by Alex Deva
“I agree with the last part, and I also believe that you’re better suited than most, mister Aram,“ said Tiessler. “But, as the only pilot to that wonderful little craft of yours, you’re our only hope to detect the Eight, should they return. Getting help is vital, but your job is unique. I suggest that you must keep doing it.“
Aram glanced at Mark, who shot him back a quick nod.
“Fine. But next time, I definitely get to go,“ said the blond.
Tiessler smiled a little.
“I suppose we’ll postpone the decision on the team complement for the time being,“ said Dahlberg. “It’s good to be prepared, but who knows how long we have to wait for an answer, if we ever get one. Perhaps things will change, and it’s always best to make an informed decision.“
“Give it up, Lykke. You can’t go,“ said the priest.
The Norwegian’s lips were thin and white and she didn’t say anything.
“When will you have the schematics ready?“ asked Mark.
“They’re ready. They’ve been ready for days. I’m uploading them to your tab now,“ said Souček. “I trust your ship can interface with the tab…?“
Mark glanced sideways at Doina.
“No problem,“ she said. And then, after a moment: “Was that it?“
“You… felt the data transfer?“ asked Souček.
“Doi-the-ship talks to your tab, and I talk to her,“ said the girl. “It’s no big deal. When should we start broadcasting?“
“As soon as it’s practical,“ said Tiessler.
Doina shrugged. “I can start now, then. Just give us a few moments to prepare.“ She stared forward for a few seconds, then said: “Okay. We’re ready.“
“May God bless our plan and your action,“ said Souček.
“Thank you, father,“ said Doina, absently. “Broadcasting… now.“
They looked around, as if expecting to detect the starship’s invisible transmission. Nobody spoke. Aram shifted on the chair. Souček looked to his side and gestured to someone outside the camera’s field of view. Dahlberg coughed.
“Well,“ she said. “It could be days, weeks or months until we get an answer. If we get an answer. I suggest we reconv…“
“We have an answer,“ said Doina.
* * *
“Impossible,“ said Dahlberg.
“Possible,“ said Souček, again checking something off-screen. “And fact. Our transceiver in Geneva is working in overdrive. We have a bilateral connection to… somewhere. There’s been a handshake and now the tunnel is idle, apart for periodic heartbeat pings.“
“What…? How?“
“Don’t ask me how, but it’s working. It’s working as well as if it was connected to the next room.“
“But… How could anyone answer so fast? Decipher our plans? Understand all the science, the language, the maths? Build a telesentience transceiver in less than ten seconds?“
“I don’t know,“ repeated the priest. “But it certainly sounds like someone who might be capable of helping us.“
Or destroy us, thought Mark. “OK, what now?“ he asked.
“I don’t… Well, I suppose you’re up,“ said the Norwegian. “We’ll wait for you in Geneva, that’s where our transceiver is.“
“I’ll arrange transport,“ said Tiessler, quietly.
“What are your thoughts, colonel?“ asked Mark.
The German raised his eyebrows and blinked slowly. He leaned his head on a side, thinking, and then spoke in measured tones:
“Your arrival has redefined my standard of normality, mister Greene,“ he said. “To be perfectly honest, if at this point I were to look out the window and see a fire-breathing dragon flying around my cruiser, I would question its intentions before its substance. I do not understand how our plan could have worked so unbelievably fast, but as the old saying goes, wem das Ferkel geboten wird, soll den Sack bereit haben.“
He straightened up and continued:
“I’ll pick you up in a Pinion and take you to Geneva. Then we’ll see what kind of piglet falls into our proverbial sack.“
* * *
“Erbardh“, said the man. Mark recognised him immediately; he’d been one of the soldiers who had escorted him, among the ones that Lawry had called Rooks. As the man had entered the room and offered his hand to the Brit, he’d put on a big, genial smile. Mark sized him up instantly and instinctively, as he felt himself being sized up at the same time. The man was very athletic, built like a lion — not really massive, but supple and strong, with all the telltales of a professional soldier. It was in the way he took in his surroundings, and in the way he carried himself. To Mark, it was unmistakable.
“Excuse me?“ he said.
“But you can call me Zi,“ the big soldier clarified. “You’re Mark, right? Nice to meet you.“
“Nice to meet you too,“ said Mark, shaking his hand. “Is Zi your first name then?“
“No, it’s Erbardh, like I said. My friends call me Zi. It’s kinda funny. Bardh means ‘white’ and they call me Zi because it means ‘black.’“
“Ah,“ Mark understood. Barracks humour. The big man was obviously trying to be friendly to a fellow soldier, so he smiled back.
“Are you American?“ he said, somewhat puzzled by the man’s accent.
“Albanian,“ Zi clarified, as he sat on a chair opposite Mark. “I know, right? Everyone says that. I guess Albanians just speak with an American accent for some reason. So, what’s it like to be back?“
“Actually I was on Earth just a couple of days ago,“ said Mark.
“Downside,“ said Zi. “We say downside, like in that joke, you know?“
“What joke?“
“What’s the advantage of living in space? Well, there’s no downside,“ quoted Zi, still grinning. “Anyway, I know. I was there, remember? We covered you all the way from that Pinion you came in with.“
Mark did remember, and he said so. The Albanian was testing his visual memory, and he seemed satisfied with the result. He leaned forward on his seat, and sought the Brit’s gaze with his own green eyes.
“So you really are three hundred years old?“
“Such are the wonders of physics.“
Zi smacked his lips, nodded appreciatively and expressed his expert opinion on the matter:
“Wow.“
Then he fell silent, still looking into Mark’s eyes, like someone who has more questions but either doesn’t know if he ought to ask them, or isn’t quite sure how to formulate them yet.
“You want to know about the starship,“ said Mark.
“You were in the SAS?“ asked Zi instead, unexpectedly. He pronounced it “suhs,“ and Mark didn’t understand at first.
“In the…? Ah. Yes. The Special Air Service. 22nd Regiment.“
“When did you join?“
“I passed Selection in 1999.“
Zi nodded again, impressed:
“Wow.“
“Wow what? Are you surprised that it was centuries ago, or that I passed at all?“ asked Mark.
The other gave a brief, sharp laugh.
“The SAS’s a bit of a legend, you gotta understand,“ he said. “Some of the things you guys and girls did were really awesome. I’m an SF myself,“ he added. “Been in the special forces about fourteen years now.“
“Wait,“ said Mark. “What girls?“
The other giggled. “Shit man, you’re old as salt. There were women in the SAS.“
That surprised Mark.
“No, there weren’t.“ he said. “Not in my time. They must’ve let them in after I, erm, left.“
Zi opened his shirt pocket and pulled out what seemed like a cigar, but instead of lighting it, he spoke into it:
“In what year were women allowed in the SAS?“ he asked.
“2016,“ answered Siri’s great-granddaughter.
Mark nodded. “About two years later, apparently.“ Then, gesturing towards the cigar: “Nice toy.“
“What, my comp
en? Standard issue. What’s so nice about it?“
The Brit was about to answer when the door opened and Jessica Lawry walked in, followed by a man with thin hair, who was holding a tab in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, in exactly the same manner as that in which early 21st century scientists used to hold clipboards and coffees.
“I see you’ve met Zi,“ she said.
“That rhymes,“ observed the soldier, putting his long, thin gadget back in his pocket.
“Yeah, I’ve been working on that all day,“ she said with her usual irony. “So, are you guys ready to visit another planet?“
Zi just gave her a stare that said “would I be sitting here if I wasn’t?“ and Mark said:
“As ready as we’ll ever be.“
“This is dr. Lem.“
“Hello,“ said the man with the coffee. “Lieutenant Xhaka here has already been through the process once or twice, so I’ll explain it for your benefit, mister Greene.“ He had a rather poignant Slavic accent, but spoke clearly, in that slightly patronising tone that scientists often adopt when they have to explain things to soldiers.
“I’m all ears,“ said Mark.
“The TS transceiver interfaces with the human body via very precise lasers which are pointed mostly around your head. For practical reasons which include health and safety, namely your health and your safety, that means you can’t move at all. And, since this technology, as well as its current application, is intended to be applied over longer periods of time, simply asking you to lay still would not be good enough.“
He paused, giving Mark a chance to ask for clarifications. When no questions came, he continued.
“You will therefore be anaesthetised inside a sensory deprivation tank. You will be intubated with a feeding and breathing tube. Until the telesentience interface connects to your nervous system, you will not be able to see anything, hear anything, feel anything, including the taste of your own mouth or the touch on your own skin. But the connection usually takes no more than a few seconds.“
He paused again, and this time Zi said:
“Is it too late to change my mind?“
“Yes,“ said Lawry. “You’re bought and paid for. Now shut up.“
“What happens if something goes wrong?“ asked Mark.
“If it’s after the connection, we’ll know — or, at the very least, you’ll be able to tell us.“
“How?“
“Precisely as you do it now.“
“What happens if I move my arm?“
“Your muscles will not respond, but the electrochemical parameters of your brain command will be digitised on their own data channel.“
“It’ll feel like moving your arm,“ translated Zi. “When I did it, they actually put me inside some VR. I could really see my fake arm moving.“
“Why did you do it?“ asked Mark. Zi looked puzzled, as if the question was stupid.
“Standard Rook training,“ said Lawry. “And that says a lot.“
“I thought telesentience had absolutely nothing to do with remotely controlled soldiers,“ said Mark with a straight face.
Lem nearly gagged on his coffee and went into a fit of coughing.
“As I was saying,“ he continued, when he could breathe normally again. “If something goes wrong before the connection, we’ll open up your tank and bring you back gradually. And then we try again.“
“And there’s absolutely no chance that your brain will misinterpret the signals and decide to give you a nice taste of real-life cerebral palsy,“ said Zi.
“I’m pretty sure I told you to shut up,“ said Lawry. “I have a vivid recollection of those exact words coming right out of my mouth.“
“The odds of that are very small,“ said the doctor. “I mean, it virtually never happens. They’re really small. The odds.“
Mark looked from one to the other, saying nothing. Jessica Lawry shifted her weight from one foot to the other, while Zi laboriously tried to reach something between his back teeth with his tongue.
“OK. When?“ he said eventually.
“When you’re ready,“ said Lem, rather glad to be over and done with risk assessments. “First, we’ll prepare you; then, we’ll sink you in the tank; then connect and confirm that all is fine. And then we’ll hook up the TS machine to the relay that’s linked to your magic ship.“
“Right. Do I need to sign anything?“
The other three just stared at him.
“I don’t know,“ said Lawry, confused. “You feel like you wanna sign something?“
The Brit thought that either all legal aspects had been taken care of, or — more likely — they hadn’t even been considered yet.
“Let’s do it,“ he said, standing up.
“We’ll take lieutenant Xhaka first,“ said Lem. “One at a time is safest. Then we can focus on one individual and the odds of miss… I mean it’s easier to…“
The Albanian saved the doctor by standing up quickly, with a half-amused, half-exasperated face. He stretched, smiled and patted Mark on the shoulder.
“See you soon,“ he said, and went in the other room, followed closely by Lem.
Jessica Lawry sat in his place, and waited for the door to close.
“How’re you holding up?“ she asked Mark, softly.
“Pretty well,“ Mark answered. “Considering that I’m about to have a serious nightmare.“
She observed him sombrely for a while, trying to read his face.
“And I’m guessing you’re used to nightmares,“ she said just as softly, measuring her words carefully.
Mark swallowed a sigh. The bitter taste he’d always get in his mouth whenever he remembered Sara and her mother appeared right on cue. He swallowed again and, as always, the taste seemed to spread through his entire body, turning into a cold shiver that reached his every fibre.
“Ah. But this one’ll be for a greater cause,“ he said, not believing it one bit.
“You don’t believe that one bit,“ she said.
He smiled, humourlessly. “Yeah, well. It’s always easier to think of individuals than it is to think of a whole planet.“
“I relate,“ she said simply.
It was Mark’s turn to look at her with an unspoken question in his gaze. Eventually, he asked it:
“How did you become a spy?“
“You mean, a traitor?“ she replied.
“Honestly, I’m not quite sure what you are. But you did save our lives, and if that came with treason, I can’t really afford to be judgemental.“
“You don’t have to worry,“ she said. “I’d already committed treason by the time I saved your asses.“
“Were you a sleeper agent?“
“No. I was turned, pure and simple.“
The Brit raised his eyebrows a little.
“By whom? Or by what?“
“It wasn’t blackmail,“ she said. “It was… a long story.“
“Might be the last one I hear. If you want to tell it.“
“They killed my wife,“ she said.
“Who did?“
“Well, a US Army executioner, if you want to be specific. Not that it matters.“
“Why?“
“Because they found her out. She’d been a spy for Eurasia during her time at the MoD.“
“Did you know?“
“No. She kept it a secret from me too. All her life. I never suspected a thing. But they caught her. It was inevitable, I guess. Even she didn’t think that she could go on forever.“
“How do you know?“
“She left me her encrypted diary,“ said Jessica. “They confiscated all her stuff, of course. But she had it tucked away somewhere safe. It had a dead man’s switch. Literally, a dead… Anyway; it sent itself to me automatically a couple of months after she was executed.“
It surprised Mark how lightly she talked about it, just as if she’d been talking about somebody else. Hell, it used to take him long therapy sessions just to navigate the dark labyrinths
of his mind and arrive to the carefully sealed box in which the memories of his life’s failure were locked. But she spoke simply and directly, as if she was telling a fictional story. Whatever her secret is, I could use that, he thought.
“It turned out that she actually wrote to me quite a lot,“ she said. “You know, to compensate for all the secrets, I guess. I don’t even know when she had time to write so much. Suppose she did it while I was sleeping. She wrote about her handlers, about her missions, about the things she was stealing and passing along, the drop boxes, the protocols, everything. She wrote about how hard it was to not be able to talk to me about it, and how it helped that she was at least writing. She wrote about me, too. It was like getting to know her all over again.“
“How did she die?“ asked Mark quietly.
“Asphyxiated,“ she said. “The same day as her court martial. They sentenced her in the morning and put her in the dorm in the afternoon.“
“The… dorm?“
“Yeah. You know. You lie on a bed, they take away the oxygen and replace it with carbon dioxide, you fall asleep and never wake up.“
“I see. It was done differently in my time.“
“Yeah. Well, she didn't hang, as in the old days,“ said Lawry, and Mark was again shocked at how detached she appeared to be. He didn't even know how to react.
“I’m sorry,“ he tried.
“Her handler contacted me about a year later,“ she went on. “By that time I’d already read a lot about her… cause, I guess I should call it. You know, her reasons, her choices, her motivations. And I guess I’d kinda adopted them to some degree. And it just so happened that I’d just been promoted to targeting officer on the Kennedy about a half year before she was arrested. Once they found her out, they put me through all kinds of tests, but I passed them all, because I didn't get her diary until after that, so they let me keep my job because I seemed good at it, or something.“
She made a pause, as if remembering, then made as if to straighten up.
“So when the war came, I betrayed the United States,“ she said. “Just because that’s what Alicia would’ve wanted. I saved as many Eurasian lives as I could, ending with yours, and then I couldn’t hide anymore. Tiessler somehow managed to extract me.“