Pyramid Scheme Read online

  Pyramid Scheme

  by Dave Freer & Eric Flint

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright (c) 2001 by Dave Freer & Eric Flint

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 0-671-31839-X

  Cover art by Bob Eggleton

  Interior maps by Randy Asplund

  First printing, October 2001

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Freer, Dave.

  Pyramid scheme / by Dave Freer & Eric Flint.

  p. cm.

  "A Baen Books original—T.p. verso.

  ISBN 0-671-31839-X

  1. Human-alien encounters—Fiction. 2. Chicago (Ill.)—Fiction.

  3. Mythology—Fiction. 4. Pyramids—Fiction. I. Flint, Eric. II. Title.

  PS3556.R3935 P9 2001

  813'.54—dc21 2001035798

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

  Printed in the United States of America

  To L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt,

  who are gone;

  And to Zachary, who just arrived.

  When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre,

  He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea;

  An' what he thought he might require,

  'E went an' took—

  Rudyard Kipling,

  Introduction to the Barrack-Room Ballads

  in "The Seven Seas"

  Baen Books by DAVE FREER & Eric Flint

  Rats, Bats & Vats

  Pyramid Scheme

  BAEN BOOKS by ERIC FLINT

  Mother of Demons

  1632

  The Philosophical Strangler

  The Belisarius series, with David Drake:

  An Oblique Approach

  In the Heart of Darkness

  Destiny's Shield

  Fortune's Stroke

  The Tide of Victory

  The Federation of the Hub series,

  by James H. Schmitz, edited by Eric Flint:

  Telzey Amberdon

  T'nT: Telzey & Trigger

  Trigger & Friends

  The Hub: Dangerous Territory

  Agent of Vega & Other Stories (forthcoming)

  BAEN BOOKS by DAVE FREER

  The Forlorn

  Prologue

  The new NESOT (Near Earth Space Object Tracking) satellite paid dividends less than three months after its launch. The computerized system spat a data stream on the incoming object to NORAD. It did this for any detected object which would enter the Earth's atmosphere.

  The level of NORAD tracking which dealt with objects that should burn up on atmospheric entry was computerized. An alarm sequence was triggered by any anomaly. Twenty-three seconds after it took over from NESOT, the alarm sounded.

  * * *

  Brigadier General Durham looked over the shoulder of the warrant officer at the screen display. He took a deep breath. Chicago!

  He took another deep breath. The procedures were laid down. It had been something of a joke. But the NESOT data showed that it wasn't a joke. Not at all funny, in reality. This was incoming from deep space. And it was decelerating. Falling objects don't naturally do that.

  Incoming. Incoming and alien.

  * * *

  While on its final approach, the American Airlines flight inbound from New York abruptly lost radio and radar contact for fifteen seconds with Chicago O'Hare's Tower Approach Control. The explosive reactions of the pilot were mild compared to those at Chicago Air Traffic Control. And those in turn were mild compared to the reaction at Cheyenne Mountain.

  They'd lost the object. And they'd lost all radio contact with Chicago. Fortunately the fiber-optic link between Cheyenne Mountain and Chicago Air Traffic Control remained functional.

  Air traffic controllers are renowned for their imperturbability. The senior ATC on the other end of the line managed a perfectly controlled level voice—that could have etched steel.

  "NORAD? Ah! Right. Are you folks doing something we need to know about? Because we just nearly lost a fully loaded heavy." Despite the angry tinge underlying her voice, the controller wasn't actually snarling. Not quite. NORAD and Air Traffic Control centers worked closely together and were generally on good terms.

  Brigadier General Durham was able to reassure himself that whatever had happened, it hadn't included destroying Chicago. But he was quite unable to reassure the woman on the other end of the line that it wouldn't happen again. NORAD had no more idea than she did what had caused the temporary radio blackout.

  * * *

  "I've already got two companies from the 101st on their way from Fort Campbell. They're only four hundred miles away and can get there in their own Blackhawks. But I want the entire 82nd mobilized and ready to go. That's going to require—"

  "Goddamn it, Fred," snarled the National Security Council's representative, Tom Harkness. "According to your own satellite data, the object has an estimated maximum diameter of four to six feet. This isn't Independence Day, for Christ's sake, or War of the Worlds."

  Harkness rubbed the sleep from his eyes, scowling fiercely. Clearly enough, he had not appreciated being awakened from a sound sleep for this—this—

  Harkness' lip curled into a slight sneer. The expression had a well-practiced air about it. "If the thing isn't some kind of prank in the first place—and I'm smelling hoax here."

  An idle thought flashed through General Brasno's mind. Takes one to know one. But he restrained himself manfully. Harkness was continuing to speak.

  "So I can't see telling the President at this point that he should send in more than a token force of paratroopers. Mainly just to reassure any agitated local officials that the government is on its toes."

  General Brasno had dealt with Harkness before. Unfortunately. He sometimes thought the NSC official's conception of reality was that it was a spin created by a public relations campaign. Presumably for the sake of creating an audience.

  "If it is real—if, I say—then it's bound to be a friendly first contact, not an attack." Harkness pointed a dramatic finger and wagged it in his best professorial manner. "You can't cram an invasion force into something that size. And we don't want to start a goddamn war—or trigger off a major panic."

  General Brasno folded his arms across his chest. "You don't scramble friendly communications either. That is a pathfinder. Either a pathfinder or a Von Neumann-type machine, capable of replication. Which means one machine is all you need for a geometric progression of invaders. If that thing shows any sign of replication we need to have adequate personnel to deal with it."

  Harkness shook his head stubbornly. "You do not have authorization at the moment to do anything more than send in those two companies from the 101st." The NSC man glanced at his watch. "And now I've got to catch a plane, in order to get a first hand look at this so-called `UFO.' "

  As soon as he was gone, General Brasno was on the phone to the commander of the 82nd Airborne. "George? It's me again. They won't agree to sending you in yet. But I want you ready to go at a moment's notice."

  He hung up the phone and scowled at one of his aides. "Pity those poor bastards in the 101st, if anything goes wrong. Two companies!"

  PART I

  —as the blasts

  of loosened tempest, such the tumult seemed!

 
—The Bhagavadgita

  1

  No borrower may remove

  more than three books.

  The silence was all a fussy librarian could have wished for. It was 2:29 A.M. and the second floor of the Regenstein Library was deserted and dark . . . except for the prowling flashlight.

  They had said that the noise came from here. . . .

  The security guard thought it was probably nothing. There'd been no external alarms—just some "weird noise" the two cleaning women claimed to have heard coming from somewhere in the general bookstacks in the west wing.

  The guard rounded the corner, and halted in his tracks. Shredded books lay scattered around the bizarre-looking object. The surrounding shelves hadn't just been knocked down. The force of the thing's arrival had crumpled the metal shelving as if they had been made of aluminum foil. He started to turn away . . .

  From the apex of the five-sided black pyramid, a beam of violet light engulfed him. Briefly. Then there was no one there to engulf.

  * * *

  The Krim device expanded, covering some of the debris generated by its arrival. It was nearly sixty yards off target, but the probe was not concerned. That was a perfectly acceptable margin of error for a journey through a wormhole, across 2740 light-years.

  * * *

  The apex of the pyramid was now almost against the ceiling. Yet the object couldn't have been very heavy. The crumpled paper it rested on was scarcely dented.

  * * *

  "There's no sign of the entry control officer," came the voice of the University of Chicago policeman, crackling over the radio. "Except a plate of gyros on his desk. The cleaning women say he went up to the second floor quite a while ago. Probably nothing to get excited about."

  Lieutenant Solms scowled and exchanged glances with the dispatcher. Then spoke into the radio: "Stavros, you always think it's `nothing to get excited about.' Do your job, dammit. You've got Hawkins for backup."

  The dispatcher rolled her eyes. Backup, her lips mouthed, exuding silent sarcasm. Solms' own lips quirked appreciatively. The University of Chicago police lieutenant was the watch commander. Of all the officers under his command, those were the two he often found himself wishing fervently would take an early retirement. A very early retirement.

  "Go see what's up," Solms ordered into the phone. "And report back as soon as you can."

  Solms straightened and sighed. "I'd better go down there myself. What the hell, the Regenstein Library's only a block away. I'll just walk it."

  He headed for the door. "Stavros is probably right, but—"

  The dispatcher snorted. "Those two clowns could screw up buttering bread."

  * * *

  The U of C police cruiser was parked in front of the Regenstein. Neither Stavros nor Hawkins was in it. Solms marched through the front entrance and looked around. The wide and open ground level was well lit. Everything seemed perfectly normal, except for the abandoned entry control desk. The two cleaning women had apparently left.

  Solms headed for the stairs on the left leading up to the stacks. When he got to the landing, he spotted a flashlight lying on the floor. It was the same type of flashlight he was holding himself.

  Belonged to Stavros or Hawkins. He turned his head and looked down the stairs. His eyes ranged over the ground floor, most of which was open to his gaze, searching for a body anywhere.

  Nothing. Like one of them dropped it while they were running—but if that's the case, where are they now?

  He shifted the flashlight to his left hand and drew his gun. Then, slowly and carefully, finished the climb to the second floor and started searching through the maze of stacks.

  * * *

  Solms showed that he hadn't forgotten what he'd learned as a regular street cop, when he saw the pyramid. Something about that black thing said: your next step on your way to somewhere else could be much farther than you want to go.

  Then, when he got outside and reached Stavros and Hawkins' cruiser, he showed his political smarts too. Had he still been on the city of Chicago's own police force, of course, he would have called in for backup right away. And he still had every intention of doing so—after he notified the university's own officials.

  Solms was savvy about how things worked, officially . . . and unofficially. He'd seen the University of Chicago Police as a good career, and after he transferred from the CPD he discovered he had a sharp nose for campus politics. Whatever that thing was, the University administration would be furious if they didn't get word of it first.

  The Chicago Police Department routinely monitored radio calls made by the U of C police. Solms got out of the cruiser and went back into the library. Leaning over the entry control desk, he snagged the phone and called the dispatcher.

  "Marilyn, get me Professor Miguel Tremelo on the line. Patch it through to here. There's something screwy in the Regenstein. Then I want some backup—and ask the CPD to send a few cruisers too. But don't do it until after I talk with Tremelo and give you the okay."

  * * *

  Miggy Tremelo was still more of a scientist than an administrator. Once he'd had a thirty second look at the object, his training and instincts came to the fore. "Just keep everyone out, Lieutenant," he said, achieving an evenness of tone that amazed even himself. "I need to make a call. I'll go across to my office in High Energy Physics."

  "You can phone from here, Professor," Lieutenant Solms offered.

  "It's more convenient from my office," Tremelo lied transparently. "It isn't going to take me five minutes to get over there."

  He walked off with a speed that belied both his calm tone and his age. Professor Tremelo was a widower, and he had time on his quick walk to the lab to feel a moment's gladness that his wife Jenny wasn't around to see the havoc wreaked in the bookstacks. Jenny had been the head librarian of the Regenstein, and had taken bibliophilia to the point of near-obsession.

  * * *

  By the time the university president's Lexus got there, the Regenstein's grounds were swarming with cops—both university and regular CPD varieties—and six excited physicists were trying to manhandle a portable industrial X-ray unit up the Regenstein's entryway. The Chicago officers were fussing about "disturbing evidence," and Tremelo was attempting to explain that X-rays wouldn't disturb anything. They were getting a little heated about it. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Solms' university cops had brought some yellow police line and carefully cordoned off the area.

  O'Ryan had already spoken on the phone to his friend the mayor, and his face was very pale. Very pale indeed. Finding Mayor Caithorne wide awake at four in the morning had been alarming. Finding out why had been even more so.

  The university president hadn't gotten to his position without being able to exhibit forcefulness when necessary. Before too long, he had reassured the police that no evidence would be destroyed but that they really needed to let Professor Tremelo and his physicists proceed.

  "The FBI will be here in a few minutes. Now, listen. I've just been speaking to the mayor. The Pentagon is already onto this. That thing is some kind of satellite. Or something. And it isn't one of ours. Obviously they want this kept out of the media for as long as possible. It's a national security matter already."

  Solms nodded. "We've got the area secured. But I have a problem, sir. Two of my officers are missing. And so is a security guard. We need to get forensics in here ASAP. And we'd better call the bomb squad as well, in case that thing is dangerous."

  The university president fought down an anxiety-driven angry response, reminding himself firmly that Solms was just a good cop doing his job. Then, in a carefully controlled voice, O'Ryan said: "I suggest you wait until the FBI get here. Apparently they're already on their way. After all, they might just have run away or be absent from their posts for a few minutes . . . mightn't they?"

  Solms looked stubborn. "Stavros and Hawkins are useless slobs, sir. But police crime-scene procedures have to be followed in something like this, or we're treading on a very fine legal
line." Two of the regular Chicago officers echoed their agreement.

  The president looked at his watch. He sighed. "Lieutenant, the federal government will have some men to take it out of here before first light anyway. Then your investigation can proceed as normal."

  * * *

  Lieutenant Solms' father was a builder by trade. As a result Solms knew something about bricks and mortar. And if they could get that thing out of the building without knocking down a few walls, he was a Dutchman's maiden aunt.

  2

  A bibliophile's progress.

  At the same time that Dr. Jerry Lukacs was looking blearily into the mirror in his cluttered apartment in Hyde Park, a party was boarding a military aircraft in Washington. The NSC had dispatched Tom Harkness to go to Chicago and inspect the "object."

  Washington had been through mild panic, and had now slipped into skepticism. The magic word was spreading—hoax—and since Harkness had done more of the spreading than anyone, he got tagged for the assignment.

  He strode aboard the aircraft with confidence. And why not? Tom Harkness hadn't climbed this far up the NSC ladder by not finding exactly what he'd been told to find. . . .

  * * *

  Not one of the team of hangers-on and Pentagon desk jockeys boarding with Harkness had ever allowed themselves to look like Jerry Lukacs. Not even first thing in the morning. Jerry tugged at the almost-goatee on his chin. He must buy some razor blades again. Really must. He didn't even notice the disordered bush of hair. If he had noticed it, he'd have chuckled and said "medusoid" and left it at that. Jerry was possibly the most unsartorially elegant person in the entire universe.