr.—?”
He bowed. “Sakai. Sakai Koetsu, Commodore.”
Riordan returned the gesture. “And your companions?”
The American, a swarthy man of large frame and facial features, shoved out a meaty hand. “Seaman First Class Ronald Purcett, suh. Cook’s mate. Preacher before Uncle Sam tapped me on’t shoulder—an’ still am, when I can get them durn boys tuh lissen.”
Riordan shook and released Purcett’s hand, turned to the Afghani. “And you are?”
The man—wrinkled, thin-cheeked, unblinking dark brown eyes—nodded slowly. “I am Yasuf Ali, Commodore. I must ask you a question.”
Startled by the gravity in the older man’s voice, Riordan nodded sharply. “Of course, Mr. Ali.”
The brown eyes turned back to the stars. “Where is our home?”
“Your—?”
“Earth, Commodore. Where is Earth?”
Riordan suddenly understood the longing and pain lurking behind Yasuf’s eyes. Caine turned, found the right patch of star-strewn night sky, and pointed. “There, Mr. Ali. The small star, just to the left of those two larger ones. Do you see?”
Ali nodded slowly. “Are you sure?”
Riordan returned the nod. “I am. Others have already asked the question. We confirmed the position earlier today with our celestial navigation and location programs.”
Ali bowed. “Blessings upon you, Commodore.” And without another word, the tall, wizened man turned, paced back to where he had been sitting, unbound and unfurled a rug upon which he prepared to kneel.
Riordan cleared his throat. “Mr. Ali, I’m sorry I did not think to inquire if there were any among you who had been waiting for this information. I would have made a point of disseminating it before sundown.”
Yasuf smiled. His eyes began to glimmer in the low light; one tear escaped, made circuitous progress down his weathered cheek. “Your intentions are a gift, and no doubt please the Prophet, who will still welcome the fervor and joy of our tardy prayers. Especially now that we may face toward Mecca.”
With a final nod, he kneeled upon the unfurled mat and sank forward slowly, until his forehead touched the ground. His smile, both pained and joyful, showed a partial row of teeth, which shone along with his tears as he commenced his devotions.
Chapter Thirty-Four
FAR UPLANDS, BD+56 2966 TWO (“TURKH’SAAR”)
Yaargraukh finished his long, loping sprint to the top of the northern ridge line, went over the crest, reversed and threw himself down behind a fernlike bush, the stalks of which were sparse where they entered the ground. He stared between them, his head obscured by the thick leafy top, his body hidden by the ridge line itself. He waited.
Two minutes later, across the small glen, a silhouette disturbed the dim outline of the lower, opposite ridge to the south. The pace at which that shadow moved was relatively casual at first, but then became more hurried. And Yaargraukh knew why.
His own pace—and therefore, the distance between his tracks—had remained a walk since he had left the Flag’s laager. But as soon as he had slipped over the ridge he was now watching, he had broken into a full run. His objective: to reach the more northerly ridgeline so he would see if he was being followed. Anyone tracking him would profile themselves against the early night sky as they came over the lower crest he had left behind.
Clearly, then, he was being followed. And where there is one tracker—
Another silhouette joined the first. And then a third. Their gestures were hurried, urgent: their quarry had surprised them, had dramatically increased its speed the moment it had gone behind the crest of the ridge upon which they now stood. Which meant that they had presumably been spotted and had to move quickly in order to catch up.
Fortunately, their quarry had not been able to move as carefully as he had before reaching these foothills. His long, sprinting strides had left deep imprints in the loam: an easy track to follow. Confident, they set out in immediate and hard pursuit, having little need to check for nuances in the trail that had been left.
Or so they thought.
* * *
Khaakhoz of the Moiety of Sh’ashyrkuk approached Urgluuz, his cousin, who had stopped his pursuit. As the lead, or coursing, hunter, it was Urgluuz’s job to press the prey as much as possible. They did so in turns, a traditional Hkh’Rkh means of wearing down game. And fugitives.
“Why have you stopped?” Khaakhoz hissed as he drew alongside Urgluuz. Given the vocal apparatus of Hkh’Rkh, it truly was a hiss.
