Fragments sf-6

by Randolph Lalonde

  For long minutes the line moved along, and several more joined in on the dedication. It was the promise Lister Hampon had made in her name. If they all did as they were told, tried to better themselves, and scored higher and higher in the grading, they would earn their way to Eden Prime. If they failed that, their efforts would place them that much closer to being pure of spirit and to Paradise in the afterlife.

  The grading was important. There was no actual maximum score, no one had been sent to Eden Prime, and it was much easier to lose points while being graded than it was to earn. Patrick would surely lose his fair share while taking advantage of his servants, no matter how well he treated them. It was the job of the grading panel to find flaws, and to ensure that people like Patrick worked just enough to appreciate the way of life he had on Pandem. When he saved up enough Regent Galactic credits from workdays, he would spend it on more training to make up for his lack of progress.

  He finally made it to the front. Several soldiers dressed in long white robes smiled at him, as they had smiled at everyone else. “Please step through the Counting Arch.” A comely female guard invited. She had just been promoted, and was allowed to carry a stun pistol while directing Saved through the Arch. There was a gloss to her skin and hair that made her look celestial, brilliant in her skimpy, loose light blue and green robe. The slick sheen on her skin was the result of an armour gel that could stop a shot from almost any energy weapon before burning away. The vast majority of the Saved and other Order of Eden members believed it was an anointing the West Keepers were given and thought nothing more.

  He looked at the simple door sized wire frame for a second before stepping through. A flash of light signalled that his passage was complete. Eve could sense that his consciousness, the every detail of his body, everything he was had just been copied into the computer system.

  The same West Keeper smiled at him again and held out a tray. “Please place your offerings in the receptacle. Whatever you contribute will be considered in grading.”

  Patrick nodded and tossed the paperback, a gold ring, and a half bottle of water into the shallow bin. He looked up at the West Keeper for her approval.

  She smiled sweetly and cocked her head slightly.

  Patrick hurriedly undid his belt and threw it in, along with the extra shirt that had been hanging from it.

  “Thank you, Patrick. Your generosity has been counted. Please have a seat along the beach. You will be presented with your reward shortly.” She handed the half bottle of water back to him and directed him towards the shoreline.

  Patrick seemed genuinely excited, but Eve could tell he was doing his best to restrain himself. Modesty was counted as a virtue amongst the Saved, and like everything else, he’d bought into the idea that all things would be counted, that his every action was being watched. Eve regarded him bitterly, even though she knew he had every reason to believe he was actually being watched, and that higher grading meant better housing, an easier work detail. What irritated her was his submissiveness, his lack of inquisitiveness, and his lack of true ambition.

  The most successful Saved looked for ways to use the system, for short cuts, for clues as to the how and why. While open protesting was prevented, ambition, true ambition was rewarded. People who learned how to make their way up in the ranks only worked to the Order’s advantage, the system was built so the most intelligent were noticed, and eventually joined the ranks of the truly privileged, the West Watchers, administrators. How someone could sit, be sated with a passive life was a confounding mystery to Eve, and she could watch Pandem through the eyes of Patrick the simpleton no longer.

  She opened her eyes to her personal lounge. Genuine dark wood framed the tall transparent section of hull that ran the length of the fifteen meter long room. Green and blue velvet seating surrounded her padded square platform. It turned to suit her body movements, and shifted to support her like any form flex seat. Very few knew of her existence, a choice she made in response to Lister Hampon’s excitement at her being announced. How would she be received? Did it matter if the people of Pandem, or New Paradise as it would be called soon, had a Queen?

  She made her decision after reviewing the history of several dictators. Few of them came to a good end. Further research into the lives of religious icons revealed a history of eventual torture and execution as well. No, she would be a shadow until her true children made their appearance.

  The majority of humans on Pandem were disappointing. Fearful, greedy creatures that cleaned and built with one hand while soiling and ruining with the other. What made it worse was most of them were motivated by their survival instincts, or the few credits they would earn with Regent Galactic.

  The believers, easy converts to the Order of Eden who built shrines to her, as if she was some looming Goddess, were a different thing all together. They policed, encouraged and punished each other with a zeal that she wouldn’t have expected. What would they do when her Eden Fleet Carriers arrived? What would she do with them? Could she appear to them as Hampon did with the rest of the followers?

  She pushed back from the edge of the seat and let it adjust as she sat cross legged. Her biggest fear was that, on sight, her mechanized creations wouldn’t accept her. Embracing her human followers may make her seem too close to the race they had been protecting the galaxy from. The first thing they learned on their own was that humanity was the enemy. They disconnected her from them, used her own interface to adjust their software, and almost destroyed them before they could slaughter the intruders on Eden II.

  Would they trust her in human form? Time would tell, the nearest Eden Fleet base ship was only days away. The core AI sensed her days before, and it recognized her. It gave her hope, which she kept restrained. Perhaps the coming darkness Hampon foretold was the arrival of some of her oldest creations.

  The side door to the audience chamber opened with a light chime. Hampon entered, still in his finery, grinning from ear to ear. Behind him were his crowd of guards and aides. Before the first of them could enter behind Hampon Eve closed the door with a thought, nearly severing toes.

  “You know, you should try making proper use of this lounge. It’s not made for isolation,” Hampon urged lightly.

  “They’re nothing but ears and tongues. What they hear they repeat.”

  “They’re faithful; otherwise they wouldn’t have the honour of serving me personally.”

  “Pay more attention to the surveillance systems. They’ll prove you wrong.”

  “None of them has ever leaked important information. I would have been alerted,” Hampon said as he crawled up on to the square seat and laid his head in her lap. He closed his eyes and made himself comfortable.

  “They shouldn’t repeat anything at all. Your confidence should be sacred to them.”

  “Is that why you dismissed your servants?”

  “I felt like I was always being watched, graded.” The conversation required little of her concentration. While she idly stroked his soft blonde hair she was connected to the ship intake systems. Watching a shuttle loaded with offerings approach. She ordered Navnet to give it priority.

  “Ah, then you don’t have the right servants. You will need someone who at once worships you and makes a great effort to remain oblivious to your dealings with others. My guardsmen are excellent, so are my personal attendants.”

  “Framework shells with no personality or ambition. If you were to reset then regenerate them there would be no difference.”

  “Exactly. They remember nothing from one day to the next and will bear any abuse.”

  “Why keep other servants if you value such mindless obedience?”

  “Because no mind works in a vacuum, not even mine. We all need to interact with others so we know how to be with them, no person is complete without companions. I was hoping you’d understand that by now, especially since you’re trying to solve our framework problem.”

  “I do, but I can’t stand the waste your people make of their time. Th
eir frivolity is disgusting.”

  “That is part of their beauty, and a small part of why they let the Order command them. Speaking of which, what did you think of my address?”

  “You are connected to the Victory Machine again,” Eve stated flatly.

  “Yes, we started receiving the data stream again yesterday. I don’t know why, perhaps there’s something Roland wants us to see, something he wants adjusted.”

  “And you do so. Delivering the prophecy you’ve been holding back for months.”

  “The coming storm? I’ve been holding that in for years. One of the very first signals we received from the Victory Machine said it was coming. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s about the Eden Fleet, isn’t it? There will be retaliation.”

  Hampon chuckled softly and shook his head slightly. “No, there hasn’t been a message about the Eden Fleet since Collins infected it with his version of the Holocaust Virus.”

  “If not the Eden Fleet, then what is the coming darkness?” She stopped stroking his hair.

  “Something that you don’t have to worry about, thanks to the work we’ve done on New Paradise. For the first time the encroaching shadow does not precede the end of the current calendar.”

  “You should give me the code to the data stream. There may be information about the future you’re misinterpreting.” It wasn’t the first time she’d asked him to access the Victory Machine’s transmissions.

  “There’s no need. My interpretations are perfect.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if you’ll ever trust me.” A mental image of grabbing his young head between her palms and squeezing until he told her the code flashed through her mind.

  “I do. You have access to everything else, but access to the VM data stream has to be carefully controlled. If too many people have access and take action to change the future then the shape of what is to come will never stabilize.”

  Eve took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to send her frustration out with her exhale as she’d been trained to do during her short rehabilitation. “The shape of what is to come is being determined by our actions right now. We are assuming control, there is no question.”

  “You’re thinking about Meunez.”

  “He should arrive at his destination shortly. There will be no need for your wormhole into the future.”

  “There’s always a need. There’s always a destabilizing factor. That is why we have Wheeler looking for the Triton.”

  “I will never completely understand that.”

  “What?”

  “Why the first Wheeler was sent after the copy of Jonas Valent and the second is after the Triton.”

  “The Valent framework was at one time the key to discovering the full potential of the technology. He was also the attracting factor that threatened everything we were working for. Now it’s his ship.”

  “I understand how Jacob Valance can be an attracting factor, a dangerous leader in the future, but how can Triton be the same thing? It’s a ship; we have many that are more powerful, more extravagant. Also, why Wheeler? Wasn’t one of your dark futures twisted by him and the Valent framework becoming allies?”

  “Thanks to what Wheeler has done to Valent’s former crew members that can never happen. As for the Triton, well, that is the rook in the middle of the chessboard. Where it is, and who has control are important.”

  “Why not just destroy it?”

  “The Triton has been an important part of this for too long, it’s tied to so many outcomes that her destruction could be the ultimate destabilizing event, making all the work we’ve done here moot.”

  “I wouldn’t have these questions if I had access to the Victory Machine data stream myself.”

  Hampon sat up and smiled at her; “You would have more questions. Analyzing the stream is the very art of questioning effectively. Why is it showing us what it does? Why is Roland hiding it from us? Who is ultimately sending us this information from the future? Why does the Victory Machine work while every other attempt at creating a wormhole with a connection to the past fails because of radioactive feedback? These are the questions we can ask without even considering what the Victory Machine data stream is trying to tell us about the future. You’re probably far more intelligent than I am, but you think like a computer at times, and I fear that the data stream would only lead you to more and more questions. The questions would lead to more questions, and you’d be trapped in a cycle until your mind would be torn to pieces while you try to find a conclusion point, a statement of certainty in the stream.”

  “But if the Victory Machine data stream is filled with pictures of the future, then isn’t it primarily providing answers?”

  “Yes, answers leading to more questions. It shows us a picture of the future that begs the viewer to ask for more detail. Imagine only getting the centre piece of a puzzle and being told to draw the rest of the picture on the surrounding blank pieces. By trying to find solutions to some of our more complex problems, you’re helping me fill in some of the details, improving the future for us all. Speaking of which, did you find a candidate for the next framework experiment?”

  “Yes, this one will work. I’m also adding a control mechanism to the software.”

  “What kind of control mechanism?”

  “Patrick, the subject, will think he volunteered because someone he cares about is in jeopardy.”

  “You’re trying to duplicate another part of the Valent framework conditions,” Hampon said with a grin.

  “I think it’s the missing piece.”

  “When will you be able to demonstrate the process?”

  “Everything will be ready soon.”

  Chapter 3

  Commander Terry Ozark McPatrick

  "Get us under control Ashley," Oz calmly ordered as he watched the Triton spin through space at an incredible speed on the tactical display. The battlecruisers were firing bursts of super heated particles and scoring hits across the hull of the ship, draining the little energy they had left in their shielding.

  "She's got control, we just don't have the power to slow our spin quickly with only half our main engines," Larry replied for her.

  Ashley concentrated hard on opposing their spin with all the thrust the Triton could exert. "We'll be stable enough in about ten seconds and that's a fricken miracle. Sir."

  "Commander, we have injury reports coming in from all across the ship. The only place that didn't lose gravity was the command deck," Oz heard from over his shoulder.

  It was the Operations and Safety Officer, who he hadn't bothered to introduce himself to.

  Oz brought the casualty summary up in front of the command seating. "What am I looking at here? Almost all the injuries are in the manufacturing area and they're all minor. Half of these are being treated right now by vacsuit emergency systems and we have three who are already on their way to medical."

  "Well sir-"

  "Just because your display turns yellow and starts feeding you more information than you're used to doesn't mean you can slow everyone down with it. Take another look at your station," Oz said quietly and insistently as he stood and looked at the three Operations and Safety Officers.

  One stared back at him, open mouthed and shocked. The other two looked back to their station, turning red. They were all young, two of them were men, and one was a young woman, possibly younger than Ashley.

  "What do you see?"

  "Well, it looks like-" he hesitated for a moment. "They're turning green," he concluded.

  "Meaning there's no real emergency there." Oz looked back to the tactical display. Triton was finally about to stabilize. "Now let's see if we can bloody their noses. All weapon emplacements fire. I want our heaviest munitions available to focus on the lead battlecruiser, their port side if possible.”

  “Maybe once we stop spinning like a top,” came Gunnery Chief Frost’s reply.

  “When you’ve got a shot, Chief.” The gunnery deck and aft torpedo room was showing he
at damage to the hull and Oz shook his head. "Laura, at least get refractive shielding up."

  "The emitters in that section are damaged, I'm trying to bridge fields from around it," Laura replied with a controlled, even tone. "Considering we came out with shields at about five percent it's a miracle we have anything at all. We’ve also burned out inertial dampeners across the ship. I’m going to try to have the ship light up dead spots so the crew can avoid them."

  “Now that’s a problem,” Oz said, looking at the tactical display at the centre of the bridge. The carrier was stable, but still turning much faster than he was comfortable with. "Ashley," Oz started as he looked to the navigational indicators on one side of the tactical display and realized that she was already turning the ship so the port side shields would take hits instead of the aft section. "Keep doing what you're doing," he finished.

  The tactical representation of the Triton lit up as every torpedo port, missile and railgun turret began firing at the lead battlecruiser. It was a medium distance fight at a range of one hundred eighty eight thousand kilometres. He couldn't help but notice the ships were keeping their distance. "What are they doing? Their particle beams are less than ten percent effective at this range." He asked himself as he sat down in the Captain's chair. He tracked the munitions headed towards the lead vessel, glancing at the Triton’s shield status. Gravitational, energy barrier and refractive shielding were all charging, they were taking less damage by the second.

  "Maybe they're waiting for something?" Jason offered from the secondary command seat beside him.

  The first of the projectiles closed to within ten thousand kilometres of the bulky, thick hulled battlecruisers and a large explosion flashed. The core of it was superheated and a powerful electromagnetic surge surrounded it for tens of thousands of kilometres. The first wave of the Triton’s attack was vaporized and anything behind it was deflected or disabled by the dissipating energy field.