Incident at Ida: Part Two (standard:science fiction, 2546 words) [2/3] show all parts
Author: Goreripper	Added: Mar 27 2001	Views/Reads: 3022/2056	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Agents Bartlett and Slade continue their investigation into an alien incident on the binary Ida/Dactyl asteroid system.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

part of his suite of rooms, situated on the surface of Dactyl. Various 
other relics of the former glory of the Spanish nation adorned the room 
on shelves or mounted in glass casings. Bartlett found it somewhat 
amusing that several of the objects appeared to be of Basque origin, 
and wondered if Cordeja even knew the significance of this, or even if 
he had ever been to Spain, at all. Like many of the predominantly 
Slavic and Mediterranean-ethnic people he had come into contact with 
who still fiercely resented what they invariably referred to as the 
theft of their national identity, he doubted if the man had ever set 
foot on Earth, never mind the soil of his ancestors. Bartlett himself 
had been to Philadelphia, which was as close to an Earthly origin as 
his family could lay claim to, and he had been to the Australasian city 
of Adelaide with Slade, who had been born there, but both of those 
cities were now so different to those which their ancestors must have 
known that it was like visiting a completely alien universe. People 
were just incurably sentimental, even with things they knew little 
about. 

The door opened noiselessly behind them and Cordeja came in, accompanied
by a pair of goons that could well have been part cyborg. 

"Welcome to my hacienda!" Alphonse Cordeja said with a flourish.
Bartlett almost choked with a bitter laugh, but was fortunately not 
looking at Cordeja when he did this, and managed to recover quickly 
enough to face the man without looking like he had a goldfish stuck in 
his throat. 

"Alphonse Cordeja," Slade said by way of a greeting. "I'm Charley Slade
and this is Alex Bartlett. We're from XISB. If you wouldn't mind 
answering a few questions for us regarding this apparent alien incident 
on Ida?" 

"Not at all, not at all!" Cordeja spouted, like he was hosting some
outlandish party. "But first come and sit with me and have a drink." 

He waltzed around behind a long, 20th Century-style bar and began
rattling glasses and bottles, stepping out after a minute or two with 
three cocktails and napkins. He went to a large, low table, sat down, 
and placed his guests' drinks on the napkins opposite him. 

Without a word, Slade and Bartlett moved forward and took the
pro-offered seats. Cordeja began to sip at his drink. Neither of the 
agents so much as looked at theirs. Cordeja's hoods propped themselves 
against the bar and feigned nonchalance very badly. 

"Are you comfortable?" Alphonse Cordeja asked them. 

"Funny, I was about to ask you the same question," Bartlett said. 

"Let's get down to business, shall we?" 

"But of course! And what is that business, may I ask?" 

"The incident on Ida," Slade reminded him. "Mr Ortega has informed us
that some unknown entity down there ran amok in a hangar and killed ten 
men. Or did you think Bartlett and I were just here for the scenery?" 

"No of course not," Cordeja said with an irritated grunt. "But we have
the situation controlled. We don't need you people snooping about." 

"But Alphonse, it's the law," replied Bartlett in a deprecating tone.
"You know what the law is, don't you? It's that thing you came here to 
get away from!" 

Cordeja scowled darkly at the tall male agent. The guy had not even been
in the room for five minutes, and he knew for certain that they were 
not going to get on. No one called him Alphonse except for his mother 
and Milo Ortega. 

"I tell you we have the situation under control," he repeated, his face
set. 

Charley Slade leaned forward in her seat, resting her forearms on the
table. 

"Mr Cordeja," she said, "one of the workers that witnessed the attack
told us that Ortega has suspended all commerce between Ida and Dactyl 
except the automated supply barge, is that correct?" 

"Yes. That is correct. Nothing alive can pass between the two asteroids
or our defense systems will shoot it down." 

"How can you be sure your defense systems will be able to detect this
thing if it somehow gets on board the supply barge?" 

"Dactyl's detection and defense systems are the best in the Solar
System. We can detect a life form from 70,000 kilometres." 

"Yes, no doubt," Slade said with heavy import. "A terrestrial life form.
But we don't know if this entity is anything like a terrestrial life 
form, do we? For all we know, it might not even be visible to the human 
eye." 

It was clear that Cordeja had not considered this. He slumped in his
seat for some time. 

"I have only done what Mr Ortega instructed!" he said at last, as if
defeated. 

"Yes that's true," Bartlett said with a sneer. "That's all you have
done. Just what Ortega instructed. Surely he expects you to show a 
little initiative of your own sometimes, doesn't he? If he wanted 
someone to just do what he told him and nothing else, he could get one 
of those lumps over there to run the place, surely." 

The administrator sat up again, sharply. 

"I run this place with plenty of initiative Bartlett!" he snapped. "We
currently have the situation well under control. We don't need Alliance 
agents butting in and throwing their weight around. We're examining our 
options now. Fred Yale has been in constant contact, monitoring the 
situation on Ida, and..." 

"How can you be sure it's Fred Yale?" Slade asked. 

"What..?" Cordeja cried. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" 

"Have you ever heard of 'The Thing', Alphonse? It's an old vidclip made
in the 1980s. Those people from the early Space Age were pretty 
imaginative when it came to beings from another world. Back then they 
just considered them to be cheap thrills entertainment, but in a lot of 
ways agents like Slade and myself think of them almost as reference 
works," Bartlett explained. "'The Thing' is about an entity that's 
uncovered by an expedition to Antarctica that possesses its victims and 
takes on their appearance and physical attributes so it can't be 
detected." 

"Impossible!" Cordeja roared with laughter. 

"Is it? 400 years ago they thought the platypus was impossible. 300
years ago they though human flight was impossible, and it wasn't all 
that long ago that people thought the Unification of Earth was 
impossible too." 

"What has this got to do with some stupid vid from 200 years ago?" 

Bartlett considered the other man and wondered if the guy was an idiot,
or whether he was just arguing to make the conversation last longer. He 
figured it was probably the former, although there was a slight 
possibility that he was stalling to allow for a band of cut-throats to 
arrive and drag them off to a cell somewhere. 

"It means that no one here... Not you, not those flunkeys at the bar,
not Fred Yale... no one, has any idea what we're dealing with here. No 
one knows what it's capable of, where it's from, why it just attacks 
people! We're here to find that out, and, so help me, maybe actually 
save this God forsaken shit hole from what it might want to do!" 

He lowered his voice and delivered a stinging coupe de grace. 

"No wonder you people thought Columbus would sail off the end of the
world." 

Charley Slade almost punched him out herself. Alphonse Cordeja virtually
exploded with rage at the insult. 

"You dare speak to me this way in my own facility!" he roared. "Get out
of here at once or I will have my men throw you into space!" 

The two goons at the bar turned and made to move forward. Bartlett
laughed. 

"That would hardly be a very wise move, Alphonse," he said. 

"I do what I want!" the other man retorted. "Get off this asteroid, and
make sure you watch your backs!" 

The agents held their ground. 

"I don't think we have made ourselves very clear, Mr Cordeja," said
Charley Slade. She was insanely annoyed by Bartlett's arrogance, but 
that she would have to deal with later. 

"What do you mean by that? What is that supposed to mean?" The
criminal's complexion had gone from olive to red. 

"Let me put it this way," Bartlett said evenly. He sat down again and
leaned very close to the livid administrator. He looked into his eyes 
and spoke in a hushed, measured tone. "There's a battlecruiser at 
Eugenia waiting for us to get back. If anything happens to us, or we 
can't identify what's to be done about your visitor down there, that 
ship has orders to attack this facility with extreme prejudice. Once it 
leaves to carry out that order, nothing can stop it. The President 
could be here and it wouldn't matter. That is exactly how serious the 
Alliance considers the possible threat from dangerous xenomorphs. You 
better make sure that you give us every assistance, Mr Cordeja, or else 
all Milo Ortega will be left with here will be a memory." 

Cordeja wasn't quite sure he believed the agent, but from what he could
tell of Bartlett, the guy wouldn't say it just for the hell of it. He 
looked uneasily at Slade, who was easier to look at, after all, but she 
just nodded at him as if he'd just signed his own death warrant. 

Actually, Bartlett was only telling half the truth. If he and Slade
didn’t log a positive report in sixteen hours, the battlecruiser 
Schwarzkopf would blow both asteroids out of the sky anyway and 
establish a ten thousand kilometre radius no-fly zone with a signed 
Presidential order to atomise anything that attempted to breech it. 
Slade had logged a brief account of their investigation so far on a CSL 
communications link on their way to Cordeja's offices, which meant they 
now had three hours to send another one before Admiral Cavalera signed 
the order for Schwarzkopf's mobilisation. If that next report failed to 
come through, the cruiser would leave for Ida under yellow alert. 
Should there be no positive word from Slade or Bartlett up to thirteen 
hours after that, and the binary worldlets were doomed. 

Flustered, frustrated and still stinging from the male agent's racist
insult, Cordeja threw up his hands and shouted. 

"Okay! Go on down to Ida! I will shut down the defense system until you
get there. But I better get some sort of guarantee that this thing is 
gone before I let you come back up, just in case it decides to possess 
your arrogant ass!" 

Bartlett smiled. 

"Now you're thinking, Alphonse," he said. 


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