by J. K. Norry
EIGHTEEN
Link sat upright in his easy chair, startled further back into reality by the thunk of the footrest loudly finding its way home. His heart was pounding, and it felt unnatural to sit still. A moment later he was pacing the only small strip of his living room carpet that he could pace comfortably on, and not feeling any more at ease than before. He saw himself from the outside, for a brief moment of embarrassed clarity; rather than cease his static wandering, he dismissed the viewpoint and started talking to himself.
“It wasn’t even real,” he muttered. “It was all just a dream, a dumb pointless dream. I maybe had a shot with a real girl, and things were going great at work. My mind had to sabotage me somehow, to keep me living the lame life I’m supposed to be living. I mean, Cervice? What kind of a name is that? And how smart can you be, if you get outwitted by a guy that looks just like me?”
He kept pacing, and muttering, changing subject mid-stream.
“Forget all that noise,” he said. He straightened his posture and slowed his pace, although he did continue walking back and forth mindlessly. Believing in what he had muttered seemed to be the key, so he said it again.
“Forget all that noise,” he repeated. “It’s time for me to get it together. I’ve got no business trying to help some alien race that my mind made up, especially if its going to turn what little of a life I still have upside down. I don’t care if it’s Christmas morning, or will be soon. I’m going to text Sherry, or maybe call her. There must be some explanation I can give her, that won’t make it sound like I’m some kind of loser than prefers his stupid dreams over real life.”
All through his shower, he thought about it. While he brushed his teeth and gargled mouthwash, he thought about it. He thought about it while he made another cup of coffee, and the whole time he was drinking it. As he brewed another cup, Link had to admit that it was hopeless. There was no excuse that would explain away his behavior, and no reason for her to give him another chance when he hadn’t really had one to begin with. Both of his worlds had terminated in dead ends, on the same night.
He didn’t know what constituted celebrating in the fleet, but he thought The Admiral must be engaged in some version of it. That, or he was roaming mindlessly through the corridors of the ship. Either way, curiosity got the best of him once he finally got around to filling his belly with some lump of substances that he neither heated nor tasted. His body may have gotten used to him sleeping so much, or his full belly was drowning him in drowsiness; whichever it was, Link didn’t have it in him to resist the pull of whatever version of unconsciousness awaited him.
The sheets were neither clean nor dirty, and he slipped between them in fresh pajamas. Link eyed the bottle of pills for a full minute, then shrugged and took two of them. He washed them down with water, set down the glass and closed his eyes before his head touched the pillow. The shocking familiar feeling of traveling without moving pulled him from his body, and plunked him once again into The Admiral’s.
A new morning had begun, in the eternal night of space, and Link awoke in the other man’s mind mid-stride. He had been walking alone, along with all the others, making an effort to look normal. Link took over the exact same task, falling into step without moving at precisely the same pace as anyone. From the corner of his eye he watched, to see if anyone was perhaps watching him from the corner of their eye. Nothing seemed to have changed, although he couldn’t be sure what he was looking for. The Admiral felt as exhausted as Link did, but that made sense. He had been up all night.
He held an intention in his mind, and trusted his feet to take him where he wanted to go. Link was relieved and moderately impressed with himself when he found those steps leading him to The Admiral’s chamber. The wall disappeared at his approach, and he went inside. As soon as the partition had reformed, he went to the log book.
No new entries had been written, and Link slammed his fist down on the desk beside it. He found the mirror again, and tried to stare deeply into the other man’s eyes in hope of seeing his thoughts. All he got was a blank stare. His own blank stare.
Link sighed, and threw his arms up in despair.
“Cervice,” he said. “Please tell me you can hear me.”
The silence that followed was punctuated only by the dull rumbling that never seemed to cease or falter. Link felt himself cringe inside the other man’s mind, felt a knot of hopeless anxiety twist more tightly with each moment that passed with no answer.
He stumbled to the wall, and it opened at his approach. The hallway beyond was nearly empty, and he moved along it with no thought of where he might be going. Now that something may have gone horribly wrong, Link was suddenly convinced beyond a doubt that this world was real. He was sure Cervice was dead, that thousands of people had depended on him to save them and he had let them down. Link wanted to run; he wanted to dash down the hallway, calling out for Cervice until he appeared somehow.
Instead he walked, hesitating at every intersection to cast his gaze as far down each corridor as he could. It was a ridiculous search, and Link knew it; if Cervice was still alive, he would have seen Link and come to talk to him as soon as he had begun to act strangely. Link started to move faster at the thought, walking at a panicked pace that suggested he may break out into a run at any moment. Moving without looking, chased by his own fears, he collided with a group of people as they came around a corner. He bumped into one of them, careened off and smashed bodily into another. Both of the people he had hit dropped something when he did, and by the time he stopped bouncing off them there were a number of items scattered on the floor at their feet.
Before he could apologize, all three of them tossed their own hasty apologies his way. He bent with them, to help pick up the fallen items, and they waved him away. One man and two women, all three smiled uneasily and extended another round of apologies while he knelt and began to pick things up. The items were foreign to him, pieces of carefully constructed metal that surely served some purpose that was beyond him. As he handed the last of them to one of the women, he smiled at her.
All three of them exchanged glances as they rose together, and two other people had walked by during the exchange. He heard them, whispering to each other as they walked away.
“Now I am getting concerned,” the first, a human, said.
“I know,” the artificial responded. “If The Admiral is starting to forget himself, maybe the EMF really is failing.”
They drifted further away, as did their voices.
“Maybe he’s just trying to be nicer,” the first said.
The robot laughed, and said something Link couldn’t hear. He turned his attention back to the group, noting that they were still busy exchanging meaningful glances. They were all artificials, though he could only tell by the bands.
“Admiral,” one of the women said.
The other two looked at her, trying to hush her with fierce glances that did not give Link any hint as to what was going on. She shrugged, and went on.
“Sir,” she said. “Are you feeling...like yourself?”
“Engia!” the other woman snapped, shaking her head. The man looked back and forth between them, then sighed and shrugged.
“Link?” he said. “Is that you?”
Link felt his own eyes go wide, but not nearly as wide as theirs. He blinked slowly, while he watched them exchange another round of meaningful glances, and finally he nodded.
“I’m Link,” he said. “How did you know? Who are you?”
The woman that had started to speak was the one that answered him, leaning in and speaking in a hushed tone.
“There’s no time to explain,” she said. “Neero has something for you.”
Shifting the burden he was holding, the man nodded. He reached behind him with the hand that was now free, and then held it out to Link. On his palm Link saw a device similar to the one he had put in his ear to talk to
Cervice. He was glad the man had looser clothes, and pockets that Link could see. Even then, he hesitated before taking it.
Pinching it lightly between his thumb and forefinger, Link picked up the thing gingerly and inspected it for a moment. He put it in his ear.
“Cervice?” he said, hopefully. “Cervice, are you there?”
He exchanged glances with each of the three in the group before hearing a response.
“Link?”
It was a different voice, with the same cadence. The robot sounded both human and male, for the first time. Link felt the tension drain from his shoulders at the sound, and he nearly jumped for joy as the voice went on.
“I am not everywhere, anymore,” Cervice said. “You must accompany the group you are with, to meet me. Do you have time?”
Link nodded, forgetting that Cervice had lost its omniscient eye for a moment. While he spoke, he nodded again.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got time.”
He looked at each of the others again, in turn.
“Take me to Cervice,” he said.
NINETEEN
Every corridor had looked pretty much the same to him, the first time Link walked the ship in another man’s boots. Now he could see the subtle differences, and was fairly confident he could find his way back the way they showed him once he found a reference point. The whole way he watched for landmarks to burn into his brain, and spoke under his breath to Cervice.
“I thought you were dead,” Link said.
“I am an artificial,” Cervice responded. “We do not die. Nonetheless, I appreciate the sentiment.”
Link heard him sigh, as if to negate his own observation.
“I suppose,” Cervice went on, “I did die, in a sense. I am no longer a part of the ship, or the fleet. The central computer is functioning without my guidance, or my assistance. I was alerted of The Admiral’s intentions before he disconnected me, and I downloaded my consciousness into a body.”
Following the robots at a distance that would make them seem like they were going the same direction but different places, Link found himself getting curious.
“What kind of body did you choose?” he muttered.
The answer came back, after a considered pause.
“I didn’t choose,” Cervice replied. “My students actually chose for me. They constructed a body that is virtually indistinguishable from my original human form. When you see me next, I will appear as I did before I was murdered.”
It seemed like a classically stupid idea, as far as Link was concerned. When hiding from an enemy, adopting any face you wanted sounded like a huge advantage. What kind of vanity had driven him, or his students, was beyond Link. He did not have time to comment, or question the decision; as he rolled the response around in his mind, the group came to a halt before him. They all looked around, appearing suspicious for the first time since he had joined them; then one of the women approached a wall, and an opening appeared. She motioned to the passageway it had revealed, and stepped back.
Brushing past them, Link entered the more narrow corridor. He heard the absence of sound, indicating that the opening in the wall had closed behind him; he pressed on, in the only direction he could. At the end of the hallway, another opening appeared. Link stepped through. Beyond was a simple room, small and sparsely furnished. A bunk dominated the space, and a small desk was set up just to one side of it. Someone was sitting at the desk, writing in a log much like The Admiral’s. He had his back to Link, although he clearly had heard him enter.
“Uh...” Link felt awkward, unsure of himself. “Cervice?”
The man kept his back turned, and continued writing for another long stretch of seconds. When he was finished, he rolled the thin sheet carefully into a slim tubular shape. Opening the end of the stylus he had been using to write with by pinching the end lightly, he slid the rolled log into the barrel. He set it down, and pivoted in his chair.
“Link,” he said, smiling. “I’m so glad they found you.”
Link nodded.
“Me too,” he said. “That was a happy coincidence, running into your students like that.”
Cervice raised an eyebrow, and Link had to remind himself that both the response and the eyebrow itself were artificial. The man wore three chemical control bands, but otherwise his was the most ordinary face Link had seen on the ship yet. Thought lines creased his forehead, and the eyes under them gleamed with intelligence; but no one would ever describe him as handsome, no matter how generous their assessment of him. Link found himself even more baffled by his choice of embodiment.
“Coincidence?” Cervice laughed. “That was no coincidence. Dozens of my allies have been instructed to keep a close eye on The Admiral, and approach him if he was acting strangely. There is a sense of desperation spreading, and you may be our last hope. The odds of you not being discovered by one of them were actually pretty slim.”
Link arched his own eyebrow, organically.
“What’s going on?” he said. “Doesn’t he think he’s already won?”
“The Admiral?” Cervice shook his head. “No. Getting rid of me is just the beginning. Now that I can’t monitor him or the fleet, he can move on to what he plans to do next.”
Link pressed him. “Which is?”
The robot gave a completely human shrug, and smiled.
“That’s what we need you for,” he said. “Look inside his mind, read his log book, ride along as a passenger. I know he aims to destroy the artificials, or at least separate us; what I don’t know is how.”
Link nodded.
“I looked at the log,” he said, “before I came looking for you. There were no new entries. That was how I was unlocking his mind, and seeing his thoughts. I don’t know how I can help.”
A look of irritation came over Cervice’s synthetic features.
“You have to try,” he insisted. “Dig deep. Do you not see anything that belongs to him in your thoughts, or your feelings?”
Link resisted the urge to break out into a wicked grin.
“I still want to shoot you,” he admitted. “More than ever, actually.”
Shaking his head humorlessly, Cervice held out one of his hands. Palm up, he waited expectantly.
“What?” Link said.
“Your earpiece,” Cervice replied. “We can’t have The Admiral discovering it, or me.”
Link removed the tiny device, set it in the robot’s palm.
“I’ll try,” he said. “I’ll come back, and watch what he does, and come find you. If I can still help, I will.”
The communicator disappeared, and Cervice stood. Link noticed that the man looked frail next to the body he was occupying; he was still looking down at the robot, and his trigger finger was still itching.
“Thank you, Link,” Cervice said. “Many lives are at stake, and I am convinced more than ever that you are our only hope.”
He wanted to be in a corridor far from here when The Admiral returned to his body, preferably back in his quarters. Link began to turn, and find his way out; he paused, and looked the robot up and down one more time.
“That’s what you really looked like, huh?” Link said.
Cervice nodded. Link went on.
“Why?” he said. “You could have looked like anyone, and wandered free on the ship. Why would you choose to be so...blatant?”
Cervice laughed.
“The ship monitors all life forms aboard,” he said. “A new addition would have been a red flag, either way. I couldn’t have just wandered around, whatever good that might have done, any more than I can now. The Admiral is in control of the central computer now, at least within its new limiting parameters.”
The robot looked up at him, scorn clearly etched in his features.
“Link,” he said, “your assumptions are so often erroneous, I don’t understan
d why you continue to make them. Your understanding of our fleet seems to have decreased in the time you have spent here. I need you to pay attention, if you are to help us. Now that the central computer is working on its own, it is unable to make critical decisions. It’s not just half the fleet that is in danger now; it’s all of us. Please, take this seriously.”
Link didn’t understand what that meant. He also didn’t feel like asking, and feeling even more stupid. The fact that he had slept away his entire three day Christmas weekend for the cause was not likely to be enough to impress Cervice, particularly since he would be back to work tomorrow and unable to return for some time.
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what is going on. Why is the electromagnetic field generator so vital to everyone’s memory? I mean, don’t robot...ah, artificial brains work differently than organic ones?”
Link hoped a little curiosity would transform him from a pompous intellectual to a willing teacher. It had worked before.
Cervice nodded, pleased.
“Your own planet has sent people into space,” Cervice said. “They soon realized that they needed to limit the time an astronaut spent in that atmosphere, as they began to experience both physical and mental difficulties after a relatively short period.”
“Like memory loss?” Link said.
Cervice nodded once more.
“Like memory loss,” he said. “Remember, that happened after a short period and not far away from your planet. Until you leave your own solar system, you retain some kind of connection with your home planet. That connection is electromagnetic in nature. When that connection is severed, the memory loss is instantaneous.”
Although it didn’t really make sense to him, Link responded.
“Unless you have a viable substitute,” he said.
Cervice broke out into a synthetic grin.
“Precisely,” he said. “And that’s lesson enough for today. Go back to your world, attend your work ritual, and come back behind his eyes while he is plotting. Go now, Link, and do not think of this meeting until you are back in your own body.”