by Peter David
“No!” screamed the closest guardsmen, and they skidded to a halt. Everyone froze. Si Cwan sat up slightly, looking mildly interested.
Calhoun brought the blade slamming down right toward Tiraud’s crotch. Tiraud let out an earsplitting scream as the blade thunked home…harmlessly striking the floor in between his legs, missing his family pride by no more than the width of an eyelash.
Tiraud stared down, gasping for breath. Standing up, Calhoun flipped the blade to Tiraud so it landed with the flat of the blade across his chest.
“You can forget trying to capture Mackenzie Calhoun and Zak Kebron,” Calhoun warned him, “unless you’re prepared to come at us with a lot more than that. And I really wouldn’t advise—”
At that moment there was a stampede of feet and a score of guardsmen came charging in, howling for blood.
Calhoun and Kebron exchanged glances. “That never works,” Calhoun grunted.
“I know,” Kebron replied, “but I never get tired of watching you try.”
U.S.S. Excalibur/New Thallon
i.
Morgan Primus, aka Lefler, was at peace.
She knew that there had been a time when that was not so, when she was never at peace. In those days she’d had a mortal body…except it was not really mortal as such. Instead year after year had rolled over into century after century, and it had reached a point where she was desperate to find some way to terminate her endless, dreary existence…even if it meant leaving behind the daughter she believed she loved.
But that was before the freak accident that had destroyed that supposedly indestructible body and transferred her neural patterns, her mind—who knew, perhaps even her soul, if such a thing truly existed—into the computer banks of the Starship Excalibur. Suddenly the woman who felt that she had seen it all, known it all, couldn’t be surprised by anything and felt enveloped by boredom and ennui…suddenly that woman effectively had a starship for a body. Furthermore, her mind could reach out, interface with other computers. None of them naturally had a hope in hell of approaching what she possessed when it came to the ability purely to think, to feel, to reason. All those aspects of her humanity had come along with her into her new “residence.” But the automatic gathering of knowledge, the abilities that were hers, had taken that tragically dull life of hers and transformed it into something that was an ever-continuing voyage of discovery. And with the holotechnology of the Excalibur at her command, she could reconstitute a simulation of a body whenever she felt so inclined.
She missed smell, however.
She hadn’t needed to replicate sight and hearing, of course. Those were hardwired into holographic software. Touch had been slightly tricky, but not all that difficult. Creating skin that was sensitive to extremes of hot and cold, sharp and dull. She had not yet endeavored to take a lover as a hologram because she wasn’t one hundred percent sure that her epidermal simulation was sufficient to match the subtleties and ecstasies of sex. Granted, there were individuals who created holograms specifically for that purpose, but the holograms were simply programmed to simulate the proper reactions. They didn’t actually feel what was transpiring. Morgan wanted to get it to the point where the sensations of sex matched her recollections exactly. Either that or have it be long enough since her last sensual encounter that she didn’t much remember any of it, and thus would have no basis for comparison.
She had also managed to replicate taste to some degree. She knew precisely which taste buds triggered salty, sweet, etc. Encoding them into her tongue, she had been able to rig her holographic taste buds to respond to particular stimuli the way they were supposed to in life, although there had been a bit of fine-tuning required to get such nuances as “sour” correct.
But she hadn’t cracked the sense of smell.
Not only had this been an impediment to taste, since the full impact of taste required an accurate sense of smell, but it had been a particular disappointment for Morgan, since smell was such a potent trigger of memories. She missed the smell of everything from flowers to fresh-baked bread, and all the joyous recollections that such smells prompted. Of course, it wasn’t as if the Excalibur was overrun with flowers and bread, but it was the principle of the thing. Morgan took pride in her work, and her inability to provide an olfactory sense for herself irritated her.
So deep within the recesses of the computer, Morgan was contemplating new programs for a sense of smell when she received a direct alert from Robin.
Morgan’s many other duties around the ship didn’t cease when she was “withdrawn” as she was now. Being part of a computer, she was able to replicate herself easily enough. At that moment, Morgan Primus was seated at her station at navigation, keeping the ship in perfect geosynch orbit around New Thallon. She was having a pleasant, if not particularly intellectually stimulating, conversation with Tania Tobias at ops.
As always, Morgan was—unknown to Tania—meticulously monitoring her vital signs. During her time on the Excalibur, Tania had never once shown the slightest sign of having one of her…fits. But Calhoun was always wary, and asked Morgan to keep an extremely close computer eye upon Tania at all times. If Tania displayed even the slightest aberrant behavior, Morgan was instructed to alert Calhoun instantly.
While this was happening, Morgan was also being called on by Dr. Selar on a consult, researching information. She was also aiding Selar’s son, Dr. Xy, who had been made the Excalibur science officer upon his return. It was considered a bit of an unlucky position, considering what had happened to Soleta, and the even more depressing fate of her successor, Lieutenant Candido, whom nobody liked to talk about since it prompted such staggeringly depressing memories. Candido’s name had once come up at Si Cwan and Robin’s engagement party, and Kebron had waxed Shakespearean to say, “Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” That more or less put an end to that party.
But Xy had taken on the assignment with a morbidly cheerful attitude of “What’s the worst that could happen? My tragically premature death is even more tragically premature?”
And while Morgan was engaged in face-to-face discussions with various of the ship’s personnel, her subroutines were engaged in thousands of other matters, big and small. She handled them all with facility, and even felt as if this was turning out to be a fairly light day.
During this time, her core personality—that which she regarded as the “real” her, if such a thing still existed—hovered in a sort of computerized womb, contemplating all manner of abstract concepts that might enable her to create a sense of smell. But she put all that aside instantly when Robin’s call came through. There was exactly one person in all the galaxy who had the private binary code that linked directly to Morgan’s core, and Robin was it. It was a sort of gift that Morgan had given her, feeling that after everything she had put her daughter through, the very least she could do was provide her with something that was unique and personal. Robin tended not to use it all that often. In fact, Morgan had begun to wonder if Robin even remembered that Morgan had provided it to her. When the call came in, though, any vestiges of concern that Morgan might have had were swept aside.
“Robin!” Morgan said, her voice echoing within her own mind. Naturally in her cocooned state, such human notions as bodies were irrelevant. “Darling, how nice to hear from you. Of course, since we’re in the neighborhood, I was hoping to—”
“Mother.” Robin’s voice sounded concerned. Only her voice was coming through on the link; she wasn’t utilizing any sort of viewer. That naturally made Morgan wonder what was going on. “I need to talk to you, down here, face-to-face.”
“Well, that could be a bit of a challenge, sweetheart, especially since you’re not near a viewscreen. You’re using your combadge. Can you locate a—”
“A viewscreen won’t do it. Mother, can you lock on to my whereabouts?”
“Yes. Why? Do you need me to beam you up here?”
“No,” Robin said firmly. “If you did that, if you b
rought us up, that would just undermine Captain Calhoun’s position. I can’t allow that.”
“Undermine his…I don’t understand. ‘Us’? What us? Are you and Si Cwan…?”
“Never mind that now. Mother, if you lock on to my current location, you’ll find that—”
“A holosuite,” Morgan said promptly. “You’re in a holosuite.”
Robin sounded slightly surprised. “How did you know that?”
“I was picking up some localized computer chatter over your link and managed to identify it as a holosuite.”
There was a pause. “Computer chatter?”
“Yes.”
“The computer in the holosuite was talking to someone?”
“No. It was talking to itself,” Morgan told her. “All computers do that as part of diagnostic subroutines. Normally it’s not something that’s detectable, but to me, it’s as if they’re shouting.”
“All right,” Robin said briskly, “can you use the holosuite? Use it to create a body for yourself and come down here?”
“Of course. Do you need me to…?”
“Yes, please.”
Although she sounded quite calm, Morgan could sense a sort of controlled urgency in her voice. Summoning her core consciousness, she sent it down into the holosuite where Robin was awaiting her. Bits of hard light swirled around as she collected and sorted through them, choosing all the correct bits to create a body for herself. It seemed to Morgan subjectively that it was taking her an age to do so, because she wanted to make sure she looked just right for visiting with her daughter. She considered all the ways she could make herself look better than she ever had in life, starting with making her backside trimmer, removing the wrinkles around her eyes. Her face, as with all humans, wasn’t really perfectly symmetrical, so perhaps she could do something about that. But after considering the matter for some time, she decided that Robin really wouldn’t appreciate such endeavors on her part. That Robin just wanted to see her mom the way she remembered her, not as some artificial construct that bore only a passing resemblance to the reality of her.
All this pondering of how she should look took her exactly one-half of one second, and so it was that Robin’s voice barely had time to fade before her mother’s holographic form swirled into existence in Robin Lefler’s private holosuite.
She took one look at who was next to Robin and gasped out, “Oh my God.”
Robin was doing everything she could to keep Xyon on his feet, but she was only barely succeeding. Morgan wasn’t even sure that Xyon knew where he was. His head was tilting from one side to the other as if it was being held to his shoulders by a length of string instead of his neck.
“Help him,” Robin said desperately.
“We need to get him up to Excalibur!”
“We can’t, Mother. It’s like I told you. I can’t undermine the captain’s position. As long as he’s here, Calhoun can maintain plausible deniability. But if he’s brought up to the ship…”
“All right, yes, I understand. I don’t necessarily agree, but I understand.”
“Can you help him?”
Instantly Morgan took complete command of the holosuite. She didn’t have to utter any commands; anything that she could envision simply snapped into existence. Robin looked around in surprise as she found herself surrounded by an approximation of sickbay.
“How did you get him in here?” asked Morgan as she and Robin eased Xyon onto the examination table. He seemed confused, disoriented, looking around in bewilderment.
“I sent a message to his ship. It’s got an onboard AI that calls itself Lyla. It’s about the most advanced AI I’ve seen….”
“Short of me, you mean.”
“You’re not artificial, Mother.”
“Funny. We once had an argument when you said I was the most artificial—”
“Mother, could we not do this now!”
“Sorry,” said Morgan as she helped Xyon lie back. She reached over and swung a large metal enclosure over him that clicked into place on the pad. It covered him from just under his neck to just above his knees. “So you contacted this Lyla….”
“Right. So his ship has an emergency transporter device aboard. Short-range only, but that’s all I needed.”
“You had her beam him out of captivity and into here? Why not just aboard his own ship and he gets the hell out of here?”
“Because his ship’s being closely watched. A brief energy surge with no apparent result may leave them wondering, but it won’t set off any alarms. But if Xyon materialized aboard the ship, they’d detect his presence and there wouldn’t be enough left to scrape into a small bag.”
“Yes, yes, that makes sense,” Morgan admitted. She was studying Xyon’s vitals. “I didn’t think anyone could sustain this many subdural hematomas and still live.”
“My host was…very expert,” Xyon managed to grunt. Then, remarkably, he half-smiled. “But…you know what? It’s not hurting so much….”
“That’s the bioregenerative field,” she said, tapping the cocoonlike device that enveloped him. “It’s easing the pain from the damage you sustained and is regenerating the cells.”
“A hologram of a medical unit can do that?” asked Robin, a bit surprised.
Morgan looked at her with quiet confidence. “Mine can,” she said. Then she admitted, “Things would go faster, though, if I could give him medication to speed the process. Re-creating machinery is one thing, but I don’t have the raw materials at my disposal to produce medication. Still, this will do for now.”
“Yes, and for as long as it doesn’t occur to Si Cwan to come bursting into here, looking for his missing suspect.” She came around the table so she was closer to Xyon’s face. “Xyon? Can you hear me?”
“Only if you talk,” he said.
She and her mother exchanged glances. “Who would have thought that being a smart-ass was genetic?” said Morgan with grim amusement.
“Xyon…you know I want to help you. I need you to tell me…more to the point, tell my mother here…everything you can about the ship that took Kalinda.”
“You…believe me, then?” he asked.
“Xyon, you strike me as many things,” Robin told him. “But I don’t think you’re stupid. I suppose it’s possible that you dropped Kalinda off somewhere, have her in hiding, and are assuming that you’ll be able to go back to her and pick up where you left off.”
“I wish I had. I wish I could.” He sighed and there was the sound of something ugly rattling around inside his chest. She cast a worried glance at her mother, but Morgan just shook her head to indicate that either it wasn’t anything to worry about, or that the bioregenerative field was in the process of attending to it. “But I was bringing her back. I was.”
“Why? Because you thought better of it?” asked Robin.
“No. It was probably the single dumbest thing I’ve ever done, and I still haven’t thought better of it,” he replied. “I was bringing her back to make her happy. Because she wanted to be with…him,” and he inclined his head in a vague direction that he probably thought indicated, in some manner, Tiraud’s whereabouts.
“She told you that?”
“I figured she’d think better of it once away from his influence. But…she didn’t. So…to hell with her.”
“You really feel that way?”
“No, but I’m hoping that if I tell myself that enough, I’ll believe it,” he sighed.
“You think he’s telling the truth?” asked Morgan.
Robin considered it a moment. “Yeah…yeah, I’m thinking he is. I’ve seen enough men in my time to recognize that genuine kicked-puppy-dog look they acquire when they’re moping after a girl. I think he’s being honest.”
“Could you not talk about me as if I weren’t here?” asked Xyon.
“Oh, believe me, I’m very glad you’re here,” Robin assured him. “Because you’re going to tell me everything you can about the ship that you say took Kalinda.”
As quickly as he could, Xyon did so. Robin frowned. “Well, he’s consistent, I’ll give him that. That’s more or less how he described it when he was first captured.”
“Still here and still not appreciating being discussed as if I was elsewhere.”
Robin ignored him. “Mother,” she said, “does it sound at all familiar to you? Because it doesn’t sound like any ship I’ve ever heard of. But you’ve got access to far more sources of information than I do.”
“That’s true. Hold on.” It took Morgan long moments to scan all ships in the Federation registry, and then she shook her head. “Nothing. It doesn’t match any known race in all the…wait.”
“What?”
“Wait.” Morgan tilted her head slightly as if she was listening to something that someone was saying from very far away. “Okay…wait. I’ve got something. It’s very old, though.”
“Old?”
“From a Federation research party that came to Thallonian space back before the Thallonians were being very aggressive about keeping outsiders away. It was a scientific expedition investigating alien cultures. Interesting.”
“What’s interesting about it?”
“It was the Excalibur.”
Robin was obviously surprised. “Calhoun’s ship?”
“No. This research party was in the year 2267, under the command of Captain Anton Harris. It was one of the last missions the ship undertook before most of its crew was killed the following year by an out-of-control computer during war games.”
“Okay, Mother, but that was over a century ago. What could they have discovered then that would be remotely pertinent?”
Morgan looked at her sadly. “Patience was never your strong suit, was it, dear.”
“Mother!”
“On a planet called Priatia,” Morgan said, “there were drawings. Drawings in texts, paintings hanging upon walls of some of the residents. The science team at the time made visual records of them.”
