than two years previously. “Jericho is an Earth-normal planet,”
she began. “Which means it is Hive-normal, too. And, judging from the ruins that cover much of the planet’s surface, it was once home to an advanced civilization. Based on studies carried out by archeologists prior to the fi? rst Hudathan war, there are notable similarities between ancient structures and artifacts present on Jericho and those cataloged on planets like Long Jump, Zaster, and Earth.”
“All of which is consistent with the possibility of a forerunner race,” Hooks observed. “Or races . . . Which might account for some of the physiological similarities between certain species.”
“Many of whom would rather slice off a nose or beak than admit to any sort of common ancestry,” Nankool observed.
“Go ahead, Christina. . . . You were saying?”
“I don’t remember all the details,” the diplomat confessed. “But I believe Jericho has a middle-aged sun, a stable orbit, and plenty of natural resources. Which is why the Hudathans sought to grab the planet during their expansionist phase—and the Ramanthians lobbied to take it away from them. A great deal of the surface is covered with jungle, however, which implies what could be a nasty food chain, not to mention some very uncomfortable conditions.”
“How nasty?” Calisco wanted to know.
“Real nasty,” Schell replied pessimistically.
“Which means it’s going to be tough,” Nankool said thoughtfully. “And we have an obligation to prepare our people for that. Christine, once this meeting is over, round up our doctors. What have we got? Two of them? Good. Tell them we need to build strength, but conserve calories, and see what sort of exercises they suggest. Then, once we have a regimen ready, pass it to Commander Schell. He’ll make it mandatory. Okay?”
What the president said made sense, and, as always, the FSO was impressed by the quality of Nankool’s leadership.
“Yes, sir,” Vanderveen replied. “I’ll take care of it.”
PLANET JERICHO, THE RAMANTHIAN EMPIRE
As the yellow-orange ball of fi?re began to appear over the eastern horizon, the usual cacophony of sounds began as thousands of arboreal life-forms hooted, screamed, and squawked their morning greetings. But, strange though some of the native species were by human standards, none could compare to the camo-covered alloy sphere that rested high in the branches of a towering sun tracker tree. Which, having a very fl?exible trunk, was already turning its huge heat-absorbing leaves toward Jericho’s sun. The construct, which was home to a human brain named Oliver Batkin, was very similar to the so-called recon balls employed by Confederacy military forces, in that the sphere was about four feet in diameter, and equipped with repellers that allowed it to fl?y at altitudes of up to three hundred feet.
The similarities ended there, however, since recon balls have tactical applications, and Batkin’s mission was to gather raw intelligence, upload it to one of the message torps in orbit around the planet, and send the vehicle back to Algeron. But not very often, since the number of reports the cyborg could make was limited by the number of torpedoes at his disposal.
Now, as the more vocal members of the local biosphere combined their multitudinous voices to wake the spy from his slumbers, Batkin activated one of the four high-resolution vid cams that had been built into his technology-packed body. He had a good view thanks to the fact that the sun tracker tree stood head and shoulders above all the rest. The top layer of the forest looked deceptively soft and inviting even though Batkin knew that all sorts of dangers lurked below. But the view was beautiful, which was why the spy ball preferred to nest in the tallest of trees, standing like lonely sentinels over the jungle. That, at least, was consistent with how the onetime banker had imagined his new job, back in the hospital, when the recruiter dropped in to make her pitch. Six years working for the government. That’s what Batkin had agreed to in exchange for a Class IV cyber body, the kind that only the wealthiest humans could afford. Of course that was back just before the war, when the Ramanthians were members of the Confederacy, and he had been in intensive care. Since that time, Batkin been through a grueling training course, the bugs had precipitated a war, and the newly graduated spy had been sent to Jericho “to fi?nd out why the Ramanthians want it so badly.”
That, at least, had been accomplished, because about three months after the cyborg plummeted through Jericho’s atmosphere, the egg-ships began to arrive. That’s what Batkin called them, because that’s what the freighters carried, lots and lots of eggs. Thousands upon thousands of the big ten-pound monsters that crews of specially trained Ramanthians “planted” in the jungle and left to hatch on their own.
It didn’t take a genius to fi?gure out what was in the eggs, of course, but Batkin knew better than to make assumptions, and was therefore obliged to break one of the hard-shelled containers open and dissect its contents. A rather disgusting process that confi?rmed the spy’s hypothesis. A Ramanthian population explosion was under way, Jericho was being used as a gigantic nursery, and all of known space would soon be crawling with voracious bugs. All this had been documented, uploaded to a message torp, and sent to HQ, along with enough electronic intercepts to keep Madame Xanith’s analysts busy for a couple of weeks. The accomplishment provided the cyborg with a momentary sense of satisfaction.
But that was yesterday’s news, Batkin hadn’t uncovered anything since, and he was convinced he wasn’t going to. Not unless one counted the ugly-looking second-stage nymphs that had started to hatch and crawl around the jungle fl?oor. A biologically interesting process, no doubt, and one that Batkin was duty-bound to document, but hardly the sort of intelligence coup that the spy dreamed of. Because even if the ex-banker’s physical body had been reduced to little more than raw hamburger during the high-speed train crash—the ambition that drove him remained undiminished. Something which, unbeknownst to him, was among the personality traits that Madame X’s recruiters had been looking for. Because complacent, selfsatisfi?ed intelligence agents had a very low success rate, especially when working alone.
And so it was that the only spy on Jericho was resting among the branches of a very tall tree when artifi?cial thunder rolled across the land, six white contrails clawed the clear blue sky, and a fl?ock of red wings burst out of the jungle below. All of which caused Batkin to feel a sudden surge of hope. Because something was about to happen. The cargo compartment stank, or certainly should have, given the big globules of tan-colored vomit that fl?oated in the air. But Vanderveen couldn’t smell them, the stink of excreta, or her own rank body odor anymore. In fact, it was as if nothing had the capacity to offend her nose as Jericho’s gravity reached up to take hold of the Ramanthian shuttle and pull it down. Not just the ship, but the solar systems of vomit as well, which fell like a putrid rain. The POWs were standing cheek to jowl, front to back, dozens deep in the musty cargo compartment as the entire shuttle began to shake violently, a horrible creaking sound was heard, and somebody began to pray.
Vanderveen no longer cared by that time, and would have been content to die in a fi?ery explosion if that meant freedom from the sick feeling in her gut, the panicky claustrophobia that made the diplomat want to strike out at the people around her, and the man behind her, who in spite of the disgusting conditions, was determined to rub his
