Chapter 14

Journal #573

One curious feature of life with a Legion company was that one was always being stationed in places where the normal amenities of civilization were rather thin on the ground. Of course, my employer had done what he could to alleviate this by moving his legionnaires into the best available accommodations on those worlds where he was assigned. For our stay on Zenobia, a planet with no human presence before ours, he had gotten a custom-made encampment module that supplied many of the essentials of the good life: running water, electricity, airconditioning, comfortable beds, a thoroughly modern kitchen.

But some things could not be done simply by throwing money at them, and this turned out to be particularly true of the military aspect of our assignments. Like it or not, a decent system for the distant detection and identification of incoming spacecraft-something most real planets take for granted-was sadly lacking on Zenobia. And, to my employer's chagrin, neither the Legion commanders nor the Zenobian military seemed to think a single Legion company really needed one.

This was to have consequences.

"The major wants me?" Lieutenant Snipe looked up from the bed where he'd been hiding for several hours, covers over his head, until Major Botchup had sent a legionnaire to find out where his aide-de-camp had disappeared to. It was probably mere chance that the major hadn't sent one of the legionnaires who'd remade their faces "in the image of the King," as his followers called it. But it was definitely the right choice. If Snipe had looked up and seen that face again...

"Yes, sir," said the legionnaire, Koko, one of the crop of recruits who'd joined the company on Lorelei, a gawky but very polite farm boy from an agrarian community on the planet Roosha. "He says it's very important."

"Everything the major wants is important to him," said Snipe. The lieutenant's attitude toward his commanding officer was somewhat less adulatory than it had been at the beginning of the day. "Let me just wash up and straighten my uniform, and I'll be right there."

Despite his sour mood, Snipe took less than five minutes to freshen up, and shortly thereafter he followed Koko into Major Botchup's office and saluted. "Lieutenant Snipe reporting, sir!"

Botchup glanced up at his aide-de-camp and nodded. "Good, Snipe, about time you got here. Tell me what you make of these printouts." He handed a sheaf of flimsies to the lieutenant and waited.

Snipe scanned the printouts and then looked up at the major. "When were these recorded, sir?"

"Within the hour," said Botchup. Then he glowered at Snipe and said, "But I asked you what you make of 'em."

"A ship in orbit around this planet, sir," said Snipe. "I assume it isn't one of ours."

"It's not Starfleet, anyway; it may belong to the natives," said the major. "I've had that woman in Comm Central trying to raise the native capital, but there's nothing but bloody interference. You'd think a race that has its own space fleet could get up a few comsats, make it easier to talk. Stupid lizards."

"Yes, sir," said Snipe, thinking. "What's our status?"

"It's not responding to attempts to hail it, so we're treating it as hostile," said Botchup. "The natives brought us in here because of aliens they'd found spying on them. Apparently, they briefed Jester about it, not that I can get much sense out of him. Any data they passed on to him probably went down with his hoverjeep. If things ever settle down, we ought to send a team out to look for it-try to recover the vehicle at least, if not the data. In the meantime, we don't know any more about these damned aliens than we did before we landed."

"Yes, sir," said Snipe again, nodding. "Your orders, sir?"

"I've put the base on full alert," said Major Botchup. "I want you to go out there and make sure these people are vigilant and totally prepared-no slacking off. I think this is the real thing, Snipe. Promotions could be at stake."

Snipe nodded, a grim expression on his face. If there was one thing about the Legion he understood, it was promotions. "There'll be no slacking off while I'm out there, sir!"

"Good man," said Botchup. "I'll be monitoring the situation from in here. Send me a report at once of anything you notice. Our remote systems are good, but a CO needs a trustworthy pair of eyes and ears, too. You'll give me that-and more. Jester's people are soft. They've never done anything more dangerous than riding roller coasters. Put them in a real firefight-and this might just be one, Snipe, it just might be one-and they're a good bet to crumple. I need you to put some steel in their spines. If you have to make examples of a few slackers, don't be afraid to-do it."

"Yes, sir!" Lieutenant Snipe saluted sharply and left the command center. He was ready to put some steel in the Omega Mob's spines, whether they needed it or not. He looked forward to making some examples. After the day he'd been through, he wouldn't mind making examples of the whole company.

"We're getting closer," said Sushi, looking at the dial of his detector.

"This is fine to hear, Sushi," said Flight Leftenant Qual. "Do you have a concept of how close the Hidden Ones may be?"

"Nothing precise," said Sushi. "But the signal's started to cover a wider angle, and that means we're getting closer. How close depends on just how big an area the signal sources are coming from. If it's a couple hundred feet across, we're real close; if it's a couple hundred miles, we're still a long way away."

Qual nodded, then asked, "And there is nothing to distinguish between those cases?"

Sushi looked up from his machine and said, "Nothing objective; the signal's growing stronger, which could mean a closer distance. But I assume that people only a few feet away from one another have some way more effective than radio signals to communicate."

"That is not an infallible assumption," said Qual. "One could postulate a race that sees radio frequencies the way we do visible light, and uses them to communicate. After all, Garbo and I see deeper into the infrared than you do."

"Yeah, and we humans can hear lower pitches than either of you," said Sushi. "I know it's possible, Qual, I'm just trying to keep the number of variables down to a bare minimum until something proves I need to look in other directions. Otherwise, we'll be spending so much time on woo-woo ideas that the serious probabilities will get lost."

"How could they get lost?" asked Qual. "They will still be there, even if we are looking at the boo-hoo ideas."

Sushi grinned, in spite of himself. "You know, Qual, sometimes I think you speak our language better than you let on."

Qual returned the grin, showing a mouthful of predatory teeth. "I do not speak your language at all, Sushi, it is all done by the translator. Though I understand that the machine can learn from experience, so perhaps that is what you are hearing."

"Guess that could make sense," said Sushi. Then his brow wrinkled. "Say, that just gave me an idea. In fact, I feel like an idiot for not thinking of it earlier. If these signals we're getting are some sort of messages, the translator ought to be able to make sense out of them. Maybe when we stop, I can borrow yours, and we can hook it up to the receiver..."

"That is a very interesting plan, Sushi," said Qual. "Of course you can borrow it. Although it will leave me temporarily powerless to communicate, I think the risk of learning something useful is paramount here. Or, now that I think of it, Garbo has a translator, as well. Perhaps it would be better to use hers, so I can stay advised of what occurs."