Echoes of Esharam

by Robert Davies

  “It would be better if you came down, Darrien; I do not know how to describe this.”

  They moved as fast as they could, but only at a pace Norris could manage. The lift seemed to take forever, but finally, Hesset motioned them to join her at a remote console on the far side of the library chamber. It was surprising, she told them, but the Kez’Erel language had given her enough access to match characters with Searcher symbols to form a base understanding. With it, she made it through two firewalls, but the memories Norris carried from Settis were required to confirm something else—something disturbing.

  Norris looked on as Hesset retraced her steps, nodding in agreement that each level’s access steps matched what Settis would’ve made. At last, she stopped and pointed to the display.

  “This is the last barrier, but within it, I saw references that point to another, entirely different archive interface.”

  They looked, but nothing made sense until Norris saw it. A single symbol among many stood out and he knew at once what it meant when the fleeting images drawn from Settis’ experience became clear.

  “Shit,” he said softly. “I know what this is. I didn’t see it until just now, but Settis was ordered to stay away from this file system by Toa himself.”

  “Is this what it appears to be?” Hesset asked, knowing only he would understand.

  “Yes, and Settis worked hard to cover his tracks so Toa wouldn’t find out he had been inside.”

  Norris scrolled through, remembering more and more as the clouded memories emerged. When he stood back, they could see in his eyes a secret that had tormented Settis long before.

  “Darrien?” Rantara asked, worrying at the bleak expression on his face.

  “Goddamn it,” he said at last, turning to Hesset. “They’re still here, down below us in that vault!”

  “I knew it,” she replied.

  Rantara’s confused response was immediate.

  “We killed them all, Darrien; there’s no one left.”

  Norris closed his eyes and said, “They’re not Kez’Erel or Merchants.”

  Hesset’s fears had been realized. Two commands into an adjacent pad released unseen locks and a wall panel slid silently downward into the flooring to reveal a large, open elevator platform. Upon it, they waited as it descended to a stop one level down inside a vast, darkened chamber twice the dimensions of the archive library above. When they stepped from the lift as eyes adjusted to the low light, there was only stunned silence.

  Before them, countless bodies lay prone and motionless in strange, conical structures, like stasis pods mounted on a slight angle from the floor. There were dozens of them in neat rows, open to the air and each connected to the low ceiling by a tangle of tubes and cables where tiny status lights winked out from the darkness. They heard no sound, save for the occasional clicks and hisses of respiration and fluid pumps inside each pod, presumably for the purpose of nutrient delivery and waste removal.

  Hesset and Norris stepped carefully between them, inspecting each but touching nothing. Rantara reached quickly for her pistol and followed, but Banen and Theriani moved to the right, paralleling them along another row. The bodies were indeed alive, yet all had been placed into a deep sleep. There were members of every known race in the sector, but some were clearly alien, brought from unexplored regions of space. None were clothed, they noticed, yet the room’s temperature seemed comfortable enough.

  It smelled of disinfectant and a steady breeze belied a powerful ventilation system changing the air on a constant schedule. A thin, arching metal band curved from one side of each pod over the head of its occupant to the other, holding at a central point an orb-shaped object that pulsed with a dull, orange glow. At last, Norris stopped to survey the room and Rantara stood beside him.

  “What are we looking at here?” she asked at a near whisper.

  “Toa’s dirty little secret,” Norris replied in disgust. “He wasn’t satisfied with buying memories from brokers and selling them to his customers because demand exceeded supply, so he decided to cut out the middleman and go direct to the source.”

  “Settis knew?”

  “Yes, but I don’t think he anticipated us finding it.”

  “Are you saying he had a hand in this?”

  “He knew,” Norris continued, “but there’s no way he played a part in it. I’m seeing only fleeting images from his memories—vague and out on the edges of his thoughts. I think he stumbled on it in the Merchants’ systems while he was looking for the memories of the Saroqui; there’s nothing that shows he ever came down here.”

  Banen walked slowly toward them angling from a place five rows away.

  “Settis understood what the Merchants were doing?” he asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  “Yes, but mostly from the archive’s administrative notes. These people are live resources,” Norris said at last; “They’ve been here a long time and Toa keeps them captive for special purposes. Settis found out about it and that’s when Toa ordered him to mind his own business.”

  “What do you mean by ‘special purposes,’ Darrien?” Rantara asked.

  Norris leaned close to look at the face of a Porseth male, scarred and rutted from what had clearly been a difficult life.

  “They are all criminals,” Hesset said suddenly.

  “I don’t understand,” Rantara replied, but Hesset had the answer.

  “Toa bought them from others who work as agents, paid to capture fugitives and return them to face prosecution for their crimes.”

  Norris nodded.

  “We call them ‘bounty hunters’ back on Earth—people who operate outside the law to bring criminals to justice when the police fail. Hesset’s right; Toa simply offered a higher reward and the agents who captured these people gave them over to be used by the Merchants. His customers are connected to these people’s minds by data-link—a network that accesses their memories and thoughts directly, and from extreme long-distance. Toa’s clients experience those memories real-time and the more terror Toa subjects these people to, the better. When Hesset blew away their comm tower, it must’ve sent out alarms across their entire network.”

  Banen understood at last.

  “Can we find a console and link to Toa’s systems? Perhaps we will find more answers there.”

  Hesset nodded quickly and found a control station near the center of the room. In minutes, she was in.

  “I have it,” she said, scrolling through a heavily encrypted archive.

  They joined her as she worked to perform the necessary association inputs that translated Searcher symbols into Kez’Erel words. Finally, she turned to Norris.

  “The profiles of all these people,” she said, pointing to a series of block paragraphs and images. Likely taken after arrest, she continued, but each profile was disturbingly similar in Norris’ eyes to mugshots in any police precinct in Terran space.

  “Go ahead,” he replied, knowing what she would say.

  She thumbed the controls for a moment, fixing on one particular entry.

  “They have all been identified as murderers or serial rapists, Darrien,” she said. “This one was an escaped convict, wanted in connection with almost twenty brutal killings across several Porseth colony systems.”

  “Exactly what Toa was looking for,” Norris said.

  “Yes, but there is more; this one’s crimes included unspeakable acts of depravity, made mostly against nameless prostitutes or others on the fringes of Porseth society, and…”

  She fell silent as the description became clear in the words of the profile.

  “Hesset?”

  She waited a moment, struggling to compose herself before speaking.

  “He attacked children…some of his victims were seven or eight years old. Without exception, they were helpless.”

  Suddenly, they looked at the others where they lay unconscious and silent, knowing what must be equivalent conditions and histories. Hesset said nothing, but she scrolled through the re
maining profiles, able only to shake her head in disgust and horror. At last, Norris moved her gently from the console.

  “I can’t decide which is worse; the criminals themselves, or the sick bastard who wants to see and live inside the memories of an insane serial killer.”

  Rantara had watched in silence, but she could see the inevitable decision waiting for them.

  “We can’t leave them, Darrien.”

  Norris felt nothing but fury as the true nature of Toa’s acts became clear.

  “I know. Toa and these animals deserve what they get; we’re going to burn this goddamn place to the ground!”

  Banen moved toward Norris.

  “Darrien, wait!”

  “I know what it means, Doc, but these assholes don’t deserve to live. No matter what Toa was doing with them, it doesn’t excuse their crimes. I’m not about to walk away from this and pretend we didn’t see anything!”

  “You won’t,” Banen said calmly. “We can alert the Porseth authorities and they will be able to take custody without a struggle.”

  “You just heard what this one did to little kids, and you want me to leave him alive? If the Porseth cops didn’t have their heads up their ass, none of these bastards would be here now! What makes you think they won’t escape again?”

  “Darrien, I understand your anger, but you do not have the authority to kill defenseless people in their sleep, regardless of their crimes.”

  “The hell I don’t!”

  “Darrien, please! You will become a murderer, no different than any of these criminals, can you not see this?”

  From two rows away, Rantara spoke at last.

  “It’s a moot point, Doctor.”

  They turned to her as she walked slowly past the pods until she stopped near the Porseth criminal.

  “The archive must be destroyed no matter what; there is no chance any of these people will survive when we launch weapons from the ship before we leave.”

  “We could accomplish that task simply by firing into the memory array’s storage devices with rifles,” Banen protested; “there is no need to destroy the entire facility!”

  “I understand your position,” Rantara continued, “but we can’t take any chances the other Merchants might find and retrieve memory packages after we’re gone.”

  “The array can be destroyed,” Banen persisted; “There is more than enough explosives aboard the ship!”

  Rantara walked toward him, but her resolve was made by other considerations.

  “Listen to me, Banen; it’s not only a matter of removing the memories.”

  “I don’t understand,” he replied in desperation, but Rantara was unmoved.

  “We can’t leave this for the Porseth authorities to find. If we do, they will come here and wonder why we found these people. They will begin to ask questions that will very soon make their way to the Prime Assembly and the Anashi High Council; when that happens, Qural and Tindas will be exposed and maybe even arrested. Think about it, Banen; this mission will end before it starts and the Namadi will kill billions of our people—mine and yours. I’m sorry, but that is not an option.”

  Banen looked at the others, hoping for a voice of reason to join him, but even Theriani showed clearly her preference for Rantara’s solution.

  “These,” she said softly, “we not leave to make the crimes again, only. It not with happiness, but I stand to Onallin in this, my love.”

  Banen looked at Rantara again.

  “It is not for us to judge!

  “I realize this makes an impossible problem of ethics for you, Banen, but there are other forces at work. If we don’t destroy the complex, Toa’s associates will arrive in a few days and remove these people to a secure site. It would then be a simple matter of time before all this begins again.”

  “I understand, but surely you can see this is not…”

  Without warning, the room was lit by the blinding flashes and clattering thunder of gunfire. Instinctively, they fell to the floor for cover as the chugging rattle of an assault rifle hammered out, shattering the silence. When they each peeked carefully above the pods, they saw Hesset, moving swiftly along one aisle after another, firing directly into the heads of each occupant where they lay unconscious. Again and again, she found and killed them effortlessly, efficiently and without emotion, reloading with crisp precision. Norris called out to her, but his voice was drowned out by each loud, staccato volley.

  Banen started for her, but Theriani intercepted and held him until Hesset finished her work. When the chamber fell silent once more, only the rapidly blinking lights from each pod’s monitor remained, signaling what they already knew; the sleeping criminals would never wake again.

  Norris walked slowly toward her.

  “I’ll take over,” he said gently, knowing there was nothing left to do.

  She handed her gun over to him and went instead to Banen.

  “There are times when the ethical solution is wrong,” she said softly. “I have had enough of people who prey on the innocent and the weak.” She moved closer to him. “They attacked only the helpless, Banen. These things…will cause no more suffering.”

  His expression was one only of resignation.

  “Are we not the same? They too, were helpless.”

  Hesset spun and pointed at the corpses.

  “The same? Who among us has ever raped and murdered an innocent child?” she shouted. “All these people were tried and convicted of their crimes; because they escaped justice changes nothing! I will not shed a tear for animals like them.”

  She walked to the lift and disappeared as the others gathered themselves, still recovering from the suddenness of her attack. Banen stood alone and looked at the carnage Hesset’s gun had made. When Norris reached him, there was only resignation in his eyes.

  “Come on, Doc,” he said, steering Banen gently toward the passageway, “let’s get the hell out of this place.”

  THEY RETURNED SLOWLY to the surface, walking from the archive building on an angle toward the assault ship where it waited quietly in the cold, night air. No one spoke until Rantara stopped suddenly and held Theriani by a sleeve.

  “Did you clear these buildings?”

  “Most we clear inside; the others, we use grenades.”

  Rantara moved quickly and silently, pulling her gun from its sling to a ready position with one hand and flicking on her night vision plate with the other.

  “What about this one?”

  Theriani looked and said, “This one grenade inside, only, but the Kez not there.”

  Rantara angled slowly, cautiously toward an open doorway.

  “I heard something; I want to make sure before we go any further.”

  “Hold on a second,” Norris said, but she closed quickly on the darkened entrance to what appeared to be a barracks once occupied by the Kez’Erel detachment. Rantara stopped just outside the doorway with her fist up to signal the others to hold their positions. She waited another moment or two before easing slowly around the door’s edge. Norris called out to her again.

  “Onallin, wait until we…”

  She didn’t hear his words when four devices—two on each wall—detonated inward.

  Norris reached the entrance first, but Theriani leaped to grab his armor, pulling him violently to the ground.

  “No!” she shouted, holding tightly as Norris struggled to get free. “These not the only ones, maybe! If more to see, they kill us all. We go slow, Darrien.”

  He nodded, moving onto his belly to crawl toward Onallin where she lay motionless in the dark. When he reached her at last, she was on her side like a sleeping child and Norris felt the desperation growing into a panic.

  “Onallin!” he cried out, but she didn’t move. Theriani worked her way across the tiled floor, reaching Rantara at last. They could see the blast points on two walls of the barracks where each explosive had been placed, but there were no others. Carefully, Theriani pulled herself upward and onto her knees, motioning
for Banen to join them quickly. When they rolled Rantara gently onto her back, they quickly found small dots of blood on her face and neck, exposed after she removed her helmet when the battle for the archive was won.

  Her eyes were half-closed and for a brief, desperate moment, Norris thought she was gone. Banen went to work without comment, pulling two scanners quickly from his pack and in seconds, he had the answer Norris needed.

  “She is alive; help me get her to the med bay.”

  Norris reached slowly to touch her face, but Banen shouted, “Darrien, we have to get her to the ship! Move!”

  They lifted her carefully and eased through the barracks doorway onto the hard surface of the compound, hurrying to reach the shuttle bay’s cargo ramp. In moments, Rantara was on an examination table and Banen was moving quickly, pulling away her armor and underclothing. Above, the scanning sensor array’s moved quietly along the length of her body, collecting vital signs and studying her condition with each slow pass. Her armor deflected shrapnel and blast debris, leaving the puncture wounds on her exposed face and neck the worst of her injuries. Banen looked closely at the magnified image where dozens of tiny projectiles pierced the skin, leaving behind a small droplet of blood already drying.

  The triage programs made their inventory of her condition quickly, showing mostly symptoms of shock from the explosions, but there was more. When Banen keyed up a scan image, the display pinpointed nearly one hundred sixty needlelike objects buried deep beneath her skin. Banen looked and entered the appropriate queries into a console, shaking his head when the results scrolled by on the display.

  There was swelling in her brain, he noted, but nothing severe. Her respiration, temperature and blood pressure were still strong, confirming what he already knew; there had been no internal organ damage. Suddenly, she stirred.

  Norris went quickly to her, taking her hand in his as he brushed the wetted hair from her brow.

  “Lay still,” he said, “Banen’s going to get you fixed up, okay?”

  “I was careless,” she said, nearly at a whisper. “I didn’t clear the room and…”

  “Don’t worry about that right now,” Norris replied. “Just rest and let the Doc do his work.”