Destroyer from the Lost Planet, page 24
David concluded that the battery was likely about to blow itself apart. He took one small step backward and looked briefly at the android’s face. Though David wanted to ask him if he’d been trying to say battery all along, time was of the essence, and taking time to pose the question might well render the answer superfluous.
He reached into his pants pocket and removed a handkerchief, wrapped it several times around his index finger, and used the shielded finger to shove the wire away from the uninsulated pole. The arcing ceased immediately. The smoke emitted by the battery also immediately diminished, but, to David’s chagrin, for a while the needle remained pinned to the top of the red zone. Perhaps the meter had been measuring the battery’s internal heat or pressure; whatever it measured, it was taking some time to recede. After a count of ten (while the smoke alarm continued blaring its warnings), at last the needle budged and began slowly dropping away through the danger zone and down to safe levels. David was surprised to see that the needle didn’t stop there, but rather continued all the way to the bottom of the scale.
He looked to the android’s face to see if the android was as relieved as himself. But the face was entirely impassive. The android was off; it must have depended upon the battery for its operation, and its failure had rendered the android likewise inoperative.
David looked up at Catharine.
“Is it over?” she asked.
He nodded. “So it appears.”
“So, what was he trying to say?” asked Catharine, looking irritated.
“Evidently,” said David, “he was saying battery.”
“Battery?” she echoed incredulously, and shrugged. “Why didn’t you realize that when we first tied him up? He was already saying it.”
David couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Pardon me?” he said. “Why didn’t you understand him?”
She shrugged. “Well … you have more experience with Nibirune batteries than I do.”
That was plainly unfair. “You have precisely the same amount of experience with them that I do,” he said in a reciprocally accusatory tone. “Perhaps I should ask why you hit him so damned hard! With half his head missing, it’s a wonder he could say anything at all.”
Catharine placed her hands on her hips. “Oh?” she said, “How hard would you have hit him? Besides,” she said, indicating the android, “you’re the one who killed him.”
“I didn’t kill him,” he said. “He’s not dead.”
“How do you know?” she demanded.
He was about to say because he was never alive but, before he could form the retort, all at once the smoke alarm ceased its racket and there was a sudden swooshing in the air above their heads.
In half a minute, all the smoke had disappeared into the exhaust vents. It occurred to David and Catharine at the same moment that their bickering had arisen from nothing more than the stress of an impending disaster—a disaster that was averted through their cooperation; now that the danger had passed, they shared a clean, quiet, and reasonably safe environment that left them with neither need nor grounds for argument.
They collapsed into each other’s arms and quaked as relief flowed over them. This time they returned together to the bedroom and made love, then fell into the sweet oblivion of a sound sleep.
Neither had dared to verbalize a dread that had passed through each of their minds independently—that, even if they were to survive their inevitable wait in the dead of space, they might awaken only to find that the one who reached them first was … Anzû.
Chapter 16
Five miles from the center of Anzû’s hole in the Antarctic ice, two SF-5s circled at high altitude, awaiting orders to release their payload. One saucer was piloted by Gary Sullivan, the other by Buck Buchanan.
“What if this plan don’t work?” asked Buck. “Over.”
“It’ll work,” Gary confirmed. “Over.”
“We got a Plan B? Over.”
“We do,” said Gary. “That’s the one that’ll work. Over.”
“What is it? Over.”
“Can’t discuss it unless it’s implemented. Over.”
“Can’t discuss it with li’l ol’ me?” wheedled Buck. “Over.”
“Nope,” said Gary. “Apparently, they’re not real committed to it. Besides,” he chortled, “you’re kinda funny lookin’. Over.”
“If kinda funny lookin’ disqualified someone from gettin’ information,” said Buck, “they’d never have told you a damned thing. Over.”
The DHS rep had never been to the Oval Office before. Because of the importance of what she carried in her briefcase, she’d expected all eyes to be on her from the moment she walked in, and she was right about that.
Her eyes darted about nervously as she identified some major players: the President, Admiral Simmons, the Secretary of Defense. Her immediate bosses were there—the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security—as well as the Director and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
As she opened her briefcase, she gave the President a friendly smile.
To her surprise, he smiled back.
“What have you got for us this morning, Evelyn?” asked the President.
She blushed to think that the President already knew her name. “What I have here, Mister President, is precisely what was requested last week. Needless to say, our best engineers have done nothing but work on these since receiving word that we’d be needing them.”
From her briefcase, she withdrew two small drones, extended their compressed wings carefully, and placed them side by side in the middle of the table so everyone would have a good view.
“Special skeeters?” asked the President.
“Well, sir, these are a bit bigger than the skeeters we’ve all come to know and love—if one can ever really love an insect (real or mechanical), which I doubt.”
“We’re in love with your skeeters, Evelyn,” corrected the admiral. “We’re in love with anything that saves American lives.”
“Yes, sir,” said Evelyn, “but given that these are a bit bigger, we call ’em dragonflies. They had to be bigger. Our orders were that these need to safely record, store, and synchronously transmit audiovisual surveillance data on command.”
The President turned to the admiral. “We got guys up there with these right now?”
The admiral nodded emphatically. “We’ve redoubled all our national coastal patrols: space force, air force, navy, and coast guard, just in case Plan A misfires and the bad guys decide to escalate immediately. As for the craft carrying the dragonflies, there are two up there now, and they’re being flown by our best, sir. You’ve met ’em.”
The President nodded thoughtfully. “Well, how do they feel about these … dragonflies?”
The admiral took an unusually long time to answer. “Back when we were talking about the existing skeeters, you remember the pilots joking about the bad guys opening a can of bug spray on them?”
“I remember,” said the President.
“Well,” said the admiral, “they think these dragonflies are big enough to be spotted by radar, at least when they’re swarming. They look a little weird on radar, but there’s enough reflected signal there to reveal their presence. Our guys think that, one way or another, they’ll encounter a can of bug spray.”
The President frowned. “I don’t want to get bogged down in metaphors here, but what kind of bug spray might work against these things?”
Instead of answering directly, the admiral turned to Evelyn. “Do you have an answer for the President, Evelyn?”
Her stomach churned. “Well, obviously, toxins won’t work, Mister President, since these dragonflies aren’t living things.” She squirmed in her chair. “But the engineers said, kind of off-handedly, that a spray of sticky polymer might be effective against them.”
The President frowned again. “You mean … glue?”
“Yes, sir. Glue spray.”
The President turned darkly back to the admiral. “What’s the plan if all these dragonflies get gummed up?”
The admiral cleared his throat nervously. “Our fallback plan is to send our fighters in with their automated cameras running.”
The President’s face reddened. “Well … how do they get out again?”
“Through the same hole in the ice, sir.”
“Don’t you think the enemy will anticipate that and cut off their escape?”
“We expect they’ll try, sir,” said the admiral gravely.
The CIA director leaned forward and said, “That could lead immediately to a hot war.”
“And we have no idea how many wings they’ve got hidden from us,” added his assistant. “Could be … rough.”
The President nodded gravely. “Bob, what kind of contingency plans do we have if the enemy starts a massed attack?”
“Readiness is all, Mister President,” said the admiral, and sat back in his chair as though the question had been fully answered.
The President shook his head and reluctantly gave the order everyone else seemed to be anticipating. “We’re not ready. Tell our two pilots to return to base and stand by. Let’s give it a few days, folks. I want a complete workup of contingencies, conventional and … unconventional.” The room went deathly quiet at the President’s use of unconventional in place of nuclear, which was what everyone knew he meant.
The CIA director said, “But, Mister President, we don’t know what they’ve got—”
The President rounded on the director, eyes flashing and face flushed. “They’re not going to tell us that, are they? Make whatever assumptions you deem reasonable and state them explicitly, so I’ll know what the hell we should do based on what they do. You know how to write for contingencies. You went to college, didn’t you?”
The director, who’d graduated Yale magna cum laude, looked down at the table and nodded, careful not to look the boss in the eye. “Yes, sir.”
The President, deflated by his own outburst, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Sorry for the fit of pique, Fred. Uncalled for … and that’s on me.”
“Completely understandable, sir,” said the director sympathetically.
The President said, “Everyone leave me alone with the admiral, please.”
The assemblage quickly gathered up its papers and filed out silently. As Evelyn needed to compress the wings of the specimen dragonflies and put them back in her briefcase, she was last to go. Her expression resembled that of someone who’d just been punched in the gut.
“Evvie—” said the President, “may I call you Evvie?”
She nodded emphatically.
“Evvie, your dragonflies will certainly be in the first foray. If they work and don’t get gummed up, we may yet peacefully acquire the intelligence we need. But—” he glanced at the admiral “—if they fail, the odds of a hot war are quite high, so we need more time to get ready. But keep your powder dry and we’ll see you soon.”
“Yes, sir,” said Evelyn. “Meanwhile, I’ll ask the engineers what measures we might take to minimize the hazards of … bug spray.”
“Good idea,” said the President.
Evelyn looked slightly mollified as she turned and left, closing the door behind her.
“Well, that went well,” said the President in a self-deprecating tone.
“We all let you down, Jim,” said the admiral, shaking his head sadly. “We know never to offer the boss a ‘best option’ that’s likely to start a standup fight. It’s a failure of vision on our part. We’re all thinkin’ inside the box.”
Having been reminded to think in less routine ways, the President realized he’d forgotten something that might be important. “What have we heard from our ambassador—and your adjutant?”
The admiral shook his head in frustration. “Radio silence. Evidently, there’s a spy on Enki’s ship. Until he can figure out who it is and take him out of circulation, he’s avoiding all communication with David and Catharine.”
“Why?” asked the President incredulously.
“Because, somehow, the android that was supposed to pilot David and Catharine got switched with a different one. Enki’s worried that the one piloting David and Catharine’s craft is under Anzû’s control and could be relaying everything to him.”
“How’d Enki find out that the androids were switched?”
“Remember Hendrick? The geologist?” asked the admiral.
“How could I forget him?”
“There were evidently some ink marks on the android who was left behind that could only have been on the intended pilot. Hendrick’s the one who detected the switch.”
The President nodded. “Guy’s sharp as a knife. What do you hear from him?”
“He’s on his way here from Enki’s ship. I told the Space Force detail to bring him here as long as I’m still here.”
“So, there’s no contact between David and the outside world?” asked the President.
“Well—” the admiral began, but then dropped off.
“Well, what, Bob?” said the President. “We’re grasping at straws here.”
“Last time I spoke with David—when he was at my home—he told me he’d been … contacted by Anzû directly.”
“You mentioned that,” said the President, “but what does it have to do—”
“Not sure I mentioned that the contact was … telepathic.”
The President regarded him askance. “I think you left out that little nugget.”
“Well,” said the admiral, “you asked whether there’s any contact between David and the outside world. David’s telepathic capability could mean that he’s directly in touch with Anzû even now. Nobody knows how telepathic signals are carried or how fast they travel. There’s some evidence that they’re instantaneous, which is a little confusing, as it seems to violate Einstein’s speed limit. David felt pretty sure that Anzû was trying to enlist him in his cause.”
“Why David especially? Because he’s privy to our intelligence?”
The admiral shook his head. “No, that’s just the icing on the cake. You see, David seems to be the only person alive who can communicate telepathically with Anzû and also with Anzû’s platoon leaders. Even Anzû can’t communicate telepathically with his platoon leaders; those comms require a working radio.”
“So, if Anzû’s radio communications are interrupted by an EMP pulse,” reasoned the President, “using David as his missing comm link, Anzû could still maintain command and control?”
The admiral nodded, letting that knowledge sink in.
“My God,” said the President, “if Anzû’s got David, then he can—and no doubt will—hit us with an EMP with impunity, because the possibility that we might retaliate in kind no longer serves as a deterrent. We’ll be unable to knock out his comms.”
“Anzû may already believe he can attack us with impunity,” said the admiral, “as he has no inkling that we’ve restored our nuclear capability. Remember we haven’t told Enki, so Anzû’s spy couldn’t have overheard it.”
The President waved off that possibility. “Anzû may already know, but, even if he doesn’t, he has no choice but to assume we’ve recovered at least some of our nuclear capabilities. Anzû’s not stupid, and he can readily imagine what would happen if he were to attack us and it turned out we did have nukes.”
The admiral nodded in agreement. “It’s true. To the best of our knowledge, he’s got forces in only two places, and they’re distant from our population centers, so the occasion would be optimal for us to use nukes. But to return to the prospect that he could preserve his command and control while we lose ours: Yes, it would be destabilizing. With David in his corner, Anzû would have command and control, and we’d have none. Game Over. But I don’t think Anzû’s happy about the prospect, because that would really put David in the catbird seat. If David threatened to pull the plug, Anzû would have no choice but to give him anything he wanted—immortality—even Inanna, if he can swing it.”
The President looked worried. “You think David might succumb to temptation of that kind?”
The admiral sighed. “The prospect of living forever with the most desired woman in the universe?” He shrugged. “Sure beats a sharp stick in the eye.”
“Should we preemptively … terminate David?” asked the President hesitantly. “He’s the only thing that could assure our destruction.”
The admiral just stared at him and waited for him to right his ship.
The President saw the disdain of his most trusted friend, blushed, and said aloud to himself, “We could never do that without clear evidence that David had turned coat, of course.” He shivered as though death itself had momentarily lighted its icy hand on his head; he turned to the admiral. “Does Anzû have any information he can hold over David’s head?”
“To blackmail him? Not that I know of,” said the admiral.
The President slammed his fist down on his desk. “How the hell did David become central to all this? He’s just an ambassador.”
The admiral sipped his coffee and sighed. “There I can help you: The Anunnaki are (as a practical matter) immortal; to enjoy an Anunnaki woman forever, a man would have to become immortal himself. Now, somehow Anzû learned that the immortal Queen Inanna had been crazy in love with Joseph of the Bible thousands of years ago. Not only is David descended from Joseph, but he’s Joseph’s spit-and-image. One of Anzû’s confederates evidently told Inanna about David and showed her his picture. After that, Inanna tried for months to seduce David, but to no avail, because David had recently met and fallen in love with Catharine.”
“So,” said the President with dismay, “now we’re dependent on David’s remaining in love with Catharine. This is mind-boggling. It’s like a combination of three-dimensional chess and … high school.”
The admiral agreed. “The high school of the gods—with the fate of two worlds in the balance. But, you know, that’s nothing new. Earth’s history is filled with wars over noblewomen. Look at Helen of Troy. She was supposed to be the daughter of Zeus.” He furrowed his brow. “You don’t suppose that Helen was … Inanna, do you?”
