by Far Freedom
“The protocols for engagement between the two environments seem flexible,” Iggy said to Zakiya and the others. “It is as though someone is deciding where the boundaries should lie and what they should do to each other. I thought there should be a fixed set of possibilities arising out of physical laws that govern what a cryptikon does. Of course, it’s so far beyond us that I’m an idiot for even raising this question.” Iggy shrugged. “All of these light areas may represent other addresses, other cryptikons.” He showed the patterns which allowed selection of addresses. “They don’t respond, however.” He touched one. It did respond. A shining corridor of indeterminate scale that extended to infinity in either direction appeared. Iggy nudged the angle of view and the image did strange things, things difficult to visually process. Another similar or identical corridor eventually appeared. Iggy closed contact with that bizarre reality with a frown.
Iggy then opened contact with the dark chamber where three men lay in stasis coffins. He took them to Patrick, who responded feebly, causing Iggy to cut short the visit.
“The people you just saw in the dark ship are the four men we set out to find when we launched the Freedom,” Zakiya said, addressing the crew after a further period of recovery. “We’ve been able to download two centuries of data from their ship through the use of cryptikons. This has provided us much of the information about which I just spoke. The three men in the stasis coffins are viable. The old man in the small stateroom is Patrick Jenkins, the biologist of the Frontier. Doctor Mnro has examined him and determined his prognosis to be imminently fatal due to a shortage of medication aboard the ship. He’s the reason we feel compelled to skip our plans to ensure your safety. It’s still possible there is another solution to this problem.
“I cannot order you to join us in the attempt to rescue Patrick and the others. We know the approximate location of the ship, but searching for it may bring us into conflict with the Black Fleet.
“I know this is too much incredible information to digest at once. Another meeting will be held in ample time to determine a fair course of action. The decision will be democratic and not military. In the meantime I’ll answer your questions in writing.”
Zakiya sat down. Everyone else on the ship now conversed rather quietly with each other. She thought it would be time to end the meeting. She started to signal Horss but he had a message for her. She saw who the person was and was both disquieted and intrigued. She took a chance, even knowing from Iggy’s amusing anecdotes how unpredictable Wingren could be.
“Did you know he could sing?” the female engineer asked by shiplink.
“Who?”
“Have you seen it? It’s from the lost ship.”
“What?”
“You must see it. And hear it. Everyone must!”
“Why?”
“Because it’s wonderful!”
“How?”
“Let me show it to you.”
“Wingren!”
Zakiya saw the projector in the meeting room illuminate its display volume. She was sure that something disturbing was about to occur. Still, she was curious.
It began with pipe music, haunting and yearning, the pure notes echoing in mountains. The lights dimmed in the meeting room. Voices quieted. Sunlight in the projected image gleamed on pine-like trees. The piper leaned on the smooth face of a tall rock in the wilderness of a space country or perhaps a planet. He bent over his pipes, pitching every note perfectly into the clear air. His achingly beautiful melody faded to become an introduction for what was to follow. Another man strolled into the scene playing upon a guitar. A third man and a fourth joined the first two at the rock.
At first it didn’t look like them, their skins the wrong shade, their features subtly alien to any of the three major human races. The pipes player was Alexandros Gerakis, the guitar player Setek-Ren.
Alex began to sing. On the verge of ordering a stop to it, the sound of his voice froze Zakiya. She put a hand over her mouth. She shivered. He could sing! He could sing well, as though he trained for years, his voice deep and rich, his pitch perfect, his style controlled yet adventurous, tender yet dramatic. She listened to the words and felt her ears burning and her heart pounding. The words and the emotion were aimed directly at her: a message of love and admiration and longing.
Her face grew hot. Aylis rose, came behind her, leaned over and threw her arms around her and hugged her. She tried to raise her hand to signal a cessation to the performance but Aylis grabbed the hand. She started to speak but Aylis whispered no in her ear. Because it was Aylis, because it was a positive sign of her mental health, Zakiya relented and tried to enjoy her embarrassment.
All four men now sang in harmony, their voices reverberating in the rocky landscape, giving the listener a feeling for their loneliness and pain. Gerakis finished the song solo. Setek-Ren softened his string chords into a distant nothingness. Darkness fell with a few simple notes echoing from pipes lost in time and space.
“That was the most romantic thing I’ve ever experienced, Mother!” Jamie added her embrace to Aylis’s. “God, how he loved you! You never told me he could sing.”
“I never knew,” Zakiya struggled to say.
“You just want to know everything,” Zakiya said to Sammy.
He shrugged. “Don’t you?”
Sammy had literally grilled her on the culture of the Malay people. He had met one of the Malay children and was intrigued by the differences he saw. She was glad he had such an interest, since she was once an anthropologist and still liked to think of herself as one. He was particularly fond of Phuti and that was also a good sign. But the Malay child had a father and an uncle and Sammy seemed to be looking for such relationships in his own life. He had plenty of substitute uncles. He even had a brother and sister. Now he was curious about Alex. “Yes, indeed. Living is learning, Sammy. If you don’t want to learn anything new, then you are not very alive.”
“Gerakis is a Greek name.”
“Yes, Alex was of Greek heritage. You’ve been reading about him, haven’t you?”
“Phuti showed me where to look. He was the best starship captain there ever was.”
“Yes, he was. But more importantly, he was the best friend anyone could have.”
“Maybe he’ll like me.” She knew he was already contemplating having a father and perhaps even thinking about sharing her with him. He didn’t mind sharing her with Freddy and Jamie but maybe he understood more about husbands and wives than she thought. Or was she being too analytical? She had never had her chance to have a real family. She wanted that chance.
“The old Alex would love you, Sammy. But a lot has happened to him since I last saw him. I’m afraid he won’t be the same man.”
“He’s been fighting barbarians.”
“Yes.”
“But you’ll make him good again.”
“I’ll certainly try!”
“Can I call you ‘Mom?’”
Sammy had a way of coming out with a question that was important to him, throwing it into the middle of the discussion of another topic. This was a pleasant surprise. “I want you to call me ‘Mom,’ Sammy. I want you to be my son. Did Freddy give you the idea?” She already knew he had used the word ‘Mom’ when referring to her to other people. Freddy had told her.
“Then we can be even more like brothers.”
“Freddy likes you a lot. You know that, don’t you?”
“I kind of did. I see him a lot. He’s fun to talk to. You should hear his imitation of Uncle Iggy.”
“I’ll have to ask him! That does sound like fun. How are your language lessons going? Is Standard difficult for you?”
“I know lots of words. I just don’t put them together good yet. And everybody talks to me in English so I don’t get much practice. Why can’t I have one of those language augments?”
“You’re still growing. Aylis doesn’t want to put any hardware in you until you stop growing.”
“I know. That’s what s
he always tells me. She says I drive her crazy. She likes me, doesn’t she?”
“Everybody likes you, Sammy, and especially Aylis. Aren’t you getting just a little bit sleepy?”
“My toes go to sleep first, then my feet, then my legs, on up to my hands and arms. My brain has to wait its turn. Jamie kissed me, last time I was in the hospital.”
“Do you want me to call her in from the bridge, so she can put your brain to sleep?”
“No, that’s alright. She’s too important. Are you going to the bridge?”
“No, I’ll be here all night, sound asleep.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m about to kiss you good night. Do you mind?”
“Heck, no! That’s what moms are for!”
“And that means no more questions! Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Go to sleep.” She kissed him.
“I gotta go to the bathroom.”
Section 026 Jumpship Fight
“That’s how they attack another ship? They cut it with their jump envelope?”
“How else could the Titanic disappear so completely?”
“But matter can’t be cut like that, not without releasing atomic forces.”
“Hey, Uncle Iggy,” Jon interrupted, “I’ve seen it in person. It cuts cleaner than a particle beam and there’s no sign of nuclear reaction. You’ve been jumping upward to keep the gate from carving a spherical chord in the deck, but I saw just such a chord back on Earth. Cut myself on the sharp edge. They tried to put the piece of floor back in place after it was sent to Asia.”
It was not their first discussion on the subject and Jamie was not inclined to listen carefully or participate with repetitious questions and comments. It was as if the others didn’t quite believe what Direk explained. They needed the repetition; she didn’t. She believed him. Science was the one subject in which he could be trusted to speak the truth.
They took her mother’s recording of the death of the Titanic, enhanced it, and analyzed it again and again. The flurry of dots resolved into thousands of individual spherical vessels, many of them tagged by faintly discernible markings. Their discontinuous movements could be verified and their method of attack analyzed. They were still fretting over the military implications of the Freedom’s jump capability. Jamie already accepted and understood how lethal a weapon the ship’s method of movement could be.
She was more interested in the nuances of Direk’s interaction with the other men. She always studied the group dynamics of men under her command and tried to predict how each would perform under duress. That expertise was useless in studying Direk. He seemed unaware of her, unless that fact alone was proof that he was more than aware of her. In other words, he was behaving in the classic Direk manner, showing no emotions, when she knew from recent clues that he was a changed man, able to express emotion comfortably.
“The first barbarian jumpships had the most difficult task,” Direk said. “They were much like wolves trying to bring down a healthy moose. The Titanic was a fast ship but its crew couldn’t understand what would happen even if they knew there were predators it needed to evade. The barbarians would plot where it would be and jump to it. They made thirty attempts to disable the ship, being careful not to cause its catastrophic destruction. They kept jumping closer until one of them intersected a critical part of its structure and disabled its drive.”
“They didn’t just shoot at it with some form of cannon,” Jon said. “And I don’t blame them. Running space battles are so hard to perform nobody tries it anymore. Einstein keeps sticking his tongue out at gunners.”
“This happened a long time ago,” Iggy said. “We can’t assume they don’t have other offensive capabilities by now. Something they would use on static targets. We need to capture one of those little vermin.”
“There was a staging area which we don’t see,” Direk continued. “The jumpships would jump from this staging area to the Titanic, taking a bite from it which was exchanged back to the staging area. They must have salvaged the pieces with cargo ships, leaving no evidence of the fate of the Titanic.”
“Wouldn’t that have killed thousands of people?” Jamie asked. She knew the answer. She was readying herself for an extreme change of topic. It was not the place and time for such a tactic, but when would she ever catch Direk alone?
“There were four stages to the attack. The first crippled the ship. The second boarded it, suppressed resistance, and organized the evacuation of passengers and crew. The third wave of jumpships provided transportation for the passengers. They also blocked our view of what happened to the Titanic. The disassembly of the Titanic was the fourth stage. Based on the data and a few difficult assumptions, I think anywhere from five to ten per cent of the ship’s personnel may have died in the attack. There just wasn’t enough time to safely evacuate that many people. And we know how ruthless the barbarians are.”
“The Freedom can likewise cut another ship apart,” Jamie said. “The Black Fleet ships are small. We need to be very precise in computing a jump coordinate. Our envelope obviously needs to intersect them, not contain them.”
“I don’t doubt Jon’s story about the gate chords,” Iggy said, “but I’m burdened by decades of engineering work aimed at preventing starlight drive fields from going nuclear. Aren’t they very close to producing gate envelopes?”
“Pan and I were properly concerned by the theoretical dangers of gates. More than once we ran tests that should have killed us, according to accepted nuclear theory. All I can say is, if you think this is magic, tell me what a cryptikon is.”
“Or a transmat, for that matter,” Jon offered.
“The more controversial theory of transmat operation,” Direk said, “states that objects are disassembled without regard to atomic and molecular structure, otherwise the information required to maintain integrity would be too vast for any system to process. Of course, the transmat buffer is no better understood than the rest of the device. It’s simpler to slice-and-stack, using the assumption that transmats have micro-gates. That would reinforce the notion of gates not being able to disrupt particle entities.”
“How many times have I been ‘sliced-and-stacked’ and I’m still in one piece?” Jon said.
There was a lull in the discussion as Iggy seemed to have run out of ideas that scared him.
Jamie gathered all her available courage. “I have a question.”
Direk made eye contact with her. Perhaps he was warned by the forced tone of her voice. He smiled but it was a fake smile. He raised an eyebrow in anticipation. This was a challenge he made to her: Find me out, if you dare. “What is it?”
“How did you make the children laugh?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He did know what she was talking about. She was sure of it. He was playing with her! “If you think I’ll abandon the subject just because we have no privacy, you’re wrong.” Jamie glanced at Jon and Iggy.
“Uncle Iggy and I can take a hike.”
“I need witnesses and protection. My woman may get violent.” Direk’s delivery of the sentences was so perfectly factual Jamie almost missed the possessive article - and the implied humor.
“Your woman? How can you claim that?” She was just light enough of skin to show blushing. The heat in her face spread through her whole body. It was a wonderful warmth.
“You took my name, didn’t you? I think a lawyer could make a good case for common law marriage. How long were we together?”
Jamie tried to laugh non-humorously but it was difficult. How could he keep such a calm face while his voice was so alive with emotion and humor. It was electrifying to her, and dizzying in its implications. She tried to sound
aggrieved. “Will you continue to stall, or will you tell me how you made the children laugh?”
“What children?”
“The Five Worlds.”
“When was this?”
He knew when! He seemed to be inviting her to try
to embarrass him in front of Jon and Iggy. How old were they, she and Direk? At what age did one grow out of such behavior? He was acting the youthful age to which he was regressed. She wasn’t acting any more maturely. “I’m talking about you and me, a long time ago. Don’t tell me you can’t remember the cottage on the mountain, and the snow, and the one and only bed with a goose-down mattress.”
“If only you didn’t look so beautiful and so lethal. I’m afraid to answer.”
“You’re not afraid of anything! Tell me!”
“A bed with a goose-down mattress? You’re sure this is a real memory?”
“Yes, I’m sure! Quit that!”
“Quit what?”
“The deadpan, quit the deadpan!”
“My face might break.”
Jamie laughed. She couldn’t stop herself. “Please, tell me!” She begged, exaggerating it for the sake of the humor.
“A bed with a goose-down mattress.” Direk stared off into space.
“Yes, the one and only bed!”
“Oh. That one. The one I’ve thought about several times a day for the last century or so. Probably all three of me, so that’s triple the times.”
Jamie took a deep breath and felt too hot now. There were tears in her eyes, threatening to escape down her cheeks. Direk was winning the battle, not that it was a fight, not that she felt there would be a loser. She was happy and she was in love, and it didn’t matter if it was only due to the auxiliary memory devices.
“Would you please, please tell me how you made the children laugh?”