The Tau Ceti Diversion

by Chris McMahon

  Karic did not want to speculate. They would discover the exact nature of the intruder soon enough. “How much longer do we have before it destroys every last vestige of memory storage on the ship, including our high-density backup media and holo-disks?”

  “At the rate it’s moving, it probably already has.”

  A shot of fear went through Karic. If its first task was complete, it would be coming for them.

  “We don’t have much time, Andrai. It’s imperative that we transmit a record of our journey back to Earth, and that one of us remembers exactly what happened on that planet. For our sake, and for mankind’s. I don’t trust either the Fintil or the Har Confederation.”

  Karic looked into Andrai’s eyes, gauging his strength. “I want you to take the data backup disks to the main control room and broadcast the contents to the Solar Federation. Then I want you off this ship. Take one of the pods and head straight for the surface with the disks.”

  “But boss — you should be the one who survives this. Let me face this thing. You take the disks. Take them and run. Don’t wait to transmit them. Just launch a pod and go.”

  Karic shook his head. “No, Andrai. I will have to fight this thing like a Fintil — with my mind. I am the only one who can. You have to be the one to take the data, before it takes you.”

  Karic walked over to the safe to retrieve the disks. He jolted to a standstill when a beam of focused white-blue energy appeared from midair. It sliced into the safe’s shield. At first, the barrier resisted. He covered his eyes as the beam flared brighter, and edged away from its increasing heat. There was a flash, then a detonation that threw them off their feet and slammed them into the bulkhead behind them. Karic grunted at the impact, winded. Most of his velocity had been lost in the impact, but he still bounced off the metal and floated back into the cabin. He struggled for a breath amid the fume and smoke, seeing Andrai still beside him.

  “No!” The safe! The Fintil device had vaporized everything inside the armored chamber. The last records of Cru were gone.

  Karic and Andrai scrambled back to their feet and drew their stunners, turning in a circle.

  “Andrai! Run for the pods! Go!”

  “I can’t let you face this thing alone.”

  Andrai gasped in pain and fell to his knees, holding his head. His eyes rolled and he fell unconscious to the floor.

  Only Karic was left. Initially, he sensed nothing. Then he felt a sharp tingling across his skin. The sensation broadened out across his body. Invisible needles lanced through him, moving back through his nervous system from extremities to the brain stem. The stunner slipped from his fingers and tumbled to the floor in slow motion.

  The Fintil device gripped his mind and he grunted in pain. A high-frequency vibration pulsed into his skull, triggering a chemical release, shaking loose a flood of memories. A hot needle punched into his forehead, seeking to shatter those memories like painted glass.

  This was the ultimate violation.

  Karic stumbled into the charred and smoking remains of the commander’s safe, slashing open his knee on a shard of metal. Pain stabbed into him, but was lost in a rising swell of rage. Desperately, he sought some way to pull away from the device, yet failed. It seemed to have no substance at all, perhaps constructed of some sort of transformed matter. Unwilling to be defeated, he reached out toward its artificial mind.

  Karic felt a surge of energy as the mental bond was formed. Then he was suspended in a space filled with glowing shafts and dials, each shimmering and shifting like holographic visions. He understood where he was and what he faced. The device had more than advanced artificial intelligence; it had the capacity to interface directly with a sentient being.

  More hot needles stabbed into his brain. The device was completing its task. If he did not act soon, all his memories of Cru would be gone. He reached out toward the floating icons, sending powerful and directed thought-commands, seeking to deactivate or disable the device. Nothing worked. His time was running out. Karic faced thousands of glowing icons, each a different color and shape. How was he to find the right one and then send the correct message toward it?

  Another wave of pain hit him as the device probed deeper.

  He floated through the space, distant from his body and without form. There seemed to be no pattern to the arrangement of objects. Somehow, he had to extract order from the chaos. He wandered through the myriad shapes as though through a forest, completely at a loss. Then he looked up. Darkness. He was thinking like a human. To command the device, he had to think like a Fintil. With a burst of mental power, he leapt into the air on invisible wings, rising above the confused mass to view it from above. As he rose, the shapes grouped together to form a single glyph. A stylized spiral. Its colors moved through the spectrum from deep red to bright violet at the central icon, a slim oval. It was here that Karic directed his thought-command.

  Stop program.

  There was a last stab of pain, then his mind was released. Karic was back in the room. The ruins of the safe smoked and hissed. Andrai was prone on the floor. A bright globe hovered above his head. Its rapid spin slowed as it powered down. He sensed the device waiting for further commands. Receiving no instructions, it faded into invisibility.

  His eyes fluttered, and darkness rose to claim him.

  CHAPTER 26

  Karic walked slowly along the plush, carpeted corridor.

  The main station of the Earth-controlled Solar Federation was huge. He watched the moving landscapes on the wall-screens with a sense of wonder. It was hard to believe this was a space station. It seemed more like an up-market hotel. A self-contained habitat almost a kilometer in diameter and twelve kilometers long. Despite the luxurious surroundings, he still found himself aching for a real view — a glimpse of the stars or perhaps an artificial garden or food-production area — but he had not seen a single viewport on the station, which felt odd to him. The Station’s busy inhabitants seemed perfectly content inside their artificial environment. But he had little time to puzzle over 24th century civilization.

  To his left walked Olek Durez, his appointed counsel for today’s hearing. To his right, a security guard. He was a prisoner. His fate, and the fate of the others, would hinge on the hearing. Olek was a tall, thickset man of middle years. His well-proportioned, symmetrical face would have been called handsome in Karic’s time, yet in the 24th century, he was merely average. It seemed beauty was something purchased here, the illegal genetic enhancements of his time now routine procedures undertaken by concerned parents with no more thought than agreeing to a pre-natal ultrasound. He grinned. Even Janzen’s looks might be below average here.

  Both Olek and his guard had a barcode on their inner left forearm around five centimeters in length that glowed against their pale skin with a faint blue luminescence. At first, he thought it was a common style of decoration, but then he saw every single person here had the strange tattoo — some glowing in other colors. Karic wondered what it signified, and with the extensive debriefings and court preparations, had not had a chance to ask.

  They reached a branching in the corridors.

  He felt Olek’s hand on his arm, his touch gentle, as though in sympathy. “This way, Mr. Zand.”

  Olek led the way down a long corridor, indistinguishable from the rest.

  Karic had been roused by the Earth rescue team some hours after the final battle with the Fintil device. He was relieved to discover his memories of Cru intact. Of the device itself, there was no sign. The Starburst had been shunted into orbit, the fusion drive shut down manually by the Solar Federation recovery team. Karic, Mara, Andrai and a disoriented Janzen had been taken onto the Station under heavy guard. They were separated and subjected to intense questioning.

  They reached another intersection, and Karic saw Andrai and Mara being led to the hearing from an approaching corridor. “Andrai! Mara!” He waved. They smiled and returned the gesture. Dressed in clean ExploreCorp uniforms from the supplies on Starburst,
they were a welcome sight. Andrai’s hair had been closely cut, and he was clean-shaven — it was the most presentable Karic had seen the tech since his Starburst screening interviews before crew selection. Mara’s hair was artfully coiffed, and she was wearing earrings and carefully applied make-up with an off-red lipstick. It made her seem even more remote and distant than usual. It also made her look so dated — like a living portrait from the past. The faultless complexions of the 24th century, the product of genetic enhancement and advanced cosmetic medicine, needed no artificial concealment. The earrings at least would pass without comment, perhaps seeming understated in an era where displaying a profusion of jewelry — most of it concealing computing power — was common.

  “Try and maintain a certain decorum, Mr. Zand. The judge will be watching you closely for signs of instability,” came Olek’s soft voice. He saw Mara and Andrai’s minders speaking to them as well, no doubt telling them not to talk with Karic before the proceedings.

  Karic gritted his teeth and kept his eyes ahead. After all they had suffered together, being separated so abruptly after their rescue had been hard to bear. When Andrai and Mara’s group joined his, they exchanged frustrated glances, but being hemmed in by their minders there was no chance of conversation. As they turned a corner, they saw the big, gold alloy doors that led to the chambers. Two fresh-faced guards, looking muscle-bound in their tight-fitting black Solar Federation uniforms, flanked the entrance.

  Approaching from yet another corridor came Janzen, also with a security guard and an advising counsel. Karic was pleased to see he was getting no special treatment. Janzen was dressed immaculately, if a little out of date. Someone had obviously transferred all his personal effects from the Starburst. The fine tailoring and rich colors of his clothes reinforced his patrician posture, even if he did not own more than one damaged, outdated starship. Restored in confidence, he looked down his nose at Karic when they met in front of the doors. “Today you will find out exactly what happens when you cross a Davis, Karic. They will lock you up for so long you will never see the light of day again.”

  “That’s enough, Mr. Davis,” cautioned his counsel, a thin man with a soft, effeminate face and high, reedy voice.

  As they waited in tense, uncomfortable silence for the chamber doors to open, another group approached along Janzen’s corridor. They were dressed in rich, bright fabrics, some shimmering with enhanced light displays and hints of 3D imagery projected into the space around them — the current height of fashion. At the center of the group was an older man and a young woman, both dark-haired, with smooth olive skin and serious demeanors. Both wore heavy jewelry — earrings, chains and wristbands glinting gold and silver from myriad facets and set with gems. They wore an advanced generation of odin that Karic had never seen before, even on his interrogators, merely an ultra-thin band above their eyebrows that projected a holographic display. The image appeared as a scrambled patchwork of ghostly color to Karic, but he knew it would be clearly visible to the wearer, and only appeared that way to him because of some sort of visual encryption that would be decoded by the wearer’s glasses. The man and the woman were flanked by four advisors, with another two burly men walking a step behind. Personal security. The whole group, even the hired muscle, would have been at home at a 22nd century red carpet event, their looks and physiques impeccable. Everything about them reeked of wealth. The man at the center of the group gave Karic a frankly assessing look, while the woman’s attention was elsewhere. Karic saw her lips move without sound and realized she was talking inside a noise blanket so seamless not even a trace of interference escaped. One of the door guards approached them. The older man talked swiftly and impatiently to him, after which the guard backed away.

  Janzen’s face lit up. He gave Karic a triumphant smile and marched over to them. His heart sank. So the Davises have come to the rescue.

  The doors opened with a thud.

  “Stand back, please!” called out a door guard.

  Another group filed out of the chambers, a single man surrounded by tight security, and two counselors who nodded amiably to Olek as they passed.

  Olek looked at his watch, betraying impatience. Karic took a deep breath. So this was all routine. Just another case, perhaps with a twist, but just another case all the same.

  He looked over at Janzen, who had rejoined his counsel and was talking heatedly. His face was flushed red and he was seriously upset.

  Across the room, the older man and the woman had shut down their odins and were now both looking at Karic with unabashed interest. The woman absently tapped the right corner of her mouth twice. Karic blinked as her lip color flashed to a vivid green, then to a dull purple. Implanted genes that express color, probably controlled by the release of key chemicals from computer-controlled implants. Karic suppressed a sense of irrational fear. Was he truly home, or somewhere alien? This was just cosmetics — he had yet to see the real changes on Earth.

  “Enter now, if you please,” said the second guard.

  Inside, the room was smaller than Karic had expected. The walls were plain, the ubiquitous wall-screens of the Station absent. It had low ceilings and rows of basic seating covered with synthetic gray fabric. The judge was dressed in thin black robes, and seated behind a wide desk with imitation-wood paneling. His balding head shone in the overhead lights. Considering the advances in cosmetic technology, Karic assumed the judge must think the bald dome made him look impressive, perhaps stately. His looks could still have made him a 22nd century vid-star. Two men sat with him, one to his left in civilian clothes, one to his right in an immaculate Solar Federation uniform. Each was scrolling through compact e-readers in last minute preparation. Karic fought the disconcerting illusion that none of this was real, simply a play conducted by a cast of fine-looking actors for their own amusement — and at his expense. He fought down the fear, knowing it arose from his own secret terror at having no control over his fate.

  The bailiff stood up and looked over the crowd. “Please be seated.”

  At the door, the SF security men were turning away the advisors and guards of the rich-looking man and woman, who were forced out while their employers entered the room and took their seats at the back without objection.

  “The court is now in session. Honorable Judge Yanel presiding.” The familiar legal phrasing helped to focus Karic. Perhaps not so much has changed.

  Karic turned to give Andrai and Mara, seated behind him with their minders, a nervous smile before turning back to the judge.

  Yanel took one last look at his e-reader then set it down. “Hmmm,” he said, finally looking up at the crowd. “Case KZ354A,” said the judge, his terse voice picked up and broadcast around the room via hidden microphone. He looked up at the wall clock. “We seem to be running late, so let’s keep the oratory down to a minimum.”

  The judge looked at each of the counselors, who nodded immediately in response. No prizes for guessing who rules the room.

  “Right. This is a hearing only. An unusual case. Commander Janzen Davis and sub-Commander Karic Zand, both of the exploration ship Starburst — ExploreCorp, now defunct — have laid charges against each other. Brief summaries please, gentlemen.” Yanel nodded at Janzen’s counsel to go first.

  Karic watched as the thin counselor stood. “These are the charges Mr. Davis wants brought against Mr. Zand: Unlawful assumption of command. Insubordination. Thirty-four counts of murder. And a long list of specific grievances.” He read mechanically, swiftly, than sat. Janzen’s face was tight with tension, his blue eyes intent, mouth a thin line in his perfect face. He did not look at Karic.

  Olek stood up. “The charges Mr. Zand wants brought against Mr. Davis: Gross Dereliction of Duty after being lawfully removed from command. Disobeying direct orders. Attempted murder. Thirty-three counts of murder.” Olek looked over at Janzen’s counsel and smiled. “And a long list of specific grievances.”

  Yanel tapped his desk thoughtfully with his right index finger. “Many of th
ese charges might have been of interest to ExploreCorp had its corporate structure still been intact. As it is, it has no legal successor. Only a long list of unsatisfied debtors.

  “The only charge of interest here is that of murder.”

  Yanel paused and looked directly at Karic and Janzen. “There is no doubt that deaths have occurred. The bodies of thirty crew and three officers were found in storage on the Starburst. One officer. Err …” Yanel looked down at his e-reader. “Ibri Haus. Reported missing.

  “I have the statements of both Janzen Davis and Karic Zand here. I have read through them in detail.”

  Yanel took a deep breath and looked them over silently for a moment. “Honestly, I’m perplexed. Here we have two differing, seemingly wildly exaggerated reports. Alien insectoids. Advanced species. Black hole devices … It reads like fiction. From what I understand, the radiation counts are too high for any possibility of life in the Tau Ceti system.”

  Yanel put down his e-reader and looked across to the man on his right. “Has the Solar Federation concluded its investigation, Colonel Rimsky?”

  “It has, your honor.”

  “And your findings?”

  “There is no doubt the Starburst took heavy radiation damage. This much is consistent with our readings of the Tau Ceti system. All the deaths on the ship are the result of radiation-induced failure of the suspension systems and direct tissue damage from radiation.”

  “And there is no doubt?”

  “None at all, your honor.”

  “And your additional findings?”

  “The Shipcom was found to be severely damaged and contained no command memory, and no data. There is simply no evidence.”

  “No record at all? What of the claims regarding these transmissions from Tau Ceti?”

  Rimsky shook his head. “Nothing was ever received, your honor.”

  “And the surviving crew?”

  “Mara and Andrai are suffering from memory loss consistent with a probable malfunction of the suspension gear.”