Rock crumbles under my hand. I reach up, finding another handhold, flattening myself against the cliff face. Small fragments drop down, to vanish into the darkness, into the surf where the waves boom against the foot of the cliff. The surf glimmers ghostly in the light of Zhianiai IV's three pale moons. It is beautiful, romantic - It'll be a whole hell of a lot less romantic if I fall in it, I'm sure of that.
"Whose brilliant idea was this, again?" I mutter as I haul myself a few precious centimetres further up.
"Yours," Hal Welti mutters back, from below and to my right.
"OK, right, so it really is brilliant, then." Hal makes a not-convinced sort of a noise. He is closest to me; the rest of the team is strung out beyond him, ropes leading down the cliff face and linking us together.
They shouldn't be necessary. The gecko pads built into our shoes and gloves are supposed to be rated strong enough to hang from the ceiling by one fingertip. Supposed to be. I hear the boom of the surf below, and I decide maybe I should suppose a bit harder.
My earpiece goes beep. "Pex," Ajbit's voice whispers, "patrol pod on the way."
"Aw criminy," I mutter. "Stealth field, peeps," I say louder. Though they will all have heard Ajbit's warning, anyway.
I touch the wrist control, switch on the holo-emitter. It'll cover me and my various dangling ropes, and it'll make me look just like the rock surface, provided I don't do anything stupid like move. So I freeze onto the face of the cliff and try to think stony thoughts.
I hear the whispering of the patrol craft's drives, see brief flashes of light as its spotlight sweeps the cliff surface. They don't really expect to spot anything, so it's just a cursory search. Just routine. I hope. The sound of the pod's engines dwindles, the light is gone. "All clear," Ajbit's voice says in my ear.
Ajbit is back with the shuttlepod, parked on the beach about a kilometre from the cliff face. The shuttlepod is well outside the security perimeter, and we had to trek a long way through the surf before we reached the cliff wall and started to climb. Surf is good. It messes up motion detectors no end, does surf, and the balmy tropical night means it's easy enough to hide our bodies' infrared signatures, too. Provided we don't run into any active scans - provided we don't trip any alarms - we should be fine. Should be.
There are active scans aplenty around the approaches to the Deulsanti Estate. Can't go through the front gates without a forensic-grade sensor scan - and as for getting over the wall on that side, forget it. But nice Mr. Deulsanti doesn't want too many security features cluttering up his clifftop retreat. And he doesn't really believe anybody'd be fool enough to climb the cliff to get in the back way.
So here we are, we five fools.
I click off the holo-emitter - it has a limited life, and we will need it again - and start climbing again. Handhold to handhold, foothold to foothold, ignoring the booming of the surf worryingly-large-number of metres below. I wriggle along the cliff face. The slick surface of my form-fitting bodysuit leaves no traces on the rock. We're all wearing those, it's not a good look on everyone. On Goyar, yum. On me, meh. On Hal Welti, distinctly um. Pingood, well, her own species probably relish those broad hips and spindly limbs. And as for the fifth member of our little team....
My hand reaches up, and finds an expanse of flat space. "Path," I hiss down at the rest. The ornamental path is carved out of the rock at the top of the cliff, it winds down and around, through little tunnels in places, to secluded nooks where courting couples can sit and watch the moons rise over the sea. Lovely. No courting couples tonight, though. The whole Deulsanti menage is off-planet, on a vacation somewhere nice. Not that this isn't nice. Anyway.
It'd be nice to take the path up the rest of the cliffside. Trouble is, the path is monitored, and while the security isn't complete - and we know where the gaps are - it's comprehensive enough that going that way would take too much time and risk and effort. So, I just need to be quite sure I'm where I think I am, and, well, it's only another ten metres to climb from there.
If I'm not where I think I am, I'm going to trigger the security, and things are going to get very awkward and unpleasant. So, better be right, Pex. I stick my head over the parapet.
I'm right. Good. The path emerges from one of those little tunnels to my left, and curves around fairly level to my right, and I know the mouth of the tunnel is laced with motion detector beams, and there's a vision pickup mounted just above that arched entrance - but its field of view is directed along the path, and there is just enough of a blind spot for us to wriggle through and climb the final ten metres or so to the cliff top.
We wouldn't know all this without some pretty precise sensor work. Thank goodness for Starfleet's science division, as represented by my new favourite pussycat. I'm sure it wasn't the sort of job they were meant for, but the USS Timor's sensors have interrogated this patch of the planet a darn sight more closely than Deulsanti's security team might have thought possible.
So, I flatten myself against the cliff face and squeeze past the camera, skin crawling all the way, and the others follow, and the state of their skins is their business. All right, then. Definitely within Deulsanti's security perimeter, now. Which means we're covered by transporter inhibitors, so getting out, if caught, is going to be just slightly tricky. Better not get caught, then.
We clamber up the last stretch of cliff face, and I mutter, "Stealth field." This is the next tricky bit, making it across a nice stretch of open lawn to the comparative shelter of the buildings. We shimmer, turn invisible, and haul ourselves over the edge of the cliff. I take the climbing ropes, wind them around my waist.
There's a waist-high wall - for stopping casual strollers casually strolling over the edge of the cliff, I guess - and then there's an expanse of lush, smooth grass, suitable for picnics and jolly outdoor games and such, and then there are the buildings, the main house and a couple of guest lodges, and one other all-important one. The low-light amplifying goggles give everything a clear-cut, surreal, almost cartoonish look.
I lope across the grass, hoping it springs back nicely, hoping my footprints don't show up on some Hazari security camera, hoping the rest of the team is keeping pace. I can't see them - with the stealth field up, I can't even see myself. I guess that's no great loss. The lawn is big, loads of room for loads of picnics. This is the one thing that works in our favour. The Deulsanti estate is a home, a multi-billionaire's private hangout, it's not meant to be a max-security installation with constant monitoring at every point. It's a safe bet Deulsanti doesn't want everything that goes on here monitored. So, there's space to move, there are exploitable gaps, there are ways around.... The Timor has found those gaps. Now, we need to be good enough to use them.
I reach the wall of one of the guest lodges, crouch down, turn off the stealth field. The others shimmer into visibility beside me. No one lost. Good.
"OK," I whisper, "by the numbers. Hal, Goyar, transporter inhibitors." The two nod and lope off in different directions. There are two transporter inhibitor stations, and if things go pear-shaped, I want one man at each, ready to break it so the Ostankino can come in and make pickup. "You two, with me. First, the pond."
We circle cautiously around the building. The regular security patrols are no problem, we know their pattern - but the Hazari aren't stupid, they throw in the odd random walkabout here and there, to keep everyone on their toes. I'm just hoping they're having a lazy night tonight.
The ornamental pool is back behind the main house, its surface dotted with floating lily pads, or whatever passes for lilies on this planet. I'm no botanist. The water looks black and uninviting, but Pingood slides into it without a murmur of complaint....
This is where diversity pays off, y'see. The security systems mostly run out of a basement beneath the house, fairly traditional, and full of Hazari guards at the moment so we can't really get at them. They are hackable from the outside, using a fairly standard induction kit, only with the basement being underground - which is where most people keep their basements, really - it's hard to get within range without a lot of tunnelling. But the side of the ornamental pond is close enough, only hacking the system sort of depends on having a highly trained technician who is equally at home in air and in water. This idea never occurred to Deulsanti, who, like most of this planet's natives, is a standard oxygen-breathing humanoid type with maybe a few more nostrils than most of us bother with, that's all. But it occurs to me, every time I see Pingood. The black water closes over her green tresses without even a ripple, and she is on her way.
That leaves two of us. We crouch down and head to the last building at a sort of scrambling run.
The last building is a small, round, domed thing, with a sort of covered passageway sticking out of one side. The stone cladding of the building hides a shell of solid tritanium, the passageway is the only way in. And the passageway is, well, really high security. Pingood should be able to deal with some of it, but only some....
"Intercepting security feeds. Looping now." The comms channel has filters and compensators for water, it's only my imagination that makes Pingood's voice gurgle in my ear. I nod to Unity. "We're on."
We reach the door to the passage at a run. About seven different alarms should go off as I gimmick the lock, but they don't. Thanks, Pingood. But the rest of it -
"Motion sensors and pressure pads as expected," says Unity. "Any movement over 0.1 metres per second will trip the alarm; any weight on the floor over 0.25 of a kilogramme, likewise."
"Time to do your stuff, then." I stand behind her, take a firm grip on her hips, boost her as she jumps, so her hands reach the ceiling. They reach it, and they stick. Gecko pads, they work just great.
She hangs there, immobile, looking like a sculpture in her form-fitting bodysuit. Which, in a sense, is what she is....
The android's legs curl up and forwards with a necessary slowness that seems nightmarish to me. A flesh-and-blood gymnast might have the strength needed to do this, but the control, that's a whole 'nother thing. Unity's feet eventually reach the ceiling, and again it's just my imagination that puts an audible click on the gecko pads engaging. Then she begins to move, spreadeagled on the ceiling of the passage, moving slowly, oh-so-slowly, towards the far end....
Motion out of the corner of my eye: I turn my head, and bite down hard on a yelp. I dive for the floating, wind-blown leaf, catch it in my hand. A leaf. Just a leaf... but if it had blown into the passage, it would have been a solid object moving at more than one-tenth of a metre per second, it might just as well have been a hundred-kilo armed Hazari guard. And I can't close the door, in case Unity needs to make a fast exit... all I can do is worry, and watch for leaves.
She can move at one-tenth of a metre per second, the passage is less than ten metres long, she should be in there inside two minutes... of course, it's not that simple, it never is. Unity's form-fitting clothing and close-cropped hair leaves nothing that might dangle, no swinging ends that might move faster than the critical speed... but she is moving with perfect, machine-grade care, and each change of position seems to take an hour or more. I swear I can feel the pulse pounding in my temples. If it gets any louder, it'll trip an alarm all by itself.
There is no door at the other end of the passage, just an open archway. That's for effect, that is. In the normal run of things, people would walk down the passage, towards that open arch, and they'd get a good dramatic view of the artifact, spotlit in its little round room at the end....
The Mask of Dhalselapur. Don't ask me who or what Dhalselapur is, or was.... The Mask is roughly the size and shape of a humanoid face, with fewer nostrils than a Zhianiaian but more ears than a Preserver... it is made of some greenish-yellow shimmering crystal with glinting bronze highlights, and its vaguely benign expression has been smiling over Zhianiai IV for well over twenty thousand years. It's an archaeological puzzle as well as a priceless artifact. It cost Deulsanti a fortune, and we are not talking a small fortune either - the Mask cost more than everything else on this clifftop put together.
Now Unity is hanging from the ceiling directly over this ancient priceless treasure, and I am fretting, keeping one corner of one eye on her while watching out for any other hazards and listening for yells from the rest of the team. Unity reaches out with one hand for the Mask; her other hand is on a belt pouch - she is held to the ceiling only by the gecko pads on her climbing boots.
"There is a pressure pad." Unity's voice sounds in my ear; she doesn't need to move her lips to use the comm link. "Compensating as planned."
One hand is on the Mask, the other brings the belt pouch down... and sand trickles from it. The Mask is mounted on a pressure pad, any change in the weight resting on it will trigger an alarm. So, Unity pinches the Mask in one hand, and with the other releases the grains of sand - and as each grain falls onto the pad, she pulls a little harder on the Mask, taking a little more of the weight - compensating exactly, so that no difference registers on the sensor. Android precision, again. No way flesh and blood could match that performance.
Now the Mask is in Unity's hand, and nothing but a small pile of sand is resting on the pressure pad, and she begins the painstaking nightmare process of making her way back. I am in agonies of apprehension. If Pingood's looping of the security cameras is spotted... if a random patrol happens on me, or Hal, or Goyar... if Unity's grip, impossibly, slips, or the gecko pads fail....
It takes Unity less than four minutes to make her way back, which is time for about five hundred nightmare scenarios to play out inside my head. The android grasps the lintel of the door and swings herself outside in a graceful gymnast's dismount. I hit the communicator. "In the bag. Ready for extraction."
The way out is quicker than the way in. If you have the nerves for it.... Unity has slipped the Mask into a pouch, a very special pouch with a protective impact-gel lining. It'll stop a bullet, or cope with any lesser impact. The point is not to break the priceless irreplaceable ancient artifact, after all. I close the door, and we crouch-run back to the pond. We're in time to see the water surge, and Pingood's head break the surface, a wide smile on her thin batrachian lips. I'm glad someone's happy, anyway.
"Shuttle is en route," Ajbit's voice sounds in my ear. "All stealth systems engaged." The shuttle doesn't have a cloaking device or any fun stuff like that, but it can be... reasonably discreet... if need be, and need is definitely being, just now. Hal and Goyar rendezvous with us outside the guest lodge. Still no worrying tramp of size eighteen Hazari boots. I'm starting to feel better. My pulse rate must be back down below five hundred a minute.
It'll go back up soon enough. "We ready for this?" I ask in a whisper.
Goyar swallows. Pingood looks vaguely pleased. Unity's face is expressionless. "If 'twere done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly," Hal quotes in a morose voice.
Well, I'm taking that as a general yes. I review the route, in my mind, take a deep breath, and say, "Let's go, then."
And we're off, skirting around the guest house, across another strip of lawn - very quickly - avoiding the tempting cover of a shaded walk between bushes which we happen to know are loaded with detection gear... down a flight of stone stairs, and round a corner, and past a little building which I think is just a changing room... and onto the projecting concrete platform with the wide sea beyond.
Another diversion at the Deulsanti Estate: cliff diving. Something the security scanners don't watch, much, because there's no practical way up to the platform from the sea, and nobody in their right mind would jump down from it at night. So maybe I'm not in my right mind, then. Some people say as much. I look out over the sea, hoping to spot the shuttle and Ajbit, and then, thinking about the need for stealth and all that, hoping not to spot the shuttle and Ajbit.
"Count of three, then, guys," I say. Nobody looks madly happy about this. "One. Two. Three."
And we're off, feet slapping on the concrete, but it's okay, there's no one around to hear us, and then the edge of the platform comes up with frightening speed, and I jump -
Air whistles around me, and I am weightless, and trying hard not to yell out as I straighten my body and point my toes, and the cold wind is howling in my ears, and then the sea comes up and slaps me with terrific force, and water wraps itself around me and I am plunging into lightless depths....
I fight my way onto an even keel, thrash back to the surface, inhale a deep breath of salt-tinged air, then duck back down beneath the water again. There are other shapes near me, but I can't see much - the light-amplifying goggles don't have much to work with. There is one fuzzy shape moving with ease and confidence - that's Pingood, looking after everyone. Below me, a shape with windmilling arms and legs - Unity. The android is heavier than water, what with all the metal in her, so she has to compensate for the lack of buoyancy with sheer brute strength.
A light like a magnesium flare, and I panic for a fraction of a second before I realise it's mostly due to the goggles' amplification. The light resolves itself into a rectangular shape. Ajbit has brought the shuttle in just under the water, and she's cracked the ventral hatch open to guide us in. I risk another brief rise to the surface, another breath, then plunge back down and swim for the shuttle.
I swim for a minute or two, and then my hand bumps into the shuttle's metal flank, and I make my way down, and into the glowing rectangle of the hatchway, and finally up into the main compartment. Hal and Goyar are there, coughing up water and looking miserable. I pull myself up onto a seat and join them. With a splash, two heads come up out of the water: Pingood, helping Unity up. "All done?" Ajbit asks.
"Looks like it," I gasp.
Unity sits down, and carefully opens the pouch to inspect its contents. "The Mask is intact," she says.
"Of course it is," I say with a cheerful confidence that I wasn't feeling at all.
"Incredibly," says Ajbit, "the alert level at the Deulsanti Estate hasn't risen. You got in and out without setting any alarms off, it looks like."
"Of course we did," I say, even more cheerily.
Hal coughs up some more sea water. "Can we not do that again, any time soon?" he asks.
"Aw, c'mon, you know you love it really." I lean back and rest my head against the wall. Air hisses and water gurgles as Ajbit increases the internal pressure and lifts the shuttle, forcing the remaining water out before she closes the hatch. We're already outside Deulsanti's security perimeter, we should be able to get clean away, now, before they even realize we've been.
"What's that in your hand?" Ajbit asks.
I look down. I'm still holding the leaf. It is stuck to my hand, partly through residual charge in the gecko pads, mostly through sheer panicking-primate grasping reflex. "Souvenir," I say. "Come on, let's go home."
---
Three hours, a hot meal, and a change of clothes later, and I am feeling a lot less jittery. I sit in my ready room and look at the Mask, lying on my desk. It really is quite something. I'm still contemplating the expression on the timeless face when Voesyy pokes her head round the door and says, "Secure comms channel is ready."
"OK." I pick up the Mask. It has eye slits, so it can be used as, like, a mask. Accounts for the name, I guess. I hold it in front of my face and say, "Right. Let's switch him through."
The face which appears on my comms console now... has its own expression. And Hazari faces aren't really all that flexible, but there is absolutely no disguising the fact that this particular Hazari is in the grip of a strong emotion. He can't see me smiling sweetly at him, but the Mask is doing the job for me.
"Hi, N'Drask," I say. "You're supposed to be looking after this thing, right? You took a contract to protect Mr. Deulsanti's security. So... you wanna know what the deal is, if you want this thing back?"
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