The Fleet Book Three: Break Through by David Drake (ed) & Bill Fawcett (ed)

Author:David Drake (ed) & Bill Fawcett (ed) [Drake, David & Fawcett, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Event Horizon EBooks
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

VII.

The ivy tickled Tony the Contactman into wakefulness. Probably not on its own, of course. Not enough internal musculature. Aided no doubt by the breeze. And the breeze directed by the universal interaction of the Eleroi intelligence with Gaia, the gestalt composed of all the subsystems of the planet and its ethereal surround. Or so Tony the Contactman surmised.

It could have been no more than a happy accident—fortuitousness—or did he mean serendipity?

The vine tickled his foot again. “Damn your impudence,” Tony said in the tone of a man speaking to his beloved cat. He stretched, put on a light robe, and made himself a cup of tea. The vine was tapping impatiently against the wall. “Wait a minute,” Tony called out. “I’m no good till I’ve had my coffee.” But the vine couldn’t understand. It had no ears and not much intelligence, either, despite the latest boost from the Universal Intelligence Upgrade Program, whose existence could be inferred but not verified.

Tony the Contactman was about to lose himself for an hour or so in speculations about cosmic upgrading. He was fat and physically lazy and less inclined toward kinetic activity than his fellows and very fond of thinking about generalizations. Of course, he was only fourteen; he might outgrow it. You could never tell what the Universal Program had in mind for you next.

Tap tap tap.

“All right, I’m coming!”

Without haste, Tony walked into the living room and crossed it to the open window through which the ivy had thrust green fingers. Tony took one of the green fingers in his own and was immediately patched through to the headquarters of the lord of the planet. It was Aftenby this year, he remembered, and Denton was his prime minister.

Aftenby, himself, was, on the vine line. “Tony! How are you?”

“I’m very well,” Tony replied. “What’s up?”

“Brace yourself,” Aftenby said.

“I’ve already inferred what you’re calling me about,” Tony said. “It was simple enough, especially with the additional clue of your admonition, or should I call it an exhortation. It’s aliens, isn’t it? Are they on the ground yet?”

“Not yet,” Aftenby said. “They will be soon.”

“What bloody luck!”

“Well, it has been it thousand years since the last one.”

“I suppose so,” Tony said. “Well, what have you done?”

“Initiated Defense Procedure A. We’ve set up signal flares so that when the aliens are close enough for visual contact, they can see where to land.”

“Where we want them to land, you mean,” Tony said.

“Well, of course. But they usually tend to follow our landing suggestion. We bring them down in the north bay flats, close to the city of Dungruel.”

“”Dungruel? I don’t seem to remember any place of that name.”

“That’s because nobody lives there. Don’t you read the ‘Procedures for Dealing with Aliens’? Dungruel is the model city left us by the ancients. It’s where we show the aliens the tawdriness of our civilization.”

“How will you explain the lack of people? Can’t have much tawdriness without people.”

“Stop being silly. Of course we’re sending a population over right away, and they’ll be in place by the time the aliens get here.

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