Swallow the Sky: A Space Opera (18 page)

“Darling” he said trying
to gain time “come and look at these wonderful Vanuka paintings.”

As they stood admiring the
pictures he opened a private channel, but before he could sub-vocalize a
message Aiyana cut in.

“Tomorrow, midnight, be on the beach below the mansion.”

“But –”

He got no further – their
communications were cut off the moment Tabarak walked in to see where they
were. There was nothing to do but follow him out to the waiting vehicle.

Carson and Aiyana were
both satiated with the luxurious food and as soon as they got to the Aniko
mansion they headed for bed. To Carson’s surprise Aiyana told the bedroom to
turn off the lights before she got undressed. As they got under the covers he
discovered that she was wearing some kind of harness.

“Kinky!”

She put her fingers to
his lips before he could say more.

“L-i-f-t b-e-l-t”
she spelt out on his chest

“?”

“A-e-t-h-e-r”

There followed a
pantomime of fingertip messages interspersed with simulated groans of ecstasy
to explain their strange gyrations beneath the bedclothes. Finally, Aiyana’s
escape was planned: the following night she would don the harness beneath her
stealth suit and descend to the beach where Carson would be waiting with
transportation. Her biometrics would vanish the moment she put the suit, which
would rouse Tabarak, but he would first search the house and the grounds. With
luck, by the time the hunt widened they would be gone.

Aiyana eased her way out
of the harness and surreptitiously slid it under the bed. There was nothing
left but to try to get some sleep.

The following morning Carson was allowed to leave the mansion. He and Aiyana acted out a tearful farewell for
Tabarak’s benefit.

“Be here this time next
week” the big man told him. They had agreed to weekly face-to-face meetings to
ensure Carson really was still on New Earth.

The taxi headed skyward;
Aiyana waved until it disappeared then headed to her suite. For the rest of the
day she played the model employee and researched the Clan’s economic activities
in the Huan Federation. That evening a member of the staff brought her an
evening meal, and then she was left alone.

It was much quieter with
Juro and Shin gone and by midnight the mansion was silent. Aiyana sat in front
of a dresser wearing the lift belt. She was reasonably certain that she was not
being visually monitored and even if she were, she hoped that the belt’s function
was not obvious. The camouflaged stealth suite was laid out on the bed. Now it
was a question of dressing as fast as possible and immediately leaping off the
balcony.

As she was about to get
up she let out a small gasp – the surface of the dresser was crawling with
insects. What was wrong with this place? Then, peering closely, she saw that
each of them wore a tiny communications pack. It had to be Tallis, or at least
a dozen of her soldiers. Carson had told her that members of the nest could
operate remotely by augmenting their organic radios.

Four of the soldiers were
carrying a miniscule black module. What was that? The ants placed the module
down and to her astonishment grouped together in the shape of a letter B. The
next moment they regrouped to form an I.

BIOMETRIC SIMULATOR
they spelt out

DRESS STEALTH LEAVE

Aiyana hurried to put on
the disguised stealth suit. The moment she pulled brim of the hat down over her
face a pinpoint green light appeared on the simulator. It was broadcasting a
copy of her biometrics – Tabarak would not even realize that she had gone. Aiyana
delicately picked the module and placed it on the bed, arranging pillows under
the covers to mimic the shape of her sleeping body.

Meantime, at the dresser
the ants were spelling out another message.

GO NOW
they said, adding
LEAVE US

“Like hell” Aiyana
muttered.

She knew an individual
ant was no more to Tallis than one of her own fingernails, but this group must
have scaled the cliff for hours carrying the simulator. It was like a team of human
climbers hauling a shuttle up a mountain. She was damned if she would abandon
them.

Aiyana pulled out a small
jewelry box from the dresser draw and dumped its contents. Then, as gently as
she could, she brushed the ants into the box and closed the lid. She tucked it
into her suit and stepped out onto the balcony. Everything appeared quiet, only
the sound of the surf drifted up through the cool night air. She leant over and
peered down at the shoreline but could see nothing but shadows. Taking a deep
breath, she gripped the railing and leapt.

Crouched at the base of
the cliff, Carson watched Aiyana look over the balcony. He was wearing his
black stealth suit which effectively rendered him invisible while she shone
like a beacon. Why the hell had he chosen pink? So much for the clever
disguise.

He stopped breathing as
Aiyana braced herself and jumped. She plummeted for two seconds before a
muffled yelp announced the end of her fall forty meters above his head. Moments
later she floated down to the sand.

“That was amazing!” he
whispered running up to her.

“Oh my God that was
scary. What a gravity gradient! I never realized I’d accelerate that fast.”

“Tallis delivered the
simulator?”

“She did – does that mean
the alarm hasn’t been sounded?”

“That’s the idea, come
on”

They ran through the
darkness, hugging the cliff face. Four hundred meters down the shore they came
to where Carson had left a small scooter. They scrambled aboard and flew along
the beach for two kilometers before ascending.

Twenty minutes later they
landed in a parking lot next to the largest personal transport Aiyana had seen
since arriving on New Earth. Most of its bulk was taken up by the propulsion
system – it had to be built for interplanetary travel. Carson slapped his hand
on the hatch and they climbed in.

“This is the fastest
thing I could rent – Quad Huan Qi push drives” he said “too big to risk bringing
to the beach.”

As they took off Aiyana
ignored the inertial dampening and rushed over to hug him.

“We did it!” she said
kissing him “My God, this is our second getaway, you wild mailman you!”

“Not really – this time
it’s legitimate. This vehicle is certified for interstellar connections.”

“What does that mean?”

Carson grinned. “It means
we get out of here without stopping, but legally.”

As she lay on an
acceleration couch Aiyana felt a lump under her suit. She reached in and pulled
out the jewelry box.

“Hey, I brought Tallis’s
soldiers” she said waiving the box at Carson “do you think they’ll be alright
in here?”

“You are such a softie; I’ve
got the perfect thing for them”

He took a small object
out of his pocket. It was a tiny vehicle, no bigger than his hand.

“This is how they got to
the beach” Carson said. “Tallis asked me to retrieve it. It’s a masterpiece of miniature
engineering – far too valuable to leave behind.”

He placed the two objects
together on the floor and opened the jewelry box. As soon as the vessel sensed
the ants it opened a miniscule hatchway. The soldiers crawled out of the box
and into their vehicle, which promptly sealed itself. Carson picked up the
transporter and carefully stowed it in his luggage.

“If they had their own
craft, why climb the cliff?” Aiyana asked.

“Shin told us that the
defenses were set to fry any intruding vessel, and even something this size
might have set them off.”

“Hey” he continued
“talking about the cliff, how the hell did you steal a lift belt from the
Aether?”

“Oh, I ran into a staff
member on my way to the bathroom.”

“And?”

“Womanly wiles, darling,
woman wiles”

“I don’t even want to
think what that means.”

Carson slumped onto his
acceleration couch.

“My God I’ve had a crazy
day. I checked out of our apartment, sent off my talk to the Antiquities
Society, pacified my friends, and most importantly I squared everything away
with the Post Office.”

He waved a silvery
rectangle “Fresh mail!”

“So where are we going? Are
you planning to beat Shin to the Sharez system? He’s got a day’s start.”

“Why should I do
that?”
Carson said in Ancient English, speaking the words with an oddly
familiar accent
“Why would I want to go to a dull place like Sharez?”

Aiyana stared at him.

“You did not!”

“I did” said Carson looking supremely smug.

“You
faked the tape
!”

Tallis did all the work, Carson explained. Fortunately, Juro never truly appreciated her abilities. In addition they
had all the technical specifications of the recording mechanism, courtesy of
Kalidas

“And, of course, we had one
of his phony cassettes. Juro’s techs did such a great job of forgery – even the
carbon isotope ratios are right for an eight thousand year-old emulsion –
they’ll never be able to tell it’s a fake.”

“But to create an entire
tape –”

“Oh no, just the crucial
part about the location of the treasure, the rest is real. I’ll play you the
authentic portion once we’re out of here.”

More immediate issues
intruded. By now they were above New Earth’s atmosphere and accelerating at a
ferocious rate; they had to deal with the bureaucracy before the signal time
lag made communication impractical. Carson slapped his hand on the vessel’s
remote biometric station and summoned immigration control.

“Thank you Carson” it said after processing him, “is your employee with you?”

What?
He had
completely forgotten the story they concocted when they arrived. Fortunately
Aiyana had not; she rushed to the station and put her hand in the green circle.

“I’m here!”

“Thank you honored
visitor, I am registering you both as exiting the New Earth system. I trust
your academic research was successful.”

“Extremely!”

Earlier, Carson had sent his ship a coded message to prepare for departure and by the time they rendezvoused
it was running through its final flight checks. Even through the blur of the
orbiting micro black holes Aiyana could see that the vessel had gotten bigger –
several new modules were plugged into its chassis.

“Extra supplies” Carson explained “and lots of specialized equipment. Finding this treasure may not be
easy.”

“Great to have you back” the
ship said as they disembarked “We’re pretty well stocked up but I’m still
expecting one final delivery, so pay off that posh taxi and make room for
docking.”

“Oh God it feels great to
be home” said Carson “and the sooner we get out of here the better”

“Not again!”

“Quit complaining, at
least no-one’s shooting at you this time”

Professional curiosity
trumped Aiyana’s weariness and she stayed awake to watch the arrival of the
last consignment. The delivery vessel’s design was one of the weirdest she had
ever seen: it was a huge rectangular lattice loaded with storage modules of
every size, like a warehouse with no walls or floors. Ungainly as it seemed, it
was fast and highly maneuverable – each corner of the boxy structure sported a
push drive.

The transport stopped a
kilometer away and two small modules bearing the logo of Formicidae Systems
detached themselves from the superstructure. From that point the ship took over guidance and funneled the containers through the opening in the north pole of
the shell. Finally, a satisfying
clonk
echoed through the ship as the new units pushed themselves into the chassis.

“They’re now fully
powered and integrated” the ship said.

“Let’s take a look” said Carson and headed off in the general direction of the conservatory.

By the time Aiyana got
there he was unbolting the plates that separated the ships interior from the modules. One of the units had a small window; Carson peered into its interior and
smiled, then made way for Aiyana. She moved forward then let out a short scream.
At the same moment a familiar voice filled the cabin.

“Carson, Aiyana, how good to smell you”

It was Tallis, all one
million of her – young new queen, soldiers, workers, grubs, and all. She was
doubly motivated to join them Carson explained: she was eager to participate in
the hunt for treasure and considered it wise to be absent when Juro finally
realized how he had been tricked.

“She could live in the
transport module – the other one contains all her equipment – but I suggested
she set up home in the conservatory. God, her technical skills are going to be
so useful.”

“Shall I complete spin
up?” the ship asked.

“Absolutely, let’s go and
find something wonderful!”