“I don’t think the wall’s been built that the four of us can’t get over with six weeks of lead time,” Jericho said pointedly, knowing the four of them likely represented a not-inconsiderable percentage of the total tactical value of living Adjusters in the Chimera Sector. Blanco’s people had been thorough, with preliminary numbers suggesting no more than 30% of the Sector’s Adjusters had survived his purge—while the more pessimistic projections suggested fewer than 10% had survived.
“Quite so,” Jessica agreed. “Not since the removal of the Old Nobility two centuries ago have so many talented Adjusters come together for a common cause—and no Adjustment since then has been as significant as this one.”
“Fine, so what’s the plan?” Masozi asked irritably.
“For this Adjustment, simplicity will be paramount,” Jessica explained, prompting the previous projections which had been gently rotating in the air above the conference table to vanish. They were replaced with the image of a large, grandiose building with a large, scrolling marquee set above red carpet which led to the building’s interior. “Fortunately for us, we know precisely where President Blanco will be located thirty eight days, nine hours and twenty two minutes from now.”
Jericho felt his lips curl into a lopsided grin, as Lady Jessica had just suggested the very course of action which he—and Stephen—had long considered to be their best available option.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Masozi said with patent disbelief. “Do you honestly think they won’t see this coming?”
“Sometimes,” Jericho swiveled his chair to face her as he let his smile harden, “the old ways are best.”
Chapter XXIV: A Deafening Silence
“What is it, Jeff?” Jericho asked as he made his way onto the Zhuge Liang’s bridge. It had been six days since Stiglitz’ head had died, and Jericho’s cousin had informed Jericho of the need to investigate a nearby fallback point designated during the evacuation of sentient resources from H.E. One.
“We’re about to drop out of Phase Space,” Captain Charles explained, gesturing to the countdown on the main view screen. “I thought you would want to be present.”
“You thought right,” Jericho nodded approvingly as he moved to a nearby chair and strapped in as the countdown reached thirty seconds.
Half a minute later the ship slid out of Phase Space, and the ship’s Comm. Officer, Shiva, began to audibly work through the various signals and frequencies on which Hadden transponders would signal the presence of evacuees in need of pick-up.
Several minutes passed as the other department heads made succinct reports to the Zhuge Liang’s commanding officer. Shiva—whose species’ psychological makeup made them ideal for processing and filtering communication frequencies and encrypted messages far more efficiently than any human mind could ever hope to replicate—eventually reported via her vocalizer, “I am reading a single transponder transmitting on the indicated frequencies, Captain.”
“Put it on,” Charles tilted his head toward the view screen, and a long string of numbers appeared which indicated the precise radio band on which the transponder was set to broadcast.
A second number appeared below that one which indicated the frequency and quality of the transponder’s signals, and it was this second number which made Jericho lower his brow thunderously.
“This is the third fallback point where we’ve found this same message,” Captain Charles swiveled his chair toward Jericho with a dark look on his face.
“It is,” Jericho nodded, “what are the odds that Blanco’s people could find all of these locations?”
“The odds of them even finding one of them, assuming a massive search effort which doesn’t appear to be underway, are below one in six hundred,” Jeff shook his head resolutely as he gestured to the main screen. “These radio signals are masked by the system primary—or, in this case, binary—star emissions. You have to know exactly what you’re looking for beforehand in order to find them, and the evacuation vehicles were all equipped for silent running and continuous operation within the EM envelope of the largest gas giant in every system chosen as a fallback point. Even if Blanco’s people found one of these fallback points—which would almost certainly require complicity on the part of someone embedded within the evacuation itself—the information would do them no good,” he said emphatically. “The Zhuge Liang has the only complete set of transponder frequencies and fallback locations, and the only people who have communicated outside of this ship are you and your fellow Adjuster.”
“Your security is tight,” Jericho agreed, “but what other possible explanation is there for all three of the fallback points we’ve reached being empty?”
“Someone else is collecting Hadden’s resources,” Captain Charles said, giving voice to a frankly terrifying prospect which they had both considered increasingly likely after not one, but two previous systems had been empty of Hadden evacuees.
“Is there any way for us to determine who that is?” Jericho asked tightly.
“No,” Charles shook his head, “the only thing we can know for certain is that the evacuees are gone, and that whoever collected them left these transponders behind in accordance with Hadden’s ultra-secret evacuation protocols.”
“Who else knew about these protocols?” Jericho asked.
“When I say ‘ultra-secret,’ I mean it,” Jeff growled. “According to Director Hadden, the only people who knew about these frequencies were the Director, myself, and the individual commanders of the Hadden vessels—but each of them only knew his or her designated rendezvous point, of which there were seventeen in total. We were required to memorize them from paper scraps which he burned in front of us after we had demonstrated recall of them.”
“You always did have a good memory,” Jericho said as he mulled over what all of this meant. They had been hoping to rendezvous with the various disparate survivors of H.E. One in order to provide whatever support they might provide to the beleaguered refugees—and, more pragmatically, Jericho had been counting on securing more material and sentient resources to support their upcoming mission.
“Let’s move on to the next system,” Jeff said after a lengthy silence, “helm, come about and charge the Phase Drives—“
“We both know that’s a bad idea,” Jericho interrupted, causing the Zhuge Liang’s commanding officer to whirl on him with a furious look.
“You may have been granted operational control over this vessel, Jericho,” Captain Charles flared, “but I’m not going to abandon the recovery effort for these people. They trust us to come for them, and I’m not going to betray that trust!”
“Do the math, Jeff,” Jericho said patiently, “if the odds were one in six hundred against even one of these locations being discovered by our enemies, and we’ve already found three of them to be empty, the simple math says we’re looking at a less than one in two hundred million chance that Blanco’s people got to all three of them.”
“Damn the numbers!” Charles snarled. “I’m not going to abandon my—“
“They’re my colleagues too, Jeff!” Jericho snapped loudly enough to cause shoulders to hunch together throughout the bridge. “But the numbers say that going after them is a bad play; we’ve got a primary mission to accomplish and we can’t endanger it.”
Captain Charles fumed in his chair for several seconds, hot blasts of angry air clearing his flared nostrils in rapid succession before his expression cooled far too quickly and he stood from the chair, “Then I’m hereby tendering my resignation as commanding officer of this ship.”
“Jeff—“ Jericho began.
“Either we go after the others or I’m done, Jericho,” Captain Charles said adamantly, and Jericho set his jaw. He very much disliked being backed into a corner, but it wasn’t as though this was an entirely unpredictable outburst on the part of his cousin.
He knew, however, that they could ill afford exposing themselves any more than they had already done. Whoever it was that had come
and taken the Hadden people and equipment knew as much as Jeff did, which was a serious problem in and of itself, but the lone good news was that none of the systems they had visited showed signs of armed conflict anywhere near the rendezvous coordinates.
“One more,” Jericho said, “we can check one more system of your choosing, after which we get back on track. After we’ve dealt with Blanco, we can dedicate as much time as we can possible afford to the effort of finding our colleagues. Is that acceptable?”
His cousin seemed genuinely taken aback by Jericho’s acquiescence, and looked ready to build up another head of steam before Jericho continued.
“The timing won’t work out for visiting more than one prior to the Blanco Adjustment, Jeff,” Jericho explained with forced neutrality in his tone. “We can check any one of the nearest six locations, but that’s it before it’s time to get back on task.”
Captain Charles nodded slowly, “Fine…one more.”
“Pick it yourself, and keep it between yourself and your navigation team,” Jericho urged, knowing that even the barest hint of suspicion could shatter the increasingly tenuous morale on the Zhuge Liang. The crew had suffered several casualties already, and as the final confrontation became nearer the rising tension had become a palpable presence up and down the warship’s corridors.
“I’ll do that,” Jeff said stiffly as he sat back down in his chair, prompting Jericho to rise from his and make for the lift. “Jericho,” his cousin called just before Jericho entered the lift, “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to suggest—“
“This is the deep shit, Jeff,” Jericho interrupted flatly, “we’re all on edge here. Let’s just keep focused on the job.”
Captain Charles nodded, and Jericho entered the lift. He input the command which would take the lift to the deck on which sickbay was located, and decided it was time to have a chat with the ship’s doctors about his increasingly worrisome arm.
“You have retained far more use of your limb than I would have expected,” Dr. Kowalski said after performing a thorough examination of his surgically-reconstructed arm.
“And I’m grateful for that,” Jericho said, though he was acutely aware that the limb had already atrophied to the point where it looked nothing like his other arm, “but these spasms are far from occasional, and far from minor, which seems to be a considerable departure from your previous prognosis.”
“It is surprising,” Maturin nodded as he reviewed several of the test’s results, “but not outside the bounds of what medical records show to be expected outcomes.”
“What can we do about the spasms?” Jericho asked.
“Unfortunately, not much,” Dr. Kowalski explained, “there are pharmaceutical solutions—“
“—But each of them have unwanted side effects,” Maturin interrupted smoothly, “side effects which may well interfere with your ability to perform the…duties of your office.”
“Drugs are a last resort,” Jericho nodded as he looked down at his twitching ring ringer—a sure sign that a spasm was not far off, “I can’t become dependent on them, but I also can’t have one of these damned things happening in the middle of a critical task that could mean the difference between success and failure.”
“We can work up a cocktail of stimulants and anti-convulsive drugs,” Dr. Kowalski suggested, which was somewhat surprising given that Jericho had expected Maturin to be first to suggest something of that nature. “But dependency is an issue for most—“
“Psychological dependency isn’t the issue,” Jericho said without a trace of boastfulness, “you’ve both read my history; I’ve been on and off every major addictive substance enough times in my first years at Hadden, as part of the interview process for my peculiar position, that we can all be assured psychological dependency isn’t a problem. I’m concerned about physical or neurological dependency; I need my wits and my body at my command for what’s to come.”
“The only medications which can accomplish what you’re asking,” Maturin said carefully, “and do not create physical or neurological dependency, are ones which cause permanent damage with each use.”
“Super stimulants?” Jericho asked with surprise. He had expected the conversation to take at least thirty minutes before the subject of illegal stimulants came up.
“There is nothing ‘super’ about them,” Kowalski quipped, making clear her disdain for the line of inquiry.
“But will they do what I want them to do?” Jericho asked pointedly. “Will they shut down the spasms in my arm for a window of time while permitting me to retain clarity and full control of all my other faculties?”
“Some would, yes,” Maturin nodded, “but we would need to fine-tune the mix of stimulants so it would be tailor-made for your unique neurophysiology, and that process is itself permanently harmful.”
“Which is why,” Dr. Kowalski said, reaching into her desk and producing a data slate, “I have taken the liberty of preparing a consent form for you to sign.”
Jericho’s eyebrows went up in surprise as he accepted and read the slate’s contents. “This is…unusual,” he said with overt approval.
“I knew there was no avoiding this particular subject if your limb was experiencing severe spasms,” she shrugged, “so I cut straight to the heart of the matter. If you give us consent, we will remove a small number of your brain cells to culture and clone for the purpose of adapting a cocktail of extralegal substances which will permit you to operate at maximum possible efficiency during a window of, say, thirty minutes.”
“Can this be expanded to include the synthesis of other tissues?” Jericho asked as the seed of a plan began to grow in the back of his mind.
“How much are you talking about?” Dr. Kowalski asked with narrowed eyes.
“Oh,” Jericho looked down at himself pointedly, “about a hundred kilos by the time of the Adjustment.”
“It can,” Maturin nodded, “but these tissues would not be suitable as replacements for whole muscle bundles, nerve fibers, or individual bones. Our facilities here are too limited for that, which is why we were unable to grow you a new arm. The tissue cloning system aboard this ship is mostly intended for skin grafts or, at most, synthesizing temporary muscle fibers to reinforce badly damaged musculature. So while we can synthesize the base tissues of your various organ systems, we can’t put them in anything remotely resembling a human form.”
“I don’t need an actual body,” Jericho said as he affixed his signature to the slate, “just the chemical approximation of one.”
“Even if we synthesized a whole body’s worth of tissues,” Kowalski said skeptically, apparently having guessed at Jericho’s intent, “any first year nursing student would be able to recognize they were just that: amorphous tissues.”
“I’ll take care of the post-mortem examination,” Jericho assured her, “if you can take care of growing the tissues and having them ready in time for the Adjustment.”
The two doctors actually shared a look of mutual concern before Kowalski sighed, “I think we can do that.”
“Good,” Jericho nodded as he stood from the chair, “thank you, Doctors.”
“Two minutes to the Phase Threshold,” the helmswoman reported two weeks later.
Jericho felt no small amount of hope that they would find Hadden refugees in this system, but his rational mind told him that it was practically impossible. Still, he allowed his mind to spin through the possible explanations which might account for their inability to find anyone at the previous three star systems which should have held evacuees from H.E. One.
“Coming out of Phase Space in three…two…one,” the helmswoman reported and the ship slid out of the strange state of existence which permitted faster-than-light travel between the stars.
“Scanning frequencies, Captain,” Shiva reported, and Captain Charles kept his features schooled as he read the incoming status reports from the vessel’s various department heads.
“For what it’s worth,” Jericho said heav
ily, “I doubt anyone on this ship would be happier than me if we actually do find them here, Jeff.”
Captain Charles gave him a sideways look before his affect softened and he nodded, “I don’t doubt that, Jericho.”
The next few seconds passed in silence until Shiva finally reported, “One transponder signal found, sir.”
As she had done the previous three times, the ship’s Comm. Officer put the detected frequency up on the main screen. Shortly after the long number appeared, the second set of figures populated the lower portion of the main screen and Captain Charles sighed loudly enough for everyone aboard the bridge to hear it.
“That’s it,” the Zhuge Liang’s commander concluded bitterly, “four out of four have already been evacuated.”
“Could one of the corporate Vice Presidents have been responsible for this?” Jericho asked.
“It must have been one of them,” Jeff nodded grimly, “my bet would be on Susan Durham; she’s capable, intelligent, and was in charge of two entire R&D divisions of Hadden Enterprises. If anyone could have found the location of these ships, my money would be on it having been her.”
“What about the Corporate Fleet that appeared at Rationem?” Jericho pressed. “Captain Kotcher was supposed to have died at H.E. One, and it looks like he might have only narrowly escaped that fate.”
“It must have been orchestrated by someone of Durham’s station,” Jeff grudged. “But I’m telling you, Jericho: she didn’t know about the evacuation procedure—at least she knew no more than any of the individual ship captains did.”
“Well, whoever it was,” Jericho mused, “we’ve got no reason to suspect that she, or he, is working across purposes with us.”
“But we’ve also got no reason to believe they’re following the script,” Jeff countered, “since only you, me, and Ms. Schmidt knew more than a small fraction of that script.”
“It’s a mystery,” Jericho admitted as he stood from his chair, “but it’s one that will have to wait until we’ve dealt with Blanco.”
Sic Semper Tyrannis: The Chimera Adjustment, Book Two (Imperium Cicernus 5) Page 37
