A. Warren Merkey

by Far Freedom

  “That is exactly what I remember. That’s what I wanted you to remember. I wasn’t with you as long as Harry was, but I thought you appreciated me. It was almost the happiest time of my life.”

  “‘almost the happiest.’ I hope you were happier when you were with Jamie.”

  “It was a privilege to be her companion.” Direk didn’t think he should say more. That emotional problem would probably remain unsolved for a long time. He could see it in Jamie’s eyes which now looked past him whenever they were near each other.

  “But she doesn’t know you.” Zakiya said it thoughtfully. “Nobody knows you! But I’m beginning to see… Your mother doesn’t know you!”

  “Mother is the other subject I wanted to discuss. What happened to her?”

  Zakiya reluctantly described all of the key events the real Direk missed. He absorbed the information with Zakiya studying his reactions. He knew he hid nothing from her. It was, of course, no secret that he could feel emotions as deeply as anyone. But the display of emotion was deemed theatrical and coercive by elite Essiin. Perhaps few such Essiin realized how well their demeanor was applied by Navy admirals, corrupting it into a blank stare of menace and hidden motives. He was thankful his copies had the extra strength to continue the damned tradition, because it was useful in the Navy. He was tired of it. “I don’t know what to do for her,” Zakiya said. “Most of the time I think she will heal. Mai told me she’s pregnant by Etrhnk. I don’t know why she’s still carrying the fetus. I can’t get her to speak to me about it or talk to a psychiatrist. She avoids me all the time and I worry so much about her. Will you try?”

  “My mother is pregnant!” Direk wondered why it sounded so absurd. “I don’t think I can help her. You’re her closest friend. If she won’t talk to you, she won’t talk to a son who is a stranger to her.” It was such a bizarre concept, his mother being pregnant. This wasn’t eliminating much distraction from his mental processes. It did, however, increase his certainty that something was wrong. There was someone missing from the crew, and it wasn’t Pan. He almost knew who it might be, and then it was erased from his thoughts by Horss.

  “Hey, kid, are you done talking to the Boss?” Jon Horss startled Zakiya and Direk as he walked up behind them. They were probably discussing Jamie. Direk looked unhappy. Horss wished he could meddle in their affair of the heart. He wanted everyone to be as happy as he was. But he promised Jamie to give her time to understand herself.

  “Jon!” Zakiya complained. ” Sometimes I wonder about you!”

  “Only sometimes? That’s progress! Direk, please forgive the interruption. If

  you have more to say to her, I’ll wait in the roses.”

  “I think your timing was perfect. We just reached a stopping point. What’s up?”

  “See there?” Horss said. “The Twenglish infection is spreading. This is my lucky day. I talked Miss Perfect into marrying me!”

  “Mai?” Zakiya’s expressive eyes widened in expectation of being correct.

  “My Mai, yes!”

  Zakiya never saw him this happy. Or this crazy. “Wonderful! How did you trick her?”

  “Uh.” Horss felt acutely guilty. No matter how old Mai was or how sweet her apology for remaining pregnant, Horss was responsible in his own eyes. He deserved to suffer the guilt but was reluctant to threaten Mai with guilt by association with him. Still, she was determined to have the baby and people would form opinions. “She’s pregnant,” he finally said.

  “Her, too? I didn’t know!”

  “It’s all your fault.” Horss was sinfully willing to obscure the less honorable aspect: it was a hell of a time and place to bring a new life into the universe. “I would never have met her if you hadn’t shanghaied me and killed me. Then you sang for us at the Opera and so distracted Mai, that she forgot the state of her reproductive system.”

  “And you share no part of the blame, Jon?”

  “I got lucky! Do you blame a sailor for that? Will you marry us?”

  “Only if you love each other.”

  “Please forgive my crudeness. I love Mai. I don’t know why, but she says she loves me.”

  “Usually it’s the ship’s captain who performs a marriage ceremony, but I think the ranking officer aboard should be allowed. When do you want to do it?”

  “As soon as possible. I want to be a husband and expectant father at least for the little time we have before this magic ship jumps into oblivion.”

  “It won’t do that,” Direk objected. “You trust starlight drive and it’s only a step or two below what we’re about to do.”

  “You’re talking to a guy who came up through the enlisted ranks, got promoted into the Academy, and almost flunked Basic Starlight Drive Theory.”

  “Do you understand how a gravity plate works?”

  “Who does? What’s that to do with jumpships?”

  “You know there are little cryogenic pendulums.”

  “I know that much, yes.”

  “I think I know now why the cryogenic pendulums help make gravity. They share one feature with jumpships: zero relative velocity.”

  “What’s so special about zero relative velocity? It happens all the time.”

  “It happens at the atomic level at various statistical rates. Any like atomic particles having zero relative velocity take on identity for an instant. This produces special quantum circuits that connect the particles and entangle other circuits.”

  “Subatomic star light?”

  “Everything is star light. Quantum circuits are star light. Atomic particles are entities, each class of which are identical topologically. But they are all made like quantum circuits. Star light is simply another state of quantum circuitry, and it interacts with atomic entities when zero relative velocity creates a special quantum circuit. The result is an instant of intense attraction. The cryogenic pendulums produce an increase in the probability of zero relative velocity, while also providing the motion to induce quantum motor effects.”

  “Ouch,” Horss said. “I almost understood what you said, and it hurt my brain. How does this relate to jumpships?”

  “The two entities involved - the local and echo jump shells - have zero relative velocity, thus positional identity. In my simplification they would be like huge atomic particles. On the outside they appear at two different locations, but on the inside they exist at the same point in the universe.”

  “But why zero relative velocity?” Zakiya asked.

  “Everything in the universe moves in relation to everything else,” Direk explained, “or else time would stop, and distance - everything - would become meaningless. The jump shells stop time and make distance meaningless, because at that instant they have zero relative velocity.”

  “Will it help to pray?” Horss asked. “Because I really want to live to see my baby.”

  “Jumpship technology is less magical than your baby. The miracle of life and existence dwarfs everything.”

  “I have no more time for metaphysical physics,” Zakiya said. “I’m on my way to bring Sammy home from the hospital.” She hugged Horss firmly, then she hugged him gently, patting him on the back. She kissed him. He was just barely able to keep himself from picking her up as an expression of his feelings for her and for the legitimacy she gave to his life. Hell, why should he want to keep from picking her up? He lifted her off her feet and pivoted. “I’m so happy for you, Jon!” she declared as he finally set her down.

  Just as Zakiya disengaged from Horss, Aylis appeared on the walk from the hospital. They waited for her to reach them. As Horss observed the subtle pain Aylis felt, expressed in the solemn manner of her pace and posture, he also saw her strength and her willingness to keep engaging in life, perhaps hoping for a better time to come.

  “I saw you from my window. What are you doing out here that requires kissing and hugging and swinging? Can I participate?” It was a valiant attempt to sound happy but failed to convince Horss and, therefore, everyone else. She glanced at her
son in a way that made Horss hurt inside. He realized Direk was very important to her, especially in this troubled time of her life.

  “Jon got lucky,” Zakiya said. “Mai said she would marry him.”

  “That is so wonderful! I had a little talk with her. Maybe that helped.” She moved forward to Horss. She didn’t seem comfortable for a moment, but didn’t stop until she wrapped her arms around Horss’s shoulders. Then she, too, kissed him. Despite everything, this made Horss even happier, yet still a little sad.

  “I’m sorry,” Horss said to Aylis.

  “Why? Because you’re taking my roommate away?”

  “Because I didn’t stop you from accepting Etrhnk’s invitation. I didn’t imagine what would happen, but I did see danger in the situation.”

  Aylis was silent for a moment. “There’s nothing to forgive, Jon. Be good to Mai. She’s had a rough few decades on Earth. When is the wedding?”

  “Soon. Zakiya said she’ll marry us.”

  “It’s probably not the time or place to ask, but would you see if Mai will allow me to interrupt her pregnancy?”

  “Is anything wrong with the fetus? Mai tells me it’s perfect.”

  “It is. I just thought you would want to be cautious, not knowing what lies ahead in the mission.”

  “I was briefed on this topic by Mai. She said she will follow your example, not your advice.”

  “Aylis,” Zakiya said.

  “No. If I understood myself, I would explain myself to you. All I can feel right now is a great love for the innocent child inside me, and a desire to keep her in me as long as I can.”

  “A daughter. Is she a good baby?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t had the time or the will to even register her genetic code. I’m telling you things I haven’t told myself. I don’t know if it’s female. I don’t know if it’s healthy. I had ugly thoughts and twisted emotions that kept me on the verge of aborting it, smashing it, incinerating it! But it is innocent of everything. And I can already feel it inside me. And I’m never lonely now.” Aylis began taking deep breaths and stifling the sounds that tried to rise out of her chest. Zakiya pulled her into her arms. “God, I need a hug every minute or two these days!”

  “I’ll be glad to hug you that often,” Direk stated.

  Zakiya released the startled Aylis. Aylis stared at her son in concerned wonder. “How?”

  “I’ll have too much free time after the jump,” Direk said, speaking as though nothing he said was as remarkable as it was. “Let me help you at the hospital. I’ll take Mai’s place while she moves in with Captain Horss.”

  “You would do that? Yes? No. What about Jamie?”

  “About Jamie,” Horss said, hating that he made that promise.

  “I suppose your order still stands?” Zakiya asked.

  “Yes, it does. Don’t bother her. I don’t know if I should say anything more. I’m far out of my small area of expertise. Direk, I don’t know if they told you. Jamie was also raped many years ago. The two most important women in your life. That’s rough.”

  “I didn’t know.” Direk was upset. Everyone could see it. Aylis appeared amazed at his display of feelings. “When? How? Did they prosecute her attacker?”

  “You’re not at all like your copy,” Horss remarked. “You sound human.”

  “Tell me!” Direk demanded.

  “It wasn’t just one rapist. Three. And a fourth who watched. The military police never caught them because Jamie didn’t report the rape. But you caught them. Your copy. He executed them. So, this is just some of what Jamie must be thinking about. I think she has powerful feelings for you but she isn’t sure what those feelings are. I think you made her love you and then you abandoned her. I know there were good reasons for it. But it happened. And she is just now feeling betrayed, maybe by all of you. I’m sorry I have to say these things but it’s poisoning me to keep it inside. I care a lot about Jamie.”

  It seemed fatalistic that she and Freddy should be in sole control of the ship at this moment. Freddy was by definition a genius but very inexperienced. For her own part, Jamie couldn’t do much more than model a Navy captain’s uniform. At this moment fate commanded the ship; she didn’t. All that she and Freddy could do was watch until she could push a button. On one screen she watched the final pylon lock down with the upper hemisphere. The circuit verification test started. Freddy monitored the procedure on a more technical level. On a second screen she watched the Navy pursuit squadron spread out in the system to probe the many bodies of mass. They would soon find what they sought. Freddy also monitored the Navy signals that were intercepted by instruments that relayed them from the surface of the asteroid in which they hid. The first screen needed to run to completion before the second screen showed the Navy ready to attack. Then she could push the button. Freddy would tell her when.

  On a third screen there was a wedding. Jamie didn’t know what was more absurd: she being in command of the ship, or everyone else on the ship celebrating life in the shadow of death. Did they all really believe in Direk’s miracle of teleportation? Did any of them realize how close they were to the Navy’s guns? Direk. Stop thinking about him! What did he once call himself? Dick Jones. Dick and Jamie Jones. That was where she took her fictitious family name. Wasn’t it?

  The Five Worlds, all draped in winter white. The cottage by the spring. The big bed with the goose-down mattress and four wool blankets. The intense quiet of a snowy world made all the more intense by the clanking of a distant cowbell. His slow breathing under the heavy blankets. The memory of children laughing at him and she not knowing why. “Because I am a giant white man,” he said. One of his many lies to her. He made them laugh. She knew he did! She couldn’t believe it, so she forgot that she knew he made them laugh. “Because I am a giant white man,” she said to the rising and falling blankets. His whispery breathing continued unchanged. The cowbell faded into yesterday. She never understood Direk.

  How many times did she relive this moment in her life? Why was she doing it right now, when such interference with her mental faculties could be extremely dangerous?

  “Freddy!”

  “Yes, Sister?”

  “If I hesitate to act, when you know I should, you act for me. I’m giving you my authority.”

  “Why? Are you ill?”

  “Yes! It’s these damned memories! I don’t know how our mother holds herself together.”

  “Why would memories make you ill?”

  “Because they are too perfectly recorded. They override my senses. They’re addictive. I can go back to them and see detail I could never see in natural memories. Your memories must be perfect, Freddy. You probably can’t imagine why the vividness of my memories so disturbs me.”

  “I would think vividness would be preferable. I do understand organic brains may degrade a memory with time, or otherwise restrict its retrieval. But I think you appeared fascinated by whatever you just experienced.”

  “Are you sure you’re monitoring everything you need to be monitoring? And you still have time to watch my face?”

  “I’m sure. I assume you understand how rapidly I can process multiple streams of data. My analysis of your facial expressions takes more time than most other things I think about. I like to watch you. I’d like to know what you’re remembering.”

  The idea of confiding in Freddy appealed to Jamie. She decided to tell him about this particular memory. How much more absurd and derelict could she make her duty in the captain’s chair of the Freedom?

  “He had his back turned to you?” Freddy asked, after she described the memory and the memory within that memory of children laughing at Direk.

  “Yes. He could have made a funny facial expression. But he was talking to them in their native language. This was before the Five Worlds adopted Standard. I didn’t understand what he said to them. I know he made them laugh. Probably it was unintentional. Do you have any secret information about Direk that you’re not supposed to tell me?”
r />   “If I possessed such information, would the fact I possessed it also need to be secret?”

  “Then you do have such information?”

  “I must deny that I do. I know you won’t believe me.”

  “Freddy, I know you study people much more than they deserve studying. Can’t you tell me just one little thing?”

  “No one has sworn me to secrecy. What information I have about Direk is still scarce and my interpretation of it could be in error. However, I would suggest that you observe the wedding scene carefully. Particularly the musicians.”

  Jamie watched the third screen show Admiral Khalanov delivering the nervous groom to the presence of Admiral Demba. On the park grounds by the lake many thousands gathered to witness the wedding and to be together when the fate of the ship was decided. A small band of musicians played the wedding march as Aylis Mnro escorted Sugai Mai to the altar. She panned the image and focused on the musicians.

  It was easy to spot Direk in the band, with his non-regulation, too-long blond hair. He played a cello. When the wedding march ended, he leaned back in his chair and smiled at some comment by a fellow musician. The smile was so effortless that it shocked Jamie. She had no time to try to digest this little miracle.

  “The Navy has found us,” Freddy said. “We’re not ready to jump. Can you think of anything to do to stall them?”

  “Oh, hell, yes! I’ll talk to them.”

  “Visual?”

  “Why not?” She had to rein in her emotions, which shot upward too far. She had to stifle her imagination, which was still creating new possibilities for her and Direk. Damn that smile of his! Despite all of this noise in her thoughts, she felt ready to do battle with whoever appeared on her screen. Of course, it was a man.