by James Walker
Pierson considered this. “My experience on Thera and in outer space has taught me something,” he said. “It's shown me that the old way of doing things, the Theran way, leads to unending conflict over wealth and power. The colonies represent the potential to move beyond that self-destructive path. The revelation of an extraterrestrial intelligence communicating through repil radiation offers even greater possibilities. If we can learn to communicate with this intelligence, we can usher in an age of peace based on mutual understanding.”
Guntar snorted. “A pipe dream. What about the colonies' relationship with Thera?”
“Once the colonies have achieved independence, peaceful cooperation would be best, inasmuch as is possible,” Pierson said. “Those who wish to take part in the new society would be welcome to join us, while those who prefer to cling to the fading power and prestige of their dying world are best left to themselves.”
“That's where our thinking parts ways,” Guntar said. “Mutual understanding is no guarantee of peace, Cutter. People don't change. That bastard Nimh was right about one thing. Even after we've gotten independence from the Union, there will be a mad scramble to fill the power vacuum. If the wrong hands take the reins of power, we could end up with a dictatorship even worse than the Union's.”
“And?” Pierson prompted.
“That's why it's up to us to make sure we take power first,” Guntar said. “People who have the best interests of the colonists at heart need to take charge. Freedom is a constant battle. If a just society is what we really want, we'll be fighting forever. Defeating the Union is just the beginning.”
“Eternal conflict,” Pierson said. “Not a very enticing vision.”
“No,” Guntar agreed. “Just a realistic one. So the question is, are you on board, Cutter? You've done a lot for us, but knowing that you're the infamous Pirate Hunter who killed many of our comrades is a tough pill to swallow. I need to know you're with us all the way. Will you help us carve out a new government after we've kicked the Union off our planet?”
“You're asking me if I want to perpetuate the same bloodshed that has tainted all of history since humanity's birth on Thera,” Pierson said. “The answer is no. Once the Union is out of the way, we need to search for a better path. The answer may lie in our very hands, in the form of Astral.”
“I'm not interested in a lot of mystical garbage about radiation that thinks,” Guntar said. “In case you've forgotten, repil radiation kills people. The only way to even talk to this so-called 'intelligence' is to engineer unstable, half-human, half-alien hybrids. Astral herself admitted that she's the only survivor among her entire test group.”
“Forging a new path is always painful,” Pierson said. “That doesn't mean we shouldn't try.”
Guntar's scowl deepened.“So that's the future you envision? Transforming the human species into something unrecognizable? Not happening. Not while I'm in charge.”
He drew himself up to his full, not very substantial, height and barked, “Major Pierson Cutter. Concealing your background as a former Spacy officer—the dreaded Pirate Hunter Andre Maximillian, no less—is a serious offense. In light of your heroic efforts on behalf of SLIC's cause, I will waive any punishment for your crime. However, it appears that your goals and the aims of the Sarisan Liberty Coalition do not coincide. Given your past deceitfulness and questionable objectives, you are hereby stripped of command.”
Shocked murmurs spread through the crowd. Esther stepped forward and said, “Wait a minute, Colonel. Don't you think that's a little harsh?”
“Harsh?” Guntar exclaimed. “All things considered, I think I'm being quite lenient.” He turned to Amos and asked, “Got anything you'd like to add?”
“You're Major Cutter's commanding officer,” Amos replied. “His fate lies outside my authority.”
Esther turned to Pierson and said, “Are you all right with this, Major? Don't you have anything more to say?”
Pierson hung his head. “I'm a SLIC officer. I'll abide by his decision.”
53
A council of senior officers sat around a table within the meeting room of T.U. Spacy's Sarisan headquarters, on the moon of Phoenix. The windows on the back wall revealed an endless desert of jagged rocks interspersed with rugged industrial structures, all under a sky composed of thick clouds the color of blood and rust. On the horizon, dark mountains towered above a scarlet sea until they gave way to glowing peaks.
Seated at the head of the table was Supreme Commander Gevel, a broad man with sagging flesh and dark rings around his eyes. “I haven't heard anything from Governor Song to indicate that she was considering abdication,” he croaked in a raspy baritone. “Have any of you?” He cast his eyes around the table.
The officers shook their heads.
“Well, I certainly don't recall authorizing a takeover of the governor's seat,” Gevel said. He turned his eyes to the officer seated on his left. “Do you know anything about this?”
Deep furrows carved canals through the face of Admiral Halschen, who set his lips in an angry line. “Falsrain's orders were to retrieve or eliminate the test subject and return to base immediately upon completion of the objective,” he said. “To say that this coup is exceeding his authority would be the understatement of the century. The bastard's obviously gone rogue on us.”
“What does he think he'll gain by it?” another officer asked. “The Onyx Down is a fine vessel, but she can hardly take on the entire fleet by herself.”
“Perhaps he's gone mad,” Gevel said. “The reason for his betrayal is irrelevant. I motion to declare Falsrain's actions treason, and to order him and his followers eliminated with extreme prejudice.”
“I second the motion,” another officer said.
“All in favor?”
The vote was unanimous.
“Let the record show that the council has voted unanimously in favor of executing the traitor Falsrain and his followers,” Gevel said. “What ships are available?”
“The Memory, the Circumstance, and the Nemesis are all on standby,” Halschen said.
“One dreadnought, one assault carrier, and one battlecruiser,” Gevel said. “That should be plenty to take out the Onyx Down and wipe out any resistance on the ground. Who will take command?”
“I will,” Halschen said. “Falsrain was my subordinate. I'll clean up my own mess.”
Gevel nodded his approval. “At current orbits, travel time from here to Chalice will be about 40 hours. Get your forces ready and set out immediately. We'll make Falsrain's idiotic stunt one of the shortest-lived coups in history.”
*
Vic and Astral sat inside the Aqualung infirmary, watching as Esther and Lox applied some tweaks to a pair of spherical objects sitting on the counter. Once they were finished, they turned to face their guests, Esther hefting one of the spheres in her hands.
“It's a good thing I took those tissue samples from Ajna Station,” she said. “The schematics on these power enhancers are bizarre. They call for the cores to be composed of Messenger cells. I was able to get the required amount by cloning the tissue samples, and from there it was just a matter of cobbling together some electronics.”
“Are you all right, Dr. Klein?” Vic asked, noting her unhealthy pallor. “You look unwell.”
“I'm still a little shocked about Major Cutter,” she replied. “I thought he might have had past experience with the Theran military, but I never would have guessed he was Admiral Maximillian. Even still, I think it was harsh for Colonel Artega to strip him of command. I don't know what the colonel is thinking these days.”
“Who cares about the internal politicking of those meatheads?” Lox interjected. “I'm more interested in carrying out this experiment. I still have my doubts about several elements of the Xenowave theory. If they function as designed, these devices will be instrumental in gathering more data.”
“That's a big if.” Esther eyed the device in her hands with a skeptical look. “The s
chematics called these MINDs—Mental Interference Negation Devices. They work in twos, providing some kind of feedback loop. We built them according to the spec, but as far as I know, the design hasn't been tested in the field. Supposedly, all we have to do is flip them on in the presence of a Syneger, and they'll work.”
“You don't sound very confident,” Vic said.
“Any scientist would have doubts about a device built according to an incomplete theory,” Esther said. “Still, it's all we've got. I can't make any promises about what will happen when we turn these on. If I were a betting woman, my money would be on nothing.”
“Or they might come alive and go on a rampage through the base,” Lox said. “We really don't know.”
Esther scowled and stroked her brow in irritation. “Please, Doctor. Anyway, the point is, we're not sure if these MINDs will work as designed. Do you still want to go through with the test?”
Vic looked down at Astral, who was staring at the devices with evident curiosity. “What do you think?” he asked.
“Mm,” Astral nodded. “I want to see what happens.”
“OK.” Vic nodded to the scientists. “Let's roll.”
Esther gestured to Lox, who took the other device in his hands. In unison, they pressed the activation switches. At first, nothing happened; but within seconds, the MINDs began to emit faint light through the seams in their shells. Esther cried out as the MINDs leapt out of the scientists' hands and zoomed toward Astral.
The MINDs spun rapidly around Astral like two moons orbiting a planet in fast-forward. Astral turned from side to side, watching them with delight. Suddenly the devices reversed direction, then did so again, repeating the process several times until finally they halted in stable equilibrium to either side of Astral, gently bobbing in the air. She reached out and stroked one of the devices.
“Well,” Esther stammered, “I certainly wasn't expecting that.”
“Incredible,” Lox exclaimed. “There was nothing in the schematic to indicate that they could achieve flight. This must be some kind of reaction to the presence of a Syneger.”
“They're cute,” Astral cooed. “It's like they want to be with me. Is this what having a pet is like?”
The others watched Astral playing with the MINDs like toys until Vic interrupted her merriment by asking, “What about your powers? Can you hear the Voice?”
Astral froze in momentary concentration. “I think so. Give me a minute to focus.”
She bowed her head and closed her two normal eyes. As she did so, her third eye opened wider and glowed with a faint red light. She reached out one hand and swept it slowly around the room, waving the ends of her fingers.
“I can,” she whispered. “I can see so many wills, flitting around the base. There's one that shines really brightly. I can feel it the most strongly of all.” She turned around and placed her hand on Vic's chest. “It's this one.”
“Aw,” Esther smiled, “isn't that sweet.”
“What about transmitting your thoughts to him?” Lox asked. “Can you do that?”
“I can, but...” Astral let her hand drop from Vic's chest, opened her eyes, and looked up at him in concern. “It seemed to hurt him when I did it before. If sharing my thoughts is painful for him, then...”
“It's all right,” Vic assured her. “This is important. Go ahead, Astral.”
“OK.” She nodded and clasped her hands together. “I'll try. Just a little bit at a time, all right?”
Vic felt a tickle at the edge of his mind. A foreign will began seeping in; not a deluge like before, more like a stream trickling through a clump of rocks. It was bearable at first, but then his mind reacted against the intrusion of another will, and his stomach lurched. Despite his attempts to accept the intruder, his head throbbed and panic swelled in his gut.
“Don't fight it,” Astral told him. “It's fighting that makes it hurt. I know. It took a long time before I could hear the Voice without pain, and even now it's too much for me sometimes.”
“I'm trying not to fight it,” Vic grunted. “It's hard. It's like a whole bunch of people crammed into my head at once. Why is that? Why doesn't it just feel like two wills—yours and mine?”
“That's the Voice,” Astral explained. “It's not just a single mind. It's like a legion of minds in one.”
“You mean,” Vic gasped through the pain, “this is what you feel every time you use your powers?”
“Maybe,” Astral said. “I can't feel what you're feeling, but it's probably similar.”
Finally, the pain in Vic's head became unbearable. “All right, that's enough.”
The intrusive presence withdrew. It was like a vice had been removed from Vic's temples. He dropped to one knee, breathing hard, yet relieved from the release of the pain.
“I'm sorry.” Astral sat down next to Vic, her eyes full of concern. “I told you I didn't want to hurt you.”
Vic tried to smile at her. “It's OK. You figured out how to deal with this, right? Then I will, too.”
Astral perked up and clapped her hands together. “Oh, I have an idea. When you feel my will coming in, don't think of it as you and me. Think of it as us.”
“As us?” Vic repeated.
Astral nodded encouragingly. “If you identify yourself as part of the will, instead of separate from it, your mind will be less apt to reject it. And, um, when you hear thoughts that aren't your own, remember, they aren't drowning your own thoughts. You're still there, only now you've become an observer of someone else's mind, listening because you want to hear, not because you're being smothered.”
“All right,” Vic said. “Thanks, Astral. I'll try that. Just give me a couple minutes before we try again.”
“Are you sure?” Astral said. “You shouldn't push yourself too hard.”
“I'm sure,” he replied. “I'll tell you to stop if it gets too painful.”
Vic took another moment to finish recuperating, then they resumed the test. As he felt the foreign will seeping into his own again, Vic tried following Astral's advice.
“It's not myself versus a foreign invader,” he told himself. “It's 'us,' two people sharing one mind. My own will isn't being erased. I'm just quieting my own thoughts so I can observe someone else's for a while.”
At first, his attempt to suppress his subconscious rejection fared poorly. Part of himself still feared that his own will would disappear under the deluge of foreign thoughts, that resistance to the invasion was the only defense to preserve his own ego. His stomach swam with nausea and his head began to throb; but he persevered, trying to enter a state of passive acceptance.
Finally, like a receding tide, the pain subsided. The deafening cacophony resolved itself into a thousand separate entities, which he could sift through with a limited measure of control. Each entity gave him the impression of a conceptual jigsaw puzzle. Many of them made no sense to him, but some of them almost formed a coherent pattern. That one called to mind a waterfall; that one, a raging fire, a grand symphony, a sleeping tiger, broken earth with steam and tar seeping from its cracks...
“I can sense something,” he said. “It's hard to wrap my mind around it. It's like a kaleidoscope of thoughts. So many patterns, constantly shifting, and it changes completely if I shift my perspective even a little bit.”
Astral beamed. “You're accepting it,” she exclaimed.
“What are these things?” Vic asked.
“The ones that you can make some sense of are people,” Astral said.
Vic's voice filled with awe. “These are people's thoughts?”
Astral shook her head. “Not quite. Mental impressions become more diluted the more subjects I'm observing. Right now, I'm just passively sensing everything I can reach. These are vague impressions of everyone in the vicinity.”
“What about these other patterns?” Vic asked. “The ones that seem like nonsense?”
“That's the Voice,” Astral said. “Even I can't make much sense of it.”
“The Voice,” Vic whispered. “The Xenowave. If only we could decipher these patterns, we could learn more about it. But that's not what we're after right now. Can you focus your attention on one person? See if you can read their intentions and transfer them to me.”
“I'll try.”
Astral redirected her focus, and the mental landscape began to change. One by one, the myriad jigsaw puzzles flew apart and scattered to the wind, until only a few were left. All but one of them began to fade, while the one that remained glowed brighter and brighter.
The sudden change was too disorienting. Vic's control over the images slipped and his passive state of mind gave way to confusion. In a rush, the pain from before came flooding back.
“Crap,” he grunted. “Stop. Stop sending your thoughts. I screwed up.”
The mental transmission ceased. Astral came forward and looked up at Vic in concern.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “Are you all right?”
“I'll be OK,” he replied. “That was my fault. It was working, but I lost control.”
Lox interjected, “Perhaps we should continue this experiment another time.”
“Yeah,” Vic agreed. “I think that's enough for now.”
Esther beamed at the others in satisfaction. “That was a resounding success, though,” she said. “Not only did the MINDs succeed in activating Astral's powers, but Vic was briefly able to receive her thoughts without pain. Perhaps with more practice, Colonel Lane's idea to use them as a team for predicting and responding to enemy behavior will become feasible.”
54
From the bridge of his flagship, the Nemesis, Admiral Halschen watched as the golden orb of Chalice swelled in the main viewscreen. The Memory and the Circumstance were following close behind, all cloaked. They had completed their deceleration hours before so that the emissions from their forward thrusters would not give away their position. All sensors showed no signs of hostile presence, and the flotilla was on course to pass over the drop zone in a matter of minutes.