A. Warren Merkey

by Far Freedom

  “They just pulled on their drive envelope,” Horss commented by shiplink. “Ready when you are, Admiral.” He was addressing Khalanov.

  A bolt of lightning arced through the space door and stabbed into the blackness of the Honor, connecting the two ships with a river of power that seemed to dance menacingly close beneath the feet of the bridge crew. The blinding glare flooded the bridge until the image system quickly adjusted the luminance level.

  “Got them!” Iggy declared with clenched fist. “We’ll drain their accumulators, maybe blow a few of their emitter circuits.”

  “Why is the space door staying open for us?” Zakiya asked.

  “Probably indecision,” Iggy answered. “Drydock was still pressurized this far ahead of our departure time. They opened the door to rapidly vent drydock when our drive envelope began compressing the air. The venting helped our lightning bolt reach the Honor . It may not stay open much longer. Also, we can’t use the automatic systems to guide us through. I’m sitting here with my hand on the switch, ready to kill the drive envelope for an instant, to give us the mass to ram our way through the door. And you threatened to leave me behind!”

  Freddy hailed her by shiplink. She turned around to see where he was. “Someone is trying to push a data link through our envelope, Admiral. It appears to be a simple communications channel. The address packet requests your personal response. The caller is Admiral Etrhnk. I can quarantine it for a short period.”

  “Go ahead.” Zakiya almost felt obliged to talk to him, her opinion of him changed yet again by the dramatic appearance of members of a truly nonhuman race. She saw Etrhnk’s low-resolution image in her right eye.

  “Did you find your purpose?” he asked.

  “To find my husband,” she answered.

  Etrhnk raised an eyebrow in surprise, then the link ceased.

  Nonhumans, she pondered, beautiful golden beings! As far as she knew, only the crew of the Frontier ever encountered living nonhumans, remnants of a precursor race. Now she had met two alien species - the golden people and the Gatekeeper - and glimpsed at least one other in Oz, something called a Fesn. She wondered if the golden ones were the race Percival warned against as too lethal to take a chance of offending them. The person she once was - primarily an anthropologist - was fascinated with the prospects for studying real alien cultures.

  As the blue-white stream of electrons danced between the two ships, Iggy’s fingers darted on the manual control pads. Graphical quantifications of starship physics jumped in their display windows. The brilliant electron river abruptly vanished.

  “Lost their envelope,” Horss said. “They’ll be slow to maneuver.”

  “If we can damage their emitter grid before they can re-pattern it,” Iggy said, “they won’t be following us.”

  “They just launched twenty bombers and forty fighters. The space door is closing. Maneuvering thrust at minimum.”

  “Be careful! We can’t predict the vector in this configuration. I’m dancing the heading notch at maximum but it may still grab too much.”

  “That was the minimum?”

  Zakiya saw the space door zoom at them.

  “Drive off!”

  The acceleration jerked back as the ship’s mass realigned with the inertial reference mass of the Navy Headquarters asteroid. Zakiya staggered, holding Samson. A klaxon sounded, warning of a proximity danger. The Freedom collided with the partially closed space door, shearing away a kilometer-wide chunk of it, temporarily blinding the bridge viewpoint. They emerged into space amid tumbling debris. The Honor floated directly before them.

  “Honor is retreating, but not fast enough,” Horss said. “Closing vacuum doors in Ring Zero East. Damage Control to Ring One East.”

  “Pattern failure in our drive envelope,” Iggy said. “Fall-back pattern. Retuning. Collision interval on my mark. Mark.”

  ” Seventeen seconds,” Freddy said.

  “Engage escape route at mark plus fifteen,” Iggy said.

  “I think the space door debris got the Honor’s grid, Uncle Iggy,” Horss said.

  Uncle Iggy? The two people Zakiya most needed at this moment were the two she least trusted to be mentally stable.

  “Confirm active drive envelope,” Horss said.

  “Confirmed,” Iggy said. “But out of tune! I’ll take care of it. You scratched my ship, nephew!” Iggy added, just loud enough for Zakiya to hear: “God will take care of it, not Uncle Iggy.”

  Horss rotated the holographic display tank that floated before the captain’s chair. Then the bridge aligned with the holograph. They pointed at a patch of space computed to be clear at mark plus fifteen. To one side the asteroid bulk of Navy headquarters dwarfed them. To the opposite side the carrier Honor loomed over the dark horizon of the Freedom. Fighters and bombers formed a net above them. Below them the Navy flagship Eclipse vectored toward them, imaged like a luminous bubble rising through the dark-water sphere of the Freedom. Horss continued to rotate the angle of escape, nudging it until the last instant.

  Zakiya held her breath as Iggy worked his controls. Navy Headquarters and all the ships disappeared. The stars swirled so quickly with abrupt navigation directives they, too, disappeared. Shrouded in the darkness of its drive envelope, the Freedom leaped, stopped, darted in a new direction, stopped, and shot away into the emptiness between the stars. The distant stars reappeared as the final escape course held steady for a few moments. Far behind them the Eclipse followed, its presence detected from the scatter of particle radiation as it plowed through the interstellar quantum pathways.

  “They’re gaining on us,” Freddy reported.

  “I can’t finish retuning the envelope while navigation directives are moving it around!” Iggy complained. “We’ve got something bent near the bow. Stop the ship!”

  “And let the Eclipse catch us?” Horss asked.

  “Let me have the helm,” Zakiya said. She unwrapped Sammy as she approached the helm console and placed him gently in her lap as she sat down. She linked herself to ship sensors and selected different displays for each retina.

  “Admiral, what do you need to do?” Freddy asked. She told him. Control of the helm switched from her hands to her eyes. The data projections solidified in her sight, displacing her view of the bridge. She saw the stars. She saw the lines of light between them, the currents and tides, the waves in the ocean of space. She picked a strong current and rode it, then another and another, changing course constantly. The Eclipse followed, but slowly the distance between ships widened. With each course change came a spurt of velocity, and each time the Eclipse turned after them the gap grew larger.

  An hour passed. The sensor target of the flagship dwindled beyond visibility. Zakiya got up from the helm, leaving the ship running straight. “Get the envelope tuned, Iggy. I’m tired.”

  “What do you call that?” Horss asked.

  ” Sailing. We were luffing badly but I found winds and currents to speed us

  up. Interstellar field gradients. When you have to make speed to make money, as I did long ago, you learn to find the path of least resistance between stars.” “Do we keep this heading?”

  “We have a stop to make. Sector 53509. I’ll leave it to you to decide how to get there ahead of the Eclipse.”

  “When do we need to be there?”

  “As soon as possible, Jon.”

  “May I ask what this stop represents?”

  “Many of our crew and passengers will want to leave the ship. It will be their only chance to do so. We’ll also pick up two more crew members there.”

  “How is Captain Direk?” Horss asked.

  “He’s injured. I left him at the hospital.”

  “What happened to him?”

  Before Fidelity could answer, they both received a message from Mai.

  Section 010 He’s Dead and I Loved Him

  “He passed away. We couldn’t save him.” Mai dropped into a chair in Aylis Mnro’s office, exhausted and despondent.
/>   “You put him in stasis?” Zakiya asked.

  “Yes, but there is no hope of revival.”

  Mai’s words staggered Zakiya. “How could it be that bad?” Her voice thickened with grief. She didn’t believe what she heard!

  Sammy buried his face against her stomach. He didn’t understand Mai’s words, spoken in Standard, but he knew the meaning by her expression and tone of voice. Zakiya stroked his dark straight hair. She was shocked into numbness, her mind sent into a loop of thoughts she couldn’t break for several moments: Direk is dead! What will we do without him? What will happen to Aylis? Direk is dead! What will we do without him? What will happen to Aylis? Direk is dead!

  “We should have been able to save him, although, when I first saw the knife, I didn’t know why he was still alive. There were so many anomalies.”

  “Anomalies?”

  “He wasn’t human.”

  “Not human?”

  “He wasn’t fully biological! We were unprepared! Something vital was destroyed when the knife pierced that part of his body. We could repair his heart and lung and aorta but the other structures were unknown to us.”

  “Then it wasn’t the real Direk.” Zakiya was desperate to find some hope.

  “Aylis thinks he was a copy, but we still have our doubts.”

  Zakiya was unable to decide how to feel. She could feel relieved, but that would deny the value of the sacrifice. He wasn’t the real Direk but he was a real person. She was sure of it.

  “He didn’t want to die,” Mai said. “He was fighting to live. Then he knew he was losing the fight. He was so… sad!”

  Aylis walked into the office wiping her face with a small towel. Her eyes were red and puffy. She held the towel to her nose for several moments, then sat down with it and looked down at the floor. She leaned back and covered her face with the towel. She moved the towel under her nose again and closed her eyes.

  “He wasn’t your son.” Zakiya wanted Aylis to agree with her statement but was unsure if she should say anything at all to Aylis.

  “When you brought him to me with that knife in him,” Aylis said emotionally, “he was my son! When he began to slip away from us on the operating table, he was my son! And then, when I finally understood what he was… He was conscious, and he saw that I knew… He said ‘I love you.’ And he gave up!” Her voice broke and she choked on a sob. “I loved him as my real son at that moment. I hope he saw that. I kissed him and held him, until he… He was very much my son, even being what he was - especially being what he was! This is very hard for me! Impossible for me!”

  Jamie stopped when the door opened upon the scene in Doctor Mnro’s office. Something was very wrong. “Captain Direk?” When Demba turned her way, when Demba shook her head, she felt like she had been punched in the gut.

  How could that mean what it seemed to mean? “No!” Jamie shouted. Doctor Mnro opened her eyes. The grief Jamie saw in those eyes devastated her. Mnro started to say something but didn’t. “But…” Jamie tried to speak. Words failed her. People lived long lives but she had seen death many times. She even welcomed it. This was somehow different, worse. “But you can save anyone! I just don’t understand! He was your son!”

  “And I let him die.” Mnro struggled t speak. “I could not save him.”

  “I’m so very sorry, ma’am! I didn’t mean… I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way. I shouldn’t be here. I’m sorry!”

  “You came. Don’t go away. Tell me why you came.”

  “He visited me last night.” Jamie was surprised at her own difficulty to speak, as though Mnro’s grief infected her. “He came to tell me I was promoted, and to ask me what happened to you.”

  “You told him?”

  “No, ma’am.” She stopped. She had so many questions she needed to ask and it was the wrong time. Aylis Mnro had lost her son. And she was raped. Jamie’s questions would wait.

  “It must have been a very brief visit.” The woman gave Jamie much more attention than she deserved. It was strange that Mnro could even talk to her at this tragic moment in her life. Mnro was obviously making a supreme effort to continue talking.

  “It was mysterious.” Jamie shook her head at her mental turmoil. She had led Marines in combat and buried comrades who died the real death. She wasn’t afraid of anything but she couldn’t find her courage now. There would be a time in the future when it would not burden a grieving mother, and when that grief would not hurt Jamie as much as it seemed to. She shook her head again, looking down at the floor.

  “You were six years old.” Jamie looked up at Mnro, saw her take a deep breath, stare into her face, take another breath. “Your mother had to go away. I wanted to keep you for her, keep you young, so she wouldn’t lose your childhood when she returned for you. I needed to put you in stasis. You cried and cried for your mother! I couldn’t do it! I made Direk do it. Nor could he put you in stasis. He took you to your father’s parents and they raised you.”

  Jamie tried to accept what Doctor Mnro told her. She couldn’t absorb it so suddenly, even though she already knew Demba was her mother. Why didn’t they explain everything at the beginning? Captain Direk knew her, cared for her so much that he avenged her rape! Why didn’t she remember him? Why were they so cruel to the child she once was? Why did her mother abandon her? She looked at Demba and saw infinite sadness. Demba. Her mother! It would be obscene to open herself to the woman at a moment such as this. She didn’t know if she even could.

  Admiral Demba kept her worried gaze on Jamie as she held Sammy against her. Sammy tried to pull away in Jamie’s direction, drawing the admiral with him. Jamie knelt down before Sammy, perhaps to postpone the ultimate confrontation of her life. She observed the marks on his neck in the shape of fingers. He was injured, strangled! She embraced him without thinking, just feeling.

  “She’s your mother,” Sammy said softly close to her ear, and he caused her to make a decision.

  Jamie stood up and faced her mother. She saw tears in her dark eyes. “Mother,” Jamie said.

  “Daughter,” she quietly replied.

  How long was Jamie without hope of ever finding her real parents? How many times did she petition the Mnro Clinics for the identity of her parents? How many times did she dream about the moment that had now arrived? Yet she didn’t come here to greet her mother. She came to ask about Captain Direk. As much as her real mother meant to her, she could find little happiness while knowing Direk died.

  “Jamie.” Demba reached toward her.

  Jamie retreated a step from her mother. Her mother! She abandoned her! Why did Direk abandon her? Why did she think of that? “How… How did… Why did he…?” Her mind broke open, and what she saw was too bright, too illuminating, too real!

  They sat in the waiting room, their admission data completed. They were an old couple, like others they saw at the Mnro Clinic. A couple. But not married. Why? They had known each other for so long, had worked together and shared danger and hardship. Why not married? Why did she think about it now? Why did they need to be married? Having a child was out of the question. After the Clinic cured their aging and pruned their memories, would they care? Would they even stay together?

  They had earned a good living, prospecting in unsettled regions of space. Geology wasn’t the love of her life, but… Direk was! She couldn’t lose him now! They must stay together! The future would be better. They had financial resources now, even after paying the Mnro Clinic for continuation.

  Continuity. That was what the Clinic called it. Not immortality. Because the brain became too plastic to keep all its memories while the age damage was repaired. She wanted to continue, but she didn’t want to lose her feelings for Direk. It took too many years to come to understand him and to accept him.

  She looked at his age-lined face, still pale and handsome despite the injuries and blindness. She was thankful he couldn’t see clearly how age treated her own features. She pulled him close and kissed him.

  “I love you
, Jamie,” he said, holding her face against his. She tried to remember when he ever said that to her so factually, yet so intensely. It filled her old heart with warmth and made her kiss him again. He was a wonderful old man. He would be a wonderful young man. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “For what we never had. For what we may never have. For what I remember. For what you don’t remember.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  The door to the waiting room opened and a woman came forth. At first she didn’t recognize her. Her eyesight was poor. Then she didn’t believe who the woman appeared to be as she came close enough to see her better. Aylis Mnro! Out of all the thousands of Mnro Clinics why would she be here?

  “Is it her?” Direk asked.

  She realized she never really understood Direk!

  Jamie shuddered and emotion twisted her face. She started to shake and a moan escaped from deep in her body. She put her hands behind her head. She swayed back and forth with her eyes closed and tears streaming down her cheeks. She struggled as a terrible sadness attacked her.

  Zakiya tried to hold her daughter but she could not be held and could not be consoled. Eventually Jamie exhausted herself. She tried to wipe her face on her uniform sleeves but Aylis intervened with a clean towel.

  “You remembered,” Aylis said. “What did you remember?”

  Jamie shook her head, pushed a fist against her mouth. “He’s dead. He’s dead and I loved him!” She turned and walked quickly out of the room.

  Zakiya went to the door and saw her daughter running away. Aylis stepped behind Zakiya in the doorway and peered over her shoulder. “Somebody else loved him.”

  “He took better care of my daughter than you expected.” As much as Zakiya had loved her daughter as a six-year-old, she now fell in love with the person she had become.

  Section 011 The Name of Her Husband