The Star Mother

by J D Huffman

  “I did want to ask you about something,” he segued. “How long have you known William? When did he come here and how long were you working with him?”

  “I didn’t work with him for long,” she assured him. “Only the past few days. Fred’s known him for slightly longer. You don’t know Fred like I do, but Fred’s a man with many secrets.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call him a ‘man,’” Demeter snorted.

  “Man, troll, it makes no difference to me. The point is that he helps us. I’ve known Fred since I was a child, since I first came here. I’m sure he has his reasons for keeping secrets. What’s important is that I’ve always been able to rely on him. He’s taken good care of me—of all of us. I’ve never doubted his motives.”

  “Maybe you should, since it sounds like he’s kept so much from you.”

  “I thought you wanted to know about William,” she snapped, not at all pleased with his current line of discussion.

  “Right. I worked with him on Trepsis—the colony I came from. Both of us are from a planet called Lexin. We were Militiamen. I don’t know if you had those on your world. Law enforcement.”

  She nodded. “Police. I understand.”

  “He was the Chief Militiaman of the Trepsis colony, until we were all abducted. The Totality came for us in the night, blasted the roofs off our buildings and sent shock troops to subdue and capture everyone. I never saw William on the transport ship so I assumed he was killed trying to resist. We encountered another Totality fleet and people were transferred around, so I’m the only one from Trepsis who ended up here. I’m sure I’ve told you all of this before.”

  “You have. If I’d known that you knew William, I would have told you. I never would have expected something like that. He never mentioned where he was from or even what he wanted, other than to hurt the Totality. That objective was enough for me.”

  Demeter smirked. “I’m glad he was out there trying to find a way to get revenge.”

  Hearing Demeter’s story again left Sasha with uncomfortable questions, however. If he wasn’t abducted by the Totality, and obviously he wasn’t killed, how did he end up here? Fred mentioned William’s uniform was of “the Order,” whoever they are. I’ll have to confront Fred and try to get some answers out of him. Demeter may think Fred is untrustworthy, but I know better. “It’s fortunate he was able to help us,” Sasha said, agreeing with the thrust of Demeter’s point while still pondering the extent to which William—and probably Fred—had deceived her.

  “Do you mind if I go check on him?” Demeter asked. “He is my superior officer, and it might be bad form if I don’t look into his well-being.”

  “Go ahead,” she replied, watching as he jogged out of the control center.

  Intrigued by the talk of long-range Totality communications traffic, she started digging into the communications system, blindly feeling her way through the control panel in front of her. She was impressed that Demeter had managed to navigate it with what seemed like no effort, considering his lack of exposure to the technology. Must be a quick study, she thought to herself, moving through several menus that didn’t sound like what she was after. Eventually, she came across a listing for “LONG DISTANCE COMM LOG.” She tapped the round button next to it to access the file and saw plenty of incoming traffic up until this morning, presumably around the time the battle took place. Each record was represented by a coded text description, most of the entries marked with phrases like “DOM TOT CEN GEN INFO UPD - 57PHZ - 1800GST.” She accessed one of the records and saw further coded information, no doubt written in some form of Totality shorthand she hadn’t learned. There’s probably a manual for this type of communication somewhere around here, if I can find it. Instead of looking for that, she continued trying to parse the strings of information on her own. The data was clearly dense, short bursts of letters punctuated with numbers. The orderly nature of the information told her it was likely describing space traffic—ships moving from place to place, transporting cargo (and slaves) here and there, likely for the purpose of individual outposts putting out requests for supplies based on who and what was nearby. She assumed the Totality had quite an efficient distribution network, given how large she imagined their empire to be. She had no real idea, of course, since the Totality were hardly the sort to impart any kind of education to their slaves. That she knew how to read anything was largely down to Fred’s tutelage, and the Totality language, even if it hadn’t been coded, was different enough from the mishmash they spoke in the mining unit that she would’ve had some difficulty in making sense of it. Demeter did a good job talking to that Totality officer, though. He slid right into whatever dialect that was, like he knew it already. He came to learn our tongue easily, too. Does he really have a knack for languages, or does he know something he’s not telling us? And what about William? There are obviously things he’s not told me, either. Not that I asked, but there must be a story behind how he got here instead of ending up a slave like Demeter. Fred? Fred probably knows much more about him than I do. But then there are all the things Fred’s never told me. The secrets he keeps for my own protection, as he puts it. Too many men with too many secrets.

  She moved on from that file, scanning through the list, then noticed a small indicator off to the side that she didn’t recognize. Activating the button beside it, it expanded to explain, “1 DELETED RECORD.” She didn’t see how “DELETED” wouldn’t actually mean deleted, but her curiosity was piqued nonetheless. With the option to recover the deleted record presented to her, she did so.

  The restored record didn’t tell her much, only enough to further inflame her suspicions. The description was simple as could be: “AUD MSG - 93PHZ - ORD PROT.” In attempting to access it further, she found that the actual contents of the message were unavailable—the system didn’t record audio communications, only text. Sifting through the other data fields offered alongside the description, which described things like the frequency, message length, signal-to-noise ratio, and other factors she cared less about, she noticed where it described the time the communication took place. Her eyes went to the wall clock, then back to the screen.

  Not even twenty minutes ago. Only Demeter was here at that time. He didn’t mention anyone else coming up to see him. I’ll have to ask him about it without sounding accusatory. But what does it mean? “ORD PROT” is close enough to “Order Protocol.” Does it mean he’s sending messages to the Order? If so, what does he know about them, and why is he doing this? Fred said William doesn’t have any allegiance to the Order, but what if he’s wrong—or lying? Does everyone I know secretly work for this “Order” and I’m just being duped for some other purpose? I don’t dare say anything yet. Who knows what they’ve been instructed to do? They might just as soon kill me if they think I know something I shouldn’t. Calm and patient. I have to be calm and patient. With her heart pounding in her chest as she stared at the apparent evidence of Demeter’s deception, she found this much easier said than done.

  Chapter 13

  Awakening

  Distant voices drew him toward them, flowing forms that may have been bodies. Voices whispered in his ear, spoke across his body, emanated an indecipherable background noise, and all of them grew louder and louder with time, until the undulating and oscillating shapes became something more—faces, arms, legs, torsos, hair, eyes, noses, mouths, smiles, frowns, pursed lips, furrowed brows, freckles, bushy eyebrows, mustaches and beards, earrings that glinted as light reflected on and diffracted through gold and diamond, pulling him out of an abyss he hadn’t even known, until he could make out his name among the words, repeating like a mantra as if to bring him back from the edge of the universe, or perhaps just the edge of death. “Devon… Devon!”

  It was Meghan’s voice, he realized, and it was her hand squeezing his own, and her face staring at his with grave concern, evidence of dried tears and recent crying engraved into her rosy cheeks. “You�
�re awake!” she whisper-shouted, nearly jumping up out of her seat to attack him before, apparently, thinking better of it and sitting back down. “Sorry. They told me I have to be gentle with you.”

  He found speaking more difficult than it should have been. His mouth and throat were desperately dry, and his whole body was sore and refused to respond to his commands to move it. He had sensation but couldn’t do more than make slow, poorly-controlled motions with his arms, as if they were moving through a liquid that resisted him. “What happened?” he managed to groan through a cracked voice.

  “I’m so glad you’re awake,” she repeated, squeezing his hand and pulling it to her chest. “I’m sorry. There was a huge accident today. Dozens of cars piled up. They said on the news it’s been over a decade since something like that happened. But I knew you’d be on your way to work and I was worried you were involved. I called SINAI a bit later and they said they hadn’t heard from you, and I know you would’ve called them if you were just stuck in traffic, so then I started calling hospitals and that’s when I found out you were here. I rushed over right away. The doctor said you were brought in as one of the injured. You were bleeding internally and they had to take your spleen out. I signed for that and everything—you weren’t awake to agree to it, so I had to make the decision. You were going to die if I didn’t. I don’t see what other choice I had. I hope you’re not mad.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Not mad. No way.” He tried to remember the accident. He recalled getting into his car, setting the autodrive to take him to SINAI Systems, where he worked, and then leaving the parking lot of his apartment building. Beyond that, he could recall nothing before waking up in this hospital bed. He glanced around, noticing the tubes coming out of his arms, and the fluid bags hung on the pole attached to his bed. Saline and painkillers. Why can’t I remember anything? He put the same question to Meghan.

  “I don’t know. It’s probably normal to lose a little of your memory after something like that? Maybe it will come back to you. I’m just happy you’re okay. The doctor said you’ll be here a few days and then you can go home. I already talked to SINAI. They said to take all the time you need. You can file a short-term disability claim if you have to be out for a few weeks or something. I told them I didn’t know how long you would be. But I want you to take it easy and focus on getting better, okay?”

  Languidly, he nodded. “I won’t rush myself,” he promised. The prospect of spending weeks at home didn’t appeal, however. Devon liked his job. He felt worthless, tied to a bed like this. He couldn’t imagine spending any more time in the hospital or convalescing at home than absolutely necessary, as much as Meghan probably wanted to pamper him.

  She stayed by his side for the next three days as he focused on recovery, learning from his doctor about other, less serious injuries. Four ribs and a kidney were bruised, and he had cuts and contusions all over his body. The police report indicated he’d been thrown from his vehicle during the pileup, which he still couldn’t remember. His doctor told him, more than once, “You’re lucky to be alive.” Devon was grateful to have survived what looked like a brutal accident. After all, several others were not so fortunate—they perished. He and Meghan watched a memorial service projected on the wall of his hospital room as the names of those killed were read and family members spoke of them. Autocars hadn’t been involved in any human deaths for years, and there was already talk of lawsuits. A police investigation had thus far not come up with a satisfying explanation for the accident. The manufacturers of the cars and their automated driving systems alternated between reassuring the public as to the safety of their technology and blaming one another for being the ultimate cause of the accident. Devon followed the news with interest since he had little else to do while laid up in the hospital.

  He called out commands to the wall projector, looking up everything he could about vehicle automation. He’d never shown more than a casual interest in the technology, not especially fascinated by what amounted to a collection of sensors, lasers, cameras, and some pathfinding and obstacle avoidance code. Network technology was far more interesting to him—the rapid pace of data transfers, the complexity, the fact that any data on Earth could be beamed from one point to another at nearly the speed of light. By comparison, cars driving themselves seemed quaint and sluggish. But having been personally harmed by what was apparently a malfunctioning car, he was determined to learn all he could about them.

  Initial research was as he expected. The vehicles were designed to slow down and avoid icy and snowy roads. Traction control systems that mediated wheel speeds ensured a straight path on even the slickest roads. Clearly, something had gone wrong—something had malfunctioned within systems designed to have multiple levels of redundancy. The cars wouldn’t have been legal in the first place if not for the various levels of safeguards built into them. So what went wrong? The question ate at him, and by the time the hospital released him, he was ready to rip the guts out of any car he could get his hands on just to find out firsthand how it worked.

  He stared out the passenger window as Meghan drove him home. He knew she didn’t have to come, and she explained as much, herself. “I’m worried about you. I wanted to make sure you got home safely. I could have had the car automatically come to you and pick you up, but I wanted us to have a chance to talk.” From that opening, she got no response. “You don’t have to ignore me, Devon. I’m right here.”

  “Sorry,” he said, blinking a few times and turning to face her. “Just thinking.” And hurting, he thought, trying ignore the constant pain his bruised ribs caused. His painkiller dose had been lowered for fear of causing addiction, which left a constant, unpleasant ache around his ribcage.

  “I know. You’ve been thinking a lot the past few days.” Her voice sounded concerned. “You can tell me what’s going on, you know.”

  “I just can’t get over it, Meghan. What happened. I don’t remember? And nothing about it makes sense.”

  “The police are investigating, aren’t they?”

  He scoffed. “Like the police will figure anything out. What do they know about this kind of technology? The companies that made it are going to lie through their asses about it, too. People are dead and nobody wants to believe this technology we all depend on might be flawed. They won’t find anything. They’ll call it a fluke and we won’t worry about it until there’s another big accident and a bunch of people die. And then we’ll go through it again.”

  “Do you really think that’s what will happen?” She seemed less than confident in Devon’s scenario.

  “Isn’t that how the world works? People never face the truth until they’re forced to, and even then they’ll do anything they can to deny it. It’s like you have to hold people down and shove it in their face and scream the truth at them until they admit it.”

  Meghan frowned, looking away from him. “I don’t like how you’re talking. Maybe you need more rest.”

  “I don’t need more rest,” he snapped, more loudly and unkindly than he intended. Meghan recoiled immediately, looking as if she might cry. “Shit. I’m sorry. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I do need to take it easy for a few more days.”

  She nodded. “I think so. This doesn’t seem like you.”

  I don’t know what would “seem” like me at the moment, he thought. There’s a hole in my memory and it’s driving me crazy. A hole in my memory and something happened that’s supposed to be impossible.

  He spent the rest of the ride apologizing to Meghan, who claimed to accept it, but he had his doubts. He’d never yelled at her like that before, and he worried he might have done more lasting damage to their relationship than he initially realized.

  Soon, however, such thoughts fell away as he became absorbed in his research at home. He read everything he could get his hands on through his PMD.

  She walked into his small office, saying: “Don’t forget to take breaks. You don’t
want to strain your eyes and neck.”

  All he did was register annoyed grunts, if he didn’t ignore her completely. As this ritual repeated, he eventually became more forceful. “You don’t understand,” he sighed. “Nothing about this adds up.”

  He was right. She didn’t understand. “You didn’t used to be like this,” she would say, and it would only annoy him more. In the middle of the night, he woke her abruptly. “What happened while I was in the hospital?” he demanded, while she stared back at him through sleepy eyes, confused, obviously uncertain as to what he meant.

  “The party!” he blurted. “Did you have the party without me?”

  “The what?”

  That she didn’t immediately grasp what he was talking about only made him angrier. “The fucking Super Bowl party, Meghan! Are you stupid?”

  That time, she cried for a different reason than she had at the hospital. “Do you just want me to leave?” she asked angrily, choking back a sob.

  “No,” he said more softly. What’s wrong with me? “I’ll leave,” he said defeatedly. “I’ll leave. You don’t deserve any of this. I don’t know what’s happening to me, but you shouldn’t be the one to suffer for it. So, I’ll go.”

  He turned to leave and she leaped from the bed, grabbing his arm. “Wait! Where will you go?”

  “I don’t know. A hotel or something. Somewhere I can’t yell at you like this, because I don’t mean to and I don’t want to make you hate me. I’ve been out of sorts since I woke up in the hospital and I don’t know why. I just don’t know.”