Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus (64 page)

Nehr cursed at the situation in which he was caught, and shut off the transceiver. The resulting silence held no answers for him.

Chapter Eight

There is great skill in concealing your feelings of antipathy from someone you must deal with on a regular basis.

—Jacopo Nehr, confidential remarks

Throughout the Merchant Prince Alliance—on the seven hundred ninety-two surviving planets—there had been no appearances of podships whatsoever. On every one of those pod stations, sensor-guns were ready to fire, but they remained silent. People expected something to change at any moment, something big to happen. Time went by slowly and painfully for everyone, as if the clock of the universe had a sticky mechanism.

On every planet the citizens felt isolated, that they would never see distant loved ones again, and would never again be able to journey to their favorite places around the galaxy. It was like a cruel, galactic-scale version of an old party game. Wherever a person happened to be when the podships stopped was where they remained, perhaps for the rest of their lives.

When podships first appeared long ago, Humans and other galactic races had been hesitant to trust alien craft that they could not control, especially since they had no idea how they worked and couldn’t gain access to their inner workings without causing violent reactions. But as decades and centuries passed, and podships (left to their own devices) kept transporting the various races safely to far destinations, the races had come to trust them. The sentient spacefarers became familiar to everyone, as their regular appearance at pod stations became a fact a life and of the heavens … like the sun seeming to rise in the sky each morning.

For a long time there had been talk of improving other space-travel technology, and recently there had been a rumor that Doge Lorenzo was calling for a massive research and development program to do so. Even barring that, it was still possible for people to travel on factory-made ships. But the hydion drive engines transported them so slowly in comparison to podships that it wasn’t even worth comparison. It might be decades, if ever, before engineers came up with comparably fast vessels.

At least the Mutatis, with their solar sailers, were even farther behind. That provided some measure of comfort.

And, though Jacopo Nehr could not go directly to Doge Lorenzo with his startling discovery, at the risk of agitating Pimyt, he had decided to take another course of action. One that would not subject him to court martial and execution for hiding important military information during a time of war. As the Supreme General of all merchant prince military units, he had to walk a tightrope.

He was convinced that Doge Lorenzo could not be kept in the dark about this, but there were necessary channels to go through, to protect himself.

With a recording device hidden on his person, Nehr located Pimyt in the Royal Attaché’s private exercise room, in the basement of the administration building. It was certainly the most unusual workout facility that Nehr had ever seen, and after passing through security he saw Pimyt on a machine that was a prime example of this.

The furry little Hibbil was on a stretching rack, resembling a torture machine of medieval Earth, except that this one stretched the body sideways, not head to foot, and there was no “victim.” Pimyt, connected to straps on the machine, operated the controls with a brass-colored, handheld transmitter.

Nehr knew why. The Royal Attaché was one of a small number of Hibbils who had a chronic disease known as LCS—lateral contraction syndrome. Hibbils had a secondary vestigial spine that was no longer of any use, and in some members of their race, this spine had a tendency to compress in width, drawing other bones inward and causing the body to narrow, sometimes to such dangerous proportions that organs were crushed and death resulted. Some victims survived, but were crippled, no longer able to walk or use their arms.

For LCS sufferers, it was important to go through regular, rigorous physical therapy, as Pimyt did several times a week. It seemed like a primitive way of treating the condition, but reportedly it worked better than drugs or other methods.

When Jacopo Nehr approached Pimyt, the Hibbil was grimacing in pain as the machine pulled him from his left and right sides. His eyes watered.

“I need to talk with you,” the general said. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but it’s urgent.”

“Well, what is it?” Pimyt pressed a button on the transmitter to increase the tension, and the pain.

“It’s something the Doge needs to know, and it involves the internal workings of nehrcoms. You cautioned me not to discuss … certain things … with him, so I thought it best to come to you instead.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

The chisel-featured man cleared his throat. “As you know, I keep a mobile nehrcom transceiver with me at all times. This morning I heard voices on it in an alien language. Tracing the transmission, I found it was going back and forth between the planets of Uhadeen and Paradij, in the Mutati Kingdom.”

“What?”

“Toward the end of the transmission I identified an additional voice, speaking Galeng in an Adurian accent.”

He brought the shiny black transceiver out of his pocket, and switched on a playback mechanism. Alien voices spoke for several minutes, followed by the Adurian-accented Galeng.

After listening, Pimyt said, “What’s the significance of this?”

“There shouldn’t be transmissions in the Mutati Kingdom at all, and the Adurian-accented voice is of additional concern. The Adurians are allies of the Mutatis, as you know.”

“This is very strange.” The Hibbil looked up at him with watery red eyes. “You must be mistaken.”

“No mistake. I checked and rechecked. It came from the Mutati Sector.”

“They stole some of the units?”

He shook his head. “Not possible, due to the detonators I rigged at every transmitting station. No, the Mutatis must have built their own transceivers. The transmission quality was fuzzy, but clear enough for us to understand what the Adurian said. You heard him. He spoke of the Mutatis no longer being able to employ Demolios—whatever they are—against merchant prince planets, since they could no longer use podships.”

Pimyt glared up at him. “Are you accusing me of leaking the technology?”

Nehr’s eyes widened in anger. “No, of course not.”

“Because if you are, I can still let the details of your nehrcom secret out and ruin you when your business competitors find out how simple the transceivers are and start manufacturing their own.”

“Not without piezoelectric emeralds, they won’t. Those stones aren’t easy to get anymore, not without podship travel.”

Pimyt tightened the tension on the stretching machine again, pulling his body even more. He set the control device on a table, and said, “Maybe so, but it would still ruin your reputation as a
genius
inventor.” Despite his pain, Pimyt laughed. “The great inventor Jacopo Nehr! A child could have put together what you did. No wonder you concealed the secret for so long.”

“A child could not have cut the piezo emeralds with the necessary precision,” Nehr huffed.

“Nonetheless, my point is well taken. It is a comparatively simple system, easily understood by a layman.”

“Even so, the nehrcom system is one of our critical technologies, a military secret. You don’t want to compromise that.”

“What difference does it make now, if—as you said—the Mutatis already have it anyway?”

“Look, I don’t want to argue with you. I know you’re just making your own profits off this war, and that’s fine with me. It doesn’t mean you aren’t a patriot at heart. We’re both on the same side with the highest level of security clearance, and we have an understanding between us. As you instructed, I sent your communiqués to all merchant prince planets, and in turn you’re protecting my business secrets. The Mutatis must have come up with the system on their own, and they haven’t perfected it yet.”

Pimyt pursed his lips, thinking. He looked agitated. His dark-eyed gaze darted around the room.

Nehr felt a mixture of fear and rage, and intense loathing for this Hibbil. But he concealed his feelings, not letting the furry little bastard see anything in his expression. Still, the inventor imagined grabbing the control for the stretching machine and torturing Pimyt until he was torn apart.

As Nehr savored the idea, Pimyt grabbed the control unit. “You are wise to come to me,” he said. “I will discuss this with Doge Lorenzo, and we will order an investigation immediately. Do you think it could be a defect with your mobile transceiver? Could it have picked up freak radio signals?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Nonetheless, you will give me your transceiver, since we will need it for the investigation.”

“But I am the only one capable of working on the system, along with my daughter, Nirella.”

“Don’t be absurd. A child could work on nehrcoms, and you know it. I have people I trust to do the work … under strict security clearance, of course.”

“Uh, well, I don’t know if.…” He wilted under the Hibbil’s red-eyed glare, and added quickly, “All right.” Reluctantly, Nehr brought the mobile unit out of his jacket pocket and set it on the table.

Pimyt disconnected himself from the stretching rack and swung his short legs onto the floor. He walked around stiffly, then said, “As a reward and a token of our friendship, General Nehr, I am in a position to obtain additional tax benefits and other cost-saving arrangements for your manufacturing facilities on the Hibbil Cluster Worlds.” His face darkened. “I am also in a position to do the opposite, if I wish.”

Nehr stared at the floor. “With podship travel cut off, I’m not sure if I’ll ever see those tax advantages.”

“Then we’ll come up with something else.”

“I would appreciate that.”

Without another word, the Royal Attache took the nehrcom transceiver and left through a side door. The meeting was over.

* * * * *

When he was alone, Pimyt listened to the Adurian voice on the recording again, confirming his own first impression. It was, without a doubt, VV Uncel, the Adurian Ambassador to the Mutati Kingdom.

He was a friend of Pimyt’s … but not of the Mutatis. Uncel must have gone to Paradij on business for the clandestine HibAdu Coalition, which was working to overthrow both humankind and the shapeshifters, and he’d been stuck there by the podship crisis.

The Hibbil scowled for a moment as he wondered if Jacopo Nehr could upset his carefully laid plans. But the thought passed. Nehr was like an insect trapped in a narrow tube, with only one way to go.

Chapter Nine

We are receiving sporadic reports of nehrcom transmission glitches, of inexplicably weak and even lost transmissions. The problems seem to have nothing to do with our transmitting stations around the galaxy, since service personnel have checked and rechecked every one of them. The failures are few and far between, but remain troubling, since nothing like this has ever occurred in the past. In their first decades of use, nehrcoms earned a reputation for perfect reliability and strong signal quality.

—Confidential internal document, Nehrcom Industries

Early one morning, Noah awoke to the noise of men arguing, in the corridor outside his cell. He tried to see them, but could not get an angle to see more than shadows against a rock wall.

“I received no notification of this,” a voice said. “I will have to check with Warden Escobar.”

“He won’t be in for hours,” a man said in a high-pitched, irritated whine. “We can’t wait that long, and I have an authorization that supersedes him anyway. Now, open the damned cells!”

“Well, I don’t know.…”

“Do you want to answer to the Doge’s office for your stupidity? They will not be kind to you, and could put you in one of these cells. If you are allowed to live. I am here on a Priority One assignment. Look at the authorization, you fool. If you can read.”

“I can read, I can read.” Noah heard papers rustling.

“Gad, you’re an idiot. The authorization allows me to take any and all prisoners, as needed, for work details. With the cessation of podship travel, there is a shortage of slaves and imported robots to perform menial tasks on Canopa. Thus we are forced to draw work crews from Human and non-Mutati alien prisoners. Do you understand?”

Finally the guard said, “OK, I guess this is in order, but if there’s any flak over putting Watanabe on work detail, you’re taking it, not me.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

A loud click ensued, and then a slight dimming of the electronic containment barrier around Noah. The glowing orange bars disappeared.

“All right!” the high-pitched voice said, as the man pounded something metal against a wall. “Everybody out. It’s time to go to work!”

The man turned out to be a work crew boss, with a squad of armed guards. They herded Noah and other prisoners out a side entrance. On the paved street, Noah encountered Anton in the midst of the prisoners. Approaching the younger man, Noah saw that he had a bright red mark on one side of his face.

“What happened to you?” Noah asked.

Looking around warily, Anton whispered, “They burned me with a laser on a low setting, threatened to blind me if I didn’t confess.”

“Confess to what?”

“To trying to assassinate the Doge. I told them that was preposterous. I only followed you to the pod station to make certain Tesh was safe. She was my only concern. I had no idea the Doge or Francella would be there, or that we would be arrested.”

“No, of course not.” Noah didn’t comment, but remembered noticing signs of Anton’s jealousy concerning his own relationship with the pretty young woman who had once been Anton’s girlfriend. While Noah had reached an understanding with her over the control of a podship, he’d never had romantic intentions toward her.

“There’s something I want to discuss with you,” Anton said. “I’ve been having memory problems, an ability to remember some things, while other details fade away whenever I try to recover them. It’s like … like my mind is playing tricks on me.”

“They tortured you,” Noah said angrily.