Burnt Ice (4 page)

‘It’s clean, boss.’ Harry told
the captain sitting behind him. ‘There’s basically nothing here: no personal
effects, no vehicles, no tech, just habitats, the remains of farms; just the
buildings themselves. We can’t even find any sort of burial ground — not that
we would recognise it — either. Just the depictions of the creatures themselves
in the stylised wall plaques, although they could be indicators of toilets for
all we know. Whoever they were, they are long gone. I think that this place was
stripped when they left. It’s not random post-Conflict or post-disaster
stripping. Plenty of evidence to show that it was done slowly and
systematically. Lots of empty conduits, for instance. It’s a long-dead city
with everything of value tech-wise removed. The only interesting thing that
doesn’t add up are those unusual mosaics on the wall of what could have been a
public concourse. Is it art, maybe?’

They all looked at the indicated
mosaic on the screens but no one had any idea what it depicted.

‘Thanks, Harry. Fritz, anything
further on the language?’

‘Nope, we still haven’t found the
key to the sounds, if there were any. I have about twenty-eight per cent of the
pictographs sorted by cross-referencing between me and our hardware, but no
Rosetta yet.’

‘OK, let’s recover the drones, do
a final sweep over the top of the seamount, then head back to base. The AI can
chew on this lot.’

‘Weird that we didn’t see any
squids or crabs.’

‘Maybe they had a feast before we
got here, Marko, and have buggered off, looking for more.’

Back at base, the captain
debriefed the crew. ‘Good work, people. You are all stood down for the next
day. Make the most of it. Base AI will go through everything we collected. See
you all later.’

Marko smiled as he watched Fritz
actually running full tilt across the quadrant to get to some bar or other to
hear an undoubtedly very loud band. The little man normally hated any form of
physical exercise.

‘Couple of my old army cobbers
stationed here are right into brewing. Want to come along and try some evil
beers, Marko?’

‘No thanks, Harry. Kind of you,
mate, but they’re your people. Nope, I’ll have a catch up on my own stuff. See
you tomorrow.’

‘OK, but I know that you like
your black beers. I’ll get some sent down.’

Marko turned to discover that Jan
had quietly disappeared.

~ * ~

Waiting
until they were distracted, Jan had quickly walked away from the group until
she was out of sight then brought up the building plan of the entire resort on
her wrist screen. She coded in a long sequence of numbers then place names and
a second later an innocuous icon appeared over one of the office buildings in
the military sector just long enough for her to memorise it. She set out.

She enjoyed the walk in the sunshine,
looking in a few shops, buying herself an ice cream then a coffee before
arriving at the building. She approached the receptionist, handed across her ID
and was directed to the side office. Entering, she closed the door and heard it
lock before she again opened the computer screen on her wrist, tapped in
another long code and waited a few moments, until the opposite internal wall
irised open. She stepped through into a coffin-shaped cavity that housed a
scanner. Presenting her wrists to the walls of the machine, she opened her
eyes, then her mouth, wide and let the machine scan her for any non-issue
mechanical or biological weapons, then verify her. Satisfied, the door closed
behind her and she felt the pod transporting her vertically then horizontally
for some distance. The facing panel opened and she stepped into a featureless
room with one other occupant.

‘Colonel Greene.’

‘Major Wester. As always, a
pleasure to see you. You have two objectives. Both are corporate heads that we
would like to convert to our philosophy. Here are the files. They will be here
on the surface in five days. I have no need to know how you will achieve the
kills. Your egress from the system will be handled by the Haulers’ Collective.
The contact codes are also in the file.’

She nodded, saying, ‘I see no
problems with either. May I enquire as to the section I’m with? They are a most
interesting group of people. What are they actually, sir?’

Colonel Greene shook his head. ‘No
— I shall not furnish you with any additional information on that section. You
won’t be with them long enough to need to know. Perhaps in the future. Suffice
to say that they are very important to us, which is why your secondary task is
to protect them all and, if you can’t, to destroy them if they are compromised
by the Games Board over the next few days. Now, please tell me of your latest
constructions. I’m told that you are building pistols again?’

~ * ~

Marko
did what he always did in such times: washed his clothes; sorted his kit; and
went for a long walk, looking for interesting flora and fauna. Spent a cheerful
hour launching insects over carnivorous plants until roundly told off by an
irate, elderly gardener who informed him that the plants made awful smells when
fed too much. He had a very pleasant lunch of freshly baked scones, with all
the dispenser-supplied trimmings, bought from a little kiosk on one of the
beaches where hundreds of people lazed in the sunshine.

Back at the mess he went looking
to see what the latest punch-ups from the Games Board looked like. Nothing
really took his fancy, although one resources war on some distant ore-rich moon
certainly looked quite interesting. He discovered that they even had some new
tech to play with, so he spent a few happy hours learning about it. He walked
down to the main beach, planning on a long swim, his bioware activating the
oxygen nanotes in his bloodstream so that he could remain on the bottom
observing the native aquatic creatures for much longer than a non-augmented
person. He smiled, congratulating himself for having thought to grow his toes
to twice their original length and web them the last time he was tanked. He had
also altered his eyes so he could see comfortably under water.

He stripped naked — like every
other swimmer — and placed his clothing and personal equipment in a small
locker above the beach. He crossed the coarse sand and waded into the
pleasantly warm water before taking one last breath and diving under the
surface. As he explored deeper out into the bay the water became a little
colder and visibility noticeably improved.

Marko had his head inside a tiny
cave, watching and recording the tiny crabs, fish and coral types with his own
bio-augments when he saw, from the corner of his eye, something big slipping
through the water behind him. He slowly turned to see a very large squid-like
creature hanging directly above him. It seemed to regard him impassively with
large, deep indigo eyes for long seconds before another squid joined it. As he
had seen before, they appeared to communicate by flashing beautiful,
scintillating colours across their skin. Marko held very still, realising that
the large tentacles could easily rip him to pieces in seconds.

When the second one came closer,
he mentally cursed himself for not carrying any weapons. The creature looked at
his face and then down at his feet. It slowly examined the rest of his body,
spending extra seconds to look closely at his genitals, which deeply disturbed
Marko. A secondary, finer set of tentacles folded out from the largest tentacle
closest to him, caressing his bald scalp before gently sliding across his ears
then showing particular interest in his neck shunts and those over his heart.
He felt a series of tiny pricks on his chest before the tentacles withdrew.
Another burst of colours issued from the squid’s body, as it sucked in a large
amount of water and jetted away with graceful speed, its companion close
behind. Marko consciously slowed his racing heartrate and, deciding that he had
had enough of this ocean and its occupants for one day, swam quickly to shore.
As he stood up he looked down at his chest where the pinpricks had occurred,
but saw nothing. He queried his biomed tech to run a full system check to find
if anything had been injected into him but ten minutes later it showed nothing.
He turned and looked back out to sea, gathered his clothes from the locker,
dressed and bought a cold grapefruit juice, finally allowing himself to relax.
He decided that the creature must have been taking a sample from him to decide
if he was edible or not. He smiled, thinking that he must have tasted bad, and
heaved another sigh of relief.

As he walked up the beach he
nodded and smiled to his fellow military types, noting that some had their
shunts positioned on different parts of their bodies and playing the mental
game he always did: identifying the different specialities among his fellows by
their body shapes and, in some cases, the more extreme augmentations. After a
long shower he went back to the sergeants’ mess for his evening meal. As he
walked up the path towards the mess he mused on the reality that they were
looked after by Type S humans — and real human chefs. The food was always much
better than at the officers’ mess too, because the sergeants got to choose the
chefs and the staff for both messes. One of the better perks of the job, he
decided.

‘Evening, sergeant. Are you
accompanied or dining with your fellows?’

‘I am on my own thanks, corporal.
Can I have a table out on the deck please?’

‘Yes, there’s one available. One
second and I’ll flash the menu across.’

‘No, please don’t bother. My
compliments to the chef. I’ll gladly partake of his or her offerings for the
entire meal.’

‘Excellent choice, Sergeant
Spitz. You won’t be disappointed.’

Over the next few hours the
waiters brought him out tiny, delicious offerings, each one with a small glass
of some wine or tea or fruit juice that complemented it perfectly, and with
little sorbets between each course. It was all delicious; his only sadness was
that he was not sharing it. He reverently finished the last morsel of dessert
with an excellent port. He gladly credited the mess with the meal fee, which he
thought ridiculously cheap for what he had just had.

‘Did the sergeant enjoy his meal?’

He looked up at a tall, strikingly
good-looking woman and read the name tag over her amply filled blouse as he
stood to extend his hand.

‘Sergeant Reymand. That was
excellent. In fact, I would have to say that it was extraordinary. Are you
responsible?’

She shook his hand. ‘Yes. It’s
Helena, please, and now you have to pay the price, sergeant.’

‘Really? Marko, please. I believe
that you are now going to spend some time grilling me on what was the best, the
worst, and what could be improved, maybe.’

‘Ha, an intelligent male. A rare
find. Yes, they were all experimental dishes due to the excellent fresh
ingredients that we have here. It’s rare that I get the request that I had from
you.’

The next few hours were spent
going through each recipe, with Helena taking notes and plying Marko with even
more delicious dessert wines and cheeses, to such a degree that he activated
his bioware to start shunting all the alcohol directly to his bladder, as he
had no desire to become drunk.

They both needed to clear their
heads, so a walk down the beach was suggested. They made small talk, as people
do when sounding each other out, while strolling along the bronze sand with
beautiful constellations wheeling slowly above them and a sky alive with the
insect-like activities of man. The Crab Nebula coming out of the sea was
vibrant and closer to the naked eye than he had seen from any other world.

‘I wonder what a native
intelligent species would make of the nebula evolving, looking up at that as it
filled the night sky. It would probably have been the basis of some religion or
other. Or maybe a whole stream of religions all vying for the attention of the
great creature in the heavens.’

‘Is there anyone in your life
right now, Marko?’

‘No.’

‘Good.’ She turned to him, pulled
him close, and kissed him softly, full on the mouth, an action he gladly
returned.

~ * ~

Marko
awoke early the next morning, the glorious woman beside him. He kissed her long
and hard, then went to the briefing where they would be informed about the
section’s next task.