“We agreed on a percentage basis,” said Grable. He showed no anger and could have been discussing something completely irrelevant by the tone of his voice. It had been some time since Singh had told us he wanted a straight credit payment for transportation. I watched while Singh grinned rakishly then I turned to help the Golem with the loading of our supplies and equipment.
“You want to go down there to find something in the summer, friend Grable, then you pay me first.”
Which didn’t say much for his confidence in our chances. I wondered just how bad it could get down there. Perhaps I should have left Grable to it and come back in the winter. Too late now.
“We had an agreement,” said Grable, his tone not so easy now.
“We had an agreement in the winter, and you’re in no position to argue, Grable.”
I took no part in the exchange. All I knew was that if I was Singh I would be watching my back from then on.
Singh’s craft was not the usual delta-wing but a glide effect re-entry shuttle covered with a ceramic outer skin. As I had noted on first seeing it; it was beautifully maintained. But I still felt queasy when looking at it. It was old. The AG units were a new addition — about a century back
— as were the bolt-on fusion boosters. I knew we were going to be in for a rough ride.
Once everything was loaded and we had clearance from the runcible AI we boarded and the craft was sealed. Grable and I had the only seats available. The rest of the row had been folded down into the floor to make room for our baggage. Singh took a seat in the pilot’s chair while the Golem checked something at the back of the shuttle. I stared through the front screen and saw huge bay doors sliding aside. Beyond was the tight curve of a not too distant horizon.
The moonlet Carla was only a few tens of kilometres across.
“Please, strap yourselves in.”
I glanced up at the Golem then did as instructed. I was too used to travelling on shuttles with shock fields in the passenger areas. Grable seemed to have some trouble with his straps.
“Let me help you,” said the Golem.
It reached down and buckled his straps for him.
“We would not want you to get hurt,” it said, in the flattest of voices. I think Grable got the message.
The hum of the AG units made my teeth ache, but the lift was smooth and the shuttle slid out of the bay doors without a perceptible waver. I glanced across at Grable and noted with satisfaction that he had gone white. I had thought I was the soft one. Soon we were gliding rapidly above a landscape of jagged rocks with the glitter of runcible installations between like spilt mercury, then there was a roar as the old shuttle motors flung us out of Carla’s well. The acceleration shoved me back into my seat and I prepared myself for more. We weren’t far enough from the moonlet for the fusion motors to be ignited. When we were far enough I certainly knew it; the world grew a little dim around the edges. It comes as a surprise when you find out how much internal AG shields you from reality on the commercial passenger shuttles.
The journey took us two solstan days and I’ll say no more about it than that it was strained. Entry into Scylla’s atmosphere was frightening, but it came as a relief.
There are fifth generation adapted people who can survive in vacuum. They live in the Outlink stations which travel on the edge of human expansion into the galaxy. Their adaptations are somewhat different from the kind the bracelet would deliver. It used localized genetic material whether DNA based or not. It read the code, picked the high level survival characteristics, transposed them. I once saw a Sundancer human at Darkander’s; his skin silver as mercury. It has never been made clear whether they are adapted humans or Sundancers with human shape.
Everyone has seen high G adapted humans. In all cases it was done with nanotech and biointegration. I am about to join the ranks…
A sharp pain in my wrist as my blood follows a new path, round the bracelet where it is used as a source of raw materials, and from where it comes out much changed. They are in: the nanobots and nanofactories; reforming legions of the invisible. I feel dizzy…
Now my heart is thundering at double speed. The Tenkian…!
Ah, better. I altered its programming, widened its recognition parameters. Don’t want to be shot by my own weaponry. Now I will lie down on the sandy mud and stare at the sky. This is why I spend so much time at Darkander’s and why I have such a love for antiquities: technology like sorcery, it scares the shit out of me.
Losing it…
Blacking -
It was two hours until dawn and the sky was the colour of old blood and had clouds across it as ambiguous as Rorschach blots. We stepped down the ramp onto rocky ground that had been incinerated in a half kilometre radius from where we stood. According to Singh this was what was called taking adequate precautions.
“How far do you have to travel from here?” he asked Grable.
“You don’t have to know that. All you have to know is that we’ll be back here in two days solstan.”
Grable took precautions as well, but then he had no choice, that was the only information I had given him. He did not know the direction in which we would be going just yet. I took my own precautions.
“We’ll see you then.”
The ramp retracted with swift finality and the shuttle rose with an eerie lack of sound on its AG. A few minutes later we saw the accelerating flare of its engines. The sound reached us as we hurriedly unpacked our equipment. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Grable quickly get hold of some kind of hand gun and glance at me speculatively. By then I had a control box in my hand and was stepping back from my luggage.
“This should keep us secure,” I said, and flicked a nail against a touch plate.
The Tenkian autogun rose out of the box like some terrible chrome insect. Red and green lights flickered on its various displays and its barrel glimmered in the starlight. Soon it was hovering above the box with its turret
