Cryptikon Far Freedom Part 2

by Warren Merkey

Zakiya and Sammy were abducted - by transmat - by the Navy Commander and your copy went after them to bring them back. He used a gate! He had built a small gate into the ship! I went through it myself with him!"

  Direk returned to his seat at the control panel and remained silent for a few moments, thinking. Iggy tried to be patient.

  "You raise too many questions I want to ask," Direk finally said. "I should not need many of the answers at once. I have a responsibility to make this modification. I admit to having personal concerns that would hinder my efficiency. Yet, I need some help, in a personal way, to get past these concerns and become free to concentrate on the work. Would you help me, Uncle Iggy?"

  "Certainly! I am hardly qualified to provide psychological help but you will have my trust - and my friendship!"

  Direk turned and looked into Khalanov's blue eyes with his own palest blue-white eyes. "I am not Direk, Uncle Iggy! The original Direk died long ago, victim of a dangerous operational test. I am his first copy. But, even with this knowledge, I still feel I am Direk. And I do feel, Uncle Iggy! And I should warn you to keep that woman away from me!"

  Shocked by Direk's words, Khalanov turned away from him to look for whatever woman Direk referred to, as if she had just appeared. "What woman?" he asked, seeing no one else.

  "Her name is Jamie," Direk answered.

  = = =

  "Damn it, sir!"

  "Back again?" Horss admired the way Jamie looked in a Navy captain's uniform. She was formidable. He was glad he knew she was not as tough as she looked.

  "If you have a moment." She took a seat in his conference room.

  "I don't have a moment but it looks like you are going to take one anyway. What's up?"

  "Direk! He's interfering in my duties!"

  "I'll order him to stop it."

  "I wish it was that simple."

  "Is he actually harassing you? He's only been out of the box for a few hours. I've got to admire his, uh... ambition, if he's already pursuing you."

  "I didn't mean it literally! It's all in my head."

  "You know I'm no damned good with personal relationships," Horss said. "I was hoping you could give me help in that area with the crew."

  "Sorry to disappoint you. I haven't had good relationships in about a century."

  "I'd better not comment on that. Your mother more than compensates for our social deficiencies. Tell me some more. Maybe you'll figure yourself out by listening to yourself."

  "You are a conduit to my mother."

  "Not if you make me promise to keep it confidential."

  "Promises may be hard to keep in the company of two women I know."

  Jamie outlined her past relationship with Direk and her encounters with his two copies. She and Direk had spent an entire lifetime together! Horss wanted them to try to find happiness together again, because it seemed like an unfinished business. He didn't understand Jamie's reluctance to engage with Direk. He wanted to help her but he couldn't see how anything but time would give her peace. Still, he had to try.

  "I'll talk to the interested parties," Horss said. "I'll tell them to leave you alone. That's about all I can think to do."

  Jamie stood up, thanked Horss, and went to the door. It opened and Zakiya and Direk entered. She passed by them without saying anything. Zakiya looked after her departing daughter before closing the door.

  "What?" Zakiya said, pointing to the door, beyond which her daughter had departed.

  "Leave her alone," Horss said. "All of you."

  "But-" Zakiya dropped her complaint, seeing the look on Horss's face.

  Horss restrained himself from staring at Direk. Nobody had helped him cut the non-regulation hair and beard. Maybe he didn't want anyone to think of him as Aylis's android-like son? He was a lot more interesting than others said he was - and rather handsome. Jamie was crazy for avoiding him.

  "Military crew is my responsibility," Horss said to Zakiya. "Right? You took the civilians. Does Direk stay a civilian?"

  "No, he's regular crew," Zakiya answered. "Chief Science Officer. He replaces his copy."

  "Duly noted and logged. Welcome to our one-ship Navy, Captain Direk! Do you have that report for us? And can you trim your hair a little?"

  Direk gave the report. Despite the long blond hair, he sounded much like his copy.

  "The Navy may arrive to find us still embedded in this rock," Zakiya said. "What then?"

  "We jump," Direk answered.

  "From inside the asteroid?" Zakiya questioned. "Then... you are saying we actually disappear from here and... reappear somewhere else? In the same manner as gate travel?"

  "You don't remember the Rhyan War," Direk said.

  "Almost nothing," she agreed.

  "And I don't remember it well, but I don't think Pan or I told you what our 'door' to Rhyandh was. We told you it would give your ships the advantage of absolute surprise. I think you were supposed to assume it was a kind of stealth technology, an improvement on masking the signatures of starlight drives. We put you and all three crews to sleep so you wouldn't see what we had built. It was a gate, of course. For three ships. Which is the reason the Freedom needed to be as large as it is - to keep from having to build all new field emitters for a smaller vessel. It was a tricky business, Pan and I piloting three destroyers into the gate, then waking the crews after the jump. You didn't seem concerned with knowing what we were going to do. You trusted us. You had no alternative. It was all or nothing."

  "And this is the same machinery, still a gate, but now attached to the Freedom?"

  "That is what jumpships are," Direk said. "Portable gates. Gates that go through their own gate. Our gate has been altered so that the gate effect is expressed outside the gate emitter array, surrounding it. During the war, the field emitters were aimed inward, where the three destroyers were. I should inform you that this configuration has not been tested."

  "I don't want to know what you may have just said," Horss said.

  "Where do we go when we jump out of here?" Zakiya asked.

  "We need to jump where there is minimum probability of hazards and maximum distance from pursuit. It will be outside the galaxy, about twelve thousand parsecs from here."

  "We can do that?"

  "The mathematics allow it," Direk replied.

  Zakiya said nothing for a time. She looked at Horss. Horss turned away from staring at Direk, despite himself. He gave her a frown, then a grin.

  "The only people scarier than you and Aylis," Horss said, "are your children."

  2-21 Explaining Makawee

  He paused to adjust the reed, then decided to take it off the clarinet and put it in his mouth to soak. He wasn't getting a clean sound. How many centuries had passed in woodwind evolution and engineering without reeds and saliva being improved upon? Just as he thought about closing the door, to save the ears of passersby from hearing his squeaks and squawks, he heard someone knocking on the door frame.

  "Okay, okay! I'll quit."

  He turned around from his music stand. There she was. He smiled. She offered a little smile in return. He was thrilled to get that much.

  "Please, don't let me stop you," Mai said.

  Mai came in and found a place to sit, as though she would become his audience. Horss didn't want to punish her ears further and started putting the clarinet away. "You'll be doing the neighbors a favor if you do stop me." Horss spoke with the reed still in his mouth, flipping up and down as he spoke. She didn't protest in his favor, so he continued taking the clarinet apart.

  /

  "You have a nice place," Mai commented. She got up and looked around while Jon cleaned the instrument and put it in its case. He keeps his place so neatly, she thought, which seemed at odds with his rather messy mind.

  /

  "You're still living in the hospital?" he asked. Horss spit the reed out. He wished she would live with him. He had thought she would, after what happened between them. He smiled to himself, thinking about their spontaneous meeting at t
he end of their stay on Earth. What did it mean to him? More importantly, what did it mean to her? She was subdued after the passion was spent. They parted without any further understanding of its meaning. He was surprised and hopeful when she mysteriously appeared on the Freedom. She would not, however, have much to do with him - until now.

  /

  "Yes, Aylis and I are still living in the hospital," Mai answered. And hating it, she thought. Aylis had become a very dear friend, but she was still difficult to live with. Aylis seemed deeply injured mentally and still kept Mai from trying to help her, except to be a friend for her. It was frustrating and even becoming as much a medical concern as a personal one. Mai could easily compare Aylis's condition to the tragic condition of Denna's life.

  Mai tried to set her concern for Aylis aside for the moment. She had her own problem. How could she turn this conversation in the direction she wanted? How would Jon react to her stupidity?

  /

  "Why are you still living in the hospital?" Jon asked.

  She shrugged. "It's convenient. There's still much to do. It was the most neglected part of the ship's construction."

  "What's up now? Why the visit?" He wanted to ask Mai to move in with him but was afraid. Why did he want to live with her? He was still a mystery to himself.

  /

  "Nothing is 'up.' Just trying to relax - away from Aylis." Mai had to hide her face so Jon wouldn't see the anger she felt for herself. How many decades had she dealt with people stranger than Jon? She'd always been able to be direct and truthful, even when her words were painful for others. But Jon was not a patient of hers - he was the father of her illegal