by Musser, Dale
“I hope for a few years. For the time being, any information we uncover that reaches the general public will be assumed by just about everyone to be intelligence gained through the operations of the FOI. The FOI doesn’t even know of the existence of the FSO, so they will assume that we obtained the information by interrogating a prisoner or a Brotherhood traitor. With luck, the FOI won’t know about the FSO until that entire FOI is cleared of Brotherhood infiltrators.”
“Speaking of the FOI, Commander,” I said, “have you located Galetils’ brother?”
“Yes I have, Tibby, and I have made arrangements for you to meet him. I talked to his boss here on Plosaxen, a man named Sanuk. I told him that you recently purchased Galetils’ ship and that, since you didn’t have the pleasure of meeting Galetils directly, you were interested in meeting his brother to learn more about him. I also suggested that the FOI might want to provide one of their agents to join your personal security team and that Admiral Regeny and that I felt Galetils’ brother might be a good choice. Sanuk jumped at the opportunity, with the condition that he personally gets to meet you as well. I assured him that he will be seated with you and the admiral at the banquet table tonight. So I’ve secured verbal authorization to add Galetils’ brother to your security team. I think if you were to suggest to Sanuk during dinner that you would like Galetils’ brother to accompany you back to the NEW ORLEANS to see the ship, he will be more than willing to allow it.”
“Excellent. I just have one more question; what’s Galetils’ brother’s name?”
Wabussie and the admiral both laughed.
“I guess that would be a good detail for you to know! His name is Halfredies. Here, let me pull up his file for you on the vid screen.” The screen lit up with an image of man whose features are hard to describe. I had seen vids of Galetils; and other than for the overall roundness of their faces, the brothers bore little resemblance to each other. Galetils’ hair was reddish brown with matching eyelashes and eyebrows and Halfredies’ hair was jet black. Galetils’ complexion was somewhat ruddy and Halfredies’ was more like smooth, white porcelain. Where Galetils’ eyes were amber, Halfredies’ were startlingly dark, so much so that I couldn’t discern the pupil from the iris. He had thin, pale lips, which at first glance made his mouth appeared to be little more than a slit. But even these few odd facial features would not make him stand out in a crowd; to the contrary, he had an overall quality about him that might even cause others to ignore his presence as irrelevant, a quality that was certainly conducive to being a spy.
Commander Wabussie went on to review some facts about Halfredies background and relationship with his brother. “Halfredies and Galetils were quite close; in fact, Galetils purchased and gave him a rather nice estate on the southern continent here on Plosaxen. Galetils also set him up with seed funds, from which he has benefited nicely as a result of some good investments. In fact, he wouldn’t have to hold a job, if he so elected.
“Halfredies made an offer to Galetils to help get him back on his feet after the destruction of Astamagota and, although he hadn’t accumulated anywhere near the wealth that Galetils once had, that assistance would certainly have helped Galetils to restore his finances and business operations. It’s one of the reasons that Halfredies is convinced that his brother’s death was not a suicide. Although he’s been assigned to other cases, I believe he is secretly trying to track down and find his brother’s killers.”
“Interesting,” I said. “That’s the kind of information we can use to swing him to our side as an undercover agent inside the FOI. His search for his brother’s killers will coordinate well with our search for the Brotherhood members within the FOI, since there is every reason to believe the two are connected.”
“Oh?” Wabussie asked.
“A’Lappe told me the Brotherhood learned that Galetils was developing the 10X fusion reactors and that someone among their ranks had been pressuring him to join their ranks and surrender the plans to them. Galetils immediately went to the FOI to advise them of the situation; and just a few days later he was found dead of an apparent suicide.”
“I’m curious as to who conducted the investigation and determined the cause of his death,” pondered Wabussie, as he typed some commands and looked at another screen on his desk. “This is odd,” he said. “The file is sealed and encrypted; and it’s labeled for viewing by only those with the highest authorization.” He typed a few more commands, “Lucky I have such clearance. Ah, here we are. According to the official file, it was the FOI that conducted the investigation and determined the cause of death.”
“Let me guess… Halfredies doesn’t have clearance high enough to view the file, does he?” I asked. Wabussie typed a few more commands and looked up again. “No, he doesn’t, though it shows here that he has requested access to it several times through different channels but has never been able to see it.”
“Admiral, the clearance that was given to me by the Federation granting me access to all top-secret information… it is still in effect?” I inquired.
“Why, yes it is,” said the admiral.
“Good. Commander, I would like a copy of that file forwarded to me, if you don’t mind. I think I may have an immediate use for it and it will serve as a good starting place for tracking down the top Brotherhood infiltrators inside the FOI.”
“I don’t understand why we can’t just pull all the FOI agents and personnel and test them like we do the rank and file of the military,” said Commander Wabussie.
“Well, much of the FOI is operating undercover, so it would be difficult to locate all its agents. Depending on how deeply the Brotherhood has infiltrated the organization, the FIO employee files may have been altered or forged, so even their records and databases are unreliable. Of course, we can’t let them clean their own house, like they will want to, because the loyalty of the entire organization is dubious at best, aside from Halfredies,” I said. “At the moment, they have no knowledge of the FSO. As a ranking officer and member of the High Command, you’re able to access information and files in the FOI database without raising suspicion of the FSO’s existence. Approaching the corruption in the FOI this way may not be the most satisfactory tactic, but it’s definitely the best way to achieve our objectives while maintaining secrecy about the military’s secret operatives.”
“I see where you’re going with this, Tibby, and I agree with you. I trust you’ll be able to sway Halfredies to join our operation with the information you find in this folder. He certainly has a personal motive for enlisting in this cause.”
The trip back to the NEW ORLEANS was equally as guarded as the trip to the underground facility; and we returned without incident. I found Kala in her administrative office surrounded by several of her staff. As soon as she saw me, her face lit up with a beautiful smile that electrified me from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. I felt like I hadn’t seen her in ages. She excused herself from her staff to join me.
“How about a good swim?”
I had to agree I needed the exercise and the swim would remove some of the tension that had accumulated over the course of the day. I had pretty much healed from the knife wounds I received at the hands of Lexmal; but the absence of my usual exercise allowed some stiffness to creep back into my limbs.
We arrived at the pool and Kala quickly undressed and dove in. She gave me a grin and I quickly realized that she intended to race me. Kala was very competitive; and most of the time I had to put forth my best effort just to manage a tie when we raced laps in the pool. A few times I managed to beat her, but not by much.
“Come on, Tib, I think I have the advantage today,” she said.
“Oh you do, do you? We’ll see about that,” I replied as I dove in. I stayed under water and raced with all my strength to the far end of the pool. I fully expected to beat Kala to the wall, since I had the speed and momentum from the dive as an advantage; but when I surfaced just a foot short of the wall with my hand out to touch it, I saw Kala
at my side with her hand reaching forward as well. We slapped the wall in unison and did a quick flip, speeding toward the opposite end as fast as we could. I could feel the stiffness in my muscles around the site of each knife wound; but I ignored the pain and pushed on. We both hit the wall at the same time and surfaced laughing. Kala threw her arms around my neck and kissed me firmly and passionately on the lips.
“I thought I had you, but it looks like you’re back to your old self again.”
“Ha,” I replied. “Give me a few days more and you won’t stand a chance.”
“Why, youuuu,” threatened Kala playfully, as she laughed and jumped above my shoulders, trying to use her weight to push me under the water. I grabbed her and we both went under, only to pop up sputtering and spitting out water. We held each other and shared one last kiss before Kala pulled away and began slow and steady laps. I joined her and we swam several laps without saying anything. Finally we climbed out of the pool and lay at its edge, slowly regaining our breath and letting our pulses return to normal.
“Tib, do you think this will ever be over – all of these issues with the Brotherhood and the solbidyum and all, or do you think the rest of our lives will be like this?”
“I honestly don’t know, but I plan to do everything I can to bring it all to an end so you and I can spend some serious time enjoying life together. Not that I don’t enjoy my time with you now, but I would rather it were in a different environment and less stressful circumstances. Since I arrived, it seems that every few days someone is trying to kill us. I suspect they will try again tonight at the banquet. I wonder… do you think they might try to poison us?”
“It’s possible, Tib. The food at these events is pretty closely watched; but I have a small scanner that I can bring in my pocket. We can use it to scan the food a second time before we eat.”
“Good, bring it along, but we’ll give it to one of the security team who will scan our food for us. Actually, he’ll be an agent of the FOI assigned to aid in our security.”
“The FOI? You trust the FOI?”
“This FOI agent I do. He’s Galetils’ brother. I’m quite certain he has the same goals and values we do. He also has a personal reason for wanting to bring down the Brotherhood. We’re hoping to recruit him to be a mole agent for the FSO within the FOI.”
“You’re putting a lot of trust in the idea that he and Galetils were on good terms. Have you ever considered that he may have been jealous of Galetils and wanted him dead?”
“Anything is possible, but I doubt he had any part in his brother’s death. He and Galetils were close, from what I understand; and there seems to be evidence within the FOI of an effort to keep Halfredies from accessing key information surrounding Galetils’ death.”
“Oh,” Kala exclaimed suddenly, “I nearly forgot to tell you, Cantolla said she would like to talk to you at your earliest convenience – something about one of the projects you asked her to expedite.”
I glanced at my com link time display and saw I had about an hour before I needed prepare for the banquet. “I think I’ll head down to her lab and see what she’s come up with. You want to come along?”
Kala grinned wickedly and said, “I think I will. I always enjoy watching you squirm when Cantolla eyes me appraisingly.”
I laughed and gave her a kiss before gathering up my clothing. A few minutes later we entered the large area of the ship that had been set aside for Cantolla’s lab. Several of her assistants were working busily on various projects. We didn’t see Cantolla anywhere in the main lab; and before long, one of the staff caught sight of us and directed us into her office.
Cantolla had said when she first joined my staff that she coveted my office, especially the aquarium wall; and I told her that she could have her own office modeled to suit her wishes. So when we were ushered in, I wasn’t surprised to see a glass wall behind her desk that looked into an aquarium. Unlike my office, which was walled with rich wood panels, Cantolla’s office had bright white walls that seemed emit their own light and a floor of a dark gray polished rock that looked like marble of some sort. Several potted tropical plants were situated around the office and modernistic paintings with bright and dark contrasting patterns adorned the walls.
“Tibby, Kala, come in. I’m so glad you were able to come so quickly. I know you’ve been terribly busy, Tibby, but I think what I have to show you will interest you. You asked me to find some means of communicating instantly over the vast regions of space. You suggested that some of the ideas in what your planet called quantum mechanics might offer the solution. What you called quantum mechanics I think is what we call relative physics, or at least they sound similar. You talked about the action of sympathetic particles as a possible avenue of investigation, so I looked into it; but everything that I have researched indicates that isolating enough significant particles for a Federation-wide communication system would be much too difficult.
“As I researched this topic, I had another idea churning in the back of my mind. One of the curiosities in the scientific realm are the numerous stories of people within the Federation who have experienced psychic events where they suddenly become aware of some event happening across the galaxy, such as accidents, births, deaths, etcetera. These verifiable events usually have to do with a family member, close friend or acquaintance. Aside from the obvious mystery associated with psychic episodes in general, the scientific aspect of these events that I’ve always found most intriguing is that the knowledge is practically instantaneous, regardless of the distance between the psychic individual and the event. Somehow the information is transmitted or transferred without having to physically travel in the way, for instance, a radio wave carries a broadcast.”
“I’ve never heard of psychics good enough and reliable enough for a consistent communication network,” I said.
“Nor have I,” Cantolla continued, “but it got me thinking about what happens, what sort of brainwaves are involved, and how can they be amplified or duplicated. I began sampling the NEW ORLEANS crew and found a few individuals who displayed a high level of psychic ability and three that seemed to have some indication of telepathic faculties. At first I tried to isolate various brainwaves to perhaps identify a frequency that might have some unique properties that facilitate instantaneous travel across the galaxy, but I had no success.
“I mulled over these failed approaches and compared the issue to the success of the learning headbands, believing the mechanism in each case was the same or, at least, the fundamentals of each process had to be related closely enough to integrate with each other.
“A question entered my mind. What would happen if we took brainwave readings from persons having successful psychic or telepathic sessions and recorded them into the headband device like we did with the martial arts skills, and then transmitted them in the learning mode to individuals with no abilities? We tried it and, amazingly, those who had no ability before the transmission suddenly demonstrated psychic abilities that were stronger than those of the donor. That had me scratching my head for awhile; until I realized that every person has some ability and that the learning device was simply unlocking and/or enhancing their latent skills.
“I began to wonder what would happen if I took readings from each psychic subject and compiled these readings into a single database, which would be transmitted back to all the contributing subjects. I conducted an informational loop experiment to this effect, particularly focusing on telepathic abilities. The result was – well, let me show you.”
Cantolla led us out of her office and into the lab, where she called two of her assistants to join us. She placed one in a booth that had a glass wall, much like the booth I remembered from hearing tests that were part of the military’s physical exam. The second person was seated near us and behind a screen that prevented him and the individual in the booth from seeing each other.
“This booth is soundproof,” explained Cantolla. “At the moment, Fabola can hear us, as indicated by the
blue light over the door. Fabola, you hear us, correct?”
He replied over a microphone, “Yes, I can hear you.”
Cantolla then flipped a switch, which toggled the light over the door from blue to red. “Now we are isolated, so Fabola cannot hear anything we say. However, the microphone is still on in the booth, so we will be able to hear anything he says. Fabola can you hear us?” Cantolla asked. Fabola quietly stared at the wall, showing no sign of having heard anything.
“Now this is the fun part. This is Eludina,” said Cantolla, indicating the woman seated behind the screen. Eludina, tell Fabola to scratch his head.”
Cantolla barely finished the command before Fabola scratched his head.
“Now tell him to say the name of this ship.”
Immediately Fabola said from within the booth, “The NEW ORLEANS!”
Both Kala and I looked at each other wide-eyed.
Cantolla continued, “The best part is that we can impart this ability to anyone now, by way of the learning bands.
“However, there is one problem. If we add too many people into the mix, the loop begins to destabilize and the operators start to pick up way too many extraneous thoughts from the people around them. For instance, if someone has bad breath and picks up on a coworker thinking a negative thought about it, he or she may react in different ways. One may simply correct the problem with a breath freshener; whereas another may take extreme offense and perhaps even confront the coworker. In another case, an individual may not especially like their psychic peer for some reason and, when the telepath perceives the other’s feelings, they may suddenly feel angry, rejected or even paranoid. So we’ve learned that, if we carry the psychic enhancement procedure too far, we can’t shield the subject from the many extraneous thoughts and trivial feelings that flow from others around them. I’ve had to send several of my people back to the estate on Megelleon for treatment and exchange them with new people, due to various psychological effects caused by the over-enhancement of their abilities. These operatives are now going through a desensitization program to help them deal with their new ability. I fear some of them may have to be treated with drugs, at least temporarily, in order to dull their telepathic abilities until they’re able to cope with the thoughts of others around them and until my team is able to identify and teach them some effective filtering skills that they can ‘turn on and off’ as needed, so to speak.”
