Participant Species: Asher in Ordered Space Volume I Read online

  “Welcome, gentlemen,” said Marcolis. “And I have to say, you all did quite well in the conference.”

  “Not me, Sir” said Kaz. “I stayed out of it.”

  “Still effective, Kazmalewski. Sometimes the decision-makers need to be reminded that what they say is law for so many of us.”

  “Huh? I don’t think that’s what I was doing.”

  “Nonetheless. Anyway, down to brass tacks. Decisions have been made and memos have been circulated. The wheels of Hokozana are grinding ahead, and we four are to be caught up in the teeth, I’m afraid.” Marcolis made an expansive gesture, as if they were all equals, being forced by the higher-ups into a regrettable situation. Somehow, Asher thought that whatever was coming, he, Kaz, and Jaydrupar would be bearing the brunt of the work, rather than Marcolis.

  The old man continued, “Direct from CEO Singh and Director Jaynes.” He coughed, and then intoned in a formal voice, “‘Three-Bar Hasim Jaydrupar, Two-Bar Donald Asher, and Two-Bar Thaddeus Kazmalewski will return to the place called Marateen on Cierren Cythra at the earliest possible moment by covert means not to be detected by DiJeRiCo. Once there, they are to determine, as expeditiously as possible, the nature of the Cythrans, their relationship to the Ferethers and their intent toward Hokozana in particular and Ordered Space in general. Any means necessary to accomplish this task are authorized, but we consider that force should be a recourse of last resort.’

  “Well. There you have it gentlemen. You’re to be aboard the shuttle Slipstream in twenty minutes. She will transfer you to the Komaru, a scout-class ship that arrived with the battlefleet. We believe that will be your best chance to reach Cierren Cythra undetected. Good luck.”

  “That’s all, Sir?” asked Kaz. “Back to the planet and good luck?”

  “I wish I could offer you more guidance, Kazmalewski, but this is an unprecedented situation. You three are just going to have to play it by ear. I will say that I think determining whether Cythrans really are Ferethers should be the top priority.”

  “Yes, Sir,” agreed Jaydrupar.

  Asher said nothing. There was really not much he could say. They would either reach Cierren Cythra undetected or they wouldn’t. Once there, almost anything might happen.

  The Komaru was a small, sleek ship built to an age-old scout design. She was more of a winged needle than a cylinder, and developed no rotation. Instead, she relied on acceleration to maintain gravity. Scouts required hardy constitutions capable of resisting high g-forces with the aid of crash-seats and flight-suits. They also had to be experienced with maneuvering and piloting the ship in both low-g and high-g situations, in void and atmo. In Asher’s estimation, scouts were usually manned by the best pure pilots in Fleet Ops. On the Komaru, the pilot was Lieutenant Sasha Deal and the co-pilot was Ensign Etta Curcic. For this mission, there was no other crew.

  The flight back to Cierren Cythra took just over four hours, as compared to the six hours Cormorant had required. Of course, the acceleration at the beginning of the flight pressed Asher back into his seat like the hand of some ancient god. The route they took was fairly direct, bringing them as far from Zvezda One and the known commo satellites as possible.

  Asher was surprised at how easily they avoided the few DiJeRiCo pickets that orbited the planet. It seemed that the majority of the carrier group was in matching orbits around Zvezda One. Apparently, the orbital was already serving as their base of operations. Jaydrupar said that Intel thought that the Zvezda Company had been forced to sign a contract for services with DiJeRiCo. A contract made under similar duress would never stand up in the intercorp courts, of course, but if DiJeRiCo had its way, it would likely never get that far. Zvezda would probably be long gone and all its assets de facto possessions of DiJeRiCo in fairly short order.

  As they approached the planet, Kaz turned to Lieutenant Deal. “How is this thing in-atmo?”

  “Oh, she does okay,” said the Lieutenant. “You’ll see.”

  “Where are you setting us down?” asked Jaydrupar.

  “You’re not going to like it.” Deal leveled the ship, bringing her in at a shallow angle to the thin Cythran atmosphere. “You’re going to drop right into the equatorial forest.”

  “Drop?” said Jaydrupar.

  “Don’t worry!” yelled Asher as the ship began to whine and vibrate. “You’ll love it. All you have to do is fall!”

  Jaydrupar gave him a tight smile, then closed his eyes as the Komaru started to shake violently and the air started to heat up as life support struggled to dissipate the intense heat.

  Abruptly, the shaking stopped and the ship entered level flight. “Better get in the hold,” said Ensign Curcic. “You have two minutes to move before we start a steep descent which will really pile on the gs. We drop you in less than five.”

  Asher and Kaz stood and stumbled back toward the cargo hold. Glancing back, Asher saw that Jaydrupar was following.

  The hold had been set up just for this mission. It was rigged as a standard drop-pod with thee crash-seats. There was a small download console attached to the wall and an equipment locker bolted to the floor under Kaz’s seat. Asher hoped that they had all the gear he had requested in there.

  Ensign Curcic’s voice came over the com system. “Beginning our descent.”

  Asher felt his stomach pulled up and away as he was pressed back into the crash seat. He glanced over at Kaz, who was relaxed and smiling. Jaydrupar, on the other hand, already had his eyes closed and his mouth pulled into a tight line. Slowly, the gs increased until Asher found that he couldn’t move his head, such was the force pushing him up and back into the seat.

  The gs decreased as the ship leveled off again. Presumably, they were now at the drop altitude. A red light came on on the roof of the pod, and a timer appeared on a wall panel. One minute to the drop.

  Asher watched the seconds count down. The last ten he counted out in his mind. When he got to one, he straightened his knees a little and pushed himself back into the crash seat. The pod dropped out of the ship. The walls started to shake as the descent thruster engaged. Still, the first several seconds of the drop were exceptionally fast. It felt as though Asher’s internal organs were trying hard to catch up to his skin, which of course was more or less what was actually happening. It was quite a relief when the chutes deployed. For the last minute or so of the descent, the only sound was a light wind buffeting the pod.

  They came down with a crash, ending up at a slight angle. Asher was tipped toward Jaydrupar, who was sandwiched between him and the bulk of Kaz, whose shoulder was thrust into the wall of the pod. When Asher released his harness he found that it was difficult to stand due to the tilt. He stumbled to the front of the pod and pressed the door release.

  The door retracted into the roof of the pod, revealing nothing but leaves and branches. Here and there, tiny slivers of gray-blue sky peeked through. “A goddamn tree!” said Kaz, who was struggling out of his harness. Jaydrupar was already up and leaning out of the door with Asher.

  It did seem as though they had landed in the canopy of a tree. The bark was more or less the color of burnished gold and the leaves were large and rubbery and had a distinctly blue tone to them, but otherwise it looked more or less like any of the standard trees that might be planted on an orbital or found on a terraformed colony. It was also very thick. Asher had to root through the equipment locker for his machete and start hacking away at branches that didn’t look as though they were supporting the weight of the pod.

  Soon, he had cleared enough of the leaves away that he could see a large horizontal branch. It was golden like the others, but it was probably as wide as Asher’s torso and was square enough that he thought he could walk on it. Turning back to the other he said, “Can you to get the gear together and get ready to move out? I want to go ahead and scout along this branch a ways and see where we are.”

  “Here,” said Kaz, pressing Asher’s pulse gun into his hand. “You don’t know what sort of beasties are out there
.”

  There were no beasties outside, but there was a ladder, of sorts. Asher followed the large branch for about twenty yards and came to the wide, red-gold trunk of the tree. Someone had carved steps into the wood. It had been done some time ago, and the bark was growing back into the holes, but they still looked serviceable. The ladder led in both directions from the branch. Asher looked up and down along the trunk, but the leaves were too thick to see what this arboreal trail led to. He went back to the pod and explained what he had found.

  “Must be the Cythrans,” said Kaz.

  “I don’t know,” said Asher. “According to my downloads, there are no civilized groups down deep in the forests, just nomadic bands.”

  They decided that Jaydrupar would stay and protect the pod while Asher and Kaz explored the ladder. Asher thought that maybe the Intel man was a little afraid of heights, as he seemed only too willing to remain behind.

  They emptied the locker and found that they had a more-than-adequate stash of gear. Asher took his pulse gun and slung it over his back. With that and his semi-auto pistol, he felt fairly well protected. Kaz carried a powerful shotgun in place of Asher’s pulse gun and a beamer rather than a semi-auto. They left Jaydrupar a submachine gun that seemed to be his personal weapon of choice. After agreeing to be back at the pod in no more than an hour, Kaz and Asher set off toward the trunk of the tree.

  The trunk was perhaps twelve feet in diameter. The steps had obviously been carved into the soft bark with a sharp bladed instrument. Kaz and Asher were curious as to what could be found higher up in this tree that would be worth traveling to, so they decided to try climbing up the ladder first.

  The rungs of the ladder were far too close together for human feet and hands. Asher found himself using only every second step. Below him, Kaz was struggling to jam his huge feet into the rungs. “Was this made for midgets?” he asked.

  Asher laughed. “Cythran males, maybe? I think even the females would be a bit too tall to use these steps effectively.”

  Asher climbed on and on. The tree showed no signs of ending, although he thought that the trunk had thinned somewhat. They were still climbing through the thick canopy of leaves. When he stopped for a moment and craned his neck to look around, he could not see open air, only blue-green light filtered through a sea of leaves.

  As they went higher, Kaz’s grumbling trailed off to be replaced with heavy, wheezing grunts. Asher was having problems getting enough air. “If this keeps going,” he said, “I’ll have to start using my oxy-assist.”

  Just as he finished speaking, the ladder abruptly ended at a large, flat branch. Asher swung himself up onto the branch and caught his breath as Kaz came up to sit beside him. “Look at that.” said the bigger man, pointing down the branch away from the trunk.

  “What?” asked Asher.

  “The polish on the branch. I think it must be from Cythrans walking on it. Like a road or something.”

  “Well, I guess we better see where the road goes. My net says we’ve only been gone ten minutes, so we’ve got the time.”

  “Ten minutes?” said Kaz. “I would have sworn that climb took half an hour, at least.”

  After they caught their breath, the two security men set out along the branch-trail. They could see no more than about ten feet ahead of them at any time because of the density of the canopy. The branch, which was probably two or three feet wide, had been scuffed and polished by the passage of many feet. In places, it seemed as though it had been worn flatter by the weight of its visitors. Like the ladder, though, this track appeared to have fallen into disuse. New twigs were sprouting from the walkway and bark was regrowing to cover the most heavily-scoured areas.

  The branch narrowed slightly as they got farther away from the trunk, but it continued its level course into the leaves. When the branch had narrowed to perhaps one foot in diameter, Asher and Kaz came into an area with distinctly different foliage. Where before the leaves had been uniformly large, rubbery, and bluish-green, most of the leaves were now bright red. The two men stopped and looked around. At first, Asher could not see anything to account for the change. It was Kaz who spotted it. “They’re a different kind of tree growing out of the big one,” he said. “See, you can even see their roots digging into the main branch we’ve been following.

  Asher looked where Kaz indicated and saw that the red leaves were growing from gray stems which all led to small nodes of roots attached to the branch-trail. “They’re like epiphytes,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “Like orchids or bromeliads,” said Asher. “Plants that grow on another plant, like a kind of parasite.”

  “Well, that would explain it,” said Kaz. “What it doesn’t explain is why the trail ends here.”

  Asher looked along the branch through the red leaves. The scuffed and polished trail did, indeed, end a short distance ahead. The branch narrowed significantly after that, to the point where he doubted it would continue to bear his weight. Still, whatever Cythrans had made this trail up the tree seemed to have been trying to reach this grove of red epiphytes. “Maybe it’s some kind of farm,” he said. “Maybe they grow or tend these red-leafed plants.”

  “Whatever it was,” said Kaz, “there’s no one here now and I don’t think anyone has been here in a while. I say we head back to the pod and try the ladder going down.”

  Asher couldn’t see any reason to linger, so they set off to retrace their steps to the pod and Jaydrupar. On the way back, when he was forced to look down and watch his feet into each rung of the living ladder, Asher wondered more than once what would happen if he lost his footing or missed a handhold. He had no idea just how high up they were, but he thought they must have climbed a good hundred feet or so above the level where they had left the pod. He couldn’t see it through the leaves, but it must be just below them now. If he fell, Jaydrupar would hear him crashing past as he caught at leaves and branches on the way down.

  They reached the branch with the pod on it, and Kaz went to collect Jaydrupar. Asher stayed near the trunk, trying to sight along its girth to see if he could spot the ground below. Not for the first time, he was amazed at just how immense this tree seemed to be. Perhaps the lower gravity and thin atmosphere of Cierren Cythra was a recipe for a very tall forest canopy. Maybe all of the trees in the equatorial forest belt were giants beyond anything he had seen on any other planet. Even the great stalks of the marshes of Mirzan didn’t compare to this behemoth.

  It was a few moments before Kaz returned with Jaydrupar in tow. The Intel man looked a little pale, despite his dark complexion. Asher thought that he probably didn’t much like heights. Or perhaps, given his discomfort during the pod-drop, it was the idea of falling that he had a problem with. “Just keep your eyes straight ahead, Jaydrupar,” he suggested. “On the way down, stay between me and Kaz.”

  “I’ll be all right,” said the Intel man. “I’m not a big fan of heights, but I’m not completely helpless. I’ll make do.”

  Kaz threw Asher a heavy sack. “Food,” he said. “You’ve got the bulk of the rations tubes. There’s also extra ammo for the weapons. I’ve got the commo gear and the emergency beacon. Jaydrupar’s got the shelter and everyone’s change of clothes.”

  “Maybe—” said Asher.

  “I know, I know. Maybe we can divide things a little more evenly in case someone gets shot or whatever. Sure, but let’s do it once we’re on the ground, right?”

  “OK,” said Asher. “Shall we move then. I take point?”

  They set off. Asher took the lead, heading down the ladder about ten rungs ahead of Jaydrupar. He took the descent slowly, partly out of concern for the Intel man. Jaydrupar did surprisingly well, though. It was actually Asher who slipped once. Both legs flailing, he managed to keep a strong hold of the rungs with his hands and regained the ladder.

  As they climbed downward, the light of Bright-Day grew muted. At first, Asher thought the sun was setting, ushering in Dim-Day, then he realized that most of
the light was being filtered out by the foliage. Soon enough, they were descending through twilight murk. Still the tree went on and on, down into the dark. “Watch your footing,” Asher called up to the others. “It’s going to be pitch dark before we get to the bottom of this thing.”

  He groped on his belt and found his penlight. It didn’t offer much light and it was a pain to hold while he descended the ladder, but it helped him make sure he got his foot squarely into a rung before putting his weight on his leg. He glanced up, and saw that both the others had found a similar expedient. Jaydrupar actually seemed to be using a full-power flashlight.

  When he came out of the canopy, it was as though he had broken the surface of a lake. He came out of the close-set leaves and suddenly found himself in a cavernous empty space. It was dark as night, but Asher could make out the shadowy forms of many other trees around, like great pillars holding up a roof of leaves. Below, he saw winding tendril and trails of blue and green light, looking much like neon tubes spread across the darkness. He thought it must be bioluminescence or perhaps some kind of chemical light. Whatever it was, he hoped that it marked the forest floor.

  Rung by rung, the three Hokozana operatives descended through that strange forest cathedral. As Asher looked up, all he saw of the others were wavering points of light marking the flashlights that they, like he, probably gripped between their teeth in order to keep their hands free. He imagined what they must look like to any watcher below. Like lightning bugs hesitatingly descending the trunk of the great tree.