“Quite right. Mustn't spoil the feast.”
Shortly after my head-butting with Stuart, we received the second hail. In my head I heard: Captain, another incoming call. This one only says it's from an old friend.
On audio only.
The caller insists on video. Says it's crucial.
Then put the video through for the big shot.
When the image flashed onto the screen it took me several seconds to identity it. It couldn't be. It was impossible. It was Doc! “Dr. De Jesus! No way it's you.”
He smiled warmly. “It is, Colonel. How are you?”
“How am I, Doc? I'm an android. How are you? What, you must be well over a hundred by now.”
“I'm fine, Jon. Quite well, in fact.”
“Wait! You're an android too. What, is everybody a robot these days?”
A sadness fell across his face. “No, only a select few. I believe you've already encountered some of them.”
“You mean like the president and the late Gen. York.”
He was mildly surprised. “Do tell?”
“Only quite recently, in fact. Wait, is this transmission secure?”
“As secure as possible. The imbeciles who would listen in are incapable of such a feat.” He shook his head disapprovingly.
“So, you're not working with York, NASA?”
“That is a long story. Its telling must wait until we meet. As I understand it, you're soon to be visited by three unfriendly vessels under Marshall's command.”
“My but you're well informed.” I couldn't hide the suspicion in my voice.
“Jon, if there is one soul on Earth you can trust, who you must trust, it's me. Never doubt that for a second. What's this about you having a new detection device? The emergency message sent to Marshall mentions some probable alien tech.”
“That story can also wait until we can talk face to face. Anywhere safe we can hook up?”
“Assuming you evade your pursuers, you mean?”
“They pose no threat to us. Where can we meet?”
“I have sent the coordinates of a UN-controlled facility in Spain. I'll rendezvous with you there tomorrow, assuming you're still alive.”
“No worries, I'll shuttle down. See you soon.”
Well, I'll be damned. Doc was alive and an android.
Al cut in overhead. “Three armed vessels approaching. ETA ten minutes. Each ship carries multiple conventional missiles and two thermonuclear missiles each. They're rated at fifty kilotons per warhead.”
I whistled aloud. “They mean business. I guess were going to get an excellent test of our shields. Flank speed away from the station.”
“As you command,” was Al's terse response. “Oh, and Captain, a shuttle containing the president has left the station on a return course to Earth. Shall I take any action?”
“Let the coward run. We're busy enough for the moment. All engines off in ten seconds. Allow her to coast.”
The engines cut out a few hundred kilometers away for the station. I'd let the ships sweat it out as to why we were willing to be sitting ducks. “Shields on,” I snapped, “full enclosure pattern.”
“Shields on and functioning at one-hundred percent.”
Our preliminary tests confirmed what Uto had told me. The only things which could pass through the membrane were the ambient light that entered before the shield was challenged. We could see out, others could see in. Tactically, we could pulse the membrane for a microsecond to allow an assault out, if so desired. If we had any offensive weapons, other than my finger, we could inflict severe damage while taking none. However, surprise, along with advanced tech, was on our side. It was more than enough to assure victory if these bozos decided to attack. Of course, that's precisely what they did.
When they were a few kilometers away, they assumed evasive patterns circling around us. Good. They were too close to use their nukes. No need to push my defense's capabilities their first time out of the package. We were hailed. An grumpy-sounding voice ordered us to make ready for a boarding party. I replied that any attack on Ark 1 would be futile and that it would result in the destruction of the offending vessel. I made no other comment.
To demonstrate their resolve, one craft fired a missile across our bow. Unfortunately, it passed wide of the shield line. The same voice boomed there would be no second warning. I was to acknowledge receipt of his intent to board. I made no reply. One of the ships broke formation and headed straight towards us. They clearly couldn't detect the shield. The ship approached the membrane without slowing. It impacted the congruity field nose first moving at seventy kilometers per hour. As it advanced, the leading edge simply crumbled. The impacting segments sparked and glowed, and then broke up into microdebris. Within two seconds, the ship was reduced to a swarm of dust violently flung in every direction but ours.
That got the other two ships' attention. They fired all their conventional weapons. Every one of them vaporized as they struck the membrane. We didn't feel a thing. Al announced with a panicky tone that the vessels had been ordered to launch all nukes. The nuts on the ground were willing to sacrifice both crews and the station in less time than it took to say to hell with you. It was too late to run. I held Sapale close to my side, kissed the top of her head, and whispered in her ear. “If the shields don't hold, know that you were my brood's-mate and I loved you with all my heart.”
Before she could reply, the first of the nukes hit the membrane. The half-sphere outside the membrane flashed like a nova had gone off. Three subsequent additional tremendous pulses of light followed in close order. Slowly, the membrane faded back to invisible. The other ships were gone. They'd incinerated themselves. Without my asking, Al shouted that we received no damage, not even from the burst of radiation.
He confirmed that the station was badly damaged and not answering his hails. It was thrown out of stable orbit and would reenter the atmosphere in twenty minutes if it couldn't alter its present course. Poor SOBs. They were thrown under the big bus too, without so much as a thank-you for your ultimate sacrifice. I was dealing with monsters. Turned out that I'd had lots of on-the-job training in that arena. I knew how to deal with inhuman beasts.
We turned off the shields and established a high orbit, stationary over Spain. The following day, I instructed Sapale to assume command and confirmed that directive with Al. He agreed without protestation. Praise the Lord for minor miracles. I left, alone, in the shuttle. As soon as I was clear, the shield membrane was turned back on. At least my crew would be safe for the time being. Me, I was about to find out if my trust in De Jesus was justified.
He greeted me with a huge hug the moment I stepped off the shuttle. His smile was warm, his stride was confident, and his energy seemed bountiful. Androidness suited him well. We rode to a building and went into an office. It was just the two of us. The guards remained in the hallway and were fewer in number than I'd have imagined. The atmosphere about the facility was businesslike, but relaxed. What a contrast with my adventures one day earlier.
“First things,” De Jesus began, “first. We're a very long way from where we were before. Please call me Toño. I would be honored to refer to you as Jon.”
“Sounds good to me.”
He looked me over and drew in a profound breath. “So, how are you, my friend? God! The adventures you've had, the hardships you've suffered. How they must've changed you.”
I set my hands on my chest. “Same old me.” I winked at him. “No way to improve upon perfection.”
“Same old taxing sense of humor. This is wonderful!” He grew very quiet and became somber. “But these times don't allow for reminiscing and small talk. These are dark times, Jon. Darker than either of us could have foreseen.” He stared sadly at his hands. “Darker than they had to be.” He forced a smile. “But, now you're here. With your help, perhaps we can set things back along their proper path.”
“What happened? Where did Elvis leave the building?”
“You refer, no dou
bt, to the insanity that consumed our leaders.”
“That's top on my list. I just mutinied against them, destroying three ships and one space station in the process. You know I didn't do that lightly. I betrayed everything I held to be good. I betrayed my sworn oath and my duty.”
“No, you betrayed nothing.” He pointed wildly in the air. “They betrayed you. They betrayed all of us!” He rested his arm back down. “You detected their diseased state and acted to preserve what you hold to be sacred, to be worthy. Once again, you are a hero.”
He sat lost in thought a while. Tensions swept across his face and despair flickered in his eyes. Then, he spoke in a slow lament. “It all started when I was still at NASA. Shortly before I was to retire at age eighty, I began to hear whispers and felt a shift in the currents of thought.” He stopped a few seconds. “At first I tried to ignore them. I was an old man. I had done my duty. It was for others to continue the good fight. If ill winds blew, younger men and women needed to still them. But none did.” He looked to me in a plea for understanding. “They were all too afraid. We were all too afraid. Fear was used to distract, subvert, and, in the end, control those who should have been served.
“If anyone questioned a shift in direction, they were accused of plotting to interfere with the proper authority's attempts to save the human race. Fear caused those who suspected impropriety to remain silent and those who refused to acknowledge it to be rewarded.”
“What,” I asked, “went wrong?”
“Human nature did. Examine our storied history. Lord Acton said it in 1887. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. We were the social experiment that proved his theory to be lamentably correct.”
“Yes,” I mumbled, “the leadership was in a pretty safe, powerful position, weren't they?”
With contempt he spat back his reply. “Yes, they were. And they moved to make themselves untouchable.”
“By becoming androids?”
“In part. That was their first move. Secretly, without consent or advise, one by one, from the top down, they downloaded themselves. The next person down the food chain was asked to either drink the poison or die. Once transferred, the original was executed by the hand of his download.”
“No going back. No evidence.”
Bitterly, he agreed. “No going back.” Collecting himself, he was able to continue. “The rotten monolith grew until it could remain hidden no longer. Civil war ensued. Loyalties were frayed, brothers fought sisters, and tens of thousands died.”
“Is it over?”
He grumbled back. “Mostly. The immortal pretenders walled themselves off with the fools and devils who still serve them. They hold small segments of the US and control what was NASA and the original Project Ark. The other factions allied with the United Nations. They now control most of the globe. The UN leads the efforts to get as many people to safety as possible.”
“Do the Americans help? Please tell me they're helping.”
He was silent too long. “They are not. They work to secure an exit for themselves and their followers, yes. Aside from that, they obstruct, interfere, and even attack the UN's work.” With consummate hate, he finished. “They wish to be the majority among those who survive.”
“And where do you fit in?” I pointed to him, to emphasize he was still present.
“They needed me long past when I knew they were scoundrels. Until they could be certain I was expendable, they allowed me to live, to continue my work. As I said, I was nearly eighty, but none of my assistants understood the android transfer like I did. Then I had a stroke. After that, I knew they'd dispose of me.”
“You don't look like you had a stroke.”
“Allow me to finish. Before my stroke, I decided to secretly construct an android for myself.” He paused and jerked his head about. “You knew me, back then. You know I wasn't a vain man. I didn't want any part of your immortality.” He slapped a palm on the table. “But they made me do it! Who else could oppose them? Who else could bring the UN up to speed in order to save normal people, those who deserved to be saved?”
“But the stroke?”
“Long ago, in the initial testing of the download format, I used myself as a guinea pig. Several good copies of my younger self existed. A trusted friend uploaded one of those to this android.” He indicated himself. “I made an update and superimposed it on the transferred me. My intervening knowledge was added while the effects of the stroke were canceled by the old copy.” He grunted once again. “So, here I am, continuing the good fight. An involuntary volunteer.”
“And the original you?”
“As I anticipated, they seized it and murdered it .” We were both quiet a spell. That was heavy. He perked up. “Tell me of your new toys. You have some filaments that extract data and a force field.” His eye brightened like a child on Christmas morning. “How marvelous!”
“How do you know all this so quickly?”
“I have backdoor programs riddling their systems. There is nothing they can do to keep me out unless they physically change out their entire network.” He frowned. “Or, I am their agent attempting to co-opt your technology base on our past relationship.”
“The latter possibility had not escaped my notice.”
“Well, you've heard my story. Which will it be? Are you to trust me or fear me?” He spread his arms in challenge.
“Neither of the above. I will know your mind as well as answer your question about my new toys. Observe.” I pointed my left hand at his head. “Download De Jesus.” My probe surrounded him. I opened a channel to Al. My hail was a signal to turn off the membrane temporarily. Within two seconds, I retracted the probe. Al would then have turned the barrier back up.
Almost instantly, Al confirmed in my head that Toño's story was correct. He was one of the good guys. “Turns out you told me the truth. I can trust you.”
He was in awe. “What is that machine? Where did you acquire it?” He giggled. “I want one!”
“It's my probe, I don't know, and no you can't have one.”
He was deflated. “How can you not know where you got it?”
“Beats the hell out of me. Best I can figure, whoever installed it didn't want me to remember anything. Must have been a gift. Once in a great while, my biocomputer burps out a cluelet, but never anything solid.”
“And why can't it be studied and copied?”
“That's the only thing I know about the probe. If it's tampered with, it goes puff.”
He pouted. “Pooh! That will never do.”
“Sorry, Doc, rules are rules.”
“And the shield you displayed?”
“That's almost as inexplicable, but it can be duplicated.” I told him about the mysterious Uto and the plans. I added the part where he'd scrubbed my records, so there was no remaining proof. Toño accepted that without a problem. It seemed quite logical to him.
“So, do you think he gave you the manipulator so you could survive Marshall's attack? He was prescient of much, after all.”
That just didn't sit right. “Maybe…I don't know. If I didn't have the manipulator, I would have acted much differently. Maybe I wouldn't have needed it if I didn't have it.”
“Come again.”
“Somehow I think he intended it for something bigger, some greater danger.”
He was curious. “Like what?”
“No idea. Maybe it was for that attack. I don't know.”
“I'm certain we will know in time.”
“Yeah. I'm afraid we will.”
TWENTY-SIX
My meeting with Toño went well. We laid the basics of a plan to make the congruity manipulator available to all UN vessels, including the asteroids that would serve as worldships for colonization. It would take time, which we sorely lacked. But, he was so excited about the tech that I was confident he'd get it done. I invited him to join us on Ark 1, but he deferred. He had too much to accomplish to spare time for �
��fun and games.” I said if he came, I'd introduce him to a couple aliens. That almost did it, but he still refused. He insisted, however, on a raincheck.
Bless his heart, he realized we'd be light on supplies. He asked what he could send with me. I told him as much nonperishable, calorie-rich, protein-laden food he could spare. He waved his hand in the air. We were, he proclaimed proudly, in España, his home. We would carry as much jamón serrano as the shuttle could hold. That amounted to forty intact hams. The smell in the shuttle was so divine, I didn't want to get off after I docked. When Ffffuttoe saw the mass of fatty meat, Sapale had to physically restrain her from taking personal possession of the entire lot. After her first taste, my brood's-mate felt similarly.
I asked that the heads of the UN join me on Ark 1 to begin a dialogue. We needed to get acquainted, plan, and forge a strong alliance. My personal safety was greater in orbit than down on the surface. They finally agreed, after much cajoling by Toño. Between those meetings, coupled with Al's analysis of the data we'd taken from the space station, I developed a pretty clear picture of the situation we faced.
Assuming we survived the next two orbital encounters with Jupiter's debris field, we had fifteen years left. There were fourteen other Ark-craft still exploring. None were due back for a few years, but reports were trickling in. They were finding possible sites at about the frequency I had. So, in the end, with luck, we'd have around forty planets to chose from. That was the good news.
The bad news was paralyzingly bad. Due to political infighting, civil wars, and unforeseeable setbacks, worldship production was way behind schedule. Of the ten thousand vessels needed, only a few hundred were close to ready. Several thousand asteroids had been brought to nearby orbits, but remained, so far, untouched. The upshot was that in spite of all the lies all the governments peddled, the populace was losing faith. That loss translated into hopelessness and, most critically, ever-decreasing productivity. If things remained as they were, maybe a billion humans could be saved. How hard can you ask someone to work for a one-in-nine chance of survival?
The Forever Life (The Forever Series Book 1) Page 22
