by B. V. Larson
“Of course they are! We traced the first sets. They lead to a breach, then to another and another. After three jumps, we lose track of where they lead. Presumably, they’re all hyperspace bridge locations. Where does the trail end?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
She sighed and growled at the same time. “Vogel didn’t want to tell me, either. But he spent time on the power-rack, so I’m more inclined to believe him.”
Standing up to my full height, I glared down at her.
“I don’t lie,” I said. “You can torment me if you like, but it won’t change my answer.”
She eyed me and then made a flapping motion with her hand, indicating I should sit down again. I did so reluctantly.
She paced, rubbing at her chin. “I don’t know what to do with you, nephew. The Council is beside itself. First, you refuse an update. Now, you barge into CENTCOM and kill—”
“Wait a minute,” I said, “did you say I refused an update?”
She snorted. “Come now, William! We weren’t born yesterday—far from it. Did you think you’d get away with disabling your auto-updates without triggering a thousand red flags? Do you even know what the penalty is for your tampering with your implant?”
I stared at her, and I found I did know. “So that’s it?” I asked. “I’m to become an unperson?”
“You’re one small step from that status now. One morning update away.”
“But how…?” I asked, trailing off.
“Don’t be naïve,” she snapped. “This is where we keep the wretches, William. It’s sad, really. Forgotten souls. The best and the worst of our species are down here with us right now. Strange to think—”
My hand reached out and grasped her wrist.
“Is Zye here? Aunt Helen—is she down here in this dark place?”
She snatched her hand back from me. “I don’t know. I’m not a jailor, I’m a diplomat—and you’ve made my job ten times harder lately.”
“All I did was my duty. My actions were extreme, but when I get my day in court—”
She gave a bark of laughter and shook her head. “Your day in court will be held by the Council in secret. Not even you will be invited.”
Her words stunned me. “But I killed a Stroj who’d burrowed deeply into our command structure. Are you saying the Chairman is displeased about that? Did the Council know he was here, running things?”
“I don’t know…” she said. “But forget about all that. I’m interested in getting my nephew out of purgatory, but I’m not sure how to go about it.”
The situation did seem grim. I was out of my depth.
She raised a bony finger and wagged it at me. “I have an idea. You’ll tell them where this map leads. You’ll tell them it will provide us a great boon when you get there. Then you’ll go out there and get it personally.”
I blinked at her in confusion. “But I told you, I don’t know where this chain of star systems leads.”
She patted my cheek where she’d slapped me before. “That’s a good boy… but I was speaking rhetorically. You won’t talk to them personally, I will in your stead. I’ll invent a suitable boon and deliver your heartfelt apologies along with a sincere promise to bring home a vague treasure. All you have to do is fly to the stars and find whatever that mad Stroj wanted you to find.”
“What if the trail leads to the Stroj homeworld? Or to a black hole after a blue jump? The Stroj owed me nothing. In fact, revenge seems the most likely motivation since I’d just killed him.”
She stared at me down her long nose. “Would you rather sit here and rot? At this time tomorrow your parents won’t even recall that they ever had a child.”
My jaw worked, but no sound came out for a moment. Then I had a thought.
“What about Vogel? What about the variants? I’ll need their help.”
She looked irritated. “I find your sense of self-preservation woefully undeveloped.”
“Nevertheless, if I’m to find something useful, I need them.”
She sighed. “All right, I’ll see what I can do.
“Then I’ll go out there. I’ll find… something.”
“That’s a good boy…” she said again, patting my shoulder absently. “But I’d suggest that if you don’t find anything interesting you’d be best off not coming home at all.”
I nodded, unable to argue with her point.
-26-
The following morning I was awakened by two jailors. They hauled me out of my cell and down echoing hallways.
I asked them where we were going, but they said nothing. They were agents—heavily modified men. It was their kind I’d fought with when the Council first arrested me what seemed like long ago.
Today, I could not defeat them. I struggled, but to no avail. I had no personal shield, no pistol and no sword.
My boots scraped and scuffed the marble floors, but I couldn’t get a grip. With my hands cuffed behind me, there was little I could do.
At last they shoved me into an empty elevator car. One of them threw something at me—a nano-key.
The elevator doors slid shut, and the car began to go upward. I got down on my knees, touched the nano-key to my shackles, then stood up.
Approaching the elevator doors, I hammered on them with my fists.
“I’ll not leave without Zye!” I shouted. But if they were listening, they gave no clue.
Reconsidering my outburst, I decided to once again hide my true motivations. There was no point in demanding things when I wasn’t in the position to force anyone to deliver.
For some reason, on the long, long trip to the surface, I felt the urge to straighten myself. Combing my hair with my fingers and tucking in my collar, I did the best I could. The nanos in my smart clothing had long since lost power, leaving my suit rumpled.
At last, the doors dinged and opened.
I was on the ground floor on the surface not far from where I’d been the day I’d stormed this place. Even more surprising, there was no one there to greet me—no guards, no Aunt Helen—nothing.
There were people, however, bustling around the place as if I wasn’t worthy of notice. Putting on the best show I could manage, I strode out into the hallway as if I owned the place. Perhaps they were going for humiliation. Perhaps this was their odd idea of a perp-walk.
No matter. I was a Sparhawk, and I wouldn’t give them any kind of satisfaction.
Still, the front doors, no more than a hundred echoing paces across the floors, were very tempting. I couldn’t help but pull my cap down over my face, tilt my head toward the exit and walk in that direction.
After a dozen steps, I saw they were still cleaning up from the attack I’d led. The front windows had yet to be fully repaired. All the gunfire had taken out thousands of credits worth of glass panels alone.
“Hey!” shouted a voice. “Is that you…? Captain Sparhawk?”
I hesitated. My instinct was to keep walking, to put as much distance between the dungeons and my person as quickly as possible.
But I didn’t. I knew there was no point. If they were playing games, they had all the cards. They could arrest me again in a moment.
Turning on one heel and manufacturing a smile, I struggled to recognize the woman who had spoken to me.
“Is that Ensign Raeling?” I asked.
She beamed. “You remember me? I was very junior when I served aboard Defiant.”
“Of course, in the purser’s office. What are you doing here?”
“I’m testing for rank. Wish me luck!”
“Luck,” I said in what I hoped was a pleasant tone. The ensign was young and perky. I’d had an eye for her, like every other man on the ship.
But as we spoke, the entire conversation seemed very odd to me. She knew who I was, and my face had to have been plastered on every newsfeed on the planet over recent days. How was it she had yet to run for help?
But the fact was, she didn’t seem to be alarmed at all. She just looked at me, hap
pily at first, but then with growing concern.
“You look as if you haven’t been sleeping sir,” she said. “Is something wrong?”
“Well, the trials of a Guardsman never cease.”
She frowned in incomprehension for a moment, but then she gasped and put a hand to her mouth.
“You weren’t here during the attack, were you?”
There it was. I’d blown it. I’d been recognized by possibly the only person on Earth who didn’t know I’d been involved—and now I’d given her reason to recall my face here in the very lobby I’d done my best to demolish.
“Well… that is…”
She stepped forward, put out a hand and touched my arm. “Don’t say another word, Captain Sparhawk,” she said. “I understand. It must have been awful. Just think, right here where we’re standing a dozen Stroj killed a dozen of ours. It’s almost unbelievable. We should wipe those monsters out.”
My mouth was open to speak, but I managed to shut it again.
“Just so,” I managed. “Ensign Raeling, I wish you all the luck with your tests, but I’m afraid I must be moving along now.”
“I understand, sir,” she said. “Don’t let me keep you. Maybe we’ll serve together again someday.”
Without another word, she turned and walked away. She did pause to glance back, and she blushed when she saw I was still standing there, staring after her.
That jolted me into action. I did an about-face and headed for the exit.
After passing a dozen guards, I thought I was home-free, but one of them called after me. He had a portable terminal in hand, and it was blinking colors.
“Captain Sparhawk?” he asked.
Again, I faced my assailant pleasantly. “Yes, Chief?”
“We’ve got a package for you. The biometric scanners recognized you as you came near the doors and triggered an alert.”
“A package?”
“Yes. Here you are, sir.”
He handed me a heavy sack. It was lumpy, and there was one item of unusual length inside. I could feel it through the cloth.
Immediately, I knew what the item was: my family sword.
“Excellent,” I said as I pulled out my shielding cloak, my sidearm and my blade.
Donning them all under the curious eye of the guard, I felt whole again.
“Did you lose them battling the Stroj in the attack, sir?” he asked.
“Yes—I did.”
The man shook his head. “Such brave souls, all of you who were here fighting that day. I’m glad you survived.”
“So am I…”
With that, I strode out into the sunlight a free man.
By this time, I’d puzzled out what the hell was going on. No one knew I’d led the attack against CENTCOM because there had been an update this morning. But instead of updating them all to forget my existence, they’d updated the world to remember an attack by the Stroj rather than me.
As far as the people of Earth were concerned, I was a heroic Guardsman who’d faced the enemy and beaten them right here at CENTCOM’s gates.
It was an odd feeling to recall something differently than everyone else did. It was both thrilling—because I was free—and nightmarish, because I was in awe of the Council’s power to manipulate events.
How often had they fabricated the past? Which details had I been taught about Earth’s history were truthful—and which of them were a pack of intricate lies?
-27-
Having nowhere better to go, I headed to Lady Astra’s house. I’d considered returning to my parents, but the last time I’d gotten near them they’d seemed so put off I didn’t feel like going back. Chloe at least put our relationship above matters of state whenever she could.
She met me at the door with apprehension in her eyes. She could tell I’d had a rough few days. She fell against me and put her face into my chest. That felt good.
“I missed you,” she said. “I read about the attack on CENTCOM, and I feared the worst. The stories were vague, but it sounded terrible.”
“It was,” I said.
She pulled away from me and stared up into my eyes. She searched my face.
“You were involved, weren’t you? Directly involved!”
“Yes,” I admitted.
“Tell me about it.”
“I can’t,” I said, and that was the truth. I couldn’t tell her what had actually happened without endangering her life—or at least her memories.
She made a sound of frustration.
“I’m a Public Servant, William,” she said. “I can get it out of the government if I must.”
I felt like releasing a bitter laugh but managed to avoid such a catastrophic move.
“If you must.”
“Damn you. CENTCOM is so paranoid. They won’t tell their own leaders what they’re up to half the time.”
“Don’t you think they have good reasons to be concerned?”
“Yes… I guess they do.”
At last, she relaxed and guided me into her home. After freshening up and recharging my uniform, I felt human again. Imprisonment hadn’t been a pleasant thing. My disconnection from the rest of the planet still lingered.
In the back of my mind, as she spoke of recent events, I noticed inconsistencies. They were small things but critical ones.
For example, she was convinced the attack had happened on Thursday when I knew it had occurred on Friday. I was quite certain on that point as I’d led the attack myself.
It took willpower not to correct her. The feeling this gave me was an uneasy one. I felt fearful of talking about any number of common topics as I felt uncertain that her recollection of recent events matched mine.
Soon we were having dinner, and I felt better. After our meal, we avoided the net entirely and retired early to her chambers. There, events proceeded as I’d hoped they would.
She had a large bathing facility just off her bedroom. It was big enough to jump into, and the water was steaming hot.
We bathed together and made love in the bubbling tub. Afterward, we stretched out on her bed, and the sheets dried us meticulously. Soon, we were holding one another in in her dimly lit bedchamber.
“Are you leaving again soon?” she asked in a small voice.
“I don’t know.”
She lifted her head to look at me. “You don’t? What about the new battleship? Isn’t she replacing Defiant as Earth’s watchdog?”
“Doubtlessly she will when she’s completed. I would expect that to be in a month or two.”
She frowned at me. “That’s not how I understand it… Is CENTCOM keeping such things even from their own officers? The ship is finished.”
I realized then that things had changed while I was in prison. It had only been a weekend, of that much I was certain, but events had progressed more rapidly than I’d realized or someone had edited them to suit their own timetables.
Recovering as quickly as I could, I smiled. She smiled back—worriedly.
“Ah…” I said. “I meant the ship might not be ready to take over Defiant’s mission. After all, there are trainings and maiden voyages. Star Guard can delay anything for months if they want to.”
It was a half-lie, but she accepted it and relaxed again. Soon, she was sleeping on my chest.
Unfortunately, I was unable to sleep so easily. What else had changed about my world while I’d rested in prison?
* * *
The next morning I left Chloe and headed up to Defiant. She wasn’t at all surprised to learn I’d been reassigned to active duty.
Once aboard, I felt more in command of my immediate destiny. I headed to the command deck where my executive officer greeted me with enthusiasm.
“Welcome back, sir!” Durris said. “We’ve been worried about you for days.”
“Didn’t CENTCOM tell you where I was?” I asked as innocently as possible.
He looked confused for a moment. Perhaps his mind was accessing newly implanted thoughts for the very first time.<
br />
“We knew you were involved in that terror-attack, but we didn’t know if you’d been injured or not. I’m very glad to see you weren’t.”
“Well, I’m back and fit for duty. Let’s see the patrol roster.”
His face flickered again, as if confused. “Patrol, sir? We’re preparing for a deep space voyage.”
I froze, working hard not to react. “Of course,” I said. “That’s what I meant—a deep patrol. Have you got the coordinates for our first destination?”
“No sir… We were told you were bringing up these details from CENTCOM personally. Were we given incorrect—”
“No,” I said, “I have them. I wasn’t sure if they’d been sent on ahead or not.”
To distract him as much as anything else, I produced the computer scroll and put it into his hand. He looked at it in surprise.
“You’re making a physical transfer? Not electronically uploading it to Defiant’s computers?”
I shook my head.
Durris had always been a man who fussed over details too much. He was a classic over-thinker. Even now, I could see the wheels in his mind turning.
“I get it. That’s why you asked me if anyone had sent this up from CENTCOM. It was a test—because they weren’t supposed to do so.”
I maintained a noncommittal stare.
“I’ll get to work on these immediately, sir!” he said, rushing back to his station.
After a few more hours, I learned more details about various new fictions I had to uphold. The hardest of these was the absence of Zye—in fact, there never had been such a person.
Almost as difficult to swallow was my new status as a hero, rather than a villain, for my actions at CENTCOM. It all took some getting used to.
The one thing that puzzled me was the status of my own implant. Had they corrected it? Had they updated me in some fashion?
The concept was alarming even though I didn’t think they could have. If they had, wouldn’t I be as unaware of the real events of recent days as my crewmen were?
After thinking about it, the implant rooted at the base of my skull began to itch abominably. It was a nerve-related phenomenon, I knew. It was commonly suffered by people who were new to the symbiotic growth and had yet to adjust.
