Alien Cradle by Jeff Inlo (web ebook reader txt) 📕

"Oh God! This isn't happening."

Rath had not set for return communications, so the patrol could not hear his cursed responses. They did offer one final and threatening rejoinder of their own.

"The torpedoes have relayed your position to us. Veiled or not, we are locked on and will fire. The torpedoes are set to circle your craft, not impact. That can also be changed. Drop your curtain and kill your engines. Now!"

Rath dropped his head further into the palm of his hand. He stole a quick glance at the nav com. It had the precepts for Janus. All he had to do was issue the command, and the Boscon Props would power up.

One small problem. The Authority would read the power shift. They'd blast him before he could escape. With a shake of his head and another curse, he slammed his fist against the curtain controls. The veil dropped as he cut his engines.

The Authority officer issued his last order.

"Good boy. Now, hit your reverse thrusters and come to a complete halt. We will board."

Dr. Sinclair spoke with a broad smile. "Actually, this is a great opportunity for many of us and for many different councils. I know we have agreed to maintain secrecy, but there were others I could trust with my own life that I needed to take council. We need the help of many, and they also have much to gain.

"Think about the implications, the chances to study things on a grand scale. It is not just the development of life that is important. Educators and scholars from sociological, political, environmental, and biological studies; everyone with an interest in true learning has to be excited by this proposition.

"Leading members of the Councils of Anthropology, Sociology, and Interstellar Communiology have already pledged to support us. They have also put their hand to acknowledging our deeds and maintaining future discretion. Thus, their stake in this endeavor is as high as our own. Now that we have the understanding and backing of other councils, let us stop the bickering and move forward with our work. I know this prospect excites all of you to the same degree it excites me."

And her excitement lit up her face as well as her words. She spoke like a child before a birthday party, ready to open a pile of beautifully wrapped presents.

"Actually, forgive me. I know we have moved quite far in our discussions and actions. Much faster, in fact, than I would have ever dared hope. As I think about this endeavor, I think about the grandest steps of mankind. What we do now, we should do with the boldness of our ancestors, of those that built the pyramids, those that sailed around the earth or entered space for the first time. And just as the first colonists ventured off earth to build a new world, we should journey forward with the same conviction.

"With such an understanding, let us return to the last order of our debate. We all know that altering the genetics of an earth born life-form will be simplicity. We have also agreed that we should use an organism other than that of the human species. We do not want to create human mutations, but we do wish to keep the organism close enough so that study remains useful. But we must end this debate over the proposed intelligence and evolution level of our creation.

"If we are to create an alien life form, we must look at the common denominator for all interested parties, what will yield the greatest scientific progress. I concur with most of my colleagues that it would be the most beneficial to preset this life at a stage of development which will produce the most data. What will it serve us if we place a single-celled bacterium in a small pool? The time it will take for this organism to evolve into anything further will certainly span into centuries if not millenniums.

"We must not make this mistake. We must utilize our time as well as our resources. We have an entire planet. Let us use it to its greatest capacity. The development of a single cell can be watched on a slide under a microscope.

"But what about the development of entire alien civilization? Just think of the implications to scientific discovery if we could set an organism with reasonable intelligence into a preset society, say pre-industrial. We can make them herbivores so we need not create any other organisms for herding, but we could slightly alter our own plant material to see how they farm. We could watch their population growth, their societal patterns from infancy, but during a time of reasonable development. It should stir every fiber of your scientific being.

"I urge all of you to consider what might be gained if we truly take hold of this unlimited opportunity. Think not with misplaced restrictions. Release the binding fears and worries, and let us take the grandest step of all time."

Authority security personnel escorted Rath out of the freighter cockpit and into an empty cargo bay. They ordered him not to move, and actually left him alone without a guard.

Rath didn't bother entertaining the thought of hiding. Where could he go? He stood and waited as he pictured the security officers going through his logs. There wasn't anything to truly implicate him, other than the obvious facts of the situation. He was a scout pilot, he was on a freighter, and he was where he shouldn't be.

If he disliked the emptiness of the holds before, he hated it now. Isolated, alone, nothing to do except ponder what was going to happen to him; he thought of what he was going to say, tried to conjure some lie. Nothing came to mind, nothing even slightly plausible.

When two interrogators finally returned to the empty bay, they just stared at him.

"Well?" One finally mumbled.

Rath exhaled. He blurted out the obvious, trying to buy time, hoping to find some explanation hidden within the truth.

"I'm a scout pilot. I won the bid to scout this planet."

The first security officer basically grunted with annoyance. "We know. We boarded the scout and checked the logs there as well. We also know that you already completed the mission and even returned to Janus. Did you file the scout report with the local Exploratory Council?"

"No." The lonely word trailed off into the emptiness of the bay.

"Why not?"

Rath shook his head as he stared at the bare metal floor.

The first interrogator offered his own explanation. "I think it's pretty obvious. I saw your initial scouting report. You reported easily accessible deposits of emeralds. You probably scavenged a load full and brought them back to Janus. When you saw the going price, and you thought you'd come back, this time with a freighter. Have I missed anything?"

Rath bit his lip, but remained silent.

The interrogator almost laughed. "Hey look pal, you don't want to talk, that's fine. But we got you. You're not out here in a scout. This is a freighter we're standin' in. I ain't blind. Unless you got some reason to be out here..."

"I got lost," Rath attempted.

The desperate remark seemed to die in the hollows of the freighter and the interrogator took obvious delight in burying it. "No way pal. Your nav computer shows you logged these coordinates right after you took off from Janus. You gotta remember something else; we read your Boscon distortions on our scanners. You came into the system with your curtain up. If you were lost, why'd you run with the veil?"

"I was worried about pirates."

The interrogator just shook his head.

To Rath, the lie actually didn't sound that bad, and he decided to go with it.

"I was in Boscon Push. I couldn't scan the system. I didn't know what was out here, so I hit the curtain. That's why I got it. And I was lost. I don't mean that I didn't enter this system into the nav computer, but this isn't my final destination. I know there's some trading posts out here. I'm just not sure where. And you're right, I know about the emeralds on this planet. I figure when they hand over the mining permit to a company, they're going to need freighter pilots to move this stuff. I heard the rumors about the engines and I knew about the high prices for emeralds. I figure a good freighter pilot with some protection against pirates could pretty much name his price. I want to retire from scouting. You can ask anybody that knows me, that's no lie."

The interrogator chimed in almost immediately. "Lots of problems with that horseshit, pal. First, it takes a while for a mining colony to start up. There's no reason to be out here this early. And you don't contract like this. You gotta talk to the mining company, and they don't send out negotiators to a site until the colony can support them. You also still have your scout in tow, so don't hand me that crap about wanting to retire. And, you've got a scout license. We checked your log status. You've never flown a freighter in your life."

"There's no law against a scout turning freighter jockey," Rath offered.

The second interrogator spoke for the first time. His tone was malignant. "No, but there are laws against piracy. And they're pretty stiff, especially if you don't cooperate. Now let's cut through this nonsense. You weren't going to transport any minerals because you didn't submit you're scouting report. That's the bottom line. No one else is going to believe differently. You never turned over your scouting report to the Exploratory Council. Until you do, there won't be any mining permit. You know that, so that ends that story. Do you have anything else to say about this?"

Rath just cursed under his breath.

The second security officer nodded. "Good, now that we understand each other, let's see what we can agree on. You came here to steal a freighter load of emeralds before a mining permit was handed over. Isn't that right?"

Cornered, Rath spoke the truth in hopes for some leniency. So far, he was still answering to Regency Authority officers and not general prosecutors.

"Yes"

"Were you working alone?"

Rath tried to hide a cringe, but he thought the interrogator noticed his unease. "Yeah, I'm alone."

"How were you going to sell the load?"

Not wanting to implicate Larinov, Rath chose his words carefully. "I was going to bring them to distribution planets and sell them to any buyers I could find."

"Middlemen?"

"Maybe, but I'd probably look for some end buyers, too."

"You're not a dealer, you're a scout. Your status would change."

"I wouldn't care," Rath admitted. "If I could sell a freighter load of emeralds, I could retire. That's what I want. I wasn't lying about that."

The questioner scratched his chin. "I'm not too sure about this. I think you might have been planning on meeting someone and transferring the cargo. Are you going to tell me you've had no contact with marauders?"

"I haven't," Rath insisted. "There wasn't any listing in my logs, was there?"

"That's not something you would record."

Rath shook his head sternly. "I wouldn't want to deal with pirates. This is a brand new ship. Do you really think I'd be stupid enough to deliver a