by K S Augustin
“I see,” Moon said faintly.
Her gaze met the frigid blue shards across the desk, as those maternal lips curved into a pleasant smile, their words reaching her through a long tunnel.
“Good. I’m glad we’ve come to an understanding, Dr. Thadin.”
The understanding was clear: Moon’s life was essentially over.
Chapter Eighteen
Moon didn’t know how she made it to Srin’s quarters without breaking into a run. Her heart beat too fast. Despite the cool, arid air she felt beads of perspiration forming on her face and dripping down the side of her neck into the folds of her tunic. She jabbed the button on the outside access panel several times, cursing every nanosecond’s delay as the door remained shut.
Srin was unaware of any of her thoughts. When he answered, his face was a mix of wonder and happiness. “Dr. Thadin—?”
Moon unceremoniously barged past him. He had to pivot swiftly to let her in; if he hadn’t, she would have bounced off him.
“To what do I owe this visit?” he asked as the door slid shut.
She turned to face him. “We’ve got to leave,” she told him urgently.
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“They’ll kill us if it doesn’t work. She didn’t say so, but I saw it in her eyes.” She rubbed her forehead with shaking fingers, trying to ease the ache that had taken residence there over the past half hour. “First the observation, then the humiliation. If that doesn’t work, we’ll be discarded like broken machinery, maybe even executed.”
He blinked at her. “What humiliation? If what doesn’t work? Your experiment?”
Moon strode up to him and grabbed him by the upper arms, her fingers digging into his flesh, the strength—the desperation—of her hold forming deep creases in the material of his tunic. “Srin, you’ve inferred that you can retain some memories. Is that true?” Do you know what the Republic is doing to you?
She saw the expression on his face change. The sense of innocence disappeared, slowly replaced by a grim determination. He tightened his lips. “In a way. Hen occasionally comes here and sweeps my quarters. He thinks I don’t know why he does it, but I do. He’s looking for notes, scrawls, anything that can help me communicate to the next ‘me.’”
“Has he found anything?”
“No.”
“Have you written things down?”
Srin looked at her. “Yes.”
She dropped her hands. Would the revelations of the evening never stop? Her mind was already reeling from the distasteful exchange with Rosca Moises. Now, Srin was telling her that he had essentially set up an external memory bank. Why hadn’t he told her? Her eyes darkened with pain. Didn’t he trust her? Did nobody trust her?
“What do you know?” she asked flatly.
“You first.” They faced each other like game-players, each holding knowledge that the other wanted, and Moon understood why Savic had drugged Srin for years on end. Even crippled by memory loss, Srin possessed a sharp and formidable intelligence. Now that he dropped his pretence of calm serenity, she could see it in the glint of his eyes and the set of his mouth, and she felt a twitch of admiration kick deep inside her.
“Where have you just come from?” he asked.
“A meeting with Consul Moises.”
“And what did she say?”
“It wasn’t so much what she said, as how she said it.” She grimaced. “Well, it was what she said as well. It’s obvious from the kind of threats she made that she’s more than an investigator with the Republic. She’s their judge and executioner as well.” Moon tried to put her greatest fear into as few words as possible. “If we can’t make StellMil work, then Moises will start interrogating everyone you and I have had contact with. If that still doesn’t get the results she wants, I think I’ll be sent to a place like Bliss. Or killed.”
There was no reason for Srin to be similarly penalised. His masquerade was complete; the Republic believed he was nothing more than a walking calculating machine, wiped clean every two days. If anybody was going to be punished, it would be her. And she didn’t want to face such a fate. The fear involved was one thing, but it was also the selfish desire not to be separated from Srin. Not when she had only just found him. Where else in the galaxy could she find someone as attractive and intelligent as him? As steadfast? As honest?
“StellMil won’t work,” Srin told her.
She stared at him, dumbfounded.
“What do you mean, it won’t work? Of course it’ll work. The foundational principles are rock solid.” She thought of all the papers she’d written, the work she’d done. Even if Srin had created some kind of secret memory-thread, how could he have transcribed such enormous amounts of data, much less analyse the complicated model, and come to that conclusion? She had been immersed in the field for years, and understood the science only due to her experience. He couldn’t know with such certainty that she was wrong.
Then her world shattered for a third time.
“It won’t work because,” he took a breath, “I’ve been falsifying the results.”
Moon didn’t think anything could have stopped the nervous energy coursing through her body, or the uncoordinated jerks that accompanied each of her body’s jittery fidgets. She was wrong. Even the breath stopped in her lungs as she stood there, her entire being frozen in shock and disbelief.
“What? What did you just say?”
“The entire StellMil project is immoral.”
“Immoral?” Her voice strengthened as she glared at him, anger and hurt twisting through her in equal measure. Was there never to be anybody she could trust? Hot tears filled her eyes and she furiously blinked them away. “Who or what gave you the right to make that decision? This research isn’t yours, it’s mine!”
He didn’t move, didn’t even try to touch her. He just stood there, his hands by his sides, his eyes begging her to listen to him.
“I heard them talking. Hen and the captain. They were quite open about it because they didn’t see me as a threat.” His lips twisted, indicating what he thought of that summation. “The real reason behind StellMil is not as a stellar-forming tool, but as a stellar-blasting weapon.” He waited until it was clear he had her attention before continuing. “If you could create a bomb that overrode the default combustion rate of a star, then that would give the Republic the ultimate weapon. Not just, ‘do what we say or we destroy your cities.’ No, this would be more like, ‘do what we say or we destroy your entire star system.’ They were careful not to say anything to you because they knew you could object and stop working on the project but, I swear to you Moon, it’s the truth.”
Moon collapsed on the edge of his bed and stared sightlessly at his tunic, at a point just below his heart. She was exhausted. Srin was right. Hadn’t Drue tried to obliquely warn her of the same thing during a couple of their dinnertime conversations? She didn’t even feel the need to attempt a defence, ask for evidence, or seek independent confirmation of the nefarious conversation. What was the need? One way or another, her life of research was over. Now that the words were born into tangible existence in the air around them, she knew she could no longer blind herself to what she was creating. What a fool she had been, prepared to put her morality to one side just for the sake of an uneventful, but academically stellar, life. Maybe a life on Bliss was what she deserved after all.
She looked up into a pair of steady grey eyes, drinking in the compassion she saw in their depths, like a parched throat slaking its thirst with cool, life-giving water.
“Would it have worked?” she asked finally, faintly, through pale lips. She had to know. There was little else left to cling to.
“I don’t know. Maybe. But with all the subsequent calculations wrong, it isn’t easy to tell.” He searched her eyes. “Moon, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but I wasn’t sure how you’d feel. I know you went through a lot to get back to your research, but I didn’t have any hard proof. Just some lucky eavesdropping.”
“What do we do now?” she whispered, more to herself.
What do I do?
“We escape,” he said firmly.
“Escape?” There was a bubble of hysteria in her voice. “From a combat class Republic ship, with a consul on the warpath?” She didn’t add the fact that, on their side, was only one scientist and a man with fractured memories. “How could we possibly do that?”
Srin smiled. “If you’re willing to play along, I have a plan.”
The work continued as normal under Moises’s sharpened scrutiny, and she seemed satisfied by what she saw. As she commented to Moon herself, she was heartened that every time she decided to pay the lab an unannounced visit, she saw Moon busy at work. It was encouraging to both the consul and the Republic to see such dedication. Moon would only smile tiredly, blinking sometimes to focus on the consul, and turn back to her work.
On the fourth day after her initial meeting with the consul, however, Moon collapsed at one of the clearboards, falling bonelessly to the floor. It took a few moments for Srin to notice. But when he spotted her collapsed form he ran frantically over to her, checking for vital signs before savagely punching the comms button.
“Medical emergency,” he shouted, not needing to feign alarm in his voice. “I have a medical emergency in Dr. Thadin’s lab. The doctor has collapsed and is unconscious. Please send a med team immediately.”
Two medics arrived within a minute. They repeated Srin’s cursory examination before carefully loading Moon onto a trolley then hurrying back to the infirmary. Srin followed close behind, his limbs jerky with tension.
Moon was already swimming back to consciousness when they entered the infirmary, but the doctor on duty, Jonez, made her lie back down while he carried out a full examination. By the time Drue, Savic and a clearly doubting Moises arrived, he was almost ready with his diagnosis.
“Exhaustion,” he told the small group of waiting people, his back to Moon. “She needs rest.”
Srin could tell Moises was not pleased. Her lips were thin, her usual expression of open friendliness wiped in an instant. As anxious as he was about Moon, he suppressed a smile.
“For how long?” she demanded.
The doctor turned to his superior officer. “Do you know how long she’s been working so hard, Captain?”
“Weeks,” Drue answered shortly. He looked over to Srin, who had the presence to shrug. Drue lifted an eyebrow, disappointed that his view couldn’t be directly confirmed, but Srin couldn’t chance it. It was more than his sanity was worth to let slip the secret that he’d found a way to sabotage the two-day cycle. For now, the cryptic scratchings under the cabinetry were going to remain his little secret.
“Even before the first live experiment,” the captain continued, “she was pushing herself hard. I’m not surprised this happened.”
“Then,” Jonez declared, “I’d say Dr. Thadin requires a minimum of two weeks’ rest.”
“Two weeks?” Moises spluttered. “Impossible! We have one of the most strategic projects of the entire Republic at stake here. We don’t have the time to give extended vacations to everyone who works on it.”
Drue paused, obviously giving the consul’s objection its due weight. After a long minute of consideration, he nodded. “Do we have an alternative?” Drue asked quietly of his medical staff. “Vitamin shots? High-intensity hypnotherapy? Short-term pharmaceutical intervention?”
They didn’t want to contradict their captain but their slight head shakes answered for them.
“A different environment?” Srin suggested diffidently in the silence. All eyes swung to him. He shrugged. “Maybe a break on a nice planet somewhere? All we might need are two or three days to reset everyone’s systems.”
He paused and smiled slightly, hoping it looked innocent. Would the captain take the bait? Srin knew he liked her. It was obvious in the way he rose to her defence. It also slammed a thin spike of jealousy into his own belly, but now was not the time to give in to his resentment. He waited silently, letting his gaze rest on each person in the room, willing himself to look innocent and helpful at the same time. Would that, and innate logic, be enough to kick start the next rational question?
Drue pondered Srin’s suggestion for a moment before he faced the investigator. “That makes sense, Consul. My own soldiers have been on high alert for several months now, and a deterioration in their efficiency is becoming obvious.”
Moises was having none of it. Her lips tightened.
“Surely discipline is part of their job, Captain,” she purred. “As it is your job to maintain their combat-readiness.”
Srin could admire the kind of rigid inflexibility Moises exhibited. The focus he saw in her eyes was formidable, especially when it was not directed at him. Like an interested spectator at a sporting event, he looked to Drue Jeen for his response.
The tall captain was also displeased, but Srin noted he only gritted his teeth while his mouth was shut. Srin saw the side of his jaw flex, moving below the skin of his cheek. He wondered if the consul noticed that too.
“Keeping soldiers on high alert just for the hell of it is not a good command tactic,” he told her, enunciating each word precisely. His even tone carried his contempt more clearly than an out-and-out shouting match. “Especially as there hasn’t been a single event of note occurring since the start of our mission.”
“On the contrary,” she retaliated smoothly. “I’d call the complete failure of StellMil One to be one of the most important things that have occurred so far, Captain. It’s interesting—and instructive—that you disagree.”
Srin wondered whether Moon was still awake beneath those closed and steady eyelids, and enjoying the interaction. He knew he was. He only wished he could somehow retain memory of it.
“Er, Captain Jeen does bring up a good point, Consul,” Savic insinuated smoothly. “A small change may increase productivity significantly.”
“I concur,” Jonez added. “What the captain is suggesting is a very effective strategy. I’ve personally found that with—”
“Where’s the closest planet?” Moises barked, her gaze searing into Drue’s eyes.
He might not like the captain very much himself, Srin admitted, but the man had enough spine to hold his exalted position within the Space Fleet. If Moises’s gaze was any more intense, it would have burnt a hole through his blond, captainly skull.
And he had his crew well trained. He only had to jerk his head once to have the doctor scurry to the nearest console, and Srin was reminded that, in addition to their specialist skills, everybody on board the Differential was a trained soldier.
“Slater’s End, sir,” Jonez called out in a strong voice. “Eight days away.”
“How many if we push it to super-normal speed?” His gaze was still locked with Moises’s.
“A little over three days, sir.”
“What do you say, Consul?” Drue quirked an eyebrow, daring her to disagree with him again. “Six days there and back, plus four for some rest and recreation. That still comes in under two weeks.”
“Three days,” she finally ground out, although it was obvious the concession pained her considerably to say. “Three days’ rest and recreation. Not one minute more.”
“You agree then?” Drue asked innocently. “Permission for the extra use of energy to achieve super-normal?”
Srin thought the consul might have actually snarled then and bared her teeth—her face was flushed and her eyes threatened to bulge out of their sockets. But her expression told everyone in the room that she wouldn’t be forgetting this confrontation anytime soon.
“Agreed.”
“I’ll inform the bridge personally,” he told her, then spun on his heel and left.
Savic, after a quick look at the still thunderous Moises, followed the Differential’s commanding officer out the door.
Srin heard the deep rumble of his voice dogging Drue’s heels. “That was an excellent sug—”
The rest of
his sentence was cut off when the doors closed.
Moises stared down at Moon’s supine form and looked like she wanted to throttle the life out of her. Srin remained still and relaxed, much as one would around a dangerous animal. Seconds later, she stalked out of the infirmary.
Sometimes, Srin thought with relief, there were advantages to being considered no better than a piece of furniture. He stepped up to the bed, lifted Moon’s hand and squeezed it tightly before letting go.
Moon slowly blinked open her eyes. She looked to Srin, but he darted a sneaking glance at Jonez, who had moved to a nearby desk.
She nodded once, and swallowed. “What happened?” she asked weakly.
“What usually happens when people are constantly driven beyond their limits,” Jonez replied from several metres away, treating the question as if it was directed to him. He finished entering some data into the console on his desk, and walked back to her. “But, thanks to Captain Jeen, we finally have some shore leave to look forward to. All of us. And about damned time, too.”
Chapter Nineteen
Slater’s End.
Moon read up on the planet as much as she could over the next three days. To everyone on the Differential, she played the part of an overworked and overstressed woman. That wasn’t difficult, considering the attitude the militaristic and chauvinistic Republic held towards its female citizens. Her faint voice, a fraction of its usual strength, and fluttering movements caused the crew to look at her with little more than faintly contemptuous dismissal. And she knew it annoyed Moises to no end whenever they saw each other. That amused Moon, although she was careful to keep her head down and her whirring thoughts to herself.
She went through the plan she and Srin had concocted like a catechism.
