Commander Henry Gallant (The Henry Gallant Saga Book 4)

by Alesso, H. Peter

  After being connected for several hours, he began experiencing mental abortions—including hallucinations and bizarre thoughts. A piercing pain jolted him upright—breaking his concentration and leaving a stinging in the nape of his neck.

  He wondered . . . Is this a random shock, or an attack directed at me through the network?

  He was tingling with anxiety and feared he might bolt. He lifted his head and placed his hands on it—hoping to make the distress stop. He couldn’t concentrate. He swallowed the bile that had risen into his mouth and choked done the raw panic that threatened to grip him. Remaining perfectly still, he clenched his jaw, and slowly tried to think his way through the only remaining avenue of escape.

  Think. Think.

  At first the disrupting images happened so slowly he didn’t realize what was going on—then when he did—it took off so quickly that he was helpless to stop it. He blinked to clear his vision. He clung to a fragile sense of hope and sanity. He yanked off the neural interface—seeking to escape whatever was attacking him, but he was too late—a blinding light shot through his eyes and knocked him unconscious.

  CHAPTER 19

  Titans

  I’m alive . . . was his first thought when he returned from the neverness of the coma. Slowly, time lost its anchor and more thoughts crowded into his mind—shapes became familiar images, sounds were no longer mere static but could be associated with objects, he could taste the dryness of his tongue, his fingers wiggled and his hands moved—a sense of normalcy returned.

  The side effects of his neural connection had taken Gallant on a disturbing mental journey—from a sage mind to one temporarily bordering on madness and delusion—filled with neurotic compulsions and frenzied phobias.

  How long was I unconscious? His memory was a blur.

  In a flash of insight, he realized that he had momentarily accessed the full potential of his mind—permitting lightning-fast comprehension, instantaneous knowledge acquisition, and inspired creative intuition. This first taste left him stunned at his ability to penetrate deep into the alien’s autistic savant network and wrestle it to respond to his own will. But the superintelligence experience was like a drug with unimaginable consequences. The manic side effects had to be controlled before he could continue.

  He opened his eyes and was surprised to find himself in the sterile surrounding of the medical center aboard the Warrior.

  How did Stedman manage to get me here?

  He had returned to consciousness, but he was shaken and fearful that his memory was faulty. He tried to take inventory—his body seemed intact, but his mind was still adrift.

  Roberts and McCall were standing over him—visibly alarmed.

  She said, “He’s regaining consciousness.”

  “There is much I don’t understand,” said Roberts.

  “Neither do I,” muttered Gallant, his tongue thick and unresponsive. He worked his jaw trying to improve his articulation. “I was able to use the network for several hours successfully before I began to have trouble. Maybe if I limit my connection time, and someone monitors me while I’m engaged, I might be able to try again.”

  Both of his companions looked doubtful.

  “Besides the main carrier wave holding the information, there is a stimulation signal being broadcast that works with the autistic savant’s mind to enhance their thought patterns. It had a strong effect on me,” said Gallant

  “You said there were two totally distinct networks. One boosted the users with its extra carrier wave and the other dominated and controlled them,” said McCall.

  “Yes. It’s how the upper class controls the general population.”

  “How did you know which one you were connecting to?” asked Roberts.

  Gallant blushed, “I didn’t.”

  They exchanged troubled glances.

  “You experienced a kind of superintelligence,” said McCall her face a mask of competing emotions.

  “Who’s the master? The Titans or the network?” asked Roberts.

  Again troubled glances were exchanged.

  “We must keep this secret for now,” said Gallant.

  ***

  After one taste of superintelligence, Gallant was hooked. Like an addict fighting his internal monolog—listing all the reasons why he shouldn’t—he knew he would eventually yield. On his next expedition to the communication junction box, he was stunned at how deep he was able to penetrate into the network. He saw in a flash the streamline effect of the cogent dynamic thinking process. He was not only able to read the Titan’s network index, but also to make changes. He was parsimonious with his endeavor—being prying and meticulously observant.

  But after an extended period of delving into the databases, he found ideas beginning to flitter away before he could corral them. Elusive notions never came back. Thoughts were becoming blurry. He knew it was time to leave, though the addictive nature of the experience made him reluctant to do so. Fortunately, Stedman followed the protocol that McCall had set out and disconnected Gallant’s interface.

  Upon returning to the Warrior, McCall and Roberts were waiting in the wardroom anxious to hear what he had learned.

  Perversely, and with full knowledge it would annoy her, he didn’t begin until he had two cups of coffee and was sitting back comfortably in his chair.

  “Let me start by saying, the Titans aren’t very good storytellers, but they have a good story to tell. In fact, their historical development mimics our own to some extent.”

  “What do you mean?” asked McCall looking closely at Gallant as if she suspected he might not have completely recovered from the side effects of the episode.

  He said, “The emergence to the Titans as a species started several million years ago and they reached their modern physical form about 200,000 years ago. The liquid methane rivers over the planet’s continents created bountiful valleys where their lifeform flourished. At 10,000 years ago, they had large populations of hunter-gathers. They developed methane-based agriculture around 5000 years ago which was when they began building towns. City states appeared about two thousand years later. The cities developed trading networks to exchange basic resources to feed and fuel their people. With the advent of trade, they required greater reliance on communication and math skills, both verbal and written. Rivalry for territory and power made early states militaristic which made weapons and warfare a priority. Their society then became more stratified into classes.”

  “That does sound familiar,” said Roberts.

  “The wealthy rulers and elites used their control over the society to support their personal tastes and desires. Conflict over imperial inheritance produced rival wars. There were also economic breakdowns and revolts of the military which pressured the leaders. The first significant empire was largely dependent on trade. Its need for imports was prodigious and led to creating common laws to encourage large scale commerce which in turn required them to build a broad network of roads, inland rivers, and harbors across continents. It was as much a commercial empire, as a military one.”

  Roberts asked, “What were the triggers for their development?”

  “Exactly, what you’d expect. They progressively developed better power sources, such as coal and steam, and then they found better building materials, such as iron and steel.”

  “That was enough to develop a modern civilization?”

  “Well, once they improved their technology, they made better transportation and were able to scale their production.”

  McCall looked puzzled. “The characteristics you describe would have evolved communication and cooperation skills similar to our own—rather different from what I would have guessed for autistic savants.”

  “That’s right,” said Gallant watching their faces. “Here’s where it gets tricky,”

  “About five hundred years ago, the Titans had only a small autistic savant population, perhaps less than ten per cent. Then they started experimenting with genetic engineering. At first, they removed
only disease and negative characteristics, much like our current experience. It was when they began experimenting with so-called ‘improvements’ to the species that all hell broke loose.”

  McCall nodded.

  “A series of wars started over different belief systems about what constituted an ‘improvement’ versus what was ‘damnable.’”

  “I can see how that would escalate quickly,” said Roberts.

  “They fought for near a century before one genius general named Voltary emerged and gained total control over Gleise-Beta. He became a dictator—and he was an autistic savant.”

  “He mandated that all embryos be genetically altered to become like him?” asked McCall, anticipating what he was about to say.

  “Good guess, but he was cagier than that. He didn’t publically require the change. Instead he pretended there would be only modest genetic alternations which pacified the population, but he worked surreptitiously with the birth clinics to insert segments of his own DNA without the parent’s knowledge. It was nearly two decades before the public woke up to the fact that a billion autistic savants had been born in their midst.”

  “Devious,” said Roberts.

  “Brilliant,” said McCall.

  Gallant said, “But choosing your own ‘perfection’ is a hard taskmaster. It can block your path if your selected prototype is flawed.”

  Again his colleagues nodded.

  “In one generation, Voltary was hailed as a god—remaking the Titan race in his own image.”

  “Then what happened?” asked Roberts.

  “Another war was fought, but it was too late, Voltary had control over all the levers of power and destroyed the opposition. That was when he built the dual communication network—one network stimulated the upper class autistic savants and the other network controlled everyone else.”

  McCall concluded, “The destiny of the Titans was set. They can no longer evolve away from their mandated prototyped character.”

  “How does their society function now?” asked Roberts.

  “It’s run like H. G. Wells’ ‘Big Brother state’ where ‘War is Peace,’ ‘Freedom is Slavery,’ and ‘Ignorance is Strength.’ They literally have their own thought-police by virtue of their two neural communication networks.”

  ***

  Gallant went back to the communication network to learn more about the Titans. When he returned McCall and Roberts were waiting.

  “Tell us about their genetic reproductive process,” said McCall.

  “The Titans developed their genetic engineering by using hatcheries. They made slaves of their workers and established rigid controls over the general population. The resources of the planet are exploited to the advantage of the upper class. They are now born in genetic hatcheries and raised in baby farms under strict discipline and compulsion controls. As a species, they lack empathy and sympathy. Their communication network stimulates thought patterns and reinforces desired behaviors. Their language cannot express ideas like liberty, but their teachings are filled with contradictory concepts such as freedom is slavery.”

  “Do they breed their population to produce exclusively autistic savants, or are there exceptions?” asked Roberts.

  Gallant said, “As far as I can tell their birth hatcheries operated as production facilities focused on gene-editing and spliced in segments of Voltary’s DNA.”

  He elaborated, “I took a virtual reality tour of a hatchery. It was a dark building of many stories and thousands of rooms. It had the motto—Life is Service—painted everywhere. The lower floor had a huge room with lots of windows allowing easy viewing into the numerous side rooms. The harsh glare of lights shined on the clinic’s workers as they walked among the porcelain walls and marble floors. All the workers wore sterile white uniforms and gloves. A director inspected a room where eggs were being fertilized. The director was abnormally frail and small for a Titan, or else I was used to seeing their powerful Warrior class. In any case, he stood before the incubators and adjusted the chemical balances through a computerized feeding system. The incubator monitored temperature, salinity, viscosity and other important parameters of the fluid. Any abnormalities were eliminated. He made copious notes as he did so. There were other rooms full of test tubes and medical equipment. The genetic modifications were made at the embryo stage. One egg was inseminated and genetically altered according to a complicated editing process I couldn’t quite follow. They were careful to screen out genetic mutations by destroying the faulty embryos. I was able to observe rooms where off-spring were growing and a place that must have been an indoctrination center to train the savants because of their compulsive nature. My guess is that there were specific genetic modifications for individuals because they closely regulated the population of each class.”

  McCall said, “A perfect example of how malevolent leadership at a crucial point in history can hijack a people’s future.”

  “Yes, by creating their own reality distortion, they changed not only their immediate future, but all the possible alternatives their species could have traveled,” nodded Gallant.

  McCall said, “Their compulsion characteristics are probably carefully manipulated. They must use genetic engineering to ensure obedient and docile lower classes, as well as channel aggression only toward enemies of the state.

  Gallant said, “I found the underlying philosophy of the Titan leadership was to expand their empire by seizing territory and killing any, and all opposition.”

  “That explains their approach to humans,” said Roberts.

  McCall said, “A distinct characteristic of human empires has not only been to form partners and coalitions when necessary, but to lie and betray when necessary to win wars. The Titans semi-telepathic autistic savant nature leads to a deviation in that formula.”

  “Were you able to gain any insights into their core beliefs?”

  “No, not really. Though I thought their view on solipsism was correct, but that’s just one man’s opinion.”

  Roberts laughed, but McCall ignored him.

  After a while they exhausted the discussion and Roberts asked, “How long are you going to keep connecting to this network?”

  “As long as I need to,” said Gallant.

  “Will you stop once you find your answers?”

  “If I need to.”

  “Does that mean you will stop soon?”

  “Possibly.”

  “How long is that?”

  “As long as I need to.”

  ***

  His experience was similar with each entry into the network and the days fused into one long repetitious series of similar events. Increasingly, he was doing more. He was wired into the system and felt a pulsating connection with growing confidence as he proceeded. A kaleidoscope of possibilities lay before him. He discovered that the Titans possessed a distinctive prefrontal cortex vastly different from humans. He began to understand their labyrinthine grammar and a knotty syntax vocabulary. The language of the autistic savants was so complex that it took him a long while to find his way through its combinations of senses. He was interacting directly with the Titan AI interface with remarkable clarity. He gathered relevant material and turning it over in his mind, he devised a scheme for expanding the project.

  Gallant was not just collecting data streams. He wasn’t just listening in on information and communications. Now his mind was entering the data stream and participating with other beings in conversations. Some of his interactions were with AI programs but some were with real Titans. He had to understand them and correctly mislead them.

  Until now the Titans were an abstract alien threat. He didn’t think of them as individual intelligent beings. That was changing. He was finally ready to engage in a conversation with a live Titan.

  ***

  “I think you should infiltrate the Titan high command,” said McCall.

  “Such an individual would be under scrutiny from colleagues and opponents. It would be difficult to fool them for long.”
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  “How about impersonating a staff member to a high ranking individual and avoid the visibility?” suggested Roberts.

  Gallant concurred.

  He was about to embark on a journey into Titan society by assuming the personality, family and history of one Titan. It would be a world he would live in while connected to the Titan network through the neural interface. He wanted to gather sufficient information about the personal life of a staffer and evaluate his suitability.

  During several trail episodes of identity theft of lower level Titans, Gallant found out during one attempt that he made few social gaffs though he had difficulty conducting conversations without stumbling. When he erred the responder would become fixated on the error and lambast him. He could only withdraw and try someone else. Obviously he had to detect the sensitivity of Titans for compulsive behavior and the proper response. What were the signals? The subtleties eluded him. Some Titans wouldn’t need this level of specificity but then again others would.

  Gallant was going to have to learn to mimic compulsive behaviors as a disguise.

  The spectrum of autistic disorders was broad. The genetic aspects offered some provisional ideas about the variations in brain function. He examined several physical appearances looking for normal body characteristics. Time was an important element to Titans. They did things precisely and uniformly allotting only a minimum amount of time required for each activity.

  Titans rarely engaged in discussion of trivia, or discussed their daily lives, or routine family activities, however, they engaged in discussions of logic and rational activities that improved efficiency. They were oblivious to their own condition. Noticing subtle nuances in language was not their strength.