by Patty Jansen
"Just do your best, even though we both know it's impossible."
"But the ISF invested billions in them."
"The ISF invested in the technology."
Oh. I saw. They could always produce new men. Totally expendable. Jump to Taurus, be shot to smithereens, hopefully deliver a few fatal blows in the process, paving the way for the regular force to mop up and play the hero. Was that it?
"I'm disgusted. They should have ordered robots."
Another silence passed. I fiddled with my shirt.
"Anyway, if I challenge the order..."
"Don't, Charlotte. I'm warning you. We're a long way from any legal help, military or otherwise. We're stuck in this not just with seven thousand construct soldiers, but more importantly with three thousand support crew, on whose lives we depend. Honestly, Charlotte, you don't want to antagonise them. What's it worth to you?"
"It's not right—wiping them."
"Charlotte..." His eyes met mine, concerned. "You know what they say to all trainee doctors? To never—"
"—never become emotionally involved with your patients. I know. I'm not."
His eyes met mine. He looked like he was going to challenge my words, but he let it go, blowing out a long breath.
"All right. I just wanted to make sure. Especially since... what's happened."
I let a long silence lapse. He fiddled with the case of a disk that lay on his bed.
I could see that challenging my orders might not be an option. But there had to be something better than wiping their minds. I needed an idea, but I was clutching at straws.
"The reason I'm here is that I think... I'm trying to find out if there is another solution. I would prefer... to talk to them, but I need some handles, an emotional angle to pursue this. Captain Mayfair doesn't believe we can talk to them. She thinks they've become unreliable." I shrugged, not looking at him and not wanting to see his suspicion or disbelief. "Those men—they both said they had been out with me to Pete's. One of them said something like will you go through winter with me?"
Dr Spencer stared at his hand which he held clasped on his knees. "I'm deeply sorry, Charlotte. I've already said that." He sighed. "Do you know how embarrassing it is to have your childish dreams flung back into your face by some military suit?"
I could imagine—hang on, was he saying that any man who liked me was childish?
"I fancied being a poet a long time ago. Well, I guess that's come back to bite me."
"That's not why I'm asking." If I sounded peeved, then maybe that was what I intended.
"Then why are you asking? I've made a mess of this, Charlotte. Just tell me in my face and I'll be much happier."
"Don't be stupid. I'm trying to sort out what to do. I'm asking you because you're the only one who's familiar with what's in the mindbase, seeing as they're your thoughts. Both men said they would never harm me. Are they right?"
He was silent for a long time, his shoulders slumped. Had I ever looked up to him? The man was as limp as a dishrag.
"I wouldn't harm you Charlotte. Never. I've come to see you as my own daughter."
His eyes were distant, and belatedly I felt there was a much deeper meaning to his words.
"Your... daughter?" I probed, gently. I hadn't known he'd been married, let alone that he was a father. Maybe I misunderstood.
"She would have been your age."
I sat as quiet and non-provoking as I could, waiting until he volunteered more information, and not wanting to hear it at the same time. I wasn't interested in his private life. I might have been, once, but no more.
"She was seven, my Bella, and Daphne..." His voice cracked; he swallowed. 'They'd been to see her parents, just a lazy Sunday afternoon. I couldn't come, because I had to work. It was raining, and when the truck shot onto the road, Daphne couldn't stop..." He swallowed again. "Daphne had red hair, and Bella, too. Beautiful, like the colour of autumn leaves. I could never have harmed them. Never. I would have died for them, if they could still have been alive."
He looked at me. He had tears running down his cheeks. "Do you understand what it's like to lose your dearest family like that?"
I could do nothing but give a small shrug. My parents divorced when I was four and I hardly saw my father for a number of years. My mother, on the other hand, was a wreck. Her moods varied wildly from loving to paranoid, banning me from leaving the house, even to go to school. She was either singing or screaming that she was going to kill herself. She forgot to do the shopping. She forgot to pay bills. She forgot doctor's appointments and to take her anti-depressant medication. I learnt to be independent from a very early age. Then one day I came home and found her lifeless body on the couch. An overdose, doctors said.
I came into the care of my father, who made it plain I was a nuisance. He lived in a house with a couple of his motorcycle-riding friends. There were boxes in rooms where I wasn't allowed to go, and he held meetings in the living room I wasn't allowed to attend. Then there were police raids, in the middle of the night, followed by the day my father left and never came back. Next time I saw him, it was through bars in the middle of a barren room. He wore blue overalls and his long curly hair had been shaven off.
I can't say I ever had family who cared about me.
Dr Spencer sighed. "I never told you because I didn't want anyone to think that I would see you as a replacement for Bella. You are not. You were just a very gifted worker and I enjoyed working with you. Anything else is simply... inappropriate."
I shuddered to think how the New Pure movement reached even here. What would have been inappropriate about two colleagues falling in love, even if there was a large age difference? Was that why he had never told me to use his first name? Fear for being called a dirty old man?
"I'm sorry for telling you all this... personal rubbish. I'm not helping at all. I'm sorry, Charlotte."
I thanked him, and briefly discussed regular medical affairs of the hospital, and then I trudged back to my cabin. I didn't like it when people reminded me of my past. I didn't like to be made to feel lonely, or guilty.
I wrote to my father sometimes, even though my messages would take months to reach him. I couldn't forget his sad grey eyes as I walked out of that cheerless meeting room for the very last time, with him on the other side of the bars. He would die in jail, and I walked into an illusion I called freedom, a tin can hurtling through space.
14
Kali had taken the controls for the final hours of the journey, and the two pristine pilots had been confined to their cabins.
The outside view screen now showed the ugly, spindly surfaces of the Starship Comfort. Communication with the Comfort's bridge had been easy. The request for docking granted, as if none of the pristine military realised what had happened on board. They'd even stopped asking about the whereabouts of Captain Crozier, as if the question had been answered satisfactorily. Or as if the docking area was crawling with soldiers, ready to take control of the Forward as soon as the hatch opened.
Kali wasn't stupid. None of them were stupid.
On his side of the hatch Donagh waited, with fifty of the best construct fighters. No way an ordinary soldier, one not designed for fighting, could best those men. Up on the bridge waited Jade and his computer specialists, ready to hack the Comfort's systems.
They'd dock briefly to pick up Aidin, who would bring the girl, that was if Aidin was still listening. Otherwise they'd use Rane who was still on board the Comfort, or they'd send a group to get her. They had to get Aidin as well, whatever these manipulators were doing to him. No one was going to be left behind.
Charlotte was theirs. No one was going to get their hands on her.
The hatches and dirt-scratched panels of the Starship Comfort now filled his entire screen. He ordered the connector tube be sent and it appeared on the screen a moment later, a white worm reaching for the hatch. Lights flashed on the control panels.
Then there was a tiny bump, and a clang. The tube straightened
. On the control panel, a couple of screens flickered into life. Contact with the Comfort.
"Give me a view of the docks," he said to Jade.
The screen flickered, and an image of a hall came up, the dock inside the Comfort.
Kali winked at Jade. Good work, mate.
Another screen showed the tube inflating and the Forward's hatch irising open.
Something moved in the corner of the screen.
Kali shouted into his microphone. "Hoy, Donagh. They've got a reception party."
"Do we blast them?" came a crackled voice in his ear.
Kali grinned. That sounded like Donagh. Always joking, but oh, so ready to use his weapons. "No. Play along for the time being. We'll save the blasting for when she's on board. Talk to them. See what they want. Stay friendly. No guns. If they stop us, we'll find another way in later."
"Copy, mate."
"Good luck."
15
All of us non-combat personnel watched the docking from the mess hall.
The lights stopped flashing, the hatch opened and the outside camera provided a view down the tube that connected the two ships. A thin and flimsy thing it was, but Josephine Mayfair had insisted on using it, rather than a hard dock. She had used some technical excuse, but we all knew that the tube restricted the number of people coming across at once and gave us plenty of warning if the constructs were up to something.
Did those men know what was in store for them?
Two figures approached through the tube, became bigger and then stepped into the air lock.
The channel switched to a different camera, inside the air lock, showing both men floating around inserting their hands and feet into onto the restraints so that when the ship's rotating inner shell picked them up they'd face the right way in the sudden gravity. I'd done drills in emergency evacuations and that sudden shift from full gravity to no gravity at all was incredibly disturbing, and nauseating.
The men held on.
Jolt, shudder. And they stood on the floor of the cubicle.
One took off his helmet. Even by the washed-out white light, I recognised him from Aidin's mind dump. It was a front-line fighter called Donagh, a wing mate of Aidin's.
The other man removed him helmet as well, and unzipped the top of his suit. A lean figure, tall and sharp-eyed. Pfitzinger stock, if I guessed correctly. Sharp shooters. They'd sent fighters, not talkers.
Somewhere out of view of the camera they would see the ship's representatives, Captain Mayfair and Commander Ehrlich.
The screen switched to a camera with another angle. This one showed Donagh and his mate side-on, as well as Captain Mayfair approaching from within the docking area. Commander Ehrlich stood slightly back. I knew there was almost an entire platoon of men hidden in the corridors behind him. Just in case.
My heart thudded in my chest. I hoped no one would do anything stupid.
Captain Mayfair greeted the men and they gave her the appropriate salute. I relaxed just a little.
"Is Captain Crozier not here?" Captain Mayfair asked.
Donagh said, "She is unable to come." I heard she doesn't represent us in his words.
Captain Mayfair must have heard that, too. "I would like to be assured that she is well."
"She is."
"Can we see her?"
"Not now, maybe later. We want our mates. We want to know what you're doing to them."
"We're not doing anything that wasn't in your contracts."
There was an uncomfortable silence.
She continued, "I hope you realise that whatever demands you make won't be considered until we see Captain Crozier."
"We will bring her out tomorrow. We will get our mates tomorrow."
Oh, they were deliberately being obtuse. These men had sure learnt about deviousness. We had not made them like this at all.
Captain Mayfair glanced at Commander Ehrlich; he looked grim.
The expression on Captain Mayfair's face was colder than I'd ever seen it.
"Tomorrow," she said. "Ten sharp. Bring Captain Crozier, and we'll talk."
"Then we will wait until tomorrow." Donagh saluted and stepped back. He and the other man put their helmets back on and retreated into the tube.
I let out a breath I hadn't realised I was holding.
All around me, people burst into discussion.
"What's wrong with the gits?" a loud male voice said, "They had the clones on board—they should have dragged them into the hospital. The Doc knows how to fix them, doesn't she? Like she fixed the other one."
"Yeah, Doc, fix them all up good!" someone else yelled.
"Charlie's our hero!" Oh no, that was Julia.
But before I could say anything, they were all chanting Charlie, Charlie and one burly technical grunt put me on his shoulders and carried me around the room. I made an effort to smile, but I'd never felt more miserable.
16
I went back to the lab and tried to lock myself in, but I was now ship's surgeon, and apparently the gathering in the mess descended into a party. One man ate so many space rations that we had to pump his stomach and bowel contents in the theatre—don't ask—the stuff expands and bloats. Another man cut himself badly on the corner of a table. I examined him while he sat, half-slumped, on a chair in the first aid room. He was one of the louts who'd shouted my name in the mess. I'd seen him before, too. Cuts and bruises from fights, bouts of uncontrollable vomiting.
I wiped blood off his face. The cut was nasty, but we'd fix it up all right. There were other parts of him that concerned me. I unbuttoned his shirt and with my gloved hands, prodded his stomach. That provoked a wet belch. He coughed, swallowed. I stepped back.
"Oops. I'm sorry about that, Doc."
"You stink of grog, Ensign Farrell." I could never figure out where he got enough illegal alcohol to maintain his addiction.
"I... only had a bit."
I snorted. That's what they all said. From the drunks I'd treated during my medical training to my own mother, they never admitted to having a problem. "Maybe it's time we put you on some sort of program."
He went white. I don't think I've seen anyone lose colour so fast. I also don't think I've ever stepped out of the way of a spray of vomit so fast. It went everywhere, on the floor, the chairs, even the wall. Most of it collected in a frothy puddle on his lap. When he finished, a nurse rushed forward with the wet-vacuum. Thank goodness for nurses.
The man whose stomach we'd pumped muttered something about being lucky sod—his inability to vomit had almost killed him—and rolled over in his bed, his back to us. In the bed next to him, the construct agent Rane just watched. His hazel eyes met mine; he smiled. I felt chilled. I would have to wipe his personality tomorrow.
I went back to the patient.
"So—that spooked you, did it?"
"I'm sorry, Doc, but... I swear. I don't want a program. I'll give it up, I swear. I'll even tell you how I'm getting the grog, you know, so you can stop me. I don't want to—"
"Hang on, just what is it about a program that makes you so afraid?"
He looked at me, eyes wide. "You're going to... you know... put things on my head and mess with my brains, aren't you?"
Oh, what the...
Shit.
Was that what they thought of me?
I swallowed hard, the smell of alcohol-filled vomit suddenly overwhelming.
"I assure you, we would never take a step like that without the patient's consent." Liar
Thankfully at that moment another nurse told us the theatre was ready and we fixed up his head in about fifteen minutes.
I changed, washed and went back to my office.
The man's admission had shaken me even more. I could of course download his files, probe through them for what I thought caused his addiction, delete it and re-load the files. It was not that easy, or should I say, virtually impossible. Real, live human minds were messy. There were bits of information randomly stored all over the place, and if we ever down
loaded a real mind—which we never did because it was a such a mess—it would take us ages to find what we were looking for, and even then we wouldn't be sure that what we found was really it.
We used real human minds only for building blocks, to construct a new mind, or part of a mind the user had lost through disease or an accident.
That said, I could put a person to sleep and change his personality overnight. Most people, and the New Pure movement was most vocal in this, found that repulsive. Yet this was exactly what I'd been ordered to do.
Because constructs weren't people. They had the knowledge, but the emotional complexity of a child. Dr Spencer had once said that the men's bodies might be adult, but their minds were yet to go through puberty. Their desires were simple, black-and-white, which was why they were ideally suited to warfare. Little boys could be incredibly focused on one thing.
Like on me.
I called up Aidin's original memory files, the ones I'd hidden on the datastick in the back of my drawer.
A search for Donagh's name brought up several subroutines I had missed before. Even a construct's mind held lots of invisible pockets.
Aidin and Donagh had fought. There was an image of Donagh trying to hit Aidin. There was a woman, one of the few non-construct soldiers on the ship. Captain Crozier, I thought, but I had never met her. She berated them and told them to go back to their cabins.
And then...
The two men sat in a dimly-lit cabin. There were a few other soldiers there, all constructs. I recognised some faces. Kali, and... Rane, the first man we had treated.
"Hey mate, I'm sorry if that got you into trouble or something," Donagh said.
Aidin slapped Donagh on the shoulder. "Nah, it was a good fight. I think I have it all sorted out. You know—about Charlotte."
"What about her?" asked Kali.
"We need to protect her."
"You're not wrong there, mate."
"What are we gonna do, though?" asked another.
Aidin said, "I want you to all forget that she belongs to you personally. If we all start fighting, that's no good. She belongs to all of us."