The Radical Factor (Stone Blade Book 3) Read online

  "Clever, my brother," said Ferrel, "Too clever by klicks. You're mapping the flow of information. Yes?"

  "All truth and no blather," replied Micah, "Plus I'm letting them know we're inside of outsider but not just outside insider."

  "Hush, Vera!"

  ***

  "We now have official standing here," said Ionoski that evening, "Courtesy of all the merchants I visited today. I also have khav samples and, in three cases, instructions on how to prepare it.

  "I took a few bottles of wine with me today. After they all sampled it we sat down and started negotiating. Three of the merchants were uniformly acclaimed as seniormost so I mostly talked with them but everyone had a say. They all enjoyed our wine and found its flavor unique and of high quality.

  "They drove a hard bargain but a fair one and they all agreed that we can sell to the same price to all the merchants here, even the ones who didn't make it. They also took it as given that most of the money we made selling wine we'd spend on khav. I acted a bit surprised that they knew but yes, that was what I wanted. Most of them knew of two or three good spice mongers so we're set for that.

  "When I thanked them most graciously they wondered why I didn't just inform the portmaster that I had ceremonial wine to sell, since I knew the bargains they would strike."

  "And?"

  "Because this was my first time on Barrhi Esav, may her beauty not blind my unworthy eyes, and I wanted to shake hands and meet the people with whom I would be doing my business."

  "Nice cover," said Kidwell.

  "Thanks. Because of my courtesy and the quality of my wine I now have standing invitations to khav and cakes with no less than twenty long-established families here. Vera, I want you and Katie with me when I go. IF, that is, you can play the role of boer'khai Dhu convincingly. No shame in refusing and it beats the hades out of the alternatives."

  "You know I can, Ted," said Kidwell.

  Siffai shrank on herself as she walked to Ionoski, eyes downcast and shoulders slumped.

  "Command me, moha'mii," she said in a voice totally devoid of self-will.

  "That's what I mean, Vera," said Ionoski, patting Siffai's head as he would a favorite pet, "Thanks Katie, please don't break my fingers."

  "Of course not, dosha. Sadly, this is not my first trip down the Esavian path. They truly do not accord women any consideration at all."

  "To their demise," said Ionoski, "Work on that, Vera. You two are my secret weapons. Even though you're outsiders the Esavians will still loosen their tongues around you. Listen and learn!"

  Micah studied the Marks of Dhu. The Lan'Quor now spoke volumes on them: when to award, what to award and when to remove... Everything but what they should be! Marks were awarded for knowledge of the Lan'Quor and for service to Dhu; the longer or greater the service the greater the mark, but still no clue as to how they should look.

  On that subject Micah found no mention of the Mad Ones whatsoever. Nor did he find any sects or specific titles named. Those must have come later, he concluded. He also discovered that, while killing infidels could earn marks, the greatest marks came from knowledge of Dhu and the Lan'Quor. Those particular marks outranked all others.

  On the naming of the altars Micah found a surprising fact: sacrifice applied as much to self-sacrifice in the service of Dhu as it did to killing the infidel. By re-reading the passages concerning the first meaning he found the chronicle of a great journey full of hardship and sacrifice. He found no indication whether it spoke of the original Esavians or of their most recent move but he suspected the former. Toward the end of that Micah finally made sense of some of the references he'd heard Esavians make, both during his time with Khamir and on Shrubbs' records.

  While Ionoski met with the merchants the next day, three of the ships at the port departed. One Jengiil and one independent trader remained behind and Ferrel worked to capture all the signal traffic he could, as much for practice as information. Then, as early afternoon departed and early evening approached he began fidgeting with excitement. Micah resolved himself to a sleepless night

  "We'll emplace at these four locations," said Ferrel, indicating spots on the map, "Dave, Katie, are you sure you can do it?"

  "Yes, Charlie," said Barstein, "Your instructions are clear. Were they even half as clear we could still do it. Don't worry about us; what you ask will be done!"

  "Polar. Micah?"

  "Ready whenever, brother."

  "I'll give the go," said Ionoski, "Vera and I will be monitoring carefully. If we send the recall, return immediately. We may not get the things in place but we'll be alive to do it another day."

  ***

  Micah, Ferrel, Barstein and Siffai donned noseeme cloaks and left the ship via a maintenance hatch. Though far less adaptable than full mercury suits the noseemes could change color and pattern within a limited range. Ferrel had them configured with several versions of dull, dark camouflage that would help their wearers fade into any convenient shadows and blend into the general darkness outside.

  Several guards roamed the starport complex but they stayed much closer to the Jengiil ship than to Ionoski's. Micah kept watch while Ferrel breached the closest cargo gate. It had no standing guard so he took the time to install a diverter in case they, or any follow-up mission, needed it. Before long the four of them reached the edge of town where they slipped behind a dark building and shed the noseemes.

  To walk through the town they selected yrran'qui garb. Micah and Ferrel had spotted more than one shamed one running errands. Here they wore heavy hooded cloaks of coarse white cloth and, as elsewhere, the other folk avoided them. Now, as the four of them walked toward their destinations, the people ignored them as well. Siffai and Barstein split off for their target.

  Once again in the shadow of a building Micah and Ferrel donned their stealthy gear. Micah scowled again at Ferrel's choice of buildings but he set about scaling it. This temple of Dhu was both well-guarded and well-lit. Micah checked for security as he climbed and found plenty of it! Finally he sat straddling the peak of the roof. He inched to the edge and sticky-padded his feet into place.

  In retrospect Micah decided that none of his training prepared him for what came next! Though he faced many physical challenges, all of them paled to nothing against clinging to a rooftop with only sticky pads and leg muscle, bending over the edge and anchoring a devious device under the pointed overhang. He placed the thing as close to the wall as he could, made certain it would not dislodge or fall accidentally and sat up a moment to let the spinning stars swim past. By those same stars he would enjoy what came next!

  He located Ferrel after a brief squint. He flashed the UV light briefly and Ferrel responded. Then he stood up and spread his arms, his noseeme glowing brightly to Micah's special goggles. Micah drew a large pistol, sighted carefully and shot Ferrel dead center in his torso!

  The projectile, a frangible capsule full of sticky goo, trailed a thin yet strong monofilament line. Ferrel pulled out some slack and bent over to anchor it to the edge of his own roof. Before long a special-purpose spider crawled along it to Micah. Micah, having anchored his own end of the line, guided the small machine to the device under the edge of the roof. It crawled into the jack prepared for it and settled in.

  Two other buildings rose almost as high as the first and before long they also had Ferrel's webs stretching to them. Finally, gratefully, Micah climbed down the building. Not long after that two yrran'qui walked toward Ferrel's next target.

  "Not fun," whispered Micah, "This time you owe me a meal. With dessert!"

  "Oh, quit griping. You need to lose a couple of kilos anyhow."

  Ferrel's next building stood taller than the temple but had no guards or alarms. Micah placed the box again and again enjoyed shooting Ferrel. This time he planted more of the devious webs. Despite being easier it took longer and before they finished the sky had started to lighten and the street traffic to increase. Still, Ferrel hummed happily all the way back to the ship.
/>   Siffai and Barstein, both looking tired, waited in the lounge with a serene Ionoski when Micah and Ferrel returned.

  "Well," asked Ionoski.

  "Scan alpha to orbit, Ted," said Ferrel, "Dave?"

  "We placed the devices per your instructions and anchored the webs to them. They are well-concealed and the datapad reported proper configuration. Now will you tell us about them?"

  "Also about those wonderful cloaks," added Siffai, "What are they?"

  Ferrel looked at Ionoski who nodded slightly.

  "Are you familiar with liquicloth?"

  "Sela'ahi! Daksha stupid mood shirts." Siffai spat the words. "My niece wanted one of those for her last birthday. Ridiculous looking and a waste of money but she loved it!"

  Ferrel chuckled. "Noseemes are a recent and obscenely classified version of that. I can't talk about the chemical structure or how they're manufactured because I don't know. I do know they're very useful in a certain range of conditions and tonight fit."

  No blather there!

  "Now about the devices," prompted Barstein.

  "I'm really proud of those," said Ferrel, "The anchor box is basically a PRIS block with high-speed response gates and programming optimized to catch and time signals. The anchor spikes act as amplifiers. The strands between them consist of two monofilament strength members, two durable superconductor strands and an optical link between them.

  "I used standard spiders to place them and they also resin-coated the bundle for strength and for stealth. I checked; it's impossible to see them from more than a meter away."

  "But what do they do?"

  Micah perked his ears. He wanted to know too!

  "The problem with blips," said Ferrel, "is that they don't last long enough to trace. They are more powerful than standard signals but they're also very directional and bloody short-lived. That makes them hard to track. The problem with even sensitive receivers is that they can grab the content of the blip but not the distance, even when they do manage to find the direction.

  "What I worked up is basically a very long low-tech antenna tuned and filtered to blip freqs. When a blip hits the strands it generates a current. Nothing more. The base box and anchor spikes both measure the strength of the current, time of contact and duration. By calculating the spike-to-box and cross-strand differences and factoring in angle and placement of strands we end up with a rough directional vector. If it hits more than one box we can refine the direction even more."

  "The direction," said Barstein skeptically.

  "The direction," confirmed Ferrel, "I am assuming that blips happen between a ship here and an agent in place. Even for hyper-narrow we should be able to receive the content of the blip here. I had the techs put in extra blip listeners for just such an event. That's where we get content; that's never really a problem.

  "If my assumptions hold true we'll have a solid direction on where the blip originated. If multiple agents blip we'll have multiple lines, but either way the more the better. Now we just need a spy ship here to receive a few."

  "Mekhajan," said Micah.

  "Or Mekhajan disguised as someone else," said Ferrel, "I am playing an averaging game here. The strands will hold up to anything short of a major storm and if anything breaks the whole thing will self-destruct irrevocably."

  "Purely incredible," said Barstein with a seated half-bow, "I stand in awe of your technological prowess, Charles."

  Ferrel swelled and grinned magnanimously. Then Siffai spoke.

  "Incredible indeed but there is a problem. A large one! What if our enemies decide to implement this against us? I know the Esavians won't but others might. The Mekhajan! Tah'koos on soyabread! They might already have done so. How would we know?! They might not have the devices or the chemistry for what you did, Charles, but what of a lower-tech alternative? With the chaos in the Federation now it would not be hard to install such a thing!"

  "They might," said Ferrel, "But don't expect it to work."

  Siffai considered this a moment then her expression hardened. "Charles, I do admire and respect you and I marvel at what your brain produces, but if tonight was for nothing I shall remove your liver slowly. That will not affect your brain at all!"

  "No. No! It will work! I mean it'll work, but not on your worlds. It will work here!" Ferrel hastened to continue when her expression didn't change. "Remember, Katie, what you set up is basically a very long and sensitive antenna. It will work here and other Esavian worlds because they don't have a lot of comm traffic and chatter. On any planet where even half the population has comms there would be too much extraneous signal. It would wash out the blips and burn out my gear! No blather, I checked the ambient noise before I started picking locations. They're far enough away from the port to ignore it and spaced evenly enough to detect anything outside half a klick."

  "Mossat bread with white cheese! You are using their hatred of technology against them! That is doubly brilliant, Charles," said Barstein.

  "We expect that of him," said Ionoski, "Now tell me how we get the information from the boxes, once they have it."

  "Standard remote-triggered blip," said Ferrel, "I'm using an alternate freq that won't register on the boxes themselves. It's shorter-range but we're plenty close here."

  Ionoski nodded. "Slib. I'll call that debriefing enough. I'm going to bed and I suggest you all do likewise."

  That, thought Micah, was the best idea since shooting Ferrel.

  ***

  A barely-awake Ferrel started the next day by checking his detection network and monitoring the port chatter and traffic. A Vezieri trader arrived while they slept and the fact that he didn't have complete information about the ship and her crew offended Ferrel. When Micah bet Siffai on how long that situation would last he shooed them away. Easier to civilize Esavians than to separate Ferrel from a datajack!

  Before the wagers turned too outrageous Ionoski informed Micah, Kidwell and Siffai that they had an appointment with Marcel Dhallac, second assistant to the Vizier Halid al'Pardu and such a meeting required a proper entourage! Both Siffai and Kidwell took on their roles easily and Micah suspected they'd bring in a treasure ship of overheard information.

  "Theodore al'Onsi, my friend!" Dhallac greeted them in person and with a quick embrace for Ionoski. "Welcome to my house and home. How may I serve you?"

  "Moha Marcel, my friend. As you well know I have been trading with many merchants. I vowed to trade with as many as possible and you made that happen! My question is how my humble self and my crew can serve you?"

  Dhallac beamed. "Indeed! Come and sit, then. Let us speak of many things."

  As they walked into Dhallac's large house a servant deftly separated Micah from the other two. He ended up in Dhallac's library; the same servant brought a steaming pot of khav and cakes and left Micah to his own devices. Aware of possible surveillance, unlikely though it seemed, Micah made a show of examining the shelves. Most contained books of poetry with a few odd histories and historical diaries thrown in.

  A family history and journal of the clan of Dhallac caught Micah's eye so he pulled it down carefully and sat near the window to read it. As he perused the book Micah made sure to show each page well enough for his concealed holocaster to capture it. Then, with Ionoski still not there he selected books on al'Pardu and the rest of the Vizier's clan.

  Though connected only tangentially to Dhu Lan, Micah found the works quite informative. By what he read the Esavians did in fact possess a government and a very old one; a government they kept hidden from any outsiders. Pashas, caliphs and viziers: Micah tried to connect them but came up short. The books were written by those already familiar with the government structure so they detailed very little of it. He wondered why Ferrel's stolen data made no mention of it but perhaps he simply didn't grab that file.

  All of the poems Micah read, though not part of the Lan'Quor, spoke with both elegance and eloquence of the wonders and miracles of Dhu. Micah had just taken down another history when the servant
returned and informed him that Ionoski had completed his business.

  "Very good news," said Ionoski, "He bought a few bottles of wine, of course, and greatly respected my desire to spread the bounty. He promised to contact some of his friends and we'll all be happy in trade. It won't happen instantly but it will happen so Charlie will have a few more days to catch some blips."

  "We may not need it," said Micah, "From what I saw Signor Dhallac has a very luxurious and extensive house. An unlearned man might even call it a mansion."

  "For an Esavian. Truth and pure. I was thinking the same thing. Did you spacemap?"

  "What I could. I didn't get the grand tour but his office was close to the library. There weren't any terminals there but I saw what might have been a datajack."

  "His office is also quite nice and he does have a terminal and jack there, so he has some type of house net. It bears investigation, plus-plus."

  ***

  Micah and Ferrel, sweating in mercury suits, made their way invisibly and undetectably across Dhallac's yard. Siffai and Barstein waited nearby but Micah resolved that they would wait in vain! Ferrel swept everything carefully with eyes and instruments alert for any incongruous signal activity. He found plenty attached to the library windows! Neutralizing them offered him little challenge but their very presence all but confirmed their suspicions.

  "Sweeping for actives," said Ferrel once they stood inside the library. Then, "Clear. Some of the statuary is trapped but we'll save that for later. Where's the office?"

  Exiting the library and entering the office involved three more neutralized alarms or monitors. Inside the room Ferrel traced one of the latter to a bookcase.

  "This is the wall it shares with the library," he mused, "Perhaps thicker than it should be, truth?"

  Three minutes and another neutralized alarm and they found it.

  "Bonusjack, my brother!"

  Micah agreed completely. A niche in the wall behind the bookcase contained a very advanced terminal along with a fan of cores and a comm station far in excess of anything required for normal planetwide communication. On the wall behind it hung a monitor station showing the library, office and another room.