A. Warren Merkey

by Far Freedom

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “Then it isn’t a human you’ve stabbed.”

  “I saw much blood, and this person could choke his assailant to unconsciousness before he succumbed to the wound.”

  “My goodness, I’ve no other explanation! It would be a miracle if nothing vital was injured.”

  Ramadhal tried to turn his attention back to the window and Etrhnk let him. They rode in silence for a few more moments. Etrhnk had, on impulse, chosen

  the tube car over the quicker transmat and he was not disappointed. He was no longer in a hurry to go anywhere. The private car took a branch of the tube that slanted upward toward the rim of a crater. Ramadhal turned back to Etrhnk with surprise and noticed the Marines checking their weapons.

  “This is the way to Doctor Mnro’s home,” Ramadhal said. “Why are we going there?”

  “To see if she’s there.” His mind being unusually full of personal thoughts, Etrhnk had overlooked explaining to Ramadhal the objective of their trip. The physician had not questioned him about anything until now.

  “But she departed on the Freedom.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Why do you need me to be present?”

  “Your reaction. Your medical expertise.”

  The tube car climbed the flank of the crater, entered a tunnel through the wall of rock, and emerged into a pressurized terminal. The Marines led the way from the tube car, checking for automated defenses. They walked in sunlight filtered by a pressure canopy that spanned the rim of the crater. The canopy made of itself an afternoon sky on Earth. They walked along a gravity-enhanced path through an orchard into an English garden and from there onto a small stone patio at the side of a modest house. French doors stood open. A breeze fluttered the drapes by the doorway. The Marines searched the house. Etrhnk and Ramadhal waited for them at a central stairwell that led to lower levels.

  She climbed the wide staircase toward them: pale sandaled feet on dark lunar rock. Short blonde hair just covered the top of her head. Bare legs, slender but not lunar weak, propelled her in short parabolas up the steps. Her attire seemed proper for sleeping, but not for entertaining guests. Ramadhal backed away as she approached, clearly embarrassed at seeing too much of Aylis Mnro’s epidermis. The Marines remained on the upper stairway, aiming downward with their weapons.

  “I’m so glad to see you again, R.K.,” she said to Ramadhal, giving a long glance to Etrhnk as she passed him. She took Ramadhal’s arm and led him through the French doors and out into the afternoon on the patio. Etrhnk and the Marines followed. “I see the gardeners were here recently. The roses were getting unruly. How are you doing in your new job, R.K.?”

  “Is it you?” Ramadhal asked. “Is the other one also… you?”

  “We are Aylis Mnro, both of us. The other me is the original, but I’m the one who built the Mnro Clinics. I’m the one you always argued with.”

  “But are you not human?”

  “You’ve known me for more than a century, R.K. Wasn’t that proof enough?”

  “Examine her,” Etrhnk said to Ramadhal.

  “I didn’t bring any instruments.”

  “I suspect they would be useless. You have augments.”

  She opened her blouse partially. Ramadhal placed his fingertips upon her chest. He listened. He viewed data written to his retinas. “Her heart is beating too fast. All other data are normal for a human female.”

  “No indication of machinery?”

  “We all have some machinery in us. I cannot identify what is an augment based on current technology and what is something in advance of our technology.”

  “No matter. Leave us now. Go with the Marines. I’ll speak to Doctor Mnro alone.”

  “Goodbye, R.K.,” she said sadly, buttoning her blouse.

  Ramadhal opened his mouth to speak but hesitated, appearing to measure the tone of her voice. His eyes became moist. “Goodbye, Doctor Mnro.”

  “Aylis,” she said. “How many times have I told you to call me Aylis?”

  “How many days in a century, Aylis? Goodbye.” He turned away with a jerk of his head, stumbled slightly, and followed the Marines across the English garden toward the orchard.

  For some reason Etrhnk felt nothing for this counterfeit being. For some reason this being felt no fear of him. She was, in every noticeable facet, exactly Aylis Mnro. But she was not Aylis Mnro. It was an impenetrable mystery. “Who are you?”

  ” Thank you for bringing R.K. with you.”

  ” You are not Aylis Mnro.”

  “Neither of us, I think, is who we are. Do I seem so different from her?”

  “She was afraid of me. You are not.”

  ” She lives for life. I live for death. Did she have cause to fear you?”

  “Yes.”

  ” You hurt her.”

  “I did.”

  ” You would hurt me?”

  “Never. Nor her. Never again. You are a mystery to me.”

  “You are also a mystery to me. I feel I should know you better.”

  “Who is Fidelity Demba? Zakiya.”

  Aylis Mnro required several minutes of apparently difficult introspection to find an answer. ” Someone you must not harm. Have you?”

  “No. Why can’t you give me a clear answer?”

  “Not much is clear to me. I’m letting go of our memories, even as I weep to see them recede.”

  “Who am I?”

  She paused again to strain at remembering. The effort seemed great. “The best and the bravest.” She appeared puzzled at her own words. She wavered slightly and started panning her gaze around the lunar estate.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “A memory. How sweetly sad. And how deadly.”

  “What memory?” Etrhnk now knew desperation.

  “You.”

  Etrhnk watched her continue to waver. He tried to reach for her, to steady her but she pushed his hands away, even while stumbling. She kept looking at him, her expression changing too much for him to decode. She reached the edge of the patio. She looked back at the house for a moment. She stumbled into the green grass of the lawn next to the English garden. She fell. Etrhnk dropped to his knees beside her, his hands hovering over her with nothing to do but tremble in frustration.

  “Forgot you,” she said, as though she would follow it with more words which she could not bring forth.

  I do not want you to die! he thought, afraid to speak aloud for fear of missing what she might say next.

  Her body deteriorated in a strange way, as though dissolved from the inside by a chemical. Etrhnk remained close to her, hoping for some further response.

  “Petros,” she finally said. Her body liquefied and seeped away into the green grass.

  He knew he would die, in order that Fidelity Demba and Aylis Mnro might live. He did not know why. He would die in ignorance. He would die mourning this person who called him Petros.

  Section 016 Khalanov Meets Wingren

  “The ship has no bow, of course, no fore and aft,” Iggy said, “but the damage at Ring Zero East is still serious.” He was grateful for the hard work he saw ahead of him. It seemed that every idle moment he yearned for a memory of a woman named Ana. He could only imagine his loss, and his imagination made it too much to bear. It helped that Zakiya understood and was gentle with him.

  “More serious than you realize,” Zakiya said.

  “It’s only a range of five degrees in which we don’t have an instant heading. That’s why we are now oriented to South as the preferred bow.”

  They viewed a hologram of the ship in the Engineering Planning Office.

  “That’s not the reason.” Zakiya rotated the hologram to bring a certain feature to where they stood. “You see the damage to Tuning Pylon Two?”

  “I’ve compensated for its deformity. The drive envelope has barely lost a decimal place.”

  “It no longer meets the height specification. It absolutely must be in alignment with the other py
lons.”

  “Why is that?” He was momentarily irritated at this demand, until he remembered that Zakiya had secret information about the design and purpose of the ship, information he was anxious to learn. He was still hurt that she wouldn’t tell him.

  “It’s a connection point for an external structure.”

  “What external structure? And how can it make contact through a meter of passive shielding?”

  “The shielding will be removed, and it must be removed before we arrive at our next destination.”

  “We’ll be the brightest object in the sky for any active sensor sweep!”

  “Which means we’ll need a little luck in addition to engineering skill. Can you fix this pylon?”

  “Yes! You won’t tell me about this external structure?”

  “I don’t remember anything more about it, Iggy. How long to repair the pylon?”

  “Two days if Plan A works, three if we need Plan B. It’s only a guess. You know I was always conservative in my estimates, but too much now depends on too little.”

  “What will you do about the passive shielding?”

  “It depends.”

  “I love talking to engineers! Depends on what?”

  “Depends on whether we have to scrape it off very carefully, or if we can burn it off.”

  “How would you burn it off?”

  “Gas giant atmospheric friction or solar corona.”

  “That means wallowing through Einsteinian space.”

  ” If you want a clean hull…”

  “Can you blow the shielding off with explosives? I’m betting it doesn’t need to be perfectly cleaned from the hull.”

  “That’s a novel idea! The hull is tough enough to survive chemical explosives. Drive geometry should remain within pattern tolerances. I’ll have to run a test. How much time do I have?”

  “Very little. Freddy has brought us near our destination early. I gave him sailing lessons. My guess is a maximum of five days and a minimum of two.”

  “You can be very demanding, Zakiya!” Iggy tempered his declaration with humor. He didn’t want to return to those days when he and Fidelity and Direk talked like strangers from different worlds who didn’t trust each other. The ship meant much more to him now. This wonderful woman meant even more to him.

  ” You always used to call me Zak.”

  “On the Frontier? Was that a nice thing to do? It doesn’t sound respectful of your gender.”

  “You had everybody calling me Zak. You were my nemesis, always keeping me from being too serious.”

  “I wish we had more time to talk. Your memories may be all I ever know of my past.” Zakiya startled Iggy by kissing him and she gave him a wistful smile. “Why did you do that?” Iggy touched his cheek where her lips had pressed.

  “A memory of you - somewhat parallel to this - gave me joy. I apologize. It’s not in the Navy Code of Conduct.”

  “I have no complaint! I always wished we could be friends. It was never possible for me to reach out to you through the atmosphere of distrust generated by the Navy. You’re so different now.”

  ” You wanted to be friends with the person I used to be? I can’t imagine why.”

  “Perhaps somewhere deep inside I knew you were Zakiya.”

  “Perhaps somewhere deep inside is the Iggy who was once my nemesis.” She kissed him again. Someone cleared her throat behind them. Zakiya turned to see a female Navy officer standing at attention. “At ease, Wingren of the Commodore Keshona Admiration Society.”

  “May I ask a quick question, admiral? I haven’t been able to catch Major Jones. Is Alexandros Gerakis her father?”

  “Why would you think so, Wingren?”

  Iggy was trying to return to his engineering problems while savoring his warm relationship with Zakiya. His attention was wrested away by this new arrival. What this Rhyan woman said about Alexandros Gerakis surprised him. Who was this officer and how did she know such things about Zakiya and her daughter?

  “I was with your daughter when she retrieved the crew portrait of the Frontier. Perhaps I was being too imaginative when I saw some resemblance between Gerakis and Major Jones.”

  “She does look more like her father than me,” Zakiya agreed. When she saw the expression on his face, she winked at Iggy. “If you bury yourself in Engineering all the time you should expect to miss a few things! Carry on.”

  Zakiya departed, leaving Iggy standing next to the Rhyan female. He was at a loss for words, his mind filled with new thoughts warring for attention. He stared after Zakiya long after she was absent from his sight.

  “Reporting for duty, sir,” Wingren said, after waiting for an extended time.

  Iggy pulled himself together. Reminding himself that Zakiya was depending on him alone - because of the death of Direk - gave him the needed force to clear his mind. He turned to the lieutenant commander. “You are reporting for duty?”

  “I was just released from temporary duty with Security, sir. I’m an engineer.”

  Iggy extended his hand hesitantly, not sure a handshake was a custom shared by the Rhyan desert cultures, not sure he wanted to feel the texture of her hand. She took his hand without hesitation and with a grip that kept him from sensing any difference in her almost scaly skin. He smiled with relief and pleasure, because she was pleasant to look at and decisive in her actions. She was with Security? “What is this about the ‘Commodore Keshona Admiration Society?’”

  “I and three others, sir, have studied Commodore Keshona for several years. As a serious hobby. We were eventually able to discover her current identity.”

  “Are you sure? Who is she?” Wingren looked quizzically at him, so quizzically that he knew he missed something. “I’m old and perhaps loaded beyond my capacity with responsibilities. Please help me understand.”

  ” Sir, I was under the impression that you’ve known Admiral Demba for a long time.”

  “A very long time. What has that to do…”

  Wingren waited. Iggy thought. Zakiya… Fidelity… Ruby Reed… He knew what Wingren implied. And if it was true… “She was Keshona! Now I understand how she did it!”

  “Did what, sir?”

  “Approached Rhyandh without being detected.”

  “How did she do it?” Wingren sounded intensely interested.

  “We’ll learn the details in two to five days. All this time, I never could have suspected she was Keshona! Even less, the wife of Alexandros Gerakis! I’d like to see your evidence sometime, Wingren.”

  “Gladly, sir. I’d like to hear of your experiences in Deep Space Fleet.”

  “Unfortunately, I have no memory of that. I had a wife they say was quite special, and I don’t remember her, either.”

  “I regret your loss.”

  Despite the desert skin and the hawk-like eyes, Wingren pleased his senses. Her attitude was refreshing and her character interesting. He hoped her engineering skill was as promising. He needed all the help he could get. “Come along, then! We have a lot of work to do. Do you know anything about explosives?”

  Section 017 Captain Jones and the Malay Pirates

  She was on the bridge before but failed to appreciate its beauty. The canopy of stars fascinated her and gave her vertigo. She saluted. Her mother reached out for her and pulled her to a chair. Two other officers departed the bridge. Except for Freddy, only Captain Horss and her mother remained with her. She looked from one to the other, expectant of some further bad news.

  “I discovered you have merchant marine experience,” Horss said. “Navigator. You once took command of a ship in an emergency.”

  “Merchant marine?” A memory from out of nowhere transfixed her. The images streamed through her conscious, brief and bright, concisely edited, as though a summation of an event that wasn’t very important, except that it led to more important events. “Yes, sir. The highlight of my career was as second mate aboard an express freighter. A psychopath murdered the captain and injured the first mate. I had to tak
e over and find out who the murderer was. Except for one or two confrontations, it wasn’t a difficult situation.”

  ” Sounds difficult to me! Why did you quit the merchant marine afterward?”

  “I learned my parents died. I was adopted and never knew I was related to them. But I was. They were my grandparents. I suddenly had other priorities.”

  “Priorities do change. I need help. Will you accept a promotion to Navy captain?”

  It was a full five seconds before she could respond. “You must be desperate, sir!”

  “I am. You don’t know it but I’m damaged. I’m surviving, but mainly by reputation.”

  “Jon,” Demba said sympathetically. “You’ve done very well, especially considering the unique circumstances. I don’t know why you continue to criticize yourself.”

  “He was very kind to me,” Jamie said to her mother. “If that’s a symptom of his inefficiency then I don’t understand the job.”

  Horss reacted with a slight smile and an effort to continue with an objective tone of voice. Jamie hoped she wasn’t being too generous in her assessment of Horss. It was hard to judge his qualities from the few encounters she had with him. She liked him, and she hated to distrust her feelings. She was changing into some other person almost from moment to moment. Her feelings were dominating her, they were all she had to guide her, and they could change at any moment.

  “I’m not prejudiced by your record as a Marine, Jamie, or by your parentage. I think you can do the job, in whatever way you want to define it. Your mother wouldn’t let me make this decision if she didn’t agree with me. Do you have a candidate to replace you as head of Security?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you’ll take the job?”

  “Yes, sir. But I don’t understand why you need another officer of that rank. I can’t replace Direk.”

  “I don’t have a logical reason,” Horss replied. “It just feels right to me. I was going to invent a new crew slot and call you a junior ship captain. If you want to call it executive officer, fine. You are second in command, followed by your mother. We are the only real line officers aboard. Report here for duty at shift change but keep your Marine uniforms until after the next stop.”