Sertian Princess Read online

  The garden itself he had then proceeded to stock with the most beautiful and fragrant plants from all the planets which he visited, together with their necessary insect life. Constant monitoring of the population levels was essential as was monitoring of the amount of interbreeding and mutation. In the last resort, if the ecological balance became perturbed so far that it could not be restored by chemical or genetic engineering, he would have to flush the whole garden out in deep space and then start over. So far that had not been necessary.

  On the level below the living quarters was the machine level. Powerplant, computer halls, life support systems; all were situated here. The maintenance of all this equipment was itself largely performed by robot technicians and so it was rarely necessary for the human crew to descend to this level. Here also were the vast storage rooms filled with supplies and trading goods and the workshops capable of repairing or replacing any component part of the Salamander.

  Finally, on the fourth and lowest level was the docking area containing scout craft, small one and two man penetration craft capable of slipping unnoticed through the most complex detection screens and, incongruous against the modern, tiny scout craft, an old and very battered Star class freighter, the Phoenix. It was, of course, not quite as old and battered as it appeared and furthermore, contained one or two modifications which would have startled the original designers. The Phoenix tended to blend naturally into the background on any spacefield in the known galaxy and on many operations had served to provide cover, as a decoy or, as in this case, as a most mechanically unreliable form of transport.

  He walked into the Briefing Room still thinking of the role the Phoenix would have to play.

  "Sam, what would be the most convincing breakdown we could arrange on the Phoenix? Nothing too serious: she's got to be able to limp in and land under her own power but then be stranded for several days for repairs."

  "How about a hairline crack in the casing of the Main Drive so that she can only operate at reduced speed or at full speed for only very short periods?"

  "Hm, that wouldn't actually stop her from making sub-space jumps to Quental and limping in for repairs there."

  "Well, how about if we put the crack in the lining of one of the powercells? That would stop the sub-space jumps."

  "Come off it Sam. If we crack a powercell there will be a radiation spill and the ship and crew will be put into quarantine until they're clean even if they're allowed to land at all. We need something that isn't going to cause any panic."

  "Ok then, what about an intermittent hardware fault on the power supply computer causing an occasional power loss? I could have a defective chip made up in the workshop. If we also disable the auto diagnosis module it would take about three days to run a full component level check manually."

  "That's better Sam: have the chip made up. Meanwhile, have the archive material on Wolfram and the Sertian Royal Family available on-line for the briefing and stay listening in yourself."

  "Yes Boss."

  The door slid open and Zara entered. "The Senior Officers are here, my lord. Are you ready for them?"

  "Yes Zara, wheel them in."

  He watched them as they entered the Briefing Room: Zara, of course, Elida the Navigation Officer and Corin the Pilot had been on duty when the message had come in from Centre. Mtebe, the giant Chief Engineer, whose huge hands were so skilful that he could strip down and repair almost any piece of equipment on the ship faster than a specialised robot technician. Suzanne, the natural telepath, who was in charge of all the communications equipment but who could, if necessary, communicate without any equipment at all. Simon, the ex-Imperial Guards Officer, who was responsible for all offensive and defensive weapon systems. And lastly, Julia, who commanded his personal bodyguard and who trained the crew for all off-ship activities.

  They seated themselves around the oval table. There was a giant display screen occupying most of one of the end walls of the room and small repeater screens in front of each of them. Each position had an access panel for directing enquiries into both the Main and the Archive Databanks and switching facilities for routing the replies to any other position around the table or up to the big display screen.

  "Good morning", he began the meeting. "I hope I haven't disturbed your beauty sleep too early this morning."

  A smirk appeared on a couple of faces, quickly suppressed and he felt a faint surge of irritation with himself as he realised that he had used that particular opening line last time. It was time to change the patter.

  "Centre have got a job for us."

  He turned to the main display screen. "Sam, key the pictures to the names as I run through them."

  He laid out the problem and then quickly sketched in the background details rounding off with the current military situation between Vostov and Serta.

  "Right, that's the problem. Questions, analysis, recommendations?"

  Elida spoke first. "Ok, I'll get the obvious question out of the way. Why don't we just intercept the Aldebaran at her next port-of-call, inform Princess Nerissa of the potential danger and escort her back to Serta?"

  "Two reasons", he replied. "First, it is believed that Princess Nerissa has developed into a spoilt and very stubborn young lady who would not necessarily be responsive to warnings of a potential threat for which there is not actually any hard evidence. Second, at this point in time we do not know what strength the opposition has in the field or precisely what their intentions are. A kidnap attempt is the most likely scenario. Sam how do you calculate the probability?"

  "Probability of a kidnap attempt is 86.1% plus or minus 7.7%."

  "However, if we foil the kidnap by pre-emptive action, they may panic or they may simply choose an alternative course of action and take the Princess out of the game on a more permanent basis. Probability Sam?"

  "Probability of an assassination is 21.2% plus or minus 9.6%. However, if the kidnap option is removed, the probability of an assassination rises to 67.2% plus or minus 13.4%."

  Suzanne leaned forward. "Could Vostov already have someone on board the Aldebaran?"

  "It's possible but they would have to have moved dammed fast. They may, of course, have already had somebody on board the liner in their pay; a crew member maybe. But if they have it's likely to be only a low grade operative, capable of maintaining a surveillance operation but no more than that until a superior arrives."

  "I take it that the plain fact that we have been called in at all means that a military operation has been ruled out." This from Simon.

  "Quite so. This whole operation is too close to Parm to risk major Naval Manoeuvres. Centre did promise to arrange a corvette as back-up but only to be used in extremis. I don't even have confirmation of the corvette's availability yet."

  "So we are on our own then." Corin looked at Elida. "Can we get to Floreat ahead of the Aldebaran?"

  "Yes we could but our current course is laid in for Andes. My lord, would it not be better to get a team on board the Aldebaran as quickly as possible?"

  He sighed gently. They were all young and enthusiastic, and without exception, very good within their specialised fields but none of them showed the potential to develop the broad range of skills essential to the survival of a successful agent. None of them except Zara, that is. Of all the young hopefuls he had identified as having some potential and, therefore, being worthy of his time and effort in training them, only Zara had lived up to his expectations.

  "My lady, is there any factor which has been overlooked in the analysis so far?"

  "I would say the biggest thing is that they will be expecting us. They obtained their information from one of our agents. They must assume that she had already reported in to Centre or maybe she even confessed as much. Therefore, they will be expecting us to take some action. Any new passengers or crew joining the Aldebaran at either of the next two stops will need a watertight cover story or else they will immediately be tagged as our agents."

  "So far so good, my lady. Now fo
llow that line of reasoning through to a conclusion."

  "If we go charging in like a bull in a china shop, without any idea of the strength of the opposition, we will give them a virtually unbeatable advantage. At best they will be able to neutralise all of our operations: at worst, we may be consigning a group of agents to their deaths."

  "But," interrupted Julia, "if they can identify our agents so easily, surely we can identify theirs? After all, they will also have to join the ship either at Floreat or at Andes."

  "I have no intention of allowing our agents to be easily identified," he said sharply. "Furthermore, I have to assume that the Vostovian Field Controller will be equally as alert to the risks and will be providing equally good cover for his agents. Never underestimate the opposition. It could be the last mistake you ever make."

  Zara cut in quickly, attempting with the tone of her voice to lower the tension around the table. "As you have directed us to head for Andes, my lord, instead of Floreat, what do you have in mind for us to do?

  At the back of his mind he realised that she was gentling him as one would a fractious animal and instinctively rebelled against it. But then the training and years of self-discipline took over and he admitted to himself that she was right as usual. He took a deep breath and forced himself to reply calmly.

  "We have to establish the cover story. The main team will be the Blue Star Streak Group, five female vocalists plus their manager en route to Quental for an engagement at a nightclub there. The actual booking is being set up now and will be authentic. They will be stranded on Andes when the ship on which they are travelling, the Phoenix, breaks down with an intermittent power failure. The breakdown will also be genuine: the main power supply computer will contain a defective chip which is being constructed in the workshops at this moment. Mtebe, you will see to its installation. You will also disable the auto diagnosis module at the same time. We will drop the Phoenix off on the far side of the Andean sun and they will make their way to Andes spaceport as best they can. They will have just over three days to get there.

  "Julia, we have used the Blue Star Streak Group cover before so you shouldn't have any difficulty in finding four volunteer singers. Zara, I would like you to be the lead singer and you, Corin, to be the group's manager."

  He had no worries about Zara's ability to carry off this particular role. She had a voice of such clear quality that even her ordinary speech was a pleasure to listen to. She had often sung as part of the entertainment programme on board the Salamander and his one regret was that if on this operation, she was actually called upon to sing, her voice would be mingled with four others which, however skilled, he would regard as inferior.

  There was, he had to admit, a good chance that they would be called upon to perform. Even if the Captain did not seize the opportunity provided by having a group of professional singers on board his liner, it was likely that the opposition would contrive something in order to test the group's cover. In the next few days they would have to organise some stage costumes and rehearse a few routines.

  He resumed the briefing. "The other group will be a team of two: a dealer in semi-precious stones and his wife travelling from Floreat to Quental. After we drop the Phoenix off near Andes we will double back to Floreat. We can make it in two jumps and use one of the two-man penetrators to land as close to Floreat spaceport as possible. I will take the role of the dealer: it's a cover I've used before. Julia, you will provide me with a suitable wife. Any questions so far?"

  "How do we recover the penetrator?" Mtebe was always concerned about the loss of valuable equipment.

  "We can either send it straight back up on automatic or you can pull it up yourselves after the Aldebaran has left Floreat. Either way, if it gets picked up leaving the planet's surface, it is unlikely to be tied in to events on the Aldebaran."

  "What about the navy? You said something about a corvette."

  "Elida can calculate a rendezvous near the midpoint of the route from Andes to Quental but at the extreme limit of detection. You can wait for the Aldebaran there. Suzanne, I would like you personally to go on board the corvette to establish a communications point. Assuming, that is, that Centre is successful in organising a corvette for us in the first place.

  "Now, if there are no other questions, you all have some preparations to make."

  Zara remained seated as the others left the Briefing Room. She got up and walked round behind him and putting her hands on his shoulders at the base of his neck, began gently to rub.

  "You were very hard on them, David: you are also very tense. It's not just the operation is it? We've had more difficult assignments than this one in the past."

  He grunted and reached up to cover her hands with his and stop the massage. He loved the feel of her hands on his skin and hated having his neck rubbed: both facts of which she was very well aware.

  "You read me too well," he said and paused for a long time before continuing.

  "One time, before I met you, an operation I was involved in went wrong. My cover was blown and I was marked as a target. I was hit, badly, and barely got out with my life. King Harald and Queen Serena took me in and cared for me. They flew in the best surgeons they could get hold of and Queen Serena nursed me personally. I remember she was so beautiful and so gentle that at times in my drugged, semiconscious state, I was convinced that she was an angel out of the Christian Heaven or a houri from some Mohammedan Paradise. And little Neri: she must only have been 3 or 4 years old. She used to bring her toys to show me and sit on the end of my bed to sing me a nursery rhyme which her nanny had just taught her.

  "Now my ministering angel is dead and little Neri has grown up and is testing her wings. I wonder if she has her mother's beauty. I wonder also just what mixture of common sense and stubborn pride we will have to cope with when we find her."

  He stopped and looked up. "I'm sorry, Zara, I've been rambling again. I have some good memories of that time... once the surgeons had finished stitching me back together but this is not the time for reminiscences. There is a job to be done and it is too dangerous to let oneself become emotionally involved in an operation. I'm going to take a hot shower and then grab some breakfast. Are you coming?"

  "No, you carry on." Zara suppressed a shudder as she watched him walk through the door. She knew with what ruthless efficiency he could suppress his emotions if he had to.

  "Sam, I want you to do some research for me. First compile a file of everything we have on Queen Serena's death then cross-correlate it with known Vostovian activity around that time; movements of principal agents, that sort of thing; and particularly concentrate on Wolfram. Finally, I want you to run through the file of assassins specialising in mechanical accidents of that type and list out all those whose movements cannot be reliably accounted for."

  "Yes, my lady. What priority do you wish to give this research?"

  "Second only to direct preparations for the operation. Can you give me an estimate to complete the correlations?"

  "51.6 hours plus or minus 9.2 hours."

  So the research would not be complete before they reached Andes. Sam's core consisted of an array of 1024 x1024 superfast computer processors. Each processor had a cycle time of 2.5 picoseconds, access to a common addressable memory space of 100K gigabytes and was connected to the other processors by a network the topology of which was equivalent to the edges of a hypercube. The high connectivity of this network meant that a large number of operations could be processed in parallel: very necessary for the vector calculations involved in the continuous monitoring of position and velocity.

  This hypercube then provided the main computing power of the Salamander but it was also linked to a network of satellite processors which provided specialist functions. One of these specialised processors was a search engine designed for the ultra-rapid retrieval of data from the archive Databanks. Zara knew, however, that the cross-correlations she had called for would require the power of the main processing array and would, therefore, h
ave to be scheduled in around those operational jobs which also made demands on the main processors.

  "Very well, when you have the results of the search, hold them under my personal key and contact me aboard the Phoenix."

  "As you command, my lady."

  CHAPTER 3

  The planet Runnymede IV in the Plantagenet System was an earth-type planet circling a yellow, Class G star. It had been selected as the site of a major star base principally for those reasons: with a gravity of 0.98 earth normal, an atmospheric composition of 24% oxygen and 75% nitrogen and no totally inimical flora, fauna or bacteria it was an ideal location to provide rest and recreational facilities for the deep space crew of the Imperial Navy's Third Fleet.

  The Star Base itself was actually an artificial moon, circling the planet at a distance of 200,000 kilometres and resembling nothing so much as a giant squid. It was not quite a complete sphere with the missing portion of the surface presenting instead a cavernous entrance to the inner dock, through which entrance flitted numerous small craft: shuttles carrying crew to and from the surface of the planet, supply tenders restocking the warships currently at the base and a multitude of launches, gigs and jolly boats belonging to the warships. But the feature which gave the Star Base its squid-like appearance was the ring of twenty four flexible docking arms which were spaced around the entrance to the inner dock and which trailed behind the Star Base. To these flexible arms the smaller warships, corvettes, frigates and the like, could dock directly. The larger vessels, cruisers and the capital ships could not approach close enough to dock directly and so had to rely on the attentions of the shoal of supply craft for all of their needs.