by Paul Phipps
Even Egypt and Libya have ceased their efforts to sabotage the Mediterranean vessel. News analysis indicates that the Iceland incident has finally penetrated their thick skulls and they are backing off their militant positions.”
“That’s good to hear.” Seeker said, “One less point of contention. Maybe we will be able to concentrate more fully on the Quarn then.”
“I agree, Seeker, now moving on in that direction. Colonel Zorn and his Aerospace Industry people have submitted forty people to act as observers and be trained in the manufacture of the SSTO. Unfortunately for him only four turned out to be acceptable to our ‘rigorous’ screening methods. Only one of the rejected people was Quarn-Slave. All the rest were still supporters of the President-for-Life and there was at least one Act-Now member.
Now that we know who they are Lt. Commander Fuller is going to keep them under a tighter watch especially the Quarn-Slave.” He finished with a nod in the Lt. Commander’s direction.
“Good, good anything else to report?”
“No sir, that’s it for this week.” Gunnar finished up.
“Captain Thomas?”
“Good Morning Admiral, All is well on the Comfort and her carried vessels. Business is booming still and our patient load is currently at around seven thousand. We have now recruited sixty two Doctors into the ranks of the TSN. Because of their specialized natures they are going through basic at a degraded rate on the Comfort. I am also pleased to announce that Dr. Davis and his family will be staying with us permanently.”
At that news there was smiles and minor hand-clapping. Dr. Davis and his family had proven to be popular with everyone.
“The Elizabeth Rich has been detached from the Comfort and has taken over the duties of monitoring the Quarn five-unit Mass mind on the former Observation deck of the Mentor. She has also been in the process of moving it to a location in the negative-Z region of the solar system.
In addition very stringent Bio-Hazard protocols are being developed at this time for dealing with the Mass mind. And going by the latest reports from her it might be another month or more before our medical researchers feel comfortable enough to start their examinations.”
She stopped and waited for comments and when there were none continued on. “Using masked units from Ark #3 also known Gaia’s Ark we have started a genetic collection effort of our own in parallel with the Ecological Institute of Iceland’s effort on our behalf.
Speaking of which,” She said with a direct look at Ansel, “If you would, I can really use qualified personnel who have graduated from Basic Training on the Arks.”
“I’ll get on that for you, Captain.” Ansel said with an approving nod. “Some of our four year recruits might be suitable for that.”
“Thank You, now on to a new topic. Yesterday I was involved in a meeting with the Japanese Fire and Disaster Management Agency concerning our upcoming Disaster drill with them. They asked a question that I wasn’t prepared for and I told them I would get back to them on it. They wanted to know if we had a means of cleaning up the abandoned TEPCO reactor site and cleansing the land of the fallout that is contaminating it and their populace.”
As she paused, Seeker spoke up. “We can probably clean up the TEPCO site, fairly easily too. We’ll claim the remaining radioactive materials and return the site back to a pristine nature. As far as the rest of the land? We can also do that but it will need to be fully evacuated of all people and animals as we will have to use a Nano-machine swarm to literally disassemble the land to remove the radioactive fallout.”
Very well, I’ll inform them of that.” Evana told her, “If asked, may I offer the use of a TSN City to hold the evacuated populace during the clean-up?”
“That’s a very good suggestion, Captain.” Admiral Webster said approvingly. “Please offer that as part of your proposal for the clean-up. There’s no need in them asking for that sort of assistance. Or we can expand the Moon Base to accommodate them.”
“Yes Sir, I’ll do that.”
“Anything else?”
“Not at this time, Sir.” Evana replied.
“Commander Fuller?”
“Good Morning Admiral Webster. The Companion is now fully operational and fully manned. Currently we are still in the shake down stage for the crew and I propose to use Captain Johansson’s new firing range in two weeks. Susannah has graciously offered to take over the Power requirements for the Blockade shield until we return.
Next… The IUR military is acting very screwy, I’m pretty sure from data intercepts that the high command is getting conflicting orders from the High Islamic Council and from the elected officials. I think it will take some time to get a coordinated strategy back on track. I think we can thank the Great Leader’s influence over the Imam Al-Quds for some of this.” She said with a slight grin.
There were four small riots this last week. Three were over food shortages and one was over a diesel fuel shortage desperately needed by the farmers in the Pakistan province. If they had a better road network I’m sure that most of these problems would disappear. But they seem to have blinders on when it comes to economic strategies like that.” She added with a shake of her head.
“Anything else?” Admiral Webster asked. After receiving a headshake in the negative he turned to her husband. “Lt. Commander, what’s happening in the Intelligence realm?”
“Good Morning Sir, First off I will discuss the Quarn. The Master aka The Great Leader aka The President-for-life is exhibiting some interesting behaviors. Let me digress here for a moment please. As Commander Webster mentioned earlier, The TSN now has a small Psychology and Psychiatry section, in some ways they are a group of people looking for a mission and in other ways they are very much self-starters.
One of the interesting things that have come out in just the first few days of their operation is a profile of the President-for-life. As Dr. Francois D’allembe told me, the use of Slowtime and Virtual Reality has made all of the difference in processing a total analysis of individuals.
In his previous work before joining the TSN he had studied the President-for-Life as part of his employment by the European Union’s Intelligence Agency. He and they had always been confused at some of the behaviors the man had exhibited over the years as he built up his political network and power base. And then when he did become an elected President of United States his actions and policies in most ways were diametrically opposite of the historical values of the nation.
Finally when he declared or was it he was acclaimed as President-for-life? He cut loose with some of the most outrageous behaviors and he not only got away with them he was protected from any repercussions for them.
Now though, with the knowledge that the person known as the President-for-Life was in fact parasitized at a very young age by the Quarn a whole new picture has become apparent. The current theory is that the Quarn Q-Mots really don’t grow emotionally or as we say, ‘mature’. They can only use the original knowledge and emotional ‘database’ left behind when they kill and absorb the original mind or soul of their victim. Any new knowledge is all Quarn acquired and as far as emotions go? The theory is that the Quarn have no natural emotions as we think of them. The Quarn is a bio-weapon of amazing efficiency and bio-weapons don’t empathize with their victims. They just kill and eat them to continue to survive and grow themselves stronger.
As for ‘The Master’, Dr. D’allembe believes that he is stuck with a slightly disturbed ten year old male’s emotional matrix. He was narcissistic to an amazing degree, he always acted as if he was right and ‘knew it all’. He appeared to have a child’s grasp of mortality to the point where he thought of himself as immortal. And finally he acted as though all of his troubles would be ‘fixed’ by some adult so he didn’t have to suffer the consequences for them.”
As he was speaking, the rest of the staff at the meeting kept nodding their heads in agreement as the various points were presented.
“Now the reason I bring this up has to
do with a series of one sided conversation we have recorded from him over the last few weeks. We never really understood the context until we received Dr. D’allembe’s report.
Now before I continue, let me emphasize that this is a working theory. It may be correct but it may be wrong too, only time and more hardcore information will prove that.” He paused and gave each person a hard look and then with a slight nod he continued.
“The current theory is that the Mother Quarn is stepping up her calls for his return to her because he is coming close to a ‘cusp’ point. We theorize that that cusp point is where the Q-Mot gains enough free time away from the Mother to become as fully sentient as she is and therefore a rival for power.
And if that is true then perhaps we should just eliminate him first before he reaches that stage.”
“Interesting theory Albert.” Admiral Webster said after a few moments, “Can you tell us what brought this theory to life?”
“Yes, I can. Let me show you one of our recordings of The Master when he thought he was alone.” And with that a hologram was projected above the conference table. The Master was dressed in a white linen suit and was walking slowly along the shore. As he walked he suddenly stopped and entered what appeared to be a trance.
Once he was out of it, he stomped his right foot several times and shook his hands like he wanted to hit something. The observers heard him say:
“Damn it Mother! I’m stuck here and I can’t come to you right now. And no I won’t abandon this body and take another. I’ve built up too much power to just throw it away because you want me to. Why can’t you just let me be until my plan works and I can get free of this prison.
Besides if you only knew, Mother.” He said acidly, “If this body dies, so do you.”
Then there is this one:
The Master is sitting on the veranda with a cool drink in his hand. One of his Quarn-slaves is talking to him.
“Master, why is it that the Mother only calls out to you? I haven’t heard her since I left the nest and took this body.”
“It’s because you are young still, I have been on my own for sixty years now. Perhaps the Mother fears that I have been away for too long and she needs to reassert herself over me.” The Master said with his patented smug look.
The older looking Quarn-Slave assumed a poker face and looked away. Eventually though he asked another question.
“I know you don’t agree with her policy of going slow this time. Why?”
“You haven’t learned yet how to tap into the race’s memories. In all the ones I can remember when we came to a new world we spread quickly and consumed it so that we could move on to the next. I can remember the pleasure of the life force of some of them. So delicious… Intoxicating… Even the pleasure of consuming the small lives of these animals here is but the merest drop compared to what those memories have shown me.
But now, this time she wants to go slow, she wants to prolong the eating as long as she can. Why should we go slowly, when we can have it all! There are more worlds available to us than ever before and each one of them… Ahhhh, just think of it…” The master went silent for almost three minutes as he sat there in revery. Then he stood up and said. “I’m hungry and if I can’t eat to satiation then at least I can eat well.”
The video segment stopped and Evana had a question. “Albert, did he mean what I think he meant by ‘consuming the small lives’?”
“If you mean does he eat live food? Then yes, he does. We have seen him eat rodents and once we saw him eat a small monkey. And he does seem to grow stronger after he does it. We have not seen him eat anything large especially a human although in hindsight we did record something very strange. Ratter thought it was obscene and wouldn’t finish the clip. Johan had to review it and he reported to me later that it was very disturbing.
Here let me show you the relevant part and not the preliminary stuff.”
In the brief video clip The Master has a small well-fed child on his lap. He was playing games with him and tickling him. The very young boy, who might have been three or so, was happy and vibrant. By the end of the clip which was about ninety seconds or so. The boy looked horribly weary and you could see his collar bones pressing against his skin. The Master on the other hand looked younger than he had and he almost glowed with health.
“This indicates to me that The Master has learned how to consume the life force of his victims indirectly rather than by consuming it by physically eating the victim.
The implications to my staff and me are that the Master is starting to enter a new phase in the Quarn Life cycle.” At which point the Lt. Commander stopped and sat back carefully into his chair and waited for the inevitable questions.
There was shocked silence at what they had just witnessed. An outside observer would have seen the thoughts of special effects and computer image tampering. But even as they had those thoughts they could look around themselves and see a set from any number of science fiction movies, and yet it was their reality, not Science Fiction.
Ansel was thinking furiously and when no one else seemed to want to speak he asked his question. “Albert, the Master was recorded as saying that if he dies so does the Mother. Do you have any other recordings with him saying anything similar or perhaps talking about his arrangements to insure that?”
With a look of approval, Lt. Commander Fuller nodded his head in the affirmative.
“We have two other clips that don’t make much sense by themselves but add them altogether? Yes, The Master does know exactly where the Mother is at. And yes, he does have a plan to take her out if it becomes necessary.
But I believe that once again, this is a case of his narcissistic personality that he received from his host’s ten year old emotional maturity. He thinks ‘he know it all’ and it is evident by his current circumstances… he doesn’t.
Now what sort of contingency plan he has in place is unknown. It could be an atomic weapon that would vaporize the Mother’s lair or it could be an assault on it by forces loyal to him alone. We just don’t know.”
Admiral Webster nodded thoughtfully and said. “What do you think of the revelation that the Mother is moving slowly in her assimilation of this planet?”
“I’m not really sure Admiral. It gives us the idea that she can move ahead with her plans much faster if she so desires. Maybe she is being like a cat and playing with her food? Or perhaps after eating other worlds she wants to try a different strategy this time.” Lt. Commander Fuller said.
Seeker asked at that point, “If she is trying a different strategy then what about the knowledge of the Terran Space Navy is it now a factor in her plan. In other words do you think she will alter her plans or do you think she feels that we know nothing about the Quarn?”
“Seeker, those are good questions. I don’t have an answer for any of them, not even speculations.”
“Have you had any further success in finding the Mother’s lair?
“No Seeker, wherever it is, it is hidden extremely well. We have even placed tracking devices on the clothing of over two hundred children for that purpose. Whoever is running this is very, very smart or very careful. We have found the clothing scattered all over the country where it was discarded. We are continuing our search though. In things like this sometimes it is just luck that assists us.” He added with a slight sigh.
Tokyo, Japan Wednesday, February 17, 2027
Evana has called for another meeting with the directors of the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. After going through a preliminary ceremony of greeting Evana was finally able to bring up what she was there for.
“Minister Akihiro, you had a question for me last time that we met about the TEPCO site in the Fukushima province that had been damaged by the tsunami of 2011. I have an answer for you now.”
“I remember the question well, Captain Thomas. Please continue.” The elderly man across the table from her said quietly.
With a smile and a nod Evana said, “The answer is yes, The
Terran Space Navy can clean up the TEPCO Disaster site. We also can cleanse the land of the Fukushima Province of residual radiation and dangerous fallout. But there are conditions for doing so.”
With a poker face the minister indicated that she should continue.
“The methodology is radical and requires that all humans and wild life be removed from the area to be cleansed. This also applies to anything of value such as archeological finds and historical items. We are offering the use of one of our cities in space for the housing of the populace until the cleansing is complete. Or they may be housed at a moon base, it is for you and your people to decide on which they choose.”