“Just saying, you know. It’s not like you think. We were defenseless kids with nothing but our pure bodies. The headmaster sold us to perverts, who liked to do nasty, vile things. Yeah, I ran away. If I could now, I’d go back and kill every headmaster that sold a kid and I’d do the same to the perverts.”
The information did nothing to Argon’s manner. He continued to watch and study. He said, “You’re a Special. You have a greater purpose now.”
“You’re missing my point. I had to eat and I wasn’t going to sell myself to pervs. So I ran Dust for the Latin Kings. Later, I became a foot soldier, a fighter. The cops didn’t like us.” Cyrus shrugged. “You remind me of them cops.”
“You’re not in the slums anymore.”
“That’s right,” Cyrus said.
“So why talk as if you belong there?”
“Seeing you reminds me of the old days,” Cyrus said.
“What do you think about Premier Lang?”
Cyrus understood then that they monitored the interview: his pulse rate, breathing speed, eye movement and other bodily functions. Speaking the truth was his best bet because they’d likely know when he lied. He’d already started out telling the truth, so he might as well continue.
“I don’t think about him much,” Cyrus said.
“Aren’t you grateful for what he did for you?”
A trace of a smile appeared on Cyrus’s face. “Lang didn’t do anything for me. He passed some laws because the world needs Specials. So here I am. If I didn’t have any talent, I’d still be in Level 40.”
“Do you hate Premier Lang?”
“No.”
“Do you wish him dead?”
“No.”
“Are you in league with any organization that plots his overthrow?”
“No.”
“Are you willing to endure hardship to reach New Eden?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any ulterior motives for volunteering?”
“Yes,” Cyrus said.
“What are they?”
“I plan to skip ship and stay on one of the planets. I’ll find a wife and start a family.”
Argon paused, and those intense eyes watched him closely. He put down the e-reader and continued to study Cyrus. Something approaching a smile stretched the chief monitor’s lips.
“I will squash any mutiny,” Argon said. “I will obliterate those who plot against Premier Lang. You don’t lie, which is refreshing. Continue to think of me as a cop, and you will do well, Special. You may go.”
“No more questions?”
“You have passed my test. I can work with you.”
Cyrus blinked once, wondering why Argon didn’t ask other questions. Instead of thinking about it, he got up, found the door unlocked, and walked down the hall to the waiting teacher. Honesty had worked. How novel.
PART II:
VOYAGE
1
For Cyrus, life aboard Teleship Discovery settled into an intense schedule of work, training, and enduring increasing suspicion from the monitors and shift crew.
He had his own room. That was good. Many of the crew and all the space marines slept in “shelves” that were akin to coffins. He couldn’t have taken that and often dreamed of the monitors forcing him into one, closing it, and locking him in. They would talk to him then, telling him he’d stay in there for the duration of the mission. Those sleeping quarters didn’t allow a man to sit up. It would have driven him mad.
In the waking world, Cyrus spent far too much time in his room, watching the screen showing the expansive verandas of Earth. He had his favorite: it showed an eagle soaring over the Kiev Sector steppes. Otherwise, he exercised his talents with the other Specials in the training chamber.
There were four Specials aboard Discovery: Venice, Jasper, Roxie, and Cyrus. Venice could shift 8.3 light years, a phenomenal distance. Jasper could shift 2.1, Roxie 1.7, and Cyrus a mere 0.8 light years. The differences were extraordinary as Venice could shift four times as far as Jasper. It meant Venice received the best treatment in terms of privilege and living space.
The four of them often trained in close proximity. Then it became clear that Venice’s better treatment bothered Jasper, although the Earth’s best telepath tried to hide it.
The weeks merged into months and the great colonizing vessel neared the two hundred light year mark. Cyrus’s dreams worsened the closer they approached the New Eden system. He asked the others about their dreams, although he asked them carefully and only in the training chamber. The security over them meant constant surveillance.
The shift crew and the monitors in particular grew increasingly wary around them. Because they were humans instead of machinery, the four Specials were the most volatile cogs in the Teleship. Without their telekinetic and clairvoyant abilities, Discovery would have to use direct thrust to build up velocity to go from A to Z. The Teleship lacked the needed fuel to build up to near light speed. As the vessel approached the two hundred light year mark from Sol, that became an ominous thought for the Normals. If something happened to all four Specials, it would strand the ship, crew, and sleeping colonists out here for the rest of their lives.
“They should worship us,” Jasper told Cyrus. “Instead, they treat as plague victims, as freaks and mutants. Why else do they watch us so carefully?”
“Normals always fear what’s more powerful than them,” Venice said. “Get over it, already.”
“She can talk,” Jasper whispered to Cyrus later. “They treat her better than they treat the three of us.”
“She can shift four times farther,” Cyrus said.
“Does that make her a superstar?”
“Yes.”
That fact ate at the telepath, but Venice’s superiority didn’t bother Cyrus. He was the lowest talent among them and he’d lived the most normal life—normal meaning that regular people had treated him as an ordinary person. Venice, Jasper, and Roxie had much different life stories, filled with alienation, at least before the creation of Psi Force. Before the search for the psi-able, the Normals around the other three had treated each of them… well, like mutants or freaks.
In Cyrus’s opinion, his near normality made him the most balanced of the four. He wanted to maintain that. With permission from Chief Monitor Argon, Cyrus had trained with the marines. At first, the marines treated him with such delicacy that it had hardly been enjoyable. He tried to get them to relax around him, and it was slowly having an effect.
It was different with everyone else. The worst were the shift crew and monitors. They treated the four of them like radioactive nuclear material. There were heavy safeguards in place against them and constant surveillance. The Normals needed their talents, but the telekinesis, telepathy, and clairvoyance frightened them. Ninety percent of the time, the inhibitors in Venice, Jasper, Roxie, and Cyrus remained switched to talent-off mode. In the shift tube and while watched through cameras in the training chamber the inhibitors were switched to talent-on mode.
I’m literally a cog in a machine, Cyrus thought. I’m a slave, dragged here, dragged there, and forced to do my masters’ bidding.
He didn’t hate the Normals, but he wasn’t going to accept this treatment forever. He needed to be free. He wanted to breathe something other than canned air. Now, with the worsening dreams and remembering Jasper’s claim of nonhumans in New Eden who would help them, Cyrus started becoming paranoid. There was a BAD THING approaching. He didn’t know that for a certainty, but the feeling in his gut was building up, pointing in that direction.
Then in the training chamber, he discovered he wasn’t the only one feeling this.
Three of them were in the training chamber. It was a spacious room as such things went aboard the Teleship. Cyrus sat at a table across from Venice. There were three other tables and six chairs altogether. One wall showed a forest scene from Earth, complete with rustling oaks and running squirrels.
Sometimes, during one G acceleration, Cyrus paced the lengt
h of the room: fourteen strides. He’d turn around and walk the other way, going back and forth until one of the others told him to stop.
Today, the vessel and therefore the training chamber lacked the one G of pseudogravity. They were weightlessness and they would float if they pushed off the chairs. Each table and chair was anchored to the Velcro-covered floor. Each of them wore shoes that stuck to the Velcro.
Cyrus had his elbows on a table, with his face pushed against his fingers. He practiced a mind shield as Venice sat across from him and mentally attacked him.
She had long, dark hair and extraordinarily beautiful features, with a small nose and perfect mouth. The woman had everything: fame, beauty, and the greatest shifting ability among humanity. She wore a silver skin-suit, which only heightened her marvelous shape.
Can you hear me? Venice asked, using her limited telepathy instead of speech.
Cyrus opened his eyes and stared at her. She sat back in her chair, watching him.
With a forefinger, she swept a strand of hair out of one of her eyes. She smiled at him.
He grinned and opened his mouth to tell her that he’d heard the thought.
She shook her head, and she tapped her temple.
Cyrus stared at her.
Think your answer as hard as you can, she told him via telepathy. Try to project. If you can’t project telepathically, I should be able to pick up your thoughts.
There was a rip-rip sound as Jasper walked from his table to theirs. He pulled up a chair and set in onto the Velcro. He wore a shiny suit as he usually did, with a flattish hat covering his baldness.
What’s this about? Jasper asked through telepathy.
Venice frowned at him. I wasn’t talking to you.
I heard the urgency in your message, Jasper said. By the way, if we just sit here and stare at each other, the monitors watching the cameras will know what’s going on.
“You must try harder,” Venice told Cyrus. “I’m hurting you with my attacks. You have to strengthen your shield like this.”
Cyrus wants to know what’s wrong, Jasper said.
Why can’t I read his thoughts? Venice asked.
Jasper shrugged, making his shiny suit crinkle.
It was obvious to Cyrus the man was proud of his superior telepathic ability. He wondered for a moment if Jasper was shielding his thoughts from Venice.
No, Jasper said. She’s simply not good enough at telepathy.
Is he hearing me? Venice asked.
Cyrus nodded, but he said, “Is that how I should block?”
“Yes,” Venice said. Listen, she thought, I have to tell you what happened last shift.
The shift crew had discovered something new concerning Specials. Because of the stress of endless shifting, each Special needed progressively more rest time before they could create a discontinuity window again. While Jasper, Roxie, and Cyrus needed more rest, Venice continued to make DWs right on schedule. It meant she did the bulk of the shifting and was always in the tele-chamber.
What happened? Jasper asked.
I felt an alien presence from out there, Venice said. I searched for it and in time, the mental signal seemed to come from the New Eden system.
Seemed? Jasper asked.
Cyrus felt the man’s excitement. Here was verification of aliens at New Eden.
It was difficult for me to pinpoint the exact location from where the alien mind broadcasted, Venice said, but I definitely felt his mind. It happened during the shift. No, that’s not exactly right. It happened when the tele-ring came on.
The tele-ring circled the Teleship without touching it. It was like Saturn’s rings. The tele-ring was the key mechanism—with a Special’s help—that created a discontinuity window.
Did the alien say anything to you? Jasper asked.
I think he was surprised to contact me. Well, he didn’t contact me exactly. I felt his mind and I’m sure he felt mine. Venice stared at each of them in turn. I’m sure the mind was hostile.
What’s your reasoning? Jasper asked.
Venice bit her lower lip. Several days ago, I fell asleep in here, in the training chamber. My inhibitor was off is what I’m trying to say. I had a clairvoyant dream. In the dream, something watched me from behind a glass partition. It was an indistinct alien, making notes on a slate, absorbed with heightened interest as it observed me. The digits making the notes were harder than flesh, but I couldn’t see the creature. Then my dream became horrifying. I lay on a table. Things cut me open, removed organs, and inserted something vile into me. Just as I awoke, I heard crackling sounds. Then it felt as if hot needles poked into my neck at the apex of my spine.
“Cyborgs,” Cyrus whispered.
“Cyborgs aren’t telepathic,” Jasper whispered. He looked at Venice. “What do you think they were?”
“I don’t know,” she said. What should we do?
Clarify that, Jasper said.
We should tell the shift crew.
Jasper glanced at Cyrus. It caused Venice to frown.
What are you two hiding? she asked.
Jasper gave her an oily smile. Cyrus didn’t know how that would assure anyone. We have a bet about cyborgs. Cyrus is certain they’re at New Eden. He wants to go home because of it.
I don’t want to go to New Eden if cyborgs are waiting for us, Venice said.
I don’t either, Jasper said. Let me try to find this mind.
Will you try to do that during a shift? Venice asked.
I think I know what’s happening, Jasper said. The tele-ring must expand your reach even farther than it does for creating a discontinuity window. Since you’re the most powerful Special, you felt this mind first. Maybe by next shift I can sense it, too.
Cyrus waited for Venice to call Jasper a liar. The man would never call anyone more powerful than him unless he was trying to hide something. Didn’t she understand that? The two kept communicating. It showed Cyrus she must be truly worried about her dream and worried about the brushing mind contact with an unknown alien.
In the end, Jasper convinced Venice to wait and let him contact the alien for confirmation.
Cyrus hesitated to say anything, wondering how accurate Venice’s clairvoyant dreams usually were. In the end, he went along with the plan. It ended up being the worst decision of his life.
2
Jasper seethed inwardly. Venice had felt the aliens before him. It was inconceivable that should occur. He was the greatest telepath. She could shift farther, but that was due to her clairvoyance, an otherwise dubious psi-talent.
He went through the procedures as he floated in the shift tank, a cylinder filled with a watery gel solution. He wore a slick-suit, a breathing mask, and goggles. He’d already shut his eyes and linked with Socrates, the main AI in the system.
Going through rote actions, Jasper soon succumbed to the AI-Special union. Around him in the cylinder, the shift crew worked at their stations in the tele-chamber. They monitored him, AI Socrates, and the ship.
Outside the rock-skinned vessel, a chrome ring suddenly appeared. Jasper’s senses had already expanded. It was as if he stood on the dust of the surface of the ship. The light from the ring caused the nearest stars to fade away and others farther away to lose their luster. The ring was awesome, and it had been there all along, although with a black-matted color. The chrome appearance meant a shift opening—a null portal—could occur.
The ring pulsated with light, with an intense chrome color. It was beautiful, and it was an illusion. With the tele-ring aiding and expanding his psi-abilities, Jasper reached 2.1 light years away.
A discontinuity window appeared before Discovery. The null space blotted out the stars, and it might have appeared black, but motes of gray light danced in it. One of those motes grew incredibly fast, and strange colors blossomed and brightened.
Jasper ignored the colors and he focused his abilities to keep the portal open long enough for Discovery to jump 2.1 light years. During that time, Jasper made contact with an
alien mind. It was a whisper in his thoughts, and it spoke at an accelerated rate.
Who are you? the alien asked.
I am Jasper.
What are you doing?
Shifting? Who are you?
I am Clones, the alien said.
You’re a clone?
No. I am named Clones.
You’re not a duplicate of someone else then? Jasper asked.
Your question is nonsensical. What is your appearance?
What is yours? Jasper asked.
I sense hostility in you to your masters.
I have no masters. I am superior to the Normals. They’ve chained me through diabolical technology.
Yes. I sense this thing in your mind. What do you call it?
An inhibitor, Jasper said.
What is its function?
To dampen my abilities at their whim, Jasper said.
Such as those are masters. They control you.
No! I am superior. I’m the one shifting this vessel.
True, true, the alien mind purred. This is an evil thing done to you. I could disconnect the inhibitor in such a way that your Masters would never realize you are broadcasting.
Yes! Do it.
First, you would have to allow me deeper into your conscious. You would have to lower your mind shield against me.
Jasper quailed to do such a thing. He realized his emotions ran riot and that he’d communicated much too freely. What was wrong with him? Perhaps this was a function of the tele-ring, this heightening of his emotions and his recklessness in speaking so freely to an unknown alien.
Why can’t we comminute at other times? Jasper asked.
You are right in believing that your device amplifies thought. We have such devices too.
You can shift?
Of course, the alien mind said.
Jasper had his doubts that the alien told him the truth about that. He sensed duplicity in the last answer. They’ll be shutting the tele-ring down soon. We’ll talk again.
Yes, Jasper, go back to your masters. Wait for them to allow you to communicate with me again.
I’ve already told you. They’re not my masters.
Alien Honor (A Fenris Novel) Page 6
