Star Vigilante (Vigilante Series) (15 page)

“Oh!” She jerked back, then she smiled. “That tickled.”

“I couldn’t resist,” Matt said as he indulged his playful side.

Eliana turned analytical thoughtful, like the molecular geneticist she was. “But isn’t it all confusing?” She gestured at the devices that lined the sides of the Pit cone. “How do you separate out the inputs? The feedbacks? How the hell do you handle the stepdown interfacing between human nervous system thought speeds and the . . .  the optoelectronic gigabit flows you mentioned earlier?”

Matt warmed to Eliana; it had been a long time since he’d worked with another human. “Eliana, when you use your lab stereoscope, don’t you employ split-screen imaging and 3D graphics rotation?”

“Yes.”

Matt nodded. “Then next you perceive both images at the same time. How?”

“Why, I just unfocus a little to take in the multiple images.” She blinked, looking thoughtful. “It’s like a trick. You have to work at it.”

“Exactly! When I take in different visual and digital inputs from
Mata Hari,
it’s the same thing. But where you see three or four images, I see hundreds. Sometimes thousands.” Mental indigestion seemed to overwhelm Eliana. “Imagine looking at a hundred wallscreens at one time. That’s what I do without even thinking about it—it’s second nature to me. Instinctive.”

“Instinctive?” Eliana said skeptically. “Nothing human can take in that much datafeed without being . . . too different.”

“But a cyborg can! It’s like swimming in an ocean, deep down, fully surrounded by water. And the water is alive with information!” Matt nodded at the forward holosphere, now showing a view of south continent from forty miles up. “See that? I can see it in my mind—if I choose. I can smell your perfume from miles away—thanks to some miniProbes.” She looked pleased. “Thanks to my connection with ship’s sensors, I feel new senses, senses at the quantum-effect level. I
taste
the minerals in interstellar gas clouds. I
hear
the stars wailing from the other side of the galaxy. For me, it is a new kind of reality. One that is imminent, encompassing and far deeper than any known by an unaltered Human. But I am still human.”

Eliana looked skeptical, then puzzled. “Matt, that view is from south continent, but we’re now passing over north continent . . . on the way to Olympus. What’s up?”

He relaxed in his chair, palms resting on glass datapads, and decided it was time to engage more deeply with this bright young woman. “Do you really think all I’m doing is conducting a public parade of interviews with strangely motivated humans and aliens?”

Eliana threw her head back and laughed. It was a musical, bell-like laugh that sounded natural and unaffected. “I’d begun to wonder. Your point?”

“The view in the holosphere is a downlinked image from one of the several score minisats that
Mata Hari
left in orbit as we came down from Zeus Station.” Matt blinked, changing the holosphere image to one of deep sandstone canyons and ancient xeric woodlands that crawled over stony buttes and mesas. “That’s a hopper-crawler image from the vicinity of the Stripper, uplinked to one of my relay minisats.” He blinked again, ignoring
Mata Hari ’s
patient amusement as she listened in; as if he could prevent her peeking even if he wanted. “That’s a passive monitor Probe I left in the debris caused by our Zeus Station exit.” Matt blinked three more times in rapid succession. “Those are views—and multichannel inputs—from other Derindl Mother Trees. All part of my sociobiologic behavioral sampling of the Derindl. I’m interested in their societal response to the Stripper. Enough?”

Eliana relaxed more, sitting cross-legged on the Bridge deckplates with hands folded in her lap. “An Intelligence web?”

“Exactly. Among several other Options that
Mata Hari
and I are concurrently pursuing.”

“You’ve got a Plan!” Excitement flared in her eyes.

Matt nodded. “Of course I do. Eliana, I may be self-educated, but in the last seven years I’ve acquired two graduate level degrees via independent study of the ship’s Library, plus I’ve got several libraries resting in my prefrontal cortex, thanks to my cyborg modifications.” She looked impressed. “And this ship is much more than it seems.”

“So I’ve noticed,” she said, glancing back at
Mata Hari ’s
memory pillars. “I . . . I liked the traditional clothing that your AI wore in the Biolab holo. But I have never heard of a ship’s AI forgetting its abilities, or saying it doesn’t control some part of the ship.”

It seemed the Colossus Mode incident with his symbiont bothered her as much as it did him. “I know. But this is a T’Chak ship—nothing is normal about it. Including the external hull. You realize it’s a flexhull, able to change configuration at will?”

Eliana frowned and focused back on him. “Of course. I just experienced it during the pouchout to visit Autarch Dreedle. Even I’m a biologist by primary training, not a technologist. But . . . I know enough about people to wonder why you’re doing this parade of interviews so publicly when—”

“
Threat! Threat!”
keened
Mata Hari ’s
anxious voice. “Correction—Communication inbound. Alert. Restoring holosphere. Input now!”

Matt and Eliana looked forward simultaneously.

A dark green scrub-forest appeared in front of them. The view telescoped down, focusing in on a small domehut sitting beside a rocky stream. Next to it, a mini-ground station pointed its microwave dish at
Mata Hari.
The caller was directly below their flight path. Interesting. But who could be calling them?

Matt spoke aloud for Eliana’s benefit. “Characteristics of emission point?”

“The area is wild mountain forest not colonized by a Mother Tree,”
Mata Hari
said, her tone competent and professional. “A single lifeform is present, based on infrared heat signatures. There are no hidden power sources. No weapons emissions. No active-ranging besides the microwave signaler. There is only a climate-controlled domehut . . . with a single lifeform inside it.”

“Human or Derindl or alien?” Matt asked.

“Uncertain.” Eliana looked very interested in both Matt and the holosphere. “The two species are indistinguishable from this altitude,”
Mata Hari
said. “I could send a Nanoshell probe to enter, evaluate and report back?”

“No.” Matt thought hard—they were still three hundred kilometers south of Olympus and the human colony. “What’s the message?”

“A request for a meeting with ‘the Vigilante’.”

Matt grinned wolfishly. “Wonder if they mean you or me?”

Mata Hari
chuckled. “Almost certainly you. As you were discussing with Patron Themistocles, you are the one getting the most Vidcast press.”

He nodded. “Descend. Take up Hover station. Pouch-enclose me in Suit and spit me out. The Patron will stay behind.”

Eliana looked upset as he climbed out of the Pit. “Why can’t I go with you?”

“The unknown is not for amateurs. And . . . keeping you safe matters to me. Personally.” As Matt walked toward Suit, his upgraded hearing detected the sharp intake of her breath. He entered Suit and locked-up.

“Well . . . you’re the Vigilante,” Eliana said as she stood up, her tone controlled even as she turned for the rear slidedoor. “I’ll be in my stateroom until you return. Good-day!”

“Patron! Eliana. Wait!” Matt smiled at her through Suit’s faceplate, trying to take the sting out of his command decision. She looked unsure, then walked past him to the Spine slidedoor. It closed on her without even so much as a look back.

He sighed. Too bad. But Business is business. He couldn’t take chances with her ignorance of field contact procedures, plus she had no suit and no real protection from the forces that hunt a Vigilante.

Inside Suit, with all systems powered up,
Mata Hari
spoke to him. “Matt? Ready to leave?”

“I’m ready. Execute.”

As the Bridge ceiling enclosed Suit, then spit him out into the high, cold air of Halcyon’s north continent, far above a wilderness landscape, Matt pondered the meaning of the contact.

Who was calling him? And why?

Whoever it was, he felt certain this was no random contact. Humans and aliens do not hail a Vigilante, then ask him to attend a commerce social.

Ocean-time
enveloped him as he fell.

One hundred forty milliseconds
.

The domehut loomed in Suit’s faceplate as it descended through the air. In daytime infrared, the hut appeared uninhabited, except for its single occupant. Matt blinked. His pulse-Doppler kicked on, penetrated the flimsy walls, and returned. A virtual reality holo display rotated in the middle of faceplate.

Two hundred ten milliseconds
.

A single bipedal lifeform sat inside, unmoving. Matt blinked again. A bicep rocket shell erupted, sped forward, and penetrated the domehut’s thin plastic skin. The Probeshell took Hover station and fed back to him a CCD videocam image of the occupant and the domehut interior.

One second
.

An old man sat in a wooden chair, in a cabin-like hut. He was white-haired and still in trim physical shape. At the moment, he read an antique paper book by the light of a battery-powered lamp. His clothing was the standard backcountry dress of a sweater, coveralls, insulated boots, and a belt knife.

Two seconds
.

The old man looked up at the hovering Probeshell, a silvery sausage that contained many instrumentalities. He put down the book slowly, folded hands in his lap, and spoke.

Three seconds
.

“I am Theodoros Deliyiannes Spyridon. May I speak with you, Vigilante Matt Dragoneaux?”

Five seconds
.

Outside, he and Suit landed on bare ground just ten meters upwind of the domehut. The Probeshell relayed Matt’s stepped-down answer. “You may. Leave your enclosure. Come out with both hands empty. Then remain still while my Probeshell active-scans your body interior.”

Nine seconds
.

Spyridon complied, stepping outside and stopping with his hands palm-open.

The Probeshell checked out the old man with its magnetic resonance imager. It confirmed the man held no plague viruses, had conscious control of his body, and contained no plastic explosives built into his bones.

Fifteen seconds
.

Matt stepped forward in Suit, drawing to within eight meters of Spyridon. With a thought-image, he dumped Defense algorithms into Tactical and told
Mata Hari
to stand by overhead. Within Suit, proximity alarms keened, Weapons Readiness showed nominal, Threat Status glowed in the left biosensor quadrant, and mechsensor Options scrolled down the right quadrant of the faceplate. He blinked-thought. Both shoulder pulse-cannons Locked-On and the Tactical CPU went Active. Targeting radar squealed into tightbeam focus, ranging lasers measured every inch of the man, and his rocket backpack ka-chunked as it loaded a napalm shell. Just for the sake of overkill and because he liked using them, Matt raised his left gauntlet, keyed on the fingertip lasers, and set them for flesh-puncture.

Fifteen and three-quarters seconds
.

“State your purpose,” he said through Suit’s external speaker, his recorded voice slowing down to standard Human speech mode.

Seventeen seconds
.

Spyridon eyed him grimly. “I would like to talk with you about your job assignment for Clan Themistocles. And I am glad you left that crossbreed woman behind—she is a threat to you.”

Fifty-four seconds
.

Should he relax? Should he ease the Alert and Tactical modes, leaving  Suit to handle things on auto-Defense? But then, Spyridon’s voice tone had been venomous when he used the word ‘crossbreed’. What the hell . . . in life, you took chances.

Matt blink-imaged a thought, declined
Mata Hari ’s
protestations, and waited until organic reality shimmered to a slow crawl in front of his cyborg eyes as he left
ocean-time
. He answered the man in normal, human mode. “Let me guess. You are from the Pericles group?”

“I
am
Pericles!” Fury shone in angry grey eyes. “What’s left of it. I and a few others. Only we hold to the Pure Breed. The rest . . . .” The old man sighed, looking infinitely tired. “The rest have succumbed to the lure of offspring, even chalk-white albinos with tails!”

“How is she a threat to me?”

Spyridon reached for a coverall pocket. “Here, let me show you—”

“Freeze!”

Suit’s booming speaker-voice startled Spyridon. He froze, one hand half-lifted.

Inside, in Suit, Matt worked furiously to dampen down Suit’s autonomic Defense subsystems. They’d almost blasted Spyridon with double pulse-cannon blasts. Still, hair-trigger reflexes were better than dead reflexes. He blinked. His chest-pack Utility dispenser emitted a miniature gyrocopter Probe. It whirred over to Spyridon, extracted the flat optical disk from his coverall pocket, returned halfway, hovered, and awaited instructions. Matt spoke for Spyridon’s benefit.