He grinned, but his eyes still showed the astonishment that had appeared in them when Dr. Mish and Laura Shemzak had walked in with the news. “It certainly is something, all right.” He looked at Laura. “Where the hell did you get this stuff, anyway, girl? And what else might be hiding away in some hidden memory cells in that slender little figure of yours?”
Laura fidgeted uncomfortably in her chair. “Only this, Northern. And the reason is simple. They forgot to debrief me.”
“Sounds racy, Laura,” said Northern, leafing back and forth whimsically through a long scroll of analysis. “Dr. Mish, let me get this straight. Just by happenstance, you came upon information tucked away in Pilot Shemzak’s auxiliary memory nodes which reveals that the Jaxdron have infiltrated at least one of the Federation’s outposts without formally conquering it?”
“The information would seem to indicate that, Captain.” Mish took the brandy container from the table and placed it back in the cabinet.
Captain Northern hardly seemed to notice, looking down and frowning at the decryption. “A lot of this is just gibberish to me.”
“And to us as well,” said Mish. “But from the hints and clues scattered through the data, your conclusion is exactly the same as ours.”
“From the beginning, Laura,” said Northern after she took a deep breath and shook her long hair. “How did you get this material?”
“It’s fairly simple, Captain,” Laura said, getting up and pacing. “From time to time, as an agent for IntelNet, I receive undercover assignments. Just before I learned of my brother’s capture by the Jaxdron, it just so happened that I had infiltrated Pax Industries on Walthor.”
“Yes, yes, Laura,” Northern said, tapping the vu-screen at his work bench. “Pax Industries. Walthor. Prominent names here. But why should the Federation ask an agent to infiltrate its own world, its own company?”
“Easy. To check its security measures. I was assigned to get to the core of their primary computer and download parts of their Top Secret databases. I did so surprisingly easily, and reported that to the company’s president, who had no idea of what I was up to. I told him I’d send him a report, which I did, during the trip back to Earth. However, by downloading so much data, I stored a good deal of it in auxiliary nodes. I guess in the hoopla concerning my brother, I forgot to archive and purge my system as required. Hell, Captain, I’m as surprised as anyone! I’d forgotten all about that info and I certainly didn’t think it had anything to do with the Jaxdron!”
Northern shook his head. “How fortunate … for us, Dr. Mish, that you’re working more on this material. Apparently the Jaxdron are manufacturing the equivalent of Underspace-radio bugs within the various highly advanced technological products produced on Walthor, and then shipped throughout the Federation. Electronic spies over the width and breadth of Federation space, collecting information and God knows what else. Laura, did you see anything suspicious on Walthor? Any indication of Jaxdron activity?”
“I wouldn’t know what a Jaxdron looked like if it came up and bit me, Northern! It was an alien world. There are always strange things on an alien world. I had a job and I did it quickly and well. I can’t tell you anymore right now.”
“You do know the planet well enough, though.”
“Certainly.”
Northern considered for a moment, then slapped the table with finality. “Excellent. Then we’ve got a brief detour to take, my friends.”
“What?” Laura said. “You’re saying we’re going to go to Walthor? But Cal isn’t there! Cal has been taken to Snar’shill!” She stood up from her chair, fuming.
“Yes, and we have that information courtesy of the Jaxdron, almost as though they dare us to chase after them,” Captain Northern said, eyes turning chilly black. “Well, if there’s more than we can do except chase after them, whistling in the dark, then I certainly intend to do it. We are equipped with very little information on this race. If we can get more from Pax Industries, then that’s what we’re going to do!”
“Goddammit” Laura cried, stalking about, livid. “This doesn’t feel good to me.”
“It seems utterly rational to me, Laura,” interjected Dr, Mish.
“But you promised! We’ve got to get Cal—before the Jaxdron do something awful to him!”
“Your emotions are quite understandable,” Northern said, standing up and attempting to calm her. He put a hand to her shoulder and it was shrugged off. “But we have to look at this calmly, and as Dr. Mish reminds us, rationally. We are a single starship up against an inscrutable alien race and a malignant group of fellow human beings to boot. We need every bit of the puzzle to succeed here. If we can find some more pieces on Walthor, then that’s where we have to go. And we desperately need your cooperation. So be a good girl, won’t you, and play along.”
“I don’t have any choice, do I?” Laura said, eyes blazing.
“No, you don’t, but take heart knowing that this material,” he swiped at the holo-text, sending it scrolling wildly, “could well mean not only the recovery of your brother, but the hope for humanity against the Jaxdron threat to our space.”
“I’m so goddamn thrilled,” she said, turning to Dr. Mish.
“Well, now that that’s settled, do I have a clean enough bill of health to have a session with those Cal clones? I guess I could use a couple of surrogate brothers right now.”
“Of course, Laura,” replied Dr. Mish. “You might actually learn more from them than we’re able to.”
Laura nodded. “Right, and bring them love from you guys too.”
She left in a huff.
“A vibrant but unpredictable being,” Dr. Mish commented.
“Yes,” said Northern, going to the liquor cabinet.
Mish looked on with strong disapproval. “You’ve had enough for today, Tars. I haven’t got my sensor board, but I can tell.”
Northern shrugged, and grinned like a little boy after getting his hand caught in a cookie jar. “Save it for when I need it, eh, Mish?”
“I wish we didn’t need it at all, my boy, but we can’t fool with something so delicate, something that works. Perhaps later … ”
“Good enough for me,” Northern said, settling for cold soda water. He flipped a star-map projection on by his desk. “Now then, as long as we’re going to be going that way now, I thought we’d make another previously unplanned stop.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. We need … ” Northern glanced over at the liquor cabinet. “ … supplies, and I’ve a friend whose stores are plentiful.” Northern grinned. “There are other reasons beyond that, of course.”
Mish examined the spot where Northern’s hand pointed. “Ah yes, that would be a fortuitous stop-off point.”
Northern nodded. “Yes, Freeman Jonst is one of our few true friends, and Kendrick’s Vision has always welcomed us.”
Chapter Twelve
“Barbarians!” Overfriend Arnal Zarpfrin toured the destroyed buildings in the capital city of Kendrick’s Vision. President Freeman Jonst walked uneasily by his side, “An outrage! They must be stopped. They must be pushed back to the forsaken holes they crawled from!”
“Please, Zarpfrin, if you could be more quiet!” said President Jonst, darting glances at the people milling around the crumbled masonry and metal, all that remained of the buildings touched by Jaxdron fire. “My people are not aware of your presence. They are still shocked and stunned by this assault on our home. it would not be wise to let them know at this point of your presence here on Kendrick’s Vision. We have not even determined if there are any arrangements that can be made between our world and the Federated Empire.”
“Just Federation will do,” Zarpfrin said, smiling. “New image, don’t you know.” A neat man, he was overweight in a comfortable fashion, as though he had chosen it. Though he had come to Kendrick’s Vision in his Federation militar
y finest, for purposes of inconspicuousness during this tour, President Jonst had dressed him in mufti. He now wore an outfit indistinguishable from those worn by the members of the Forum. Zarpfrin took out a flannel handkerchief and delicately patted away the perspiration that had formed on his temples. “Yes, my friend, the Free Worlds and the Federation certainly have a multitude of differences. But we must stick together in strenuous times like these.”
“Now that you’ve viewed the damage, Overfriend,” said Freeman Jonst, eyes flicking nervously over the devastation, nostrils still cringing at the awful stench of destruction, “can we head back to our capitol building? We have much to iron out in negotiation.”
“All for the good of humanity, I am sure,” said Zarpfrin, a solemn but also somehow pleased expression settling on his face. “For the rock bottom principle of the Federation is survival of the human race, whatever shape or color or quality it finds itself in, on whatever planet.”
Freeman Jonst nodded his head soberly and escorted the Overfriend back to the car that had taken them there.
Jonst just wanted to make the deal and get this guy off his planet, pronto, before he stank the place up too badly.
Chapter Thirteen
When Laura entered their cabin, the cyborg copies of her brother Cal flinched.
“Don’t worry fellows, I’m fixed,” said Laura, slumping down onto a couch. Goddamn Tars Northern anyway! She had been looking forward to this and now the guy had ruined it by this stupid course change. She was so annoyed at him, she couldn’t get much out of speaking with these things. She had so hoped that seeing them would relieve her yearning for her brother. But now she was so upset, that having them before her simply confused her.
“Hi, Laura,” said Cal One, grinning with relief. “Good to see you. My memories are quite incomplete but I only remember good things about you. Except, of course, that business on Baleful, and Captain Northern explained that to us.”
“Yes, Laura,” said Cal Two. “I love you, you know, and I always will. I remember that promise and it hasn’t changed.”
Laura sat up. “I’m not sure this was wise,” she said, looking from one to the other of the twins. “I’m getting these strange feelings … as though I really were with Cal, and yet that lie is just real obvious, plain as the nose on my face.”
“Do you think that we’re not confused, Laura?” said Cal One. “After all, we are beings ourselves and we’re both stocked with your brother’s memories. We feel toward you as your brother felt, we respond to you in ways your brother would.”
“And we do love you,” put in the other. “I, for one, am awfully happy to see you. They won’t let us do much except play games here. Do you remember the games we played, Laura? My first memory is of you when we were very young. And they are warm memories … warm memories in this cold universe.”
“Yeah. I have lots of memories, guys,” Laura said, relaxing a bit, getting past her initial difficulties, warming to this pair. They certainly seemed friendly enough. “But neither of you is really Cal, and that’s damn hard to deal with.”
“But Laura, in real ways we are your brothers,” said one, beaming. “We understand you! We know why you want to save the real Cal Shemzak …. No one else truly can, can they?”
“And you will stay, won’t you?” chimed in the other.
“Well, that’s what I want to do,” said Laura. “I guess I can work some things out with you … about Cal and me.”
“Work things out?” said Cal Two. “What do you mean by that?”
“Guilt feelings, I suppose.”
“Guilt feelings? About what? You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about!”
“For letting you go—I don’t know, for a lot of things, I guess. Mainly for letting the system break us up. Maybe that’s why I can’t let you go … I mean, let Cal go. Why didn’t we just run away? Instead, I let them do this to me.” She gestured toward her body. “Let them turn me into something rough and ready, something sometimes I’m not sure I really want to be!”
“But we talked about it, Laura!” said Cal Two. “I can remember that we agreed it was the only hope we had. We bucked the system as long as we could in our own way. You know how I tried to crash the computers to change our life vectors. I went as far as I could, short of getting the contents of our brains rearranged! There was nothing else we could do but promise to see each other from time to time, as often as we could manage.”
“The ways of the Federation are not mild,” said Cal One. “We were lucky to have been able to make the space in which our relationship could grow, without the intrusion of authority.”
“Well, I’ve told that authority where to stuff their oppression!” Laura said defiantly. “I’ve thrown my lot in with this bunch of rebels and I’m damned glad I have! They may be a bunch of lunatics but they seem to care about one another, and maybe that’s what I need right now.”
“I’m glad for you,” said Cal One. “You always were one who needed a cause to believe in, Laura. First it was me, and now you have the Starbow.”
“Cal Shemzak is still my first priority, and the crew here knows that.”
“That’s nice to know, Laura. I hope you remember us.”
“You. You’re just copies! And dammit, I’m so confused, sitting here, yakking with Cal clones, that I forgot why I came to talk to you. Why the hell were you made, anyway? I mean, why would the Jaxdron make copies of my brother?”
Cal One picked up a pawn and toyed with it. “As you might have deduced, we are certainly not complete models of your brother. Oh, we may look like him exactly, but inside … well, just from a short talk with us, you can already no doubt tell the difference.”
“The captain gave me the report on your memories of your—I mean, my brother’s—capture, his experiences aboard the Jaxdron ship … it’s all very strange …. Tests, mazes, games … ”
“Analyses, perhaps.”
“They wanted him because of something he knew about Omega Space. That’s why the Jaxdron kidnapped him and destroyed the project on Mulliphen. Maybe Cal was getting close to the secret, a secret the Jaxdron wanted. But how could they get that secret out of him by making cyborg clones like you?”
“We certainly would like to know that answer as well, Laura,” said Cal Two. “We have been rather introspective about the reasons for our existence, though the first memories we have of any awareness of there being more than one Cal Shemzak was on Baleful.”
“Yes, what happened on Baleful?” Laura wanted to know.
“We came into being in a rather pleasant atmosphere of hospitality, in that dome. None of us met the original Cal Shemzak. We were only in existence for perhaps two days before you arrived. We would have all greeted you, but Cally—we all have variations on your brother’s names for purposes of differentiation—saw you first and ran to greet you and—”
“And then I shot him.” Laura shivered. “Damn Zarpfrin’s eyes. He didn’t want the Jaxdron to have my brother’s knowledge and he figured I didn’t have much of a chance of getting him out. Much better to rig me to shoot him automatically on sight.”
Her voice was bitter. She looked away from the two of them; she felt as though she were in some sort of schismatic nightmare, communicating with two Cal Shemzaks. Everything she had battled for in the past few weeks seemed to be coming unglued—she had difficulty even with her sense of reality. The comfort she felt being near what looked and sounded like her brother was frustrated by the fact that this comfort was merely an illusion. She fought to hold back her tears.
“Dammit” she said, feeling the weight of unchecked emotion strain at the thin dam of her composure. “I had so many questions I wanted to ask you, whoever you really are. And I can’t … ” She turned away. “You both make me miss my real brother so much.”
“But don’t you realize that we understand this, Laura?” said Cal Two, going to
her and placing his arm over her shoulder in a way entirely reminiscent of Cal. “Those of your crew can’t possibly understand this, but we can. That’s why, even though most assuredly we are not truly your brothers—perhaps not even totally human in a conventional sense—we still are honored with an extreme caring for you, and we want you to feel comfortable with us.”
“This is much harder than I thought it would be,” said Laura. “I think maybe we should continue this interview later.”
“Whatever you say, our sister,” said Cal Two, releasing his hold. “We have been secluded here and here we shall remain.”
“Come and speak with us whenever you please,” said Cal One.
Laura rushed from the room, sealing the door behind her, unable to deal with the powerful emotions that flowed inside her. Go to my cabin, she thought. Rest. Calm down. Compose myself. But she knew she would come back. She needed these two, that was clear, even though they weren’t her true brothers. She needed them just as she needed … other things. Things that got her through ….
She relocked the door from outside, as she had been instructed, then walked away, knowing she would return.
When Laura left their prison, their hands brushed again.
»The preliminaries went well, brother«
»Soon, the Masters shall broadcast«
»I feel the Changelings move amongst my very atoms«
»What confusion we shall cause«
»What havoc shall reign«
»Honor and glory to the True Victory«
»The Victory of the Jaxdron«
»Your move, brother, for my own victory is nigh«
»Spawn of a junk heap, you shall eat your words«
Grinning, the two set about to move their pieces again.
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