Earthfall

by Craig Delancey

  “It’s the incompatible protocols. I’m in a Galactic transport.”

  He had not talked with her in years, other than their brief conversation the evening before to arrange the dinner meeting with Bria. He felt a swell of emotions—relief, that she answered the phone and seemed well. And also fury that he had endangered her. “Mother, you’re in danger. I’ve sent an Enforcer team to your house. They are going to ensure you are safe. They may have to move you.”

  “I….” He saw her consider an objection. No doubt she had work to do. Lectures to prepare. She would be teaching classes in the morning. But he saw her think better of it. He appreciated that: the fast thinking, and the respect for his judgment.

  She nodded. “If you think that’s best.”

  “I think it best. I’ll see you soon.”

  _____

  “I don’t know why I bother to patch you up,” Doctor Suzanne Murakami said, as she waved a painful light in Tarkos’s eye. “You just get beat up as soon as I fix you.”

  “It’s not something I seek out, doc.”

  She grunted in a way that made it clear that she did not believe him.

  They had flown directly to the tall silver tower of the Harmonizer Embassy in Paris, and been quickly whisked into the doctor’s surgery. She had tried to examine Bria, but the Sussurat had huffed with indignation and thudded out of the room, leaving Tarkos alone under the bright lights. Murakami had given him a painkiller for the headaches, but the thing that had really improved his mood had been a brief shower followed by a robot bringing him a freshly fabbed uniform.

  “Well, I’ll give you your cancer shots, while I’ve got you.” She pulled bottles from a cabinet and began preparing needles while she talked. “As for your brain, nothing I can do about that but some anti-inflammatories. To keep down any swelling. You seem to still be mostly sane.”

  “How is the woman from the Amazon?”

  Murakami leaned back and frowned at him. She had dark hair, very straight. She crossed her arms, still holding a syringe in each hand.

  “Who?”

  “The woman that Bria and I saved. The Ulltrian prisoner.”

  “Oh, your Jane Doe. The woman with the metal in her head.”

  “That’s the one,” Tarkos said. He and Bria had found the woman in the forest, just before an attack by a lone Ulltrian. The woman had been nearly incoherent, and crude implants had been grafted into her brain, straight through bleeding holes in her skull. The Ulltrian had exposed itself to try to get her back. She must be important to them.

  “That poor woman,” Murakami said. She stuck Tarkos’ arm with a needle, as if to emphasize her point. “She’s in the Hôpital général . Best brain surgeon in the world lives here in Paris. She did a first operation on your patient last night. We’re waiting till your Jane Doe is conscious before we know how well it went. They could only take some of the implants out. Some are too deep, too crudely inserted, to take out with surgery. They’ll have to design some microscopic robots and a special stem cell regime just for the task.”

  The door to the exam room slid open. Dr. Yeats stepped in.

  “Tarkos, are you alright?” The biologist seemed genuinely relieved to see him. Her face was pale, her eyes red as if she had not slept, but she wore a crisply pressed UN uniform.

  Tarkos looked at Murakami. She gave him the second shot, then stood back. “He’ll live.”

  “I’m just very sore,” he said to Yeats. Then he nodded to Murakami. “Thanks,” he said.

  Tarkos slipped down off the exam table. He grunted in pain as his stiff muscles resisted the sudden motion.

  “Let’s go,” he told Yeats. “I have to eat something.”

  Yeats followed him through the door.

  “I heard almost nothing about what happened.” She led the way down a turning corridor, toward the elevators. The halls were busy with humans and other species, hurrying on their business.

  “Vice Commander McDonough is coming to Paris, they said, so it must be serious. Was it the Terran Liberation Front?”

  “I think so,” Tarkos said.

  They came to the elevator. Tarkos gestured for Yeats to enter first. He walked in behind her.

  An Executive robot stood in the corner of the elevator, slim and gleaming.

  Tarkos looked at the robot. With his implants he transmitted to it, Do you have access to a stunner tuned to the human nervous system?

  There are such stunners available in the arsenal, sub-basement three.

  Tarkos frowned. They were on the thirty-eighth floor.

  I also have stunner capabilities in my built-in armament, the robot suddenly offered. These can be tuned to human nervous system parameters.

  “Good,” Tarkos said aloud. He pointed at Yeats. “Stun her.”

  Yeats looked at him in shock and surprise. The robot lifted its arm. She crumpled to the floor.

  _____

  “You’re awake now,” Tarkos said, as he stepped into the small conference room where Dr. Yeats waited. It had a single long window looking out over Paris. The evening approached. The lights came on slowly in the dusk, small constellations forming as the dark deepened.

  She said nothing as he sat across the small table from her. He looked at her a long time.

  Finally, she said, “Why am I here? Why am I—what do we call this? Under arrest? Why am I under arrest? Or in custody? Is there another Galactic name for it? I’m an officer of the UN. You can’t bury me in some Galactic bureaucracy.”

  “There must be a leak inside the building,” Tarkos said. “There must be a leak among us.”

  “Why?”

  “Those kidnappers, they were already placed, in position. They had to have prepared. So someone had to tell them our route.”

  “I’m not sure that’s true. Maybe they are following you around.”

  “No. That was too complex to be spontaneous. They were tipped.”

  “That has nothing to do with me.”

  “Ah, but you see, I failed protocol. Bria has already written up my reprimand, when I told her. She’s a stickler for these things. You have to laugh, when you think about it: she wrote me up. Because you see, yesterday, my mother changed our dinner plans at the last minute. I did not report back to the tower that Bria and I had changed our dinner plans. I did not report back our change of destination. I only told you. Because I had invited you. So, the leak could come only from you.”

  “Perhaps someone tapped my line.”

  Tarkos tilted his head. “Perhaps. But Vice Commander McDonough already suspected you. He had other evidence that puts you in suspicion.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Why would he pair me with you and Bria if I were a security risk?”

  Tarkos nodded. “He only told this to me this afternoon. We had a long talk. I must say, his reasoning is a little cold blooded. I wish I could give him this headache I have. But his reasoning was sound. He thought that if you were a leak, then maybe after learning about the seriousness of the Ulltrian threat, you would convince the Terran Liberation Front to stop resisting the Alliance. He hoped they might see reason. Through you.”

  She looked at him a long time. A slight flinching crossed her cheeks, as if thoughts competed just below her skin.

  “Yes,” Tarkos said. “You’re seeing it now. As I did.”

  “I want my lawyer.”

  Tarkos sighed. “This building is Galactic territory. Earth law doesn’t apply here, just as you feared. Nonetheless, you’ll soon get a lawyer. First, I want to ask you some questions.”

  “What’s going to happen to me?” she asked. Her voice broke slightly. Tarkos saw genuine fear come into her eyes. Blood drained from her face. He felt a pang of sympathy. He crushed it down by saying, “Those guys really hurt Bria. You’ll be glad to know that somehow, not one of them was killed. Imagine that. They abused a Sussurat and lived to tell about it. Minus a limb each.”

  She cringed and looked at the floor.

  “It would have been as b
ad for me. They were about to cut my head off and sell it to some alien race.”

  “I’m sorry. But I’m trying to save the human race.”

  “Ah. Thank you. Some honesty. But now, tell me, after all you’ve seen, don’t you know that’s crazy? You’ve seen the real threat now, and it isn’t Brights and Neelee and Sussurats or any other species in the Galactic Alliance. The real threat is the oldest evil known to the Galaxy. And it’s here.”

  He waited a long time, hoping she would respond. But she clamped her mouth shut and looked at the floor.

  “As for what’s going to happen to you….” Tarkos shrugged. “Earth law must apply, in the end. French law, I think. I don’t know what that will demand of you. But you will never leave Earth. This, I can ensure. As a Harmonizer, I have this power. You will lose your Galactic citizenship, and never be a first or second citizen of the Galaxy. You will never travel above the sky.”

  “They all want the same thing,” she whispered. “To save the human race.”

  “The Terran Liberation Front?” he asked. “No. They would only hurt the human race.”

  “Why shouldn’t we pursue our own destiny? The Galactics have their own vision of nature. If we join them, humanity would be lost. We’d become something other than human.”

  “That’s right,” Tarkos said.

  She looked up at him sharply, surprised by his answer.

  “But you’re wrong about one thing,” Tarkos added. “What the Galactic Alliance believes is wholly unnatural. Even supernatural. It’s contrary to biology.” He leaned over the table. “If the human race survives this dangerous era of its own history, then it has to choose one of three sides. Because there’s only three ways this goes, Yeats. We let biology have its way, and the genetic replicators take over. A savage galaxy of endless competition, individual organisms fighting it out to maximize their offspring. We all give in to a destiny of being gene replicators. That is the Ulltrian way. Or, we let technology have its way, and the meme replicators take over. That would give us a savage galaxy of endless conversion of life over to computation, and an endless struggle of the memes. That is the Machines’ way. But there is a third way. To transcend nature while embracing it. To love all life while not giving in to the demands of the selfish genes that constitute life or the selfish memes that constitute culture. That is a very difficult and very narrow—some believe impossibly narrow—path to tread. But that is the path the Galactic Alliance aims to follow. That is the path that it offers humanity.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “What you must ask yourself is whether you don’t believe me merely because you don’t want to believe me.” He sighed again and leaned back in his chair. “Now. You are going to have to tell me what you know.”

  “I have rights,” Yeats said. She seemed emboldened by the gentle, explaining tone that Tarkos had taken. “I have rights,” she repeated, more loudly.

  Tarkos’s eye narrowed in anger. Yeats saw this, and looked again at the floor. He said, very softly, but very coldly, “No, Dr. Yeats. No. You don’t have rights. There are no rights. These three visions—the Ulltrians, the Machines, or the Galactics—if you’re inside one of these civilizations, then you have rights. Rights created by those civilizations. But this is a struggle between total visions of the future of the Galaxy. And so this war is total, absolute, without restraint. And I am a sacred warrior of the Harmonizers. I have sworn to do anything, anything, to win this struggle. Because I believe many millions of stars, and trillions upon trillions of lives, are at stake.”

  “I am a human being,” she said. “On Earth. On my homeworld.”

  Tarkos pushed his chair back and stood.

  “Wait,” she said. “You remember… in the Amazon. How you doubted us. Humanity. You were ashamed to be human.”

  Tarkos frowned. He nodded. “I wouldn’t say ashamed. But I was… untrusting. And I was wrong. I doubted us too much. I apologize.”

  “You were wrong then. And you’re wrong now.”

  He sighed. “I don’t think so. But if I am, then I will accept responsibility.” He walked over to the door and stopped with his hand over the palmkey. “We have machines that are much more refined than what was used on me. We can make you talk without hurting you in any way. I am sorry. I recognize that it is a violation. After all, it was just done to me, and I hated it. But the Terran Liberation Front is endangering our entire planet and all the species upon it. If they’re your friends, then we have to know.”

  “They aren’t my friends,” she said. And then, in a soft voice she added. “They have my brother.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know if I agree with them or not. After what I saw—after I saw that Ulltrian—I don’t know who is right. But they have my brother. He joined the TLF two years ago. Now, they won’t let him leave. They told me he will remain safe, as long as I help them. He’s just a boy. Only twenty years old.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Stevie—Stephen Yeats.”

  Tarkos thought about this for a long time before he pressed his hand to the door and opened it. “Troll her brain,” he said aloud, looking up at the microphones and cameras in the ceiling. “Learn whether she is telling the truth.”

  “No!” Yeats shouted.

  “If you’re telling the truth, we’ll get your brother out. I promise you.”

  Tarkos left the room. He did not look back.

  CHAPTER 3

  Margherita paced the narrow space of her ship. “OK, OK, here’s what we know, Ship.”

  “What do we know?” the ship asked.

  “Pay attention! I’m going to tell you.” She pointed at the screen, where a number of different windows were open, showing paused episodes of Wealthy Wives of the Upper East Side and also a series of web sites.

  “We can’t find nothing about Alfonso DiAngelo, except boring business stuff. I tried calling reporters and they think I’m a crazy person, just like that man in the Enforcers thought I was a crazy person. But, DiAngelo’s wife has a TV show. And I’ve watched it. Like, a ton of it. Anyway, I’ve seen their big posh apartment in New York. It’s huge. It’s like—I mean, its inside is like, twenty times as big as your inside, ship. I mean, back when you were whole. With a bridge.”

  “That would make the interior space of their apartment approximately 5200 cubic meters.”

  “Right, so it’s huge. Anyway, there’s one room in there that’s locked. Victoria—that’s his wife—complains about it. And look.” She stepped forward, touched the screen, and brought one of the video windows to the front. A woman stood there, mouth open, eyes half closed, awkwardly frozen in the middle of forming some expression. It made her look stupid, Margherita felt. Margherita started the video.

  “… And so I said, ‘No way. I’ve always been a self-made woman. I am not going to help you with your gallery opening. I’m not some servant to pour champagne for strangers. Not even for charity.’”

  “I agree completely,” said another blond woman, nodding.

  “The first one is Victoria,” Margherita explained to the ship. “That’s DiAngelo’s wife. And this second one is Christina. She’s supposedly a friend of Victoria’s, but they fight all the time, and Christina bad mouths Victoria when Victoria is not around. They all do, really. Victoria is kind of stupid and the other wealthy wives know it. All of them are idiots, though, compared to my mom.”

  “Excuse me?” the ship said.

  “You see that, behind Victoria, that door, by that dark picture?” A dutch still life hung on a white wall over the woman’s left shoulder. A door stood closed, next to it.

  “That door,” Margherita said, “watch that door, ship.”

  The view cut to the dark haired woman, Christina. “So what did she say?”

  The camera image switched back to focusing on Victoria. “I told her,” she started. But then the door behind her opened. Alfonso DiAngelo stepped through. Victoria touched the screen, pausin
g the image. Through the open door, she could see windows, a desk, and a sculpture. A sculpture of a horse. A sculpture she had seen before.

  “You see that! You see it? That sculpture! I’ve seen it before. That’s where he talks to Six-Traveler.”

  Margherita touched the screen again.

  “Oh, Alfonso!” Victoria shrieked. “Coming out of your secret little office! When are you going to let us girls join you in there?”

  DiAngelo pulled the door closed and forced an unhappy smile.

  Margherita stopped the video. “You see?” she said to the ship.

  “Excuse me?”

  “He’s got his secret room where he talks with Six-Traveler, and probably other enemies of Earth and the Galaxy. So, the trick is, how do we get someone, anyone, to go in there, and check it out? No one will listen to me. Not cops. Not reporters. But we have evidence. I mean, we don’t have evidence, but there is evidence, and we know where the evidence is. That would prove he’s a traitor, what’s in that room. I’m sure of it. So, who can we get to investigate? I can’t do it. I’d need to be on Earth to investigate.”

  She started pacing again.

  “You are too far from Earth to investigate,” the ship said.

  “Right! You got it. So who can investigate it?”

  “Someone on Earth can investigate.”

  Margherita frowned, surprised that the ship had volunteered this obvious but still relevant observation. It usually just said, Excuse me?

  “Who’s closer, though, and would listen?” she asked.

  “Victoria and Christina are closer,” the ship said.

  “Oh, don’t be an idiot, ship,” she said. Then she stopped. She stood there, mouth open. She put her thin fingers over her mouth. It made her notice how thin her arms were. The low gravity here, the meager food, kept her dangerously lean. Watching those women go from restaurant to restaurant, she had stared hungrily at their food, but also she longed to be like them. More like her mother. Taller, stronger, with strong arms and legs and with breasts and long hair.

  But the ship’s suggestion still rang in her mind. Victoria and Christina are closer. It had just made a simple—a stupidly simple—observation. But they were closer.