"Unknown," said Kozloff, "but that system is home to the Sol Vikings and they have their own navy. Maybe they can do something to stop them, or at least delay them until we can follow with reinforcements."

  "That would be fine, but someone has to warn these Vikings," said Markov.

  Kozloff hesitated for only a moment. "Lenin is a courier, sir, and she's even faster than those corvettes. If we leave right away, I'm pretty sure we can get there before them."

  "Make it so, captain." Markov paused for a moment. "And thank you for alerting us to this threat. This would have been a complete disaster otherwise."

  "Just doing my duty, sir. I'll be heading for my ship immediately."

  "Good luck, Captain."

  "Thank you, sir."

  Chapter 46.

  Elevator Crisis.

  Vavilov Soviet People's Space elevator, New Belgrade, December 10, 2676.

  The Belgrade space elevator, like all structures of its type, was constructed with pairs of modules or "cabs" that worked together, counterbalancing one another. When one module of the pair was ascending, the other was descending. The Belgrade elevator, serving a rather small planetary population, was a somewhat scaled down version with relatively compact modules, and there were only two pairs of them. Others, like the elevator complex serving Novyrus, were equipped with six pairs of vastly larger modules.

  At the current time, one of the cabs of the Belgrade facility's "A" elevator pair was parked at the off-planet terminal for offloading and reloading. A larger than normal number of passengers, bound for the Celebration on the Orbital Platform, was in the process of disembarking. Meanwhile, on the lowest level of the three-level elevator cab, workers were just beginning to offload a full shipment of cargo from the planet. At the base of the elevator tower, down on the planet's surface, the same sort of operations were taking place.

  Sergeant Slava Chernikov, a marine stationed on the upper end of the New Belgrade Space Elevator, watched the external monitors with concern as a group of about a dozen cargo ships approached the elevator.

  "What are those ships doing here?" he asked Corporal Kostas Kariyev, the elevator dispatcher who shared the elevator control booth with him and several others.

  "I don't know, Slava. As far as I can tell, none of them are scheduled for any deliveries or pickups."

  "Hail them."

  Kariyev keyed up the communications console. "Elevator command to unknown cargo ships. You are not authorized for this area. You are ordered to vacate the area immediately."

  "This is Jakob Lukin, captain of Odessa. We are here under orders from Admiral Anton Markov. You will be receiving a message shortly"

  As if on cue, Tomsk proceeded to broadcast Markov's warning on all channels. Chernikov and Kariyev listened to the admiral's dire message in alarm. The order was to locate all of the cargo containers with Political Arm markings on them, and jettison them out into space. They were also ordered to arrest all Political Officers.

  In front of them, in the holding area for the "A" elevator module, which was scheduled to begin its descent to the planet, were at least twenty of the containers just described in the warning broadcast. Several days ago, the Political Arm had reserved the entire capacity of the descending elevator cabs for their exclusive use and began bringing in the containers. Now the two elevator workers understood why.

  "These containers are full of aliens?" said Chernikov.

  "I heard the message too, Slava."

  A short distance away, in the holding area for the "B" elevator cabs, which were currently about halfway through their ascent/descent cycle, were another twenty of the containers awaiting arrival of the ascending cab. A chill ran down the sergeant's spine as he realized the descending cab of the B elevator pair, currently halfway to the planet, had been loaded with yet another twenty.

  His first decision was easy. With the modules of the A elevator pair already immobile, and not scheduled for descent for several hours, he immediately locked down the cargo area and, after a brief struggle, placed the Political Officer stationed there under arrest. Fortunately, the Politico had been napping, because it turned out he was armed with a small but deadly pulse pistol. After agonizing about what to do with the B elevator, Chernikov came to a difficult decision, ordering something he thought he'd never have to do.

  "I don't like it, but we need to halt the B elevator."

  "But sergeant..."

  "On my authority, full emergency stop. Do it now."

  For the first time since the New Belgrade elevator had begun operating, some twenty years ago, a moving elevator cab began decelerating to a stop halfway through a cycle. With the cabs having accelerated to several thousand kilometers per hour, the process of safely stopping them would take a half hour or more. The controls and the machinery regulating the up/down function of the elevator modules were located at the terminus of the elevator. Anyone, or anything, in any of the soon-to-be-stationary modules would be stranded there.

  With twenty of the offending containers taken care of, at least for the time being, he turned his attention to the cargo containers still up on the top end of the elevator.

  "What do we do now, Slava?" asked Kariyev.

  "You heard the message, Kostas. We have to get these containers out of the elevator module and out into space."

  "How are we going to do that?"

  "I'm working on it." Chernikov thought for a moment, considering what options he had. "Get me the captain of that freighter..., Odessa, I think her name was."

  "Right away, sergeant."

  Reestablishing contact with the freighters, none of which had made any move to leave, took about thirty seconds.

  "This is Odessa, Jakob Lukin speaking."

  "I assume you got the emergency message."

  "We did."

  "Sorry about our earlier misunderstanding, captain."

  "Not a problem. How can we help?"

  "We have a bunch of these cargo containers in here. We need to get them off the elevator and out into space as soon as possible. Do you have shuttles capable of transferring them?"

  "We do. How many containers are we talking?"

  "At least twenty for each elevator line."

  There was a pause of a couple of minutes as Lukin consulted with the other ship captains. "We have fourteen shuttles, sergeant. We'll have to make multiple trips, but we can do it.

  "Do you have any idea how much time we have?"

  "We don't, but some of your fellow marines took out most of the Alien leadership last night. That has to have messed their plans. We think their starting time was supposed to coincide with the start of the Celebration. That would be an hour and a half from now. Trouble is, we just don't know for sure."

  "Get your shuttles ready, and stand by for further instructions."

  "Roger."

  Chernikov turned back to Kariyev. "Now we need to get these modules moved from the elevator holding area and out the doors. How are we going to do that?"

  "Why don't we talk to Harquart? He's the cargo tech. Maybe he can figure something out."

  "Good idea."

  Ronald Harquart, a civilian engineer, was the cargo technician on duty at the current time. He'd been taking an early lunch break and was just now returning to the control booth, where he was met with a scene of chaos.

  "I go away for twenty minutes, and come back to find you military types have screwed everything up. What the hell are you doing to my elevators, Chernikov?"

  "There is an immediate threat from an alien species."

  "Yeah, right. Is that what I'm supposed to tell my supervisor?"

  "Check your monitors."

  There was a short pause as Harquart got himself up to speed.

  "You mean this is a real emergency?"

  "Believe it, Harquart. We are under orders from Admiral Markov himself to get these cargo containers off the elevator and out into space."

  "That's a pretty tall order."

  "Can we do it?'

  "Maybe, but it ain't going to be easy. It'll also be really, really expensive."

  "Don't worry about that. What do you have in mind?"

  "If we put the entire cargo holding area under vacuum, we wouldn't be slowed down by constantly cycling the big airlock. I'm thinkin' we could open the airtight doors leading to the cargo airlock and leave 'em open."

  "You have to be kidding. That's going to destroy a lot of valuable goods."

  "I just told you it wouldn't be easy, or cheap."

  "What do we have to do?"

  "There are some safety mechanisms that'll have to be defeated, and we'll have to lock those big inner doors open somehow."

  "Can you do it?"

  "I think so, but there is a problem."

  "And that is...?"

  "Nothing like this has ever been tried before."

  "I don't think we have a choice. What can we do to help?"

  "You get into a space suit, and start supervising the movement of those containers. Meanwhile, I'll get the doors open, override a whole bunch of safety protocols to lock them that way, and then evacuate all the air."

  "Understood, how long is this going to take?"

  "I can't say for sure. Maybe twenty minutes or so? I'll get to work overriding the safety protocols. Meanwhile I'll get a couple of the other techs to open the inner doors and disable the closing mechanism. We're going to be doing some very expensive damage."

  "Can't be helped, Harquart. When you get the doors open, we have cargo shuttles standing by to transfer the modules away from the elevator."

  "How much time have we got?"

  "Probably not enough," replied Chernikov. "We'd best get this done as quickly as possible."

  "Guess we'd better get to it, then."

  Chernikov unlocked the enclosures for the Political Arm cargo holding areas for four anti-gravity forklift operators who each began transferring cargo modules from the cargo holding area back into the receiving area. Because the interior of the space would be in vacuum very soon, the operators had been instructed to put on their spacesuits. Since they had been drilled regularly on vacuum protocols, all of them knew what to do, even though their previous experience had all been in simulations. Suits on, they began shifting cargo as efficiently as possible, latching onto modules with the grappling fields of their forklifts, and maneuvering them over near the outside doors.

  With the transfer of the modules underway, Chernikov ordered all nonessential personnel out of the cargo area.

  When everyone except the space-suited forklift operators were out of the cargo holding area, Harquart used his electronic credentials to override an array of safety protocols, and began to pump the air out of the area. The high-capacity pumps could evacuate the entire volume in just under a half hour. The group nervously watched the modules, hoping there was no activity, as the half hour crawled agonizingly by. When the process was finally complete, Harquart opened the outer doors to space.

  Odessa and the other freighters had approached and deployed their shuttles. As soon as the outer doors were open, the forklift operators began to shove modules out into space where shuttles latched onto them and moved them away from the elevator. What was going to happen to the now free-floating containers had yet to be determined. Harquart decided it was the Navy's problem.

  The bay was nearly clear when the doors on one of the remaining cargo modules suddenly burst open, the pressure within spewing its occupants out into the vacuum of the cargo hold. Five of the horrid creatures from Markov's broadcast, in obvious distress, strove repeatedly to come to their feet only to fall writhing and thrashing to the deck. There they struggled for a couple of horrifying minutes before ceasing to move.

  "Stay clear everyone!" shouted Chernikov into the PA system, as three more modules blew open, spewing their deadly contents out onto the airless floor.

  Fortunately, all the forklift operators were on the other side of the bay as the ghastly scene repeated itself.

  Chernikov and Harquart watched, on the edge of panic, as fifteen more Custodians struggled desperately for several minutes before finally expiring on the floor of the cargo bay.

  They looked at each other, wide-eyed, still high on adrenaline from the grisly scene they'd just witnessed. The sergeant let out a ragged sigh of relief. "Sure as hell glad that worked out."

  "What do you mean?" said Harquart.

  "Nobody told us if the damned things needed air to breathe or not."

  Chapter 47. Out of the

  Bag .

  Nova York Orbital Platform, December 11, 2676.

  Deep in the throes of another of his unwelcome visions, Arnold Mobutu found himself again wandering the same incomprehensible and aggravating maze, blundering into dead end after dead end, backtracking, and repeating the process. Ominously, about halfway through his increasingly panicked hunt for a way out, he began to hear someone, or something, following him.

  He increased his pace, but after a couple more turns he could tell his pursuer was gaining on him. He broke into a sprint, hoping to open the distance, but immediately heard the footsteps match his increase in tempo. He turned down another corridor and came face to face with a solid barrier, barely managing to pull up short before charging headlong into it. The footsteps continued to get closer until he could tell whatever was chasing him was just around the last turn. The vision burned into his mind before he mercifully awoke, was of the wall blocking his escape.

  Only this time it wasn't a blank wall. As he awakened fully, he realized the flat surface had been inscribed with the same set of diagrams he'd recently found in the Codex—the diagrams indicating the location of the new Archeon artifact!

  If any of the other dreamers experienced the same vision, which was almost certain, they had the same information as he did about the location of the new artifact! Though it was only two in the morning, he knew he needed to speak with Madam Miriam Love immediately. He accessed her contact information and initiated a call.

  Miriam responded right away.

  "Miriam? This is Arnold Mobutu. Sorry to wake you, but I need to talk to you."

  "It's alright Dr. Mobutu, I was awake." She looked as though she'd been crying.

  "Are you awake because you just had a vision?"

  "Yes, I assume that's why you're calling."

  "Are you alright?"

  "I'm okay now," she said, wiping at her eyes, "but it was very frightening."

  "Can you describe it for me?"

  "I'll try..." Miriam went on to describe a vision virtually identical to Arnold's, with her being pursued by some mysterious person or thing through many twists and turns before coming up short against a solid wall.

  "Did this thing catch you?"

  "No, it didn't catch me but I got a good look at it before I woke up. Did you see it too?"

  "What was it?"

  "It was one of those horrible Custodian things. It was reaching out to attack me with its claws, and I couldn't help myself, I screamed as loud as I could. I'm pretty sure it was my scream that woke me. It was terrifying, the worst vision I've ever had! Is that what you saw?"

  "Mostly, but I woke up before it came around the last turn. This is very important, Miriam, did you see anything on the wall before you woke up?"

  "Yes, there were some diagrams."

  "Can you describe them to me?"

  "Yes, I saw three rectangles with lots of circles and symbols in them. I'm trying to write them down now, before the vision fades. Do you know what they mean?

  Arnold paused before replying. "Yes, Miriam, I'm afraid I do."

  "Is it bad?"

  "It's very bad. It's telling me some of us have to go back to the Sol system immediately." He paused again. "Were you planning to come to today's meeting?"

  "I didn't think I would be needed, so, no."

  "I need you to be there. Can you come?"

  "Of course, I'll do anything I can."

  "Thanks, Miriam. Are you going to be alright?"

  "I think so. Talking to you is helping a lot."

  "Try to relax and get some sleep. Today will be very a long day."

  "I'll be there, Dr. Mobutu."

  "Thank you, Miriam, you've been a great help, as usual."

  The short conversation with Madam Love confirmed Arnold's fears. It appeared there was little choice, someone had to go to Callisto, and it would have to be soon. Because of their previous experience with the other two artifacts, he knew any expedition to the moon would have to include one of the Human Representatives or one of the Guardians. With everyone else committed to other vital operations, it looked as if he and Gertrude would be the ones going.

  According to Amalgamation policy, Representatives were supposed to be accompanied by a Guardian when they were away from Deimos. Though Gertrude was also a Representative, she was easily as capable as any of the three Guardians. Not the perfect solution, but under the circumstances, the only one.

  Who else should he take along? Again, based on past experience, he was likely to need the knowledge of the three symbologists, because there would almost certainly be more mysteries for them to solve. The two scientists would also be good to have along.

  He would have to bring this up at the meeting this morning and, with all the turmoil in the Quadrant, the timing couldn't have been worse. Not that it mattered, they had to get to Callisto as quickly as possible. To do otherwise was unthinkable.

  He was not so much afraid someone would be able to access the artifact, though he couldn't totally rule that out, he was more afraid they might do something to damage or destroy it. The Custodians and their Human accomplices hadn't used any nuclear devices yet, but he wouldn't put it past them.

  He put in a call to Cliff Bernard. Unlike Miriam, Cliff was sleeping soundly.

  "Arnold?" he mumbled, blinking his eyes. "What time is it?"

  "It's two thirty in the morning."

  Cliff yawned. "Um...okay. What can I do for you?"

  "Something's come up. We need to get back to the Sol system right away. Capri is the best ship to take us there. Can you get her ready?"

 

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