by Mike Smith
That thought brought me up short, reminding me of my purpose in his study and I leaned forward, placing both of my palms on his desk, trying to use my height to intimidate him. I could have laughed at the foolishness of it. Nothing intimidated him. I could have been High-Lord Zhang and still my father wouldn’t have moved a muscle. Instead he just continued to stare at me, waiting for me to speak.
“What gives you the right to order the destruction of a ship with thirty souls on-board? Who made you God? Or have you started to imagine that you really are a High-Lord now and have decided to join their little cabal? What are you planning on doing next, hosting a little soirée and inviting them all around for High Tea?” I demanded, aghast at the rancour in my own voice. I had never spoken to my father in such a tone before.
“I never ordered anything,” my father refuted calmly. “It’s not my place to go making those sort of decisions, they rest with the Planetary Administrator, all they asked for was my recommendation, which I duly gave.”
“Don’t give me that nonsense,” I interrupted, making a slashing motion with my hand. “The company assigned Planetary Administrator is over eighty-five years old, completely senile and only makes it out of his bed for an hour a day. He spends most of his time drooling over—”
“But he does get out of bed,” my father interjected, proving that he also was able to cut me off in mid-sentence.
“—his buxom, blond, twenty-five year old nurse, whose uniform looks like she has just finished a lengthy S&M session.”
“You’re only saying that because you’re jealous that she refused to kiss you in tenth grade,” my father grunted. “Trust me when I say that she’s not suitable for you and you would be bored of her within a fortnight. You need somebody to challenge you, my boy.”
I blinked, narrowing my eyes at him and was about to retort that it was none of his business when I snapped my mouth shut. He was trying to change the topic. “Stop trying to change the subject, you knew that the Tower was going to follow your advice, so why?”
My father sighed, looking away for the first time ever. I should have felt vindicated, but instead it simply depressed me further, another reminder of his advancing years. “I only recommended that they use force as a last resort, to compel the freighter to turn back. I assume that they fired on it after exhausting every other possible avenue, we couldn’t let the ship approach Arcturus.”
“But why?”
“The Virus has already reached Canis Major.”
Its official name was Sagouran Fever, where the first official case had been recorded, but now everybody simply referred to it as the ‘Virus’. After the first five hundred million had died, everybody knew which virus that you were talking about. I felt like somebody had planted a fist in my stomach and I struggled to breathe, falling back into a chair, lest I collapsed on the floor.
“But that’s the adjoining system, it’s barely a light-year away.”
My father simply nodded, looking at me with deeply hooded eyes. “I didn’t simply recommend that the Orion intercept this freighter, my recommendation was that it intercepts all incoming ships. Similarly, all outbound traffic will now be turned back.”
“You’re talking about quarantining Arcturus.”
“Yes. You know as well as I do that if the virus reaches Arcturus we will have no way of stopping it. If the most advanced medical research institutes of the Imperium cannot find a cure, what hope do we have? It’s rare for our only hospital to even have an adequate supply of antibiotics, let alone painkillers…”
“I didn’t realise that things had gotten so bad, so quickly. To have already reached this far, on the very edge of the Imperium.” My voice trailed off as I tried to comprehend the magnitude of the unfolding disaster. “And there has been no progress with treatment, not even a vaccine?”
“None. They have tried everything, nothing works, the virus mutates too quickly. By the time they have mapped its genetic structure and synthesised an antibody, the virus has already mutated a dozen times over and the cure is useless.”
“The mutations are just as potent as the original virus?”
“If anything they seem to be getting ever more virulent, the latest strains have a mortality rate of over ninety percent. They even fear that some of the latest strains have gone airborne. There have been cases reported on almost every planet in the Imperium, some of the more remote planets that have become infected seem to have dropped off the corporate-extranet completely, either that or there is just nobody left alive to communicate with.”
“They still haven’t found the source?” I asked weakly. While I was no doctor even I knew that if we could find an original strain of the virus then perhaps we could find a cure, which would work on all mutations.
“There doesn’t seem to be a source,” my father slapped his palm on the desk in frustration. “Whilst the first official case was reported on Sagouran VI, additional investigation has found a dozen similar cases on other planets. It doesn’t help that the virus has such a long incubation period, weeks in some cases.”
This was what made Sagouran Fever so lethal. Most virulent outbreaks quickly burnt themselves out, killing the carrier before the virus could spread further, but this one was different. It could remain dormant and undetected in the bloodstream, quietly multiplying and spreading, before suddenly flaring up and killing the host in a matter of hours.
It was the perfect killer. Silent. Long-lasting. Easily spread and ever so deadly.
I just could not take it all in and for a brief moment wondered if my father was perhaps mistaken and that this was all just a bad dream. But as this had been going on for years, surely I would have woken up by now? Anybody else would have dismissed my father as the ravings of a madman, after all, how could he possibly know? Trapped inside this isolated house, with no power, no visible sign of communications and never any visitors. Yet he had never been wrong before and I had my own theory, one he had just unwittingly confirmed with his reference to the corporate-extranet. Although the mega-corporations hated each other, even they had to communicate between themselves, if for no other reason than to trade with each other. As a result of this the corporate-extranet had come into existence, which was a simple bridge linking each of the corporation’s internal data networks.
It mattered little that it was mostly used by the various corporations to try and attack each other, with huge cyber-warfare battles taking place daily, as each tried to outwit, undermine or subjugate the others. As far as I knew, there were only two terminals, or Superluminal Transmitters, on Arcturus. One at the spaceport where I worked, mostly used to transmit shipping schedules, the other at the Planetary Governor’s residence, where he could receive orders from his corporate superiors.
Still I suspected a third, hidden somewhere in this house, most probably in this very room as my father spent most of his time in here. I still didn’t understand how this was possible, as the link was maintained via faster-than-light, but with a bit rate measured in hundreds of bits per second. The cost was beyond astronomical, with a single bit costing thousands of credits, because the only way to power such a transmitter was via a fusion reactor.
I knew with absolute certainty that there was only one such reactor on the planet. It was easily visible, standing a little over three hundred feet tall, twice that wide, all to house the superconductors that generated the massive magnetic fields that contained the reactor, the heart of a star. It was for the same reason that faster-than-light ships were so massive, most being over many kilometres in length. All to contain the massive fusion reactors needed to power the Alcubierre drives. How my father managed to obtain such a transmitter and power it, when I knew we were far beyond the limits of the town’s energy distribution grid, was a complete mystery to me, but one that I was intent on solving one day.
“I’m afraid it gets worse,” my father interrupted my thoughts.
I could only stare at him, agog. With over a billion people estimated to have perished
in the past year alone, the virus having spread to almost every planet in the Imperium, how could it possibly get any worse. “How?” I demanded incredulously.
“There was a report of yet another attack by the Radicals, just yesterday, on one of the Hyundai-Samsung planets, owned by High-Lord Lee Hyun-woo. Reports say that many tens of thousands were killed, the factories completely destroyed.”
“That's what the third, fourth attack, this year?”
“Something like that,” my father agreed. “They seem to be increasing in frequency and intensity, nobody seems to know who is behind them. With the targets appearing to be chosen at random, the various High-Lords are at each other’s throats, each accusing the other of being behind the attacks. If they don’t stop soon, then I don’t think it will be very much longer before one of the High-Lords retaliates against another.”
“You’re talking about open warfare between the High-Lords? Civil war?” With a grim nod from my father, I exploded in fury. “Are they all mad? Civilization is coming to an end. The Imperium is on the precipice of complete disintegration and all they want to do is war with one another?”
“They view it as a direct challenge to their personal authority and power, they won’t stand for it.”
“And already over a billion dead is not enough for them?”
“They would gladly sacrifice them, and more, as long as it keeps them in power.”
“Then perhaps a war would be a good thing, let them kill each other. Good riddance I say.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like one of those Radicals.”
“I cannot believe that you’re defending them, you, of all people. You hate the High-Lords more than most, especially after what they did to you...” I trailed off, as I wasn’t exactly sure just what they had done to him. While I had come to observe the wounds that they had inflicted on him, both inside and out, he always refused to discuss them with me. However, through the process of elimination, I had at least determined which High-Lord bore the brunt of his anger, as he would talk about all except one, High-Lord Stanton.
“You would have them all murdered, perhaps in their bed, while they slept?” My father suggested in a quiet tone of voice that I had come to recognise when I was treading on dangerous ground.
“If that is what it takes to finally be free of them,” I nodded approvingly. “High-Lord Stanton first,” I injected hoping that his name would bring my father around to my way of thinking.
While he tensed at the name, he continued on regardless, “And his wife Lady Stanton, too?”
“Well—”
“And also don’t forget their daughter, I seem to remember she is about your age. Surely she must also die, as she is related by blood?” he left the question hanging in the air.
Silence echoed around the two of us and I had to quickly close my mouth, the words, “Whatever it takes,” still on the tip of my tongue, but of course, I didn’t really mean that.
My father didn’t seem to notice. Instead he picked up one of the two photographs that adorned his desk, staring at the picture, with something akin to pain in his eyes. “That’s the problem with killing, you see? It’s easy to start, but so very difficult to stop.”
“Then what are we going to do about it?” I demanded.
“Do? About what?” he asked distractedly, his eyes still drawn to the photograph that he held lovingly in his hands.
“Sagouran Fever. The Radicals. Civil War. What do you think I’m talking about? What happened to you? You sit here every day, somehow apart from the rest of us, as if none of this matters.”
“I intervened once, long ago. It was a terrible mistake. I used to think like you, that somehow I had the right, but I was wrong and somebody else paid the price for that error in my judgement. So we’re going to do nothing. My recommendation that all incoming ships be turned away remains and that should keep us safe enough. The rest of the Imperium will have to manage on their own; there is nothing more that we can do. Look on the bright side son, you’re going to have a ringside seat to observe the collapse of the Imperium and most likely the human race.”
I shrugged off the hand he rested on my shoulder, watching from the corner of my eye as he struggled to his feet and, with Lucifer close on his heels, he shut the door to his study quietly behind him. With frustration raging through me, I took the still warm seat behind his desk that he had just vacated. Trying to put myself in his place, I tried to think what I could do differently, but after a few minutes, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, I finally gave up and slammed my fists on the desk with a violent urge to break something. As much as I disagreed with my father, I couldn’t come to any other conclusion. Perhaps, if I had somehow known about these events in advance, I could have done something to stop them but, by now, it was far too late.
Looking up from the pitted writing surface of my father’s antique desk, I noticed his closed journal and, without thinking, flipped it open, turning to the last entry.
Today thirty more souls rest heavily on my conscience; I wonder just how many lives have now been extinguished on my orders? I have long since lost count. I justify my actions like so many others—that I had no other choice, but did I? I had no way to be certain if the crew were infected or not, but could I take that chance? There are over thirty thousand lives on Arcturus that would have been at risk had I been wrong, but only one really matters—Michael, he is all that I have left.
I hastily slammed the book shut. The leather bound cover still warm from my father’s touch and my hands were trembling, just from touching his precious journal. It felt like I was holding his soul in my hands. Looking up I noticed that my earlier actions had also knocked over the two photographs on his desk. Hoping that I had not damaged either, I quickly lifted the first, looking into the warm brown eyes of my mother. According to my father, it was the last picture that was taken of her before she left. He told me a little about her, when I had become old enough to understand that I must have had one. According to him she had died in a transport accident, the ship lost, forever, while visiting her family.
As always it was the second picture that drew my attention.
For a start I had no idea who the woman was. With her deep blue eyes and long flowing brown hair, the colour of roasted chestnuts. While she was not smiling in the picture, there seemed to be a spark in her eyes that made me think she had found something amusing about the scene, but hadn’t dared to give any visible sign of her delight. She was richly dressed, the Cerulean flowing gown, diamonds sparkling in her hair and sapphires pinned to her ears that matched her eyes. As always my breath caught in my throat at her beauty, but it was far more than that as she seemed so alive, as if at any moment she would wink back at me.
I hadn’t failed to notice that it was this picture that my father reached for, never my mother’s. I constantly wondered who she was and how my father knew her. From the picture it was obvious she was wealthy, probably related to some High-Lord. My thoughts as always ran wild. Imagining that she was married to some rich Lord, perhaps she had been my father’s mistress for a short while. Had he loved her? The expression on his face was always sad, wistful even, when he stared at her picture, as if he wished that things had turned out differently. I couldn't envisage my father ever leaving her, so I always believed she had left him.
Unconsciously my hand reached out, echoing the same gesture as my father and without even realising it I touched her image. I almost dropped it when the picture bleeped, vanishing, to be replaced with a simple message prompting me that was the end of the file and did I wish to search for additional images?
It wasn’t a picture at all, but some kind of remote access terminal.
I had used similar devices before, at work, to remotely access the mainframe computer. It was like carrying a small shard of it around with you. I was therefore familiar with the interface, yet ours was nothing like this. I had never seen such a thin, lightweight model before. It looked exactly like a picture frame; several inche
s high, half that wide, about as thick as a piece of glass. It had no visible power button, or any other controls, just a compact matt-black back with a glass front.
Dismissing the message, I quickly flicked through the other images on the device, they were all the same woman, but in different poses. Many of them were of her by herself, but in other ones she was joined by a similarly aged woman, a sister, I guessed. Other pictures showed a much older man, her father? I assumed that they were all related, but that was all the device contained, a dozen images. I certainly agreed with my father’s choice, as the final picture of the young woman was by far the most flattering.
Who was she? Who were they?
Having once again come to the end of the gallery of images, I was presented with the message prompting me to search for additional results. Only hesitating for a fraction of a second, I quickly tapped the device, confirming the request and unconsciously held my breath waiting for the results. They came back only a few seconds later and were deeply disappointing. The device reported that no other images were found in the planetary cache however, the next line shook me to my core.
It was prompting me to search the external company network, the corporate-extranet. This was it, the very proof that I had been looking for. For what I did know about such a device was that it had a very limited range, nothing more than a kilometre, certainly it couldn’t reach back to the town and the spaceport. There had to be a Superluminal Transmitter very close by and I was determined to find it. Then I would confront my father, once and for all, as it was time that he told me everything.