A Learning Experience

by Christopher Nuttall

  “So it would seem,” Steve said. He picked up the food and headed for the hatch. “Charles, keep an eye on him.”

  “Yes, sir,” Charles said.

  Mongo was, as Steve had expected, glad to be fed. “When are we going to get some more people up here?”

  “Good question,” Steve said. Their wives and families, naturally, but who else? And what could they do, in the long term, with such a starship? “As soon as possible, I think.”

  “Just teleport them up,” Mongo suggested. “Mariko would love it.”

  “Go do it to Jayne first,” Steve countered. His partner wouldn't love being taken by surprise. “I dare you.”

  Mongo shrugged, then conceded the point.

  ***

  Kevin was in heaven.

  None of his family had been dumb. They’d been homeschooled by their parents and found, when they were finally tested against children from the state-run schools, that they were far in advance of their peers. Their mother had been a stern taskmistress, watching her children like hawks while they were studying and enforcing quiet where necessary. But Kevin had always been more intellectual than his siblings, even though the very word was a swear word in the mouth of their father. He’d wanted to know and know and know ...

  The neural interface was brilliant. From what Steve had said, he'd accessed only the very basic level. Kevin was swimming in data. It flowed into his mind, each file opening itself in front of his eyes and entering his mind. He couldn't help comparing it to surfing the internet, only the data was far more complete than anything he’d seen online. And even a random thought was enough to activate search algorithms that assisted him in his search for raw information.

  But there were very definite limits to what he could access, he discovered. The data files were brimming with information on what the starship – it was called Shadow Warrior – could do, but they weren’t very specific on how it actually worked. There was an FTL drive that seemed to bend local space around it, as far as he could determine, yet the theory was completely isolated from the technology that made it work. It might as well be black boxes, he realised, as he made another mental note. The designers had sealed the technology to prevent it being duplicated.

  The thought discharged another torrent of data into his mind. Steve had been right, he realised; the Hordesmen were nothing more than scavengers. They’d barely entered the Bronze Age, if that, when they’d been discovered by older, more advanced races, and introduced to the surrounding galaxy. Some of them had been taken as slaves, others had been serving as mercenaries ... none of them had built a significant galactic power base of their own. As far as the Galactics were concerned, the Hordesmen weren't even a minor headache. They were just gnats to be swatted aside when they got too irritating to tolerate for a moment longer.

  But what did they want from Earth?

  There were no answers in the databanks, he realised slowly. The Hordesmen had never bothered to keep logs, either because they were too primitive to care or because they’d worried about the security of their systems. There was nothing to show why they’d come to Earth or why they’d adopted such an absurd strategy for abducting humans. Hell, maybe they had been interested in anal probing after all. Given how little data there was in the computers, it was as good a theory as any.

  Not that it matters, he told himself. If they decided they wanted to invade Earth, they could.

  Images flowed through his mind from the databanks, triggered by his thoughts. There was no Prime Directive, no law preventing advanced races from overwhelming primitive races ... just as the Hordesmen themselves had been overwhelmed. Hundreds of worlds had been invaded by their more advanced neighbours, then enslaved ... or merely forced to pay tax. Earth had been lucky. The handful of aliens who had visited the solar system hadn't been particularly interested in the human race or anything in their star system. But there had been other visits ...

  He poked the databanks, but details were scarce. Or perhaps he was simply asking the wrong questions, no matter how closely he scrutinised the data. There was no way to know.

  Instead, he started to ask about the technology on the ship. The sheer size of the response sent his mind reeling in disbelief, as if the data was too much to handle. He felt a dull pain at the back of his head as he tried to process what he was being shown, then tried to distract himself by asking more questions. The Hordesmen hadn't even bothered to scratch the surface of the ship’s full capabilities.

  He felt a sudden burst of awe, mixed with terror. If Shadow Warrior was something the Galactics felt comfortable about selling to a tiny scavenger race, what did they have at their disposal? Was the starship, for all its wonders, merely the counterpart of an AK-47? Were the odd gaps in the datanet’s explanations intended to prevent the Hordesmen from developing their own starships? Or were they merely placing some limits on exported tech to prevent it from being turned against them?

  The sheer potential of the technology stunned him. It would be easy, almost as easy as breathing, to reach out and download the entire human internet into one of the starship’s memory cores, even the millions of pornographic sites. The 30TB portable hard drive his friend had been so proud of producing was a laughing stock compared to the alien ship. And no security protocols could keep him out of a human system. He could download the secrets of the Pentagon, the Kremlin ... every top secret base on Earth.

  It terrified him. As an intelligence officer, a system like the one in front of him would be a dream come true, but it was also a nightmare. The most advanced human surveillance system in the world wasn't capable of tracking everything, no matter what the designers claimed. This could ... and it could do more. Complete and total monitoring of millions of people, at all times, was well within its capabilities. Kevin shuddered at the thought. Privacy would become a joke.

  Or worse, he thought. He’d retired from intelligence work after the field had become increasingly politicised. He had never admired Edward Snowden for defecting from the United States, but he’d understood the impossibility of blowing a whistle when the most senior men and women in the nation were involved. I don’t think we dare hand this over to the government.

  The question brought another stream of data into his mind. He welcomed it, even as he fired more questions back into the databanks. How were the aliens governed? Who were the major interstellar powers? What might they do to Earth if they discovered humanity?

  They already know about us, he corrected himself. It was humbling, but unsurprising. From the point of view of the Galactics, Earth wasn't even a microstate. They just didn't care enough to try to take us into their system, even as slaves. We had nothing to offer them.

  Something clicked. As an intelligence officer, he knew how to put pieces together to form a coherent picture. Now, looking at the data, he understand why some aliens had been interested in Earth ... and why the Horde had followed in their wake. Humanity might be significant after all ... and that thought, too, was terrifying. Frantically, half-convinced he had to be looking at a false Earth-centric picture, he fired off yet more questions. The datanet struggled to respond.

  There was a sudden surge of data, followed by a stab of pain so intense he couldn't help screaming. He dimly heard Charles calling his name, felt someone shaking his body ... and then he fell down into darkness.

  Chapter Four

  Fnfian Horde Warcruiser Shadow Warrior

  Earth Orbit

  Steve stared down at his younger brother, helplessly.

  “What happened to him?”

  “Subject overloaded the neural interface,” the interface informed him. As always, there was no trace of emotion in its tone. “Subject’s brain shut down to allow time to recover.”

  “I ... see,” Steve said. “Will there be any permanent damage?”

  “Unknown,” the interface said. “Place the subject in a medical tube for a more detailed analysis.”

  Steve listened to the instructions, then Charles and he carried Kevin’
s body down to the sickbay and placed it inside a transparent tube. The sickbay wasn't like anything he’d seen in real life; instead of beds, there were a dozen medical tubes, each one big enough to carry a human, but too small for a Hordesman. It might explain, he decided, why the sickbay looked far cleaner than the rest of the ship. The Horde had simply had no use for it. But if the alien medical technology was as advanced as the rest of the starship ...

  He shook his head as the medical tube went to work, scanning Kevin’s body. “Permanent damage averted, but there are minor feedback curves from the neural interface,” the system reported. Steve silently prayed the system was smart enough to realise it was operating on a human, rather than an individual from any other race. “Compensating ... note; subject also has numerous genetic flaws that can be corrected, if requested.”

  Steve frowned. “Genetic flaws?”

  He listened, in some disbelief, to the explanation. Again, most of it was well above his head, but it was clear that there would be long-term problems for Kevin – and the rest of the family, if they weren't handled. Kevin, in particular, was at risk of losing his sight in the very near future, something that bothered Steve more than he cared to admit. Death was one thing, permanent disability quite another. And then there were the whole string of suggested enhancements ...

  “He’ll never forgive you if you don’t give him a bigger cock,” Mongo commented. Charles had replaced him on guard duty once they’d moved Kevin to the sickbay. “Nor will his wife.”

  Steve rolled his eyes. Sexual enhancements weren't the only suggested possibilities. Kevin could be given enhanced strength, coordination and longevity – even intelligence – and remain roughly human. But he could also be turned into a cyborg. The suggestions ranged from implanted weapons to actually removing his brain and inserting it into a combat unit. He accessed the interface and saw a handful of images, then shuddered. If he’d had to face something like that on the battlefield ...

  “I think we’d better concentrate on repairing the mental damage,” he said, firmly. “Other enhancements can come later.”

  He watched, feeling utterly out of his depth, as the alien autodoc went to work. It seemed much more efficient than any human doctor, although the potential of the system to do great ill as well as good chilled him to the bone. Moments after it started, Kevin’s body jerked and his eyes opened. Steve hastily opened the tube and welcomed him back to the world.

  “Idiot,” he said. “What were you thinking?”

  “I was downloading a considerable amount of data,” Kevin said. He paused, thoughtfully. “That’s interesting; I still seem to have the data.”

  “Good,” Steve said, impatiently.

  “And we may be in some trouble,” Kevin added. He clambered out of the tube, brushing the proffered hand aside. “The entire world may be in deep shit.”

  He led the way back towards the bridge, seeming to find his way effortlessly through the alien corridors. Steve watched him carefully, wondering what else the alien system had done to him. Had it turned him into a spy? Or merely overloaded his head with data because it wasn’t bright enough to realise the danger?

  “These guys” – he indicated the alien commander’s throne with his foot – “are scavengers.”

  “I said that,” Steve objected.

  “You were right,” Kevin agreed. He sat down on one of the uncomfortable chairs, then turned to face his brothers. “From what I have been able to determine, they literally know almost nothing about how their technology works; they didn't build it, they can’t mend it and they certainly cannot duplicate it for themselves. They barely had fire when they were discovered by an elder race and brought into the galaxy.”

  He shrugged. “They weren't here to invade – at least, not yet,” he continued. “I think they wanted samples of humanity for their employers.”

  Steve narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  “This is where the speculation begins,” Kevin warned. “One race clearly took some humans from Earth years ago and turned them into slaves – no, cyborgs. Soldier cyborgs. These cyborgs have been hellishly effective. Our captors were employed, I suspect, to find humans who could be turned into other cyborgs.”

  Mongo sucked in a breath, clearly remembering all the options for enhancing Kevin. “Do you think that was the fate they had in mind for us?”

  “I believe so,” Kevin said. “Given enough samples of human DNA, they could simply clone as many human brains as they needed and then go on from there.”

  He paused. “The problem is that, sooner or later, the other Hordesmen will realise this ship hasn't reported back,” he explained. “And Earth might be targeted by their employers.”

  “Shit,” Steve said. He looked down at his hands for a long moment, then back up at Kevin. “How long do we have?”

  Kevin shrugged. “Unknown,” he said. “Travel time between star systems that don’t have gravity points ...”

  He stopped. “I ...”

  “Kevin,” Steve snapped. “What are you doing?”

  “It’s weird,” Kevin said. He was hyperventilating between his words. “I didn't know that and yet I did.”

  He shook his head, brushing off their fears. “It might be a few months or it might be a year,” he said. “But we will run out of time.”

  “Yeah,” Steve said. “And I think we need to decide what to do with our ship.”

  “And our prisoner,” Mongo said.

  “Lock him in one of the cabins, then deactivate the computer terminal,” Kevin said. “He’ll be safe enough for now.”

  ***

  Once the alien prisoner was securely locked away, they gathered again on the bridge.

  “This is the situation,” Steve said. “We have a starship, we have a surprising amount of technology ... and we have a desperate need to move quickly to protect Earth. The question is simple. How do we proceed?”

  “We could call the government,” Charles pointed out. “They’d be needed to get behind this and push.”

  “Hell, no,” Steve said. The sheer force of his reaction surprised even him. “Do you really want to give this ship and all of its technology to the government?”

  Bitter memories welled up in his mind. He forced them down, savagely.

  “There’s no way we can trust the current government to do the right thing,” he said. “The best we can hope for is that they will drop the ship into Area 51, give us all a pat on the ass and classify everything to the point where no one knows a thing about it. And then they will exploit it for petty political reasons while ignoring the looming threat from outer space.”

  “Except for the fact there’s just four of us,” Charles said. “Five if you count the alien.”

  “We have friends,” Steve reminded him. “Men and women who can be trusted to keep a secret and join us, people who would leap at the chance to escape the morass our country is becoming.”

  “Or we could take over,” Kevin mused. “We have the technology to do it now.”

  Steve shook his head. “I’m not interested in taking over the federal government,” he said, bitterly. “I’m interested in getting away from it. And in protecting my homeworld.”

  He smiled, rapidly pulling together a plan. “We reach out to people we know and invite them to join us,” he said. “In the meantime, we start work on expanding our capabilities, unlocking the secrets of the alien technology and establishing a settlement on the moon.”

  Kevin considered it. “We’ll need money,” he said. “Some of the tech would have to be sold.”

  He paused. “You know we have four fabricators, right?”

  Steve frowned. It had been mentioned, but he hadn't had the time to follow up and work out what they actually did. He checked with the interface and discovered that they produced items according to saved specifications, provided enough raw materials were provided. That wouldn't be a problem, he decided. All they had to do was start shovelling in material from the lunar surface.

  “T
here are some limits,” Kevin said. “They cannot reproduce themselves, for example, nor can they produce certain kinds of technology. But there should be quite a few examples of tech we can sell ... we’d just have to be very careful how we inserted it into Earth’s economic network. Something that appeared completely out of nowhere would raise eyebrows.”

  “You’re in charge of finding something we can use,” Steve decided. “And of finding a way we can ... insert our new technology without raising too many eyebrows.”

  “There are thousands of possibilities,” Kevin offered. “I was going to suggest fusion power and computer technology. The former, in particular, should be very lucrative.”

  “But would definitely attract government attention,” Charles said, softly. “Computer technology might pass under the radar for the moment.”

  “Work on it,” Steve ordered. “What else do we need?”