Freenet

by Steve Stanton

  —an infinite series will converge absolutely if the sum of the absolute value of the summand is finite—physical reality is nothing but a crude artifice designed to give coherence to perception and meaning to existence—::Come and see me, Zen. We need to talk privately off the V-net grid.::

  “I’ve been denied access. They’re holding you in solitary confinement.”

  ::You have conjugal rights once a week under section 47 of the criminal code, subsection 7, paragraph 42. Speak to the captain and give him the reference.::

  “He’ll likely tell me to jump into vacuum.”

  ::No, he won’t. Transolar executives are sticklers for procedure, and any variation from standard treatment can be used in court to sway sentiment on the jury. He will press for executive permission as commander in transit to record the meeting as data under oath, and you will tell him that his rights are superseded by your right to privacy guaranteed under paragraph 45. Hold strong on this and summon outrage. Have him look up the statute if he gives you any trouble. They have no right to monitor a conjugal visit. There’s enough porn in the barracks already. Got it?::

  “I’ll try.”

  ::And bring me some candy.::

  “Candy?”

  ::There’s a free vending machine in the tunnel outside the officers’ quarters on Deck 3. They have ice pops there too, if you want to experience the perks of rank. I have to work right now, but mothership will watch for the meeting on my appointment calendar.::—the runtime of divide-and-conquer algorithms is determined by their asymptotic behaviour—antimatter energy can be harnessed but never destroyed—ooh, that’s it, sweetie, right there, harder, faster—

  Zen contacted the captain immediately and relayed Simara’s instructions. The captain was curt but professional in granting a conjugal visit and gave only token argument for continuous surveillance of a criminal in transit. Zen proclaimed the legal right of innocence until proven otherwise and won his cause easily. A meeting was scheduled for Day Three at C2:20 in Simara’s bunk enclosure. She was officially categorized as a high-security risk and could not leave her cubbyhole until they landed on Cromeus. The captain was helpful in pointing out that Adam’s Inspiration would transition to Cromean time at midpoint—a twenty-four-hour cycle with three shifts of eight hours each, although the hours were 98% shorter according to atomic clock, all very confusing.

  The days stretched out into a viscid and interminable pathway as long hours ticked past. Zen contemplated his upcoming meeting in the flesh with Simara. She obviously knew he was an idiot and unable to control his base emotions—that much was clearly evident to all. Genoa Blackpoll had set him up for a dalliance, and Nancy Stavos had taken full advantage of the situation, but there was no sense blaming the juva ben. Zen had known what he was doing and would be sorely tempted to do it again—that was the worst part! His body was a slave to lust, even though his mind made token resistance. The Bali girls with glad hands in the dark caverns had taught him to respond naturally to touch. How could he cancel out his years of training as a sexual being? How could he trust himself in a monogamous relationship?

  Zen busied himself with research to escape his nagging conscience. A murder conviction required motive, forethought, and physical evidence. Juries decided final outcomes during online discussions behind digital firewalls on the V-net. Public opinion and character references would not be taken into account—just the cold facts of certainty. Zen contacted Genoa Blackpoll back on Trade Station for any news about the court case and came up empty. A renewed initiative was being organized to find the missing flight recorder following Zen’s detailed remembrance of the deep trench along Zogan Ridge. News of the alleged crime had not been released to the citizens of Bali, and Zen’s name had not been connected with any public record.

  Zen arrived precisely on time for his conjugal appointment in the female barracks and climbed up a ladder against steady acceleration to find Simara on a launch couch in a wall-slot no bigger than his own. He peered in and saw the bottoms of her feet. “Simara?”

  “Hi. C’mon in.” She pulled her legs up and squished to one side to make room for entry.

  Zen climbed carefully inside the tight enclosure, rubbing along the length of her body in passing, touching her again, remembering. His skin tingled with self-conscious energy, so close to Simara, separated by thin cellulose clothing. She squirmed to make space for him on the launch couch and tried to ease him along with the tips of her fingers. Her space-wasted body was slim and wiry, but her breasts punched out to rub softly against his shoulder. His ears felt hot, and his abdomen ached with desire as he finally reached her smiling face and propped himself above her on arms and knees. Her breath smelled of toothpaste.

  “It’s okay, Zen,” she said as the portal slid closed below their feet. “Just because we’re on a conjugal visit doesn’t mean we have to, you know, conjugate.”

  Zen chuckled weakly, but felt sweaty with discomfort. “Are these cubicles soundproof?” The next passenger in her bunk was just inches away, probably some female trooper trying to grab precious shut-eye between duty shifts.

  “Yeah, they have a sonic field that cancels all noise.”

  Zen surveyed the walls. “That’s what they say, but maybe they can read the vibrations in the field, tease out the words.”

  “You’re absolutely right, very astute. That’s exactly what we did. Mothership reverse-engineered the system and is listening in the captain’s room right now.” She gave him a confident wink. “We’re okay in here, and sorry I was so hard on you about Nurse Stavos. She was just doing her job, but I really think she pushed over the limit of propriety.”

  Zen waved his chin hastily. “No, it was all my fault. I was weak.”

  Simara raised her eyebrows in a look askance at the understatement. “You didn’t put up much resistance, but I know the V-net transition knocked you for a loop. It always does. Nurse Stavos got you through it, she kept you grounded—that’s what counts. At least you’re not off gibbering in a nuthouse. No one’s going to fault her for having some fun at your expense.”

  Zen frowned with a renewed sense of guilt. “How do they expect patients to process all that information at once? It was a nightmare of chaos and cacophony, a mayhem of the mind with no off button.”

  “A V-net installation is like a childhood vaccine for the brain. It’s done on infants, not adults. That’s why you were on a twelve-hour watch. Every adult turnover is a major event, and the conversion to digital thought is sometimes dangerous. We think we know a lot about human consciousness and neuroplasticity, but we’re really just scratching the surface.”

  “That’s a crazy way to experiment on people.”

  “It’s only thinking, Zen. Everybody takes it for granted. Anyway, you seem to have adjusted quite well, once you got your initiation out of the way.”

  “I try to suppress most of it. I don’t need all that information. I’d rather focus on you.”

  She offered a wan smile. “That’s sweet.”

  “No, I mean it.”

  She made a polite chuckle and glanced away. “It’s funny how things work out, you know? I was helpless when I fell into the dead zone on Bali, trapped without the net and lost to mothership. And you were just as helpless when you transitioned to the net for the first time. Ironic, isn’t it? I wish I could have been there for you. I owed you that much for all you did for me. You’re a good man.”

  Zen tried to steel his racing pulse as he caught her eyes again. “I want to marry you, Simara. For real this time.” There, he’d said it, finally. That surely must be the truth. He wanted a stable, monogamous relationship with his skyfall princess—he wanted the constraint of fidelity. Why had it taken him so long to get up the nerve to tell her? His breath caught in his throat.

  Simara studied him in silence. The easy response never came, and as the seconds passed he knew it never would. She did not love him and would not give credence to their sham marriage. Even nose to nose, they were too far apart. “
I can’t understand you, Zen. You have the means of intelligence, but your behaviour doesn’t conform to logical patterns. Things are a lot more complicated than you suspect.”

  “You keep saying that. Are you sure it’s not just an excuse?”

  “Maybe it is. Of course I have feelings for you. But I don’t want to be responsible for dragging you into danger and ruining your life. I don’t care about your sexual escapades, I really don’t. You’ve been with lots of different women and the pattern will probably repeat long into the future. I know what drives the thoughts of—”

  “I don’t need anyone but you,” he blurted. The force in his voice surprised him, but he meant it with all his heart. He softened his tone and pressed forward. “We’re in this together now. Can’t we try to make the best of it?”

  “Yes, of course we can, if that’s what you want.”

  “I’ll take full responsibility for both of us.”

  Simara widened her eyes. “You don’t know what you’re saying. I’m on trial for murder.”

  “Did you kill your stepfather?”

  “You wouldn’t be here if I did.”

  “I’d just like to hear it from you. Is that too much to ask?”

  Her gaze shaded with insecurity. “I flatly denied any culpability to the Crown attorney and Nakistra Gulong. I was convincing and perhaps fooled the empath, but I won’t lie to you, after all we’ve been through. That wouldn’t be fair.” She glanced nervously away and back. “Because I don’t know the answer. I can’t remember, Zen—that’s the terrible truth. I can’t be certain of my innocence. Omnidroids rarely sleep, but in the quiet moments of stasis I struggle to piece the fragments of memory together. Some of my short-term data blocks were obliterated by trauma during the crash, and then I was cut off from mothership, from my power source. All my memories of Bali are weak and superficial, and Vishan seems like a dream to me now. I don’t see how I could have killed Randy, to be honest. I don’t feel like a murderer.”

  Zen’s arms began to ache with the effort of pushing away from her pretty face. Her body seemed like a magnet pulling him closer, but her warding smile was tight-lipped and grim. He turned his head to the side to give her a semblance of privacy. “Perhaps he chose suicide when he realized what he’d done to you. Perhaps an agony of guilt drove him into a spiral of depression.”

  Simara shook her head. “He would never have the conscience for it. Randy Ying was an abusive man who victimized a series of wives, treating them like slaves and prostitutes, forcing them into vile perversions. I grew to hate my own stepfather, the caregiver of my youth. I thought about killing him many times when he began touching me. I knew the bastard would try to rape me eventually.”

  “You don’t have to tell me this.”

  “I do, Zen. I can’t imagine what you see in me or why you would follow me into trouble, but if we’re going to be partners, I need you to listen carefully to every word I say. This episode with my stepfather was not some random act of violence. I believe it was part of a scheme to eliminate all omnidroids, a coordinated and carefully timed attempt at mass slaughter of my biogen family! Two of us were murdered, but twenty-three, including me, fought back or had enough precognition to escape. My brothers and sisters are crying out to mothership for help.”

  Holy Kiva! More violence? “Murdered?”

  Simara nodded sadly. “A helicopter crash staged to look like an accident. All the crew survived unharmed, but my two friends, Elana and Ruis, were killed.”

  “Do you have any evidence we can use in court?”

  “No, nothing definitive. The data record has been negated.” She tapped her temple with a fingertip. “But mothership knows. You must be circumspect in everything you do. You cannot trust anyone onboard this vessel.”

  Zen swallowed hard, feeling a creeping chill of conspiracy. “Okay.”

  “We’ll need the emergency battery code for the airlocks. There’s a manual override sequence in case of power failure or computer breakdown. It’s a secret that everyone shares.”

  “How will I get it?”

  “A crewmember will give it to you, sooner rather than later. It’s part of trooper culture to not leave anyone behind. A digital copy is not allowed for the sake of corporate security, but they can write it on a slip of paper or something—a four-digit numerical code for a standard palm reader.”

  “Does it work when the power is on? Can we break you out of here?”

  “It does work, but there’s no place to run in the vacuum of space. The captain would be alerted to the use of any override code and would have us in chains within minutes, making our legal problems even worse. After we land safely on Cromeus, we’ll make a break for it. Mothership will guide us to freedom.”

  Zen nodded. “Okay. I’ll get the code.”

  “I’m stuck here like a criminal, but you’ve got the run of the ship. See what else you can find out. Make some friends and try to get a feel for the crew, but don’t be taken in by any offers of confidence or promises of secrecy. You’re an outsider, no matter what anyone says. Transolar will be out to glean information for court, so be careful.”

  “I will.” Zen longed to kiss her in parting, but didn’t have the heart to push his luck. He made his exit gracefully, making every effort to minimize contact with her, though each brush against her body make his skin tingle with energy. Was this love, this vicious battle to hold his hormones at bay?

  SEVEN

  Zen explored the troopship to familiarize himself with the layout. Two main tunnels with ladders went up the centre of the arrow shaft with short hallways branching off like spokes at each level. The vessel was dirty throughout and in need of repair. Some areas were cordoned off with caution tape to prevent access to exposed panels of pipes and wiring. Air vents were stained with smoky brown deposits, and some of the grates rattled as the squeaky fans circulated stale air. Ladder treads were worn smooth in the middle and grimy near the corners where years of accumulated dirt had eddied and fallen.

  Zen climbed up against steady acceleration until he found a porthole view of their destination, the fourth planet out from Signa. Cromeus appeared blue in the distance like a drop of water floating in space. Hard to imagine a teeming populace on that tiny circle of reflected light. Hard to imagine a sky without forks of lightning and constant magnetic storms, a paradise where humans could walk outdoors and breathe unfiltered air, drink water from the ground, and raise babies.

  “Looking for something in particular?”

  Zen whirled to see a young man in blue duty uniform, a Transolar Security guard walking the perimeter. “No … yeah … I guess.”

  The man smiled and held an elbow up Bali style. He was handsome and personable, with dark hair, bulky shoulders, and the leathery skin of a grounder. “I’m Jon Bak. Seen you around.”

  Zen raised a forearm to cross his gesture. “You’re from Bali?”

  He gave a quick nod. “Five years out. I spend my free time on Cromeus now. A little peninsula called Flatrock. It’s the best topless beach in the galaxy. You should see the women.” He whistled with appreciation. “Where you from?”

  “Keokapul.”

  “Oh, sure, the crystal caves. I’ve been there for Vishan. Quite the spectacle. We may have shared a smoke together.”

  Zen tried to remember and came up blank. “I was just a kid in those days.”

  “Yeah, I suppose. I don’t recall your face, but who can remember much after Vishan?” The trooper laughed with a gregarious roar. He pointed to the portal with a beefy arm and rugged fingers. “This is a digital interface with a battery backup. It’s not a real window.”

  Zen peered again at the array of stars. “It looks real.”

  “Well, that’s the idea, but you can magnify the image.” He palmed a sensor to activate a touchscreen on the surface of the portal. “You want to zoom in on Cromeus?”

  “Yeah, I’ve never been there.” The blue dot grew larger as Zen watched. It had a pearly texture from humidity in
the atmosphere—clouds or perhaps snow.

  “It’s not much better from this distance. There’s the max. You see that spot of light glinting on the right side in orbit? That’s the Macpherson Doorway, the wormhole to Earth. I’d love to travel through there if they ever lift the embargo. That’s my big dream—to see the ancestral home of humanity.”

  Zen shook his head. “I’d be afraid. It goes back in time, right?”

  Jon Bak shrugged powerful shoulders. “Sure, time and space, but it hardly matters. It’s just a glorified airlock through the fabric of the universe. They say the Sol system is twelve million years in the past according to measurements of the cosmic background radiation, but who cares? Nothing we could do there will have any effect on the Signa system. It’s too far away. No message in a bottle is ever going to reach us. In practical terms, it’s just another trade route. Where do you think all the gold from Bali goes?”

  “To Earth?”

  “Of course. That’s what it’s all about, my man—galactic trade and commerce! I think it’s a crime they won’t let tourists through.”

  “It must be very expensive.”

  “Yeah, you’d have to win the lottery or marry into the Macpherson family.” He chuckled. “Hey, do you want to grab an allkool and gab about the old days?”

  Zen glanced up the hall and decided he’d done enough reconnaissance for one day. “Sure. Are you off duty?”

  “Nah, another few minutes, but there’s nothing happening out here in no man’s land. C’mon.” He hunched a shoulder forward and began walking. Along the way he pointed to a circular protrusion from the ceiling. “We’re under V-net surveillance near those sensors, but no one ever checks the feed apart from the usual automated triggers. Hi, Mom.” He waved at the camera with showy nonchalance, giving fair warning as they passed by and waiting until they were out of range. “I saw your blurb in our duty notes, quite the story. You’re with the omnidroid chick. Is she hot?”