“Yes.” Northern drew his weapon and pointed it toward the figure.
“What … ?” Laura said, startled by the motion.
“Just a precaution, Pilot. Can’t be too careful, can we?”
The man moved into the full daylight. He wore a simple set of blue trousers and gray shirt and he was smiling. “Laura!” he said. “You found me. It’s so good to see you!”
Cal!
He ran toward them, waving happily.
Laura started to run to meet him, then suddenly stopped. It felt as though all of her joints were frozen in place.
“Laura!” Cal called gaily. “Is this a new boyfriend or—”
With practiced speed, Laura Shemzak drew her power gun, aimed it quickly, and shot her brother once directly between the eyes, and then, before he fell, in the heart. Blood spewed as Cal’s face contorted into a rictus of surprise and pain. He crumpled onto the ground, shuddering out his last moments of life, face and chest horribly burned from the brief power blasts.
“What the hell!” cried Captain Northern, looking from the body back to Laura.
Horror swept through Laura like ice.
“No!” she wailed. “No!”
Then something struck her in the back of her neck, and someone pulled the plug on reality, leaving less than darkness.
Chapter Twenty-four
After a long day manipulating her holocomp, seeing that the bureaucratic minutiae of the government process were functioning smoothly, Friend Chivon Lasster navigated the halls for home.
Naturally, for security purposes, home was within the labyrinth of Overfriend Headquarters. Sometimes, though she had always been told that the Friends were the most free of the Liberated, she felt as though this honeycomb of rooms and corridors were a prison.
And her crime?
Ambition.
Hands folded under arms as though for warmth, she walked a short distance to the lift to the residential section where she lived, eyes downcast at the dull gray floor.
Her aptitude tests had surprised the system; in every way she was equally adept, mentally and emotionally, in the practical science necessary for starship piloting and the complex needs of the modern administrator. Perhaps, she thought morosely, if they had chosen me to be an administrator, my ambition would have wandered among the stars. Instead, she had trained as experimental pilot, and her very first assignment had been work with the Al Project, that wondrous fleet of Federation ships that was expected to change the course of interstellar history.
She remembered how, in the course of the work, she had been assigned to help Overfriend Zarpfrin in administration, and how the taste of power that he had shown her changed her.
Yes, imprisoned by ambition, she thought as the lift whisked upward and deposited her on her floor.
But then, she knew very well as a Friend, that ambition was something which was programmed into everyone born under the aegis of the Federated Empire. The system not merely programmed individuals with goals; it also glorified the pain, sentimentalized the anguish of striving for goals, thus creating mental mechanisms that worked and worked and worked for a future that never came, while glorifying an illusory past. This was called “individual attainment for the greater good, with no cost of human freedom.”
It worked perfectly.
But no! Friend Chivon Lasster thought. I criticize the very system that gives me meaning, that structures my existence, that works for the causes I believe in.
This system rewards me in the way I deserve to be rewarded, doing the tasks that I should do to serve my society! Uncomfortably, she wondered if she were thinking traitorous thoughts …. She felt as tense as a rubber band stretched and stretched ….
And how stupid, she thought as she unlocked the door to her apartment. If this state were as totalitarian as my programming notion implies, then there would be a device in my brain now, reading my thoughts. The foundation of the Federation Constitution was liberty for the individual. The methodology had a very important purpose: the survival of the human race!
After all, what if all human-held planets were like the Free Worlds! There could be no united front against the Jaxdron, or any other alien threat, and humanity would soon be under the leash of other species. A small price for the greater freedom of the individual as reflected in the macrocosm of their state!
No, she thought, flicking on a light. Zarpfrin and the Overfriends were quite right. The ontological disaster that was nationalism must be opposed at the root; look how it had scarred the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries. Humans must look to a higher plane, and that plane was the confederation … the system that had molded her. It must not be questioned, must not be undermined—certainly not by one of its primary officers!
She slipped into a comfortable robe, allowed herself the luxury of a Hookah, and called up a popular drama serial she enjoyed into the holocomp display.
When the segment had run its course, she still felt anxiety. She had not used Andrew for a while. Soon the spectral, fatherly figure of her Companion sat before her.
She told him about Kat Mize, and how through her Tars Northern might be brought back to Terra to face trial. “I would like to see him brought to justice,” she concluded. “I should like to see him punished as an example to the people of the Federation of what happens to a traitor,” she said tersely.
Ghostly hands clasped together thoughtfully under Andrew’s nose; he was a brilliantly programmed simulacrum of human behavior. “This is not the song you were singing before, Chivon Lasster.”
“Perhaps my talks with you have been therapeutic. Perhaps these pathological thoughts bordering on the obsessive are clearing up.”
“And yet you are clearly upset at the story that Kat Mizel has told …. And her relationship with Northern troubles you.”
“I have no reason to feel wronged in this instance, although the state was damaged by Northern’s betrayal. It is well that the illusory bond he constructed to fool me was disrupted. It had confused my higher moral and ethical values.”
“You called me up to tell me that?”
“You’re supposed to help me, dammit,” Lasster said, fury blossoming in her eyes. “You’re supposed to listen! Just listen! I … I just want to tell you that I am better now. I have some travel ahead of me to help oversee this operation. Zarpfrin has already left. I won’t be calling you up for a while ….” She looked at him, and chuckled to herself. “Wait a moment. What am I saying this for? You’re just a construct! You don’t really exist, not as a human being does. I’m treating you as if you really care what happens to me. You’re just a machine.”
The classically handsome face of the Companion looked at her with an interested expression. “And what, Friend Lasster, are you?”
“I’m not in the mood for any sophistry. What are you talking about?”
“I mean, what makes you so sure that you know who and what I am? We’ve not discussed this before, Chivon.”
“You’re … well, you’re just a fantastically complex program running through a matrix of biochips.”
“As complex as your program. As interconnected as your matrix of neurons.”
“What are you trying to say, Andrew?”
He smiled. “I am saying, Chivon Lasster, that there are things you don’t know. About many things. About me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps it is time to explain,” said Andrew. “At least about me.”
“No! No, this must be some kind of new therapy and I’m just too tired. I need to go to bed, I have a busy day tomorrow, and well, goodbye, Andrew.”
She turned the computer off, and Andrew instantly disappeared.
She was tired. She knew she could sleep now. She took off her robe, and slipped under the covers of her bed. Sleep was not far away.
Some time later, she awoke
, startled.
Something had touched her.
She pushed herself up.
He was even easier to see in the darkness, constructed of a kind of gentle phosphorescence, sculpted from light.
“Chivon,” he said somberly. “We really must talk.”
Chapter Twenty-five
She awoke suddenly, gasping, from the most dreadful nightmare of her life.
Cal, she thought. Cal! Eyes wild, she looked up. Northern’s presence registered. “Let me go,” she said. “What happened?”
Her head hurt terribly.
“I had to knock you out, Laura,” Northern said. “Something is wrong with you. Very wrong.”
Desperately she looked toward the manor house. Cal lay sprawled on the lawn, legs and arms akimbo, eyes glazed over, face sheeted with blood.
“I … did … that … ” she said, numbness spreading over her as her inner world shattered. “What … why?” She found herself clutching Northern as though for dear life. She sobbed, feeling as though she must be losing her mind.
“They wanted him dead, can’t you see? I should have known, I should have realized,” Northern said. “They must have put a motor override implant in you, primed for the first sight of your brother, the first sound of his voice.”
A figure moved beside them. “Will she be okay?”
Laura looked up. Standing over them was Cal.
She reached for her sidearm, unable to control herself.
Her hand grasped empty air. She shuddered and spasmed. Cal moved away.
“Get back into the house for now,” Northern ordered. “And tell the other one to stay put. The implant is tearing her apart.”
The wave passed, leaving her drained and limp.
“Listen to me carefully, Laura,” Northern said, strongly and steadily. “You did not kill the real Cal Shemzak. Nor was that the real Cal Shemzak.”
Relief and hope filled her.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, transfixed between the desire to believe and the reality she had experienced.
Northern gripped her firmly, supportively. “Come over here, Laura,” he said, pulling her up. He led her to the prostrate body of the dead Cal Shemzak. “Take a look.”
Laura forced herself to gaze down upon the havoc her gun had wreaked upon the body. Through the ugly red of the wounds, metal glinted, wires ran. “A cyborg copy,” she whispered. “A simulacrum.”
“When you pulled that gun, Laura, and gave this thing two of the best, I thought Dr. Mish and I had misread you somehow, that we had some monster in our midst. But the look of horror in your eyes saved you. They set you up, Laura, don’t you see? Zarpfrin has gotten even more devious. No wonder they wanted you to find your brother. They knew you didn’t have a prayer of coming back—but they also knew you had a damned good chance of finding your brother. And when you found him, they wanted you to kill him.”
“Why?” Laura whispered.
“Easy. They don’t want the Jaxdron to have him. They prefer him dead.”
“My operation … the different biomech. Of course,” Laura said. “I was … set up.”
“They knew you’d go off half-cocked, Laura. Off on your valiant quest for your brother, not even thinking a why they would allow such a thing, why they gave you their new blip-ship. And while they were fitting you for it, they stuck a simple override chip in your optical nerve leading straight to your trigger finger. Mish probably interpreted it as part of your blip-ship circuitry. One sight of Cal Shemzak. Zap. All problems over. And they knew that you’d be so devastated by the action that if you didn’t immediately kill yourself, you’d be open to Jaxdron attack. And I dare say, on the off chance neither of those possibilities were to occur, they’ve got an alert out to blast your blip-ship upon sight.”
Laura despaired. She leaned her head against Northern’s shoulder, so filled with emptiness she could not be angry, could not even cry.
“A pawn,” she said. “All along, I thought I was such hot stuff, and I’m a pawn.”
He rubbed her shoulder comfortingly. “Yes, and so was I, Laura, until I opted out ….”
She broke away from him, fighting hard for self-control. “And I’ll not be your pawn either, Northern, so get your paws off me!”
Northern reacted as though he’d been slapped. A flash of vulnerability, of hurt, appeared in usually dark, unreadable eyes, then was gone.
Laura looked down at the body and said, contemptuously, “Why the hell did the Jaxdron make a copy of Cal?” She looked up at the front of the manor. “Two copies, I mean.”
“Three, actually,” Northern said. “There’s another one in there. I don’t know why, Laura. The others tell me that the Jaxdron left just yesterday, taking Cal with them. They claim they might be able to tell us where they went, for all the good that will do. Understandably, they’re rather confused themselves. We’ve scanned them for any kind of problem: they read clean. Laura, I’m going to bring them back on the Starbow for Dr. Mish to analyze. There’s even more to all this than I thought, and I have to accept my involvement, and the Starbow’s involvement.”
“And what, pray tell, is going to stop me from murdering them on sight?” Laura said in a bitter, harsh voice.
“Dr. Mish has the knowledge, the equipment,” Northern said softly. “If you’ll trust us … if you’ll allow him, he’ll perform the operation necessary to remove the implant that must be in your head.”
“And why should I trust anybody?” Laura said. “The whole universe is laughing behind my back now.”
“Well, Laura, if that’s true, then the only thing to do is to laugh with it.”
She spun on him, anger flaring. “And what’s that goddamn supposed to mean, Northern? I mean, I just took a shot at the only person who means a hill of beans to me, and you expect me to laugh? I take a blow like this to my sense of self-confidence, and you’re expecting a giggle? I mean, if this can happen, who can say if any of my actions are really my own? Maybe all I am is a bunch of implants responding, triggering. Right, you jerk. My whole universe is crumbling, and you want me to laugh?”
“That’s not what I said, Pilot Shemzak, and we haven’t got time to argue. First Mate Thur reports no other sign of life in this pressure dome. I want to get back to the Starbow. Now, if you’ll get back into your blip-ship and close those beautiful eyes of yours, I’ll hustle the Shemzak twins on board the shuttle and we’ll get out of this place.”
Laura trudged back to her ship, climbed the ladder, and went through connection procedure. Everything in her struggled to maintain her composure, her equilibrium. She feared that if she allowed one bit of self-control go, she would simply lose her mind.
As she merged bioelectrically, neurologically, spiritually with her blip-ship, even her usual sense of transcendence eluded her.
Cal was still alive, though no thanks to her. And if Northern was right, if Dr. Mish could cut out her accursed Federation implant, then she’d be free of that wretched bunch forever, free to find Cal, to start some kind of new life … although God alone knew what that life would be.
“Eeny, meeny, miny, mo,” she said once her communicator was warmed up. Her head still hurt from Northern’s blow. “Can I start up my visuals?”
“Affirmative, Laura,” came Northern’s voice immediately. “We’ve got your brother’s copies on board the shuttle, out of sight.”
“Wonderful, This blip-ship’s got a little more weapons power than my revolver. Speaking of which, where is the thing?”
“Safely tucked away in here, safety on, Laura. Now if you’ll—”
A sudden message from the Starbow interrupted them.
“You’d better get back here, Captain,” Dansen Jitt’s shaky voice said. “We’ve got trouble.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Dansen Jitt hated space battles.
He despised the sounds of lasers raking across hulls, dreaded the pyrotechnics sizzling in the blackness of space, disliked even the smell of burned circuitry from the overloads that invariably resulted from such uncivilized space brawls.
Most of all, though, Jitt hated the idea of dying.
So, when the two starships dropped out of nowhere and began firing salvos at the Starbow, Jitt, manning the conn, was less than pleased.
Fortunately, he had been cautious; the dazzling blasts from the bizarrely shaped vessels were easily deflected by the primary force screen of the Starbow, amplified two steps above normal.
Nonetheless, the bridge shook, and Jitt was hard pressed to maintain his cool. First, he ordered evasive maneuvers; second, he ordered Comm Officer Mayz to establish contact with Captain Northern on the surface of Baleful; third, he called crewmembers to their defensive posts with the emergency klaxon.
Then, with the Jaxdron ships diving in formation for another attack on the Starbow, Dansen Jitt took the spare few seconds to panic.
Fortunately, everyone else was too busy to notice him grow pale as milk, no one saw him shake desperately, no one noticed him closing his eyes, straining with all his might not to throw up.
“I warned you, Northern!” he cried silently, and some of his fear bled off into anger. “If we all die, it’s your fault.”
When he opened his eyes again, he first saw vu-screens. Both Jaxdron whip-ships were slightly smaller and thinner than the Starbow. They moved fast. Sleek needles stitching through the night they came, energy beams stretched out before them like deadly headlights.
“Don’t they want to talk this over?” Jitt whined. “Mayz, see if you can open a channel. Maybe they’ve got the wrong ship …. Yeah, assure them we’re not Federation—”
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