Talk to you later, okay? Try not to piss off Ferguson too much!
Love,
Sorcha
P.S. Please find attached to this note an encrypted file, Stuff.1, which contains a bundle of documents and things, which I think you’ll know what to do with. I’m placing several autospam copies around the infosphere, too, just in case. S
I felt … I don’t know how. For a long while I couldn’t think.
How else could I feel, once I realized that as Ferguson was … as he was … hurting … me, Eclipse was assaulting that world with those tailored weapons? The kind of attack where you can stand well back, perhaps not even having to enter the system before launching. Fire and forget.
Now it was over a week and one big tube jump later; we were back in human space, pushing on to our next tube. How far along was the attack? What percentage of the creatures were dead already? I imagined Eclipse would get ordered to go back to do the follow-up in a few months. Minus my services, of course.
All of which was fine with me. The Service and I were done with each other. I felt no great urge to protest. I couldn’t stop or undo what was done. Even if I made a fuss, as the old James would have done, I’d be slapped aside and business would roll on. Rocking the boat would only get me more pointless grief. The Service was bigger than I was. It was one of the things I knew now.
So I lay there, saying nothing, feeling nothing, eyes closed. My headware asked from time to time if I wanted to decrypt and unpack the bundle of files Sorcha had sent. I told it to piss off and leave me alone. Actually, I came close to dumping the files, but didn’t, and I’m not sure why. I figured all those autospam systems would take care of the task of instantly replicating and transmitting countless copies of those files to every media group in human space. Why send them to me?
Not that it mattered.
Sorcha. I was as astonished as she was, and as angry. Astonished at the strange tale of how she got access to the Admiralty mission records and, like her, furious at what the Service had done to an entire world that almost certainly was no threat to anyone, just for the sake of the real estate on that planet. We had to make room for colonial expansion. There were more people all the time.
I felt sick.
And that made me think of Caroline. How she had said that Eclipse was going back to Ganymede to pick up a special cargo and having her weaponry upgraded. I hadn’t thought about it, or wondered what this cargo might be. But now I knew: nanophage bombs for use against the aliens.
I remembered that note from Janet Blackmore, just before Ferguson broke my head. She said she’d found out more about the glass spheres. Information devices, she had said, and also some kind of biological entity. If the aliens we found used those devices for information support in some way analogous to the way we used information devices implanted in our brain tissues and elsewhere, did that make those aliens intelligent, sentient? That had been the issue, back at the beginning. How could we tell? Was it even possible to tell?
Suppose the revelation that the creatures were almost certainly sentient in some fashion was also their death-sentence?
Then I got a memory-flash of Rudyard, agitated and scared that night in the viewing gallery, asking me what the first duty of a Service officer is, and me saying, “To protect the Home System Community.”
And him saying, “Good man.”
Late that night, I went into my headware’s extreme security compartment. I was surprised I still didn’t feel anything, doing this. The file structure in there was so tidy. Unlike Rudyard’s secure compartment, mine was uncluttered: money, identity, mail storage, access controls.
Self-destruct controls.
In training, you get these things added to your headware, and you get schooled in their use. The idea is that in the event of capture/torture by hostile forces, you could punch out of the situation quickly, without having to resort to secret compartments full of poison hidden in your teeth and the like. Instead you could go straight for the master override for your autonomic nervous system.
The panel floated over my vision. I felt a quiver of anxiety. I opened the panel, used my eyes to track through the few options, went straight for the big red button surrounded by the hazard striping, marked “Emergency Use Only.”
And hesitated.
Took a breath.
Hoped Trish would understand. If she ever got to hear about it, that is.
I selected the button. Blinked to register the selection.
Here goes nothing…
Twenty
Immediately, I heard an alarm inside my head. A sign appeared over my field of view: Command Disallowed — Infirmary Overrides In Place. Doctors Notified.
Oh shit.
Dr. Critchlow, the attending doctor tonight, appeared. I was facing away, curled up. Washed up. My career was over; my father was nuts; my brother wasn’t going to leave me alone until I joined him.
“Hmm, Mr. Dunne, Mr. Dunne.” He did something that turned off the alarm in my head, and tossed me out of my hiding place inside my headware.
I remained still, all curled up, and that reminded me of the aliens, when we first found them, wrapped and huddled around each other.
It was, of course, a logical error trying to explain alien behavior in terms of human behavior. But that image of them, clustered tight around one another in those crypt-things, had stuck with me.
Critchlow went on, “What are we going to do with you? Hmm?” There was an edge to his voice.
Silence.
“You really think killing yourself is such a good idea?”
My options, I thought, were limited. Right now I lacked the energy even to dream myself back to that Martian park.
“Your brother Colin killed himself, didn’t he?”
I almost flinched.
“It’s in your file, of course. Full police report on the incident. Very detailed. Nasty, nasty business for all concerned. Don’t you think suicide is an admission of failure? Isn’t it just a way to tell the world that they won, that they ground you down to a fine paste, and spat you out in disgust? Isn’t that what it’s about?
He was saying Colin was a failure, a useless weakling who had just given up. But it wasn’t like that. I knew it wasn’t like that. Colin was making a statement against his father, trying to get Dad to see Colin for who he was. That’s what I had always understood. He wasn’t a failure he was a hero; he had guts to take such a step. He was never more his own self than when he hanged himself. Or so I told myself.
But then I figured that Critchlow was trying to get a reaction out of me; he was baiting me.
He said, “You even went along with the system’s plans to grind you down and spit you out, didn’t you? They have been sitting around laughing at their good fortune, what a piece of luck! He’s letting us win!” The doctor laughed a little, as if incredulous. “You struck me as more of a fighter, son, when I first met you. Now … now, what are you? You look like a big sack of useless protein matter, like some terrible fab mistake. ‘Oh sorry, I actually ordered eighty kilos of steak, thanks, not this simpering, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, vacuous pile of shit!’”
My breathing changed. Didn’t he know that all my fighting had gotten me to this point? That it had got me … got me…
I felt myself scream. Flashes shot through my head. Remembering the pain — and realizing, in cold shock, that it really wasn’t the pain. The pain had been beyond comprehension. But pain, they say, is transient. I remembered being in pain, but not the pain itself.
What I remembered, what I still carried with me, was far worse. It was, now that I allowed myself to feel it, humiliating.
And it wasn’t even the first time it had happened. This time, though, it felt different. It had been much, much worse. I had survived those other times at th
e Academy, where there hadn’t been such personal, vicious hatred. Nor had so much been at stake. Ferguson had taken my dignity, my professional pride.
He’d taken my love of the stars, too, as foolish as that sounds to say; which was about the only thing I really had in common with Colin. I wished I could weep.
And all for nothing! Not a bloody thing. Ferguson had wanted to break me — well now I was broken. Broken beyond repair. In a couple of weeks I’d be out of everybody’s way, and they could go back to their chummy existence with their vicious initiations and bloody secrets and cozy arrangements, out doing their best to serve the precious Home System Community. I wanted to spit, thinking about it. Even the HSC itself was a figment of political imagination and marketing.
Critchlow continued, a sneer in his tone, “Maybe I should just hand you over to the captain. He’s been insisting, you know. Huge screaming matches in my office, over the cloud, in my mail, everything. He wants your ass on a silver plate, son. He’d like to toss you out an airlock. Says he’s never felt so monstrously betrayed, that the Service itself has never been so violated as it has by your despicable actions. A spy and a would-be assassin, the captain called you. The only way you could have made this any worse for yourself, Mr. Dunne, is if you had actually pulled off what you were trying to do. That’s the thing: you’re that terribly pathetic figure, the failed villain!” He chuckled. “However, the other doctors and I have been refusing to hand you over since you’re not well. And on these matters, our judgment outweighs the captain’s, which is lucky for you. But if you’re well enough to off yourself, well perhaps we should reconsider our medical judgment. What do you think?”
I rolled over, opened my eyes, and looked at Critchlow. Looked at him hard. “Do I look like I give a shit?”
He looked like he wanted to hit me. “Well, we got you to talk, that’s something.”
“If you really want to hand me over to Rudyard,” I said, still looking at him, “I’m ready to go whenever you are. I thought I’d go casual.”
“You really don’t care?”
“What’s to care about? All this? The honor of the Service? When we’ve just annihilated an entire race of creatures that were probably sentient?” I spat that last part.
Critchlow hesitated, hearing me say that. He said nothing for a few seconds, his face going white; I figured he was sending off a quick bit of mail or making a call. Then, “What makes you say that? That we just annihilated some…?”
I cut him a surprised smile. “The command staff doesn’t keep you guys in the loop? I’m shocked.”
“Damn you, Dunne! Where did you get that information?”
“The spy fairy left a secret under my pillow last night.” I put my hands behind my head, crossing my ankles.
Critchlow went away. I guessed I had just reduced my life expectancy to mere hours, if that. Well, screw them all!
While Critchlow was away, I put together a small encrypted note and file-bundle for Sorcha. It was ridiculously easy, sending and receiving such traffic. The Service maintained that officers were decent, honorable types who would never do something as vile as trafficking in classified data. So they gave all crewmen the benefit of the doubt, and gave personal mail only the most cursory checks. One’s honor should be all the protection the Service needed. In practice, in a Service rife with self-serving bastards, the traffic in classified data was probably huge. But to investigate these leaks might reveal secrets best left hidden.
In any case, it would take time for the Service to catch up with me, and by that time I’d probably be dead.
It took two minutes to process, and I shot it off through ShipMind; it left Eclipse with a regular compressed signal burst, headed for the nearest System Mail Hub, which would forward it to the next ship passing through as part of the usual upload of pending mail. Depending on tube weather, Sorcha should receive my note in less than a week. She would know what to do.
I rolled over and slept; psychostatic control was a wonderful thing.
Critchlow came back later. “Right. I’ve got the clearances. Mr. Dunne — I’m here to escort you to the captain’s office. Mr. Ferguson is waiting, as well as Mr. Janning. They’d all like a quiet word with you.”
I got up. My head felt woozy, and my backside was still tender. “Oooooh…”
“You’ve been lying down a long time, son. Do be careful.”
I batted him away. “I do know the way to the captain’s quarters, Doc. I’ll be fine.”
He looked unimpressed. “Orders.”
Shrugging, I let him take me. On the way, I took great delight in not saluting a single person. Smiling, even.
Then I heard the tone for new mail in my head — urgent new mail, and not from within the ship. “Wait a second, Doc.”
“Mr. Dunne, we don’t have—” He was annoyed, reaching for my elbow. I fended him off.
“It’s an urgent message. Let me just check. If it’s nothing, we can still go and the captain and his pals can still kill me.”
He didn’t like my attitude, but I already felt like I no longer existed among these people. Between what Ferguson had done to me, and the imminent threat of a nasty death, I thought, what more could they do to me? There was a certain perverse and bitter liberation in that.
I checked the message.
And stopped cold in the passageway, mouth slack. “Oh…”
“Dunne?”
“It’s my father…”
To: SSO1 Dunne, J., HMS Eclipse, RIS
From: Dr. J. Dunne
Current Loc
Son:
Don’t have long. Ship under attack. Mercenary vessels, maybe 6, 7. Can’t make out markings. I’m trying to get to New Jerusalem, to see your mother about Colin. I still hear his voice. Must tell her. Don’t know if I’m going to get there. If I don’t, I want you to tell her. Promise me.
They’ve cut off the drive core boom. Using their own ships to brake our momentum — intense vibration, g’s. They’ve got crackbots trying to get control of ShipMind. Son, I don’t like this. Hearing about things like this 4 weeks, all across Hum. Space. Didn’t think it’d happen 2 me.
Two ships with docking arms approaching. Flight attendants telling us what to do if boarded. Hard to concentrate. Attendants scared. People squealing, praying. Everyone straining at the windows.
Just heard clamps hit hull.
Love u, James. Look after Trish. Remember!
Dad
The message from Dad was time-stamped from more than a week ago. New Jerusalem was a long way from here. Eight days by tube was making good time. We were passing through a busy system. I sent off a news sniffer, looking for incident reports. Local System Mail Hub sent back enough to work out what I needed to know.
Critchlow came up to me, touched my arm. “Mr. Dunne — James — what’s the matter…?” He sounded calm, friendly and supportive. Not like someone trying to snap me out of my previous frame of mind.
That frame of mind was gone. Leaving a big, cold empty space inside me, like a hangar exposed to space.
I scanned through the incident reports. I said, mouth dry, staring at the opposite wall, “The captain punched the self-destruct rather than let them take his ship and cargo. Can you imagine? No regard for the passengers. No warning. No warning at all. The blast took out four enemy ships…”
“You’re not making any sense, son,” Critchlow said.
“My father,” I said, my mouth still not working right, “my father’s dead, Doc. He’s been dead … more than a week.” I was looking at Critchlow. He had a terrible expression. I said, “But I just … this letter…”
I covered my eyes. My throat hurt.
“I’m, well, I’m — what happened, how
did it…?” Critchlow stammered.
There was more to the reports. The mercenaries were funded by an ultra-orthodox Zionist group; some kind of power struggle over who owned New Jerusalem. There was a disagreement involving the wording of the treaty adjudicating the use of the world by the local Jewish, Muslim, Coptic, Christian communities, and the sundry other people living there, especially over who had permission to live in a capital city claimed by everyone as their own.
I stood there in the passageway, shaking my head, making a sound that might have been laughter, muttering, “But it’s a whole bloody planet!”
We moved on.
Bleary-eyed, chest tight, feeling ever more like an alien aboard this ship, surrounded by these strangers, people known more by their insignia and rank than by their names and personalities, I skimmed related news stories. I read — with no sense of connection — about the growing strife breaking out in systems across human space. Resources were tight; exploration cost money; populations were booming; ancient racial hatreds abounded; same old stories, in other words. Meanwhile, new conflicts were cropping — orthos versus Qua; cults versus churches; olds versus young; human beings versus disposables. All this conflict was going on all the time below the threshold of mainstream media interest. You had to be a bit of a news geek to find out about these things.
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