Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [172]
“Admiral, do you have any idea how many Soldier compies we have aboard our EDF ships in all ten grids?”
Stromo was very pale. “Yes, General. Yes, I do.”
He remembered King Peter’s seemingly paranoid complaints about using Klikiss technology in the new Soldier compies, but the Hansa and the EDF had dismissed the young man’s worries. “Damn, what if the King was right?”
“General, what about the sixty rammers we just dispatched to Qronha 3? Those ships are full of Soldier compies and only a few token human commanders. If compies really pose a threat, shouldn’t we recall the rammers?”
Lanyan wanted to scream. “And stop our only effective blow against the drogues? I think not! Besides, we don’t have any way to contact them in time.”
They were interrupted when Lanyan’s aide signaled insistently at the door. The young man would not have dared to disturb them unless it was terribly important. “I’m sorry, General, but you really need to see this. It’s a message from Lars Rurik Swendsen.”
“The engineering specialist?” After the mysterious disappearance of Chief Scientist Howard Palawu, the Swedish engineer had been put in charge of all compy manufacturing on Earth. “What the hell does he want?”
The aide piped the transmission onto his deskscreen. Lanyan looked down as the engineering specialist’s nervous face filled the projection area. “General Lanyan, how are you? I know it’s been quite a while since we’ve talked—”
“What do you want, Swendsen? I’m in the middle of something.”
“Well, General, I don’t exactly know what it means, but...it’s our Klikiss robots.”
Lanyan felt an iceberg in his stomach. “What about them?”
“They’re cagey under the best of circumstances, but several were always present to observe our compy production lines. But now, uh...they’ve all disappeared. They said nothing to us—simply left the production lines and vanished without a trace. First I ran a detailed check, interfacing with standard surveillance in populated areas, then I contacted some of my colleagues. As far as we can tell, all the robots are gone. Every one.”
Lanyan did not let his deep concern show. “I’ll check into it, Swendsen. Thank you for letting me know.”
While Stromo continued to splutter, Lanyan dispatched messages to every observation point he knew. Over the next few hours, the summary of returning information shocked him to the core. “Swendsen’s not kidding. Every last Klikiss robot we knew about has pulled up stakes and gone away. Chairman Wenceslas is using our green priests to contact every Hansa colony where Klikiss robots have been seen. So far, the news is consistent across the Spiral Arm: They’re all gone.”
Stromo shook his head in disbelief. “Fortunately, there are only—what?—a hundred of them?”
Lanyan kneaded his knuckles and stared at the rock wall of his Moon base office. He had a very bad feeling about what might have been going on all along under his nose. Finally, reluctantly, he decided he had no choice. He issued an all-points warning to every ship in the EDF fleet—though without green priests aboard most of them, it would take a dangerously long time for the warning to be disseminated.
Chapter 86—PATRICK FITZPATRICK III
The thirty-one EDF “adoptees” performed their daily work in the Osquivel shipyards, always alert for a chance to escape. Components for Roamer ships continued to be fabricated and assembled in the spacedocks. One new cargo vessel had already been launched since the news about Rendezvous, and another larger ship was nearing completion.
Instead of studying the hydrogue derelict, the odd Roamer engineer had filled a few cargo ships with strange devices the size and shape of doormats, then he’d gone off to Theroc on some harebrained scheme. Meanwhile, the prisoners filled their labor shifts, working silently beside the cooperative Soldier compies.
Fitzpatrick watched closely. On schedule, the weekly cargo escort was on its way down from the cometary