by Selina Brown
“She’s laughing!”
“She sure is, Marc.” Pen kissed her cheek and Ara latched on to a strand of blonde hair, but it was so silky it slipped through her chubby fingers.
Ara blew some bubbles instead, causing her family to laugh. They took turns looking at her and her new mother ran a loving hand over her head. Ara liked that and yawned. She felt very safe and sleepy.
“She’s adorable.” Sacha touched Ara’s cheek and then yelped as she was able to latch on to a hard curl.
Pen laughed but saved Sacha’s head by gently disengaging Ara’s iron grip from the strand.
“What’s her name, Dad?” A male’s face came into view.
“Ara Katron, Ersen.”
Ara Katron? Not Ara Honeybee?
Not Mobile Unit? Vanguard?
The voices faded and her eyes closed. She fell asleep.
Only once did she awaken to the comforting rumbling of the ranger engines, with voices telling her new father that the planetary defenses in grid S35 on the arc were lowered. After that, Ara listened as they were told to dock, and then, an hour later, they were walking through narrow corridors.
A soft, feminine voice crooned while rubbing her back. “We’re almost home, little Ara. Saratoga. We just need to take an atmospheric lift down to the planet and pick up our over lander to go home.”
“Go home.” For some reason that resonated with Ara.
Jamie saw Marc via the monitor. The grin eased him a little. Valan left the system. Max reported all clear. Ara Honeybee was what Korbet had called her. Jamie made a mental note of that and watched as her sac was ruptured, and she gurgled happily, waving her arms around. As Pen washed the tiny girl, Jamie turned to leave the booth and felt an infantile connection. Korbet had mentioned it as well. Ara had connected to him, identifying him as her sentinel. He wished he could see what it looked like.
Heart in throat, Jamie sent a gentle mind pulse back. “Clever bee.”
“Cah beh.” He heard this from his room’s intercom.
Who was she?
Sub-Log VIII
Iota
Station: Perza
Galactic System: Sarato (Spiral Galaxy)
Planetary System: Saratoga
Homestead
When Ara woke, her connection to the CU was slightly weaker, her blue string was thinner, and now she could see other plasma filaments everywhere; her mother was smiling down at her. She waved her arms and closed her fists and opened her fists. She spiked a plasma impulse down the blue string. “Gah, Gah.”
Ara received a little “smile” and “kiss” back from Korbet. She giggled inside, her mouth and vocal chords not quite able to make the sound. It came out, “Ooohhoo.”
“What does she eat, Mum?”
“We have a special mixture. Would you like to feed her, Marc?” Pen bustled around the large, woody kitchen. It had all the modern appliances but Ara detected Pen liked the country feel. The large window looked out over the stables and mountain backdrop. A large bench separated the kitchen from the family kitchen table.
“May I?”
Ara was put into the strong arms of her brother. He was handsome, dark-haired, with dark eyes and an easy smile. He looked like her new Dad but Marc had a warmer smile. She opened her mouth but there was no food. She frowned and grumbled. She tried puffing her cheeks out.
“Better hurry up, Mum. I think she’s going to explode.”
There was laughter and Marc turned his face away, smiling.
“She’s smiling now. She thinks I’m funny.”
“You are funny.” But Ara saw her put a hand lovingly on Marc’s shoulder. “There you go.”
He turned back and she saw something in her view, a soft, warm nip was on her lips and she latched on, sucking. “She’s hungry.”
“That’s good.”
Ara drank until she was full, almost sick, and waited patiently until he took out the nip. She wiggled and he carefully moved her and rubbed her back. She felt air rising. Burrp.
Ara was jostled as the shoulder moved up and down as Marc chuckled. Her world rose and expanded as Marc stood and walked while supporting her head. He lifted her around and held her to see outside. “See that mountain range, Ara, that’s named after you. Katron Mountains. This planet, Saratoga, is new and houses four additional royal families when normally they each have their own planet. One queen is here permanently, she’s the Eighth Regional Queen. Her name is Silvia and she lives to the south of our home. We have our own farmland thanks to you, little baby, as far as you can see.”
Ara smiled as she looked outside seeing a colorful bird sitting on a rail. She waved her hand towards it and tried to grab it. Her hand was bigger than the bird but she saw in her mind that the bird was far away and, with an adjustment in her mind, the bird was much bigger than she first thought. Startled, she jerked in Marc’s arms and her eyes widened. Ara noticed her fingers again and shoved them in her mouth. He kissed her cheek and she tried shoving her slobbery hand into his mouth.
“I need a cloth, Mum. She’s full of drool already and making interesting mathematical calculations instinctively.”
“Not your usual type of baby then?” Pen’s blue-green eyes were twinkling as she handed him a cloth.
***
Undisclosed Location
Bellus
Years later Jamie attended the first meeting inside the Bellus with Marc. It was essentially a large orb they called a ranger space station. Marc called it the “Ballus”. The ranger trip took far longer than Jamie desired. HaV was slow at best via ranger but the personal transportals were not yet approved by the Ballus Trustees. Still, a trip to the Core took them only three weeks. They’d spent the trip playing games, working in the gym, watching shows, and talking. Marc had tried to explain the science but Jamie waved him off. Understanding and thinking in terms of “gophers” was one thing, the whole short cut routes via spatial anomalies made him feel dense. “You’re giving me a headache.”
He and Marc sat in the renovated Matter Being section, and glanced down at some crates.
“Was this the store room?”
Marc nodded. “This whole room was and they’ve only gotten around to prettying up their wedges. Feeling second rate?”
Jamie shrugged. The other, nicer, sections were for the Antimatter, Dark Matter, and Energy-matter Beings. He tried not to yawn and amused himself with studying the ten others in their wedge. Diane was looking after Ara while he was away. At least he wasn’t worried about that side of things. Jamie wasn’t impressed with the long, drawn out procedures. And they sat outside the “inner circle” listening and watching the screen in front of them bring up the transcript.
“Hey, isn’t that Korbet in the special section?” Marc pointed down to the narrow part of the wedge to their right.
“It is.” Jamie eyed off the brown-haired male. Korbet turned his head to look around; he looked as bored as they were. Jamie must have dozed off because Marc’s voice woke him. He rubbed at his eyes.
Marc drawled, saying, “Well, that was exciting.”
Jamie had come to appreciate Marc’s dry sense of humor.
“Why are they calling themselves ‘Artifacts’? Maybe it’s because we’re not quite Aether or Aryans.”
“Don’t know, don’t care.” Jamie yawned. He took out his EBrain and checked Ara’s schedule. He decided to go straight home. “Make sure you log in what you plan to do with Ara this month.”
People began to file past them. Korbet barely looked at them as he walked out.
Marc groaned. “Even the horse rides and picnics?”
Jamie gave Marc his no-nonsense look and Marc grimaced.
“Fine,” he muttered but then grinned. “Good thing she’s so darn cute.”
“She’s two,” Jamie said sharply but laughed a moment later thinking the same thing. “But cheeky.”
Marc handed him a tiny, rectangular flash drive.
“What’s in this?”
“My outi
ngs with Ara, of course.”
“Smartarse.”
***
Iota
Station: Perza
Galactic System: Sarato (Spiral Galaxy)
Planetary System: Saratoga
Homestead
Over the years, Jamie completed sweeps of Ara’s bedroom as she slept.
Ara was already three and mischievous. He took his holidays but found his mind drifting to her, and he demanded daily reports regardless. He had just finished a sweep of the homestead and now stood in her room. He glanced around at the large bed against one wall, untidy shelves on two walls and toy boxes around on the floor. Beauty, elegance, a gentle soul and intelligence was a combination highly prized in Pure-Gen society. But Ara was as untidy and cheeky as they came. And adventurous. “Menace” became a term of endearment. “Honeybee” only stuck with Korbet and Jamie and his team. He’d gotten to know the male over the years and they struck up a working relationship. The male was part of a different circle of issues but one where protection of Ara was critical, more closely linked to genocide than to the Three Empires and Grands issue. And yet Jamie found the issues more closely linked than some thought. There were too many overlaps for his peace of mind. He picked up Ara’s latest project. She had connected several colorful pieces of a special building set to form a robot skeleton, at least that’s what he thought it looked like. He put it down and walked to the bed.
Simon had told him that this position was messy. The fundamental nature of warfare usually had, at its core, a set paradigm. However, the characteristics of war changed. For example, the way war was waged depended on when and where it was waged and who waged it. Semantics maybe, but violence was generally used as furtherance of national aims. It wasn’t hard to determine what Ara, as the Mobile Unit, linked with genocide might trigger but in what direction it shifted was trickier. And Jamie hadn’t forgotten her “Vanguard” status. Korbet still refused to explain and Simon finally told Jamie to drop the issue.
Marc had checked on Ara, as was his habit, and gone to the garage to work on his motorbike. Jamie leaned over, studying his charge. Ara’s hair was light, honey colored, her eyes bright blue when awake, her face narrow, losing baby fat over the years. Her laugh filled the homestead and Jamie’s heart. He rarely had to find replacements as Ara kept them on their toes, and “Ara’s antics” became a daily part of their morning or afternoon tea sessions. The tapestry of her life made Jamie feel something was worthwhile.
“Jamie?”
He stood upright and pressed on his temple once to activate his comms, letting Diane know he was receiving but wouldn’t transmit.
She relayed the message. “There’s a ranger approaching Perza Space Station. Your orders are to attend and to monitor. ETA sixteen hours.”
Jamie double tapped his temple, deactivating the comms. Ara stirred and he walked to the back of her room, triggering a sliding door to enter the tunnel behind the homestead dug into the hill. After some more digging, it now led all the way to his headquarters. His cortical node buzzed telling him Ara was on the move. He made a mental note to notify Marc to keep Ara close. Jamie nodded to the guard on duty and left via a shared four-wheeled drive for the atmospheric lift. The order hadn’t been coded as an emergency so using his ranger from planet-side wasn’t an option. Planetary laws kept ranger arrivals to and departures from the planet to a minimum for safety and environmental measures. He had a small ranger docked at one of the orbital stations. Diane sent him a message explaining that his trip had been booked on the shuttle lift and the ranger was being prepped by the security team rostered on station.
Jamie drove east towards Saratoga City taking the back roads through wooded lands and arrived after twenty minutes at the spaceport. It was more of a lift-port but no one liked that name. Diane sent him a more detailed message that a ranger had dropped out of HaV and connected with Perza Space Station to begin docking procedures. He drove down the hill reaching the end of the woods to a large, cleared region, fenced for safety rather than security measures. So accustomed to the massive cabling system rising into the atmosphere and that had been deeply embedded in the earth, Jamie paid it little attention after the first few times.
He flashed his pass at the security gate’s scanning monitor impatiently and drove forward before the gates finished opening. He parked the vehicle in one of the many parks and ran to the smaller installation reserved for royalty and special guests. A harassed looking attendant waved him to hurry. He ran through the security gate, hearing the unit scan him and beep the “all clear” sounds. He moved through the glass doors, being held open by a lift host, and walked more sedately across the tarmac to the large, shuttle-shaped lift. At the click, click behind him he knew the lift host was hurrying to catch up. He sped up a little and nodded to another lift host with a strained smile plastered on her face.
Jamie grinned as he knew orders had been issued to delay the ride to the orbital station. No doubt, Queen Silvia would see a complaint about the delayed trip. It was clear in Jamie’s mind now that this was important enough to create what he could only think of as unwanted attention, but not clear as to why it wasn’t important enough to warrant him taking up a ranger or transportal. He entered a small cabin, ignored the exasperated or bored gazes from the travelers, and sat on an empty seat. Without the HaV intercept, it would take eight days to climb to geosynchronous orbit but it took only eleven hours all up. It was an hour on either side of the intercept and then nine hours within the dimensions to travel up or down. But even with his team preparing the way it would be several more hours to get to the space station. Three males were cycling through Perza Station’s external traps but Aven was trying to delay them.
Perza Space Station
Jamie was cursing by the time he arrived and docked. He reached his small office set up by Diane and began to activate all the monitors while licking his dry lips. While he listened he found a cupboard with bottled water and cracked open a seal to drink. He found strong coffee too, in one of the cupboards, and read the instructions. “Turn upside down … blah blah … exothermic reaction … right.” In under a minute he had hot, strong coffee and sipped it. He leaned forward because, unlike the boring Ballus meeting, which had little to do with Ara’s security at the moment, this was too close for Jamie’s comfort.
An hour later, Jamie waited until the “Snakes” had cycled out and were clear. What had they downloaded? He had to report to Simon, but he also wanted to mull over what he had learned. But Simon must have known to some extent what was going to be discussed between the Snakes, otherwise why not send up another operative? Jamie always knew Ara was different and now he had confirmation as to why but whether she was especially made for the Lacuna or had been an adult and put into a baby biosuit he didn’t know. Silvia, Cyrus, and Max had shown him the CU log that revealed someone had messed with the biosuit, and he now knew the three Snakes were responsible: Cobra, Krait, and Viper. How could it be possible they were once all one person? Jamie had never heard of a person being split before, cloned yes. Where’d they get the bodies? Was it just three biosuits?
He checked the station’s systems but the three Snakes had wiped the data and their visit. Even Jamie’s independent systems were wiped. He pulled out his nanite pen and pad—he called it NaPP—and wrote a list:
1. Consociation of Eight
2. Natal
3. Monad
4. Amatal
5. kroTan
6. Chaos
7. Function Tests – necklace?
Next, he considered where to transfer the nanites. He pulled down his pants and laid the paper over his thigh wondering if his hair … no, apparently hair made no difference. The words sunk into his skin.
It was clear from studying body language, micro expressions, and vocal tones that they loved Nyx and/or Ara. Krait AKA Tarus was one who particularly appeared to be struggling. Jamie had also learned that a male named “Trickster” might have access to Ara via Aryan Dreams and that would
make security complicated. The Snakes confirmed that they were in some kind of test site and they considered the Vakar a control group. His stomach cramped thinking about it and he cracked his knuckles. He had to feed this up through the proper channels. Both “proper” channels. He’d leave it up to Simon if and what they’d tell the Aether.
When both command channels sent the same reply, Jamie knew it was too late to leave the mission.
“Imperative: Compartmentalize and isolate.”
“Priority Top: Trigger Cell and Exit Protocols.”
Jamie’s independent systems were wiped as well as the systems. Aven or the AM techs might be able to recover any traces of what the Snakes took. If he had arrived sooner he might have found out, but, then again, maybe they would have picked up a transportal energy signature. So much for all his preparations, the Snakes were something entirely unplanned for and he had to try to incorporate them into his plans from now. He just hoped it wasn’t too late. The most disturbing thing was how casual they had been discussing Ara’s possible demise. Why drive someone to their death when killing them would be faster? What did they get out of making someone kill themselves? Why did they consider it difficult? But he could hardly experiment on Ara. He certainly didn’t want her dead but, while it was easy to protect someone from being killed, to protect against psychological warfare was much harder.
His instinct was to remove himself from the mission.
Psychology was his weakness, the thing he avoided so that he didn’t have to face his own demons.
They had mentioned something else too.
What was the Safeguard?
Sub-Log IX
