Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [93]
“Damn. I hadn’t thought of that,” Jackson replied, grimacing.
“I might be able to help,” Olin Parvik said. He reached into a pocket on his coveralls, which he had patched up so that they at least covered most of his body, and pulled out a small packet. He tossed it to Char-Kane, who, despite her surprise, caught it with agility.
“Dark green contact lenses,” the pilot explained. “Part of our standard escape-and-evasion kit when we’re venturing into Eluoi lands. I also have a packet of black hair dye, but you won’t need that.”
“So now we know you can do it. The question is, will you?” Harris urged Char-Kane, who studied the chief with a strange expression. If Jackson hadn’t known better, he would have guessed that the aloof Shamani was looking at Harris with affection.
“Very well, I will try,” she said. “But I still believe it is a mad scheme.”
A short while later Char-Kane and Jackson entered the pyramid through the crack in the corridor ceiling, taking as much care as possible to keep their white uniforms clean. The gold braid on the LT’s sleeves glittered appropriately, a reasonable approximation of the badges of rank worn by Tezlac Catal.
There had been a fire there, but the blaze had been extinguished, and they didn’t encounter any Eluoi in the immediate vicinity of the crater. They walked through a doorway, past a shattered blast door, and found themselves in a corridor with dozens of Eluoi workers, soldiers, and technicians. Bustling here and there, the workers and technicians quickly stepped aside to allow the pair in their command uniforms to pass. The soldiers offered salutes, palms pressed to the forehead, and Char-Kane casually returned them while Jackson ignored them, as he had been coached to do by Olin Parvik and the Shamani woman.
They quickly came to a transport station where Eluoi were lined up, filing into cars that rode on monorail tracks and glided smoothly to a stop. It looked like a cross between a metropolitan subway station and a tourist ride at an amusement park, and it served as a vivid reminder of exactly how huge the building was.
Despite the uniform, which clearly awed nearly everyone he encountered, Jackson was keenly aware of the risks they were taking. The translator allowed him to understand the Eluoi language without difficulty, and so he could at least react like an arrogant commander if someone addressed him. However, he could not speak that language, and any attempt to talk would immediately reveal him as an impostor.
Consul Char-Kane did speak the language, which certainly was an asset for their mission. But the officer felt keenly vulnerable as he and the Shamani woman made their way up to the transport station.
As soon as one of the workers caught sight of him, he whispered something to his neighbors, and like magic, the line parted so that the “savant and his mijar” could go right up to the next car. The vehicle was easily large enough to carry twenty people, but the rest of the Eluoi held back. Trying his best to look as haughty and aloof as a five-star admiral, Jackson took a seat near the front, and Char-Kane looked at a schematic and then punched in a destination.
Immediately they glided away from the station, riding on the single rail without vibration or noise. Char-Kane sat beside him as they entered a well-lit tunnel, quickly accelerating to the speed of a fast automobile.
“I found a label for the communications center,” she explained to him quietly. “We should start to climb pretty soon.”
In fact, the car quickly shot through a sharp curve, moving upward. The seats smoothly shifted orientation so that instead of resting on the floor, they now seemed to be attached to the side wall of what was essentially an elevator. They continued up for a long way, and again Jackson pictured the truly mountainous size of the building. Finally, the car curled onto a horizontal rail again, the chairs smoothly pivoting, and then glided up to