Seeds of Memory

by J. Richard Jacobs

  “So? What does all that have to—"

  “Wait. There's more to this. There is talk about overthrowing the government. Talk about cults and rebellion. Further, I have a source who tells me the Council has evidence that their computer control system has been broken into on several occasions, and they believe this Twelfth Generation group had something to do with it."

  “Suspicion and innuendo, Bo. Pretty hazy stuff, to me. I would still like you to tell me what I have to do with any of it. Why do I have to worry about Mr. Mills?"

  “Your problem, Niki, is that the Council will consider anyone connected with that group to be a part of it, and you may say whatever you want, but they won't hear it. Now, do you get it?"

  “Not really. What is it you want from me?"

  “I want you to do something for me that could prove to be of mutual benefit. I want you to collect some information. I want you to listen in whenever you can and take notes. Maybe record some things ... get pictures ... stuff like that."

  “You mean,” Niki said with a wry smile, “you want me to spy on Mr. Mills."

  “Well ... yes. I guess that's the idea.” Niki could see that Shan was embarrassed. “You see,” he continued, “I want to learn as much as I can about this Generation business. What it's about, and who is behind it. I want to know who Mills talks to, where he spends his time, and where he's getting his hard note. Particularly where the note is coming from, because that's probably the key to unwinding the rest of it."

  “Have you thought about Mr. Greeley?"

  “Sure, right off. He was on the top of my list, but the man is cleaner than a mander eel is slick. He gambles a lot, and he loses a lot. I think he traffics tarsac—but he's not connected to the Twelfth Generation group. Virgo Mills is, and I want to know how and why."

  “How would spying on Mr. Mills be of any value to me? You said this could be of mutual benefit, but I don't see it working for me."

  “The Council is investigating the Twelfth Generation. As soon as you start working for Mills, they'll begin watching you, too."

  “Me? Why me? I'm not involved in any of this, and I've never heard of this Generation stuff. That is, not until this morning—and I've never been to the Continent before,” Niki protested.

  “Look, Niki ... I know that, you know that, but the Council will not see it that way. As soon as your name shows up in the employment record of Virgo Mills, you will come under suspicion."

  “Why?"

  “Niki, you told me Mills gave you a thousand notes. The way Greeley runs his business he'd have given you just enough to get by until the boats went out, maybe even a little less. A couple hundred notes at best, and probably in paper, not hard note. Why would Mills give you a thousand, and in hard note? The Council will ask the same questions. Why would a fisher give a new helper so much hard note without seeing how he works, or even knowing if he will show up for work tomorrow? Would you do that? No ... you wouldn't, and neither would anyone else with a little sense. If the Council decides there's even a slight chance that the idea of a possible coup d'état is real, they won't be gentle with anyone—innocent or not."

  Niki wasn't sure how he felt about spying on a man he had just met for someone who was as much a stranger to him as Mills, and all over something he didn't understand in the slightest. It seemed a little ... ridiculous.

  “I can't say I'll do that for you, Bo. I'd like some time to think. I got out of the hospital yesterday at first light. I haven't been here a full two days yet, and you want me to get involved in some mystery about things I don't understand, with people I don't know.” Niki thought for a moment as he watched a miniature Paz swing close around Vegamwun. “Give me a couple of days?"

  “Sure, Niki. Sure. I didn't give any thought to how you would react. Sometimes I get to chasing something, and I forget about other people having their own lives. I'll tell you what. You take my card and give me a call when you're ready, all right?” Shan slipped his card into Niki's jacket pocket and continued. “Let me pay your entry fee, and you can spend the rest of the day here. Do you know how to use the publics?"

  “Uh, no,” Niki admitted. “What's a public?"

  Shan shoved a couple of oddly shaped coins into Niki's hand and started for the door. “They're public transports. Use N2. It'll take you within two squares of your hotel.” He stopped and turned to face Niki. “Don't forget, call me as soon as you decide."

  Niki watched from behind the little revolving planets as Shan went to the desk, handed some notes to the guard, and pointed across the lobby in Niki's direction. This was it. He was inside the Museum of the Ancients with most of the day to himself.

  The building was constructed to form a frame around the shuttles, with a ring of displays of artifacts and other things of historic interest. He slipped quickly through the entrance indicated in the directory and walked, unnoticing, past the various cases containing priceless, often indescribable relics, dioramas and models depicting the establishment of human life on Paz, until he reached the double doors to the shuttle display. The doors were solid metal, four meters high and three meters wide.

  A guard, stationed to one side of the doors, stepped up and checked Niki's pass.

  “Ever seen these before?” he asked.

  “No, sir."

  “Well, here you go,” the guard said with a grand smile and tapped the pad in his hand. The doors swung open and there—there they were. Two immense machines poised on their landing legs, looking very much like giant, shining black kaughman beetles. Their landing pads were buried deep into the ground, attesting to their terrific weight and centuries of standing in one place.

  Shuttles six and twenty-three, standing side by side, just as the Fathers had left them when their job was finished. So much metal. Niki was certain there was more metal in one of those shuttles than the combined mines of Paz could produce in a year ... and the Fathers had arrived with forty of them. Passing through the doors, Niki was overwhelmed by a feeling that he had been there before. That those metal creatures were nothing new to him. They were familiar.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Niki said to the guard. “Have these shuttles been opened, or are they sealed like all the others?"

  “Never been touched, son. They're one of our sources of pride, my boy. In all the time the museum has been standing, we have never touched them. That is, other than for routine cleaning and polishing. Oh, they tried to find a way in before the government put all the shuttles under the Antiquities Protection Law, but they couldn't gain access. That, sir, is one of the beauties of our shuttles here at the New London exhibit. Our directors have made every effort to maintain them as they were found. You may ride the lift up to the walkway on number twenty-three and see everything from there. Well, everything that's visible from the catwalk, that is."

  Niki thanked the guard and rushed to the lift. Thirty meters above the ground the lift vibrated to an uncertain halt, and he stepped out onto the metal grating of the walkway, turned left, and made his way up to the cabin at the forward end of the ship. He cupped his hands to shield his eyes from the surrounding light and could see through the windows into the shuttle's bridge. It was dark in there, of course, but the bright lights near the tops of the walls surrounding them provided enough to see what was inside fairly well. There were two seats at the front, and a row of six at the rear of a small compartment lined with panels bearing banks of instruments, switches and long dead lights. It all appeared complicated and ... and oddly familiar ... like he'd been in there before.

  “Look, mama. That's where the pilot used to sit,” said a youngster who had come out of nowhere, his nose flattened against the glass to Niki's left, and his pointing finger bent against the ceramic window.

  “No,” Niki said. “The pilot sat in the seat on this side, and his helper pilot was in the seat to his right. His helper was responsible for managing the inertial stabilization computer during high atmospheric entry, so he had to be close to that console in the corner.” Niki pointed ou
t the inertial control console to the boy.

  “The pilot used those two handles there on his panel in front—see them—to operate the attitude control system when the shuttle was under manual control."

  The boy, astonished, backed away enough to get a good look at Niki, then pressed against the glass as Niki pointed at the handles.

  “See those two buttons on the tops of the handles? The one on the left told the computer to transfer control to him, and the one on the right is the manual override for the drag brakes. Everything was under computer control most of the time, but once in a while the Fathers needed to make the shuttle do something the computer wouldn't allow. Things could get really busy in there during insertion maneuvers."

  “Say, mister, you sure know a lot about these things,” the boy exclaimed. “Did you ever fly one?"

  “No, only the Fathers ever flew the shuttles.” But Niki felt confident that he probably could fly one. How? “I have merely studied them,” he lied. No one ever studied them. They were all sealed, and there was no information on their operation in the Ancient Record that he was aware of, and none in any of the other available literature. Everything about the shuttles and the great ship, the La Paz, remained a mystery to the people of Paz—a dark enigma. So, how did he, simple fisher from a small island in the South Sea, know? All of what was churning in his head had been forbidden by omission from the Ancient Record, yet it was all—frighteningly familiar.

  “What's that?” the boy asked.

  “Where?"

  “Over there.” The child pointed to a line on the hull, about ten meters behind the shuttle's bridge compartment. The line didn't show well in the black surface of the fuselage, but it was rectangular with generously rounded corners at the top and bottom. The area was two and a half meters high and one meter wide and had a much smaller recess of similar shape on the forward side.

  “Oh, that. That's one of the utility airlocks, sort of a special door. When they were in space they used it to get in and out—to do work outside."

  Niki understood it all. Every bit of it. The fact that there were four such airlocks and that the main access was in the center of the docking ring in the shuttle's belly, just ahead of the main cargo hatch. He saw it all clearly in his subconscious, and he knew how all of it functioned. Not in precise detail, but ... still ... he shouldn't be able to fathom it in the way he did.

  * * * *

  It was one of those dreams—real and important—a dream that demanded it be remembered. And it was a dream that vaporized the instant the sound of the link buzzed through it and returned him to his bumpy bed in the cube. It buzzed a second time. Funny, it seemed louder, more insistent, like his mother had done when he failed to respond to her first call. He managed to get to the link before it could rattle his nerves again.

  “Hello,” he said, his voice revealing his groggy state.

  “Gaf. Where the hell ya been? Been tryin’ to get hold of ya all the damned day.” Mills glared back at Niki from the screen. He was wearing the expression of a parent scolding a child who had forgotten, conveniently, to do his morning chores.

  “Sorry, Mr. Mills ... Virgo,” Niki said. “I ... I was out doing some shopping.” Niki thought it would be unwise to tell Mills that he had spent the morning with an investigative reporter who wanted him to spy on the man.

  “Okay, gaf. We're not gonna be goin’ out fer at least eight more days. The mackrawl've started their run, but they're stayin’ farther north than usual this year.” Mills shifted in his seat, shuffled some papers, then continued, “Anyway, ya gotta go in fer a physioscan. Yer in the book fer,"—Mills glanced down at the papers again, then went on,—"Yer in the book fer second hour tomorrow. Clinic's at 86 Echo. That's five squares south of ya. Ya got all that, gaf?"

  “All right ... Virgo. Second hour tomorrow. But why? I mean, my C-card has all the information from the hospital, doesn't it?"

  “Yeah, gaf, it does. This here's just somethin’ formal fer the medical security papers, ya know? Government stuff, gaf."

  There was something odd about Mills’ actions on the screen, and his eyes never looked directly at Niki. Or was Niki letting the things Shan had said feed him information that wasn't there? Or could it be that Shan had said it true? Did he detect motive unseen, unspoken? He shrugged and conceded it would still be easier to assume the best, although he knew now, after his conversation with Shan, that he would not see Mills in the same way as before.

  “I'll be there, Virgo. Night."

  Niki watched as the screen faded. He would go to the appointment, of course. But why would they need anything more than what the hospital had already entered in the record? And what were medical security papers? He set the link to not respond to any calls and sank onto the thing that served as a bed, though he was beginning to think of it as a torture rack. Niki thought that the bed and its built-in lumps and hollows had something to do with his weird dreams. His spine was twisted and a nagging pain had taken hold. Niki decided he would try to return to the dream he was—for whatever reason—supposed to remember. His eyes closed—and the voices of his dream began.

  * * *

  Chapter VI

  Five men gathered in tightly around the small screen on Washton's desk and watched intently as the genetic code information played out. One after the other, the markers matched and glowed a brilliant blue. When the last of the two thousand five hundred and thirty-six spots winked blue, there was a collective gasp from all in the room.

  Washton rolled his chair back from his desk and, in a tone of triumph, announced, “Gentlemen, we have a positive match. This man, Kaznov, is definitely the Delta for whom we have been searching. According to the records, he is the only direct-line Delta alive—and he is of the twelfth generation. He is ... he is a rare and precious specimen, gentlemen. Indeed ... the only specimen, and he will be ours."

  Everyone attempted to speak at once, until Lon Su silenced them by soundly striking Washton's beautiful desk with a large stone paperweight. Washton eyed the jagged gash in his once perfect desktop but said nothing.

  Bide your time, Mando. Just bide your time.

  “We of the Twelfth Generation,” Su began, “have no time for cackling and squawking like a bunch of barkel hens at feeding time. We have more than enough work of a productive nature to do without such foolishness."

  Su moved in behind the desk, waved Washton from his chair like a Neather would shoo away an intruding shagrat, and sat down. A nasty smirk snaked its way across his square, flat face as he said, “Washton, I want you to get him away from Mills as subtly and as quickly as is humanly possible. His name, I trust, has not found its way into the Council employment record."

  “No, Mr. Su, it has not. If you don't mind, why do you feel we should keep Mills from knowing what is going on? Mills is a Twelfth Generation member, is he not?"

  “Yes, Washton, I do mind, but I shall attempt to explain it in a manner even you will understand. Mills is a simpleton, a hopeless, half-excuse for an imbecile—and besides, the man is barely one step up from being an untrac himself. It has come to my attention recently that his affairs are being looked into by one of the Journal's reporters, Washton, and if you were doing your job with the proper level of efficiency, you, too, would have known that before I had to tell you. At this time, and in view of what we apparently have here, the less Mills knows, the better it will be for all of us."

  Su toyed with the paperweight, and Washton cringed. He slid it to the edge of the desk and laced his fingers together under his chin. Without looking at Washton, he continued. “Now, Washton, hear me well. I want you to make absolutely certain nothing—and I mean nothing—happens to this Kaznov that will in any way tend to repress his awakening or, the Ancients preserve us, threaten his continued existence. Is that understood, Washton?"

  “Yes, sir. I understand completely."

  “Good. I want you to get him away from Mills, and I want you to employ him in some way or another that will provide impetus to
his awakening, but I don't want his name to show up in the Council's records. You will pay him in hard note, and you will pay him well so that he is under no external pressure from any obligations he may incur—and I want him living in something other than that nasty little cube your simpering idiot stuck him in. Do you understand me, Washton?"

  He paused just long enough for Washton to indicate he was paying attention, then went on. “I think his awakening would best be aided by working at the Museum of the Ancients. Particularly something to do with the shuttles. You are, as we are all well know, devious enough to concoct some clever scheme, which will cause all that to happen without eliciting undue attention from the wrong people. I remind you, the government is looking at us closely, as Mr. Vagnu can verify. How you do what I am telling you is entirely up to you. Just remember, I shall be watching your every move."

  Su raised himself from Washton's chair in the deliberate manner of an emperor in view of his subjects and faced the group.

  “Gentlemen, are there any questions?"

  “Yes, Mr. Su,” a small, dark-skinned man said. “It is my understanding there is another group in New London that is searching for the Delta. Should we not engage ourselves in some way to be certain they do not discover we have him?"

  “Ah, Mr. Lanno, you have, once again, artfully anticipated me. We really must get together for a game of Zagman as I believe you would be a worthy opponent.” Su smiled warmly at Lanno while turning the paperweight over in his hand. Washton sucked in his cheek and chewed on its flesh.

  “In answer to your question, Mr. Lanno, yes, I believe that would be a good idea. The problem is how to do it. Keeping the Delta's name off the record will prevent them from getting the information out of the system ... but he is on the local record because of his recent stay in the hospital. Anyone actively looking will eventually come across the medical entries and know he is, or was, here in the city. This is an issue I have been pondering since Washton first contacted me."