Chapter 22
The zip train from London to Houston had been uneventful, and that was giving Terra some confidence. Agent Dawson would know now for sure that they had escaped. But the fact that they had encountered no resistance what-so-ever meant that they were probably being allowed to escape. The camouflage suits were great but they would have to take them off sooner or later. She also knew that there weren’t that many surface to orbit trips in a given day, it wouldn’t be hard to track three people traveling together. However once they were off Earth, Terra was hoping they’d be able to lose their tail.
The train had only just arrived at the Houston terminal and was raising up to unload passengers. The clock on Terra’s camouflage display told her that she had approximately forty-five minutes of power remaining. We’d better move quickly, she thought.
“Ready to go?” Sam asked aloud.
“Yep,” was Jeff’s reply. His camouflage provided face was smiling; he must be getting a little more confident too.
The train came to a stop and as soon as the door was opened they offloaded and moved quickly to the terminal. Terra didn’t see anyone that looked like a tail, but that didn’t mean there weren’t undercover agents observing their every movement.
The main terminal was not especially busy. Jeff and Sam started for the transport tube that went directly to the Houston Spaceport, but Terra quickly stopped them and got them to follow her up the main lift tube to the surface. They didn’t object; she was in charge of their getaway from this point out.
Once they emerged at the surface, Terra led them off towards one of the auto taxis that lined the sides of streets surrounding the zip train terminal entrance. Terra picked one at random and headed towards it. The yellow colored ground vehicle opened its doors at their approach. They all hopped into the passenger compartment.
Plato, access the Taxi and have it take us to the Fed-Ex where we arranged to be picked up, Terra directed.
“Destination information received. The Taxi is now departing,” the taxi informed them.
“Where are we going?” Sam asked. “This thing isn’t going to drive us all the way out there is it?”
“No, don’t worry. I’ve got everything arranged,” Terra reassured him. Jeff was silent.
The trip only took ten minutes, and they still had thirty-three minutes left on their camouflage when the pulled up at the Fed-Ex station.
“Thank you for choosing TaxiLine. Your fare of one-hundred-forty-one dollars has been charged to your account,” the cab recited as it opened its doors. Terra just hoped that their fake personas had enough in their accounts to cover the fare.
They all walked in to the station together and went up to the counter. Terra punched a number into the automated shipping terminal that she had arranged to use to contact the person who would help them.
“Yes,” a voice came over the intercom.
“I need to send three priority packages to Mars. Can you help me?” Terra asked. Three priority packages to Mars was the code phrase.
“Of course. I’ll open the door for you in the office. Just follow the signs back to special cargoes,” the voice replied.
The door to the side of the counter opened for them. Terra motioned for Jeff and Sam to follow and headed through the open door. There were signs that led them into the back of the office, past the parcel sorting room to a small office marked Special Cargoes. Terra knocked.
“Come in,” the voice said again.
She opened the door. There was a man sitting behind a desk looking at a large view screen. He looked up as they all entered.
Once they were inside and the door was closed, the man asked, “You are my three priority packages, I presume?”
“We are.” Terra replied. “We need the Olympus Mons Express.” Olympus Mons was the second code word.
“Okay, then follow me. We’re ready for you,” he said, standing up and leading them back out the door.
Terra didn’t know his name, but she knew he was from Mars, and Emelda trusted him. He led them to the back of the packages sorting room where a large container was waiting. The container looked to be about three meters on a side.
“We hardly ever have to use these, and they’re not comfortable, but it’ll work for your purposes,” he said, entering some pass codes on the container access screen. The whole side of the container opened up. “The container is shielded, so no one will know you’re in there. It’s not so large, but it does have a fog restraint system that should keep you safe during lift. If you’ll all get in, I’ll seal it up and get you to the spaceport ASAP,” he assured them, smiling. He obviously enjoyed the cloak and dagger stuff.
“We’re traveling in a box?” Sam asked.
“Safest way to travel, and the fastest. Don’t worry. You won’t be in the box for the whole trip, just till you’re on the Express,” the man explained.
Jeff chuckled at the response. “Come on, let’s go.”
They all entered the box and sat in three of the four restraint chairs arranged on the floor.
“I’m engaging the restraints, and then you’ll be off. Good luck,” The Fed-Ex guy said.
“Thanks for your help,” Terra said as the man went to close the container.
“No problem,” he replied, and then the side of the container closed and the lights came on. There were view screens on the inside walls of the container that showed them the outside. Terra was relieved. At least they could see out, and no one could see in.
“Can you guys break your links to the Data sphere?” Terra asked.
“Done,” Sam said.
“Done,” Jeff echoed.
“Good, I think we can turn off these camouflage units now. We shouldn’t need them again for a while,” Terra directed.
“Okay.” Jeff pulled the canisters from his coat underneath the camouflage. “Just access the camouflage and have it deactivate and stow.”
Terra had Plato follow the instructions. The fog became a blue looking liquid again and flowed up her arm to the canister that Jeff had given her. The canister filled with the liquid until it was full, then Terra secured the cap. Jeff and Sam had theirs off too. They handed their canisters back to Jeff who was the only one wearing a jacket in which the canisters could be easily hidden from view.
Terra grinned. “Well I don’t know about you, but I’m glad I’m me again. I didn’t much care for being a man.”
“Me neither,” Sam joked.
A large door opened behind the container and a truck backed into position to load them. The container began to slide into the truck and within a minute they were loaded and the truck was on its way.
“It’s a lot slower than the tubes to the spaceport, but no one will see us. I’ve been assured that the container will pass through inspection without a problem, and then we’ll be lifted to the Fed-Ex Station in low orbit,” Terra explained. “From there we’ll be loaded on the next Express to Mars which is actually ready to go but is holding for some special cargo.”
“That’s brilliant,” Jeff said. “I never would have thought to smuggle us by a package delivery service. They’ll never think to find us there, they’ll be busy checking all the passenger transports.”
“And we’ll arrive days before any passenger transport on the Fed-Ex express ship,” Sam added.
“That’s right,” Terra replied.
Jeff looked concerned. “Of course, the bill for this will be fifty times more than a passenger transport.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got the means,” Terra reassured him. “It’s always worth spending the money for a sure thing.”
“Unlimited means?” Sam asked curiously. He was still thinking about his conversation with Damon Harding.
“I wouldn’t call it unlimited, but certainly sufficient,” she qualified.
“Were you helping 23.1 with your sufficient means?” Sam asked.
“My other version probably was,” Terra admi
tted.
“Your other version?” Sam replied, surprised. “I should have guessed. You look too young to be anything but recently restored. How’d that happen?”
“Let’s wait till we’re on our way to Mars,” Terra hesitated. “I don’t want to jinx it.”
Sam nodded, but Terra could tell he was burning to ask her dozens of questions.
“It seems we’ll have a lot to talk about,” Jeff decided. “It should make the trip more enjoyable.”
“I’ll agree with that. Say, do they have any food on this crate?” Sam asked. “I’m starving.”
Terra rolled her eyes in mock disdain. “You ate only a few hours ago.”
“I’m a growing boy,” Sam retorted, examining the interior of the crate.
Jeff just laughed.
They couldn’t see anything out the windows any more now that they were in the truck. The trip seemed to take a long time before they finally stopped and the back of the truck opened. Terra checked Plato’s time display and found it had only been fifteen minutes. The container was unloaded quickly from the truck and into a fog tube. The crate dropped away from the surface and then once they’d gone down about a hundred meters started to translate horizontally.
Within five minutes they popped out the end of the tube in a large warehouse. The container was quickly routed to an inspection station before it could leave the warehouse to be loaded on a lifter. They all held their breath, waiting while the container was stopped for inspection. After what seemed like hours, but was only minutes, the container started moving again. They were loaded on a large bullet shaped lifter with the standard autorotors plainly visible. Inside the Fed-Ex lifter they were shoved into a cargo hold with hundreds of other containers of varying sizes. More containers continued to be loaded until the entire hold was full.
Then with efficiency typical of the company the cargo door was closed and sealed. Five minutes later they started lifting. Three more minutes and the rockets kicked in. They were on their way to Fed-Ex Station.
The thrust cut after they reached orbit. According to Terra’s plan they should dock at the station within a half hour and be loaded on the express to Mars. She hoped it would go smoothly. There wasn’t much to do, so they all just sat there silently until Jeff spoke up.
“Terra, I want to thank you for your help in getting us off planet and on our way. Without you we would have just been wandering the tubes with camouflage on until it ran out of juice. By now we’d probably be being interrogated by Agent Dawson.”
“Hah, without you we’d still be sitting in your crèche mate’s apartment enjoying after dinner conversation, waiting for the Feds to break down the door. I couldn’t have done any better at that first part,” Terra acknowledged.
Jeff nodded, pleased that his part had worked out as well.
“So basically, you both planned the different aspects of our getaway, and I did nothing. I wish I could have been of a little more help. It seems like I’m just getting dragged around these days,” Sam added.
“Don’t worry about it, Sam. You were just restored yesterday and you’ve done beautifully so far. You came when you saw my message on your anonymous account, and you managed to procure yourself a new identity. We couldn’t have gotten you that,” Jeff said sympathetically to his crèche brother.
“Yeah, well. I’m still not exactly sure what I’m doing here.”
“We need you, Sam. We can’t find your other version without you,” Jeff said sincerely. “I wish it weren’t just that. I’m sure you have some questions for your other version too, but we need you and there’s a lot at stake.”
“And why her?” Sam said, looking at Terra. “What’s she got to do with all of this?”
“I was only just restored a week ago. The virus your other version launched initiated the restoration of my backup, which was eight years out of date. My other version was probably helping Sam 6.7 with something illegal, maybe something to do with the virus. I don’t know. But before my backup was made, he told me that if I was ever restored to find him because he would owe me something…so here I am,” Terra volunteered..
“It seems my other version is still trying to fulfill our pact, Jeff,” Sam said after a moment of silent contemplation of this new information.
“Yes, it seems he is. Does that surprise you?” Jeff asked.
“Not really. Even when we made our pact-god, it seems like only a few days ago- I didn’t think you were into it as much as I was. I had my own reasons, and you didn’t. Were you involved with the virus, Jeff?”
Jeff took a deep breath. He couldn’t decide whether he should tell Sam that he was or wasn’t. And he wasn’t sure what Terra would say if he lied. Probably nothing, but…he needed these people to help him. Honesty was probably the best course of action. “No, I wasn’t involved by choice, only by circumstance. Sam 6.7 sent me a backup cube and a letter. He told me that he had stumbled on to a sinister terrorist plot to attack the restoration system and to kill people. He said that if I hadn’t heard from him by the time I got the package, I should have him restored because the terrorists had probably killed him. So I inserted the backup cube into the system and that released the virus, which somehow made it past our sentry program. It was a Trojan horse, and I led it right in to Troy.”
“Sounds like Sam 6.7 knew exactly what strings to pull,” Sam surmised.
“Yes, he certainly did. So from the inside, like we planned, I started the virus. I think Sam 6.7 knew that I wouldn’t help knowingly to do it, so he helped me to keep to the pact even without my consent. But he crossed the line when he did it. He killed people, three thousand non-corporeal people; are dead now. Sam said in another message I got from him later that the virus wouldn’t do that, but it did. So I have some questions to ask him. I have to see him to know if he did that intentionally, and I have to know why he used me to accomplish his goals if he did know.”
Sam looked disappointed. “I had hoped you were in it with me.”
“I was for a long time, but it’s been thirty years. Things can change a lot for a Newbie in that much time,” Jeff reminded him. “I never meant to hurt you, but at some point I came to believe that the restoration system, however wrong-headed, is the only thing keeping the solar system from erupting into a massive war. Billions might die if that balance were interrupted.” Jeff didn’t expect Sam to agree.
“I agree, but the war will come anyway eventually. The technology can’t be controlled forever. It might be ten thousand years, but it’ll still happen. And then what? Ten thousand years of stagnation for the human race… war is preferable to that,” Sam maintained.
“Eventually, yes,” Terra admitted. “It will happen. The rest of the nations on and off Earth are tired of the oppression. If we didn’t have to, we wouldn’t all roll over and let the US control us.”
“You don’t have to. Give up the technology. Live like humans have always lived. Give up the treaties and develop technology. If necessary, fight. Others will follow you, and you will eventually win,” Sam challenged.
“You forget, while it’s been in control, the US has developed some formidable technology that we can’t compete with. The LNRC and the Fleet are both controlled by the US. They are far beyond us. We wouldn’t stand a chance anymore in a fight,” Terra continued. It was a problem they’d been facing for a century or more. They hadn’t seen it coming until it was too late. The US had already solidified control by then.
“I know,” Sam sighed. “I wish there were alternatives.”
“Maybe there are,” Jeff suggested. “That’s why we’re all here. Sam 6.7’s been fighting in secret for thirty years now. He must have been working on this very problem. The virus was the start, but who knows what he’s got planned. That’s why we have to find him.”
They were interrupted when the launch fired its thrusters. They all quieted down, waiting. After a few minutes they saw the c
argo door to the launch open and they could see another warehouse with more boxes arranged around the entire space, even on the walls and ceilings. The packages behind them were unloaded quickly and then their own container started to move out.
There must be a fog system controlling the process, Terra thought. She didn’t see one person anywhere. The container moved out of the launch and across the warehouse to the opposite end where a tube five meters in diameter extended outward into space. At the end was the Fed-Ex express. The container slid through the tube, and they all got a good last look at Earth.
“It is beautiful,” Terra said. “But I’ll take Mars over it any day.”
Jeff looked longingly at his home. “Not me, I want to go back one day, but who know if that day will ever come.”
The Fed-Ex express was a simple design, a large cargo storage section and crew quarters in the front, then a thick piece of shielding and a large fuel tank followed by a set of three rocket motors.
“Fastest non-Fleet ship in the solar system.” Terra shared, with a grin.
“She’s not much to look at,” Sam grimaced.
“When you’re just a fuel tank and an engine with a small payload, you don’t have to look like much if you can deliver. We’ll be on Mars in four days,” Terra said.
The crate reached the end of the tube through the cargo bay door and slid into place with the other express cargo. They watched as the cargo door closed and then waited for a few minutes while the Express detached from the station. Once the ship detached, they saw someone enter the cargo bay from the crew portion of the ship ahead of them. He descended from a portal and appeared to be floating at them sideways.
“Don’t worry, we’ll have you out of there in a minute,” a man informed them. He was tall and he walked toward them.
Inside the container Jeff released himself from the restraint seat and began to float. “No simulated gravity in here.”
Sam and Terra released their restraints and began to float as well. There wasn’t much room. The man made it to the container and accessed the container’s controls. The side opened to let them out. Terra pushed off for the opening, and as soon as she exited the container, she felt the simulated gravitational force pull her to the ground for a gentle landing. Jeff and Sam followed her out. She realized that the man had seemed to float sideways because the simulated gravity of the ship was running a different direction than she had been expecting. She felt herself reorient and she started to think of the portal to the crew section as being above them.
The man came forward and helped her to her feet. “I’m Ignus Scott, captain of the Express. Glad to have you aboard. But one thing, my contact on Earth told me to expect three men. Are you my cargo, or what?”
He seemed genuinely friendly and Terra studied his face as she stood up. “Thank you, Captain Scott, and yes, we are your cargo. We were traveling in disguise.”
“Well, first off, you can call me Ignus, and second of all, I’m glad you’re the right cargo. Don’t get paid to deliver the wrong thing, you know,” he said with a big grin. He released her and looked at the other men. “Welcome,” he said, approaching them and extending his hand. “Call me Ignus.”
“I’m Jeff, and this is Greg.” Jeff spoke, taking the Captain’s hand. “I’m glad you had room for one more package.”
The Captain laughed. “Of course. If you’re paying the rates, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Good to meet you, Jeff.” He released Jeff’s hand and took Sam’s. “Greg.” he added.
“Ignus,” Sam said.
Ignus smiled when Sam called him by his first name. “I can tell we’re going to get along great. But we have a schedule to keep, and if you will kindly follow me up to the passenger deck, we can get underway. I want to burn while we still have good position.”
“Of course,” Terra agreed.
“Follow me.” Ignus headed for the center of the cargo bay to the circle that must have been the lift tube he had used earlier. Antimatter powered ships were always oriented like tall buildings. It minimized the cross sectional area but gave floors that people could stand on when the ship was burning, which antimatter vessels did almost constantly. When they weren’t accelerating, they had the simulated gravity.
The three of them followed Ignus up the lift tube to the passenger deck. There were only two levels. The top level was the bridge which had enough space for two people and the lower was the passenger deck which consisted of three small rooms. Ignus gave Terra one room to herself, and one to Jeff and Sam. The remaining room was his. There was also a larger common room with a couch, table, and food dispenser.
There was junk laid out all over the common room. Ignus obviously didn’t travel with passengers often.
“Usually it’s just me. Sometimes I bring a second, but the Express has a pretty sophisticated SS system. Her name is Darla, by the way. If you need anything and I’m busy, just ask her for help, she’ll be happy to assist. Won’t you, Darla?” Ignus said to the air.
“Of course,” a full feminine voice came from the air. “Welcome aboard. Ignus, we should be burning in two minutes.”
“Thanks, Darla. I’ll be up in a jiff,” Ignus replied. He seemed quite fond of his ship’s companion. “We’ll be accelerating at point nine gees until we reach the halfway and then we’ll flip and slow down at the same. Mars is almost opposed to the Earth right now, but I’ll just burn a little harder and we’ll make it on schedule. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go the bridge and make sure our flight plan is correct, not that I think Darla would make a mistake. I’ll be back down later, so take a load off.”
“Darla, please secure the cargo portal,” the captain said as he ascended to the bridge on the lift tube. The cargo bay lift tube portal irised closed, and they were left alone in the common room.
“Well, shall we sit down until we’re underway?” Jeff suggested, heading towards the couch. Sam and Terra followed him. There was a large screen opposite them that Ignus must use for entertainment and information. They could all use their companions but sometimes it just wasn’t the same as the big screen.
Terra let out a big yawn.
Sam yawned too. “Hey, don’t do that. You’re making me sleepy,” Sam chided.
“I’m pretty tuckered myself,” Jeff admitted with a yawn.
“Well, we’ve been up and running in a high stress mode for hours now. As soon as we’re underway, I’m going to my room and getting some sleep. We have time; who knows when we’ll get this much time to rest again.”
“Beginning burn in twenty seconds,” Ignus’ voice came over the ship’s intercom. “I’m switching off simulated gravity in nineteen, so hold on to something.”
Terra put a tight grip on the arm of the couch.
“I hope this thing is bolted down,” Sam joked.
“I’m sure it is,” Jeff assured him. The nineteen seconds elapsed, and they suddenly felt totally weightless instead of the strange mixed bag that simulated gravity provided. Then before they could take a breath, they felt the engines come to life as the methane propellant was mixed with milligrams of antimatter. They took off like a shot.
“I love constant acceleration,” Terra exclaimed. “It is so much better than simulated gravity, and you aren’t a slave to orbital mechanics. You just point yourself towards your destination and fire off the rocket.”
“Yeah, but if your engine breaks before you slow down, you’ll have enough velocity to break free of the sun and you’ll be on an interstellar trip the long way,” Sam said smartly.
“That’s why we have three engines,” Terra replied.