Aneka Jansen 7: Hope Read online

  Mrs Arundal was quite the beauty. Very slim, not at all tall, very feminine, and Ella got the impression that this was a basic Pinnacle feature just as the men were big and strong. Priding itself on being ‘genetically pure,’ the Pinnacle had still engineered in a few variations and the differentiation in sexual roles appeared to be primary in that engineering.

  Certainly the daughter, Nadine, was only eight, but taking after her mother. Small, slim, with a cute sort of face and blonde hair. Her mother wore hers long, while Nadine had a short bob. The son, Adam, was taking after his father and was developing just as one might expect. He was sixteen, firmly muscled, fit, and he was an arrogant little prick. Ella had only known him for a few hours and already she wanted to deck him.

  There was random chatter over breakfast while Ella stood by to serve coffee or juice as needed. The head of the house would be off to his office at the naval base once it was done, while his son would be going to the academy beside it. Nadine was told to make sure she did well with her school work, while it seemed to be assumed that Adam would. Ella was not entirely sure whether that was a reflection of the nature of the children or some implicit misogyny.

  Any efforts to discover which might be the case were forestalled by a shopping trip. Nadine was left to study under the supervision of the education system while Mrs Arundal took Ella out to the nearby shopping district. Ella was entirely unsure why she was needed, until she realised that she was not; the entire point of having your slave along was to demonstrate that you had one, and the Arundals had a new one who had to be shown off.

  ‘A new slave, Maureen?’ The speaker was a pretty blonde who looked older than Mrs Arundal, perhaps the wife of a senior officer.

  ‘Hmm? Oh, yes.’ Of course, pretending that you did not really care that anyone noticed the new girl was all part of the ritual. ‘A work in progress, obviously.’

  ‘They all need a little training when you first get them. Don’t be afraid of using the collar.’

  ‘I’ve trained a few now. I’m not.’

  Ella wondered whether that was for her benefit, but she got the impression that this was the elder wife suggesting that the younger one might not be up to the job, and the expected rebuttal.

  ‘She doesn’t look strong. Will she last?’

  ‘I’m told she’s stronger than she looks, but you can never tell with these inferior species.’

  Ella said nothing, standing nearby with a placid look on her face. It was actually rather fascinating and, had she not been in something of a hurry to get back home to Aneka, she might have considered continuing on for a month or so just to observe. The kind of social one-upmanship she was seeing was just not a particularly big component of Jenlay society. Oh, you had the usual plays for seniority and power among the Jenlay, but this was far more like the society Aneka had described among suburban households back in her original time. Aneka had been unimpressed, but Ella thought it was very interesting. Her owner would likely have been unimpressed to discover that she was taking notes for a paper.

  In fact, Mrs Arundal was more observant than Ella had given her credit for. ‘You appear to have questions, Ella.’ It was a statement, but there was an implicit question and Ella decided to risk it.

  ‘I have, ma’am.’

  ‘Then ask. You are in training. My job is to ensure that you become a useful slave. To this end, I will grant you leave to ask such questions as will further your education. Only when we are alone and I have granted permission, however.’

  ‘Of course, ma’am. Thank you. The woman you were speaking to about me, the one so determined to advise you on my training, you don’t like her. Why associate with her?’

  ‘She is the wife of one of my husband’s senior officers. Not very senior so I don’t have to take her useless advice with a smile now, but senior enough. Rank is status here. I’ll give you a quick lesson on the rank structure later this week. You’re a comely girl and we’re having a dinner party. You’ll be waiting table.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ Ella actually meant it; she would actually get to observe the Pinnacle at a social function! It was ages since she had got to do any real anthropological study and this was just perfect, aside from the threat of agonising pain if she screwed up.

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  Two days in and Ella felt she was getting into the swing of Pinnacle society, at least from the bottom of it. She had given no one a reason to use the collar control on her in that time and the decryption software had finally cracked the code during the night. It allowed her to start using the package on the house’s wireless network, which was significantly easier to decrypt given that it was commercial grade and not even especially secure. Data transmitted across it was in the clear, but there were encrypted authentication tags which she would need to work out if she wished to use it.

  The dinner party Mrs Arundal had mentioned was to be the following evening and Ella had already decided that, barring emergency, she was not leaving before then. The chance to observe the Pinnacle up close was not likely to be one she would ever get again. If she escaped, she would not be allowed back very easily, and if she failed, she would be dead. Or that seemed likely, though she was beginning to have doubts.

  For one thing, Mrs Arundal was too nice. She had explained her behaviour as educating a new slave, but Ella was not entirely buying it. There seemed to be a distinct effort to appear friendly. There was severity and authority, and there was always the big stick that was Commander Arundal who seemed quick with his punishment of anyone performing below his expectations. Maureen Arundal, however, was doing her best to appear firm but fair, severe but compassionate.

  ‘What were you before you became a biological terrorist?’ Mrs Arundal asked as she watched Ella dusting the lounge, a task which could easily have been left to automated systems.

  ‘I worked at a university,’ Ella replied, ignoring the insult in the question.

  ‘Secretary?’

  ‘Head of social sciences.’

  ‘Oh really?’ The question came with a scoffing laugh and Ella decided to stay silent. ‘Social sciences?’

  ‘Anthropology, archaeology, psychology, a few more esoteric subjects.’

  ‘I studied psychology. Haven’t practised in years, of course.’

  Of course. But then that made perfect sense of Ella’s placement in this house. The man of the house was military intelligence and his wife was a psychologist. Yes, that made sense. ‘I don’t get to do much field work these days,’ Ella said. ‘Didn’t. A lot of administration.’ Which was not that much of a lie; she had been doing more and more admin and less real science.

  ‘Then how did you end up creating a bioweapon?’

  Ella considered for a second, and then she said, ‘Would ma’am prefer an answer which is unlikely to result in her activating my collar, or the truth?’

  ‘An impertinent answer.’

  ‘My apologies, ma’am. I was convicted of a crime I denied. I would prefer not to be in pain and, given my circumstances, I see no point in making my case to you. You are unlikely to believe me anyway and nothing I say will change my fate. Administrators are required on any complex mission, are they not? Obviously, the production of a complex bioweapon would merit the attention of a senior administrator.’

  ‘And the truth?’

  ‘We found the virus. It’s a very advanced form of biological nanomachine. Quite ancient and quite deadly. We found some evidence to suggest that it caused the Xinti to move from their natural bodies to synthetic ones. Variations of it have turned up at various points in history. The most recent of those was about thirty years ago when someone did try to use it as a bioweapon.’

  ‘And what happened to that person?’

  ‘A friend of mine killed him and we nuked the viral production facility.’

  ~~~

  ‘My wife informs me that you had prior experience of the viral weapon on Lacora?’

  Ella stood beside Commander Arundal’s desk while he sat o
n the far side doing his best impression of a superior, Pinnacle officer. She looked at him for a second, considering her words. ‘I encountered a viral weapon which shared some characteristics with it. My microbiologist indicated that the structures were too similar for it to be coincidence. One was derived from the other and Lacora appeared to be the original source.’

  ‘So the previous encounter was with a less virulent form?’

  ‘More and further engineered. It performed restructuring on the victim’s body, turning them into mindless, cannibalistic, disease vectors.’

  ‘And where did this happen?’

  ‘A planet called Eshebbon. It’s of no use to you. It’s several hundred parsecs away, well outside your sphere of influence, and the site is still radioactive.’

  ‘Nowhere is outside our sphere of influence should we wish to involve ourselves. I find it difficult to believe that anyone would throw away a weapon of such utility.’

  Ella shrugged. ‘Historically, bioweapons have always been problematic. Deployment is messy, they can backfire, and we really don’t need that kind of weapon. Perhaps we have a different viewpoint on warfare. If we encounter a species who won’t listen to reason, we remove them entirely and directly. Not that we’ve ever been required to enact the threat.’

  ‘You “remove” them?’

  ‘Our military strategist is very clear on the matter. Should it ever come to it, and she fervently hopes it never does, an enemy who refuses peace must be eliminated for the greater good, down to the last man. To show mercy to a species without mercy is to invite terrorism, insurgency, and a drawn-out war which threatens everyone else. Every system they inhabit is to be destroyed. They are to be hunted down and eradicated. It’s never happened because… Well, most species aren’t suicidal.’

  Arundal waved a dismissive hand. ‘With that kind of power you would be ruling the galaxy by now.’

  ‘We aren’t interested in ruling the galaxy, Commander. We just want to learn from it.’

  ~~~

  The Pinnacle, it seemed, were not interested in learning anything from the galaxy unless it had a military application. With the household asleep, Ella had connected into the local network and quickly found a map of the region which gave her a working route between the township she was in and the spaceport. However, she could have taken a more direct route were it not for the large regions marked as dangerous thanks to the silver webbing, and she had gone looking for information on the odd material.

  It was organic and native to the planet, and it was more or less a monoculture. After it had evolved, more or less nothing else had. Almost everything which had existed prior to that had also been wiped out. Pinnacle scientists had established that it conducted electricity, but not especially well, and that it gave off low levels of radio waves. If touched, it was capable of electrocuting a victim, and large collections of it could emit high-energy static discharges which could disable someone getting too close. It grew quickly, but it was vulnerable to fire. Having established a threat potential, research had stopped. They knew what they needed to know.

  Well, now Ella had everything she needed too. Once the party was out of the way and the house quiet, she would leave.

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  There were eight additional people at the table tonight. All the men were in uniform. The women were in floor-length gowns, either strapless or with very thin straps. Ella had decided that this was the current fashion since she had seen the same sort of gown in the shops.

  The uniforms were uninformative, but the ages suggested one officer senior to Commander Arundal and the rest probably juniors. They all seemed to be friends, which was somehow not what Ella was expecting. She had really thought that the primary purpose of the party was either social climbing or career advancement, but the atmosphere was too relaxed. The chatter at the table was social. There was a tendency for the men to drift off into work talk, but the two senior wives were there to redirect things.

  ‘Has anything come of our attempts to solve the Iyonvrie situation?’ one of the junior officers asked.

  Arundal favoured him with a smile. ‘Your wife will be rolling her eyes, David, if you keep talking business.’

  The young man’s wife grinned. ‘I’m used to it. And everyone is interested in Iyonvrie. One of the main holdouts on the current border?’

  Arundal glanced at his superior and Ella saw the slight nod. Iyonvrie was apparently a security matter, but discussion was being allowed. It was being allowed in front of a slave. ‘We are progressing several plans to get around their technology.’

  ‘Antimatter bombs,’ one of the other, younger, officers said. Ella got the feeling it was speculation. ‘Their screens prevent nuclear weapons detonating, but they won’t stop an antimatter explosion.’

  So this Iyonvrie had some form of strong nuclear force enhancement technology. It would render most nuclear weapons useless. Shadataga used similar fields when transporting radioactive materials and in some experiments to slow down the decay of short lifetime isotopes. Using antimatter to initiate a fusion weapon, or using pure antimatter as the explosives would get around the field, however. These people were talking about using weapons of very massive destruction against a world in order to conquer it. And they were doing it in front of a slave.

  ‘Your military science is up to scratch I see,’ the older officer said. ‘Such devices would do the job, but there are simpler means of bypassing their damper fields.’

  ‘Kinetic bombardment,’ someone suggested.

  ‘But that would require construction of larger gunships to be effective.’

  ‘The dreadnoughts would be sufficient.’

  ‘Not to be fully effective. We would need extra-long accelerators. The dreadnoughts would be far more effective with antimatter warheads.’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Arundal said, ‘let us seek an unorthodox point of view in our deliberations. Ella, you say your people can eliminate their opposition with ease. How would you go about defeating the defences of Iyonvrie?’ Ella raised an eyebrow; it was an unexpected turn of events.

  ‘You’re asking a slave?’ one of the women asked.

  ‘Ella was convicted of bioterrorism and, by the mercy of Pinnacle Commander Lucifent himself, placed in slavery rather than being executed. Her culture, it seems, has some very powerful weapons and she does not seem unwilling to discuss them. Ella?’

  ‘We wouldn’t attack this planet you’re discussing with intent to capture it, sir,’ Ella replied. ‘Our weapons expert has, I believe, run simulations of weaponry with that objective, but they have never been built. I believe her favourite was a hypervelocity projectile. A reactionless drive capable of accelerating a large missile to near-light speed.’

  The man favouring the kinetic impactors did not seem especially happy to have had his option confirmed. ‘You’re saying you could build that, but never have?’

  ‘There’s no point, sir. If a world does not wish to join us, then they simply don’t gain the benefit of our technology.’

  ‘And if they attack you?’ the senior officer asked. ‘You’re not saying you won’t defend yourself?’

  ‘No, sir. If they attack us and pose a meaningful threat, the response is something which was trialled once, several hundred parsecs away from here. We blow up their star.’

  There was laughter around the room. To Ella, some of it seemed a little strained. ‘No one can blow up a star,’ one of the wives said. Her laughter had been particularly strained.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Ella replied, ‘we can.’

  ‘This is fine dinner conversation,’ Mrs Arundal said into the silence. ‘Elisabeth, that is a new dress isn’t it?’

  Ella stepped back a pace and watched as the conversation progressed. She had to wonder what Arundal was up to, him and the senior anyway. They had allowed that to continue for some reason, and engaging her in it seemed to indicate that it was meant for her. Had they been trying to scare her with their weaponry? Or trying to discover what mi
ght be used against them? The latter was hardly a secret and there was no known defence against War’s star killer. She was sure they were up to something, but discovering what it was was not a priority. When the house went dark tonight, she would be leaving and their schemes would mean nothing.

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  Ella looked out across the spaceport landing pad towards a ship, a light transport vessel, which she was currently hoping was going to be her ticket off the planet. She was frowning.

  Things were going just a little too well for her tastes. Getting out of the house had been simple and the township gate had been unguarded. Well, it was a civilian community on a planet the Pinnacle viewed as being under their control. There was no need for guards on the gates, but it just somehow felt out of character for the Pinnacle. Her collar was still about her neck, but inactive. She assumed that it could be tracked, but removing it seemed more likely to draw attention than keeping it on; she was still dressed in the manner of a slave.

  She had made her way as quickly as she could to the port. She was still barefoot and she could not move on the actual roadways. The ground at the sides of the roads was rough, and she needed to stay away from the silver webbing, but there was room enough to move about unseen. So it had been well into the early hours when she got to the port and tapped into the computer network there looking for a ship she could use.

  The transport ship was just out of an engine refit and was marked down for a test flight. No specific schedule had been assigned; it appeared that it would be run in when a suitable pilot was available. Well, as far as Ella was concerned, a suitable pilot had just been found, but she was worried that it all seemed just a little convenient. Still, Aneka had some phrase about horses given as gifts…

  The airlock controls were not even locked, although that made a certain, perverse, sense. If you were there then you were allowed to be. No slave would make it to the port to find an unlocked ship, right? So why bother locking the door.