Starship Alchemon

by Christopher Hinz

  Ericho, June and Faye watched in silent curiosity as Rigel closed the other doors, including the one to Alexei’s treatment room. The four of them were now isolated in the lobby. With a safepad activated, they were theoretically shielded from all forms of eavesdropping.

  “Medcenter is already in a dopa,” June pointed out. “We’re assured of privacy.”

  “We’re assured of nothing,” Rigel said. “Not if I’m right. I lied to you earlier, about not being finished tearing apart that link. I did finish and found out why it went nuts. The suit’s power modules were remotely reprogrammed and the safety circuits disabled. Someone introduced new programming that enabled them to take control of the suit.”

  “Baby Blue,” Faye said.

  “That’s what we’ve all been focusing on. But we may have the wrong suspect. I have an alternate theory. I think our lytic has gone over the edge, the same way the lieutenant did. Whether he was driven that way by LeaMarsa or by our nasty little friend in the containment or some combination of the two doesn’t matter. Bottom line, I think Jonomy’s gone nuts.”

  Ericho glanced at June and Faye. Their astonished looks mirrored his own.

  “Think about it. He’s connected to the ship most of the time. And he’s the only crewmember who can input the sort of commands that can restructure major or minor systems, such as what was done to the link.”

  “But why?” June asked.

  “Who knows? All this psionic crap got to him, same way it got to Donner. If you posit Jonomy as the main cause of our problems, everything begins to make sense. Think back to the first malfunction, the link robot in the containment. Jonomy easily could have taken control of CYB and made those circuitry modifications, right?”

  Ericho nodded.

  “The next thing that happens is SEN reacts. The warrior pup is dispatched to deal with the whacked-out robot. So, Jonomy gets pissed and tries to take over the pup. Only there he runs into a problem. He’s dealing with a Sentinel now, and it’s not so easy. Ten times out of ten, SEN’s going to win that battle.

  “But even though the Sentinel is faster, Jonomy is pretty shrewd and has some tricks up his sleeve. For a while, the two of them fight for control of the warrior pup. It can’t handle the conflicting orders. Maybe it goes crazy and blasts its way out of the containment.

  “Then comes the mess in the pool. Maybe Jonomy doesn’t even know what’s growing down there. But if he is crazy, he could be sending weird signals into the network, even doing it unconsciously. There’s precedent for such a thing. Ever hear of the Bountiful Nomad?”

  It sounded vaguely familiar to Ericho. Faye jumped in with the details.

  “The Bountiful Nomad was a Quiets exploratory ship about thirty years ago. During its voyage, their lytic contracted some rare disease.”

  “Not a disease,” June clarified. “Their lytic unknowingly had been infected by a parasite during a previous voyage to the Louis Vuitton colonies. One of the symptoms of the infection was sudden and unpredictable bouts of microsleep.”

  “Now I remember,” Ericho said. “The lytic ended up conking out for extremely short periods, just a few seconds here and there, but while umbilically linked.”

  “He wasn’t even aware of what was happening to him. But he would slip into a dream state and his subconscious mind would cause contamination of the nutriment bath and other systems. It took the crew a while to figure out what was going on.”

  Ericho shook his head. “It still sounds pretty farfetched that Jonomy’s our problem. And what about this other ship that’s tracking us?”

  “What other ship?” Rigel asked. “Jonomy probably figures we’ll eventually suspect him as the source of our troubles, so he creates evidence of a mysterious vessel hundreds of thousands of kilometers away. Just far enough out, by the way, that we can’t get any solid telemetry. But with its presence, we’re suddenly looking away from the Alchemon, away from our own lytic as the source of the problem.”

  “Externalizing our fears,” June mused, starting to buy into Rigel’s theory.

  Faye also seemed persuaded. “That’s the first sensible explanation I’ve heard for what’s happening in the natatorium. Those transformations are just so illogical. But if you posit them as the unintentional byproduct of a deranged lytic, it makes a weird kind of sense.”

  Ericho remained skeptical. “You’re overlooking the most likely explanation for our problems. Remember that presumed crossover between psionic superluminals and portions of the electromagnetic spectrum? That points us right back to Baby Blue.”

  “I don’t doubt that Baby Blue is causing a superluminal shitstorm,” Rigel said. “But isn’t it more reasonable to assume that because of that storm, Jonomy suffered a psychotic break?”

  Faye nodded. “Occam’s razor. When in doubt, select the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions.”

  “Damn right, Occam’s razor,” Rigel growled. “That Baby Blue drove our lytic insane best fits the facts.”

  “If what you’re saying is true,” Ericho said, “then it was Jonomy who vacuumed the containment. But why would he do that? And how did he do it?”

  Rigel shrugged. “As to the ‘why’ part, if he’s crazy, he could be operating under any sort of rationale. He knew we were about to do the EVA so maybe he figured to beat us to the punch. Or maybe some deep part of his mind realizes that Baby Blue and LeaMarsa are affecting him and he’s conflicted. As to how he vacuumed the containment, who the hell knows? He’s a goddamn lytic, which means he’s whip-smart and knows how to bypass systems.”

  “But Baby Blue wasn’t ejected with the purge,” Ericho pointed out.

  “We only have Jonomy’s word for that. It would make sense for him to say Baby Blue is still onboard.”

  “To keep our suspicions focused on the creature as the source of our troubles,” Faye said.

  Ericho remained unconvinced. “Despite what happened aboard the Bountiful Nomad, there hasn’t been a documented case of true insanity in a lytic since their earliest years. And that was mainly with some of the more bizarre models, very experimental genejobs and the like. I don’t believe the rational part of Jonomy would succumb. He’d recognize what was happening, work to counteract it.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Rigel said. “But here’s the bottom line. If I’m right, we’ve got a hell of a problem. A renegade lytic is seriously bad news.”

  “There’s something else,” June said. “Jonomy has had a number of recent psych sessions with me. He’s recognized a problem.” She glanced at Faye and Rigel, hesitated.

  “Spit it out,” Ericho said. “We’re way past worrying about doctor-patient confidentiality.”

  “He’s becoming a dreamlounge junkie. It’s not an unusual problem for anyone to have, including lytics. His fantasies themselves aren’t out of the ordinary, mostly vanilla sexual encounters. The trouble is, he’s been so caught up in experiencing them that he’s even been doing it from the bridge, connecting to the dreamlounge through the umbilical.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?” Faye asked.

  “Technically no, although it does stretch the lytic code of ethics. The real issue is the frequency of the fantasies. He admits he can barely go more than ten minutes without thinking about them. And since our last session was days ago, there’s likely been a further escalation.”

  “Anybody need more proof?” Rigel demanded, glaring at each of them in turn. “If that doesn’t indicate a seriously warped mind, I don’t know what does.”

  “All right, Rigel, you’ve made your point,” Ericho said. “There’s a way to test your theory. Jonomy’s been linked to the ship for more than thirty hours, well past his usual bridge shift.”

  “Which means irrespective of the fantasies, he’s in the danger zone,” June said. “For lytics, that many sequential hours can lead to serious neurological deficits. He’ll not only be less alert but susceptible to microsleep events.”

  Ericho outlined his plan. “I’ll go to the bridge and point that o
ut to him, recommend he take a break. If he argues, I’ll make it an order.”

  “What if he refuses?” Rigel asked. “If he is bonkers and realizes we’re on to him, he could cause damage to the ship.”

  “What if he turns off life support?” Faye asked, a tremor of fear in her voice. “Or opens all the airlocks?”

  Rigel shook his head. “EHO and EAC are critical Level Two systems. If he tries something that bold, he’ll probably awaken the Sentinel. Considering what happened with the warrior pup, I think he’ll try to avoid provoking SEN.”

  “Still, Faye has a valid concern,” Ericho said. “If he is crazy, he could come up with a hundred ways to hurt us or disable the ship.”

  “Could we try warning SEN directly, detailing our suspicions?” June asked.

  “Not without Jonomy finding out,” Rigel said.

  “With everything that’s been happening, why hasn’t SEN already taken some sort of action?” Faye asked.

  Ericho shrugged. “Maybe the same reason as us. It’s not certain what’s really going on, which means it’s not sure what action it should take. Sentinels normally activate in the face of specific, comprehensible threats. I think it’s safe to say that what’s been happening to us defies that sort of easy assessment.”

  Rigel nodded in agreement. “SEN wasn’t programmed to deal with some super-intelligent bastard lifeform attacking a ship’s network, not to mention the crew. Bottom line, we have to figure on the Sentinel behaving unpredictably.”

  “Which means we can’t count on it for saving us. In any case, if we’re right about Jonomy, trying to warn SEN on our own is too risky.” He turned to the tech officer. “We still have a manual Higgs cutter onboard, right?”

  “Yeah, the one Donner didn’t vaporize. It’s in the mech shop.”

  “Can you airgap a shieldsuit so that no one can remotely take control of it?”

  “Sure. I can rip out the transceivers and cripple the com-link circuitry, everything but basic two-way radio. Take me five minutes.”

  “Do it. Then get into the shieldsuit and hide the Higgs cutter. Head for the bridge so that you arrive just after I get there. If I can’t convince Jonomy to unlink or if he becomes threatening in any way, don’t wait for my signal. Use the HC. Cut the cord.”

  June frowned. “If you sever an umbilical without allowing a lytic to go through his withdrawal routine, Jonomy could suffer grave neurological damage.”

  “Whose side are you on?” Rigel demanded.

  “Just make sure you’re right about him before you do something so drastic.”

  Ericho nodded in agreement.

  “Jonomy will probably track me,” Rigel said. “I think I can retrieve the HC without him noticing. But he’s sure as hell going to wonder what I’m doing in a shieldsuit.”

  “Tell him you’re under orders from me and that I’m on my way to the bridge to explain.”

  Rigel headed out the door.

  “What do you want us to do?” June asked.

  “Stay here with Alexei. If things go bad, medcenter is a reasonably secure area of the ship.”

  Faye gestured to the safepad. “What if Jonomy’s been trying to call us?”

  “Deactivate the safepad after I’m gone. If he asks about being out of touch, tell him you have no idea.”

  Ericho could tell they had more questions. But there wasn’t time to address every contingency. If they were dealing with a crazed lytic, separating Jonomy from the network was the primary concern.

  He exited into the corridor; aware he needed to kill a few minutes while Rigel modified the shieldsuit. The main social room was up ahead and he ducked in, intending to grab an iced coffee from the dispenser. But he instantly flashed back to something that had occurred at the Homebound, something that in the swirl of ensuing events he’d forgotten about.

  He’d asked June to put together a comprehensive file on LeaMarsa, everything the crewdoc could find that didn’t violate medical ethics. His interest had been triggered by LeaMarsa’s unease when he’d mentioned the connection between superluminals and mitochondrials, and the fact that her parents were bioresearchers specializing in mitochondrial DNA. As soon as the crisis with Jonomy was resolved, he’d remind June about the file.

  He still couldn’t come up with a good reason why he wanted the info. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was of the utmost importance.

  CHAPTER 21

  LeaMarsa left the storage pod lab and wandered aimlessly through downdeck, still trying to process the narrative that had come to her while ensconced within the isolator hood. That an ancient civilization, the Avrit-Ah-Tay, had created the Quad – the Diar-Fahn, an entity whose fourth level of consciousness enabled full access to the compacted dimension of neurospace – was an incredible notion. Yet she sensed truth in the words of Nanamistyne, the phantom woman.

  Nonetheless, her anger about being manipulated continued to simmer. The crew, the creature – who sought to use her in some way she didn’t yet grasp – Nanamistyne, who clearly also had an unknown agenda: all considered her a pawn.

  She rounded a bend in the deserted corridor and halted at an airseal. It took a moment to recognize where her random stroll had brought her. Beyond the door was the short passage leading to the natatorium.

  A swim sounded like a perfect tonic, a way to ease worries, soothe anger and tamp down any possibility of the reek being awakened. She passed through the airseal and approached the entrance to the pool. A blinking lume sign confronted her.

  Closed for Maintenance.

  Ignoring the sign, she smacked her palm against the manual egress. But the door refused to open. She tabbed an intercom.

  “Jonomy, I’m at the pool. Please open the door.”

  There was no response. She withdrew her compressed wafer from a pocket, unflexed it. But she still couldn’t reach the lytic, nor access any of the ship’s systems.

  Her anger surged.

  “Open the goddamn door!”

  The airseal remained impervious to her rage. She turned around, headed back along the passage to the airseal she’d just passed through. But now that door refused to open.

  She again tried the intercom and the wafer. Nothing. An uneasy feeling took hold. It was as if the ship was conspiring to keep her trapped in this short corridor between two unresponsive airseals.

  Frustrated, she slumped on the deck with her back to the wall. A childhood memory washed over her. She was maybe seven years old and playing a game of pick-up sticks with her father. He’d found the game at an antiques emporium.

  Her father moved a yellow stick but disturbed the pile, losing his turn.

  “Me next!” she said gleefully.

  LeaMarsa’s mother hovered nearby whispering research notes into a wafer, something she often did during her incessant documenting of LeaMarsa’s behavior. Pointing to a green stick at the edge of the pile, her mother suggested it as the next selection.

  Instead, LeaMarsa reached for a red stick buried deeper in the jumble. She freed the wooden twig from its precarious surroundings without disturbing the other sticks and waved it over her head, delighted by success.

  “You’re getting pretty good at this,” her father praised. “We’re guessing that you made use of your exceptional abilities. That’s how you knew to choose the red stick, right?”

  “No, Daddy,” she protested. “It was me who did it. It wasn’t my abilities.”

  She hated the way her parents always tried to attribute her accomplishments to her psychic gifts, as if she had no talents of her own.

  “Seeking out challenging tasks is the hallmark of a maturing psionic,” her father continued, ignoring her objection. “You’re going to grow up to become one of the most remarkable young women in all the settled planets.”

  She’d tolerated their praise, at least until age thirteen when she discovered their manipulation of her genome. After that, memories of their many compliments tended to make her angry. The notion of her father telling her
that she would grow into a remarkable young woman had come to seem like the epitome of selfishness.

  Brilliant husband-and-wife bioresearchers, specializing in mitochondrial DNA.

  Husband-and-wife bioresearchers with colossal ambitions who had injected into LeaMarsa’s embryo a unique strand of mitochondrial DNA crafted from the genetic material of twenty-nine individuals.

  Twenty-nine individuals with inordinately superior psionic abilities. Projectors, receptors and conveyors of the highest order.

  Her parents had embarked upon what they saw as a noble quest, the creation of a superluminal transhuman, a leap forward in human evolution. LeaMarsa had been conceived, in every definition of the word, as a science experiment. She was a full-blown genejob, modified in the womb to become capable of the most extraordinary psionic feats.

  Cursed even before I was born to be forever different. Forever alone.

  CHAPTER 22

  Ericho entered the final stretch of corridor leading to the bridge’s port entrance, trying to project a nonchalant demeanor. Presumably, Jonomy was observing him on surveillance cams amid a plethora of simultaneous tasks.

  His mind wandered back to that Mojave Desert of his dream, descending in the lander with a trio of unknown crewmembers behind him, heading toward the city of Barstow that was no longer there. The more he considered it, the more the dream felt like a harbinger of some grim future. Did it mean that only he and three others from the Alchemon would make it back to Earth? Were the other four crewmembers fated to die?

  It was just a dream, it wasn’t real. He forced concentration to the task at hand, getting Jonomy to unlink from the umbilical.

  It suddenly occurred to him that there was another explanation for their troubles. Maybe the lytic was fine and it was Rigel who’d gone mad. The tech officer certainly had the skills to mess with the ship’s systems. Maybe Rigel’s particular brand of craziness was to cast blame on others. After all, earlier he’d speculated that Pannis was behind their troubles and Baby Blue part of some secret project.