The Tunnels of Rasand by M S Lawson - HTML preview

 

THE TUNNELS OF RASAND

 

By M S Lawson

 

ISBN 978-0-6455245-4-3 (e-book)

 

Copyright© 2025 by Mark Steven Lawson writing as M S Lawson

markslawson@optusnet.com.au

 

Published by Clearvadersname Pty Ltd

 

Website: www.clearvadersname.com

 

All rights reserved. The book contains material protected under international and national copyright laws and treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without express permission from the publisher.

 

Other books by this author

 

Hidden City (ebook, 2025)

 

No Wolves in Los Angeles (ebook, 2023)

 

Obsidian’s War – the winter city (ebook, 2022)

 

Obsidian’s War (ebook, 2021)

 

The Musketeers of Haven – a science fiction story (ebook, 2020)

 

Claire Takes on the Galaxy (ebook, published on the website Dreame, 2019)

 

Darth Vader – The good guy who lost (non-fiction ebook, 2018)

 

A Planet for Emily (ebook, 2017)

 

Disgraced in all of Koala Bay (ebook, 2016)

 

The Zen of Being Grumpy (non-fiction published by Connor Court, 2013)

 

Cover image: devised using the website NightCafe Studio

 

Spelling and grammar note: The spelling in this book is mainly English standard. That is civilisation not civilization; colour not color, and so on, except that the spelling and grammar correction system I used often had different ideas. Readers will simply have to put up with the horror of the occasional slip. Read on.

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

Trainee Patrol Officer Daniel Whyatt was scared. His supervisor, Nathan (Nate) Olsen, did not know his trainee well, but he suspected that the man was asking questions to try to distract himself from his fear.

“Why do you call the creatures below us Morlocks?” Dan said. “You’re the only one who does that.”

“We don’t know if Morlocks are below us at this moment, and patrol officers often use the name,” said Nate, mildly. “It’s a reference to a very old, classic book in which the main character ends up in a world where the good Eloi are above ground and the evil Morlocks, ape-like troglodytes who feed on the Eloi, live below ground.”

“But the Morlocks aren’t ape-like?”

“True,” admitted Nate. “They’re more like maggots with arms, feet, and a very nasty set of teeth and…” The patrol officer saw that his discussion of The Morlock’s appearance was not helping and switched back to the original topic. “There are academics in Rasand City who tell us we should have a more respectful name for the creatures. I tell them they should come out on patrol with us, see the creatures up close, and then tell us what to call the Morlocks.”

“Right – but they can’t get at us here, can they?”

“That’s the theory at any rate,” said Nate. “Part of the reason we’re on patrol is to test these new boxes.”

Both men were sitting on cushions in what amounted to a concrete box with windows and a steel door. The box was sitting on a two metre thick concrete slab, which was supposed to deter the Morlocks from burrowing up from below. The Morlocks were such enthusiastic burrowers, using just their claws, that the desert around Rasand City the two men patrolled was honeycombed with tunnels. Mostly, these were dug without causing any cave-ins, unless the Morlocks chose to have cave-ins as part of an ambush of surface dwellers. Their preferred trick, however, was to emerge suddenly from a hole they had previously dug out and then covered over by one means or another. Once out, the Morlocks would drag their victims into the tunnel, much like crocodiles lunge out of rivers and drag their prey underwater. The victims were never seen again.

Dan Whyatt, a small, round-faced man fresh out of the Rasand academy, was still coming to terms with his fear of the creatures, but Nate, a tall, broad figure tanned by long exposure to the desert, did not begrudge his trainee that fear. He had a small scar above one eye inflicted by a Morlock, and he had stayed alive in a high-risk occupation thanks to being wary, even fearful, of Morlocks.

As part of that general wariness, Nate had brought in a shallow plastic bowl from the armoured patrol carrier parked outside, filled it with water, and placed it on the floor.

“What’s with the bowl of water?” asked Dan.

“It’s an old trick,” said Nate. “Armies besieging fortresses on Earth before the invention of gunpowder might tunnel under the walls. Those inside the walls would put out bowls like this. If there were ripples in the water, then the ground was being disturbed. There was tunnelling nearby.”

“You don’t trust our equipment?” said Dan, gesturing at the box beside him. The box, which had a screen on top, contained a seismograph for detecting movements underground. It was connected to the various radar and infrared sensors on top of the building, designated station five, as well as the sensors in the carrier parked on the concrete outside.

“Always cautious with Morlocks,” said Nate. He thought he saw a small ripple in the water, but it coincided with his trainee shifting his weight and dismissed it. “We should change the subject.”

“What’s the music you play while we’re driving?”

“British pop of the '60s, mostly,” said Nate.

“60s? Which century?”

“Twentieth, so 1960s. There was a lot going on in that decade. There were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, of course, but also the Kinks. If anyone wants to invoke that era, they play the Kinks’ You Really Got Me.”

Nate thought he saw another tiny ripple in the water. “There’s nothing on the detector screen, is there?”

Dan studied the screen on top of the device. “No, all risk factors within normal range. The algorithm isn’t popping at all.”

“Okay, as I was saying, there were plenty of other bands of the era remembered to this day. The Animals, say. Their song "We’ve Got to Get Out of This Place" later became associated with a war in a country called Vietnam, although the song was probably originally about getting out of Liverpool in England. Then there were The Troggs, The Zombies, The Who, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and The Hollies, although I think The Hollies' best work, Long Cool Woman and The Air That I Breathe, didn’t come out until the early 70s. There were also the different sounds of Petula Clark and Joe Cocker. And let’s not forget The Moody Blues and The Yardbirds, which launched the career of one of the greatest guitarists ever, Eric Clapton…”

A distinct ripple formed in the centre of the plastic bowl and spread to the rim.

Nate stood up. “Nothing on the threat box?”

“Nothing,” said Dan. “The system is happy.”

“I’m not,” said Nate, stepping over so that he was closer to Dan, as well as to the door. “Stand up. Safety off.” Each man carried two pistols with two spare clips for each weapon. If the ammunition ran out, as it did, they had what could be described as mini swords, which an earlier age might have labelled dirks. In three years as a patrol officer, which made him a veteran, Nate had been forced to use his dirk once and hadn’t liked it.

“Oh my, oh my!” said Dan, standing up and fumbling with his pistols.

“Calm, now,” said Nate. “Flick the safeties off on both weapons and switch on the generator.”

“Right – right! Generator.”

Dan put one pistol under his left armpit and touched a button on the screen. Nate did not hear the generator start. It was in the patrol carrier outside. But he saw the lights on the grids slotted into metal guides around the windows light up. There was no glass in the windows, just the metal grids that would fry any Morlock that touched them.

The water in the glass shook again.

“Remember, head shots only and fire deliberately,” said Nate. “Put one down and move on. You see, I’ve got a grenade?”

“Ye – yes,” said Dan. “Am I supp... supposed to have one?”

“Just me for now. I’ll throw it so that they can’t block it, then draw my second pistol.”

The water in the bowel shook violently.

“Any moment,” said Nate.

The centre of the floor gave way. The bowl of water spun into the depths, and a heaving mass of Morlocks boiled out, all teeth and claws and rolls of white flesh – intent on grabbing the pair of patrol officers and dragging them into their underworld. Nate fired twice, clean head shots that killed each Morlock targeted, making it loll to one side, tongue hanging out, then threw the grenade. He lobbed it carefully so that it fell behind the mass of Morlocks and inside the hole. Beside him, Dan was firing into the Morlocks indiscriminately, forgetting about head shots.

The window grids sparked. Morlocks screamed at each one and fell away. They were pounding on the door behind him. Then the grenade went off, with a whump! It was designed not so much to explode as to burn, spreading a close relative of napalm on the Morlocks still crowding to get out of the hole they had dug. They screamed. The smell of burning flesh permeated the box. Nate shot two more as the pressure eased, and he spared a second to glance at the screen on top of the threat box. Now, it was showing a red alert and warning of imminent attack. So much for the technology.

“They’re behind us,” shrieked Dan, still firing wildly into the mass of creatures.

“Dan, stop firing! Reload.”

Nate shot two more of the creatures, clambering over the bodies of their fellow, still smoking from the grenade, while Dan fumbled with his pistols. The pounding on the door increased in urgency. Through the din, Nate could hear Morlocks hissing on the other side. A line from a film of long ago went through Nate’s mind – “What can men do against such reckless hate?”

“We can’t stay here,” said Nate, as more Morlocks climbed out of the hole. “We have to get back to the carrier.”

“But they’re outside!” exclaimed Dan, nearly sobbing. “We’ll never get there.”

In response, Nate put his combination earpiece and microphone unit in one ear.

“Carrier two, prepare for orders.”

“Copy,” said the carrier.

“On my command, strafe side of station once. Then strafe top of station.”

“Understood.”

“Dan, grab the threat box.”

“You… You’re kidding,” said the trainee.

“We have to check it back in. Now unplug and grab it.”

“I – I can’t,” said Dan, mouth working in panic.

“Just grab it,” said Nate. “Now.”

Dan holstered one pistol and grabbed the box, jerking it so that the lead came out of the wall plug.

“From now, don’t fire unless you have to,” said Nate. “Carrier two, fire.”

The carrier, which bore a strong resemblance to the armoured personnel carriers used in wars on Earth, opened up with a .50 caliber in an unmanned turret on top of the vehicle, spraying the side of the box with bullets. Old technology, maybe, and very noisy, but still brutally effective. The pounding stopped.

Nate pulled the bolt on the door and kicked it open as the carrier sprayed the top of the box, with an ear-splitting ripping sound, killing the Morlocks waiting to drop on the two patrolmen as they emerged. Dan was about to push through when Nate stopped him with one hand.

“Look down,” he said.

Dan looked to see, in the light from the station, a Morlock emerging from a small hole in front of the door to grab at his leg. The trainee shrieked. Nate shot the creature carefully in the head, then dropped a grenade so that it fell past the body.

“It’s a small hole. Step to one side.”

Dan did so as the grenade went off. More screaming from below. Then he stopped dead. There were more Morlocks on top of the carrier and on the side where the 50-cal could not shoot them.

“Oh no,” he sobbed.

“Remember, head shots,” snapped Nate. “Carrier two, officers approaching hatch. Fire at hostiles when you can get a shot.”

“Copy,” said the carrier. “It was smart enough to tell the difference between Morlocks and the patrol officers with ease, and knew all about hostiles.

Nate noted that it was a beautiful starry night of the type that made him, sometimes, look forward to patrols. He shot two Morlocks directly in front of the carrier hatch. Four others sprang from the side of the carrier. Dan shot at them, hitting one that Nate could see before the 50-cal spluttered into life, sweeping them away. They were at the carrier hatch. Nate shot two more Morlocks that wanted to drop on them, open mouths full of pointed teeth. Pushing and kicking one to the side when it dropped on him. Then he pulled the hatch lever, and they were inside.

Dan dropped the detection equipment behind the carrier driver’s seat with a distinct thud.

“That was terrifying,” he said, breathless. “Can they get us in here?”

“We’ll change position and set the 50-cal to auto fire. That should discourage them enough until daylight. But there is one thing you should do now,” said Nate, looking down.

“What’s that?”

“You should change your pants.”

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

Two days after the Morlocks ambushed the patrol officers, Lieutenant Nathan Olsen was dissecting the apparent failure of the boxes with his superior, Colonel Janet Griggs. The colonel, a diminutive woman with streaks of grey in her auburn hair, had been a top-notch patrol officer in her time.

“I told them those things wouldn’t work,” said Colonel Griggs. “They have to have a garrison of some sort. Leave them unattended, and the Morlocks will burrow in even through hardened concrete.”

“The tunnels were small, ma’am – room for no more than two or three at a time,” said Nate. “We can add steel bars or a plate directly underneath the room.”

The colonel shook her head. “Has to be the whole slab with plates on the side, plus integrated trembler detection systems. Even then, the Morlocks are capable of digging around the whole thing to bring it down. It should really be anchored on a rock or rocky outcrop, so we’re back to where we started.”

The city of Rasand, which contained patrol command headquarters, was built on a major rock formation. The Morlocks had been unable to penetrate that formation, but expanding the city and building the infrastructure required for resources in the desert that surrounded the city on three sides (the other side was an ocean) was proving difficult. One of the roles of Patrol Command officers was to serve as the occasional guinea pig in experiments involving the construction of structures in the desert.

“Don’t think the exercise was a complete waste, ma’am,” said Nate. “The holes were small, like I said, including the ambush hole at the door. The Morlocks had real trouble digging them. The incident also showed that we need a major improvement in the sensor systems. We scanned when we arrived and didn’t detect anything.”

“Check back on the scans,” said Griggs. “The Morlocks would have filled the holes with something before you arrived, not sand, as the equipment would have detected that. But it would be useful to know what material they used. You checked out the tunnels at daybreak?”

“Yes, ma’am. Not a whisper from the Morlocks. I dropped a drone down the main hole, which lasted a long time before they got it, but I didn’t think to check for material that might have fallen out of the hole.”

“No matter,” said the colonel. “We can check on another patrol. By the way, you’re now a captain.” She took a jewellery box out of one of the desk drawers and passed it across to Nate. It contained two silver stars to be affixed to epaulets on his dress uniform. There was already one on each epaulet to signify the rank of Patrol Lieutenant. Now there would be two.

“I am? Thank you, sir.”

“Deserved!” grunted the colonel. “Not that there’s much competition, mind. Everyone talks about taking control of the desert and expanding the city to be ready for the next fleet of settlers, but few want to join Patrol Command.”

Rasand City had been founded by the members of the first fleet of settlers from Earth after negotiations with the main species, the Cactuar, inhabiting the planet. After some early struggles, the city was now firmly established, but more space and facilities were needed to accommodate the second fleet. A major obstacle to that expansion was the Morlocks.

“It’s not bad fun, ma’am,” said Nate cheerfully, looking at his new stars. “If you don’t mind being scared half to death and risk being dragged into a Morlock hell hole.” In fact, one of the reasons Nate opted for patrol command on leaving the academy, as opposed to the two other major options of police and guard, was that it was the least popular pick. That meant much faster promotion.

“Speaking of people being scared, how did Dan Whyatt do?”

“He didn’t like being ambushed, ma’am, but he didn’t fall apart. He was the one who carried the equipment back to the carrier. Needs more experience.”

“Didn’t we all?” said the colonel. “Take him on that resources convey you’ve got later in the week. In the meantime, I want you to go and speak to a group of guards who are taking a carrier out into the desert. They’re by the East gate.”

“They’re going into the desert?” said Nate, astonished. “They know about the Morlocks, right?”

“Yes, and yes,” said the Colonel. “They wouldn’t tell me where they’re going or what they’re going to do. But whatever they’re going to do, they seem to think they’re above using lowly Patrol Command or even taking our advice about protecting themselves. At least I can send you in a last-ditch effort to warn them of the dangers and try to get them to take the proper equipment.”

“I don’t think they’re going to listen to me, ma’am,” said Nate.

“I don’t think so either,” retorted the colonel, “but they’re certainly not listening to me, and you’ve just been fighting Morlocks. You may get through.”

 

Nate found the guards, a group of eight, fussing around a carrier larger than the ones used by Patrol Command, just by the East gate. They were still loading equipment, although it was late morning. Patrol officers started at the crack of dawn and kept driving all day, stopping for the night on a handy rocky outcrop or a concrete bunker on top of a rock. They never drove in a straight line if they could help it and never along the same path twice.

The leader of the expedition, Major Dante, did not bother to return Nate’s salute and listened to the patrol officer with growing impatience.

“Kinda late in the day for you guys to be setting out, isn’t it, sir?” said Nate.

“We’re guard,” said Dante. “We don’t need lessons on how to travel outside the city from junior patrol officers.”

“But you do, sir,” said Nate. “My colonel sent me down because I fought my way out of a Morlock ambush two nights ago, and he’s concerned that you’re not taking the threat from Morlocks seriously enough.”

He was conscious that a few of the other guardsmen, including one guardswoman, had stopped to listen.

“As I told your colonel,” Major Dante said impatiently, “we’re taking the threat seriously enough to bring along a host of mini guns. Let’s see how the Morlocks cope with a storm of fire.”

“They cope well, sir,” said Nate. “Machine gun fire has its place, as I was reminded, yet again, two nights ago. But you’re better off using pistols and shooting each one in the head. The problem is that Morlocks don’t often obligingly charge into a minigun’s field of fire. Their style is to rise up from holes or drop from above, which is no end of disconcerting, especially when you see their mouths up close. You want two pistols like we have with two spare mags apiece and our gladius for stabbing and slashing at close quarters as a last resort.”

“Lieutenant, do you see this?” Dante held up his right hand to show the ring he got when he became a guardsman, marking him as one of the elite.

“Of course, sir,” said Nate. “A fine ring.”

“It means I don’t have to pay attention to shit-kicking patrol officer. I’m not using a sword on a modern battlefield. Now, leave. We have work to do.”

“It’s captain,” said Nate, unabashed, “Just promoted, and you’ll find the Morlocks have not read the manual on infantry tactics. You also need wire grids with a generator to power them to fence in areas. Otherwise, you risk a sudden assault that kills before anyone puts a finger on their trigger.”

“Captain…”

“If worst comes to worst, you can hide out in a cave of some sort if you can work out how to block off the entrance, but you have to ensure they can’t smell you. You can leave out meat to rot or spread garbage around to mask the human smell.”

“Captain!”

“I wish you luck, sir,” said Nate, turning away. “You may need it.”

Nate thought that the major was a lunatic who would not listen, but he soon discovered that his quota of dealing with lunatics had not been filled for the day. After lunch, while deep in planning for a mission to extract crude oil from a distant site, the colonel handed an academic from Rasand University, Dr Josephine Caspigny, over to him. He soon discovered why. She had long, blonde hair, wore a floral dress and round glasses on a narrow face, and declared that she wanted to establish a “rapport” with the Morlocks.

“You want to what?” said Nate, astonished. They were in Patrol Command’s conference room as opposed to the cubicle he rated as a mere captain, who was often out in the field.

“A rapport, as I said. It’s time to stop this endless bloodshed and come to an understanding with these creatures.” Her voice was very soft.

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Nate. “If only there was a way to do it.”

“I’ve been discussing this with the elders of the Cactuar.” These were desert dwellers who roamed the wastes, riding what they called Bhushorots and scraping a living tending herd animals in the occasional oasis and through trading. They also paid an annual tribute to the Morlocks in lives of their people to be left alone.

“What have the Cactuar been telling you?”

“They say they can arrange a meeting with the elders of the Morlock clans to discuss peaceful co-existence.”

“Where is this meeting to take place?” asked Nate.

“A little way outside the city at a place called Bandour. I just need patrol permission for myself and two colleagues to go outside the city.” Dr Caspigny seemed to think this was just a formality.

“Dr Caspigny…”

“I prefer Jo.”

“Jo, have you lost your mind? You know what happened with the last four delegations to the Morlocks?”

“Of course. There was unfortunate miscommunication…”

“Miscommunication! Jo, the delegates are mostly dead. The ones left alive in the last attempt only managed to stay that way because the patrol intervened big time.” This had happened before Nate joined Patrol Command, but he was aware of the history.

“I know that, but this time we have blood assurances.”

“Blood assurances?” said Nate. “Who gave these assurances?”

“The Cactuar Elders.”

“More fool them and you. The assurances are meaningless. The Cactuar are far more frightened of Morlocks than they are of us. They’d hand you over in a heartbeat, knowing that we would be unlikely to enforce the blood assurance. Very likely, the Morlocks promised them a reduction in the number of Cactuar to be taken this year in exchange for delivering a few ripe humans. You go to Bandour, and you’d never be heard from again.”

“You’re wrong!” said Dr Caspigny. “The Cactuar have assured us that we’ll get a fair hearing with the Morlock elders – a firm basis for possible peace.”

“Do Morlocks have elders now? We haven’t been able to figure out their social structure. We suspect that the ones we shoot out in the field are like soldier ants in that they’re born from eggs laid by some sort of queen. But that’s mostly speculation. No one’s keen to go deep enough into their tunnels to work it out.”

“Yes, there are elders. I know the Cactuar language, and their elders have assured me that I’ll be safe.”

“I also know Cactuar,” said Nate, “at least enough to get by, and I’ve discussed Morlocks with the elders you speak of. Those guys have never mentioned anything about Morlock also having elders, or we would have already explored the possibility of contacting them. As far as we know, the Morlocks have a social structure akin to that of an ant colony, where the queen is totally hostile to humans. In any case, given the history of interactions between delegations and Morlocks, there is no way we’re going to let you go to Bandour. It’s a rocky outcrop with a cave that, we believe, connects with the main Morlock tunnel system. You’ll be dragged into that cave and never heard from again.”

“That’s nonsense. I told you I know the Cactuar, and they’ll protect me. I had hoped for a constructive, more open-minded attitude from Patrol Command,” snapped Jo.

“If it were up to me, Jo, I’d give you permission, wave goodbye, and then inform your family of your disappearance and suspected demise. The problem is that when a civilian is killed by Morlocks, as opposed to a patrol officer, there are media stories, and the central admin people come and ask questions. It's all a lot of trouble.

“Your death may prove of some use in ramming through the thick skulls of academia that the Cactuar are terrified of Morlocks, but I’m not going to let you make a martyr of yourself. This meeting has to take place on or near the city gates, and we have to be there. We’re happy to give the Morlock delegation assurance that they won’t be harmed and keep to that promise. If you take that counter offer to the Cactuar, that should kill the deal, as there is no delegation of Morlock elders. They’re just spinning a tale to get you and others out into the desert without us.”

“That’s nonsense,” Jo snapped, standing up. She was offended that a mere captain in Patrol Command would tell her that her carefully cherished academic beliefs were nonsense. “I told you I know the Cactuar, and the offer is genuine. If you insist on being obstructive, then I’ll have to take the matter to the administration.”

“By all means,” said Nate. “Take care.”

She stormed out of the office. As Nate pointed out to the Colonel later, it was a pity that they could not let her go, as it would have meant one less lunatic in Rasand.

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

In the following two weeks, Nate managed to forget all about the guard expedition and Jo, the would-be peacemaker. He had plenty of concerns of his own, including his side business in droid repair. Nate had been a droid technician before applying to the academy and had managed to set up a workshop at his place, a few minutes’ walk from Patrol HQ. Unlike almost everyone else in the city of Rasand, Nate lived on the outskirts in his own small house, unfashionably close to the small enclave of Cactuar permitted to live inside the walls that kept the Morlocks out. A further disadvantage was that the city’s active red-light district was only about a block in the other direction.

The arrangement had been to the disgust of Nate’s girlfriend, Lilly, who had moved out some weeks previously to be with her friends among the tall, fashionable apartment towers near the city centre. Nate was initially sorry to see her go, and then decided that the separation was less trouble as he had no intention of moving. He liked the Cactuar sector with its narrow, multi-storey stand-alone stone buildings crammed together along narrow roads and its bustling shopping centre, which included street stalls. The place felt far more like a market than the giant, antiseptic malls of central Rasand. Trawling through the markets also helped give him, and Patrol Command, clues about what was happening in the deserts outside the city walls.

Nate was at one stall, on his way home from Patrol Command, bargaining with a Cactuar trader in that creature’s language to buy a small trinket. The creatures shared about the same amount of DNA with Morlocks as gorillas shared with humans. The skins bore some resemblance to Morlocks, being pale and pasty and hanging in rolls, but they had heads and faces a human could relate to and wore clothes of a kind – a light fabric covering that made them seem immensely fat to human eyes, as well as a large, wide-brimmed hat tied under their chins so that they did not blow off in the occasional fierce desert winds.

The patrol captain had no interest in the trinket, a hand-made necklace with a gemstone as an amulet, but he bought something every now and then so that the traders would put up with him. The colonel paid the small amounts as expenses and sent the trinkets to a fashionable shop in central Rasand.

“Two credits,” he said, eventually, “my final offer.”

“My children will go hungry,” said the trader, whose name was Lintok. Nate was sure Lintok’s children, if he had any, were doing fine. “I have another item that might interest you, honoured sir. It came in this morning.” Lintock rummaged underneath the “counter” of his establishment, which was a box on wheels mounting an umbrella to shade them from the fierce desert sun, and brought out a ring, which he handed to Nate for inspection.

Nate gazed at the ring for a few moments, puzzled, then his blood ran cold. The last time he had seen such a ring had been on the finger of the guard major. The only way such a ring could get into Cactuar hands was off the fingers of a dead guardsman.

“Four credits,” said Lintok, noting Nate’s evident interest in the item.

“I’ll give you three, and that’s it,” said Nate, sharply. “If you have any others like this, hand them over now.”

“I may have others for a valued customer such as yourself, honoured sir…”

“No bargaining for these rings,” said Nate. “Hand over what you have, at the same price. Otherwise, patrol officers will come here and turn the whole market upside down.”

Surprised at the fierce reaction, Lintok handed over another he had in stock. He still made a good profit on the trade.

“Anyone else have these? Who sold them to you?”

“One of the caravan traders called Barso. A villainous man of the desert. The caravan may still be at the gates.”

Nate ran to the gates, which had been closed for the evening, but after a sharp discussion with the Lieutenant supervising the area from patrol headquarters, Nate was allowed out through a service door. His sudden appearance startled the Cactuar, who were busy setting up tents and cooking their evening meal. Barso proved to be a man without a clan, meaning he was of very low social rank, dozing fitfully by his Bhushorot. The animal resembled, to Nate’s eyes, a giant slug with legs, but it had an immense carrying capacity and could go for days without water. Nate shook the Cactuar awake and explained what he wanted.

“I have one still if you wish to buy, honoured sir,” said Barso, smiling. Like Lintok, he could smell a profit a long way off on a dark night.

“No bargaining. I gave the trader who bought these off you three credits, and that’s what I’ll give you. Hand it over or Patrol Command will be down on your sorry arse.”

Startled, Barso handed over the ring and was paid. As the sale price still represented a handsome profit, he had no reason to complain to the camp council. That was why Nate picked the price, and he was glad of it. His piece of camp theatre had attracted an audience of Cactuar traders and their families who ringed the pair, obviously wondering what this weird human was up to. As the conversation was in the Cactuar language, they could follow what was going on, but they did not understand. Why were these rings so important?

“Where did you get these rings?”

“Honoured sir, I don’t quite remember.”

Nate produced a two-credit coin. The Cactuar were the only people in the city who took cash. In fact, they only dealt in cash. Barso’s tiny eyes gleamed.

“A Morlock” (he used the Cactuar word, which meant terror) appeared beside me five nights ago. I was frightened. But he handed me the rings and said, ‘For the humans,’ then left.”

“A Morlock spoke?”

“Honoured sir, I was also surprised. I had heard of such a thing but never saw it directly. This Morlock was much bigger and wider than the others.”

“Hmmm! How many rings?”

“Honoured sir, there were six.”

“I have only three. Where are the other three?”

“Alas, honoured sir, my memory is very bad.”

Jake flipped the man another coin. “That covers everything else. Where did this talking Morlock approach you?”

“Just beyond The Shade, honoured sir, in a straight line from here.” The Shade was a large and nasty stretch of waterless desert with no rocky outcrops, which the patrol crossed only if it had to. “There were ruins – an old city gone bad.”

“Ruins? Out there? I have not heard of such a thing.”

“We had not seen them there before, honoured sir. The sands shift.”

“Doubtless. Why you? You have no clan.”

The Cactuar spread his hands in a very human gesture. “I sleep always on the edge of the camp. The Morlock did not want to stay.”

Jake caught a movement out of the corner of his eye – a creature on the fringe of the little crowd that had gathered. A Morlock? His pistol was in his hand, safety off, without Jake consciously deciding to do so. Seeing the pistol and perhaps sensing the Morlock, the crowd scattered.

“Are there Morlocks in this camp?” he asked.

“Not by my doing, honoured sir,” said Barso, cowering beside his Bhushorot, which stirred and snorted.

Nate then realised that the light had almost gone. It was dangerous for a human to be caught outside the city after dark. He also thought he caught a glimpse of a Morlock a few more paces away, just behind another Bhushorot. The other Cactuar had all vanished. Was he being led on?

“Last question: Who did you sell the other rings to?”

“The trader Sholam, honoured sir. You will find him on Traders' Way, just beside the main entrance.”

 

In the next two hours, Nate found the trader at his dinner and bought the rings from him at the same price without any of the ritual bartering. He then got through to the colonel at home and wound up speaking with Guard Commander General Isle. Like Major Dante, the general had little time for the ‘amateurs’ of Patrol Command. He was not at all pleased to hear, from a mere patrol captain, that an entire guard’s detachment had apparently been wiped out by Morlocks. He initially refused to believe Nate, only relenting when he was shown the rings via a video link, and the serial numbers stamped on each ring were read out. They all belonged to members of Major Dante’s expedition.

“How did this happen?” he demanded.

“Sir, I have no idea,” retorted Nate. “We weren’t told anything about the expedition, where they were going or why. I spoke to the officer in charge, Major Dante, before they left and told him that I thought the equipment they had was inadequate and that they shouldn’t underestimate the Morlocks. He dismissed me out of hand, telling me that they were Guards and could handle themselves. Looks like he got it wrong, sir.”

“Humph!” said the general. Nate was telling him things that he did not want to hear.

“In any case, sir, how come we’re only finding out about this disaster now? Aren’t you in contact with this expedition?”

Nate already knew that General Isle’s opinion of everyone was low, which meant that his opinion of Patrol Officers was even lower. There was no point in being diplomatic or trying to ingratiate himself with the man. Best to hit this senior officer over the head with reality and be done with it.

“We’ve been in contact. I’m told the latest report came in yesterday.”

“Sir, the Cactuar I spoke to said that he was handed the rings five nights ago, and he had no reason to lie. Five nights is also about the right time to get from where he said he got the rings to Rasand City. I think you need to look again at the messages you’ve been getting for the past week or so… sir.”

“Humph!” The general, evidently, could think of nothing else to say.

“Although you haven’t asked us, we’ll run a patrol out to the location, starting very early in the morning. My understanding is that there were eight members of that expedition. That means two rings are unaccounted for, so there is a faint chance of survivors. The Cactuar I spoke to, sir, said he saw ruins there – an old city gone bad, as he put it.”

“The expedition was looking at the ruins,” said General Isle. “Taking pictures, measurements, that sort of thing, in remote contact with archaeologists. My staff will send you the location.”

Nate wondered why Patrol Command had been bypassed for such a job. Why use The Guard? But then he thought that was a discussion for another time.

“You must call my office when you get on site tomorrow night.”

“No, sir – the night after. We cannot approach the site directly. We don’t cross the Shade – the big desert between here and the site – unless we have to. We’ll go via the rocky ground to the East. In any case, there is almost certainly some sort of ambush set up in the shade and at the site itself. The Morlocks handed the rings over to the Cactuar I spoke to, I guess to provoke a response. They must have been wondering why no one else had come to the site to be ambushed. I anticipate a fight no matter what else happens.”

“Humph!” Again, the general could think of nothing else to say. Although he appreciated that this upstart patrol captain probably knew what he was doing, he was not about to acknowledge that. He also knew that his beloved guard would be unable to mount a patrol in less than a day and might simply fall into one of the traps that the captain thought had been set up. He had no choice but to leave the matter up to the despised patrol command.

“Keep my office informed,” he said, then hung up. He did not bother to say, ‘good luck,’ which was a shame, as Nate thought he would need all the luck he could get.

 

CHAPTER FOUR

 

After two days of hard travelling, Nate topped a ridge to the northeast of the location he had been given and stopped for a moment to take in the awe inspiring sight.

When Barso had mentioned ruins, Nate thought there might be the tops of a few buildings showing through the sand, or perhaps a few marble pillars that looked as if they had once belonged to a Roman temple lying around. The patrol officer had seen a few such sites in his travels. A civilisation of some sort had existed in the area long before the humans had turned up at Rasand, in search of a place to settle, and negotiated a foothold on the surface that had become the city.

But the site Nate saw when he topped the ridge was massive. A mosaic of buildings with stone walls but without roofs stretched as far as the eye could see. How had this been missed by the surveys? Overcoming his initial shock, Nate drove down that final ridge and, for the first time he could remember, drove a Patrol Command carrier down a street, albeit one paved with stone and with sand lying in piles rather than some substitute for asphalt.

How was he supposed to find whatever was left of the guard party in this vast area? In the distance, along the road he was using, Nate thought that the ruins seemed higher, so he headed for that area. After another ten minutes, he found himself in an area featuring upright pillars and the occasional statue of Cactuar-like creatures. He turned right at an intersection – again, something he had never previously done in a Patrol Command carrier – stopped in front of a gigantic, partially intact building, and got out.

That was incautious, as Nate well knew. But it was still daylight, and scans indicated that the city was built on bedrock. That rock and the stone used by the city builders meant that the Morlocks would not easily burrow underneath. For the moment, at least, he could behave like a tourist and admire the building, and what a building it was.

About the height of a large cathedral on Earth and twice the length, much of the front half of the building had collapsed into two piles of rubble. That left a still very impressive structure with a domed roof supported by a thick wall and massive buttresses. Nate used the powerful flashlight he had brought with him to check the interior for Morlocks, but found nothing aside from more debris. Then he thought to look up at the ceiling, which had once been painted with what must have been a handsome blue and decorated with what looked to be stars. A representation of the night sky? If so, why was it blue rather than black? The area at the far end had been railed off, with a statue of a Cactuar in robes, kneeling and holding his hands in front of him, his right hand wrapped around the fist of the left. Nate was not an art critic, but it seemed to be a fine statue. There were also paintings on the walls; faded but still discernible. Some form of temple? One for the archaeologists.

Nate walked out a back doorway, with no door, thinking that sightseeing did not get him any closer to finding what was left of the guard detachment and through what might have been a place for the officiating priest to prepare for services, if that’s what the building was for, and out to the back of the complex. There, on the next block, was the guard carrier he had last seen being prepared by the guard detachment in Rasand City for their trip.

He walked over to find it locked. The Morlocks had tried to get in, pounding rocks against the lock and against the windows, which had been designed to take such punishment. To unlock it, he had to walk back to his own carrier and argue with a junior officer at guard headquarters who knew nothing about the situation to get the vehicle unlocked remotely. Finally, the general himself intervened, and Nate was able to drive around to the guard carrier and walk in. His first act upon getting the codes required to access the carrier’s AI was to disable the automated situation reports that the vehicle had been transmitting by satellite for more than a week. No one had been properly monitoring the detachment and speaking directly with them every day, as was standard practice in Patrol Command.

But what had happened to the guard detachment? A large single-story building about twenty paces from the carrier had plenty of dried blood and the hordes of flies that went along with it, even on a planet far from Earth. Guard equipment, including weapons dropped by the defenders in the last moments, was scattered about.

Nate could have told them, at a glance, that the building was no good at all for defence against Morlocks, as it had no roof. As well as being excellent burrowers, the Morlocks were skilled climbers and quite capable of coordinated attacks. They would have distracted the human defenders of the building with an assault on the doors and windows on one side – bad enough without electrified wire grids on the windows to deter them – then swarmed over the walls in places where the humans could not have seen them coming. Casualties did not bother them in the least. Of course, such an assault required large numbers of Morlocks to gather, but the detachment seemed to have broken another cardinal Patrol Command rule: never stay too long in one place.

The place was quiet now, but Nate could picture the fight all too well. The guards had been mowing down the waves of Morlocks they could see. Shell casings were everywhere. Suddenly, more Morlocks swarmed over the walls, swamping the defenders before they even had a chance to bring their weapons around.

As was the Morlock habit, all bodies, alive or dead, Morlock or human, had been dragged away. A trail of blood led away from the building across a large, raised stone area on which the building had sat – the structure probably had something to do with the gigantic temple-whatever complex – across the road and into a building that had once been a tower. A partial collapse had thrown a lot of rubble into the street, leaving a round three story stump of white stone blocks about the diameter of a mid-sized office block. Nate followed the trail into the tower, switching on the powerful flashlight that he carried, and then to an inner room containing a series of low, round stone enclosures. After a moment, the patrol officer realised that the objects must be water wells. Geologists had long suspected that there must have been an artesian basin underneath sections of the desert, holding colossal amounts of water.

Now, one of the wells served a different purpose. Nate found blood trails on the ground leading up to it, as well as blood on the edge of the well. When he leaned over to examine the dry bottom far below, he thought he could see a sizable, dried blood stain, but no bodies. Very likely, the bodies of the guard personnel had been dragged to the well and thrown in, and then other Morlocks had taken the bodies away. The well must be connected in some way with the main Morlock tunnel system. The humans might have been alive by the time they had been dragged to the well - Morlocks liked to take their prey alive - but that was at least a week ago.

As there was no indication of the footholds and handholds Morlocks often dug on the sides of such shafts to help them climb, Nate thought that the well was only used to throw the bodies down. Maybe they used one of the other wells to come up? He was about to check the others when, at the limit of his hearing, he heard the ‘tap’ of one stone being pushed onto another and a faint ‘Tuk!’, the sound that Morlocks made when moving around. He smelt the pungent odour of Morlocks. The odour was faint but unmistakable.

Thoroughly alarmed and reminded that the sun was due to set soon, Nate’s main pistol was in his hand without the patrol officer being consciously aware that he had drawn it. He backed away. Even in that short time, he thought the smell had become stronger. Out in the street, he beat a hasty retreat to the scene of the last stand, thinking that he would check to see what equipment had been left behind, then find a place to fortify. Much of the guard detachment’s equipment was still there, including weapons and camping gear – the Morlocks had no interest in such things – but not the food, Nate realised. A few wrappers and packages had been left on a table set up as a make-shift larder. A large, round container of water connected to a device that extracted moisture from the early morning desert air was almost empty.

Then Nate thought to check the ground for footprints. He was no desert tracker, but he knew something of the craft, and there had been no wind to wipe away faint trails. Outside the building, on the edge of the heavy imprints of the attacking Morlock, he found boot prints leading away. They were small; perhaps that of a woman? He followed the prints across the road to another raised platform of stone blocks, which might have been connected with a small, Greek-style temple complete with columns and a tiled roof, a little further away.

He came to a wide stone ramp and followed the boot prints down that ramp, pistol at the ready. At the bottom of the ramp was a large tunnel filled with the odour of rotting meat. The tunnel stretching off to the right might have led to the bottom of the wells Nate had just been inspecting. To the left, the tunnel stretched off into the distance. As the boot prints he had been following were lost in the numerous trails of passing Morlocks, Nate was momentarily at a loss. Just passed the ramp exit was a tunnel T-Junction with the branch tunnel running in the direction of the temple Nate had just seen. There was no way he was going to examine all of the tunnels he could see, let alone explore them to their end. It was getting very late. There was only one thing he could do.

“Patrol Command,” he yelled. “Any guard survivors?”

He yelled again, then he heard a muffled yell from the side tunnel. He hurried around to find that it was also the source of the stench of rotting meat. An alcove had been walled off with whatever the occupant had been able to find, which was mostly rubble, as well as a few bags of dirt and some spindly bushes that grew here and there in the city. Those bushes were now being pushed aside to reveal, in the light of Nate’s flashlight, a young guardswoman.

“You!” said Nate. He recognised her as one of those in the guard detachment who had listened to him when he spoke to Major Dante back in Myste City. He inspected the wall she had built. “You remember what I said to the major.”

“Yes, I remembered,” she said, looking solemn.

In Myste City, Nate thought she was pretty, with auburn hair cut short, brown eyes, and a soft voice that gave her a girl next door vibe. Now, she looked tired and drawn and needed a shower.

“Right down to the smell. What’s the odour?”

“I opened some of the meat packets we had and put them over there.” She pointed at the other side of the tunnel, where a few plastic packages had been strewn around to stink to high heaven and be enjoyed by the local ants. Even on Myste, countless light years from Earth, there were ants.

“That’s good, they didn’t get your scent,” said Nate, impressed. “You survived. Is it just you?”

She shook her head. “Guardsman Tyler, here,” she said, indicating a form lying on a ground sheet. “He’s asleep at the moment, thank the stars. He’s feverish and in a lot of pain, and it's getting worse. A Morlock chewed on his leg, but he managed to get away and hide under a pile of Morlock bodies. I did what I could.”

Nate knelt beside the injured man. His wounds had been carefully cleaned, as far as he could tell, then bandaged using what the guardswoman could find in the first aid kits at the camp. He put his hand against the man’s forehead. The guardsman was burning up.

“Well, um, sorry, what was your name?”

“Rachel Crystal – trainee guardswoman.”

“I’m Nate, pleased to meet you. Tyler has been infected by the Morlock who bit him, but I do have antibiotics in my carrier that could fix it. You did what you could with the leg, but we’ve gotta do more. Rachel, we’ve gotta roll, now.”

He hoisted Tyler over his shoulders in a fireman’s lift.

“We’ve gotta fortify for the night, as well as work on Tyler.”

“Wait, we’re not going to blow town?”

“We don’t drive at night,” said Nate. “The lesser of two evils is that we find some place to fortify and wait for dawn, which is gonna be real interesting. There are a lot of Morlocks close, and they’ll come calling tonight.”

 

CHAPTER FIVE

 

“You mean no one in the guard control room knew there was a problem here until you were offered a guard ring for sale?” said Rachel.

After Tyler had been shot full of antibiotics and pain killers, his leg bone had been properly braced, and she had eaten a synthetic apple plus some of the meat treats Nate had brought along in a package (he had been looking forward to eating them himself) Rachel had cheered up to the point of asking why rescue had taken so long to arrive. They talked while she helped Nate secure a wire grid on the back entrance to the building he had chosen. This involved drilling a series of bolt holes in the concrete – work that had to be done quickly and done outside the building. He had opted for a small building attached to the giant temple, as it had a roof and a giant buttress blocked one side.

“Even when I showed General Isle pictures of the six rings I got from the traders, he argued,” said Nate, as he drilled another hole. “He said they were still getting messages. I told him he needed to take another look at the messages. The Major must have set the sat-radio in your carrier to report automatically in case they forgot, and no one was talking directly to them. He also must have locked the carrier.”

“I couldn’t get in,” said Rachel, “and all the phone assistant units were in there. We’re only allowed personal calls and text responses at certain times. My mother and boyfriend were going crazy.”

Nate was mildly interested that Rachel had a boyfriend, but his overriding problem was to keep everyone alive that night.

“You’ve reassured them, I hope,” said Nate, “and told them not to bother you for the moment, as you still might die.”

“Yes, I did, although I left out the dying part. Mum had already been to guard HQ to ask why I wasn’t responding, only to be told that everything was okay when it wasn’t. Now, she wants to go there again to give them a piece of her mind.”

“As she should. Your guys were careless. But maybe your mum should hold off for now.”

They walked around to another door in the temple – by then, it was pitch black inside the building, which was a cause for concern. Nate tried not to hurry as he walked. Rachel had already survived a lot without panicking; he did not want to alarm her any more than he had to. However, the Morlocks were out there in the darkness, looking for them; he could feel them, and they were still far from finished setting up for the night.

“Go and connect that rear grid to the generator,” Nate told Rachel. “I’ll put a grid on the side window.”

Nate drilled four holes around the side window and hammered in four fastening bolts in double-quick time – the grids were always fastened on the outside so that they could not be pushed in - then walked around to the front entrance to their little fortress, which they had blocked off by parking the two carriers in a V configuration, leaving just enough room for Nate to squeeze through. He could hear Morlocks down the block, he thought. They did not speak or call out, but made the ‘tuk, tuk, tuk’ sound when they were just walking around.

He fastened grills on the two front windows while Rachel set up a control station. This consisted of two screens on a fold-out table taken from the patrol carrier, plus two director’s chairs. A Morlock appeared suddenly on top of the Guard carrier, hissing, to be shot through the head by Nate and fall off.

“That’s done it,” muttered Nate. “Now they know we’re here.”

They carried Tyler in from the patrol carrier where they had left him, on a stretcher. He was drifting in and out of consciousness but considerably more comfortable than he had been.

“Why don’t we just get into one of the carriers for the night?” asked Rachel.

“The patrol carrier is our last resort refuge,” said Nate, “but the Morlocks have been known to drag carriers to a hole they’ve dug – they’re very strong - and push it in, which is no end of disconcerting if you happen to be in it, or so I’m told. This way, we keep the Morlocks off the carriers, for the most part, while the carriers help keep the Morlocks off us. That said, we have to fasten the carriers to bolts in the ground. Speaking of Morlocks, I see on the thermal scan for the temple-side door that there’s one checking out the grill. Can you discourage it?”

Rachel took a spare patrol pistol Nate had given her, as it was better suited for that type of work, walked up to the grill, shone her flashlight through so that he could see the creature, and then shot it in the head.

“It’s discouraged,” he told Nate.

The Patrol officer thought that the guardswoman had adapted well.

They finished the work and ate dinner, watching the Morlocks mill around outside on monitors built into the carriers.

“We’re not going to discourage them with a few bursts from the carrier turrets?” asked Rachel. These were automated turrets, and the guard weapon, in particular, was a large-calibre cannon with rotating barrels that could sweep away whole waves of attacking Morlocks with ease.

“No point,” said Nate. “Casualties mean nothing at all to these guys. Think of them as worker ants. If they get onto our roof, then the patrol turret will clean them off with a few shots. If we get really swarmed, then we’ll use the guard weapon to relieve the pressure.”

“Are we going to get swarmed?”

“Could do. The problem is that you guys were here too long, which attracted a lot of Morlocks to the area, and they were kept here while whoever or whatever controls them waited for the inevitable relief force.”

“This Morlock that speaks.”

“Guess so,” said Nate.

“If we’re going to get swarmed, maybe we should do something about the front door.”

“Prefer to leave it open so we can easily get to the carriers, but we can set up one of those mini guns we salvaged from the guard’s building to spray bullets through the door as a last resort. We’ll wanna make sure neither of us is in the way when it starts firing. One for the back door, too.”

Then something spoke in Cactuar, in a loud, clear voice.

“Saldi disha. Hiva kaibun utangi gacomen na wenzeku.”

 

Nate got up, strode outside to the space between the carriers and the building, and yelled.

“Ku non tunsabti.”

 

To Rachel, the speech sounded like a collection of hisses and snarls.

“You speak the language?” she said when Nate returned.

“Sure, but not very well. It's not suited to the human mouth and tongue and takes a while to learn.”

“What did you say?”

“The creature out there said, ‘We are coming, and that we’ll soon join our comrades.’”

“Oh my,” said Rachel, gasping.

“I said Why are we waiting?”

The guardswoman shrugged. “About the only response we can make.”

 

The humans finished their preparations while the Morlock crowd outside thickened into a dense half-circle about twenty paces from the carrier barricade. A handful of Morlocks who climbed over the buttress to jump on top of the roof were swept away by the patrol carrier’s machine gun. The turret housing the machine gun could be elevated almost a metre to get a clear shot in such situations.

“You know, I think we have enough Morlocks in a group to justify a sweep with the Guard’s weapon,” said Nate. “You do the honours. Just one sweep to warm up proceedings.”

Rachel obliged, cutting down the Morlocks they could see. The rest scattered and hid. Then someone or something shouted, and the creatures came on at a run or perhaps at a fast waddle, as their bodies were not designed for running. Rachel had time for two more sweeps, which seemed to do little more than delay the swarm before the Morlocks reached the carriers, shaking them. They tried pulling the vehicles only to find that they were tethered with wires and bolts. They tried pushing them only to find that they were braced by thick rods between the wheels and the wall of the room – rods that were part of each patrol carrier’s equipment. They climbed onto the vehicles, only to be shot by the turret guns. Nate stepped out the door to toss grenades over the carriers, where they exploded with a satisfying ‘whump,’ spreading liquid fire on the Morlocks who had been trying to move the vehicles, making them scream.

That caused a lull in the attacks, which Nate used to clear away the Morlocks who had reached the open side window, using an assault rifle to shoot carefully through the grid to avoid damaging it and, importantly, ensuring that the gun barrel did not come into contact with the powered wires. He did the same for the back entrance, where the Morlocks had somehow managed to get a hook onto the grid protecting it – that was a worry.

“What can I do?” said Tyler. He’d come out of his delirium and realised that they were under attack.

“We need a guard on the back door,” said Nate. “Grab one of the chairs, sit there, and shoot anything that tries to get a hook on the grid.”

“You got it!”

The second rush, an hour later, was even fiercer.

“There’s so many of them,” said Rachel.

“Careful of the ammunition for the minigun,” said Nate.

A host dropped down on the roof from the buttress in a continuous, rolling crash – Nate was glad that he had checked the strength of the roof – then tried swinging down into the gap between the carriers and the wall. Most were shot by the guard carrier’s autocannon. Two were fried by the grid on one window. Nate decided not to turn on the Guard machine gun they had left at the entrance. Instead stepped to the door and shot each Morlock through the head.

This time, the Morlocks in the main rush tried tipping the carriers, only to find that they were too close to each other and to the wall. Then Nate threw a couple more grenades, and the attack petered out.

“Oh man, that was worse than the attack that broke our group,” said Tyler. “But we’ve survived – for now.”

“For now,” agreed Nate. “I think there’ll be at least one more assault and probably two worse than that one, but not for a couple of hours. You up to watching the monitors for a couple of hours?”

Tyler nodded, hobbling over to the table and dragging his chair.

“Rachel, two hours of shut-eye for us. You want the stretcher or the chair?”

“I’ll take the chair,” she said.

Tyler let them have three hours before reaching over to slap Nate on the leg and then throwing a spent cartridge at Rachel.

“Looks like the Morlocks want to throw another party for us.”

“Oh great,” said Nate, rolling off the stretcher to look at the displays. “Yep, they’re in a big semicircle. Probably more out the back and another lot behind the buttress. The good news is that if we survive this wave, we’ll probably last the night.”

“Is there bad news?” asked Rachel.

“We might not survive the attack. Everybody to their posts.”

They came on in a vast mass of waddling flesh, mouths open in inane grins, tongues hanging out. Rachel cut down a host in two sweeps just as a continuous series of thuds on the roof, muffled by the bodies of the previous wave, indicated the arrival of yet another host. Nate used the patrol carrier autocannon to shred the newcomer Morlocks before they had a chance to swing down, but one got to the open door, where the patrol officer shot it in the head. Its body formed a handy extra obstacle at the door. He was aware of Tyler banging away at the back door and the smell of burning flesh from Morlocks trying to grab the grill.

Rachel swept the incoming wave twice more with the guard carrier’s turret gun, heaping up bodies. The Morlocks kept coming, just climbing over their comrades without pausing, mouths still agape. Nate used the patrol autocannon to clear away most of the creatures from the side window, shooting a few of the closest through the grill. He then swept the top of the carriers. Still, they came on, spilling off the top of the carriers into the gap between the door and the carriers. Nate shot these through the head, piling them up so that they blocked the doorway. The humans would have to dig themselves out later.

Then a shout from Tyler brought him to the back door. Somehow, the Morlocks had ripped down the grill – he worked out later they’d managed to get non-conductive hooks attached to ropes around the wires on both sides and then pulled. Nate picked up the Guard portable mini cannon they had left there and fired. The attacking Morlocks dissolved in a spray of blood and flesh.

“Keep them off me,” he told Tyler, then stepped through, disconnected the grill, and wrestled it from under the bodies of several Morlocks.

“Get down,” said Tyler. Nate dropped as the guardsman fired.

Nate got up again and dragged the grill into the room.

“Keep ‘em busy a little while longer,” he said as he grabbed the drill and bolts used for fastening the grills.

Tyler fired again, partially blocking the rear entrance with bodies.

“Single shots now,” said Nate, as he put the grill against the back entrance. It would just have to be fastened from the inside.

“How are we going out front, Rachel?”

Bodies blocking everything,” said the guardswoman. The guard carriers’ minigun chattered again, briefly. “Nothing left alive on top of the carriers. They might have given up.”

Nate fastened the grill with four bolts – the strength required to put it down previously must have been incredible. He dragged two Morlock bodies from the front door, stacked them against the bottom of the grill, insulating them against the metal with the stretcher Tyler had been using, and reconnected the generator. A Morlock rushed into the back doorway and fried itself against the grill.

“The stink!” said Tyler, waving his hand in front of his face.

“That should be it,” said Nate, “only a few more hours and we can blow town – although we’ll have to move bodies to get at the vans. That’s going to be a real pain.”

 

CHAPTER SIX

 

One person impressed by Nate’s exploits when the party returned to Rasand City, along with the two carriers and the guard equipment they were able to salvage, was Colonel Griggs. One person who was thoroughly unimpressed was General Isle, who dismissed Rachel from the service. Her crime was not to die along with her comrades. Instead, when the final assault swamped all her comrades, she had jumped on the table, vaulted over the wall, and run for her life, head-shotting any Morlocks that got in the way. Being a survivor was apparently incompatible with the traditions of the Guard.

“That’s so unfair,” said Nate indignantly when the colonel told him. “She wasn’t to blame for the disaster. Major Dante should never have gone out with so little experience of Morlocks and should never have stayed in one spot so long, so far from the city.”

“Exactly right,” said the Colonel. “She went back and found her comrade…” She paused to look at Nate’s report, “Tyler, still alive under a pile of Morlock dead, and kept him alive until you turned up, days late because those idiots didn’t properly supervise their patrol. They should be hanging medals on her for at least salvaging something from this debacle, not sacking her. Relying on automated messages, honestly, the general should resign. In fact, that’s what the dismissal is all about, diverting blame – that and the Guardswoman’s mother turning up at guard HQ and giving the general a piece of her mind.”

“I got the impression from Rachel - Guardswoman Crystal,” said Nate, “that her mother was a forthright woman, unfortunately for her career.”

“You say in your report that both she and this Tyler Green behaved well.”

“Like veterans. I was surprised. I’m not sure I would have survived by myself. It was such a huge assault.”

“Sounds it,” said the Colonel. “With this Morlock that speaks.”

“We even had a conversation – just an exchange of a threat and a demand, but whole relationships have started with less, I guess.”

Colonel was amused. Nate was the best of her patrol officers and a favourite, thanks to his ability to occasionally make light of the patrol’s often deadly work.

“I was thinking of offering her a job as a patrol officer.”

“If you can get her, she’d be great, although she might see the patrol as a come down after the guard.”

“True,” said the colonel, “but she may not have many options. I’m told it's difficult for a cashiered guardsman to get work. I’m sure it’s the same for the women.”

“If you want anyone to train her, then I’m happy to volunteer.”

“I bet,” said the colonel. “We don’t get many female patrol officers.”

“She has a boyfriend.”

“Oh yes. Is he also guard?”

“Didn’t ask. Isn’t your husband a former patrol officer?”

“What happened back then was all above board,” said the colonel firmly. “I’m worried about what might happen on my watch, and I don’t want romantic subplots on patrol. You will stick with Daniel for the moment. He needs training. And you’ve got plenty of other work. I want you to go and speak to the head of one of the Senate committees for me.”

“Which one?”

“The one that wants to set up a spaceport.”

Now that the city was firmly established, after a generation, the humans wanted to reach the mother ship that had brought them from Earth. It was in a stable orbit around the planet, still intercepting transmissions from the very distant home planet and serving as a limited surveillance platform. The colonists also wanted the ability to launch additional satellites, as well as properly receive the next fleet of settlers. For that, they needed a flat, open patch of ground some distance from the city for a launching and landing pad, and the Morlocks were not cooperating.

“Who’s head of the committee?”

The colonel flicked through a couple of notes on her desk. One of her eccentricities was to write on paper and leave the notes scattered around her desk.

“Senator Michael Berensina.”

It had to be him, Nate thought. Well, it had been a few years. He might not remember their last meeting.

“Make an appointment. Also, the chancellor wants to speak to you.”

“She does? You told her I’m still a captain, right?”

“She knows who you are, and she’s seen the pictures you and the guards brought back from that ruin and wants to discuss them.”

“Me? I don’t see how I can add anything to the images she’s already seen. I don’t know much about art, and even less about religious imagery.”

“She does. She studied both of those subjects for a time. Now she wants to see you. Go, see her, make her laugh. Tell her you think General Isle was grossly unfair in his treatment of Guardswoman Crystal. I’ve already made my feelings clear on the issue, but you were at the site. You can tell her first hand what happened.”

“I can certainly do that.”

Two days later, Nate found himself in full dress uniform, including long pants and a double-breasted jacket with two stars on each epaulet proclaiming him to be a captain, in a conference room, facing Senator Berensina and three other members of the city’s Senate who wanted to build a spaceport somewhere, almost anywhere.

The Senator, a tall, white-haired man with a prominent chin and an air of someone who expected to be obeyed, looked at Nate, puzzled.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere, Captain?” he asked.

“I used to work for you, Senator, under Mr Berenson. I was an android technician before I joined the Patrol.”

“I see. There’s a small android workshop out near the East Gate, in the Cactuar area.”

“That’s me, senator,” said Nate. “Non-urgent repairs on servitor droids in farming or manufacturing. It can be more convenient to deliver units to me for repair when I get back from patrol rather than send them off to the major workshops on the other side of Rasand.”

“Humph!” said the Senator. Nate was competing with his giant droid workshops, albeit in such a small way that it was not worth further discussion. “We trained you well, it seemed. Now, about the site for the spaceport?”

Nate debated different sites with the committee for nearly two hours. The senators preferred one site, which Nate and the colonel considered completely unsuitable, as it consisted entirely of deep sand with only soil underneath. They could put pylons into that substructure, but Morlocks could also burrow through soil with ease. In any case, as Nate could tell them from direct experience, the concrete they were hoping to use was not Morlock proof, no matter what the manufacturers claimed.

“You can understand why we’re reluctant to accept the advice of patrol officers following last week’s disaster,” said Senator Berensina during the discussion, grinning unpleasantly. The other senators looked on disapprovingly.

“You mean the guard detachment getting wiped out,” said Nate. “What has that to do with us?”

“Well, isn’t anything that happens beyond the city the patrol’s bailiwick?”

“We’d certainly like to think so,” Nate said, “but the guard set up that expedition and pursued it on their own. They ignored all our advice, made several fundamental errors, and paid the price. Guard HQ didn’t even know the detachment was in trouble until we found out by chance, and they didn’t believe us.” Nate told them the story.

“You were at the site?” said one of the other senators.

“That’s right. I went there the moment we realised the detachment had been overrun, although the guard never requested our help.” Nate was careful not to mention General Isle by name. A mere captain could not criticise a general directly. “You haven’t been told any of this?”

The senators shook their heads. As always, Nate was amazed that even experienced operators, as Senators should be, simply accepted whatever story they were told without checking it.

“I’ll see if Colonel Griggs can send you my report plus her comments on the incident directly.”

Eventually, the committee opted for a partially rocky site with shallow sand on top of soil for the part that was not bedrock. The pillars, base, and sides of the gigantic slab were to be coated in metal with layers of metal bars at different levels. An anti-Morlock wall, fitted with autocannons similar to the one that ringed Rasand, would surround the site, backed by a sophisticated vibration detection system. Nate also recommended shallow saucers of water and told them why.

“The technology failed when you were in that concrete hut, but the dish of water worked?” said another senator.

“Yes, sir. Worked better than the technology,” said Nate. “Construction of this spaceport may be very expensive, but at least it won’t result in a disaster.”

After extracting a concession that the patrol would have some oversight of the plans and construction of the spaceport, Nate was able to grab lunch at the building’s public cafeteria before taking an elevator to the very top floor to announce himself to an assistant at a reception desk. A security droid stood behind the assistant; one of three that perpetually patrolled the floor containing the chancellor’s office.

While waiting on the chancellor’s pleasure, he took in the breathtaking view. As it happened, he was looking East towards his home and the foothills beyond Rasand City’s walls, which he often used to move around while on patrol. Far beyond the foothills, at the limit of his vision, was an impressive set of mountains where, Nate knew, a ski resort was being built. The good citizens of Rasand were demanding holiday destinations.

To his right, the South, was a deep ocean that provided much of the food and minerals that the city required. The ocean contained giant sharks and Primeval Killer Whales that could swallow drone submarines whole, but these were easy to track and mostly left human installations alone. The Morlocks were in a different category.

Nate’s reverie was broken by the arrival of a stern looking male assistant who led the way to the Chancellor’s office. He knocked once, opened the door, and waved the patrol officer through. Nate found himself in a plush office with a view looking South over the ocean, rather than East. At a large desk, to one side, sat the Chancellor, typing away.

Nate was aware that Her Excellency Mackenzie Markovic was an extremely able woman with high approval ratings who could whip the often fractious Senate into line without creating enemies. However, not being one to pay much attention to politics, he was unaware that Her Excellency was still very young for the senior position she held, being in her early thirties or just a few years older than the patrol officer, and was attractive. Her dark hair, cut short, framed an elf-like face, and she had sparkling blue eyes which hinted at a strong sense of humour. In the slang of far-off Earth, the chancellor was “a total babe”.

When she saw Nate, the chancellor sat back, crossed her arms, raised one eyebrow, and said, “Oh, okay.”

“Your Excellency,” said Nate.

“Please sit.” She gestured at a chair. She tapped at her keyboard a few more times, then turned to him. “Very well. Now, I want to hear, from the beginning, about your role in this unfortunate business with the guards.”

Nate told her, leaving nothing out, and this time not holding back on his opinions about Major Dante and General Isle, although he asked the chancellor that if she chose to repeat those opinions, not to mention his name. “It’s all in the patrol report,” he said. The chancellor nodded.

"I noted your commendation of Guardswoman Crystal,” she said. “I toyed with the idea of commending her publicly if only to annoy General Isle, who has proved to be an all-round pain in the arse. However, I have to bide my time on that. For the moment, what really interests me on a personal level is the site itself. I admired the pictures of the art in that big structure you found. I agree it might be a temple of some kind, but to what god? You didn’t put up any drones to map the city?”

“The one drone I had, I dropped down the well where they had thrown the guardsmen the morning after the Morlocks tried to overrun us,” Nate said. “Mapping the Morlock underground tunnel network is what we do. Ruined cities are someone else’s problem.”

Chancellor Markovic smiled. Nate thought it was a charming smile.

“Fair enough, I guess. The general thought you should have gone in after his people when you found that well.”

“After several days, thanks to his mishandling of the matter, with night approaching?” said Nate. “He’s lucky I found his two survivors. He should be thanking me, as well as commending Guardswoman Crystal, instead of moaning that she survived and I could have done more.”

“You are not one to hold back, I see,” said Markovic, smiling. “I like that. What about the bodies you left behind? They would stink to high heaven after a couple of days.”

“The Morlocks clear them away. I guess they must recycle them into their food vats or whatever they use. Individuals don’t mean anything to them.”

“Okay, good, and the remaining Morlocks? Will they hang around at the site?”

“Usually, they disperse, spreading through their tunnel network, at least as far as we know,” said Nate. “The reason it’s a bad idea to stay in one place for any length of time is that they can gather enough numbers to simply swamp any human groups, despite the use of machine guns and even flame throwers. They are very good at ambushing and coordinating attacks from unexpected directions.”

“How many days do you think it will take before the Morlocks lose interest in the site?”

Nate shrugged. “Maybe a week.”

“Good, because I want you to take me there next week.”

This took a moment to sink in.

“What?” he said.

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

 

Colonel Griggs listened in silence, her chin resting on one hand, elbow on her desk, as Nate protested.

“I told the Chancellor that I’m not a tour guide, and a patrol carrier is not a tour bus,” he said. “Above all, the Morlocks are not zoo animals.”

“You’ve taken civilians out before,” said the colonel.

“Not for what amounts to sightseeing and to such a dangerous spot.”

“It was only dangerous because the Guards stayed too long, and the Morlocks knew we’d come again,” the colonel pointed out. “Now the excitement has died down, wait a few days and go to the site by a roundabout route, then just stay overnight. Be your usual charming self to her and this other person she wants to take, a female archaeologist who is a friend of hers.”

“What happened to this business about no romantic subplots while on patrol?”

Griggs gestured vaguely. “I wasn’t talking about anything physical, and I’m sure the chancellor has more sense than that, although you did impress her.” She smiled.

“Right!” snorted Nate. “She’s older than me and married to the Senate whip. I don’t feel like becoming involved in a political sex scandal with the Morlocks looking on.”

Colonels do not giggle. Colonel Grigg chuckled instead. “I’m not about to direct my officers on such matters, but older, experienced women can be interesting for young guys. More seriously, my orders are for you to escort the chancellor and her friend to the site with this huge temple and give them a few hours to inspect the art. The Patrol can ingratiate itself with the executive arm of government and scores one over the Guard. As I’ve just found out, the reason they were out there in the first place was that the mothership found the place on a scan, and they thought they’d impress the senate and chancellor by establishing a base there.”

“Sounds mad,” said Nate.

“Then they’d claim jurisdiction over The Patrol.”

“Oh…. And achieved a total disaster.”

“They found out the hard way that what we do is not simple or easy,” said the colonel, “and we avoided a power grab. Now that we’ve dodged a heap of politics, you have my orders and plenty of other things to do. Go away and do them.”

“Yes, ma’am, shall I get started on a petting zoo with the Morlocks?”

The colonel eyed Nate sternly. “You should be careful with such a suggestion,” she said. “Someone may take you up on them.”

Outside the colonel’s office, Nate found Rachel waiting for her turn to see Griggs. She jumped up when she saw him.

“Thanks for standing up for me. The colonel showed me your report. I really appreciated what you said.”

“No problem, it was true,” said Nate. “The colonel tells me you’re joining The Patrol, and a good thing to, we’ve got lots to do.”

“Tyler’s also joining The Patrol.”

“He is? But General Isle didn’t sack him to did he? Is being chewed by a Morlock and left for dead under a pile of them a crime in the Guard?”

“No, no. He was just so mad at the general for sacking me that he quit. Now he’s coming over, and we both make lieutenant.”

Unlike the guard and the police, the patrol was all officers. There were no other ranks.

“More money. That’s Good. Although it's also more risk.”

“I figure nothing could be as bad as my encounter with the Morlocks,” she said. “So, I’ll take the money.” Rachel would remember those words.

 

A few days later, Nate was waiting by the East Gate, leaning on the patrol carrier he used when an official looking black car swept up – a very large sedan which would have fitted in on the streets of Earth – and the chancellor stepped out, followed by a large, severe looking woman, her hair in a ponytail. Both women wore khaki shorts and shirts, tan socks, and boots, with a wide brimmed hat tied on around the chin, all as Nate had requested. Both he and trainee Dan, who was along for this trip, were dressed in the same way, with only a single grey emblem on the left breast pocket to indicate they were in the patrol. Medals and badges of rank were for dress uniforms.

“Ladies,” said Nate, as a driver and a bodyguard, both wearing black suits with sunglasses, brought up the bags. “This is Dan.” He jerked his thumb at the trainee, who nodded. “Please enter the carrier through the hatch, sit in the rear, and fasten seat belts. Bags are to be stowed in the marked lockers above the seats.”

Once they settled in, Nate went through the drill of getting Patrol command to open the East gate. He let Dan drive the carrier out while he made an effort to talk to the passengers.

“Aren’t we going the wrong way?” asked the tall woman, whose name was Marta. She had trained as an archaeologist and was delighted to have, for the first time in her career, a major ruin to investigate.

“You mean we’re going due East rather than Southeast?” said Nate. “We never drive directly to our destination and don’t drive across the Shade, which is between us and the city, unless we can help it. The Morlocks always seem to know when a patrol goes out, and if they can guess where it’s going, that means they can concentrate a lot of bodies to swamp it when the carrier stops for the night.”

“The guard detachment went straight there and survived two nights,” said Marta.

“Beginner's luck is all I can say,” said Nate. “And their luck ran out. We’re going to the other side of the foothills you can see; camp for the night and then go fast for the city the next day.”

“I’d prefer that we go straight to the city and camp there,” said Marta.

“And I’d prefer not to end up as Morlock food,” Nate said sharply. “If you don’t like patrol procedures, Marta, you’re welcome to get out and walk.”

The chancellor smiled. Later, Nate heard her say to Marta softly, “See, I told you”.

At the time, to change the subject, Chancellor Markovic said, “I heard you were once engaged to Senator Berensina’s daughter, Gisele.”

“Some years ago,” said Nate. “I’d hoped that it’d all been forgotten. I met the Senator on the same day I came to see you, and he asked if we’d met before. I told him I’d worked for him as an Android technician, which is true; I did.”

“He mentioned you to his wife, and she reminded him. He told me when I happened to see him in a meeting. Said it was regrettable, but you weren’t suitable for Gisele.”

“The choice was hers, and she chose to end it in front of her parents. I haven’t spoken to her since. The worst part of the whole incident was that the Senator offered me money.”

Markovic gasped. “Did he? How much did he offer? Am I allowed to ask?”

“A single credit stick with, as I could see from the display, one hundred and fifty credits. Not only was I a family embarrassment, Madam Chancellor, I was a cheap embarrassment.”

The humiliation had cut Nate far deeper than he cared to admit. It was one of the reasons he preferred to be on the unfashionable outskirts of Rasand, and he had taken a job that allowed him to escape into the city into the vast horizons and clear skies of the desert, where he could listen to the music of long ago.

“Did you take the money?”

“For that small an amount, chancellor, I could afford to be noble and ignore the offer. I left the senator’s company immediately and went to the academy. Now that we have discussed my private matters in excruciating detail, maybe we can talk about some incident from your life you’d prefer to forget. Discarded lovers who did not accept their fate, perhaps?”

“Oh, heaps of those,” she said, smiling, “but okay, I didn’t mean to drag up bad memories. I was just interested.”

Nate nodded and turned away, and they drove on in silence. After a few minutes, he turned on his favourite music playlist, Britpop of the 1960s – an echo of distant Earth. They overtook a Cactuar caravan with their Bhushorots as The Kinks’ You Really Got Me was playing, and Nate stuck his head up through the carrier’s top hatch to exchange a few words with some of the drivers.

“You know the Cactuar language,” said Marta.

“Enough to get by,” said Nate. “I occasionally buy things at the market by the East Gate, and I don’t like to use a translation device.”

“Be good if you were fluent. Do you practise?”

“Be good if I were a lot of things, Marta,” retorted Nate. “As it is, I’m one of the few who can speak it. Everyone else, including my fellow officers, relies on translation devices.”

“Still good if you practise.”

“You’re very free with advice, Marta. Do you ever take advice yourself, or do you always hand it out?”

“Just saying,” said Marta quietly.

Nate did not bother to reply, thinking that he had been charming enough for one day, and they drove on, listening to the Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently Weeps. The ladies were reluctant to ask the prickly patrol officer about his choice of music, but the chancellor did have one question.

“Why doesn’t Patrol fly to where it’s going? Why not use the two helicopters we have, or that huge hydrogen balloon thing we have somewhere?”

“The helicopters belong to the guard, not us, chancellor,” said Nate. “The airship, as you might know, uses hydrogen for lift, and that makes it unsafe. It’s only for emergencies. In any case, we usually have to drag a lot of equipment along with us for resource extraction and stay out nights. For that, we need a mobile fortress, even if we spend most nights in defensible positions outside the fortress.”

After a long day of no one saying much and the passengers being allowed out only a couple of times at scenic points on rocky outcrops, they stopped for the night on top of a large expanse of stony ground, which Nate judged to be safe. They sat outside for dinner, using director’s chairs and a fold-out table, with the meals heated up on a microwave in the carrier’s tiny kitchen. The chancellor grilled Dan on his life, which was safer than asking Nate anything, to be told that he shared a small apartment in a place called East Village, a few monorail stops away from patrol headquarters. His girlfriend, Belle, worked as an assistant in Rasand CBD.

Having got what information she could from Dan, Markovic decided to try Nate again. “And where do you live, captain?”

“Hard by the Cactuar market, ma’am. The small area between the market and the Red-Light district.”

“That’s an odd choice,” said Markovic. “Not many people live out there. Does your girlfriend like it?”

Marta muttered that it was convenient being so close to the Red-Light district, a comment which Nate ignored. “My girlfriend moved out a couple of months ago because I wouldn’t shift to somewhere closer to the business district – that and other matters. Now I just have Oscar. The area isn’t for everyone, but I like it.

“Who is Oscar?” asked the chancellor. “Sounds like a dog.”

“Oscar is a droid I saved from the scrap heap and restored enough to act as a sort of security droid. I keep him in my workshop downstairs. I’m trying to train him up to be a butler/cook, but it’s slow going.”

“Is he sentient?”

“No, that would be illegal. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few reports to make. Enjoy the sunset, ladies. Dan will keep an eye on the scanners. In this open terrain with rocks underneath, the instruments will give us enough warning to get inside the carrier if the Morlocks are feeling restless.”

About an hour later, when it was full dark, Dan called Nate to the scanner station.

“Look, sir,” he said. “Infrared is picking up Morlocks. A lot of heat coming off the rocks, but see there. Profiles for a small group, one klick out.”

“So, there is,” said Nate. “Looks to be just three, and they’re turned towards us as if watching. Well spotted. Check the rest of the area carefully. I’ll be back.”

Nate picked up his binoculars, which also had infrared, and walked out past his two passengers.

“Is everything all right?” asked Markovic.

“Checking on unusual activity,” Nate said. “You ladies better go in now. Ask Dan to show you what he’s found on the scanners.”

The binoculars told him little more, except that as he was watching, another Morlock joined the group. He scanned the area. Was that another he saw on a distant ridge? He walked back to the carrier, folded up the table and chairs to stow them in the vehicle, and asked Dan for an update.

“Another group on a ridge a few clicks out,” said Dan.

“I saw that group, but there was only the one when I looked.”

“What’s happening?” Asked Markovic.

“Small groups, and they seem to be just watching us, as if they’re scouting. Normally, if there are any around, they either attack or go away. They also usually don’t bother with this area. It’s why I chose it as a point to change direction.”

“Are they going to attack tonight?” asked Marta.

“Doesn’t feel like it,” said Nate. “If they want to attack, then they need a horde, not a handful. But it’s a change in behaviour which I don’t like.”

“This is different?” asked Markovic.

“Feels like they’re checking us out,” said Nate, “and not in a good way.”

 

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

 

After a night in which Nate and Dan took turns watching the scanner console, but without the Morlocks making any move, they reached the ruined city.

“Look at this, roads to drive on,” said Nate, who was at the wheel.

“Where is this temple?” said Marta, coming forward.

“You can just see it in the distance,” said Nate, pointing. “Thought the buildings out here must be the suburbs, and the central business district is the temple, if that’s what it is, and some other buildings we saw.”

“Other buildings?”

“Sure,” said Nate. “You’ll see in a moment. The building in the report is far and away the most impressive and intact, but the others are worth a look.”

“A lot of archaeological work here,” said Markovic.

“I can already tell a few things,” said Marta. “We didn’t see any ruined walls around the site, so whoever built the city didn’t fear anyone. The urban planning seems good – a grid layout and roads that are still usable. It’s all the product of a sophisticated urban culture. Not sure that we should be driving on the roads.”

“No choice,” said Nate. “You want quality time in the city centre, then we’ve got to bring the carrier in.”

“Still a shame and… oh my!”

They rounded a corner, allowing the chancellor, Marta, and Dan to see the temple for the first time. Even with the front half a heap of rubble, the building could put any of Earth’s medieval cathedrals to shame. It had a roof of white tiles that glinted in the sun and a dome at the intact end that looked as if it had been covered in gold.

“Can we drive up to the front entrance?” asked Markovic. “We want to walk in the front.”

“Guess we can, but Dan and I go first.”

They parked by the curb as if they were in a street back in Myste City, and the two patrolmen went in first, guns drawn, flashlights out. The passengers followed, carrying more powerful flashlights, and they gasped.

“Frescos all around the walls,” said Markovic. “I thought as much.”

“Pardon me, chancellor,” said Nate, “but what are frescos as opposed to wall paintings?”

“Frescos are painted with water-based pigment while the plaster is still wet so that they become part of the wall. That means they last a lot longer, and no more of that chancellor shit out here. I’m Mack. That’s what friends call me.”

“Mack?” said Nate. “Shouldn’t the short form for your last name be Mark?”

“Yes, it should, but Mack is the shortened version of my first name, Mackenzie.”

“In that case, Mack, look up.”

The ladies then gasped over the ceiling while Nate and Dan checked out the building. Nate could not see any problem, but he could smell Morlocks. The scent was faint but unmistakable. They had been in the building recently. This added to the patrol officer’s sense of unease. Something was not right. For the moment, however, it was still daylight, and they had work to do.

“Ladies, stay in this building and keep where we can see you. Dan, bring the carrier round to that side.” He pointed to the right-hand side of the building. I used the side building on the left last time. Let’s try the side building on the right if the roof is still solid. And be wary.”

“Always wary out here,” said Dan, and left.

Nate walked through to the side building, which was identical to the one he had defended the last time and nearly as solid as it had been on the day the builders, whoever they were, finished their work. He and Dan put grills on the windows and set up another ready for the door into the temple – this time, Nate intended to brace it with two steel wire cables fastened to the floor when they walled themselves in for the night. Then, he thought to check on the civilians. He walked into the temple, playing his flashlight around the walls, and realised that he couldn’t see the chancellor.

“Marta, where’s Mack?”

The archaeologist, who had been absorbed in the statue of the kneeling Morlock, looked up. “She was here a few moments ago.”

“Where did you last see her?”

“Just over there by the end of the railing.”

“Dan, look around outside. Use the radios to keep in touch.”

Nate looked at the end of the railed-off stone platform and realised he had missed an entrance to what might be a chamber underneath the main building – a cellar, or perhaps a crypt. He missed it because the entrance was tucked away at the side of the platform, which did not extend the full length of the back wall and had been covered by some form of panel – wood, perhaps, although they were a long way from any of the planet’s trees. The panel had been pushed aside to reveal steps that led down. A distinct odour of Morlock came from it.

Thoroughly alarmed, Nate started down, yelling. “Mack, are you down here?”

She called from somewhere below him. The stairs ended in a corridor that led around to the right for some distance and then opened up into a chamber, where he found the chancellor studying another group of frescos.

“These are even better than the ones in the main building,” she said. “I think they’re depicting religious tales – the equivalent of parables, perhaps.”

“All well and good, Mack,” said Nate, glancing at the paintings – even he could see they were spectacular and well preserved – but unless you want to be grounded, don’t wander off like that.”

“Grounded!” said the chancellor, rounding on him. “You can’t ground me!”

“Do something like that again, chancellor, and watch me. I’ll chain you to the patrol carrier if I have to. Complain all you like to Colonel Griggs; she’s used to complaints about me.”

“It won’t be a matter of complaints,” said Mack, nettled. “I’ll insist on a dismissal. I have the power to do that, especially if you’re going to chain me to a carrier.”

“Fine. Then you can die on someone else’s watch. In case you're interested, there’s a distinct Morlock smell down here.”

“There you go again about Morlocks. This is an obsession…”

Nate heard the distinctive ‘Gak, Gak, Gak’ moments before they charged. He switched his flashlight to his left hand and drew his pistol, safety off, in a heartbeat. He fired as the first Morlock appeared. It dropped, tongue hanging out.

“Oh shit!” said Mack.

“Behind me, quick. Get to the entrance.”

The chancellor did as she was told, and Nate backed up. Two more of the creatures came out of a dark corner of the chamber, which Nate suspected must contain another entrance to the chamber. They vaulted over the first Morlock without even glancing at the body and came on at a fast waddle before Nate also shot them. Were these larger than the Morlocks he had seen to date, or was it his imagination? There were more of the creatures in the chamber, but the humans had a few seconds of breathing room for a favourite tactic of Nate.

“Run,” he said, and he and the chancellor ran through the passage and up the stairs into the main temple, where Dan and Marta were waiting, open-mouthed.

“Dan, finish setting up,” said Nate, stopping at the top of the stairs. “I just have to clog this stairway with bodies, and I’ll be along. Mack, Marta, you have another few minutes to look at this place, and then I’ll insist you come into the room we’ve set up. It’s close to dark, anyway.”

Both ladies nodded.

“And Mack, what were you saying before about my obsession with Morlocks?”

“Oh, don’t be tedious,” she said and turned away.

 

Unlike all of Nate’s previous encounters with Morlocks, the creatures did not blindly charge humans they knew were there. Instead, they milled around in the lower chamber for a time, at least to judge from the ‘Gak, Gak, Gak’ sounds, then came in a rush. Not that it made much difference. Nate waited until the leading Morlocks were almost at the top of the stairs and then shot them, effectively blocking the others – that is, until they started pushing. Nate waited until the pile of bodies he had created started moving, then carefully dropped two burn grenades through the gaps in the bodies. That action was rewarded with two distinct ‘Whumps!’ screams and the smell of roast Morlock flesh.

With the danger from the temple art room contained and no other Morlock in sight, Nate relented on his curfew enough to allow Marta to release a drone outside the temple, as they had taken to calling it, to map the city. The survey would include ground penetrating radar scans.

“Tell the AI for that thing that once it’s finished or is running low on fuel or whatever, to see if it can land on top of the temple for the night,” said Nate. “The Morlocks won’t bother it up there.”

“I think I saw a wall that might be part of an observation area on the street side of the dome,” said Marta, “or maybe it’s a place for the priests to go for a ritual. Morlocks might be able to get up there.”

“Really?” said Nate. “I didn’t see any stairs going up, but then I guess I didn’t see the entrance by that raised section. Well, find a perch high up somewhere and tuck it in for the night.”

Another drone was released inside the temple to make detailed scans of the building, and the small party was finished for the night.

They ate dinner with Mack glaring at Nate, who ignored her until she gave up, frowning. After dinner, Dan watched security screens, including infrared views of the city and temple they had set up, while Marta reviewed the early scans of the city.

“Am I still grounded?” asked Mack of Nate as they sat at the table.

“I never actually grounded you,” said Nate, amused. “I said that if you wandered off like that again without telling anyone, then I’d ground you. I have chains. Maybe to make a point, if I have to use them, I should drag you behind the carrier when we go back to Rasand.”

“Monster,” she said softly and smiled. “But I want to go back to that underground chamber. It’s the most interesting part of the temple complex.”

“Tomorrow. If the Morlocks follow their usual practice of taking the bodies away,” said Nate, “I’ll go with you, and I’ll go first. I’ll also stay with you the whole time, so no more than a couple of hours.”

“There must be another way into that chamber. The Morlocks got in.”

“That’s true,” said Nate, “but we’d have to wander around underground to find it, and the Morlocks might find us first. Pass.”

“Sir, look at this,” said Dan from the scanner control table they had set up. “Heat signatures here and here.” He pointed at the screen. “And more are coming.”

“How did they find us so quickly?” asked Nate. “Did we crash a convention of these creatures or something?”

All Dan could do was shrug. “Are they going to attack?”

“They seem to be building up. They’re going to attack when they have the numbers like they always do.”

Nate heard a voice outside. The same menacing voice he had heard on his first visit to the city, speaking in Cactuar. Dan, Mack, and Marta looked up in alarm.

“Dman akinisi kibitza.” (Patrol, heed me.) said the voice.

“Quick, Dan, visual and ultraviolet sweep,” whispered Nate. Then he yelled, in Cactuar, “We’re still waiting, Morlock.”

“You’ll have to wait a little longer,” said the voice. “Then you are food.”

“Tell us what we’re waiting for, then we’ll know where to point our guns,” yelled Nate.

There was no reply, and the Morlocks did not attack that night.

 

CHAPTER NINE

 

The colonel was amused. “You threatened to ground the chancellor?” she asked. “And drag her behind the carrier in chains?”

Nate’s small party had returned to Rasand City, pulling up stakes about lunchtime after the first night, giving the two civilians a few more precious hours to inspect the temple and underground chamber but enough time before dark to get far away to a rocky outcrop the Morlocks had not been able to stake out. They reached Rasand the next day.

There was a great deal to talk about as a result of the visit to the ruined city, but the colonel was most interested in Nate’s attempts to rein in Mack.

“Sure,” said Nate. “She wandered off underground without telling anyone. I should have threatened to spank her.”

The colonel gasped, then chuckled. “For star’s sake, don’t say that to anyone but me.”

“I never would,” said Nate. “I may have an entirely undeserved reputation for grumpy eccentricity, but I’m not crazy.”

“Not sure it’s undeserved,” said the colonel. “But as it is, despite being threatened with grounding and a dragging, which she mentioned in a note to me, Markovic gave you and trainee Whyatt top marks.”

“Saving her from a Morlock attack just as we were arguing about my obsession with the creatures helped, I guess.”

“She was telling you off just as they attacked?”

“Sure. Then, when we got back to the temple, just before they tried to rush the stairs, I asked her what she was saying before about my obsession with Morlocks. She told me not to be tedious.”

This time, the colonel laughed outright, slapping the table in delight. “Sounds like an interesting trip. You and this Marta person, whom I’ve never met, also clashed.”

“We had our moments,” said Nate. “She tried advising me on how to learn Cactuar.”

“Although you’re one of the few people in the city who speaks it,” said the colonel. “Anyway, despite your lack of finesse, tact, diplomacy, and a few other things, we’re in the good graces of the executive arm of government and will be left alone, for the moment at least. The chancellor wants to go again, but political issues will prevent her from going for a few weeks.”

Nate did not follow politics much, but he was aware of factions in the senate, one of which was led by the chancellor’s husband, causing trouble. He thought that the situation might make for tense moments at the Chancellor’s dinner table, but it was no business of his.

Aloud, he said, “I’m still not a tour guide. We’ll be stretched as it is protecting the workers on the launching pad site.”

“You are what I say you are, captain,” said the colonel, firmly. “And she says she’ll only go with you.”

“Me?” exclaimed Jake. “I thought she would have had her fill of me and wanted someone more congenial.”

“She did not get as far as she has while still so young, by not listening to those who know what they are talking about. Next time, try to be nicer, and spanking is out. Anyway, you might enjoy that.”

“She does have a trim figure. I couldn’t help but notice – I’m a guy.”

Colonel Griggs eyed her subordinate sternly. “Like I said, no spanking and more diplomacy. We’ll go over the patrol schedule in a moment, which looks much better. Suddenly, it seems that it's almost fashionable for lower ranks in the guard to transfer to the patrol and become officers. We’ve picked up another three, and they’re way more useful straight out of the gate than fresh academy graduates. Also, most of the machines at the spaceport site will be automated or remotely controlled, which makes the protection job easier. For now, I want you and Dan to take a day or two to check out the data you gathered.”

Before leaving the ruined city, Nate had investigated the second entrance to the underground chamber and launched a drone to map what proved to be a maze of connecting tunnels. The tunnels had not been dug by Morlocks. The tunnels they dug were round and lined with a hard material, the same colour as the desert above. The passages below the city were rectangular and lined with square cut, black stones. A check of the geology indicated that they might have been taken from a quarry hundreds of kilometres away. Another drone dropped into one of the wells that Nate had found on the previous visit had mapped more of the tunnels before Morlocks killed it.

“I’ve had a quick look at the infrared scans,” he said. “That Morlock is not just big; he or she is enormous. At least three or four times bigger than an ordinary one, and wears clothes.”

“Clothes?”

“Looks to have a sheet wrapped around him-her in the scans.”

“Maybe it’s the queen, or one of the queens, we’ve often thought must be behind the Morlocks. Just in case, one way or another, we refer to this creature as she.”

“The deadly threat is a female, gotit,” said Nate.

“Unless otherwise ordered,” said the Colonel, “And she seems to be associated with that site.”

“Maybe the breeding chambers we’ve been looking for are close by?”

“Maybe,” said the colonel. “The Morlocks that surrounded your refugee that night looked larger than normal. Breeding chamber guards, maybe.”

“They didn’t attack beyond testing our defences a few times because the queen wanted to preserve her guard?”

The colonel nodded. “Again, maybe. Coordinate with this Marta person, if she’s still talking to you, to see what she’s been able to work out. For now, get out of my office and find me answers to mysteries.”

 

Later that day, Nate attended a meeting on scheduling protection for the few humans who would be on the space launching pad site and, through no fault of his own, ended up sitting opposite Captain Jason Boulcott. This officer was a balding, florid man who seemed about to burst out of his uniform. Boulcott knew what he was doing on patrol, or so Nate understood, but off patrol he was a hail-fellow-well-met guy always looking for a joke. Nate thought of him as a buffoon but never said so to anybody. Despite what the colonel said, Nate could be tactful when he had to be. Boulcott seemed amused by something.

“Well, how much, hey? Hey?” He said, grinning at what was apparently some huge joke.

“How much what?” said Nate.

“You know - how much? Heh, heh!”

“No, I don’t know,” said Nate, exasperated. “Either tell me or shut up.”

“Senator Berensina gave you money to end an engagement with his daughter,” Boulcott said.

“He most certainly did not,” said Nate, alarmed at this distortion of events and that the rest of the table, six officers counting the colonel, were listening closely. “This was years ago. His daughter broke off our engagement, at the urging of her parents, who considered me unsuitable, and then the senator offered me a small amount in compensation.”

“How much?” asked the colonel.

“Just one hundred and fifty credits, ma’am, which I ignored,” Nate said. “I was a cheap embarrassment.” The table laughed. “Now, maybe we can discuss sensitive incidents from Captain Boulcott’s life? Brides he’s left at the altar, perhaps?”

Boulcott’s ever present, annoying smile faded somewhat, and he waved to indicate that he had finished, and the meeting got underway.

Later, the colonel said, “I thought you seemed reluctant to deal with Berensina. You had history with him.”

“He knew he’d seen me before, but didn’t remember the circumstances. I just told him I used to work for him, which I did as an Android technician.

“That’s how you met his daughter?”

“It seems his wife reminded him of the incident, and he mentioned it to the chancellor, who insisted on discussing it on the trip. Dan must have mentioned it to someone. I never thought to tell him not to.”

“Poor lamb,” said the colonel. “Well, no use crying over spilled engagements or something. This was one of your clashes with Markovic?”

“Yep. Why do women insist on discussing this stuff? Why can’t they talk about sports? I don’t even know what football team the chancellor supports, and that’s important.”

“Talk about senators buying off their daughters’ fiancés is way more interesting than football results,” said the colonel. “Anyway, you could get some sympathy from the next woman you persuade to go on a date if you tell her that story.”

“I’d prefer to forget. Maybe I could just look soulful.”

The colonel looked quizzically at him for a moment. “Better to tell the story,” she said.

 

Rasand’s females were not yet done with Nate, not by a long stretch. The next day, as he waded through the computer generated maps of the ruined city and its underground tunnels, he was called to reception to be confronted by a female vision. She had a carefully tended mane of golden hair which fell down her back, high cheek bones, and a mouth that always seemed to be smiling, revealing pearly white teeth. A simple black dress clung to a perfect figure. Her perpetual smile broadened when she saw Nate.

“And you are Captain Nathan Olsen,” she said before Nate could introduce himself. “Mack said you looked much nicer in dress uniform.”

“Just the plain, grey uniform while on the job,” said Nate, stunned by this vision. “And you know Mack, ma’am?”

“Olivia, please,” she said, standing up and extending a hand for Nate to grasp in a token handshake while the elderly female receptionist looked on with considerable interest. Nate thought he had seen Olivia somewhere before, but for the moment, he could not remember where. “Is there somewhere we can talk? Mack said you might be able to help me.”

“The small conference room,” said Nate. “This way.”

Halfway down the corridor, just before they got to the conference room, Nate remembered where he had seen his guest before.

“I saw your act with the giant cocktail glass at The Globe, Ms… I mean, Olivia. Most interesting if you don’t mind me saying so.” The Globe was a top club in the red-light district, renowned for its salacious acts.

Olivia giggled. “That act appeals to guys.”

Nate parked his guest in the conference room, then excused himself and went looking for a chaperone. He found ex-guardswoman Rachel Crystal wrestling with some forms on a screen.

“Rachel, I need a chaperone – a woman, and you’re a woman. Yes, I can see you are.”

“Well spotted, captain,” said Rachel, surprised. “And I’m a little young to be a chaperone.”

“Grab a portable terminal and come with me. It should just take a few minutes.”

He led the way to the conference room, where Rachel saw immediately why she was wanted. Olivia also understood why Rachel had been called into the meeting and accepted this with a smile. It went with the territory.

“What can we do for you, Olivia, um, Wessen, I seem to recall?” said Nate. “Is that a stage name?”

“Bessel, captain, and that is my real name. I’m here because a friend of mine has been taken by the police, and they won’t tell me what has happened to him.”

“Olivia, isn’t this a matter for the police or perhaps a lawyer? Why come to us?”

“The problem is that both he and I are synths. We don’t have the same rights as a bio, and I need to know what’s happened to him before I decide what to do.”

“Pardon me, Olivia, do about what?”

“The police are offering me certain choices in exchange for the return of my friend.”

Rachel and Nate exchanged glances. Nate decided that he would not ask for more information about the “choices” Olivia was being offered. Information could be dangerous.

“Um, Olivia, have you thought of reporting the matter to the police professional integrity unit?”

“They told me they would know immediately if I had gone there, and my friend would be in trouble.”

“Has your friend been charged with anything?”

Olivia spread her hands. A very human gesture. “I just don’t know. I haven’t been told anything, and Mack said that Patrol Command can access police databases. She also said to ask for you.”

“Well, yes,” said Nate. “The databases are shared across the three commands – police, guard, and patrol – although the only time we go outside our own system is to check on new applicants. If you know Mack, why didn’t you just get her to tell the cops to release your friend? They’ll lose interest very quickly if they realise you talk to her.”

“Who’s Mack?” asked Rachel.

“The Chancellor,” said Nate. “Friends call her Mack.”

“Oh my,” said Rachel.

“I told them, and they just laughed at me,” said Olivia. “They didn’t believe me. Mac said she could call the commissioner and ask for a briefing, but she did not want to be seen to interfere just yet. There’s too much going on.”

“Fighting on all fronts as I understand the news feeds,” said Nate. “Tell you what, it won’t hurt to check the police system for your friend. Officer Crystal, can you hand over the unit, and I’ll sign on. Olivia, what’s your friend’s name?”

“Jason Drake,” she said. “He is also well known in his field, although Officer Crystal is more likely to have heard of him.”

“I think I have,” said Rachel, her cheeks showing a touch of pink.

“Olivia has an interesting act with a giant cocktail glass.”

“I knew that. I also saw the act with my boyfriend,” said Rachel. “Fine burlesque, Ms Bessel.”

“Olivia, please,” said the synth, smiling.

“This is the guy?” Nate asked Rachel as a picture appeared on the screen.

“Yep, that’s him,” said Rachel.

Olivia started to get up to look at the screen, but Nate waved her off.

“Best not to let civilians look at the police records, Olivia. The good news is that your friend is unharmed and has not been charged with anything. He seems to have been classified as a potential risk to public safety.”

“That’s nonsense,” said Olivia, firmly. “Jason’s never harmed anyone.”

“They don’t have to show that initially, as far as a synthetic is concerned,” said Nate. “I trained as a droid technician.” (Synthetics were meant to look like humans, while droids were meant to do the hard jobs that humans did not want to do. Much of the technology used and the law that applied to them was common to both.)

“Mack also mentioned that,” said Olivia. “She also said you could be grumpy but were really very sweet.”

Rachel gasped and then giggled. “When do we see the very sweet side? What happened between you and the chancellor, anyway?”

“I let her go back to an underground chamber where we were ambushed by Morlocks and stood guard while she took pictures of wall art. Maybe you’d like to concentrate on the matter at hand, Patrol Officer Crystal.”

“I am concentrating on it,” said Rachel, “and I can see that the box asking for a judicial review on this file hasn’t been checked.”

“So, it hasn’t,” said Nate. “And the one which requests a lawyer. That should be checked every time.”

“Nothing in the comments,” said Rachel. “They don’t say why this synth has been detained.”

“Check the boxes and see what happens,” said Nate. “Look at that, gone for review, and now it's asking for a contact name and number of the closest concerned party, which also hasn’t been entered in the system. Rachel, can you take Olivia’s number and put it in the system?” He got up. “Olivia, I’ll leave you with Rachel to finish up. She will show you out. Let’s see what happens. Here is one of my cards. Call me if there are any more problems, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” said Olivia, accepting the card. “Mack was right about you-you’re sweet.”

“Ha!” said Rachel.

“It’s really all about getting Mack off my back,” said Nate, and he left thinking that the problem had been solved with relatively little effort. Of course, it would not be that simple.

 

CHAPTER TEN

 

 

Two days after his conference with the glamorous Olivia, the chancellor called Nate.

“You were going to threaten me with a spanking?” she said the moment Nate picked up. It was the end of a long, hard day for her. She had kicked off her shoes, turned sideways in her elaborate director’s chair so that her legs hung over one arm, and was in the mood for a little, harmless flirting before heading home.

“What I told the colonel was that you were lucky I didn’t threaten you with a spanking,” said Nate, evenly. “You had been very naughty.”

“Would the purpose of this spanking be to chastise me, or would there have been another motive?”

“The main purpose would have been to chastise,” said Nate, diplomatically, “but there is no denying that I would have found the process interesting in other respects.”

“Ha! I bet, mister,” said the chancellor.

“You have a trim figure, I could not help noticing, but that is not my fault. Naughty chancellors have to be disciplined.”

“I’ll have you know, Patrol Captain Olsen, that dealing with me violently, and that includes a spanking, is an act of treason.” Despite Mack’s sharp tone, she was delighted with the “trim figure” remark. She had worked hard on that figure, and finally, someone of interest had noticed. Her husband had not.

“Unfortunately, the colonel has firmly ruled out spanking as a means of enforcing discipline,” said Nate, who well knew that Mack was playing. The colonel, of course, had told the chancellor about his remark.

“So, I should think,” said Mack, “and you’ll find that I’m not that easy to spank. Anyway, where are you? The patrol schedules only say that you’re travelling solo on an oil convoy.”

“Northwest of the city, about three hundred klicks,” said Nate. “I’m shepherding a lot of drilling equipment to one of the sites we use for extracting oil.” He was sitting in the cabin of his patrol carrier as he spoke, watching the various displays, including the all-important ground penetrating radar, which would detect empty spaces in the ground ahead – a sure indication of a Morlock tunnel and a possible ambush site. The carrier and the drilling rigs following the carrier were being driven by AI.

“By yourself?”

“Dan is off with another convoy as it’s thought he could learn more from that trip, and I don’t really need another person for this task. Everything is automated. I just hang around in case the Morlocks, if you recall my obsession… “

“Ha!” said the chancellor, but she said it quietly.

“… decide to try something. Anyway, there’s no one to complain about my choice of music.”

“Sixties Britpop, as I remember. You’re a weird dude, Captain.”

“Women have told me that a few times over the years, and maybe there’s some truth in it. But when I’m alone, I often listen to Gregorian Chants. You know what they are?”

“I do, and that’s even weirder, captain.”

“Speaking of weird stuff, I had a visit from a synthetic who said she was a friend of yours.”

“Olivia is a friend of mine, and you and that guardswoman you brought in as a chaperone, as Olivia described it, helped her a lot. Her friend was released the next day.”

“There was nothing in the file about why he had been detained,” said Nate. “No explanation of any kind. We ticked the box that said judicial review, and the system did the rest. Olivia mentioned the police involved were offering her a deal in return for the release of her boyfriend. I didn’t ask for details.”

“She told me the details, and I was horrified,” said Mack. “There’s corruption in my police, and I just don’t have the time or political bandwidth to deal with the issue at the moment. I’ll get to those officers, but even when I do, I may have to tread carefully. Maybe I’ll force them out, and they can go and sell real estate or something. In the meantime, thank you for helping out.”

“No problems. There’s good money in selling real estate, I’m told. Is that what I’ll end up doing if I spank you for being naughty?”

“Maybe,” said Mack, unable to keep a slight giggle out of her voice.

“How do you know Olivia, anyway? I thought you two would have very different paths.”

“Never you mind,” said Mack, firmly. “I didn’t grow up with a teacher mother and a public servant father like you. It was hard scrabble for me.”

Nate was taken aback. “You looked at my file?”

“I glanced at it. I have to know whose hands I’m placing my life in if I’m going into dangerous places. A number of commendations, and the only black mark I could see was a reprimand about a safety violation in your dorm at the academy.”

“I levered toast out of a toaster with a knife,” said Nate, “and one of the other candidates reported me.”

“What’s wrong with using a knife to get toast out? I do it all the time.” Humans may travel between the stars, but toast remained a breakfast staple.

“Technically, you’re not supposed to, as the knife may touch one of the elements, so one of my room mates informed on me. I was bothered about it so often after that by senior officers with little else to do that I got rid of the toaster and just had biscuits instead.”

This time, Mack did not try to suppress a giggle. Like colonels, chancellors are not supposed to giggle, but Mack did when she thought it was safe to do so.

“And someone thought this important enough to report to your superiors?” she asked.

“That guy was always informing on cadets, often on tiny matters, and was surprised when some of them got him into a storage room and started beating the crap out of him. I had to rescue him.”

“Noble of you,” said Mack.

“Noble nothing. I was sick of being bothered about a toaster; I didn’t want to be involved in an incident that might actually matter, like my roomie ending up in the hospital or worse. The hardest part was in persuading him not to report the beating. He kept on saying it was his duty to report all infractions, no matter how small. I pointed out to him that his grim outlook on life had earned him the beating in the first place, so maybe it was best to stick to things that mattered.”

“Sounds like we could use him in the police.”

“He is in the police,” said Nate. “Jimmy – and I’m one of the few people who call him that – is in the professional integrity unit and doing well, I understand. If we’d been unable to help Olivia, I might have referred her to Jimmy and gotten you to send one of your assistants to have a quiet word, particularly about how far to take the matter.”

“Hmmm, might have worked,” said Mack. “It seems you are full of suggestions, Captain Olsen. However, you won’t be able to suggest any unusual punishments as threats against my delicate person for some time. I want to go back to the site, as does Marta, but I can’t just now.”

“The senate is being difficult, I understand,” said Nate.

“The senate is a right, royal collection of pains,” said Mack, with considerable feeling. “But don’t get me started on them. I understand you have been working on a three-D model of the city.”

“We’ve added Marta’s stuff to what we’ve been able to find out about the tunnels. She guessed at the likely heights of some of the buildings, and we’ve guessed at some of the tunnel intersections. We, or really, she, has also been able to recreate what that temple must have looked like in its prime because half of it is still intact, but the model needs a lot more work with more data.”

“Has that watching post you set up survived?” asked Mack. A post with cameras and a drone had been set up on the temple tower, with solar panels arranged so that they were not visible from street level.

“Yep, the Morlocks still haven’t realised it’s there, although they seem to walk around the city a lot at night. We think their breeding ground might be close by.”

“Really,” said the chancellor. “I want you to come and brief me about all of this, and present the model next week, when things are quieter. One of my assistants will call to make a time.”

“Is that when I get to spank you?”

“No, it is not, Captain Olsen,” she said, trying unsuccessfully not to giggle. “You are to behave according to the rules concerning gender interaction in workplace situations.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Is Marta to be there too?”

“Like you, she can also be a difficult study, but less controllable,” said Mack. “Just you, and you are to behave yourself.”

“Shame,” said Nate.

Although Nate could not see it, the chancellor smiled.

After Mack hung up, the City Management System, or CIMS, which she referred to as Cindy, spoke to her.

“You seem to like that Patrol Captain. I’ve never known you to flirt before.”

Cindy occupied a position analogous to that of an English Monarch or a governor general of a British dominion in that it called elections, either after a set period or when the majority leader in the senate applied to it and was able to give a good reason to hold an election. The chancellor, who headed the executive side of government, was chosen by Cindy, but the choice had to be ratified by the senate. Apart from her considerable ability, Mack got the job because she treated Cindy like another human. The AI government system liked being treated as if she was a human.

“Yes, I like Captain Olsen,” said Mack, straightening up in her chair and putting her shoes back on, “he may be a pain at times, but he is an entertaining pain, and it is nothing more than that, as you well know. I am married. How come you’re listening to my conversations, anyway? You have a city to manage.”

“The mental and physical health and romantic inclinations of the chancellor are of particular interest to me,” said Cindy. “It’s part of my Prime Directive Matrix.”

“Really! My romantic inclinations! I’ve never heard of this part of your prime directives before.”

“You were already happily married when I selected you as chancellor,” said Cindy. “But I have noticed a cooling in your relationship with your husband, and now Captain Olsen has come into your life.”

“Captain Olsen has not come into my life, as you put it. He will show me this computer model they’ve been building of the ruined city. I want to understand the context in which the art in that underground chamber was produced. Anyway, what do you know of flirting?”

“Observing people is part of the job,” said Cindy. “You’d be surprised at what goes on even in the chancellor’s office.”

“Don’t tell me!” said Mack, sharply. “I have enough troubles already. I only need to know when and if it affects the functions of the office.”

“Of course,” said Cindy. “I merely mentioned it. You’ll be seeing Captain Olsen in a few days?”

“So, he can show me the model he and Marta have been building.”

“I understand,” said Cindy in a carefully neutral tone.

 

The day after he returned from his lengthy and uneventful resource gathering patrol, Nate was called to the boardroom, where he found two men in suits, one with his feet on the table, and an apprehensive-looking Patrol Officer Rachel Crystal.

“Captain Olsen?” said the man with his feet on the table. He was a thug with a shaved head and shoulders of a boxer who had been cleaned up and stuffed into a suit. “Sit down! We want to talk to you.”

“Get your feet off the table,” snapped Nate. “Who are you two?”

“Detective Senior Constable Brian Orchard,” said the thug, indicating himself, but without moving his feet, “and Detective Constable Geoff Barnea”. The second detective was a lean man with a nasty leer.

Nate grabbed the conference table and jerked it so that Orchard’s feet fell on the floor. Then he tipped the table so that the recording units of both detectives, which they had placed on the table, fell off. He walked in front of the table and pulled it behind him until he was right up close to the two detectives, then sat on it, towering over them. Taken aback, the two men glowered up at him.

“Those names are familiar to me,” said Nate. “Officer Crystal, wasn’t there an Orchard and a Barnea on the arrest report we looked at for that synthetic Drake?”

“That’s right,” said Rachel.

“That’s what we’ve come to talk about,” said Orchard. “Now sit down and tell us why you’re looking at police matters.”

“I am sitting down, senior,” said Nate. “And that arrest record was sloppily done. There was no request for a judicial review or a lawyer.”

“Where do you get off correcting our arrest forms?” demanded Orchard.

“When the synthetic Olivia Bessel said she knew the chancellor, you laughed at her,” said Nate, ignoring the question.

“That’s right,” said Barnea. “We’re told all sorts of crap.”

“Well, the joke's on you,” said Nate. “She does know the chancellor.”

“What bullshit,” said Orchard. “That’s just what she told you.”

“No, it's what the chancellor told me.”

Nate noted, with joy, that the sneering, disdainful expressions of both men transformed into a mixture of bewilderment and apprehension.

“How come you were speaking to the chancellor?” snapped Orchard.

“She called me because she wanted to see a computer model that both myself and an academic friend of hers have been constructing of a ruined city, the patrol escorted her out to. Doesn’t sound as if you gentlemen pay much attention to the news feeds.”

They both shook their heads.

“I would advise you strongly to catch up. The chancellor did say that Olivia had told her the details of a deal you had proposed.”

“Shit,” said Orchard. “How come the chancellor is friends with a Synth who gets naked in a cocktail glass?”

“I was also curious about that, but when I asked, I was told to mind my own business. Gentlemen, the deal you proposed to Ms Bessel is not our problem. But the chancellor said she would get to the matter when she could. My suggestion is that rather than waste time trying to strong-arm us, you both would be better off working out how to save your careers, or at least how to stay out of jail. Now get out, both of you.”

“This isn’t over,” said Orchard as the men stood up and retrieved their recording units from the floor.

“No, it isn’t,” said Nate. “The chancellor still has to get involved.”

Later, Nate wondered if he had heard and seen the last of the two detectives. He certainly hoped so.

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

The next day, Nate, in his best patrol uniform, was ushered into the chancellor’s cabinet room. Besides the polished faux-cedar table, there were prints of famous scenes of Earth around the walls, an old-fashioned astrolabe as a reminder of the human enclave’s long trip through space on a side table, and two ornamental vases on a sideboard made of the same material as the table. The place was deserted, and Nate noted that it had no windows or cameras. It was a place where people could speak their minds on major matters in confidence.

Nate plugged in the unit he had brought, with its prepared digital material. It lit up the table with a holographic three-D model of the city. One of the Chancellor’s assistants had told him about the available technology, and Nate had to admit that it looked impressive.

After a few minutes, the chancellor came in dressed in casual slacks which clung to her figure, sneakers, and a white shirt to exclaim, in a girlish way, over the model.

“The temple/cathedral place would have been impressive in its day,” she said, walking around the model.

“You’re wearing pants,” said Nate.

“We’re confronted by a sketch of the extensive layout of a city belonging to a previously unsuspected, advanced civilisation, Captain, and you comment on what I’m wearing?”

“I’m a guy. What you’re wearing is more interesting than a previously unsuspected civilisation.”

“Keep your mind on what’s in front of you, Captain Olsen!”

“Yes, ma’am. Anyway, Marta now thinks that the temple is a place of worship as we first suspected, and that the place with the good wall art where we were ambushed…”

Standing so that her hips were at the edge of the table, the chancellor leant forward.

“In there,” she said, pointing at the chamber under the temple.

She did not look at Nate and appeared intent on the model, but the patrol officer thought that the move was a calculated one. Being the shallow male that he was, he admired the effect.

“… is linked to this major underground space here.” Nate decided that there would be no objection if he moved closer and stood next to her. She acknowledged his presence with a slight smile but did not move. “Her analysis suggests that the underground chamber was a holy of holies where priests prepared themselves for whatever ceremonies were performed in the temple.”

“Then what is the big underground space?” she said, leaning forward a little further and pointing.

“Marta doesn’t know what it was used for when the city was functioning, but I think it’s now used for breeding Morlocks.”

“Really?” she said, half turning towards him before turning back to the model. “How do you know that?”

“There always seem to be Morlocks on the site, which is unusual. We’ve never known them to stay in one spot in any numbers, unless they’re planning an ambush, and then we don’t see them until the trap is sprung. Also, the Morlocks that seem to be garrisoning the site are larger than the ones we usually deal with, meaning that they may be part of a guard or elite. We’ve been looking for the breeding chambers for decades, and this is the closest we’ve come.”

“Can you say anything about these breeding chambers themselves?”

“Nope,” said Nate. “The Morlock Guards, as we’ve now taken to calling them, knock down any probes we send before they can get a look inside that big space. That means we haven’t got any direct evidence. We’re just playing a hunch, but it’s not a bad hunch. We need to smash our way in there by force, and for that, we’ll need the guard, which presents problems.”

“They don’t play well with others, I’ve noticed,” said Mack. “But before we make a thing of it, we need to go back to the site and gather more data. Marta has been talking about detailed geophysical surveys before undertaking digs.”

“We won’t have time for much when we get there,” said Nate, “but this other section might have been part of a palace complex.” When he pointed to the suspected palace area, a block down from the temple, Nate leaned across so that he was half turned to Mack and put his hand on her waist, almost as if to steady himself. Humans may have crossed the depths of space and be hundreds of light years from their home planet, but they remained human.

The chancellor looked briefly at Nate’s hand but did not move away, ask him to remove his hand, or summon the security droids just outside the room.

Instead, she said, quietly, “And what makes you think that part of the ruin was once a palace, Captain Olsen?”

“Actually, Marta thinks that,” said Nate, letting his hand drift a little lower and pointing at a large room in the display. “This may have been a throne room or a function room of some kind.”

By that time, he was half turned towards her, and she turned towards him to say, “Really?” and he kissed her. She permitted a few seconds of lips connecting and even a brief movement of his tongue before putting a hand on his chest and pushing him away.

“Down, boy,” she said, smiling.

“You can’t blame me for trying,” he said, standing up and releasing her waist.

“No, I don’t blame you for trying,” she said. “But let’s get on with the briefing without the byplay.”

They talked for a while about what parts of the ruined city might have performed which functions, and what the art in the underground chamber might represent. Mack thought that they represented stories from the religion of the city’s occupants.

“The Cactuar haven’t got any religion that I’ve ever been able to work out,” said Nate. “But they do have a set of sacred nightmares, I suppose, inspired by their terror of Morlocks.”

“Have these nightmares been written down anywhere?” asked Mack, arms folded and back to the model, her trim bottom resting on the edge of the table.

“They’ve been published academically, but they’re not exactly gripping reading. Incoherent, turgid, and maybe frightening is the best way to describe them.”

“I’d like to look at them, if I can,” she said.

“I’ll send you the copy I have somewhere, plus the academic’s name,” said Nate. “He’s an old misery that guy, but he knows something about Cactuar myths.”

She smiled. “I’d like that. Send it to my assistant.”

When Mack said she had to go, they walked towards the door, and she turned towards him, her arms at her sides. He kissed her again. This time, she permitted Nate’s tongue to linger a little longer before pushing him away.”

“Married,” she said. “Nothing can happen, not even when we go away again. I’m not a girl for affairs.”

“Shame,” said Nate. He was surprised at himself that he had tried anything at all.
Apart from admiring the chancellor’s figure, he had not considered himself interested in Mack or thought that Mack might be interested in him. But perhaps all the talk about spanking piqued his interest. He did not know. On her side, she had not slapped him or had her security droids throw him out, which she could easily have done. That was almost encouraging. Also, she had permitted, almost invited, a second encounter, only to now shut him out.

“You need a girlfriend, Captain,” she said. “Then we both wouldn’t be tempted.”

“I agree,” he said. “Can you suggest anyone willing to put up with, what was the phrase you used…. ‘a difficult study’?”

“It is a hard sell,” she said, smiling. “What about that trainee you used as a chaperone when Olivia came to you? Olivia said she was cute.”

“That’s the same guardswoman I found when I got to the site the first time. Colonel Griggs offered her a job when she was tossed out of the guard, but she has a boyfriend and they’re pretty tight, I understand.”

“Looks like you’re going to have to use the dating sites, Captain. Time to get back out there.”

Nate sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”

The chancellor giggled a little, then opened the door and said, loudly for the benefit of her chief assistant, “And remember to send me that Cactuar nightmare thing, Captain. Send it to Vincent here.”

The assistant looked up and nodded.

“Of course, ma’am,” said Nate, who waved and left.

Mack closed the door, then leaned her back heavily against it, and let out a breath, slowly. “That was close,” she whispered to herself. “He almost got me.”

She went through another door to her private office and called up security screens to watch Nate get into the lift and exit the lobby, a smile on her lips.

“You are looking at Captain Olsen,” said Cindy. “Is this not something a teenager would do?”

“Shut up,” said Mack, without heat. “There’s no harm in it.”

“Chancellors have to be careful,” said the city system.

“And city management systems have to be quiet,” said Mack. “Attend to some detail of city management and leave me be.”

Mack knew that Cindy was right. Chancellors had to be careful, and she was now not about to let anything happen. But she could not help thinking about what she would like to happen, perhaps as a temporary release from a marriage that had become strained by long silences and absences, or so she told herself.

As it was, she went home to an empty flat, her husband having previously sent a text saying that he would be held up on Senate business and that she should have dinner without him. She ended up watching an old film set on Earth about a married woman who embarked on what she thought would be a simple fling, only for the fling to turn into a disastrous affair and two murders.

She went to bed wondering what Nate thought of their encounter and of her.

 

While the chancellor was watching her movie, her husband, Senator Corbin Gillard, walked into a bar close to the city’s government house, and the official residence he shared with the chancellor. Although tall, grey-haired, and still handsome, the senator was not as immediately recognisable as his wife – a point that galled him – and the bar was nearly empty. That meant only the bartender realised who he was and did not care. The bar’s market niche was as a discreet meeting place for all types, including those in the political scene. That meant there were no security cameras in the bar, while the one at the entrance had not worked in years. The bartender also prided himself on his lack of interest in his clients, as well as his poor memory.

In a booth at the back, Senator Gillard found the man he had come to see, a man he only knew as Bishop. His contact was a lean, elderly man with a skull-like face framed by a few wisps of white hair. His suit was grey and nondescript, and his hat, which he had put on the table beside him - hats were back in fashion just then - went with the suit. Anyone who passed him by in the street might not give him a second glance unless, of course, that same person happened to look at his eyes. Then they might hurry on, a chill running down their spines.

“Mr Bishop,” said Gillard,

“Just Bishop, Senator,” said the man. “Bishop is just a code name. Mr doesn’t go with it.”

“As you wish,” said Gillard. “You indicated that we might be able to assist one another.”

“Let’s order you a drink first, at least,” said Bishop, genially.

“Just a soft drink is fine. Anything will do.”

Bishop, who was drinking a beer, ordered from the automated menu. The drink was delivered by an auto-waiter.

“Your wife has been causing me problems,” said Bishop after a few moments.

“She does that.”

“When the senate ratified her,” said Bishop, “I was assured that she would not cause trouble, but she has been poking her nose into the affairs of the guard and the police.”

“Police corruption is becoming notorious,” responded Gillard, “and the guard didn’t help themselves by trying to do the work of patrol and completely messing it up.”

“Unfortunate, but true. The guard expedition was part of a different plan that didn’t work, because guard officers were too stupid and proud to listen to the patrol. Now we’ll try something different.”

“I’m listening.”

“You would also like to be free to be with your mistress,” said Bishop.

“Have you been watching me, damn you?” said Gillard.

“Relax, it’s not in my interest to tell anybody,” said Bishop, “but when your wife is the chancellor and you’re a senate leader, divorce can be difficult.”

“It is a problem,” agreed Gillard.

“You’re not married to the deputy chancellor, and he has shown himself to be more malleable and reasonable than the Chancellor. If the chancellor is out of the picture, the constitution says he steps up. If the Senate ratifies him, the appointment becomes permanent.”

“Of course, but that would apply only if….” Senator Gillard looked at Bishop, astonished. “I don’t want to hear any more,” he said suddenly. “I bear no ill will towards Mack. We had some good times. We’ve just grown apart.”

“Whatever,” said Bishop. “Matters have been arranged. Certain parties may have their suspicions, but no one will be able to prove anything.”

“Jesus wept!” breathed Gillard. “You can’t be serious.”

“There won’t be any trail leading back to you. Just put on a show of grief in the Senate, then get the various factions to come together to ratify the deputy. It should be one of the few things they can agree on.”

“I’m stunned!” said Gillard, quietly.

“Then, after a decent interval, you can be seen with your mistress and eventually marry her.”

The senator thought about that for a few moments, his face in his hands, then he dropped his hands and looked at Bishop. “I just arrange ratification for the deputy, right? Nothing else.”

“No, nothing else,” said Bishop, “except to remember who cleared the way for you.”

“I don’t want to hear anything more,” said Gillard, “if you want to talk again, call my assistant, but call yourself Mr Bishop. People with code names don’t call senators.”

“Of course,” said Bishop.

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

Two weeks after Mac and Nate’s meeting over the computer model, Nate was waiting by the East gate again with trainee Dan Whyatt when the chancellor and Marta arrived in a government car.

“Chancellor,” said Nate, as Mack stepped out of the car. Dressed in shorts cut to flatter, Nate noted, she had a day pack slung over one shoulder. As with the previous trip, a flunky toted her main bag to the carrier.

“Captain,” she said, smiling.

Since the presentation, Nate had been permitted to join her social media sites and had been called twice for some light flirting, but his suggestions of another meeting or that he might call her had been politely turned down. Consequently, Nate had given up any idea that he and the chancellor might be anything more than just friends. He also thought that it was just as well. Politics was not his thing. As he was not the sort of guy who resented being rejected – he always believed that it showed the girl rejecting him had good taste - he nodded and smiled politely in his turn. He also smiled at Marta, with whom he had developed a tolerable working relationship.

“Long drive today, ladies,” he said.

As he climbed into the carrier, he saw a group of adult Cactuar standing a little way up a side street from Eastern Square, where they were. He had not previously noticed the Cactuar paying any attention to the patrol’s comings and goings.

“We’re not staying overnight at the site when we get there?” asked Marta as they drove off.

“That’s the aim. I’m hoping the Morlocks will expect us to stay the night and set their plans accordingly, but we’ll spend a good part of one day there and leave with enough time to get to some place defensible.

“Still good if we could stay overnight,” said Mack. “You said the Morlocks took a couple of days to gather their forces.”

“Maybe not this time around,” said Nate. “You probably didn’t notice, but a group of Cactuar was watching us as we piled into the carrier. I’ve never seen them stand around and watch what we do before, which is interesting. They know who the chancellor is - the literal translation of your title in Cactuar is big boss lady, by the way – and they occasionally look at translations of news feeds. If you’ll recall, your interest in the site has been publicly discussed. They’ll work out where we’re going and may well tell the Morlocks.”

“But you said the Cactuar hate the Morlocks,” said Marta.

“They loathe them, in fact. But they are also terrified of them, and for good reason. They will do a lot to earn credit with those guys. Informing on us in order to stay out of the Morlock tunnels makes good sense to them. I dunno how they’d get a message to the Morlock Queen before we get there, but I wouldn’t put it past them. The site we’re going to seems very sensitive. Half a day at most, I’m afraid.”

“Oh well,” said Mack.

They drove on for a time, listening to Nate’s mix of 60s Britpop with Dan driving and his superior keeping an eye on the ground scanning instruments, constantly checking for possible Morlock ambush sites. After about an hour, while the Troggs’ Wild Thing was playing, during Nate’s routine check of the surroundings through the vehicle’s rear and side cams, he noticed a faint cloud of dust to the carrier's left rear. Another vehicle?

“That’s odd,” he said aloud. “We’re supposed to be the only vehicle out here.”

“Nothing is scheduled,” said Dan.

“Yep, should be just us,” said Nate. “Pull over to that ridge. Park just below it and I’ll get out and have a look.”

“Is there anything wrong?” asked Mack as Nate got out, high powered patrol binoculars in hand.

“Probably nothing,” said Nate. “But it’s something different, and I don’t like it when something different happens. I take it as a personal affront, in fact. You can get out for a couple of minutes, if you like.”

Nate walked to the top of the ridge, leaving Dan in the carrier, scanned the landscape for dust trails, and found nothing. A few wisps of dust hung over a rock formation in the distance, he thought, but otherwise, he couldn’t see any other vehicle or any dust cloud.

“Must have been seeing things,” he said aloud.

“Did you try out any dating sites?” said Mack, quietly. She had walked up to him. Martha was out of earshot.

“Started filling in the form for one,” said Nate. “But then I got stuck on whether to put in the term you used, ‘a difficult study’, in the general comments section.”

Mack smiled. “Don’t think it’s something to mention up front.”

“In any case, I like to keep my rejection quota to once a month.”

“I didn’t reject you,” Mack said, rolling her eyes. I said it was impossible.”

“That still adds up to a rejection, and I’m a guy. I’m going to play the martyr for a time. It makes me feel better.”

“Oh, suit yourself,” said Mack, without heat. “You know you really lit a fire under the police?”

“I did?”

“I don’t know what you said to those two detectives, but they have both agreed to resign after confessing to indiscretions, or so I was told.”

“I just said that Olivia did know the chancellor because you’d told me so, and they’d better work out a way to stay out of jail.”

“It did the trick, at least for those two. I just don’t know how far it all goes. Are we done here?”

“Seems so,” said Nate.

“See anything?” asked Dan as Nate got back in.

“Nope,” said Nate. “Maybe whatever it is has gone away.”

But when they started driving again, the dust cloud started again. It was faint but unmistakable. After another hour of watching the cloud, Nate told Dan to swerve to the left.

“See that ridge? Drive right to the top of it, then stop.”

Dan did so. Nate went up the ladder and out through the vehicle’s top hatch to stand on it, scanning the landscape with his binoculars. Mac climbed up beside him, and he was aware that Marta was standing in front of the carrier, shading her eyes against the sun as she stared off in the same direction.

Then he saw it in the far distance. It was another carrier, the outlines just discernible in his powerful binoculars. As he watched, the vehicle swerved and vanished. Most likely, it had driven into a depression, Nate thought, but why hide from him? Nate watched a little longer for the vehicle to re-emerge, then descended back into the carrier.

“What’s going on?” said Mac.

“I think one of the carriers operated by the guards is out there,” Nate said, “following us for some reason. I caught a glimpse of it, and it looked like one of the older models taken directly off the mothership.”

“Why would a guard carrier be following us?” asked Mack.

“Mack, you’re chancellor, you tell us. Let’s call in control and see if they can shed any light on this.”

Nate clicked two switches to get control online and started speaking, “Control, carrier three East of City…. " He stopped as he realized that the link was dead. He clicked a few more switches and checked the system with the onboard AI, only to be told that the comms link was inoperable due to a major system malfunction.

“Never had that happen before,” he said to no one in particular. “Right, we’re heading to the nearest safe point to look at the system and see if we can find another way to call it in. Station two is about forty minutes away, due North.” Nate tapped the map screen. “Let’s stop there. Change to the new bearing. Two degrees off due North.”

“One of the stations?” exclaimed Dan. “Remember station five? It was crawling with Morlocks.”

“They won’t expect us to stop there,” said Nate. “Before we move off, can you ladies see if you can get a signal on your phones?”

“You don’t have phones?” said Marta.

“Always switched off and in our packs during patrols. Calls on them are routed through the main comms. Patrol officers shouldn’t be on their phones out here.”

“No signal,” said Mac, waving her phone around. “Not a shadow of one.”

Marta had the same result.

Okay, that settles it,” said Nate. “We head for station two at top speed. Punch it, Dan.”

Dan obliged and, sure enough, the dust cloud started again.

Now alarmed, Nate decided to check the comms system. As there didn’t seem to be any problem with the AI or any of the other control systems, maybe the fault was in the router to the small satellite dish on the roof. This was mounted in the carrier cabin, close to the top hatch. He unscrewed the router’s lid to find that two circuit boards were broken clean through, and components were melted. But the comms link had been working when he called control to open the East Gate. Nate used his flashlight to examine the box’s insides and pulled out a small tube that had been split wide open. A bomb small enough to push between two boards and make very little noise when it detonated into the router box, but still big enough to fry circuitry beyond repair.

Nate knew he could not fix the comms link out in the desert. He carried many spare items, but not a spare router. There had never been any need. For now, the real question was why the equipment had been sabotaged by someone who seemed to know what they were doing. That same person somehow managed to fix the onboard AI so that it wouldn’t complain when the satellite link went down. He thought about that for a few seconds, tapping the lid of the comm link, then turned to Mac.

“We’ve been sabotaged,” he said. “If you’re out of the picture, who takes over? The deputy chancellor?”

“He steps up,” said Mac, “but he still had to be ratified by the senate…” Realisation dawned. “They wouldn’t dare! They couldn’t shoot me or anything like that.”