"The container terminal operates around the clock," The ERU captain explained. He was a short fellow with fast, high-stepping feet. Under the Amorite sun, his round face was ruddy and damp. Sweat descended in a widening stain from his armpits to his hips. The white uniform shirt clung to him. "It is nothing compared to the container terminal at Port of Cypria," he went on, "which is well to the north on the Prokopius. Our little port averages only fifty thousand ships per year, ocean and river vessels, about ninety ships per week. As I said, compared to ports like Cypria, Berdigela, and Nashipur, we are very small here." The man paused to lick his lips.
Zoa used the momentary silence to scan the harbor container terminal. Her ground-level scan was, as expected, ineffective. No worries. She'd set up a link with Cyon, the benefit of which was a scan on a short half-second delay, the data downloading to her almost as quickly as she pressed [send] on her request. Her eyes showed her an endless maze of multi-colored, seasoned metal boxes, many uniform in size but with varying markings. The boxes were stacked and lined up to make corridors of indefinable length, all traceable, according to the ERU captain, by positioning chips and the flex couched tightly in his nervous hand.
The ITAN squad, armed with Quiranium detectors, had fanned out, running down the crates identified by manifests as legally transporting Quiranium. There wouldn't be any leakage or trace of the element in these containers. Tomalsi's task force's detectors were actually seeking the element used to line Quiranium transport systems.
Zoa stuck with Hephaestion. Tomalsi's people had communication that would not set off a trigger sensitive to radio waves. If the task force found something, it would contact her. Zoa, however, was holding to the belief that without the Lady's interfering shield, Hephaestion was a better detector than anything Tomalsi's team or the Cyon possessed. And she was right. The ERU with its sidearms drawn shadowed her and the captain, but they were all following Hephaestion. Hephaestion who was walking slowly but directly into the maze of metal, who turned without hesitation, turned again and again, while Zoa processed his decisions against the data streaming from Cyon and the ERU captain's anxious chatter.
"What is this?" Hephaestion softly asked.
-- What is what? Zoa queried.
He was still moving but moving toward one of the containers, a red one with chipped blue letters and numbers on the side.
The ERU captain queried the container's positioning chip. Tried to. And failed. He frowned. Scampered to the side of it, tapped its identification numbers into his flex.
Zoa, too, was frowning. Cyon was telling her nothing was there, an empty space. She asked Cyon to scan for Cedium. Positive for high levels of Cedium. An advanced alloy, good for shielding. But you couldn't come into port with Cedium lining your container. It was considered a security risk. The container was altered after it was parked.
The ERU captain said, "This is a two-SEU seventy-seven cubic meter container. And it should not be here. According to its ident, it left port two days ago aboard the Queen Sebastiane bound for Sarony."
Zoa looked sidelong at Hephaestion.
He answered. "The container that isn't supposed to be here is emitting a low-frequency radio signal. The signal isn't very strong, but if we opened the portal I suspect the signal would enjoy a robust boost from a relay"-- he pointed --"over there. It is the relay I sensed. There is some sort of dampening field inside the container."
The ERU captain, staring, blurted, "We can't-- you mean, we can't open it?"
"I wouldn't," Zoa murmured. She keyed her microphone. "All units, we have found it."
The ERU captain, overhearing, blanched and fell back a step.
Zoa sidestepped to Hephaestion. "What else do you sense?"
Shouting at a distance, and then a queer, vaporous silence. Hephaestion glanced skyward, his brow furrowed.
He said, "What other triggers might there be?"
"Barometric, mercury-- motion."
Tomalsi's crew thundered into view.
Hephaestion glanced at Zoa. "Where are your gliders?"
"Close enough. Can you sense the device itself?"
"Easily, if I stripped the Cedium and punched a hole in the side. But the relay ..."
"No, we don't want the relay to get its signal boost, and we don't want to disable the relay either. The absence of the signal could be a trigger too."
"Agreed."
Tomalsi's team reached Zoa's side. Tomalsi grunted, "This it?"
Zoa nodded.
"Stand aside," he ordered, and three of his team edged forward.
Hephaestion turned to Tomalsi. "Your detectors won't work. What you need to do is clear a radius, a safe zone."
Tomalsi thought for a second. "There is no safe zone."
Hephaestion and Zoa exchanged glances.
-- How far off the surface is safe enough? Hephaestion.
-- There are tiers of safety. In all simulations within the gravity well, there is an excess of lethal radiation.
-- Can your ship create a barrier to protect the city from radiation if there's a detonation before the weapon reaches a safe altitude?
-- Not if we are going to lift the container. And we must lift two containers, the one with the relay and the one with the device. Our tractor device uses energy to lift objects. It isn't mechanical as you think of such things. We can't maintain the kind of barrier you're thinking about and use the tractor at the same time.
-- All right. Use the gliders to lift the containers.
-- The gliders are not capable of climbing outside the atmosphere.
-- Then that means I lift them.
-- You?
-- Not me alone. I couldn't, not all the way. Hardly. She can, and I'll put a-- think of it as a blanket. I'll put a blanket around both containers, so the sensors think their altitude is the same, that there's been no movement.
Zoa stared, unblinking. It lasted a few moments.
Tomalsi broke the silence: "Well, what's the damn plan?"
Zoa's eyes shut and then opened, her features tightening in a hot haze of adrenaline. "You have the damn plan," she bit off. "We are going to elevate this thing, so get the hell back. Everyone. Back up and get out of the way. We need to set up a radiation hazard zone."
The ERU were the first to sprint back down the concrete aisle. They looked like they had seen a countdown. Tomalsi's people hesitated, fixed on their leader.
"You people are staying?" Tomalsi demanded.
"Until the last possible moment," Zoa answered. "Which you are delaying. Work on finding out who breached this terminal. Someone had time to install the device, layer the container with Cedium, and disable the container's positioning chip. Whoever did this was also able to make the terminal tracking system think the container shipped aboard the vessel Queen Sebastiane. But please, work on that at a distance. We need to go to work here now."
Tomalsi's neck stretched, his head swiveling toward a dot in the sky. His eyes widened somewhat.
Cyon descended into the atmosphere. The dot became a dark wing, its shadow sliding toward them like a chill. The sky vanished. When Cyon, impossibly silent, was directly overhead, the ship rotated.
Meanwhile, Tomalsi backed up, backed up some more, then waved his team to a distance outside the shadow of Cyon's hull.
Good enough.
"I'm assuming we have to stay inside the barrier," she said. "A barrier created by my ship might affect your ... abilities."
"I wouldn't take that chance, yes. We should stay put."
"It's called a hot zone, Hephaestion. We'll be standing in it, under it. I don't like it, so as a precaution, I'm telling my glider pilot to shuttle down two protective suits. We'll help each other get into them."
"The suit is strong enough to stop radiation waves? How much will this protective suit affect my senses?"
This was not something Zoa could answer. "I'm not sure. I know a lot about your telepathy, but I do not know how your ability to move objects works."
"Then I can't wear it."
"You have no idea how badly this could turn out if you don't."
"You're right. I only know how this might turn out if I do."
-- Next Chapter
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