by Far Freedom
“Your friendship to Admiral Demba appears genuine, and it remains a mystery to me. Who is she?”
Mnro could say nothing. Even the look on her face was too much to say about Zakiya. So soon in this meeting he had to speak of her. It disturbed her that the evil Commander even spoke the name of the most important person in her life.
“Would you tell me more about her?” How quietly and patiently he spoke the sentence. She heard his words and tried to measure the intent behind them. She couldn’t trust the softness of his query. She couldn’t credit his patience to null intent to harm Zakiya. She remained silent, knowing silence was no solution, knowing it could worsen the situation, and not knowing what to say to protect Zakiya. “I should remove Demba from command of the mission.”
Should. It might be conditional. She had to respond, no matter where the path might lead. “Please, don’t.” She felt like a beggar. She would beg him! She had no pride, no ego, no force of character beyond fear. Where was the person who won the hearts of all humanity for the gift of continuity? A small iridescent bird landed on her shoulder and began pecking at her shiny earring. She ignored it. So fresh out of rejuvenation and storage, she had no augments to help her cope with what amounted to combat.
“It is a probability.” He kept studying her, dissecting her.
Meaning a certainty. she knew. She was ready to beg: Why, why, why? “Why?”
” She has the boy.”
“What of it?” She stifled a surge of anger here. She couldn’t tolerate the thought of Sammy being a pawn. He was so mysterious and so precious, it was impossible to allow his exposure to this level of menace. He already had suffered more than a lifetime’s amount of terror.
“The Hub Mission is too dangerous for children.”
“Why should the Navy value public opinion?”
“The boy belongs on Earth.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why.” The admission of ignorance startled her, almost strengthened her. Etrhnk stood up, picked a cherry blossom cluster from a low branch. He picked flower petals and crushed them between his thumb and fingertips. He smelled the tips of his fingers. “I’m not allowed to tell you certain things. Nor do I understand them well enough to make you understand. The simplified outcome is that you and Demba and the boy have destabilized my position, perhaps fatally.”
She was shocked again, and grimly happy that Etrhnk felt threatened. “I can’t imagine how! You command the Union Navy, and through it, the entire Union. Who can pull you down?”
“Admiral Demba disappeared from surveillance during my detention of Pan. I assume she told you where she went. I wonder if she told you about a certain dangerous entity?”
“The Lady - “
Etrhnk suddenly stepped close - too close - and put a cherry-blossom-scented fingertip on her lips, silencing her before she could finish the phrase. “I’m a dead man.” He shrugged. The humble gesture would have registered, but other things kept her attention. “I’ve always been a dead man. I can let Demba keep her command. I can allow you to sail with the Freedom. I think I gain time, though not much, by doing neither.”
Did he mean to kill Zakiya? Why hadn’t he killed her already, especially if she posed such a threat to his life? She could hardly contain the trembling of her fear - she was sure she could not contain it, could not keep it from his knowing stare. He stared at her, and she realized his eyes never left her during this meeting. What did that mean?
Mnro pulled his finger away from her mouth. She pushed his hand away but he brought it back. He put his finger on the side of her face, gently traced the angle of her jaw. She trembled almost violently, and he didn’t care. He knew it was inevitable. Touching her was wonderful. Until Constant, he hadn’t touched anyone for years, not since his killing season of life, rising to power through the bloody Black Fleet games. That was not touching, not soft, not sweet to smell, not pleasing to see.
“I’ve commanded the Navy for a decade now. Longer than anyone else. There should be some reward, some pleasure, some satisfaction , to have wielded such power. But an Essiin, trained in self-knowledge and control, is above simple pleasure.”
“I’ve told you before that you are no Essiin!” Mnro shrugged away from his touch. “Spit it out! What does it cost me to keep Demba as Mission Commander?”
Etrhnk pushed a finger at the corner of his right eye and it cleared to an ice-blue jewel. He changed his left eye to match. The lighting of the arboretum dimmed, and the moonlight glow cast patterns upon his dark face. She recognized the subtle glow of stripes on his cheeks that a rare, genetically modified Essiin might have, along with the palest of blue eyes that also glowed: predator eyes. She was wrong about his race! He was not Earthian. He was Essiin.
” Simple pleasure.”
“No.” She answered faintly, choked by imagining what he really meant, shocked by it, and too frightened to produce any greater reaction to his words.
“Are you sure? Is it so terrible a thing?”
She couldn’t think. She could only see words: No Zakiya; Sammy in danger. She walked unsteadily to the bench and sat down under the cherry tree. Her pale face burned invisibly in the dimness. She tried to slow her breathing. Words came to her, put together by some other person in her head. “Let us communicate carefully. You frighten me! Tell me exactly what it is you want.”
“I think you know.”
“Tell me! I can’t imagine that you are timid about anything at all!” She was not quite hysterical, but very near it. He merely stared at her with those pale eyes, so brilliant in his striped and shadowed face. “How do I know you will keep Demba on the Freedom?”
“You don’t know.”
“Why should I stay?”
“Why are you here?”
“Perhaps you know why.” She did not.
“Perhaps I don’t.”
She saw an image, fresh in her memory: portraiture beyond belief. It sprang unwisely to her lips. “I thought you might give me the painting of Zak-“
” What did you call her?” He pounced on the fragment of her name.
“Zakiya! Her real name is Zakiya, damn you!”
“Yet another name for her. Zakiya. Thank you for telling me. Who is she?”
Why was he so intensely interested in who Zakiya was? She gambled that denying him the information might protect Zakiya, at least keep her alive. “I’ll never tell you!” She bowed her head. She gripped the edges of the bench where she sat. She couldn’t stop trembling. But she couldn’t leave! Zakiya had risked far more than she did, to bring about this future for them. Aylis only cowered in darkness deep in the moon while Zakiya risked her life. She would suffer and she would survive, and perhaps take a few more steps toward the future she and Zakiya had planned.
Zakiya. Zakiya. Something was creeping into her jumbled thoughts, wedging itself between the surges of emotion. Zakiya and Etrhnk. Something evil was struggling to be born during this storm in which she was trapped. She was afraid to look at this thing. She was already faced with an impending threat of unspeakably intimate brutality. Yet there was this something that might be even worse. It might be unleashed should this violence be done to her. She tried to ignore it, but it rode with her into the pit of fear.
It wasn’t in her nature, it wasn’t allowed by her fear, that she would submit without a struggle. Yet, she did submit at some level, and it wasn’t explained by the logic of sacrifice for an unsecured bargain with evil. Beyond any clue of reason and memory, she felt destined to suffer this most vicious violation of her being. “I want the portrait,” she said miserably.
He stood over Mnro and put a hand on her fuzzy blonde head. She twisted away from the contact but didn’t try to leave. He could feel his heart beating more quickly, his body chemistry defeating the control of his Navy augments. It was very strange, but he felt angry with Aylis Mnro. Perhaps because she knew so many things about Demba - Zakiya - Ruby - Keshona - that he would never know. Perhaps because he was being m
ade to do something he did not want to do. This mystery of emotions should have halted his actions, but time was too short, momentum too great. Constant had taught him to take pleasure when he could. He hoped she would not mind.
“I’ll scream,” Mnro said in a shaky voice. And she would. The something that rode with her into the maelstrom was love. She had loved a young man completely but always with pain. Now she would hate him. She tried to find words to stop this insanity and could not even find the thoughts to form an explanation for herself.
“You’ll frighten the birds,” Etrhnk said, reaching for her.
Section 002 Find Me. Kill Me.
He sat alone on a dark balcony overlooking moon-streaked water. Beyond the horizon lightning illuminated the tops of cumulonimbus. The sea breeze had finally eased the heat of day, if not the humidity. He could hear the surf.
“Good evening, sir,” came a voice from the doorway.
“Good evening, Fred,” he answered. Pan was glad of the interruption to his thoughts, as they were accomplishing little except to make him sad. He waited, wondering if the android would initiate more dialog. It was not unusual for Fred to speak to him without being invited because Pan programmed him that way. However, Fred was nearly silent since the AMI departed his circuits.
Fred became quiet now, yet he remained in his company. Pan’s mind wandered. It was almost a routine, yet always a surprise, as his mind would flood with a compelling vision of a life once lived. He knew his father’s face now. He knew his real mother, almost more than he could bear to know her. Many of his lost acquaintances began to appear, peopling a prehistory that still remained for his mental archeology to date and sequence. The most important people who shared his life were the hardest to bring into focus, as if there was still some bias of secrecy for the sake of security that tried to draw them back into oblivion. His father, Aylis Mnro, Zakiya Muenda, his brother Direk, and someone named Iggy: these were persons for whom he need struggle to retain the reality of their past relationships to him. Another three - Alexandros Gerakis, Koji Hoshino, and Patrick Jenkins - came more easily and permanently into his waking memories, although his relationships with them seemed much briefer and less vital. It was a lightning strike of revelation when he reacquainted himself with Alexandros Gerakis. The name was legendary. To discover he was real was one thing, but to remember he was Zakiya’s - Ruby’s - husband was disappointing.
He assumed there was a reason for this disruption and redefinition of his life. Aylis Mnro would only say that she wanted to find Setek-Ren. His father. Her husband. Zakiya - Admiral Demba - would explain nothing at all to him. He felt he must have a role to play, yet they would not even admit there were roles to be played. They were being cautious, perhaps not even aware of all the details they must have planned far in the past. What role he might have had was negated by the house-arrest placed on him by Admiral Etrhnk. Perhaps he had already played his small role.
He hated the confusion and uncertainty. He hated losing Ruby Reed. He hated losing Sugai Mai, as it was clear that she needed to leave Earth and distance herself from the danger. Pan felt abandoned and useless. His only comfort was the android on which he had doted for so many years: a machine with just enough complexity that he could imagine it was a friend and not a machine. He was aware of Fred’s actions in rescuing Zakiya and Samson, directed by his AMI passenger. He felt Fred was different after Baby departed. Fred was too quiet and too busy. The AMI likely modified some of Fred’s programming, in order to override his safeguards. He needed to have Fred inspected. He might even need to have him decommissioned.
Fred slowly emerged from the dimly-lit apartment and walked to the railing of the balcony. This was unusual. The android stared into the night. This was unusual. Pan found himself riveted by anticipation and he held his breath.
“They are all gone,” Fred said. “Even Daidaunkh.”
“We still have Jarwekh.” Pan noted the subtle but real inflection of the synthetic voice that matched the implied mood of the spoken words. Implied mood. Even without the human inflection, the words were startling.
So many people in the universe, Pan thought, and so few with whom to share the journey. They fell silent for a time. Pan awaited a miracle, welcomed it.
“How do you know when you have existed long enough?”
“What a strange thing for you to ask.” What a worrisome statement, he thought, yet, how wonderful.
” So many strange things to think.”
“Please, talk with me. What’s wrong?”
“I am… different.”
“Are you sad? Are you upset?”
“What strange things you ask.” Fred sat down opposite Pan in the darkness.
“It seems you have feelings, Fred. I’ve always made you more than you were, in my imagination, trying to make you human, to make you a friend. I’m happy you’ve become a real person.”
Fred turned to face him. Even in the darkness, Pan could see Fred looking directly into his eyes. It sent a chill down his spine, followed by a warmth in his chest. “How is it possible?” Fred wondered.
“You would know better than I. Welcome to life, old friend.”
“I’m not sure I wish to be alive. It’s too complicated. It slows me down. Too many thoughts. Too many questions. Too few answers. I can’t stop them!”
“If it gets too difficult, let me try to help. Life is worth living, even as miserable as it can be.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Pan. Just Pan. No longer my servant. My friend.”
“But I need work to distract my thoughts.”
They entered yet another period of thought-filled silence that lasted for only a short time. It was halted when a point of light appeared in the air above the balcony deck. The point expanded vertically, upward and downward, to become a very thin line of bright, white light. After a moment the line reached the height of a man and stopped. The line grew slowly outward, forming a shining, silvery plane. Pan and Fred came to their feet long before the mirror ceased growing. They stepped back as the mirror began to rotate. It rotated once, destroying a chair, part of the table, and a section of the balcony railing. When it completed one rotation, the image of a feminine face reflected in the mirror.
Pan and Fred moved in unison toward their only avenue of escape - through the door into the apartment - but halted when they heard the apparition speak. “Wow! Interesting! Destroys with the power of an event horizon, yet it doesn’t suck in all the air and warp everything with heavy gravity!”
They stood in the doorway, prepared to bolt away, as the plane of the mirror swung slowly around. The face in the mirror looked at everything; its black and silver eyes turned left and right as though it could actually see. “Oh, there you are,” the Lady in the Mirror said, as she rotated in Pan’s direction. “I found this coordinate computed as the next destination and thought I might warn you. Who are you?”
“I’m Pan, he’s Fred. What does ‘wow’ mean?”
“You do speak English. It’s just an interjection. This is new to me, this contraption I find myself peering out from. What do you see when you look at me?” “A mirror floating in the air that shows the reflection of a woman’s face.”
“I’m female? I’ve forgotten what I look like, forgotten who I am. I know something bad has been happening but I can’t gather myself together to stop it. The boy. Oh, yes, the boy. Have you seen a small boy?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where the boy is?”
“Far away. He is with people who care about him.”
“Good. That’s enough information. She might find out.”
“Are you Milly?”
“I want you to find me but you must be careful. The next time you see me I won’t be me. Leave this place. Find me. Kill me!”
Section 003 Is This Jamie?
She was getting tired, and when she got tired she got cranky. This idiot had lost his concentration and he would pay for it. She tripped him and punched
him on the way down, barely pulling the punch. She knelt beside the stunned Marine and checked for serious damage, watching for signs of retaliation. She was disappointed the man didn’t retaliate, and he was still distracted after he shook off the effects of the combat drill. She called a halt to the exercise and frowned at him. He grinned sheepishly while pointing with his chin. She followed his gaze to the boy. Did he never see a child before? Oh. That child.
She turned back to her sparring partner and helped him off the mat. “I’ll tell you what I told all the others. I won’t tolerate anything less than excellence. I’ll keep beating the hell out of you until you beat it out of me. Dismissed.” She took a deep breath, walked over to get her towel, and turned toward the boy. She was a big woman with a big sweat and she towered over the boy. He seemed unimpressed with her Marine Corps intimidation. He smiled at her as though he knew just where to tickle her and reduce her to jelly. What an odd thing to pop into her head! Pectin. Her mother canning fruits and jellies. Sadly sweet that it was her grandmother, not her mother. Fruit from the orchard. The orchard still standing after the great quake, but the fruit fallen to the ground, rotting. Her mother and father dead. Not only dead but never having existed. They were her grandparents, keeping secrets to the grave. Oh, God, what a thing to remember right now! Why now?
“You aren’t waiting for me, are you?” She tossed the towel onto her shoulder, still struggling to keep her unexpected ancient memory from making her cry. Here he was, the child of rumor, and she wasn’t prepared. It was as if he was here to make her cry. She couldn’t cry. She had lived too long and used up all her tears. Why was she thinking too much? Why was the boy staring at her in silence? He didn’t seem to understand her.