The A.A.D. system had been developed from Shepherd's "Shell"—a modified version geared to "At-a-Distance" experience. Harrison and his team had been working on it for two years now and had promised it would be ready for use a month back, but when they'd delayed yet again, Li Yuan, impatient to see the project up and running, had ordered Karr to go and check it out firsthand.
I could have died, he thought, angry suddenly, but not sure whether his anger should be directed at Harrison for not getting it right, or Li Yuan for forcing him to go through with it.
"How do you feel now?" Harrison asked, as his assistants stepped away.
Karr reached for the one-piece Harrison was holding out to him. "Sad. Jeng Lo was a good pilot."
"One of many. We lose two or three a day, you know, just in this one sector. But if this works ... if we can iron out the snags . . . then maybe we can bring the death rate down to a fraction of what it is now. Think of the savings, and not just in terms of life. Think of the money the T'ang spends training up new pilots, not to mention the tonnage of equipment the rookies manage to lose in there. Now . . . if we were to have a whole team of A.A.D. pilots, most of them with a thousand, maybe even fifteen hundred, missions apiece, that would give us an edge in there, wouldn't you say?"
Karr zipped up the one-piece, then met Harrison's eyes. "You think they're not working on this too? Maybe those two ships that shot us down in there were A.A.D.'s. Maybe that's how they got the edge on ms. You thought of that?" "I've thought of it."
Karr nodded, then looked across. The duty officer was standing in the doorway.
"Well, Lieutenant?"
The young officer beamed. "We got him, sir! A snatch team took him only moments after you were hit."
Karr felt his spirits lift. "Excellent! So where's he being kept?"
"In Decon, sir. The lower cells."
"Okay." Karr clapped his hands together, pleased to have something real to do for once. He turned to Harrison and nodded, glanced briefly at Jeng Lo, then turned back to the young officer.
"Then lead on, Lieutenant. I want to see this with my own eyes."
DECONTAMINATION WAS a whole deck—ten levels—at the bottom of the City, in what had once been called the Net. Emerging from the air lock, Karr was greeted by Captain Lasker, in charge of the unit and three of his junior officers. It was not often they were visited by the T'ang's General, and they seemed prepared to make a ritual of it, but Karr waved aside all ceremony.
"Where is he?" he asked, moving past them purposefully. "Take me there now."
Lasker looked to his men, then hurried to catch up with the giant. "He's down here, sir. Surgeon Hu is looking at him right now."
They went through transparent flap doors and out into a large area lit by arc lamps. At one of a dozen huge workbenches, a surgical team was at work, crouched over a naked body.
As Karr drew close, he felt all of the optimism wash out of him. They were working on a corpse. The top of his skull had been removed and his chest was pinned open.
Karr moved two of the assistants aside brusquely and stood beside the surgeon.
"What's the story?" Karr asked, as Hu looked up, about to scold him for interrupting the autopsy.
"General Karr . . ." Hu said, surprised. "I—"
"Have you found anything unusual?"
Hu shook his head. "Not yet. But we're still looking."
"Do you think they might have hidden something in him?"
"If they did, it's not something that's shown up on any of the scans. But we're checking the body physically. There's nothing up the anal canal, and nothing in the stomach."
Karr looked past Hu at Lasker. "Who captured him?"
Lasker turned, indicating one of his officers. "It was Daubler here."
Daubler, a fresh-faced young man in his early twenties, stepped forward, giving a curt bow of his closely shaven head. "He was dead when we took him, sir. The craft that hit yours got him also. But it didn't get away. We got one, a mine got the other. Big things they were. Proper battle cruisers."
Karr stared at the young man a moment, then nodded thoughtfully. Now, why would Lehmann have sent two battle cruisers after a single man? Why risk so much expensive hardware, unless there was a reason?
He looked at Surgeon Hu again. The man was cutting into the dead man's lungs now. Karr watched, undisturbed.
"Is there nothing unusual about him?"
Hu looked up, smiling. "About him, nothing. But you might look at his coat. It's over there, on the bench by the door. There's a team coming down from Bremen to look at it."
Karr went across and picked up the coat. It was a pure black, quilted thing, full length and padded like a flak jacket. He held it up, squinting into the overhead light to try to make out the pattern on the cloth. Tiny circles and spirals and what looked like exploding stars.
"They're tiny circuits," Lasker said, standing to attention just behind him.
"How do you know?"
"Try it on."
Karr laughed. "It's a bit small for me, don't you think, Captain?" He looked to Daubler. "Lieutenant Daubler. Try it on for me."
Daubler took the jacket and pulled it on.
Karr looked to Lasker. "Well?"
"Go over to the scanner," Lasker ordered his man.
They went across, Hu joining them there. As Daubler went behind the full-body screen, Hu activated the machine.
"Looks like it's broken," Karr said.
"No." Hu signaled for one of the other lieutenants to go behind the screen in Daubler's place. At once the screen showed the outline of the man and—at Hu's expert touch—focused in on the major organs.
Karr nodded, understanding. "So that's why—"
"Exactly," Hu said, switching the machine off. "As soon as it became clear that there was nothing unusual about the body, I knew there had to be some other reason why an unprotected human being could run two li through the Rift and not end up as food for the bugs."
"So how does it work?"
Hu shrugged. "I haven't a clue, General. But it's a regular Magic Coat for you. A cloak of radar invisibility. Your ship only saw it because it came within visual range and you recognized it as being human in shape. To all the other machines out there it probably registers as a mirage ... a shadow, like the 'shadows' your cruiser puts out all the time."
"I see." Karr turned, looking across at the body on the dissecting table. "So maybe they were after the coat, not the person in it."
"Could be."
It was one possible explanation. But Karr wasn't happy with it.
"The man . . . what checks have you done on him?"
"Checks?" Hu laughed. "I thought that was your department, General Karr."
Karr looked to Lasker, who shook his head. "You mean, we don't even know who this is?"
"No, sir. We assumed it was one of Lehmann's men. You want me to check the files?"
"At once, Captain!"
As Lasker went across and sat at the terminal in the corner of the room, Karr followed Hu back to the bench.
"You think he stole the coat, perhaps, to sell to us?"
Hu laughed. "It's the kind of thing an enterprising man would do, neh?"
"Or a foolish one."
Hu stared at the face of the dead man and shrugged. "He doesn't look a fool. Educated, I'd say. And wealthy. Look at the layers of fat on the legs and chest. This one ate well. I'd say he was—"
"Sir?"
Lasker's call sounded urgent. Karr swung around. "What is it, Captain?"
"The dead man. He's one of ours. He lives inside the Enclave."
"Inside . . ." Karr went across, then stood behind Lasker, reading the details on the screen—details which were overlaid on a face that was, without doubt, that of the dead man. "But that's ..."
He leaned across Lasker and punched in the man's ID code that was showing at the top of the screen, then REALTIME TRACE. For a moment the screen went blank, then a fresh image filled the screen. It showed a man at a desk, interviewing a young woman. A time pulse at the top right corner showed that what they were seeing was happening right now.