Which all mean that the Ship was in a position to give the Collective a lobotomy. She had the planetary mind by the balls as long as its intercommunication was going through a satellite system we now controlled.
I was in armor again. Parts of the armor were boiling and seething, but not hot. And the hue of the metal seemed familiar. I could ‘see’ on a microscopic level, all the little assemblers and disassemblers which had poured out of my intestinal tract were fitting the cannibalized crystals of metal, stolen from war machine three, into place, one quick molecule at a time. My insides, without asking me, had just been programmed to turn that machine I had been holding under my left arm into raw materials and to manufacture a new battle-suit. Swell. Nice engineering. I also as-sume my body had been programmed to keep fighting while I was unconscious, because there were a half a dozen corpses and pieces of wreckage scattered across the slope below me.
And my body also must have had some programming inside whatever circuits the Designer had seen fit to install in my groin. My he-man instincts were still good; because the girl was still in my arms.
So I can even kick ass in my sleep. And rescue the girl. So I’m that good. Or maybe not.
Rescued? I did not think so. She was covered with blood. My blood? I was amazed it did not eat her like acid or something. Maybe it was hers. I put her down gently, and her dark hair spilled across the green grass. As I did, signals reached me. The tiny Collective-cells in her nervous system were broadcasting.
“All records of the crime, if there had been a crime, had been erased . . . ” her ‘voice’ was dreamlike, soft and sweet and sad. I thought it was the loveliest thing I had ever heard. “We knew ourselves guilty of some crime, because of the gaps in the memory records, the world-wide deletions from all libraries, the uniform wreckage of space-stations which no records showed had ever been built . . . ”
The little machines living in my bloodstream had also manufactured another brace of remotes, and I had one, no bigger than a dragonfly land between her breasts and take a reading. No breathing; no pulse. No real brain activity, only an electronic ripple through the girl’s nervous system.
Her voice came again: “ . . . Refueling stations for some large vessel, perhaps a two thousand years ago or more. But why had we destroyed our own memories? Erased all knowledge? Only because we feared the coming of the vengeance of Dead Earth. A terrible vengeance. Once we heard your name, we knew. From the oldest records. From the Bible of the Judeo-Christians.”
I knew the words. They were in my memory. Ancient words. I said them aloud: “ ‘Adah and Zillah, hear my voice, for I have slay a man for wounding me, and kill a youth for striking me, and if Caine shall be revenged sevenfold for any wrong done him, truly Lamech shall be avenged seven times sevenfold . . . ’”
I shook her shoulder. “But why? Why did your Collective help send an attack against Mother Earth? Six Hundred Eight light-years away! It would take a thousand years for the weapons-mass to travel, and then six centuries after that for any signal to reach you telling you you’d made a strike. Why?”
The Ship’s Voice was loud and bright in my ear: “Marshall Lamech, the subject is clinically dead. What you are hearing is not her speaking to you, but is the last few random discharges of her brain cells, being stimulated and read by the strands you injected earlier.”
“You mean I killed her. By injecting her brain with brain-eating gunk.”
“Not at all. She suffered cardiac arrest when several bullets severed her spine, and suffered additional trauma from heat-discharges, the fall, and from exposure the atmosphere of Avernus, for which her lungs were not adapted.”
And yet, dead as she was, the girl answered my question. Maybe the words had been in her dying thoughts anyway. Or maybe the Ship did not know everything about the human soul.
The ghost-thoughts touched me: “Only our rulers enter true one-mind unity of the Collective. Officers receive instructions and communion. The rest are work-thralls and serfs. We are not whole. The Collective promises true unity will be achieved on the day all are unselfish enough to serve without reward; and says no other system, no other form of living, is desirable or possible. But Earth, Mother Earth, kept speak-ing to us.
“The radio signals from Earth made lies of everything the Collective promised. Where were the riots of Earth? The starvation? Where was the tyranny and evil caused by individualism? Why were the machines of Earth the servants and not the masters? Why were they wealthier than we were? Even six hundred years out of date, each broadcast displayed new marvels. And anyone who could run up a simple shortwave radio antennae and point it at the stars could hear.
“And so the Voice of Earth had to be silenced. Yes, we knew the Voice of Earth knew nothing of us, was not speaking for us, but was sending signals to some colony further distant still. But the mere fact that hope and freedom and individuality existed anywhere, anywhere in the universe, was enough to condemn them. The Collective could not tolerate the knowledge that anyone, anywhere, was not as we were, and lived in greater happiness than anything we knew . . . ”
The ghost-voice grew silent. I shook her again, gently, by the shoulders, hoping that might stimulate the dead brain cells.
I caught a wisp of last thought, perhaps something from her childhood. “ . . . I am not like the other girls in the dorm. The air is bad, and I am sick all the time. I was made for another world . . . I was made for another kind of man . . . Lamech . . . made for Lamech . . .
Then: “ . . . I hope he likes me . . . ”
I opened my faceplate and kissed her on the forehead. Then I laid her out as gently as my rough hand could on the grass.
“Ship,” I said, “I assume the Collective cannot talk to itself right now, but has broken down and is fighting itself.”
“Each regional command in the local area is asserting supreme command. On the other continents of the planet, Collective communication is uninterrupted. However, subversion of their satellite array does not allow them much strategic response. If the Collective wishes to survive as an intact entity, it will be able to do so only on such terms and conditions as you wish to impose.”
“Well. There are going to be a few reforms; I can say that much. I may not remember what things were like back home, but this place . . . this place sucks.” “We are no longer in urgent mission status, Sir. You are cleared to have access to secure information. Would you like your memory back?”
“Just hold on a moment.”
“Standing by.”
“They mentioned ‘others.’ I was not the first mission down. Don’t tell me, let me guess. I sent out clones of myself. I am the only human being left alive, right? So they must have been grown out of me.”
“Would you like you memory restored, Sir? Standing by.”
“And those missions failed. I guess those had been actually my sons, weren’t they? Maybe not in the eyes of the law, but actually, really. Soldiers under my command. My boys. Grown in a tube or something, but my babies and I was responsible for them. Right? Dead now, I assume, because of me.”
“The Avernus Collective was willing to stand down their orbital defenses to allow you to pass, once they suspected you were the true mission commander, that you alone had plenipotentiary powers to spare or to condemn the planet. You knew it was a trap, but were confident you could elude it.”
“But why send anyone down here at all? Why not just command all the operations from orbit? From where it is safe?”
“An excellent question, Sir, and one to which I wish I had received an adequate answer.”
“What did I give as my reason? If I am actually the CO, risking my life on a ground op is just absurd. It is against all military principles.”
“You said there were other principles. You said your mission was more than just a military one, Sir. You said no judge should weigh the evidence without seeing the accused, no jury should pass sentence on a prisoner without given them a chance to be heard. You said no executioner should kill
the condemned without first looking into their eyes.”
“But these aren’t the real condemned. It sounds like they aided and abetted. They helped refuel and resupply some interstellar vehicle originating somewhere else, another colony.”
“That is consistent with what I have recovered from their redacted archive records. Standing by to restore your memory. Will you give the order, Sir?” I sighed.
“Tell me if I am human, first . . . ”
“Due to weight considerations, the Designer thought it best to minimize payload, and ship merely a cryogenically suspended brain with instructions to grow any needed body or body-systems upon reaching target. In order to deceive the Avernus Collec-tive, it was thought that a human-shaped body, but equipped with certain . . . ”
“No. Belay that order. Shut up. I am really not sure I want to know the rest just yet.”
I sighed again, looking down at the poor dead girl. I did not even know her name. Maybe they did not give out names on this damned world. I wished she had had a nice-sounded one. The only other Homo Sapiens alive but me, it seemed, grown from museum-stock for my benefit. What a waste.
“Ship, there are how many colonies of Earth? Not including this one.”
“Five have broadcast radio signals between 50 and seven hundred fifty years old.”
“And one of them is the suspect planet now. As soon as my memory is back, I’ll be under orders again, right? We’ll have to race off and go smite someone else, I suppose.”
“It will take thirty years to build the equipment to create the conversion fueling station in near orbit about the local sun, Sir. But, yes, the instructions from the De-signer require we not take undue time at non-mission related tasks, lest our purposes be forgotten.”
“Great. But, at the moment, I’m not in dereliction of duty yet, am I? So, to answer your question, no. Leave me ignorant for now. As soon as I recall what is really going on, I’ll know whether or not this mission was worth doing, or whether this whole thing was a thundering clusterfuck, won’t I? And while I don’t know I can still hope that all this mess was somehow worth it. So leave me alone for a while. I’ll tell you when I am ready.”
I had part of my armor grow itself into an e-tool, and I set about to dig a grave, right there on the flowering hill. It seemed like a nice enough spot. I was standing in a half-dug grave, when I looked up and said. “By the way, Ship . . . ?”
“Yes, Marshall Lamech?”
“What the hell is the point of this anyway? Revenge a thousand years out of date? Why did the Designer build you and me to do this?”
“You yourself are the Designer, Marshall Lamech. I assume you will recall your purposes when you ask for your memory back. Standing by. Will you give the order?” I looked down again. “No. Let me finish this first. I just can’t stand seeing a job half-done.”
“On that we are agreed, Sir.”
________________
First published in Absolute Magnitude, #16, Summer 2001. Copyright 2001, John C. Wright
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IN THE DYING LIGHT
An Alliance Archives Adventure
Danielle Ackley-McPhail
Earth Orbit: 42.05.18 - 0715hrs
ON THE COMMAND DECK OF THE STELLAR CLIPPER MCKAY, FIRST OFFICER USHIMI YAKATA RAN the final checklist before third shift ended:
Duty Log: 42.05.18 - 0715hrs, Yakata, U.
Reactor status - nominal;
O2 levels - optimal;
Power - five percent over-consumption.
She frowned at the last item as she printed out a hard copy of the entry. We’re going to have to watch our calculations, she thought. We haven’t even left orbit and already the systems are running hot.
It was that damn shuttle Corporate had them balancing on the McKay’s nose. They were hauling the spacer’s equivalent of a luxury yacht over twelve light years to Demeter just so some CEO could tour his colonial facilities in style . . . There were so many more important payloads they could have taken with them. Of course, it was the “pay” part that decided things in the end; the rates for transporting luxury items to the Tau Ceti system were ten times that of necessary goods.
Behind her a clunk and a soft whoosh announced the arrival of her replacement. A whiff of licorice drifted from close by her ear. She’d stopped counting the times she’d told Karl Dunn not to crowd her. That was one of the reasons they had a history, and no future. She’d had doubts about signing him for this cruise. They had been close once, very close. But not anymore. And with only a nine-man crew, she had no hope of avoiding him.
Her lips pressed in a tight, thin line, Yakata dropped her hand to the toggle by her hip and shifted the command chair back along its track, away from the control panel.
“Hey! Watch it!”
She brought the chair around, her grey eyes leveled at Karl dead on as he rubbed his abdomen where the chair smacked into him. Only his grip on the nearby tether bar kept him bobbing in place.
“Excuse me.” Her tone was cool and formal. “I didn’t realize you were so close.” Any comment Karl would have made was interrupted as the flat, persistent tone of the proximity warning sounded through the cabin. They both forgot their personal conflict, their attention riveted on the sensors.
Toggling the command chair back into place, Yakata automatically scanned the ship’s attitude and power consumption on the screens flanking the main monitor. At the same time, she called up the isometric collision display. The flashing alert icon vanished from the screen in front of her. In its place appeared a wire-frame sphere with a representation of the McKay in the center. Something was coming up from behind, closing on the ship at a fraction of a meter per second. They had about thirty minutes until it came into range over their drive section.
“Dunn, reach over and activate the aft camera,” Yakata ordered as her fingers danced in and out of the button depressions on the control panel. At her command, the main display switched from short-range to long-range scanning. She had to be sure whatever approached was not the forward edge of a meteor storm or something else their ablative hull plating could not handle.
Her scans told her nothing more. She called to Karl, “Crewman, do we have visual?”
Silence.
“Crewman . . . ” Her short, sharp tone telegraphed impatience. “Do . . . we . . . have . . . visual?”
She whipped around, spearing him with a glare. He remained oblivious, his feet tucked into the boot docks and his gaze riveted on the image on the external monitoring station.
What the hell? Yakata had never seen him like this. He looked stunned . . . horrified. What could be out there?
Remembering the fate of her father’s freighter, the Tyler, she felt a shiver of dread. Not another wreck . . .
She couldn’t tell; Karl’s body blocked the screen. Impatiently, she released the restraint keeping her in the command chair and drifted out. Once she was clear of the panel, she rotated and pulled herself toward Karl.
“Step aside, crewman,” she barked. His intent gaze snapped to her. Emotions rippled violently across his face. His deep brown eyes looked nearly black with them. It unsettled her, but Yakata didn’t back off. Dunn’s moods were nothing new to her. He had always been too on edge, his emotions close to the surface; like he picked up on random vibes in the air that no one else could feel. In their time to-gether, she had never been able to tell what a given situation would trigger. Now she told herself she didn’t really care. She kept her expression impassive and her gaze sharp. “Move it . . . now.”
The muscles along Karl’s jaw twitched and his eyes fell out of focus. He closed them and gave his head a little shake. She could see the tension drain away. When he opened his eyes again, they reflected faint confusion. Without a word, he gave the standard heel jerk to free his feet from the workstation’s dock and drifted off to the side.
She gave him a measured look before redirecting her attention to the screen. The camera was deployed, the high-power, ten-optical zo
om fully engaged. The view was stunning. Distant stars glittered like metallic flecks on a field of raw black silk and muted colors added an unexpected depth to the starscape. She wasn’t interested in pretty sights, though. She scanned for her objective with an intensity that mirrored Karl’s earlier stance.
The projectile headed toward them wasn’t some random bit of space debris; it was clearly manufactured. The shape was something like a squat pillar or obelisk, and appeared about the size of her head. It was too far away to make out much more, though the camera hinted at intricate detail.
Rogue thoughts of her father swarmed her mind once more. In his last letter to her, he mentioned a similar find. She’d lost him long before the letter ever reached her. Neither her father, nor the object was retrieved. Burned into her memory, as clear as yesterday, was the image of his shattered helmet floating in the vacuum of space. She still had that helmet.
She banished the thought. Turning back to Karl, Yakata caught his eye and held it. “Assume your post. I’m heading up to the rendezvous station to retrieve the object.” He was silent a moment. His jaw ticked and his gaze flickered from the aft display to her face.
“ ’Ta . . . ” he began, but she cut him off.
“Excuse me, crewman, how did you address me?”
“Ma’am,” he ground out through clenched teeth, frustration snapping in his eyes. “Respectfully, I’m not sure that you should . . . something feels really wrong about this.”
“I have to do this.”
The knowing look he gave her was disconcerting. If anyone understood, he did. Yakata didn’t like that familiarity or the self-betraying warmth she felt at his concern. “I said get to your post. Start the pre-hyperdrive checklist,” she ordered. “The Captain wants to jump by 0800.”
She pulled her communications hood up over her close-cropped ebony hair and triggered the overhead hatch. With the grace of frequent practice, she hauled herself up through the shaft. Propelling herself past the T-junction that branched off toward the cargo bay, she opened the second hatch into the rendezvous station. She closed it behind her before drifting toward the aft window. Yakata pressed the activation button on the left side of her comm hood. “Command deck . . . ”
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