Hammond's Hardcases The Complete Series by Jack Colrain

Author:Jack Colrain [Colrain, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-09-01T22:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

‘It sounds as if you’re doing well,’ Hope’s thoughts came to Daniel.

It was a calm and not-too-warm night. Most nights on this planet were just the right side of cool, he’d noticed, though the day was irritatingly about ninety minutes shorter than that experienced on Earth. That made lining up the times when he and Hope were both awake a little trickier, but somehow they managed. They always managed.

‘Does it?’

‘Of course. You should trust yourself and your judgement more.’

‘You would say that,’ Daniel replied to her. ‘You’re biased.’

‘That is true, and a good thing. I wouldn’t be too concerned about what Lizzie said. Or about the animal tracks.’

‘I still don’t know whether they’re connected.’

‘The Gresians wasted no time in attacking Earth as soon as they detected our use of Mozari technology,’ she reminded him. ‘If there were still Gresians on Lyonesse, surely they would have attacked before now?’

‘That’s what I tell myself.’

‘Do you trust Lizzie? She is an alien intelligence, with an alien agenda.’

‘I do. I believe she believes this was a planet important to the Gresians—'

‘But… You are thinking but?’

‘Yeah,’ he admitted.

‘Her knowledge of the planet is more than two thousand years old. Two and a half thousand years ago, the Roman Empire ruled most of Earth. Christianity and Islam didn’t even exist yet. So much could have changed in that length of time. If the Gresians built the pyramid you’ve found, it might be all that remains of them on that planet.’

‘That’s what I want to believe, too, and it’s definitely a logical conclusion,’ Daniel responded. He felt amused, and added, ‘At least the dig site keeps Doug Wilson busy. And, thankfully, there haven’t been any signs of dangerous animals around.’

‘And what has been keeping you busy?’

Daniel paused for a moment, wanting to say something like ‘placing the planetary defense cannons,’ but in the end he admitted, ‘Missing you, for the most part.’

‘Then you need to find something to keep you busy from that, before it screws you up.’

‘Is that what you do?’

‘I fly the new Mozari-derived fast movers...’

‘Does that work?’

‘The computers do most of the flying,’ she admitted. ‘So, not really. But it is fun. You’ve never been in anything so fast but so smooth and maneuverable. And it’s off-Earth.’

‘Is Earth so bad?’

‘People are still scared, still protesting about the colonies because they think they’re safer, and they think the procedures to get onto a colony ship are unfair.’

‘They should ask someone who’s made that kind of trip.’

‘Human nature changes little,’ Hope opined. ‘Wanting is always a much happier thing than having.’

‘At least—’ Daniel’s thought was cut off by the sudden electronic jangling of an alarm signal from somewhere outside. ‘I gotta go.’ He felt her acknowledgement as he leapt out of bed in the small room that he, like everyone else in the platoon, now had. He couldn’t fault Wilson’s colony plan for that; ensuring that everyone had their own privacy wasn’t bad at all, even if it was more of a bonus than a necessity for the soldiers.

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