David Sherman & Dan Cragg - Starfist 05 - Technokill

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PROLOGUE
Graakaak, High Chief of the Cheereek, cocked his head this way and that as he looked past his circle of
guards to study the vista that swept beyond the roof of his High Tree. Under his eyes, Cheereek darted
to and fro about their daily business, their cries a cacophony of caws, hoots, and warbles. High Chief
Graakaak saw the small clusters of sharp-eyed guards spotted around the perimeter of the sprawling
rookery, watching all possible approaches. The landscape was properly barren from the guards to the
horizon.
Graakaak dipped one hand to his perch, richly studded with yellow, orange, and purple stones, and
plucked one. He held the stone before his critical eyes, decided it was worthy, and popped it into his
mouth. Instantly he swallowed and the stone rippled down the length of his throat. He refocused his eyes
and looked at his guards, resplendent with iridescent sashes sparkling beneath their pectorals of shinies.
But that wasn't what caused him to break out in gleeful reaction. No matter how often he looked upon it,
the sight of his guards all holding the Clumsy Ones' weapons swelled his chest with a power and pride
that demanded to burst out and be announced to the world. Rising from his squat, he stretched out his
neck, leaned forward, splayed the skin-fringes on his bowed arms, spread his tail fringe, and crowed.
Beyond the high tent, Cheereek paused in their chores and looked up at their High Chief. Many returned
his jubilant cry. Pleased, Graakaak ruffled his neck and shoulders. His breastplate of shinies, far larger
than the pectorals of his guards, sparkled and jangled with the movement. He lowered himself back to a
squat, plucked at the iridescent sash that crossed his chest under the glittering breastplate, then lowered
his head to nestle restfully at the top of his chest.
Someday soon, he thought, enough of my warriors will have Clumsy Ones' weapons for me to attack.
Then the wide world will tremble at the name of Graakaak.
After a time, naked slaves brought bowls of shredded meat mixed with seeds and berries and other
peckings, and held them before three of the guards. Graakaak cocked his head and carefully watched the
guards as they held the bowls close to their faces with one hand and pecked the food into their mouths
with the other. When the guards stopped pecking and handed the bowls back to the slaves, Graakaak
continued to watch them while the slaves, heads held as high as their necks allowed, faces pointed at the
ceiling, brought the bowls to him. When enough time had passed, and none of the guards showed any
sign of distress, Graakaak pecked his fill from the dishes, knowing the food was safe to eat.
The High Chief had barely finished when his eyes spotted a mounted scout galumphing toward the
rookery. He watched the dull-dressed scout all the way into the huge encampment. Cocking his head and
observing through the gaps in the floor of the High Tree, Graakaak saw the scout jerk his eeookk into a
skidding, wing-milling stop, then bound to the lattice-branches and scrabble up the High Tree toward
him. Under the roof, the scout stopped less than two paces in front of the central guards, standing fully
erect, neck stretched up, face pointed to the roof. The scout waited to be commanded to speak.
"Tell me," Graakaak commanded:
"Clumsy Ones come, High Chief," the scout announced. "I followed their tracks until they disappeared
on the Frying Rocks. There I waited long enough to miss two meals. The Clumsy Ones finally appeared
in the middle of the Frying Rocks, riding their Clumsy Ones' steed in this direction. I waited until I was
certain they were headed this way, then I galumphed with all speed, taking a course their steed could not
follow so I could reach you before they did."
Graakaak looked out beyond the roof of the High Tree and saw a cloud of dust rising on the horizon.
Deep within the cloud he saw the shimmery speck of the Clumsy Ones' steed. He stood and crowed.
Yes, soon he would have enough weapons to arm all of his warriors.
"You missed two meals and you brought me timely news of the Clumsy Ones' coming," Graakaak said
to the scout. "You have done well. You may lower your face."
When the scout complied, Graakaak pecked a stone from his perch and tossed it to him. The scout
snagged it out of the air with his mouth and swallowed. The stone rippled down the length of his throat.
"Take him away and feed him."
A slave approached the scout, stretched her neck up, then chirped and gestured as she scampered
down the lattice-branches. He followed.
"That artificial tree with the tent on top of it," Dr. Spencer Herbloc said to the landcar's driver, "that's
where we'll find him."
"Then you've been to this camp before?" Jum Bolion asked. "I thought they were nomads." He
remembered Herbloc's earlier instructions and adjusted the air-cushion pressure to raise the landcar and
increase its speed.
"No. That's just the way they are, the big mugwump always has the highest place." He chuckled softly.
"When they say ‘top of the ladder,’ they mean it literally."
The landcar whooshed over the hard, rippled dirt of the ancient lake bed, its air cushion kicking up a
huge rooster tail of dust and pebbles. It sluiced into the hollow of an ancient, dry cove, becoming invisible
from the encampment save for the wake it had stirred.
"I thought they're supposed to be fighters," Bolion said as he looked around at the size of the broad
dip. "Someone could hide an army down here and get awful close before those Cheereek know they
were here."
Herbloc chuckled again. "After you've been here a few times you'll be able to spot the sentries. I can
see three watchposts from here. There's probably more."
Bolion couldn't spot anything that looked like a watchpost. He glanced at Herbloc to see if the man
was joking, but Herbloc was taking a nip from his flask. Bolion tried to hide a wince. If he'd known how
much Herbloc drank when he was planetside, he might not have volunteered to be the driver on this
two-man parlay. Even though he'd never been on Avionia before, during the voyage he'd read everything
about the planet the Marquis de Rien carried. The people—if "people" were the right word—were apt
to fight over any slight, real or imagined. The two of them wouldn't stand a chance if Herbloc got drunk
and said something he shouldn't, even though they were illegally armed with Confederation military
hand-blasters.
Herbloc saw the half-hidden wince out of the corner of his eye. "Don't worry about it, boy-o," he said,
and took another nip. "They need us. Their mugwump wants to conquer his neighbors, but they're bigger
than he is. He can't do it without our weapons." He took another nip before tucking the flask back into a
pocket.
They reached the far side of the dip and skittered up its bank. The encampment spread before them
when they topped the rise. Hundreds of sideless tent roofs were scattered randomly. Some hunched over
low-walled hollows scraped from the ground, others hung over low mounds. A few were mounted above
stilt-legged towers. The highest tower held the largest tent, and it was at this that Bolion pointed the
speeding landcar.
"Don't dodge them," Herbloc reminded the driver. "Just plow straight through. They'll get out of the
way. And if they don't..." He shrugged. "We're showing power. They respect power."
Moving with a speed that startled Bolion, the Cheereek scattered out of the path of the landcar,
shrieking and chirping their fear and indignity—but none made any threatening move.
Again remembering his instructions, Bolion didn't brake until the last possible moment. The landcar
bucked to an abrupt stop that caused a huge cloud of dirt to bellow as high as the tent roof above them.
They waited for the dust to settle before breaking open hatches and dismounting.
"We're supposed to climb that?" Bolion asked incredulously as he looked at the helter-skelter
assemblage of wood spars from which the artificial tree was constructed.
"It's stronger than it looks, boy-o. And we've got to climb if we want to see the mugwump." Herbloc
reached for a spar above his head and began to climb.
Guard Captain Cheerpt paused in his inspection of the perimeter sentries to eye the two Clumsy Ones.
His hands twisted on the Clumsy Ones' weapon he held and his head bobbed in resonance, causing the
triple string of shinies hanging on his chest to tinkle.
He eyed the pouches at the waists of the Clumsy Ones as they awkwardly lumbered up the High Tree,
and knew they held weapons, though the Clumsy Ones never withdrew anything from them. He was
certain those weapons were more powerful than the weapons the Clumsy Ones dealt to the Cheereek. If
he had one of those weapons, he would challenge Graakaak, and the Cheereek would have a new High
Chief.
Graakaak watched with amused interest as the Clumsy Ones labored up the High Tree, and marveled
again that a people so ungainly could make the wonderful weapons they did. The Clumsy Ones paused
under the eaves, gathering breath in their puny chests, then approached his perch.
The two Clumsy Ones walked with delicate balance, fully upright on their legs instead of easily
balanced between them, as were the Cheereek and all other people Graakaak had ever seen or heard of.
When the Clumsy Ones were three body lengths from his guards, with one sudden movement Graakaak
rose from his squat. He thrust his torso forward horizontally, arm fringes splayed at his sides, tail fringe
fully opened, stretched out his neck and shouted his battle cry.
The Clumsy Ones stopped in place. Much less swiftly than Graakaak had, they dropped their torsos
to horizontal, legs bent to compensate for lack of a counterbalancing tail-nub, stuck out their short necks,
splayed their fringeless arms to the sides, and shouted their battle cries back at the High Chief.
The High Chief and the two Clumsy Ones held their threat postures for a long moment as their battle
cries changed to prolonged hisses.
So fast the Clumsy Ones' weak eyes couldn't follow the motion, Graakaak stood erect, arms down,
neck stretched upward. He did not point his face up, as propriety required. He had no desire to indicate
to the Clumsy Ones that they were powerful enough for that obsequiousness.
The Clumsy Ones, too, now stood erect, their movements slower than any but the feeblest of the
Cheereek. They dropped their arms to their sides and stretched their necks as far as their short length
allowed. But despite the formality of this submissive posture, exposing their soft parts to demonstrate
acceptance of the other's dominance, they did not hold their faces up, but instead arrogantly returned
Graakaak's stare.
After a long moment, Graakaak abruptly squatted again on his perch. The High Chief watched with
disinterest as slaves brought out the odd perches the Clumsy Ones preferred to squat on, perches on
which they rested their upper legs. At an almost imperceptible gesture from the High Chief, the guards
who stood between him and the Clumsy Ones moved to take new positions behind the visitors, denying
them retreat.
"What have you brought me this time, Clumsy Ones?" Graakaak demanded in the trading language
used by all peoples of the steppes. Of course, the Clumsy Ones had difficulty in speaking even that
simple language.
"Have I got a deal for you," said the Clumsy One called Heerk-kloock, and twisted his obscenely soft
mouth parts in what he understood was an expression of friendship.
CHAPTER 1
"Move, move-move!" Sergeant Bladon's radioed shout reverberated through Lance Corporal Rock
Claypoole's helmet.
"Blow that hinge, Rock!" Corporal Kerr shouted, adding his demand.
"I'm trying, I'm trying," Claypoole shouted back.
"Want some help?" PFC Wolfman MacIlargie asked. "Let me in there, I'll get it." He had already
blown his hinge.
"Stay away," Claypoole snarled, and tried again to clamp the blower onto the upper lever, where it
hinged into the airlock hatch. MacIlargie squirted closer and bumped him. For a vertiginous moment
Claypoole spun slowly away from the spaceship in orbit around Thorsfinni's World. His tether jerked him
to a yawing stop a few meters away. "Back off, Wolfman," he snapped, and hauled himself back to the
hatch that second squad's second fire team was trying to breach. In his ungainly armored vacuum suit,
Claypoole struggled to lock his boot magnets to the hull and hatch on either side of the hinge. He
managed to seat the cup of the blower over the hinge. He reached one thickly gloved hand to the crimper
and pulled on it. The cup closed securely onto the end of the arm.
Claypoole looked down the length of the meter long tool and decided it was perpendicular to the hull
and his feet were widespread enough. He gave the top end of the blower a quarter twist, bent it down to
a ninety degree angle to expose the trigger, stuck a gloved finger through the trigger guard and pulled.
The shaped charge inside the blower jetted its force into the metal, abruptly raising its temperature
from near zero Kelvin to more than a thousand degrees centigrade. The rapid temperature change
shattered the hinge, buckled the metal around it, and sent shock waves thrumming through the
surrounding hull and hatch. One of Claypoole's feet was knocked loose, but the magnets on the other
boot held.
"Move, move-move!" Bladon shouted again.
Claypoole shifted one foot so both were on the hull and removed the blower. The tool drifted at the
end of its tether.
Kerr clomped carefully to his side and slapped the end of the puller he held against the hatch. He gave
the handle the twist that shot its mollies into the metal, then raised a hand in signal.
"Do it," Corporal Linsman said, and Lance Corporal Watson slapped the Go button on the winch. The
cable that ran from the tripod to the puller tautened and the hatch slowly lifted. The Marines readied their
weapons. As soon as the hatch was clear of the hull, Watson slapped another button on the winch to
move the hatch to the side.
When the gap was wide enough, Kerr demagnetized his boots and stepped over the lip of the
hatchway. He fired a quick puff from his suit's top jet and plummeted down into the airlock, where he
twisted around so the inner hatch was in front instead of below him. He reactivated his boot magnets to
hold his feet to the deck. Claypoole and MacIlargie followed.
"Hey, watch it," Claypoole snarled at MacIlargie, who bumped into him as he tried to mimic Kerr's
maneuver.
"Sorry," MacIlargie replied, and used handholds to pull himself away from Claypoole. "Kind of
cramped in here." Their boots clunked to the decking as they activated the magnets.
The airlock was big enough to hold four vacuum-suited deckhands along with the equipment they'd
need to work on the hull, but three combat-armed Marines in armored vacuum suits filled it almost to
overflowing. The inner hatch was barely wide enough to admit them one at a time.
"Quiet," Kerr ordered, and bent his attention to opening the inner-hatch access panel. He freed three
corners of the small plate and swiveled it aside on its remaining corner screw. He briefly examined the
boards and crystals inside the control box while he fished an override from a cargo pocket on his thigh,
then stuck the override onto the right crystal. "All secure?" he asked.
Claypoole and MacIlargie made sure they each had a grip on a handhold and a tether clipped onto
another. "Secure," they replied, and pointed their blasters toward the inner hatch.
Kerr checked his own tether then tightened his free-hand grip. He made a quick visual check of his
men to affirm that the two of them gripped handholds and held their blasters pointed at the inner hatch,
then pushed the activate bar on the override. The inner hatch began sliding to the side.
Ship's atmosphere explosively evacuated through the widening opening, slamming into the three
Marines as it gushed into the vacuum. They twisted to keep their blasters pointed at the opening, strained
to avoid being pulled loose and thrown out, and managed to ignore the pings and thumps of the small,
unsecured objects that bombarded them in the atmospheric blast.
The hatch stopped halfway open with a grinding they could feel though the soles of their boots and the
gloves that gripped handholds. Kerr punched the override again. The hatch ground again, but didn't open
any farther.
"Damn, it's jammed!" Kerr let go of his blaster, grabbed the lip of the hatch and gave it a jerk. It didn't
budge. Rushing air continued to pummel the three Marines. "Hold me."
Claypoole extended his left leg and planted it as firmly as he could behind Kerr's right leg. Macllargie,
behind Kerr, leaned forward and pushed against his back.
Kerr let go of his handhold and gripped the edge of the hatch with both hands. He strained against it,
and it opened a few more centimeters before again grinding to a stop.
Spots of red light suddenly speckled the three Marines from inside the spaceship and sirens went off in
their ears.
"All right, Three-two-two—" Gunny Thatcher's voice was booming even before the sirens stopped.
"—you're dead. Get out of there."
The inner hatch, which had so strongly resisted opening, gently eased shut and cut off the evacuating
atmosphere.
It took a couple of minutes for the three Marines in ungainly armored vacuum suits to exit the airlock
and stand on the hull of the spaceship. Sergeant Bladon stood looking at them from next to the winch.
The bulkiness of his suit and the near opaque facemask made it impossible to tell, but it seemed to all
three of them that he was shaking his head.
As one of his primary functions in garrison, Gunnery Sergeant Thatcher was responsible for the daily
training regimen of Company L, 34th Fleet Initial Strike Team. He didn't officially pick the training
exercises—that was the province of Captain Conorado, the company commander—but the Skipper
usually followed his advice on what training the Marines needed. He was also the man in charge of
making sure the company's Marines had everything they needed to conduct battalion and FIST level
training exercises. Thirty-fourth FIST hadn't trained in ship-boarding tactics during the time Thatcher had
been the company gunny—and he himself hadn't participated in one since he'd been a squad leader many
years before. The only null-g work most members of the company had done since Boot Camp was the
routine boarding and disembarking of navy vessels during deployments—few of them had even worn an
armored vacuum suit since Boot Camp. The equipment the Confederation Marine Corps had available
for hostile boarding of a ship in vacuum was cumbersome, not very efficient, and probably outdated as
well, though nobody had anything better. Still, at Camp Ellis, Thatcher had done his best to orient
everyone on the use of the breaching equipment, though equipment didn't perform the same in null-g
vacuum as it did in the bottom of a gravity well with atmosphere. Moreover, years had passed since a
FIST had had to board a hostile ship in planetary space. So nobody could blame him if the Marines of
Company L failed so miserably in the training evolution.
But Gunnery Sergeant Thatcher took his responsibilities very seriously, and he was very unhappy.
When Gunny Thatcher was unhappy with the men, they were unhappy as well. He made sure of that.
"COMP-nee! 'Ten-HUT!" Thatcher bellowed as he hauled himself into the troop hold in the
amphibious landing ferry, CNSS Sergeant Charles McMahon.
The hold filled with clattering and clanging as the hundred-plus Marines swung from their hammocks,
propelled themselves from the head, or otherwise moved from whatever position they'd been in to
vertical, in relation to the hold's deck, and gripped handholds to stay that way. Amphibious landing ferries
didn't bother with artificial gravity.
Thatcher grasped a handhold and pulled himself out of the way of the company's platoon commanders
who followed him. The Gunny didn't often glower at the men—he usually left that to First Sergeant Myer,
who was so much better at it. But Thatcher glowered at them, and his most ferocious expression was
aimed at the platoon commanders as they joined their men. He gave them a moment of silence to let the
tension build.
"Never, in my thirty-two years in this man's Marine Corps, have I seen as egregious a display of sheer
ineptitude as you put on out there today," he said in a soft voice that carried clearly throughout the hold.
Then he shrieked, "You were a disgrace!" He paused as his words reverberated through the hold, and
gave a satisfied jerk of his head when he saw how everyone, including the officers, flinched.
"Out of thirty fire teams, gun teams, and assault teams in this company," he continued after the echoes
ebbed away, "only four managed to successfully enter the objective. Of those four, only one was fast
enough to keep from getting wiped out by the ship's defenses." He looked down and shook his head.
"You may be thinking that just because the McMahon and the training hulk are only going to be in
orbit around Thorsfinni's World long enough for every infantry unit to have one training evolution that
you're done with this abortion. Well, you're wrong. From now until we deploy again, you're going to be
training with the breaching equipment whenever you aren't doing other training. You're going to train in
hostile-boarding tactics until you can do them in your sleep." He gave a last, red-faced glower that
seemed to be directed at each Marine in the hold, then spun about and arrowed out.
The Marines of Company L cast cautious glances at each other, but no one spoke for a long moment.
Then a lone voice broke the silence.
"Hey," MacIlargie said, "is it our fault they gave us equipment that doesn't work?"
"Hit him for me, Corporal Kerr," Sergeant Bladon said. "The equipment works. We just don't know
how to use it properly."
Kerr cuffed MacIlargie on the back of the head. But not hard. Privately, he agreed with the junior
man.
CHAPTER 2
Val Carney's anger mounted with every kilometer of the suborbital flight from Fargo to the Republic of
Liliuokalani. While the flight was short and pleasant, that did not mollify the congressman's anger at
Oncho Tweed for demanding a personal visit before he would agree to accept the wonderfully lucrative
deal that Carney had offered. The sonofabitch! he thought. I've made the bastard rich, and now that I've
got the one deal that'll really matter, he demands I come to him halfway across the goddamned Pacific!
Carney's anger began to boil over when they reached Honolulu. Instead of Tweed meeting him there
as he had expected, to discuss business in one of the island capital's plush resort hotels, another jet was
waiting to fly the congressman the three hundred kilometers to Tweed's corporate headquarters in
Puuwai, on Niihau Island. He was almost speechless with rage as an attendant ushered him into the
waiting aircraft. He had half a mind to turn back right there, but too much was riding on the deal.
The Republic of Liliuokalani, formerly the state of Hawaii, had seceded from the federal union near the
end of the Second American Civil War. Named after the last queen of the Hawaiians, the new republic
had prospered as an independent nation. To encourage business development in the islands, the
government of Liliuokalani had removed almost all restrictions on taxing and licensing of every kind of
enterprise, from gambling to research and development. Both a gambler and a researcher, Oncho Tweed
found the republic a most hospitable place to do business.
The citizens of the Republic of Liliuokalani derived their major revenue from tourism, as had their
ancestors for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, Val Carney was whisked about so quickly he had no
time to take in the sights. Once on the ground in Puuwai, he was unceremoniously but politely loaded into
a Bomarc Executive Starship and whisked straightaway to the island of Siargao on the other side of the
Pacific, just north of Mindanao in the Philippines. More than once in the hour-long flight from Liliuokalani
to Siargao, Carney wondered why Tweed hadn't just sent the Bomarc straight to Fargo.
As he sat alone in the Bomarc's passenger compartment, his anger slowly cooled to a dull throb
behind his right eyeball. A few minutes into the flight, he lit up a Clinton. The alcohol and the fine cigar
soon calmed him down. He wondered just what Tweed had in mind for him when the Bomarc at last
gracefully touched down at Tweed Submersible Recovery Operations' field testing facility in the
Philippines.
"Valley! Valley, my good friend," Oncho Tweed rasped as he extended one hamlike paw toward the
little politician. Carney hated people calling him "Valley." Among his close acquaintances, only Petunia
got away with it.
Carney shook Tweed's hand perfunctorily.
One massive arm around Carney's shoulders, Tweed propelled the little man toward a hydrofoil
bobbing alongside the nearby wharf. Carney was always aware of Tweed's huge size and strength. He
could kill me right here, he told himself. He put the thought out of his mind, but it was not the first time it
had occurred to him. He looked longingly at the low concrete laboratory buildings that made up the test
facility. At least they would have full climate control. Where they were, in the open, it was hot and damp.
Already Carney was perspiring. Tweed, however, looked comfortable.
"How was your flight, my dear partner?"
"Smooth." Carney caught himself as the anger welled up in him again. "Goddamnit, Oncho, why in hell
have you gotten me all the way across the world like this just to talk business? Next goddamned time,
you come to Fargo!"
Tweed rumbled sympathetically. With his free hand he stroked his thick black beard, but the other
steered Carney relentlessly toward the waiting hydrofoil. "My dear friend, too much is riding on this deal.
I feel safe discussing the particulars only somewhere secure from the big ears that festoon the sanctified
halls of the Confederation Congress. Forgive me, Valley. I'll have the Bomarc fly you directly back when
we're done. A mere two-hour flight and you'll be back in your office. I apologize again for the
inconvenience, my dear friend."
"Oh, stop this phony bonhomie, Tweed! You despise me." He sniffed, straightening his clothes
diffidently as he spoke.
"I don't despise you, my dear boy!" Tweed protested as the two men took their seats. "Our
relationship has been very cordial and profitable and I owe you for that." He reached over and patted
Carney lightly on the knee. Carney sighed.
The hydrofoil sped away, due west, into the Philippine Sea. Two hours later, 150 kilometers west of
Mindanao, it heaved to alongside Tweed's deep-sea research vessel, the Tammany. To his credit,
Carney had not gotten seasick. He was queasy, but not seasick. He had sat glumly throughout the
voyage, watching the waves as Tweed gorged himself on a tasty lunch and tried to make small talk.
The Tammany was one hundred meters from stem to stern and displaced more than 5,300 metric
tons. She had a crew of ninety-five, was equipped with a 500-horsepower heavy stern winch that could
handle 9.5 kilometers of cables for dredging, coring, and other deep-sea industrial operations. She was
also equipped with two fifty-horsepower hydra graphic winches that could be used for serial temperature
measurements, lowering light instruments such as small coring apparatuses, and taking water samples. But
the Tammany's main purpose was to support the Gotham, Tweed's undersea lab.
Once on the deck of the Tammany, Carney stumbled and would have fallen if Tweed, laughing, hadn't
caught him by the elbow at the last minute. "You'll soon get your sea legs, m'lad," he promised. Several
crewmen stood about, smirking at the landlubber. Carney noted with rising horror that the queasiness in
his stomach was beginning to turn violent. He forced himself to hold down his breakfast. He would not
give these roustabouts the satisfaction of seeing him get sick.
"Captain!" Tweed shouted to a Filipino on the bridge, "Ready the Boss!"
"Aye aye, sir!" the officer responded.
A flurry of activity erupted about the Tammany's stern as winches swung a small submersible out of its
berth and lowered it gently into the swells. It bobbed there merrily as technicians swarmed aboard to
ready it for submersion.
"What...?" Carney asked.
"Valley, my friend, that is the Boss! I use it to visit Gotham, my pride and my joy and the heart of the
operation that's going to make both of us richer!" He slapped Carney hard on the back.
Carney coughed and staggered under the blow. Then a disturbing thought occurred to him. "In that?"
he gasped suddenly.
"You bet!" Tweed answered enthusiastically.
"Wha...? H-How far is the Gotham from here?"
"Four thousand meters, Valley, not far at all."
"F-Four thou-thousand meters...?" Carney pointed at the deck.
"Straight down, m'lad, straight down!" Tweed roared.
Val Carney doubled over and threw up on the deck.
Gotham was actually a small city built on the ocean floor. It was staffed by nearly a hundred
technicians and engineers who field tested the many devices Tweed Submersible manufactured to
support a variety of operations to explore and exploit the oceans on every habitable world in Human
Space. Tweed's great-grandfather, Onan Tweed, had founded the company, which was then run by his
son, and then Oncho's father, Otho. In the fifty years since Otho Tweed's death, Oncho had run the vast
enterprise with skill and cunning. He had been especially successful at getting lucrative government
contracts, those let by the governments of individual worlds and ones the Confederation required. Most
were obtained legitimately. Others he got through a web of contacts painstakingly developed over the
years, people who could influence decisions at the highest levels in the government acquisition process. It
cost him in kickbacks, but Tweed Submersible Recovery could afford them.
And one of the key people in fixing contracts was Val Carney. Not only was Carney the senior
member of the Ministry of Justice Oversight Committee, he was also Chairman of the Acquisition and
Development Committee, where he was able to exercise great influence over the Confederation
government's contracting process. His position on the Justice Oversight Committee also gave him access
to confidential investigative reports, so Carney knew in advance which companies were under
surveillance. Generous bribes to lawyers on the Justice Ministry's staff had more than once quashed
investigations implicating Tweed Submersible and other companies Carney had sweetheart deals with.
Finally, by cutting funding to the Ministry of Justice's Bureau of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Investigations,
he had been able to ensure it had neither the staff nor the money to perform its duties effectively.
It was inevitable Tweed and Carney would strike big deals. The Tweed Hull Breacher would be one
of the biggest for both of them. Carney was counting on their arrangement to help him swing another
deal, truly the biggest one of his life, so he had to treat Tweed with utmost care.
The Confederation Navy needed a hull-breaching device that would permit boarding parties to enter
hostile warships without degrading the vessel's life support systems. Navy warships could breach the hull
of any known vessel and had done so numerous times in combat. Breaches were usually attained by
devices that tore open airlocks, triggering ships' integrity systems, which were designed to instantly seal
ship compartments and prevent loss of proper life support environment. That meant boarders had to
enter a breached ship prepared to operate in a vacuum, then break through airtight hatches in
passageways and into compartments until the airlock could be brought back on line. Then the boarding
party had to blast its way into the rest of the ship to face a crew fully alert and ready to fight back.
Salvage and emergency rescue operations in space were another matter, one the navy handled very
competently, but they required techniques that were laborious and time-consuming. In combat, every
second was vital. So most navy commanders facing a hostile situation preferred to blast a ship into
submission rather than launch a laborious and dangerous boarding operation. That worked well in
combat, but a hostage situation was a different matter.
Not long before, political dissidents had hijacked a passenger vessel, and the navy commander on the
scene used his ship's Marines in a combat-boarding operation. Unfortunately, hostages were being held
in the very loading compartment the breached airlock opened into. The loss of life when the dissidents
began executing the remaining passengers was terrible. To make matters worse, the ambush the
dissidents set for the boarding party nearly wiped it out. As a result, the navy decided that a better and
less predictable technique was needed to get inside a spaceship's hull quickly and safely.
The specification written for the hull-breaching contract required that a successful prototype would: (1)
Be fully transportable on board the smallest navy line vessel. (2) Be able to operate independently of a
mother ship and capable of maneuvering extensively over a considerable distance for up to six hours. (3)
Hold up to a ten-man squad of combat-loaded Marines. (4) Be able to breach any known hull
construction in less than thirty seconds. (5) Be easy to operate, so infantrymen could employ the device
without technical expertise.
The contract also stipulated that once the bid was awarded, the successful bidder would deliver a
prototype within six months of the award and provide all necessary training in the maintenance and
operation of the device. Before the device was put into service, the manufacturer would guarantee a
stock of spare parts to keep a small fleet of them fully operational. The manufacturer retained the right to
license other companies to make spare parts, and the navy agreed to buy them from only the
manufacturer or its licensees at prices to be agreed upon. Finally, the navy would pay for periodic
overhauls to be performed by the manufacturer, who also agreed to keep technical representatives on
call for emergencies.
Only three companies bid on the contract. The first two, Tweed's competitors, submitted sealed bids
far in advance of the closing date of the announcement. Carney managed to get Tweed copies of those
bids, which he underbid when submitting his own proposals. Some contracting officers in the navy were
dubious about giving the award to Tweed since projects that Tweed Submersible Recovery had
previously done had raised questions about overbilling, cost overruns, and the workmanship itself.
Carney had the objections quashed.
This one contract alone would keep a company solvent for years.
"It's a beauty," Tweed sighed. He never grew tired of operating undersea vehicles, and was an expert
at it. Of all the submersibles he'd had designed and built over the years, the Boss was his favorite.
"Yes," Carney agreed, thinking he meant the deal they'd brokered for the hull breacher. His initial
panic at the Boss's steep descent had diminished as Tweed expertly guided the craft toward the ocean
floor. At two thousand meters Tweed stopped their descent and set the onboard navigation system to
maintain their position.
"We won't be visiting Gotham on this trip, Valley. We'll just hang suspended here, have our little
discussion, and then bob back to the surface and get you on your way home."
That was fine with Carney, who had no desire to be anywhere near the bottom of the ocean. He
wondered how much pressure there was on the hull of the Boss at their depth and swallowed nervously.
Tweed leaned back in his captain's chair and put his hands behind his head. "I think we can talk
securely now, Valley. We are the only two people on board the Boss. I have all my facilities swept
periodically to keep electronic eavesdroppers out anyway, but now we have only our own ears to worry
about."
"You got me all the way out here and into this, this..." Carney gestured at the bulkheads. "I mean,
we've done business before without going to these—these extremes."
"Yes," Tweed agreed. "Security is not the main reason I wanted to talk to you under these
circumstances. No. I wanted you to come out here so you could see for yourself what it is I represent."
He paused. When Carney said nothing, he added, "I want you to know that I am a man who actually
works for a living. I make things. I make things that really work. This submersible is an example of that. I
spare no expense when it comes to constructing things—machines, prototypes, or plans—that affect me
personally, Valley."
Carney nodded. Of course Tweed would not stint on the quality of materials or workmanship if he had
摘要：

 PROLOGUEGraakaak,HighChiefoftheCheereek,cockedhisheadthiswayandthatashelookedpasthiscircleofguardstostudythevistathatsweptbeyondtheroofofhisHighTree.Underhiseyes,Cheereekdartedtoandfroabouttheirdailybusiness,theircriesacacophonyofcaws,hoots,andwarbles.HighChiefGraakaaksawthesmallclustersofsharp-eye...

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