Omnipotence: Book I: Odyssey

by Geoff Gaywood

  “Please, Jafar! Isn’t there anything edifying in the news?” asked Hannah.

  “Not that I can see,” said Jafar. “The climate management conference in Hong Kong collapsed in chaos. The Chinese wanted to run aggressive large-scale trials of new aerial seeding compounds to induce rainfall, and some barmy American academic vetoed it on the basis that it was ‘ungodly’. The only outfit that seems to be getting anything done is your lot at the ISEA.”

  “Well, Jafar darling, the next time we talk will be when we are on our way to our rendezvous with…”

  “With what?” Jafar wanted to know.

  “With … destiny,” said Hannah after some thought. I’ll tell you about it when we get there.”

  * * *

  The launch itself was spectacular only in that the rocket motors were fired to get the ship out of lunar orbit and onto its planned trajectory, whereupon the anti-matter propulsion system took over the slow but relentless acceleration of the ship.

  Life on board Prometheus began to take on the semblance of routine. Shifts changed, command and control alternated, minor irritations arose between some individuals, sometimes due to technical glitches but more often the result of clashes in personal style.

  Colonel Henri Bertin and his SWAT team, now ten strong, scanned the output of the newly modified automated surveillance system for signs of nefarious intent and found nothing.

  But in another part of the ship, a sector now carefully sealed off and sanitised of all observation devices, a quite different mood prevailed. One of the section leaders was scanning the confidential crew records, data he had no right to see. He was looking for certain behavioural patterns, and he was finding them. He looked at his watch. The afternoon shift would be coming off duty in ten minutes. Time to move.

  Joining the jostling queue for the evening meal he picked out five individuals with whom he was to come into close proximity during the next ten minutes or so. None would feel the tiny prick in their skin as his hand clapped his good-natured greeting on them. But none would ever be the same again.

  * * *

  Back in the crew quarters, Marcel leaned forward for the eye scan that would open the door to his quarters when the door to his left half opened, revealing part of a scowling face. “Hey, how are your IT skills?” it demanded shrilly.

  “Not bad, Sanam,” said Marcel, his face cocked to one side. “Are you having some grief with the internal system?”

  “Damn right! It needs modification.”

  “Oh really? What kind of modification?”

  “It needs some manners,” said Sanam simply. “Come in.”

  Marcel went in.

  To his amazement the walls of the room were hung with tapestries, and a large arch of scarlet fabric was mounted above the head of the bed. It looked quite extraordinarily exotic in the otherwise bland decorative scheme of the ship. “Well, you have certainly stamped your personality on your little corner of Prometheus,” he said.

  Sanam scowled again.

  “Just what is the problem?” He looked quizzically at the monitor with its frozen image of Sanam in her splendid setting.

  “That!” She pointed at the monitor. “I am being spied on in my personal space.”

  “How did you get hold of that data stream?” asked Marcel, with some interest.

  “Never mind!” snapped Sanam. “I want it stopped.”

  “Yes, but the data is only being electronically monitored. Nobody is going to see it unless the scanning system picks up something…”

  “I want it stopped!” yelled Sanam.

  “Give me a reason why,” said Marcel.

  “Because I may want to have company in my room.”

  “Same applies,” said Marcel. “You can do what you like with whoever you like. As long as it’s not subversive, no one will ever know.”

  “Marcel, please.”

  “OK, I can put a block on it, but the system will record personnel movements around the ship, so if you have a frequent visitor, it will show up.”

  “I don’t care! I just don’t want to be videoed in my bed.”

  “OK, I’ll put a block on it, and that will be on record, but you’ll have your privacy.”

  “Thank you, Marcel,” she said sweetly.

  As he left his room an hour later he passed three women coming the other way. “Good grief, a girlie party,” he thought.

  When he got to Arlette’s quarters Genes was already there, spread out over a sofa. Arlette sat in an armchair, sipping fruit juice.

  “Hey, Marcel, Genes and I were just discussing the reliability of the induced gravity system. He doesn’t think it will hold up.”

  “Anything you noticed during the system failure tests?” asked Marcel.

  “Naw,” drawled Genes. “Fact is I was impressed how fast they brought it up. Ah just think the generators are under-designed. They are operating too close to capacity for my liking. Not enough slack in the system.”

  “Come on, Genes, we can’t put Texas-style overcapacity into everything. They did their sums and delivered the goods,” said Marcel.

  “If we come out of the ass-end of that wormhole with the gravity system still operating, I’ll be mighty surprised,” said Genes gravely. “That’s the kind of stress that will test the system, not flippin’ them switches up and down,” he added.

  “Got any suggestions to beef it up, Genes?” asked Arlette.

  “Yeah. Let me do some more thinking about that.”

  “What do think about the team, the Ukrainians?”

  “As good a bunch of guys as you’ll find anywhere,” said Genes. “That’s not the issue. It’s the hardware that bothers me.”

  The conversation drifted on to people. “You happy with all the other players so far, Genes?” asked Arlette casually.

  “Too soon to say,” came the reply. “That CIA guy, Bertin, is making no friends. They’re always the same. Come across evil. Loyalties and agenda is anyone’s guess, methods can be as messy as he chooses.”

  “Aren’t you letting your imagination run riot? How do you know he’s CIA?” Arlette looked concerned.

  “CIA, KGB, Mossad, whatever.” said Genes. “Unaccountable and unconcerned. Who’s going to ask the questions if the wrong guy disappears?”

  “He’s answerable to me,” said Arlette, somewhat hopefully.

  “Hey, I don’t doubt it, and I’m sure you have no reason not to trust him.”

  Arlette looked away. She felt uncomfortable and Genes could see it. He dropped the subject.

  “Hey, Marcel, you’re the master of all things technical. Where do you see our challenges?” he asked.

  “I’m about where you are,” replied Marcel. “A severe localised distortion of space–time sounds to me like the kind of place where things might break, even though the explorer probes got through the wormhole and back without apparent damage. Time spent now on enhancing the robustness of our systems is well spent in my view. Why don’t we get together tomorrow at 10.00 and define some specifics?”

  Genes was on his feet.

  “You bet,” he said, “Let’s call in Dima from Gravity and Gerry from Hull Integrity as well.”

  He turned. “G’night, Commander, Marcel,” and he was gone.

  Arlette turned as the door closed behind him. “He gives me a very solid feeling,” she said, as if to no one in particular. “Sure,” said Marcel, “but you’ll get to feel the same about all your section leaders. There is immense depth of knowledge and experience on this ship. Genes is good but not unique.”

  His French intonation was just evident in the way he said this, and it made Arlette smile.

  “Alright,” she said. “What do you think of Bertin?”

  “I’m more sanguine than Genes. He has a job to do. It requires knowledge that most of us do not need and should not have. I have no doubt that he is amply qualified and appropriately experienced. He asks questions and gives no answers, and that’s OK with me. I don’t find the opinion of non-s
ecurity people of any relevance on security issues.”

  Arlette nodded. “Yes, but what do you think of him as a man?”

  Marcel considered this question carefully. “Strong, courageous, cunning. If I had to make a quick decision, I’d trust him with my life.”

  “Thank you, Marcel.” The smile on Arlette’s face was unexpected. “And you, where are you personally?”

  It was an odd question. Marcel considered his commander carefully. A strong woman with a broad range of competences, who had quickly gained the confidence and respect of the crew, but somehow still not at ease with her authority. Not surprising given this was her first major command? She was used to standing out in small groups, but had not yet assumed the commanding self-confidence of a major leader. You could not fault the content of what she was doing, but the style was still a little uncertain, a little too open to push-back.

  “I am supremely confident of our ability to deliver technically on this mission,” he began, leaning forward and smiling at her, “and I have developed a huge admiration for you and the way you have moved into your role. I am personally excited about you as a leader, and I am very proud of being on your team.”

  He gave her a long, appreciative look that took in all of her, including her implicit sexuality, and he was, for a moment, deeply conscious of it. She felt it too, a little glow that was respectful and in context, but nevertheless appreciative of her holistically. She smiled broadly.

  “I have noticed you biting your lip on several occasions, holding back on comments you think might be disruptive,” he went on. “I think the time has now come when you have the standing to express your views freely. A command like yours is lawfully authoritarian. I want to see your strength and I’m happy to go and pick up the pieces if necessary.”

  Arlette looked at Marcel and nodded almost imperceptibly, holding his gaze for a while.

  “Thank you,” she said again.

  11

  Pandora Strikes

  Some twenty-two hours later, four men and a woman were seated in a sealed room with the section leader who had approached them individually at dinner and invited them in to see what he had described to them as ‘an unusual martial arts movie’. It began with a sequence of kick-boxing clips in which the victors became increasingly vicious in their assaults, finally administering lethal blows to the windpipes of their opponents.

  There was no apparent reaction from any of the viewers.

  The next clips included a series of gruesome torture scenes in which the victims were horribly abused and finally thrown onto a heap of bodies, apparently dead. The final sequence showed a series of visually explicit beheadings carried out by swordsmen who apparently took pleasure in what they were doing.

  When the movie had ended, the section leader strode to the front of the group and, engaging each one with intensive eye contact, withdrew a sword from its sheath.

  “Are you ready to kill for me?” he growled.

  There was a shout of assent.

  * * *

  When Marcel returned to his quarters it was obvious from the commotion next door that Sanam had company, multiple company. He entered his room, checked his mail and switched on the external view. Mars was clearly visible and he zoomed in to take a closer look at the planet, particularly the delicate, fleeting polar cap.

  Sanam’s door opened and slammed. Several women poured out, giggling. Finally Marcel opened his door a crack and looked down the corridor at the departing revellers. Two women were standing there, their arms around each other, engaged in a passionate kiss.

  Marcel closed his door noiselessly. “Hey ho,” he said.

  * * *

  Dimitri Kazarov had had a tedious day simulating landing mishaps in the excursion vehicle with Sanam Ghorashian. She was a perfectionist, intent on forecasting and controlling every conceivable option. He was a seat-of-the-pants man, with lightning reactions and deep intuition. They had been programming contrived piloting challenges into the EV control system to test each other.

  “What the hell is this?” yelled Sanam as the EV simulation once more inexplicably lost its directional control system and plummeted into the ground.

  “Struck by a large flying animal,” said Dimitri with a grin.

  “Idiot!” yelled Sanam, staring at the data field before her “It weighs forty tons and is flying at 200 kph! This is mindless!”

  “I am not an idiot and we are here to understand the limits of the system we are going to fly,” said Dimitri as calmly as he could.

  “Look,” said Sanam with venom, “I am a scientist and a pilot and not to be trifled with by some deluded Russian sci-fi freak. We do this with credible scenarios or not at all.”

  “Your arrogance in deciding what is and what is not a credible scenario on a planet where we know nothing more than its size, temperature profile and atmospheric composition is intolerable! Perhaps you should stick to flying shuttles between well-defined coordinates, like the over-trained and spoiled Persian princess you are…”

  “Oh,” Sanam glowered, “how you Russians love to tell everyone what to do! How inventive you are in contriving suffering for others! How brutally you…”

  The door of the simulator was wrenched open and Henri Bertin marched in with eyes like ice.

  “Stop this activity immediately and return to your quarters,” he said, physically stepping between the two of them.

  Dimitri rose, turned, spat on the floor and left. The look on Sanam’s face was one of unbridled hatred.

  “Please, Major Ghorashian, you are better than that,” said Henri. She left without a word.

  Some time later Dimitri was queueing to collect his evening meal when one of his convivial colleagues shoved him aside and whispered in his ear. Dimitri grinned and nodded. An hour later he was seated in a small group about to watch an ‘unusual’ movie.

  It wasn’t what he expected, and his curiosity began to turn to revulsion, not so much at what he was seeing, but in terms of the demonic pleasure it seemed to be giving to the rest of the small audience. He rose from his seat, a wave of nausea came over him and he reached out to steady himself. The movie stopped and he was suddenly conscious that all eyes were on him. There was a little flash from a blade before him and then a sharp pain in his chest. He felt his warm blood spilling down his body and heard a cacophony of shouts in his ears. Then he slid to the ground and his consciousness ebbed away.

  Major Kazarov failed to report for duty on the main flight deck the following morning and did not respond to calls or prompts. A quick inspection showed that he had not filed an activity report for the previous day or slept in his room. After all section leaders on the ship were ordered to carry out local searches, he was found sitting in the pilot’s seat of the EV simulator, holding a piece of paper in his hand. On it was printed the word ‘PANDORA’. He had been dead for at least eight hours.

  Henri Bertin sat with his two-man detection team in his office, reviewing the video records of the last twenty-four hours. It was quite clear that the video monitoring system had been hacked and numerous records deleted. Nowhere was there any evidence of where Kazarov went after he left the EV simulator or how his body had been delivered back there.

  He called the IT section head and requested back-up on the lost records. There was an embarrassed silence, followed by a rather nervous response. Henri’s heart sank. “No chance?”

  “No, sir.”

  The three men looked at each other. Was it possible that, with all the analytical sophistication on this ship, they would have no surveillance data to identify a murderer right in their midst?

  * * *

  Henri was in the Commander’s office, and she had just asked him the question he had asked himself ten minutes earlier.

  She was livid, and he felt the whole weight of her anger and disgust without her uttering a single harsh word. He apologised without false humility for failing to detect the vulnerability of the video monitoring system and told her that IT was working on
backing up all surveillance data.

  Then she asked the question he was dreading. “Well, Colonel Bertin, what do you suggest was the motive for the murder of a key member of my operations team?”

  Henri frowned. “Well, the only motive we know of is ethnic hatred. We know of a very ugly exchange between Major Ghorashian and Kazarov, but with seriously compromised surveillance records we do not know where she was or who she spoke to after that incident. If that was the motive, she had very significant back-up, because she is not known for her IT skills, not at the level required to hack into an encrypted system.”

  “So?”

  “I have asked Intelligence for comprehensive research into the backgrounds of these two and for any leads on how they may have interacted in the past.”

  “Wasn’t that done already?”

  “Yes, but now it will all be repeated in the light of this incident.” It was a pretty long shot, and Henri knew it.

  “Is that all?” Arlette’s voice reeked of contempt.

  “No, there was a message in Kazarov’s hand – it just said ‘PANDORA’.”

  Arlette stiffened and the blood drained from her face. “Do you know who Pandora was?” she asked icily.

  “She was the girl who couldn’t resist opening her box of treasures, and let out all the evil into the world.”

  “Good, good!” Arlette was sneering. “And who sent her, and why?”

  “It’s not really my area…”