We met before dawn, as all good conspirators should. We gathered on deck C, not far from Dariush’s room, in an extra-large art alcove, containing four facsimile paintings by a twentieth-century artist named Rockwell. The images, appropriately enough, were titled The Four Freedoms.
We counted out sheets, dividing them more or less equally. Xue would deliver his to private rooms on Concourse A. Stron would take B, Dariush would have C, and I would distribute along D, since that was the concourse on which David had lived and one which I had come to know well.
It was now about two hours before sunrise, when people would begin to stir. Much of our distribution would be guess-work, because each concourse had hundreds of rooms, only a portion of which were residential. However, these private rooms were spaced more closely together than service rooms, were arranged like city blocks, and sometimes had personalized decorations affixed to the doors, so we stood a fair chance of reaching a majority of people on board.
Xue had contributed a hundred sheets of his own paper, and these extra prints I would later deliver to Pia at my daily pill session. She would in turn deliver them to her friend Paul during their prearranged date for coffee later in the morning. He would distribute them among the flight crew up on KC.
Moreover, unbeknownst to me, Stron had given Xue two hundred sheets from his personal stash of paper, and additional prints had been made with them. We now agreed that these should be handed out at the elevators for the maintenance department. All four of us would meet at the D-level elevators after we had covered decks A to D, and then try to engage maintenance staff coming off shift, or going on shift. Of all the people on the ship, these were the most likely to recognize David’s face and name.
We headed off to our assigned tasks.
I was concerned about the absence of gaps under doors; my only apparent option was to place each sheet on the floor outside. On a whim, however, I tried slipping one into the hairline between door and floor, and it slid inside. Eureka! This would help avoid detection long enough for people to read the prints.
The daylight was turned on just as I completed my territory. I now had a few minutes to get back up to deck-B medical clinic. There, I met Pia arriving for a day’s work, typing her code into the clinic door. It slid open, and we went inside. I took the bundle of sheets for KC from inside my shirt, while she prepared my placebo. She flushed the brain-warper down a sink drain, gave me my sugar pill, and took the prints from me, locking them into her desk drawer. All of this transpired without a word passing between us. I was off like a shot back down to D.
There I stood by the elevators, and while I waited for the others to arrive, I handed out a few dozen prints to workers entering the elevator to go on shift. Invariably, they glanced at the sheet, curious but saying nothing, in a hurry to get to work. Dariush joined me, and he too began to hand out sheets. Now a few maintenance people were exiting the elevators, going off shift.
We had handed out most of our sheets, when one of the workers paused in the hallway and read it carefully.
“I know Dave”, he said, looking up at me with a frown. “He’s not missing. He was transferred five months ago to P department.”
“Propulsion, you mean?” I asked.
“Yeah. That’s on the same floor as M, but it’s in the rear of the ship, and sealed off from us for safety reasons. Maybe you should check there.”
“Thanks for the suggestion. How do I find it?”
He pointed down the concourse. “You’ll find the first set of P elevators about fifteen minutes walk thataway.”
Xue and Stron had returned by then, and the traffic of workers was tapering down to nothing. With that, the four of us set off in the direction of the propulsion elevators. When we arrived there, the lobby was deserted. It looked as if the change of P shift had already finished, or else this department’s schedules were different from M’s.
At last the doors opened, and a single worker emerged, looking tired after a long night.
Xue handed him a print, and asked, “Do you recognize this man?”
The other looked closely at the photo and shook his head.
“With regret,” he replied in a French accent. “I do not know this man.”
“You’re sure he doesn’t work in Propulsion? He’d probably be doing some kind of cleaning or minor maintenance.”
“I am foreman of cleaning-maintenance team for the P department. I know all of the staff. I have never see this man before. Who is he?”
He read the biography, looked up, and said, “You should ask in M department. I think it is they who would know him.”
“We did ask”, I said. “We’ve been asking for months. No one has any answers. And as this says, his name has been scrubbed from the ship’s computers.”
“It is probably clerical error, the bureaucratic problem, no? If he is not on board, then he did not depart from the Earth.”
“He is on board. I’ve talked with him many times since Day 1. Now he’s missing, and we want to know why.”
The man shrugged. “There is some explanation, I am sure. May I keep this?”
“Please. And here are a few more copies, if you’d care to pass them around.”
“Certainly. I hope you will find your friend.”
“Thanks.”
The four of us climbed up to deck B and ate breakfast together in the cafeteria. People ambled in, some of them clutching the print in their hands, reading it alone over their coffee and toast, or discussing it quietly with others. No one looked in our direction, so we hoped that blame wouldn’t be traced to us—at least not immediately. Doubtless, the denials would soon be flooding the ship.
Day 2407:
Yesterday, about two hours after breakfast, Elf came back out of the woodwork. In fact, he pounced. The gendarmes arrived at my door, solemn as ever, and conducted me to the office of the Deputy Director, Department of Social Infrastructure (DDDSI).
An angry elf is a frightening thing to behold. Elves, I presume, say nothing for at least five minutes after you’ve been hauled into their sylvan offices. They merely gaze upon you with their preternatural eyes, unblinking, their lungs inhaling and exhaling as delicately as the fins of a Pacific fan-fish minnow. He was spooky. But that was okay, because I already knew he was kind of a sinister guy, and his intimidating silence had the unintended benefit of allowing me to gather my addled wits about me.
I love acronyms. The pregnant pause permitted me to toy with a few. Dire Doyen of Daily Social Intimidation. Doctor of Dogmatic Deaggressivization Syndrome Inversion. Dangerous Downbeat Draconian Spiteful Imposer. Et cetera.
I decided to carpe diem and break the silence.
Transcript of recording:
Me: Good morning, Elf.
[He does not respond. Is he alive? Yes, he just blinked.]
Me: Can you please give me a hint about the reason for our interface?
[Slight quivering of his fins, heightened color in the neck.]
Me: I know—you want to invite me to deliver another talk to the community.
[Face flushes red, eyes begin blinking rapidly, then are brought under control, followed by a deathly cold stare. If elves had tails, this one would rattle.]
Me: Is something troubling you?
[He extends a stiff fingertip and touches a button on the top of his desk. We are now recording each other’s silences. When he speaks at last, it is in the tone of a calm, compassionate professional.]
Elf: Dr. Hoyos, I’ve asked you to come in to see me because—
Me: Elf, you didn’t ask. Your agents arrested me and brought me here against my will.
Elf: There is nothing to be frightened of, Dr. Hoyos. The department—
Me: I’m not frightened, Dr. Larson. I’m merely concerned about the police-state tactics.
[He produces an artificial chuckle, but his eyes are going all slitty.]
Elf: No, no, you misunderstand. I’m concerned about your health. Surely, you’re aware that there are no gr
ounds whatsoever to the allegations you printed and distributed this morning. The supposedly missing person has never been on board the Kosmos.
Me: I’m aware that the points raised in our leaflet are very well grounded. In my discussions with crew members, I discovered that some of them knew the missing person, David Ayne.
Elf: There is no David Ayne in our records.
Me: Of course, that is now the case. However, he was on board the ship and has not left it. Crew members attribute his disappearance to a transfer to another department. Perhaps if you would kindly search all the departments, you will be able to locate him.
Elf: That won’t be necessary. This name, this persona, is a figment of your imagination. If these crew members knew him, as you call it, why haven’t they come forward?
Me: They didn’t know he was missing until now. It’s a big ship. Now they know.
Elf: Who are these people? If they believe what you say, then they shouldn’t hesitate to raise their concerns with the Department.
Me: Perhaps they have concerns about their own safety.
Elf: If they think that, it’s because you planted the idea—an unfounded fear not based in reality.
Me: Where is David Ayne? Why have you erased all records of him from the ship’s files?
[Elf leans forward and touches the button on his desk. I think he’s turned off the recorder.]
Elf: Listen to me, Hoyos, and listen carefully. I will not permit your delusions to disrupt life on board this ship. Your hallucinations are becoming very destructive.
Me: Arbeit macht frei?
Elf: What?
Me: An old saying, made popular by another group of social facilitators.
Elf: You think you’re funny, do you? Why don’t you grow up? Why do you go about the ship playing games like an adolescent who never matured properly? That ridiculous costume you wear, your cultural idiosyncrasies, your pathetic conspiracy theories—it’s all an act. But now the act is getting worse and harming other people. If you don’t—
Me: The costume and the idiosyncrasies are just a bit of fun, Elf. You should lighten up a little.
Elf: Stop calling me Elf, you moron! If you think your Nobel Prize is going to protect you—
Me: Protect me from what, Elf?
Elf [growling in a very aggressive manner]: Stop calling me Elf.
Me: Actually two Nobel Prizes.
[Ay, ay, ay, caramba! Elf now proves himself capable of extremely crude language. We shall pass on quickly.]
Me: I’m not banking on my prizes, Dr. Larson. I have a bad taste in my mouth from the last time I visited Stockholm. My acceptance speech—
Elf: Yes, yes, I read your acceptance speech.
Me: Of course you would have. It would be in my Security dossier. Somewhat problematic, that speech, wasn’t it?
Elf: One of the greatest errors Security ever made was permitting you to be aboard this ship. Your speech in Stockholm—
Me: Did you read the original Spanish?
Elf: I read the English, the Swedish, and the Norwegian versions of that drivel—that political drivel.
Me: I found it so informative, so revealing, that all translations, all transcripts (save my paper original), had altered my words. Did you know that? You probably don’t realize that I stated very clearly—
Elf: The stench of paranoia came through clearly enough. Don’t repeat it.
Me: I said, “Contemporary civilization is poised on the brink of a quantum leap in science, precisely at the time of history when we have regressed to sophisticated barbarism in the realm of ethics. Our civilization is based upon, and prospers by, legalized murder on a global scale.”
Elf: Ridiculous. You never said that. And even if you had said something like that, it would prove my point that you are both irresponsible and irrational.
Me: You may recall that they translated the sentence to read as follows: “Contemporary civilization is poised on the brink of a quantum leap in science, having transcended the unethical behavior of the past. Our civilization has overcome through global efforts the barbarian tendency to genocide.” There’s a name for that kind of translation, Dr. Larson.
Elf: Oh, really? And what name is that?
Me: It’s called lying. It’s also character theft.
[He snorts, followed by silence and scowls of professional disgust.]
Me: Push the record button again, Elf; there are a few more things I’d like to say.
[He does not comply.]
Me: A civilization that destroys tens of millions of children annually, confiscates about as many from their parents, enforces sterilization and other punitive measures—well, wouldn’t you say that such a civilization suffers from a very deadly fixation? So what’s one janitor more or less, right?
[He leans forward and taps the button. When he speaks, his voice is the quintessence of kindness and rationality.]
Elf: Dr. Hoyos, the Department is very concerned about your health. I must ask you to reconsider your recent behavior, which I regret to say, has had a disruptive and depressing effect on some of the expedition members.
Me: I can’t stop being who I am, Dr. Larson. And why don’t you disclose where David—
[His voice drowns me out:]
Elf: Dr. Hoyos, much as I respect your achievements in science—your very great achievements—you are suffering from delusions, sir. It is with considerable personal pain that I must ask you to cease spreading these ugly insinuations. Your increasing habit of instability is jeopardizing the mission to AC-A-7.
[He taps the button. We’re now off. He’s fuming through his nostrils, his lips so tight they’re turning blue. He says:]
Elf: If I hear one more word from you, either today or in the future, or learn about any act or any utterance which even hints at a recurrence of your insane pranks, I will mandate that you be held under sedation in a medical ward for the remainder of the voyage. I cannot afford madmen to roam loose on this ship. Do you understand me?
Me: I’m rational enough to understand you completely, Elf. Completely. Why don’t you just erase me too?
Elf: Don’t push me, Hoyos. I will do exactly what I said I will do, if you don’t shut up. Beginning now.
Me: [silence]
Elf: Now, get out.
[I got out.]
Feeling very, very shaken, I made my way slowly back to deck B. Little firecracker that I once was, all my powder had fizzled out. By the time I arrived at Stron’s room, I was frightened and, I must admit, struggling against a sucking undertow of hopelessness. I knocked.
“Well, we can count our lucky stars”, said Stron with a grin when I was inside his room and the door closed behind me. “You’re still at liberty, I see.”
“Am I?” I murmured.
We both glanced at his max.
“It’s off”, he said. “We can talk.”
I shook my head, put my forefinger to my lips, and said, “Let’s go for a walk.”
So we went out and rambled along the concourse with our heads together. Stron patted his breast pocket repeatedly and pulled tufts of white hair from his ears. At length, we found a suitable culture alcove and stepped inside. There, safely out of line of sight, he withdrew a flask from his inner breast pocket and offered me a sip of whiskey. I took it gratefully, even as I eyed the “art”—a painting of some naked ladies in Avignon. Nothing to provoke the animal appetites, since they looked like pieces of broken pottery trying desperately to look sensual.
I said, “One of the little details Dwayne warned me about before he disappeared is that even when a max is powered down, it’s always listening. And we can’t presume we have privacy any longer.”
“It’s recording too, I’d wager,” muttered Stron, “with an auto-screening program that goes beep and blinks a red light in some far-off office if we use key words like ‘bomb’ or ‘privacy’.”
“Or ‘dirk’.”
“That one would fetch the human analysts. They’d come running.”
“Considering our current status as subversives and mission underminers, I expect they keep live staff on our case around the clock. But there’s worse, Stron. I’ve just had a nasty meeting with the deputy director of DSI.”
“How nasty?”
“Very. Want to listen to it?”
I tapped my lapel button, and he stood with his ear cocked in rapt attention, his face cranky, his white eyebrows tufting upward like a horned owl, but his shoulders slumping more and more, until toward the end he looked totally beaten. He sipped whiskey and stared at the floor for a time. Then he sighed and said, “I told you he was dangerous.”
I nodded.
“Good thing you recorded that farce”, he went on. “It’s so interesting, the Jekyll-and-Hyde thing—two personalities, two styles—and this is the man who controls our destiny.”
“Controls our destiny? I wouldn’t go that far.”
“The Mysterious Stranger still hasn’t put in an appearance, I take it?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Not even a hint.”
“Everyone on board has seen the missing person posters by now. If he was free, I would expect him to send you something clandestinely, maybe something cryptic, just to let you know he’s all right.”
“I would expect so too. I think it’s a bad sign. It means he really is in custody and being held incommunicado.”
“They probably made him crack, and he’s told them everything he’s done.”
“Probably. I just don’t understand why they didn’t slap him on the wrist and send him back to work.”
“And why the erasing of his name from every known archive, eh? I’ll bet he’s lying on a cold slab in a freezer down in the holds. Or maybe converted into anti-matter.”
“There’s no need to get paranoid”, I muttered.
“Neil, who started this revolt?”
“All right, all right, all right. But I never meant it to go this far. I thought we’d blow the cover off a bureaucratic nastiness and settle the business reasonably.”
“Aaargh, how did a bright lad like you ever develop such a phobia against extremism?”
“Extremism is irrational and alarmist. It is not objective. It is not scientific.”
“Neither is murder and cover-up.”
Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel Page 21