by Bodicea
“He told me, and he took me under his wing when I moved to the compound.”
“Ah, yes, many of the men at the compound take young boys ‘under their wing.’”
Tobias face flashed red with fury. If he could have exploded Solay’s head by force of concentration, there would be brains spattered on the walls.
“Enough,” Ciel said. “Tobias is no traitor. Visiting the compound is no crime.”
“Who was with you?” Solay persisted.
“I will tell you, but not here.” Tobias spoke. “I freely surrender myself for interrogation. You can take me to the detention center on Hirondelle Street. I will go willingly … on one condition.”
Solay ignored him and addressed Ciel. “Perhaps, he is a better citizen than I thought.”
“The condition is as follows. I demand to be treated no differently than the other male prisoners Solay has rounded up.”
Ciel stared down Solay. “The dissidents are being treated according to the protocols of detention. Their rights are being honored, are they not?”
“The monitors are sworn to uphold the innate rights of prisoners.”
“Male prisoners do not have innate rights,” Tobias reminded her.
“Are they being fed?” Ciel persisted. “Are they being given water? Hygienic facilities? Rest?
Medical Attention?”
“I am quite sure the monitors are taking good care of them.”
“Are you certain?”
Solay looked angry and put-upon. “Believe it or not, Ciel, I have not personally inspected every detention station on Jean D’Arc continent…”
Ciel held up her hand. “No, Tobias is part of my … part of my household. I would no more permit you to question him than I would permit you to interrogate Hippolyta, or Pieta. He will remain here, in my house. You may place a monitor outside to assure he does not leave until the end of the crisis, but you are not to subject him to interrogation.”
“As is your prerogative to extend your Circular Privilege around your … ‘family.’” Solay looked as though she were suppressing a smile, and Ciel knew she had possibly signed her political death certificate.
Ciel called to her assistant. “Lyta, when is the next airship scheduled to depart for Concordia?”
“At seven hours and seventy minutes in the morning.”
“I will be on it. You should also be on it, Solay. I am going to cast my vote for closure on the Aurelian Treaty. You will want to be there. My vote will make seven, and the treaty will be voted on by zero hour of the following day.”
Keeler arrived at Hospital One. Pegasus had four hospitals. Only One and Four were currently operational. They were designed after the Health Centers on the Home Worlds, warm, comfortable, brightly colored chambers with abundant living plants to enhance the healing. Daisy Reagan, the Ship’s ancient Chief Physician was standing next to a woman in her thirties, who had recently been crying.
“You called for me, doctor?”
” Ah thought this would concern you,” she drawled in her ancient and frightening rasp.
Damb, Keeler thought. I am so glad I didn’t grow up in her family. Those dried up lips would probably have torn the flesh from my cheeks. “Those people that came back from the Hector. They ain’t right.”
“What do you mean?”
Dr. Reagan turned around. “Rebecca Lowell, this here is Commander Keeler.”
She looked at him with red-rimmed eyes and took his hand weakly. Keeler didn’t remember seeing her on the World-Ship. Daisy Reagan explained. “Rebecca here is the wife of Flight Lieutenant Adrian Lowell, the pilot o’ the Hector. Tell him what you told me dear.”
“I don’t know. It seems … mad.”
“Just tell the commander, dear. It’s all right.”
She shook her head, and when she spoke, it sounded as though it was all she could do to keep from crying. “It isn’t him.” Lowell whispered.
Keeler got a sick and frightening feeling in his stomach. “What do you mean?”
“He’s not the same. He looks the same, and he feels the same, and he almost acts the same, but he’s not the same. They did something to him. I don’t know what they did, but we can’t …
connect anymore.”
“You can’t connect…”
“When we have intercourse, I can’t feel his mind. I can’t feel his mind in my mind. It was
… physical and empty,” she began weeping. Keeler put a hand on her shoulder. He could not imagine words would be of any comfort.
“She ain’t the only one,” Daisy Reagan told him. “I got the same from Grace Jones Sister, and the other guy’s wife. They’ve all come down with the same complaint.”
They left Mrs. Lowell in the exam room with a sympathetic counselor and repaired quietly to Reagan’s consulting room.
“What could the Aurelians have done?” Keeler asked. “Could their minds have been affected somehow? Could they have been given instructions to spy on us, or even sabotage the ship. Are they still in contact with the Aurelian World-Ship.”
“I won’t know unless I can give them a thorough examination.”
“Medical Technician Partridge examined them on when we left.”
“He musta missed something,” Daisy was shaking her hand, as though to get something off of it. “They were ordered to report here for full examinations and I ain’t seen any of ‘em.”
“I think it’s time they all saw the doctor,” the commander touched his wrist communicator.
“Keeler to Lt. Commander Miller.”
“Miller here.”
“Lt. Commander, I want you to have the crew from Hector rounded up and brought to Hospital One for full medical exams.”
“Something wrong commander?”
“Possibly very, very wrong.”
Matthew Driver lay on his bed in his quarters. His quarters were about what one would expect of an unmarried twenty-seven year old Aves pilot. That is to say, they were nondescript and uncluttered. The walls were blue and sported a holoposter of his ship and his graduating class at the Aeronautical Academy. Holo-pictures of his mother, his father, his sister and her husband were arranged neatly on a shelf.
Matthew was dressed only in a pair of thick, soft sleeping bottoms. His torso was bare, showing sparse dark hair around the aureoles of his chest, and a trail leading down past his navel. His shoulders and chest had a pleasing roundness. He was a physically fit specimen, and had kept his bed to himself alone much too long. He was wondering just how much longer that might be.
He was startled awake from a dream in which a woman had laid one soft hand on his chest and he had reached to grab it and was awakened to the sound of his personal communicator. He snapped to consciousness hearing the voice of Eliza Jane Change.
“Matthew, are you there?”
“Yeah,” he replied blearily. “I’m here, I’m here.” He rolled over and saw her face peering at him from the oval communication panel.
“Matthew, I would really like to talk to you. Is now a good time?”
She was overlaid by another signal on an adjacent channel. “Flight Lieutenant Driver, report to the Landing Bay.”
“It isn’t,” he replied, with heartsinking regret. “I have to go. Let’s talk when I get back.”
She gave him a curt nod. “Affirmative.”
Matthew forced himself out of bed, at the back of his mind thinking, this was the first time he could remember not want to go flying. The first time he could not wait for a mission to be over.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Aboard Prudence, a dispirited pilot guided a dispirited crew on a nearly hopeless mission.
Matthew Driver sat in the pilot’s seat, thinking of Eliza Jane Change. Four others sat below in the primary cabin.
“Why am I here?” Trajan asked, sulking on his landing couch.
His mother sighed, and explained patiently. “The only time I achieve any kind of breakthrough with Ciel is when I show her we have something in common.
She only agreed to talk to us after we discussed our faith in Vesta. She has a daughter, not much younger than you. I have to show her that I have a son that I love as much as she loves her daughter.”
“So, I’m a visual aid,” Trajan sighed. “Why not bring Marcus? Pieta is closer to his age anyway.”
Lear continued, patiently. “Then, I am going to offer her a non-aggression treaty with the planet Republic. The treaty will contain a mutual defense clause, pledging Republic to the defense of Bodicéa in the event of hostile attack. If she agrees, that will give us the necessary opening to defense Bodicéa from the Aurelians.”
“Brilliant,” said Armatrading.
“Only if I can persuade her to accept it.”
Trajan sighed and looked resentfully bored in the masterful way of thirteen-year-old boys dragged along against their will to things their mothers thought were important. He turned instead to Alkema, who was staring out through the viewport, also looking resentful and petulant. Trajan then articulated the question that was ringing through Alkema’s very mind,
“What are you doing here?”
David Alkema managed a wan smile. “I guess we have something in common, I am also here because of Pieta. It’s funny when you think about it. A little girl, back on our own planet she’d be playing quoits with her friends and talking about boys … like you. Here, she holds the fate of a planet in her hands.”
“But she doesn’t like me,” Trajan corrected. “She likes you. “
Alkema bristled. “I know… it’s not as though I did anything to encourage her.”
“Why are you going to visit her, then? You must like her, too.” The tone of his voice was teasing, mocking. There was a primal part of Alkema that wanted to smack him.
“I am doing this only as a favor to Tamarind.”
“Don’t you like girls?”
“I like women.”
“What if she wants to kiss you?” Trajan persisted.
“Then I wouldn’t want to be a certain Sumacian Warrior when he goes back to his quarters and finds out the waste overflow recyclers from the ship’s Zoology have been rerouted there.”
“Can you do that?”
“I will make it my mission to find a way to do that.”
Trajan stood up, bored with the game. “I’m going to the command module.”
Goneril Lear followed him with her eyes. “Until not long ago, he thought he wanted to be a pilot.”
“He’s changed his mind?” Alkema asked.
“I changed his mind,” Lear said. I’ll change Ciel’s, too.
Keeler exited the transport pod at Deck Minus Three and proceeded down a long white corridor lit by neon-like tubes of blue light that lined the floor and ceiling. He walked purposefully, all the while mentally cursing the universe for lurching him from one crisis to another.
He passed a cargo hold, it was numbered 018. He touched the panel next to the hatch, which recognized him and opened wide. Bright spotlights came on at the top of the chamber.
Inside was the ship they had recovered from the moonbase. It looked unnatural, its gleaming silver body reflecting the light in odd, deviant ways.
They hadn’t figured out how to open it yet.
They hadn’t even managed to scan whatever lay beneath the mirror-like surface of its metallic skin. It was as much a mystery as it had been the day they recovered it.
Damb, he thought. This could have been a fine planet. He didn’t care for green oceans or golden skies, but all in all, this had been a very pleasant environment for humans to settle, to build a world and a culture. A place of beauty with a tragic history; it was almost poetic, in a way, for anyone who appreciated the flavor of irony.
Suddenly, he was the caretaker of that green and gold world. It was his to protect, a job he found disdainful. Nevertheless, he had an intuition that told him this was going to be over soon. Regardless of what the entities awaiting him in the chamber at the end of the corridor had to say, he would soon be committing the lives and treasure of his ship to the defense of this world.
He just wanted to know, if they could tell him, the scale of the fight to which he was committing them.
A sense came over him that he was not alone in the passageway. He paused, checked his grip on his walking stick and turned around.
A few paces back, he saw Specialist Cree Bladerunner. Evidently, the young specialist had been pacing him, matching him step for step to cover the sound of his footsteps. How had he known to come here?
“Specialist Bladerunner,” Keeler said firmly. “You were ordered to report to Hospital One for a medical examination.”
Bladerunner drew a handcannon from behind his back. “Aurelia tirumphs!” He leveled it at Keeler’s head and fired.
He then fired again.
Then, he fired a third time, just to be sure.
Keeler’s walking stick – in reality, an ancient battle-staff from one of old Earth’s powerful alien enemies – sprang into action almost before he did. In an instant that made a lightning strike ponderous by comparison, it had imposed itself between the assailant and its master. It drew the bolts of ion-charged plasma to itself.
The three bolts of energy circled the tip of the staff in the formation of an equilateral triangle. The staff held them, circling. Keeler knew the merest twitch of his wrist would send them back to Bladerunner, and cut him down as surely as a scythe cut down wheatgrain.
Bladerunner was momentarily mesmerized by the circling balls of light. He stared. He could have cut down Keeler with another shot from the hand cannon, but the surprise of the moment stayed his hand.
Keeler gave the staff a slight thrust and sent the three bolts shooting past Bladerunner down the long passageway to the far wall, where they impacted and exploded. Keeler meanwhile, cold-cocked Bladerunner with the other end of the staff.
Another parry relieved Bladerunner of his handcannon, another thrust took away his consciousness. The thin body of the young man fell to the floor of the corridor. Keeler backed up against the wall and held the walking-stick before him in an alert crouch. Bring it on, he thought, through the adrenaline.
A few seconds of quiet immobility assured him that no further attacks were forthcoming.
He spoke into his communicator. “Keeler to Guardian Core.”
“Guardian Core, Lieutenant Spazz, go ahead, Commander.”
“Specialist Bladerunner is unconscious in Passageway 5 alpha of Deck Minus 3. Please send a pair of guardians to bring him to Hospital One.”
“Right Away, Commander.”
“He may be injured. Respond quickly.”
“Right Away, commander.”
“Keeler out.” He knelt carefully over the body and carefully picked away the hand cannon.
With equal care, he dragged the unconscious Bladerunner into the corridor and sealed the hatch behind him. When he had arranged Bladerunner’s form in a position that would prevent further injury, he straightened his uniform, brushed the hair from his eyes, and continued on.
He carefully, protectively picked his way down the remaining few meters of the corridor, until he arrived at the entrance of a cargo bay that had once held the unassembled components of an Aves.
“Entrance. Commander Keeler. Access Code: Mighty-Lovegod-five-two-seven delta.”
“Continue.” Came a voice.
Keeler rolled his eyes. “Cats are marvelous. Cats are great. I’m not worthy of what the cat just ate.”
The hatch slid open. On the inside, a gray tom cat and the ghost of his ancestor were waiting. “You changed the access code again,” he said to Queequeg.
“I’m feeling unappreciated,” the cat explained.
“How’s it hanging?” said the Dead Man, one of those ancient, rather tasteless greeting he was fond of.
“A member of my crew just tried to kill me.”
“Fah,” said the old man. “Takes me back. I remember when my crew used to try to kill me.”
“Why does that not surprise me?”
“The Adversary, during the Crusades, developed many techniques for gaining control of the minds and bodies of our people… possession. Yes, that was what it was called. More than once, I found a junior officer, even a trusted aide-de-camp, had fallen under the thrall of the Adversary. Once, I had to fight him to the death in my ship’s own anti-matter reaction chamber. I’ll never forget him waving his shattered hand in a claw-like gesture of defiance as I
…”
“This place has changed,” Keeler remarked. Indeed, it had. Apparently, Caliph was no longer fond of blue-black light and shimmering geometrical shapes. Instead, she had opted for pink walls, pretty yellow flowers, and holoposters of young men with immaculately mismanaged hair. The essence of her conscioussness was still contained in a great cylindrical, helical structure in the center of the chamber. It was pulsing with yellow light, like sunlight.
“Did she enjoy her trip?”
“We haven’t spoken since she got back from the Aurelian world-ship.”
“She made it back safely, then?”
They both looked at Queequeg, who managed a shrug to the degree his arrangement of shoulder bones allowed it. “As closely as I can tell, she’s fine. Although she has been acting kind of loopy, lately.”
“Loopy?”
“The entity is experimenting with different levels of consciousness,” Dead Keeler explained.
“The outer manifestations may be seen in this chamber.”
“Shall I rouse her?” Queequeg asked. “You can see for youself.”
“Wait!” Living Keeler said. He turned to the ghostly figure of his ancestor. “I have to ask you something first. You know what it is?”
“Surely, I won’t know until you tell me.”
“For a thousand years, even though we had the technology for interstellar flight, you Dead Guys kept us confined to the limit of our Star System. Sumacian Legend says that Sapphire was to preserve a military tradition, because when the Adversary returned, we would be called again to preserve the good of humanity. This is why on a planet with no enemies, we have four million trained Sumacian warriors in active service at any time.”
The Old man told him nothing. Keeler had not expected him to.
