by Hylton Smith
When this was discovered, the remaining two heads of the organisation had been informed of the search for his family. It was how things operated; they approved his family’s elimination. Those in captivity now knew they were also on death row and there was no point in being freed unless the two Padres had been neutralised.
There had been a breakthrough in Chile. Since tracing the call from there to set the kidnap rendezvous, the airports and sea ports had been watched. A week after Suarez had departed from Singapore a man with a Philippine passport had flown from Santiago to Buenos Aires, and then taken several trains north. He was currently heading back to the Argentine capital, possibly because he had heard of the Suarez family demise. He was apprehended in a remote station in Argentina.
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Stella was only just coming to terms with the fallout which could come from the impending procedure on Sabine Cheverry. The most uncertain factor was the amount of collateral damage that may be caused if her brain deteriorated more rapidly than predicted during the shuttle journey. Even if Stella was successful with the implant, memory and motor functions could be lost. Carvalho was toying with shelving his intention to travel in the new craft before Columbus arrived. Stella told him she did not want that; Pascal 2 and Scillacci would be on hand to assist and she preferred not to have any distractions, and he was becoming a big distraction.
Only two were to be in the craft. Carvalho had asked Alex 2 to join him as there could be some far-reaching decisions taken which could affect all species. The Symbiant agreed even though his preference was to stay and nurture the incoming Evander de la Cruz. By the time they had set off and informed Earth of their earlier than anticipated arrival, the news of the Suarez family massacre had reached them. Alex 2 was unusually ‘emotional’, and reminded his companion how unwell this made the Continuance feel. “I never cease to be amazed at how many times I say ‘I never cease to be amazed’ by your species. We are about to talk again to their guardians about the ethical and deeply religious concerns over extending the life expectancy of willing individuals. This has generated more protest than this family being brutally murdered because they may know someone’s name. Human society is a contradiction in terms. If I had known of this prior to setting off I would have declined to come with you. You need to prepare yourself for what I will now say when we arrive. In summary your promise is more than counterbalanced by your inability to see beyond your own image of yourselves. I am talking about a flawed hierarchical system within a political mirage. I will be advising all Symbiants of a change of priority. We need to concentrate all encouragement on the Axis. They do not offer the same potential as humans but they also do not offer the same weaknesses. I am sorry to say that this will be accompanied by a rescinding of the human option to regress Symbiants to crystal. That will be transferred to the Axis. We will of course be happy to continue with individuals of your species who are not afflicted by myopic obsession with human rights; fortunately those on Mars already qualify. Sadly, there will be those on Earth who do, but they are victims of circumstance, they do however have the option to leave. You should know Commander that I had a similar discussion with Xiang many years ago, and without more people like him there is little prospect of change.”
This was a sobering message which Carvalho knew had justification. He also knew how the reversal of Symbiant voluntary hibernation would be interpreted. ‘I told you so – this was the agenda all along’ – sprang to mind.
Evander was to have a tour with the new arrivals before his anticipated introduction to the members of the think-tank. Sabine was to be prepared for surgery as soon as possible and was whisked to Echus by train before too many prying eyes could speculate. It would be done in this order as Evander had become a minor cult figure since his rescue, and most of the assembled crowd and media would follow him.
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The Philippine national insisted he had nothing to do with any of the events surrounding the kidnap. His story was adjusted to explain the Caracas contact numbers in his mobile communicator – he had relatives there who worked the Caribbean cruise ships. Kinsey said that was interesting. “So why did you turn around and come back to Buenos Aires?”
“I have been there and to Chile on business, which I thought was concluded but I got a call from Buenos Aires to say the printing machine I had set up for the passport office had malfunctioned again.”
This guy was either very good or genuine. When asked if anyone in the passport office could verify this he began to digress. “You must understand this is a highly sensitive and confidential business contract, I cannot just give out their numbers like this.”
They examined his brief case and found no link to printing equipment and decided to contact the Philippine police. He had many passports and names. They were delighted to hear of his description and whereabouts as he had been on their ‘wish to interview’ list for over three years. Their intelligence people believed he was in China and were now even more interested to see him. It was a long shot but Kinsey asked, “Is there anything you can tell us about why you want to see him?”
It was not within the Philippine police power to jump the queue, the intelligence squad would get first shot and they could not comment before that. Kinsey however, milked their enthusiasm to get their hands on this man. “It may be some time before you get your chance. He is mixed up in the Evander de la Cruz saga. He will be here until we convict him. However, if your people want to come to Brazil I’m sure we could try to arrange for you to have interviews with him. I’ll leave it to you; my contact details will be forwarded to you for your verification with my organisation.”
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Carvalho asked Alex 2 to keep his intended speech until the very end of their visit, and the Symbiant readily agreed. His logic was that delivering this withdrawal notice could only make the objective of the trip more difficult, unless the agenda had preceded the declaration. The atmosphere was downbeat with just the two of them on board, and although such silence did not trouble Alex 2, Carvalho tried to lighten the mood by asking what contribution Evander could make. “Undoubtedly he will have a decisive one. He has already demonstrated in his challenges to aspects of uncertain proofs that the challenges themselves are invalid. He can expect the same from some of the think-tank members, but they are not threatened by his precociousness, and will possibly see the point.”
It was obvious that this was about as much as he was going to give away. Carvalho went on the offensive and switched the discussion to what really bothered Alex 2.
“I’ve had some reservations myself about the extent of modification of our physiology. You may recall that I said at the time we produced the charter, this moment of helping individuals with no other hope, would determine the timing of substitution of the brain by synthetic equivalents. I’m equally certain that resistance to other modifications will be broken down in the same way, to the point of humans being more inorganic than they ever thought would be acceptable. The real difficulty will arise when we tackle the issue of procreation. Of course if an individual has to sacrifice this for some life-saving cure of a terminal condition, it will occur. This is very different from taking a vote on mass sterilisation. Even the new-found promising species, the Axis, have illustrated their dichotomy on the subject. I have to ask you if your frustration with humans is partly because we haven’t been stampeded into compliance, as they were by the instability of their solar system. Their initial decision to undergo modification was made very easy by the radiation blight of their ability to procreate. Yet if you assess them now, they all regret it to some degree. Perhaps your patience with us and faith in us would be restored if it was possible to preserve procreation above all else. I’m not disputing your logic, as many human individuals will go with you on this. It’s part of our diversity. I’m suggesting that causing hostility will produce the situation you predict. Is it not far more promising to exceed that expectation by tackling the issue which could unify? I must add that it might ma
ke the Continuance more promising, even in the eyes of those for whom you have little respect.”
He did not foresee silence as the sequence in these discussions. It was mind-boggling to think of how many bits of data had been processed by the Symbiant before the reply did come. “This is a promising line of reasoning. It has been increased in priority.”
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The welcome gathering was in full swing as the crew emerged, and there was a lull before Evander’s face was recognised through the panel of his helmet. They followed him to the reception dome. It took a further twenty minutes for the stricken, anonymous patient to be transferred to the train and it sped off to Echus Neurosciences. The theatre was ready and the new unit pre-prepared. Scillacci wanted to check for herself that the sedation had almost expired before a new anaesthetic was employed. Only then did she embrace Pascal 2 and introduced herself to Stella Aragones. The monitoring equipment showed brain function had not suffered major attrition but the pressure caused by the tumour was intense. Stella was affected by this; she had not seen anything quite like it before. Regaining her focus, she began the routine. The incisions made for access had to be spaced to allow for removal of this horrendous growth. The first stage was achieved in a little over double the expected time. It was now going to be a nervous period to see if there would be any degradation during the parallel phase. There were moments of fluctuation in the readouts, then a clear warning of faltering cerebral activity. Although there should have been longer before disconnection and the patient being made aware of the next step, the situation precluded that luxury.
Stella quickly conferred with the others; they agreed it had to be done now. It seemed to go well until the time period for natural return to consciousness had passed. The hope was that the prior sedation had extended this inactivity. Again they conferred and the decision was to wait another few minutes before considering stimulant. The worry deepened and the shot was prepared. It was Scillacci who suggested a small increase in the amplification in the data signal strength between the synthetic versions of the hippocampus and neocortex. She was confident this would not overload the new unit, and would be less risky than a third chemical infusion being added to the cocktail. The next four minutes seemed like an eternity; then she stirred. They had the morphine drip ready to combat her discomfort and it fed gently into the child’s already congested metabolic traffic. Her eyes opened hours later and there was reason for temporary relief. This was the longest procedure Stella had performed and it was more draining because there was no break to digest progress.
The next morning concern returned because although she was conscious she did not respond too well to questions. In the tension which followed, it was Pascal 2 who remembered he must address her in French. “Sabine, c’est vous?
“Oui Monsieur, ou est Maman, et Papa?
The two women looked at each other and found it difficult to hold back the pent-up emotions. They asked Pascal 2 to keep talking to Sabine while they went for coffee and discussed her recovery programme. Stella said she would be happy for Scillacci to supervise this because of her vast experience of recuperation therapy on Earth.
Chapter 15
The intelligence people from the Philippines arrived. Kinsey was not going to allow contact with the target until he knew more about their interest in him. It was all prefaced by ‘off the record’ claims, but a clear pattern of selling information to the Chinese was the guts of it. Most of it was commercially sensitive stuff which disadvantaged the Philippine government, but recently there had been evidence of meetings with the Chinese military. It was at this point he took permanent residence there. The picture had then become hazy until he had been accidently caught on a news camera depicting unrest at the Korean border and the difficulty the Chinese had in stemming the flow of migrants into their domain. Philippine contacts in South Korea were then able to infiltrate camps being set up to deal with this problem. The presence of high-ranking Chinese generals was considered strange. “Then there was a change in pattern. Our elusive pimpernel began a cycle of travel from the North Korean border to Beijing then to Caracas. At no point could we intervene. All of our applications to confront him were politely refused. This is all we can tell you. We have waited a long time to speak with him. We appreciate your help. Can we begin?”
Kinsey nodded but insisted on being present with a translator. “I am afraid we cannot have outside presence for much of what we need to discuss. As we suspect there are connections from this man to figures in our government, and overseas agents of other countries, it is a sensitive situation.”
Kinsey understood and knew he had got about as much as possible without going into speculative internal politics. He also felt there were sufficient links to the picture which Arnold Rodham had briefed him on, regarding possible American involvement in Korea. He made the call to Rodham and expressed the view that it may be beneficial to keep this guy in Brazil for a while after interrogation by his countrymen. Rodham squirmed a little over this but agreed that it was a kidnap on Brazil’s watch. “It is indeed troubling that this man has been linked to the three locations involving - the boy, crystal, and an area of proposed USA-Chinese cooperation. I must air this with my Chinese counterpart.”
Kinsey replied, “That may be premature Mr. Rodham. There seems to be more than coincidence here. If you alert anyone in the Chinese hierarchy who could be complicit in any or all three events we would be shut out. I anticipate the Philippine guys will not be interested in the same stuff we are, so it might be better if we hold him here on a kidnap charge with only minor personnel until something breaks. I advise patience.”
“Very well Marvin. I’ll be in touch.”
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After the hullabaloo Evander returned to being a prodigy in physics compared to the boy celebrity. The introduction to the think-tank went well. Having got up to speed with the various aspects of the programme he ventured his first contribution. “I had no idea you had found Seaborgium Oxy-chloride in stable form. This changes lots of thinking back home.” Red asked if he could be more precise.
“Well, following this discovery some people who have dismissed certain possibilities will have to move aside to allow others to collaborate on a new gateway. I know tapping the theory and creating experimental proof will be challenging, and worse than that – very expensive, but it is great news.”
The group realised that the young man had no concept of the difference between the consumer-driven restraint and a meritocracy prioritisation. Nielsen said, “We don’t have committees presiding over costs here Evander. It’s simply a case of whether it is important to our society or not.”
“Wow, you really mean we could get started on verification?” Red confirmed to him that the objective of the group was precisely such evidence.
Evander injected a dose of realism. “I know there will be problems with inducing Gravity A waves, and more in harnessing them. We will need a field generator of incredible accuracy and yet flexibility. Velocity control of the source of the waves advancing to the discreet boundaries of sequential collapsible quanta of space has to be developed yet, and then there is the greatest challenge of all.”
He had their attention. “Go on,” said Sevicek.
“Well our objective depends on creating, maintaining and disabling infinitesimal parameters. The changes must be sequenced and therefore queued with matching precision. The current computing capability is like something from the industrial revolution, compared to what we need to handle the measurement, evaluation, and instruction of a closed loop control system. Dealing with the very small needs appropriate care. If we don’t have this we will report failure, when we can’t actually see what we are doing. Every staggering sized batch of bits of data will occur in milliseconds and if we can’t keep up we can forget it.”
Evander did not have any immediate suggestions to remedy this; he merely said it was the road block. The pregnant silence was turning to despair and nobody had chal
lenged what he said. Yamamoto always had the tendency to think out of the box. “Dan, can’t you do that?”
Dan protested that his time should not be directed to the limited extent to which the human data processing design could be optimised. “It really needs to be thoroughly overhauled before significant progress can be achieved.”
“No, no you misunderstand,” said Yamamoto with a broad grin, “I mean you can do it; you can be the interface.”
Dan stunned everyone, including Yamamoto by declaring, “Oh I see, yes that would work.”
This was confusing to Evander, whose direct experience of the Symbiants’ capability was sketchy. The others thought it was another example of the improving sense of humour of the Continuance. Yamamoto asked for clarification. “So you become the ship and the ship becomes Dan?”
“In terms of the control Evander has pointed out – yes that would be possible. It would serve as a short term means of proving the entire theory of successive spatial quantum collapse transport.”
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Sadat decided to contact Kinsey rather than Rodham. He opened cautiously. “Mr. Kinsey I realise your investigation has to be kept under wraps to a degree. However I may have some information of interest to you, but I will only know for sure if you can confirm something for me.”
Kinsey said nothing. Sadat ventured more. “It is known that you are looking in Caracas – the grapevine tells us that much. I have also had unconfirmed reports that you are detaining a citizen of the Philippines. If this is the case it may dovetail with a person I am trying to trace. If it is one and the same then I can offer you some connection which will either surprise or embarrass your government. Subsequent action on my part would not occur. If it is the same person I will leave it to you. If it isn’t, my search continues. Is this a reasonable suggestion?”
Kinsey was intrigued and yet considered the odds. “Let me get this right. If I confirm the ‘name’ you have matches a guest we may have, you will give me important information which you believe I don’t have, but someone in my government might; if I can’t confirm we are both seeking the same man you never made this call?”
