Operation Omina

by Roland Starr

  OPERATION OMINA

  ROLAND STARR

  © Roland Starr 1970

  Roland Starr has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as author of this work.

  First Published in 1973 by Robert Hale & Company

  This edition published in 2017 by Venture Press, an imprint of Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  Max Vonner, captain of the starship Orion, lifted his gaze to the forward scanner screen and saw the immobile ball of the planet Omina in the outer galaxy, now filling half the sky. It was now only five days away, and when they swung into a computerized orbit around it their flight from Earth would have lasted two complete years — two long years of uninterrupted space travel!

  There was a movement at his side, and he stirred, looking up into the gaunt face of his relief.

  “Hi, Ed!” Vonner studied his first officer for a moment, then got to his feet and moved aside to let Lieutenant-Commander Ed Bardo sit down in the control seat.

  “Any orders, Captain?” Bardo demanded, and he did not meet Vonner’s eyes. He sounded surly, as if he were still caught by the tail end of a bad temper. That was unusual for Bardo, and Vonner realized that the man had been in a depressed mood for the past week. He frowned as he waited for Bardo to look up at him. But Bardo was making an effort to avoid him.

  “What’s wrong, Ed?” Vonner asked gently. “Beginning to feel the tension of the climax of this trip? It’s only five days away now. I’m going to talk with Quill shortly, to see what sort of a picture he’s making now we’re almost within range of Omina.”

  “I’ve just left him,” Bardo admitted. “He reckons the atmosphere will be the same as Earth, or near enough to make no difference to us.”

  They both looked at the forward scanner screen, and Omina hung there, still wrapped in the mystery of space. Vonner could feel a constriction in his chest and throat. He could understand what Bardo must be feeling. For himself, there was a strange longing deep inside that gave him the desire to quit the ship for a very long time. He stifled the desire. They had all been conditioned for the two-year flight, and in the background, not even contemplated yet, was the return flight! Vonner narrowed his eyes as the thought crossed his mind. He was beginning to feel uneasy for the very first time since blast-off long ago, and he wondered if this could be the first sign of some insidious space sickness.

  “Any orders, Captain?” Bardo repeated, and for a moment his pale blue eyes flickered in Vonner’s direction.

  “No changes yet!” Vonner glanced at the big command screen, which was blank. The whole two-year flight plan was present on the control computer, and confirmation of course changes and other data was flashed automatically on the screen. There was nothing beyond maintenance that the crew had to do on the Orion . The ship managed itself through the trackless oceans of black space. For weeks now the command screen had remained inanimate, as if the computer had died on them. Vonner returned his attention to Bardo, and his frown deepened. He hoped Bardo was not cracking up. Soon the whole crew would have their time cut out to prepare for orbit and landing on Omina. They would have to justify their presence after two years of inactivity. “Are you feeling okay, Ed?” he demanded.

  “Fine, Captain! What about you?” The tone in the man’s voice denied his words, and Vonner compressed his lips.

  “I’m fine, Ed! But you seem to be a bit under the weather. Report to the doc when you get off duty.”

  “Yes, Captain!” Bardo nodded and started his check sequence, and Vonner watched him, certain there was something wrong but unable to pinpoint it. “You reckon it could be space fatigue?” Bardo went on without looking round. He spoke too loudly, and Vonner felt doubtful.

  “Have you got any of the symptoms, Ed?” he countered softly.

  “No! I do feel a bit edgy, but we’ve been almost two years in this flying can.”

  “The longest space trip to date,” Vonner said with some pride, “and mainly experimental. We’re guinea pigs, Ed, don’t forget.”

  “Yeah!” Bardo grinned lopsidedly. “I volunteered!”

  “We’ve proved that the human element in space has sufficient adaptability,” Vonner went on. “They figured we might all be raving mad by the time we reached this point. But I don’t feel any different from the day we blasted off from Earth, do you, Ed?”

  “What did they do to us, Captain?”

  “Do to us?” Vonner thrust out his bottom lip. “What do you mean, Ed?”

  “Nothing. Forget it. In a few days now we’ll know some of the answers to the questions that have gnawed at all of us from the first moment we started out. Two long years! They said it couldn’t be done! But here we are, and apparently none the worse!” Bardo paused and smiled thinly. “Unless we are all stark raving mad and don’t know it.” He showed his teeth in a grin. “But don’t you have any doubts now we’re almost at our destination?”

  “Doubts?” Vonner considered for a moment, then shook his head. “No, I don’t have any doubts. What about you?”

  Bardo shook his head. “No doubts, Captain, but I must confess to an uneasiness I can’t explain to myself. I just can’t put my finger on it. It’s been troubling me for some time. It’s like trying to remember a dream you know you’ve had but can’t recall. I can feel it there just below the surface of the mind, but it won’t come free and clear.”

  “You too!” Vonner felt relieved as he spoke. So he wasn’t the only one.

  “So you know what I’m talking about, Captain!” Bardo looked up, looking relieved. His closely cropped blond hair made him look teen-aged, but his face was very serious. “I keep telling myself it’s the result of being cooped up in this ship. I guess we’ve come through this pretty well considering. But one thing really puzzles me, Captain.”

  “Tell me about it,” Vonner said urgently. “There are seventy-seven of us aboard Orion, and no one has a memory stretching back farther than two years, Captain.”

  Vonner stared down into his subordinate’s face and saw the doubt showing there, and his own doubts were suddenly clarified. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He couldn’t remember what had happened in his life before this trip commenced.

  “Well, Captain, what about you?” Bardo demanded. “Do you know anything at all about your origins? What happened in your life before we blasted off?”

  “I’m the same as the rest of you, Ed,” Vonner said slowly, his mind trying to grapple with the possibilities. “But it’s nothing to worry about!” He said it with the intention of bolstering himself as much as Bardo. He had been worrying subconsciously about this very problem, but now it was out in the open, and he did not like the size of it.

  “I’m beginning to wonder who I am,” Bardo said. “What did I leave behind on Earth? Whom have I left behind? What did they do to us? Was it a mutilation of the mind?”

  “Take it easy, Ed.” Vonner could think of nothing else to say. His mind was filled with the same questions, and he was thinking it strange that they hadn’t crossed his mind before. The whole crew, including himself, had been through a mental process that was intended to fit them for astral life and the long trek through space. But it hit hard that he had no knowledge of what had gone on before blast-off almost two years ago. He turned to depart, and Bardo reached out and took hold of his elbow.

  “Just a minute, Captain! Do you think it was right
that they stole our minds? They turned us into robots — flesh-and-blood machines.”

  “Probably for our own good, Ed, and we’ll get everything back when we return to Earth.”

  “When! We’ve been two years getting here. There’s no telling what’s going to happen in the next week. Starfall Omina is five days away. If anything goes wrong, we’ll never get back to Earth.”

  “Cut it out, Ed!” Vonner spoke sharply. “You know we might have gone crazy on this two-year flight if we’d had full control of our minds.”

  “It might be all right for you not to know who you are, Captain, but it worries me!” Bardo spoke angrily, sullenly. “They had no right to impersonalize us!”

  “We all volunteered, Ed!” Vonner placed a hand upon his subordinate’s shoulder. “Just simmer down, will you? You’re on duty now. I’ll wait for you to be relieved, and then we’ll talk some more. I’m going to see the doc now, and you’d better report to her when you get through here.”

  Bardo scowled and returned his attention to the panels and banks of instruments and dials before him. Vonner stared down at him for a moment, wanting to say more, hut his mind was confused and he couldn’t think of the right words. He turned and left the control room and made his way to the sick bay; there was a frown upon his rugged face. Questions were flooding his mind, and he could not find the answers. For two years he had been an unquestioning robot in this huge starship, with no thought for the past. Only the future had appealed to him, the future and the great task of landing on Omina and carrying out the duties assigned to him and the crew …

  Dr. Adah Morley was a strikingly beautiful woman in her thirties, a honey blonde with blue eyes and an attraction that would make itself felt by any man. But Vonner did not consider why she made no impact upon him when he entered her office and stood on the threshold staring down at her. She looked up at him, and a thin smile came to her face.

  “Captain, I was about to come to you. I’m worried!” She paused and studied his face, then nodded slowly. “You’re worried, too! Is anything wrong? Are you feeling ill?”

  “I’m fine, Doc,” he replied, and moved to a seat and dropped into it. “But we’ve got to have a talk. I’m beginning to notice small details that don’t add up, and I don’t like it. Ed Bardo just took over from me, and something he said has set me thinking along unusual lines.”

  “You too!” Dr. Morley sighed and pushed back her chair. “That’s what I want to see you about, Captain. I want you to take a look at the sick list. Check back through the past week and see what I’m getting at.” She passed him a sheaf of papers, and he frowned as he scanned them.

  “You’re getting a bigger list each week, Doc,” he commented.

  “The numbers aren’t significant in themselves, Captain.”

  “You haven’t got an epidemic on your hands, have you? That sort of thing is of the past.”

  “No physical ailments, Captain. But the crew is coming down with space sickness. It’s a mental disease that was supposed to have been eradicated by the psycho-processes used on the entire crew before departure from Earth.”

  “But you subject us to a booster dose of brainwashing on that machine of yours, Doc,” Yonner protested. “Once a month the entire crew goes through the process. I’ve never really understood exactly what it does to us, but we’ve had no complaints since we left Earth.”

  “I have a feeling that the machine has developed a malfunction, Captain.” There was a serious note in Dr. Morley’s voice, and Vonner studied her lovely face with closer attention than he had ever shown before.

  “That could be serious, although I wouldn’t know unless you told me exactly what that machine does, Doc.”

  “Look at me closely, Captain!” There was a vibrant note in the woman’s voice. “Tell me what you see.”

  “I see you, Doc.” Vonner smiled, and she permitted her expression to alter a little, but she did not smile.

  “What do you feel when you look at me?” she persisted.

  “Feel!” He frowned, shaking his head. “I don’t feel anything. What are you getting at?”

  She nodded slowly. “My suspicions are hardening. I’d like to try a little experiment with you, Captain. Would you come over here, please?”

  He got up as she arose, and followed her into the inner office. She shut the door and looked at him, standing little more than a hand’s breadth from him. Vonner looked down into her face, his teeth clenched, and there was an expression of inquiry on his features.

  “What’s this all about, Doc?” he demanded.

  “That brain washing machine, as everyone calls it, is a booster machine intended to bolster the mental patterns fed into each crew member’s mind during documentation for this trip, Captain. You have this knowledge in your subconscious mind, but it has been blocked by the process. You cannot remember a single thing that happened to you before blast-off, can you?”

  “No. Not a thing. That’s exactly what Ed Bardo pointed out to me when he came on duty a while back. That’s why I’m here, Doc. I want to know what’s going on.”

  “You don’t even feel an interest in me, do you, Captain?”

  “Interest?” he repeated. “I’m interested in your welfare.”

  “But not more so than in any male member of your crew?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “This experiment you wanted to try — what is it?”

  She came nearer to him and placed her hands upon his shoulders. “Kiss me, Captain,” she commanded.

  “Kiss you?” He frowned. “What do you mean, Doc?”

  She smiled. “It’s obvious that the process isn’t losing its power in your mind, Captain. All knowledge and instinct which you had in the past, and any other detail that isn’t imperative to your duties on this trip, have been blocked from your mind. Can you imagine what might have happened on this two-year trek with seventy men and seven female nurses enclosed on this ship? The greatest problem facing scientists after man landed on the moon and began to look farther afield was the human element in space travel. Man was not suitable for confinement over long periods, unless he could be amenable to the changed conditions and strictures of stellar flight. The process that was carried out on this entire crew is the result of many years of tests and experiments, and until now it has proved immensely successful.”

  “Just a minute, Doc,” Vonner said patiently. “Give it to me straight. What exactly did they do to us before this trip?”

  “Your mind was drained of all impulses, instincts and memories. Your memory banks were plundered. Every impression and memory you ever stored in your head was taken away from you, Captain, and the same thing happened to each member of the crew. Then you were connected to a sealed circuit computer, and the knowledge and skills you needed on this trip were impulsed into your brain. You are a flesh-and-blood robot. You have no personality and no individual instincts. They’ve obliterated the instincts of a million generations from your mind, Captain, in order to keep you sane on this trip. When you return to Earth, the process will be reversed and you will become normal again, but until then you have no personal control over yourself. Your reactions and thoughts are governed by the patterns that were fed into your mind by computer. You’re not human, Captain, and won’t be while the monthly brainwashings continue. That’s putting it relatively simply, mind you. That’s the whole thing in a nutshell.”

  “And how can you know all this?” Vonner demanded. “Were you not processed like the rest of us?”

  “I was, and programmed to my particular duties. But this booster machine, which is needed to prevent normal instincts from returning, is malfunctioning in some way. In the past week I have had twenty men in here demanding answers to questions that I dare not answer.”

  “You haven’t told anyone what you’ve just told me?” he demanded.

  “No one! You’re the captain. You have a right to know, because I’m going to need help to cope with the problems now arising. I think you have an emergency on your hands
, Captain.”

  “Before we go on to that aspect, tell me some more about kissing,” Vonner said.

  “No, Captain.” Dr. Morley shook her shapely blonde head. “If I’m any judge of the situation, you’re going to need a cool head in the next few days. You wouldn’t thank me for putting a whole world of new ideas into your mind.”

  “Can the machine be fixed?” he asked.

  “That’s not in my department. You’ll have to check with the chief engineer. But I warn you, Captain, that he was in here this morning, and I saw a glint in his eyes that could only come from one of the blocked emotions I was telling you about.”

  “I’m beginning to understand something of the problem.” He nodded slowly. “Ed Bardo worried me when I listened to him, but now I have a clearer picture of the situation. We’d better get a check made on that brainwashing machine of yours before my crew fall apart at the seams. But wouldn’t it help if we gave the men an extra dose of the processing, even if it is of a lowered strength?”

  “I was going to suggest it,” she said. “Perhaps we’d better arrange for it, and the sooner the better. Once the men get out of control, it may be too late to try to maintain order.”

  “What would you expect to happen if the effects of your machine wore off completely?”

  “Discipline would go, without a doubt. I doubt if anyone would be able to withstand the mental shock of discovering his own past in one unblinking revelation.”

  “Then I’ll have the off-duty men lining up here within the hour,” Vonner said. “Will that be all right with you?”

  “Yes, Captain. We shall be able to cope. It will mean working around the clock, but it is imperative that the treatment be given immediately. Perhaps you’ll have some of your security men standing by.”

  “You expect trouble, Doc?”

  “You sound surprised, Captain.” She shook her beautiful head, and Vonner had the sudden feeling that there was something attractive about her, and it sent a pang through him. He narrowed his eyes as he stared into her face. It was as though she were magnetic and he were a piece of inanimate metal. There was a strong attraction between the two, and the knowledge was like the ripples on a lake, spreading across his awareness in ever widening and deepening circles, catching him up in some unknown vortex that tugged at the very roots of him. He shivered and backed away from her, his face showing her something of the conflict taking place inside him.