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Jefferson frowned. “I don’t know, sir-”
“No, and we don’t expect you to,” Greenaugh said. “But we do want to find out. You get along with the locals. Come to that, you’ve got more purely social contacts in Haven than most of us.”
“Yes, sir, but Elaine’s father is a roads commissioner. He wouldn’t know about the Corliss Grant station.”
“Didn’t expect him to,” Ackoff said. “But you go to social gatherings. What’s the mood here? Officially they love us, but what do they really think?” He spread his hands helplessly. “Are they mad enough to be working on weapons to fight us?”
“I’ve heard no hint of that,” Jefferson protested.
“Nor would you,” Ackoff said gently.
“Christ,” Greenaugh snorted. “Aliens in Trans-Coalsack. Half the fleet sucked off to that godforsaken corner of the Empire. Outies not twenty parsecs from here, and nowhere near enough ships to deal with them. All we’d bloody need is some kind of abortive revolt just when we’re ready to report this place pacified.” He shook his head grimly. “Christ, what would we do? We don’t have enough Marines to occupy the place—”
“They’re hardly a threat to the Empire, sir,” Jefferson said.
“They are if they’ve linked up with the outies,” Greenaugh said.
“But — do you have some reason to believe—”
“No,” Ackoff said. “We’ve no reason to believe anything at all. But the fact remains that they’re spending enormous sums for no reason we can determine, and their explanations don’t make sense.”
“I wish we’d never found this damned place,” Greenaugh said. “But that’s neither here nor there. This whole conversation is about to be mooted. Apparently they’re going to tell us what they’re doing out at Corliss Grant.”
Jefferson looked puzzled. “Sir?”
“They’ve requested an official observer,” Ackoff said. “An Imperial officer as official witness to some important test they’re going to conduct.”
“But why would they want a witness?” Jefferson asked.
Ackoff shook his head. “We haven’t any idea. Of course colonials do strange things.”
“I admit enough curiosity to consider going myself,” Greenaugh said. “But the governor won’t let me.”
“Not without sufficient escort,” Ackoff said. “And since our best guess is that what they’re doing is harmless, it would be impolitic for the captain to arrive with a company of fleet Marines.”
Whereas, Jeff thought, lieutenants are more expendable than captains. “Surely they know the Empire’s policy on negotiating with kidnappers,” he said.
“They ought to. We told them often enough,” Greenaugh said.
Imperial policy on the subject was simple. The hostages were counted as dead from the moment they were kidnapped. Imperial forces might storm the place the hostages were kept in, or they might bomb it. The one thing they wouldn’t do was negotiate for their safety. The policy was supposed to take away any incentive for kidnapping Imperial officials, and Jeff had always approved of it. Now he wasn’t so sure …
“It’s possible they don’t believe us, of course,” Greenaugh continued. “But I don’t think so. It’s too raw. Invite an Imperial officer out to their most secret place just to kidnap him? Easier to grab one of you chuckleheads in a local bar after a long night. Also, there’s the matter of the weather.”
“Weather?” Jeff asked.
“Yes,” Greenaugh said. “They want an observer as soon as possible, but only on a day that we can guarantee will have clear weather, no storms or high winds, in the Corliss Grant area.” The captain shrugged. “No difficulty this time of year, of course.”
“But no explanation given?” Jeff asked.
“None ”
“Whatever they intend,” Ackoff said, “this is an opportunity to find out what they’re doing out there. I will give you credentials — meaningless, of course — certifying you as an official witness, and you’ll be sent in answer to this request. The computer says the weather down there ought to be fine for at least another five or six days, so you can leave tomorrow.”
“Take a couple of Marines, lad,” Greenaugh said. “And keep an open communication line to headquarters. I’ll have someone listening in, just in case. We’ll get you out if we possibly can.”
The Corliss Grant Hills were located on a long peninsula jutting southward nearly a thousand kilometers from Haven City, the most southerly portion of the Kingdom of Haven. Jeff sat in the first-class compartment of the surprisingly fast train and watched the countryside roll past. There was little else to do. The palace equerry assigned to escort him was not talkative. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see, either. This part of Haven was mostly farmland dotted with patches of swamp. Once something large and dangerous-appearing reared out of the swamp, but it didn’t challenge the train itself, and they were moving too fast for Jeff to see what the beast really was.
After a while the rail line cut inward through rolling brown hills cluttered with low brush. Jeff shook his head in perplexity. The compartment grew hotter with each kilometer they traveled southward; now it was downright uncomfortable. As a location for a secret research station, the Corliss Grant Hills had nothing to recommend them except isolation. Why, he wondered, why would the government of Haven choose to send a large part of their budget and increasing numbers of their all-too-scarce trained perso
The train slowed with screeching of brakes and hiss of steam. Jefferson collected the two Marines Greenaugh had sent with him and allowed himself to be led off the train. There was a small group led by an officer of the Haven Royal Army waiting on the platform. The officer — a colonel by his insignia — seemed vaguely familiar. Jefferson frowned, trying to recall him.
“MacKi
MacKi
The steam car was luxurious. Jefferson declined a drink from the built-in bar and tried to question MacKi
“All in due time,” Jeff was told. “All in due time. Fortunately the weather is perfect—”
“As you knew it would be,” Jefferson said.
“Yes. Thank you.”
Four times they passed through guarded gates. The soldiers on duty seemed quite alert, and were highly deferential to MacKi
MacKi
“Skip the lunch,"Jeff said. “Let’s get to why I’m here.”
“Can’t skip the lunch.” MacKi
MacKi
There was a series of loud explosions. Jeff sat bolt upright. His hand flew to his sidearm before he noticed that MacKi
“Sir.”
“Colonel, what the devil was that?”
“Experimental ca
“Did you drag me down here in this heat to look at a ca
“Not exactly. Ah. Here we are.”
The car pulled up in front of a large wooden building. There were armed sentries on duty outside it, and more soldiers waiting to open the car doors for them. Again Jeff had the impression of tension, of something about to happen, but there was nothing definite, and certainly nothing threatening.