by Chris Dolley
A totally different organism?
"What's he talking about, Nick?"
He wasn't sure . . . unless . . .
The separation! All their memories were physical. Human memories of their corporeal selves with arms, legs and feet.
"But it's all there!" he said. "In our minds. How we discovered the dual nature of our existence and how we separated from our corporeal form. Surely you can't have missed that?"
"If it's true. Isn't it just as likely you stole existing memories from one of those lesser species and grafted your transformation onto it? What better way to manufacture an identity if you knew your minds would be scanned?"
"Why would we want to do that?" he asked.
"That is what we are trying to find out."
"But wait," said Nick. "We didn't ask to be picked up. You came to us. So why would we even think of concealing our identity? It makes no sense."
"You wish this charade to continue? Very well, the reason you were picked up is a simple one. One of our number was murdered. You were found close to the body. In a sector of space that is a desert. And now you wish us to accompany you back to that desert. In your parlance, is that not like a murderer asking the victim's brother to accompany him to a dark and lonely alley?"
Chapter Twenty-Six
Louise couldn't believe it. "Why is it that wherever we go, someone accuses us of murder?" she said, exasperated.
"You've been accused of murder before?" asked the colonist.
Oh shit. Louise mentally cradled her head in her hands. When would she ever learn to keep her big thought-mouth shut?
"You already know we've been accused of murder," said Nick. "Our memories show that clearly and the reasons for the misunderstandings."
"Convenient misunderstandings," said the colonist.
"Which just goes to show how ridiculous your theory is about us grafting on someone else's memory. If we wanted to hide wouldn't we choose people with spotless pasts?"
"Not if the only beings you were in contact with were other fugitives."
Unbelievable, thought Louise quietly to herself, what's it going to take to convince these people?
Pain hit her as if in answer, hands inside her head delving and ripping, pulling out memories, searching and trashing. Migraine flashes, intense and prolonged. And after that, something new—a shooting, twisting pain like a team of dentists drilling her thoughts out one by one without an anaesthetic.
She hovered on the brink of consciousness. Perhaps the colonists were delving deeper and deeper into the fabric of her mind, perhaps they were killing her, perhaps . . .
It stopped. She hung there, bracing herself, waiting for it to start up again. "Come on!" she shouted. "Is that all you've got!"
"Don't antagonise them," said Nick.
It took a while for his words to register. And when they did she started to laugh. They were being tortured and he was worried about antagonising them.
She laughed uncontrollably—silently—her mind rocking with the absurdity, verging towards the hysterical. God, she was turning into that laughing sailor.
"They do not believe you," said a voice chiming inside her head, a pre-pubescent boy's voice, each word ringing with the clarity of a cathedral-trained choirboy.
And a form appeared, bleached by the dazzling brightness of the chamber but recognisable nonetheless. A boy, human, ten maybe twelve years-old dressed in . . . it was difficult to see what he was dressed in—a smock, a gown—everything was so white and every edge smeared into its surroundings. He looked like a ghost. A spectral choirboy floating in a fog of dazzling white.
Louise sobered up instantly.
"Do you believe us?" asked Nick.
The boy avoided the question. "This language of yours," he said. "Why is it so important to you?"
The boy's lips moved out of sync. The edges of his clothes, his form, rippled and flowed behind him as though blown by a spectral wind.
"It's our method of communication," said Nick.
"Incorrect. You have other—more efficient—ways. Why is your preference for language?"
"We weren't aware of any other means."
"And yet you store memory in image format."
"Do we?"
"You do. Could it be that you store other memories in language format—somewhere that we have yet to find?"
"You tell us."
"I am. You know that we have analysed your memories and learned the mechanics of your language. But is there another layer to your language that we have overlooked?"
"How do you mean?"
"Your language has far more words than are necessary. Some words have identical meanings. Why? Could it be because there are several layers of information stored within? A technique for hiding knowledge as well as communicating it? If so, would it not make sense to engage you in conversation in order to look beneath the words?"
"Not if your conjecture is total rubbish," said Louise, unable to contain herself any longer.
"We shall see," said the boy. "You would do well to trust me. I am not like the others. Perhaps we can help each other. You say you want to leave here. That is not unreasonable to me. I want information. Perhaps we can trade. You tell me what I want to know and I will help you escape."
Louise jumped at the opportunity. "What do you want to know?"
"No, wait Lou. We shouldn't rush into this. It could be a trap."
"But we've got nothing to hide!"
"I know that, but what if we get caught up in alien politics? We don't know anything about this . . . this new being."
"There is no trap," said the boy. "It is as dangerous for me to be here as it is for you."
"Come on, Nick, what have we got to lose?"
"I don't know—everything, nothing. There's nothing more we can tell anyone. Our new friend here might be some kind of plant to trick us. We could jeopardise the trial if we're not careful."
"What trial is this that you speak of?"
"We were told that we were suspected of murdering one of your colony. Isn't that right?"
"It is correct but there will be no trial. This is not the Earth of your . . . memories. A consensus for your guilt already exists. Did you not realise this? It is only a few individuals like myself who have prevented your disassembling. I am only here now because there are certain things that I need to know for myself. For the good of the colony, in the long run, whether they know it or not."
Disassembling . . . no trial . . . guilty. Words rained like poison arrows, but could they believe a word their new interlocutor said?
"You'll help us escape if we tell you all you want to know?" she asked.
The boy smiled, a strange other-worldly smile. "I will," he said, his lips not moving.
"Well, what do you want to know?"
* * *
"First I will put this affair in context. I note from images of previous meetings that you made a request to know what it was we were looking for in order to aid us in our search. I think that has merit. Consensus disagreed—believing the less you knew the less tainted your answers would be—but consensus is not always right. It is a gamble, but perhaps the time for gambling is now upon us. The person you are accused of murdering was a friend of mine."
A warning light flashed inside Nick's head. They were being offered help by a friend of the victim?
"It was a close friend and colleague with, what you would call, an intuitive genius for its vocation."
"What vocation?" asked Nick.
"Xenobiology. It had an unequalled ability to understand—some would say empathise—with other species, particularly the more advanced corporeals."
Nick had a nasty feeling where this was going.
"Its work was groundbreaking," continued the boy, "but not without its critics."
"He had enemies?" asked Louise.
"It had detractors who thought its work violated the canon of separation that has protected our species since the beginning of the Isolation. They believe we should
observe but not interact with other species."
"Where does torture fit in with non-interaction?" asked Louise.
"Your . . . detention is an extraordinary event. We . . . we are not used to having one of our number killed and, maybe, we have not handled this situation well. But we have little expertise in this matter. Crime is unknown to us and . . . we are learning."
"Go on," said Nick. "Your friend liked to interact with other species?"
"Indeed," said the boy, nodding his head slightly. "It would immerse itself in other cultures—maintaining that to truly comprehend another species one had to become one of them."
"It could do that?" asked Nick. "It could take on their shape and pass itself off as one of them?"
"It . . . it did not take on their shape as such. It . . . connected with them, the same way that you claim to have been connected to a corporeal entity."
"What happened to the host during all this?" asked Louise.
"The host was unharmed. My friend was acting as observer only. Albeit from inside the host's head but that was all. The host never lost free will or even knew that my friend was there."
"He didn't try and influence the host in any way?" asked Nick.
"We . . . we believe not. You must understand that my friend was a scientist. Its only motivation was to learn and it proved the efficacy of its techniques. We learned far more from its work than we'd ever learned from passive observance—even memory probing. It was—as you would say—the difference between watching a holovid of a zebra and being that zebra, tasting the grass, smelling the air."
Nick could imagine—as he could also imagine the temptation to switch from co-pilot to pilot. And this was an alien that specialised in advanced corporeals not zebras.
"So," said Nick. "What was he doing in our sector?"
"That," said the boy. "Is where things become confusing. My friend had been banished to a remote sensing station—it is easier to condone the flouting of rules if one does not have to witness their flouting . . ."
"Yes," said Nick, trying to hurry him along. "And then . . ."
"And then there is a gap. My friend suddenly left the research station and was next seen—dead—close to where you were found."
"What was the cause of death?" asked Nick.
"We do not know."
"But you must have some idea. Forensic evidence, an autopsy, something?"
"There . . . was no body—as such—we found a memory cloud, which is not unusual in such cases. Memories are difficult to destroy and often remain long after everything else has perished."
"Hang on," said Louise. "If you've got his memories, haven't you got the memory of his death as well?"
"There . . . there was no warning of death. When it came it must have been sudden and unexpected, destroying it unawares, for there are no recollections of danger."
"But it must show something," said Nick. "The reason for him leaving the station, if nothing else."
"It . . . is difficult." There was a catch in the boy's voice. And hesitance, maybe even embarrassment. He lowered his head for a second. "There . . . there are confusions."
"What kind of confusions?"
"You must understand, my friend had been . . . unwell. The prolonged physical connection to so many alien beings had . . . affected its mental well-being. We didn't realise the extent. My friend had always been . . . different. Many remarked that if there were two ways to solve a problem my friend would delight in finding a third. And the path to its solution would be bizarre, controversial and brilliant."
The alien accompanied the final sentence with a sweep of his arms, revealing long loose sleeves that trailed and frayed in the spectral wind.
"But the memory patterns we found in the cloud," he continued. "Were . . . difficult to follow—especially towards the end. There are sequences that make no sense at all."
"Could he have become ill?" suggested Nick. "And died as a result?"
"Disease is a corporeal affliction. We do not experience it."
"Could he have committed suicide?" asked Louise.
"Impossible, my friend's final memories are dominated by intense feelings of elation."
"So what makes everyone so sure he was murdered?" asked Nick.
"Because there is no other explanation. It is the equivalent of you discovering the body of a young, healthy, well-fed man in the middle of a flat, lifeless desert."
And then finding two strangers wandering close to the crime scene. Nick joined up the dots—guilt by association and lazy logic. Why look any further? The strangers done it. The cry of lynch mobs throughout the ages.
"Have you discovered what it was that drew your friend away from his research station?" asked Nick.
"No . . . the station memory was erased."
"By whom?"
"There . . . there is evidence to suggest that my friend erased the entries."
"Why would he do that?" asked Nick.
There was a prolonged pause. Embarrassment? The boy's voice betrayed his reticence.
"There is some evidence of paranoia. But my friend had been banished; it was justified in its suspicion of Council interference . . ." The boy's voice trailed off.
"Would the Council have had him killed?" asked Louise.
"No!" The first hint of anger from the colonist. His image flared for an instant, blurring into the dazzling white of his surroundings. "The idea is unthinkable. My friend was held in the highest esteem even amongst the severest of its critics."
"Back to your friend's reason for leaving the research station," said Nick. "Have you determined how long ago that was?"
The boy bristled. "I begin to doubt the wisdom of this interview. All you have done is ask questions and attempt to pass the guilt onto others. This is not what I had envisioned."
He began to turn, floating rather than using his legs.
"We apologise," said Nick. "But I believe it possible that your friend visited our planet and, if so, I think it vital to find out why and when."
The boy turned back. "We found no evidence of that in your memories."
This was becoming hard going. The colonist had a very rigid way of looking at things. "That's because the possibility has only just occurred to us," said Nick. "Now, if you tell me when your friend left the research station maybe I can link that to an event on Earth that might have triggered it."
"Your non-existent planet Earth?"
Lucky Louise was restrained, thought Nick. This would be about the time she looked around for the nearest length of two by four.
"Yes," said Nick. "It would help if you showed the same level of trust in me that I am placing in you."
"You have no understanding of the true measurement of time," said the boy. "Any figure I give you will be meaningless."
"Then take another look inside our heads," said Louise "and show us how clever you are by converting your measurements into ones we understand."
Nick could sense the gritted teeth surrounding Louise's words.
"Planetary rotations are arbitrary and prone to fluctuation."
"I only want to know if we're talking about days or years," said Nick. "I'm not looking for microsecond accuracy."
There was a pause and, perhaps, the merest hint of a resigned sigh. "I will scan collective memory for data on cosmic standards."
Nick waited, running through a list of potential events. Hiroshima, the first radio broadcasts, the first space flight, Voyager, SHIFT. Or would it be something small? Something accidental like the colonist just happening to scan a small patch of desert sky and receiving an unexpected burst of radio traffic . . .
"I have completed my calculations," said the boy. "My friend left the research station approximately four Earth years ago. The memory cloud was discovered nine days ago, three days before your arrival."
Four years. SHIFT launched its first unmanned space craft four years ago.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
"You think this is tied to SHIFT?" asked Louise.
/> "Put yourself in the colonist's place," said Nick. "You're a scientist with an abounding interest in intelligent life and then suddenly one day a spaceship launches from the middle of a desert. Wouldn't you be interested?"
"So he drops everything and takes a look," said Louise. "That'd explain why he was there but what was he doing for four years? Was he on Earth all that time?"
"How long does it normally take for a body to degrade?" Nick asked the boy.
"It would depend upon the manner of its destruction but we would expect to find traces up to six years after the event."
"Six years? But you said he was only missing for four."
"We think that the killing took place elsewhere. You were concerned we would locate the body so you had the memory cloud moved from your colony to the desert area where it was found. Then you staged this elaborate subterfuge of falsifying your memories to make it look like you were fugitive corporeals from a nearby planet you named Earth. We are not that easily fooled. This Earth of yours will be a barren rock. Or worse, a trap."
Nick wasn't sure what to say. How can you argue with someone who regards your entire life a lie?
And there was something else. Something that had been worrying him for most of this conversation. An alien had visited Earth and shortly afterwards been killed. An unstable, paranoid alien who liked to hitch rides in people's heads—perhaps sometimes do a lot more than hitch rides. Wasn't he an accident waiting for an appointment with the US military? Especially if he hung around the SHIFT project.
Which brought Nick to John Bruce and something else that was worrying him. The link between the alien and SHIFT, the damage to John Bruce's mind. Coincidence, or were they connected? Was the alien in Bruce's head during the SHIFT flight when the shielding failed? Was that how he died? Was Bruce ripped in two at the same time?
But . . . if the alien's body took six years to degrade—where was it?
"What if he's not dead?" asked Nick.
"That is not a possibility."
