Death’s Dimensions a psychotic space opera

by Victor Koman

  Virgil’s hand trembled, then grew firm as he reached and grasped the laser locking switch. It took only a moment for the computers to find the Earth. Virgil’s hand let go of the still-crumpled piece of paper with Duolab’s coordinates. It floated, ignored, to wedge behind the seat.

  Virgil switched the laser on. You lose, Death Angel. You and Nightsheet will lose on the return trip. And all the other trips I’ll be making. And you, Master Snoop: how can you keep your eyes on me when I can outrace you? I’ve won.

  I am free.

  He spoke into the helmet microphone. “This is Virgil Grissom Kinney calling Brennen Trust. Transfer successful. All systems functioning normally. I am returning to point of departure per coordinates. You’ll be interested, tovar Trine, in what information I have concerning Jord Baker. End transmission.” He pressed the MESSAGE REPEAT button and waited a few moments before reaching toward the TRANSFER button.

  I’ll be with you soon, Delia. I’ve cracked the code.

  Chapter Three

  1 April, 2107

  They surround me. The Debriefers. The inquisitorial troika: Pusher, Shaker, and Wizard.

  Virgil reclined in the center of the spacious auditorium. Pale white light from indirect sources bounced off the soundproof blue walls. Chairs spread out from around the stage in ranks and files like soldiers at attention. On the stage stood a dais and the royal-blue sudahyde couch that supported Kinney. The ancient hospital smell of formaldehyde drifted in from somewhere outside, mixing unpleasantly with the scent of the imitation leather.

  He wore a fresh test-pilot jumpsuit, with the added accent of a dashing white silk scarf thrown round his neck and tucked jauntily into the v-neck of the partially unsealed top. His blond hair lay combed back along his scalp, every strand in place. He gave the appearance of a cool, controlled personality, which was exactly the impression Trine wanted the medical board to receive. Virgil’s silent, narrow-eyed glances, though, easily belied the image.

  Delia sat in a folding chair to the left of Kinney, her executive flight suit crisp and fresh, her hair immaculately coifed and twisted around her neck. She faced the questioners with Virgil, as much on trial as he.

  Master Pharmaceutic Jared Thomas leaned forward in his elevated seat to Trine’s and Kinney’s right. In keeping with the Brennen Trust’s century and a half tradition of thrift, he also served as the organization’s Master Medic.

  Virgil peered first at the physician. Pusher is so hometown looking. Clean nails, eyes bright behind regulation Guild eyeglasses that he doesn’t need. Lamb twist of gray hair on his head. Just the sort of controller who’d cram Duodrugs into misfits.

  Master Algologist Winston Dephliny sat at the left hand space, where the seat had been removed to make way for his wheel-chair module. Gyros hummed subliminally, leveling the chair on its slender support column which was now fully extended so that the small man could see Virgil below him.

  Virgil lay completely still, silent and unfathomable thoughts racing through him.

  Shaker eyes me from his steel tower, the palsy returning now and then to his hand. He reaches up to adjust the switch in his skull and an agent of Master Snoop electrically soothes him, making abnormal and healthy what was normal and diseased. Shaker works with pain-it shows in his coal-black eyes.

  Between the two sat a man who clearly was in charge of the meeting. His full head of wavy gray-black hair framed a strong, angular face and flinty gray eyes that gazed intently at the motionless figure on the dais.

  In the center asking questions in an easy cipher towers Wizard, tall and proud. Dante Houdini Brennen, Master Trustee. Nightsheet, Master Snoop, agent and overlord.

  They think they can get me to tell them everything. Master Snoop must have a thousand monitors running, measuring everything I do. Sphygmo, skinohm, breath vapor, eyetrace, EKG, EEG, all on remote, all tied in, all waiting to catch me lying. A test.

  “Is he listening at all?” Dante Houdini Brennen looked away from Kinney’s motionless, wide-eyed form and gazed sharply at Delia.

  “Yes, D.B. He’ll answer when he can interpret what you’re saying. He has to mull things over, check for hidden meanings.”

  “Wish we’d get on with this,” Master Algologist Dephliny muttered, adjusting the microswitch implanted above his left occipital arch to quell the shaking in his right hand. “I have a full schedule of tests this afternoon.”

  Aha! Virgil thought. Others share my pain!

  “All we’re trying to find out,” Master Pharmaceutic Thomas said while fiddling his spectacles, “is just what sort of death illusion did he experience?”

  “It was an ordinary death.” Virgil’s voice was calm, almost monotone. The four stared at him. He wiped a bit of saliva from the corner of his mouth to continue. “And yet it was quite extraordinary.”

  “How so?” Brennen asked in a crisp tone.

  Wizard’s interest is more than monetary, that much I can decipher. “It was the same as reported by people brought back from near death. Very similar to what I encountered every time before. It’s a real death, going through transference. I can see why Jord Baker mistakenly killed himself.”

  “Why?” Brennen’s eyes narrowed.

  Virgil narrowed his own eyes and stared back. “Death feels good.”

  Master Algologist Dephliny nodded, light bouncing off his bald head. Master Pharmaceutic Thomas blanched.

  Dante Houdini Brennen leaned back and stroked his square chin. “So they do save the best for last.” He mused on that for a moment, then said, “You told us the effect was similar to what you encountered in your suicides. How was it dissimilar?”

  Don’t tell don’t tell don’t tell don’t tell don’t tell don’t tell don’t tell.

  Virgil tried to squelch the trembling that began in the back of his mind. A roaring noise subsumed his thoughts for an instant. He fought it back.

  “The…visions… I encountered in my suicide attempts differed in minor ways from the visions I saw during the transfer. This time was much more satisfying.”

  For several seconds, no sound existed in the room but the barely detectable gyro hum from Dephliny’s wheelchair. Virgil twitched when Brennen spoke.

  “Will other pilots try to kill themselves?”

  You know they will, Virgil thought. Nightsheet takes all. He spoke in a relaxed tone. “I suspect that most of them won’t be able to withstand the allure of the death illusion and will long for-and try for-a real death. They’ll want to find out what’s at the other end of the corridor.”

  Thomas nervously rubbed his fingers on the tabletop. “And you won’t?”

  Virgil thought for a few moments, then answered cautiously. “Having first encountered the death vision that accompanies suicide, and then experiencing the transfer, I understand now that killing myself will not create the conditions of bliss that a real death will. Pilots who have not survived what I have survived will not know that. They’ll think-as Jord Baker no doubt thought-that they can regain what they saw during the transfer by means of suicide. In most cases, they’ll be dead before they realize their mistake.”

  “And what,” Dephliny said slowly, “is this mistake?”

  “That suicide and natural death are the same thing.”

  Brennen leaned forward, his gaze piercing Virgil. “And just

  exactly how are they different, tovar Kinney?” Too close, Wizard, too close. Shut up. Shut down.

  “Well?”

  “I think he’s gone out on us again.” Delia reached over to take Virgil’s hand, saying, “He doesn’t react well to questions about his motivation. He-”

  “Well, at least get him sufficiently straightened out to answer one more question.” Brennen checked his wristscrim for messages.

  “Ask,” Kinney said. At least I now know that Master Snoop can’t read my mind.

  Dante Houdini Brennen looked down on the figure of Virgil Grissom Kinney and spoke slowly, with a soft authority that compelled a straight reply.


  “Can you pilot a starship?”

  “Yes,” Kinney replied as honestly as he could. “I can pilot anything.”

  “I don’t understand why you won’t use this.” Delia held the Stirner interface in her hand. The headgear looked like an ancient flying helmet of deep-rust sudahyde surmounted by a ruby the color of dark blood. She offered it again. “Virgil, no one involved in the Circus Galacticus project has died recently, so you must use the direct interface with the ship’s computer or you’ll be forced to learn about the starship through much more time-consuming methods.”

  Virgil shook his head. Master Snoop would dearly love to be inside my head, every thought as open to him as space is to the Valliardi Transfer. “The ship talks, doesn’t it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then that’s all I need.”

  Delia sighed and placed the Stirner interface back into its padded case. She watched Virgil exercising in the sky lobby, the golden morning sunlight glinting off the light patina of sweat on his skin. While not muscular at all yet, his frame had at least filled out sufficiently so that he no longer looked like a refugee from the British Civil War. He worked at gymnastics now, walking the beam at one meter, alternating between legs and arms. As he practiced, he recited his knowledge to an irritated Trine.

  “Seventy-eight fusion engines,” he said between puffs of exertion, “only fifty-four of which have been installed. The others were on order until the orders were cancelled three weeks ago by the Brennen Trust in preference to the transference device-”

  “It doesn’t matter how many engines it has-we’ll be using the Valliardi Transfer.” Delia leaned against the sealed plastic globe of a large arerium, this one containing red dirt from Mars and a living example of the only terran plant hardy enough to thrive in the harsh winds of the nearly airless environment: the tumbleweed.

  “I’ve got to know my way around Circus as if I’d built it myself.” He waved a hand at the Stirner case. “What if I used that party hat and the computer decided to shut down? I need these facts in my internal memory, not in some machine’s externals.”

  “All right!” Delia said. “Then recite the ring Basics.”

  “Circus Galacticus consists of three rings, laid out in steps, their axes perpendicular to the axis of the engine array. Each ring is precisely one hundred two point three meters, outer diameter. Each possesses its own superstructure with multiple redundancy in conning capability. The ring closest to the engine array, Ring Three, stores the tritium slurry and the pumps. Ring Two contains the battery of biological infestation garbage that you plan to dump on some planet to make it habitable for Brennen’s great great great great great-”

  “Virgil.”

  “Huh?”

  “You were looping.”

  “Was I? Oh.” Virgil shook his head and sighed. So easy to get locked into something. “Also in Ring Two are the anti-matter planet smashers. Three of them. Entrusted to a suicidal psychotic prone to destructive rampages-”

  “Virgil.”

  “Who is the only person who can pilot a billion-auro starship-”

  “Get off the table.”

  “Which is armed with three fifty-meter spheres of anti-matter held in magnetic suspension-”

  “You’ll fall!”

  “And wired with transference devices-”

  “Don’t kick!”

  “To transfer them to the cores of planets or whatever I want to-”

  “Virgil!”

  The floor meets my head. Hello. Goodbye. “Ring One contains life sup-sup-suppertime, very… best… time…”

  Delia punched a comm button. “Send medics. Patient with possible concussion.”

  The medics burst into the room before she could finish speaking.

  Jord Baker opened someone else’s eyes and peered out.

  “Delia?”

  “I’m here.” She sat close to his bed, stroking someone’s blond hair where it stuck out between bandages and StatoBraces.

  “I thought I was dead.”

  “It wasn’t that far a fall. Two meters.”

  Jord rose up on someone’s elbow and stared dizzily. “Whaddya mean, Dee? It was eight hundred. I checked the gauge before I jumped.”

  Delia’s hand stopped in midstroke and floated spiderlike overhead, fingers curled like dead legs.

  “Jord?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

  “Well who’d you-” Jord Baker went limp, someone else’s body falling back to the bed. Delia stared at him, mute horror freezing her body.

  Wizard bends over me, speaking in ciphers. He shakes his head, stoney and cold as Rushmore. Rushmore rushes up fast, the suit responsive in my hands. I nozzle the suit toward Jefferson. Good revolutionary, lousy president. Gray hard face looms at a hundred forty klicks. Right between the eyes-

  “What happened?” shouted Delia.

  Brennen jumped back from the screaming body, his face impassive, watching the display. “I was just looking at him.”

  “Virgil,” she said, trying to catch his random gaze in hers. “Virgil. You’re safe. You’re at Brennen Eastern. You’re lying down.” She fought off the aimless thrash of his arms and pinned them down. “You’re safe. You’re alive.”

  The roar’s coming back! Back. Down. Focus. Rushmore fades to gray walls. Wizard stands tall, his back to me, a brooding giant. Delia has a soothing code running. Play along until you get the ship. Right.

  “He’s over it.”

  “May I talk to him?” Brennen asked with an impatient edge.

  Virgil smiled weakly. “Of course.”

  Brennen turned away and cleared his throat. “There were originally plans for you to take one thousand colonists in cold storage. We just finished an automated test flight from Earth orbit to Mars. The test subject was in cold storage at near absolute zero-on revival, he said he had died in his sleep. He stroked out several hours later.

  “I’m afraid you’re on your own.”

  Perfect. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “You and me both.” He turned to Delia. “Are you sure he’s capable? If he went out like this somewhere out there, the whole project will-”

  “You’ve taken precautions. So have I.”

  Brennen nodded. Through an impassive face he watched Virgil momentarily, then turned and walked out of the room. Delia knelt beside Virgil.

  “Another memory?”

  Nod. It can’t hurt.

  “Your own?”

  “Pretty sure. I… yes. One of mine.”

  “Can you handle Circus Galacticus?”

  “I don’t know.” My fingers look so fat in her hand. They’re loading me up so I’ll last a little longer if I forget to eat on the flight. Do they think I’d let Nightsheet take me that easily? Stupid. “I suppose I can. It’s mostly a matter of putting in the co-ordinates, letting the astrogator recompute the next one after each jump and interpreting the data from the observation probes.”

  “The computers will make probe decisions. You’re there to be a human override, just in case. It would be good for you to keep an eye on the data, though. We’ve tried to make it as easy as possible on you.”

  “And on the Brennen Trust.”

  “Of course.” Delia smiles, white teeth perfect but for her canines, slightly too long, almost vampire-like. Her hand feels smooth, but feels lab tough. She breathes softly, a tiny breeze over my head, I want-

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I’ve just got to sleep. Tomorrow’s the day, isn’t it?”

  “If your scan shows that bump is healed, we’ll start on-board training.”

  “For how long?”

  “Probably until October. Maybe less. There’s still a lot of construction going on. Refitting something that’s been built along entirely different lines is expensive. In both hours and auros. I’ll see you before launch date. Don’t worry.”

  “You won’t be up during training?”

  She smiled and stood up. “I�
��d only be in the way. Besides, I’m writing up a study on a Brennen grant and I’ve got to finish it.”

  “Oh. Well, see you later, then.” NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo Delia!

  Chapter Four

  8 April, 2107

  The Big Noise bellows into an ear of Master Snoop and tries to use a strange cipher. I crack it easily. I have a feel for his code, too, though shades of meaning elude me. Hidden behind dark glasses, his metric eyes click around, watching me, watching the phone, watching the launch pad. I sit against cool hardness, my salute never wavering.

  Delia’s face appeared on the phonescrim eye-to-eye with Launch Director Muod Jatala. Fatigue had darkened her eyes and unkempt her hair.

  “He’s acting like a spoiled brat,” Jatala said. “Been flipping me off for the past twenty minutes and hasn’t moved an inch.”

  “Catatonic. It’s just a game. He’ll come out of it sooner or later.”

  “Lady,” Jatala’s dark skin grew a shade darker. “I don’t know how much you know about flying, but we’ve got a launch window to Circus that’ll close in about thirty minutes. Now, do you want to pay for the extra fuel or for the launch delay?”

  Delia tapped her nails on the desk.

  Jatala spoke in a firm tone. “I’ve got a flyer coming out to you. It should be there by now. Be on it.”

  She looked at Jatala and sighed. “Straight.”

  The pilot landed the flyer a dozen meters from where Jatala stood, where he had been standing for eleven minutes, his back to Virgil. Delia climbed out of the cramped wedge of metal and looked at the Launch Director, then at his problem. She mimicked Kinney, raising her middle finger from an angerclenched fist and pointing it at Virgil, then at the sky.

  Virgil lowered his arm.

  “You took me away from some important work, Virgil,” she said through a jaw locked with anger. “You’re not getting me on Circus Galacticus for half a year. I know exactly what your plan is and it won’t-”

  “Brennen on the phone.”

  “-work…” She took the private line receiver from Jatala and lifted it to her ear. “Hello? Yessir… No, he wants to have me onboard, so he’s being uncooperative…” She listened attentively for several seconds. “Damn it, he’s an algologist, not a szaszian thera-Yes… All right.” Her voice wavered only slightly, though her knuckles were white around the receiver as she handed it back to Jatala. “Well. We have eighteen minutes. Everything is ready to lift. Shall we?”