by Far Freedom
She studied him with part of her mind still distracted by thoughts of the child. He was tall. His light, loose clothing contrasted with his dark skin. His face and hair suggested a south Asian heritage, but certain subtle features placed him as non-Earthian. His calm posture probably came from age and experience, yet he emitted some concern which implied even more concern that was being masked. He must feel great concern. He was a musician and she judged him a person of deep emotions because of music. He was trying to show courage in confronting her, she who was an admiral in the dreaded Navy.
“Where is he? Where is Samson?”
Everything was already changed but now it changed again, changed more. The sound of her voice brought his thoughts to a halt. He stared at her for an unmeasured time, looking for something he couldn’t explain to himself. Then his thoughts restarted as he collected a description of her and tried to analyze it, tried to know if she should appear familiar to him. She was a Navy admiral but not as tall as most of her kind. She was of African ancestry: short gray hair, large brown eyes. She was young but she was very old; he could see it in her eyes, eyes that seemed to peel him down to his soul. She knew who he was. He didn’t know who she was, but he wanted to know. He wanted desperately to know who she was, and he suspected her name would not help. She was someone who mattered to him. The mere sound of her voice seemed to have kicked the first stone down the slope to start an avalanche.
“The boy?”
“How is he?” She worked hard to sound calm and in control. She had her yacht and its transmat. She only needed to ping for Samson’s location, wink them both aboard, and, yes, Jon Horss, too - assuming he was now alive.
“He is a brave child,” Pan replied, “but I wasn’t much comfort to him. He is lightly sedated now. He’ll be moved to the Mnro Clinic shortly. Would you answer some questions for me?”
“If I can.” She tried not to imagine Samson’s state of mind. “You should consider carefully what you do and what you want to know. This is a warning, not a threat.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Fidelity Demba. I am - or I was - the Chief of Navy Archives. I also serve on several councils that review Navy policies, procedures, and programs. I’m not someone with any power to speak of, if that might concern you. But I am someone with powerful enemies.”
“Who is the boy?”
“Would you introduce yourself?” she asked. “I think I know, but few things
in life are sure.”
“My name is Pan. I am the Opera Master of Earth. Who is the boy?”
“His name is Samson. I found him in Africa, at the Space Elevator. He doesn’t remember who he is or how he came to Africa. You won’t believe me but that is the truth.”
“How was he injured?”
Demba checked herself before trying to answer. The images of what happened to Samson sent little shockwaves through her throat and into her chest. She had to take a deep breath while feigning calmness and control. “I can’t explain his injuries. I didn’t cause them but I do feel responsible. Is Captain Horss viable?”
“Unknown at the moment. I put him in stasis. Should I offer treatment, or let the Navy take care of it?”
“I don’t think there is a good choice. What will happen to Samson?” Anxiety now surfaced at the thought of losing him, of losing the chance to solve his mystery. But someone would solve it, and she might keep in touch to learn the solution. It was probably far simpler than her imagination allowed. Pan took a long time to think about his answer, time that made Demba feel even more anxious. What could Samson matter to her? But then what else mattered anymore? She had Baby. She might have Samson. And Horss had asked her that painful question: why had she never wanted to have a child of her own?
“Would you like to spend some more time with Samson? He was asking for you.” She could have answered his unexpected question in an instant, but the shock of seeing her answer’s implications made her hesitate. “There is a condition I ask you to observe. Leave your Class-1 uniform with me. So you can’t call your ship.”
There it was, she thought. The decision of a lifetime, of what little life was left to her. To give up her yacht now meant giving up some future chance of surviving the Navy Commander’s vengeance. On the other hand, Earth would complicate Etrhnk’s plans and remove her from the spotlight on the stage of Navy Headquarters, where her punishment would best impress those others who would seek to displease the Navy Commander. She began to unseal her Class-1, stripping down to her undergarments as the Opera Master watched. She had been manipulated, perhaps many times, and now once again. But she knew what she wanted, and it wasn’t the Navy Way of Life.
Section 004 Twenglish in Skivvies
Free will.
He opened his eyes. Saw her. Liked her. She jumped away. He turned his head - it was all he could move, and it hurt! - to follow her. She didn’t like him. She stood there with fear in her dark Asian eyes, but there was also curiosity. Why did he like her? Why so immediately? He never liked her type: aloof, too competent, too perfect. How did he know what she was like? Why did he think these thoughts? Not professional. Free will? What had happened? What was wrong? He was wrong. His head hurt. His neck hurt. He felt almost nauseous. His mouth was dry. He tried to clear his throat. He still looked at her. She seemed pinned by his gaze. It was funny, that she was uncomfortable in his gaze.
“You ain’t her but you’ll do for now.” The words hurt his throat, not allowing him to speak as smoothly as he wished. He spoke Twenglish on impulse, after forty years of never speaking a word of it. What did he mean by what he said? There was another woman? Yes. Where was she? He tried to sit up but something glued him down. “Hell, I’m in jail again. Ow! My head! My neck! What bar did I get thrown out of?”
His eyes followed Mai’s retreat. The Navy man started to speak but cleared his throat first. He was in pain. He spoke Twenglish. Navy officers depicted in popular culture never spoke anything but Standard. He tried to sit up on the examination table but couldn’t. Mai could hardly understand the meaning of his words. He was loud. He scared her.
Free will. Was he free of will? He tried again to get up. The invisible restraints ceased. Unsteadily he brought himself to a sitting position with his bare legs dangling from the side of the table. Bare legs? He was no longer in uniform, just in his skivvies. He sat there for a moment with his head hung low, hand on the side of his neck. The Asian woman retreated farther and as he raised his aching head his eyes found her again. “There she is. She hates me. Damn, but I’m thirsty!” As she filled a cup with water and brought it to him, he glanced at the other person in the room and nodded a greeting with a frown of pain. He accepted the water from Miss Perfect.
“I don’t hate you,” Mai said.
“Give it time.” He winced as he winked. “Where am I? What happened to me?”
His fingers touched hers when he took the cup of water. She tried to suppress a shudder. Why was she reacting so badly? Why did she have to treat a Navy officer at all? He wasn’t supposed to be here! Dope him, box him, and ship him out. It wasn’t too late.
The dark man stood up in his peripheral vision. Horss could sense his large size, gage his lean mass, feel his intentions. The man was either relaxed or preoccupied. The small Asian woman kept silent and distant, judging him with disdain, he guessed. He finally turned his gaze to the big man.
This was Pan’s business, not hers. Mai felt relieved as those bright gray eyes finally turned away from her to look at Pan. “My name is Pan,” her old friend said to the Navy captain. “This is Mai.” Pan really didn’t need to introduce her! She wanted no part of Navy.
Horss thought about it for a moment. Did he have free will? “Jon Horss,” he said. “Where’s my uniform? Where is she?” Fragments of violence darted through his inner vision. A brief, searing glimpse of a bloody, charred stump of human limb made him suck in his breath and hold it for control.
“Your uniform is here,” the dark man said. “Where
is your ship?”
Horss stood up to face the taller man. Mai was surprised the captain wasn’t as tall as Pan. Navy officers were all supposed to be tall: the Master Race. He was, however, much more finely conditioned and shaped than he appeared in the horizontal repose of death. She admonished herself. Was it her own perversity that made a dangerous Navy officer too interesting?
She watched him take in all of Pan. She once thought Pan a scary giant. Seeing him next to the Navy captain she remembered that perception of him from her early days on Earth. She forgot what a force Pan was, what violence he survived. She understood the Navy captain’s cause for a military assessment of Pan.
“I have no ship,” Horss replied. The man didn’t seem completely Earthian and Horss couldn’t read his intent. His close proximity could mean nothing. Clearly this person had no fear of him, no antipathy for him. So much for Navy mystique. He held out his empty cup, still looking at the big guy, and waited for the Asian woman to take it. He knew this was bad manners but his natural tendency was to face the potential threat. Why was he so sensitive to combat procedure, as though he couldn’t forget her? Free will. Whose will? He tried to relax. He turned and smiled at the woman and said, “Thank you. Could I have another?” He backed off from Mr. Dark and leaned against the table on which he’d awakened, letting the pain and fatigue talk to him. He who called himself Pan didn’t answer his last question: where was she?
He continued to speak Twenglish, and as well Mai could tell, he was fluent in it. Who was this other person to whom the Navy officer referred? Pan told her nothing of a second person. Another Navy officer? In all her decades of working with Pan to serve the small population of Earth, she’d never participated in such a potentially dangerous situation. One avoided Navy officers. Mai attended this emergency because it was her duty as a physician, because Pan asked her. She was intrigued to know why this officer was on Earth and what his medical prognosis would be, but she was afraid of him. He was certainly an interesting… genetic specimen.
“Why am I here?” Horss asked. He sensed the answer would threaten him in some way but he had to know. All he could remember was her. And the boy. And something going from worse to worst. Why did he want to speak Twenglish? Because it was the Navy’s Forbidden Language?
“You died,” Pan said. “I brought you here. Mai brought you back to life.”
He saw the blurry sequence of what he remembered coming into focus but he didn’t understand why it reached that conclusion. “She killed me?”
“Why were you trying to kill her?”
Mai was shocked. She didn’t know how the Navy officer died, except for the evidence in the brief scan she performed: only one point of attack, small and precise, fatally effective. It disturbed her to hear confirmed the rumors of how brutal life in the Navy could be. She stepped closer to hear this conversation and to try to understand it, Pan speaking Standard, the Navy officer speaking Twenglish. There was no doubt the man was mentally damaged. She had tried to minimize the brain trauma. It was difficult working on a body so filled with hardware. His augments almost brought him back to life without her help.
“Why were you trying to kill her?” Pan had asked.
“I don’t know that I was,” the captain answered. “How did she do it?”
“Kill you? The knuckle of one finger.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I think you must believe me.”
“Why am I here? Is she waiting for me?”
“In a sense, you’re under arrest. As is she.”
“Where is she?” the captain demanded.
“Not here. You must leave her alone.”
“I don’t want to leave her alone! Who are you to order me?”
“I’m the law on Earth.”
That was an interesting way to put it, Mai thought, but true. Pan had evolved into the central figure of authority on Earth. She didn’t think of him as a lawman. That implied violence of enforcement. It was many years since those wilder days, when order was needed daily. Pan settled into a position of governorship. It wasn’t official, of course. No one lived on Earth legally. The small population was allowed out of practical necessity, since it was never possible to remove it completely or permanently. She and Pan were the only persons with conditional EPA approval for long-term residency.
“I didn’t know Earth had any law,” the Navy man said. “And how would I fall under your jurisdiction?”
“By force, if necessary, Captain.”
“And you arrested the admiral?”
” She allowed me to detain her.”
” She’s strange. And how is the boy?”
“Better than you might expect. I treated his physical injury.”
“A real boy. Right?”
“Real? Yes.”
” She found him, in the middle of nowhere, abandoned, and darn near killed him.”
“The leg?”
“No, that was later.”
“What did she do to him, prior to the leg?” Pan asked.
“Leg?” Mai said, waking up to the meaning of their words. “You’re talking about a child? What child? What’s wrong with the child’s leg?”
“What did she do to the child before the leg?” Pan asked again.
“Landed the yacht on top of him!” the captain declared. “Said it couldn’t see him!”
“The child!” Mai actually shouted. “His leg! What happened to him?”
“Cut off,” the captain answered, making a chopping motion with one hand, frowning deeply.
“Cut off?” Mai was horrified at the picture in her mind.
“Is there an echo in here?” It angered Horss to disclose the fact of the child’s suffering. He was ashamed. A good captain measured his worth in the safety of those he commanded. The boy came within his sphere of responsibility and he failed him.
“How did it happen?” the physician asked more patiently.
“I’m not sure and you wouldn’t believe my theory.” Hell, he didn’t believe it himself! He wouldn’t let the truth make him look foolish. There was no way that elevator could have moved. But the blood…
“Tell me, please.”
“Forget about it!”
“Where did it happen?” she asked, trying to be as calm as possible, trying to calm the captain. He was extremely upset. The captain was suddenly a real person to her, with real feelings. His face came back into focus for her, as though she had been trying to subconsciously deny his existence, turning him into a blur. She could look into his gray eyes without them stabbing at her, appraising her as though she was an officer under his command. He turned away from her.
“In the space elevator,” the captain said more calmly but refusing to reveal more.
” The boy,” Mai pleaded, highly concerned there was a real child with real injuries, “the poor child! Will one of you tell me why he isn’t in the Mnro Clinic at this moment?” She was upset, something that rarely happened to her after a century and a quarter of helping sick and injured people, and dealing with all the irrational people who wanted to live on Earth. She could understand if the captain’s behavior wasn’t in its best form. She couldn’t understand why Pan was so odd tonight. It worried her greatly that he did these things, involving himself with the Navy, finding an injured child and not letting her treat him, not even telling her of him.
“I treated his injury,” Pan said, distracted. He shivered.
“You treated him? An amputation? Tell me what you did.”
“It was already treated to a surprising extent. All of the major blood vessels were clamped off. I couldn’t determine how it was done but it appeared perfect. There was also some singeing of the tissue, like cauterization. It merely needed cleaning and bandaging. I had an adaptable automedic that fit the wound, so he shouldn’t feel any pain. I don’t understand how the wound got treated, Captain. What are you holding back, and why?”
The Navy captain returned their stares as he seemed to wrestle with a mental pr
oblem. He finally shook his head negatively. “Eventually I may have an answer for you,” he said, “but just to give you a notion of why I’m reluctant to say anything, consider that of all the things that happened to me in the last few hours, getting killed was possibly the least significant.”
Mai didn’t know how to interpret the captain’s remark. She probably should not want to know what it meant. But it worried her. She brought her thoughts back to where they belonged. “Where is he? I need to see the boy!”
“I sent them both to Rafael,” Pan responded.
“Who is Rafael?” the captain asked.
“An artist.”
“Pan, why?” Mai asked. “Why all of this? What have you done?”
“I must speak with her again,” Pan said, agitated, “and before I do, I must determine why. I need to leave, Mai. I can’t stay. Will you be safe with the captain? He seems fairly rational. If he wishes to leave, he may. Or he can stay with me until I meet the admiral again. Will you take care of him?”
Mai was left with her mouth open and no Pan at whom to protest. He didn’t wait for her to reply to his final question. He was a changed man tonight. That was the most disturbing thing. How long had she known him? And now she didn’t know him. She turned to the Navy captain. The captain was still looking at the door Pan closed behind him as he departed the detention room.
“I know who he is. The Mother Earth Opera. I always watch it.” The physician named Mai wanted nothing more to do with Horss. He sensed a challenge. He didn’t like to be ignored or pushed away. She showed him where his uniform was and where he could stay for the night in Pan’s dwelling. She left after that, refusing to talk further with him. Too bad she didn’t know that made her all the more interesting to him.
He tried to contact the admiral’s yacht but the shiplink was inactive. He tried to contact the admiral but that also failed. He sat down on a soft civilian bed in front of a big window that gave a view of one of Earth’s oceans. Just to be sure it was a real window he got up and walked up to it, tapped it, and stared through it at the night. He pulled a chair next to the window and sat and stared. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He hardly ever had any free time. The incarceration on the admiral’s yacht nearly drove him crazy. At least he had his in-body data augment and some of the work he could do, as the captain of the Navy flagship. But that was all done and probably was also now obsolete and irrelevant. There was a lifetime of data in his augment but he didn’t feel like viewing it. He hardly wanted to do any thinking at all. He might exercise, try to get the soreness out of his body, but that could wait. He was tired. He returned to the bed and lay down. He knew there were issues about his future that should keep him awake but he fell asleep while viewing images he had recorded. He studied Samson for a long time, wondering why he had never wanted to be a father. He puzzled over the few images he recorded of Admiral Demba, seeing her in a new light but unable to understand what it was. Finally there was the woman physician. Her name was Mai…
