Resolution (59 page)

‘I wonder why the Zajinets,’ murmured Dirk, ‘are our enemies? Not that any of them’s been seen since Mother and the others evacuated Beta Draconis.’

Deirdre inhaled quickly, surprised that they should raise the subject: she could not sense the surveillance devices, but assumed they were there.

‘That was our settlement, a human settlement,’ she said, ‘on the Zajinet homeworld. Beta Draconis III, is that right?’

‘Yeah, BD-3. Except’ - Kian turned again, still scanning - ‘it turned out not to be their homeworld, after all. Subsequent reconnaissance flights showed wasteland, nothing more. Just a colony which they abandoned as soon as we caused trouble.’

‘Some kind of internal politics, Mother thought.’ Dirk shrugged in the near-complete darkness. ‘She and the other humans witnessed a gathering that was something like a court case, yet utterly different. The thing is, Zajinets are
alien.
Not just in two minds about everything: more like a thousand minds, for each individual.’

‘And,’ said Kian, ‘the majority disapproved of the ones who were killing humans. At least, that’s what Mother and UNSA analysts
think
was what happened.’

Deirdre looked at them, deciding whether to say what she was thinking. Then she nodded. ‘You said the Zajinets could enter mu-space, right? Had ships like yours?’

‘Like the one that’s going to be ours.’

‘Perhaps they wanted to guard their trade routes and such. You know, like Dutch and Spanish and English fleets going to war over who controlled the oceans, five or six hundred years ago.’

‘Maybe. But ya gotta wonder why, in that case—’

‘—they seem to have vacated mu-space, too, which is—’

‘—vast, in any case. Loads of room for everyone.’

They were silent for a minute. Then Dirk said: ‘Want to go back in?’

‘Yeah, I think we should.’

But, as they headed back, boots padding mutely on the cooling powdery sand, neither Dirk nor Kian could prevent a small, dry chuckle escaping.

‘What?’ demanded Deirdre.

‘Nothing.’

They could not tell her how their infra-red sensitivity enabled them to detect the targeting beams that swung through the still air, or the way a night-sighted sentry inside a near-invisible bunker was tracking their movement with his cross-hairs centred firmly on the moving target formed by Deirdre’s perfectly curved buttocks.

‘Nothing. Really, dear.’

At 5:13 a.m. the twins’ eyes snapped open. It was still dark in their shared room. Their heartbeats rose, then deliberately slowed as they remembered the surveillance bead-cameras embedded in the walls and ceiling, one trained over each of the two beds.

Dirk mumbled and turned to one side, as though he were still asleep.

Outside in the hallway, a man was coming closer, and the pheromones he was broadcasting in the air were like a screeching siren, a transmitted chemical fear that would have had guard dogs yowling had there been K9s stationed here.

Coming this way. To this room?

Kian twitched minutely: a gesture of agreement.

One man,
Dirk subvocalized.
If he enters, I’ll attack low and left.

A grunt from Kian.
I’ll go high, right.

Kian would use the bed as springboard, leaping high with a knee-strike as the primary technique, aimed at the man’s throat if the threat appeared deadly. Dirk would probably go for a leg takedown, snapping his hands against kneecap and heel as his shoulder struck the thigh. Kian’s attack would complement the throw ... but the situation was fluid and could change in a tenth of a second, which was why they were prepared to—

‘...
the danger they‘re in. But I
can’t
tell them.’’

It was not just each other’s subvocalized murmurs that the twins could detect; this was the fearful man outside, muttering to himself without realizing, as he stopped in indecision directly outside the door.

‘...
don’t deserve to die. But if I, if I tell, then they’ll know, everyone will know …
‘

Though they could not see him, the twins knew from the rustle of cloth, the stink of noradrenaline, what was happening in the corridor. The hesitant hand reaching for the door-plate; the profuse sweating; the hesitation. The trembling.

A sob, almost silent and probably unconscious.

Then the withdrawal, both hands jammed into pockets and the shoulders slumping as he turned and slouched away ... he was crying mutely and without tears as he gave in to cowardice and demeaned himself still further.

Yet he could not know that he
had
delivered the message, despite the shivering fear. And he had not needed to enter the twins’ bedroom for them to know who he was. The scent-signature he transmitted was blaring at the chemical equivalent of top volume.

His name was Solly. He was the engineer who had shown them around the facility, and he seemed convinced that anyone who tried to fly the new ship today would be torn into oblivion.

At 5:45 the alarm beeped.

‘Ugh.’ Dirk sounded like someone who had just woken up. ‘Shut up.’

There was one last defiant beep, then silence.

‘ ‘Mornin’,’ Kian mumbled.

Dirk used the adjoining bathroom first, and came out drinking a long glass of water. He pulled his tracksuit from a drawer as Kian brushed past him.

Ten minutes later they were outside, breathing deeply in the pre-dawn air, drawing energy as they stretched and turned. Then they moved off in a slow jog across the sand.

‘One circuit of the base?’

‘That should— No, look.’

They slowed to a walk, then stopped. One of the big hangars was opening.

White light flooded out, revealing the huge predatory bird cast in gleaming bronze, banded with blue-green ceramic which gave off its own quiet glow.

‘Oh, my God.’

‘You got that right.’

Like the attendants of some mighty deity, small vehicles guided the delta-winged vessel out into the open. They made a long slow arc as it moved onto a purple track which led to the main, dark-yellow runway.

‘I can’t believe they’d trust us with this.’

‘The numbers, the cost... It’s
real.’

Later, when they had graduated and been through the final training, Dirk and Kian would each have a vessel configured to their own body and nervous system. For now, for the purposes of interfacing and initial flights, the twins were so similar that one ship would suffice for both.

Yet the expense, the sheer size and weight of the vessel and the knowledge that it had cost millions to build, would cost millions more to maintain ... it was real.

It was theirs.

For the first time they began to accept the enormity of the path that was laid out for them.

But what did Solly mean?

As the twins began to jog once more, this time heading towards the open hangar, their heavier breathing concealed words no eavesdropper could detect.

A bomb on board?

Maybe.

Still, they could not help smiling as they upped the pace, ran towards the bright solid polished ship.

Could be a weapon out in the desert.

Ready to launch when we do.

Pre-dawn gave way to dawn.

A liquid golden blaze slid and dripped along the great polished ship, bronze and powerful as it pointed towards the rising molten sun, filled with the hope and energy of the thousands of men and women and machines who had designed and constructed the vessel.

And if there was a price to be paid by young Pilots submitting themselves to the machiavellian systems of the vast organization which dared to trade with the stars, then it was one they could not help paying in their eagerness to fulfil their bounding ambition: to leap forth from the home planet, into a universe filled with golden space and black spiked stars.

For they were young, and they were proud.

Ready to fly.

<>

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