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.Then he turned his attention back to the archway directly before him.Should he enter? But who was he to set foot in this place?“I am a scientist,” he declared.“If I don’t explore, someone of lesser values will.Or perhaps no one will.Someone must explore.”But he couldn’t take that first step.It wasn’t fear for himself; no, the twinges pricking his armpits and neck weren’t stopping him.He was a man in control of his emotions.What stopped him was concern over damaging the object in some way.He knew so little about it—nothing, really—yet how was anyone to learn without setting foot inside and—“Miru!” shouted a voice, barely recognizable as Pang’s.“They’ve launched something at us.Computer cannot predict impact because projectile is following randomized evasion trajectory, but I assume they’re attacking those coordinates you broadcasted to everybody.Find cover! Immediately.We’re going into the subshelters.Get as far away from the dig as you possibly can.That’s an order from your superior and only friend.You’re not much fun, but I’d hate to think of living on this cold little world without you.Impact in two minutes.Out!”Miru stared into the brown shadows of the object’s interior.The color reminded him of the shady reef he had often explored beneath Ryukyu Floating Island on Earth, where he had grown up.Sunlight filtered down through seaweed and windows, through human waste and industrial emission.He had spent most of his time there, alone, exploring, free of the daily trauma of life shoulder-to-shoulder with adults who wouldn’t see him and youths who wouldn’t leave him alone.At first opportunity, he had signed on with the representative from TritonCo Division, which soon fully expatriated and founded the sovereign TritonCo.By then, he had already spent a thousand hours on the windy icescapes of this moon, still shoulder-to-shoulder with people in an enclosed environment, but these people were scientists, like him.They had values he could respect.Jon Pang was the only person he had ever cared about, besides his parents.He was no longer alone.Miru took a tentative step forward.The browns seemed to move, like a living thing, as if he were staring into the throat of an animal.A ludicrous thought crossed his mind: What if this object is an organism with an elaborate method of luring prey inside? But why would it project the image of a Buddhist temple to him—how was that significant to the scientist? Perhaps it represented the unknown, the magic of youth.The best way to fool a scientist would be to present him with the mystical.Then, as he tried to understand, it could eat him.Miru drew a breath to stabilize his emotions.Absurd.He thought of Pang.Poor Pang, ruled by his emotions.He had never learned to shake off the pain and fear of assuming the worst in everyone around him.He couldn’t forget his part in putting down the Laborer’s Uprising.Pang had simply killed a convicted felon in self-defense, a murderer who was serving a life sentence.But Pang couldn’t accept it.Years had passed before his guilty dreams ended.“I’m sorry, friend,” Miru said, not realizing how difficult it was to say the word “friend.” He couldn’t remember offhand the last time he had used it.“I hope to see you soon and report my findings.I’ll be safe inside the object.If not.” He broke off.“I hope to see you soon,” he said again.“Be careful.” His voice sounded alien in his ears, softened with emotion.EarthCo Bounty 5: Janus Librarse“Hello? Director Liu Miru?” Janus asked a blank splice.She had traced the laser transmission to Jiru City on Triton.“This is Director Miru,” a man’s thin voice said.“Who is this?”“He answered!” Janus said, swinging around in her seat to face Jack.She was so accustomed to having the natural pov at the sides of a splice that it didn’t bother her seeing him split in half.Jack nodded, concern on his face.No way to tell if that was genuine emotion or character work.“My name’s Janus Librarse,” she said, feeding it out to the Jiru City station, “EConaut, pilot of the EarthCo fighter Bounty.I can’t see you.What’s really going on down there?”The quiet man simply told her how to access files about the project he was supposedly working on.She immediately flicked to a non-relay code and requested access to TritonCo’s databank.A pleasantly groomed Asian man bowed to her.His 3VRD hovered amid a field of glowing numbers.“Welcome to TritonCo NetAccess,” he said.“Please enter ID code and file, now.” This was clearly a computer entity, an individ assistant.She entered the Vice President’s ID and password and then requested the file on Project Hikosen.Raw data began gushing through her BW into the ship’s server, visualized as a column of neon numbers rising toward her pov from the flat landscape.The male individ disappeared.At the corner of her perception, Janus heard Eyes ranting.Satisfied the data transfer was going smoothly, she flicked the splice off and replaced it with the forward-sensor array 3VRD.Computer was tracking another craft in the 90-Angstrom BW.It was moving erratically, different than the last ones.Suddenly, yet another popped into her pov, bright not only in the high frequencies but now almost visible to the whole EM spectrum.She could see four tiny craft—barely larger than torpedoes—flash across the field.Janus ordered the ship’s server to track all four from current trajectories.The nearest was at five kilometers and closing.The craft that had appeared so suddenly looped, accelerated, and instantly devoured the distance between them.In a flash that momentarily blinded Janus’ sensors, it contacted the EM scoop and exploded.Janus simultaneously shut down visual feed and ordered the computer to record in detail every microsecond of the explosion.A shockwave shook the ship.So the enemy craft they had been fighting weren’t manned, but torpedoes of some kind.The other three would be in striking range within a minute [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]