Ochrim’s jail sentence for his war crimes had ended just a few months before, and though he and Husher were mostly cordial with each other, their relationship clearly still had a few wrinkles that needed ironing out. The alien might have ended up spending the rest of his life in jail, except that in addition to killing hundreds of thousands of humans, he’d also been the reason humanity had survived the Second Galactic War at all. Ochrim had been the one to finally convince the Kaithe to join the fight.
“Lead on,” Husher said.
Ochrim left the living room, passed through the kitchen, and turned left down a short hallway. Husher followed, pausing only to grab another couple beers on his way through.
“Do you ever miss your people, Ochrim?” Husher asked as they made their way through the hall. He idly fingered a picture frame as he passed—it bordered an artistic rendering of some nebula.
“You mean, do I miss the species that almost exterminated yours, Captain? Seems like something of a loaded question.”
“It’s not.”
As they entered a small, rectangular room at the back of the house, Ochrim sighed. “I was always quite different from the rest of the Ixa. Especially my father, and my brother.”
“I wasn’t asking about your family.”
“I miss…I miss being convinced that I knew what was best for the galaxy. Though false, that level of moral clarity was soothing.”
“You’re still dodging the question, but whatever. By the way,” Husher said, pointing at the floor. “This. This is what’s best for the galaxy.”
“I hope you’re right.” With that, Ochrim knelt, lifting a cream-colored floor tile to reveal a touch interface. Tapping it made a section of the floor lower and slide out of sight to Husher’s left. Below, a dimly lit ladder extended down until it disappeared from sight.
“After you,” Husher said, and the Ixan complied, settling his right foot on one of the upper rungs, then lowering himself to the next.
Husher loosened his belt a notch, tucked the beers into it, and began the climb down as well. His aging joints creaked as he descended. “Did you hear about our run-in with the Gok?” he called down.
“It’s the only thing being discussed on the narrownet, currently,” Ochrim answered, wheezing slightly.
He’s getting pretty old, too, even for an Ixan. “Those bastards never seem to learn. We’ve punished them hard three times now, but they keep coming back for more. They’re friends of yours, right?”
“Captain, please.”
“Sorry. But you don’t get to kill hundreds of thousands of humans without having a snotty remark directed at you every now and then.”
Ochrim sniffed. “I served twenty years in prison for my misguided actions.”
“Nineteen years, four months, and twelve days, actually,” Husher said. “But who’s counting?”
Ochrim’s history was nothing if not complicated. During the First Galactic War, he’d given humanity dark tech, seemingly betraying his own species and allowing humans to dominate the galaxy for the next twenty years. Dark tech was enabled by a rare mineral humanity had named Ocharium, after Ochrim, and it had allowed them to create galaxy-spanning wormholes that could be modified to destroy anything they didn’t want passing through them—like enemy ordnance, for example.
But the gift of dark tech had been part of a plan formulated by a far-seeing, superintelligent AI named Baxa bent on dominating the Milky Way. Baxa had created the Ixa, and he’d been around for several millennia, but he’d also spent some time as a biological Ixan before uploading his consciousness once again. During his time as a flesh-and-blood Ixan, he’d sired two sons: Teth and Ochrim.
Humanity came to completely rely on dark tech, leaving them totally vulnerable when Ochrim used a master control of his own design to subvert each ship’s wormhole generator so that any wormhole it produced would vaporize all organic matter that passed through it. In one fell swoop, the United Human Fleet had lost almost half its crews—hundreds of thousands of service members killed within a few seconds of each other.
If Ochrim was to be believed, his father had convinced him that humanity’s downfall was the best of two horrible options: the other involved humans eventually destroying the universe itself. Except, in addition to humankind’s destruction, the future that Baxa envisioned also included enslaving every living Ixan. When he’d learned that, Ochrim had concluded that his father wasn’t trustworthy after all, and he switched to humanity’s side, abandoning his father and his brother, Teth, who’d commanded the Ixan fleet.
Whatever the case, Ochrim was clearly a genius, which was why Husher was willing to have him aboard the Vesta. The AI that had created and manipulated the Ixa had been just one of many such AIs, and though the Ixa had died along with it—all but Ochrim—Husher was sure another superintelligence would come to finish the job that Baxa had started. He’d long considered it his duty to do whatever he could to prepare the galaxy for the AIs’ return. Since the Interstellar Union seemed determined to stunt military advancements at every turn, it fell to him to do whatever he could to foster them.
They reached the bottom of the ladder, which touched down in the middle of Ochrim’s hidden lab. The ladder was the only way to enter or leave this room—for Ochrim, anyway. One of the walls could be opened, for the purposes of bringing in or removing equipment, but Husher didn’t allow Ochrim control over that.
Husher had had this lab constructed during a planetary stopover, before Ochrim had even arrived aboard the Vesta. He’d hired outside contractors to do it, to keep it a secret from those who lived and worked on the supercarrier. Almost, his efforts had been for naught, when he’d had to fight city council to make sure Ochrim received this particular house. That had been particularly tedious, given he hadn’t been able to give the reason why.
Once he’d arrived, the Ixan already had an experiment ready to go, but it took Husher a while to procure the necessary equipment for him. But he’d managed it, calling in a favor owed him by a Cybele University physics researcher, and he’d obtained the last piece the Ixan needed just three weeks ago.
Ochrim walked to a sturdy black tabletop and leaned back against it, studying Husher with weary eyes under the dim halogens. The Ixan’s age showed in the whitening of his scales around those eyes, as well as wherever they stretched across the many bone protrusions typical of Ixan faces. “You didn’t ask me much about the experiment I intended to conduct.”
“I asked whether it would blow up my ship. That seemed like the most important question to me.” Husher passed the Ixan one of the beers from behind his belt, and Ochrim accepted it gingerly.
“Fair enough, I suppose,” the alien said, opening his beverage. “Either way, to understand my findings, I’ll need to run through the experiment with you first.”
“Try to keep it brief. My next watch starts soon, and Fesky will complain if I’m late to the CIC.”
“Very well. The experiment was a success, and also a historic achievement, I might add.”
“Great. But I’m interested in what it’ll do for my combat effectiveness, not what it would do for your stature as a scientist if you weren’t excommunicated from the scientific community.”
“We’re getting to that, Captain. The experiment involved firing a photon at a polarization filter, calibrated so that there was a fifty-fifty chance it would pass through. I also programmed a com to switch on a microwave emitter only if it detected the photon passing through the filter. Under the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, you see, two distinct parallel universes form after every quantum mechanical measurement, and so according to the theory, the moment the com detected whether the photon passed through, there were two coms, two Ochrims, and two starship laboratories.”
“Two universes,” Husher said.
“Yes. There’s a lot of evidence to support the many-worlds theory, but none to prove it. Until now. I’ve confirmed the many-worlds interpretation, Captain.”
“How?�
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“Before even firing the photon, I isolated part of the experimental apparatus so that it did not immediately decohere along with the rest of the system. The isolated part was comprised of an ion inside a Penning trap, which was excited using the microwave emitter only if the photon was detected passing through the filter. Since, under these conditions, the isolated ion takes seconds longer to decohere, there’s enough time to change its state using the emitter. Once it’s excited by an Ochrim in one of the universes—Ochrim One, let’s say—Ochrim Two measures the ion and finds it’s excited, even though in his universe the microwave emitter was never turned on.”
“Okay, so Ochrim Two knows about Ochrim One, but doesn’t that leave Ochrim One still in the dark?”
“It would—if I hadn’t performed the experiment many times. And in roughly half of the trials, it was I that detected the existence of my parallel twin.” A thin smile stretched across Ochrim’s face—a rare occurrence, these days.
“That’s incredible, Ochrim. But I’m still not sensing military applications.”
“We’re still at the very beginning, Captain. While monumental, I did not spend two decades in prison planning only to detect parallel universes.”
“Out with it, then. What’s your end goal?”
“Captain, I believe it may be possible to manipulate the quantum decoherence process such that we might not only communicate with parallel universes, but travel to them as well. Can you see the military applications in that?”
A thrill forked through Husher’s stomach. “I believe I’m starting to, Ochrim. Tell me what you need next.”
Chapter 4
Human or Good
Cybele’s artificial day was darkening, with the vast compartment’s overhead lighting gradually dimming. Husher’s Oculenses matched that reality, and in the simulated sky overhead, stars began to appear, one by one.
He strode past city hall, and as he rounded the circular structure, more and more of Cybele U became visible. The university’s snowy towers reared against the deepening dusk; sturdy obelisks streaming bright banners of many hues.
“Your Implicit Association and Bias Testing will take place in Lab 1159 of the Social Sciences Building at half past eight,” the message from Penelope Snyder had said, forty minutes before Husher’s watch had ended.
The timing had forced him to come here directly from the CIC, with no time to stop by his quarters for a wash or a rest.
Somehow, I think that might be by design. As captain of the largest starship in the Integrated Galactic Fleet, there was no question that Snyder saw him as her supreme ideological adversary. He’d come to sense that in her view, having him wear his Fleet Captain’s uniform while in Cybele made him look bad, putting him at a disadvantage. Her scheduling tended to leave him without the option of taking it off.
That didn’t matter much to Husher, since he would have worn it anyway. It had occurred to him, though, to wonder how Fesky would have done with taking the test he was about to. Considering the Gok had laid waste to her homeworld, in doing so carrying out a genocide against the Fins, who’d been so dear to the Wingers…considering that, Fesky probably had quite a bias built up against the large aliens herself.
The only Fin who hadn’t died in the Gok attack had been one named Ek, who’d only survived because she was highly unusual among Fins. Her species was one that could only breathe underwater, yet she’d had a breather made that allowed her to travel the galaxy, along with a set of metal prosthetic legs.
One thing Ek had shared with the rest of her species was an uncanny ability to perceive others’ true motives, based on very limited information. Husher could have used that, about now. Sadly, no one had heard from Ek since the end of the Second Galactic War.
Before entering the university, he exercised his ability to switch off the university’s Oculens overlay and see it as it really was.
The soaring towers disappeared, and so did the colorful banners, leaving a squat, drab building behind. Cracks and vines ran up the beige walls in equal measure, and just a few meters over the roof, instead of sky, a gray, metal ceiling loomed.
Nodding to himself, Husher proceeded to the lab Snyder had designated, switching the overlays back on as he did.
He found her at the back of the lab, which consisted of dozens of work stations arranged in three rows. Snyder waited next to an isolated work station with a blank wall display and a controller of some kind lying on the table in front of it.
Next to Snyder stood a young woman with bright red hair hanging halfway down her head, who Husher assumed was a student. She looked around the same age his daughter would have been.
“Captain Husher, this is Maeve Aldaine, one of our Sociology undergrads. As a valuable supplement to her studies, she expressed an interest in observing your test. I hope you don’t mind her being here.”
“It’s fine,” he said, sticking out his hand toward Aldaine. “Pleasure to meet you.”
The young woman stared at his hand for a few seconds, then looked up at Husher with piercing blue eyes, her expression blank.
“All right, then,” he muttered. “Do I sit here?”
“Yes,” Snyder said.
Husher lowered himself into the chair, which squeaked and leaned back farther than he would have liked. He was still reeling a bit from being subject to the most flagrant display of disrespect toward a service member he’d ever witnessed. It was something he never would have tolerated from a subordinate, but Aldaine was a civilian. My dreams of becoming a starship captain never quite included anything like that. Husher almost never wore service medals, not wanting to come off as showy, but at the moment he found himself wishing he had them on. Though I’m not sure they would have made much of a difference.
“If you please, Captain, pick up the controller you see on the desk before you,” Snyder said, her usually flowery language somewhat pruned, now that she was away from her fellow city councilors. “You’ll find it has only two buttons—left and right.”
The display came alive as he picked up the controller, his Oculenses projecting six words in bold on the wall. On the left, the display read “Human OR Good,” and on the right was “Gok OR Bad.”
“Why is Gok paired with the word bad?” Husher asked. “That seems biased in itself.”
“That will reverse later on.”
“All right. What do I do?”
“It’s fairly simple. When an item appears on the display that belong to one of the categories on the left, you press that button and vice versa for the categories on the right. You are asked to answer as quickly as you can. Is that understood?”
“Yes.”
“Are you ready to begin?”
“Yes.”
Snyder nodded at Aldaine, who must have done something with her Oculenses, because the test began. A Gok face appeared, and Husher pressed the right button. Next, the word “GROSS” appeared, and he pressed the right button again, to classify that as something bad. Next, the display showed a human face followed by the word “PEACE,” and Husher pressed the left button for them both.
This went on for ten minutes or so, until, as Snyder had promised, the words “Human” and “Gok” switched places. “Are you ready to begin the second portion?” she asked.
“I heard that this test confuses bias with the novelty response,” Husher said.
For the first time this evening, Snyder’s usual sugary smile made an appearance. “And who told you that?”
“I just heard it.”
“Mm.”
“I’m ready,” Husher said, nodding toward the display.
Snyder also nodded, still smiling. “Go ahead, Maeve.”
The entire process repeated again, with Husher using the controller to classify each item in sequence. Ten minutes later, Snyder said, “We’re halfway through the test, Captain. The next portion tests the extent of your bias toward another group with whom our species has gone to war. Go ahead, Maeve.”
The display changed
so that “Human” was once again paired with “Good,” but this time the word “Gok” was replaced by “Ixan.” Before Husher could react with more than narrowed eyebrows, a reptilian face appeared on the display.
Slowly, he turned to face Snyder. “Is this a joke?”
“I’m sorry?” She cocked her head to one side, amusement dancing in her eyes.
“The Ixa I fought during the war perpetrated a genocide against their own people, murdering anyone whose bloodlines they considered impure. They destroyed entire worlds full of people. They’re the ones who created the virophage that turned the Gok as aggressive as they are. Not to mention, all but one of them are dead. How is it relevant to include Ixa in this test?”
“Are you confessing that you are, in fact, prejudiced against Ixa, Captain Husher?” Snyder said.
Husher rose from the chair, placing the controller firmly on the tabletop and never breaking eye contact with Snyder. It had taken every ounce of willpower he had not to smash the controller on the floor.
With that, he turned around and stalked out of the lab.
Chapter 5
PTSD
It felt good to be back in the Vesta’s crew corridor after the frivolity and falsehood of Cybele. In many ways, Husher’s supercarrier resembled the Providence, which she’d been modeled after. He’d served on the Providence, under Captain Keyes, and he’d first met Fesky there, too.
Like Keyes’s ship, the Vesta’s crew corridors were just wide enough to allow for the efficient flow of traffic, and no wider. Gray, white, and black dominated the decor, such as it was—ornamentation was sparse. Husher liked it that way, and so had Keyes. He wondered for a moment what his old captain might have said about civilian cities on warships.
Three hours before his next watch, a regular checkup brought him to the office of the ship’s doctor, Lindsay Bancroft.
“Mostly everything looks good,” she said, staring at a blank wall where her Oculenses were no doubt displaying the results from the tests she’d performed. A lot of people kept at least one wall clear in their office, so that they didn’t have to stare into space in order to view whatever their Oculenses showed them. Some people did do the “staring into space” thing, but a lot of people found that awkward.
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