The Kassa Gambit

The pause was brief, but long enough to confirm that Rassinger was no spacer. He was waiting for someone to verify her words.

“That will be acceptable, Captain. How close to this signal did you get?”

No pretense, no lure, just a straight-up trap. It was like a hangman tying a noose and casually asking how much you weighed.

“We’re really pressed for time and resources, sir, and my crew is pulling its fourth straight shift. We just want to bail this research crew out and get some sleep.”

Only after the weaseling misdirection had left her mouth did she realize how much like Kyle she sounded.

Rassinger was satisfied. “Understood, Captain. We’ll take care of it.”

And that was that. The biggest find of human existence, the greatest discovery since fire and the wheel, was out of her hands. Scooped up by a politician who would use it to boost his repulsive career. And she had Kyle Daspar to thank for it.

So why did she feel so relieved?

They finished the run in silence. Even Melvin was quiet, speaking only enough to guide her into the research station. It wasn’t entirely due to the subtle menace of the Phoenix and its tyrannical commander. While his authority was frightening, it was also a relief. Let him deal with the alien problem.

The Ulysses’s mission had been reduced to rescuing the research personnel, and the crew was tired enough to be glad of it.

“Attention, arctic station, we are coming in for landing,” Prudence announced over the radio. “Please look up and let us know if we’re about to squash anything important.”

“It’s Station Zebra.” The voice on the other end was difficult, like a child on the edge of a tantrum. Prudence was weary of faceless voices.

“What the Earth are you talking about? No, don’t tell me, I don’t care. Get outside and walk us in.”

“Station Zebra. That’s our call sign. It’s a tradition. Arctic stations are always called Station Zebra.”

What was a zebra? She almost asked, before remembering she didn’t care. “Coming down now. Last chance to back us off.”

She let the ship drop, perhaps faster than prudence dictated. But only the soft thump of snow crunching under the skids sounded through the ship.

“Go ahead, Jorgun,” she said over the intercom. He and Kyle were already suited up and waiting at the air lock.

Flipping to a different channel, she addressed Melvin in his gunnery room. “Melvin, you have the bridge. Don’t let anybody on unless I’m with them.”

Words she could never have imagined uttering. Turning her ship over to Melvin. It was possibly more unnerving than the discovery of the alien spaceship.

But nothing grated her nerves as much as Kyle Daspar. She could not fathom his game. That he was playing one was obvious; but every stone she cast into its depths disappeared without a trace. His appearance on the scene had been remarkably well timed, except for the mines that would have killed him. His armband gave him the authority of intimidation, even on Kassa, but he had only used it to create order. And then leading them to the alien ship, only to turn it over to Rassinger.

She could not make sense of it. That’s why she was crawling into a space suit, following him and Jorgun out into the snow again. To keep an eye on him. Not knowing what to look for, all she could do was watch his every move.

Outside it was cold, even worse than before. The snow-covered wreck of a building was bleak and sorrowful when it should have promised warmth and safety. She had been outside in space a thousand times and never felt this cold.

Movement caught her eye. Thankfully the blizzard had not reached here yet, so she could see something other than snowflakes. Jorgun was waving to her.

Trudging over to the collapsed wall he stood beside, she looked down to see what he had found. A door in the ground. Freshly moved.

“Kyle went down there,” he said. Somewhat unnecessarily, since two men’s tracks led here, and none led away.

“Let’s join him,” she suggested.

“I was waiting for you. I wanted to open the door for you.”

At some point Jorgun had latched on to this old romanticism, and he used it whenever he could. Jelly had found it ridiculously cute when Jorgun would run ahead to open even automatic doors for her.

The remembrance pained Prudence. Biting her lip, she could only nod and wait while Jorgun pulled on the heavy steel door.

Steps down, into a dark basement. She wished she’d brought a gun. Spiders lived underground, in caves and tunnels. What if the pilot of the alien vessel had sought refuge here?

A flicker of light in the distance, a cry of pain. She started to back up the stairs, and collided with Jorgun coming down.

“Kyle went ahead,” Jorgun said, his voice booming in the darkness. He stepped past her, moving forward.

She tugged at his arm. He had walked into danger for her enough times on this run.

“Jorgun, wait,” she whispered, but he pulled out of her grasp and went on, oblivious.

“Kyle went ahead,” he repeated, and then he disappeared into the murk.

More light from across the room: Jorgun’s great frame outlined in the flashes. A woman was sobbing somewhere. Hushed murmurs as the people hiding with her tried to silence her.

Prudence remembered hiding in the dark, from monsters. Monsters that wore a human face, but were inhumane: once people but now possessed by a foul spirit that had dogged man’s shadow even from Earth, followed men and women into the Out, hiding in their shadows until indifference and contempt gave it form. Creatures of unreason, immune to pity, compassion, or even bribery, who fed their neighbors into the machinery of insanity.

And Jorgun walked into it, unaware, unheeding. Prudence tried to call out to him but her voice died in her throat, strangled by helplessness, by the certain knowledge that nothing she could do could save anyone but herself. The walls rushed in and Prudence’s world shrank, spinning in shades of black, and the fire at the end of the hall flared hungrily into life, like it always did in her nightmares, again and again and again.

“Jorgun, grab that corner. Have you got it?”

The sheer normality in Kyle’s voice was disorienting. In her world of madness, upside down and inside out was escape, and she let it wash over her. Blood pounded in her temples, and the vision passed.

Jorgun was backing up, his arms full. “I can carry her. I’m strong.”

“Keep the blanket on her. Keep her warm, man! She’s lost too much blood.” The voice from the transmitter, shrill with exhaustion and urgency.

“It’s a short trip.” Kyle, being reassuring.

Brilliant light swept the room, disappeared. The beam on Kyle’s helmet, revealing her before he aimed it down to spare her eyes. “Prudence! Come give us a hand.”

Feeling foolish, she reached up and flicked on her own head lamp. The eerie darkness dissolved into a thoroughly trashed storage room. Jorgun was carrying a woman wrapped in gray cloth. A white-haired man hobbled behind him, cloaked in gray and leaning on Kyle’s shoulder.

She advanced into the room, met them halfway.

“There’s three more. We’re coming back for them once we get Dr. Sanders onboard, and can spare these drapes.” Kyle, being in charge, as usual. But then he paused and narrowed his eyes. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She was, now. “Just tired. Go on, I’ll watch the others.”

Grateful for the escape, she turned away and headed into the sheltering alcove at the far side of the room.

They had built a fire, but it was dead now. Two young women stood, trying not to shiver, while a handsome young man stretched out on the ground and tried to be macho. His leg was bound in strips of clothing. He looked up