Death’s Dimensions a psychotic space opera

by Victor Koman

  “Femoral arteries severed,” the computer noted emotionlessly. “Brain death in six minutes.”

  Diving through the field of crimson spheres, Baker seized her, jammed his thumbs into the laserblasted arteries to stop the bleeding, and rushed her back to the medical bay. With a grunt, he threw her into the boxdoc and slammed down the lid. A pair of extensions reached toward the burn holes, pulled at the flaps of skin, then withdrew.

  “Ordering arterioplasty and fluorhemotransfusion,” the computer noted. The waldos appeared again with sections of surgical silicone rubber.

  “Did I make it in time?”

  “Yes. Very low possibility of brain damage.”

  Baker nodded and looked at his thumbs. Sticky redness covered them. He shuddered.

  Has everybody got a death wish here? First Kinney, then me, then Delia, then this… this… “Clone, did you say?”

  “Yes,” the computer answered. “It would not be a Circus without clones.” The unit emitted an unintelligible string of noise that sounded like a short circuit.

  “Why clone her?” Baker demanded to know.

  “The original Delia stabbed herself to death. Both Virgil and she possess an unhealthy obsession with death. Violent, messy death.”

  “Who wouldn’t, after all we’ve been through? When will she be healed?”

  “Anti-shock sequence is near completion. Accelerated recovery should take twelve hours for healing by second intention. The laser cut away a good deal of flesh-granular scar tissue has to fill the gap.”

  Baker nodded. “When can I have her out and back to normal?”

  “She will be functioning nominally tomorrow.”

  “Good. I want to wash up and rest. Where can I sleep nearby?”

  “The recovery room.”

  Floating in the white padded room, Baker frowned at the accumulation of transfusion bags and cleaning articles. He shoved them into a cabinet and floated against the hatch, one arm through a cloth loop.

  I don’t dare fall asleep. He might come back. I’m the weak one in that sense. But I’ve got the drive. Kinney’s just a crazy suicider.

  So was I, though, yet he never died.

  Neither did I. Except that my body’s been ground up and recycled. Hell with it. It’s done. I’m alive and I’ve got to stay that way. Kinney might get us both killed.

  His eyes eased shut against his will.

  The cockpit’s gone white and I’m surrounded by the soft glow of light from all around. The instruments guide me through but then they seize and I don’t know which way to turn because I’m not in control…

  He fell asleep, and fell dreaming.

  “Take her out of electrosleep.” The top of the boxdoc hinged open. Two rosy scars the diameter of a one auro coin marked her thighs. Her lips were a warm pink, though, and her eyes clear and focused when they opened. She grasped her head.

  “Steady,” Baker said. “Just take it easy. Watch your wrists, now.” With one motion, he fastened a makeshift pair of manacles on her, locking them on just enough for her not to wriggle free.

  “What’re these? You bastard!”

  “You’re going to cure me. Suppress Kinney for good.”

  “No!” She struggled violently, then suddenly began crying, “Jord, I can’t. Not just because she won’t let me.”

  “Then why not?”

  “Because-” she winced as though stricken. “Because I can’t choose between you… and Virgil.”

  Baker stared at her for a moment, then swung his hand to slap her across the face. “You bitch! We were lovers-”

  “I rebuilt him from a madman. I created the one chance we have at reaching the stars. I need him back. Mankind needs Virgil Gris-”

  “You scheming-” he slapped her again, making darker the scarlet palm print on her face.

  She smiled. “Do it again, you. She hates it.”

  “You stay out of this!” He slapped her a third time. “You’re going to help me bury Kinney because I can make you die and rebuild you as many times as I want. You can kill yourself but I’ll grind you to a mush like they ground me and-and-and-” He howled and shook her by the shoulders, her black hair swirling about them. “Fix me, bitch, or you’ll die a thousand times!”

  “And if I do? Then we’ll die anyway! Nobody can handle the Valliardi Transfer without going insane. Virgil’s our only hope to get back to Earth. We’re close enough to loop around the sun on engine-”

  “We are orbiting Tau Ceti,” the computer said.

  “Why aren’t you stopping him?” she screamed at the wall.

  “You can always be cloned again-”

  She screamed. Baker twisted her hair until her screams turned to plaintive sobs.

  “Stop it! I’ll do it, just stop. Please. Just stop. Please. Then her voice hardened. “No. Keep it up. Kill her. Kill yourself. Blow the anti-matter pods and kill Tau Ceti. Kill everything!”

  “Stop, you goddamned seesaw bitch! Dee”-he shook her again-“you’ve got to do it. For me. For us. I promise it’ll be straight. Everything, I promise.”

  “Just stop it, please stop it…”

  “I will. I promise.” He pulled his arms tightly around her to hold her close to him. “I promise.”

  Subdued lighting glowed indirectly from one portion of the room. Following Delia’s instructions, Baker arranged instruments, monitors and drug trays next to the sudahyde-upholstered table in the psychometric bay. He had strapped down to the table and lay watching Delia float above him.

  “The computer’ll be watching your every motion,” he warned. “And it can comprehend what goes on in all three fields of vision.”

  She nodded and secured a tray of testing devices, her manacles scraping against the plastic counter. She relaxed and looked at him.

  “Jordan Baker.” She paused, waiting, then asked, “Are you Jordan Baker?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve always preferred to be called Jord.”

  He shifted restlessly. “Dee-”

  “Just go along with me.”

  “Yes. Jordan’s a name of a river, not a man. It means ‘the descender.’ A man should climb, fly higher, never drop, never fall, never… die.”

  “Do you think you’re actually dead?”

  Baker tensed, then said, “I’ve wondered whether this is some crazy hell where I keep coming back for more, for eternal punishment. I mean, if we don’t have to die in this world, then it can be an eternal heaven or hell as we choose.”

  “Yes. As you choose. Why did you choose to jump from your flyer?”

  He shut his mouth and turned his head away.

  “Ten ccs DuoTorp Alpha,” she said. The drug dispenser filled a hypodermic gun with the proper drug and fired it into his arm. He grew limp at once and his eyelids, forced shut, relaxed into the mask of calm settling on his face.

  “Why did you jump?”

  His speech came slowly. “Transfer did it. I died there, and they were all ready to take me in. I would have been… so happy. And then they were gone and I was adrift and then… and then it happened again. Coming back. And I was wrenched free. I wanted to join them.”

  “Who?”

  “Dad and Crystal. I hadn’t seen them. In years. Since they died. And I wanted to join them.”

  “So you felt cheated.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet you don’t want to die now.”

  “I do! It’s just that… I’ve got to be sure!”

  “Of what?”

  “Be sure that I’m not just shunted in the back of Kinney’s mind and forgotten. Just filed away and everything that’s left of me will disappear like-like chalk pictures in rain. Would I go down that corridor then? Or would I just evaporate?”

  She reached over with both hands and wiped the tears from his eyes. “What are you?”

  “Now?” He wept. “A liter of squeezings swirling around the body of another man who’s in there with me. I can feel him there, like a fist, like a shadow around a co
rner, ready, watching and I’m nothing. Nothing but a lattice of electrical fields, switched on and off like a light bulb. Not a body. Not a brain. Just something light can shine right through as if through a ghost.”

  “You’re something, though.” She pondered for a moment, then asked, “What color was your schoolscrim in second grade?”

  “Yellow with a blue touch-border.”

  “Something remembered that. Someone. Regardless of what your thoughts and memories are stored in, you still have a mind. You’re simply using someone else’s brain in which to integrate your persona, your essence. You’re alive. You are Jord Baker.” Cuffed hands stroked his brow.

  “Five ccs DuoHypno Type Two,” she said softly. The dispenser complied.

  “Now, Jord, you find that you’re tired. The session has been a strain and you are falling asleep. You are so tired, you will hear nothing and remember nothing from now until I say that you are ready to listen. Do you hear me?” Seeing no reaction, she looked toward one of the computer vidcams.

  “I could kill him now,” she said to the wall.

  “I would stop you,” the computer replied. “Or clone a new body for him.”

  “Don’t you grant that Virgil’s persona is vital to this mission?”

  “He serves a purpose. There are many things I cannot do.”

  “You sound a lot smarter than the computer we built into Circus Galacticus.”

  “A mistake in circuiting has strengthened my neural net.”

  “You’re still stupid, Ben. And you, Death Angel, you don’t appreciate.” Virgil stared at her, both of them wide-eyed.

  “Virgil?”

  “Death Angel you’re stupid too. Forgot what Marsface said? I don’t listen to Duodrugs and their insect tugging. Why am I strapped down?”

  “You don’t know?” she asked.

  “The dead man in me was doing something and I watched- but he got it all fogged and I couldn’t see out well. Why’re you talking so funny?”

  “I bit my tongue.”

  “Is Bubbles still inside you?”

  She winced, then twisted her hands against the manacles. Through grinding teeth, she said, “I’m keeping her down – because – she’s – the – closest – thing – to – a…brainwipe I could have been p-put in.” She shouted once, as though she had endured a blow from an invisible fist, and untensed. “I don’t see how you can do it, Virgil.”

  “Different set of circumstances. Will you unstrap me?”

  “Jord,” Delia said in a commanding tone. “You are ready to listen.”

  Virgil seemed to melt in on himself, and a dreamy voice answered, “I’m ready. To listen.”

  She leaned toward him to whisper. “You are Jord Baker, but only when I command it. When you hear me say the word ‘hide,’ you will surrender yourself to Virgil Kinney’s control. When you hear me say the word ‘jackal,’ you will overcome Virgil Kinney and believe that all the things done by him were your own actions. Do you understand?”

  The man before her nodded.

  “Good. Your sleep is over now. You will awaken refreshed.”

  For a few moments he lay there, then turned over under the straps and rubbed his eyes.

  “Mmmm. Sorry, Dee. Didn’t mean to drift off.”

  “That’s straight, you needed it.” She unstrapped him.

  “Is that it for today? I’ve got to hit the head.”

  “Yes. That’s it. How about these?” She held out her wrists.

  “Nope. Those weren’t in the bargain. I need you for a while.” He left the room.

  He did not go to the head, though. Stopping at the nearest viewscrim, he said, “Replay your memory of the session we just had.”

  He watched and listened with a stern frown. So, Kinney just popped up like that? And she’s still thinking of killing me? Is she trying to build me up to a post-hypnotic suggestion? Hide? It’s stupid. They look so stupid sitting there naked. Jackal?

  Why, you bitch!

  He flew in through the open hatch and tackled her before she could react. Clamping a hand over her mouth, he dragged her toward the instrument tray. Too fast for her to do more than gurgle, he shoved a fistful of cotton under his hand and held it in her mouth.

  “Playing little tricks, bitch? I told you I wanted Kinney gone, not hidden.” He reached under her hair, pulled it up, and wrapped surgical tape around her head and across her mouth.

  He used the entire roll and then let the container float away.

  “Now,” he wondered aloud, “how are you going to do therapy on me when-” She brought her hands quickly up, catching him under the chin with the manacles. He spun away and she fell toward the instrument tray.

  Fumbling with a small vial, she connected it to the hypogun and turned it to her chest. Her hands dug against the manacles, but she managed to point it above her left breast and pull the trigger.

  “No!” Baker cried at the sound of the prolonged injection. He reached her as the first spasm threw the gun from her hands. He screamed at the computer: “What was it?”

  “Two hundred ccs of sodium pentabarbitol administered intracardially. Detect no heart action, nervous system response dropping, respiration terminated. Brain death in-”

  Ignoring the prognosis, he dragged her to the next room and threw her in the boxdoc. Mechanical scissors snipped away at the tape and metal claws withdrew the cotton while he unlocked the manacles. He closed the lid and watched the machine perform a cardio-pulmonary resuscitation sequence.

  It’s no good-“Right? It’s no good.”

  “The machine can keep blood circulating and oxygen reaching the brain to delay brain death, but she will not revive.”

  Baker wiped the sweat from his face, breathed deeply, and asked, “How do I prepare her for cloning?”

  Sitting in Con-One, Baker watched the lifeship drift away from the starboard bay. He turned off the scrim and tapped his fingers against the chair arm.

  “Ready to transfer out and back,” the computer said. The transfer button lit up. Baker swallowed hard and pressed it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  2224

  I have to do it again and again, just to get the right to die my own way, safe and sure that the door will open wide and Dad and Crys will be there and here it comes again. I know. I’m trying to come with you, but it keeps pulling me back. I’m sorry. Someday. Soon.

  Look at me. That’s not my body so thin and white. Don’t push. I’m going back.

  “Ready to transfer.” Baker pushed the button again.

  Maybe I’m almost getting used to this. Or maybe Kinney is taking me over and making me as crazy as he. When he takes over completely, will I die like this? Dropping forever toward the door, endlessly down a corridor-pit? There he falls again, Kinney, pushing Crys and Dad out of the way, begging me to follow him, telling me it’ll be all right, that he loves me as much as her and that was why he did it but I don’t believe him.

  “What is your name?” the computer inquired.

  “What? Oh. Jord Baker. Don’t you think that’s getting pretty useless? Both of us know about the other.”

  “I need to keep track. You both have your… idiosyncrasies. Stand by for engine firing.” The tug of acceleration startled him, but he eased into the cushions and waited until weightlessness returned.

  “Cloning tank and lifeship on visual,” it said. “Ready to be taken onboard. However-telemetry from the unit indicates a dysfunctional state.”

  “What do you mean?” Baker unstrapped and retracted the control panels.

  “The clone is apparently dead. All power to the cloning tank has been shut down-”

  Baker sped to the docking bay, took the controls, and remote-piloted the lifeship back into Circus. He cycled the atmosphere and waited impatiently by the airlock.

  “Come on.” Come on! The airlock slowly opened.

  Pulling the cloning unit out of the ship, he opened the tank without inspecting it and peered inside at clean emptiness.


  “Nothing! The unit must’ve failed right after we cast it off. Unless it went through a cleansing cycle-”

  “The waste unit is empty. Now close the lid and look at it.”

  Baker did so and read the frantic words knifed into the black plating.

  WANDERER-I STOLE YOUR PRIZE

  “What does that mean?”

  “The ship that attacked us around Beta Hydri. The pilot called Virgil ‘Wanderer.’ ”

  “How did he find us?” Baker tried to control the near-screech in his voice, digging his finger into the padded rim or the cloning tank.

  “The pilot challenged us to appear here sometime in June, Twenty-Two Twenty-Three. According to best estimates, it is now January of Twenty-Two Twenty-Four.”

  “Then why the hell did you go to Tau Ceti?”

  “It was the next star on our tour-much closer to our sun type than Epsilon Eridani and also closer to similar star types Eighty-Two Eridani and Sigma Draconis.”

  “You knew! And now he’s got Delia!”

  “Free will doesn’t mean I have to consider every-” “Start looking for her. How big a Bernal sphere is it?”’

  “How did you know it was a Bernal sphere?”

  Baker paused, then said, “More memory overlap. He had all sorts of corpses in the control room, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you found him?” Maybe if I can retrieve all of Kinney’s memories I won’t be consumed. Maybe I can pick him away bit by bit.

  “He may be lying in wait for us,” the computer said. “I have all defenses online, lasers set in spiral tracking. A Bernal is such a large target, though, it would take a long time to wipe out every weapon or control center by purely random shots. He would be able to destroy us if he wanted to, merely by turning on his lasers before he transferred out to us.”

  “Straight, so we’re dead. Now try and find him.”

  “There is an object about four kilometers in length exactly twenty-three degrees ahead of the lifeship in the same orbit.”