One Jump Ahead-ARC Read online

  "Except the gates." I turned to look at him. "Of course, we don't know if nature created them."

  "Don't tell me you're a Gatist," he said. "Do I need to leave you alone to worship?"

  I laughed. "Hardly. I don't have any idea whether some god or nature or even aliens we've never found created the gates, and for the most part I don't care. What matters most to me is that they are and they work, in the same way that the rest of the universe exists and works. It does, and that's good enough for me."

  We both stared again at the parts of the gate we could see; we were far too close now to be able to make out the whole thing. Each twist in the pretzel was thicker than Lobo was long, and most of the apertures dwarfed even the ships of Hathi's size. I couldn't tell the Macken aperture from any of the others, but when we settled into line behind a small Kelco transport it was clear we were on our final trajectory toward the gate. Intellectually I understood that we were moving under control, gravity systems working, everything smooth, but for an instant I felt almost as if I were falling, falling through the gate into Macken, into conflict, into whatever that conflict would bring. Once you've been on a few missions, you realize that no matter how well you plan, you're never in total control.

  "Can you remember," I said, "how you thought it would be when you first signed on, before you'd actually been in the field?"

  "Of course," he said. "I make it a practice to remember my stupidest moments, so I can avoid repeating them."

  "And then you go on the mission, and if you're lucky enough to make it back you learn the truth," I said, "or at least you learn the truth of your own experience and reactions."

  "Or you die," he said, "or you go crazier than the rest of us because you can't find any other way to cope."

  I nodded, then waved my hand at the aperture growing before us. "Yet here we are again," I said.

  "Yeah, here we are." Gustafson clapped me on the back and headed out.

  The aperture slowly grew larger in the viewport, as the ships in front of us took turns vanishing into it, each replaced in alternation by a vessel coming the other way, a procession of humanity passing from one strange place to another via a mechanism they might never understand, men and women jumping into their futures with absolutely no way to see what those futures held for them, and then it was our turn.

  Chapter 27

  We landed on Macken far up the coast from Glen's Garden, at a construction site a few klicks north of the spot that had hosted the fireworks display I'd seen and that sat well away from any current settlements. The Saw team quickly and efficiently unloaded the dirt mover and its hidden passengers. I ducked into Lobo to grab a handgun, a small carry-pack of supplies, and a comm hookup we'd need in the next stages of the mission.

  "How do you like Bob?" I said, regretting the flip question almost as soon as I asked it.

  "He's lovely company," Lobo said. "The frequent bubbles, the constant motion, and the accompanying gentle waves in the tank: What more could a being of my intelligence and firepower want from a companion?"

  "We'll be working soon enough," I said. "I have to go."

  "I so enjoy these little chats," Lobo said. "It's the quality of our time together that matters, not the quantity."

  If I came out of this mission alive and well paid, I was definitely going to look into the cost of customizing Lobo's emotive software.

  Next stop for us was the terminal at Glen's Garden, which we reached via one of Hathi's personnel shuttles. The shuttle dropped us and headed straight back; it would be in Hathi and on the way home to Lankin within an hour. I split from the Saw troops and changed out of my uniform at the terminal, then grabbed a taxi to the rental agency I'd used before.

  Enough had happened since I'd been here last that I expected the town to have changed, but of course it hadn't; less than a month had elapsed. The town was the same sleepy oceanfront village I'd left. I was pleased to learn that my previous rental agreement had barely expired, and the house was still available. I paid for two weeks, the minimal rental period, and set out to find some food.

  The streets were wide and quiet, the air warm and lazy and rich with salt and ocean smells, the sky clear, another quiet coastal town on another perfect coastal afternoon. Each time I visit such a place, I find myself relaxing, my pulse and my pace slowing until I realize I'm doing almost nothing at all. The longer I stay, the more I wonder why I don't simply settle down and enjoy life.

  That question nagged me for decades, until I finally had the time and money to try it. After a few months, I drifted into work, never really intending to go back to it but doing so nonetheless. The nature of most of the jobs I take is that, like my seemingly simple rescue of Jasmine, they turn complicated and frequently end up causing me to have to relocate. Now, I enjoy these towns each time I visit one, but I know I'll never be able to stay for very long.

  I navigated the streets by following the noise, an approach that's never failed me in party towns—and beach towns are almost always party towns. Soon enough, I found a corner bar, shutters open on three sides to let in the air, the building spilling music and laughter and conversation into the intersection it faced. A singer on a small stool in the back played a guitar and sang ballads with an accent so foreign to me and so thick I couldn't understand his words. The rest of the noise drowned him out, but he labored away gamely. Every now and then, the credit gauge he'd set on the floor would light up as someone sent him a tip. I made my way past a clump of locals, five Saw off-duty troops still in uniform, three more soldiers not in uniform but easy to spot by the way they moved and their tendency to hang near the uniformed group, and a handful of Kelco security people wearing identifying tags. I did my best to let them all get a good look at me before I forced myself onto the end of the bar nearest the street.

  When I finally gained the bartender's attention, I ordered the special dinner and some water, then leaned against the wall so I could watch in all directions. As I expected, the special proved to be a fish sandwich. I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was, warm and tasty despite being greasier than I typically prefer. I chewed slowly and kept my face to the crowd, giving plenty of people all the time they could use to study me but also scanning the many faces at the same time. If the Kelco security team was on the lookout for me and their staffers in this bar were at all competent, they'd spot me. If they failed to notice me, I had to hope they were monitoring property rentals and would find me that way.

  After I finished eating, I headed into the street for a stroll. I stayed on roads with plenty of other pedestrians, and I kept a suitable distance from all of them. I figured the Kelco staffers couldn't have known about my presence long enough to have set up any kind of snatch they could execute in a public place, but at the same time my experience on Bekin's Deal reminded me that they could surprise me.

  One of the main streets, Wharf, ended at a largely ornamental wharf with only a few small boats moored at it. A four-deep crowd clung to the sides of the road as flying autocams recorded whatever they were watching, so I eased closer for a look. Vaccaro, Barnes, and Slake were walking the street, ostensibly talking and reviewing the progress of construction in town, more likely simply creating media moments that showed the locals that their government and corporate leaders were working hard for them. I suppose there must have been an era in which it was so difficult to get information about how organizations really functioned that people fell for these staged shows of management at work, but I couldn't imagine such a time. Everyone knew what was going on, but for no reason I could understand the chance to see the FC leader for this region of space working hand-in-hand with the head of the only large corporation with a serious local presence was still enough to draw some people away from their homes and jobs. The three bureaucrats would spend the evening providing a good show for the public, then eat in the main municipal building's private dining room. They'd all spend the night there, because Vaccaro had provided entertainment and insisted they make a long, bonding night of
it.

  I was glad Vaccaro was making her presence public, because it smoothed the cover story. I also needed her to keep Slake away from his house; it wouldn't be good for the FC if anything happened to him while I went after Jasmine. Other than those interests, however, I had no reason to care about Vaccaro's actions at this stage, and I didn't want Barnes, Slake, or any of their people to get spooked, so I strolled away down a side street.

  Night was coming on, the sky purpling and the temperature dropping. As soon as I'd wandered a couple of blocks from Wharf, I grabbed a taxi to my rental house. I'd hoped going there might feel like coming home, somehow relaxing or soothing, but instead it was more like returning to the scene of a crime. Before I got out of the taxi I ordered it to go off-road—at an extra fee, of course, such charges being a common way to gouge new-world tourists for a little extra money—and circle the house. I didn't spot anyone in the building or for as far as I could see around it, even when I cranked up my vision to include IR, but I was still concerned; I'd been here long enough now that Kelco should have been on to me.

  I paid the taxi, sent it back, and walked to the side of the house farthest from town and closest to the forest. I stood close to the wall and tuned in to the machines inside. The washers were, as usual, chattering away nonstop. Vaccaro's visit had already made an impression on them, because apparently Barnes had instructed his staff to show up in their dress best, launder every piece of fabric Vaccaro might see or touch, and so on. The washers sang the praises of this special work. Instead of going with the usual rough settings, the users chose the gentlest options for their good clothes, and those options were vastly more interesting to the washers. I suppose that information might come in handy should I ever want to spoil a washing machine with kindness, but it didn't help me right then. I gave up on the washers and tried the other kitchen appliances, but they also had nothing of value to say. As best I could tell from them and the washers, the house had stood empty since my last night in it, and they were all quite bored.

  I checked the lighting control system next. It was complaining about the two men who'd visited the house less than half an hour ago. Apparently, these two callous souls had turned on only a few lights and hadn't even touched the options on the viewing window, depriving the lighting system of any chance to strut its stuff. The control complex sulked, both disappointed and annoyed. More importantly, the lighting controller had been forced to deal with minor electrical disruptions caused by some work the men had done on the front door.

  Kelco had behaved as I'd expected, which was good. The problem now was that I wasn't sure what those men had done to the house. I could simply leave, but then I wouldn't know their intent. I wanted to understand whether they were out to capture me again or to kill me, because the difference would matter later. To know which it was I needed to either look at what they'd installed or trigger it remotely. The house's security system covered the doors and windows, so those were out as possible entries. The floors and ceilings lacked any motion sensors or other protection, so I could easily use some nanomachines to create a hole in the floor and climb inside, but if the Kelco visitors had left any motion-activated grenades, something I certainly would have done in this situation as a backup for any door-linked explosives, then those would go off the moment I set foot in the house.

  I settled for remote activation. It wouldn't yield as much information as entering the place, but the data I would get would have to do. I liked this house, so I hoped they weren't planning to kill me, because if they were they'd probably blow up the whole thing. I'd left almost all the weapons on Lobo; all I had with me was the small projectile handgun. I paced about twenty meters from the front of the building toward the beach, crouched, took aim at the door handle, and fired, one round at a time. I was out of practice, so the first few shots thwacked into the door and the walls around it, missing the handle entirely. I made a mental note to practice my handgun shooting if this all ended well. Then I got the range and started hitting near the handle. I did enough damage that on the sixth shot the door swung inward.

  As the door opened, the entry hall visibly filled with a milky cloud of gas. I hadn't heard the release mechanism, but my ears were still adjusting from the sound of the gunshots so that was no surprise. The room grew cloudier, and some of the gas floated out the front door. I left the gun and ran to the edge of the ocean, in case I needed to seek cover, but the gas dissipated quickly.

  I couldn't know for sure without taking the risk of exposing myself to the gas, something I was unwilling to do even though the nanomachines might have been able to handle it, but the fact that the men seeking me had used gas instead of explosives strongly suggested they wanted to capture me again. Good; for a change I agreed with Slake on something: I wanted Kelco to want me alive.

  I didn't, however, want them to capture me now, and I had to assume they were on their way. I retrieved my gun and headed into the woods. As soon as I was a few meters in, I called Lobo.

  "It's so nice to hear from you, Jon," he answered. "Bob and I are having a lovely time waiting in orbit."

  "Not now," I said. "I'm in motion and facing possible attack. Slake's men must be on the way. Do you have my position?" I jogged as we talked, heading into the woods on a rough diagonal line away from the house.

  "Yes." Lobo's tone shifted instantly to pure work, all sarcasm gone.

  "Do you have the coordinates for the place I waited for the Gardeners the night I went after Jasmine?"

  "Yes."

  "Scan it—"

  Lobo interrupted me. "The satellite I'm using shows the area clear under visible light and IR checks, and there's no signal activity of any type."

  "How does its IR signature compare to that of the surrounding area?"

  "No difference. If I didn't already know its coordinates, I wouldn't spot it on IR."

  I'd assumed the pit would have changed to a normal profile for the area in the time since I was in it, but I wanted to be sure. "Direct me to it. Use an evasive course."

  I continued jogging, moving more slowly among the trees and through the light undergrowth than I would have liked. Lobo gave me course corrections as necessary. The pit was far enough into the woods that there was little likelihood Slake's men would find me there.

  When I reached it, I took a rope from my pack, tied it around the same tree the Gardeners had leaned against when I'd confronted them, and lowered myself into the hole. I pulled a nearly transparent insulating cloth from my pack, wrapped it around my torso, and sat in a corner of the pit. "How's my IR profile, Lobo?"

  "Almost invisible," he said. "On the best imaging the satellite can provide all I can see is a spot so small I'd take it for a large rodent. It's nothing anyone would investigate."

  "Good," I said. "I'm going to stay here and rest until I need to leave to meet you at the rendezvous point. Wake me in six and a half hours. Until then, monitor the surrounding area, and alert me if you see any activity."

  "As if I would do anything else," he said.

  Back to the sarcasm. Great.

  "Jon," Lobo continued, "why do you waste time during missions asking questions to which you already know the answers?"

  Our start time was less than eight hours away, so I wasn't in the mood for this. "Why are we having this discussion?"

  "Because," he said, "you asked me if I knew your position when we'd already agreed I would track you." With no emotion that I could discern coloring his words, he continued. "You asked if I knew the coordinates to this pit, when you know I never delete mission logs. You asked me to plot an evasive course, when you know I would automatically do that when you're under pursuit and the pursuers are still far enough away to make that an effective strategy. You asked me to scan this area and alert you to any intruders, when you know I do that automatically per our previous discussions."

  I thought about what he was saying. To my chagrin, he was right. "I was wasting time," I said. "I could and should have realized everything you said." I've work
ed with many different individuals and groups in the past, and even in the Saw I was never able to fully trust anyone else to protect me. I always trusted exactly as much as the mission demanded, and never more. Whenever I could put safety nets and double-checking procedures in place, I did. "The only way I can stop myself from asking those questions," I told him as I realized it myself, "is to trust you, and I've never been good at trust."