by J. E. Gurley
Her intimacy with Lord Hromhada was not, as Jazon suspected, of a sexual nature. It was more like a scientist with his pet project. There was a compelling reason that she was a sixth generation clone. One did not go to that much trouble for a sex toy, not even Dastorans. Jazon had once mentioned speculating about Amissa’s age. Six clones in six hundred years did not sound odd. Many clones lived well over a hundred years, but Ulrich suspected a few of the clones had lived much shorter life spans. What had been lacking in their makeup that had displeased their Dastoran creators? Why was this Amissa so important to Lord Hromhada?
Ulrich sat in a comfortable chair and closed his eyes in thought. There were many loose ends concerning this adventure, Amissa’s part in it foremost among them. Lyton’s mysterious little case was another. He and Jazon’s place in the expedition seemed taken for granted. Like Jazon, he was also wondering what talents they had that others did not.
His knowledge of the Three Principles was not on par with either that of Lord Hromhada or Lyton. He was beginning to believe that his belief in the Three Principles was the only thing keeping him here. Perhaps that was part of Lord Hromhada’s plan. If his belief in what Lord Hromhada was doing compelled him to make the journey, did he also believe Jazon would remain out of a sense of loyalty? He hated to think his only purpose was to snare Jazon.
The door chimed and Ulrich leaped to answer it. He opened the door to see Lyton standing there.
“Am I disturbing you,” Lyton asked timidly.
“No, not at all. I was just worrying about Jazon and Amissa.”
“Yes, that is terrible. Without Amissa, the trip will be impossible.”
Ulrich looked at him. “Without Amissa?’ he questioned. “You mentioned that before. What is her place in this expedition?”
Lyton gulped and looked around the room as he had said too much. “I meant that it would be a shame to leave without her, and Jazon, of course.”
Ulrich was adamant. “No. You meant what you said. What exactly is Amissa’s function on this trip?”
Cornered, Lyton answered reluctantly, “Her mind contains all the information to guide Occam’s Razor. She is, in essence, the ship’s AI.”
Lyton’s answer stunned Ulrich. So, that was the secret they were withholding. “How do you know this?” he shot at the suddenly perspiring scientist.
“Where we’re going, it is essential that all ship’s functions are controlled by a fully organic brain.”
“I was under the impression Dastorans used organic components in their guidance computers.”
“True, but they use crystalline interface technology, and even linked to a pilot, they fall far short of true Artificial Intelligence. There are far too many sub functions left to electronic controls. So far, only we humans have developed a truly functional organic AI.” He smiled broadly. “Amissa is human; therefore, they need a human pilot to link to her. They need Jazon.”
Ulrich shook his head, almost dizzy with unresolved thoughts. “I still don’t understand.”
“Remember, the life forms we are investigating appear to be inorganic beings. If they were to infiltrate the ship, commandeer the computer, they could take control of the ship. With Amissa as the AI, this could be prevented.”
Ulrich looked at Lyton. “Who came up with this idea?”
Lyton looked flabbergasted. “Why, Lord Hromhada, of course.”
“Of course,” Ulrich repeated. “Did it occur to you why the Dastorans had a ready-made AI for this purpose, one they have been working on for six hundred years?”
“But … but …” Lyton sputtered.
“But nothing,” Ulrich finished for him. “They’ve been working on Amissa long before they learned of this new life form. Ask yourself why?”
Lyton’s eyes roamed the room as he thought. “I don’t know,” he finally stammered.
Ulrich said nothing but gave Lyton a penetrating look. Jazon had been right all along. He should have trusted his friend’s instincts. Once Jazon learned the truth about Amissa, he would tear this ship apart looking for Lord Hromhada. He almost wished he could let him, but that would be suicidal.
“Lord Hromhada has a motive more than his professed concern for the balance of the Three Principles. He’s using all of us for his purpose, playing us for fools. I for one will not go unless he can show me a compelling reason to do so.” Ulrich smacked his fist into his open palm.
“I can’t believe Lord Hromhada has lied to us,” Lyton began.
“Then what is in the case?” Ulrich shot at Lyton, pointing at the case attached to Lyton’s arm.
“I can’t tell you.” He sighed as he toyed with the case’s chain, twisting it around his finger in agitation.
“Then you and Lord Hromhada can both go to hell!” Ulrich shouted and stalked from the room before realizing it was his room. He stopped at the door. “No, I have a better idea. You leave.” He held the door open as Lyton slinked through it in defeat. Ulrich wished he could slam it for effect but it simply hissed shut.
Ulrich was in no mood to speak with Jazon. In his agitated state of mind, Jazon could probably convince him to do anything. He did have other options for answers if, of course, the Highborn Lord had not shut him out of the ship’s computer. He sat down in front of the terminal and was glad to find all pathways were still open to him. He began a diligent search of Amissa’s donor, Lady Amissa. Six hundred years was a lot of history to peruse, especially if he was not sure what to look for. He set up a few parameters and set about his search. He knew it was like looking for stardust in a vacuum, but he had to try. Six hours later, his neck and back in agony from sitting stooped over the console, he had found what he wanted.
Lady Amissa, daughter of Mahindhradhiraj, last ruler of the Suphannaphum Dynasty of Thailand, reputedly had very refined psychic abilities. Her prediction of her father’s early demise proved true when after one year in power, he was overthrown. The Dastorans, upon their arrival on Earth, had paid very handsomely to obtain her remains from the Central Asia Union.
The first Amissa clone, Amissa Prime, who tested very high on the Jantzen scale of psi abilities, had retained her Terran citizenship upon Earth’s insistence. She had agreed to accompany the first Dastoran Highborn Lord back to their Homeworld in the name of Interstellar harmony. The war with the Cha’aita was still many years away, but Earth, seeing an opportunity to establish close ties with a more advanced culture, eagerly relented.
Nearly a century later, her progeny, Amissa II, committed suicide by leaping from a cliff on Mecatha, a Dastoran world. Clone III had not fared much better. There was no record of her after her 30th birthday. Each of the Amissa clones developed varying degrees of psi ability. Uncontrolled psychic abilities often took disastrous tolls on its possessor. The Dastorans had been breeding Amissa since the beginning, hoping to enhance her psi powers. Did they succeed? What had that to do with Occam’s Razor? He could not seem to connect the two, but he knew there must be some common thread.
So far, Ulrich had amassed more questions than answers, but at least his questions were beginning to point in a definite direction. He shut down the computer. Enough thinking for tonight. Tomorrow, he would have to tell Jazon what he had learned. God help Lord Hromhada when he did.
The swelling in Jazon’s arm had gone down considerably and, except for feeling as if someone had dropped him over a balcony, his head was clear, clear enough to know he had an unkind word or two to deliver to Lord Hromhada. Ulrich had stopped by earlier with the information that he had pulled out of Professor Lyton. Physician Hthrothama had almost given Jazon another sedative when he insisted on getting out of bed. The withering look Jazon had shot at the tiny Dastoran physician had backed him out of the room, stuttering.
He had his clothes now, not the blue ships suit with the tracking device, but his new clothes. He was dressed as if for a formal banquet, silver jacket and shiny black pants and boots. His shirt was sleeveless and fit snuggly against his muscles. He wore his clothing pro
udly, like a uniform declaring his independence. It made him feel stronger, more alive. Perhaps he was simply rebelling. Around his freshly depilatoried head, he wore a braided silver chain. He felt dressed for an audience with the Highborn Lord, yet ready to rumble if they gave him trouble. The guards had taken his pulser, his stunner, and his knife, even his lucky piece, but he still had a few surprises up his sleeve.
Lord Hromhada had ignored his first request for an audience, but Jazon’s insistence had eventually won him his meeting. As he approached the Highborn’s chambers, two armed Drones made the mistake of trying to stop and search him. He was in no mood for a frisking and eager for a target to vent his anger. The first Drone went down quickly as Jazon used a leg sweep to knock him off his feet and a heel kick to the side of the head to keep him down. The second one reached for his weapon, but Jazon knocked it aside easily and slammed the Drone in the chest with an open palm. The drone slid down the wall gasping for breath. Jazon picked up the fallen weapon. His blood was boiling, and his anger was high, but he still had the sense of mind to slam the weapon against the wall and shatter it. He was quite certain the ship’s automated security would shoot him down if he were stupid enough to enter the Highborn Lord’s presence with a weapon.
Surprisingly, the door opened, revealing Lord Hromhada sitting in a rather plain chair with Metak standing at his elbow. The Highborn Lord motioned for Jazon to enter. The door shut behind him. Lord Hromhada’s face bore a look of amusement as he spoke.
“You remember your training well.”
Jazon nodded but kept his senses alert. Was Lord Hromhada trying to distract him with conversation until help arrived? Almost as Jazon thought this, the Highborn Lord motioned for Metak to leave the room. With just a moment’s hesitation, he did so, leaving the two alone. As Metak walked through the door, he cast a venomous look in Jazon’s direction. Jazon’s smile irritated the assistant even further.
“Sit,” the Highborn offered, motioning to a chair across from him.
Jazon obstinately remained standing, fists balled by his side.
“Very well.” Lord Hromhada rose from his seat and came to stand in front of Jazon, stopping less than an arm’s length away. “You are angry?”
“Angry?” he fumed. “You want to kill Amissa. I won’t let you do it,” he blurted. He wanted to strike out at Lord Hromhada so badly that his arms ached.
“Kill? Kill?” Lord Hromhada said softly, repeating the word as if it offended him. “No. Amissa is dying. This we cannot allow.” His eyes bored into Jazon’s eyes. “This, you cannot allow.”
Jazon swallowed hard. “Wha … what do you mean?”
“She chose your life over her own. This is most confusing to me and most distressing.” He turned his back on Jazon, walked to a small table, and picked up a memory crystal. “This crystal contains all for which we have strived for six hundred years. In it, you will learn what Amissa is and what we wish her to become. You and Count Stumphman may read it. No one else.”
Lord Hromhada handed the crystal to Jazon as if passing on the torch of wisdom. Jazon reached for it eagerly; then stopped. It seemed too easy. Lord Hromhada motioned again for him to take it. He snatched it and placed it in his pocket.
“I won’t let you do it,” Jazon threatened again, but his voice was calmer now, disarmed by Lord Hromhada’s actions. His fight with the two Drones had burned off some of his anger.
“It is done,” Lord Hromhada pronounced with finality.
The Highborn Lord’s words made Jazon’s head swim. He reached out to catch his balance on the edge of table.
“She’s …” He could not finish.
“No, she is not dead, not in the way you think. We have downloaded her mind into a waiting clone body. There will be some gaps in her memory, I’m afraid, but as she grows older, I’m certain most …”
“Older?” Jazon interrupted. “What do you mean, older?
Lord Hromhada shook his head sadly. “There was insufficient time to speed the growth of the clone replacement body. She has reached puberty as we had hoped, but she is still roughly fourteen-Terran-years old. We feel her memories will return with training and time.”
Jazon was stunned. Amissa, his lovely Amissa, was gone, and in her place was a fourteen-year-old-girl. The room spun and his stomach lurched. He fell to his knees and vomited on the Highborn Lord’s carpet. The taste of bile was bitter in his mouth, but not as bitter as his defeat. Almost immediately, a cleaning bot shot from its niche in the wall and gently nuzzled his arm out of the way in its attempt to clean up his mess.
“Can I see her?” he asked meekly, all fight gone out of him now.
“Not yet. Soon. There are tests to be completed.”
“So the trip is off?”
Lord Hromhada shook his head sadly. “No, we must continue. Amissa will be ready by then.”
“Why all of this? Why use her as an AI?”
Lord Hromhada’s eyes widened at Jazon’s knowledge; then he smiled. “I see your friend Count Stumphman has been very busy. It is just as well.”
He waved his hand, as if dismissing this fact. “The information on the crystal, I give you because of Amissa’s, let’s say … interest in you. If the information leaked to other races, there would be trouble for us. As for Amissa, it has been her destiny from the beginning. She was created for this purpose.”
Jazon sneered. “You speak as though she were a tool.”
The Highborn Lord folded his hands behind his back and walked away, stopping beside the door. He held onto the door as if drawing strength from its architecture, from the body of the ship. Sadness lent each word the pronouncement of finality as he said, “She is a tool. We are all tools, tools of chance.” He left, leaving Jazon kneeling there in a pool of his own vomit with his heart ripped out.
For the first time in his life, Jazon didn’t know what to do. He had gone to the Highborn Lord expecting … what, retribution maybe, perhaps a chance to rebuke the Lord for placing Amissa in danger, but not this. She had been a tool of the Dastorans, designed it seemed, not only for their ultimate purpose, but also to ensnare him. Now he, too, was a tool. How could he refuse to go now, knowing the true purpose of the journey? Could he turn and leave, even if Lord Hromhada allowed him to do so?
He stared at the memory crystal in his palm, wondering just how much of the truth was on it. He knew the Lord Hromhada would not allow him the whole truth, just enough to sharpen the tool. In spite of all he had been through, Jazon knew now that he would go if only because Amissa would be there or at least her younger self. He would protect her to the best of his ability. He owed her that much. Would she remember him? Even if she didn’t, she would still need him.
Slowly, with the weight of the world pressing down on his shoulders, Jazon rose and stumbled back to his room, leaving the cleaning bot to its work. Later, he would show the crystal to Ulrich and decide what to do, but not now.
Now, he just wanted to be alone with his thoughts and maybe his memories. If he had lost Amissa to another man or to death, he might be have been able to comprehend it, but to lose her to a simulacrum, a flesh and blood doppelganger that looked like her but had no memory of him, would be too much to bear. He would bear it, though, for her sake.
Jazon laughed, but not the happy, full-chested chortle of joy. It was the sound of anger, hopelessness, and irony erupting from his lungs because his fists could not beat it out. It was being the brunt of the joke but no one else dared laugh. It was the laugh of a man teetering on the edge. He laughed until his voice filled the chamber and echoed in his ears, rebuking him for his foolishness.
Later, in Ulrich’s room with the lights off like two frightened co-conspirators, Jazon played the memory crystal given him by Lord Hromhada. Even in his wildest dreams, he would not have suspected the Dastorans of abandoning their obligations to the Alliance and fleeing the galaxy entirely.
“They’re the ones who put the Alliance in place,” Jazon shouted to the four corners of the ro
om.
“Evidently they fear that we are losing to the Cha’aita and don’t wish to suffer the same fate as the rest of us,” Ulrich offered.
“Then why bother to go to the Claw Nebula at all?”
Ulrich was silent for a moment as he considered Jazon’s question. He smiled when things fell into place and snapped his fingers. “As a test. They want to be sure Occam’s Razor and, er, its new AI are working properly.” Jazon appreciated Ulrich’s reluctance to mention Amissa’s new status. “Why show us this material? Isn’t Lord Hromhada afraid we might inform the Alliance?”
Jazon looked up at Ulrich’s puzzled expression and smiled.
“What? You mean… No, they wouldn’t dare,” Ulrich sputtered as Jazon’s meaning became clear to him.
“They won’t let us leave this ship alive with this information,” Jazon said to confirm Ulrich’s conclusion. He slowly closed his fist. “Now, he has us.”
“But I was going anyway.” Ulrich’s voice could not hide his sense of betrayal.
“And I wouldn’t leave Amissa,” declared Jazon. “So maybe he felt secure enough to reveal their secrets to us.” He turned to Ulrich. “Maybe he’s offering to take us with them when they leave.”
Ulrich shook his head sadly. “From what I know of their societal hierarchy, they consider Terrans, most species really, as inferior. They are a Primary Race, one of the oldest in this arm of the galaxy. They feel – fatherly – toward us, but I doubt even Lord Hromhada would make such an offer.” A soft sigh escaped his lips. “I want to go home, Jazon. I’m tired of this damn galaxy. ”
“I can’t leave without Amissa.”
“She’s the center of their new Interstitial Drive,” Ulrich reminded him. “Lord Hromhada will never release her.”
“By God” Jazon burst out. “I swear I’ll take her away from Lord Hromhada, put the brakes on the Dastoran dream, and save the Alliance.” He knew he was committing himself to something far larger and far more dangerous than anything he had faced during his years with the Alliance Marines, but it had become personal. He would not leave Amissa a slave to any Dastoran schemes. His desire to return to Earth had not diminished, but first he had to ensure that home was still there. The only way to accomplish both was to go on the mission. Somewhere along the way, he would find the means to derail the Dastoran migration. When the Cha’aita was no longer a threat, the Dastorans could go wherever they wanted, to hell if they chose, but not yet and not with Amissa. She was a Terran, not a tool for the Dastorans to play with.