by Dan Haronian
"Oziri said you're an expert. How did that come about?"
I didn’t know what to answer but Gu-Dos didn't wait for me to speak. "Where did you learn how to scramble?"
"In Ma-ma-mampas."
He raised his eyebrows is if to say that was obvious.
"I learned from lo-lo-lots of pe-pe-people," I hurried to say. "I wo-wo-worked for them in a-a-all sorts of ca-ca-capacities."
"You served those scum?" he asked without moving his eyes from my face. "I don't recognize you. I don't don’t know who recruited you but we don't deal with people like you."
"Pe-pe-people l-l-like me?"
"You’re a network whore," he said loudly and my eyes went wide. "The galaxy would've been a better place without people like you. Putting scramblers in one of our bases was a big mistake."
He went back to the empty bed and pounded several times on the mattress. "I understand you don't remember who you are?" he said turning around to look at me.
I shook my head.
"But you still remember you are a scrambler from Mampas?"
I nodded and he nodded in return. "Doesn't this seem strange to you?"
"I do-do-don't know."
"You don't know what?"
"I'm no-not a do-do-doctor."
He chuckled, walked to the door and turned around. "I hear that you stutter because of what happened, that you are traumatized." He shook his head. "Consider yourself lucky. If it weren’t for your stutter I would've already sent you back to Mampas to find a job with a respectable income. I still would if I didn’t think it might create an impression we neglect our people."
I thought of responding, but I stopped myself. He was angry and my stutter was turning this conversation into a monologue. His words made no sense to me. The scramblers had been in the base long before I was kidnapped. If he hated scramblers so much then why had he nurtured them in the beginning?
"I’m sending you to place where I can keep an eye on you until you recover and we can decide who you really are."
I didn't answer and he didn't wait to see if I had anything to say. He turned and walked to the door. I thought of my grandfather. So far I was not impressed with his help.
Two men came to my room two days later. One of them laid gray clothes on my bed and asked me to get dressed and then follow them. I didn't ask questions. I knew I was leaving the hospital. We walked out of the room and through few hallways until we arrived at a narrow corridor. A few hatches were along the left side of the corridor. One of the attendants gave me a pair of wide goggles.
"Put them on," he ordered. I wanted to turn around and get one last look at the place, but he shoved me forward. I pushed back.
"I want to-to-to say go-go-goodbye," I said.
I turned and looked around one last time. The doctors and nurses there had saved my life, but no one was there to say goodbye. I guess in the end I was only a statistic to them. I swept my gaze across the rooms and halls as if I to fix it in my memory. But there was really no need. I would never forget that place. It was just as etched into my memory as Base 33. I turned and walked to the open hatch. We stepped inside and closed the door. After a few seconds of breathtaking acceleration we reached the surface.
A triumphant feeling filled me when I stepped outside and onto the sand. I felt a circle had closed. The last time I’d been on the surface of the desert I’d been half dead. Now I was back on my feet and more alive than ever before.
A small hovercraft waited for us. I was asked to get inside and buckle up. One of the people accompanying me spoke to the pilot but I couldn't hear what they were saying. He sat back down and the hovercraft began to cruise over the dunes. An endless yellow spread in all directions. It reminded me of what the bearded toothless man had told on my first miserable day in the desert. A long and painful death was indeed looking at me from every direction.
The hovercraft landed and they pushed me out. As I waited the hovercraft rose, creating a small sandstorm around it. I threw a hand over my face to block out the swirling sand and waited for it to move away. A complete silence surrounded me when it was gone. It was so quiet that I could hear the sand falling from my clothes when I straightened up. I was suddenly afraid as I looked at the yellow wilderness around me. My worries disappeared when I heard a noise to my left and a small hill rose up from the ground. A man-sized hatch opened in the face of the hill. I walked towards it and hesitantly stepped inside. The hatch closed and I suddenly lurched downward, accelerating rapidly. Even though I’d expected it my heart was suddenly pounding rapidly. A few seconds later my fall was halted abruptly. It occurred to me that the rebels needed to improve their humane engineering. The door opened and a bright light flooded in. A woman was standing outside the door when I stepped out of the hatch. I took off my goggles and looked at her.
"Hello Sonny, welcome to Base 6. I'm Nout-Thor. I'm the commander of the information unit at this base."
She pointed at the grooved surface I was standing on and I immediately jumped off of it.
"I meant that you should stand there and shake the sand off you," she said.
"Oh, so-so-sorry," I said stepping back onto the grooved surface. I shook myself and the sand cascaded off my clothes.
"You should have taken off your goggles after," she added as I cleaned the sand away from head.
"Makes se-se-sense," I said embarrassed.
Nout-Thor wasn't young but she wasn't old either. Her face was dark with a network of bright wrinkles that gave away her real color. She was a bit shorter than me, but slimmer. She wore a uniform that bore no sign of rank.
"I’ve heard a lot about you," she said, but her tone was skeptical. My appearance and my actions appeared to have given reason to doubt what she’d been told.
"What ha-ha-have you heard?"
She waved for me to walk next to her. "That you are one of the few survivors from Base 33, and that you are a talented scrambler," she said.
"You don't seem to-to-to like s-s-scramblers."
"Don't like scramblers? Who told you that?"
"Gu-Dos."
"You met him?"
"Yes."
"I guess he sees things a bit differently. It’s his position. He is afraid of dragging us into war we cannot win."
"And is he-he-he is right?"
She chuckled, and shook her head. "I guess what happened at Base 33 proved he's right." She pushed open a door along the corridor and went inside. "Sit!" she ordered and waved to a chair. She walked around a desk that was in front of the chair she’d indicated and sat down.
I looked around thinking this was probably her office.
"So what do you say?" she asked leaning back in her chair.
"A-a-about what?"
"About what happened at Base 33."
"I don't k-k-know. Maybe yo-yo-your people weren’t t-t-talented enough."
She straightened on her chair and looked at me. She rotated her face in the same way Gu-Dos had, as if she was studying a picture in a museum. "Who are you?" she asked.
"I?"
She narrowed her right eye. "I received outstanding recommendations for you, but even taking into account the fact that you stutter and suffer from amnesia, you are quite odd."
I didn't answer.
"You said your people." She leaned back. "Why your? Why not our? And besides if we had no talented scramblers, what does it say about you? Aren’t you one of them?"
"I-I-I-I I am new."
"You are new? New to where? Newly enlisted? New to Base 33? How do you know you're new but not know who you are? Sounds very odd to me."
I didn't know how to answer. She was well informed and I wasn't expecting so many questions. But I wasn’t in the hospital anymore. This was the real thing. I needed to be more careful with my words.
"I know my-my-my story is odd, b-b-but I promise you I-I-I'm not what you th-th-think I am."
"Well, I think that is the problem. I don't know what to think about you. I'm told you are a great scrambler
and that I can trust you, but trust needs to be earned, especially in your case."
"My case?"
"You even don't know who you are. Maybe you are not even what you think you are, maybe you are a spy."
"After all that-that-that ha-ha-happened to me? You th-th-th-ink I am a spy?!"
"All I am saying is that we'll need to see how things progress before we make any decision about you."
"If you'll gi-gi-give me a chance I am sure…"
"A chance for what? A chance to scramble information and bring the Mampas Army here?"
"I never even ha-ha-had a chance to-to-to scramble in-in-information at Base 33."
"Do you remember this or do you simply not remember what happened there?"
"I…." I stumbled over my words and looked at her.
"I guess you are beginning to understand my position."
I nodded.
She stood up. "We are getting ahead of ourselves. Let's take a tour. I want you to get an impression of the place, get to know the people here. Let's take it slow." She walked to the door and I stood up feeling a bit dizzy from the discussion.
"There are about 500 people in this base," she said when I walked next to her. "They are all involved in intelligence. Most of the activity is based on the messenger service. We don't scramble information from here."
She stopped at the open space in front of elevators. It reminded me of Base 33. The elevators here were one next to the other in a circle. Each elevator door faced a different corridor.
"Me-me-messenger?" I wondered.
"I assume you have forgotten that as well?"
"I'm no-no-not sure I ever k-k-knew."
She tightened her lips and I thought she was holding back her thoughts. "The layout here is similar to Base 33. We have six corridors connected to this common area. Unlike many other bases we have one hundred twenty capsules along each corridor. Almost all of them are active."
"Ca-ca-capsules?"
"The hatches. The private elevators," she said almost angry. "They are used by the messengers to get in and out fast."
I nodded. "One hu-hu-hundred twenty is not a-a-a small number. Isn't it ha-ha-hard to protect them all?"
"After your experience in Base 33 you should realize the Mampasians would have no problem destroying this place. We use hatches because it allows the messengers quick access to the base. We try to minimize activity on the surface."
"I understand," I said looking around me.
"You didn't answer me. Are you new to the Army or new to Base 33?" she said.
"I was new to-to-to Base 33, but I never ha-ha-had time to do anything."
She nodded. "It is clear that you don't even know the basics. Maybe I should have someone stay close to you and teach you."
"That is a go-go-good idea."
She started forward again and I rushed along behind her. "What do you member about the Fear Balance?" She asked.
"Fear Ba-ba-balance?"
"Yes. Do you know what I'm talking about?"
"Um… the ba-ba-balance of fear between the re-re-rebels and Mampas?" I guessed.
She nodded. "Us and Mampas," she said looking at me again with her a quizzical look. "They know where our bases are and we know where Thesh, Mampas’ president, drinks his morning coffee. They need to have a good reason to attack because they know we can strike back."
"Did th-the-they have one to a-a-attack Ba-base 33?"
"Yes, I guess, although we haven’t responded to their attack yet. I'm not sure we know what happened there yet. They claimed we were scrambling information there, so maybe they had a reason."
"This wa-wa-war is over a hu-hu-hundred of years old."
"Yes," she said looking at me.
"Why? We co-co-continued this re-re-rebellion for all this t-time? Ge-generations have been born and d-d-died in the desert all th-this t-t-time."
"What do you mean?"
"If your goal is to take back Mampas, you must know th-th-that that will never ha-ha-happen in this reality."
"Maybe you have forgotten but we were almost extinct. The Fear Balance was a savior for us. Without it the desert would now be empty and we would be gone."
"But this Fear Ba-ba-balance keeps you, u-u-us, in the de-de-desert."
She looked at me impatiently. "What exactly are you proposing?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "Nothing, I-I-I'm just t-t-trying to un-un-understand."
"Are you trying to understand or trying to remember?" she shook her head. "I don't know what you're doing here. Your questions…"
"I'm so-sorry," I mumbled.
"What is there to understand?" she said frustrated. "This is our current reality and we all pray for the day when we will become Mampasians with equal rights."
She walked to one of the doors. "This is our tracking center," she said opening the door. A large hall was behind the door and dozens of terminals were spaced along the walls, with more resting on tables throughout the room. I immediately noticed little boxes beside each terminal. I stepped inside and walked past several people surfing on the terminals. The surfing rate made me sigh.
"Th-th-they can't be very good if-if-if they all ne-need these bo-boxes," I said when she came up behind me.
"They do well enough, and so far no Mampasian hovercrafts have come to destroy us."
I nodded. I thought that if their work didn’t aggravate Mampas then it was probably useless.
"Also we don't scramble information here."
"Why?"
She looked at me surprised. "Why we don't scramble information?" she asked.
I nodded.
"I thought you understood. The Fear Balance."
I scanned the room. "Ma-ma-maybe you don't have the-the-the right people. If scrambling is not a-a-allowed then no one wi-wi-will bother to build such capabilities."
"You?" She said looking at me.
"We," I answered.
"Maybe," she said. "Obviously after the destruction of Base 33 the chance of building such capability is slim."
"If we want to-to-to break this balance we need in-in-information. To find unique information that we can use we must pe-penetrate deeper. We ne-ne-need scrambling for this."
"Yes, I'm aware of that trap, but I don't think the situation will change in the near future."
I looked at the terminals with despair.
"You can surf for a few moments if you want to get a feel for them."
I nodded and sat down at one of the terminals. I hooked up the neck sensor and the screen started to flicker rapidly.
Nout-Thor was about to leave the hall when she saw the screen flickering. She stopped. For a moment she thought there was some malfunction. When the flickering continued she came closer and gazed at the screen in amazement. She didn't say anything, only stood there for a while, and then walked quietly out of the hall.
Very little happened over the next few days. We developed a routine. I was continuously under the watchful eye of Nout-Thor. Every mission I proposed was allowed, but only after I’d proven to her I was not scrambling anything.
The first mission was to scan the Mampasian government network. I’d heard about President Monash when I was a kid, but I didn't actually know much about him. Once I was inside their network I began to study him thoroughly. I decided it was important for me to know the man and the people he was in touch with. Naan had remained friendly with him after the attack, so maybe he was part of it. The president's wife had died at a relatively young age and they’d never had children. Thesh was a hardworking man and the presidency was his life. He’d left the business world to take the job but it was no secret that he held major shares in many big companies.
When I dug below the surface I found that several key people held shares in the same companies that had funded his presidential campaign. It had been a very good investment for them.
Like many in Mampas his ancestors had come from the Kirpa cluster with its dozens of settled planets. Despite the political instability there, l
ife in Kirpa cluster flourished. This was true until a war started between the planets.
Thesh’s great-grandfather had come to Mampas when he was on his way back to Kirpa from a long business trip. The news about the war in Kirpa caught up to him while he was there waiting for the shuttle to take him home.
It was a bloody war, and many Kirpans flocked to Mampas to escape the conflict. Like many others, Thesh's great-grandfather decided to wait and return after things had settled down. After ten years however, he married a fellow refugee and before long they had three children. Eventually the couple decided there was no point in rushing back to Kirpa; the devastation to their home planet was too great.
The story of Thesh's great-grandfather was not unique. Thousands came to Mampas. Their stories were different but the outcome was the same. Mampas pulled refugees in like a magnet and before long they became its legal citizens.
As Daio's hovercraft settled onto the landing site beside the Shuttle, the noise it made reminded Sosi of its previous landing. Two days earlier he’d called Sosi to arrange a meeting. Sosi hadn’t answered. Finally he’d called Su-Thor. She’d explained to him that Sosi wouldn’t answer because he was studying in the shuttle. She also said that Sosi would be happy to meet with him. She’d been wrong. When she told Sosi about it he said he would go to the meeting, but that he was not happy about it.
When the shuttle touched the ground, and the air flowing around it died, Sosi trudged down the path to the landing site. His steps were slow as if to reflect his unwillingness to talk to his brother. He’d insisted on having the meeting at the Shuttle. They called him a “hallucinating mystic”, the "between no-lines reader." He wanted to make it clear to Daio that nothing had changed. He was still proud of everything he was doing.
Two armed soldiers flanked the door of the hovercraft and three Flyeyes shot out of it. Sosi immediately stopped. One of the Flyeye's rose up into the sky and disappeared. The other two flew forward and stopped just above Sosi's head. Their extended bellies made it clear to him they were armed. Daio came out followed by two additional soldiers. Sosi shook his head and ground his teeth. He could not believe that Daio brought along Flyeyes and soldiers to meet with him. Did he really fear for his life here or was it just a show of force.