by Joseph Rhea
In the silence that followed, AJ looked at Jake. “It’s your call, Captain.”
He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Why was he reluctant to have the test performed? If Jane really was a Beta, a pure Beta from legends, wasn’t she a danger to the crew? Why did he feel the need to protect her?
He stood there, staring at her across the mess hall, and was reminded of the night she forced him to confront his buried memories. She showed him that he did not kill his girlfriend, that she had taken her own life to save him. After that, he vowed to protect Jane, but there was more. She really did look an awful lot like Stacy, as if she were cut from the same mold. What would he say if Stacy wanted to be tested for Beta markers? Would he take the risk? And what of Dr. Wood’s motives? Wouldn’t locating the colony’s only pure Beta earn him some sort of colonial medal?
“Captain?” AJ asked again.
He looked at AJ and then back at Jane. “If you insist, I can’t stop you,” he finally said.
Wood smiled in a way that resembled the large cat creature that attacked them in the forest dome. The one that Jane killed with her bare hands. His entire crew owed Jane their lives, and this was how they were repaying her?
As Wood headed down the stairs to C-Deck, Jake grabbed Raines’s shoulder. “Go with him,” he whispered.
Raines nodded. “Don’t worry, Captain. I’ll protect her, no matter what he discovers about her.”
As Raines headed towards the stairwell, the rest of the crew filed out until only he and Jane remained.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked her.
“I told you,” she replied. “To help.”
He took a step towards her and lowered his voice. “I don’t want you to do it, Jane. I don’t know what Wood will do if you turn out to be…”
She reached out and gently caressed his cheek. “I’m also doing this for you, Jake.”
“What?”
She walked around him and sat down on the tabletop. “You have been avoiding me for several weeks, which isn’t easy on a ship of this size.”
“I’ve been busy,” he lied. The fact was, he had been avoiding her but perhaps not for the reason she thought.
“You don’t trust me, and I need for you to trust me.”
“I don’t know what—”
She stood up suddenly and kissed him. “Jane,” he stammered. “You know we can’t just—”
She put a hand to his lips. “Don’t worry, Jake. I won’t fail his test.”
“How can you know?” he asked, but really, he was just thinking about the kiss.
She sat back down on the table. “I may have no memory of my past, or who I was before you found me, but I do know one thing. I am human.” Before he could respond, she slid off the table and walked around him, her right hand brushing his as she past. When she reached the top of the stairs, she looked back and said, “Trust me.”
He just nodded as she turned and headed down to med bay. Should he go with her? What if Wood found out she was a pure Beta, that she was the person ‘born’ inside that sphere? What then? Maybe Wood was being honest, and maybe he would be able to figure out some way to make all Beta tests fail. That might stop the attacks, but what of Jane? Could everyone just forget what they learned about her? Could he?
Fortunately, the test didn’t take long. When Raines called him on the ship’s intercom, he hurried down to med bay, braced for whatever the news turned out to be.
“I told you!” Jane yelled when he walked through the door. She jumped off the bed and ran to him, giving him a big hug. Jake looked at Raines, who nodded.
“Unfortunately, the girl’s blood shows no detectable Beta markers,” Wood said gravely. “It appears that very few of her ancestors interbred with Betas.”
Jake wasn’t on the side of Betas; in fact he wasn’t on any side at all, but he hated how the doctor used the term ‘interbred’ as though it were a foul thing. “You sound disappointed, Doctor,” he said as he gently tried to pry Jane from his midsection. She had a surprisingly strong grip.
Wood looked up at him. “But you see, I am disappointed, Captain. The sooner I locate this pureblood Beta, the sooner I can get started with my work.” He looked at Raines. “You people have no idea what’s going on in the other cities, do you? People are already dying in this war, and it hasn’t even officially begun yet. I honestly believe I can stop all of that.”
“It’s not our problem,” Jake said and turned to leave.
“Tell me something,” Wood said as he addressed everyone in the room. “What do you all think you know about the Fall of Man?”
“They know as much as anyone,” Vee said. “My grandfather is a historian, and he—”
“Historian?” Wood said. “Is that what you call yourself now?”
Raines seemed to ignore him. “Very little is known about that period in our history. It’s mostly theories and conjecture based on a small amount of data.”
“Actually, a great deal of data has been collected in the past few years. I’m surprised someone with your background hasn’t availed himself of the information.”
“What are you getting at, Wood?” Jake asked. He was getting tired of the doctor’s arrogance.
“What I’m getting at, Captain, is that you have all been lied to. In fact, most of the colony has been lied to. The event you call the ‘Fall of Man’ happened on this planet, not Earth.”
Everyone’s faces dropped; even Raines seemed genuinely surprised. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.
Wood looked suddenly taller. “I have to say that I’m surprised the great Norman Raines hasn’t figured it out by now. Even without the new information, a man like you should have reasoned it out.”
“Get to the point,” AJ yelled, beating Jake to it.
Wood looked at her. “You believe the story that a disaster struck our ancient ancestors on old Earth, forcing them to flee their utopian society and settle on this world, correct?”
AJ nodded. “That sounds about right.”
“Tell me,” Wood went on, “How did these survivors, these people without a home, manage to build ships that could leave their world and travel to this one? How did they have the resources to do this after their world was destroyed?”
No one answered, but then Raines said, “So tell us your version of history.”
“And then tell me why you’re wasting my time with all of this,” Jake added. “How can something that happened hundreds of years ago have anything to do with what we are dealing with today?”
Wood smiled in that cat-creature way again and faced Jake. “I’ll be as succinct as I can be, Captain Stone, so that you understand why I’m wasting your time with this. If there was such a place called Earth, and I’m not even convinced there was, then we left it long before any historians will admit to. There was no disaster, no forced evacuation of humanity. Our ancestors settled here, in this ocean, and grew to be the utopian society of fables. Then they made one fatal mistake; they created a new life form in their own image.”
“Betas,” Jessie said.
“That is correct,” Wood said. “And then, one fateful day, the Betas turned on their creators and tried to wipe out all of humanity. And they very nearly succeeded.”
“The Fall of Man,” Raines said.
“So you see, Captain,” Wood said, “we have a problem. The pureblooded Betas of our history were real, and they were the mortal enemy of humanity. Moreover, while many of us carry scant remnants of their artificial DNA in our blood, the return of a pureblooded Beta is proof that they are still out there somewhere, still viable and whole. Hiding and most likely plotting our downfall.”
“So, you’re not on the side of Betas after all, are you?” Vee said.
Wood snickered. “Hardly. I am on the side of humanity, but I also don’t believe that humans with a few Beta markers in their blood make them or us any less human. The pureblood Betas are our enemy, Captain Stone, and the sooner we stop fighting amongst ourse
lves the sooner we can start preparing to face them.”
Raines looked at Jake. “Then we need to go back,” he said.
Jake glanced at Wood and back then at Raines. “Go back? Go back where?”
“The forest dome, of course. If we didn’t take this pureblood beta-person out, and the guards didn’t, then it makes sense that he or she must still be there.”
Wood shook his head. “Don’t be absurd. The guards searched that dome thoroughly. They burned down most of the forest and found no one.”
“What about the animals?” Vee said. “We’re assuming that the person born inside that sphere was human-shaped. Maybe Betas also come in animal form. Maybe it was even the big cat that attacked us.”
“Even more reason to go back and search for ourselves,” Raines said.
“Hold on now,” Ash said. “I’m not going back there.”
“All right!” Jake yelled and then pried Jane’s arms off him. “Enough! We are not going back there. We have a job to complete, and we are going to finish it. This is none of our business.”
“It might be your business,” Wood said as he scanned the faces around him, “if any of the rest of you fails my Beta test. Capitol City is now testing everyone who enters the docks, and the other cities are beginning to follow their lead.”
After a moment’s hesitation, AJ said, “You heard the captain. Everyone back to your duty stations.”
As Jake started to leave, Wood said, “You can’t just decide to—”
“Yes, he can,” AJ said forcefully. “The captain has given us an order, and we are obeying it.” She glanced at Raines before turning her attention back to Wood. “Better get used to it, Doctor.”
Chapter 10
Jake didn’t say another word to anyone but headed to his quarters and pressed the “do not disturb” button on the door. Once inside, he grabbed the small model of the Rogue Wave from his desk and threw it across the room. It hit the far wall, breaking off one of the rear fins, and landed on his bed. He stared at it for several seconds then dutifully picked it up and sat it back on his desk. The model had been Captain Coal’s, given to him by his wife a few months before she left him. “A captain’s life is a lonely one,” Coal used to say whenever he drank too much. Some days, he felt he understood what he meant. He took a deep breath and laid the broken fin on the desk next to it, promising himself to fix it later.
He undressed and tossed his clothes into the cleaner. One of the lesser talked about benefits of command, he had come to realize, was that both his room and his first mate’s had their own toilet/shower room, or, as Shippers called them, heads. He stepped inside his and took a long, hot shower then stepped out and threw himself down on his bed, not bothering to dry.
He awoke sometime later and glanced up at the clock. Just over six hours had passed, but he still felt the ugly mixture of exhaustion and frustration as before.
He thought about trying to go back to sleep when he noticed a pair of women’s shoes lying in the corner of the room. He walked over, picked them up, and realized they were Jane’s. He was confused until he remembered that Jane and Jessie had hidden from the probe in this room. In fact, they had hidden in the same shower he had used a few hours ago. He placed the shoes on the floor next to the door and turned back to the bed. Halfway there, he stopped and walked back to the door.
“Bilge,” he cursed aloud as he grabbed his clothes from the cleaner, quickly dressed, then opened the door and headed up to the bridge. Most of his crew was up there, crowded around Ash’s console.
“Captain on the bridge,” AJ yelled as she snapped to attention. “Sorry,” she said a moment later. “Old habits die hard.” Jake had insisted that she drop Shippers Guild formalities on the bridge, and she sometimes forgot, but this was different.
He glanced over and saw Ash casually turning off one of the screens on his console. “So, what’s your plan?” he asked as he approached the group.
“Sir?”
He looked at Raines. “I might be new at the captaining thing, but I wasn’t born in a pod.” As he said those words, it suddenly dawned on him where the expression came from.
“I don’t know what—” Raines started to say, when Jake cut him off.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I gave you all orders to continue on our original course, but that doesn’t mean I expected you to just give up.” He studied the five individuals. “I know that when Nia was in charge, you were trying to prevent what Wood tells us might be happening right now: a colony-wide civil war.” He paused there.
“And?” Raines asked.
“And you never told me why you were on the side of Betas.” Everyone looked suddenly uncomfortable. Everyone except AJ.
“Are you calling us Betas, Sir?” she asked, a hint of anger building on her face.
He shook his head. “We all have some Beta blood in us, according to Wood.”
“Everyone except Jane,” Jessie whispered.
“It doesn’t matter,” he continued, “Last month a person was considered ‘inhuman’ if he had more than fifty percent Beta markers, now it’s ten percent. Someday, it will be one percent. The point is, people will fight against what they’re afraid of no matter what.” He sat down on the edge of the helm console. “So again, I’m asking; what’s your plan to help Dr. Wood stop this from happening?”
AJ patted Raines on the shoulder as she headed for the stairs. “It’s yours and Jessie’s idea,” she said. “You two should be the ones to explain it to him.”
Jake followed AJ down the stairs. Raines and Jessie came down next, leaving Vee and Ash on the bridge. He grabbed four mugs when he saw AJ bringing the coffee pot to the table. After cups were filled and everyone sat down, Raines began.
“Do you recall the salvager we saw inside the dome?”
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget any part of that day,” Jake said, as he glanced over at Jessie. She had taken off her shoes and was sitting cross-legged on her chair, her large coffee cup filling both hands. He started to look back at Raines when she spoke up.
“My equipment happened to record the salvager’s transmissions while we were inside the dome,” she said. “It was encrypted, of course, and somewhat complicated, but I managed to dig out what seems to be its recall command.”
Jake looked at Raines and then at AJ. “So? What does that give us?”
“Raines thinks that if we can capture the salvager,” AJ said, “he might be able to find out where it picked up that sphere.”
“And if we find out where it came from, we might learn why it is here,” Raines added.
“Why it’s here?” Jake asked. “You mean you believe what Wood said about a possible Beta invasion?”
“As a man of science, I believe all possibilities should be examined,” Raines replied.
“If that thing was sent here,” AJ said, “we need to know a lot more about it.”
Jake tried to pull all of that in. A sphere containing a pureblooded Beta sent here. The idea seemed like a children’s horror story, but it was beginning to make sense. “So you really think this salvager might have some answers?”
“We won’t know until it gets here,” Raines said.
Jake looked at AJ. “Gets here?”
“Sorry, Sir. I authorized Jessie to send out her homing signal four hours ago, and she received what seemed to be a reply almost immediately. That’s what we were discussing on the bridge when you came up.”
Jake glanced at Jessie, who had her face hidden behind her mug, then at Raines. “So, you’re saying you made contact with this salvager?”
“More than made contact,” Raines said. “We believe it’s heading toward us as we speak.”
Just then, the ship lurched to a stop, and Vee called down from the bridge. “The salvager-thing is here, and it doesn’t appear happy to see us.”
Jake and the others ran up the stairs and approached the forward view port. Directly in front of the Wave and blocking its path, the salvager hung in the w
ater, its six arms moving up and down erratically.
“Why’s it doing that?” Ash asked.
“It does look mad,” Jessie agreed.
“It’s a machine, but it’s probably not stupid,” AJ said. “It can tell we’re not its owners.”
Jake turned to Jessie. “Tell me you know how to shut it down.”
She looked at him blankly then cracked a smile and walked back to her console. A moment later, the salvager lowered its arms and began to drift with the currents. “It’s asleep,” she added.
He just shook his head at her and then said to the group. “Well, I guess I’m agreeing to this, so bring it aboard.” He then turned to Jessie and added. “You and Raines are responsible for making sure this thing stays asleep.” As the rest headed below, he whispered to AJ, “Don’t ever go behind my back again, is that understood?”
She looked shocked for a moment but then quickly regained her tough-as-steel composure and jumped to attention. “Understood, Captain.”
He took a slow breath, just to stretch the moment out, and then added, “And, good work. If this machine doesn’t wake up inside the cargo bay and kill us all, maybe we can learn something useful.”
Now she really seemed confused. “Yes, Captain,” she repeated, this time less formally.
“All right. It’s your baby, so you go below and help with the recovery. I’ll stay up here and mind the bridge.”
“Sir?” she asked, looking around the otherwise empty room.
He pushed her towards the stairs. “Don’t worry, I won’t break anything.” After she left, he turned on the cargo bay camera feed and watched as the salvager was hoisted into the drop bay. Raines gave the others a thumbs-up a short time later, which Jake took to mean it was powered down and therefore safe. “Bombs can be powered down and still explode,” he said to the monitor.
The image of Raines looked up at him and said, “Don’t worry, Captain. We checked for that as well.”
He quickly turned off the camera feed and then said to the empty room, “No wonder they don’t let me touch anything up here.”