On the opposite side of the open space was the infirmary block where Danny Smith had been held until he was exiled. At the thought of the exiling event, Alfred felt an uncomfortable nagging at the back of his mind. He still couldn’t work out how or why the Node’s doctor, Caroline Smith, had left the Node with the exiles.
Before he could devote any more thought to the matter he spotted Gail Armstrong, the Node’s astronomer, descending the stairs. From the brief eye contact she’d made, he knew that she wanted to speak with him.
She made a direct approach causing the CPO guard at his side to square himself up. Alfred knew that Gail was an annoyance, but she wasn’t a physical threat. He shook his head slightly and the CPO’s stance relaxed. Without slowing down, Alfred continued his climb, leaving Gail to turn and catch up with him.
“I was hoping to talk to you about the volatile elements?”
It seemed odd to hear someone else describe the exiles in that way, but almost automatically he responded to project authority.
“Those volatile individuals were safely exiled yesterday,” he replied, “What we have to do now -”
“Er, sorry,” she looked momentarily flustered, “I meant volatiles, as in compounds and elements. I raised it at the last council meeting? The -”
“Oh, I see,” he gave a short cough, “What about it?”
“Before the observation window was blocked, the data from the lunar ring debris was hinting at the presence of nitrogen, ammonia, water -”
“I’m not an expert in these things,” Alfred waved away her explanation, “but I understand Siva was a comet?”
“Yes…” she replied, hesitantly.
“Then, don’t comets contain those type of things?” Alfred continued, “Couldn’t Siva’s impact with the Moon be responsible for these… volatiles?”
Ahead of him, descending the stairs, were Trevor Pike and Marshall Redings who appeared to be in the middle of a technical conversation. Alfred made a mental note that he’d have to study the technicalities of the Node in greater depth if he wanted to maintain control. Having Trevor on side was useful, but it was no substitute for personal knowledge.
“Evening Trevor,” he smiled as he passed.
“Alfred,” he nodded and continued with Marshall down the stairs.
Gail walked alongside again. Clearly she wasn’t going to let this go.
“What I’m saying,” she resumed, “is that the presence of volatiles is statistically sig-”
“Miss Armstrong,” he exhaled hard and halted his ascent, “whilst I understand the technical merit of astronomical study, I think we have more pressing internal matters to attend to right now.”
He saw her close her eyes briefly, almost as though she was exercising patience.
“Please, Mr. President,” she clasped her hands together, “All I’m asking is that you give consideration to deactivating the electro-tinting. Six years go by for every day in here, we could be missing something crucial… scientific details that we might depend on when the Node completes its journey.”
He could see only one way to make the current conversation stop.
“Very well,” he sighed, “I’ll give your request due consideration.”
She smiled her gratitude and departed back down the spiral stairs.
In reality, he knew he’d make no such consideration: the Node might be standing at the summit of scientific endeavour but, in here, rationality and intellect were the enemies of a compliant population.
He still had no way of knowing what other messages of dissent the exiles may have prepared. He was not about to open the only defence against unsolicited broadcasts into his domain. The electro-tinting within each window pane would remain active, indefinitely.
In the minutes that had followed the exile incident, his Civil Protection Officers had managed to round up the digital recording binoculars that people had been using. All recordings of the event had been safely deleted, but he knew that human memory was more resilient; even when exact words were long forgotten, sentiment and emotion had a habit of rearing their ugly heads. To deal with that very issue, within ten minutes of the electro-tinting being activated, he had addressed the occupants of the Node.
Drawing inspiration from the words that Cassidy Briars had spoken after she’d obscured the window, he had focussed people’s attention on the need to free themselves from the lies of the exiles.
He’d used words of personal sorrow at the passing of the great Kate Walker who had both guaranteed the Node’s safety and acted as a stable voice of the community. The general goodwill that people felt towards Kate had calmed the crowd. This had only given him greater leverage to honour her whilst simultaneously placing doubts about her character.
Through a carefully orchestrated loss of temper, he’d first drawn attention to the fact that the exiles had used Kate’s good name to desecrate the Mark IV dedication stone; a monument to the brave men and women who had died to ensure the Node’s completion. There wasn’t one person aboard who’d be comfortable with the idea of dishonouring the dead. It was an easy emotional rudder to steer them by and it also directed any excess outrage away from him.
Building on this, he’d told them that the exiles’ chiselled vandalism was a direct taunt at the Node’s peaceful ‘We grow stronger’ ethos. People always liked to think of themselves as more rational than those they considered to be outsiders, so this notion played to their intellectual vanity.
He went on to express his deep anger that the exiles had dared to use Kate’s tragic death to suggest that she was both a supporter of the Exordi Nova and a martyr to their cult; a cult that had been responsible for the death of Colonel Beck.
It had always struck him as odd that people could so confidently declare what the dead would have wanted; in his opinion the statements were typically self-pacifying and a measure of the person making the comforting statement. However, this hadn’t stopped him from using the same sentimental ammunition.
Concluding his chain of verbal manipulation, he’d expressed that Kate wouldn’t have wanted her name to be associated with the Exordi Nova’s hatred; she would have wanted her community to thrive and remain strong in the face of adversity.
If nothing else, he now thought, yesterday’s speech had bought him time to calculate his next move. He arrived at his apartment, presented his Biomag to the electronic lock, and the door clicked open. The CPO took up position outside the door in preparation for the night shift.
“Mr. President,” Scott Dexter called to him from a few yards away.
“Ah, my right-hand man!” Alfred greeted him.
Scott approached him, holding out a ring binder, “The Beck Report.”
“Excellent, thank you,” Alfred took it from him, “Any highlights?”
“I’ve summarised the main findings,” he said, “But Colonel Beck’s death seems to lead back to the exiled ringleader. It’s all in there.”
“Good work,” Alfred patted the folder, “Let me study this and then we can go over it together.”
“Is there anything else I can do?”
“Yes,” Alfred smiled, “Go home and get some rest!”
“Thank you,” Scott laughed and departed, “Good night.”
“Good night,” Alfred replied and closed the door.
Although he’d never told Scott, the main reason for offering him the personal assistant role was because of his former association with Kate Walker. As he understood it, Scott’s misinterpretation of a Biomag signature had led to the Node departing without her father. A sense of remorse had resulted in Scott accompanying her everywhere and offering her help.
It was Alfred’s hope that, in time, he could learn more about Kate’s connections aboard the Node; who she was friends with, where she went before the Biomag tracking system was active, anything that might give him a broader psychological arsenal. He also knew that if he was seen with the late Kate Walker’s ever-present shadow, it would earn him credibility and perhaps even sympa
thy.
Sitting down on the sofa, he kicked off his shoes and looked at the window. Only then did he remember that, of course, it too was slaved to the Node’s electro-tinting system; the former magnificent view of the surrounding landscape was now just an opaque white piece of glass.
The Node was always going to be a confined living space during the epoch-spanning journey and in that respect he knew that little had changed. However, the lack of external view through the main observation window would complicate matters in the long term; it would be necessary to find other social distractions for the masses.
He also knew that in the long term, he’d probably want a room with a better view.
THE ROOM
Unlike a conventional elevator which had a set distance between floors, Miles’ mental version used the journeys to acclimatise to his intended destination. He could feel that the elevator was slowing down. It seemed that he was ready for what lay ahead, despite its unknown nature.
The small, button-filled space drew to a halt and the doors opened, revealing a light grey room that was about twice the size of the elevator itself. At the centre of the room was a small, equally grey office desk supporting a bulky, cathode ray tube monitor. The keyboard in front of it appeared similarly old; each of the keys were like round-cornered sugar cubes, standing isolated from each other and proud of the blocky base. The set-up reminded him of his early ego-morph days, when this equipment was still considered cutting-edge technology.
“You’ve drawn this from my memories,” Miles stared out of the elevator.
“In part,” Fai replied, “As I explained, a traumatic event prevented you from forming a specific memory. This setting is a -”
“Reconstruction,” he frowned, “But why use an old memory?”
“Nostalgia,” she replied, “To acclimatise your mind to the idea of past events. Although the traumatic event is not from this period.”
“Fai?” Miles peered cautiously out from the elevator, “Are you inside this room?”
“Yes, but not as a physical representation.”
The monitor turned on.
Moving slowly, he left the elevator and crossed the room to sit at the desk. He couldn’t recall seeing the chair, but it felt just as uncomfortable as he remembered it. On the black screen he recalled that there always used to be a line of text asking him to enter his name.
He tapped at the keyboard’s loud keys and was about to hit enter when he spotted that the ‘logon>’ prompt and his identity actually read:
‘
“External Variable fifteen,” he suddenly recalled, “That’s me, isn’t it?”
Fai had assigned each of the crew a number so that she could interact with them; something that had only been necessary because of the life-support failure aboard the ISS. The arrival of this thought surprised him; although he was aware of the failure event, making the connection to it made him feel anxious.
He hit the enter button and the monitor’s black screen filled with a collection of video clips; the quality of the images varied depending on which camera had recorded the footage, but all the views contained Miles along with other crew members. He focussed on the first clip and it began to play of its own accord; in this environment, he realised, the means of controlling the clips’ playback was immaterial.
The clip showed a dimly lit Module Beta interior where he was having a conversation with Mike and Cathy. He now recalled their discussion of a plan to contain Valery Hill, who had manually brought herself out of hibernation.
As each new clip played, Miles’ recollection grew more cohesive; as though a jigsaw puzzle were being assembled but with no knowledge of the final picture. As the clips continued, he mentally reassembled the collection of videos and partial audio conversations between crew into a narrative of his missing memory.
He saw himself enter the airlock between I.A.3 and I.A.4, followed by Valery Hill who was holding a magnesium flare gun. Instantly, the playback stopped.
“Why did you stop it?”
“You stopped it, Miles,” she replied, “Some part of you has detected a threat and has acted to protect you. You used a broader approach when you blocked access to your entire memory branch concerning the ISS. You are doing very well.”
“You said I blocked this because of a traumatic event?”
“Yes.”
“Then, if I continue, I will see it?”
“Yes,” she replied, “but you must understand that no matter what you see, you are safe. Continue only when you are ready.”
He knew that she must be right; the fact this conversation was happening at all meant that he must still be alive. The video resumed playback and he saw the situation degrade. He heard himself talking to Fai and then Valery’s subsequent threats. He saw Valery levelling the flare gun at him, but her aim was wavering as the oxygen within the airlock was slowly depleted.
“For the good of Mankind,” he heard his own recorded words, “Assist Anna.”
As the external airlock door continued to decompress the chamber, he saw Valery fire the gun into a floating oxygen cylinder. There was a fraction of a second in which he saw both people blasted away from the source of the oxygen-rich explosion, then the video clip flashed into white.
Immediately, another clip began playback; this one apparently taken from the helmet camera of Mike’s spacesuit. A bright flash of light on the left of the screen had caused Mike to turn quickly. The aftermath of the airlock explosion was now apparent; an expanding cloud of metallic twisted fragments with Miles himself at the centre, drifting away. The viewpoint suddenly tilted and sped towards the debris; it seemed that Mike had chased after him. A few seconds later he saw Mike’s hands hauling him in on a tether, then the whole view began to slowly tumble.
The circular Ring element of the ISS rotated into view. Although the Ring was still connected to the Alpha, Beta and Gamma modules, he could see the extent of the damage. The clip reached the end of playback and stopped, leaving the final frame of the camera feed on screen: the ISS Ring broken by a jagged gap where the airlock used to be.
“Broken Ring,” he recalled yet another of the crossword clues he’d been trying to leave for himself, “Of course.”
Miles knew that the freeze-frame wasn’t showing his own point of view, but it was conceivable that his own eyes had witnessed a similar perspective; a visual fragment that his oxygen-deprived mind had tried to hold onto.
“Is this everything?”
“Yes, Miles.”
“Why did the clip end there?”
“Non-essential functions were terminated when Mike’s suit began to fail -”
“Is he OK?” he interrupted.
“Mike successfully reached axial airlock two,” she replied, “Miles, you suffered catastrophic hypothermia.”
Miles thought he now understood what had been happening over the last few minutes; she must be speaking to him while he lay unconscious. He could picture the small ISS medical bay and all manner of specialised equipment surrounding his vacuum-damaged body.
“Fai, you said it was your hope that I could be saved,” he recalled her earlier words, “I can only assume it’s been necessary to conduct some form of operation.”
“That’s right.”
“I see, but why all of this?” he gestured around the room, “Why all this interaction with me?”
“This approach was necessary to restore order,” she said, “Unresolved neurological fragmentation during the operation could have destabilised the process.”
“I’m not sure I fully understand,” said Miles, adapting to the idea of unconscious conversation, “But, when will you know if the operation has succeeded?”
“The operation was a complete success, Miles,” she said.
“Thank you,” he felt a sense of relief, “How long do you estimate it will be before I regain consciousness?”
There was a long pause before her reply. Clearly he’d made an
assumption somewhere that was incorrect.
“Miles, try to focus on what you’ve seen here,” she said, “The airlock explosion, the vacuum exposure, the level of our interactions, the fact that sometimes I’ve responded to your thoughts instead of your voice.”
He knew she was right. The neural bands within the ISS hibernation bays could only be used to monitor simple activity. Conversations with Fai should only have been possible in a very traditional sense; she should only have been capable of responding to spoken word. Apparently, there had been a change. Unsure if she could now hear his thoughts, he voiced his main concern aloud.
“You said you could save me.”
“And I have.”
He pointed to the hopeless imagery on the monitor.
“Then why is this telling a very different story?”
As soon as the words had left his mouth, he knew that he no longer needed to hear her answer. She was preparing him for bad news.
“Miles, what question should you really be asking?” she encouraged, “You have always had a keen analytical mind. Use it. Remove your assumptions.”
He didn’t know whether his former ego-morph mind was converging on the thought independently or if she was somehow guiding his evaluation, but one question emerged.
“What was the nature of the operation that saved me?” he asked.
The displays faded to black.
“Yes, Miles,” she said, “The answer to that question will be difficult for you to accept, but it will be the truth.”
There was no point delaying.
“Tell me.”
“The operation in question was a transcription,” she explained, “Your mental imprint was successfully defragmented and copied.”
It began to dawn on him. She’d been truthful about her intention to save him, the word itself simply had a different meaning for her.
“You saved me?”
“Yes, Miles,” she replied, “I saved you to a neural framework similar to my own.”
“No!” his first thought lashed out, “Wake me up!”
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