That made sense. Two years of sitting watching the console with your bags already packed would drive anyone nuts. You’d know that you had to wait, but if everything was over except that waiting, how easy would it be to forget it?
Torrence opened his eyes and started to turn, but then stopped. Silently he motioned to Cat, and the machine floated up to look at the console. A different message was now flashing.
Warning. Approaching Craft fails Backup Hull Test. View Vessel with Code Red Suspicion.
‘Backup?’ asked Torrence. He knew he should remember what that entailed. He didn’t.
‘The Station’s run the backup test,’ Cat said. ‘It’s actually a subset of the initial tests, and is less stringent.’
‘Easier to pass, you mean. Recreation Room?’ called Torrence, wondering absently, and for the first time, if this wasn’t the equivalent of it calling him Mr Torrence, and if he should just be calling it ‘Rec’ or ‘Reccy’ or something, ‘Get me a juice, would you?’
‘I’ll get it,’ Cat volunteered quickly.
‘I’m sorry Pols,’ Torrence said into the mike, ‘but I’m going to have to think about this.’
‘Dave, relax. That’s cool. You’re going to want to do this by the book, I can get that, and with the coding going off I don’t blame you. They figured at Home that this could be a tricky moment psychologically, even if the alarms didn’t go off. That’s why they sent me to get you.’
‘Why should you make any difference?’
There was a pause. When Pols spoke again, he did so slowly and carefully. ‘Well, because you know me.’
‘What are you talking about?’
For the first time, Pols sounded irritated. ‘Who better to pick you up than the only person you saw in all the time you were on the Station? Come on Dave. So the alarm goes off, but, Christ, it’s Jack Pols, okay?’
‘I spoke to you for the first time twenty minutes ago.’
‘Oh Jesus.’ Concern was now added, which made it much worse. ‘February 20th, 2043. Okay, it’s over twenty years ago, but Jesus, how many visitors have you had?’
Struggling to keep his voice level, Torrence stared straight at the speaker. His chest felt cold and empty. ‘It is forbidden to visit or even approach Sentry Stations during war time because of the risk of signalling their position to the enemy. I have never met or spoken to you before this evening, Pols. I do not know what you are talking about. I have had no visitors while I have been on this Station. I do not know who you are.’
‘I know it’s forbidden to approach Stations: I did then, too. I was caught on the fringes of the Fifth Battle. My cruiser was totally fucked, and I needed somewhere to dock, and someone to help me fix it. I knew there was a Station in the area, and I took the risk.’
‘Cat?’ Torrence broke in, ‘does this ring any bells with you?’
‘No.’
‘Odd. I though your memory was quite good.’
‘Christ, Torrence, is this some kind of test? Do I have to remember a secret song or something?’
‘I’d be likely to remember a visitor, Pols. Not only would you have been the only person I’d seen in thirty years, your visit would have been highly irregular, damaged or not.’
‘I know, and that’s why you agreed not to enter it in the logs.’
‘What?’ said Torrence suspiciously.
‘You should have written it up, right? You didn’t.’
‘I didn’t write it up because it didn’t happen.’
‘I can confirm Officer Torrence’s statements,’ Cat said. ‘Neither you nor anyone else has visited this Station.’
‘You weren’t around, machine.’
‘Where was I? Back Home on leave?’
‘You’d banged into a post or something and turned yourself off for a week to repair. Christ. Guys, this isn’t funny.’
Torrence didn’t hear Pols’ next few sentences. He’d felt bad when Pols had first claimed to know him, as if the ground had shaken under him. This was worse. The ground wasn’t shaking: a huge crack seemed to be opening in front of him. He still believed he hadn’t met Pols. It wasn’t something you could just forget.
But Cat had been out of action for a week. Back in the days when Torrence hadn’t been dealing with things too well. A time he couldn’t remember very clearly.
He knew that Cat was looking at him, but when the machine spoke, it was to Pols.
‘Don’t you think it likely that I would still know something about it? That Officer Torrence might possibly have thought it worth mentioning when I reactivated?’
‘Ordinarily, yes. But ordinarily I wouldn’t have expected a Sentry Officer to have been shitfaced.’
Cat saw Dave flinch.
‘One of the reasons I was so happy to find a Station in the area,’ Pols continued, ‘was that I knew that a Sentry Officer was going to have to be handy with mechanics. And he was. Of course I had to keep telling him which of the several images of things he was seeing was the one he was supposed to be repairing.’
‘It’s not true.’ Torrence said, shaking his head. ‘This just isn’t true.’
‘It’s okay, man. I never told anyone, and I never will. It’s not on your record. Hell, drunk or not, you saved my ship. And I remember getting pretty wasted myself on the last night. It was a good night, man, one of the best I had in the War. That’s why I’m here. Retrieval is a volunteer service, Dave.’
‘So,’ Cat said, ‘Officer Torrence was so much under the influence that week that not only did he neglect to mention single-handedly repairing a damaged cruiser, but also what was by all accounts the social event of the War.’
‘He didn’t neglect it, he said he wasn’t going to tell you. Seemed pretty psyched about it actually. I think you were pissing him off.’
‘That’s bullshit,’ Torrence shouted. ‘Cat is the…’
He broke off, first aware of what he was saying, and then realised it was true. ‘Cat is the best friend I’ve ever had.’
‘Woh, talk about The Lost Weekend. You weren’t going to tell your machine because it’d only rag you out. Said it was trying to take over. You knew that the machine would go bananas at the breach of security, that it’d think you’d lost your grip.’
Torrence felt his eyes pricking, and saw that his knuckles were white. He’d never said that. This had still never happened. But he knew it was the kind of thing that could have happened, the sort of thing he might have said at one time. But he hadn’t. Had he?
‘You said that only the week before the machine had told you to knock off drinking, for Christ’s sake!’
Torrence pushed himself away from the console and stumbled into the centre of the room.
Cat, with marginally less confidence, continued the defence.
‘Such a decision to not divulge information, even if it were to take place, would not work. The recreation room, the bridge, the shower cubicle, the docking module; they would have remembered you too, and they would have told me. They haven’t.’
‘They were turned off too, machine. He locked out everything except the maintenance functions. He just wanted a week where he could drink, and crash out, without having the shower coming on, without having the recreation room give him a hard time, without having fucking machines wish him good morning just because they were programmed to. Look. You want proof? I’ve got it. When I was on the ship, I left something behind.’
Torrence turned. His eyes were huge and dark.
‘What?’ Cat asked.
‘A book. A paper book. It was a novel by Ray Bradbury—The October Country. I was big into the classics back then.’
‘Even if that were true, it would have been cleared away many years ago.’
‘But not thrown away, right? It’s a closed system. Somewhere on the Station is that book. Find it.’
‘This is a very large craft. To have the Station do a full inventory of itself will take a couple of hours.’
‘So don’t let me on until you find it. I’ll
dock with the Station but stay in my ship. Tell the rec room to get looking.’
‘The recreation room is already engaged on another function,’ said Cat distantly. ‘Dave, what do you think?’
There was a long silence before Torrence answered. When he did, his voice was barely audible. It wasn’t that he had a vague memory of the event, or thought it might have happened. He simply couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t remember that it definitely hadn’t happened, and so in his heart of hearts he knew it could.
‘I think we’d better check.’
Cat patched into the console and spoke directly to the bridge, instructing it to perform an inventory of every object on the Station. ‘In the meantime,’ he added, speaking to Pols, ‘I think Officer Torrence and I should discuss this. Contact will be re-established later. Goodbye.’
He snapped the channel off. One look at Dave was enough to show that the man, who had been strong for so many years, was near the end of his tether. Thirty years was too long to leave a man in a ship, without contact, without support, without continuing proof of his importance. Far too long.
It was Torrence who broke the silence.
‘I don’t remember any of this. I know you think it must be true, but I can’t, I don’t…’
‘Dave,’ Cat said gently, ‘I don’t believe it at all.’
Torrence turned to stare at the machine, a look of childish surprise on his face. ‘Then why did you agree to an inventory?’
‘The same reason Pols suggested one. Time. I needed to talk to you. All the while we were talking, Pols’ ship was getting closer.’
‘But the inventory will take ages. By the time it’s finished his ship will be docked.’
‘If we wait that long.’
Torrence stared at the machine, struggling to keep up. Suddenly he felt old, and confused. ‘But we’ve got to wait.’
‘Tell me: how do you see the situation? Doesn’t it go something like this? Relief has arrived from Home. The War is over, and he has come to collect you. His ship fails the hull coding test, even the reduced version, after he has conveniently suggested you turn the auto-defences off. Even though all you want to do is let him on, you quite rightly become concerned.’
‘And then he proves that he’s alright.’
‘Does he, Dave?’
‘Well,’ Torrence stopped, upset. ‘I can’t remember. I’m old, Cat. I never realised. I’m old now.’
‘Yes. And you can’t remember everything. Pols knows that. Think of all the other Sentry Officers. Think of someone, like you, by himself on a Station. Think of him spending five years, ten years, doing the same things, and never talking to anyone else. Then double and triple it. Isn’t it likely that some of them started to drink too much after a while? How many of them do you think have stayed absolutely straight for thirty years?’
Torrence considered. ‘Not many, I guess. So what?’
‘So you could probably safely assume a period when the Officer’s memories aren’t what they could be. When he may have been bitter. When the advice and company of machines got on his nerves. When he might even have turned them off for a period.’
‘He knew the communication codes. He knew that you had to repair yourself that time.’
‘I doubt there are many Cats who haven’t, at one time or another. We take knocks. As for the codes…we don’t actually know how the War’s going, do we?’
Torrence paused, trying to re-order things in his mind. Once Pols had told him what he wanted to hear, a switch had flipped in his head: War Over, Good Guys in Charge.
But the only proof was Pols’ word. And if the War wasn’t over, and if Home Planet was in trouble, communications protocols could be breached, passwords stolen.
But not hull codings. They, like the Sentry Officers, had to be taken the hard way.
He’d been all too ready to take responsibility, to admit weakness. But he’d stuck it out for thirty years, so why the hell should he take Pols’ word for it?
‘Okay,’ he said finally, ‘But if Pols isn’t who he says he is, he’s taking a hell of a risk on a bluff like this inventory.’
‘Would you have let him on otherwise? However calm he stayed, whatever chapter and verse he could produce on previous hull coding errors, would you have let him on? However long he talked of Home, and of the welcome you’d receive, whatever he came up with, would you have let him on?’
Torrence didn’t have to look very far into himself to know the answer. ‘No.’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have, would I?’
‘They weren’t screwing around when they selected Sentry Officers. There’ll be some who’ve had a long battle with the bottle, and there will be many who will not be fit for much when they get back Home. But not a single one of you will risk blowing it. Not thirty years of solitary service. Not a life’s work. And so if things start getting complicated, if there’s a glitch in the plan, what will someone like Pols have to do?’
‘Make me feel I’ve lost it. That I was so out of it once I don’t even remember turning the whole ship off so I could get drunk in peace.’
‘His ship is getting closer, Dave. You have to make a decision. Once his cruiser is docked you can’t destroy it. Once he’s docked, whoever he may be, he’s as good as in. The airlock is tough, but if that’s what he’s come for he’ll get through.’
‘But until the inventory is done, I don’t know. You know what I was like. He could be telling the truth. He could be here to take us Home.’
‘Either he’s telling the truth, or he’s from The Others. I can’t tell you what to do. You’re the commanding officer. It’s your call.’
Cat floated over to the console. ‘The cruiser is an hour and twenty minutes away now. In thirty minutes he’ll be too close to use General Displacement on him safely. It’ll be down to a shoot out. At the least the Station will be badly damaged. At worst it will be taken. It has to be quick, sir.’
Torrence walked over to the window. For five minutes he stood, running over every sentence of the conversation with Pols, checking off what actually amounted to anything. In all the time he’d been on the ship, all he’d had to do was maintain. Keep things running. Perhaps some Officers had been forced to make these kinds of decisions every year, every few months. Some of the Stations were probably in ruins, or taken, through the wrong calls being made. It was very late in the day to have to make a decision like this. Very, very late. He just wanted to go Home.
Most of all he racked his brains for some hint of a memory, the ringing of however distant a bell. And in the end he forgot all of it and went on gut feeling.
Abruptly he strode over to the console and opened the communication channel. ‘Pols?’
‘Anything coming back at all?’
‘There’s nothing I’d like more than to believe you. But I have to do what I think is right. It’s my job. If you’re who you say you are, then I’m very sorry.’
He reached over and tapped a seven-figure number into the console. The dimmed auto-defence panel came alight.
Pols’ voice was no longer calm. ‘Shit, Dave…’
Two more codes.
‘Dave! Don’t fucking…Jesus!’
Torrence paused, then tapped in the final digit.
He didn’t turn to face the window. He didn’t have to.
The entire room lit up, as the Station’s defence system made the position of Pols’ craft the exact centre of a displacement reaction that rotated every molecule within half a cubic mile randomly about its axis. What had been a ship, or a man, was instantly simply chemicals. Same atoms, different bonds, like water and the Sun. Just to make sure, the ship also placed a nuclear warhead in the middle of the cloud of chemicals, and blew them still further apart. Overkill, the cocktail of war.
When the glow had faded, Torrence turned to look. Nothing was visible but the occasional sparkle of a spinning speck of debris.
The next hour and a half seemed longer to Torrence than the previous ten years. He sat without speaking on th
e sofa, watching the stars. He was either a hero, or a fucking idiot. In some ways, it was difficult to know which was worse.
Eventually Cat floated over to the console, alerted on internal channel that the bridge had completed its inventory.
Torrence stood, walked over. He felt as if he was floating. ‘Okay. What?’
The bridge came clearly over the speakers. ‘I have performed a complete inventory as requested, and compared every object on this ship with what was here before we left Home Planet.’
‘And?’ His voice was hoarse.
‘I understand you were looking for a book. The number and titles of the books on board equal the number and titles of the books we started with. There has been no increase in quantity of any other object at all. Nothing has come in. Nothing at all.’
Throat tight, eyes pricking, the man turned to his Cat.
Torrence went to bed at midnight, tired and happy. With Cat’s aid he’d reworked his maintenance schedule so as to keep everything in top condition on a shorter cycle, with particular stress on the defence systems. With a War on, you had to be vigilant.
And he’d been that, alright. Faced with the most difficult choice a man could make, he’d done okay. He’d got it right. He was still the man he’d always been. They’d been right to trust him with his mission. When Home System eventually won, as he knew they would, then up there with the Fleet Commanders, up there with the Star Generals, in his own small way, up there too would be Sentry Officer David Torrence. In the meantime the mission continued, and Torrence was confident in his ability to keep on fighting. Through his success he’d found a renewed spirit and pride which never left him.
When he was sure Torrence was asleep, Cat floated over to the bed and settled himself near the man’s feet. After a moment, very quietly, he began to emit a brisk clicking sound.
He too was content with the day’s work.
More Tomorrow: And Other Stories Page 36
