Skyline Severant (The Consilience War Book 3)

by Ben Sheffield

  Threatening messages.

  It now seemed that Emil and Raya had been two halves of the same coin, and that the schism tearing the solar system asunder had originated on Emil Gokla’s academy on Titan.

  And that means nobody trusts me, Vadim thought. Even though I’ve done everything by the book and tried to be the best public servant possible, none of it matters, because my great-grandfather couldn’t help but jam a spanner in the works.

  His career, his post, his position…everything was in jeopardy now. The entire base only existed because of Emil Gokla’s funding.

  Vadim felt like he had the sword of Damocles hanging above his head.

  “We’ve captured two people who we suspect are from Caitanya-9. There’s Ubra Zolot, a private who went there in 2137 or so. And more materially, there’s Andrei Kazmer himself. Do you know anything about him?”

  “A police officer turned outlaw. When Sarkoth Amnon was putting together a posse to catch him, I consulted with him in an advisory capacity. That’s the closest our lives have ever come to intersecting.”

  “Ubra Zolot is telling us a wealth of information,” Vadim said, “but it’s all wrong. Complete nonsense. She’s saying that the planet is actually a superweapon, controlled by an ancient race of supernatural creatures, and that Andrei Kazmer killed one of them and thus became guardian of the planet…”

  General Rodensis shrugged. “We’re dealing with something at the fringes of our knowledge, so I’d caution you against calling anything nonsense. So why did the planet return here?”

  “She says that Kazmer brought it back to destroy the human race…and changed his mind.”

  “Why did he do that, according to her?”

  “She doesn’t know. But apparently, he just stood there and let the antimatter warhead killed him. Or at least the part of him that guarded the planet. What’s left is just his old human shell, which he ejected to Terrus.”

  “So what does Kazmer himself say about all this?”

  “We can’t get his story out of him,” Vadim says. “He says he’s committed great crimes, and wishes to be punished for them. But when I try to press him for details, he laughs and ridicules me. I’ve subjected him to trans-cranial analysis, and there’s evidence of something odd going on his brain.”

  “What?”

  Vadim started to talk, drawing on his knowledge of his forebear’s Black Shift technology while trying to appear not too knowledgeable, or too fascinating. He hoped he was still too valuable to dispose of, but hope was a thin support strut for a career.

  “There are traces of multiple conflicting memories in his head. That’s the short of it.”

  “How?”

  “It’s as if someone loaded the memories of two different people into his head. And in fact, I’m becoming more and more certain that this is what happened.”

  “But I thought that his brain was blank. That he never received any of his old memories.”

  “Let me explain: the way Black Shift blanks memories is by draining away the fluid that contains the chemical states instantiating the memories. But it’s not perfect. There’s always a tiny trace amount of water left inside. Perhaps no more than a few microliters, but it’s enough for the ghost of a memory to remain. And inside Kazmer’s brain, there are many ghosts. My opinion after looking inside his head is that there are two conflicting memories stamped on top of each other, and the result is pathological chaos.”

  “It’s overlaying two paintings on top of each other,” Rodensis said.

  “Exactly. You’ve got it. No government agency has ever done that before. Implanting false memories is one thing, but overlapping multiple consciousnesses in one brain is seriously dangerous stuff.”

  “I confess I’m a bit lost here,” Rodensis said. “This is something that would be interesting to Kazmer, but what relevance does it have to us?”

  “Private Zolot is of the opinion that he showed very conflicted and confused behaviour while on the planet,” Vadim said. “If you assume that she’s telling the truth – I don’t, but just assume – this could be the only reason that we’re still alive. That there was a psychotic element to Kazmer, and a…non-psychotic element. And at the critical moment, the sane part of him won out, and he did not discharge the superweapon.”

  “This is all just speculation, of course,” Rodensis said.

  “To know for sure we’d need access to his original memories, and they are lost.”

  “Are they?” Rodensis said. “That’s an interesting supposition you have. It’s wrong. We do have access to Andrei Kazmer’s memories.”

  Vadim felt flat footed, outmanoeuvred. “I confess you have the advantage over me, sir. What do you mean?

  When a space traveller had his memory scanned by Black Shift, the memories were kept in confidence in the Black Shift library on Titan, and only released by authorised representatives of the company. He had nothing to do with Black Shift beyond his ancestry, and even in peacetime he couldn’t obtain a digitally-saved memory for study. And in wartime, it was beyond unthinkable. Titan was separated from them by millions of miles of warships and interplanetary defence systems.

  “As the Sane retreated from their attack, their general found himself in a predicament,” Rodensis said. “We disabled the engine of his capital ship, and we had the ability to take him prisoner, or take him out with a single shot. Instead, I offered him a deal. His life, in exchange for all of the Sane’s internal files. Among these were the saved memories of more than sixteen million Black Shift passengers. Many were poorly labelled, but we eventually found Andrei Kazmer’s among them. If they were inserted into his head, he would know the truth about his early life, and so would we. Can you please raise the possibility of a trade?”

  “A trade?”

  “His old memories, in exchange for some token assistance in the war effort.”

  Vadim shrugged. “I suppose we could do that. But I don’t know what he could possibly contribute. If he ever had any powers beyond a normal person, he certainly doesn’t now.”

  “But the Sane don’t know that!” hissed Rodensis. “They know even less about this than we do! All they’ve seen is the planet Caitanya-9 appear in the solar system, and then disappear again. Suppose they received a message from Kazmer? One stating that he commands the planet, and unless we receive a surrender, he will destroy them? Otherwise, the war is going to drag on ceaselessly. He could be the ultimate propaganda weapon in our arsenal. Make it happen. Please.”

  “It’s difficult,” Vadim said. “He’s not really a patriotic sort of guy. He doesn’t want to help the Solar Arm, he just wants to be locked away as punishment for his supposed crimes. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “So why don’t you set a condition that he has to help us before we imprison him?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I’m sure you will. A have faith in you, but please give it your full attention.”

  Vadim was a man who often jumped at shadows, and detected threats where there were none. But this was an age where there were many legitimate threats, sometimes from one's erstwhile friends.

  He thought he detected a vague threat in the general’s voice.

  Bend Andrei Kazmer to our will, or you are finished. We live in a solar system full of bright and intelligent young people, and we have no need to trifle with slow and unproductive ones. Especially ones who have great-grandfathers who have all but engineered the war cause for our enemies.

  Minutes later, Vadim Gokla conducted another interview with Andrei Kazmer.

  “There’s good news, Mr Kazmer,” he said, installing himself in the metal folding chair. “We no longer believe you’re lying.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’ve recovered someone else from Caitanya-9, someone who has corroborated parts of your story.”

  “Who?”

  “A marine.”

  “Marines normally have names.”

  “Ubra Zolot.”

  Andre
i Kazmer never gave them much. Just non-committal answers and surly intransigence. He would confess his guilt, and answer vague particulars about his crimes. Beyond that, questioning him was like questioning a wall.

  But he reacted to that. His eyes came alive. “I know her. How was the baby?”

  “The baby?” Vadim asked. “I know nothing about a baby. She was rescued near a burning building, in a state of shock, babbling something about Caitanya. Of course, that landed her here. There wasn’t a baby with her.”

  Andrei moaned softly. His face sagged, as if it was a building collapsing.

  “Wait,” Vadim made a show of shuffling some documents in front of him. “Oh, wait…it seems I’m in error. There was an infant girl found at scene. Only several days old. She had to be treated for burns to the respiratory system, probably from inhaling smoke, but she’s alive and in good health. Both of them are at the hospital.”

  “Was that deliberate?” Andrei asked, his voice all razors, gasoline, and cyanide. Anger blazed from his eyes. “Did you know the baby survived, and you pretended she didn’t to judge my reaction?”

  “No,” Vadim said. “An honest mistake.”

  “If it was not a mistake, I would have killed you.”

  Vadim put another mark on the file, muttering something that sounded like patient still making threats.

  “Can I see her?” Andrei asked.

  “No. You cannot.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because everything that happens at my hospital must happen for a purpose, and I see no purpose in allowing you to see the baby or her mother. If you co-operate, maybe that will change. Maybe.”

  “Okay,” Andrei said, unhappy that they suddenly had leverage over him.

  “So, let’s talk about you, and your future. You have no memories beyond a few years ago, correct?”

  “Memories, by definition, have nothing to do with anyone’s future,” Andrei said. “But that is correct. They were taken from me.”

  “Would you like to have them back?”

  Vadim opened a briefcase, and took out a black device wrapped in paper. As the sheet unfolded along crease-lines, it revealed a black headset that stirred things in Andrei that should have been left forgotten. It had a Black Shift logo on it.

  “This is the recording that was made when you stepped into the Black Shift pod, your ship cycling up for its journey to Caitanya. The recording you were supposed to receive, but didn’t. Would you like to have your memories blanked, and these recordings put in? I can do it.”

  Andrei Kazmer looked like an animal that had endured long hours of being poked with a stick. He cringed away, his body almost wrinkling up like a leaf.

  Vadim tapped the headset. “It would be quick and painless. Hell, who cares if it’s painful? Once the memories go back in you’d forget everything. You’d need to be brought up to speed on the events of the past few years – Caitanya-9, Sarkoth Amnon’s premiership, the civil war, but you’d have your old identity back. Your childhood memories. Your favourite color. You’d have the part where you’re Aaron Wake removed, and you’d be all Andrei Kazmer again.”

  Kazmer’s head shot up. “How do you know about Aaron Wake?”

  My stolen identity.

  They can give it back.

  “Private Zolot told us. She says it’s an identity of yours that emerged on the planet, after you assumed its powers. I make no comment on that, but if you’d rather be without him, I can arrange for him to vanish like a bad dream.”

  “Aaron Wake is inside me still, hiding. He’ll never vanish. I fought against him on the planet, and I think I won a battle, but I could be wrong. He could return, and I cannot foresee the consequences. Destroying civilization. Using Caitanya-9 to unleash gamma ray bursts. These were his ideas.”

  “If you dislike those memories, we can take them away,” Vadim said. “Just put on the headset, and you’ll go back to being the man you were before you took command of the Caitanya-9 expedition. You’d still have the dual personalities in your brain, but you could forget at least some of your ordeals.”

  Andrei Kazmer shuffled in his seat. He tapped his shoes on the ground. He laced and unlaced his fingers. He was a man stalling for time, trying to hold back the bile building on his tongue.

  Finally, he said, “I desire to have no further connection to anyone from Black Shift. Ever since I arrived on Caitanya-9, it was just a long carousel of deceit and deception. They used me. And if I put myself back in their hands, I presume they will continue using me. You want to avoid meeting Aaron Wake, if at all possible. For your health, as well as for everyone around you. I will not put that headset on. Pushing me on this point makes it more likely that Wake will return – he always does, when I’m angry and stressed. And don’t you see that I committed crimes before I went to Caitanya-9? Andrei is a cockroach. I am a cockroach. Frankly, I’m almost happy that my mind is clean. A blank, pure slate. I’ve scribbled as much filth on it as possible, but it’s still purer than what came before.”

  As he spoke, his voice started to lose conviction.

  Vadim was no kind of interrogator. His matriculation was in applied psychology. But he had a hunch that Kazmer was on some kind of tipping point.

  Make no mistake, the bastard wants his memories back.

  The loss of his memories was the original crime that had caused Wake to emerge on the planet. The original sin. If he had his memories back…would that not right the balance? Remove any need for vengeance?

  “You committed crimes before you sojourned to Caitanya-9,” Vadim said, “but that’s not where your split personality comes from. From the trans-cranial analysis, I’ve noticed something very interesting. You have remnants of foreign memories in your head.”

  “What?” Andrei asked.

  “Memories of another man. Or at least, traces of them. Memories are locked in the chemical states of your brain’s water molecules, but they also leave a faint impression on the number and electrical balance of neurons. I have analysed your brain, and it has the fingerprints of an intruder all over it.”

  “How could that be?”

  “I do not know, but I have some guesses. Perhaps someone tried to load the wrong set of memories, realised their mistake, then scrubbed you clean. Maybe Sarkoth Amnon’s big experiment was just coverup for that mistake.”

  “But if there’s a permanent impression of my memories in my head, how have they been lost?”

  “The same way that a broken window is different to a thrown rock that caused it. I can see the impression left by memories, even in the absence of the memories themselves. There is definitely part of another man that was put inside you.”

  “So what?” Andrei asked. He now looked extremely upset. The brutal two-tone lighting caught every drop of sweat beading on his face. “What’s the point of telling me this?”

  “Well, this could be the explanation for these multiple personalities,” Vadim said. “You report feeling conflicted on things, as though your brain wants to go two ways. And you claim you were a brutal psychopath…but you became utterly mortified when I told you that the baby had been lost. There’s something not adding up here. Two sets of memories loaded into your mind might be exactly it.”

  “Is there any way to fix this?” Asked Andrei. “Any way to isolate the wrong set of memories, and remove them from my mind?”

  “No. None whatsoever. The brain is largely irreparable. Once it’s damaged, it’s damaged. You will just have to deal with it.”

  “That’s a problem, because I can’t.”

  “Be patient with us, Kazmer,” Vadim Gokla said. “We have no reason to doubt you at the current stage, but there are still some things that are not quite making sense. We have your police record, and that you were dishonorably discharged and arrested. But we have records from the years before...where you actually received commendations for good behavior.”

  “That doesn't sound right,” muttered Andrei. He didn't like it how everyone here knew more about his li
fe than he did, also didn't like it how his every effort to find out more was blocked by more vague, windy evasion.

  “It is. You were known throughout the asteroid belt as an arbiter of fair decisions. Whenever someone had a problem with anyone, “go to Kazmer” was the preferred option. And yet all of a sudden, you started abusing prisoners. Why the sudden disconnect? What happened?”

  “I'm a sociopath.”

  “You weren't as a child. And I don’t think you are now. Sometimes mental illnesses like schizophrenia can profoundly alter a personality, but there's always a gradual change. You went from hot to cold, and maybe your neural architecture will help us understand why.”

  Andrei doubted it, but he was glad to have something to do, glad to have some break in the routine. Other than being questioned, he never got to speak with a human being. He almost longed for Katz's company, of all people.

  And he suddenly felt hungry to know what was in his past.

  “Listen, that’s not a complete set of my memories,” he said. “If I put that headset on, I’ll be the man I was prior to heading out to Caitanya-9. But I also want to have the memories after this point, too. And that’s impossible, isn’t it? It’s one or the other.”

  “Do you know about...partial memories?” Vadim asked Andrei.

  “Does it matter if I do? I have feeling you'll tell me about them.”

  “For years – and we're talking about the early two-oh-fifties - Black Shift worked on the principle that memory is an all or nothing thing. Memories aren't blocks you can pull out and put back in to a structure. They're more like cellular mitosis – a single changed variable in the womb can lead to a vastly changed phenotype. For this reason, they believed it was impossible to selectively implant some parts of a memory. It had to be a united process. Everything, or nothing.”

  “So, if partial memories exist, then I take it that is not the case?” Asked Andrei.

  “Apparently not. One of the final discoveries my great-grandfather made before his unfortunate descent into debauchery and crime was that memories can be implanted in isolation from the whole. It's unpredictable and often leads to strange results, but it works in theory, and apparently in practice. You could implant a memory of a person who has taken strong drugs, and omit their memory of the painful hangover the morning after.”