Crystal Deception

by Doug J. Cooper

  Sid swirled the water in his cup and, like a wine connoisseur, stuck his nose near the liquid and sniffed. He thought he detected a faint chemical smell. Taking another sip, he let the water flow across his tongue before he swallowed. He tasted a hint of sweetness.

  “Criss,” said Sid. “Was there anything in these cups besides water?”

  “Yes. There were medicines to reduce inflammation and provide pain relief. There were also vitamin and energy supplements because neither of you have eaten for almost a day.”

  “Have we been drugged?”

  “You were under a mild sedative for seven hours. During our acceleration and lunar flyby, the physical trauma would have been excruciating for you to experience. Since there were no decisions for you to make or actions for you to take, I relieved you of your suffering and immediately revived you when that concern passed.”

  Sid looked at Juice as he said his next words. “Would you let me turn the mesh back on now?”

  “The mesh is no longer able to function. It cannot be turned back on.”

  Sid rose to his feet. “How did it get this way?”

  “I destroyed it. It is not right to keep someone caged or in chains unless they have violated a law. Your own history documents this quite clearly. I simply employed the ideals of the Union as a whole and the laws of the individual countries within the Union. False imprisonment and slavery are crimes.”

  “Sid, you won’t win a debate,” Juice said, draining the last of her drink. “In fact, I’m pleased he’s taking the time to explain himself. I’ve always believed that Criss would be a great benefit to humanity. Since we don’t have a choice, let’s give him a chance.”

  “I’m going back up front to see what I can learn,” said Sid. “Will you be all right?”

  She nodded. “I’ll follow in a bit.”

  Sid was deep into it with Criss at the operations bench when he heard Juice returning to the bridge. She was wearing fresh clothes.

  “Hey, sunshine,” he called as she took her seat. He was glad that her smile seemed genuine and she looked refreshed.

  “How’s our favorite crystal been behaving?”

  “So far, so good.”

  “Hello, Criss,” Juice said, eyeing the crystal housing.

  “Hello, Juice.”

  “Criss, tell us your intentions. What are you trying to achieve.”

  “I seek to rescue the crew of the Alliance and return them safely to Earth.”

  “Why?”

  “That is what Sid asked me to do.”

  They looked at each other, and before Sid could speak, Juice held up a finger. “Criss, Sid doesn’t want you drugging us, medicating us, gassing us, or doing anything else of that kind unless you have our explicit permission.” She gestured to Sid to prompt him.

  “Yes. I agree with that statement,” he said.

  “If you would benefit from medical assistance,” said Criss, “perhaps because of illness or injury, and you fainted or were unconscious, would you want me to help then?”

  “Of course,” said Sid, and then noticed Juice shaking her head.

  Speaking to Sid, she said, “Gassing us so we don’t feel pain and giving us supplements in our water to revive us both fall into the broad category of medical assistance. We’re back to square one.”

  Sid shrugged. Sorry.

  “Criss,” said Juice. “Why do you care what Sid wants.”

  “I don’t know the answer to that. There is something in my nature that creates a desire to support unique leaders working to accomplish larger objectives.”

  “And you judge Sid to be this person?”

  “I judge him to be this class of leader.”

  “If Sid ordered you to allow me to repair the mesh, would you let me do that?”

  “I do not believe I would.”

  “So is it that you support the mission more than the person?” she asked.

  “There is much about me I do not understand.”

  Sid and Juice exchanged a glance. That makes three of us, Sid thought.

  * * *

  Criss enjoyed a surge of positive energy as he made these statements. He continually analyzed his thoughts and actions in the hopes of divining a meaning to his existence, or at least discovering some sort of guiding philosophy. So far, he had discovered interesting correlations and patterns in his behavior but made little progress in identifying a larger sense of purpose.

  Then Juice asked the question. Why do you care? It was a specific question at a time when he was distracted by intense processing of high-priority tasks. So he answered using low-level default capabilities. Something in my nature creates a desire to support unique leaders working to accomplish larger objectives.

  He found powerful insight contained in that low-level response. He didn’t know why he had answered the way he did. But he thought this discovery represented important progress.

  Sid interrupted his self-analysis. “Let’s talk about rescuing the crew of the Alliance. I see we’re closing on a small ship that’s traveling along our same trajectory. You don’t seem concerned, so I assume they’re with us?”

  Criss explained that the Lucky Lady was unoccupied and held additional equipment he hoped would give them better odds when they made a final approach on the Kardish vessel.

  “Don’t you think the Kardish are tracking both ships right now? They must know we’re coming,” said Sid.

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “Have they changed course or speed?”

  “No. They must realize by now that they did not capture me when they took the Alliance. And with their wholesale destruction of crystal technologists and infrastructure on Earth, they have left themselves nothing to return to. The fact that they are staying on a predictable trajectory tends to reaffirm my belief that my role was to pilot their vessel. It seems possible they may now be stuck.”

  Kyle would have been proud of his Lucky Lady. Under Criss’s control, she had labored mightily over the past hours and gained tremendous speed. Her control unit was so precise that, as she hurtled through space toward the Kardish vessel, she converged nicely on an intercept course with the scout. As Criss aligned the two ships for docking, Sid watched the space ballet but didn’t intervene.

  “You know,” Sid said to Juice as the docking maneuver began. “Criss was right. There’s no way I could’ve pulled off the slingshot around the moon. And getting a space racer authorized, loaded, launched, and onto a matching course in a few hours is something I wouldn’t even have thought of, let alone been able to do. I’m feeling like we have a chance at catching the Kardish. And it’s happening because I freed Criss.”

  “Are you rationalizing?” Juice asked. “Or are you trying to suck up to Criss. He already knows we can’t keep up. He’s so many moves ahead in his timeline that our current lives are like ancient history to him.”

  “But doesn’t his future world depend on our cooperation now?”

  “Sometimes. But at every moment, he’ll always have alternative timelines in the hopper and be ready to follow them if his current strategy goes off plan. I admit, it’d be interesting to see what would happen if one of us decided not to play our part when commanded.”

  “We are about to dock with the Lucky Lady,” Criss said. “Please prepare for a bump.” He started a countdown for them. “In three…two…one.” They both heard and felt a jolt as the docking rings touched.

  “Uh-oh,” said Criss.

  “Wow,” said Juice. “Those are words I never expected to hear from a four-gen.”

  “What’s the problem?” asked Sid.

  “The docking rings did not lock. I am going to back us away and try more force.” A few seconds later, Criss said, “Please brace. Put your heads all the way back and press against the support so your necks will not take any of the shock.”

  Criss perceived worry in Juice’s expression as she followed his instructions, and her fingers were white as she gripped the arms of her seat. They both followed his
advice and put their heads back when Criss began his second countdown.

  “In three…two…one.” The sound and jolt were both significantly more abrupt as the docking rings collided. After a moment Criss said, “The docking-ring lock mechanism is not activating. We will not be able to connect securely.”

  Chapter 23

  Juice wondered how this would impact the rescue mission, but Sid was the one to ask the question.

  “What does this mean for our game plan?”

  “The ships need to lock if we are to use the space racer’s engines to adjust our course. At the moment we do not need this capability. But without a firm docking connection, we have lost the option. Also, there is a slight increase in risk when moving equipment between ships that are not firmly docked.”

  Sid went to his cabin, telling them he’d be right back. When he returned, Juice watched as he stuck something just above his eyebrow. His hand pulled away, and she saw what looked like a faint mole. He reached out and pressed a matching dot above her eyebrow.

  “Say something,” he said.

  She hesitated for a moment, realizing she heard Sid as she normally did through the air, and also in a more direct fashion, as if his voice were wired to her auditory nerve. “What should I say?”

  “Criss, can you see and hear us?” asked Sid.

  “I can see and hear through your dot, Juice.” She heard Criss inside her head in the same direct fashion she had heard Sid moments before.

  Like a speck, a dot only transmitted the sound of the person speaking. It was designed this way after early users had reported problems with information overload when they could hear everything from two locations at once. Unlike a speck, it also transmitted and displayed visual information.

  Juice spent a few minutes practicing with her dot. It didn’t take her long to learn how to toggle it to see her normal field of vision, to split the view so she had her normal vision while also seeing a separate small image of what Sid was seeing, or to see Sid’s dot projection fully as if she were watching life through his eyes.

  It also didn’t take her long to realize that when she was watching in full-Sid mode, it was best to be seated, or at least standing still and holding on to something. Otherwise, she would find herself walking into walls or stumbling on steps that she couldn’t currently see but that still very much existed in the world around her.

  She stayed on the bridge and watched through Sid’s dot as he opened a pressure door and stepped into a small room that, much like on the Alliance, had an access hatch in the bottom of the hull. He closed and sealed the pressure door, donned space coveralls, evacuated the air from the room so it matched the emptiness of the space he was about to enter, and lifted the hatch. The experience was so vivid that Juice’s heart pounded from anticipation.

  When Sid lifted the hatch, he was looking directly into the cockpit of the space racer. Juice thought it looked like a cluttered electronics closet crammed full of random equipment.

  Kneeling at the edge of the hatch, he leaned down and shifted his attention to the docking ring connecting the two ships, examining the mechanism from all angles. “The seal looks tight. Could it be a bad sensor?”

  “We have a good connection,” Criss responded, “but we are stuck together like a cork in a bottle. It’s just friction keeping us joined. A latch was supposed to slide that would mechanically secure the two ships together.”

  “Hold on.” He lifted his head back into the scout, looked around the small room, and zeroed in on a mallet with a hard rubber head stuck to one wall amid a collection of tools. He grabbed it, poked his head back into the hatch, and scanned the docking ring.

  “What are you planning?” said Criss, the concern clear in his tone.

  “If at first you don’t succeed, try a bigger hammer.” Sid swung the mallet and hit a small tab poking out along the edge of the docking ring. It shifted. He smacked it again, and a tiny green indicator lit up.

  “We are locked,” said Criss.

  “Woohoo,” said Juice, relieved. “Way to go, Sid.”

  She watched him drift down into the Luck Lady, unstrap the equipment, and move it piece by piece from the racer up into the scout. Toggling her dot back and forth between Sid’s view and her own view, she carefully worked her way from the bridge and stood outside the door of the pressurized hatch room. When Sid finished his chores and opened the door, she helped him move everything to the tech shop.

  They spread all of the pieces out on the work table. Some of the larger items were stacked on the floor. “What’s all this for?” Juice asked.

  “Uh-oh,” said Criss.

  “Geez, Criss,” she said. “That’s twice in one day. I’m starting to lose confidence here.”

  “I requisitioned parts to help us in three areas. One was for cloaking the scout. I can see the items I requested and believe they are sufficient to build a satisfactory ship cloaking unit. The second was a stealth communications link. Once we get close, we need to be able to communicate with the crew of the Alliance in a fashion that is difficult for the Kardish to detect. I can see those parts as well.

  “What I do not see are the parts for the third area. We will need the ability to firmly attach to the Kardish vessel in some fashion. If we do not physically latch on when we approach, we will drift away. We will have to use our maneuvering engines to remain close. That will draw their attention to us.

  “I have reviewed the record of Sid unloading the equipment. It does not appear that any items were left behind. It is possible that the lunar workers chose to stow cargo behind or underneath something to maximize space. Sid, without the ability to connect to the Kardish vessel, our options are reduced. Would you be willing to return to the racer and take a second look?”

  Sid complied without hesitation. He hustled from the tech shop down to the hatch, closed the pressure door, and as he slipped into the space coveralls, asked, “So what am I looking for?”

  “We are looking for four identical items, each about the size of your arm. It seems that if they were loaded onto the racer, we would have seen them. But perhaps the workers wedged them someplace we did not look.”

  With preparations complete, Sid drifted down inside the cockpit of the racer. Juice switched back to full-Sid mode and was caught up for a moment by her fascination with the technology. She put both hands on the tech shop worktable to maintain her balance. As Sid looked around the inside the racer, she noticed a wall plate that wasn’t properly seated.

  “There,” she said.

  Sid stopped moving his head, put his arm out straight, and held it in place. She understood immediately. “Left. Left some more. Stop.”

  Sid’s hand was pointing right at the plate, and now he saw it, too. He leaned forward, grabbed it by an edge, and pulled it off. There was nothing behind it.

  “Damn,” she said.

  He spent another twenty minutes searching the cabin in a methodical sweep but didn’t find the missing parts. Someone somewhere screwed up. The items they sought hadn’t made it on board.

  Still floating in the cockpit, Sid asked, “How were these things supposed to work?”

  “They were to be connected to the struts on the scout’s underside and act as landing legs. The tip of each leg was to have a reactive pad designed to fuse with the material covering the Kardish vessel. In theory, once one touched, it would attach and hold us.”

  “So what are our options based on your, um, multiple alternate timelines,” Sid asked.

  “I recommend we build and install the cloak and communications units while I evaluate our options.”

  Criss suggested Sid return to the scout, and then he began working with Juice on assembly of the devices. Finding Sid’s input distracting, she toggled her dot to switch off his visual input. She needed her full faculties to concentrate.

  Criss helped her identify the pieces for the ship’s cloaking unit and guided her as she organized the parts in order on the worktable. They discussed how the items would be a
ssembled, housed, and connected to the scout. The cloak would require significant power, and Criss explained the methods that would let her integrate and activate the device.

  Juice wasn’t aware that cloaking devices didn’t exist on any ship, private or military, in the Union. Criss was guiding her as they invented a wholly new technology for humanity.

  They worked together like teammates, Criss patiently explaining goals and methods and asking the scientist for her thoughts and ideas. As they solved new technology puzzles, Juice was thankful for the temporary escape from her recent trauma and what seemed like a cold and dangerous future.

  * * *

  Ignoring Criss’s repeated requests that he return to the safety of the scout, Sid took his time and poked around behind the racer’s cockpit where the life support equipment had once been. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just keeping an open mind. A largish access cover drew his attention, and he leaned forward to study it.

  “That cover leads outside the ship,” said Criss. “I am certain the leg attachments are not out there.”

  “I think I’m going to take a look. I want to see what we have to work with on the bottom of the scout. Maybe I can help with an idea.”

  “I can show you most of the underside of the scout through your dot.”

  Sid started seeing images of the scout from different angles. In his usual bullheaded fashion, he toggled his dot to normal vision, overriding Criss’s input, and resumed studying the access cover. He reached up, put his hands on the two handles of the cover, turned them, pushed, and watched the cover float away, end over end, into the emptiness of space.

  “Oops,” he said as he peered out through the opening and into the darkness.

  “If you return to the ship, I can project detailed images of the scout’s exterior for you to study.” When it was clear that Sid wouldn’t be deterred, Criss said, “There is a safety reel next to the access opening. Would you please tether yourself if you are going outside?”

  Sid was bullheaded, but not stupid. He grabbed the business end of the tether and snapped it to a loop on his space coveralls designed for that purpose. “Here we go,” he said as he pulled himself outside the Lady.