Star Carrier (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 3)

by B. V. Larson

  Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I gave Durris the helm and went below, signaling Yamada that she should follow me.

  “Lieutenant Commander,” I said once we were in private. “Do you recall helping me with my implant?”

  She looked confused, and for a single sick moment I was convinced they’d gotten to her, too. Could her memory of developing an interface-wrap for my implant be missing from her consciousness?

  She lowered her voice and leaned forward. “I do recall helping you during your refit. Why, is there a problem?”

  She gave me a wink, and I smiled back in relief. She knew what we’d done together. The scrawny gray arms of the Council had limits to their reach.

  “I need help again. A diagnostic.”

  She shrugged and accompanied me to the labs. An hour later, I felt assured my alterations remained intact.

  I wasn’t sure why the Council had decided to allow me to retain my independence, but I was glad they’d done so. Perhaps they thought a renegade officer such as myself was a tool worth the risks. Or possibly they had no easy way to correct me as they didn’t know what I knew and what I didn’t know.

  Yamada herself had no idea she’d been updated, that her mind had glossed over certain recent events. I considered telling her to hack her own implant to shield herself from updates, but I didn’t want to jeopardize my chances of getting out of this star system with my own mind intact. There was no point in alerting the Council again.

  “Oh Captain, there’s one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Director Vogel is waiting for you down in his lab. He’s been there for several hours, brooding. He won’t leave you a message, and he refuses to talk to anyone else. Should I tell him you’re too busy for a personal visit?”

  “No,” I said evenly, “I’ll see him immediately.”

  I left her presence and marched directly for Vogel’s chambers. My situation had me off-balance, and I felt as if I were an imposter aboard my own ship. Everyone else possessed a slightly different version of reality in their minds than I did. I had to keep reminding myself of this. It wouldn’t do to show surprise when I learned information everyone else aboard took for granted.

  My impression of Director Vogel wasn’t good. He’d turned positively paranoid over the last several days.

  “Do you know what they did to me?” he asked in a hissing tone. “Or what they planned as my final punishment?”

  I nodded and met his eyes seriously.

  “Is that even possible?” he demanded. “I know you talked about changing people’s mental outlook, but—”

  “You saw it yourself,” I told him. “We barged into CENTCOM and destroyed the lobby. When we were finally allowed to leave, everyone there who’d survived our attack remembered only a raving pack of phantom Stroj.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “It was very strange to witness their delusions. I’ve been aware of the updates for some time, you understand. Phobos personnel had a hand in developing that technology long ago... but I had no idea they’d begun using such a powerful tool so ruthlessly.”

  I glanced at him. “Just how old are you, Director Vogel?”

  He ruffled slightly before he answered me. “Direct questions concerning a person’s age are considered rude.”

  Crossing my arms, I maintained my sideways glance and waited.

  “A citizen of Earth has no true chronological age,” he insisted in a huffy tone.

  “Nonsense,” I said, “how old you are matters a great deal. In this case, it will help me piece together a puzzle.”

  “Very well… If you must know, I’m one hundred and seventy-two. I know that’s older than most, but younger than some.”

  I whistled, impressed. “You don’t look a day over sixty,” I said. “They really do give the lab people better drugs.”

  He laughed, shaking his head. “No, not exactly. We keep the best for ourselves.”

  Nodding, I conceded the point.

  It was clear that when he’d said the labs had developed the implant-update technology a long time ago he’d probably meant more than a century back. That’s how oldsters typically spoke of the past. Any event that was a distant memory to them was at least a century gone.

  In any case, it mattered little when they’d started. The updates were real, and the fabrication of my society’s reality was a fact. The political spiders on the planet below us had ruled Earth from their quiet shadows for an amazingly long time.

  After we’d checked the manifest and all my crewmen had boarded—save for Zye—I ordered Defiant to leave orbit.

  I didn’t like doing it. I felt I was abandoning Zye to a terrible fate. When I’d first met her, she’d been imprisoned for years in an automated cell. She’d stayed alive, but she’d lost hope. Despite the mental resiliency of all Betas, she’d been affected. She’d clung to me at times as her rescuer.

  Now I was leaving her behind. It was a hard thing to do. I thought of drastic options, but none were practical. Could I have ordered my ship to attack CENTCOM? Or threaten to do so unless Zye was released?

  Impossible. My crew wouldn’t have obeyed such orders, thinking me mad. To them, Zye didn’t exist. She was a figment, and I was the only madman who could remember her at all.

  And so, with a heavy heart, I watched as we pulled slowly way from Araminta Station. Even as we did so, our replacement vessel arrived.

  “What’s her name again?” I asked. “The battleship?”

  They all looked at me oddly again, and I made an effort not to meet their eyes. Probably, in their minds, the answer had been broadcast far and wide.

  “That’s the Resolution, sir,” Durris said. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  He shut up, and that suited me well. I watched Resolution dock at the station, taking our spot.

  The battleship’s captain might not even be aware that his ship had been finished ahead of schedule. He might not remember that according to briefings I’d received a month back, his ship had not yet even been named.

  Only I remembered those details. I felt I was now informed enough to calculate what may have happened. After all, the Chairman was smart enough to use his greatest power only when he had to.

  The oldsters must have panicked when Victory had appeared. They’d realized Defiant might not be able to stop the battleship.

  In order to protect Earth—and themselves—they’d ordered the construction of Earth’s next battleship to be sped up to get it finished at all costs.

  There was only one way Star Guard could have accomplished such a task: by employing variants. That meant there were variants operating on Earth right now. They were no longer stationed only on distant Phobos.

  Since the timetable for Resolution’s production had been well-advertised, the Chairman had probably updated the citizenry to believe the battleship was due to come out earlier. They’d given her a name in the same action. A name which everyone on Earth now recalled having heard before—except for me.

  So strange… To know the real sequence of events while everyone around me saw only what their rulers wanted them to see.

  Was this what madness felt like?

  -28-

  Every million kilometers I put behind us made me feel better. Onboard Defiant, I was in control of my own destiny. I felt like a starship captain again.

  When off-duty, I spent my time going over the ship’s historical repository. What I found there, seen with newly educated eyes, was revealing.

  The past hadn’t been altered wholesale. As far as I could tell, only surgical details had been edited. Inserted news stories about the accelerated progress of Resolution’s construction timetable, for example, had begun to appear approximately two months ago.

  These stories were fabricated. I would have been aware of them, and I would have read them if they hadn’t been inserted into the public’s consciousness and assorted documentation very recently.

  After a tho
rough examination, I determined that the Council operated as gently as they could on our memories. They did it, apparently, through the insertion of certain “stories” and the deletion of others. These actions usually came in the form of news articles. Rarely was there any vid evidence to back up claims in these new written reports.

  Vogel’s lab was a large chamber, but today it was empty. Only equipment stood here and there, along with the two variants who’d survived our attack on CENTCOM. They were dormant now, their eyes dark and their bodies motionless.

  “So, that’s what you’ve been doing?” Vogel asked me when I brought my findings to him. “I’ve been monitoring your browsing history…”

  “Why have you been doing that?” I demanded.

  He shrugged. “I have a government clearance. I’ve served alongside many agents of the Internal Affairs Office. Didn’t you know?”

  My gaze had turned unfriendly. “That wasn’t what I asked,” I pointed out.

  “Well… Captain… you have to understand. I have certain responsibilities aboard this ship. I represent our government.”

  “Have you forgotten? I’m an officer in Star Guard. Since we’re in space, my authority supersedes yours.”

  If there was one thing my Aunt Grantholm had taught me during our preceding voyage, it was that the chain of command had to be clearly hammered out from the outset.

  Vogel dipped his head. “I understand, Captain.”

  “Good. See that you don’t do any more snooping, or I’ll have Yamada remove your net privileges.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  “Not really, it’s just a beginning. Stay out of my affairs, or you’ll learn how harsh I can be.”

  “My apologies…” he said. “But on to another matter, what did you discover? What is it that I don’t remember?”

  “The exact details are unimportant, but the methodology is interesting. We’ve all been updated with stories. Written articles for the most part. They circulate online until the origin is unclear. At that point, they become part of the group knowledge we all share.”

  “Fascinating…” he said. “They do it with precision, then. They plant certain stories—your word—and remove others. The human mind is well-conditioned to operate in terms of stories, you know.”

  “Yes, it all makes sense.”

  “Right,” he continued, the look on his face becoming distant. “Think about what you remember from the events of your life, or what you think you know about other people’s lives. Do you remember the sequence of motions you took this morning while cleansing, dressing and feeding yourself?”

  “I—” I began, but he cut me off.

  “No, you don’t,” he continued, “but you might remember a chance meeting, an event that was unusual or something that involved another person.”

  He was quite correct. I saw what he meant. I could recall talking to my aunt, but nothing about what I’d done prior to her visit.

  “So, rather than entirely rewriting our memories, they’re editing out some but inserting new ones too—perhaps replacing longer sequential passages?”

  “Exactly,” Vogel agreed. “The stories not only give us information they want us to remember, they also cover up the gaps. When we think of a deleted event, the details escape us. Through the artful insertion and deletion of details, what we recall is a complete, self-contained story.”

  I nodded slowly. The process was simple but diabolical.

  “Do you think we’re out of their effective range?” I asked.

  “No. Not while we’re in this star system. Now, let me ask you, do you recall gaps when first reentering the Solar System after your last voyage to the stars?”

  I thought about it, and I shook my head.

  “No…” I said, “but they might have been there. When we’ve first returned to the Solar System, CENTCOM has always transmitted an update.”

  “Naturally,” Vogel said. “Things would have likely changed after a long voyage to the stars. Changed, that is, for everyone on Earth. That’s the moment when they’ll seek to insert and delete memories of their choosing.”

  Straining mightily, I couldn’t recall anything like that happening to me. But that didn’t mean that it hadn’t happened. I found the process of second-guessing every event in my lifetime aggravating.

  But then I had a sudden thought.

  “That’s why they don’t want starships coming and going!” I said with sudden clarity. “That’s why they shut down the ER bridges in the first place—to maintain complete control.”

  Vogel stared at me. “They? Who shut down the bridges? What are you talking about?”

  “Forget it,” I said. “You probably already knew but forgot the truth. There are some things best left to the past.”

  “What you suggested in those few statements… I’m disturbed.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “and I’m sorry if I seem short with you. Let’s just say that there’s more going on in my mind than I can discuss.”

  With that, I took a deep breath and headed for the exit. But I found his thin fingers wrapped around my elbow.

  I paused and looked down at him.

  “I’ve earned your help,” he said. “Don’t leave me in the dark like the others. I know my mind is their toy, and I don’t like it.”

  “Then rip out your implant,” I said. “It’s a simple matter.”

  He shook his head. “My career would be at an end, if not my life. I wish I could be like you, Sparhawk—to walk the Earth like a spirit, seeing the truth. Is there any other way you could help me?”

  I considered his request. The idea had merit. He was already my confidant, and he’d proven he was willing to risk everything to help me.

  “I’ll help you after we get through the first bridge,” I told him. “When we’re beyond their reach, it will be done.”

  He smiled faintly. “Excellent. I’m not sure it will make me any happier, but I can’t live with their tampering another day.”

  At the doorway, I paused and I pointed to his creations, the dormant variants.

  “You know,” I said, “I could use some help from you and your team as well.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “Could you get a fresh contingent of variants aboard—as workers?”

  “You mean as troops, don’t you?”

  I shrugged.

  He sighed and looked at K-19. “That’s a disturbing development. My variants were never meant to kill. I didn’t want that when I developed them.”

  “It’s all too common that we don’t have full control of the consequences to our actions.”

  He produced a bitter laugh. “That’s very true. All right, Sparhawk. I can contact Phobos and ask for them to send out a tug pulling a cargo module.”

  “A cargo module full of variants? What of weapons?”

  “You’ll have to provide those. I can retrain them while we travel.”

  I nodded. “All right. I’ll try to get the request through CENTCOM. It’s logical enough. We’ve lost all our Stroj-made repair bots in battle.”

  Then I left him and moved to the command deck. There, my team was plotting our first jump out of the Solar System in months.

  “Captain,” Durris said, calling me to the tactical table, “where did you get these coordinates, exactly?”

  “I didn’t say.”

  “Right… Well, as best we can figure, they’re written in terms of given stars. The first references a small breach that leads to a system we know well.”

  “Which is?”

  “Gliese-32, sir.”

  My face flinched. I’d wondered if I’d ever meet the Connatic again. Apparently, I was going to be provided the opportunity.

  “And the next?”

  “We’ve traced that one too. It should take us to the Beta Cygnus system.”

  I looked at him sharply. “Not the Crown System?”

  “No sir, this is definitely Beta. We’ve mapped it. Helping us a great deal are the star ma
ps the people of Gi provided. Some of them correspond to that data.”

  “Excellent, please continue. Where do the last jumps go?”

  He shook his head. “We have no idea after that. They’ll be blue-jumps, sir.”

  Blue jumps. The term was enough to turn any spacer’s stomach. In the past, all jumps had been into the unknown. A significant number of such jumps were apparently deadly as no one had ever returned from them.

  I comforted myself by recalling that blue jumps were simply unknown. They weren’t necessarily dangerous. It was a matter of playing the odds.

  “Very well,” I said. “Rumbold? I can tell you’ve been listening. Have you got our destinations clearly plotted?”

  “Yes sir. The jumps are in my navigational software. But sir, if we’re to hit the first breach and have a clean breakthrough, we need to increase speed. Shall I?”

  “No, not yet. In fact, I want to slow down. I’m arranging a rendezvous with a very special package.”

  “A package? From where, Captain?”

  “Phobos.”

  At the mention of Phobos, Rumbold and Durris exchanged glances. They were both unhappy, but they seemed resigned.

  By this time, they were used to having their commander withhold interesting details about their mission plans from them.

  -29-

  Before we left the Solar System, we managed to load a full cargo pod of dormant variants aboard the Defiant. Something about that fact gave me pause. Just how many of these things had they manufactured on Phobos?

  The breach into hyperspace turned out to be an easy transition. The ship wasn’t battered or warped by the process, and once inside the wormhole we didn’t find its space to be too cramped or too huge. As best we could tell with the nebulous readings from our sensors, we were in a pocket continuum approximately the size of the Solar System.

  According to CENTCOM’s calculations, we were headed to Gliese-32. That didn’t mean the trip would be smooth sailing, however. The bridges between star systems were inherently unstable. Like taking a voyage on rough seas in the past, you never knew exactly how any given bridge would look on any given day.