The Soldier: The X-Ship Page 13

  Cade shook his head.

  “It’s an inner compulsion, though, huh?”

  “I’m going to try no matter what.”

  “I see,” Halifax said. “So where does that leave me?”

  Cade stared at the man, finally smiling grimly. “Doctor, I’ve decided on a deal, one I believe you’ll appreciate. Once I leave the Descartes, the scout is yours to do with as you please.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful. Unfortunately, I’ll be dead at that point.”

  “If you’re alive and the scout is intact, it will be yours.”

  Halifax glanced at Cade sidelong. He seemed to be thinking. “Would you be willing to put that in writing?”

  “Yes. But it will be meaningless. I’m not Brune. Brune owned the scout and Brune is dead.”

  “You could sign over the scout as Brune.”

  It was on Cade’s lips to reject the idea. He would no longer pretend to be Brune. Then, he reconsidered. What would it matter to him if he was marooned on Avalon IV? “All right, I’ll sign it as Jack Brune.”

  “Great. We might as well do it now.”

  Cade laughed. “Dr. Halifax, I do not have a death wish. I’ll do the signing just before leaving the scout.”

  “You think I could kill a musclebound brute like you?”

  “Tell me. How hard is it to slip poison into someone’s drink?”

  “I’d never do that.”

  “Your promises don’t convince me,” Cade said. “You have my proposal. You’ll have to wait for the dubious signature. In the meantime, we will continue to the Avalon System at our present velocity. I suggest we both begin planning for a way to land me on the surface.”

  “Can I ask why you want to find this woman so much?”

  Cade’s features hardened, and he said, “She woke from a stasis unit. According to you, Group Six pulled me from a stasis unit. Perhaps we fought during the same era, perhaps even in similar units. I believe she knows more about me than anyone else, although that isn’t the extent of my drive, urge, compulsion, call it what you will. There’s something more, something personal.” Cade studied Halifax. “I’m alone in this time, and I don’t like being alone. I’m not sure I belong in this era. I’m adrift, Doctor. Perhaps I’m searching for an anchor.”

  “Meaning what exactly?”

  “Maybe meaning itself,” Cade said. “I could crush your skull with ease. I could beat you in a footrace, leaving you far behind. But that doesn’t give me purpose. I want more. I want to know who I am exactly, and I seek something else beyond that.”

  Cade laughed darkly. “Director G.T. Titus woke me up from my slumber. I won’t thank him yet.” The soldier balled his hands into fists, squeezing as he breathed harshly. “While I don’t belong to this era, I do have a task. This I feel deep inside me. I want to know my task and get on with it. That is what I believe is waiting for me on Avalon IV—the beginning of purpose and meaning, my reason for existence.”

  “You’re asking a lot,” Halifax said.

  “I’m not asking. I’m seeking. There’s a difference.”

  Halifax thought about that and nodded. “Well…Cade, let’s see if this bucket of bolts can make it to the Avalon System. With a compulsion like yours, I’m beginning to believe you might actually find a way onto that damned planet.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The problem of how to get Cade onto Avalon IV lasted for the next several days. The two men racked their brains. They searched the computer for possible methods and talked it out several times for hours. One of the problems was that they knew too little about the orbitals. Halifax’s data came from Clarke. Had the Senior Lieutenant known what he was talking about?

  They both agreed that given what else they knew—nothing—they would take Clarke’s word on the matter. The Patrol orbital or orbitals would fire on the Descartes from the distance of a moon. That wasn’t precise. Did that mean any moon or a specific moon?

  Halifax found an item in the computer that indicated half a million kilometers from a proscribed planet was the danger zone.

  “We now have a distance,” Cade said.

  “Agreed. But how does that help us?”

  They discussed it and concluded it didn’t help at all. Five hundred thousand kilometers wasn’t close enough for Cade to leave the Descartes and begin a space drop from low orbit.

  “Do you even know how to space drop from low orbit?” asked Halifax.

  Cade didn’t answer, as he didn’t know. All he had was a sneaking suspicion he could do it. Was that wish fulfillment or truth? He had no idea.

  “You know,” Cade said, two days out from the Avalon System. “In all the excitement, I haven’t checked the locker and studied the suit. Is there even a spacesuit there?”

  Halifax waved him away. It appeared the doctor was sick of talking about it, and he was cranky after spending so much time checking the Intersplit engine and piloting. There had been excessive humming and shaking for the last two days. He’d begged Cade for them to slow down.

  Cade had declined. He was worried the tech company androids were already on their way to the Avalon System. He wanted to beat them there, and nothing Halifax said had influenced him to change his mind.

  Cade turned and left the piloting chamber, walking all the way down the corridor to a tiny airlock chamber. He opened the substantial locker and stared in shock at what he saw.

  At last, with some straining and groaning, he unhooked a heavy long-range thruster pack and drop-suit. The pack was full of fuel. The drop-suit—Cade checked every seal, microprocessor, breathing tank and chute launcher. After an hour of detailed inspection and a growing sense of familiarity, he concluded this thing was ready to go.

  There was a small computer attached to the suit. He activated it and read the manual for three and a half hours. It was fascinating stuff.

  “Cade! Where are you, Cade?”

  “In here,” the soldier said.

  Halifax hurried through the corridor and poked his head in the airlock chamber. He stared in silence at the laid-out drop-suit. “It looks new,” he finally said.

  “New, fueled and ready to go,” Cade said.

  Halifax cocked his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard any excitement in your voice before this. What does it mean?”

  “The obvious. I have a way to get onto Avalon IV.”

  “Uh…and how is that exactly?”

  Cade pointed at the drop-suit.

  “Okay… We still have the same problem as before—getting you into low orbit.”

  “No, we don’t. I’ve double-checked five times. The thruster pack has the fuel to decelerate me hard once I’ve reached low orbit.”

  “What are you talking about? You think you can travel five hundred thousand kilometers in the suit?”

  “Farther than that,” Cade said.

  “Why do you have to decelerate hard?”

  Cade raised a fist. He raised his other hand as far as he could stretch from the fist. “I’ll leave the Descartes over five hundred thousand kilometers from the planet. I’ll have whatever the ship’s velocity is at that point, before you turn away. I’ll use the thruster pack to guide my trajectory but essentially drift toward the planet, letting its gravity pull me into position. Once I reach relatively near low orbit, I’ll decelerate hard with the thruster pack until I’m slowly moving downward. That’s the point I’ll begin the orbital drop onto the surface.”

  “Okay, okay,” Halifax said, obviously trying to picture it in his mind. “Over five hundred thousand kilometers drifting—coming in fast for a suited man—how long will that part of the journey take?”

  “Seven days should do it.”

  “What the hell? You think you can live in a spacesuit for seven days?”

  Cade shrugged. “This suit has a bodily waste system.”

  “Oh, that’s great. You can piss in your spacesuit to your heart’s delight. But seven days—your muscles will start to atrophy.”

  “No. I�
�ll flex them constantly and pull and push against myself.” Cade gripped his hands and pulled until his muscles were like rigid cables. “The flight is doable.”

  “What if an orbital decides you’re a missile and you become a target?”

  Cade stared at the doctor. “I’ll be dead.”

  “You’re actually willing to—oh, forget it. I know you’re willing to risk your life on a harebrained scheme. Huh? How about that—seven days drifting fast through space?” Halifax pointed at the drop-suit and thruster pack. “So, uh, let me ask you this. Have you stopped to think about who stockpiled the Descartes with the necessary equipment?”

  “Given the existence and placement of Tara Alor in DMR, I imagine the androids did.”

  “And you’re still willing to try such a stunt?”

  “Am I suspicious? Yes. I’ve already began to scour the suit and pack for tracking devices.”

  “That’s no good, Cade. If the androids did it, they’ve probably rigged the computer too. You’ll be their dupe if you use the thruster pack and suit.”

  “I appreciate your point. It’s logical. The problem is: how else do I reach the surface?”

  “I have no damn idea. How do you get off once you want to leave?”

  Cade eyed the drop-suit before regarding Halifax once again. He no longer wanted to argue. He’d become weary of the doctor’s complaining about everything. The man had begun to grate on him.

  “Do you have the ownership papers?” Cade asked.

  “They’re in the piloting chamber. Why?”

  “I’m ready to sign over the Descartes to you.”

  Halifax frowned. “What’s the trick? I don’t get it.”

  “Once we reach the Avalon System, we might not have time to fill everything out correctly.”

  “You figure the androids will be there?”

  “I deem that a likely possibility.”

  “You really want to go through with this madness? Don’t you realize—?”

  “Doctor,” Cade said, interrupting. “I’m not like you. I do not belong to this era. I’m not in love with it. For all I know, dropping onto the planet will be like going home.”

  “I doubt it, but, hey, it’s your life. You’re really going to sign the ship over to me, huh? That’s a shock. I’ll own an ex-Patrol scout. That’s a strange feeling, you know. Okay. Let’s do this.”

  They went to the piloting chamber. Halifax removed the papers from a small compartment, handing them to Cade. He signed over the Descartes, almost using his own name. At the last minute, he scrawled Jack Brune. The act felt surreal, and he found that he’d lost interest in the scout. He didn’t want it because he didn’t want to act as a cipher for Group Six or the tech company androids. He had his own goals in this future time. He’d also been having dreams: they all involved bitter combat on strange worlds. He woke up feeling lost and out of place. He longed to leave the scout and start searching for the woman.

  What would he find on Avalon IV? Would he even have a chance to find out?

  The next day passed with agonizing slowness. He rechecked the drop-suit and thruster pack. He hadn’t found any tracking devices. He ran through the suit computer programming. There was nothing to make him suspicious.

  Could the Group Six people have installed the drop-suit and long-range thruster pack in the ship? Could Brune have done that two and a half years ago, and that memory had simply failed to pass on to him?

  It was galling not having his own memories. It was theft of the worst kind. Cade began resenting Group Six. He began hating Director G. T. Titus. He even went so far as to have Halifax describe the Director to him, in case at some future time, he had an opportunity to talk to the man.

  Meanwhile, the Avalon star grew brighter. It was a single-star system, a G-class star much like the Sun of Earth.

  “We’re in the system’s farther Oort cloud,” Halifax declared later. “We’re going to need to shut down the Intersplit soon.”

  “Use it as long as possible,” Cade said, eager to begin the final leg of his journey.

  Halifax muttered under his breath, but obeyed, even though he was technically the owner of the Descartes now.

  Cade sat at the sensor scope. He studied Avalon IV. It was an Earthlike world, an Eden environment according to the little they knew.

  “Shutting down the Intersplit,” Halifax said ten minutes later. “If I don’t, the star’s gravity will collapse the field, and that might damage the engine.”

  Cade did not respond. He felt the shift, though. A growing hum departed, and there was no more sporadic shaking. Afterward, he began searching with the scope in earnest, trying to find other vessels in the system.

  It was a tedious search and left him exhausted. He studied the asteroid belt for hours, looking for minute clues. He searched the gas giants, studying the upper atmospheres, knowing that was an excellent place to hide a spaceship. At no point was there any indication of other vessels.

  Soon enough, the Descartes reached the inner system, heading for the fourth planet. The first three were rocky terrestrial planets, barren of life and atmospheres. Avalon IV was a different matter.

  Through the scope, Cade began studying the planet anew. It was tropical with blue oceans. Two Patrol orbitals circled it, always staying at equidistant points from each other. The verbal computer warnings from them had already begun.

  “Each time one of them comes around the planet and sees us,” Halifax said, “the orbital initiates a target lock. I can feel the computers over there longing to launch missiles. This is a really bad idea, Cade. We should slow down, study the planet and orbitals for a month, at least. I still don’t see why they won’t blast you in your thruster pack.”

  “First, it’s out of the question to wait a month,” Cade said, still hunched over the sensor scope. “Second, I will be inert, traveling through my initial velocity. I will not act like a missile.”

  Halifax muttered under his breath, and he made noises while moving around on the piloting seat.

  Something about that alerted Cade. He raised his head and swiveled around in time to see Halifax draw a small tube from a compartment under the piloting panel. Without thinking it through, Cade plucked a knife from the top of his boot and pitched it underhand. He did so with uncanny speed. He twitched his hand at the last second and heaved his body to the side of the seat.

  A click sounded from the aimed tube. A tiny dart hissed past Cade, barely missing him because he’d moved. At the same time, the knife twirled. It struck Halifax’s throat. Because of the hand twitch at the last second, the blade didn’t sink into flesh. Instead, the blunt-end pommel struck hard. Halifax gurgled and collapsed.

  Cade popped up, and in two strides reached the prone, choking doctor. Although trembling and hacking, Halifax reached into his coat, gasping as he drew something needle slender. Cade stomped on the hand. Bones cracked under his heavy boot. Halifax screamed.

  Even then, Cade did not kill the doctor. He did kick him in the head, however, rendering the small man unconscious.

  First rolling Halifax onto his stomach and tying the man’s hands behind his back, Cade collected the needle and dart. He debated pricking the doctor with one of them and seeing the results. Instead, he went to the cramped science lab and tested the substances smeared on the tip of each.

  The verdict was quick: kill poison. The doctor had attempted to murder him.

  Cade resisted the first impulse to kill the man in return. He’d given Halifax the scout, but fear ran too hot in the little doctor. Despite the double attempts on his life, Cade felt he owed Halifax. He did not like to renege on his debts. There was another reason. He believed that he had killed many people in his day. In that case, he had much blood on his hands. Maybe that was why he’d become stranded in the future, out of place in a time where he didn’t belong. This was his enforced penance for all those he’d slain during war.

  Was that quixotic thinking, the kind of thoughts that would get him killed? Maybe it was. In
any case, he didn’t kill Dr. Halifax for trying to kill him.

  He didn’t let the man go free either.

  Cade bound the doctor hand and foot, leaving him in his quarters on his cot. He returned to the piloting chamber, read the reader and brought the scout closer to Avalon IV.

  Half a day passed. In another twenty-four hours, the scout would reach its nearest point to the 500,000-kilometer boundary. Cade planned to depart the scout then.

  He went to Halifax’s quarters. The doctor panted on his cot, no doubt having spent hours trying to free himself.

  “Well?” Halifax asked from his stomach. “Are you going to torture me?”

  Cade said nothing.

  Halifax tried to stare him in the eyes, and failed, looking away. “You’re going to get us both killed, you know?”

  “There is that possibility.”

  “I don’t want to die.”

  “I know. I’m leaving the ship tomorrow. I’m leaving you the vessel. Maybe you’ll fire the guns at me. I hope to be far enough away by then, though.”

  “You’re not—?” Halifax didn’t finish the question.

  “No. I’m not going to kill you. I’m not sure why. Maybe I’ve become sentimental. Maybe the Brune memories have something to do with it.”

  “Thanks,” Halifax said in a hoarse voice.

  Cade nodded.

  “If it’s any consolation, I won’t fire the guns.”

  A faint smile spread onto Cade’s face. “Thanks,” he said in return.

  “I’m sorry I tried to kill you. Maybe it would be better if you let me go, and I helped you do this. I tried to—I’m afraid of getting in too close to the planet, the orbitals especially.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Cade said. “Maybe just before I leave, I’ll untie you.”

  “You’re not going to leave me like this all night, are you?”

  “I don’t want to die either, Doctor. And if you think about it long enough, I think you’ll rationalize making another attempt on me.”

  “I promise I won’t.”

  “I’d like to trust you, but I’ll rely on the ropes this time.”