by T. R. Harris
“Yet Arieel was able to create one—” And then a thought came to Adam. “So Arieel could have simply disabled the weapons of the attackers; she didn’t have to make them all explode.”
Trimen frowned, following Adam’s line of questioning. “That is correct, and yet then the two of you would have had to contend with the still-living attackers, whether with weapons or not. Adam, she is not an emotionless killer, if that is what you are suggesting?”
Adam thought back to their time at the spaceport on Bor’on and mentally chose to disagree with Trimen’s assessment. “I don’t really care if she is or not, it’s just that I hadn’t pictured little ole Arieel being … well, that cavalier about the whole thing.”
“She was injured, obviously confused and very angry at being abducted as she had been. Revenge is not unknown to Formilians. Also, you must remember who she is and how she has been raised. She is our Supreme Celebrant – able to achieve feats which are reserved only for the gods – so she probably was not too happy with being handled in such a disrespectful way. I’m surprised there were not more casualties.”
Adam just smiled, thinking again of Bor’on. “Tell me, Trimen, does she realize that all her powers are merely the product of an electronic device, and as has now been proven, can be reproduced by just about anyone fitted with such a device?”
Adam saw Trimen blanch, and instantly thought he had broken the cardinal rule that had set down several days earlier. Taken on face value, his question could be another direct slap at Trimen’s religion. “I’m sorry, Trimen. I didn’t mean to be so blunt. I was asking more about Arieel than about your belief system.”
Trimen nodded tensely. “I understand your question. Please remember Arieel is the single offspring of the prior Speaker, as have been all the Speakers before her. From her first consciousness, she was being prepared for the Gifting Ceremony at age five, and then was immersed in the training regimen for another ten years. This training was not as we are doing here, Adam. Nearly all aspects of hers revolved around the religious aspect of the Gift. She would never refer to the Gift as a unit, a module or a device. She has been educated regarding the technology of our people, but only superficially. She understands what she is doing and how she does it – which is through the Gift from the Gods. It may be simple circuits and computer boards to you, but to her – to most of us – this is technology that has divine origin. It may be something that advanced scientific societies can replicate, but the original gift of knowledge came to us from our gods. This is what she and all the Speakers before her have believed.” And then he hesitated and Adam could see him visibly tremble. “I shudder to think what she would do if she knew what we were doing here with you.”
“But I forced you and Convor into helping me; you didn’t have a choice.”
“That may be true. And yet if the truth ever did come out, we may not have the opportunity to explain the reasons behind our actions, not before the Speaker and the Order took action against us.”
“You’re protecting their way of life. In a way, you’re both heroes.”
A wry grin came over Trimen’s face. “In the end, that may not matter. The outrage and condemnation would be enough to overwhelm any reason or justification. And honestly, every moment you remain on Formil just increases our chances of being revealed.”
“I leave in three days, Trimen. It should be the last you hear from me, my friend.” Then Adam leaned in closer. “And yet, if you or Convor ever find yourselves threatened or in danger, let me know. If there is anything I can do, I will.”
“I do appreciate that, Adam Cain.” Again the wry smile returned. “And after these ten days, it is apparent you may have more power to help than any living being in the galaxy.”
“Thanks to you, my friend, thanks to you.”
Three days later, Adam spent his last restless night on Formil, during which he had some frightening dreams. He was in a forest, dark and cold, where he could hear voices coming from behind every tree. And yet as he reached them and looked behind, no one was there.
It was around four in the morning when he realized he’d left the unit on while attempting to fall asleep. He got up and looked around the cabin, just to see if his dreams had manifested themselves into anything dangerous to him or Trimen. But all was quite. He returned to his bed and finally drifted off to sleep, the voices no longer haunting his dreams.
The next morning, with the device deactivated, Adam was transported to the massive spaceport outside Qualim for his departure from the planet. During his time on Formil, crews had been sent to Bor’on to recover the Phoenix. Even though it now carried a series of dents and burn marks from the natives attempting to gain entry, it was still in full operating condition.
The Temple Complex spaceport was one of the most-advanced in the galaxy, and Adam found the Phoenix has been moved onto a superconducting launch pad located near the center of the field. The pad would shoot the ship upward, requiring no input from Adam’s ship, either from chemical or gravity for the first hundred thousand feet or so. Then a simple burst from the chemical jets would get him to a safe enough altitude where the gravity drive could be engaged. The superconductor saved an awful lot of fuel for all the ships departing Formil.
No one accompanied Adam to the spaceport, not even his new buddy Trimen. It seemed that all the Formilian officials had disappeared, not wanting to draw any attention to Adam or their affiliation with him. He was alone, just him … and his implant. From here on out, it would be up to him to discover the secrets of the device, which actually was scaring the hell out of him.
He considered what Trimen had told him about the skill level of the various the Speakers, and how after even two thousand years and all the training and all the support, they were still learning what they could do with the implant. Adam confessed that he was incapable of becoming even a tenth as proficient with the device as the lowest Speaker. He would certainly not live long enough to do more with his Gift. And indeed, it was a gift. It was the gift of an expanded life, a life of constant discovery.
He thought back, quickly scanning through all the crap that had happened to him since that fateful night in Afghanistan thirteen years before. He now felt different. He had just stepped over into another dimension, and if ever a place could be called The Twilight Zone, Adam’s uncertain future was it.
23
Nigel McCarthy’s base of operations was located on a cold, rocky world with gravity exactly that if Earth’s, yet this planet was nothing like his homeworld. It was just a, barren lava encrusted ball with a noxious atmosphere and no life to speak of. However, once finding the planet, Nigel learned that tiny lichen-like creatures did exist in the darken crevasses of the more temperate equatorial regions, even though he’d never seen any. To him it was just another testament to the tenacity of life and its unrelenting propensity to survive.
Nigel McCarthy was also a survivor, so like the lichen he found a massive cave in which to hide from the elements and to build his base.
It had once been a gigantic lava tube, clearly a half-mile in diameter. Once the volcano that had kept the tube fed died out, it fell empty. Several thousand years later, a massive earthquake struck the area, shearing off half the side of the mountain containing the tube. A large section of the tube was then exposed to the outside for the first time in its violent history.
Nigel had found the giant cave while scouting planets with Earth-equal gravity. There were not many. It seemed that most rock-core worlds were either slightly smaller or less dense than the Earth with the correspondingly lower gravity, or they were located in regions of extreme heat or cold. Even though Highlands – as Nigel called his world – was cold and lacked a breathable atmosphere it was not the unbearable cold of planets further out from their stars.
Highland would work and the half-mile wide opening in the cliff face, leading to the miles upon miles of solid lava-walled caverns, would serve his needs perfectly.
Nigel constructed a thick glass and
Plexiglas covering over the slice in the tube exposed to the outside and then filled the vast interior with a breathable atmosphere. The naturally insulating walls of the tube helped maintain a constant temperature of six-two degrees, which reminded him of his native England. The tube provided ample space for all his activities; in fact it continued for tens of miles beyond the boundaries of his base, if he ever needed to expand.
It had been five days since the Speaker of the Formilians had appeared on the vids, proclaiming her health, safety and miraculous rescue at the hands of Adam Cain. She had also named names – including his own as the mastermind behind of her abduction and subsequent ransom. The Formilians would forevermore include the word ‘ransom’ in their vocabulary.
The broadcast of his name did not concern him … in fact it only enhanced his reputation. The being known as The Ma-Jor would now be feared throughout the galaxy.
Even through the luscious Formilian still lived, Nigel still wanted his war. It was not only the money he’d make from both sides fighting, but he was pretty sure the entire Expansion would collapse if Formil fell, which he had every intention of helping bring about.
But none of that was going to happen as long as Arieel Bol remained alive.
Since her return, the Speaker had been sequestered behind an unbelievable thick wall of security and coupled with the Formilians’ expertise at electronics – as well as the Speaker’s ability to manipulate them – no one could get near her, least of all anyone with evil intent.
So there had to be another way to get close enough to the young Speaker to kill her. On the journey back to his base, McCarthy began to formulate a plan, but this plan was built upon a number of assumptions, and these could not be fully researched until he returned to his base.
After stowing his gear in the spacious private quarters that had been carved out for him – one of only a handful of quarters with its own private view of the desolate landscape of Highland – McCarthy visited the lab where his extremely well-paid scientists labored.
Nigel’s scientists were very skilled, yet also very morally-challenged. He now had eleven in his employ, along with a hundred or so Jakreans who served as laborers. Each of his scientists had fallen into trouble with their various authorities and had been personally selected by Nigel to receive sanctuary along with a substantial income. Even though they were required to work at his isolated base, he would allow them time away occasionally – yet always under the watchful eye of his spies. If any threatened to reveal the location of his base or speak of his activities there, they would be summarily executed. Five previous creatures had met that fate, and Nigel had been sure to let the others know what had happened. The eleven who remained were his most loyal – and pragmatic.
Kronis Nur was his lead scientist and tasked with learning the secret of the Speaker’s mind-reading device. He was a Vizzen, a near-hairless creature about the size of a silverback gorilla. Although large, slow and cumbersome, his hands boasted the longest, most delicate fingers to be found anywhere. He was a master with precision instruments and his eyesight was next to none.
“Ma-Jor, it is good to have you back,” Kronis said warmly as Nigel entered the lab. Nigel preferred the more intimidating title of Ma-Jor, to the less-threatening reference to his prior military rank. It just sounded more mysterious. “We have made great strides in deciphering the signals from the Formilian device.”
“Good – can you build one?” That was all Nigel was concerned with. Once he had learned that such a device existed, attaining one became a near all-consuming passion. Mind-control over electronic devices – the possibilities were endless.
“Yes, we actually have some prototypes constructed.”
Nigel’s eyebrows went up. “No shit … already?”
Kronis was familiar with Human idioms, so he continued without hesitation. “Yes, by analyzing the signals we were able to duplicate the transmitters and receivers. And then after adapting a Formilian translation device, with its considerable memory, we have been able to read the brainwaves of certain subjects and decipher the signals.”
Kronis walked Nigel over to a bank of monitoring screens and pointed to one of them. “You see here that this signal repeats.” He was pointing at a squiggly line on the screen. Nigel took his word for it that it repeated. “Within the subject’s brainwaves this thought corresponds to a microwave food processor. It always refers to the processor, so when this signal reappears, the computer within the modified translator knows the subject is thinking about the processor.”
“That fine, but how do we get the brain to control the processor?”
Kronis pointed to another screen. “Here is where the message is sent to a basic scanning device that searches for the electronic signature of the processor. All electronic devices emit a unique signature, and this part of the device can detect it. So now we have a thought indicating a processor and a scan of the area to locate the processor. All we need now is a way of gaining control of the device.”
“How is that done?”
“That we are still working on – but we are very close. It has to do with matching the exact signature of the device and then pretending to be that device – something we call ghosting. What security codes the device may have – and a food processor has none, so it is easy – are bypassed, allowing our signal to ride along, mimicking the original. Now we have control of the device, and the thoughts of the subject can be used to communicate what changes we wish to affect within it.”
“So when will a working model be ready? I haven’t much time.”
“A month, possibly less,” Kronis answered. “Right now our problem is in consolidating all these various functions into one unit which is not too cumbersome to transport. But then the device would have to be programmed.”
“How long will that take?”
“That is something that is done continuously. By programming, I mean adding more distinct thoughts that the device can then store in its memory. Programming can happen in real-time, as a device is being controlled, yet with more items already in the memory, the quicker will be the time from original thought to control of the device.”
“Good job, Kronis.” The Nigel turned to leave the room, but at the doorway he stopped and looked back at the bulky scientist. “I’m leaving in a month. I want a working model by then, something I can take with me.”
“An implant, such as the female had, will not be ready by then.”
“Then make it external, something I can wear or attach to my body or clothing. I’m leaving in a month and want that device. Do this, Kronis, and there will an extra million credits as a bonus.”
“A million! Yes, Ma-Jor. The device will be ready! I guarantee it.”
After leaving the realm of the scientists, McCarthy took a small cart about a mile along the spacious lava tube back to his personal residence. Since rank always has its privileges, McCarthy had dug out of the lava wall a gigantic open space easily half the size of a football field. Within this vast chamber, he placed his bed, kitchen area, bathroom, separate meeting room for guests, as well as a work area that looked out upon the desolate and rust-hued landscape of Highland. Several other members of this team had also made personal chambers that looked out on the outside landscape, yet McCarthy’s was by far the largest and most-panoramic.
Nigel sat down in a comfortable, over-padded chair at a huge granite slab that served as his desk. The patterns within the stone were magnificent, a mixture of browns and golds, with even a little blue thrown in for good measure. The desk top was easily ten feet long by four feet deep, with one long side pressed up against the thick, curving glass of the dome that protected him from the harsh elements of the planet. It was early evening on Nigel’s world, and long, deep shadows were creeping through the jagged peaks outside, a harbinger of the sub-zero temperatures that the night would bring.
But inside his sanctuary, Nigel McCarthy was safe, warm, and content with the path he must follow. He wanted his war; he had made it suc
h a vital part of his long-range planning that to see if fade away or be postponed indefinitely was nearly unbearable.
And of all people to show up to interrupt his plans again – Adam Cain! For nearly thirteen years, the unfathomably-lucky American had been interfering with his affairs. Yes, he knew this latest interruption to his plans had been initiated by the stupid Kracori, probably once more aligned with the manipulative Klin. But all that had done was allow Cain to escape with the Formilian woman. Yet then he had been able to evade a galaxy-wide manhunt to make it back to Formil and save the Speaker. No matter how much he hated Cain, he had to admire his tenacity. He reminded McCarthy a lot of himself.
But now it was time to put Plan B into action. It had been Adam Cain who had disrupted his first plan, so it seemed only appropriate that he should play an integral part in the alternative.
McCarthy began with a seemingly innocuous statement Cain had made to him on Uniss-3 – I do odd-jobs for Kroekus now. He would start there.
In these troubled times within the New Expansion – hell, anytime for that matter – there were always people willing to sell information for money. Aliens were no exception. As a matter of fact, Nigel found aliens to be the most-willing to rollover on their friends and co-workers for a quick stack of credits. McCarthy figured this came about from the splintering of their native identity, where members of several diverse races may be working in close proximity to one another. The information obtained and the duties performed often failed to have any racial importance to the workers.
So what if this particular bit of information could harm the XYZ-race? I’m of the ABC-race, so why should I care? And the credits I’ll receive for this act are good anywhere I want to spend them.