FALLEN STARS: DARKEST DAYS (THE STAR SCOUT SAGA Book 2)

by GARY DARBY

  Shar quickly spoke up. “I understand your concern, general, but before you go to the council, I think there’s someone you should meet, first.

  “Doctor Thu Nguyen. She’s a Nav fleet medical doctor, but also a neuroscientist with PhDs in psychiatry and neurophysiology, plus a slew of other fancy acronyms that look like alphabet soup behind her name.

  “She’s pretty much the best in the business. I had some doubts too, about Dason’s claim, and that’s why I asked her to run him through her diagnostic regime. She’s finished her examination, and I think you should hear what she has to say.

  “I have to admit, her findings are, well . . . Maybe it’s best if she told you herself. She’s waiting outside.”

  “By all means,” Rosberg ordered. “Bring her in.”

  Shar ushered in a tall, attractive, middle-aged woman, whose black hair was trimmed neatly at collar length. Her light brown eyes almost matched her skin tone. Her short, white medical coat complemented her professional light blazer and skirt.

  After quick introductions, Rosberg said, “Doctor, Colonel Tuul tells me that you’ve run some tests on Scout Thorne that may shed some light on his claim of having alien images running through his mind.

  “I have a crucial meeting with the High Council in a few hours and I’m quite sure that this will be a topic of shall we say, hot debate. So, are they real or the product of some form of stress delirium?”

  Doctor Nguyen nodded and said, “There are two fundamental ways to approach your question. First, is there anything physical that’s affecting Scout Thorne that might produce such images, such as a brain tumor?

  “Or, second, is there anything mentally or emotionally occurring that would cause the mind to fabricate what we would call a false reality?”

  She cradled her slim hands in her lap and sat back. “My staff and I ran a series of psychological and neurological scans and tests on Scout Thorne in addition to the exams that your own medical personnel performed.

  “Psychologically, Scout Thorne has endured tremendous emotional and mental stress over the last few weeks, culminating, of course, in the loss of his teammates.

  “In my professional opinion, he is coping with that loss. His emotions and reactions are mentally healthy for such an event, so I do not believe that his psyche is producing these images in response to those experiences.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “However, we did find something very unusual in his N-SCAT examination.”

  “Whoa, doctor,” Rosberg interjected. “N-SCAT?”

  “Sorry,” Nguyen replied. “Neurological symmetry, connectivity, activity, and tomography study.

  “It’s a specialized diagnostic scan that gives us a very detailed look at how well the body’s neurological system is functioning, which in turn helps us understand the psychological responses of a patient.

  “The procedure looks at everything from a virtual dissection of the brain to an accurate map or picture of what we call human connectomes—the body’s neural pathways.

  “It gives us an excellent assessment of how well those channels are working throughout the body. When we analyzed Scout Thorne’s neural activity, we saw a marked increase in his synaptic physiology.”

  Jadar held up a hand. “Sorry doctor, it’s been a while since I was in school. ‘Synaptic physiology’?”

  Nguyen gave a little nod. “Synapses are the intersection points between nerve cells. When the brain transmits a message to any part of the body, it’s chemically and electrically transmitted from one nerve cell to another.

  “The synapses are the gatekeepers that open and close the gate at the junction so that the signal gets sent from one nerve cell to the next.

  “In normal, healthy people this happens incredibly fast. As we age, or because of particular medical conditions, the synapses don’t work as well; they get rusty, so to speak, and don’t open quite as fast, or in some cases, fail altogether.

  “Our nerves have a chemical sheath that helps them transmit neural impulses. When we took a closer look at Scout Thorne’s increased synaptic levels, we discovered that there is an unknown chemical agent that seems to have bonded with the neural sheath and it’s also found in the neural pathways of his brain.”

  “Wait,” Jadar rasped, “we were told that his med exam was normal, including his blood work.”

  “For the lab tests that they ran, that’s correct,” she replied. “But the standard chemistry workup wouldn’t have found these chemical markers.

  “It was only after we ran the N-SCAT and saw the abnormal readings that we did a molecular scale diagnostic, and found a very minuscule amount of this unknown substance.”

  Rosberg leaned forward. “Is this dangerous to Scout Thorne or to those who’ve had contact with him?” he questioned.

  Doctor Nguyen shook her head. “At this time, I would have to answer no. It appears compatible with our metabolism, and though we’ve not isolated its makeup, I don’t believe it’s toxic. In fact, from my initial assessment, it may have some beneficial properties.”

  Rosberg grunted and let out a breath. “That’s good to know. The last thing I need is for us to have cleared him through Luna Quarantine, and he brings some alien disease to Earth.”

  “Oh no, no,” Nguyen quickly replied. “It’s not a bacterium or virus, or anything pathogenic. There’s no need for alarm in that sense.”

  Rosberg nodded and said, “Thank you. Please go on.”

  “However, I can tell you definitively that it’s not a substance made by our bodies,” Nguyen said. “So I’m quite confident that he acquired it elsewhere.”

  Jadar spoke up. “Are you saying it was somehow placed inside his body?”

  Nguyen hesitated before saying, “Hmm, this chemical material is not made by the human body, so yes, my guess is that it entered his body in some fashion.”

  “Any idea of where or how?” Rosberg asked.

  Doctor Nguyen slowly replied, “After reading Scout Thorne’s report, I would have to say that most likely it happened on the planet from which he was rescued.”

  “That answers where,” Rosberg observed. “Any notions on how?”

  “I wish I could answer that with as much certainty,” Nguyen replied. “I’m afraid that I can only offer what would be seen as wild speculation by some but which, after going over the tests and results several times, I can’t help but feel is a distinct possibility.”

  “Doctor,” Rosberg muttered, “at this point, please, speculate away. ”

  “All right,” Nguyen responded. “While reading his report, I found a number of incidents where, possibly, an alien substance might have entered his body.”

  She raised one hand and began ticking off on her fingers the occurrences. “First, the contact with the sentient alien, next, the venomous infusion from the spider creature, and then the acidic spray from the toadlike animal.”

  Raising one hand slightly as if to make a point, she said, “However, I can’t discount the possibility either that this substance entered his open wounds from either blood or saliva from the canines that attacked him later on.”

  She paused before saying, “But, more telling in my opinion, is his statement that he didn’t have the images until right after his initial interaction with the extraterrestrial, and that happened before his encounters with the other entities except the dogs.”

  “So . . .” Rosberg began slowly, “you seem to be leaning toward a conclusion that this unknown substance came from the alien?”

  Nguyen didn’t answer right away, but sat staring at her hands. “It’s the only working hypothesis,” she said in a low voice, “that seems to fit what we know.”

  She took in a deep breath. “Scout Thorne was quite clear that he was stabbed in the hand with the sharp appendage of the extraterrestrial and immediately after, the images appeared in his mind.”

  Shrugging, she said, “I can tell you with professional certainty that the human body reacts very swiftly when certain chemicals are
introduced into the body. For example, the bite of a venomous snake produces an almost instantaneous violent reaction in the immediate cell network surrounding the bite.

  “A bee sting, the touch of a jellyfish, a Black Widow’s bite to name a few are more examples of the body instantly reacting to the introduction of a foreign biochemical.”

  “You’re saying that my—” Jadar began in a rapid voice before he slowed his speech down and said, “that my nephew has an alien chemical in him that’s the catalyst for these images and that there’s a connection between the two?”

  Nguyen took in another deep breath. “It’s conceivable that there is a link, yes. In fact, I can give you some parallel analogies from right here on Earth that may possibly explain what happened.

  “There is scientific evidence in our animal world, ants, for example, where the insect can pass fairly detailed information, such as the location of food, from one to another through chemical excretions. Bees do the same, as well as some other insects.

  “Humans do something similar but in a general sense and more in a learned context rather than actual communication. The first time, for instance, that you smell and see a rose, the smell imprints on your mind.

  “From that time forward, every time you smell a rose scent or aroma, your mind brings up the image of a rose and you associate that scent with the rose flower. That’s particularly true of chemically intense aromas, like a skunk’s defensive spray.

  “So, chemical imprint in humans is a very real aspect of our mental and biological processes. In one study, new mothers were able to identify their newborn infants based on smell alone.

  “The conjecture being that the baby excreted a chemical pheromone that the mother recognized and identified as her offspring.”

  Jadar glanced from Rosberg to Shar. Both were mulling over Nguyen’s explanation, so he turned to the doctor and asked, “Are you saying that it may be possible that this extraterrestrial passed the images to Dason through that foreign chemical you’ve found in his body?”

  She tilted her head toward him. “The examples I cited are in some ways complex, but in relation to conveying whole images, well, it would be like comparing a child’s bottle rocket to the latest hyperspace drive. Nevertheless, we can’t discount the possibility.”

  “He’s narrated images,” Shar stated, “purportedly of Star Scouts on OutLand worlds. Scouts he’s never met before. Do you believe these images represent real people, real events?”

  Hesitating for a moment, she then said slowly, deliberately, “His depiction of these mental images is very detailed, very precise. He doesn’t describe them in the surreal terms you would normally expect if they were hallucinations or dreams.

  “If I were to ask one of you to explain say, a recent dream, one thing that I would look for is what I call associative features.

  “In typical dreams or hallucinations, we usually see a central core image, with the surrounding dream field being fuzzy or unclear, and in many cases the images contain nonsensical objects that don’t fit in with the dream.

  “In memories of actual events, most of us not only can remember or see the central core image, but we usually can describe a few surrounding details that fit into the memory’s context.

  “In Scout Thorne’s case, the associative features are quite sharp and precisely match the image.

  “Rarely can any of us remember more than a few dreams or hallucinations; usually it’s only the most striking or intense, such as a nightmare, or when we do something that is particularly pleasing.”

  She smiled. “With me, it’s dreams where I fly, those I remember quite vividly for days afterward.”

  Her smiled faded as she continued. “Memories are different though, with each of us retaining hundreds of memories accumulated over a lifetime.

  “Scout Thorne doesn’t have just two or three alien depictions in his mind. He has dozens and dozens; all of places, events, things, and as I understand it, people that he personally has never seen.

  “In fact, during our first session, Scout Thorne described a supernova. The image’s descriptive aspects were vivid and unique. Curious, one of my associates took his description over to an astrophysicist that she knows at Nav headquarters.

  “Without divulging the source or anything associated with Scout Thorne, she asked her acquaintance if he recognized the stellar occurrence.

  “The physicist read the description and immediately said, ‘Sure—that’s the double diamond nova.’ And in his next breath asked how my staff member got this information.

  “It seems that a SciCorps free-orbiting deep-space surveillance platform discovered this particular nova not long ago. We can’t see the nova from Terra, or anywhere else in Imperium space for that matter.

  “It turns out that it’s hidden behind a wall of galactic gasses for most of the Imperium and this particular robotic surveyor had just passed beyond the point of where it could see into this unseen region.

  “What’s so intriguing is that neither the image nor the information on this stellar event has been published in any database—anywhere. In other words, it’s highly doubtful that Scout Thorne could have obtained this information on his own.”

  The doctor was silent for a moment as if considering her next words. “Frankly, there is something at work here that is beyond what neuro medicine understands and to which I can only provide a personal opinion.”

  “I’m sure I don’t understand,” Rosberg replied in a gruff tone.

  Doctor Nguyen lifted her mouth in a thin smile at the general’s remark and said, “Nevertheless, I feel very confident that what Scout Thorne is describing is shared memories. Incredible as it seems, I believe that’s the approach we should take at this juncture.”

  Rosberg shifted in his chair and asked, “Do these ‘shared memories’ create any mental or physical problems for Scout Thorne? Do you have any concerns in that area?”

  Nguyen hesitated before saying, “Some images are deeply disturbing to him, and it’s obvious that he has to work to push them aside and not revisit them, which is very normal for any of us in the same situation.

  “As long as he can do that, and not dwell on the more troubling images, then I don’t see anything right now that would cause me to be alarmed over his mental state.”

  She took a deep breath and said, “Based on my testing, and Scout Thorne’s responses, I believe that we can be reasonably assured that his report is accurate.”

  The three Star Scouts glanced from one to the other before Rosberg said, “Thank you. Is there anything else?”

  “Yes,” Nguyen replied, “one more thing. I’m under the impression that he is holding something back, something so deeply personal that he is unwilling to share it with me.”

  She turned to Jadar. “It may be that as his closest relative, he might divulge it to you. If that is the case, my advice is simply to listen.”

  Jadar nodded. “Thank you, I will.”

  Rosberg stood and shook hands with the doctor. “Thank you. You’ve been very enlightening and helpful. Please inform me immediately if you find anything more.”

  “Certainly,” Nguyen responded and left the room.

  After the door had slid behind the physician, Rosberg sat down but didn’t speak for several seconds. “I admit,” he said, “that I’m closer to being convinced than before that the images are real. More importantly, I’m sure that we would be foolhardy if we didn’t operate on that assumption.

  “That means I want us to make every effort to identify those scouts, as well as any other humans that are a part of these ‘shared memories.’ It just may be that some of those scouts are our lost and missing comrades.”

  Both Shar and Jadar nodded, and Shar said, “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Rosberg let out a breath. “Well, like I said, all in all it’s going to be a very interesting meeting with the High Council. Is there anything else we need to cover before I go put my neck on the chopping block?”

  “Not
from me, sir,” Shar answered.

  Rosberg gestured at him while saying, “Then give Jadar and me a few minutes, will you? A private matter regarding Scout Thorne.”

  “Certainly, sir,” Shar replied, and in an aside to Jadar said, “I’ll wait for you outside.”

  The door slid behind Shar, and Rosberg turned to Jadar. “Have you had a chance—”

  “To tell him everything?” Jadar asked.

  Shaking his head, he gazed at the gleaming desktop but his thoughts seemed to be elsewhere for the moment.

  Drawing himself back to the here and now, he answered, “No, sir. And with all this news about Romerand and his daughter, the Faction connection, I’m not sure I can or should.”

  He raised his head to meet Rosberg’s gaze. “It may place him in even more danger than he already is if he knew the full truth.”

  There was silence between the two before Jadar said, “We’ve talked, of course.” He grimaced while saying, “When we’ve had the chance, which hasn’t been much.”

  “I know,” Rosberg quickly said, “and I’m sorry for that. It’s just that—”

  “No need to apologize, sir,” Jadar hastily said. “We both understand how incredibly important all of this is, especially regarding our missing scouts.”

  Smiling, he said, “In the short moments we’ve had, it’s been wonderful to share things about our family that he didn’t know before. He’s like a sponge, absorbs everything I tell him and then asks even more questions.”

  Jadar smiled a bit wider. “The medicos or psyche crew practically have to pull him away.” He laughed lightly. “I even had to give him a direct order to cooperate and go with them a couple of times.”

  Rosberg snorted. “Sometimes it helps to actually have rank, doesn’t it?”

  Jadar nodded and said, “He wants to know all, of course . . .” His voice became almost a whisper and his eyes stared off into space as if long-past memories had come unbidden to his mind again.

  He let out a long breath and glanced at the general, “But I just can’t bring myself to tell him the whole story.”

  “Because of the threat or something else?” Rosberg asked. “Like how to tell him or face the questions that you know will come.”