*
Seth felt his heart thundering in his chest as he walked down the cold, dark hallway in front of him. This should have been a moment of respite. Less than an hour ago, he was staring down death as he tried to escape Europa with the I.S.S. Monitor. Now he was safe. He succeeded. He had the ship, he managed to leap away, and he even ended up somewhere inhabited.
But all those risks represented threats that Seth understood. He knew the danger of a Republic laser rifle or missile. Now he felt out of his depth.
As soon as he leapt near the space station, Seth received a transmission. A computerized voice instructed him to land the I.S.S. Monitor in the docking bay. He considered refusing, but curiosity overwhelmed him. Something brought him to the station. He needed to find out what that was.
The docking bay was old and dilapidated. The walkways were creaky and looked as if they hadn’t been used in years. Strangely, there was no dust. It was like the station was uninhabited.
Dim blue lights illuminated the ground in the docking bay and led him into the hall. They continued to pull him forward into the eerie station. There was no one around. Everything was dark and shadowy.
The entire structure seemed abandoned, and that wasn’t really as surprise. The Republic gave priority to anyone aboard a deep space station during the relocation. Everyone was pulled off of any outpost more than one light-year away from an inhabited planet. At least in theory, this way no one was left stranded in deep space forever.
As Seth stepped forward, following the blue lights on the ground, he started to consider the best case scenario. In this hopeful fantasy, he had managed to leap to an abandoned space station that was recently evacuated but still habitable. He would be able to use it as a base of operations while he tried to decide where to take the I.S.S. Monitor next.
He couldn’t rationalize such optimism. With all of the empty space in the galaxy, it was impossible he just happened to leap to a useful derelict structure. It was far more likely that something brought him there, and chances were that something was waiting for him.
The lights continued to lead Seth through a maze of hallways. Now he started considering the worst case scenario, which was that he had actually leapt outside of the galaxy. No one knew what was beyond the rim. Perhaps this station belonged to an extragalactic force that would destroy him just like anyone else who dared leap from the Milky Way.
Fortunately, this pessimism seemed just as uncalled-for. The recording from the station was in English. It seemed unlikely that aliens from beyond the rim would be able to communicate using the primary language spoken in the People’s Interstellar Republic.
None of Seth’s theories made any sense. The only thing he could do was push on and see what mysteries the station would reveal.
After a few minutes, Seth reached a large metal door. It was emblazoned with a familiar symbol. At first glance, it looked like the double-helix structure of DNA. But as Seth approached, he saw that it was two entwined snakes. There was a single word beneath the symbol: “LACHESIS”. Before Seth could recognize the name, the door slid open.
Inside was a massive room with high-vaulted ceilings. There were viewscreens on every wall, displaying videos, camera feeds of the darkness outside of the station, and spreadsheets of unreadable information. Neatly arranged consoles lined the floors, surrounding a large open area in the middle of the room. Seth squinted as he looked towards the empty area and saw what looked like the shadow of a thin figure.
“Please, come in Mr. Garland.”
The voice was soft, noticeably feminine, but cold. Seth didn’t dare disobey his host. He was too overwhelmed with fear and curiosity. How did she know his name? Why was she expecting him?
Seth stepped into the massive room and felt a blast of chilly air. The temperature was just a few ticks below comfortable, and Seth wrapped his arms across his chest to keep warm.
“Where am I?” he shouted. “Who are you?”
The lights in the center of the room slowly lifted, revealing the shadowy figure within. The first thing Seth noticed about her was how thin she was. He was used to the people on Earth, who could most generously be described as full-figured. Seth was the smallest person he knew but compared to his host he was solidly built.
Her age was impossible to discern. At a glance, she couldn’t have been more than forty years old. Her skin was free of wrinkles, smooth and perfect. But at closer inspection, there was something wrong. Her flesh lacked natural color and her skin was taught against her face, smooth but artificial. She’d had extensive plastic surgery and surface-level body modification, but all of it was incredibly skilled.
The woman’s blue eyes shined brightly in the dark room. They were cybernetic, cutting-edge implants that almost looked real. But they had an tiny internal light source that betrayed their artificiality and they moved jerkily around the room as she focused on Seth.
She wore an elegant high-collared black pantsuit. It was a few decades out-of-date on Earth, but fit the spindly woman well. Her fingers were flawlessly manicured and painted with deep red polish. They almost looked as false as her skin and her eyes. Her ivory hair draped straight down in perfect symmetry right above her shoulders.
“It has been a long time since I have had a visitor,” the woman said. When she opened her mouth, Seth could see that her teeth were straight and pearly-white. Seth shuddered. He couldn’t decide whether she was hideous or hauntingly beautiful. She’d had so many surgeries and minor cybernetic implants that she barely looked human anymore.
“You... You haven’t answered my questions.”
The woman crossed her legs and pursed her lips. For just a second, Seth could see the faint shadow of crow’s feet in the corner of her eyes. “Forgive me. My name is Moira Quick. I am the founder, CEO, and sole owner of Lachesis Technologies. This is my longtime home and headquarters. And I brought you here.”
“You were the one who sent the man with that gnostin, weren’t you?” Seth exclaimed. “You tried to brainwash me.”
Moira smiled. “I did what I had to do. But it seems that you resisted it. You did resist it, didn’t you?”
Seth’s heart jumped into his throat. He felt his hands start to tremble. And he began to wonder whether he’d ever been acting of his own free will. When he used the Lachesis gnostin, he immediately discovered that it was attempting to brainwash him into stealing a starship for the company. He fought off the influence of the device, and mined it for its secrets...or had he? After all, he’d gone ahead and done everything the gnostin wanted him to. He even leapt the ship straight to the Lachesis space station.
“Don’t worry, Seth Garland,” Moira said as soon as she noticed his fear. “You came here of your own volition. I was testing you.. If something as simple as mass-produced human technology could overcome your free will, I could never trust you.”
“It was a test?” Seth’s mind was running in circles. Even if he wasn’t brainwashed, it was the gnostin that put the idea in his head. It was the gnostin that showed him the way to do it. It was the gnostin that brought him there.
Moira’s eyes narrowed. “I tried to brainwash you to steal a starship and take it to a dock on Quantron. There, my men would have killed you because you couldn’t be trusted. You resisted the brainwashing, and you pushed into the depths of the gnostin and discovered the location of my home. You passed the test with flying covers, Mr. Garland.”
Seth took a deep breath. He still wasn’t entirely sure that he trusted what Moira was saying. He hadn’t found the location of the space station. It had been implanted in his head without his knowledge. “I’m sorry Mrs. Quick,” he said. “But I’m really confused. What do you want with me?”
“You are nervous,” Moira replied. “That is understandable.” She raised one of her hands to point at him. It was trembling. “I need you to keep something in mind. You have spen
t the last few months of your life preparing for this moment. I have spent the last...” Her voice trailed off as she decided not to continue. “I have spent a much longer time. So I am also quite nervous.”
“Preparing for this moment?” Seth took a couple more steps towards Moira.“You knew the Fall was coming?”
Moira nodded. “Among other things.”
“What other things?”
A long, cold silence filled the room. Seth could see that Moira was considering how much to tell him. He thought about running up to her, grabbing her, and demanding to hear everything that she knew. She was small and thin, he was sure he could overpower her. But something stopped him. As soon as he looked in her eerie cybernetic eyes, he was terrified. No matter how fragile she appeared, she commanded an incredible and overwhelming presence. He didn’t want to hurt her. He wasn’t even sure he really could.
“Let me tell you a bit about myself, Mr. Garland,” Moira said, staring straight at him. “My first job was packaging cargo on a solar mine. I worked my way up from the lowest of the low to where I am now. First, I surpassed all my peers. I made myself stand out. I did everything I could to succeed, and I didn’t stop clawing my way to the top until this very moment. And I didn’t do it because I wanted money or power or prestige. Every dime I earned I spent, either to further my cause or simply to keep myself alive for as long as I needed to. I’ve called in every favor I have. And very few people know I still breathe.”
“Why... Why then?”
Moira leaned forward. Her illuminated eyes seemed to peer straight into Seth’s soul. “To save the human race.”
Seth felt overcome by a chill. He broke Moira’s gaze by looking away and backed a few steps towards the door. Then he tried to re-assert himself. “I’ve heard such things before,” he said. “The commissar I worked with on Earth, the man enforcing the Fall, told me he was saving the human race.”
“Then he has no idea what is going on at all,” Moira replied. She folded her hands in her lap. “Of course, that is not his fault. No one really understands like I do.”
“Tell me,” Seth demanded. “Why did you help me? Why did you bring me here?”
Moira pressed her perfect teeth together. “When I was your age—a long, long time ago—I was given a vision of the future. I saw the Fall, and the terrible things that follow. It was only a sliver of things to come, but it was enough. We cannot lose the Heilmann Drive, Seth Garland. We need it.”
Seth nodded. “I know. That’s why I stole the I.S.S. Monitor.”
A grave look passed over Moira’s face. “The Monitor? You were supposed to take the Illustrious. That was the plan.”
Seth remembered the difficulty he had in operating the controls aboard the Monitor. The gnostin trained him to operate the large military ship, not the nimble science vessel. “I was a bit late in getting to the Illustrious.”
“So you don’t have any weapons, or shields, and very little space.” Moira sighed. “I suppose there is nothing that can be done now. But Monitor? That’s a terrible name. Change it.”
Another frigid silence passed between them as Seth waited for Moira to elaborate. She’d hinted at some awful future, some reason the survival of the faster-than-light starship was necessary. Everything about her was strange, from her unsettling appearance to the massive, otherwise empty space station around her. And all she had to tell him was to change the name of his starship? Seth couldn’t believe there wasn’t more.
“Is that it?” he finally asked. “Is that your advice? Rename the Monitor? You’re not going to tell me what I’m supposed to do? Or explain this terrible threat you keep talking about?”
Moira smiled. “Didn’t you have a plan when you left Europa? That is what you should do. As for anything else, it is best if I keep quiet for now. We all have our roles to play. You have your role. I have my role and, to be honest, I have probably interfered with you too much as it is.”
Seth couldn’t handle it anymore. He felt like he was being manipulated. Moira’s obfuscations were infuriating. She was keeping everything from him. On top of that, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was some other programming left over from the gnostin that would kick in.
“This is not acceptable,” Seth shouted. He started to charge towards Moira. “You will tell me what is going on right now! I will not be used!” He reached out, as if to grab her by the arm, but froze in place.
Moira looked up at him. She wasn’t afraid. “You are many things, Seth Garland,” she said. “But stupid is not one of them. As you may have guessed, I am not in particularly good health. You could hurt me. You could kill me. In fact, right now if you pulled me from this chair I would stop breathing. So you are right to think you can threaten me. But it goes both ways. If my brain function is interrupted for even a second, the power generators on this station will trigger an instantaneous implosion.”
“You’re not scared to die?”
“Quite the contrary,” she replied. “Please, Seth Garland, if you think you cannot handle what I am telling you you should end this now. It would be a relief. After so long, I could finally rest.” Moira’s artificial eyes made it incredibly difficult to read her. But it looked like she was genuinely pleading with him. “Take this burden from me. I have done all I can. I am tired. I want to be done. The death you could give me now is far quieter than the death I have seen for myself.”
Seth backed away from her. “Don’t be silly. I’m not going to kill both of us.”
“Then you will have to trust me. I have given you the starship you wanted. It is in your hands now, in your control completely. This is how it should be, and how it must be. A time will come when you can know more. But that time is not now. Now, you need to build your strength for the coming trials.”
That was it. She wasn’t going to give him any guidance. She’d spent untold decades planning for this meeting and all she could tell him was that he was on his own. There was nothing he could do. He could only appreciate that she was on his side.
“I guess I will be going then,” Seth said. “Thank you for your help, though I wish you would tell me why you gave it.”
Moira held up a hand. “I ask you one more thing, a simple favor.” She pointed to the screens that surrounded her chair. “For years, I have survived on the kindness of a few starship pilots. I paid them well, but they risked their careers to bring me supplies and entertainment. I am not on any of the authorized trade routes. Every few weeks, someone would leap in and transmit news and videos from across the many worlds. Would you mind doing the same?”
Seth arched an eyebrow. “You want me to bring you things to watch?”
“I am alone on this station. Without news feeds, films, sports, anything stimulating... I grow bored. The burden I carry is heavy enough. I do not wish to also be bored.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Moira grinned and, for just a second, Seth could have sworn it was genuine. “Your first stop should be Airlann. I probably shouldn’t tell you that. But I like you. I want you to succeed, and not just because our species depends on it.”
Faster Than Light: Babel Among the Stars Page 23
