Hellhole (31 page)

Tel – the thinner of the two – always saluted when he saw the General, while his partner came forward to shake Adolphus’s hand. Either gesture of respect was acceptable. “Good to see you, gentlemen.” He pointed to the still-fading vapor trail; the delivery vehicle had dwindled to a bright pinpoint of light high overhead. “What was that cargo?”

Tel shrugged. “I can’t remember exactly. Renny, what was on the launch docket for today?”

“Another docking clamp for the orbital ring. Once it’s installed and online, we’ll be able to handle four stringline arrivals simultaneously.”

Adolphus nodded at the excellent news. “Don’t slow down. D-Day is in eleven months, and we have to make sure all twelve stations are ready. Our ring needs to be a genuine stringline hub, not just an amateur effort.”

Ankor’s busy landing field – with its warehouses, hangars, and repair/refueling facilities – reminded Adolphus of the Lubis Plain shipyards on Qiorfu. But he intended to make this much more than that.

Tel gestured. “Come with me to the office shack, General. We’ve got real-time images being transmitted from orbit. I have the full work record for your perusal. You can even link up and speak to the construction team if you like.”

“I prefer to maintain radio silence. No matter how secure the channel is, someone could be listening in.” Far too many Constellation people snooped around the General’s planet. “You two are doing a fine job managing this. I won’t interfere. I’ll just look at the images.”

Leaving Tel with the General, Renny pulled on a pair of gloves. “I’m off to run one of the clearing dozers. We’re going to lay the foundation for a big new reception building. Gotta be ready when passengers begin arriving from the Deep Zone. We’ll need to accommodate a much larger number of people.”

“I want a fancy hotel, just like the ones on Sonjeera.” Tel wore a wistful smile.

“Basic lodgings first. We can always expand.” Renny gave Tel a quick peck on the cheek, then headed off to the parked construction machinery.

Adolphus knew Sophie would have considered the pair adorable, but he had never gotten used to dreamy-eyed couples. Maybe if he hadn’t been thrust into a harsh reality at such an early age, he wouldn’t be so jaded. The death of his brother and the loss of his inheritance . . . being crushed by the Constellation’s corrupt legal system . . . targeted for assassination with a shipful of other second-string nobles . . . all had driven him to launch his bloody rebellion. No, Tiber Adolphus had not lived a life that engendered a romantic mindset.

Neither had Sophie Vence, however, and
she
hadn’t given up hope. She made no secret of the fact that she intended to soften him up. He said she was welcome to try.

Inside the headquarters shack – which had been reinforced and expanded so that it was now a far cry from a “shack” – Tel displayed images of the large orbital construction, where units were being assembled into the new stringline hub. Because Constellation haulers came only at set intervals, the General’s secret work could be scheduled when there was no risk of the activities being seen. Since the next stringline ship was not due for three more days, the work above Hallholme continued at a frenetic pace.

The General’s need for an extensive network of satellites to monitor the planet’s tortured weather was a perfectly reasonable cover story. The satellites gave Adolphus an excuse to launch the equipment he needed to build his own stringline hub on the opposite side of the world from the Sonjeera-linked terminus. Whenever a Constellation ship was due to arrive, the Clovises shut down orbital construction operations and switched off power to the half-finished hub. If anyone bothered to scan (which they sometimes did), they would see only small blips that looked like nothing more than orbiting monitors.

Satisfied with the progress, Adolphus and Tel stepped outside to the sun-washed construction site. At the edge of the dry lakebed, Renny Clovis operated an enormous dozer, scraping up rocks and a crumbling layer of salt. He had already cleared a foundation area for a new building far from the landing field. If the future unfolded as the General hoped, and new stringlines linked all the Deep Zone worlds, Hallholme would need extensive accommodations for the influx of travelers, including the fancy hotel Tel Clovis wanted to run.

Adolphus felt a sharp jolt beneath his feet, and the ground began to shake. Construction workers scrambled away from the swaying crane girders. The launch gantries rattled and rocked from side to side.

Tel spread his legs to brace himself. “Another aftershock, sir. We’ve had a bunch of quakes over the past few days.”

Instead of fading after a few seconds, there were stronger jolts, and the ground bucked. Adolphus struggled to keep his balance.

Aboard his growling dozer, Renny seemed not to notice; the seismic vibrations were drowned out by the whirr and rumble of his machinery. Behind him, the dry lakebed began to collapse. A crack opened up, and broken ground poured into the sinkhole. Losing traction, his big vehicle lurched backward.

Yelling, Tel sprinted across the shaking ground with Adolphus close at his side. The crater widened, and the General saw a flash of liquid – water? – at the bottom of the collapsing crater. Some kind of silvery fluid oozed up.

Scrambling out of the cab, Renny leaped from the enormous dozer. The treads continued to move as the dozer clawed for balance on the vanishing ground. Renny dropped to the loose dirt and tried to run up the collapsing slope, but he lost his balance and slid backward.

The quake continued, and cracks opened near the launch site and landing field. Tel ran recklessly toward the widening gap just as Renny slid down with the chunks of dirt and salt cake.

The groaning dozer plunged into the exposed liquid at the bottom of the sinkhole, but the pool did not move like water. It didn’t splash, but churned and pulsed. Renny plunged into the water at the bottom of the pit and tried to swim, thrashing briefly. Then something changed. He seemed stunned, paralyzed . . . and he sank without struggling.

With a scream, Tel stumbled to his knees as the ground bucked beneath him. Adolphus caught up with Tel, and they watched as the sinkhole continued to widen, earth crashing in from the sides. In less than a minute the water receded into a foaming muck, taking Renny, the dozer, and an avalanche of soil on top of it.

When the seismic event finally stopped, Tel fell face down in the dirt, sobbing and shaking.

W
ith Fernando convulsing at the edge of the strange alien pool, Vincent retrieved the medkit from the Trakmaster and rushed back. He applied monitors to his friend’s body and studied the garbled readings, frantic to understand what was wrong. He raced through all the standard first-aid he had been taught during the Michella Town briefing; he scanned the emergency med-manual, tried pressure-injections of stimulants and anti-allergens, but nothing had any effect. Vincent felt desperate, helpless, and alone out in the middle of nowhere.

Fernando spasmed, dropped into a coma, and lay like a dead man. Vincent half-carried, half-dragged his unconscious companion back towards the vehicle; the other man’s arms and legs flopped listlessly. Strangely, though he had fallen into the pool, his clothes were not even moist.

Vincent had checked: according to the overland rig’s grid maps, there were no mining camps or industrial outposts within reach, and it would take days of driving at top speed to return to Michella Town. Because Fernando had insisted on going to unknown territory in hopes of making a big discovery, they were far from any potential assistance.

Leaving his companion on the ground beside the Trakmaster, Vincent activated the self-erecting tent and pulled Fernando into its minimal shelter. His friend did not stir. Vincent tried to force water into the other man’s mouth, but it dribbled out the side. “Come on, come on!” The med readings flickered and scrambled, still inconclusive. At least Fernando was alive, with stable pulse and respiration, but he remained unresponsive.

After agonizing for two hours, Vincent made up his mind to load his friend aboard the Trakmaster, strap him down, and make the best possible time to the nearest mining camp. Then, unexpectedly, Fernando awoke – making the situation even more strange.

Hunched over in the tent, Vincent called, “Are you all right? Say something!”

When Vincent looked at his friend’s eyes in a certain light, the irises still had a milky sheen with an odd Fresnel effect. When Fernando spoke, the words came out ponderously, as if he were relearning how to talk. “Fernando is well . . . as is Zairic.”

“What happened to you?” Vincent offered him water again, and the other man drank without paying attention. “What are you talking about? Who, or what, is Zairic?”

Sitting up, Fernando looked at his hands, flexed his fingers, and then touched his forearm and elbow, as if intrigued by the bones there. He tapped a fingertip against his hard teeth, blinked his eyes, tried to focus. “
I
am Zairic, with all the memories of my life. Am I the first Xayan to return?” He crawled out of the tent and stood up on wavering legs to look around in amazement.

Worried that his friend was delusional and might collapse again, Vincent held onto his arm. “Here, let me help you. You’re talking nonsense. There must have been chemicals or drugs in that water.”

Fernando turned to him with a flash of inexpressible wonder on his face. “Not drugs,
memories
!” His expression changed again as he gazed up at the greenish sky; he seemed detached and disoriented. “How this world has changed! Fernando Neron is . . . most interesting.”

Vincent tried to calm his breathing. “
You’re
Fernando Neron. This isn’t making any sense. What did that pool do to you?”

“It is slickwater.” The strangely unfocused eyes turned towards Vincent. “A liquid database that contained my life, along with most other Xayan lives. They’ve been preserved for a long time.” He slowly surveyed the bleak hills, the barren ground, the fur of alien vegetation on the nearby slopes. “So, our planet survived the impact, although not without terrible scars.” He gazed at Vincent, but seemed to be seeing only a stranger. “How long has it been?”

“Since the asteroid impact?”

“Yes, since our civilization was destroyed.”

Vincent reeled as he began to understand just what Fernando was saying. “Five centuries. You know that.” His friend couldn’t have missed something so basic in their briefings.

“Mmmm, yes,
Fernando
knows that.” He cocked his head as if checking something. “Around five hundred years . . . so the restoration of our race is occurring sooner than we thought. We were prepared to wait millennia, if necessary.”

Impatient and uneasy, Vincent could not stop himself from snapping, “Start explaining yourself! What’s happened to Fernando?” Maybe he was pulling Vincent’s leg again, teasing him for being so serious and worried all the time. “If this is a joke, it’s not funny.”

His friend’s expression shifted and became animated again. “It’s me, Vincent – I’m back! I haven’t gone anywhere, but it took Zairic longer than he expected to take care of all the details. He had so much to learn, so much to assimilate.” He shook his head. “Wow, this makes my mind reel. It goes beyond my wildest dreams!”

Vincent was worried and frightened, yet curious. He knew Fernando’s penchant for imagination and exaggeration, but this was different. He had
seen
Fernando fall into the slickwater and knew he could not have faked the convulsions and deep paralysis afterward. This was no scam.

“Zairic will need to fill in some of the details. Let me tell you what I know, for now. Trust me, you’ve never heard anything like this before. It’s the best thing ever.” Fernando gave a broad smile, and his eerie eyes shone with a sense of wonder. He tapped his temple. “I carry the memories, at least part of them, of the Xayans, this planet’s original race that was wiped out by the asteroid impact.”

Vincent was skeptical in spite of what he’d seen. “So, now you’re possessed by an alien?”

“Not like that. The slickwater in those pools is an organic liquid-crystal storage reservoir, filled with energy – a nutrient-filled refuge where Xayan scientists said the people could always go if they needed to. They created it. Now it contains the preserved thoughts, the
lives
, of millions of Xayans who knew they were about to die. As the asteroid came in, they had very little warning – but enough to do this.”

Vincent was still not sure how much to believe. “Like recording a final message on an emergency beacon?”

“Oh, more than just a message. They copied and stored
themselves
. The reservoirs survived the impact and the upheavals afterward, and the Xayans are still there in the pool.

“So you copied them into your own brain?”

“Not all of them – just Zairic. He’s like a hitchhiker in my mind, another personality. But
I’m
still here, Vincent. He and I share. He has my life, and I have his.”

His friend’s expression altered again, flattened, and his face became placid as the Zairic personality came to the fore. “When Fernando fell into the pool, the slickwater recognized another intelligent life form and began to establish cellular links. This allowed Fernando to access all my information, the memories of my lost life. I sense that I am the first . . . the first of many.” He reached out to Vincent. “You must help us reawaken our race. We can restore them.”

His face brightened, and he spoke with a giddy exuberance that implied Fernando was back. “Yes, Vincent! See, Zairic was one of the Xayan leaders, sort of a religious philosopher. It’s hard to explain – not quite a messiah, but a spiritual general who rallied his people and made them prepare for Armageddon. There were others, of course, but Zairic was the most powerful and respected.” Fernando shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I’m biased, because he’s the only one I have inside my head – but trust me, this guy is brilliant and peaceful. There’s so much to learn about the Xayans, such amazing stuff in their culture. I wish I could describe it all for you, but I can barely grasp what I’m seeing in my head. I’m damned impressed, though. The opportunities are incredible!”