Harry Heron: Into the Unknown

by Patrick G Cox

  Harry worked the problem in his mind and came to the solution, wondering what this proved.

  “Excellent. Now, in your thoughts, read the passage appearing there, please.”

  Harry obliged, and a few minutes later, he got a new task, and as he completed each, he got another.

  On screens around them, Tom and Bridget followed the computer’s responses to these exercises while the boys watched in amazement.

  By the time Tom Blakewell finally declared himself satisfied, Harry was exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to sleep.

  Releasing him from the head restraint, the surgeon smiled. “Not just yet, Harry. First we need you to learn how to activate it, and more important, how to shut it down. First, let’s try the start-up. Ready?”

  Seeing the weariness in Harry’s eyes, Thomas chuckled and said, “I know you’re ready to have done with all of this, Harry. You’ve been a real trooper. This next step isn’t complicated. Just focus your thoughts on contacting the ship.”

  Feeling a little grumpy, Harry made an effort to be polite. “Very well, sir.” Without speaking, his mouth framed the words he’d learned to request information. Suddenly the ship’s voice was in his ears. “It works! I can hear the ship.”

  “Good. Now to shut it down, all you need do is tell the ship to close the link. Got that?”

  Harry nodded.

  “Good. Now the acid test—request some information about something you’ve struggled with.”

  “As you wish, sir.” He thought for a moment. The concepts and theory of faster-than-light travel—transiting, it was called—sprang to mind. Moments later, he was grasping the explanation. He was jubilant. “It works!” he exclaimed. “It’s fantastic—I understand the theory of FTL travel, and the knowledge is simply in my head!”

  “Great stuff, Harry.” Bridget smiled. “Now, I think you need some sleep and a recovery period. Ferghal, do you want to go through this process as well?”

  “Aye, Miss...er, Commander,” responded Ferghal. “That was amazing to see. I wish I could work on circuits like that—only I’d rather work on a machine than a man.”

  “Would you now?” The two surgeons smiled at him. “Well, that’s a distinct possibility once we have your implant inserted. But we’ll have a break first—Tom, you look like you need one. Let’s get our victim off to bed, and I can get Ferghal ready while you have a break.”

  Repeating the procedure on Ferghal proved as successful as on Harry.

  “Great, now we have you both ready to tackle the catch-up process.” Lieutenant Commander Blakewell stood. “Just a reminder, Ferghal. You must not mention to anyone that you have this implant. These aren’t normally fitted to anyone below the rank of Commander unless there is a special need. No one at TechRate level has one, and it might lead to complications if some of your colleagues learn you have it—plus, of course, we don’t want our spies to know.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. I understand. I will remember, sir.”

  “CAPTAIN, THE SECURITY BARRIERS I PLACED on the med labs and on the installation of the neural links to your wards have been breached.”

  “Do we know who did this, Fritz?” Captain Heron frowned, all his attention on his communications commander.

  “That is the curious thing. It appears the ship itself accessed the files and downloaded the data regarding the brain scans for Harry and Ferghal.” Commander Dieffenbach raised both hands in a gesture of frustration. “All I can tell you is the download hasn’t left the ship, and it isn’t a human device.”

  The Captain considered this carefully. Since his encounter with the alien presence in his quarters, a number of things needed answers—and now this. Why were the Siddhiche interested in Harry and Ferghal?

  Chapter 16

  Chimera

  “STILL NO LUCK CATCHING THAT PHANTOM SHIP with a scan?” Val Petrocova dropped into a chair in the wardroom next to the navigation commander, accepting a drink from the android steward. “I don’t like how it’s tailing us,” she added, taking a sip.

  “I don’t either,” said Commander Ben Curran. “As soon as we think we’ve nabbed it, the damn thing vanishes. I’ve tried launching drones and leaving them dormant in our wake, but as soon as the phantom ship gets anywhere near them, the drones are deactivated until they are astern of the ship. Then, all I get is a view of their tails. Even that’s so fuzzy it’s worthless.”

  For several days now, Commander Curran had used the ship’s remote exploration probes to get a good look at the alien ships tailing them. To his and Valerie Petrocova’s frustration, nothing had succeeded.

  “Have you tried angling them out abeam and dropping them astern?” asked Val, considering all possibilities, though she was certain that Ben had already thought of this.

  “Yup, tried looping them ahead and out to extreme range, then closing them from abeam as soon as the direct approach failed. This is all I got for my trouble!” He showed her a series of long range and very indistinct images. Bright flares seemed to indicate a power transfer of some sort, but the probes’ sensors could not read the frequencies or get any analysis of the hull material. “It’s almost as if they are screening themselves in some way—or the hull is some sort of organism,” mused Ben.

  “What about the visual approach?” asked Val. “Have you tried using the deep space telescopes in the fin observatories?”

  “Hey, that’s a thought. Thanks for suggesting it. I’ll get up to the North Cardinal Observatory Post right away. If that scope can see them, we can lock the other scopes on them from there.” He grinned and gave her a friendly thump on the shoulder, adding, “I knew you were more than a pretty face attached to some awesome fire power.”

  IT WAS ONCE SAID THAT A MAN who thinks he understands the universe doesn’t understand the question. Commander Ben Curran felt like that man as he studied the images of the alien ships captured by the powerful telescopes mounted at the extremities of the four great fins of the Vanguard. At his request, the Bellerophon and the Sydney had trained their optical imagers on the shadowing ships but without much success.

  “It’s the damnedest thing,” he told Val Petrocova and Nick Gray in exasperation. “As soon as we get a good focus and start recording them, the bloody ships shift in some way, and we lose them. It’s almost as if they know we are watching them.”

  “Perhaps they do,” said Val. “Fritz was telling me that something is accessing data and systems in our computers without using the usual interface. Could it be that we have a ghost in the system?”

  Nick laughed. “If we do, I’m sure Fritz will find it and scare it straight back out! Nobody messes with his system and gets away with it for long.” He became serious. “There has to be a rational explanation. Do you want me to get authority to launch an interceptor to attempt to close with them?”

  “Better not,” said Ben. “That might be seen as a hostile move, and I prefer to know what I’m provoking before it has a chance to attack me first.” Frowning, he added, “The mystery is that the bloody telescopes don’t use any sort of emitter, so there’s nothing to detect or measure for any sort of scanner to lock onto. They’re the oldest bloody technology we have on board. The only damned thing in them that uses any sort of power—besides the training and focusing gear—is the image recorder. How the blazes do they know we are looking at them?”

  “Anyone would think this was a personal vendetta,” remarked Valerie. “You should take a more pragmatic approach. In the twentieth century period called the Cold War, the various superpowers used to shadow each other’s submarines. The technique involved getting into another submarine’s wake—a blind spot.” She grinned when she saw the glint in Ben’s eyes. He saw where Val was going with this. “The Russian commanders developed a tactic for surprising their shadowers—a tight circle to port or starboard with all their sensor arrays focused behind them. It was a manoeuvre called a Crazy Ivan—you should consider trying it.”

  “You may ha
ve something there,” exclaimed Ben. “A three-sixty degree jink by all three ships could just catch them off guard. I’ll have to do a check on what it would do to our exit point, though. A few thousand klicks in hyperspace translates into a few light years in normal space.”

  HARRY’S NATURAL ABILITY, coupled with his curiosity, transformed him from an ancient mariner adrift in uncharted waters to an eager and sometimes overconfident space farer. His first encounter with the Vanguard’s AI had been a revelation, but now he regarded the ship as a friend. Together they explored history, music, art and anything else that took Harry’s fancy. He’d become a very useful member of the navigation commander’s team and was making rapid progress in a number of other functions as well.

  Len Myers had to reprimand him gently when he began using his link to request things from the android stewards.

  “Harry, we can keep people in the dark about your neural link by letting them believe you’re using the cranial cap method in the evenings, but if the stewards start delivering things to you without a vocal instruction, someone will put two and two together and get the right answer.” Regarding the teen boy sitting across from him, he suppressed the desire to laugh. “You’re doing very well—far better than we expected. Don’t spoil it by getting too smart.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Annoyed with himself for having abused his ability in this regard, Harry lapsed into strict formality. “I shall do my utmost to comply, sir.”

  “Good. We’re almost at our destination, and there is a lot going on there.” Hesitating, Len chose his words carefully. “A facility on Pangaea belongs to the people who want to get possession of you. You need to be extremely careful not to let them find out who you are or that you have a neural link.”

  Nodding, Harry’s eager curiosity resurfaced. “I’ve been looking it up, sir. Pangaea seems a fascinating place. According to the databank, it was only settled some eighty years ago, and geologically, it’s about the same age in formation as the Devonian period of the Earth. The beasts and the flora would have our Reverend Mr. Bentley in raptures of excitement.”

  Len laughed. “I can believe it, especially if he’s the type who revels in nature.” Len’s arched eyebrow accompanied his sardonic grin. “I’m a medical man myself, and happy to be hurtling through outer space confined to this fine ship. Now then, Mr Heron, remember—do not use your link to communicate with the androids, and do not use it in a way that might reveal you have an implant. Is that clear?”

  Recognising the dismissal, Harry drew himself up and saluted. “Aye, aye, sir.”

  THE BRIEFING FOR THEIR ARRIVAL AT PANGAEA covered details of the political situation and the expected opposition to their mission, putting Harry in mind of the conflicts often discussed by his officers on HMS Spartan. In terms of military action, they should be prepared to meet armed resistance on landing.

  “There is a large force in occupation on Pangaea,” stated Executive Commander Richard Grenville. “Intelligence suggests they are the well-armed battle-ready troops of the Interplanetary Consortium—an umbrella organisation that uses its own military to protect their installations and property on colony worlds.” Richard paused, his grimace revealing the disdain he felt for the IC. “It appears they’ve taken that as a licence to create quite an army and to build a fleet of destroyers and possibly larger ships. Their goal is to take over whatever they can’t buy, or to persuade the inhabitants to surrender quietly, usually with a ridiculous show of force.” He glanced at Colonel Kernan, commanding officer of the landing force. “Our task on Pangaea is to remove them from the colony and restore democratic governance.”

  WITH THE BRIEFING FINALLY OVER, Harry, Paddy Murphy and Hans Dinsen made for the gunroom, with Hans joking about the uncanny ability of long meetings to make one’s appetite ravenous. Once they had ordered their meals and taken their places at the table, Paddy launched right in.

  “Got a crush on the Owner’s SSU, Harry?” He grinned at the detailed sketch Harry had made of Adriana in the small book he kept in his pocket, something his fellow young officers thought very antiquated. “You’ve captured the essence of her curvaceous form very well, my good man, if I don’t say so myself.”

  Spotting Adriana talking to another midshipman, Harry involuntarily leaned in and said, “Hush, man, she’ll hear you!” His face coloured a bright red.

  Paddy and Hans let out a loud guffaw. “She’s an android, Harry!” said Hans. “I don’t think it matters whether she hears you or not!”

  Harry smiled at the good-natured kidding. The beautiful female android did fascinate him. His regular visits to the Captain’s suite, when the rota allocated him the task of Captain’s messenger, meant he had several opportunities to watch Adriana as she went about her duties.

  “She is a remarkable creature, I think,” he added in a neutral tone, trying unsuccessfully to hide his admiration of her. “She’s quite unlike any of the other SUs, and with a figure like some of the goddesses we saw in the temples of the Indies....”

  “Damn right she’s got the figure of a goddess!” Paddy interjected, nudging Harry’s elbow. “We all find her distracting. Don’t know how the Boss gets any work done with her around.”

  “Speak for yourself, Paddy,” Sophie Xavier punched his shoulder as she joined them. “I love that painting you did of your old ship, Harry.”

  Tearing his eyes away from the sketch of the SSU, Paddy studied some of Harry’s technical drawings. “Wish I could draw like this, but why do you do it? You can access these schematics and drawings on the tablet any time you want.”

  “But the tablet does not permit me to make those records in my journal, so I must draw them. Besides, when I put hand to pencil and paper, the image stays in my mind better, almost as an exact replica.”

  Taking the book, Paddy flipped a few pages, noting the beautiful handwriting, the neatly labelled sketches and little cameos of people and things that had evidently caught Harry’s interest. “Wow. Did you have something like this on that sailing ship?”

  “Of course!” Harry said with confidence, but he realised he had overstepped when he caught Paddy’s expression. “Oh, I beg pardon—what I meant to say is that every midshipman was required to keep a journal. Our schoolmaster and the lieutenants examined it regularly for neatness and accuracy.” He didn’t explain that his perfectly kept journal had often made him the target of the gunroom bullies when the Reverend Mr Bentley or one of the lieutenants praised his artistic ability and held it up as an example to the others. “Some found it an onerous task, but I enjoyed it, and still do. It gives me a record of all that I see for the first time or find interesting.”

  Studying the early pages, Paddy nodded as he listened, his eyes fixed on a detailed drawing of a Royal Marine in full battle armour and on the next page, a very good rendition of MedTech Katerina de Vries, her face captured in a moment of laughter. He smiled to himself, knowing how much Harry admired the lovely MedTech. Rejoining the conversation, he said, “We have something similar, but nothing as detailed. I keep mine in the Nebula and update it when I remember.” He laughed. “I’m always in trouble over it—Commander Petrocova says I’m going to have trouble proving I’ve actually learned anything from it.”

  Harry grinned. He had one of these logs in the computer system as well, but had the reverse problem. It had too much detail. “She’s quite a lady,” Harry remarked. “Ferocious one minute, compassionate the next—but I would not wish to be her enemy.”

  Laughing, Paddy stood as his link chirped. “None of us would want her as an enemy—or my boss, Commander Allison.” His eye caught a sketch of Ute Zimmermann. “That’s fantastic—can I get a copy?” He answered his link on the third chirp. “On my way, sir!”

  Moments later, Harry’s link chirped. It seemed both their superiors had decided that lunchtime was over.

  “Midshipman Heron,” he answered.

  “Mr Heron, please report to the navigation commander.”

 
Acknowledging the order, he nodded a quick goodbye to Hans. As he exited the gunroom, he was surprised to meet Ferghal hurrying in the same direction he was headed.

  “Ferghal, are you also on your way to the Command Centre?”

  “Yes, I am instructed to report there.” Grinning, he added, “Always the same, Master Harry, not for me the reason—just the requirement.”

  Harry laughed. “The life of a midshipman is not so very different—we are not always told the reason either. But, how does it go with you today? Did you enjoy your meal?”

  Ferghal nodded. “Aye, it was good. How goes it with you?”

  Harry frowned. “I have been warned to hide my connection to the computer—again.”

  “As have I,” said Ferghal, looking chagrined. “Otherwise, it goes very well, Master Harry. I am soon to receive a change of training, I am told. It seems I have surpassed the expectations of my tutors.” Ferghal felt justifiably pleased with himself. “But I would truly like to study the micro-circuitry technology once I am finished my present task. And how does your training go?”

  “Well, I think. At least Commander Curran seems satisfied with my learning.” They stepped out of the corridor and into the airlocks that protected the access to the Navigation Centre and then entered the Command Centre, Harry leading the way. Saluting, he said, “You sent for us, sir?”

  “Right, Mr Heron. I’ve a task that needs those old skills of yours. Follow me, please. I’ve something to show you, and a job for you both which is best done manually—and you two are probably the only ones on board who can do it.”

  Mystified, Harry and Ferghal followed across the adjoining flat to a transport lift. Ascending rapidly, the doors opened to reveal a spacious room housing a collection of equipment that the boys could not identify. Leading them to a large tube, Commander Curran said, “This is an astronomic telescope. It’s an optical one, but it’s rigged so that it can be trained by the computers and the image recorded digitally—but that’s also the problem. What I want you to look at and draw for me is very adept at remaining unseen. We think it can detect the electronics in our usual equipment for obtaining images, but it evades being video recorded.” Pausing he looked at Harry. “You’re used to focusing a telescope by hand, aren’t you?”