by Robert Culp
“Is that all? Silly girl, you could have told me that in the bar! You’re right of course. I took a class in therapeutic massage a few years ago. Have you any oil?”
I don’t have any oil, but I do have some lotion. It’s not the best, but it is a functional facsimile. I come out of my clothes and lay across the bed face down. I hear him squirt the lotion into his hands and rub them to warm it. His hands begin manipulating the knots in my shoulders. “Oooo you are tense.” Thank you, Commodore Obvious! He works methodically and quietly. I feel the tension leave my body. I’m relaxing.
The next thing I hear is my alarm clock.
0730. I step out of the shower to find a breakfast platter on my desk and a list of status indicators on my monitor. I publish a few orders.
To Aria: I need Commander Rangee and Ginny Berry, the new Chief Engineer, to attend the meeting in the conference room this morning at 0900.
To Chief Sunday: I need a daily update on the Debi Athena awakening process please.
Both respond in the affirmative.
0900. As I walk into the conference room, everyone stands. I nod to them and start to head to my old chair. Then I see Ginny standing there. Aria makes a low coughing sound. Oops. I move to the head of the table, sit down and look around at everyone. Why are they…oh crap! “Be seated.” They do. “As you all know, yesterday I was tapped to be the interim commander until we pick up Captain Dane on Atlas. For the record, I accept the appointment. Commander Rangee, I want a daily briefing at 0900. The first one—tomorrow—will be the longest as I want a full rundown by department—where we are and where we’re going. Once I have a handle on that data, they’ll go much faster as we’ll be briefing by exception. I would like to publicly recognize Virginia Berry as the new Chief Engineer. Ginny—Chief Berry—congratulations.” There is a smattering of applause. I wave them down. “I’ve read the daily status briefs that are collected for 0730 publication. What I want now is for you to go do whatever you need to do to give me that detailed briefing tomorrow. Aria, Commander Rangee, Dr. Traynor, I need you to stay behind, please. Chief Berry, send or bring Gorb to me when you get a moment, I won’t need him for long. Dismissed.”
When they’ve gone, before I can speak, Aria says, “Not to be impertinent, ma’am. But word will spread throughout the ship that you are interim Commander. I recommend you carry the microwire cutlass to identify you. There are still scores of people who do not know who Sonia MacTaggert is.”
I had looked at the thing, but it’s rather cumbersome for everyday wear. Still, she makes a good point. “I will do that, thank you.” I turn to Dr. Traynor, “Doc, the Captain left a living will saying that he wanted to be euthanized once he was in a coma that, and I quote, ‘didn’t look promising.’ Are we there yet?”
“He is in a deep coma. I don’t have a clue what caused it. He can stay in TMOD in that condition for two seconds or two hundred years. Does he have to be kept alive by a machine? Yes. So by his definition, the time is now.”
“I trust you will make the necessary preparations. We will join you there as soon as possible. Thank you, Doctor.” She recognizes her cue and leaves. Now it’s just me, the Operations and Executive officers. “You two: Why me? Both of you have been aboard longer than I. Other department heads have been aboard longer than I. This is the only starship I have ever served on. I have no military experience. To my mind, I should have been the last choice. Can either of you shed any light on why the Captain chose me as his successor?”
Rangee breaks the silence. “Aria was disqualified because Captain Prowse, for all his love of technology, has—had—an inherent mistrust of computers and androids. He has seen what an infestation—biological or cybernetic—can do to a living thing. And a starship is a living thing. As for me, a commander needs to be able to look at someone and give the order ‘go do this and oh by the way you may get yourself killed.’ I can do that. But you and I differ in that you can say ‘follow me on this mission which may get us all killed.’” He looks mildly embarrassed. “I can’t do that. I’ve come to terms with it. Perhaps I’ll be given the Big Chair one day. But it wasn’t going to be on his watch. And having heard his reasons, I can’t fault his decision about me.” He looks up. “Or about you.”
Aria adds, “We did discuss this, ma’am, the three of us. We agreed that you were the best, most logical choice as vessel commander. Are you perfect or flawless? No. The other department heads are equally flawed but you do not pretend to be other than you are. It is your candor and integrity which make you the ideal replacement.”
“Thank you for your candor. Aria, you and I have a very unpleasant task. Commander, I’ll ask you to tend the bridge—or do whatever you do from wherever you do it—we will be in Medical.”
“Happy to, ma’am. At your convenience we have some housekeeping documents for your signature. Promotions, transfers, other manner of personnel action. I’ll have them delivered to your office.”
“You will bring them to my office, I will not rubber stamp anything, and I want to understand what I’m approving or denying. Please be familiar enough to explain them as we go through them.”
“Of course, ma’am.” They stand. They both just stand there until I realize they’re waiting for me. I head for the door, Aria behind me, Malcolm behind her.
Aria and I walk to the Med bay from the conference room. I know it isn’t very far away, but it seems like it’s hundreds of miles today. When we get there, Avi ushers us to a back room. Dr. Traynor and Captain Prowse are already there. “Dr. Traynor, I know that the first command of the Healer’s Oath is ‘Do no harm.’ But here is the Captain’s Living Will.” I show her the relevant portions of the chip on my perCom. “That being the case, the most humane thing I can come up with is a lethal injection to his TMOD life support system. Unless you have a better idea, please attend to it or prepare the chemicals and syringes and Aria will administer them.”
Aria raises a finger, “Actually, ma’am, I cannot. My programming will not allow—”
“Got it. I had forgotten that. I suppose for our safety, you need to leave the room?” Aria steps out into the waiting area. I look at the Doc. She is similarly conflicted. “I suppose it falls to me then. Doc, if you’ll tell me what I need to do?”
She talks me through the process. After the second injection, alarms begin to sound, which she quickly silences. I am profoundly stirred at how easy it is for me to end the Captain’s life. “Doctor, if you will verify?”
She calls Avi in. He makes a brief examination of the Captain’s body, then takes Dr. Traynor’s perCom and records a message. “I, Dr. Avinoam Took, pronounce Captain R. W. Prowse dead at 1136 hours. Doctor?” He moves aside and hands the perCom to his mother. She likewise examines him.
“I concur.” She speaks into her perCom. “Captain Randolph Wyckliffe Prowse is pronounced dead at one 1136, this date.” She puts her perCom in her pocket. “Your orders for burial or cremation, Captain?”
He never specified in his will. “As we can’t cremate, we’ll have to preserve him…”
Aria has reentered the room. Probably so she can interrupt me again, “I beg your pardon, Captain. We could not cremate Dr. Sinnair because of his undetermined nature of infection. There are no mysteries about the death of Captain Prowse.”
“Very well. Cremate him and I will store his ashes in the safe in the Captain’s stateroom until fitting interment on Atlas.” They nod. I could get used to this. I have to keep reminding myself this is supposed to be a temporary assignment. “I’ll be moving into the Captain’s stateroom. If I am needed, I’ll be somewhere between the two.”
The Captain’s stateroom is a trio of master suite staterooms converted to a comparatively huge apartment. There are three small double rooms that Anya and the other slaves share. The Office/Study is where the safe and library are. When I walk in, I see two women straightening the place and dusting. “Who are you?” I ask them.
“We are your servants, ma’am. Commander Ra
ngee briefed us on…the change of command.” Did she just wipe away a tear? “I am Bethany, this is Clarisse.”
“Did breakfast meet your satisfaction, Captain?” the other girl, Clarisse, asks.
“Fine, thank you. Uh…”
“Say the word, ma’am, and we’re invisible.” Bethany states.
“Captain Prowse often asked us to clean only if he was elsewhere.” Clarisse says.
“Oh. Well I’ll be moving…”
The door opens and two athletic looking men and two remarkably fit women enter carrying my belongings! Aria is with them. “Captain, I took the liberty of directing your servants to move your belongings. I had them bring everything that was not a part of the room as issued.”
I take a deep breath, then a second. “Thank you. In the future, please refrain from so doing without my knowledge and permission.” The men look at Aria, terror in their eyes. “What’s done is done,” I say. “We can only affect the future. Gentlemen, set those down. Clarisse, was it? Please arrange my hanging clothes in a closet. I’ll put everything else away later. The rest of you are dismissed. Get invisible.” They scatter. I crook my finger at Aria. “With me into the Cap…into my study.”
I open the safe and pull out the Amulet and the Tome of the Ancients. The Amulet has a green stone in the middle of it attached to a thirty-inch chain that looks and feels like titanium.
The holoCom unit on my desk beeps. I answer it. “Captain MacTaggert, this is Chief Sunday in Robotics. The Athena unit is operational and undergoing testing. Shall I send her to you when the diagnostics are complete?” His voice is oddly familiar.
“Not until the diagnostics are complete and she is error free.” I say.
“Of course ma’am. And congratulations.”
“Chief Ron Sunday?”
“Guilty, ma’am.” Last night Johan, now Ron. It is a small ship after all.
“Thanks again, Ron. MacTaggert out.”
I hold the amulet out to Aria. “Do you know anything about this?”
“The Amulet was a gift to the Captain from one of the Masters at the Academy of Ancients. It amplifies a psionic’s ability to send his thoughts. If it has other properties, I am not aware of them. I suspect it is a telepathic booster of some sort, but psionics are outside my area of expertise. If that is the Tome of the Ancients, it is a reproduction of one of the oldest manuscripts known. Estimates place the printing of the original at approximately fifty-two thousand years ago. If you intend to read it, I believe you will find the translator program on your personal computer. Speaking of which,” she picks up the perCom Ron called on, “this is the Captain’s perCom. It already has an assortment of ‘dashboard’ programs that you will need as well as Captain Prowse’s logs. If you will allow me, I will synch the information in your personal unit into your new one.” She holds out her hand, I hand her my perCom. “Captain Prowse often remarked that the Tome was a very difficult read, much like reading a book of riddles with the punch lines moved around in a pseudorandom pattern. Ah, the cutlass. Be careful with that. The blue stud is the activator. The thumb slider determines the length of the blade. The maximum is slightly less than two meters. The green ring determines the width. I believe he found it to be most effective at six microns.”
That should cut through just about anything. It has an adhesive patch. It’s most out of the way riding on my thigh.
Aria attaches the two perComs with a small cable. My clerk, Friday, knocks on the door, “Engineer’s mate Gorb to see the Captain.” He stands behind her.
“Send him in.” I say, and she steps aside to let him pass.
“Hi, Shownya! Do I have to say Miss Captain now? Are you still gonna be my friend?”
I give him a hug and a piece of chocolate. “If it’s just us, you may call me Sonia, if there’s anybody else in the room then perhaps it should be Captain or just Ma’am. And I will always be your friend. That will never change.” He beams. “I do have a question for you: What can you tell me about your father?”
He’s a little hard to follow around the chocolate. “I don’t have a father. He died a long time ago in a cutter crash.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” That makes part of it easier anyway. We make small talk for a while then I send him back to Engineering.
When he leaves, Aria asks, “What are your plans for the cruiser when we catch it out of Transit?”
“Hopefully, I’ll be able to make arrangements to get Gwen back. Not only was that very important to our last captain, but it’s important to me on a personal level.”
My clerk calls again. “Athena is here for you, Captain.” Aria hands me my new perCom. I put my old one in the safe as Aria’s sister enters my study. I mean, she’s not identical, but the chassis are practically identical. There are some changes in the facial structure. Athena is a blonde where Aria is a brunette. But she is just as striking in her beauty.
“My Captain. I am Athena, your servant. How may I be of service to you?”
“Come in, Athena. Please sit down.” We spend a while with her teaching me what she is capable of and what I need of her. And I really don’t know what that is. “It was my predecessor’s decision that you be awakened,” I tell her. “ I have a First Officer, I have Aria as an Operations Officer. How can you best help me?”
“I am built for combat. I can easily defeat any humanoid opponent hand to hand. I am an expert with small weapons. I can fly shuttles and cutters. I speak 37,232 languages fluently. I am very skilled at medical procedures. I have the ability to read instructions and perform the subsequent task with 99.98% accuracy. I can type 739 words per minute with no errors.”
“Seems like a little overkill to make you my personal assistant, especially considering I have one of those also. So you are now the Deputy Operations Officer and my personal bodyguard. You’re to back up Aria should she become damaged or incapacitated in some way. So plug into the library and learn everything you need to do in order to do that.”
“At once, Ma’am.”
So go the rest of the days in Transit. Since I probably have less than six weeks before I will probably be leading the ship into combat, I spend a lot of time learning how to do that. Until I run out of time to study. Night Searcher has fallen out of Transit. “Captain,” Aria calls from the Bridge, “we are approaching a planet. Could you come to the Bridge, please?”
“On my way.” I use my perCom to read what the scanners reveal on my way to the Bridge. It isn’t much. The giant mass of Lacus IV looms on the forward screen. It is a Class D planet (huge but not larger than Goliath). Our guess was correct; the cruiser is achieving orbit over the planet. “Report.”
“The cruiser is assuming orbit. We cannot get power readings of any type from inside it. However, we should not be misled. That ship probably has screens of advanced types. We are forty-five minutes from orbit. Aside from four mining tugs that typically are robotic units, we detect no ships in orbit.”
“Scan the planet. Perhaps we can deduce their points of interest. Hail the cruiser. We can try this diplomacy crap one last time.”
“Scanning. It is a Class D planet, approximately forty-thousand miles in diameter. It has a very dense atmosphere, 32% water; the rest of the data will be in shortly. If they are receiving our hails, they—”
The voice of Azazeel booms from every speaker grille on the Bridge: “Do not interfere with my will. If you do, you will be destroyed.”
Rangee pipes up. “Target cruiser is assuming a very low orbit trajectory. It must be doing something that requires a certain altitude.”
I’m going to bet that Azazeel can hear us. “I have no wish to interfere with your will. You told me if I gave you the disk, you would release the girl. I have a mission that I cannot complete without her. I gave you the disk, but you kept the girl. Please release her to us. I don’t know this planet, or this sector. What you do with them has no bearing on us whatsoever. Return the girl to us, and we will be on our way.”
I look at A
ria. “Ponder this: If we were to launch missiles at that cruiser for point or proximity detonation, could we jostle their particular altitude significantly? I’m just wondering for right now.”
Azazeel is speaking again: “Away with you, toad. I do as I wish. I have bandied words with you far longer than I have with any human scum.”
Aria has an answer for me. “It is hard to say. But the hull seems to be a higher tech level of bonded, super dense material. Our scanners are unable to penetrate it. There is insufficient data to determine what effect—if any—our missiles would have on it.”
“Captain! The cruiser is deploying drones! Our ballistic computers are tracking approximately forty trajectories. They are moving into low orbits around the planet. Those vectors look like final approaches. Confirmed, they are moving to the surface.”
“Aria, get the department heads and primary staff in the conference room. I need input. We’ll start in ten minutes.” I go to my office. I don’t know why, but I feel compelled to have that Amulet with me. I slip it over my head and put it inside my flight suit. It and the chain are oddly warm, almost comforting.
I walk into the conference room and begin before sitting. “Take your seats, please. Here’s the situation: My predecessor stated that it was of the utmost importance that we escort Gwendolyn to Atlas and the Academy of the Ancients. He stated, and I quote, ‘crew and ship are expendable.’ However, if the ship is lost, I’m curious as to how the mission is to be accomplished. Although the decision is mine, I want to assure you that my reasons are neither strictly personal nor obsessive. At this time, we know nothing about the vessel, other than what I saw inside it. Likewise, we know little about the planet although our probes continue gathering data. I believe that our direction is clear. We should assault that ship and rescue Gwen. Is there any discussion?” There’s no outright dissension. Although, when I mentioned Prowse’s policy, I heard a few curses hurled towards his memory.