Coming up out of the poly-cocoon when his alarm beeped, Cardoso felt almost normal. He checked his metering and hit his casing-lift button like usual, when readouts told him there was air out there and power---that the ship around him wasn't derelict. They left that fallback for the lentocongelar transiters: if you happened to wake up in a ghost ship, you could use your cocoon like an ejection pod, hit the "homing" button that activated coordinate presets and started emergency beacons howling, and go back to sleep. Maybe somebody'd pick you up, or maybe you'd make an orbit on your own.
It happened that way sometimes, although it never happened to Cardoso. There probably wasn't much of anything out here in the way of aid and comfort if it had happened this time....not on the far side of a superforce jump into a Z-venue.
He knew little more about Z-77C now, 6 months later by groundsider clock, than he'd known when he woke up on Kononatoo. But he knew whom to ask. He'd bumped into the mission commander, a Captain Castro, during embarkation, and been told to report to him after the lentocongelar. Castro had clapped him on the arm and given him a knowing look and somehow made Cardoso feel a whole lot better before he climbed into his cocoon and punched the canopy down for a long winter's nap.
Cardoso could see other guys up and dressing as his canopy lifted, and the air that came rushing in was moist and warm. Reaching up with both arms, he grabbed the canopy assist bar and chinned himself up and out of his pod, bracing for the icy contact of bare feet to bulkhead. It came and went like a cold shower.
He dressed from the locker beneath his cocoon, zipping into sergeant's coveralls that said IVO on them, took to stabilizer tablets from his pharma-kit because he still had some hangover, and punched up a wiring diagram of the ship so that he could find Castro's stateroom. Commissioned officers usually had staterooms on higher decks, and Castro was no exception.
Having absorbed the routing diagram, Cardoso slipped into his workbelt and boots and stood up, nearly bumping into the man standing their waiting to be noticed.
Castro's aide was pale and freckled and he said, "If you'll come this way, Sergeant, they're expecting you."
It wasn't really reason enough for everybody in the lentocongelar room to fall silent and stare, but it was a far cry from normal, so what could you do? His face impassive, Cardoso let his gaze sweep over the two dozen guardas watching and said casually, "As you were, meninas," then followed Castro's aide out through the hatch.
He didn't blame them for staring; he was new to them, had some rank, and they likely knew less than he did about the approaching mission, if that was possible.
Castro's cabin was upper-tier all right, and Castro was sitting in it at a round table with three men out of uniform---that is, in quick-tab pressure coveralls without any service designators, nice black ones of the kind guarda battalion only issued for special duty because they cost too much, even though they upped your survival quotient in a depressurization emergency, the most common kind in space.
Castro, facing the door and Cardoso's perfunctory salute, nodded infinitesimally. "Sit down, Ivo." And returned his attention momentarily to the card game in progress and the other three men at the table. "Now that the sergeant's here, we can get on with this." He put down his cards and leaned back in his chair.
By then Cardoso had taken the only vacant seat, opposite Castro, and was trying to keep his cool. One of the men in the pressure suits was Garcia and Garcia was watching him back, poker-faced.
"You know Lieutenant Garcia, Ivo," said Castro, who looked exactly like a balding beaver in fatigues.
"Sort of," Cardoso said. Garcia had got to keep his name and wasn't in uniform, so what did Cardoso know about this guy, anyway? Garcia was one hell of a pilot, that was what. He'd saved Garcia's life on Z-42B. Cardoso added, unstiffening. "I was wondering where you'd got to."
"I bet," said Garcia, lounging bonelessly in his chair, a clean-cut, even-featured towhead who didn't seem one bit the worse for wear after Z-42B. "We're going to do it all over again, I hear," Garcia said with his pilot's knack for maximum articulation in a minimum of words.
About then Cardoso realized no one was going to introduce him to the other two, who had "fantasma" (spook) written all over them who could have passed for brothers of the two guys who'd doped him and signed him on for this mission.
When Castro said to the darker of the two big men," Anytime you're ready, Captain," Cardoso was sure it was the same man who'd been in uniform at the Sistema Solar Bar and Grille.
"Here we go, then," said the unnamed captain in the black pressure suit, pulling a memo card from his sleeve. He had that ultrawell-bred born-officer look and real pale eyes, startling against tanned skin and black hair. "Ivo, thanks for putting up with all this bullshit." A smile tweaked his thin mouth. "We'll bonus you for it as best we can. You and Garcia are the only guys we know---the only military personnel---who've seen the so-called aliens and lived to talk about it..."
"To talk sense about it," amended his counterpart, whom nobody named or spoken to, and yet seemed to Cardoso to be in charge. Maybe it was the way he sat, so relaxed, or the way he interrupted o capitao.
A room full of brass was always trouble, and Cardoso's eyes asked Garcia if Garcia thought the two of them had any business being up here. Garcia's answer was to light a cigarette and stare at the flame.
"Right, sir," said the captain in black who wasn't Castro. "To talk sense about it. We've got the same situation here on Z-77C---or we think we will, if we're not careful."
"How's that?" Cardoso asked because that was what he was here for, unless he was here by accident---to ask questions and get his mission definition clear. "On Z-42B, we were attacked by workforce rebels with expropriated hardware, near as we could tell. You mean there's a revolt down there on....?"
"Z-77C, lutador," said No-Name, square-jawed and clear-eyed and the end of everyone's reporting chain, Cardoso was now sure. "This is a policing action; we're replacing the bulk of the workforce, but what happened on Z-42B cannot happen here. Voce entende?"
Garcia shifted in his seat, turning his cigarette in his fingers. Cardoso looked from him to the captain, then to Castro, and said, "Eu nao entendo (No, I don't understand). What happened on Z-42B's a mystery to me, at least what happened after we left it. Remember where you guys found me---nobody's briefed me but you."
There was a long pause in which Cardoso went through hell: if these guys had briefed him back on Earth, he'd just admitted he wasn't fit for anybody's mission---that he didn't remember nada.
The captain in black said, "That's right. My error. Cardoso, after your team got smoked down there, it got lots worse. Total revolt. Alien rumors became alien-worshipping cults. We scratched every worker on the planet and brought in new ones. But somehow this 'holy ground, alien sanctuary' crap got started all over again on Z-42B. And somehow it seems to have spread her---to Z-77C."237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡESN3otNpjd
Cardoso couldn't find anywhere to rest his eyes so he closed them. Shock wasn't something he usually felt. But scratch a whole population? Start over? Because of hallucinatory white hands pulling Mendes into solid rock? He didn't know why, but he said with his eyes still closed, "Z-77C's got some of the same geological structure, I guess---from the unigraph and the designator similarities?"237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQT1qZy4wI9
"We don't consider that important, lutador," answered No-name and Cardoso opened his eyes.237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyjjOtE1m7O
Garcia caught them in his and shook his head. "No."237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ92pbFnHykH
"Sorry, sir," Cardoso replied to the unnamed briefing officer. "But I saw something down on Z-42B too. You must know that---it's why EICSA wouldn't let....This Z-77B, is it an EICSA holding?"237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQQSP5KW9JX
Castro entered the briefing. "Yes, but ECISA doesn't know you as 'Ivo.' So they don't know you're a vet of Z-42B and you don't tell them. And don't dig deeper than you must, Sergeant."237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyfF3swhcDA
"Just what I need, is all I want---to do my duty."237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm9YNyvRF0L
"Your duty," said the captain in black, "is to confirm or deny this alien presence business while you're supposedly part of the policing force on-planet. Can you handle that? We already know Garcia can."237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwhZWu2XOie
"Yeah, well, Garcia just flies 'em," Cardoso said before he could check himself. "With new guys? A green team on long recon? Undercover, yet? I don't know. What have I got for weapons, leeway, logistical support? What happens if I find something---aliens or crazy revolutionaries trying to promote a legend of aliens... ? That's two very different things."237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsW3x1Qcvq4
"Muito bom, Ivo," said the nameless honcho. "You solve the problem, which I'm defining here and now as any element contradicting a successful colonization effort. You'll be in here at the beginning, almost---there's not much down there but techs, terraformers, and the beginnings of a workforce. We want this incipient problems solved before it becomes a real one. If there's some underground among the workforces running a game on us, we've got to make it too expensive for them. Brazil wants Z-77C as a territory; EICSA wants it as a corporate bastion, and the 203rd wants to even up the score for Z-42B. Clear enough?"237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ69t9YFZg6B
Cardoso looked doubtful. "I just do recon teams."237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9x71PE7TL6
"That's what you'll do, Ivo," said the captain in black. "We'll give you whatever we can. You and Garcia are the only two men we've got who have any idea what we're fighting down there. As we said, we don't want a repeat of Z-42B. And we don't want to explain anything to your men. The last thing we need are floating rumors."237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3YwDz9TPMr
"What about EICSA? Don't they know about this? Don't they know about me?"237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuNO23LxP3j
"We told you, no," said Castro, Cardoso's putative commanding officer. "Not beyond their request for policing units. And you don't tell EICSA anything more, or let them find out. These two gentlemen," Castro gestured to the pair of briefing officers, "went to a length of trouble to get you out here without EICSA's knowledge. If EICSA's methods are at the bottom of this, we need to know that, too. Does that answer all of your questions?"237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1x1EccrkVU
It didn't but it was going to have to do. "Yeah, I'll concoct a shopping list with Garcia, if that's all right."237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3QUAZOoWp4
"Fine. You're both excused. "We'd like your list," said the captain in black, "by nineteen-hundred hours. We won't be available after that." He held out his hand and Garcia shook it, then offered his to the other unidentified official.237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6FcyzggXEU
There was too much callus in that handshake to make sense with the pecking-order here and the man said. "Come back with this one, Sergeant. I really want to see your report."237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoKJi0ZJSm5
"Yeah, you bet," Cardoso promised and by the time he'd reached the door, Garcia was right behind him.237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4ERai90s6u
Outside it, they looked at each other soberly and then Garcia punched him playfully in the gut: "Come on, Ivo, let's go get skunked and compare notes. Mia Deus, I'm glad you were in there."237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0EoBKUGdKi
There was something forced about Garcia's manner, but Cardoso chalked it up to the draining tension: nobody wanted to sit in on meetings like that, let alone be the focus of them. Those guys in there were asking the dubious, if not the impossible. It was hard to tell them "yes sir" and "you bet sir," especially when you hadn't even scoped your men yet.237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhf3UzlklwY
But with or without Cardoso's okay, they were going to drop him on Z-77B with those guys he'd cocooned in with, so what difference did it make how he felt about it?237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzndHxTODsN
The difference it made, he decided when he and Garcia had found the mess and hunkered down over their beers, was that nobody was telling him there weren't aliens anymore.237Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXaBx2RPdIp
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