The Prodigal Sun

by Sean Williams

  “Nothing, sir,” she said, the words belying the look on her face. “I just need to speak to you in private.”

  In private? Kajic echoed in his thoughts. Then her news couldn’t be urgent. The ship must be safe. The relief, after the ominous dreams, was almost overwhelming. “Very well,” he said.

  She turned away from the camera and took a seat while Kajic gathered his thoughts, mentally sweeping his mind clean of the detritus of the dream. More hints, more unconscious suggestions—he was sure of it—but they would have to wait until later. Taking a moment to access the events he had missed while his higher centers were sleeping, he realized that they were fifty-two hours from Sciacca’s World, just over two-thirds of the way. He had slept for almost an entire day.

  Remarkable though that was, he didn’t let it bother him. With their departure proceeding smoothly and a major campaign behind them, it was unsurprising that he needed rest.

  A few seconds elapsed before he formed his hologram in the command module where Makaev sat waiting. She stood instantly to attention, then relaxed when he waved her at ease.

  “I assume this has nothing to do with the ship,” he said after she had returned to her seat.

  “Not exactly, sir, no.” Makaev sighed, shifting uneasily. “It’s the crew. They are restless—nervous.”

  “Of what?”

  Makaev paused, as though what she was about to say pained her. “Of... ghosts, sir.”

  Before he could respond, she quickly added, “I know what you’re about to say, Captain, and believe me, I thought the same thing myself. But in the last six hours I’ve received three separate reports and heard rumors of several more. The sightings are all confined to the lower decks, to maintenance areas and cold stores. The witnesses have all been single crew members performing unscheduled duties. The encounters were all brief, comprising little more than a glimpse of another person—who instantly vanished.”

  “What about security?” said Kajic thoughtfully.

  “No trace has been found on any of the recordings. Even in the three cases where we’ve had exact times and locations, nothing out of the ordinary has been seen.”

  Kajic mulled this over for a moment. “The obvious possibility is that we have unwittingly taken aboard a stowaway or two. Transportees, or some of the rebels perhaps...?”

  “My thoughts exactly, sir,” said Makaev. “After the second report, I contacted Sergeant Komazec. He assured me that there was no possible way anyone could have smuggled themselves onto the shuttle. The only other bodies aboard, apart from crew, were Roche and the Eckandi. One of those is dead, and the other hasn’t even regained consciousness.

  “Furthermore, I have also checked with the main computer. No stores are missing; we are showing no extra mass and no unexpected demands on life support. And every one of the crew can be accounted for, which rules out the possibility of substitution. If what we have here is a stowaway, then it might as well be a ghost.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Kajic. “The fact remains that the crew is restless. Correct?”

  Makaev nodded. “And the more word spreads, the worse it becomes.”

  Kajic regarded her steadily for a few moments, biting back irritation. “Well, the only thing we can do about it at this stage is to step up security, to make sure every area below deck is watched at all times. If we do have some sort of stowaway, ghost or otherwise, it’s bound to appear eventually.”

  “Which is why I’ve come to you.” Makaev paused and leaned forward. “As suggested by yourself, the crew is now on soft duties following our mission. I am reluctant to give them more work at the moment, not until we’re at least out of the system. Yet we have to do something now. Let the rumors continue unchecked, and the Ana Vereine runs the risk of—”

  “Enough,” Kajic cut in. He could see where she was headed. “You want me to conduct the security sweeps?”

  “It seems logical, sir. You are more vigilant than any single member of the crew, and you have direct access to the required systems. In fact, they’re integral to you.” She hesitated, as though suddenly realizing something. “Of course, that’s if you’re up to it, sir. I mean, it has been a difficult week...”

  Kajic was glad for once that he didn’t have a physical body to betray his autonomic responses—otherwise a flush of rage would have turned his face a deep, bright red. How dare she? Did she think him stupid? If he agreed to conduct the surveillance of the ship, then he was placing himself under unnecessary stress and perhaps risking a potential breakdown—but if he said no, then he would be admitting weakness at a time when he couldn’t afford to do so.

  Her blatant attempt at manipulation was clumsy, to say the least—so much so that it might feasibly, and perversely, have been entirely innocent.

  Either way, he had no choice.

  “For the sake of the crew’s peace of mind,” he said, “I think your suggestion a sensible one. I shall begin immediately.”

  She sighed with apparent satisfaction and stood. “Thank you, sir. I’ll see that you have all the information immediately. The sooner the rumors are quashed, the better.”

  He nodded, agreeing with that, at least. Although he denied the existence of either ghosts or stowaways, the very act of looking would undoubtedly reassure everyone in the lower decks. And when he turned up nothing, and no more sightings were reported, the Ana Vereine could return to normal.

  Yet the feeling of dread that had remained with him after awakening only intensified as he accepted the data from Makaev and examined it carefully. Had something gone wrong? Something that he had overlooked or simply not anticipated? With victory so close, he couldn’t afford to discount that possibility.

  The Box had been handed to him on a plate once already, and Roche had snatched it away, again and again, until he had almost begun to despair at his inability to outwit her. She had eluded his forces on the Midnight, in space, through the wilds of Sciacca’s World and, finally, in the streets of Port Parvati. Neither the DAOC Enforcers nor the Dato landing party had been able to locate her, until the very end—and even then, she had almost eluded them once again.

  Was it so unbelievable that she might do so again?

  Only with the sternest mental effort was he able to smother that doubt before it found purchase in his thoughts.

  He commenced the search of the lower decks.

  After the first hour, he realized that he had something to be grateful for. The sweep kept him occupied, when otherwise he might have drifted aimlessly through the ship, agonizing over his future. The ship could monitor itself; if anything untoward happened, either the automatic systems in his hindbrain or Makaev herself would notify him immediately. By being occupied, he was spared the uncertainty and given an opportunity to do something constructive.

  Still, it was tedious work, and his mind tended to wander. After the third hour of staring at empty storerooms and quiescent machinery, he began to alternate the sweep with glances at Roche in her cell, as though to reassure himself that she was still there. She showed no sign of activity; indeed, far from preparing to take control of the ship, she hadn’t once regained consciousness. And to Kajic, that in itself was a concern. A brain-damaged informer was not much better than a dead informer—although better than none at all, he supposed.

  Of the “ghosts” he had found nothing at all so far. The lower decks were cluttered and cramped, with plenty of hiding places for a single stowaway, but security cameras covered every centimeter. A significant proportion of the crew spent much of their time in these hidden, unglamorous areas, performing small maintenance checks, repairing minor breaks, and ensuring the ship’s battle readiness. It was an area rarely visited by the superior officers, and referred to in the vernacular as “the maze” or “the warren.”

  Kajic estimated that a thorough search of the warren would take between twelve and fifteen hours, yet after only nine hours he had satisfied himself that nothing out of the ordinary existed on the ship. As far as he could see, the only �
��ghosts” haunting the crew were the same ones that tormented him: guilt, doubt, and uncertainty.

  In the eleventh hour, however, another sighting was reported.

  In a deep portion of the warren, a maintenance tech stood describing the incident to a workmate. Kajic watched and listened carefully as the woman described seeing a man dressed in grey at the far end of the corridor. The man had looked up, she said, seen her, and suddenly disappeared.

  “But he was there,” the woman insisted. “I swear it!”

  * * *

  Although her testimony was incredible, Kajic didn’t doubt her obvious sincerity. Sending himself furiously from camera to camera, he quartered the area around the woman, sweeping through a blur of rooms and corridors—all identical, all unoccupied. Exactly what he was looking for he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t stop. If he didn’t try now, he might never be so close again.

  One minute passed, and he had covered every square centimeter within one hundred meters of the sighting. Two minutes, one hundred twenty-five meters. Three minutes, and he was just about ready to give up. Four minutes of strobing, split-second views, and—

  He saw it.

  It was in one of the little-used stretches of corridor deep in the bowels of the ship. The ambient lighting was low in this particular area, but there could be no doubt. Centered in his field of view were the head and shoulders of a man, a man who shouldn’t be there. A man, what’s more, whom Kajic didn’t immediately recognize.

  And then, suddenly, the man was gone. The corridor was empty.

  Kajic hesitated for a moment before calling Makaev. What could he say? That he, too, had seen it? That he had succumbed to delusions along with the rest of the crew?

  “There has been another sighting,” he said when she took the call. “Section Green-24. The same as before.”

  “I heard.” She glanced up from her work station. “In the warren again, and not far from the other sightings, either.”

  “I know.”

  Makaev paused. “Did you see anything, sir?”

  Kajic kept his face carefully neutral. “No,” he said. “No, I didn’t. However, I will examine the security recordings for a trace. If anything does appear, I will keep you informed.”

  Kajic retreated into the depths of his mind to study what he had found. The face had been captured by his long-term memory banks, and reappeared before him as vivid and startling as before. And as unfamiliar, even after enhancement removed the shadow that obscured it slightly. Kajic was prepared to bet his life that the face didn’t belong to any member of his crew.

  But if it didn’t, then who did it belong to?

  The only possible way of finding that out was to run a complete security check on the features. But with only a rough demographic to narrow the search, the check could take hours. Every face in the ship’s databanks—and there must have been trillions—would need to be compared to the picture to arrive at a negative. Only if a positive match existed would the search take less time.

  Kajic mulled it over, then ordered the search. It couldn’t hurt. If his only other avenue came up with nothing, he would still have something to hope for.

  Putting the image aside for the moment, he accessed the ship’s security records. First, he turned to the moments before the maintenance technician had triggered the alarm. The image was sharp, not yet archived to compressed memory. She stood out clearly, examining a faulty circuit that had failed while she was in the area. Her back was to the camera, and Kajic could see without obstruction to the end of the corridor.

  Then, abruptly, the technician stood, gaping. She backed away a step and hit the nearest alert switch. Moments later, her workmate joined her, staring in confusion in the direction she pointed—

  But there was nothing there—and, as far as Kajic could tell when he scrolled the recording back, nothing had been there.

  Increasingly puzzled, he switched to another camera and another time. The dimly lit corridor where he had seen “his” ghost appeared in a window next to that containing the technician, now frozen in mid-gape. He sped the recording forward, then backward, waiting for some sort of change.

  Nothing.

  The corridor, even at the exact moment when he had seen the face, had been completely devoid of life.

  At that moment, he was relieved that he had not mentioned his own sighting to Makaev. And he intended to keep it that way as long as possible. The obvious interpretation was too damning, too convenient for anyone looking for an excuse to pull the plug on him.

  For a long moment, he considered the few alternatives open to him, then methodically erased from his personal database all records of the face he had seen.

  Although his enthusiasm for the project was sorely lacking, Kajic resumed his search. Unsure which he feared most—seeing the “ghost” again, or not seeing it—he flicked aimlessly through the warren, wishing he had never started in the first place.

  Hours passed uneventfully. He had thought, once, that all his problems would end when he had satisfied his priorities. Yet, in its own way, the return trip was turning out to be worse than the mission itself. Even disregarding the nameless doubts, the new priority kept his mind from wandering as freely as he liked, and the specter of his own possible fallibility, therefore, refused to dissipate.

  Still, he would be home soon. Szubetka Base was located near an anchor point in deep space, so approach time was kept to a minimum. Within a handful of hours, if all went well, his mission would be at an end. A successful end, too.

  And then...?

  Having demonstrated that the ship/captain principle was sound, the Dato Bloc’s greatest engineers would bend their minds—and those belonging to their new captains—to the task of making an entire fleet of similar vessels. A superfleet of mind-machine gestalts, enough perhaps to give the Presidium an edge over their traditional enemies. When that came to pass, Kajic would finally have like minds with which to associate. It was comforting to know that there would soon be others who could share his experiences.

  But this led to a more disturbing thought. Progress was inevitable. He would remain in the service of the Presidium only as long as he was an advantage, not a hindrance. What would happen when he had been superseded? Routine missions? Cargo hauls for the Presidium? Or worse, a civilian fleet? With his body suspended in its life support capsule, his existence could be extended indefinitely, at a price, but would anyone wish to do so? Disembodied, essentially if not literally, he was nothing without his ship. How long before they wanted the Ana Vereine back, to give it a new captain...?

  Kajic’s sense of imminent victory suddenly faded. He was a tool. And the trouble with intelligent tools, he knew, was that they can never be truly trusted—no more than any other Human. Because he could be controlled, his future held a lifetime of priorities, nagging duties, and self-doubt. He would never be truly free until the day he died.

  Yellow alert suddenly sounded throughout the ship, warning the crew of imminent departure. His priorities began to irritate again, an unsubtle reminder that he was neglecting his duty. With a sigh of relief, he halted the search of the warren and sent himself to the bridge.

  His second in command awaited him, looking as tired as he felt.

  “How long, Atalia?”

  “Ten minutes, sir.”

  “Any problems?”

  “None, sir. Crew and ship are in perfect shape.”

  “Excellent,” Kajic smiled; despite the misgivings he still harbored, he was relieved on that score. He no longer suspected that the “ghost” fiasco had been her doing; she had been as genuinely worried and had worked as hard to remedy the situation as he. If the crew had at last settled down and forgotten the incidents, whatever their cause, then perhaps she deserved much of the credit.

  The matter of the kill-switch and the back door still had to be resolved, however, but he was prepared to admit that she had done her duty there, too—and done it well. Perhaps too well, at times.

  “Paladin and Gallogla
ss will precede us to Szubetka Base,” he said. “Barring unforseen complications, we will follow five minutes after. Then Lansequenet two minutes after that.”

  “Yes, sir.” She snapped a formal salute and turned away.

  On the main screen, the four green dots of his small command rapidly approached the departure point. He watched them idly, letting himself be an observer rather than an active participant. His crew could handle the jump through the anchor point without his help. For the pilots and astrogators of a warship, even one as new as the Ana Vereine, jumping to hyperspace to achieve speeds he could only begin to comprehend was all in a day’s work. His main role was to decide when and where to go; all the rest—the vectors, coordinates, and space-distorts—he left to the specialists.

  If he desired, however, he could interface with the ship’s main computers to boost his processing power, and thereby participate in the mystery. But sometimes it was better simply to watch, to be awed by the forces that people, with all-too-mortal minds, had harnessed.

  Bubbles of folded space enclosed the two ships, distorting the light shining through them and making distant stars balloon and fade. Traceries of energy danced along the raiders’ hulls, waving like hairs from the points of weapons and casting vast sheets along flat surfaces. Local space seemed crowded, for an instant, as the raiders’ imminent supralight departure echoed back through time and collided with the present, cluttering the area with a near-infinite number of phantom ships.

  An unexpected prompt sounded in Kajic’s mind the very instant the two ships disappeared. Filled with a sudden sense of alarm, he turned his attention inward to see what had happened.

  At first he was relieved. Nothing had gone wrong at all; the ship’s computers had simply finished the search he had requested. But then, scanning the information that the computer had retrieved on the ship’s “ghost,” his uncertainty and dread returned.

  “Galloglass and Paladin have jumped successfully,” the telemetry officer reported, when the data collected by hull sensors had been analyzed.