by Ryk Brown
Connor wondered if his decision to stay and help was because it was the right thing to do, or if it was because he feared losing his ship to pirates, had he ventured further out into unprotected territories. He wanted to believe it was the former, but he wasn’t sure.
He was sure of one thing, however… He had to speak with Doctor Sato. Whether he liked her answers or not, he needed to know.
Connor took a deep breath, then pressed the door chime button. He heard a muffled musical tone from within, which he found amusing, considering these quarters were meant to accommodate Ghatazhak soldiers who were spending the night on base rather than returning to their homes in the countryside.
“Just a minute,” he heard a voice call from inside. There was no turning back now.
A moment later, the door opened. Slowly, at first, with the demure doctor peeking through the crack. Once she recognized Connor, she smiled and opened the door all the way. “Captain Tuplo,” she greeted him warmly.
Connor gazed at the young woman for a moment. He had only seen her face briefly during the rescue, as everything had happened so quickly. He remembered her vividly, however, from his recovery after the crash…
The crash! It just occurred to Connor that there had in fact, never been a crash. “You weren’t helping me recover from injuries sustained during a crash, were you,” he said, without so much as a greeting.
“Pardon me?” the doctor replied.
“I’m sorry,” Connor apologized, realizing he hadn’t even said hello. “Doctor Sato, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’m sorry,” Connor repeated. “I thought… I mean, I was hoping…”
“I suspect you have some questions to ask me,” Doctor Sato said, making it easier for him. “Please, come in,” she added, stepping aside.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Connor replied, entering her quarters.
“Please, Connor, call me Michi.”
Connor nodded as he stepped inside and waited for Michi to close the door and lead him further into her quarters.
“Please, make yourself comfortable,” she instructed, gesturing toward the two sitting chairs in the corner of the suite.
Connor followed her lead, moving to the chairs. He peeked out the window as he took his seat, noticing the amount of activity outside. “They seem awfully busy out there.”
“General Telles has decided to move the Ghatazhak to a new home,” Michi explained.
“Really. To where?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “But you didn’t come here to ask about the Ghatazhak.”
“No…” Connor suddenly found himself unsure of what to ask first. “Um…”
“I suppose they have told you that you are a clone of Nathan Scott,” she began, wanting to break the ice for him, “and that you carry his memories locked up inside you?”
“Yes, they have.”
“And you believe them, don’t you?”
Connor scratched his head. “I have to admit…at first, I didn’t. But now…” He looked down for a moment. “It’s a lot to take in. I always thought I had parents, that I was born like everyone else.”
“You were, just as I was, just as all clones were. Each of us was once born of two parents. We have simply been reborn, some of us many times over. But we are still the same person… Children born of parents. It matters not whether the body that currently carries our consciousness was grown inside a mother’s womb, or inside a cloning bath. For it is not the host vessel that defines us. It is our consciousness, our memories, and our experiences. Those are the things that define who we are.”
Connor stared at her for a moment. “Then, I am incomplete?”
“What?”
“If all that I have been told in the last few days is true, then I have only existed as Connor Tuplo for five years. I may share the same personality traits as Nathan Scott. I may even have the same consciousness. But without his experiences, I am not him. I am not Nathan Scott.”
Michi sighed, leaning back in her chair as she gazed at the troubled young man. “Assume for the moment that the backstory we gave you was true. That you were Connor Tuplo, born of Amma and Jarrot Tuplo of Rakuen, and that you suffered a brain injury which caused complete amnesia. Would the fact that you could not remember any of the details of your life up until the moment the amnesia occurred make you any less Connor Tuplo? If we had named you Darus Myle, even though your birth name had been Connor Tuplo, would that make you any less Connor Tuplo?”
“Then either way, I am incomplete,” Connor concluded. “As either Connor Tuplo, or as Nathan Scott. Without the memories of one or the other, I am not yet truly who am I supposed to be.”
“Correct.” Michi sighed again. She leaned forward and took Connor’s hand. “I am told you have had flashes of memories past.”
“Yes,” Connor admitted. “Bits and pieces. Nothing I could string together and make sense out of, really. Faces, images… But I couldn’t tell you who or what they were. Sometimes, I think I know, but it’s just a feeling, really. One that is still so full of doubt…”
“Your brain is trying to access those memories, Connor,” Michi explained.
“If the memories are there, why am I unable to access them?”
“It has to do with the technology used to copy your consciousness and memories. It was designed to work on Nifelmians, not Terrans. Our brains have been restructured, over generations of cloning, to better facilitate the transfer from chemical to digital, and back to chemical.” She noticed the confused look on Connor’s face. “Think of it this way. A data bank is formatted in such a way that a computer can find the data it needs. The data bank has a directory, one that the computer’s operating system knows how to read. It understands how the data bank is partitioned and tagged, thus enabling it to easily retrieve information. Your brain has had information put into it in a way that it does not understand, thus forcing it to find the information on its own.” She noticed he still looked confused. “I’m not helping, am I.”
“Not really,” Connor admitted.
“Imagine your memories are like the pieces of an enormous puzzle, and those pieces are hidden within your brain. Your brain finds those pieces, without you even realizing it. But there is no image on the surface of those pieces to help you assemble them. They are blank. It is only when your brain manages to fit two pieces together that the images on the pieces appear. At that moment, your brain writes the location and nature of those images into its directory. The more pieces that come together, the more information displayed on the surface of the assembled pieces. When enough information appears, your brain will recognize the image for what memory it represents.”
Connor shook his head and sighed. “And this is all going on without my being consciously aware of it?”
“Yes. Awake or asleep. In fact, more so when you are asleep, as your brain is not having to devote resources to sensory input and the tasks of daily life.”
“Then, I will eventually regain my memories…or Nathan’s, I mean.”
“In time, perhaps,” Michi replied. “But it is unlikely that you will ever regain them all, on your own.”
“How much of them might I regain?”
Michi sighed, looking down for a moment. “We don’t know.” She looked back up at him. “You have to understand. Nothing like this has ever been tried before. You might regain them all, or you might regain none of them.”
“I see.” This time, it was Connor who let out a heavy sigh. “If you had to guess…”
“I don’t know that I could,” Michi insisted. “Not without more information, at least.”
“Try?”
Michi paused, trying to think of what to say next. “The fact that you have had some flashes of unrecognized memory is a good sign,” she said, tak
ing careful measure of her words. “It tells me that your brain is at least trying to put the puzzle back together. But we are talking about billions of pieces, Connor. More likely, trillions. Considering how little of your memories your brain has recovered on its own over the last five years, I would say it is unlikely you’ll recover more than a small percentage of them.” She looked at him, noting his disappointment. “I’m sorry.” When he did not react, she pressed further. “What is it, Connor?”
Connor did not respond at first. “It’s like I’m being asked to choose between being the only person I know myself to be, versus being someone else. And to make matters worse, that someone else is a man everyone considers to be a hero… A legend, in fact.”
“No one is asking you to choose between being Connor Tuplo and being Nathan Scott,” Michi assured him. “Transferring your consciousness and memories from your current body, into the new one, will not destroy your memories of your life as Connor Tuplo. It will simply be moving you into a host that is better capable of giving you access to all the memories you currently carry within you. Those of both Connor Tuplo and Nathan Scott.”
“But then I’ll have two personalities. Won’t that cause a problem as well?” Connor wondered.
“Likely, yes. It may, indeed. Again, this has never been tried before.”
“There’s something else I don’t understand,” Connor continued. “If Nathan Scott’s consciousness and memories were taken from his body by that device of yours, and then stored for two years while you grew this body, why can’t you just restore them again from that same device, into the new body, and leave me out of it?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Michi explained. “Yes, the device can theoretically store the subject’s consciousness and memories for an indefinite period. But when it restores the consciousness and memories to a new host, it restores the original image. It does not retain a copy that can be used on another host at a later date.”
“Why not?”
“Cloning of an entire human being has always been a moral and ethical issue of great contention among the many varied human cultures. The vast majority of them have always been against the cloning of an entire being. Some are even against the cloning of that being’s organs to be transplanted later into the original host. When the Nifelmians began cloning humans, they had to deal with those moral and ethical issues. One of their decisions was that, although they would clone the host body, they would never allow a copy of that host’s consciousness and memories to exist. It would always have to be unique, and original. That is how our culture reconciled with the moral and ethical implications of whole-human cloning. Therefore, the device was designed to move the host’s consciousness and memories between bodies. In fact, it was only meant to store the host’s consciousness and memories for two years. It was intended to be used in emergencies only, in case of accidental death. Therefore, it only had to store the consciousness and memories until a new body could be grown.”
“I thought it took two years to grow a clone?” Connor said. “Isn’t that cutting it kind of close?”
“On Nifelm, a clone can be grown to full maturity in just over a year, if need be. On Corinair, however, our facilities were very rudimentary at first. It was quite an accomplishment just to grow you to full maturity within two years, let alone to the age you were at the time of your death.”
Connor looked surprised. “How old was I?”
“At the time of your death, you were twenty-nine Earth years of age.”
“And how old was I when I was awakened on Corinair?”
“Your current host body was twenty-five Earth years of age when the restoration was initiated.”
“Then I’m thirty now?”
“In Earth years, yes,” Michi confirmed.
“I wonder what that is in Rakuen years,” Connor mumbled to himself.
“So, you actually gained six years of life by dying,” Michi pointed out, smiling wryly. “You would have been thirty-six Earth years old by now.”
“I’m not sure the extra six years were worth it, Doc.”
Michi nodded. “I can certainly see your point.”
“So, if I agree to be transferred into the new body, I’ll get all my memories back? I’ll become Nathan Scott again?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that, I’m afraid,” She admitted. “The body into which you would be transferred is still two generations away from being one hundred percent compatible with the transfer technology. Turi has written a conversion algorithm that should make the process more effective, but how much more effective has yet to be determined. And then, there is still the issue of how you will handle the memories of two different identities. You could end up seeing Connor Tuplo’s experiences as if you were simply Nathan Scott pretending to be Connor Tuplo.”
“Like some kind of undercover operative?”
“Perhaps.”
“Or?”
“Or, you could end up with psychiatric disorders, such as dissociative personality, schizophrenia…”
“Great.”
“Those are unlikely, in my opinion. From what I have learned about Nathan Scott, and from what I have seen of Connor Tuplo, I believe the melding of the two identities will not pose a problem.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I have studied Nathan Scott in great detail. Personnel files, mission reports, log entries, vid-files, personal accounts from Jessica and others who knew him. We even managed to obtain vid-files about Nathan and his family. They were public figures, after all. In fact, I feel as if I knew him quite well, despite the fact that we never actually met. When I see you, when I hear you speak, when I see how you think and carry yourself, I see Nathan Scott. There is no doubt in my mind that he is within you, waiting to be let out. And that is what I have been working toward for the last five years.”
Connor shook his head in disbelief. “But why? Why all this effort, for one man?”
“Because you did not deserve to die,” she replied. “And because humanity needs men like Nathan Scott.”
“Then, you believe that I, that Nathan Scott, is Na-Tan?”
“I don’t know about all of that,” Michi admitted. “Na-Tan is, after all, just a legend. But, if a legend is what is needed, then I can think of no better man for the job.”
* * *
Lord Dusahn walked out onto the rooftop landing pad, followed by his officers and guards.
“My lord, with all due respect, I do not believe you should let the nobles engage you in such a way,” his senior advisor, General Hesson said, continuing the conversation that had begun in the elevator on the way up.
“It is better for them to believe they are of value, and that their positions are respected by us,” Lord Dusahn replied, as he paused to look out over the city of Answari.
“They will eventually realize that is not the case,” General Hesson reminded him.
“By then it will be too late. We will have a firm grip on the entire sector…perhaps even beyond. By then, their fortunes will be so entwined with our successes that they would not dare to rebel, or they would risk everything.”
“Wealth is not the sole motivating force of men.”
“Of these men, it is,” Lord Dusahn insisted. He moved closer to the edge of the platform, looking out across the vast cityscape, into the country lands beyond. “These men know not what they have.”
“Please, my lord, a single sniper could easily…”
Lord Dusahn dismissed the general’s concerns with a wave of his hand. “To have so many hospitable worlds within easy reach of one another. Only one of them had the fortitude to turn it into an empire. And they let it fall to a boy-captain with a single ship. And when they realized their error and assassinated their leader’s successor, they did nothing with it. Nothing. Seven years
, and with jump technology. They should have controlled everything within a thousand light years of this world. But again, they were afraid of one ship.” He gazed upon the city. “Their world is beautiful and rich, yet they do nothing with it. They are pathetic, and we would be better off by simply wiping their worlds clean of every last one of them.”
“Agreed, but the Alliance,” the general reminded him.
“Yes, the Alliance.” Lord Dusahn shook his finger. “That is the only reason they still live. We need their industry and their work force to quickly build up our fleet, if we are to rid ourselves of the Alliance, once and for all.” Lord Dusahn sighed as he continued gazing down on the city of Answari, admiring the sunset. “What a world, wasted on such men.”
“I agree that we need their infrastructure and their workforce, my lord. What I do not agree on is the speed at which they will be able to increase the size and firepower of our fleet. Their shipyards are meager, at best, with only four bays—one of which has been occupied with the same project for going on eight of their years.”
“You and I both know that their fabrication technology supports a much faster production schedule,” Lord Dusahn reminded his advisor. “Had it not been for the Avendahl, they likely would have created a dozen warships by now.”
“Lucky for us that they did not,” General Hesson said. “We are spread thin enough as it is.”
Lord Dusahn turned away from the edge of the platform and headed back toward his waiting shuttle. “How many of their jump-enabled ships are still unaccounted for?” he asked the general as they walked.
“Eighty-seven at last count.”