The Xenocide Mission by Ben Jeapes Read Free Book Online Page B

else? He looked down at himself; grubby underwear and the need for a shower. OK, that was another objective. And if he was feeling naked, what must Boon Round be feeling? Yet another contributing factor to the Rustie’s decline would be the loss of his harness, his decorations – yet more ties with the pride. Well, he knew where they were – the last place Boon Round had left them.
    Joel had his first destination.
    He didn’t know how much of the base had been repressurized, so this was also an intelligence-gathering mission of his own. He pulled himself along, to a murmured narration from the female. He glanced back at the guards: they were plainly ill at ease, fingers itchy over their triggers, but they weren’t interfering.
    Conscious that every move could be his last if it was misconstrued, he reached the main airlock area.
    ‘We’ll go in here,’ he said, and slipped into the changing room. He shivered at the sight of the rows and rows of lockers in the emergency red light, each belonging to a dead Rustie or human. ‘God, it’s like being surrounded by ghosts.’
    Rustie lockers were arranged in First Breed alphabetical order, which Joel had never mastered, so he had to study the bilingual label on each door before he found Boon Round’s. He tugged it open and grinned. There was the harness and – ta da! – a translator unit. Joel reached out.
    With a roar, the senior male leapt forward. One of his lower hands snatched the unit and one of his upper clubbed Joel in the chest and sent him spinning across the room. Joel crashed into the wall with a force that knocked the breath out of him. XCs were small, but strong. The reaction bounced him back and he caught himself against a locker to steady his movement. The armed guards had brought their guns to bear on him.
    This is it!
He shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. Joel Gilmore, born June 2130, Armstrong, Luna; died June 2153 in a changing room in a faraway solar system, the last sound in his ears the melodic chimes of arguing XCs.
    Arguing? He opened one eye. The female had snatched the unit away from the male with her lower hands and they were definitely exchanging views. The one with the camera was still recording him and the armed guards still had him covered. Maybe they were just waiting for orders to open fire.
    The male subsided while the female studied the unit. Then she tucked it away inside her tunic and gestured from Joel to the locker. She pushed herself back and the guards lowered their guns.
    Joel cautiously moved forward and reached out for the harness. When he took it out of the locker, the female grabbed hold of his wrist and Joel’s heart almost stopped, but she just wanted to study the gear. She must have worked out that there was nothing electronic or technological about it because she let Joel’s wrist go again. Without taking his eyes off her, Joel wrapped the harness around himself and kicked off for his own locker.
    Home sweet home! He grinned again at the sight of his dark blue shipsuit, two gold stripes on each shoulder, the insignia of his new rank that had cost him so much. And his aide, of course: even with his uniform back on, he would feel naked without that small box of electronics. He wasn’t going to leave that behind.
    ‘Um, I need that too,’ he said. Sign language seemed to be in vogue so he looked at the female, then pointed at the aide. She moved cautiously forward, then had a brief discussion with the senior male. Finally she picked it up and tucked it away with the unit.
    ‘I know,’ Joel said. ‘You think I’ll use it to set off the demolition charges or something, don’t you? Well, it’s a start. Now . . .’ He unfurled the shipsuit, then looked down at himself and wrinkled his nose. He put the shipsuit back in the locker together with the harness, retrieved a clean pair of shorts and kicked off for the showers.
    There had never been any flowing water on SkySpy even when power was on: it was too precious a