A. Warren Merkey

by Far Freedom

  “Why is that moment so important to you?”

  “I was always waiting for the real Direk to make his appearance, and I thought he might have appeared at that moment, never to be seen again. You made the children laugh. You never made me laugh.”

  ” I never knew you wanted anything from me but news of your mother.”

  “You can’t mean that! I stayed with you an entire lifetime. I could never have persisted so long if I didn’t have feelings for you.”

  “Feelings of hate. I thought the cottage on the mountain was part of a plan to make me break my silence about your past.”

  “But I stayed with you for another forty years! Despite your silence! How could I hate you that long? I accepted you. I wanted to stay with you. I loved you!”

  “You spent so much time and effort just finding me.” Direk shook his head as if befuddled. “I couldn’t have given you any reason to feel good about me. I assumed you were going to wait as long as it took for me to tell you what I knew. Which, by the way, wasn’t very much. And then you would go away and I would be alone. I didn’t want you to leave me.”

  The tears started flowing down her cheeks. Iggy patted her on the shoulder and she smiled happily at him. She turned back to Direk, who now stared at her with concern and perhaps something else. His eyes were not cold now, not at all. “I did want you to be embarrassed and humiliated by our stay in the cottage,” she said. “And by the bed we shared. But that moment when the children laughed at you put doubt in my mind, and I was nearly as uncomfortable as you must have been. Did you know the local custom concerning that cottage?”

  “I was warned by Phuti.”

  “And you still went with me?”

  “The children knew we were going to the cottage. I asked if any of them were conceived in that cottage. They didn’t seem to understand, but one of them did ask me a naughty question. I didn’t answer, except to cross my eyes. Then they laughed.”

  “You crossed your eyes?”

  “It was better than encouraging more questions.”

  “I did embarrass you. I did humiliate you. I’m sorry.”

  ” You told me that afterward. What I couldn’t tell you at the time was that I was willing to do anything, just to be near you. I loved you from the moment I first saw you, crying in my mother’s office. It broke my heart to leave you with your grandparents. From that moment on, I was not just the son who was too much like the man who left my mother - I was the ultimate Essiin.”

  Jamie closed her flooded eyes and pressed her hands against her chest that felt ready to burst. She felt Iggy remove his hand from her shoulder. She heard him move out of his chair. Direk, she assumed, traded positions with Iggy, sitting down next to her, putting an arm across her shoulders, and pulling her gently against him.

  “I’m sorry,” Direk said, “for what we never had. For what we may never have. For what I remember. For what you don’t remember.”

  There was a marching band parading by the far perimeter of Jackson Square. It had two sousaphones, two tempos, and two moods. The woodwinds and percussion played a slow, sad tempo, then the brass would push the tempo fast and merry, with the sousaphones bellowing. Jamie clapped with delight seeing the shiny brass instruments and hearing the wonderful music. Then her mother called to her and she saw the dark lady sitting next to Mama on the park bench. The dark lady wore a pretty yellow dress and smiled at her with tears on her brown face. Mama was crying, too, but she didn’t notice until she had leaped into her arms.

  “Mama, what’s wrong with her? Who is she?”

  “She’s Mama’s best friend - after you.”

  Jon cleared his throat. He cleared it again. “Admiral on deck.” Horss rose to his feet.

  “Jon, stop that!” Zakiya pointed him back into his captain’s chair. She found a place to sit and then turned her gaze on Jamie.

  “We were talking about splitting atoms and Black Fleet jumpships, Admiral,” Jon said.

  “Jon, stop that.”

  “Stop what, ma’am?”

  “Stop saying ‘ma’am’ and ‘Admiral!’”

  “Sir, could you use another son?” He asked it seriously. “You could adopt me and then I could call you ‘Mom.’” Zakiya opened her mouth and then closed it. Jon continued. “I’m used to having many brothers and sisters. And I can throw in a daughter-in-law and a grandchild.”

  Zakiya had to turn away from Jamie and look at Jon Horss. She was irritated, amused, and warmed by his outrageous words. No, not outrageous, and she cared about him too much to dismiss it completely. “I’m sure your remark is made for the sake of needed levity, Jon, but I’m honored you would think of such a relationship with me. Thank you! And thank you, Iggy, for the timely shiplink of your discussion about atom splitting! And other topics.” Zakiya turned back to Jamie and Direk. “Direk, I think your mother may have just fainted from hearing some news of children laughing. If you would like to check on her, and take your common-law wife with you, Jon will excuse you from the rest of the duty shift.”

  Jamie was so engrossed in the first memory she had finally retrieved of her mother that she had not stood to attention with the others. She bolted out of her chair and flung herself into Zakiya’s arms. “Mama!” she cried. “Mama, I missed you!” She was a child again. And she had found her mother at last!

  He always knew where he was. The ship was a part of him and he could easily track almost anyone. This allowed Freddy to wait for Sammy on the brick path that led from the big lake to the pond where the Malay had established a community. Freddy sat on the ground, watching the birds in the trees and listening for Sammy’s approach. He enjoyed the anticipation, and he enjoyed it even more when his superior hearing detected Sammy trying to sneak up on him. He pretended not to hear him. Freddy was just a big kid, yet he could appreciate, in an adult way, the quiet and simple pleasures of being young and alive. He sometimes wished his mechanical body was not adult-size, so that he might interact with Sammy more naturally and equally.

  “Boo!” Sammy shouted from directly behind Freddy.

  Freddy jumped as though startled, which he wasn’t, but it was fun, anyway. “You got me! I was lost in thought. Is that leg bothering you?” Freddy had heard the unbalanced rhythm of Sammy’s gait from a great distance.

  “It kinda pinches because the knee doesn’t bend quickly enough.”

  “Let me see what I can do.” Freddy plugged his finger into a data jack on the prosthetic leg. At the same time he accessed the operational database for the medical device. He activated another stream of consciousness to remain conversant with Sammy.

  “Have you found them yet?” Sammy asked.

  “Not yet, but I think we’re getting close.”

  ” Seen any Black Fleet ships?”

  “I’m working with Direk and Uncle Iggy on a way to detect them at a great distance.”

  “How can you do that?”

  Freddy knew Sammy wanted a real answer to his question, not an oversimplified one. But he felt there was little point in dragging all the theory into the answer. It was likely Sammy didn’t have time for the details, since he was on the path to Abie’s home. “Do you have an hour or two to listen to quantum circuit theory?” Freddy asked.

  “I’ll take the kid’s explanation!” Sammy grinned.

  “It’s just a matter of searching for a unique gravity pulse. It takes a lot of filtering, and we need verified jumpship jump pulses to set the filter parameters. We may need to build some specialized instruments.”

  “Wish I could be on the bridge when they find them.”

  “Run over there and walk back. I made an adjustment to your leg.” Sammy took a hop and a skip and ran to a tree. He walked back. Freddy watched closely

  and saw the function was better but still imperfect. “Feel better now? I can adjust it again when we have more time.”

  “You can do anything, Freddy! Yeah, it’s lots better now. Thanks!”

  “Any time, kiddo. What’re you going to d
o now?”

  “Abie and I are going exploring. You want to come with us?”

  “Gee, thanks, Sammy, but I have to go play grownup on the bridge. I’m the big expert on sensor data.”

  ” Still looking for Mom’s lost husband. I hope he wants to be our Dad.”

  “Me, too. I hope he does.”

  “Well, I gotta go. Thanks again.”

  “You’re welcome. What’s a brother for?”

  Sammy started to walk away, down the brick path through the trees. Freddy sat there watching him. He would not move until he disappeared from view. Sammy stopped and turned around. “Do you ever wish you were not mechanical?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you ever wish you had a human body?”

  “You bet!”

  “Even though it can make you feel terrible pain?”

  “Even though. There are worse feelings than physical pain. And you always tell me my hands are cold.”

  “When I grow up,” Sammy said very seriously, “I’m going to find a way to give you a real human body. But I like you with cold hands just fine. You are so cool.”

  Freddy pondered the meaning of the Twenglish word “cool” as used idiomatically by Sammy. The grammatical references were still a bit cryptic but the way Sammy said it made Freddy feel it was a special compliment. Freddy also listened to the conversations of those on the bridge. Jamie and Iggy were the most entertaining. She would always say lots of things about Direk and Iggy would always irritate her with disparaging remarks about Direk’s copy. He would finally relent and talk about visiting Direk when he was a child.

  “There’s still something wrong with him,” Jamie said, meaning Direk.

  “He’s only human.”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. He thinks he’s forgot someone. He thinks there is someone missing who should be here. It’s making him very irritable. I’ve never seen him be irritable, and I would be enjoying it but he’s very serious about it.”

  “I thought he had better access than any of us to his auxiliary memory,” Iggy said. “And if it’s someone we all knew, why hasn’t one of us remembered him by now?”

  “I don’t know. It worries me.”

  Freddy had to remind himself that, as capable as he was at multitasking, he needed to give highest priority to the sensor signals. He wondered how humans coped with their thoughts, knowing they, too, could have more than one stream of thought at the same time.

  “Why aren’t we starting to get any correlations with the navigation data from our lost ship?” Iggy complained. “We should be close enough.”

  “Patience, Uncle Iggy,” Jamie said. “You know we must go slowly and silently.” “If we had armaments we wouldn’t need to go so slowly.”

  “I’m not certain of that.”

  “Are you taking your mother’s side? I thought you were in favor of arming the Freedom.”

  “The more you sit in this chair and let your mind look at all the possibilities, the more you think about the safety of ten thousand people. Are they safer with or without the armaments?”

  “They didn’t vote for this mission because they wanted to be safe.”

  “Perhaps they’re enthralled by the romance of it and by the chance to meet the legendary father of the infamous Jamie Jones,” Jamie said.

  “I think they want to fight! Many are very upset over the atrocities the barbarians have committed. Every day another record from the lost ship becomes the subject of discussion. It’s always a gruesome tragedy.”

  “I think you have revenge in mind, Iggy.”

  “Those who killed Ana are long dead. I want to prevent such a thing from happening again.”

  “Two pulsars to starboard with required frequencies,” Freddy advised. They had seen them before but he was bothered by them for some non-cybernetic reason.

  “These aren’t the same ones we saw two hours ago?”

  “Same ones. But they match better than any other pair we’ve seen.”

  “Where is the third pulsar? Damn! It’s near the end of the watch and I’m tired. Put them in the tank. We’ll look at them again.”

  “Paint the sweep of their emissions, Freddy,” Jamie said. “Let’s pretend they’re the right pulsars.”

  Freddy made the holographic navigation tank in front of the captain’s chair show two luminous disks representing the areas where the spinning stellar objects broadcast their energy eruptions. There was a color-coded line where they intersected.

  “Let’s assume there are not three pulsars but only two,” Jamie said.

  “Why assume that?” Iggy asked. “And it doesn’t give us a point of intersection, just a line.”

  “Human fallibility or paranoia. Pulsars are very easy to detect. Of the other markers, which is the hardest to find?”

  ” Something small and dim. Like a brown dwarf.”

  “How many?”

  “Two.”

  “No. Something there are supposed to be three of.”

  “Close binaries. Nearly identical.”

  “Are there two of them near the intersection of the pulsar sweeps?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do the four objects fit the location plot?”

  “Perfectly,” Freddy replied, “except there are two objects missing.”

  “Why would they play games with their data?” Iggy asked. “Why would they encode it?”

  “On the list of markers,” Jamie said, “those objects are the only ones that should number three. What are the chances of three close binaries in one stellar neighborhood? What are the chances of three pulsars whose sweeps would intersect a nearby observer? The map may not have been intended for us. If it helps us find them, I’ll be surprised. Plot a jump for half the distance to the middle of the pulsar intersection.”

  They jumped. They waited, watched, listened.

  “Now put a sphere around the pair of close binaries,” Jamie said, “to treat them as one object. Connect a line from the sphere to the midpoint of the pulsar intersection. Use the midpoint of that line as an arbitrary target and plot a jump half the distance to it.”

  The navigation tank built the geometry of their course as Jamie described it. They jumped.

  “I see nothing,” Freddy reported.

  “Why would they refine the rotation periods of the pulsars to thirty decimal places?” Iggy wondered.

  “Do they match to that precision?”

  “It would require more sampling, but statistically they’re converging with our current sample.”

  “Changed my mind,” Jamie said. “This is the place. And I don’t like it.”

  “There are three yellow stars,” Freddy offered, “close enough together that they are probably gravitationally locked.”

  “And three yellow stars aren’t mentioned on the map. Why the number three? And why is it the wrong number?”

  “The barbarian road map Alex constructed from their bloody encounters often pass near triple objects,” Iggy said. “I thought it was only chance.”

  “Is this on the barbarian road map?”

  “No.”

  “One more jump. Go to Second Stage Alert. Jon needs to wake up for his shift, anyway. The three yellow stars are close to where we are aimed. Let’s jump between them.”

  They jumped.

  “Target!” Freddy called. “Too small to be spherical, but it is.”

  “Jumpship dimensions,” Iggy said. “Warm body. Unshielded jumpfield accumulator.”

  “We’re too close,” Jamie said. “It must have felt us. Give me the helm! Give me cutting range, hull perimeter to perimeter plus twenty meters!”

  Freddy computed the numbers, delivered them to helm. He saw what Jamie wanted to do: intersect the jumpship with the Freedom’s echo jump shell. Kill it. They were now at war. It caused excitement and fear in Freddy, and a feeling that must be analogous to a surge of adrenaline. That he was again a participant in the killing of other sentient beings also presented itself to his atte
ntion. He had to ignore such a distraction. He had to assume their own survival was at stake.

  “And - jump!” Jamie gave the helm directive through her shiplink.

  “Ping!” Freddy reported. Another vessel in the region had probed for them. “Source located.”

  “Another jumpship,” Jamie said. “Where is it? I lost it.”

  “It jumped. Secondary ping scatter may paint it. There. Range plus twenty. It jumped to inspect the wreckage.”

  Jamie jumped the Freedom into the second barbarian ship, cutting it apart.

  “Yes!” Iggy said. “Two kills! How many more?”

  “At least one,” Jamie said. “They like the number three. Go to Third Stage Alert. Ready Marines for possible boarding. Jumping at random.”

  “I want the pieces of those jumpships!” Iggy declared.

  “There’s one more out there,” Jamie said. “We’ll sit here until we can see it.”

  “I can see where it was,” Freddy said. “The ping scatter also illuminated an accumulation of interstellar mass that we may want to study.”

  “A hiding place?” Iggy wondered aloud.

  Zakiya arrived on the bridge and Horss followed her by a few seconds. Jamie briefed them.

  “Do you take command?” Jamie asked Horss.

  “Keep your hand on the helm,” Horss said. He could see by her blank stare that she was intent on the data in her ocular shiplink. Freddy was linked in to help her if she needed him. “I’ll wait until we know we can change bridge crews safely. Let me get into the data stream.”

  “I’ve located a third jumpship,” Freddy said. “It’s too far off to be certain of killing it with a jump.”

  “It’ll come closer,” Iggy said. “They know they’re in mortal danger but I don’t think they would do the sensible thing: escape to notify others of our threat.”

  “They may already know of us,” Zakiya said. “The Navy would have told them.”

  “We could ping,” Horss said. “Ping and jump. See if it jumps where we were. Then jump for the kill.”

  “Mother?” Jamie said

  “We don’t know if this is the place. It may not be worth the risk.”