Prophet of ConFree (The Prophet of ConFree)

by Marshall S. Thomas

  "What is it, Professor?" I asked.

  "The Ringgold," he choked. "The Ringgold. They took my little girl – my daughter! And he knows where she is. We must continue the interrogation!"

  "We will, we will. But not now! You've got to calm down."

  "He's got to know where she is! He's got to!"

  Δ

  We resumed the interrogation after the Prof composed himself. The medics had bandaged the slaver's hand. The Prof was glacially calm, his face a stony mask. Gaga was paralyzed with terror. We offered no more dox or kind words. Things were quite serious now.

  "You will begin at the moment you first joined the Brothers in Blood," the Prof said, quietly, "and tell me everything. Continue until the end of the Veda raid and your return to Drusweaven. Then I'll have more questions for you. If at any time you attempt to deceive me, or leave anything out, or upset me in any way, I'll ask my assistant to start chopping off fingers or ears. All right – begin."

  Gaga chattered away like a parrot and we recorded it all. Later Prof wrote up his report. It took him a full day. He let me read the report. It was a masterpiece. We discussed it in the lounge over dox.

  "It’s a very impressive report," I said. "You left nothing out, and everything in it is important and detailed."

  "Yes, I agree. I'll forward this to the Andrion Deep with a copy to Galactic Information and Gassies Operations. It will be labeled Immediate/Urgent. And that is justified, because this is the first mention of the Drusweaven System in relation to piracy or slavery. Before I joined the Legion, I researched the Ringgold raid extensively. Drusweaven never came up. I never even heard of the place before. Fleetcom bungled their reaction to the raid and never found the Ringgold. They failed to find the startrack at all."

  "So Drusweaven could still be an active slaver base."

  "From what he said, it likely still is. Why abandon a base that has successfully hidden itself for years?"

  "Your report could result in a Fleetcom or Legion raid."

  "Hopefully it will. And I stressed that there are likely many captives there, and that they should be liberated – not vaporized."

  "You've done all you can."

  "It's kind of you to say that. I'd like to shoot that scumbag right between the eyes, but I have recommended that we keep him alive, in the brig here, just in case any further questions arise."

  "Yes – that's wise."

  "Thank you very much for your help, Prophet. I will never forget it."

  "I didn't do anything."

  "Yes, you did. You kept me calm. Otherwise I might have killed him, in a fit of rage. I apologize for my behavior."

  "Stop it, Professor. Your rage was fully justified."

  "Rage is seldom justified, but – in this case you may be right."

  Gaga did not know where the Professor's daughter was – that was certain. But he did know where all the captives had been taken, and we wrung everything out of him that he knew about that.

  Δ

  One thing I really liked about the Wasp was that the ship had a starlink portal for all crews and so we could receive personal mail. Of course starlinks are not Q-mail, which is instantaneous, but I was happy with what I could get. Q-links are still highly classified and strictly official. I was so happy when I received my first letter from Honeyhair. Of course it was an image of the actual letter, and it was months old but it was still a letter, a personal letter, from my girl. She had written it in her beautiful cursive handwriting. I hear in the Inners they don't teach cursive any more, but they do in ConFree. It's considered the sign of a literate person. Not being able to write cursive is kind of like not being able to speak Inter.

  She was certainly one enthusiastic girl. I could hardly believe this was the same bored, vaguely arrogant, coolly sophisticated and totally disinterested young lady whom I had first run into on greensides in the CS Dark Lady. The transformation was amazing. But I also had to admit that she had me good. I was blindly smitten, that was sure. I'd have to write her back and assure her that I was still madly in love with her. And tell her not to join the Legion. And, well, she had a good point, Providence was a huge base and I could certainly return at some point. But they were going to run me around the Gulf first – and maybe a lot of other places as well. It might take years. I'd have to tell her that.

  And as for marriage –yes, she was certainly marriage material. I wouldn't mind bringing this one back to Momma. Honeyhair had admitted to me that she was a virgin – and said Blondie was one, too. I didn’t have any trouble believing it. She was clearly a lot more innocent than she pretended to be for public consumption. ConFree stressed true love and happy marriages rather than wild sex and lots of partners. That’s what they taught in school. Maybe that's why our society was a lot more stable than the rest of the inhabited galaxy. No, I wasn't ready for marriage. But maybe – well, maybe.

  Δ

  The alarm came at oh-dark-thirty, which is when most genuine emergencies occur, as well as most practice drills. It was a combination warbling, whooping shriek alarm that ripped into your brain and set your teeth on edge, punctuated with an insane berserk chirping insect-like beep beep beep beep beep that presumably said something meaningful to those vacheads who knew the secret codes.

  "GENERAL QUARTERS! GENERAL QUARTERS! ALL HANDS MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS!"

  We had done a lot of these things by now, and I always awoke with a start and smashed my forehead against the bottom of the bunk above me. This time was no exception. I dived out of my bunk, adrenalin swirling, head throbbing, and shot out the door along with the rest of the squad. We charged down the corridor barefoot, in our shorts, then through a hatch, slid down the railing to the next deck without touching a step, burst through another hatch, entered a cube labeled A&A, and started frantically climbing into our A-suits, feet first, slamming the chestplate closed, snapping on the helmet, all systems on, then seizing our E's, all systems on. Then we ran, fast as we could, along F deck to our battle station as teams of vacheads ran past us frantically, mostly in the opposite direction, some of them still in shorts.

  "Squad Delta on station at F deck reaction pod." Doggie reported tersely. Excellent! He didn't even have to yell at anybody this time. This was our battle station where we could react quickly to whatever entry port had a problem or needed our presence. We stood against the walls, clutching our E's. We could hear the vac doors slamming shut all over the ship, sealing off all compartments in case of damage.

  "Can I go back to sleep now?" Smiley asked. Nobody answered him.

  It was a long drill. I was assuming it was a drill because most of these annoying incidents were drills. Maybe an hour passed and then there was another announcement.

  "STAND BY FOR VAC RUN RED," the ship advised us. "DUTY CREW TO STARDRIVE STATIONS. STARSEAL ALL PORTS AND HATCHES FOR STARDRIVE. PREP FOR ENTRY. COUNTDOWN UNDERWAY. MAINTAIN GENERAL QUARTERS, REPEAT, MAINTAIN GENERAL QUARTERS." Well, this was a first. Why go into stardrive? The musical tone of the stardrive alert sounded several times. A faint shudder ran through my A-suit.

  "GREEN FOR LAUNCH. LAUNCH UNDERWAY. LAUNCH SUCCESSFUL. CRUISING VAC RUN RED. DUTY CREW REPORT STATUS. MAINTAIN GENERAL QUARTERS."

  We were in stardrive. I could feel it in my head.

  "What's happening, Prophet?" Bees asked me, on private.

  "Beats me. We'll find out later – as usual."

  We were in stardrive for almost an hour when a third announcement came.

  "EXITING STARDRIVE. PREP FOR EXIT. COUNTDOWN UNDERWAY. CLOAKING ACTIVE. MAINTAIN GENERAL QUARTERS, REPEAT, MAINTAIN GENERAL QUARTERS."

  "Man!" Arie said to me on private. "What do you…"

  "EXIT SUCCESSFUL. CRUSING IN NORMAL VAC. DUTY CREW REPORT STATUS. CLOAKING ACTIVE. MAINTAIN GENERAL QUARTERS."

  "I have no idea what's happening, Arie," I said.

  "But you're the Prophet. You're supposed to know."

  "All right, well, I'll tell you later."

  "That's better. I'm getting tired
of this nonsense."

  We had to wait close to another hour for the next announcement but it did finally come, preceded by some soothing musical tones. "SECURE FROM GENERAL QUARTERS. ALL HANDS SECURE FROM GENERAL QUARTERS."

  Δ

  "So what was last night's general quarters drill all about?" I asked the Prof. He was our info guy, after all, and he normally had all the answers.

  "It wasn't a drill," he replied. We were in the armor room – we were all doing a routine eyeball check on our A-suits to ensure everything was set for the next use.

  "Wasn't a drill? Well, what was it? Why did we go into stardrive?"

  The Prof looked around at the others and lowered his voice. "Meet me for dox in the lounge when we're through with this," he said.

  Δ

  We regrouped in the lounge over dox, just the Prof and me, at a little snack table.

  "It wasn't a drill," Prof repeated. "I'm not supposed to spread the word around, but as my assistant, I believe you should know. It was an unidentified ship. One of our starprobes spotted it in normal vac in the Blood Star Sector and reported it. The sighting auto-triggered a Q-link from Fleetcom that included some info on the target and told us to stand by for further info. That's when we went to battle stations. About an hour later, we received orders from Fleetcom to proceed to the target and covertly observe. That's when we went stardrive to get there, and exited stardrive not far from the target. We were fully cloaked. The probe was still on target and reporting more info. We zeroed the target and pursued. Then it vanished.

  "Vanished? You mean it went stardrive?"

  "No, it just vanished."

  "Huh! What kind of a ship was it? How did it vanish? And why did we go to GQ so quickly? We spot unidentified craft all the time, and don't generally go to GQ until we decide what to do and then close on them. What did Fleetcom say?"

  "You have an inquisitive, well-focused mind, Prophet. That's one of the reasons I enjoy your company. This was a very special ship. Here is one of the many images we obtained before it vanished."

  He slid a d-screen snap over the table to me. It was a detailed, full-color pix of a strange, roughly saucer-shaped starcraft. It glowed faintly with muted metallic colors. One side of the pix contained numerical data that meant nothing to me.

  "What kind of a ship is this?" I asked.

  "It's a very dangerous kind of a ship. And it's a ship that should not be here. That's why we went to battle stations so quickly. And why we were cloaked."

  "Come on, Professor. What is it? Where is it from? Why is it so dangerous?"

  "It's dangerous because we do not understand it, and do not understand its capabilities. The ship was in normal vac but was travelling at velocities that greatly exceed our fastest antimat interceptors. And – when it vanished – there was no startrack noted, and no telltale disruption of spacetime, which happens when you go stardrive."

  "All right, they've got good camo just like we do. Starship cloaking."

  "No, it's not possible. Cloaking hides you fine when nobody knows you're there. But if we get a good initial zero on a target – which we did – switching on a cloaking device will deflect all image reflection but the mass of the ship will still be there. Except in this case it was not there. The ship was just gone."

  "Well, they must have a new method of stardrive."

  "Any ship that enters vac run red leaves a startrack. There was no star track."

  "Are you saying they travel around the galaxy without stardrive? How fast was it moving?"

  "No – that's not possible. They were moving faster than physically possible with our technology, but certainly nowhere near fast enough for star travel. That's out of the question."

  "All right, so who's inside this remarkable ship?"

  "Not who, but what. These ships have been seen before. Long before ConFree was founded, long before the System, long before the Assidic Empire – and long before the origin of space flight on ancient Earth."

  "Before space flight!"

  "That's correct. At one point these aliens appeared in our section of the galaxy and reconned various worlds and settled on some. Our only proof of this is very ancient evidence, both on Earth and in scores of other worlds where they left faint traces of their presence. You've heard of the Wanderers?"

  "It was kind of a myth, wasn't it? Advanced star travelers who preceded us – and then vanished?"

  "Vanished – yes – into the dusts of time. Only it wasn't a myth. They were real. We have proof positive of their passing – in our genes."

  "Our genes?"

  "Yes. We carry their ancient blood with us, into the future."

  "Good lord! You mean – we came from them?"

  "Not entirely. But they lived with our ancestors on Earth, and intermarried. That's not myth, it's established scientific fact."

  "But – why doesn't everybody know this? Why isn't it in the history books?"

  "Nobody knew about it. This happened in Earth's prehistory – or very early history. And it was only recently that the genetic proof was recognized for what it was. And only in ConFree was the truth recognized, rather than suppressed."

  "So, these – Wanderers – have returned? That was their ship?"

  "No. No. It's a lot more complex than that, my dear Prophet."

  "How so?"

  "These ships represent the technology of the Wanderers, but that technology is shared with other races – other alien beings. We don't know a lot about them, but we know a little. Some of these aliens are what we would call benevolent – and others are not. But they are all technologically superior to us."

  "Deadman! Why are they here?"

  "Exactly, Prophet. That is the question. Why are they here?"

  "What happened to the Wanderers? Where did they go?"

  "We do not have sufficient data to answer that question yet, Prophet. We can only say that they – and those other aliens I mentioned – disappeared completely from our galaxy in the very distant past."

  "And now they're back."

  "Precisely. More dox?"

  Δ

  "We need earplugs around here," Arie said. It was true. We were in Recon Bay, which was a giant interior hanger chock full of huge black birds – I didn't know whether I was supposed to refer to them as aircraft or spacecraft because they were both. Ear-shattering noise echoed through the hanger, bursts of savage energy that lit us all up with flickering white light, and a giant slamming sound that rattled the decks. People in sleeveless tops and grey fatigues were swarming over the ships.

  "Gentlemen." It was Bird. I think that's what he said, but I was not sure. Bird was a young Outworlder with sandy hair and grey eyes, medium height, medium weight – an everyman. He was wearing a coverall spattered with slick. "Welcome to my world."

  "We want to see the new ship," Arie shouted.

  "Easily done," Bird said. "Follow me." Actually we didn't particularly want to see the new ship. We wanted to learn more about Bird. He had been with us since Hell, but we had learned very little about him. He spent virtually all his time with his air wing, working on his ship, and had very little time for the squad that he was assigned to support. He seemed a dependable fellow – he was always there when we needed insertion or pickup – but Arie and I both agreed that we wanted to know more about him. The rest of the squad felt the same.

  "Behold Ruthie," Bird said, so loudly that we could hear him over the noise. He stood before his ship. "This is my new girl. She's the latest generation Phantom. The old one was held together with superglue and a prayer. I thought it wise not to inform you of that at the time. I spent all my time working on that damned abortion. I fixed her up nice. I restored her virginity. Whoever inherits her will have no cares. But this is my new love – Ruthie."

  The name was written on its nose, with a full color snap of a hot little blonde honey in very short shorts. "Ruthie now belongs to squad Delta," he said. "You won't find a more dependable girl. She's hot, she's mean, she's a flying machine. She's f
ully cloaked, an invisible girl."

  The ship was immense – the skin was jet black and curiously oily. I touched it and it was cold. It appeared to be roughly delta-shaped, but it was hard to tell. Bird touched a control and a crash door slid open along the side of the beast. Web seats lined the fuselage, with a narrow aisle down the centerline.

  "She carries enough ordnance to blow away a whole city," Bird continued, "and she can carry a whole squad and more if necessary. Her antimat engine will run forever. No, she can’t do a star hop, but deliver her to the target vicinity and she can slip in undetected, drop off your squad, hover invisibly overhead, support you in an instant with overwhelming firepower if you need it, and pick you up – again invisibly – and be off in a flash. She flies in the vac like a meteor, she flies in the air like a bird and floats like a butterfly. She can even float on the water should you desire her to do so."

  "Nice!" I said. "Hey, I noticed a crudely scrawled sign just outside your main door that said BUS DRIVERS ONLY. What was that all about?"

  Bird laughed. "Oh, that was the fighter jocks. Their hanger is next door. They're just jealous because these Phantoms are more advanced than their fighters. They're all idiots. I know because I used to be one."

  "An idiot?" Arie asked brightly.

  Bird laughed again. "Good one! No, a fighter pilot. I was with the non-idiot air wing."

  "You were a fighter pilot?" I asked. A gigantic shriek filled the hanger, It sounded as if somebody was testing an engine – one wall was evidently set up to enable that. It glowed white-hot.

  "Let's go somewhere quieter," Bird said.

  Δ

  We regrouped in the Recon Bay rec room the next deck down. It was a comfortable little place, pretty well soundproofed from the chaos upstairs. We picked up snacks and dox from an autoserve and settled down around a little table. The walls were covered with action pix of Phantoms and spacecraft and insertions and pickups.