Galaxia

by Kevin McLaughlin

  It might be hard, but he could do it. He’d always been interested in learning other languages and had already taught himself how to greet people and say basic phrases in French, German, Japanese, and Russian.

  Of course, it was easier for him than for the other children because his parents had given him the language-app brain implant a few years early. It was partly because his mom was a Fleet pilot and had a good health plan, but it was also something to do with his own brain.

  There was something a bit different about him, he knew that. He heard his parents talking about it every now and then, but he couldn’t quite make sense of it. Sometimes it sounded like they were talking about how smart he was. They would say things like “well outside the normal range,” like he was way ahead of the other kids.

  Sometimes it sounded like they were talking about how dumb he was, like he couldn’t understand what other people were saying. They seemed to think the language app would help with his “verbal comprehension,” as if he needed to catch up with everyone else his age.

  Once his mom had even told his dad she felt guilty for dropping him off at the nursery almost as soon as he was born so she could get back to her career. She had asked him if that might be why he had “these verbal problems,” but his dad just got irritated.

  Like so many other things, it didn’t make sense. But if he taught himself Arabic, his parents would know he was smart and had plenty of verbal comprehension. Even better than that, when he grew up, he could get into the Fleet and go to other planets like that officer mom had met. He could do interesting things instead of just being stuck on T3 all the time. He would work with people who were nice and fun to talk to, people who liked him and cared about how he felt.

  A sudden BANG interrupted Jack’s planning. He gasped out loud and looked up with his eyes wide and panicky, but it was only a fire balloon. The other children were laughing and pointing at Mahmoud, who grinned and bowed.

  Just about every kid on the planet loved fire balloons, but Jack hated them. He despised noise and he detested surprising sounds, like Daddy shouting or slamming a door. Fire balloons were both at the same time, especially when someone popped one while you weren’t looking.

  Daddy often talked about things like fire balloons and VR headsets on his holo, ranting angrily about the “political and sociological ramifications.” He tried to ask his father what he meant by that more than once, but every time his dad would just get angry and start yelling again.

  Mrs. Lane-Roc burst through the door. Children scattered to their own seats. She glared at the room but couldn’t keep an angry face up for long. “Now children,” she spoke at last, “you know as well as I do that fire balloons are not allowed in school. I expected better of you. Now instead of looking at what I wanted to show you — which I can’t find anyway — we’ll just read out loud from the module. Mahmoud, you can go first.”

  Jack was already daydreaming again. Arabic was interesting, but he also had to remember to learn Modern Thanglish. He could start it next term, and by the time he was ready to apply to the Academy, he’d have it down. Getting into the Academy was important, and if you wanted to get in you had to have decent Modern Thanglish.

  Mrs. Lane-Roc interrupted his thoughts again. “Jack? It’s your turn to read to the class, Jack. Try to keep up, now. I know it’s hard for you.”

  Jack’s face burned as he opened the module. Why did everyone treat him like he was dumb? There were so many things he wanted to learn about, so many things that interested him, so why did Mrs. Lane-Roc say it was difficult for him?

  Chapter Three

  In the Department of Material Science’s medical station, Dr. Marius Jeong was preparing for a most unfortunate and unwelcome conference call. Behavioral problems were always uncomfortable for him to deal with because they forced him to take steps that could have a severe impact on an employee’s life or career.

  This case was even more unhappy than the usual because the man they were about to discuss was the star of the department. An authentic genius, Paul Klingerman was much more than a brilliant troublemaker — the man saved lives. He had performed a brilliant rescue operation within the past few days. And this wasn’t a simple case of an addiction or personality disorder that needed treatment. It was much worse than that.

  The call came in, and Dr. Jeong brought up the holo. As far as he could tell, the Board that oversaw his department was meeting on a space station. The purplish light in the background came from tinted windows, absorbing Sol’s rays to help power the structure. It made the men and women on the Board look garish and vaguely sinister.

  After calling the meeting to order, Karen Medici addressed Dr. Jeong. “Thank you for joining us, Doctor. As you know, we’re meeting to address the situation with Paul Klingerman after his assault on Ander Biskarret. According to my records, he had previously threatened the same colleague. Is that correct?”

  Dr. Jeong nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. During the incident with the mining ship network, he used threats of violence to motivate Biskarret into doing what he wanted. I’d like to point out, though, as a mitigating factor, that Biskarret proceeded to do something he didn’t think he was capable of doing, and it saved many lives.”

  “Duly noted,” chimed one of the other Board members, a man named Dar.

  Medici interrupted, “Duly noted? Irrelevant! The purpose of this review is not to resolve the question of whether people can be motivated by threats of violence — we’ve known that since the Stone Age. The purpose is to decide whether he’s a danger to himself and others. He came into his workplace, verbally quarreled with Biskarret, then assaulted him. That’s the line we said he couldn’t cross the last time his little outbursts came up as an issue.”

  “What led to the quarrel?” inquired a large man with drooping cheeks. “If Biskarret did what he asked him to…”

  Medici made no attempt to hide her irritation. “Does it matter? Biskarret filed a complaint about his abusive language, which he had every right to do. Klingerman’s response was to carry out his original threat.”

  Dr. Jeong tried to intercede. “The nano-neurotransmitters…”

  “We’ve already tried them,” explained another Board member. “At your insistence, Doctor. You said it could alleviate the symptoms of his anti-social anger. What went wrong?”

  “He’s been unresponsive. But if we increase the dose…”

  Medici spoke over him. “He doesn’t even realize he’s been dosed at all. How far down that ethical rabbit hole are you willing to go?”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” the doctor replied. “We’re well past the point where we can continue to handle this as discreetly as we had hoped. The man doesn’t know about his real condition, and that’s the crux of the problem. He probably just thinks he has an issue with his temper and wonders why he can’t control it. We need to bring him in for neurological scans and keep him detained until we know more.”

  The Board members were surprised to hear him say this. He’d been an advocate of the hands-off approach, hoping the nano-neurotransmitters would stabilize Klingerman enough that he could be studied discreetly. Now he had decided to go all-in.

  Medici wasn’t sure. “You want to keep him detained? Won’t that violate his legal rights?”

  “Not if it can be shown that he’s a danger to himself or others. After the assault on Biskarret, our models indicate a 60% probability of domestic violence.”

  Medici sighed. “We have to keep that from happening. It’s what we were worried about as soon as we determined there was a family conflict.”

  Dar spoke up. “Does Klingerman realize anything is wrong with him? He must have noticed something!”

  Dr. Jeong shook his head. “Not as far as I can tell. He hasn’t looked up any symptoms on the Loon Network, which is usually the first thing people do when they think they have a medical problem, and he hasn’t sought treatment or therapy. The evidence suggests he has no idea.”

  “He’s probably
so used to it he doesn’t even question it,” Medici theorized, “and that’s even more dangerous. The last thing we want here is a domestic incident Our department would be blamed for it if that happened. And with the Referendum coming up…”

  “I agree,” added Dar. “It’s time to take action. What are the prospects for a full cure, Dr. Jeong?”

  The prospects were nil, or close to nil, but Jeong didn’t want to say that. This case was too unusual and important. “I can’t say for sure till I perform the scans, but I’d say we have an excellent chance. With my experimental techniques…”

  “The less you say about that, the better,” Dar replied. “Let the Yes-voters worry about accountability. Real government depends on the exact opposite.”

  Medici shook her head. “I know you think your cynicism is amusing, Dar, but it just exposes how adolescent your thinking really it is.”

  The man chuckled, seemingly unperturbed by this criticism. “Who was being cynical? I believe in giving brilliant thinkers like Jeong here a lot of leeway. Unless they go around attacking people, like our unfortunate Mr. Klingerman.”

  “So we’re agreed then?” she asked. There was no objection, so she turned to Dr. Jeong. “You’re authorized to detain him indefinitely. But he’s a valuable asset to the Federation, so the sooner you can get him back to his old self, the better.”

  A thin and frail-looking old woman spoke up next. “'The sooner the better' means before the Referendum. At my age, I don’t see any point in mincing words. Your funding is in danger here. Understood?”

  Their requests were meaningless. There wasn’t any realistic possibility of a full cure. Dr. Jeong’s goal was not to fix Klingerman’s brain but to understand it. As always with bureaucrats, you had to tell them what they wanted to hear or you couldn’t get anywhere. The best strategy was usually to phrase things so they got the wrong impression without actually lying.

  Dr. Jeong had no choice but to agree “Of course. I’ll do all I can for him, and I’ll keep you posted at every opportunity.”

  The call ended abruptly, which was probably the board’s way of reminding him who was boss. Dr. Jeong didn’t mind. They had just given him everything he needed. The abnormality of Klingerman’s symptoms, and the fact that normal treatments weren’t working implied that there was something fundamentally different about the man’s brain. A simple chemical imbalance or even a traumatic brain injury would have been more responsive to the nano-neurotransmitters. The cause of his symptoms must have been something else, as he had suspected all along. If he was right, this was the first genuine case of neurological mutation any scientist had ever had the opportunity to study.

  A few seconds later, the formal authorization came through on his personal device. This had the effect of a warrant, so he forwarded it to Fleet Security along with an official request to supply the troops needed to make the arrest.

  There was no point in waiting, not with so much work to be done. They would pick up Paul Klingerman that evening at home and get started on the research that could change the whole Federation. It was unfortunate that they had to disrupt the poor man’s family life, but he was most likely a danger to them anyway. In the end, it was best for everyone.

  Chapter Four

  Back at home with his mother and father, Jack was working on his language app. He’d been right about Arabic — the lessons were hard — but the more he worked on it, the more confident he felt. Things just seemed to fall into place for him. At first, he couldn’t figure out why they put sentences together the way they did, but soon he was doing it himself without even thinking about it. Totally absorbed, Jack stared at the holoscreen and practiced sample sentences while his parents cooked dinner.

  “They sent out a messenger, but he did not come back… Ali is generous to orphans… God always knows what you have done…”

  That last phrase was a little upsetting. It was like the holocams, but the holocams didn’t see everything. The idea of this God made Jack nervous, like he would get in trouble somehow even if no one saw him doing something wrong.

  The other phrases were interesting and a little bit funny. They didn’t seem to be about regular life. There wasn’t anything about snacks or teachers or flying in a car. Instead, it was all about orphans and messengers and deserts. It made Arabic that much more fun, this feeling that it was all very strange and different.

  He heard Mommy’s voice. “Could you pass me the salt?”

  “Yeah, hold on.” His father was glancing at the holobox, where a newscaster was talking about the things that had happened that day.

  The newscaster’s voice was stern and disapproving. “As the Referendum approaches, acts of sabotage and illegal protests by opponents of the Yes-vote have been on the rise. Chaim Aaronson, a prominent spokesperson for the No-voters, has condemned all forms of opposition that go beyond the limits set by law…”

  The door chimed, alerting them that there was someone outside. Jack’s mother glanced at the holoscreen above the door.

  “Paul?” she called in a half-whisper, her voice catching in her throat.

  He snapped back at her. “I said hold on a sec, I’m trying to hear this!”

  Then the newscast cut out, replaced on the holobox feed by the image of the men outside. There was a doctor in a lab coat, along with what looked like two soldiers with armbands that read FS.

  Daddy wheeled around, snarling with anger and surprise. “What the hell? Fleet security? That bastard Biskarret…”

  The door slid open. Jack’s father clenched his fists and glared at the man in the lab coat. “Dr. Jeong! What the hell are you doing in my house?”

  Jack hadn’t been anxious about the men until now. People from Daddy’s work visited all the time; there was no reason for this visit to be any different. But Daddy was almost yelling. Something was different about this visit. His heart began beating faster, and he edged back away from the men.

  Dr. Jeong’s voice was grave. “Good evening, Paul. I’m afraid I need you to come with me.”

  Daddy sneered. “And why is that? How did you get here in anyway? My security system…”

  “I’ll explain everything when we get back to the facility, but there’s nothing wrong with your system. As you know, any Detention Order can electronically override home security.”

  He tapped his device and a hologram appeared. Jack could see green letters and numbers, but they were too far away for him to read except for the words on top: DETENTION ORDER.

  Daddy moved slowly around behind the kitchen island. There was a knife in front of him, right next to a cutting board covered with a big heap of diced tomatoes and onions. His eyes went to it, and so did the doctor’s eyes. Dr. Jeong looked a little bit scared, but Daddy's expression was wild, like he might grab the knife and do something crazy.

  Dr. Jeong glanced at the soldiers on either side of him and they fanned out, one going left and the other right.

  Jack’s mother suddenly seemed to realize what was happening. Her voice cracked in fear as she cried out. “PAUL!”

  Daddy’s voice was cold and calm. “It’s going to be okay, Diane. I’m not going anywhere. A Fleet Detention Order is an internal matter, it has no force of law except over Fleet personnel. And I’m quitting the service. As of right this second, you have no authority to enforce that order, Dr. Jeong.”

  “That isn’t how it works, Paul, and you know it. You need help. Come with me to the hospital, and we’ll get it all straightened out. You have a serious medical condition.”

  The soldiers were creeping closer, and Daddy’s eyes were darting from side to side.

  “Hold it right there!” he barked. They stopped for a moment, and his hand hovered over the knife on the cutting board. He looked right in the doctor’s eyes. “Get what straightened out? That thing with Biskarret? What a load of crap! He was running his mouth, so I smacked it shut for him. What’s wrong with that?”

  The doctor’s voice held a hint of empathy. “It’s atavistic. A
reversion to primitive humanity. On some distant colony, world people might still act that way, but here on T3…”

  “Here on T3! That’s a joke and you know it! You didn’t bring these jackasses along to hold my hand…”

  One of the soldiers dove at him and Jack’s father tried to grab the knife at the same time. He didn’t make it. The soldier who had moved first grabbed his right arm, and the other soldier rushed in from the other side and grabbed his left arm. Jack’s mother screamed, a sound that made the child's gut clench with fear and concern. His mom hardly ever showed that much emotion, so it meant that something really bad was happening. The soldiers cranked Daddy’s arms up behind his back, and he thrashed from side to side like a dog on a tight leash.

  Mommy burst out sobbing, “Oh God… oh God…”

  Jack couldn’t help it. Seeing his mother sob like that was too much for him to take. He started yelling, “NOOO! STOP IT!!!”

  Daddy bared his teeth in a grimace. Jack had seen him angry many times, but never like this. This didn’t even look like his Daddy. “You sons of bitches! You corrupt, ignorant…”

  The doctor opened the door. “I’m genuinely sorry, Paul. It’s like I said, you have a serious condition — a brain condition. We’re going to help you, but you need to come to the hospital.”

  Jack’s father went limp, and they were forced to drag him across the floor. “I’ll never cooperate! I’ll never accept this! YOU CANNOT HOLD ME!”

  Despite his defiance, they had Daddy out the door in a matter of seconds. A chair toppled over, hitting the floor with a loud crash. Then they were gone, leaving Jack and his mother alone. He stopped yelling and just stared at the chair. Did they really just steal his Daddy?