by Smith, Glenn
But again, what about his father? It was equally possible that the changes would spare his life, perhaps for good. Not to mention all the lives of his crew and the Coalition as a whole, as the admiral had just pointed out. Imagine...a chance to actually tell his father that he forgave him. Even better, a chance to convince him to return to his family. How different might his own life have been, if only...
And there it was. That was the key to his decision. Life without his father had been. Had been. Life with Beth was now, and although they hadn’t been together very long yet, he loved her very much.
He finally looked Hansen in the eye and said, with his head held high, “I’ll help to find my former neighbor, sir.”
The Admiral looked like a deflating parade balloon as he let go a long, quiet breath.
Hansen was disappointed, and he knew that it was his own damn fault. He’d given the sergeant two choices instead of just one order. “Very well, Sergeant,” he said. “Your assignment orders will be delivered to you in your guest quarters. Until you receive them, you’re free to enjoy your stay aboard the station. Dismissed.”
Dylan stood at attention, saluted, then turned on his heel and marched toward the door.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Hansen called after him.
Dylan stopped and turned back. “Sir?”
“You’re not a sergeant anymore, Mister Graves. All S-I-A field agents are commissioned officers, as I believe Commander Royer once mentioned to you.”
“Yes, sir, she did.”
“Therefore, as of this date, by order of the president of the United Earth Federation, as recommended by the commanding admiral of Solfleet and the chairman of the International Council on Solar Affairs, you, Dylan Edward Graves, serial number...you know your serial number...are hereby commissioned an officer of Solfleet and appointed to the rank of lieutenant junior grade. Congratulations. Now you’re dismissed.”
“Thank you, sir. That was some ceremony.”
“On your way, Lieutenant.” Dylan turned toward the door. “And, Lieutenant.”
He turned back once more. “Yes, sir?”
“There’s a formal banquet and ball being held in the Presidential Ballroom tomorrow night at nineteen-thirty hours to commemorate the anniversary of Earth’s joining the Coalition. As our newest commissioned field agent, I’d like you and your fiancée to join with Commander Royer and me in representing our office. Tor’Kana Ambassador ZielKorj is the guest speaker.”
“The Tor’Kana ambassador, sir?” Dylan asked. “After everything his people have gone through he’s speaking at a social function?” He shook his head in disbelief. “I swear I’ll never understand them as long as I live.”
“Nineteen-thirty hours, Lieutenant. Formal dress.”
“Understood, sir.” He turned to leave once more, and this time actually made it through the door.
As soon as the door closed behind his newest agent, Hansen sprang to his feet so fast that his chair shot out from under him and crashed into the wall behind his desk. “Why the hell wasn’t I told about those nightmares of his, Commander?” he asked angrily, glaring at her.
Royer stood quickly and answered, “I didn’t think it was necessary to bother you with it, sir. They were dealt with and totally discredited.”
“You didn’t think it was necessary? Do you have any idea what’ll happen to this agency, not to mention the two of us, if his memory ever returns completely and he figures out what he really went up against on that mission?”
“Admiral, in all the years the fleet has employed memory-edits there hasn’t been a single case in which the edit failed and the suppressed memories returned. His memory can’t...”
“His memory obviously did!” Hansen interrupted. “Subconsciously at least! Who’s to say that’s where it will end?”
“Like I said, sir, his nightmares were completely discredited.”
Hansen drew a deep breath to calm himself down. “Maybe so, Commander, but that still doesn’t solve our current problem, does it? Do you believe for one second that I would have discussed the Timeshift mission with that man had I known we weren’t going to have the option of employing another memory-edit on him?”
“He just gave his word not to...”
“I don’t care what the hell he just gave, Commander!” Hansen shouted. Then he paused again—he wasn’t generally the kind of commanding officer who yelled at his staff like they were disobedient children—and took another deep breath, then resumed in a more civilized tone of voice. “Listen, Liz. You and I are acting in direct violation of orders from the president of the United Earth Federation. If Graves ever talks, either about this briefing or about the creature he faced on Cirra, it’s all over for us. Even if, by some miracle, we do manage to fight off the Veshtonn, our careers are finished.”
“But he declined the mission, sir,” she pointed out. “We’re not going through with the operation, so we’re not violating...”
“Don’t argue semantics with me, Commander,” he told her sternly, though he did manage not to shout at her again. “In this particular case, just mentioning the proposition is a violation, and you damn well know it.”
“Yes, sir,” Royer acknowledged, dropping her gaze to the desktop. Just because he wasn’t shouting at her anymore didn’t mean his words carried any less weight. But after a moment’s pause she raised her eyes back to his and asked, “Am I to assume then, sir, that Lieutenant Dylan Edward Graves now represents a clear and present threat to Earth security?”
If Hansen’s eyes had been laser emitters their glaring beams would have burned a hole through the center of Royer’s head. “Get the hell out of my office, Commander,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Yes, sir,” Royer said, turning quickly toward the door. “I’ll take that as a ‘no,’ sir.”
“Damn right you will,” the admiral confirmed. Royer stopped and faced him again as he continued. “I will not have one of my brand new agents, formerly one of our most outstanding Special Operations non-comms, eliminated simply to save my own ass. Or yours. Do I make myself perfectly crystal clear, Commander?”
“You do, sir.”
He pointed a firm finger at her and added, “And, in case I didn’t make myself just as clear to you earlier, don’t you ever set up another service member for blackmail again or I will burn your ass to a crisp myself! Do you understand that?”
“I understand, sir.”
“Good. Dismissed.”
Royer turned and left, in a hurry, wondering what the hell had gotten into the admiral. She’d never seen him so angry.
Hansen recovered his chair and sat down, and couldn’t help but wonder what else Royer might be hiding from him. There was one thing she had been honest about though. In all of the Earth’s medical archives there wasn’t a single record of a memory-edit ever having failed. He knew that much for a fact, because he’d researched it thoroughly himself before he gave her his permission to have one performed on Graves.
So what had gone wrong with it? Why had Graves’ edit faltered? Why were the events as they really occurred manifesting themselves in his nightmares?
He gasped as the obvious similarity suddenly hit him like a Hellfire cluster rocket square to the head. Sergeant Graves—Lieutenant Graves—had been subjected to a memory-edit aimed at a particularly traumatic experience and had then suffered from persistent nightmares of that experience that jibed with reality rather than with the artificial sequence of events that had been implanted in his mind...
Just like the nightmares he’d been having himself.
Well, not exactly like his. Where Graves had been dreaming of the events as they had actually occurred, he himself had been dreaming about his own experience in a way that couldn’t possibly have been—seeing Graves as an adult at a time when he was in reality only a small boy. But the similarities were uncanny.
So what did it mean? Had someone at some point in time performed a memory-edit on him as well? If so, why?
> Chapter 50
A huge, thick membrane like a cobra’s cowl fanned out from the sides of its long triangular head and neck, stretching beyond the width of its massive shoulders as the creature grew to nearly three meters in height, lifting its feet from the floor and holding its legs tightly against the long, muscular tail on which it balanced.
It was back.
A distant, barely audible voice reverberated in the darkness. “Dylan.” No. It wasn’t a voice at all. Was it?
It slithered slowly toward him. He backed away.
He drew his sidearm, only to have it whipped from his grasp by the creature’s lightning-quick tail.
He grabbed everything he could find within reach—medical instruments, tools, chairs, equipment—and threw it at the creature’s head as hard as he could, but the agile monster moved too fast and ducked out of the way every time.
It spat. Dylan threw his arms across his face barely in time to protect it from the venom.
He was wide open.
“Dylan!” the voice called out. Yes, it was a voice, louder, more pronounced than before.
The creature whirled completely around and grabbed him up with its long tail, which it swiftly coiled around his mid-section. It lifted him up off of the floor, and then slowly began squeezing the life out of him.
“Dylan!” the voice cried.
The air gushed from his lungs.
He couldn’t draw a breath.
One by one his ribs began to crack. Tiny sparks of light began dancing like fireflies in the darkness before his tearing eyes.
He felt warm blood trickling down over his cheek.
He was going to die.
“Dylan!” Beth shouted, shaking him. “Wake up!”
His eyes snapped open as he gasped for air, filling his lungs to capacity. As the real world began to form around him he focused on Beth’s worried face, hovering just inches above his own. “Beth?”
“My god, Dylan, you were barely breathing!” she cried. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he answered calmly, and then he took her into his arms.
“You scared the hell out of me,” she said as she rested her head on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
“It was those same nightmares again, wasn’t it? They’ve come back.”
Of course it was the nightmares. He hesitated to admit it though, given how she worried for him. But on the very day that she’d contacted him to tell him she was resigning from Solfleet so she could be with him, he’d sworn to himself that he would never lie to her or keep any secrets from her. So, “Yes,” he admitted.
She sighed. “I thought all that was finally behind you.”
“So did I.”
Several long seconds passed between them in silence. Then she asked him, “Why do you think they came back?”
“I don’t know,” he snapped. Then he touched his hand gently to her cheek and kissed her on the forehead, and said, “I’m sorry, Beth. I didn’t mean to bite your head off. It’s just that...I really thought they were gone for good. I can’t imagine why...” But then, as his head started to clear, he remembered something and it occurred to him that maybe he could imagine why after all. “Unless...”
She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him. “Unless?” she coaxed when he didn’t say anything more. “Unless what?”
He sat up and propped his pillow against the headboard, then scooted back and leaned against it. Beth sat up as well and turned to face him, ready to listen. “Maybe it was the mission briefing this morning,” he theorized. “Commander Royer told Admiral Hansen about my having those nightmares when we were back on Cirra. Maybe her mentioning them somehow triggered their return.”
“You think that’s possible?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders. “I suppose it could be.”
“What made her bring them up?”
He looked at her and reminded himself again of his promise. But this was different. This, according to the admiral, was classified information, and that left him with no other choice. As much as he hated the idea of having to do it, he lied to her for the very first time ever, knowing full well that it wouldn’t be the last. “I guess Admiral Hansen wanted to make sure I was okay before giving me an assignment.”
“Oh.” Beth hesitated a moment, then asked, “So...are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he answered. He leaned forward and kissed her, then tossed the covers aside and got out of bed. He’d told Carolyn a million little white lies while they were married, just to avoid arguments or long drawn out and usually heavily one-sided discussions, and he hadn’t felt an ounce of guilt for doing it. But lying to Beth had left a bad taste in his mouth. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to get some water.”
He picked his shorts up off the floor and pulled them on, then strolled into the kitchen and poured himself a tall glass of ice-cold water. He took a sip, then walked over to the large rectangular window which, because their guest quarters were located on the lower deck of the station’s main habitat ring, resembled a short, wide, crystal clear sliding board, sloping upward and out from the floor at a roughly forty-five degree angle.
He was glad the station’s rotation schedule had finally turned their quarters away from the Earth. The view of Earth from high orbit was an awesome sight to be sure, but he’d grown tired of looking down on the lights of Europe’s west coast night after night. Although the recent thunderstorms had made for quite an impressive spectacle. He gazed ‘down’ at the millions of stars that hung far beyond the outer reaches of the solar system in whatever astronomical direction they happened to be facing at the moment, and he wondered if one of them might be Caldanra.
As he took another sip of water he noticed Beth’s reflection growing in the transluminum window as she approached him from behind, buttoning her blue pajama shirt’s third button—the only button still remaining on the ragged old thing.
“You know, Dylan, a very interesting thought just occurred to me,” she said when she reached his side.
Dylan passed his drink from his right hand to his left, then wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. He kissed her, then peered down the front of her gaping shirt and said, “Let me guess. A new pajama shirt would cover you more effectively?”
She slipped between him and the window, wrapped her arms around his waist, and smiled up at him. “Nope. Don’t need one and don’t want one.”
“Good,” he said, smiling back. “I like this one.”
“I know you do.”
They kissed again. Then Dylan asked, “So what thought just occurred to you?”
Beth turned to the window and cradled his arm to her chest. “Your nightmares might have returned for a specific reason. They might really mean something.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?” he asked, gazing at her reflection.
“Well...” She hesitated, then admitted with a shrug, “I don’t know. It just seems strange that the mere mention that you used to have nightmares would be enough to bring them back. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Oh.” He looked back out at the stars. “Well, the way the doctors explained it to me, they weren’t just ordinary nightmares. They were, and I quote, ‘episodes of subconsciously enhanced mental imagery, loosely based in reality, brought on by post traumatic stress.’ End quote. Or some such clinical mumbo-jumbo like that.”
“Whatever that means.”
“Apparently it means something like ‘extra special’ nightmares.”
Beth snickered. “Right. But seriously, think about it for a second. Realistically, could the commander’s mentioning them to the admiral really be all it took to bring them back?”
“I don’t know. Maybe,” Dylan said. “Who knows?”
“I was hoping you might ask me that.”
“Uh oh,” he said, looking down at her. “I think I’m in trouble now.”
“What does that mean?” she asked defensively, but
with a smile.
“That depends on why you were hoping I’d ask you that.”
She turned back to him and wrapped her arms around his waist again, and her eyes met his as she explained. “I was hoping you’d ask me that because I know someone who might be able to figure it out for you.”
“I was right. I am in trouble.”
“Come on, Dylan. I’m serious.”
He drew a deep breath and exhaled audibly, then asked, “All right. Who do you know that might be able to figure it out for me?”
“Loson Min’para.”
“And who is Loson Min’para?”
“He’s a man I knew on Cirra. He...”
“Oh really?” Dylan asked playfully.
“Yeah, he...”
“A man you knew on Cirra, huh. Hmm. I don’t seem to remember you ever mentioning him before. Just how well did you know this man you knew on Cirra?”
“Oh, stop it,” she said, slapping his arm and smiling up at him. “It’s not like that at all and you know it.”
“Okay,” he said, laughing. “I’m sorry. So, who is he? When did you meet him?”
“I met him about eight months ago when I was doing research for my thesis. Then I ran into him again just after I resigned from Solfleet. Remember I told you about that trip I took to Corietta City?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s where he lives. He’s a professor in the sciences department at Corietta Provincial University. I’m sure I must have mentioned him to you before.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well anyway, if anyone can help, I’m sure he can.”
“How can he... Whoa, wait a minute.” He gently freed himself from her embrace and gulped down another mouthful of water as he walked across the room, then turned back and faced her from in front of the refrigerator. “What subject in the university’s sciences department is he a professor of, exactly?” he asked, suspicious of what the answer might be.
She sighed as her gaze fell to the floor between them. “He’s head of the Mentalist Studies department,” she reluctantly revealed.