Barry Kirwan's Blog, page 6
August 25, 2015
Where it all started... Episode 6
Episode 6 - back to Micah, who is about to meet the Chorazin - fairly nasty Interpol set up to deal with international terrorism - agents Vince and Louise, one of whom is not what they seem.
And yes, Micah still lives with his mother! The opening paints a personal perspective on what people are feeling about the chance to leave Earth, until Micah sees something on the News, and the Chorazin arrive...
Episode 6Chorazin
Micah lounged on the sofa, catching up on the news with his portly mother, her brightly-dyed chestnut hair making up for a lack-lustre floral dress. An overdose of facial powder gave her a striking appearance � "she who shall not be ignored" � as he’d joked to his school-friends when younger. He sipped the soy-beer she’d poured him after they’d had another disagreement. It had started as usual about his not having a girlfriend, at his age� "There’s that lovely girl, Antonia. You used to talk about her all the time." "Don’t start, Mom."She humphed. "You’ll find a nice girl on Eden one day."He tried to change tack. "How do you feel about going there? You could maybe find�"Her scowl choked off his words. "Don’t you worry about me, I had quite enough of thatfor one lifetime, thank you very much." She kept her back to her husband’s military portrait. "Besides, I’m not going."He stared at her, as if he hadn’t really looked at her in a long time. "But, I assumed �" "You know what your father always said about that word."He sighed. Assume makes an ass out of you and me. "Besides, this Lucy Beer rocket �""Alcubierre Drive""� isn’t for the likes of me. It’s � what do they call it � payload limited? Why would they carry my old carcass that distance?"She had a knack of getting the words wrong but understanding the essentials nonetheless. Much as he hated his life, he hadn’t thought of leaving her behind. His gaze swept around their magnolia sitting room, cluttered with memorabilia of his father, the Great War hero, who’d been a complete bastard to his wife. And now she wouldn’t leave his ashes behind. "Anyway," he said, "it’ll be a long time before they start transporting people."She wagged a finger. "Long after I’m dead and buried, that’s for sure." That was below the belt, on two counts � he didn’t want to think about her dying, and she was right that it would take a very long time. The new drive couldn’t break light speed unless its payload stayed below a narrow limit, so no mass transport until someone figured it out; or else stasis for a hundred years…He clicked on the late hour news summary. Beef had hit 300 dollars a kilo, not that he could remember the last time he’d tasted real beef. There’d been a rumour of a sub gone missing near Guam, and another fire tornado in New Missouri, flattening the shanty town that had just been getting on its feet. Micah swigged a gulp of his beer, brooding."One step forwards, three back," he muttered."I don’t know why they bother!" his mother piped. "These fringe towns get nowhere. They should have built underground like we did here, before the War. The desert lands are too hot now �"He lip-synched the words as she uttered them for the umpteenth time."� baked like a cake. It’ll be centuries before anyone can live there again."He reckoned they didn’t have centuries. His mind sieved through the statistics, lies, and propaganda: half a century at most, probably less. But he didn’t say it. At least she wouldn’t be around to see how much worse it was going to get. "Things always look clearer with hindsight, Mom. We were lucky. The pre-War aerial attacks and the rising temperatures pushed the Cave Bill through. This place was almost ready to move into when War hit." He looked out the window of their subterranean two-bed flat across the cavernous Kaymar Precinct: forty other blocks thirty storeys deep, glistening bubble-bridges cross-crossing at every fifth level. Biofuel copters dodged in and out of the towers, the day-time sun-globes replaced by neon advertising strips. He couldn’t see into any of the other apartments. All windows became opaque whenever anyone wanted it that way, which was always. We were lucky, he reminded himself. Only twenty nukes hit the US during the War, low-yield thanks to the Pact of �36. Pretty awful, of course, maybe irrecoverable. But it could have � no, should have � been much, much worse, according to all the tit-for-tat predictions. The vid they’d caught earlier had interviewed some of the surviving "fire-breakers", a handful of soldiers and generals of different nations who couldn’t bring themselves to detonate the nukes when instructed to do so. Most had been executed for treason in the final days of the War, but the few who survived were later hailed as heroes. It was one of the few episodes of recent history which stopped his cynicism plummeting into freefall. He tried to lift the mood. "If the fringers can survive a year, the grass might stick, and we can start to reclaim the land. God knows we need the space." "No, no, no!" his mother countered "Rushing too soon, that’s what drove us to this �" she waved a mottled hand at the window, "� in the first place. Life got too fast. No one had any time, everyone running around, losing touch with each other and nature." He rolled his eyes. "Yes, my boy, nature. Your forefathers didn’t care about the environment. It was always about the quick buck, and the quick �""Mom!" He couldn’t abide it when she feigned to be coarse. Or maybe it was the fact that she’d had more sex in her day than he was having now. But she was in full flood."Good, hard-working people rebelled. I don’t side with them, of course," she glanced at the portrait of Micah’s father in battle dress, "but they did have a point. Humanity had lost direction. It’s not surprising these funnies �""Fundies.""Yes, well, whatever, it’s not surprising they took up arms. It was a wake-up call. And we damned well needed one!" She folded her arms in an unassailable conclusion.He sagged. To say anything now would only invite another tirade. He focused on the vid, and with a jolt he realised the reporter was speaking about the Eden Mission. His mother’s sour face suddenly beamed."Oh, Micah! Look! Do you think we’ll see you this time? Why are you never on the vids, when you do such important work?" And why do I still live with my mother if I do such important work? He tuned in to what the newscaster was saying."... A break-in at Eden Mission Control earlier tonight. We have little information but members of the Chorazin have been in and out of the building for the past two hours. No further news at this stage. The Gov-pod says that there is no impact on the Eden time-scale." Break-in? He wondered if it could be connected in some way, but it seemed far-fetched. He switched off the vid."What did you do that for? What does it mean anyway, you were there only a few hours ago, weren’t you? Did you see anything?"He turned away so she couldn’t see his face. She was a lot shrewder than she let on. He headed for the kitchenette and opened the fridge. He ignored the Molsen lites; he needed to clear his head � maybe an ultresso. He barely heard her come up behind him. "What is it?" she said quietly. "You’re not in any trouble, are you?" He turned to face her, saw the concern in her eyes. Truth was, he was tired, and the argument had worn him down even further. "I honestly don’t know, Mom." He was about to say he’d done nothing wrong, quite the opposite, when the door buzzer made him start. They both froze. She gazed up at him, and he saw how frail she was, like worn china. He knew she was wishing his father was there. He sure as hell wasn’t. "Don’t answer." she whispered. He shushed her, and headed for the door. Before he reached it, it opened. Two figures entered: a man and a woman, wearing the instantly recognisable silver-grey Chorazin uniforms, the regulation jackets cut off at the waist, lightweight and bullet-proof, a small red eagle insignia on the left breast. The man, late thirties, athletic and bald, carried a small brown sack in his hand. They didn’t appear armed, but Micah knew better. The man strode to the centre of the lounge, immediately taking control of the apartment, and its occupants. He looked Micah over, then held out his hand. Micah shook it warily. It felt like rock. "My name is Vincent. You can call me Vince. This is my associate Louise."Micah glanced in her direction, and then his eyes lingered � a hawkish blonde, hair lashed back in a tight bun. She moved around the room with the grace of a gymnast. She held a small scanning device, though he guessed she relied on her senses far more. She met his gaze briefly. His eyes dodged back to Vince. "You are Micah Sanderson, employee of the Eden Mission, working in Telemetry?"He found Vince’s ice-blue eyes disconcerting, like staring into the vertiginous blues of an ice-field. "Er, yes." Then as an afterthought, "And this is my mother." He turned to see his mother standing in the kitchenette doorway. Her face was stone. He’d not seen that expression since his father’s funeral, when an old admiral had made a muffled, snide remark about her dead husband. With alarm he noted she was clutching the bread knife. "May I sit, please? It’s been a long day," Vince said.Micah appreciated that he didn’t sit down straightaway, but actually waited for permission, so he nodded. Micah and his mother perched on the sofa, Vince on a hard-backed chair facing them, placing the small sack carefully on the floor between his feet. Louise walked over to the window, apparently uninterested in their conversation. Micah’s vision was drawn to her perfect ass in stretch pants. She glanced over her shoulder, alert, elfin eyes catching his look. Her gaze struck him like ice on his neck, but there was openness, too, daring him. The sort of woman his mother would tell him to avoid. Louise raised an eyebrow. He cleared his throat and turned back to Vince. "Er, Mom?" he said, prying the bread knife from her fingers, laying it to rest on the coffee table. Vince seemed about to say something then paused. "Is that a battle commander top you’re wearing? Looks like the original nannite-protective model." Micah had forgotten he often wore it now in the evenings when the windows were open, the massive turbo-fans blasting a chill breeze around the stalagmite-like tower blocks. It pleased his Mom, and he had to admit it was comfortable. It had been his father’s in the War. He never quite knew why he liked to wear it � somehow it was to spite his father, who when alive had never as much as let Micah touch it."You know what it’s worth, I suppose? Probably more than this apartment." Micah nodded and caught his Mom’s approving eye. He glanced at his father’s stern face in his military portrait on the wall. "Family heirloom. Non-functional of course. Otherwise I’d have it registered with the Nannite Oversight Commission." And you’d know about it already. Vince nodded. "Have you seen the vids tonight Micah? May I call you Micah?" Did anyone ever say "No" to such a question? Vince seemed like someone you could talk to, but shouldn’t. He didn’t like being on familiar terms with the Chorazin. "Yes, we just switched off. What happened? The reporters didn’t seem to know anything." Vince rested his finger-tips on the table as he leaned forward. "We were rather hoping you might be able to help us there." "Well, no idea really," he answered hesitantly. "I left several hours ago." Vince nodded." At 18:45, to be precise. Working late? You are, of course, aware of the anti-overtime laws? I believe the Eden Mission isn’t exempt." The beer had definitely been a bad idea. He wished he’d had time to fix an ultresso. But Kane had wanted to keep "it" quiet. He took a breath. "Things are pretty busy now, with less than a week till Ulysses reaches Eden. I’ll take time off later. That’s allowed." He sat back, trying to remember how to look relaxed. "Nothing out of the ordinary?" Vince said. There had been no cameras in Kane’s office. "No, nothing really." He caught his mother’s curious eyes on him. Shit, even she can see I’m lying! Louise’s voice cut in, deeper than he’d been expecting. "So you normally have after-hours meetings with Mr. Kane, the Eden Mission Project Manager?" She looked him up and down. "Seems unlikely." Micah bridled. "I did drop in to give a status report. Nothing unusual." She cocked her head and considered him for a few seconds, then returned to the other side of the room. With some difficulty he stopped eye-tracking her."And then?" Vince said. Micah felt like he was a ball in a tennis match � with hard hitters. "Then I came home. That’s all." "And he’s been here with me ever since!" Thanks Mom, that’s all I need to make me look guilty. "What’s this all about anyway? Why are you here? What do you want from me?" Vince said calmly, "We want to know who killed Mr. Kane at nine pm this evening, and why." Micah’s mouth dropped open. "What?" He tried to replay in his head what Vince had just said. He heard his mother gasp. She began wringing her hands, looking to the portrait. He tried to regain control. "Killed? But how? I was there earlier, and he was�" "Alive?" Louise offered. "What? Yes." Then it really hit him. Kane was dead. He’d just been talking with him a few hours ago. He walked unsteadily to the window, turning to face them all. "Wait a minute! You don’t think I..." He flushed. "I � I’ve been back here for ages. I mean, how did he die anyway?" Vince placed the tip of an index finger on his sternum. "Stiletto. Professional. And, lucky for you, we know you didn’t do it, for two very good reasons. First, the crime scene investigator pinned the death down at 9:02, and yes, you were here by then. The tram and bubble-cams show that. Difficult to fool so many of them." Micah needed time to think. But his head fuzzed up, and these Chorazin kept throwing him off-beam. "Second reason?" Vince opened the sack he had brought in with him and pulled out an object the size of a grapefruit, made of gleaming metal. There were a few wires visible and some kind of timing device. One of the wires had been cut. "Oh my!" his Mom exclaimed. Micah stared at it, his mouth reluctant to verbalise what his eyes recognised. "Exactly, Mrs Sanderson," Vince said. "You’re lucky we found it. We always inspect premises before entering for an interro �" he paused, "� before an interview. Happily, my associate is very thorough. She found it in the heating duct outside your apartment. It was set to go off �" he held up his wristcom "–� around about now." He tossed it back into the bag. "It would have taken out three whole floors. Alicians are also known for being thorough, though excessiveis a more appropriate word." Micah felt dizzy. He leant against the window frame. "Is it true, Vince, what they say about the Chorazin? Shoot first, question later, take no prisoners, takes a criminal to catch a terrorist. Etcetera." Louise answered. "That’s what the recruitment brochure says. That’s why I joined." Vince rapped the table twice with a finger-knuckle. "Micah, assuming you did not kill Mr Kane, we nevertheless have an interest in what you were discussing with him." Micah suddenly remembered. "Sandy!" "Excuse me?" Vince said. "Sandy, his personal assistant. What about her?" "Files show she left shortly after you did. Why?" "She was still there when I left, didn’t look like she was leaving. In fact Kane asked her to stay late." His breathing was rapid. He was trying to think. Could she have killed him? Surely not, but then� He remembered how defensive she’d been, not allowing him to disturb Kane. Was that to get him out of the way? But she didn’t seem capable of killing, and the rumours were that they were lovers. "You’re sure about this?" Vince asked. Micah nodded. Louise walked to the kitchenette, activated a sub-dermal earpiece, and began talking in coded Chorazin language. The only intelligible word Micah heard was Sandy. Vince got up in one fluid motion. "We need to know what happened between you and Kane. What did you discuss?" Micah’s mind felt like an out-of-synch vid channel. He ran through the data he had: Kane had been killed two hours after their meeting. Kane’s office was well-known for its anti-surveillance technology. No one else knew what they had discussed. That meant only one thing. Someone Kane had contacted � and trusted � had killed him. Vince’s voice took on a harsher tone. "Talk to me, Micah!" Micah needed air. He turned and opened the window, trying to decide what to say, trying to think faster than the speed at which Vince’s patience was failing. The cacophony of urban nightlife flooded in, but it actually helped. He focused. Once I tell, then it’s out, it’ll be on their internal net. Kane would have called people he trusted, Eden security. Some of those had to be Chorazin; the Eden Mission was too big to escape Chorazin surveillance from the inside. And if a Chorazin had killed him, then that person by now would have had me killed, and would have stalled Vince. Vince doesn’t seem to know anything yet. So � I should be able to trust him. Vince raised his voice. "Micah, close the window and sit down. Trust me, you’ve nowhere else to go, and I’d rather not send you to interrogation. But if you don’t talk right now, I will arrest you as a suspected accomplice."Micah turned to see his mother get to her feet. "No, you mustn’t � he’s a good boy!" Her face was white marble, ready to crack. In that instant Micah decided to tell Vince everything. But as he took a breath, he heard the shrill whine of a copter. Everything slowed down. Louise sprang towards him, arms outstretched, aiming to push him out of the way, but not in time. He felt the projectile hit him sledgehammer-hard in the back, knocking him off his feet, sending him crashing through the glass coffee table. As he sank into blackness, the last sound he heard was his mother screaming.
And yes, Micah still lives with his mother! The opening paints a personal perspective on what people are feeling about the chance to leave Earth, until Micah sees something on the News, and the Chorazin arrive...
Episode 6Chorazin
Micah lounged on the sofa, catching up on the news with his portly mother, her brightly-dyed chestnut hair making up for a lack-lustre floral dress. An overdose of facial powder gave her a striking appearance � "she who shall not be ignored" � as he’d joked to his school-friends when younger. He sipped the soy-beer she’d poured him after they’d had another disagreement. It had started as usual about his not having a girlfriend, at his age� "There’s that lovely girl, Antonia. You used to talk about her all the time." "Don’t start, Mom."She humphed. "You’ll find a nice girl on Eden one day."He tried to change tack. "How do you feel about going there? You could maybe find�"Her scowl choked off his words. "Don’t you worry about me, I had quite enough of thatfor one lifetime, thank you very much." She kept her back to her husband’s military portrait. "Besides, I’m not going."He stared at her, as if he hadn’t really looked at her in a long time. "But, I assumed �" "You know what your father always said about that word."He sighed. Assume makes an ass out of you and me. "Besides, this Lucy Beer rocket �""Alcubierre Drive""� isn’t for the likes of me. It’s � what do they call it � payload limited? Why would they carry my old carcass that distance?"She had a knack of getting the words wrong but understanding the essentials nonetheless. Much as he hated his life, he hadn’t thought of leaving her behind. His gaze swept around their magnolia sitting room, cluttered with memorabilia of his father, the Great War hero, who’d been a complete bastard to his wife. And now she wouldn’t leave his ashes behind. "Anyway," he said, "it’ll be a long time before they start transporting people."She wagged a finger. "Long after I’m dead and buried, that’s for sure." That was below the belt, on two counts � he didn’t want to think about her dying, and she was right that it would take a very long time. The new drive couldn’t break light speed unless its payload stayed below a narrow limit, so no mass transport until someone figured it out; or else stasis for a hundred years…He clicked on the late hour news summary. Beef had hit 300 dollars a kilo, not that he could remember the last time he’d tasted real beef. There’d been a rumour of a sub gone missing near Guam, and another fire tornado in New Missouri, flattening the shanty town that had just been getting on its feet. Micah swigged a gulp of his beer, brooding."One step forwards, three back," he muttered."I don’t know why they bother!" his mother piped. "These fringe towns get nowhere. They should have built underground like we did here, before the War. The desert lands are too hot now �"He lip-synched the words as she uttered them for the umpteenth time."� baked like a cake. It’ll be centuries before anyone can live there again."He reckoned they didn’t have centuries. His mind sieved through the statistics, lies, and propaganda: half a century at most, probably less. But he didn’t say it. At least she wouldn’t be around to see how much worse it was going to get. "Things always look clearer with hindsight, Mom. We were lucky. The pre-War aerial attacks and the rising temperatures pushed the Cave Bill through. This place was almost ready to move into when War hit." He looked out the window of their subterranean two-bed flat across the cavernous Kaymar Precinct: forty other blocks thirty storeys deep, glistening bubble-bridges cross-crossing at every fifth level. Biofuel copters dodged in and out of the towers, the day-time sun-globes replaced by neon advertising strips. He couldn’t see into any of the other apartments. All windows became opaque whenever anyone wanted it that way, which was always. We were lucky, he reminded himself. Only twenty nukes hit the US during the War, low-yield thanks to the Pact of �36. Pretty awful, of course, maybe irrecoverable. But it could have � no, should have � been much, much worse, according to all the tit-for-tat predictions. The vid they’d caught earlier had interviewed some of the surviving "fire-breakers", a handful of soldiers and generals of different nations who couldn’t bring themselves to detonate the nukes when instructed to do so. Most had been executed for treason in the final days of the War, but the few who survived were later hailed as heroes. It was one of the few episodes of recent history which stopped his cynicism plummeting into freefall. He tried to lift the mood. "If the fringers can survive a year, the grass might stick, and we can start to reclaim the land. God knows we need the space." "No, no, no!" his mother countered "Rushing too soon, that’s what drove us to this �" she waved a mottled hand at the window, "� in the first place. Life got too fast. No one had any time, everyone running around, losing touch with each other and nature." He rolled his eyes. "Yes, my boy, nature. Your forefathers didn’t care about the environment. It was always about the quick buck, and the quick �""Mom!" He couldn’t abide it when she feigned to be coarse. Or maybe it was the fact that she’d had more sex in her day than he was having now. But she was in full flood."Good, hard-working people rebelled. I don’t side with them, of course," she glanced at the portrait of Micah’s father in battle dress, "but they did have a point. Humanity had lost direction. It’s not surprising these funnies �""Fundies.""Yes, well, whatever, it’s not surprising they took up arms. It was a wake-up call. And we damned well needed one!" She folded her arms in an unassailable conclusion.He sagged. To say anything now would only invite another tirade. He focused on the vid, and with a jolt he realised the reporter was speaking about the Eden Mission. His mother’s sour face suddenly beamed."Oh, Micah! Look! Do you think we’ll see you this time? Why are you never on the vids, when you do such important work?" And why do I still live with my mother if I do such important work? He tuned in to what the newscaster was saying."... A break-in at Eden Mission Control earlier tonight. We have little information but members of the Chorazin have been in and out of the building for the past two hours. No further news at this stage. The Gov-pod says that there is no impact on the Eden time-scale." Break-in? He wondered if it could be connected in some way, but it seemed far-fetched. He switched off the vid."What did you do that for? What does it mean anyway, you were there only a few hours ago, weren’t you? Did you see anything?"He turned away so she couldn’t see his face. She was a lot shrewder than she let on. He headed for the kitchenette and opened the fridge. He ignored the Molsen lites; he needed to clear his head � maybe an ultresso. He barely heard her come up behind him. "What is it?" she said quietly. "You’re not in any trouble, are you?" He turned to face her, saw the concern in her eyes. Truth was, he was tired, and the argument had worn him down even further. "I honestly don’t know, Mom." He was about to say he’d done nothing wrong, quite the opposite, when the door buzzer made him start. They both froze. She gazed up at him, and he saw how frail she was, like worn china. He knew she was wishing his father was there. He sure as hell wasn’t. "Don’t answer." she whispered. He shushed her, and headed for the door. Before he reached it, it opened. Two figures entered: a man and a woman, wearing the instantly recognisable silver-grey Chorazin uniforms, the regulation jackets cut off at the waist, lightweight and bullet-proof, a small red eagle insignia on the left breast. The man, late thirties, athletic and bald, carried a small brown sack in his hand. They didn’t appear armed, but Micah knew better. The man strode to the centre of the lounge, immediately taking control of the apartment, and its occupants. He looked Micah over, then held out his hand. Micah shook it warily. It felt like rock. "My name is Vincent. You can call me Vince. This is my associate Louise."Micah glanced in her direction, and then his eyes lingered � a hawkish blonde, hair lashed back in a tight bun. She moved around the room with the grace of a gymnast. She held a small scanning device, though he guessed she relied on her senses far more. She met his gaze briefly. His eyes dodged back to Vince. "You are Micah Sanderson, employee of the Eden Mission, working in Telemetry?"He found Vince’s ice-blue eyes disconcerting, like staring into the vertiginous blues of an ice-field. "Er, yes." Then as an afterthought, "And this is my mother." He turned to see his mother standing in the kitchenette doorway. Her face was stone. He’d not seen that expression since his father’s funeral, when an old admiral had made a muffled, snide remark about her dead husband. With alarm he noted she was clutching the bread knife. "May I sit, please? It’s been a long day," Vince said.Micah appreciated that he didn’t sit down straightaway, but actually waited for permission, so he nodded. Micah and his mother perched on the sofa, Vince on a hard-backed chair facing them, placing the small sack carefully on the floor between his feet. Louise walked over to the window, apparently uninterested in their conversation. Micah’s vision was drawn to her perfect ass in stretch pants. She glanced over her shoulder, alert, elfin eyes catching his look. Her gaze struck him like ice on his neck, but there was openness, too, daring him. The sort of woman his mother would tell him to avoid. Louise raised an eyebrow. He cleared his throat and turned back to Vince. "Er, Mom?" he said, prying the bread knife from her fingers, laying it to rest on the coffee table. Vince seemed about to say something then paused. "Is that a battle commander top you’re wearing? Looks like the original nannite-protective model." Micah had forgotten he often wore it now in the evenings when the windows were open, the massive turbo-fans blasting a chill breeze around the stalagmite-like tower blocks. It pleased his Mom, and he had to admit it was comfortable. It had been his father’s in the War. He never quite knew why he liked to wear it � somehow it was to spite his father, who when alive had never as much as let Micah touch it."You know what it’s worth, I suppose? Probably more than this apartment." Micah nodded and caught his Mom’s approving eye. He glanced at his father’s stern face in his military portrait on the wall. "Family heirloom. Non-functional of course. Otherwise I’d have it registered with the Nannite Oversight Commission." And you’d know about it already. Vince nodded. "Have you seen the vids tonight Micah? May I call you Micah?" Did anyone ever say "No" to such a question? Vince seemed like someone you could talk to, but shouldn’t. He didn’t like being on familiar terms with the Chorazin. "Yes, we just switched off. What happened? The reporters didn’t seem to know anything." Vince rested his finger-tips on the table as he leaned forward. "We were rather hoping you might be able to help us there." "Well, no idea really," he answered hesitantly. "I left several hours ago." Vince nodded." At 18:45, to be precise. Working late? You are, of course, aware of the anti-overtime laws? I believe the Eden Mission isn’t exempt." The beer had definitely been a bad idea. He wished he’d had time to fix an ultresso. But Kane had wanted to keep "it" quiet. He took a breath. "Things are pretty busy now, with less than a week till Ulysses reaches Eden. I’ll take time off later. That’s allowed." He sat back, trying to remember how to look relaxed. "Nothing out of the ordinary?" Vince said. There had been no cameras in Kane’s office. "No, nothing really." He caught his mother’s curious eyes on him. Shit, even she can see I’m lying! Louise’s voice cut in, deeper than he’d been expecting. "So you normally have after-hours meetings with Mr. Kane, the Eden Mission Project Manager?" She looked him up and down. "Seems unlikely." Micah bridled. "I did drop in to give a status report. Nothing unusual." She cocked her head and considered him for a few seconds, then returned to the other side of the room. With some difficulty he stopped eye-tracking her."And then?" Vince said. Micah felt like he was a ball in a tennis match � with hard hitters. "Then I came home. That’s all." "And he’s been here with me ever since!" Thanks Mom, that’s all I need to make me look guilty. "What’s this all about anyway? Why are you here? What do you want from me?" Vince said calmly, "We want to know who killed Mr. Kane at nine pm this evening, and why." Micah’s mouth dropped open. "What?" He tried to replay in his head what Vince had just said. He heard his mother gasp. She began wringing her hands, looking to the portrait. He tried to regain control. "Killed? But how? I was there earlier, and he was�" "Alive?" Louise offered. "What? Yes." Then it really hit him. Kane was dead. He’d just been talking with him a few hours ago. He walked unsteadily to the window, turning to face them all. "Wait a minute! You don’t think I..." He flushed. "I � I’ve been back here for ages. I mean, how did he die anyway?" Vince placed the tip of an index finger on his sternum. "Stiletto. Professional. And, lucky for you, we know you didn’t do it, for two very good reasons. First, the crime scene investigator pinned the death down at 9:02, and yes, you were here by then. The tram and bubble-cams show that. Difficult to fool so many of them." Micah needed time to think. But his head fuzzed up, and these Chorazin kept throwing him off-beam. "Second reason?" Vince opened the sack he had brought in with him and pulled out an object the size of a grapefruit, made of gleaming metal. There were a few wires visible and some kind of timing device. One of the wires had been cut. "Oh my!" his Mom exclaimed. Micah stared at it, his mouth reluctant to verbalise what his eyes recognised. "Exactly, Mrs Sanderson," Vince said. "You’re lucky we found it. We always inspect premises before entering for an interro �" he paused, "� before an interview. Happily, my associate is very thorough. She found it in the heating duct outside your apartment. It was set to go off �" he held up his wristcom "–� around about now." He tossed it back into the bag. "It would have taken out three whole floors. Alicians are also known for being thorough, though excessiveis a more appropriate word." Micah felt dizzy. He leant against the window frame. "Is it true, Vince, what they say about the Chorazin? Shoot first, question later, take no prisoners, takes a criminal to catch a terrorist. Etcetera." Louise answered. "That’s what the recruitment brochure says. That’s why I joined." Vince rapped the table twice with a finger-knuckle. "Micah, assuming you did not kill Mr Kane, we nevertheless have an interest in what you were discussing with him." Micah suddenly remembered. "Sandy!" "Excuse me?" Vince said. "Sandy, his personal assistant. What about her?" "Files show she left shortly after you did. Why?" "She was still there when I left, didn’t look like she was leaving. In fact Kane asked her to stay late." His breathing was rapid. He was trying to think. Could she have killed him? Surely not, but then� He remembered how defensive she’d been, not allowing him to disturb Kane. Was that to get him out of the way? But she didn’t seem capable of killing, and the rumours were that they were lovers. "You’re sure about this?" Vince asked. Micah nodded. Louise walked to the kitchenette, activated a sub-dermal earpiece, and began talking in coded Chorazin language. The only intelligible word Micah heard was Sandy. Vince got up in one fluid motion. "We need to know what happened between you and Kane. What did you discuss?" Micah’s mind felt like an out-of-synch vid channel. He ran through the data he had: Kane had been killed two hours after their meeting. Kane’s office was well-known for its anti-surveillance technology. No one else knew what they had discussed. That meant only one thing. Someone Kane had contacted � and trusted � had killed him. Vince’s voice took on a harsher tone. "Talk to me, Micah!" Micah needed air. He turned and opened the window, trying to decide what to say, trying to think faster than the speed at which Vince’s patience was failing. The cacophony of urban nightlife flooded in, but it actually helped. He focused. Once I tell, then it’s out, it’ll be on their internal net. Kane would have called people he trusted, Eden security. Some of those had to be Chorazin; the Eden Mission was too big to escape Chorazin surveillance from the inside. And if a Chorazin had killed him, then that person by now would have had me killed, and would have stalled Vince. Vince doesn’t seem to know anything yet. So � I should be able to trust him. Vince raised his voice. "Micah, close the window and sit down. Trust me, you’ve nowhere else to go, and I’d rather not send you to interrogation. But if you don’t talk right now, I will arrest you as a suspected accomplice."Micah turned to see his mother get to her feet. "No, you mustn’t � he’s a good boy!" Her face was white marble, ready to crack. In that instant Micah decided to tell Vince everything. But as he took a breath, he heard the shrill whine of a copter. Everything slowed down. Louise sprang towards him, arms outstretched, aiming to push him out of the way, but not in time. He felt the projectile hit him sledgehammer-hard in the back, knocking him off his feet, sending him crashing through the glass coffee table. As he sank into blackness, the last sound he heard was his mother screaming.
August 24, 2015
Where it all started... Episode 5
Here's Episode 5 from , where the Ulysses crew discover they have a Ghoster on board... What's a ghoster? Well, not good news, that's for sure. The futureof terrorism, perhaps (though I hope not).
Chapter 4GhosterPierre’s wristcom twitched twice: twenty-four hours of breathable air left. He closed his eyes for a moment, squeezing the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb, the way grand-pere used to. Eighteen hours after discovering the oxygen depletion, the crew were still no nearer finding where it was going. This looked like the last day of their lives. As a scientist, dying without even knowing the cause was the worst end. He and Kat re-checked environmental systems, while Blake and Zack worked in the cockpit on ways to put them all into stasis for the remaining five days before their arrival in Eden. But even if that plan succeeded, they would wake up on an airless ship. Both tasks reeked of futility. Kat’s incessant finger-drumming on the console made it difficult for Pierre to concentrate. They’d checked all components related to atmospheric control for three hours, manually and via main and back-up computers. The onboard diagnostic wizard had drawn a blank, its only output being "insufficient data; good luck". Neither he nor Kat had said a word � not even an expletive � during the last sixty minutes. He stared at a holo of a neural-wiring cluster, unable to focus on account of Kat’s dashboard arpeggios. He strode through the holo-image and thrust his hand over her drumming fingers, flattening them. She glared, but didn’t start up again. He returned to his writhing spaghetti. She kicked something he didn’t see. "We’re too stupid to work this out, and we’re going to die." He shook his head. "We’re missing something. Either it’s defying the known physical laws of gases, or else �""Somebody’s screwing us over. Somebody’s pissing themselves laughing ninety light years away. You’re supposed to be the clever one, remember? Figure it out!" He winced. As the principal scientist onboard, everyone expected him to find the answer. It reminded him of the bad old days at home, solving problems under pressure, battling sabre-toothed enigmas unleashed by his father into the supper-time coliseum of their dining room. But he liked Kat, though he hid it � buried it, to be precise. He’d never told her, and the way things were going, he wouldn’t get the chance. He was getting nowhere. Normally, whenever he worked on a problem, whether his father’s conundrums or scientific puzzles he’d faced back at the Sorbonne, it was like a yacht’s sails catching the wind, his mind billowing like a spinnaker, the boat surging ahead with a clear direction and land in sight. This time, however, he’d been adrift in a windless ocean. He gathered himself, and picked up his air-pen. "Let’s try one more time." Kat adjusted her slouch. He wrote in liquorice-black in the ether between them, reading out each premise. "One: Oxygen is being depleted." He paused with the pen, filling in the narrative gap orally. "Normally the carbon dioxide we exhale can be re-cycled to recover the oxygen, but �" he flourished the pen again "� two: something is stripping it out; three: no condensation or ice outside; four: nosign of hull depressurisation; five, no airflow disturbance that would signify a leak." He stopped. The first line had already started to melt. He folded his arms, staring at the premises as they lost cohesion, dripping out of reality. "We’ve checked everything organic that uses oxygen, and anything inorganic that could, in theory, bond with it." He tossed the pen back onto the table, then smeared the last of the holo-words out of existence with his hand.Kat’s face softened. "I like it when you skywrite, Pierre � you should teach me sometime." Her voice snagged on the last word. She put her heels onto the chair’s edge, bringing her knees up to her chest, muttering something he didn’t quite hear. He tried not to stare at her, but her eyes caught his. He coughed."One of our assumptions is wrong," he said."Obviously � but which one? Nothing you wrote just now � something so basic we don’t see it." She folded her arms. "Killed by our collective blindness; not a great epitaph."He sat down. "How to see what you don’t see�?" He pictured his father lecturing him, striking the dinner table with the blade of his right hand with each argument he made. Right now, Pierre would welcome the childhood ritual torture as long as his father could solve this particular riddle. If only he were here. The wind caught the sails of Pierre’s mind. If only he were here…� "Of course!" His hand chopped onto the table, bouncing the pen onto the floor. He shot to his feet. "It’s been here all along, but it changed state!" "What?" He fished around in a sheaf of a dozen flimsies, found the one he was looking for. "What? Talk to me!"He stared at the figures and charts on the transparent sheet. "Merde," he whispered. He lowered it and looked at Kat, his eyes unwavering. "You’re starting to scare me, Pierre, which is pretty good going, considering."He took in every feature of her face. He’d been worrying about them dying � about her dying. But this� He walked towards her, wanting to take her hand. Instead, he touched her arm gently. "Come on." Kat followed him."You’re absolutely sure?" Blake said, just as Pierre and Kat entered the cockpit. Zack nodded once, heavily. "Sir," Pierre said, almost standing to attention, "I have a new hypothesis." His pulse raced, sure he was on the right track."So have we," Blake said, as he and Zack turned to face Pierre and Kat. "Sabotage: we’ve found evidence of a Minotaur virus planted deep in the comms software."Pierre dismissed it in a flash. "That’s not it, Sir. The comms software has no primary or even secondary functional connection with life support. The neural clusters use immunity protocols to prevent cross-functional contamination. I’ve checked them three times."Blake and Zack exchanged a quick glance, and then Blake stood up, facing Pierre. "I don’t think you’re hearing what I’m saying, so let me make it pulse-beam clear for you � we’ve found a level six labyrinthine virus in the software that links us to Earth. We haven’t been able to disable it yet � ""Is it active?""Excuse me?""The virus � has it been activated? Or is it still inert? Because if it’s not activated, it isn’t the cause."Pierre felt Blake’s eyes burn into him. Logic wasn’t always appreciated in moments of crisis, and Zack would always back up his friend. Blake spoke softly. "It would take someone very knowledgeable on software to hide such a virus � an expert scientist, perhaps."He didn’t at first grasp what Blake meant � of course it would � but then he saw the sideways look from Zack, and stepped backwards as if slapped. "Sir � no � never�" His throat dried up. It felt like the time as a boy when his father had wrongly accused him of stealing money from his mother’s purse. He almost turned to Kat, but maintained eye contact with Blake.Zack intervened. "Maybe we should hear him out, Skip."Blake’s glare slackened off. "You’re right. Sorry, Pierre � I know it’s not you � it was most probably uploaded on Zeus, in any case. And you’re right about the software, it hasn’t activated � yet � I’m just damned annoyed about it. God alone knows what it’ll do when it is triggered." Pierre noticed how tired Blake looked. "So, Pierre, why don’t you tell us yourtheory." He collected himself. "My father used to say that when you’ve ruled out everything and still have no solution, it’s because you’ve dismissed something incorrectly, something unthinkable. We’ve been looking for either a leak, or something which could strip out oxygen from the air." Blake leaned back. "You have our undivided." "The most obvious thing to strip out oxygen is one of us. That is, not exactly one of us, but� someone else."Zack slapped his thighs. "A stowaway! Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? Now you mention it, I saw someone I didn’t recognise just the other day in the kitchen making coffee �"Blake held up his hand.Pierre sped up. "The security screening for this mission has been incredibly intense, especially for any conceivable explosive, and anything which could interfere with our drive systems. Everything checked and scanned before entering the ship, and triple-checked afterwards: organics, chemicals, moving parts, everything."He paused, to hammer it home. "Nothing, aside from us was alive when we left Zeus. But something else is now."Blake’s eyes narrowed. Zack hauled himself upwards. "Now wait a goddam minute, Pierre, if you’re going where I think you’re going �""What?" Kat asked, "will somebody please tell me what he’s getting at?"Pierre watched Blake, who stayed perfectly still, tight-lipped. "I’m sorry, Sir. I know you have some personal experience �"Zack grabbed Pierre’s shoulder. "Where’s your evidence?"Pierre swallowed, trying to remain calm. He handed the flimsy to Blake. "I correlated the oxygen depletion rate with data from post-War studies. When one of them comes out of hibernation mode, the oxygen usage rate is significant. As you probably know, they process all of it; there’s no carbon dioxide afterwards for stripping.�"A Ghoster," Kat said. "That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it?"Blake glanced at Zack. "The aft compartment, the reserve food stocks, in sealed vacuum-packed crates.""Skipper �" "Did you check them, Zack? Did you break them open?""I � they’re scanned for bomb material and techware; what was in them was only organic material, cold meat� I mean nobody would have thought�" He bowed his head. Pierre glanced from Blake to Zack. Having breached land, his sails began to collapse. "You two are amongst the few to have ever survived a ghoster attack. You must know how to take one down."Blake got up and ripped the seal off the weapons locker at the back of the cockpit, grabbed a pulse pistol and checked its charge. He passed one to each of the others. Pierre felt his own fear rising. "You killed one, in Kurana Bay, though the records are vague."Kat cradled her pistol. "How many were you when you met the ghoster?""Twenty," Zack answered, priming his pistol. It emitted a low start-up hum. "A full platoon of experienced soldiers."Pierre swallowed. He was a scientist, he’d never seen any actual combat. He thought the next question, even as Kat asked it."How many of you came out?""Let’s go," Blake said, heading out, Zack right behind him.Kat fumbled with her pistol, arming it. She glanced up at Pierre. "We’re so screwed." If he’d been someone else, he’d have held her, comforted her in some way. He glanced down at his own pistol � he wasn’t much of a soldier, certainly no match for a ghoster. His brain � that was the only weapon he had that could be of any use right now. He hurried after Blake and Zack. Think, he heard his father say, smacking the dining room table, think fast!
Chapter 4GhosterPierre’s wristcom twitched twice: twenty-four hours of breathable air left. He closed his eyes for a moment, squeezing the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb, the way grand-pere used to. Eighteen hours after discovering the oxygen depletion, the crew were still no nearer finding where it was going. This looked like the last day of their lives. As a scientist, dying without even knowing the cause was the worst end. He and Kat re-checked environmental systems, while Blake and Zack worked in the cockpit on ways to put them all into stasis for the remaining five days before their arrival in Eden. But even if that plan succeeded, they would wake up on an airless ship. Both tasks reeked of futility. Kat’s incessant finger-drumming on the console made it difficult for Pierre to concentrate. They’d checked all components related to atmospheric control for three hours, manually and via main and back-up computers. The onboard diagnostic wizard had drawn a blank, its only output being "insufficient data; good luck". Neither he nor Kat had said a word � not even an expletive � during the last sixty minutes. He stared at a holo of a neural-wiring cluster, unable to focus on account of Kat’s dashboard arpeggios. He strode through the holo-image and thrust his hand over her drumming fingers, flattening them. She glared, but didn’t start up again. He returned to his writhing spaghetti. She kicked something he didn’t see. "We’re too stupid to work this out, and we’re going to die." He shook his head. "We’re missing something. Either it’s defying the known physical laws of gases, or else �""Somebody’s screwing us over. Somebody’s pissing themselves laughing ninety light years away. You’re supposed to be the clever one, remember? Figure it out!" He winced. As the principal scientist onboard, everyone expected him to find the answer. It reminded him of the bad old days at home, solving problems under pressure, battling sabre-toothed enigmas unleashed by his father into the supper-time coliseum of their dining room. But he liked Kat, though he hid it � buried it, to be precise. He’d never told her, and the way things were going, he wouldn’t get the chance. He was getting nowhere. Normally, whenever he worked on a problem, whether his father’s conundrums or scientific puzzles he’d faced back at the Sorbonne, it was like a yacht’s sails catching the wind, his mind billowing like a spinnaker, the boat surging ahead with a clear direction and land in sight. This time, however, he’d been adrift in a windless ocean. He gathered himself, and picked up his air-pen. "Let’s try one more time." Kat adjusted her slouch. He wrote in liquorice-black in the ether between them, reading out each premise. "One: Oxygen is being depleted." He paused with the pen, filling in the narrative gap orally. "Normally the carbon dioxide we exhale can be re-cycled to recover the oxygen, but �" he flourished the pen again "� two: something is stripping it out; three: no condensation or ice outside; four: nosign of hull depressurisation; five, no airflow disturbance that would signify a leak." He stopped. The first line had already started to melt. He folded his arms, staring at the premises as they lost cohesion, dripping out of reality. "We’ve checked everything organic that uses oxygen, and anything inorganic that could, in theory, bond with it." He tossed the pen back onto the table, then smeared the last of the holo-words out of existence with his hand.Kat’s face softened. "I like it when you skywrite, Pierre � you should teach me sometime." Her voice snagged on the last word. She put her heels onto the chair’s edge, bringing her knees up to her chest, muttering something he didn’t quite hear. He tried not to stare at her, but her eyes caught his. He coughed."One of our assumptions is wrong," he said."Obviously � but which one? Nothing you wrote just now � something so basic we don’t see it." She folded her arms. "Killed by our collective blindness; not a great epitaph."He sat down. "How to see what you don’t see�?" He pictured his father lecturing him, striking the dinner table with the blade of his right hand with each argument he made. Right now, Pierre would welcome the childhood ritual torture as long as his father could solve this particular riddle. If only he were here. The wind caught the sails of Pierre’s mind. If only he were here…� "Of course!" His hand chopped onto the table, bouncing the pen onto the floor. He shot to his feet. "It’s been here all along, but it changed state!" "What?" He fished around in a sheaf of a dozen flimsies, found the one he was looking for. "What? Talk to me!"He stared at the figures and charts on the transparent sheet. "Merde," he whispered. He lowered it and looked at Kat, his eyes unwavering. "You’re starting to scare me, Pierre, which is pretty good going, considering."He took in every feature of her face. He’d been worrying about them dying � about her dying. But this� He walked towards her, wanting to take her hand. Instead, he touched her arm gently. "Come on." Kat followed him."You’re absolutely sure?" Blake said, just as Pierre and Kat entered the cockpit. Zack nodded once, heavily. "Sir," Pierre said, almost standing to attention, "I have a new hypothesis." His pulse raced, sure he was on the right track."So have we," Blake said, as he and Zack turned to face Pierre and Kat. "Sabotage: we’ve found evidence of a Minotaur virus planted deep in the comms software."Pierre dismissed it in a flash. "That’s not it, Sir. The comms software has no primary or even secondary functional connection with life support. The neural clusters use immunity protocols to prevent cross-functional contamination. I’ve checked them three times."Blake and Zack exchanged a quick glance, and then Blake stood up, facing Pierre. "I don’t think you’re hearing what I’m saying, so let me make it pulse-beam clear for you � we’ve found a level six labyrinthine virus in the software that links us to Earth. We haven’t been able to disable it yet � ""Is it active?""Excuse me?""The virus � has it been activated? Or is it still inert? Because if it’s not activated, it isn’t the cause."Pierre felt Blake’s eyes burn into him. Logic wasn’t always appreciated in moments of crisis, and Zack would always back up his friend. Blake spoke softly. "It would take someone very knowledgeable on software to hide such a virus � an expert scientist, perhaps."He didn’t at first grasp what Blake meant � of course it would � but then he saw the sideways look from Zack, and stepped backwards as if slapped. "Sir � no � never�" His throat dried up. It felt like the time as a boy when his father had wrongly accused him of stealing money from his mother’s purse. He almost turned to Kat, but maintained eye contact with Blake.Zack intervened. "Maybe we should hear him out, Skip."Blake’s glare slackened off. "You’re right. Sorry, Pierre � I know it’s not you � it was most probably uploaded on Zeus, in any case. And you’re right about the software, it hasn’t activated � yet � I’m just damned annoyed about it. God alone knows what it’ll do when it is triggered." Pierre noticed how tired Blake looked. "So, Pierre, why don’t you tell us yourtheory." He collected himself. "My father used to say that when you’ve ruled out everything and still have no solution, it’s because you’ve dismissed something incorrectly, something unthinkable. We’ve been looking for either a leak, or something which could strip out oxygen from the air." Blake leaned back. "You have our undivided." "The most obvious thing to strip out oxygen is one of us. That is, not exactly one of us, but� someone else."Zack slapped his thighs. "A stowaway! Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? Now you mention it, I saw someone I didn’t recognise just the other day in the kitchen making coffee �"Blake held up his hand.Pierre sped up. "The security screening for this mission has been incredibly intense, especially for any conceivable explosive, and anything which could interfere with our drive systems. Everything checked and scanned before entering the ship, and triple-checked afterwards: organics, chemicals, moving parts, everything."He paused, to hammer it home. "Nothing, aside from us was alive when we left Zeus. But something else is now."Blake’s eyes narrowed. Zack hauled himself upwards. "Now wait a goddam minute, Pierre, if you’re going where I think you’re going �""What?" Kat asked, "will somebody please tell me what he’s getting at?"Pierre watched Blake, who stayed perfectly still, tight-lipped. "I’m sorry, Sir. I know you have some personal experience �"Zack grabbed Pierre’s shoulder. "Where’s your evidence?"Pierre swallowed, trying to remain calm. He handed the flimsy to Blake. "I correlated the oxygen depletion rate with data from post-War studies. When one of them comes out of hibernation mode, the oxygen usage rate is significant. As you probably know, they process all of it; there’s no carbon dioxide afterwards for stripping.�"A Ghoster," Kat said. "That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it?"Blake glanced at Zack. "The aft compartment, the reserve food stocks, in sealed vacuum-packed crates.""Skipper �" "Did you check them, Zack? Did you break them open?""I � they’re scanned for bomb material and techware; what was in them was only organic material, cold meat� I mean nobody would have thought�" He bowed his head. Pierre glanced from Blake to Zack. Having breached land, his sails began to collapse. "You two are amongst the few to have ever survived a ghoster attack. You must know how to take one down."Blake got up and ripped the seal off the weapons locker at the back of the cockpit, grabbed a pulse pistol and checked its charge. He passed one to each of the others. Pierre felt his own fear rising. "You killed one, in Kurana Bay, though the records are vague."Kat cradled her pistol. "How many were you when you met the ghoster?""Twenty," Zack answered, priming his pistol. It emitted a low start-up hum. "A full platoon of experienced soldiers."Pierre swallowed. He was a scientist, he’d never seen any actual combat. He thought the next question, even as Kat asked it."How many of you came out?""Let’s go," Blake said, heading out, Zack right behind him.Kat fumbled with her pistol, arming it. She glanced up at Pierre. "We’re so screwed." If he’d been someone else, he’d have held her, comforted her in some way. He glanced down at his own pistol � he wasn’t much of a soldier, certainly no match for a ghoster. His brain � that was the only weapon he had that could be of any use right now. He hurried after Blake and Zack. Think, he heard his father say, smacking the dining room table, think fast!
August 23, 2015
Where it all started - episode 4
Here's Episode 4 - chapter 3 of - where Micah is trying to work out what is going on with the Ulysses. Micah is a bit of a geek in the beginning of the book; but he's stumbled across something, and rather than bury it, he takes risks to bring it out into the open. Episodes 1-3 in previous blogs.
Chapter 3
Lighthouse
Micah paced the Telemetry Analysis Room � the tar-pit as he and Rudi called it, since they tended to get stuck there. There wasn’t much ground to pace over � the white-tiled lab was filled with dark, glass-fronted computer cupboards, almost no visible wall-space. Myriad beads of light twinkled silently as the computers sifted the Ulysses information streams from cosmic noise. Two beige metal desks with angled fluidic touch-screens flanked the lab centre-piece, the Optron: a gleaming chrome artifice marrying together a dentist’s chair and what looked like a laser cannon on an articulated boom, aimed straight toward the head-rest where Rudi’s head lay immobile. High tension cables around the Optron made the floor resemble a snake pit, reinforced by numerous skull-and-crossbones signs plastered on the main struts and solid parts of the device. This was no toy or cheap holo-sex device.
He glanced at his wristcom. Seven minutes left. Rudi was still hooked in, two titanium optrodes at his temples winking green every three seconds. His eyes were closed, but the facial muscles were taut, and the REMs behind his eyelids showed he was very much awake, simply� elsewhere.
Rudi was thirty minutes overdue. If Micah missed this slot, he’d have to wait another two weeks to check the third and final marker. He wanted to find an excuse to break into Rudi’s session, but that would arouse suspicion, especially with Rudi. He’d been aware of a change in Rudi lately � seeming to be laid back, but always observing. Recently, when Micah came out of an Optron session, he’d find Rudi sitting watching him, or double-checking Micah’s data searches, seeing where he’d been. Micah knew his father would have confronted Rudi about it. But he wasn’t his father.
He paced some more and went over the problem again. One of the markers had disappeared two weeks ago. That could easily have been a system fault, especially with something as complex and covert as a lighthouse sleeper code. But then, yesterday, he’d searched for the second hidden marker from the Ulysses� third module. It should have flashed orange in the data landscape, but it never showed up, even though he’d waited an hour. He’d hardly slept. If the third marker was gone, the key one from the cockpit, well� A double-click announced Rudi disconnecting, accompanied by a slow descending whirr as the machine wound down. Micah pretended to read a print-out.
"Oh, Mikey, hi there. Sorry man, over-shot again."
He ignored the nickname and turned with fake nonchalance to see Rudi rubbing his eyes. All Optron Readers did that, even though the optrodes hooked straight into the visual cortex, bypassing the eyes completely. But after all, the eyes carried on moving even if they weren’t actually seeing anything.
He cleared his throat. "No worries. But I should probably get started." He walked over to the recliner.
Rudi paused mid-yawn, and then gave him a sideways look. "In a hurry?" he said, with an easy smile Micah knew relaxed most people onto the treacherous slope of honesty.
"No," he lied, making sure to return the eye contact and not look away, remembering the tricks his Mom had taught him throughout the brief Occupation, during the daily random interrogations. "Just � you know � I promised Mom I’d watch an old vid with her later, and there’s still a lot to finish up here."
Rudi nodded thoughtfully, but didn’t budge. Micah waited, fighting an urge to check the time. He wondered if Rudi somehow knew about the lighthouse markers, but then dismissed it. They only showed up periodically, and Rudi hadn’t been checking Micah’s searches long enough.
Seconds drizzled away. He’d need three minutes to find the file � if he was quick.
"What’s the vid? Your Mom’s into the really old stuff, isn’t she?"
Shit! This could be a ten minute conversation. What the hell was on tonight that he could use, because Rudi might just check? Then he remembered. Perfect! "There’s one on the Asian Campaign. You know, that’s where Dad�" He stared at the floor.
"Oh. Look, sorry, man, didn’t mean to�" Rudi levered himself out of the recliner.
"Its okay," Micah said, and began climbing in.
"Wait, let me wipe it down, you know, we all sweat a little on this baby." He went over to his desk.
Micah saw the tell-tale imprint of Rudi’s back on the fake leather upholstery.
"Don’t want the Med girls getting upset, do we?" Rudi brought back a couple of strips of tissue paper and wiped the chair methodically.
Micah sneaked a glance at his wristcom when he was sure Rudi couldn’t see, even from reflections in the Optron slave screens. Four minutes. He tried to appear blasé, forcing his hands to relax.
Rudi finished rubbing it down. "There, that’s better, all yours. And say "hi" to your Mom for me, eh? And listen � sorry if I’ve been� well, you know, a bit of a jerk lately, work’s kinda getting on top." He half-smiled.
"Yeah, sure, I’ll tell her. And it’s no problem, I’m a bit tense too," he added. He slotted into the seat, slapping his optrodes to his temples, and flicked three switches. Rudi seemed in no hurry to leave, even though he’d already passed his duty hours for the day, but Micah had no time left to wait. He closed his eyes. A silky female voice whispered the automated countdown: 3 � 2 � 1� His mind surged forward out of his body, surfing over a mutant sea of dimly fluorescent data streams: writhing, multi-coloured eels of digitised information swirling amongst frothy uncertainty riptides. The entry process was like being tossed into a moonlit stormy ocean � the untrained usually threw up in the first thirty seconds. He flew toward solid "land", soaring over a still, twilight desert, and began searching. In his visual field to the left he saw the transparent aquamarine rectangle upon which key parameters glowed red.
Although the Optron was immersive, he could still sense a little of what was going on outside � if he concentrated, if he peeled his mind back. He sensed Rudi was standing there, watching the slave screen, able to see a much simpler, digital version of what Micah saw, in particular the data streams he was about to access. Too bad, a risk I’m going to have to take.
He ran a few random files first, then selected file kappa-237. The hidden marker which should have been inside was gone. He waited a few more seconds then changed to a new file. It was hard to carry on doing random tests on parameter accuracy and system health, knowing what he had just found: the Ulysses� telemetry was being corrupted in some way, which meant the astronauts could be in trouble.
It meant he could be in trouble, too: the insertion of his own health markers hadn’t been sanctioned. Ever since Prometheus and Heracles missions had failed, security at the Eden Mission had intensified. He’d have to face some questions, but hopefully any disciplinary action would be waived in the light of his evidence that someone was tampering with Ulysses data.
He hoped the Chorazin didn’t get wind of it, though; they’d like nothing more than to take over Eden Mission’s security, and wouldn’t hesitate to interrogate him to see if he was an Alician spy. The thought of the Chorazin chilled him � a necessary evil, an Interpol with unlimited powers and jurisdiction, supposedly accountable to governments, but he had his doubts. They were the logical counterpoint to the Alician global terrorist threat which had sprung up a year after the War, apparently the dark heart of the Fundie movement, religious zealots who never accepted the armistice and its tolerance pact. It was a miracle Kane had kept the Chorazin at bay this long. The thought resonated: Kane � he’s the one I have to go to.
He continued for another twenty minutes checking a further forty files, hoping it would throw Rudi off the scent. Then he turned to the rectangle on his left and focused sharply on the red square, the Exit symbol.
When he disconnected, Rudi was lounging at his desk, idly juggling a couple of data holo-cubes while staring at his desktop display. He snapped his fingers and the cubes vanished. He gestured for Micah to come over, without looking in his direction. Micah took his time � he was still groggy. A light vertigo lingered, and he had no desire to keel over.
"Hey, buddy, what’s the interest with that kappa-237 file? Third time you’ve accessed it in a month. We’re supposed to do random but comprehensive searches, not go over the same files. There are thousands to check, you know."
Micah rubbed his eyes a little longer than usual, faking drowsiness. He had to think fast. "Kappa file?" He walked over and saw the dense, time-indexed matrix of digitised records, K237 highlighted in red. His eyes grew wide; Rudi had been surreptitiously checking his access of that file over the past two months. He recalled his Aunt, who’d been in the underground during the War. She’d lied successfully for most of the occupation, pretending to be a housewife, till someone finally betrayed her. "A complete lie can be undone by counter-evidence," she’d said. "Then you are caught, like a lobster into the pot. No way out. The best lie is half-true."
"Oh, the kappa file," he said, hands massaging his temples. "I know we’re supposed to do random, but I sometimes do a re-run, in case of hysteresis-based faults, you know, ones that come and go. I just pick a file at random, check it again a few weeks later. I guess three times in a month is a bit excessive, though. Hadn’t realised, to be honest." He tried to look gullible, goofy even. It came easier than he liked.
Rudi studied him. Then he flashed one of those smiles where the lips spread wide but the corners of his eyes didn’t move. "Probably a good idea. Maybe I should try it." He tapped his nose with an index finger. "Don’t worry, I won’t tell," he whispered. He stood up, stretched his back, picked up his jacket and walked to the door. "Hey, wait a minute � Sphericon Five is on the net tonight � you’ll miss it if you watch the vid with your Mom."
Micah pulled a face, but at least this was safer territory.
"Come on, Sphericon really kick alien butt!"
He’d wanted Rudi to leave, but couldn’t let this one go. "I just don’t buy it. You do rememberFermi’s Paradox, don’t you?"
Rudi rolled his eyes and waggled a finger at Micah. "Don’t even go there."
"Okay, putting aside the fact we’ve never seen any aliens or sign of them, why is it, in all our Sci-fi vids, we’re the smartest kids on the block? And it’s always about aliens trying to plunder our resources, right?" Micah gestured to the window.
Rudi affected a yawn. "Yeah, yeah, Earth is pretty much toxic, I got it already. Well maybe their idea of resources is different from ours." He slung his jacket over his shoulder. "Whatever. The babes in S-5 are hot, Micah. Even your Mom would agree." He opened the door. "It’s your life, such as it is. As for me, Debra from Tech-Support is coming over to my place to watch it on my new holoplayer." He winked. "So long, buddy, enjoy the War vid."
Micah let out a long breath and surrendered to the chair. He kicked aside the image of Rudi and Debra locked together in a passionate embrace, and stared at the Ulysses poster, wondering what was really happening onboard. He drummed his fingers and glanced at his wristcom. Five pm. He checked the intranet and found Kane’s agenda � he was in a meeting for another twenty minutes.
Gazing through frosted windows to the milky light outside, he wondered if he should take his weekly ten minute sun-dose. Instead, he visited the washroom, splashed cool recycled water on his face, and changed into a new shirt.
* * *
He’d never been inside the Director’s office suite before: real teak, late 20th century. It fit Kane, the Ulysses Project Manager, perfectly. The one man Micah knew he could trust. But he reckoned Sandy wasn’t pleased to see anyone arrive at 5.29, one minute before the official work-day ended.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other in front of her desk, until she raised her head from her holopad, eyes kestrel-sharp. He read her mind by following her eye movements � she glanced at his temples just under the hairline where two tiny red dots marked him as an Optron Reader. She looked down his body � he’d only just tucked his shirt in, and had hastily put on a tie � from the way her nose pinched, he wished he hadn’t bothered, though it hadn’t been for her benefit. At least she couldn’t see his sneakers from where she sat. She probably thought him some low level nerd, but it didn’t matter. She glanced at his badge.
"Yes, Mr� Sanderson? May I help you?" she said, but to Micah’s ears it sounded like a barbed wire fence had just been erected in front of him � any help she offered would require drawing his blood first.
"I need to see Mr. Kane, the Director."
"I know who Mr Kane is." She let the words dissipate, and it appeared she was going to say nothing more, least of all take his request seriously.
"It’s urgent."
She sat back. "I see. And what is it about?"
Micah tried not to squirm. "I can’t say. It’s, uh, sensitive."
She propped a finger to the corner of her mouth and cocked her head to one side, raising her eyebrows. "And I don’t suppose you would have something like an appointment?" She looked to her screen, beamed back at him, and said, "Ah � no, I would know that, wouldn’t I?"
Micah frowned. He hadn’t thought it through � why would Kane see him, an analyst way down in the hierarchy? But it wasimportant; he had to break through this bureaucratic wall guarded by Kane’s assistant. He switched into analysis mode. It took only a second, his mind flickering in saccades while his eyes remained fixed on hers: highlighted hair in a bob; expensive make-up making the best of an almost-pretty face, a blemish under her right eye; taut body; professional but slightly revealing suit accentuating her assets up top and drawing the eye away from her legs for some reason; hazel eyes, alluring and open, flints of bitterness in the background. He made his assessment.
"Look, Miss Mindel. I know you probably think I’m just a nerd, but this is very important. I need to see him � please." He gestured to the double doors at the other end of her office.
"Why don’t you come back tomorrow? Better still, I’ll talk to Mr. Kane and see if he can speak to your manager later in the week, okay?" She reached for the off-switch on her console. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and leaned forward over her desk.
"No. I need to see him now." He held his ground. The air temperature between them freefell. She stood up.
"Listen very carefully," she said. "In five seconds my foot is going to activate the security button, and you’ll be in big trouble, little man, unless you’re gone." They stood, locked onto each other’s gaze, the only sound his breathing. He took a few steps back, towards the entrance. She sat down, and began shutting down her console.
Nothing to lose. He hoped to God the rumours were true. He tried his best to sound confident, worldly � like his father, dammit.
"Of course it would be in your interest for me to see him."
She didn’t look up, but paused. "Excuse me?"
"I mean, if he hears me out, he’ll need to work late. Very late."
Her face darkened. Her eyes flared, and what he’d sensed earlier came into the foreground. It wasn’t pretty. She trod hard on something, picked up a silver-handled paper knife, and skirted round the desk towards him, much faster than he’d anticipated. She stopped very close, her breathing laboured. He tried to ignore the paper knife in her right hand, level with his groin.
"Look, you little piece of shit. I don’t know who you think you are, or what you think you know, but you’d better cut this crap right now, or so help me �"
The double doors opened with a sharp click and a swish. Kane, elegantly tall with a shock of white hair, around fifty yet still exuding the strength of an ox, stood framed in the doorway, the shaded early evening sun behind him.
"What’s going on, Sandy? What does this gentleman want?" His voice was as commanding as it was reassuring.
"He was just leaving, Sir," she said, facing off Micah.
Micah knew it was now or never. The next few words counted more than anything. He turned to Kane. "Sir � Ulysses is in trouble. There’s been a security breach." He held back the rest. Nothing else could be said here.
Kane met his eyes head on. "Then why haven’t you taken it to Mr. Vernt, our Head of Security?" he asked.
Micah had no choice but to confess. "Because� because I inserted my own security check into the Ulysses� telemetry systems. It’s unofficial."
Sandy raised a disbelieving eyebrow, shook her head and walked back to her desk.
"A moment, Sandy," Kane said, holding up a hand.
She levelled the paper knife at Micah. "Sir, he said something to me, of a personal nature, so I de-activated the recorders. But now he’s confessed to a misdemeanour, probably a sackable offence. We should record it. Even if he’s right, Vernt will want to see it."
Micah looked from her to him. He was, as his aunt would have said, in the boiling pot, or at best dangling above it. At least the cameras and recorders were off. He remembered his aunt had also said that in times like these, words were just so much extra rope. He stayed quiet.
"All in good time, Sandy. First, I’d like to hear what this young man has to say. And if I have any trouble, clearly you are ready to defend me." He nodded to the paper knife, still in her right hand. She replaced the knife on the desk, and folded her arms.
"Now, please do come in, and sit down. You’d better tell me about it." He gestured to the open door into his executive suite.
"Oh, and Sandy, you’d better call my wife. I’ll be home late tonight. She should understand � it has been a while since I had to work late. And� I might need you here later on, would that be possible?"
"Of course, you know I’m always�" Her voice trailed off. "Yes, Sir. And I’ll switch the cameras back on in here."
Micah walked into Kane’s office, feeling Sandy’s eyes burrow into his back.
Kane closed the doors behind them, gesturing to an antique leather chair.
"Alright, Mr. Sanderson � Micah, isn’t it? You’d better start from the beginning. And don’t worry, there are no cameras or recorders in here."
Kane spread his hands flat across his varnished desk. "So, let me see if I’ve got it straight. Four months ago, you inserted your own covert security program into the telemetry software for Ulysses, because you’d been worried on account of the Heracles and Prometheus. I applaud your motive, even if I cannot condone your method." He cast Micah a stern look, then continued. "The program is called a lighthouse, because it only shows up periodically, meaning it’s hard for our system’s anti-virus security systems to detect and clean it. Essentially it says the telemetry hasn’t been tampered with. If the signal disappears, it means that we’re not receiving valid data. Is that a reasonable summary?"
He nodded. His faith in Kane had intensified in the past hour. In any case, he had to trust someone � he couldn’t figure this out alone.
"So," Kane continued, "we’re receiving telemetry that says everything is okay, and in fact it is not, or may not be."
"It could be used to mask something happening on the ship."
"But we don’t actually know what the real telemetry should be?"
"No, just that we’re receiving false telemetry, module four being the longest one having disguised readings."
"And the parameters affected are?"
"Environmental and visual."
Kane planted his hands on the desk to stand up. Micah followed suit.
"This is very serious. And you did the right thing to bring it to my attention. Well, it will take us a couple of days to communicate this to the Ulysses crew. I’ll need one of my people to check all this out of course. Tonight, before you and your colleague return to work tomorrow morning."
"But Sir, I could stay � "
"No, go home young man, we’ll take it from here. We’ll talk again, very soon. And say nothing, not a word, to anyone, understood?" He nodded to Micah and to the doors.
Micah hesitated at first � he’d imagined himself being involved in the investigation, playing a key part. But Kane’s statesman-like smile continued to indicate the way out. Micah got up and walked to the double doors, Kane following him, as they swung open automatically. They shook hands in full view of Sandy. Micah nodded briefly to Kane, threw a sideways glance at Sandy, whose eyes were glued to her screen, and made a quick exit.
* * *
Kane waited until Micah was gone, then walked over and handed a piece of paper to his assistant.
"Please call these people for a conference at nine o’clock this evening in my office, and get Vernt on the vidphone right away." He headed back to his office and closed the doors.
She made the calls. When she saw the line between Kane and Vernt disconnect, she transferred all incoming lines to the answering system, switched off the surveillance cameras, and input her leaving time into the system as 19:00.
She opened her drawer and inspected her reflection in the small mirror inside. She sighed. She’d looked far better � and worse. She rose, adjusted her skirt, made sure the lace stocking top covered the fencing scar on her right thigh, undid another button on her blouse, went over to the entrance door and locked it. She walked to Kane’s suite, knocked gently three times, and then entered, closing the doors behind her.
* * *
Micah took one of the tubes heading below ground to the Bubble station. He thought about his dead father and the psych assessment. You see? I can act when required. My way � not yours.
But as he sardined his way home amongst other commuters, his thoughts turned to the mechanics of telemetry manipulation. It had to be someone inside the Eden Mission. His first thought was Rudi, but he didn’t fit the profile � he had everything he wanted, and was too laid-back to get involved in espionage. Drawing a blank, he switched to thinking about Ulysses. The false telemetry was environmental and visual. Something was happening to their environment. He wondered if they were aware of it. He shivered, despite the balmy temperature.
As he crossed one of the myriad pedestrian bridges in underground Sylmar, he felt his neck prickling. He spun around, sure someone was behind him in the shadows, watching him. It wasn’t that late, and usually there were more people around, but not tonight. The lights were dim, and all he saw was a stray cat; but the cat was looking in the same direction as Micah, towards a closed street booth that sold coffee and snacks in the daytime. Micah waited half a minute to see if anyone emerged. No one did. He carried on, quickening his pace till he arrived at his door. Some distance behind him, a cat shrieked as if in pain. He had the prickling feeling again, but didn’t turn around. He fumbled with the lock, slipped inside his apartment, and double-locked the door.
Chapter 3
Lighthouse
Micah paced the Telemetry Analysis Room � the tar-pit as he and Rudi called it, since they tended to get stuck there. There wasn’t much ground to pace over � the white-tiled lab was filled with dark, glass-fronted computer cupboards, almost no visible wall-space. Myriad beads of light twinkled silently as the computers sifted the Ulysses information streams from cosmic noise. Two beige metal desks with angled fluidic touch-screens flanked the lab centre-piece, the Optron: a gleaming chrome artifice marrying together a dentist’s chair and what looked like a laser cannon on an articulated boom, aimed straight toward the head-rest where Rudi’s head lay immobile. High tension cables around the Optron made the floor resemble a snake pit, reinforced by numerous skull-and-crossbones signs plastered on the main struts and solid parts of the device. This was no toy or cheap holo-sex device.
He glanced at his wristcom. Seven minutes left. Rudi was still hooked in, two titanium optrodes at his temples winking green every three seconds. His eyes were closed, but the facial muscles were taut, and the REMs behind his eyelids showed he was very much awake, simply� elsewhere.
Rudi was thirty minutes overdue. If Micah missed this slot, he’d have to wait another two weeks to check the third and final marker. He wanted to find an excuse to break into Rudi’s session, but that would arouse suspicion, especially with Rudi. He’d been aware of a change in Rudi lately � seeming to be laid back, but always observing. Recently, when Micah came out of an Optron session, he’d find Rudi sitting watching him, or double-checking Micah’s data searches, seeing where he’d been. Micah knew his father would have confronted Rudi about it. But he wasn’t his father.
He paced some more and went over the problem again. One of the markers had disappeared two weeks ago. That could easily have been a system fault, especially with something as complex and covert as a lighthouse sleeper code. But then, yesterday, he’d searched for the second hidden marker from the Ulysses� third module. It should have flashed orange in the data landscape, but it never showed up, even though he’d waited an hour. He’d hardly slept. If the third marker was gone, the key one from the cockpit, well� A double-click announced Rudi disconnecting, accompanied by a slow descending whirr as the machine wound down. Micah pretended to read a print-out.
"Oh, Mikey, hi there. Sorry man, over-shot again."
He ignored the nickname and turned with fake nonchalance to see Rudi rubbing his eyes. All Optron Readers did that, even though the optrodes hooked straight into the visual cortex, bypassing the eyes completely. But after all, the eyes carried on moving even if they weren’t actually seeing anything.
He cleared his throat. "No worries. But I should probably get started." He walked over to the recliner.
Rudi paused mid-yawn, and then gave him a sideways look. "In a hurry?" he said, with an easy smile Micah knew relaxed most people onto the treacherous slope of honesty.
"No," he lied, making sure to return the eye contact and not look away, remembering the tricks his Mom had taught him throughout the brief Occupation, during the daily random interrogations. "Just � you know � I promised Mom I’d watch an old vid with her later, and there’s still a lot to finish up here."
Rudi nodded thoughtfully, but didn’t budge. Micah waited, fighting an urge to check the time. He wondered if Rudi somehow knew about the lighthouse markers, but then dismissed it. They only showed up periodically, and Rudi hadn’t been checking Micah’s searches long enough.
Seconds drizzled away. He’d need three minutes to find the file � if he was quick.
"What’s the vid? Your Mom’s into the really old stuff, isn’t she?"
Shit! This could be a ten minute conversation. What the hell was on tonight that he could use, because Rudi might just check? Then he remembered. Perfect! "There’s one on the Asian Campaign. You know, that’s where Dad�" He stared at the floor.
"Oh. Look, sorry, man, didn’t mean to�" Rudi levered himself out of the recliner.
"Its okay," Micah said, and began climbing in.
"Wait, let me wipe it down, you know, we all sweat a little on this baby." He went over to his desk.
Micah saw the tell-tale imprint of Rudi’s back on the fake leather upholstery.
"Don’t want the Med girls getting upset, do we?" Rudi brought back a couple of strips of tissue paper and wiped the chair methodically.
Micah sneaked a glance at his wristcom when he was sure Rudi couldn’t see, even from reflections in the Optron slave screens. Four minutes. He tried to appear blasé, forcing his hands to relax.
Rudi finished rubbing it down. "There, that’s better, all yours. And say "hi" to your Mom for me, eh? And listen � sorry if I’ve been� well, you know, a bit of a jerk lately, work’s kinda getting on top." He half-smiled.
"Yeah, sure, I’ll tell her. And it’s no problem, I’m a bit tense too," he added. He slotted into the seat, slapping his optrodes to his temples, and flicked three switches. Rudi seemed in no hurry to leave, even though he’d already passed his duty hours for the day, but Micah had no time left to wait. He closed his eyes. A silky female voice whispered the automated countdown: 3 � 2 � 1� His mind surged forward out of his body, surfing over a mutant sea of dimly fluorescent data streams: writhing, multi-coloured eels of digitised information swirling amongst frothy uncertainty riptides. The entry process was like being tossed into a moonlit stormy ocean � the untrained usually threw up in the first thirty seconds. He flew toward solid "land", soaring over a still, twilight desert, and began searching. In his visual field to the left he saw the transparent aquamarine rectangle upon which key parameters glowed red.
Although the Optron was immersive, he could still sense a little of what was going on outside � if he concentrated, if he peeled his mind back. He sensed Rudi was standing there, watching the slave screen, able to see a much simpler, digital version of what Micah saw, in particular the data streams he was about to access. Too bad, a risk I’m going to have to take.
He ran a few random files first, then selected file kappa-237. The hidden marker which should have been inside was gone. He waited a few more seconds then changed to a new file. It was hard to carry on doing random tests on parameter accuracy and system health, knowing what he had just found: the Ulysses� telemetry was being corrupted in some way, which meant the astronauts could be in trouble.
It meant he could be in trouble, too: the insertion of his own health markers hadn’t been sanctioned. Ever since Prometheus and Heracles missions had failed, security at the Eden Mission had intensified. He’d have to face some questions, but hopefully any disciplinary action would be waived in the light of his evidence that someone was tampering with Ulysses data.
He hoped the Chorazin didn’t get wind of it, though; they’d like nothing more than to take over Eden Mission’s security, and wouldn’t hesitate to interrogate him to see if he was an Alician spy. The thought of the Chorazin chilled him � a necessary evil, an Interpol with unlimited powers and jurisdiction, supposedly accountable to governments, but he had his doubts. They were the logical counterpoint to the Alician global terrorist threat which had sprung up a year after the War, apparently the dark heart of the Fundie movement, religious zealots who never accepted the armistice and its tolerance pact. It was a miracle Kane had kept the Chorazin at bay this long. The thought resonated: Kane � he’s the one I have to go to.
He continued for another twenty minutes checking a further forty files, hoping it would throw Rudi off the scent. Then he turned to the rectangle on his left and focused sharply on the red square, the Exit symbol.
When he disconnected, Rudi was lounging at his desk, idly juggling a couple of data holo-cubes while staring at his desktop display. He snapped his fingers and the cubes vanished. He gestured for Micah to come over, without looking in his direction. Micah took his time � he was still groggy. A light vertigo lingered, and he had no desire to keel over.
"Hey, buddy, what’s the interest with that kappa-237 file? Third time you’ve accessed it in a month. We’re supposed to do random but comprehensive searches, not go over the same files. There are thousands to check, you know."
Micah rubbed his eyes a little longer than usual, faking drowsiness. He had to think fast. "Kappa file?" He walked over and saw the dense, time-indexed matrix of digitised records, K237 highlighted in red. His eyes grew wide; Rudi had been surreptitiously checking his access of that file over the past two months. He recalled his Aunt, who’d been in the underground during the War. She’d lied successfully for most of the occupation, pretending to be a housewife, till someone finally betrayed her. "A complete lie can be undone by counter-evidence," she’d said. "Then you are caught, like a lobster into the pot. No way out. The best lie is half-true."
"Oh, the kappa file," he said, hands massaging his temples. "I know we’re supposed to do random, but I sometimes do a re-run, in case of hysteresis-based faults, you know, ones that come and go. I just pick a file at random, check it again a few weeks later. I guess three times in a month is a bit excessive, though. Hadn’t realised, to be honest." He tried to look gullible, goofy even. It came easier than he liked.
Rudi studied him. Then he flashed one of those smiles where the lips spread wide but the corners of his eyes didn’t move. "Probably a good idea. Maybe I should try it." He tapped his nose with an index finger. "Don’t worry, I won’t tell," he whispered. He stood up, stretched his back, picked up his jacket and walked to the door. "Hey, wait a minute � Sphericon Five is on the net tonight � you’ll miss it if you watch the vid with your Mom."
Micah pulled a face, but at least this was safer territory.
"Come on, Sphericon really kick alien butt!"
He’d wanted Rudi to leave, but couldn’t let this one go. "I just don’t buy it. You do rememberFermi’s Paradox, don’t you?"
Rudi rolled his eyes and waggled a finger at Micah. "Don’t even go there."
"Okay, putting aside the fact we’ve never seen any aliens or sign of them, why is it, in all our Sci-fi vids, we’re the smartest kids on the block? And it’s always about aliens trying to plunder our resources, right?" Micah gestured to the window.
Rudi affected a yawn. "Yeah, yeah, Earth is pretty much toxic, I got it already. Well maybe their idea of resources is different from ours." He slung his jacket over his shoulder. "Whatever. The babes in S-5 are hot, Micah. Even your Mom would agree." He opened the door. "It’s your life, such as it is. As for me, Debra from Tech-Support is coming over to my place to watch it on my new holoplayer." He winked. "So long, buddy, enjoy the War vid."
Micah let out a long breath and surrendered to the chair. He kicked aside the image of Rudi and Debra locked together in a passionate embrace, and stared at the Ulysses poster, wondering what was really happening onboard. He drummed his fingers and glanced at his wristcom. Five pm. He checked the intranet and found Kane’s agenda � he was in a meeting for another twenty minutes.
Gazing through frosted windows to the milky light outside, he wondered if he should take his weekly ten minute sun-dose. Instead, he visited the washroom, splashed cool recycled water on his face, and changed into a new shirt.
* * *
He’d never been inside the Director’s office suite before: real teak, late 20th century. It fit Kane, the Ulysses Project Manager, perfectly. The one man Micah knew he could trust. But he reckoned Sandy wasn’t pleased to see anyone arrive at 5.29, one minute before the official work-day ended.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other in front of her desk, until she raised her head from her holopad, eyes kestrel-sharp. He read her mind by following her eye movements � she glanced at his temples just under the hairline where two tiny red dots marked him as an Optron Reader. She looked down his body � he’d only just tucked his shirt in, and had hastily put on a tie � from the way her nose pinched, he wished he hadn’t bothered, though it hadn’t been for her benefit. At least she couldn’t see his sneakers from where she sat. She probably thought him some low level nerd, but it didn’t matter. She glanced at his badge.
"Yes, Mr� Sanderson? May I help you?" she said, but to Micah’s ears it sounded like a barbed wire fence had just been erected in front of him � any help she offered would require drawing his blood first.
"I need to see Mr. Kane, the Director."
"I know who Mr Kane is." She let the words dissipate, and it appeared she was going to say nothing more, least of all take his request seriously.
"It’s urgent."
She sat back. "I see. And what is it about?"
Micah tried not to squirm. "I can’t say. It’s, uh, sensitive."
She propped a finger to the corner of her mouth and cocked her head to one side, raising her eyebrows. "And I don’t suppose you would have something like an appointment?" She looked to her screen, beamed back at him, and said, "Ah � no, I would know that, wouldn’t I?"
Micah frowned. He hadn’t thought it through � why would Kane see him, an analyst way down in the hierarchy? But it wasimportant; he had to break through this bureaucratic wall guarded by Kane’s assistant. He switched into analysis mode. It took only a second, his mind flickering in saccades while his eyes remained fixed on hers: highlighted hair in a bob; expensive make-up making the best of an almost-pretty face, a blemish under her right eye; taut body; professional but slightly revealing suit accentuating her assets up top and drawing the eye away from her legs for some reason; hazel eyes, alluring and open, flints of bitterness in the background. He made his assessment.
"Look, Miss Mindel. I know you probably think I’m just a nerd, but this is very important. I need to see him � please." He gestured to the double doors at the other end of her office.
"Why don’t you come back tomorrow? Better still, I’ll talk to Mr. Kane and see if he can speak to your manager later in the week, okay?" She reached for the off-switch on her console. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and leaned forward over her desk.
"No. I need to see him now." He held his ground. The air temperature between them freefell. She stood up.
"Listen very carefully," she said. "In five seconds my foot is going to activate the security button, and you’ll be in big trouble, little man, unless you’re gone." They stood, locked onto each other’s gaze, the only sound his breathing. He took a few steps back, towards the entrance. She sat down, and began shutting down her console.
Nothing to lose. He hoped to God the rumours were true. He tried his best to sound confident, worldly � like his father, dammit.
"Of course it would be in your interest for me to see him."
She didn’t look up, but paused. "Excuse me?"
"I mean, if he hears me out, he’ll need to work late. Very late."
Her face darkened. Her eyes flared, and what he’d sensed earlier came into the foreground. It wasn’t pretty. She trod hard on something, picked up a silver-handled paper knife, and skirted round the desk towards him, much faster than he’d anticipated. She stopped very close, her breathing laboured. He tried to ignore the paper knife in her right hand, level with his groin.
"Look, you little piece of shit. I don’t know who you think you are, or what you think you know, but you’d better cut this crap right now, or so help me �"
The double doors opened with a sharp click and a swish. Kane, elegantly tall with a shock of white hair, around fifty yet still exuding the strength of an ox, stood framed in the doorway, the shaded early evening sun behind him.
"What’s going on, Sandy? What does this gentleman want?" His voice was as commanding as it was reassuring.
"He was just leaving, Sir," she said, facing off Micah.
Micah knew it was now or never. The next few words counted more than anything. He turned to Kane. "Sir � Ulysses is in trouble. There’s been a security breach." He held back the rest. Nothing else could be said here.
Kane met his eyes head on. "Then why haven’t you taken it to Mr. Vernt, our Head of Security?" he asked.
Micah had no choice but to confess. "Because� because I inserted my own security check into the Ulysses� telemetry systems. It’s unofficial."
Sandy raised a disbelieving eyebrow, shook her head and walked back to her desk.
"A moment, Sandy," Kane said, holding up a hand.
She levelled the paper knife at Micah. "Sir, he said something to me, of a personal nature, so I de-activated the recorders. But now he’s confessed to a misdemeanour, probably a sackable offence. We should record it. Even if he’s right, Vernt will want to see it."
Micah looked from her to him. He was, as his aunt would have said, in the boiling pot, or at best dangling above it. At least the cameras and recorders were off. He remembered his aunt had also said that in times like these, words were just so much extra rope. He stayed quiet.
"All in good time, Sandy. First, I’d like to hear what this young man has to say. And if I have any trouble, clearly you are ready to defend me." He nodded to the paper knife, still in her right hand. She replaced the knife on the desk, and folded her arms.
"Now, please do come in, and sit down. You’d better tell me about it." He gestured to the open door into his executive suite.
"Oh, and Sandy, you’d better call my wife. I’ll be home late tonight. She should understand � it has been a while since I had to work late. And� I might need you here later on, would that be possible?"
"Of course, you know I’m always�" Her voice trailed off. "Yes, Sir. And I’ll switch the cameras back on in here."
Micah walked into Kane’s office, feeling Sandy’s eyes burrow into his back.
Kane closed the doors behind them, gesturing to an antique leather chair.
"Alright, Mr. Sanderson � Micah, isn’t it? You’d better start from the beginning. And don’t worry, there are no cameras or recorders in here."
Kane spread his hands flat across his varnished desk. "So, let me see if I’ve got it straight. Four months ago, you inserted your own covert security program into the telemetry software for Ulysses, because you’d been worried on account of the Heracles and Prometheus. I applaud your motive, even if I cannot condone your method." He cast Micah a stern look, then continued. "The program is called a lighthouse, because it only shows up periodically, meaning it’s hard for our system’s anti-virus security systems to detect and clean it. Essentially it says the telemetry hasn’t been tampered with. If the signal disappears, it means that we’re not receiving valid data. Is that a reasonable summary?"
He nodded. His faith in Kane had intensified in the past hour. In any case, he had to trust someone � he couldn’t figure this out alone.
"So," Kane continued, "we’re receiving telemetry that says everything is okay, and in fact it is not, or may not be."
"It could be used to mask something happening on the ship."
"But we don’t actually know what the real telemetry should be?"
"No, just that we’re receiving false telemetry, module four being the longest one having disguised readings."
"And the parameters affected are?"
"Environmental and visual."
Kane planted his hands on the desk to stand up. Micah followed suit.
"This is very serious. And you did the right thing to bring it to my attention. Well, it will take us a couple of days to communicate this to the Ulysses crew. I’ll need one of my people to check all this out of course. Tonight, before you and your colleague return to work tomorrow morning."
"But Sir, I could stay � "
"No, go home young man, we’ll take it from here. We’ll talk again, very soon. And say nothing, not a word, to anyone, understood?" He nodded to Micah and to the doors.
Micah hesitated at first � he’d imagined himself being involved in the investigation, playing a key part. But Kane’s statesman-like smile continued to indicate the way out. Micah got up and walked to the double doors, Kane following him, as they swung open automatically. They shook hands in full view of Sandy. Micah nodded briefly to Kane, threw a sideways glance at Sandy, whose eyes were glued to her screen, and made a quick exit.
* * *
Kane waited until Micah was gone, then walked over and handed a piece of paper to his assistant.
"Please call these people for a conference at nine o’clock this evening in my office, and get Vernt on the vidphone right away." He headed back to his office and closed the doors.
She made the calls. When she saw the line between Kane and Vernt disconnect, she transferred all incoming lines to the answering system, switched off the surveillance cameras, and input her leaving time into the system as 19:00.
She opened her drawer and inspected her reflection in the small mirror inside. She sighed. She’d looked far better � and worse. She rose, adjusted her skirt, made sure the lace stocking top covered the fencing scar on her right thigh, undid another button on her blouse, went over to the entrance door and locked it. She walked to Kane’s suite, knocked gently three times, and then entered, closing the doors behind her.
* * *
Micah took one of the tubes heading below ground to the Bubble station. He thought about his dead father and the psych assessment. You see? I can act when required. My way � not yours.
But as he sardined his way home amongst other commuters, his thoughts turned to the mechanics of telemetry manipulation. It had to be someone inside the Eden Mission. His first thought was Rudi, but he didn’t fit the profile � he had everything he wanted, and was too laid-back to get involved in espionage. Drawing a blank, he switched to thinking about Ulysses. The false telemetry was environmental and visual. Something was happening to their environment. He wondered if they were aware of it. He shivered, despite the balmy temperature.
As he crossed one of the myriad pedestrian bridges in underground Sylmar, he felt his neck prickling. He spun around, sure someone was behind him in the shadows, watching him. It wasn’t that late, and usually there were more people around, but not tonight. The lights were dim, and all he saw was a stray cat; but the cat was looking in the same direction as Micah, towards a closed street booth that sold coffee and snacks in the daytime. Micah waited half a minute to see if anyone emerged. No one did. He carried on, quickening his pace till he arrived at his door. Some distance behind him, a cat shrieked as if in pain. He had the prickling feeling again, but didn’t turn around. He fumbled with the lock, slipped inside his apartment, and double-locked the door.
August 22, 2015
Where it all started - episode 3
Here's the third instalment, which takes place on the Ulysses spaceship, humanity's third attempt to reach Eden (the first two didn't come back). It starts with a nightmare. Well, maybe it's a nightmare...
Chapter 2
Ulysses
Kat heard the footfalls pounding behind her, getting louder, closing. She sprinted towards the Lander, cropped black hair glistening with sweat, muscular arms punching through the gritty breeze. Her slate-grey eyes remained locked onto the desert terrain five meters ahead, like she’d learned in the Falklands. She dared not look back, partly because she might trip, but more because she would freeze if she saw it bearing down on her. Two hundred meters. The open hatch promised sanctuary. Zack � be there!
She ran full throttle, clutching her helmet in her right hand. She’d seen the scalpel-sharp claws: one slash and she was history. She flung the helmet over her right shoulder, and counted. One � Two –…� She winced at the crunching noise. As if it was egg-shell, not carbo-titanium, for God’s sake! How far behind?She couldn’t work it out. It didn’t matter; the hatch was barely a hundred and fifty meters away. She raced, ignoring the muscle-lock cramping her lungs, the strain in her thighs begging her to slow down. Go to hell!
Pumping her arms harder, she drew in a breath, and vaulted a table-height rock, grazing her left knee and almost losing footing as she landed hard on the other side, arms flailing to maintain balance. As she got back into her stride, the ground shook as the creature hit the deck behind her without missing a beat. Her legs finally got the message � she increased her speed.
* * *
"Now would be good, Pierre," Zack bellowed. He watched Kat’s mouth twitch, her thin lips pull back in fear, eyes darting wildly beneath pale eye-lids. His instinct was to place one of his stocky black hands on Kat’s shoulder to comfort her, or else shake her to bring her out of it, but he stopped short � they’d agreed not to wake her. Pierre strode in as fast as the synth-grav would allow, deftly manoeuvring between the stasis cots in the cramped second compartment, pianist-length fingers meshed in a tangle of short black hair even a crew-cut couldn’t subdue.
"About time," Zack said.
Pierre primed a contact syringe, and in one smooth movement flicked it switchblade-style towards the side of Kat’s neck. There was a hiss, like a sharp intake of breath. A wash of deep red crawled across her face then vanished.
"Will it calm her down?" Zack frowned at her normally smooth, fine-featured face, now crumpled like a piece of paper, slick with sweat.
"No, but she’ll realise she’s in a dream. If she remembers, she can control it."
Zack looked down at their youngest crew member. Yeah, if she ain’t too shit-scared. Her chest rose and fell with increasing speed. "Her vitals okay?"
Pierre tapped the holopad next to the cot � several red spikes radiated outward, but none pierced the edge of the surrounding green hexagon. "Tolerable. In the dream she’s running, so her lungs work faster."
Zack chewed his lower lip. The nightmare was coming more regularly the closer they got to Eden, and Kat reckoned it wasn’t a normal dream, always exactly the same. So they’d decided to try a lucid dreaming technique, injecting a stim during the nightmare, so she could maybe control it, and recall what was chasing her.
Pierre gazed into the mid-distance as he discarded the syringe. "Do we run because we’re afraid, or are we afraid because we run?" He said it as if reciting, a hint of his Parisian accent lingering.
Zack sighed, wondering for the hundredth time why Pierre wasn’t back in MIT, surrounded by his best friends � equations and a muon-scope. "Spare me the psy-crap, Pierre." He glared at him. They both knew why she was running.
"I have to go. I’m finishing some tests. There’s a strange variance �"
"Whatever." Zack gave him a sideways look. "I thought you liked Kat?"
Pierre hung there for a moment, fish-mouthed, then spun on his heel, and retreated to the cockpit.
Zack re-focused his attention on Kat, planted himself on a mag-stool, and leant back against the graphite-grey inner hull. "Take it from me, kid, sometimes it’s okay to run. You run as fast as you damned well can."
* * *
Kat felt a pricking on the side of her neck, like an insect bite. Her cheeks and scalp burned. It was the signal she’d rehearsed, so she knew she was in the nightmare again � the same one she’d had every night for the past week � injected with the stim as planned. But it didn’t help � just because she knew she was in a nightmare didn’t mean she wasn’t terrified. Yet she needed to see the creature, to bring back details that would be flushed away as always, moments after waking. She knew what she had to do to control the dream: hold her hand up in front of her face and see her palm. That was all.
Even as she began to raise her right arm, a bone-shaking roar erupted from the creature. Her ears shrivelled in pain. The wake of the primal howl hit the back of her head. Though she didn’t think it possible, she increased her pace one final time, as if her transition from mortal fear to pure panic allowed one last gear-shift. But it was right behind her. She wasn’t going to make it. She tried to believe it was just a dream, telling herself: Look around! See it before you wake up! But she couldn’t � she imagined its claws raising, ready to strike.
For the first time she noticed that although she was in a desert, the light was a ghostly green, like an old radar screen. Why? No time to figure it out. Zack was at the hatch, beckoning wildly with one hand, levelling the shoulder-mounted cannon with the other. She tried one last time to turn to see the creature, but her neck refused. "Get down!" she heard Zack shout, just as the creature swiped her feet from under her, and she fell, flying through the air like a high diver in slow motion, before sprawling downwards, crashing through the desert floor into blackness.
Kat sat up sharply and hit the rubber pad above her cot with her head. "Shit! Every –� bloody � time!" She collapsed back, breathing hard. She drove her fingers through wet, matted hair, and laid her forearm over closed eyes, waiting for the tremors to subside. She was safe, back on the Ulysses. Not that she’d left it in the past three months since they’d departed Zeus Orbital. She breathed out slowly to bring her pulse under control, and tried to recall. What had been chasing her? What had been so important, aside from the obvious � to escape? She couldn’t remember. Vague, receding thoughts uttered muffled cries through a thick fog in her mind � something about colour � something was green. But what? And why did it matter? By the time the mist had dissipated there was nothing but the distant low grumble of Ulysses� engines, cushioned by the susurration of the aircon, with its attendant hospital-like smell. The nightmare, along with all its secrets, was gone, as usual. Her shoulder and neck muscles unwrapped, and she let out a long sigh. She wanted to sleep more, but not at the risk of nightmaring again. She heard the scrape of a mag-stool and left her forearm in place. "You babysitting me again, Zack?"
"Good thing we placed that rubber mat there, else you’d have head-butted a hole in the hull by now."
Kat nudged her forearm upwards just enough to reveal Zachariah Katain, his large, oval black face grinning downwards, framed by wire-mesh eyebrows and a gleaming bald pate. His jaw stuck out, as if permanently mocking life. His eye-lids were a different story � they always seemed to be a fraction closed � alert, as if targeting something. She’d met other vet attack-pilots who’d had that same perpetual hunter look, like they couldn’t switch it off any more. It reminded her that although Zack appeared to be a regular, jovial wife-and-two-kids guy � because he was � he also had that killer instinct just underneath the surface.
He beamed. "Been dreaming about me again, babe?"
The banter was part of their routine. It helped. "Course. But you know it’s not that kind of dream. Your weapon wasbigger this time, though."
He belly-laughed, mock-punching her shoulder with his fist, then grew more serious. "Well?"
Kat replaced her forearm blindfold. The dream had gone again, sunk back through the crevices in her outer cortex to the inaccessible, squishy middle regions of the brain.
"Don’t worry, kid. Next time."
She heard him pad back out to the cockpit. She decided to rest a while longer; still had an hour off duty, not that there was anywhere to go, or anything to do, as far as leisure was concerned. A day in the life of an astronaut. An image of her four-poster bed back in New Oxford flickered seductively, but she rinsed it from her mind. No point. She’d made her choice.
She closed her eyes, determined not to sleep.
* * *
Zack ducked his head as he entered the cockpit the Ulysses� chief designer had once explained to him was "compact". He squeezed past his Captain and their Science Officer � Blake and Pierre as they’d become after three months of sardine-can intimacy. Busy, as usual. Both working separately � ditto. Pierre was in virtual again, immersed by his visor in data slipstream analysis, oblivious to his surroundings.
From the back of his pilot’s chair Zack caught his reflection and sighed. He’d have traded his cobalt one-piece uniform for his old flying jacket any day of the week. The one consolation was the golden-winged image of Daedalus � the wiser father of Icarus, now employed as the Eden Mission logo adorning the crew’s chests. The crests glinted in the cockpit spots, especially Blake’s, since he polished his every morning.
Zack plumped himself into his servo-chair at the front of the cockpit, to the left of Blake and in front of Kat’s empty comms station. Three men and a girl in a tin can. But then he’d seen the early Mercury and Apollo craft, the Endeavour, and even the Mars Intrepid � those guys would have wept over such luxurious real estate. He fingered the two multimode joysticks that made him one with the ship, and felt his mood lighten. He couldn’t manoeuvre with the warp online, but once they decelerated� He could barely wait.
He stared out at the black velvet of deep space, punctuated by random pinpricks of ice-cold light sliding towards him with a glacial grace. Constellations that’d been his friends since childhood were gone. A girlfriend had said one night, a lifetime ago, that as long as you can see the stars and their patterns, the Big Dipper and Orion, you’re never lost, you’ll always find your way home. Zack’s substantial bulk, maintained despite space rations, shuddered.
He glanced across to Blake, his Captain and vet War buddy for fifteen years, studying a small-scale hologram of ship integrity. It showed the cockpit near the front end of the fifty metre long Ulysses, resembling a hornet’s body, its four sections and two back-up conical ion engines and dark waste exhausts at the rear. Zack frowned. The energy exchanges going on in the back of the fourth compartment were measured in yottawatts, off the imaginable scale. Only Pierre really understood it, but even he’d admitted that if the engineers had got it wrong, they’d be dead in a picosecond. Zack thought of the crew of the Heracles, lost with all hands. He’d known each of them personally.
The harsh red flicker from the Ulysses holo reflected off Blake’s rusty hair and chiselled features, lighting up the bow-shaped scar above his right eye from hand-to-hand combat in Thailand, and the pockmarks on his left cheek from the gassing at Geronimo Station. Blake had lost a lot of men in the War, but always got the job done.
"Seventh nightmare in the past week," Blake said, in his Texan drawl. He didn’t look up from his display.
"Yep," Zack replied. It was starting to affect morale, his own, at any rate; superstition and ill omens made lousy companions on long, confined trips. Seafarers had known it for millennia. Space was like the sea, just infinitely less forgiving.
Blake swivelled his chair to face him. "Anything new?"
Zack understood the implied question: was it like that screwed-up mission ten years ago, where one of their marines kept having nightmares for two full weeks beforehand? He shook his head. Blake resumed his work.
Zack toggled the forward screen control and with a flick of a finger, a single star changed to red � Kantoka Minor, Eden’s star, dead ahead. One more week, he mused; one more week before setting foot on another planet.
Before seeing if Kat’s nightmares have any substance.
He kicked back in his pilot’s chair and pondered: neither the robot-based Prometheus nor manned Heracles missions had returned. Prometheus had arrived three years ago on Eden, but stopped transmitting after an hour. A year later, the manned Heracles had exploded, just five days before arrival, the list of possible explanations long and wild. Still, as they approached the nebula where Heracles disappeared, he was getting edgy, spending more time in the cockpit than was good for his spine; they all were. He glanced at his holopic of Sonja and the kids, smiling and waving, tucked into his console. He tried to smile back.
Kat slipped into the cockpit, furtive as usual, as if she’d just stolen something.
"Anything exciting happening?" she ventured.
Pierre stowed his visor and responded. "I’m afraid so. I’ve been checking and re-checking for the past hour. There’s no mistake. We’re losing oxygen."
Blake collapsed the holo. Kat halted mid-step.
Zack reached base first. "You’re kidding, right? I mean, you have no sense of humour, Pierre, but this time?"
Blake interrupted. "Data."
Pierre handed Blake a holopad. "There’s a consistent one per cent oxygen depletion rate per hour. I don’t know where it’s going. Not outside, otherwise there’d be transient ice micro-crystal formation on the outer hull, inside the warp shell, even at this velocity. The air purifiers are working well, unless the sensors are malfunctioning. But I don’t think so."
Zack joined in. "Why the hell not? This wouldn’t be our first sensor glitch."
Pierre continued to stare at Blake, as if the Captain had asked the question. "I looked at the increased rate of carbon dioxide build-up in the recyclers, and also the growing power usage of all three independent gas exchange systems, and I used Kat’s breathing rate while asleep � before the onset of her nightmare � as a baseline. The covariance is undisputable."
Smart, Zack had to agree. He and Blake hunched over the pad to check the calcs, but Zack had no doubt � Pierre was never wrong when it came to facts and figures. After the second check, he sat back. He’d wanted something to relieve the monotony, but not this. The data stated flatly they were losing oxygen, but there was nowhere for it to go. It didn’t make sense, but unless they worked it out�
Kat piped up. "Well, if it’s only one per cent� I mean there’s a whole planet-full of oxygen on Eden, and we’ll be there in a week." She looked to Blake.
Blake handed back the pad. "We’ll be dead in two days." He turned to Pierre. "You sent this to EMC?"
"No, Sir � I wanted to be sure. I’d assumed it was an anomaly of some sort � calibration drift of the sensors, for example � but I confirmed it in the past hour. Then I ran some simulations to consider ways of conserving oxygen, but none of them will be sufficient."
Zack shook his head � Pierre ought to have informed Blake from the start. He just never did get military protocol, never understood the chain of command.
"Very well," Blake said, "this is how it’s going to be. Kat, you check those purifiers by hand, just in case it’s a local sensor problem. Zack, you work with Pierre to see how we can either increase oxygen output or cut down usage. Zack, I’m looking for some of your usual unorthodox suggestions." He stood. "Answers in two hours, people. I’ll handle Comms and send the transmission � the turnaround time for messages sent back to Earth at this distance is currently two days, so I don’t have to tell you we can’t count on solutions from home. I’m hoping we can find the cause before then. So, let’s � "
Pierre butted in. "Captain, there’s one more�" he paused, the end of his sentence wilting under Blake’s glare.
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Well, Sir. Whatever this is, I don’t think it’s a normal abnormality, if you understand me. What I mean is that we have seventh generation redundant and diverse systems here, and the engineers took account of all credible, and to be frank, some highly improbable independent and common mode failures. So� it’s just� this could be sabotage � something done to the ship before we left."
Zack scowled. It had been the number one Heracles theory, and for good reason. Despite Earth being on the brink of environmental collapse, the terrorist group known as the Alicians � anti-tech and anti-Eden � argued the War had been a sign for mankind to work out its problems on Earth, and return to a simpler life-style. Not content with rhetoric, they’d assassinated the original Ulysses crew during a training flight.
Zack’s security background extrapolated Pierre’s proposition to the next level � what if one of the crew was involved? He buried the idea, knowing it was a shallow grave he’d have to return to later.
"That’s why Zack’s going to be working with you," Blake said. "You may be the best science officer there is, Pierre, but Zack can smell a rat at fifty parsecs. So let’s get to it, our air’s burning."
Zack stole another glance at the holopic of his smiling family, taken the day he’d left. He’d looked at it hundreds of times before, but now, for the first time, he sensed the look of worry behind his wife’s sunny smile. He thought about the crew of the Heracles � is this what happened to them? Sabotage? But this was different. No explosion this time � just a painful, slow asphyxiation.
He shifted over to share Pierre’s console. There, the Frenchman opened up all his holo-data portals so they could inspect them together. Zack spotted a digital countdown of oxygen depletion rate in the corner of the screen: Time till irrevocable loss of consciousness: 42 hours, fifteen minutes, thirty-six seconds. He ran a sweaty finger around his collar.
And then the irony hit him � for the first time he hoped Kat’s nightmares of being hunted by a creature on Eden were true. Not that he believed them for a moment, but at least that way they’d die on their feet and have an enemy to fight, rather than arriving on Eden as canned corpses.
Chapter 2
Ulysses
Kat heard the footfalls pounding behind her, getting louder, closing. She sprinted towards the Lander, cropped black hair glistening with sweat, muscular arms punching through the gritty breeze. Her slate-grey eyes remained locked onto the desert terrain five meters ahead, like she’d learned in the Falklands. She dared not look back, partly because she might trip, but more because she would freeze if she saw it bearing down on her. Two hundred meters. The open hatch promised sanctuary. Zack � be there!
She ran full throttle, clutching her helmet in her right hand. She’d seen the scalpel-sharp claws: one slash and she was history. She flung the helmet over her right shoulder, and counted. One � Two –…� She winced at the crunching noise. As if it was egg-shell, not carbo-titanium, for God’s sake! How far behind?She couldn’t work it out. It didn’t matter; the hatch was barely a hundred and fifty meters away. She raced, ignoring the muscle-lock cramping her lungs, the strain in her thighs begging her to slow down. Go to hell!
Pumping her arms harder, she drew in a breath, and vaulted a table-height rock, grazing her left knee and almost losing footing as she landed hard on the other side, arms flailing to maintain balance. As she got back into her stride, the ground shook as the creature hit the deck behind her without missing a beat. Her legs finally got the message � she increased her speed.
* * *
"Now would be good, Pierre," Zack bellowed. He watched Kat’s mouth twitch, her thin lips pull back in fear, eyes darting wildly beneath pale eye-lids. His instinct was to place one of his stocky black hands on Kat’s shoulder to comfort her, or else shake her to bring her out of it, but he stopped short � they’d agreed not to wake her. Pierre strode in as fast as the synth-grav would allow, deftly manoeuvring between the stasis cots in the cramped second compartment, pianist-length fingers meshed in a tangle of short black hair even a crew-cut couldn’t subdue.
"About time," Zack said.
Pierre primed a contact syringe, and in one smooth movement flicked it switchblade-style towards the side of Kat’s neck. There was a hiss, like a sharp intake of breath. A wash of deep red crawled across her face then vanished.
"Will it calm her down?" Zack frowned at her normally smooth, fine-featured face, now crumpled like a piece of paper, slick with sweat.
"No, but she’ll realise she’s in a dream. If she remembers, she can control it."
Zack looked down at their youngest crew member. Yeah, if she ain’t too shit-scared. Her chest rose and fell with increasing speed. "Her vitals okay?"
Pierre tapped the holopad next to the cot � several red spikes radiated outward, but none pierced the edge of the surrounding green hexagon. "Tolerable. In the dream she’s running, so her lungs work faster."
Zack chewed his lower lip. The nightmare was coming more regularly the closer they got to Eden, and Kat reckoned it wasn’t a normal dream, always exactly the same. So they’d decided to try a lucid dreaming technique, injecting a stim during the nightmare, so she could maybe control it, and recall what was chasing her.
Pierre gazed into the mid-distance as he discarded the syringe. "Do we run because we’re afraid, or are we afraid because we run?" He said it as if reciting, a hint of his Parisian accent lingering.
Zack sighed, wondering for the hundredth time why Pierre wasn’t back in MIT, surrounded by his best friends � equations and a muon-scope. "Spare me the psy-crap, Pierre." He glared at him. They both knew why she was running.
"I have to go. I’m finishing some tests. There’s a strange variance �"
"Whatever." Zack gave him a sideways look. "I thought you liked Kat?"
Pierre hung there for a moment, fish-mouthed, then spun on his heel, and retreated to the cockpit.
Zack re-focused his attention on Kat, planted himself on a mag-stool, and leant back against the graphite-grey inner hull. "Take it from me, kid, sometimes it’s okay to run. You run as fast as you damned well can."
* * *
Kat felt a pricking on the side of her neck, like an insect bite. Her cheeks and scalp burned. It was the signal she’d rehearsed, so she knew she was in the nightmare again � the same one she’d had every night for the past week � injected with the stim as planned. But it didn’t help � just because she knew she was in a nightmare didn’t mean she wasn’t terrified. Yet she needed to see the creature, to bring back details that would be flushed away as always, moments after waking. She knew what she had to do to control the dream: hold her hand up in front of her face and see her palm. That was all.
Even as she began to raise her right arm, a bone-shaking roar erupted from the creature. Her ears shrivelled in pain. The wake of the primal howl hit the back of her head. Though she didn’t think it possible, she increased her pace one final time, as if her transition from mortal fear to pure panic allowed one last gear-shift. But it was right behind her. She wasn’t going to make it. She tried to believe it was just a dream, telling herself: Look around! See it before you wake up! But she couldn’t � she imagined its claws raising, ready to strike.
For the first time she noticed that although she was in a desert, the light was a ghostly green, like an old radar screen. Why? No time to figure it out. Zack was at the hatch, beckoning wildly with one hand, levelling the shoulder-mounted cannon with the other. She tried one last time to turn to see the creature, but her neck refused. "Get down!" she heard Zack shout, just as the creature swiped her feet from under her, and she fell, flying through the air like a high diver in slow motion, before sprawling downwards, crashing through the desert floor into blackness.
Kat sat up sharply and hit the rubber pad above her cot with her head. "Shit! Every –� bloody � time!" She collapsed back, breathing hard. She drove her fingers through wet, matted hair, and laid her forearm over closed eyes, waiting for the tremors to subside. She was safe, back on the Ulysses. Not that she’d left it in the past three months since they’d departed Zeus Orbital. She breathed out slowly to bring her pulse under control, and tried to recall. What had been chasing her? What had been so important, aside from the obvious � to escape? She couldn’t remember. Vague, receding thoughts uttered muffled cries through a thick fog in her mind � something about colour � something was green. But what? And why did it matter? By the time the mist had dissipated there was nothing but the distant low grumble of Ulysses� engines, cushioned by the susurration of the aircon, with its attendant hospital-like smell. The nightmare, along with all its secrets, was gone, as usual. Her shoulder and neck muscles unwrapped, and she let out a long sigh. She wanted to sleep more, but not at the risk of nightmaring again. She heard the scrape of a mag-stool and left her forearm in place. "You babysitting me again, Zack?"
"Good thing we placed that rubber mat there, else you’d have head-butted a hole in the hull by now."
Kat nudged her forearm upwards just enough to reveal Zachariah Katain, his large, oval black face grinning downwards, framed by wire-mesh eyebrows and a gleaming bald pate. His jaw stuck out, as if permanently mocking life. His eye-lids were a different story � they always seemed to be a fraction closed � alert, as if targeting something. She’d met other vet attack-pilots who’d had that same perpetual hunter look, like they couldn’t switch it off any more. It reminded her that although Zack appeared to be a regular, jovial wife-and-two-kids guy � because he was � he also had that killer instinct just underneath the surface.
He beamed. "Been dreaming about me again, babe?"
The banter was part of their routine. It helped. "Course. But you know it’s not that kind of dream. Your weapon wasbigger this time, though."
He belly-laughed, mock-punching her shoulder with his fist, then grew more serious. "Well?"
Kat replaced her forearm blindfold. The dream had gone again, sunk back through the crevices in her outer cortex to the inaccessible, squishy middle regions of the brain.
"Don’t worry, kid. Next time."
She heard him pad back out to the cockpit. She decided to rest a while longer; still had an hour off duty, not that there was anywhere to go, or anything to do, as far as leisure was concerned. A day in the life of an astronaut. An image of her four-poster bed back in New Oxford flickered seductively, but she rinsed it from her mind. No point. She’d made her choice.
She closed her eyes, determined not to sleep.
* * *
Zack ducked his head as he entered the cockpit the Ulysses� chief designer had once explained to him was "compact". He squeezed past his Captain and their Science Officer � Blake and Pierre as they’d become after three months of sardine-can intimacy. Busy, as usual. Both working separately � ditto. Pierre was in virtual again, immersed by his visor in data slipstream analysis, oblivious to his surroundings.
From the back of his pilot’s chair Zack caught his reflection and sighed. He’d have traded his cobalt one-piece uniform for his old flying jacket any day of the week. The one consolation was the golden-winged image of Daedalus � the wiser father of Icarus, now employed as the Eden Mission logo adorning the crew’s chests. The crests glinted in the cockpit spots, especially Blake’s, since he polished his every morning.
Zack plumped himself into his servo-chair at the front of the cockpit, to the left of Blake and in front of Kat’s empty comms station. Three men and a girl in a tin can. But then he’d seen the early Mercury and Apollo craft, the Endeavour, and even the Mars Intrepid � those guys would have wept over such luxurious real estate. He fingered the two multimode joysticks that made him one with the ship, and felt his mood lighten. He couldn’t manoeuvre with the warp online, but once they decelerated� He could barely wait.
He stared out at the black velvet of deep space, punctuated by random pinpricks of ice-cold light sliding towards him with a glacial grace. Constellations that’d been his friends since childhood were gone. A girlfriend had said one night, a lifetime ago, that as long as you can see the stars and their patterns, the Big Dipper and Orion, you’re never lost, you’ll always find your way home. Zack’s substantial bulk, maintained despite space rations, shuddered.
He glanced across to Blake, his Captain and vet War buddy for fifteen years, studying a small-scale hologram of ship integrity. It showed the cockpit near the front end of the fifty metre long Ulysses, resembling a hornet’s body, its four sections and two back-up conical ion engines and dark waste exhausts at the rear. Zack frowned. The energy exchanges going on in the back of the fourth compartment were measured in yottawatts, off the imaginable scale. Only Pierre really understood it, but even he’d admitted that if the engineers had got it wrong, they’d be dead in a picosecond. Zack thought of the crew of the Heracles, lost with all hands. He’d known each of them personally.
The harsh red flicker from the Ulysses holo reflected off Blake’s rusty hair and chiselled features, lighting up the bow-shaped scar above his right eye from hand-to-hand combat in Thailand, and the pockmarks on his left cheek from the gassing at Geronimo Station. Blake had lost a lot of men in the War, but always got the job done.
"Seventh nightmare in the past week," Blake said, in his Texan drawl. He didn’t look up from his display.
"Yep," Zack replied. It was starting to affect morale, his own, at any rate; superstition and ill omens made lousy companions on long, confined trips. Seafarers had known it for millennia. Space was like the sea, just infinitely less forgiving.
Blake swivelled his chair to face him. "Anything new?"
Zack understood the implied question: was it like that screwed-up mission ten years ago, where one of their marines kept having nightmares for two full weeks beforehand? He shook his head. Blake resumed his work.
Zack toggled the forward screen control and with a flick of a finger, a single star changed to red � Kantoka Minor, Eden’s star, dead ahead. One more week, he mused; one more week before setting foot on another planet.
Before seeing if Kat’s nightmares have any substance.
He kicked back in his pilot’s chair and pondered: neither the robot-based Prometheus nor manned Heracles missions had returned. Prometheus had arrived three years ago on Eden, but stopped transmitting after an hour. A year later, the manned Heracles had exploded, just five days before arrival, the list of possible explanations long and wild. Still, as they approached the nebula where Heracles disappeared, he was getting edgy, spending more time in the cockpit than was good for his spine; they all were. He glanced at his holopic of Sonja and the kids, smiling and waving, tucked into his console. He tried to smile back.
Kat slipped into the cockpit, furtive as usual, as if she’d just stolen something.
"Anything exciting happening?" she ventured.
Pierre stowed his visor and responded. "I’m afraid so. I’ve been checking and re-checking for the past hour. There’s no mistake. We’re losing oxygen."
Blake collapsed the holo. Kat halted mid-step.
Zack reached base first. "You’re kidding, right? I mean, you have no sense of humour, Pierre, but this time?"
Blake interrupted. "Data."
Pierre handed Blake a holopad. "There’s a consistent one per cent oxygen depletion rate per hour. I don’t know where it’s going. Not outside, otherwise there’d be transient ice micro-crystal formation on the outer hull, inside the warp shell, even at this velocity. The air purifiers are working well, unless the sensors are malfunctioning. But I don’t think so."
Zack joined in. "Why the hell not? This wouldn’t be our first sensor glitch."
Pierre continued to stare at Blake, as if the Captain had asked the question. "I looked at the increased rate of carbon dioxide build-up in the recyclers, and also the growing power usage of all three independent gas exchange systems, and I used Kat’s breathing rate while asleep � before the onset of her nightmare � as a baseline. The covariance is undisputable."
Smart, Zack had to agree. He and Blake hunched over the pad to check the calcs, but Zack had no doubt � Pierre was never wrong when it came to facts and figures. After the second check, he sat back. He’d wanted something to relieve the monotony, but not this. The data stated flatly they were losing oxygen, but there was nowhere for it to go. It didn’t make sense, but unless they worked it out�
Kat piped up. "Well, if it’s only one per cent� I mean there’s a whole planet-full of oxygen on Eden, and we’ll be there in a week." She looked to Blake.
Blake handed back the pad. "We’ll be dead in two days." He turned to Pierre. "You sent this to EMC?"
"No, Sir � I wanted to be sure. I’d assumed it was an anomaly of some sort � calibration drift of the sensors, for example � but I confirmed it in the past hour. Then I ran some simulations to consider ways of conserving oxygen, but none of them will be sufficient."
Zack shook his head � Pierre ought to have informed Blake from the start. He just never did get military protocol, never understood the chain of command.
"Very well," Blake said, "this is how it’s going to be. Kat, you check those purifiers by hand, just in case it’s a local sensor problem. Zack, you work with Pierre to see how we can either increase oxygen output or cut down usage. Zack, I’m looking for some of your usual unorthodox suggestions." He stood. "Answers in two hours, people. I’ll handle Comms and send the transmission � the turnaround time for messages sent back to Earth at this distance is currently two days, so I don’t have to tell you we can’t count on solutions from home. I’m hoping we can find the cause before then. So, let’s � "
Pierre butted in. "Captain, there’s one more�" he paused, the end of his sentence wilting under Blake’s glare.
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Well, Sir. Whatever this is, I don’t think it’s a normal abnormality, if you understand me. What I mean is that we have seventh generation redundant and diverse systems here, and the engineers took account of all credible, and to be frank, some highly improbable independent and common mode failures. So� it’s just� this could be sabotage � something done to the ship before we left."
Zack scowled. It had been the number one Heracles theory, and for good reason. Despite Earth being on the brink of environmental collapse, the terrorist group known as the Alicians � anti-tech and anti-Eden � argued the War had been a sign for mankind to work out its problems on Earth, and return to a simpler life-style. Not content with rhetoric, they’d assassinated the original Ulysses crew during a training flight.
Zack’s security background extrapolated Pierre’s proposition to the next level � what if one of the crew was involved? He buried the idea, knowing it was a shallow grave he’d have to return to later.
"That’s why Zack’s going to be working with you," Blake said. "You may be the best science officer there is, Pierre, but Zack can smell a rat at fifty parsecs. So let’s get to it, our air’s burning."
Zack stole another glance at the holopic of his smiling family, taken the day he’d left. He’d looked at it hundreds of times before, but now, for the first time, he sensed the look of worry behind his wife’s sunny smile. He thought about the crew of the Heracles � is this what happened to them? Sabotage? But this was different. No explosion this time � just a painful, slow asphyxiation.
He shifted over to share Pierre’s console. There, the Frenchman opened up all his holo-data portals so they could inspect them together. Zack spotted a digital countdown of oxygen depletion rate in the corner of the screen: Time till irrevocable loss of consciousness: 42 hours, fifteen minutes, thirty-six seconds. He ran a sweaty finger around his collar.
And then the irony hit him � for the first time he hoped Kat’s nightmares of being hunted by a creature on Eden were true. Not that he believed them for a moment, but at least that way they’d die on their feet and have an enemy to fight, rather than arriving on Eden as canned corpses.
August 21, 2015
Where it all started - episode 2
Continuing aserialisation of , here's the second part (the first part is the blog immediately before this one), including a glimpse at what will happen on Earth over the next forty years...
EpisodeTwo Assassin
In the darkening holorium, the last murmurings of the audience died away as all attention fell on the iridescent holographic net descending around them � as if it was snowing diamonds. A fanfare of brass horns and an explosion of eye-wrenching white erupted throughout the room. The audience flinched and squinted, before the light condensed into stars racing away from a central glowing hub. Holophonic tricks whirled and sustained a spiralling crescendo of strained violins. People gasped as they fell through space, away from the centre of the galaxy, coasting along a spiral arm towards a yellow star and a small, blue-green ball. As the image slowed and the tones merged into a softer cadence, a deep, stone-calm voice spoke.
"Earth. A jewel. A gift from heaven. Our home for millions of years."
The audience broke through the atmosphere, surfing cirrus strands until Everest reared up beneath them. They dived through a sea of clouds, speared over verdant Himalayan valleys, picking up speed. Streaking over the Indian sub-continent, they dodged the outstretched arms of the Mumbai Tower, the tallest building in the world, in the shape of the goddess Kali. They swept across a sparkling aquamarine Indian Ocean, soared over the Serengeti plains of Africa, disturbing hordes of wildebeest, and looped Kilimanjaro. The audience accelerated, skimming across the steel-grey Atlantic. Breathless, they breached the shores of North America, zipped over a subliminal patchwork of maize and soybean, slalomed through the Grand Canyon, then slewed upwards, punching through the cloud layer back into space.
Micah watched dignitaries clutch the arms of their seats during this roller-coaster ride. Good opening. He sat back in the Media lab to listen to his script’s perfectly synthesised voice, designed using the latest emo-ware.
"This amazing world, this incredible resource, here for all mankind." The evangelical tone made even the hard-nosed magnates listen. "And then�" The holorium contrast grew stark, then grainy, as the green-blue globe changed colour. Swirling amethyst clouds bubbled forth across the Earth’s face, acid on flesh, leaving in their wake a rusty swathe raking across half the globe. Pock-marks appeared on the surfaces of North America, Europe and Asia, visible from space. Though this vision of what had happened to Earth was not new, the impact was palpable. Members of the audience bit their lips, nostrils flared, one or two of the women dabbed their eyes, and several men clenched fists. Micah tapped coded entries into the audience reaction slate, while many shook their heads with exasperation, and more than a few inspected their feet. Some here aren’t without guilt.
The audience relived the relentless degradation of their planet, in fast-frame.
"How did we get here?" the voice asked, as the audience segued through pages of Pre-War history, images of humanity’s progress and prowess leading up to the War.
Proud of this part, Micah zoomed in to see Antonia’s reaction. Her eyes widened at the grand vistas of the exploration of Mars with its unexplained crystal caverns, and the underwater Arctic oilfield-cities of the first half of the century. Her lower lip trembled when the legendary African Conglomerate doctors from the medical "Golden Age" stood before her, brandishing their Nobel Prizes in one hand, and the vaccines for malaria, AIDS and CoR16A in the other. Her eyes steeled as she witnessed the First Generation robot soldiers quelling the Turkmenistan rebel invasion, paving the way for robot peacekeepers across the world, ushering in short-lived hopes for an end to war. He zoomed out; it was about to get rough.
The vidcom buzzed, catching him unawares. He hastily took his feet off the table, then relaxed as he realised the message was audio-only.
"Sampson?" The voice was sharp and clipped, the caller’s register blank.
"Sanderson. My name is � "
"Okay, okay, Sanderson. Security here, so pay attention. We need you to check something. Just before the show started, we did a head count. Should have been 208, but for a moment we had 209. With the show running it’s hard for us to see anything on our monitors. You have bio measures, don’t you? You can scan the number of people?"
"Er, well, maybe." He called up the biometric screen, tracking audience heart rates and pheromone levels.
"Well?"
"Um. The thing is, it’s� they’re macro measures, designed to look at whole audiences, not individuals." The vidcom became muffled; he thought he heard the word Jeez!
The sound cleared. "Look, just see if you can filter them, okay? If you get a count, just hit call-back � think you can do that?"
"Sure." It cut off. Micah raised a third finger in silent protest, then turned to the bio-filter controls. He wished Rudi hadn’t left, they could have done this quicker together. Glancing back at the Holo Control Screen, he saw he’d missed the collapse of the Chinese Dragon Hegemony, and the nano-plague. He caught the tail-end of the bungled US-led anti-terrorist nuclear bombing in Afghanistan, which finally triggered the three-year long World War between the United Secular Nations and the "Big Five" Religious Front countries.
Micah knew that most saw the War as the inevitable blood-letting following two decades of increasingly polarised basic religious rights: fervent believers on the one hand, whose beliefs affected all aspects of their lives, and on the other, those who either did not believe, or believed in moderation. The War’s outcome, with a price tag of a half-billion dead, was the Global Tolerance Pact, with the inter-meshed Fundie religions exercising power � and in some cases neo-Sharia law, depending on the country � at local but never national level, and the secularists running governments and international trade. Global freedom of movement meant people moved to where they felt they fit best, if they could afford to move.
Following the fragile truce borne more from mutual exhaustion than true reconciliation, Peacekeeper forces merged with anti-terrorist agencies to form the much nastier and hence more effective Chorazin Interpol, semi-autonomous agents accountable only to national governments and the fledgling New World Alliance Council. Despite a pessimistic post-war outlook, the peace had so far held for ten years.
But Micah scowled. The War’s secondary ignition points, which had escalated a tragic but singular event into global carnage, had all occurred in the vicinity of places such as the Venezuelan deep-ocean oil fields, the Botswana uranium mines, the Amazon rainforest � what had been left of it � and the Asian e-stock market. The War had also been about money and resources, as usual, all of which had been depleted during the bitter fighting.
He picked up his cold coffee, downing it in one gulp to chase away morose thoughts, and focused on his new task, staring at the forest of green and red biofeedback signals shuffling across the monitor. He munched on a stale noni-muffin for inspiration.
He decided to go with heart rate rather than any of the other measures � the rest were too sensitive, too evanescent. If he could predict when certain reactions would happen, he should be able to obtain a number of correlated signals. The perfect event to elicit a visceral reaction was just about to happen. He set up a parameter file, hit track, and turned to watch the audience.
Silent visions of nuclear detonations in Frankfurt, Dublin, London, Moscow and his own Los Angeles were unleashed in the holorium, amplified by the vibration devices in the audience seats, slowed down to show their devastating power. The audience felt the warm lick of holographic flame fronts spreading outward from incandescent mushrooms.
He drew his arms around him. He’d left out the bass, grinding sound, partly because this way allowed more artistic impact, but also because, like many survivors, he knew the sound of a nuclear detonation only too well, and would panic if he heard it again.
The image pulled back, showing the final stages of the "browning" of Earth. He noticed some audience members were distressed. He brushed aside a momentary pang of guilt � the Eden Mission needed the money, being fifty per cent funded by donations and advertising. Kane, with his political influence, somehow kept their financial head above water � not easy after two expedition failures. If it weren’t for him, the Mission wouldn’t survive another month.
He edged forward and zeroed in on Antonia again, then wished he hadn’t. Her eyes were wet, but worse, the man next to her was squeezing her hand, offering comfort. Micah bit off another chunk of muffin. A single beep rescued him. He swung over to the biometric monitor and froze mid-chew. The number of hearts beating in the holorium was neither 208 nor 209: there were two additional hearts beating. That wasn’t all. Two heart rates had remained completely stable during the nuclear detonation scenes. He’d never seen that before.But now the data had merged again. He glanced sideways toward the vidcom, wondering what to do.
* * *Gabriel’s wristcom twitched. He manoeuvred his arm to see the text-space through the autofocus gun sights. A single name appeared � Kane. He’d hoped it would be someone else, given Kane’s philanthropy, but he didn’t question orders. Beneath his name was an hourglass symbol: not yet. He checked to see if anything else followed, then his head returned upside down to scan the audience. Locating Kane’s front row seat, he zoomed in, and found the tell-tale mole on the left side of the man’s neck, nestling below a well-groomed hairline. He locked his target.
* * *
Micah cleared his throat and tapped the vidcom. The reply was instant. "How many?"
"Well, the only stable count I got was during the nuclear scene, that’s when the filters have most chance � "
"Answer the question."
"Two-ten," Micah said, annoyed at himself. He heard a muffled silence.
"Okay, leave it to us now, no need to monitor any more."
The vidcom clicked off. Micah stared at it, then at the biometrics. He flicked the main viewer to a bird’s eye view of the holorium. He filtered out the holoshow, switched to infrared, and began counting the blobs on the screen.
The effusive voice from the show continued. "� that mankind was on the brink of extinction. But we were not extinguished. As the politicians and the people realised that they were about to be destroyed, we pulled back, just in time."
Micah’s teeth clamped down at these last words. He always left them in the speech, but for him they were laced with bitterness. He’d been a fifteen-year old draftee, his squad captured on their very first field training mission, three weeks before the end of the War. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to exhale slowly to the count of ten, suppressing the memories of his brief incarceration � nights littered with tortured screams; the naked silence when they abruptly stopped.
Ten years on, the episode still clung to him like a phantom limb.
Yet in many senses, he knew mankind had been "lucky": all the computer models of global nuclear theatre had proved wrong. Only a few countries had suffered blanket attacks, and most other nations had found their situation "recoverable", especially after scour-tech had been developed to dampen rad-levels. Life was still tough � he only had to look out a window to see the relentless heat haze rippling buildings in the distance or stars at night, and rationing of food, power, fuel and aircon would go on for decades. But it could have been so much worse � terminal.
He recalled a few pundits who’d argued that the results of the War were so counter-intuitive, the only rational explanation was that it had all been orchestrated by an unseen organisation, controlled to do limited damage. Conspiracy whackos. What possible motive could there be? He was just thankful it hadn’t gone too far.
He resumed the head-count. From the corner of his eye he saw the main holo screen suffuse with green, showing more upbeat images. He’d been advised by the Mission psych, Carlson, that in Post-War culture, lifting people up after taking them down a guilt trip was the best way to wring out money. He knew the show by heart anyway � the audience were trundling their way through the genetically-modified Astrasa wheat fields of snow-less Antarctica, which still fed most of the world’s population.
208. No question about it. He shook his head. Maybe the equipment was faulty. He’d have one more shot at it, but he’d have to wait. He slapped a control, restoring the full holo-show image. The prototype dark-matter-powered propulsion system whisked the audience away from Earth, accelerated past Mars and then executed a sling-shot around Saturn to whiplash out of the solar system. He’d fused original vid-footage from both the ill-fated Prometheus and Heracles missions. Most people assumed it was sped-up for effect; in fact he’d had to do slow it down. What he was unable to show, because no one really knew what it looked like, was what happened next. Once well past Pluto’s orbit, the long-researched Alcubierre drive kicked in, forming a warp shell around the Ulysses, its dark energy wave front slicing through normal space-time.
The audience catapulted forward to Eden, a purple-green world bathed in blood-orange sunlight from its star, Kantoka Minor, then screamed down through its outer atmosphere, piercing puffy, ivory clouds. They re-emerged and pulled up at the last moment, scraping so close to the mountains that most of the audience half-stood, then sat back down again, laughing, as the vista panned out, unveiling Eden’s virgin lakes and forests.
It reminded Micah of pictures he’d seen of pre-War Switzerland, albeit with a mauve tint. He could almost feel Eden’s sunlight, though it was over a hundred light years away. Still, just knowing it was there warmed him.
* * *
Gabriel didn’t allow himself to tense, though the main lights would flick back on soon. When they did, his chances of being spotted would spike. But he would wait until the signal. Perhaps his masters wanted him to terminate Kane and be discovered. He had the standard suicide unit. His wristcom pulsed again. Secure. He pressed his jaw together for one full second to release the target auto-lock from Kane. The message meant two things: first, Kane must be protected, not terminated. Second, another assassin was hidden somewhere in the chamber, with Kane in their sights. This time Gabriel tensed. He had to up his game; this was no simple hit anymore. He scanned the audience, checking to see if anyone was paying more attention to Kane than the show.
* * *
Micah reached the point in the show where he could do one last heart rate check linked to the final emotional event. He tapped track. Seconds later, each member of the audience saw the four Ulysses astronauts � Blake, Zack, Pierre and Katrina � standing right in front of them, as if they were with them aboard the space station Zeus I, hours before the Ulysses� departure for Eden, three months ago. He pumped up the volume.
"They will be arriving in Eden in less than a week’s time, and when they breathe in Eden’s atmosphere they’ll be taking a breath of fresh air for all mankind. This whole venture has given humanity the solid hope we so desperately need. Of course, it will take decades to transfer a sizeable portion of the population. But Eden represents a second chance for us all, and that helps keep peace here on Earth. The hope � the dream � must continue."
The final, only completely fictitious scene in the show, pictured the Ulysses settled on Eden, its four astronauts walking atop a ridge above a Mediterranean-blue sea, to a background of stirring music, the New World Alliance anthem.
The holorium lighting returned to normal. Kane strode tall onto the stage to rapturous applause, the audience rising to their feet. Far away on the other side of the building, Micah stood up, took a mock bow, and sat down again. Not bad.
Kane held up a hand as he spoke into the microphone. "Hopefully, we’ll all be seeing real pictures and accounts of Eden from our four heroes in just over a week. We wish them God’s protection, and all religions pray for their safe return. Mankind is moving on to a better future."
The beep brought Micah back to the biometric analyser: 210. He trawled his fingers through his hair, unable to work it out. Then he remembered the man who moved like a dancer, and looked like he didn’t belong there; Micah couldn’t see him anywhere. He noticed several agitated security men enter the chamber, looking over the heads of the crowds, toward the back of the holorium. They were armed. Micah sat up, and instinctively searched for Antonia.
* * *
Gabriel activated the visual diffuser as soon as the lights went up. It would mask the area in front of him, though only temporarily. Once the security guards arrived, he knew he had to act quickly. He sent an electronic signal to a small explosive device eight floors down in another part of the complex. Within seconds the security guards each moved their left hands to their earpieces, then quit the chamber.
* * *
The final wave of applause sputtered to a close as people quit their seats. Micah watched Kane stride to the front exit to press the fatty palms of his wealthy guests, sending them on their way to visit the rest of Eden Mission Control; every handshake worth millions of credits.
Micah watched the security guards depart, and leant back in his chair, guessing it must have been some kind of false alarm. He flicked off all the monitors except one. Antonia’s backless, low-cut silver dress clung to her as she stood up, hair held high with a gold clasp. He touched her image on the screen with the tip of his finger, then drew it back, trying to ignore her depressingly handsome escort, looking instead for any sign that she was unhappy, that something was missing from her life, but saw none. Who am I kidding? Rudi’s right. She’s class, and I’m �"
The comms screen flashed on. "Nice work, Sanderson," Vastra said. "Just spare me the fucking down-to-the-wire heart attack next time, okay?" He cut off without waiting for an answer.
"You’re welcome." He watched everyone leaving, and gave up on the heart rate monitor � it was useless now, and Security was down there.
Facing the opposite wall, his gaze fell upon the solitary poster of the four Ulysses astronauts standing at the Zeus I airlock, helmets in hands. He tried to imagine himself there too, a fifth astronaut. Like thousands of others, he’d taken the entrance exams as soon as he was twenty-one. The psy-profile had screened him out: over-analytical. He’d thought about that evaluation a lot, not missing the irony. At least they’d given him a job. He remembered what Rudi had said one day.
"Micah, with you the glass isn’t just half empty � you think the liquid is wrong � your life is a beer glass, but you want champagne."
Maybe he was right. Micah stood up and stretched. Now his mind was free of the holo-presentation, he returned to the problem he’d been wrestling with the past few weeks: the missing lighthouse markers in the recent Ulysses data streams. If the third one was no longer there, it could spell trouble for the astronauts. He left the Media Lab, as if discarding an old shoe. Rudi’s right, I don’t know why I do this. Eager to immerse himself back in Dataland as they called it, he headed off to join Rudi in the Optron Lab.
* * *
Gabriel scanned the holorium using his sighter’s fish-eye mode as the last of the delegates, attendants and security left, Kane shooing them onwards until he was alone. The hit was imminent, but Gabriel could see no one. Kane paced a little then made a call on his wristcom. Just in case it was relevant, Gabriel activated his eavesdropper. It only picked up Kane’s side of the conversation.
"We need to meet� Yes, I have it� No, not on an open line� Very well� Tonight, late, let’s say midnight� Don’t worry, I’ll be alone."
Kane flicked off his wristcom and spun around towards the exit, to catch up with his entourage.
The tiniest flicker of movement caught Gabriel’s eye, in a darkened and disused glass-fronted control booth on the right side of the holorium; it had been his own back-up choice as sniper location. The woman � from what he could see of the side of her face � had waited till the last moment. He used his sighter to auto-zoom in. The woman’s eye met the sighting-glass of her pulse rifle, forefinger curling around the trigger. Gabriel flexed his tongue against his lower gum, and a red spot appeared on her left temple. As he heard Kane grab the exit door handle, he clicked his teeth, fast. There was no recoil. The laser pulse passed straight through the glass booth window with minimal refraction. A black hole of charred flesh, the size of a small coin, burst open where the spot had been, accompanied by a wisp of grey smoke. The woman slumped on the table she’d rested her rifle on, then slid silently out of sight, the weapon toppling after her. He hadn’t been sure if the booth had been soundproof, but was relieved to find that it was.
The holorium doors closed behind Kane and the lights dimmed. Gabriel de-activated the gravitics and fell, twisting like a cat to land on all fours. He sprang up and raced to the side wall to the sealed control booth. Forcing open a panel, he entered the tiny room to find her spread-eagled on the floor, eyes glassy green.
All assassins knew this fate awaited them sooner or later. He rested his right palm on her forehead, closing her eye-lids with a fluid stroke of his fingers. "Be at peace now, your part is over. Rejoin the river." He said it in Tibetan, incanting their shortest prayer for the dead.
He searched her matt black clothes and her body for any signs of her origin or who she worked for, not expecting to find anything; she was clearly a professional. On instinct, he pulled up her tunic and checked her waistline for a clan assassin’s tattoo, but saw no mark. Gloves off, he ran his fingers around her lower waist. He encountered a rougher layer of flesh above one hip � a stencilled tattoo had been erased, though not without leaving a trace � the yoga mudra symbol. So, she was from Indistan, most likely ethnic but gene-altered to render her skin white and her hair blonde, though her eyes should have remained brown. He re-opened one eye-lid and placed a finger-tip on her eye-ball, dislodging the coloured contact lens.
Satisfied, he heaved her limp frame over his left shoulder, carrying her rifle in his other hand, and headed towards a nearby maintenance shaft leading to the furnaces, seven floors underground. As he opened the hatchway to the vertical shaft, a gust of hot air greeted him. He wondered if she had climbed up it to get into the booth, since the only other way in was through a heavily secured area. He inhaled deeply, but smelt no traces of sweat from her body. Not good. Unlike him, she’d had inside help, which meant Kane was still in danger. He tapped in a coded message: , and waited.
Gabriel’s wristcom twitched three times � return to base � he would be instructed to kill again. He launched the corpse into the shaft, re-activated his boots and gloves, and descended, ignoring the searing heat. He recalled Kane’s last words � a meeting tonight, at midnight. His instincts told him that whoever had arranged this hit would do all in their power to make sure the meeting never took place.
EpisodeTwo Assassin
In the darkening holorium, the last murmurings of the audience died away as all attention fell on the iridescent holographic net descending around them � as if it was snowing diamonds. A fanfare of brass horns and an explosion of eye-wrenching white erupted throughout the room. The audience flinched and squinted, before the light condensed into stars racing away from a central glowing hub. Holophonic tricks whirled and sustained a spiralling crescendo of strained violins. People gasped as they fell through space, away from the centre of the galaxy, coasting along a spiral arm towards a yellow star and a small, blue-green ball. As the image slowed and the tones merged into a softer cadence, a deep, stone-calm voice spoke.
"Earth. A jewel. A gift from heaven. Our home for millions of years."
The audience broke through the atmosphere, surfing cirrus strands until Everest reared up beneath them. They dived through a sea of clouds, speared over verdant Himalayan valleys, picking up speed. Streaking over the Indian sub-continent, they dodged the outstretched arms of the Mumbai Tower, the tallest building in the world, in the shape of the goddess Kali. They swept across a sparkling aquamarine Indian Ocean, soared over the Serengeti plains of Africa, disturbing hordes of wildebeest, and looped Kilimanjaro. The audience accelerated, skimming across the steel-grey Atlantic. Breathless, they breached the shores of North America, zipped over a subliminal patchwork of maize and soybean, slalomed through the Grand Canyon, then slewed upwards, punching through the cloud layer back into space.
Micah watched dignitaries clutch the arms of their seats during this roller-coaster ride. Good opening. He sat back in the Media lab to listen to his script’s perfectly synthesised voice, designed using the latest emo-ware.
"This amazing world, this incredible resource, here for all mankind." The evangelical tone made even the hard-nosed magnates listen. "And then�" The holorium contrast grew stark, then grainy, as the green-blue globe changed colour. Swirling amethyst clouds bubbled forth across the Earth’s face, acid on flesh, leaving in their wake a rusty swathe raking across half the globe. Pock-marks appeared on the surfaces of North America, Europe and Asia, visible from space. Though this vision of what had happened to Earth was not new, the impact was palpable. Members of the audience bit their lips, nostrils flared, one or two of the women dabbed their eyes, and several men clenched fists. Micah tapped coded entries into the audience reaction slate, while many shook their heads with exasperation, and more than a few inspected their feet. Some here aren’t without guilt.
The audience relived the relentless degradation of their planet, in fast-frame.
"How did we get here?" the voice asked, as the audience segued through pages of Pre-War history, images of humanity’s progress and prowess leading up to the War.
Proud of this part, Micah zoomed in to see Antonia’s reaction. Her eyes widened at the grand vistas of the exploration of Mars with its unexplained crystal caverns, and the underwater Arctic oilfield-cities of the first half of the century. Her lower lip trembled when the legendary African Conglomerate doctors from the medical "Golden Age" stood before her, brandishing their Nobel Prizes in one hand, and the vaccines for malaria, AIDS and CoR16A in the other. Her eyes steeled as she witnessed the First Generation robot soldiers quelling the Turkmenistan rebel invasion, paving the way for robot peacekeepers across the world, ushering in short-lived hopes for an end to war. He zoomed out; it was about to get rough.
The vidcom buzzed, catching him unawares. He hastily took his feet off the table, then relaxed as he realised the message was audio-only.
"Sampson?" The voice was sharp and clipped, the caller’s register blank.
"Sanderson. My name is � "
"Okay, okay, Sanderson. Security here, so pay attention. We need you to check something. Just before the show started, we did a head count. Should have been 208, but for a moment we had 209. With the show running it’s hard for us to see anything on our monitors. You have bio measures, don’t you? You can scan the number of people?"
"Er, well, maybe." He called up the biometric screen, tracking audience heart rates and pheromone levels.
"Well?"
"Um. The thing is, it’s� they’re macro measures, designed to look at whole audiences, not individuals." The vidcom became muffled; he thought he heard the word Jeez!
The sound cleared. "Look, just see if you can filter them, okay? If you get a count, just hit call-back � think you can do that?"
"Sure." It cut off. Micah raised a third finger in silent protest, then turned to the bio-filter controls. He wished Rudi hadn’t left, they could have done this quicker together. Glancing back at the Holo Control Screen, he saw he’d missed the collapse of the Chinese Dragon Hegemony, and the nano-plague. He caught the tail-end of the bungled US-led anti-terrorist nuclear bombing in Afghanistan, which finally triggered the three-year long World War between the United Secular Nations and the "Big Five" Religious Front countries.
Micah knew that most saw the War as the inevitable blood-letting following two decades of increasingly polarised basic religious rights: fervent believers on the one hand, whose beliefs affected all aspects of their lives, and on the other, those who either did not believe, or believed in moderation. The War’s outcome, with a price tag of a half-billion dead, was the Global Tolerance Pact, with the inter-meshed Fundie religions exercising power � and in some cases neo-Sharia law, depending on the country � at local but never national level, and the secularists running governments and international trade. Global freedom of movement meant people moved to where they felt they fit best, if they could afford to move.
Following the fragile truce borne more from mutual exhaustion than true reconciliation, Peacekeeper forces merged with anti-terrorist agencies to form the much nastier and hence more effective Chorazin Interpol, semi-autonomous agents accountable only to national governments and the fledgling New World Alliance Council. Despite a pessimistic post-war outlook, the peace had so far held for ten years.
But Micah scowled. The War’s secondary ignition points, which had escalated a tragic but singular event into global carnage, had all occurred in the vicinity of places such as the Venezuelan deep-ocean oil fields, the Botswana uranium mines, the Amazon rainforest � what had been left of it � and the Asian e-stock market. The War had also been about money and resources, as usual, all of which had been depleted during the bitter fighting.
He picked up his cold coffee, downing it in one gulp to chase away morose thoughts, and focused on his new task, staring at the forest of green and red biofeedback signals shuffling across the monitor. He munched on a stale noni-muffin for inspiration.
He decided to go with heart rate rather than any of the other measures � the rest were too sensitive, too evanescent. If he could predict when certain reactions would happen, he should be able to obtain a number of correlated signals. The perfect event to elicit a visceral reaction was just about to happen. He set up a parameter file, hit track, and turned to watch the audience.
Silent visions of nuclear detonations in Frankfurt, Dublin, London, Moscow and his own Los Angeles were unleashed in the holorium, amplified by the vibration devices in the audience seats, slowed down to show their devastating power. The audience felt the warm lick of holographic flame fronts spreading outward from incandescent mushrooms.
He drew his arms around him. He’d left out the bass, grinding sound, partly because this way allowed more artistic impact, but also because, like many survivors, he knew the sound of a nuclear detonation only too well, and would panic if he heard it again.
The image pulled back, showing the final stages of the "browning" of Earth. He noticed some audience members were distressed. He brushed aside a momentary pang of guilt � the Eden Mission needed the money, being fifty per cent funded by donations and advertising. Kane, with his political influence, somehow kept their financial head above water � not easy after two expedition failures. If it weren’t for him, the Mission wouldn’t survive another month.
He edged forward and zeroed in on Antonia again, then wished he hadn’t. Her eyes were wet, but worse, the man next to her was squeezing her hand, offering comfort. Micah bit off another chunk of muffin. A single beep rescued him. He swung over to the biometric monitor and froze mid-chew. The number of hearts beating in the holorium was neither 208 nor 209: there were two additional hearts beating. That wasn’t all. Two heart rates had remained completely stable during the nuclear detonation scenes. He’d never seen that before.But now the data had merged again. He glanced sideways toward the vidcom, wondering what to do.
* * *Gabriel’s wristcom twitched. He manoeuvred his arm to see the text-space through the autofocus gun sights. A single name appeared � Kane. He’d hoped it would be someone else, given Kane’s philanthropy, but he didn’t question orders. Beneath his name was an hourglass symbol: not yet. He checked to see if anything else followed, then his head returned upside down to scan the audience. Locating Kane’s front row seat, he zoomed in, and found the tell-tale mole on the left side of the man’s neck, nestling below a well-groomed hairline. He locked his target.
* * *
Micah cleared his throat and tapped the vidcom. The reply was instant. "How many?"
"Well, the only stable count I got was during the nuclear scene, that’s when the filters have most chance � "
"Answer the question."
"Two-ten," Micah said, annoyed at himself. He heard a muffled silence.
"Okay, leave it to us now, no need to monitor any more."
The vidcom clicked off. Micah stared at it, then at the biometrics. He flicked the main viewer to a bird’s eye view of the holorium. He filtered out the holoshow, switched to infrared, and began counting the blobs on the screen.
The effusive voice from the show continued. "� that mankind was on the brink of extinction. But we were not extinguished. As the politicians and the people realised that they were about to be destroyed, we pulled back, just in time."
Micah’s teeth clamped down at these last words. He always left them in the speech, but for him they were laced with bitterness. He’d been a fifteen-year old draftee, his squad captured on their very first field training mission, three weeks before the end of the War. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to exhale slowly to the count of ten, suppressing the memories of his brief incarceration � nights littered with tortured screams; the naked silence when they abruptly stopped.
Ten years on, the episode still clung to him like a phantom limb.
Yet in many senses, he knew mankind had been "lucky": all the computer models of global nuclear theatre had proved wrong. Only a few countries had suffered blanket attacks, and most other nations had found their situation "recoverable", especially after scour-tech had been developed to dampen rad-levels. Life was still tough � he only had to look out a window to see the relentless heat haze rippling buildings in the distance or stars at night, and rationing of food, power, fuel and aircon would go on for decades. But it could have been so much worse � terminal.
He recalled a few pundits who’d argued that the results of the War were so counter-intuitive, the only rational explanation was that it had all been orchestrated by an unseen organisation, controlled to do limited damage. Conspiracy whackos. What possible motive could there be? He was just thankful it hadn’t gone too far.
He resumed the head-count. From the corner of his eye he saw the main holo screen suffuse with green, showing more upbeat images. He’d been advised by the Mission psych, Carlson, that in Post-War culture, lifting people up after taking them down a guilt trip was the best way to wring out money. He knew the show by heart anyway � the audience were trundling their way through the genetically-modified Astrasa wheat fields of snow-less Antarctica, which still fed most of the world’s population.
208. No question about it. He shook his head. Maybe the equipment was faulty. He’d have one more shot at it, but he’d have to wait. He slapped a control, restoring the full holo-show image. The prototype dark-matter-powered propulsion system whisked the audience away from Earth, accelerated past Mars and then executed a sling-shot around Saturn to whiplash out of the solar system. He’d fused original vid-footage from both the ill-fated Prometheus and Heracles missions. Most people assumed it was sped-up for effect; in fact he’d had to do slow it down. What he was unable to show, because no one really knew what it looked like, was what happened next. Once well past Pluto’s orbit, the long-researched Alcubierre drive kicked in, forming a warp shell around the Ulysses, its dark energy wave front slicing through normal space-time.
The audience catapulted forward to Eden, a purple-green world bathed in blood-orange sunlight from its star, Kantoka Minor, then screamed down through its outer atmosphere, piercing puffy, ivory clouds. They re-emerged and pulled up at the last moment, scraping so close to the mountains that most of the audience half-stood, then sat back down again, laughing, as the vista panned out, unveiling Eden’s virgin lakes and forests.
It reminded Micah of pictures he’d seen of pre-War Switzerland, albeit with a mauve tint. He could almost feel Eden’s sunlight, though it was over a hundred light years away. Still, just knowing it was there warmed him.
* * *
Gabriel didn’t allow himself to tense, though the main lights would flick back on soon. When they did, his chances of being spotted would spike. But he would wait until the signal. Perhaps his masters wanted him to terminate Kane and be discovered. He had the standard suicide unit. His wristcom pulsed again. Secure. He pressed his jaw together for one full second to release the target auto-lock from Kane. The message meant two things: first, Kane must be protected, not terminated. Second, another assassin was hidden somewhere in the chamber, with Kane in their sights. This time Gabriel tensed. He had to up his game; this was no simple hit anymore. He scanned the audience, checking to see if anyone was paying more attention to Kane than the show.
* * *
Micah reached the point in the show where he could do one last heart rate check linked to the final emotional event. He tapped track. Seconds later, each member of the audience saw the four Ulysses astronauts � Blake, Zack, Pierre and Katrina � standing right in front of them, as if they were with them aboard the space station Zeus I, hours before the Ulysses� departure for Eden, three months ago. He pumped up the volume.
"They will be arriving in Eden in less than a week’s time, and when they breathe in Eden’s atmosphere they’ll be taking a breath of fresh air for all mankind. This whole venture has given humanity the solid hope we so desperately need. Of course, it will take decades to transfer a sizeable portion of the population. But Eden represents a second chance for us all, and that helps keep peace here on Earth. The hope � the dream � must continue."
The final, only completely fictitious scene in the show, pictured the Ulysses settled on Eden, its four astronauts walking atop a ridge above a Mediterranean-blue sea, to a background of stirring music, the New World Alliance anthem.
The holorium lighting returned to normal. Kane strode tall onto the stage to rapturous applause, the audience rising to their feet. Far away on the other side of the building, Micah stood up, took a mock bow, and sat down again. Not bad.
Kane held up a hand as he spoke into the microphone. "Hopefully, we’ll all be seeing real pictures and accounts of Eden from our four heroes in just over a week. We wish them God’s protection, and all religions pray for their safe return. Mankind is moving on to a better future."
The beep brought Micah back to the biometric analyser: 210. He trawled his fingers through his hair, unable to work it out. Then he remembered the man who moved like a dancer, and looked like he didn’t belong there; Micah couldn’t see him anywhere. He noticed several agitated security men enter the chamber, looking over the heads of the crowds, toward the back of the holorium. They were armed. Micah sat up, and instinctively searched for Antonia.
* * *
Gabriel activated the visual diffuser as soon as the lights went up. It would mask the area in front of him, though only temporarily. Once the security guards arrived, he knew he had to act quickly. He sent an electronic signal to a small explosive device eight floors down in another part of the complex. Within seconds the security guards each moved their left hands to their earpieces, then quit the chamber.
* * *
The final wave of applause sputtered to a close as people quit their seats. Micah watched Kane stride to the front exit to press the fatty palms of his wealthy guests, sending them on their way to visit the rest of Eden Mission Control; every handshake worth millions of credits.
Micah watched the security guards depart, and leant back in his chair, guessing it must have been some kind of false alarm. He flicked off all the monitors except one. Antonia’s backless, low-cut silver dress clung to her as she stood up, hair held high with a gold clasp. He touched her image on the screen with the tip of his finger, then drew it back, trying to ignore her depressingly handsome escort, looking instead for any sign that she was unhappy, that something was missing from her life, but saw none. Who am I kidding? Rudi’s right. She’s class, and I’m �"
The comms screen flashed on. "Nice work, Sanderson," Vastra said. "Just spare me the fucking down-to-the-wire heart attack next time, okay?" He cut off without waiting for an answer.
"You’re welcome." He watched everyone leaving, and gave up on the heart rate monitor � it was useless now, and Security was down there.
Facing the opposite wall, his gaze fell upon the solitary poster of the four Ulysses astronauts standing at the Zeus I airlock, helmets in hands. He tried to imagine himself there too, a fifth astronaut. Like thousands of others, he’d taken the entrance exams as soon as he was twenty-one. The psy-profile had screened him out: over-analytical. He’d thought about that evaluation a lot, not missing the irony. At least they’d given him a job. He remembered what Rudi had said one day.
"Micah, with you the glass isn’t just half empty � you think the liquid is wrong � your life is a beer glass, but you want champagne."
Maybe he was right. Micah stood up and stretched. Now his mind was free of the holo-presentation, he returned to the problem he’d been wrestling with the past few weeks: the missing lighthouse markers in the recent Ulysses data streams. If the third one was no longer there, it could spell trouble for the astronauts. He left the Media Lab, as if discarding an old shoe. Rudi’s right, I don’t know why I do this. Eager to immerse himself back in Dataland as they called it, he headed off to join Rudi in the Optron Lab.
* * *
Gabriel scanned the holorium using his sighter’s fish-eye mode as the last of the delegates, attendants and security left, Kane shooing them onwards until he was alone. The hit was imminent, but Gabriel could see no one. Kane paced a little then made a call on his wristcom. Just in case it was relevant, Gabriel activated his eavesdropper. It only picked up Kane’s side of the conversation.
"We need to meet� Yes, I have it� No, not on an open line� Very well� Tonight, late, let’s say midnight� Don’t worry, I’ll be alone."
Kane flicked off his wristcom and spun around towards the exit, to catch up with his entourage.
The tiniest flicker of movement caught Gabriel’s eye, in a darkened and disused glass-fronted control booth on the right side of the holorium; it had been his own back-up choice as sniper location. The woman � from what he could see of the side of her face � had waited till the last moment. He used his sighter to auto-zoom in. The woman’s eye met the sighting-glass of her pulse rifle, forefinger curling around the trigger. Gabriel flexed his tongue against his lower gum, and a red spot appeared on her left temple. As he heard Kane grab the exit door handle, he clicked his teeth, fast. There was no recoil. The laser pulse passed straight through the glass booth window with minimal refraction. A black hole of charred flesh, the size of a small coin, burst open where the spot had been, accompanied by a wisp of grey smoke. The woman slumped on the table she’d rested her rifle on, then slid silently out of sight, the weapon toppling after her. He hadn’t been sure if the booth had been soundproof, but was relieved to find that it was.
The holorium doors closed behind Kane and the lights dimmed. Gabriel de-activated the gravitics and fell, twisting like a cat to land on all fours. He sprang up and raced to the side wall to the sealed control booth. Forcing open a panel, he entered the tiny room to find her spread-eagled on the floor, eyes glassy green.
All assassins knew this fate awaited them sooner or later. He rested his right palm on her forehead, closing her eye-lids with a fluid stroke of his fingers. "Be at peace now, your part is over. Rejoin the river." He said it in Tibetan, incanting their shortest prayer for the dead.
He searched her matt black clothes and her body for any signs of her origin or who she worked for, not expecting to find anything; she was clearly a professional. On instinct, he pulled up her tunic and checked her waistline for a clan assassin’s tattoo, but saw no mark. Gloves off, he ran his fingers around her lower waist. He encountered a rougher layer of flesh above one hip � a stencilled tattoo had been erased, though not without leaving a trace � the yoga mudra symbol. So, she was from Indistan, most likely ethnic but gene-altered to render her skin white and her hair blonde, though her eyes should have remained brown. He re-opened one eye-lid and placed a finger-tip on her eye-ball, dislodging the coloured contact lens.
Satisfied, he heaved her limp frame over his left shoulder, carrying her rifle in his other hand, and headed towards a nearby maintenance shaft leading to the furnaces, seven floors underground. As he opened the hatchway to the vertical shaft, a gust of hot air greeted him. He wondered if she had climbed up it to get into the booth, since the only other way in was through a heavily secured area. He inhaled deeply, but smelt no traces of sweat from her body. Not good. Unlike him, she’d had inside help, which meant Kane was still in danger. He tapped in a coded message: , and waited.
Gabriel’s wristcom twitched three times � return to base � he would be instructed to kill again. He launched the corpse into the shaft, re-activated his boots and gloves, and descended, ignoring the searing heat. He recalled Kane’s last words � a meeting tonight, at midnight. His instincts told him that whoever had arranged this hit would do all in their power to make sure the meeting never took place.
August 20, 2015
Where it all started... Part One
Ok, I haven't quite reached 10k sales yet with the , but slowly getting there :-)
This is where it all started, chapter one, where Micah is introduced, along with the infamous and (so the female fans tell me) irresistible Gabriel.
More tomorrow.
Chapter OneAssassinPeople rarely search for bodies in ceilings, Gabriel O’Donnell reminded himself. He should have a couple of hours before anyone discovered his latest victim. Slipping unseen from the side door, he dissolved into the amoebic mass of dignitaries arriving for the fund-raiser at Eden Mission Control. He itched to shed his tuxedo and starched shirt, but he needed the camouflage � along with the stolen emotion-ID that had required a messy killing � to secure entry. He blended in with the wealthy entourage decked in stark designer suits and power dresses. He didn’t speak to anyone, didn’t sip from the champagne glass he occasionally raised to his lips. He let his eyes glaze over as if he, too, were rich enough to forget what was outside, an Earth maimed by War and near collapse from heat exhaustion. Somewhere here was his target, but as yet he didn’t know who. He slowed his breathing and sharpened his senses, filtering out the bass hum of the aircon and the drone of conversation. He suppressed the cocktail of cologne and perfume the crowd wore to mask residual traces of sweat from their journey through the early evening LA heat-haze. He glanced at his wristcom, switched to privacy mode so only he could read it � no message yet confirming his mark’s identity. The display did tell him it was a cool nineteen degrees Celsius, compared to forty-five out in the open, and way below the 2061 climate control mandate for public buildings. Nothing new, he thought: the rich make laws for others to follow. The idea flickered across his mind that if he dispatched ten or twenty of the moguls here tonight, instead of just one, a lot more mouths would find food. But only for a while. The latest vidcast from his mentor had confirmed what he’d already suspected � the holocaust was mere days away. When he found the right target, maybe he could delay its onset, and save millions. Maybe. A fanfare of horns sliced through the banter, announcing the holorium was open: the Eden show awaited them. He swept forward with the elite mob, a spider hiding amongst flies. As the alcohol-rouged gathering rounded a corner, he glimpsed the twin Stentons bordering the corridor: floor-to-ceiling carbon-black monoliths. State-of-the-art security gear. He focused his mind, careful not to tense his body. A few surreptitious glances verified what the memorised floor plans had told him � this was the only access point. Six heavily-armed security guards manned the station, eyeing people as they passed through. The two in the front used an age-old technique called the fence, an unblinking stare-down subduing those passing through, ruffling a few of the male celebrities in the process. The middle two checked people and bags, but this was more for show � the Stentons did the real work. The final two guards scanned the assembly using peripheral vision � letting their right brains detect any unusual behaviour patterns of the swarm. Not bad, he thought. He knew he could take down all six if necessary, but then his mission would fail. He had to get past them. The Stentons were top of their class � a biometric system based on psychological finger-printing, using subliminal stimuli to trigger minute fear responses. The monoliths were especially good at picking out kamikaze terrorists, whose fear response had a singular signature, and experienced assassins like Gabriel, who had none. Earlier, he’d had to instil panic into the day’s first victim before terminating him, while downloading the visceral feedback. Gabriel now had those terror responses primed in the neural net embedded in his scalp � they would match the dead man’s E-ID card Gabriel held in his left palm. He’d actually apologised to the corpse afterward, taking rather more care than usual with the body. He was a Sentinel assassin, not a psychopath. Slowing to an amble, he let one or two suits rub past him as he weighed his options. He laughed at a nearby joke as if he were part of that particular gang. But his insides felt hollow: too much was riding on tonight’s mission. Watching the shuffling pack tighten toward the checkpoint scanners, he decided he needed an extra edge. Distraction was also an assassin’s tool. As they herded like cloned beef toward the final security check, he surveyed the audience and picked out a busty woman in her thirties, sporting an emerald halter neck dress of gossamer-thin silk. Most of the middle-aged men pretended a little too hard not to notice her. As he mingled behind the woman and her escort in the funnelling queue, he casually reached into his pocket. He extracted the sliver of acid-coated razor-wire from its sheath. He coughed as he approached the twin security columns. His right hand, en route to cover his mouth, grazed the material of the woman’s halter with the filament, depositing a trace of acid. He let the hair-like strand drop to the floor, crushing it underfoot. Holding up his E-ID pass, he stared as required towards one of the monoliths, the under-dressed woman behind him. He held his breath.Whoops and guffaws erupted as her halter snapped. Gabriel turned around, feigning surprise and interest, and the guards manhandled him through the full-scan checkpoint without serious attention. Once past he walked to the empty restroom and located the locked stall marked Out of Order. His fingers rapped in the entry digicode, and he stepped inside. He found what he expected, a small black rucksack, and checked the contents: gravitics, stiletto knife, and slimline S&W pulse gun with night-sighter. All he required now was his target’s name, but his wristcom stayed quiet. His handler didn’t usually leave it this late. He zipped up the bag. As he headed out, he checked his reflection in the restroom mirror, and paused. He searched for any trace of the young man he’d been before the War, before becoming a killing machine, before losing her... Eyes black and remorseless as a shark stared back at him; hers had been green, forgiving. She would have been twenty-seven today. He slung the rucksack over his shoulder. Happy birthday, Jenny. He broke off his gaze, stole through the door, and entered the holorium.
* * *
Despite the aircon maintaining the room at a fresh fifteen degrees Celsius to optimise the technology’s performance, Micah sweated."You won’t make it, not this time," Rudi said, leering beneath a wavy moustache. He anchored his feet against the chrome desk, tilting the recliner back further, hands linked behind matted black curls. You could have helped. Micah’s silver gloves were a blur as he worked at the holo-bench. Its data columns and networking filaments resembled a complex city of skyscrapers: sapphire flying buttresses connecting golden spires and towers. He grimaced at the writhing red sores leaching energy from four of the amber columns, defects he had to remove for the program to run. "Let me work, Rudi. I’m almost there." Rudi persisted. "Why’d you agree to do this in the first place? Thought you’d get a chance to work with our resident Slovakian princess in Comms, eh?" Micah dropped a filament and felt a stab of dread as it tumbled down inside the cylinder, ricocheting off several columns towards the central golden nexus. He caught it just in time with his left hand, without disturbing the overall structure. That was close! No time to wipe the beads of sweat building on his brow. "Nice catch," Rudi muttered. "So is she, but out of your league. You know that, right?"Micah ignored him, suspecting it wouldn’t make any difference.Rudi stretched his hands forward, framing Micah between thumbs and indexes as if taking a holopic. "I mean, look at you. The basics are okay � no hunchback, all your own teeth, body parts in the usual places. But the wiry fuzz on your head, the bulging eyes � is that a thyroid thing, by the way? And as for dress sense..." Rudi’s hands returned to their habitual position, clasped behind his head. "Does your Mom still buy your clothes, or what? No style. That’s the problem, Micah. She’s class, you’re not." Micah braved a shrug, but he knew Rudi was right: unlike Rudi, he had an abysmal record with women. He glanced at the countdown: 3:08. Any second, he’d get the call. His fingers, wrapped in second-skin holo-transducers, felt the subtle vibrations in the digitised information, like pulsating ice cubes covered in Braille. This part of his job at Eden Mission Control still gave him a buzz. He threaded the teraquad info-strands into place with a precision and purpose he rarely knew in the rest of his life. On cue, the screen switched on. A red-faced, balding man glared at him. Micah didn’t stop. Seconds mattered."Sanderson. Tell me it’s ready." "Yes, Mr Vastra, Sir. Almost ready. It’ll be on time." "Better be." The screen blanked. Rudi chuckled. "You’re in deep shit. Three minutes till lights out."Micah dismissed the remark and flipped back into the zone, holding his breath, rapt in concentration. All sound ceased in his mind, like a frozen waterfall. As he slotted the final filament into place, the reds vanished. The resultant data harmonic sent a tingling rush through his gloves into his arms and spine, making him gasp. He snapped his right forefinger and thumb together, transmitting the program. "Done!" The display shimmered and was gone. He peeled off the gloves, threw them onto the work bench, and slumped into his chair. Rudi sighed. "Why didn’t you just re-use the last vid � why does each one have to be different? Why make work for yourself? These shitheads don’t care. You’ll get no credit. And meanwhile, she doesn’t even know you exist!" Micah grinned. This one was going to be good. It would move the audience, he just knew it. "You wouldn’t understand, Rudi. It’s� art. Besides, some of the Hi-creds here today have been to the show before � they’ll be impressed when they realise it changes each time." Rudi shook his head. "No hope whatsoever�" Micah snatched up the remote-ball and squeezed it to select the holorium viewscreen on his macro display, then pressed harder to show feeds from all eight cameras. He scanned the views, zooming in and out on the audience about to see his production. The stock-straight profile of the Eden Mission Director, Keiji Kane, was easy to pick out from the crowd, greeting indistinguishable men in dark suits with expandable waistlines. The younger women in the audience were strikingly dressed in angular flow-suits, the older ones decked out in more classic elegant outfits. He watched Kane’s acerbic assistant Sandy march up to him and whisper something in his ear, her hand touching his waist as she bent forward. Kane nodded, and headed over to his front row pew. People followed his lead and took their seats for the show, a prelude to a tour of Eden Mission Control, the first step in eliciting continued financial support from the ultra-rich. Micah wasn’t keen on the fact they had to do this every month, but it was vital to keeping alive the four astronauts on their way to Eden. He zoomed back out when someone unusual caught his eye � a tanned, slim man floating through the crowd like a dancer � all in black, no jacket, just a small back-pack. No one seemed to notice him as he headed toward the rear exit, cutting through the flood of people vying for the best places. Micah leant forward, intrigued by his effortless movements, like a dolphin swimming through the current. He lost him, though, as he moved out of camera range. Plain-clothes security, he assumed.Rudi was right about one thing, though. This wasn’t his real job. They were both full-time telemetry analysts, poring over sensor information slip-streaming back from Earth’s only faster-than-light ship, the Ulysses. Comms was haphazard at best, involving unpredictable and still barely-understood tachyon fields, coupled with an increasing delay as Ulysses got farther from Earth. He didn’t fully understand the theory, but he and Rudi were two of the people disentangling the data and making sense of it. Still, he had a modest talent for holo-vidding � not enough to give up his day job � but he enjoyed watching people’s reactions, and it made a break from the drudgery of endless analysis of signals traversing incomprehensible distances across the void, telling everyone that all was stillwell on the mission to Eden. Reluctantly, he had to admit that Rudi was right on the other count, too. He pretended he wasn’t searching, but when he found Antonia in the audience, his breath softened. He zeroed in on her. Although she was staff, like him, Antonia always got an invite to these functions, being the daughter of the Slovakian ambassador. Though "Princess" wasn’t correct, it wasn’t entirely inappropriate � she was regal, statuesque, with porcelain skin and almond-shaped eyes. He watched her slink into her seat, and observed the fading holorium lights twinkle on her sequined dress. "Naughty, naughty!" Rudi said. "Mustn’t spy on staff, you know."Micah frowned, only in part due to the comment: she had a tall, suave escort. Switching the cameras to night-vision mode, he zoomed away from her, resisting temptation. Rudi slapped his thighs and got up. "God, I’m sorry, man, I can’t bear to watch another one. I’m going for a spin on the Optron. Catch you later." The door hissed closed. Micah switched off four of the camera views to allow a central picture to emerge of the main holo-images the two-hundred-strong audience had gathered to experience. They were in for quite a ride, and he’d have to write a report later on their reactions, to fine-tune it for next time. He sat back, and waited.
* * *
Gabriel’s wristcom located the surveillance weak spot at the rear of the holorium. He set it to emit a fold, allowing him to work within a three metre sensor void, rendering him invisible to normal security sweeps. The lights dimmed. All eyes gazed forward. He slipped on a black silk hood, donned his gloves, and switched his wristcom to nerve-stim mode. He curved his thinly-sheathed tongue inside his mouth to activate the hands-free control mechanism. Few could master it: a single cough, yawn, or inadvertent swallowing could be misinterpreted as commands. But to Gabriel it was the ultimate assassin’s tool: internal, invisible to anyone looking for signs of subterfuge. Turning away from the audience immersed in the holo-show net, he approached the vertical steel wall at the back of the holorium. He switched his genetically-coded boots and gloves to lizard mode, tough microscopic hooks and barbs crystallising within seconds. His breathing remained silent as he scaled the sheer face, taking care not to move too fast. He knew enough psycho-physiology and anatomy not only to kill efficiently, but also to use the strengths and weaknesses of human and animal perception: oblique, rapid movements were perceived by all mammals and reptiles faster than any other sensory signal, especially via peripheral vision, for self-evident survival reasons. Six meters up, he positioned himself underneath a vacant balcony. He manoeuvred upside down, using his tongue control to activate gravitic contact pads on his feet, knees, waist and ribs. A millimetre at a time, he peeled his hands from the ceiling to test he was secure. His masked head fell backwards, upside down, like a gecko hanging from the ceiling, so he could see the audience. He had no interest in the holo. Tapping a short command into his wristcom to signal he was in position, he lifted an object the size of half an apple from his pocket and attached it to the ceiling. Last, he strapped the mono-pulse barrel with sighting lens to his forehead. He could see everyone in the audience � the backs of their heads at least. Everything was set.
He waited, immobile, an obsidian gargoyle ready to spit fire.
For all 4 books, and free short stories, see
This is where it all started, chapter one, where Micah is introduced, along with the infamous and (so the female fans tell me) irresistible Gabriel.
More tomorrow.
Chapter OneAssassinPeople rarely search for bodies in ceilings, Gabriel O’Donnell reminded himself. He should have a couple of hours before anyone discovered his latest victim. Slipping unseen from the side door, he dissolved into the amoebic mass of dignitaries arriving for the fund-raiser at Eden Mission Control. He itched to shed his tuxedo and starched shirt, but he needed the camouflage � along with the stolen emotion-ID that had required a messy killing � to secure entry. He blended in with the wealthy entourage decked in stark designer suits and power dresses. He didn’t speak to anyone, didn’t sip from the champagne glass he occasionally raised to his lips. He let his eyes glaze over as if he, too, were rich enough to forget what was outside, an Earth maimed by War and near collapse from heat exhaustion. Somewhere here was his target, but as yet he didn’t know who. He slowed his breathing and sharpened his senses, filtering out the bass hum of the aircon and the drone of conversation. He suppressed the cocktail of cologne and perfume the crowd wore to mask residual traces of sweat from their journey through the early evening LA heat-haze. He glanced at his wristcom, switched to privacy mode so only he could read it � no message yet confirming his mark’s identity. The display did tell him it was a cool nineteen degrees Celsius, compared to forty-five out in the open, and way below the 2061 climate control mandate for public buildings. Nothing new, he thought: the rich make laws for others to follow. The idea flickered across his mind that if he dispatched ten or twenty of the moguls here tonight, instead of just one, a lot more mouths would find food. But only for a while. The latest vidcast from his mentor had confirmed what he’d already suspected � the holocaust was mere days away. When he found the right target, maybe he could delay its onset, and save millions. Maybe. A fanfare of horns sliced through the banter, announcing the holorium was open: the Eden show awaited them. He swept forward with the elite mob, a spider hiding amongst flies. As the alcohol-rouged gathering rounded a corner, he glimpsed the twin Stentons bordering the corridor: floor-to-ceiling carbon-black monoliths. State-of-the-art security gear. He focused his mind, careful not to tense his body. A few surreptitious glances verified what the memorised floor plans had told him � this was the only access point. Six heavily-armed security guards manned the station, eyeing people as they passed through. The two in the front used an age-old technique called the fence, an unblinking stare-down subduing those passing through, ruffling a few of the male celebrities in the process. The middle two checked people and bags, but this was more for show � the Stentons did the real work. The final two guards scanned the assembly using peripheral vision � letting their right brains detect any unusual behaviour patterns of the swarm. Not bad, he thought. He knew he could take down all six if necessary, but then his mission would fail. He had to get past them. The Stentons were top of their class � a biometric system based on psychological finger-printing, using subliminal stimuli to trigger minute fear responses. The monoliths were especially good at picking out kamikaze terrorists, whose fear response had a singular signature, and experienced assassins like Gabriel, who had none. Earlier, he’d had to instil panic into the day’s first victim before terminating him, while downloading the visceral feedback. Gabriel now had those terror responses primed in the neural net embedded in his scalp � they would match the dead man’s E-ID card Gabriel held in his left palm. He’d actually apologised to the corpse afterward, taking rather more care than usual with the body. He was a Sentinel assassin, not a psychopath. Slowing to an amble, he let one or two suits rub past him as he weighed his options. He laughed at a nearby joke as if he were part of that particular gang. But his insides felt hollow: too much was riding on tonight’s mission. Watching the shuffling pack tighten toward the checkpoint scanners, he decided he needed an extra edge. Distraction was also an assassin’s tool. As they herded like cloned beef toward the final security check, he surveyed the audience and picked out a busty woman in her thirties, sporting an emerald halter neck dress of gossamer-thin silk. Most of the middle-aged men pretended a little too hard not to notice her. As he mingled behind the woman and her escort in the funnelling queue, he casually reached into his pocket. He extracted the sliver of acid-coated razor-wire from its sheath. He coughed as he approached the twin security columns. His right hand, en route to cover his mouth, grazed the material of the woman’s halter with the filament, depositing a trace of acid. He let the hair-like strand drop to the floor, crushing it underfoot. Holding up his E-ID pass, he stared as required towards one of the monoliths, the under-dressed woman behind him. He held his breath.Whoops and guffaws erupted as her halter snapped. Gabriel turned around, feigning surprise and interest, and the guards manhandled him through the full-scan checkpoint without serious attention. Once past he walked to the empty restroom and located the locked stall marked Out of Order. His fingers rapped in the entry digicode, and he stepped inside. He found what he expected, a small black rucksack, and checked the contents: gravitics, stiletto knife, and slimline S&W pulse gun with night-sighter. All he required now was his target’s name, but his wristcom stayed quiet. His handler didn’t usually leave it this late. He zipped up the bag. As he headed out, he checked his reflection in the restroom mirror, and paused. He searched for any trace of the young man he’d been before the War, before becoming a killing machine, before losing her... Eyes black and remorseless as a shark stared back at him; hers had been green, forgiving. She would have been twenty-seven today. He slung the rucksack over his shoulder. Happy birthday, Jenny. He broke off his gaze, stole through the door, and entered the holorium.
* * *
Despite the aircon maintaining the room at a fresh fifteen degrees Celsius to optimise the technology’s performance, Micah sweated."You won’t make it, not this time," Rudi said, leering beneath a wavy moustache. He anchored his feet against the chrome desk, tilting the recliner back further, hands linked behind matted black curls. You could have helped. Micah’s silver gloves were a blur as he worked at the holo-bench. Its data columns and networking filaments resembled a complex city of skyscrapers: sapphire flying buttresses connecting golden spires and towers. He grimaced at the writhing red sores leaching energy from four of the amber columns, defects he had to remove for the program to run. "Let me work, Rudi. I’m almost there." Rudi persisted. "Why’d you agree to do this in the first place? Thought you’d get a chance to work with our resident Slovakian princess in Comms, eh?" Micah dropped a filament and felt a stab of dread as it tumbled down inside the cylinder, ricocheting off several columns towards the central golden nexus. He caught it just in time with his left hand, without disturbing the overall structure. That was close! No time to wipe the beads of sweat building on his brow. "Nice catch," Rudi muttered. "So is she, but out of your league. You know that, right?"Micah ignored him, suspecting it wouldn’t make any difference.Rudi stretched his hands forward, framing Micah between thumbs and indexes as if taking a holopic. "I mean, look at you. The basics are okay � no hunchback, all your own teeth, body parts in the usual places. But the wiry fuzz on your head, the bulging eyes � is that a thyroid thing, by the way? And as for dress sense..." Rudi’s hands returned to their habitual position, clasped behind his head. "Does your Mom still buy your clothes, or what? No style. That’s the problem, Micah. She’s class, you’re not." Micah braved a shrug, but he knew Rudi was right: unlike Rudi, he had an abysmal record with women. He glanced at the countdown: 3:08. Any second, he’d get the call. His fingers, wrapped in second-skin holo-transducers, felt the subtle vibrations in the digitised information, like pulsating ice cubes covered in Braille. This part of his job at Eden Mission Control still gave him a buzz. He threaded the teraquad info-strands into place with a precision and purpose he rarely knew in the rest of his life. On cue, the screen switched on. A red-faced, balding man glared at him. Micah didn’t stop. Seconds mattered."Sanderson. Tell me it’s ready." "Yes, Mr Vastra, Sir. Almost ready. It’ll be on time." "Better be." The screen blanked. Rudi chuckled. "You’re in deep shit. Three minutes till lights out."Micah dismissed the remark and flipped back into the zone, holding his breath, rapt in concentration. All sound ceased in his mind, like a frozen waterfall. As he slotted the final filament into place, the reds vanished. The resultant data harmonic sent a tingling rush through his gloves into his arms and spine, making him gasp. He snapped his right forefinger and thumb together, transmitting the program. "Done!" The display shimmered and was gone. He peeled off the gloves, threw them onto the work bench, and slumped into his chair. Rudi sighed. "Why didn’t you just re-use the last vid � why does each one have to be different? Why make work for yourself? These shitheads don’t care. You’ll get no credit. And meanwhile, she doesn’t even know you exist!" Micah grinned. This one was going to be good. It would move the audience, he just knew it. "You wouldn’t understand, Rudi. It’s� art. Besides, some of the Hi-creds here today have been to the show before � they’ll be impressed when they realise it changes each time." Rudi shook his head. "No hope whatsoever�" Micah snatched up the remote-ball and squeezed it to select the holorium viewscreen on his macro display, then pressed harder to show feeds from all eight cameras. He scanned the views, zooming in and out on the audience about to see his production. The stock-straight profile of the Eden Mission Director, Keiji Kane, was easy to pick out from the crowd, greeting indistinguishable men in dark suits with expandable waistlines. The younger women in the audience were strikingly dressed in angular flow-suits, the older ones decked out in more classic elegant outfits. He watched Kane’s acerbic assistant Sandy march up to him and whisper something in his ear, her hand touching his waist as she bent forward. Kane nodded, and headed over to his front row pew. People followed his lead and took their seats for the show, a prelude to a tour of Eden Mission Control, the first step in eliciting continued financial support from the ultra-rich. Micah wasn’t keen on the fact they had to do this every month, but it was vital to keeping alive the four astronauts on their way to Eden. He zoomed back out when someone unusual caught his eye � a tanned, slim man floating through the crowd like a dancer � all in black, no jacket, just a small back-pack. No one seemed to notice him as he headed toward the rear exit, cutting through the flood of people vying for the best places. Micah leant forward, intrigued by his effortless movements, like a dolphin swimming through the current. He lost him, though, as he moved out of camera range. Plain-clothes security, he assumed.Rudi was right about one thing, though. This wasn’t his real job. They were both full-time telemetry analysts, poring over sensor information slip-streaming back from Earth’s only faster-than-light ship, the Ulysses. Comms was haphazard at best, involving unpredictable and still barely-understood tachyon fields, coupled with an increasing delay as Ulysses got farther from Earth. He didn’t fully understand the theory, but he and Rudi were two of the people disentangling the data and making sense of it. Still, he had a modest talent for holo-vidding � not enough to give up his day job � but he enjoyed watching people’s reactions, and it made a break from the drudgery of endless analysis of signals traversing incomprehensible distances across the void, telling everyone that all was stillwell on the mission to Eden. Reluctantly, he had to admit that Rudi was right on the other count, too. He pretended he wasn’t searching, but when he found Antonia in the audience, his breath softened. He zeroed in on her. Although she was staff, like him, Antonia always got an invite to these functions, being the daughter of the Slovakian ambassador. Though "Princess" wasn’t correct, it wasn’t entirely inappropriate � she was regal, statuesque, with porcelain skin and almond-shaped eyes. He watched her slink into her seat, and observed the fading holorium lights twinkle on her sequined dress. "Naughty, naughty!" Rudi said. "Mustn’t spy on staff, you know."Micah frowned, only in part due to the comment: she had a tall, suave escort. Switching the cameras to night-vision mode, he zoomed away from her, resisting temptation. Rudi slapped his thighs and got up. "God, I’m sorry, man, I can’t bear to watch another one. I’m going for a spin on the Optron. Catch you later." The door hissed closed. Micah switched off four of the camera views to allow a central picture to emerge of the main holo-images the two-hundred-strong audience had gathered to experience. They were in for quite a ride, and he’d have to write a report later on their reactions, to fine-tune it for next time. He sat back, and waited.
* * *
Gabriel’s wristcom located the surveillance weak spot at the rear of the holorium. He set it to emit a fold, allowing him to work within a three metre sensor void, rendering him invisible to normal security sweeps. The lights dimmed. All eyes gazed forward. He slipped on a black silk hood, donned his gloves, and switched his wristcom to nerve-stim mode. He curved his thinly-sheathed tongue inside his mouth to activate the hands-free control mechanism. Few could master it: a single cough, yawn, or inadvertent swallowing could be misinterpreted as commands. But to Gabriel it was the ultimate assassin’s tool: internal, invisible to anyone looking for signs of subterfuge. Turning away from the audience immersed in the holo-show net, he approached the vertical steel wall at the back of the holorium. He switched his genetically-coded boots and gloves to lizard mode, tough microscopic hooks and barbs crystallising within seconds. His breathing remained silent as he scaled the sheer face, taking care not to move too fast. He knew enough psycho-physiology and anatomy not only to kill efficiently, but also to use the strengths and weaknesses of human and animal perception: oblique, rapid movements were perceived by all mammals and reptiles faster than any other sensory signal, especially via peripheral vision, for self-evident survival reasons. Six meters up, he positioned himself underneath a vacant balcony. He manoeuvred upside down, using his tongue control to activate gravitic contact pads on his feet, knees, waist and ribs. A millimetre at a time, he peeled his hands from the ceiling to test he was secure. His masked head fell backwards, upside down, like a gecko hanging from the ceiling, so he could see the audience. He had no interest in the holo. Tapping a short command into his wristcom to signal he was in position, he lifted an object the size of half an apple from his pocket and attached it to the ceiling. Last, he strapped the mono-pulse barrel with sighting lens to his forehead. He could see everyone in the audience � the backs of their heads at least. Everything was set.
He waited, immobile, an obsidian gargoyle ready to spit fire.
For all 4 books, and free short stories, see
August 8, 2015
Would you want to live forever?
Would you want to live forever? Really?
It's a question that looms large in science fiction and fantasy, as in the recent film Self/Less, a remake of a much better film called Seconds.
Both films address the same issue: if you were aging and could place your personality into a younger model, would you? In such a way you could potentially live forever, or at least for a very long time.
Seconds is much more interesting on this psychological question, as the protagonist by the end decides he doesn't want to be younger, as he doesn't fit in - an older man in a young mans' body. There is a massive generation gap between who he is on the inside and who everyone sees on the outside, and he can't bear it, so he asks to be transformed back (not a good idea, as it turns out).
One aspect I think the remake does do better is that the new version feels different, younger again, because his body is younger. Which brings another issue to mind: living forever is not much fun if you're too old - in mind or body - to enjoy it. When we're young we feel so, and there are hormones racing around our bodies to remind us, and we are full of plans and bucket lists of things to do, whereas when we age, everything slows down... It can feel as if your future is behind you.
So, there are really two questions:
Could you live forever?Would you want to?
The first is really a question of science. Our minds are in our brains, and are electrical discharges between billions of neurons. One day someone will replicate it, or find a way to simulate it that is good enough. The acid test will then belike a variant of the Enigma Question (can we distinguish between a robot and a real person?) The corresponding question becomes - if we are frequently regenerated, or stored in a succession of physical 'vessels', do we still feel like we are the same person?
In the recent remake of the Battlestar Galactica series, certain 'models' are continuously regenerated (resurrected, cloned), but each one has a distinctive personality that lives and dies; their memories are not the same. Perhaps this means our personality is a string of memories - which suggests 'we' should ultimately be 'codable'. [Thereis the question of the 'soul', but I leave that to more ambitious blogs.]
Of course, forever is a long time. Various science fiction authors have explored even medium term life extensions. Isaac Asimov, in his science fiction detective series with Daneel as the robot detective, he finds humans living on a planet where they each live several hundred years. The individuals live remote from one another, with little social interaction, they get married for a few decades then separate, and tend to live alone. Pessimistic? Is it? How long do our passions last, whether for particular people or for an activity or interest? Could we stay married to the same person for half a millennia? Stay in the same career?
Frank Herbert (via his son Brian Herbert) had Dune's Titans live for thousands of years, eventually putting their brains into large almost invincible robots, so they could terrorize the galaxy and tryto rule it, which they did for a while before they were undone.
In the Stargate series people who have done everything else and reach a certain intellectual maturity 'ascend' to a higher plane, giving up what Star Trek DS9 called 'corporeal' existence. Again, the idea seems to be that to get to our most advanced level, we need to give up our bodies rather than keep replacing them.
Other Scifi series such as Babylon 5 have ancient aliens who are very, very old.The principle in Scifi is usually that such ancient beings will also be very smart, and not be threatened in any serious way by anyone else. They are usually portrayed as being very zen and enigmatic. But what keeps them going? Why get out of bed for the millionth time?
Returning to Asimov, in his later Foundation books he referred to the Gaia principle, that some very advanced alien beings, who presumably hadtried everything else,merged with planets, surrendering their consciousness to nature.
In and there are alien characters called the Kalarash, who are literally billions of years old. Two of them, Kalaran and Hellera,have been exploringvariousgalaxies and nurturing the development of life there. However, Hellerais alreadyconsidering its futility, as she points out to Pierre in this extract from Eden's Revenge where she gives him a history lesson, showingour owngalaxy's history:
The swirl of stars turned slowly about its axis. Time. She was showing him time speeded up at an incredible rate. He calculated the galaxy’s rate of turn and converted it � a million years per second. Nothing happened for a while, then a spark flared in a spiral then snuffed out, signifying a civilisation flourishing and fading into obsolescence and extinction. Several more peppered the display, each one barely registering before fading. For a few seconds, an entire spiral waxed red, and then thousands of star systems glowed violet, indicating a terrible and all-consuming war, then faded to black, a few star systems hanging on before reverting to grey, indicating their civilisations and grand empires had decayed into oblivion.
And so it continued. He worked out where Earth was, and kept half an eye on it, but knew that at this rate of time lapse it would not even show up as having produced sentient life and civilisation. Then a swelling ring of stars lit up around the inner hub, inward from the spirals, flickered precariously, and remained bright. The Grid. The interstellar highway that had fuelled and cemented a galactic society. It lasted a full ten seconds, rippling out to most of the spirals, then froze. Today.
He wanted more. “Hellera, can you fast-forward, please, most likely prediction.�
The stars all returned to their silver-grey pinpricks, all civilisation extinguished, and then the galaxy split apart, shattered into myriad motes losing cohesion, imploding, becoming dust, the dark matter and energy forces that bind a galaxy together depleted. Just like before, Pierre thought, according to the legends of the war two billon years ago in the Jannahi galaxy when the Kalarash last joined battle against Qorall.
Pierre sat back. She had asked him to say what he understood, but the shock of knowing the likely end numbed him.
Hellera spoke.“The time between enduring civilisations is very long. You should know this from your own history � four billion years � and humanity has only evolved in the last couple of million, the beginnings of civilisation just dawning before almost being erased.�
She stood.“We Kalarash get terribly lonely in those times of darkness. We see the same mistakes over and over again.�
Pierre sensed the despair of a goddess whose children were forever doomed.
The likely reality, however, is that even immortal beings may still fear death, because though they have lived very long lives, death is eternal, the ultimate singularity. In Eden's Endgame, anotherancient alien, Qorall,seeks revenge on the Kalarash. This takes a new twist, because these very ancient beings are suddenly under real threat, and so are 'mortal' just as we are, even if incredibly long-lived. One of them, Kalaran, knows he may well die, and despite having lived for so long, realises he may not be quite ready to give up life just yet, as we find in this exchange between him and Hellera, just before he joins battle with Qorall in our galaxy:
In Kalaran’s judgment there was no such thing as a good day to die. And yet here he was, about to challenge Qorall, one-on-one. As a Kalarash, he felt responsible; when they’d first come across Qorall, he had been an outsider from a backwater sector of the universe, Level Eighteen, an incredible find, a prodigy. They’d taken him in, and Kalaran and the others had helped him advance. Only Hellera had urged caution, but she’d been over-ruled. That had already cost them their home galaxy, and although there were plenty of galaxies around, Kalaran wasn’t going to let it happen again. Even so, it wasn’t easy after two billion years of sentience to contemplate one’s own demise. It wasn’t simply about ego, either; how do you sacrifice for the higher good when you are the higher good?
His plan had been running in the background for millennia. He had been the only one of the seven remaining Kalarash that had developed a contingency plan in case Qorall had survived the last war, the others believing him dead. Unfortunately, Qorall’s onslaught had been far more vicious than anticipated, with many new weapons, and a base that seemed impregnable. High stakes required bold moves, and Kalaran accepted that at the end of the day, the Kalarash weren’t Gods, weren’t permanent fixtures in the universe, they were just players in the game who had a limited time like everyone else, just longer than most. Still, it was difficult to make his final move knowing he wouldn’t be there to see how the game ended.
His ship held the full spectrum of weapons, from molecular scramblers and subspace mines to dark-energy disruptors and star-imploders, but when fighting an equal, the small stuff didn’t count. Both his and Qorall’s ships had vastly resilient immune systems capable of identifying and rejecting invasive organics. It came down to who hit the hardest and the smartest. And in Kalaran’s case, just how much he was willing to sacrifice.
His ship punched into the system where the Xera homeworld was in the process of resurrection. Qorall had flooded the sector with liquid space rendering it a ghostly green. Four of Kalaran’s allies � Ukrull, Pierre, Jen and Dimitri � remained in play. He vowed to get them out before the battle got too hot. He trimmed his ship’s shields and drives to adapt to the liquid space properties that would otherwise leach power from his weapons.
Six Level Sixteen Nchkani vessels took up position at the outer edge of the system. Kalaran held a tinge of admiration for their design, there was a certain panache about them � obsidian ovoids festooned with feather-like spines, each holding a dizzying arsenal. But the Nchkani were only Level Sixteen, and did not yet possess the ability to manipulate gravity, unlike the Tla Beth, whom they aimed to replace if Qorall won.
It was never easy to kill a species he’d helped evolve over millions of years, but the Kalarash always squashed rebellions, one of their few rules. He dispatched a gravity weapon Qorall knew well enough but was unheard of in this galaxy, a Hell-Class weapon he’d not used for aeons, and had once argued should be banned. But the rules of war were bound only by three factors: the laws of physics, ingenuity and sheer force of will. He had to send a message. Besides, the weapon had a side-effect that fitted his plan. Kalaran watched, knowing any Nchkani caught by it were already dead, their short ten thousand year lifespans about to be snuffed out.
The net, a purple veil, fluoresced through space as it sped toward the ships. Three of the captains had the sense to jump their ships out of the system. The other three separated but were sucked back together. As the net closed around them, first their spines crumbled, melting like wax, then the hulls cracked apart, spilling their occupants into a gravity gradient that pulverised them. A torrent of explosions erupted in a spasmodic and futile fit of rage, then all three ships melded into a ball, becoming smaller, harder, silent; a uniform brown speck that flashed crimson, a stunning bloom of what humans called Hawking radiation, before collapsing into a pin-prick black micro-singularity.
A communiqué arrived from Qorall. That was unexpected. It said <Leave>, meaning quit the galaxy. Qorall wanted Hellera, in order to build the foundation, his progeny.
Not going to happen.
Hellera contacted him from the other side of the galaxy, her ship inside the nebula sheltering the Tla Beth homeworld. Accessing her sensors he saw dark worms and Nchkani ships swarm.
“I should be there, with you, Kalaran. Together we stand a better chance.�
“If the Tla Beth fall, other species will surrender to Qorall. And if you come here and we lose, Qorall will be unstoppable. Once he conquers this galaxy, he’ll go after the rest of the Kalarash.�
Several nano-seconds slipped past, a long pause for Hellera. “These humans. You still believe they are important.�
“A required catalyst.�
“I’ve been in their heads; chaos and conflict.�
“Sometimes they’re happy for a fleeting moment.�
“An illusory and pathetic state we abandoned a billion years ago, with good reason.�
“Do you remember, though? You and I were happy once.�
Again, several nanoseconds pause.
“I remember.�
“I have to go now, Hellera. Is all in place?�
“Of course. Are you sure about this, Kalaran?�
“Never surer, Hellera.�
“Then do it.� She broke the connection.
Two billion years alive. As the human Jen would say, he’d had a good run for his money. Kalaran readied his ship. Its ten kilometre-long outer hull shifted from its usual scarlet and green hues to a deep blue, except for a single ivory ankh, the sign of the Kalarash. His ship sprang towards Qorall’s, and opened fire.
The Kalarash didn't start out as naturally ancient beings. They evolved over hundreds of millennia and ultimately merged with hyper-advanced semi-organic ships to travel the galaxy.
This brings usto a conundrum. Motivation is something that comes from our organic nature, rather than our purely intellectual faculties. It is not so easy to 'hard-code' motivation. And a collection of memories, after all, is just that; there is something else we haven't figured out yet. The conundrum, or paradox, is that if we could find a way to extend our lifetimes, we might have to doso by relying more on technology, which might mean we lose themotivational element that is so important, that helps us seek and find a reason to exist. The two questions - canwe live forever, and would we want to - are inextricably linked.
One final parting shot on this one. In the Eden Paradox series, particularly the lasttwo books (Revenge and Endgame), there are many races thathave significantly extended lifetimes, e.g. thousands to tens of thousands of years, a few extending to millions. But the longer they live, the less there are of them. The closer you get to beingimmortal, the less you reproduce. In the books, this is not an issue of long-lived aliens notwanting to have sex, rather that sex is no longereffective, the price they pay for effective immortality. As Pierre finds out, there are only seven Kalarash. There willnever be any more.
The Eden Paradox Series:
- where we find out we are not alone
- where we are put on trial for our very existence
- where it gets personal
- where the fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance
It's a question that looms large in science fiction and fantasy, as in the recent film Self/Less, a remake of a much better film called Seconds.
Both films address the same issue: if you were aging and could place your personality into a younger model, would you? In such a way you could potentially live forever, or at least for a very long time.
Seconds is much more interesting on this psychological question, as the protagonist by the end decides he doesn't want to be younger, as he doesn't fit in - an older man in a young mans' body. There is a massive generation gap between who he is on the inside and who everyone sees on the outside, and he can't bear it, so he asks to be transformed back (not a good idea, as it turns out).
One aspect I think the remake does do better is that the new version feels different, younger again, because his body is younger. Which brings another issue to mind: living forever is not much fun if you're too old - in mind or body - to enjoy it. When we're young we feel so, and there are hormones racing around our bodies to remind us, and we are full of plans and bucket lists of things to do, whereas when we age, everything slows down... It can feel as if your future is behind you.
So, there are really two questions:
Could you live forever?Would you want to?
The first is really a question of science. Our minds are in our brains, and are electrical discharges between billions of neurons. One day someone will replicate it, or find a way to simulate it that is good enough. The acid test will then belike a variant of the Enigma Question (can we distinguish between a robot and a real person?) The corresponding question becomes - if we are frequently regenerated, or stored in a succession of physical 'vessels', do we still feel like we are the same person?
In the recent remake of the Battlestar Galactica series, certain 'models' are continuously regenerated (resurrected, cloned), but each one has a distinctive personality that lives and dies; their memories are not the same. Perhaps this means our personality is a string of memories - which suggests 'we' should ultimately be 'codable'. [Thereis the question of the 'soul', but I leave that to more ambitious blogs.]
Of course, forever is a long time. Various science fiction authors have explored even medium term life extensions. Isaac Asimov, in his science fiction detective series with Daneel as the robot detective, he finds humans living on a planet where they each live several hundred years. The individuals live remote from one another, with little social interaction, they get married for a few decades then separate, and tend to live alone. Pessimistic? Is it? How long do our passions last, whether for particular people or for an activity or interest? Could we stay married to the same person for half a millennia? Stay in the same career?
Frank Herbert (via his son Brian Herbert) had Dune's Titans live for thousands of years, eventually putting their brains into large almost invincible robots, so they could terrorize the galaxy and tryto rule it, which they did for a while before they were undone.
In the Stargate series people who have done everything else and reach a certain intellectual maturity 'ascend' to a higher plane, giving up what Star Trek DS9 called 'corporeal' existence. Again, the idea seems to be that to get to our most advanced level, we need to give up our bodies rather than keep replacing them.
Other Scifi series such as Babylon 5 have ancient aliens who are very, very old.The principle in Scifi is usually that such ancient beings will also be very smart, and not be threatened in any serious way by anyone else. They are usually portrayed as being very zen and enigmatic. But what keeps them going? Why get out of bed for the millionth time?
Returning to Asimov, in his later Foundation books he referred to the Gaia principle, that some very advanced alien beings, who presumably hadtried everything else,merged with planets, surrendering their consciousness to nature.
In and there are alien characters called the Kalarash, who are literally billions of years old. Two of them, Kalaran and Hellera,have been exploringvariousgalaxies and nurturing the development of life there. However, Hellerais alreadyconsidering its futility, as she points out to Pierre in this extract from Eden's Revenge where she gives him a history lesson, showingour owngalaxy's history:
The swirl of stars turned slowly about its axis. Time. She was showing him time speeded up at an incredible rate. He calculated the galaxy’s rate of turn and converted it � a million years per second. Nothing happened for a while, then a spark flared in a spiral then snuffed out, signifying a civilisation flourishing and fading into obsolescence and extinction. Several more peppered the display, each one barely registering before fading. For a few seconds, an entire spiral waxed red, and then thousands of star systems glowed violet, indicating a terrible and all-consuming war, then faded to black, a few star systems hanging on before reverting to grey, indicating their civilisations and grand empires had decayed into oblivion.
And so it continued. He worked out where Earth was, and kept half an eye on it, but knew that at this rate of time lapse it would not even show up as having produced sentient life and civilisation. Then a swelling ring of stars lit up around the inner hub, inward from the spirals, flickered precariously, and remained bright. The Grid. The interstellar highway that had fuelled and cemented a galactic society. It lasted a full ten seconds, rippling out to most of the spirals, then froze. Today.
He wanted more. “Hellera, can you fast-forward, please, most likely prediction.�
The stars all returned to their silver-grey pinpricks, all civilisation extinguished, and then the galaxy split apart, shattered into myriad motes losing cohesion, imploding, becoming dust, the dark matter and energy forces that bind a galaxy together depleted. Just like before, Pierre thought, according to the legends of the war two billon years ago in the Jannahi galaxy when the Kalarash last joined battle against Qorall.
Pierre sat back. She had asked him to say what he understood, but the shock of knowing the likely end numbed him.
Hellera spoke.“The time between enduring civilisations is very long. You should know this from your own history � four billion years � and humanity has only evolved in the last couple of million, the beginnings of civilisation just dawning before almost being erased.�
She stood.“We Kalarash get terribly lonely in those times of darkness. We see the same mistakes over and over again.�
Pierre sensed the despair of a goddess whose children were forever doomed.
The likely reality, however, is that even immortal beings may still fear death, because though they have lived very long lives, death is eternal, the ultimate singularity. In Eden's Endgame, anotherancient alien, Qorall,seeks revenge on the Kalarash. This takes a new twist, because these very ancient beings are suddenly under real threat, and so are 'mortal' just as we are, even if incredibly long-lived. One of them, Kalaran, knows he may well die, and despite having lived for so long, realises he may not be quite ready to give up life just yet, as we find in this exchange between him and Hellera, just before he joins battle with Qorall in our galaxy:
In Kalaran’s judgment there was no such thing as a good day to die. And yet here he was, about to challenge Qorall, one-on-one. As a Kalarash, he felt responsible; when they’d first come across Qorall, he had been an outsider from a backwater sector of the universe, Level Eighteen, an incredible find, a prodigy. They’d taken him in, and Kalaran and the others had helped him advance. Only Hellera had urged caution, but she’d been over-ruled. That had already cost them their home galaxy, and although there were plenty of galaxies around, Kalaran wasn’t going to let it happen again. Even so, it wasn’t easy after two billion years of sentience to contemplate one’s own demise. It wasn’t simply about ego, either; how do you sacrifice for the higher good when you are the higher good?
His plan had been running in the background for millennia. He had been the only one of the seven remaining Kalarash that had developed a contingency plan in case Qorall had survived the last war, the others believing him dead. Unfortunately, Qorall’s onslaught had been far more vicious than anticipated, with many new weapons, and a base that seemed impregnable. High stakes required bold moves, and Kalaran accepted that at the end of the day, the Kalarash weren’t Gods, weren’t permanent fixtures in the universe, they were just players in the game who had a limited time like everyone else, just longer than most. Still, it was difficult to make his final move knowing he wouldn’t be there to see how the game ended.
His ship held the full spectrum of weapons, from molecular scramblers and subspace mines to dark-energy disruptors and star-imploders, but when fighting an equal, the small stuff didn’t count. Both his and Qorall’s ships had vastly resilient immune systems capable of identifying and rejecting invasive organics. It came down to who hit the hardest and the smartest. And in Kalaran’s case, just how much he was willing to sacrifice.
His ship punched into the system where the Xera homeworld was in the process of resurrection. Qorall had flooded the sector with liquid space rendering it a ghostly green. Four of Kalaran’s allies � Ukrull, Pierre, Jen and Dimitri � remained in play. He vowed to get them out before the battle got too hot. He trimmed his ship’s shields and drives to adapt to the liquid space properties that would otherwise leach power from his weapons.
Six Level Sixteen Nchkani vessels took up position at the outer edge of the system. Kalaran held a tinge of admiration for their design, there was a certain panache about them � obsidian ovoids festooned with feather-like spines, each holding a dizzying arsenal. But the Nchkani were only Level Sixteen, and did not yet possess the ability to manipulate gravity, unlike the Tla Beth, whom they aimed to replace if Qorall won.
It was never easy to kill a species he’d helped evolve over millions of years, but the Kalarash always squashed rebellions, one of their few rules. He dispatched a gravity weapon Qorall knew well enough but was unheard of in this galaxy, a Hell-Class weapon he’d not used for aeons, and had once argued should be banned. But the rules of war were bound only by three factors: the laws of physics, ingenuity and sheer force of will. He had to send a message. Besides, the weapon had a side-effect that fitted his plan. Kalaran watched, knowing any Nchkani caught by it were already dead, their short ten thousand year lifespans about to be snuffed out.
The net, a purple veil, fluoresced through space as it sped toward the ships. Three of the captains had the sense to jump their ships out of the system. The other three separated but were sucked back together. As the net closed around them, first their spines crumbled, melting like wax, then the hulls cracked apart, spilling their occupants into a gravity gradient that pulverised them. A torrent of explosions erupted in a spasmodic and futile fit of rage, then all three ships melded into a ball, becoming smaller, harder, silent; a uniform brown speck that flashed crimson, a stunning bloom of what humans called Hawking radiation, before collapsing into a pin-prick black micro-singularity.
A communiqué arrived from Qorall. That was unexpected. It said <Leave>, meaning quit the galaxy. Qorall wanted Hellera, in order to build the foundation, his progeny.
Not going to happen.
Hellera contacted him from the other side of the galaxy, her ship inside the nebula sheltering the Tla Beth homeworld. Accessing her sensors he saw dark worms and Nchkani ships swarm.
“I should be there, with you, Kalaran. Together we stand a better chance.�
“If the Tla Beth fall, other species will surrender to Qorall. And if you come here and we lose, Qorall will be unstoppable. Once he conquers this galaxy, he’ll go after the rest of the Kalarash.�
Several nano-seconds slipped past, a long pause for Hellera. “These humans. You still believe they are important.�
“A required catalyst.�
“I’ve been in their heads; chaos and conflict.�
“Sometimes they’re happy for a fleeting moment.�
“An illusory and pathetic state we abandoned a billion years ago, with good reason.�
“Do you remember, though? You and I were happy once.�
Again, several nanoseconds pause.
“I remember.�
“I have to go now, Hellera. Is all in place?�
“Of course. Are you sure about this, Kalaran?�
“Never surer, Hellera.�
“Then do it.� She broke the connection.
Two billion years alive. As the human Jen would say, he’d had a good run for his money. Kalaran readied his ship. Its ten kilometre-long outer hull shifted from its usual scarlet and green hues to a deep blue, except for a single ivory ankh, the sign of the Kalarash. His ship sprang towards Qorall’s, and opened fire.
The Kalarash didn't start out as naturally ancient beings. They evolved over hundreds of millennia and ultimately merged with hyper-advanced semi-organic ships to travel the galaxy.
This brings usto a conundrum. Motivation is something that comes from our organic nature, rather than our purely intellectual faculties. It is not so easy to 'hard-code' motivation. And a collection of memories, after all, is just that; there is something else we haven't figured out yet. The conundrum, or paradox, is that if we could find a way to extend our lifetimes, we might have to doso by relying more on technology, which might mean we lose themotivational element that is so important, that helps us seek and find a reason to exist. The two questions - canwe live forever, and would we want to - are inextricably linked.
One final parting shot on this one. In the Eden Paradox series, particularly the lasttwo books (Revenge and Endgame), there are many races thathave significantly extended lifetimes, e.g. thousands to tens of thousands of years, a few extending to millions. But the longer they live, the less there are of them. The closer you get to beingimmortal, the less you reproduce. In the books, this is not an issue of long-lived aliens notwanting to have sex, rather that sex is no longereffective, the price they pay for effective immortality. As Pierre finds out, there are only seven Kalarash. There willnever be any more.
The Eden Paradox Series:
- where we find out we are not alone
- where we are put on trial for our very existence
- where it gets personal
- where the fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance
July 23, 2015
A tale of two critiques...
I'm editing the final manuscript for Sixty-Six Metres, a thriller set in the Scilly Isles off the Cornish coast of England. Some years ago I almost died there while scuba diving. It was quite an eventful trip, on all fronts. So, taking a short sabbatical from writing science fiction, I decided to write a thriller set there, with a fair amount of diving in the story. Diving is such an exciting and dangerous activity, I always wondered why more novels don't use it as context. In any case, a few months ago I sent off the draft manuscript to two literary agencies, Writers Workshop and Cornerstones, to get two independent reviews. Here's how one of the reviewers described the novel:
Nadia, a young Russian woman, is forced to retrieve a military stealth device from dangerously deep water. And both the Mafia and a rogue CIA agent want it at any price.
My writers group had workshopped most of the chapters over the preceding year, but I wanted to get some unbiased professional critiques of the manuscript as a whole, something your own writers group can find difficult to do if they have been involved in its evolution. I went for two critiques rather than just one as, although it's obviously more expensive that way, sometimes the reviewer says something you're not sure about, and you are left wondering, whereas with two critiques you can compare what each says. Equally, sometimes a reviewer perhaps simply isn't 'into' your style of writing - enjoying a novel is such a subjective experience - and it may leave the author a little disheartened (yes, we have egos...)
First, the good news, a short selection of praise I was very happy to receive, especially as the 'thriller' genre is new territory for me:
A pacey tightly plotted thriller with a satisfying story arc...
The diving element was fabulous...
No comments on chapters 18-21, too busy flipping pages...
Sixty-Six Metres is full of compelling characters...
I could feel the pulse in my neck when reading the scene when two divers are trapped in the wreck...
Then there were comments on where technique was working fine: narrative, action scenes, creation of multi-faceted characters, dialogue (mostly), and credible research.
Typically, for both reviewers, the 'good news' occupied the first page. But wait a minute, what were the other nine pages about then?
Well, we learn mainly from negative feedback...
Too many characters: I've now deleted two, I sort of knew this but needed to have it stated clearly in black and white.
Too many coincidences: both reviewers pointed these out, and I was surprised how many times a coincidence moved the plot forwards. Lazy writing. I'm fixing all of these now...
Character wobbles: too much wavering by one of the central characters - agreed it happens in real life, but doesn't work well in this genre. Fixed.
Giving the reader '4' instead of '2 + 2': this was a very interesting comment, as I was too often explaining everything, rather than leaving just enough for the reader to join the dots. Nice one!
Too muchinternal monologue: fair dues, my writing group pointed this out as well, but it becomes more apparent when you read the whole thing. Especially for a thriller, there can be some introspection, but not too much. I've cut it down a lot.
Show don't tell: I can pretty much guarantee you will get this comment no matter what you submit; its a soft target for a reviewer, and just once I'd like to hear 'tell don't show', because sometimes it works that was as well. But this was more specific, and both reviewers were getting at a habit I'd had - again, lazy writing - of telling certain things that had happened in the past instead of using a more linear (chronological and active) writing style. This round of edits has actually been fun, because it's forced me to bring those events to life, and the book is better for it.
Love interest: Actually, there was too much, and it was dispersed rather than focused, making the cast overall seem a little too horny (maybe I was going through a dry patch, lol). This again was a nice observation and I've toned it down except for the two protagonists, without turning it into a romance (because it isn't).
The two reviews themselves were different in style, one giving more high level thematic comments, the other making points chapter by chapter, first on plot, then on pace and tension, along with considerations on each main character. The second one obviously helps more(it also cost more, by the way) in the sense of being so structured, but the first one also helps me refine the story arc in terms of the two principal characters.
When I got both reviews back, I did nothing for about three weeks.I avoided the temptation to jump straight in and start revising, because it takes time to assimilate outside comments, and they deserve reflection and interpretation. I'm doing tworounds of edits, onedetailed, the other to smooth it out. I then plan to take it to the York Writers Festival in Septemberto see if any agents are interested.
Once again, as before if you've read my blogs on writing, I do recommend having your work critiqued, once you think you're finished, because this process can help you raise your game a few notches.
Anyway, here's an extract from Chapter 8 concerning Nadia, the protagonist. It's actually a flashback. One of the reviewers noted that flashbacks should generally be avoided, but she felt this one allowed the rule to be broken:
Katya had invited Nadia to a party in Moscow, dragging her away from her grotty studio flat where she fell asleep exhausted each night from working in the local bakery from 4am until 3pm, then at a supermarket until 9pm. Nadia was seventeen, not a virgin, but relatively inexperienced. At the party held at some big-wig’s country dacha, she’d been amazed at the wealth, the model-like women with perfect skin in low-cut flowing silk dresses, the handsome and not-so-handsome men, their confidence, their ease in the world. She’d been seduced by an older man, who turned out to be someone in government.
Three weeks of lavish presents and attention later, he’d been taken away at 4am � that kind of thing was always done at 4am � by the FSB. She’d been arrested too, as she was with him at the time, and thrown into jail to rot, with no one to speak up for her. After three weeks in prison she figured she’d be stuck there for years. Until one day Kadinsky arrived, the guy whose party it had been. He had a gleaming bald head, and was fat without being flabby, as if his weight was there to throw around, to crush you if necessary; you just knew straightaway not to mess with him. He wore an expensive suit, and gold jewellery dripped from him, accentuating his effortless power. Katya stood behind him in a skimpy dress and impossibly high heels, her eyes hopeful and terrified at the same time. Kadinsky got Nadia out with bribes and favours. Of course, she’d have to work it off.
Once back at his country dacha, he’d ordered Katya not to speak, then looked Nadia up and down with an appraising eye, shook his head with distaste, then said, “What else can you do?�
Nadia never knew where her answer came from, possibly utter revulsion against a life of prostitution ahead, but she’d thought of her father, and the words that sealed her fate slid out of her mouth.
“I can shoot,� she said. “I never miss.”�
Two of Kadinsky’s henchmen laughed, but Kadinsky maintained his sneer.
“I detest exaggeration,� he said. “It’s so American.� He grimaced, and his mouth moved as if he was going to spit. He glanced briefly at Katya, and in that moment Nadia knew he cared nothing for her sister.
He turned back to Nadia. “Let’s see if you can really shoot. Give her your pistol,� he said, gesturing to one of the henchmen, the one with a pock-marked face � Pox, she named him � who immediately lost his sense of humour.
Nadia took the weapon from his outstretched hand, weighed it in her palm. An old-style Magnum, the classic six-shot. God knows why the guy had it, most Russians preferred semi-autos; he’d probably taken it off an American, or else stolen it from a museum. She checked it was loaded, all six bullets nestling in their chambers, then looked to Kadinsky, and saw the other henchman, the one with slicked black hair � hence, Slick � his Glock trained on her face, a lopsided leer on his face, daring her. It was tempting, and if she’d known then what she knew now�
Kadinsky waved a hand towards Katya, seated on the other side of the room, a few metres away.
“The red rose in the bowl of flowers behind her left ear. Shoot it from where you stand.�
She watched Slick’s eyes flick towards Katya and gauge the angles. His leer faded.
She stared at Katya and the rose. It was just to the side of her head. Most of it was actually behind her head. Nadia swallowed and stood in a shooting stance like her father � a marksman himself in his army days � had taught her, right arm firm but elbow not locked, left hand reinforcing the wrist, prepared for the recoil. She lined up the shot, then lowered her arm. She spoke to Katya’s serene, trusting face: “Love you.� Then she raised her arms again, breathed out halfway, held it, and squeezed the trigger.
Nadia, a young Russian woman, is forced to retrieve a military stealth device from dangerously deep water. And both the Mafia and a rogue CIA agent want it at any price.
My writers group had workshopped most of the chapters over the preceding year, but I wanted to get some unbiased professional critiques of the manuscript as a whole, something your own writers group can find difficult to do if they have been involved in its evolution. I went for two critiques rather than just one as, although it's obviously more expensive that way, sometimes the reviewer says something you're not sure about, and you are left wondering, whereas with two critiques you can compare what each says. Equally, sometimes a reviewer perhaps simply isn't 'into' your style of writing - enjoying a novel is such a subjective experience - and it may leave the author a little disheartened (yes, we have egos...)
First, the good news, a short selection of praise I was very happy to receive, especially as the 'thriller' genre is new territory for me:
A pacey tightly plotted thriller with a satisfying story arc...
The diving element was fabulous...
No comments on chapters 18-21, too busy flipping pages...
Sixty-Six Metres is full of compelling characters...
I could feel the pulse in my neck when reading the scene when two divers are trapped in the wreck...
Then there were comments on where technique was working fine: narrative, action scenes, creation of multi-faceted characters, dialogue (mostly), and credible research.
Typically, for both reviewers, the 'good news' occupied the first page. But wait a minute, what were the other nine pages about then?
Well, we learn mainly from negative feedback...
Too many characters: I've now deleted two, I sort of knew this but needed to have it stated clearly in black and white.
Too many coincidences: both reviewers pointed these out, and I was surprised how many times a coincidence moved the plot forwards. Lazy writing. I'm fixing all of these now...
Character wobbles: too much wavering by one of the central characters - agreed it happens in real life, but doesn't work well in this genre. Fixed.
Giving the reader '4' instead of '2 + 2': this was a very interesting comment, as I was too often explaining everything, rather than leaving just enough for the reader to join the dots. Nice one!
Too muchinternal monologue: fair dues, my writing group pointed this out as well, but it becomes more apparent when you read the whole thing. Especially for a thriller, there can be some introspection, but not too much. I've cut it down a lot.
Show don't tell: I can pretty much guarantee you will get this comment no matter what you submit; its a soft target for a reviewer, and just once I'd like to hear 'tell don't show', because sometimes it works that was as well. But this was more specific, and both reviewers were getting at a habit I'd had - again, lazy writing - of telling certain things that had happened in the past instead of using a more linear (chronological and active) writing style. This round of edits has actually been fun, because it's forced me to bring those events to life, and the book is better for it.
Love interest: Actually, there was too much, and it was dispersed rather than focused, making the cast overall seem a little too horny (maybe I was going through a dry patch, lol). This again was a nice observation and I've toned it down except for the two protagonists, without turning it into a romance (because it isn't).
The two reviews themselves were different in style, one giving more high level thematic comments, the other making points chapter by chapter, first on plot, then on pace and tension, along with considerations on each main character. The second one obviously helps more(it also cost more, by the way) in the sense of being so structured, but the first one also helps me refine the story arc in terms of the two principal characters.
When I got both reviews back, I did nothing for about three weeks.I avoided the temptation to jump straight in and start revising, because it takes time to assimilate outside comments, and they deserve reflection and interpretation. I'm doing tworounds of edits, onedetailed, the other to smooth it out. I then plan to take it to the York Writers Festival in Septemberto see if any agents are interested.
Once again, as before if you've read my blogs on writing, I do recommend having your work critiqued, once you think you're finished, because this process can help you raise your game a few notches.
Anyway, here's an extract from Chapter 8 concerning Nadia, the protagonist. It's actually a flashback. One of the reviewers noted that flashbacks should generally be avoided, but she felt this one allowed the rule to be broken:
Katya had invited Nadia to a party in Moscow, dragging her away from her grotty studio flat where she fell asleep exhausted each night from working in the local bakery from 4am until 3pm, then at a supermarket until 9pm. Nadia was seventeen, not a virgin, but relatively inexperienced. At the party held at some big-wig’s country dacha, she’d been amazed at the wealth, the model-like women with perfect skin in low-cut flowing silk dresses, the handsome and not-so-handsome men, their confidence, their ease in the world. She’d been seduced by an older man, who turned out to be someone in government.
Three weeks of lavish presents and attention later, he’d been taken away at 4am � that kind of thing was always done at 4am � by the FSB. She’d been arrested too, as she was with him at the time, and thrown into jail to rot, with no one to speak up for her. After three weeks in prison she figured she’d be stuck there for years. Until one day Kadinsky arrived, the guy whose party it had been. He had a gleaming bald head, and was fat without being flabby, as if his weight was there to throw around, to crush you if necessary; you just knew straightaway not to mess with him. He wore an expensive suit, and gold jewellery dripped from him, accentuating his effortless power. Katya stood behind him in a skimpy dress and impossibly high heels, her eyes hopeful and terrified at the same time. Kadinsky got Nadia out with bribes and favours. Of course, she’d have to work it off.
Once back at his country dacha, he’d ordered Katya not to speak, then looked Nadia up and down with an appraising eye, shook his head with distaste, then said, “What else can you do?�
Nadia never knew where her answer came from, possibly utter revulsion against a life of prostitution ahead, but she’d thought of her father, and the words that sealed her fate slid out of her mouth.
“I can shoot,� she said. “I never miss.”�
Two of Kadinsky’s henchmen laughed, but Kadinsky maintained his sneer.
“I detest exaggeration,� he said. “It’s so American.� He grimaced, and his mouth moved as if he was going to spit. He glanced briefly at Katya, and in that moment Nadia knew he cared nothing for her sister.
He turned back to Nadia. “Let’s see if you can really shoot. Give her your pistol,� he said, gesturing to one of the henchmen, the one with a pock-marked face � Pox, she named him � who immediately lost his sense of humour.
Nadia took the weapon from his outstretched hand, weighed it in her palm. An old-style Magnum, the classic six-shot. God knows why the guy had it, most Russians preferred semi-autos; he’d probably taken it off an American, or else stolen it from a museum. She checked it was loaded, all six bullets nestling in their chambers, then looked to Kadinsky, and saw the other henchman, the one with slicked black hair � hence, Slick � his Glock trained on her face, a lopsided leer on his face, daring her. It was tempting, and if she’d known then what she knew now�
Kadinsky waved a hand towards Katya, seated on the other side of the room, a few metres away.
“The red rose in the bowl of flowers behind her left ear. Shoot it from where you stand.�
She watched Slick’s eyes flick towards Katya and gauge the angles. His leer faded.
She stared at Katya and the rose. It was just to the side of her head. Most of it was actually behind her head. Nadia swallowed and stood in a shooting stance like her father � a marksman himself in his army days � had taught her, right arm firm but elbow not locked, left hand reinforcing the wrist, prepared for the recoil. She lined up the shot, then lowered her arm. She spoke to Katya’s serene, trusting face: “Love you.� Then she raised her arms again, breathed out halfway, held it, and squeezed the trigger.
June 28, 2015
Ten rules for epic scifi and fantasy
Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Dune... What do they all have in common? They are all epic. The word conjures up a large canvas, many characters, heroic deeds and sacrifices, triumph in the face of evil... it rouses us to read on and on, or wait impatiently for the next film or episode to be released.
But what makes a book or film series epic?
Here are 10 observations on successful 'epic' stories, which seem to apply to both science fiction and fantasy. What do these two genres have in common? They both enable us to temporarily escape from our lives to another imagined universe, one we might prefer to live in...
1. The canvas is large
Whether it is Middle Earth or a distant galaxy, the feeling is that the landscape we are exposed to is vast. It is not enough to be hinted at, we must go there, whether in scenes or chapters. We must feel like we have travelled the length and breadth of the known universe being depicted. This means that the hero and other characters must themselves travel, since we experience through them. A good example of a current large canvas is the various countries depicted in Game of Thrones, whose opening credits are always a joy to behold.
2. The world(s) the characters inhabit seem real
This means there must be internal coherence - the way characters (including aliens or angels) act and react must make sense in their world. At least some of the characters should come from cultures that are different to ours - different values, different codes of behavior - otherwise it just feels like a masked ball, the characters are no different to us, just in a different environment, a different backdrop, and the reader/viewer will ask 'what is the point?' In fantasy there may be angels or elves or gremlins, in science fiction there can be aliens with completely different mores and appetites.
But their behavior should make sense, it needs to have been thought through by the writer. Culture is very hard to depict, but we are very good at picking up on it, and learning how it works. As well as the culture, there needs to be attention to detail concerning the environment and artifacts used in the story. The best way is always to have these, no matter how outlandish, seem normal to the indigenous people in the story, much as we now take smart-phones for granted even though they would have seemed miraculous just twenty years ago.
3. The world(s) and culture(s) are fascinating
Even if you wouldn't want to live there, the locations - at least some of them - should seem fascinating, and worth saving. If the world depiction is too depressing or dystopian, one may wonder if it is worth bothering about. Often this means the people or fantasy/alien creatures (again, at least some of them) must be worth saving. One of the most striking/sad points for me in the Lord of the Rings series was when the elves went to help mankind at the siege of Helm's Deep, and so many of them fell in battle. They were better than us, nearly immortal but gave their lives for us. A nice example of non-human heroism, of nobility.
4. The story starts small
Epics often start small: an outback farm on a hinterland planet; the Shire; a cupboard under the stairs in a small house in a London suburb; a palace on the ocean planet of Caladan.
Once the central character is established, a major event pulls them out of their world into a larger arena. Luke Skywalker triggers a message from the drone R2D2; Frodo is entrusted with the ring by Gandalf when Bilbo Baggins tries to disappear with it; Harry meets Hagrid and discovers he is a wizard; Paul Atreides goes to Arrakis where his father is killed and he flees into the desert.
By starting small (even if there is a prologue or first scene in the larger canvas, showing or foreshadowing evil), we can identify with a relatively 'normal' character and feel 'grounded' rather then bewildered and thrown straight in the deep end. Once grounded, we are ready to venture forth.
5. The story spirals outwards
This means that the reader/viewer goes on a trip through the landscape the writer has painstakingly developed. Ideally it radiates outwards slowly, Lord of the Rings being the perfect example, Star Wars - which sometimes zips about in a dizzying fashion - less so. The Dune series is a monumental example (particularly later on), with whole books devoted to the different cultures and planets that make up the Dune universe.
6. There is a large 'cast'
It is hard to be epic if there are few characters. Also, since the landscape is vast, it will be tedious if the hero has to do everything alone. Therefore, usually there are other characters who are helping the hero, and several factions working against him or her. The trick then is to have a sufficiently large cast to make the plot work, without overwhelming the reader/viewer ("who's he again?"). Again, Tolkein did this explicitly by creating the Fellowship of the Ring, though of course there are many other characters on both sides who are worthy of note.
7. The central hero is someone we can care about
Notice how Luke, Harry, Frodo and Paul are all quite young (especially Harry)? They are still forming, at most young men, and inexperienced. Since they are on heroic journeys, they will be forged by events, they will grow during the story. It is easier to do this with relatively fresh characters, rather than say older, more cynical ones, where the theme is more likely to be redemption rather than unbridled heroism. [By the way, we need more female heroes in epic adventures!]
8. There are at least two main villains
One is not enough. There is the villain who is there most of the time (e.g. in Lord of the Rings, Saruman, played by the late and great Christopher Lee), and the more sinister villain in the background, who we often don't see until later on or even at the end (Sauron).
For Harry he has enemies to begin with, but as the series develops it becomes Voldemort, who was behind everything from the start. For Star Wars it is Darth Vader, then the Dark Lord lurking in the background.
9. There will be loss
Given that the stakes will be high, there has to be loss. A 'soap' - and many if not most scifi or fantasy TV series fall or at least trespass into this category - is not an epic. Secondary heroes (not the main one, except in Game of Thrones), must pay the ultimate price. A lot of fantasy bends this rule (Lord of the Rings did not), but if it all ends 'happy ever after', again, it is not truly epic.
Harry Potter is good at this especially in the closing sections where a good number of his allies are culled. Bravo Ms. Rowling! Plenty fall in Dune through the course of the books, less so in Lord of the Rings and Star Wars; but there is loss.
10. The ending returns to the origin
This one is less clear, though I'm in favor of it. In Lord of the Rings, Samwise goes back to the Shire, even if Frodo can't. Harry Potter gets married and takes up 'normal' wizarding life. For Star Wars and Dune it's less clear, and the former is not done yet in any case, with Episode 7 out soon. But for me this offers the best closure, enabling me to put the book down again and come back to normal life, or leave the cinema seat and venture out into the real world . Of course the origin may have changed dramatically, but still, there is the idea of returning home in some shape or form.
In my own series, I followed these ten rules, particularly the spiraling landscape, with successive books enlarging the universe into which humanity was rudely ushered. Of the four masterpieces I've been focusing on, probably Lord of the Rings and Dune are my strongest influences. Maybe in another lifetime I can write that well.
And in the meantime, I'm continually on the lookout for new 'epic' adventures, which means so much more than cool CGI and 3D, or seven hundred page tomes where 'a lot happens to a lot of people'. An epic should be a terrific story with resonating characters, a story that makes us proud to be human, makes us want to do our bit to change our world for the better, to be more like the imagined world we've just been inhabiting.
But what makes a book or film series epic?
Here are 10 observations on successful 'epic' stories, which seem to apply to both science fiction and fantasy. What do these two genres have in common? They both enable us to temporarily escape from our lives to another imagined universe, one we might prefer to live in...
1. The canvas is large
Whether it is Middle Earth or a distant galaxy, the feeling is that the landscape we are exposed to is vast. It is not enough to be hinted at, we must go there, whether in scenes or chapters. We must feel like we have travelled the length and breadth of the known universe being depicted. This means that the hero and other characters must themselves travel, since we experience through them. A good example of a current large canvas is the various countries depicted in Game of Thrones, whose opening credits are always a joy to behold.
2. The world(s) the characters inhabit seem real
This means there must be internal coherence - the way characters (including aliens or angels) act and react must make sense in their world. At least some of the characters should come from cultures that are different to ours - different values, different codes of behavior - otherwise it just feels like a masked ball, the characters are no different to us, just in a different environment, a different backdrop, and the reader/viewer will ask 'what is the point?' In fantasy there may be angels or elves or gremlins, in science fiction there can be aliens with completely different mores and appetites.
But their behavior should make sense, it needs to have been thought through by the writer. Culture is very hard to depict, but we are very good at picking up on it, and learning how it works. As well as the culture, there needs to be attention to detail concerning the environment and artifacts used in the story. The best way is always to have these, no matter how outlandish, seem normal to the indigenous people in the story, much as we now take smart-phones for granted even though they would have seemed miraculous just twenty years ago.
3. The world(s) and culture(s) are fascinating
Even if you wouldn't want to live there, the locations - at least some of them - should seem fascinating, and worth saving. If the world depiction is too depressing or dystopian, one may wonder if it is worth bothering about. Often this means the people or fantasy/alien creatures (again, at least some of them) must be worth saving. One of the most striking/sad points for me in the Lord of the Rings series was when the elves went to help mankind at the siege of Helm's Deep, and so many of them fell in battle. They were better than us, nearly immortal but gave their lives for us. A nice example of non-human heroism, of nobility.
4. The story starts small
Epics often start small: an outback farm on a hinterland planet; the Shire; a cupboard under the stairs in a small house in a London suburb; a palace on the ocean planet of Caladan.
Once the central character is established, a major event pulls them out of their world into a larger arena. Luke Skywalker triggers a message from the drone R2D2; Frodo is entrusted with the ring by Gandalf when Bilbo Baggins tries to disappear with it; Harry meets Hagrid and discovers he is a wizard; Paul Atreides goes to Arrakis where his father is killed and he flees into the desert.
By starting small (even if there is a prologue or first scene in the larger canvas, showing or foreshadowing evil), we can identify with a relatively 'normal' character and feel 'grounded' rather then bewildered and thrown straight in the deep end. Once grounded, we are ready to venture forth.
5. The story spirals outwards
This means that the reader/viewer goes on a trip through the landscape the writer has painstakingly developed. Ideally it radiates outwards slowly, Lord of the Rings being the perfect example, Star Wars - which sometimes zips about in a dizzying fashion - less so. The Dune series is a monumental example (particularly later on), with whole books devoted to the different cultures and planets that make up the Dune universe.
6. There is a large 'cast'
It is hard to be epic if there are few characters. Also, since the landscape is vast, it will be tedious if the hero has to do everything alone. Therefore, usually there are other characters who are helping the hero, and several factions working against him or her. The trick then is to have a sufficiently large cast to make the plot work, without overwhelming the reader/viewer ("who's he again?"). Again, Tolkein did this explicitly by creating the Fellowship of the Ring, though of course there are many other characters on both sides who are worthy of note.
7. The central hero is someone we can care about
Notice how Luke, Harry, Frodo and Paul are all quite young (especially Harry)? They are still forming, at most young men, and inexperienced. Since they are on heroic journeys, they will be forged by events, they will grow during the story. It is easier to do this with relatively fresh characters, rather than say older, more cynical ones, where the theme is more likely to be redemption rather than unbridled heroism. [By the way, we need more female heroes in epic adventures!]
8. There are at least two main villains
One is not enough. There is the villain who is there most of the time (e.g. in Lord of the Rings, Saruman, played by the late and great Christopher Lee), and the more sinister villain in the background, who we often don't see until later on or even at the end (Sauron).
For Harry he has enemies to begin with, but as the series develops it becomes Voldemort, who was behind everything from the start. For Star Wars it is Darth Vader, then the Dark Lord lurking in the background.
9. There will be loss
Given that the stakes will be high, there has to be loss. A 'soap' - and many if not most scifi or fantasy TV series fall or at least trespass into this category - is not an epic. Secondary heroes (not the main one, except in Game of Thrones), must pay the ultimate price. A lot of fantasy bends this rule (Lord of the Rings did not), but if it all ends 'happy ever after', again, it is not truly epic.
Harry Potter is good at this especially in the closing sections where a good number of his allies are culled. Bravo Ms. Rowling! Plenty fall in Dune through the course of the books, less so in Lord of the Rings and Star Wars; but there is loss.
10. The ending returns to the origin
This one is less clear, though I'm in favor of it. In Lord of the Rings, Samwise goes back to the Shire, even if Frodo can't. Harry Potter gets married and takes up 'normal' wizarding life. For Star Wars and Dune it's less clear, and the former is not done yet in any case, with Episode 7 out soon. But for me this offers the best closure, enabling me to put the book down again and come back to normal life, or leave the cinema seat and venture out into the real world . Of course the origin may have changed dramatically, but still, there is the idea of returning home in some shape or form.
In my own series, I followed these ten rules, particularly the spiraling landscape, with successive books enlarging the universe into which humanity was rudely ushered. Of the four masterpieces I've been focusing on, probably Lord of the Rings and Dune are my strongest influences. Maybe in another lifetime I can write that well.
And in the meantime, I'm continually on the lookout for new 'epic' adventures, which means so much more than cool CGI and 3D, or seven hundred page tomes where 'a lot happens to a lot of people'. An epic should be a terrific story with resonating characters, a story that makes us proud to be human, makes us want to do our bit to change our world for the better, to be more like the imagined world we've just been inhabiting.
June 21, 2015
Humanity's Judgement Day
In my novel Eden's Trial, I explored how aliens might judge us as a species. Rather than doing so based on perceptions of right or wrong, they would probably base their decision on whether we were useful to the galaxy or potentially harmful to it.
Their judgement would possibly be harsh. And there would be no right of appeal.
They could look at our history, but they would also probably consider the current leaders of the human race.
Given that we're not exactly kind to our planet, and have a propensity for wars and glaring inequalities, I wanted to put something in our favor, and so the judgement comes after Earth has been ransacked by an alien race (the Q'Roth), abetted by genetically-altered humans called Alicians, led by Sister Esma. Despite this, the trial doesn't go well for what is left of mankind.
Here's an extract from the book, . It is 2054. Micah is on a travelling city in deep space, trying to defend mankind, who, led by Blake, have been displaced to the planet Ourshiwann. But Micah has been travelling for six months and has not seen Blake, and does not know what has been going on while he's been away. Additionally, Micah and his friends, albeit in self-defense, have just killed a Q'Roth ambassador...
Micah stood mesmerized by the blue-green globe as it rolled in slow motion around the funnel suspended in space beneath them. It was an illusion, a macro-hologram of some sort, but looked incredibly real. The outer rim of the inverted, thundercloud-grey cone appeared hard, ceramic; he almost expected to hear a grinding noise as the replica of Earth toiled its way around the circumference. Towards its centre, the funnel descended like a gaseous whirlpool into darkness, a faint fire-light glow reaching up from its core. He didn’t need to be Level 4 to grasp the implication. The ball resembled Earth as it had been � trawled from one of Zack’s memories, no doubt � not the post-nuclear orange dustbowl which Micah remembered most clearly. Staring at it, he felt hollow, with an attendant nausea. All that remained of his world was a pale echo of humanity’s home. He gazed upon the treasure they had squandered. It was too easy to blame everything on the Alicians. They were a contributory factor, but humanity’s inherent weaknesses had facilitated its own downfall. He tugged his eyes away from paradise lost, and tracked across to the far side of the vista, to a graphite ball scarred with glowing scarlet rivers. Pinpricks of blood-coloured light stabbed out from the planetary simulacrum. He imagined a sea urchin whose spines had been ripped off, oozing its life force into naked space. Far above that ball, on a platform higher than the one for him, Sandy and Ramires, stood two Q’Roth warriors. They looked more powerful than the ones he’d seen before, their lower legs splayed, and their mid and upper legs folded together in an Escher-like snake pattern. They were completely immobile, but he had the sense they were somehow spitting on the humans who had slain their ambassador. To his far right, on a small disk, Zack’s Transpar stood as if to attention � like Zack never had � emphasising that this was no longer Zack, just an alien replica. Micah’s friend, and mentor, was gone. He noted that the three parties � humans, Q’Roth, and Transpar, were at three cardinal points of the compass. He looked to the logical fourth point, but there was just empty blackness, no walls in any direction, only darkness framing his opponents, the Transpar, and the swirling funnel.The two balls circled in the same direction, the Q’Roth home planet having moved a few degrees around the circumference as far as he could judge. Then he saw what Ramires had noticed. He backed off a pace. Between the two Q’Roth warriors, three times their height, stood a giant Q’Roth, its trapezoidal head red with black slits, the reverse of the warriors� coloration. Its bloated, purple ribbed belly curved down to the floor supported by two ramrod straight, sturdy legs. Its four other legs looked puny by comparison, protruding from its mid-section like useless appendages. It glared at Micah and the others, excreting pure hate. Beneath its loins, half the size of the warriors, Sister Esma appeared in a burgundy cloak.“Q’Roth queen, and Alician queen bitch,� Sandy said. “We must be on the Galactic A-list.”He glanced at Sandy. Humour � even the sardonic wit variety � was a good sign, and he needed all of them to be on the same side. He detected a fine inverted triangular film hanging behind the Queen’s frame, and decided the Queen had wings, which wasn’t good news. Doubtless she would have liked to fly across and finish them off herself. He planted his legs firm, and stared right back. He felt Sandy’s hand on his shoulder.A new disk arrived close to Zack’s Transpar, carrying an upright lizard, slick brown all over except for glimmering black thorns running from its crown to the tip of its tail. Its forelegs folded onto the ground so that it looked relaxed, bored even. Its smouldering yellow eyes stared forwards, though Micah had the impression it took in everything around it.“Ukrull, the Ranger.”Micah and the others spun around to see a lime-green Finchikta hovering behind them. Micah tried to focus internally, but nothing happened.“Your resident has been disabled for the duration of the trial. I will translate the proceedings for you.� Its head bobbed like an albatross, though he guessed this creature was vastly more intelligent. He could barely make out the thin line where its upper third eye remained closed. When it spoke, its beak barely opened, but its two sharp orange eyes blazed. The Finchikta’s hundreds of green vermicelli-like legs did not quite reach the ground, hanging like a curtain over its nether region.“Counsel for the defence?� Ramires asked.“In this court, there are only truth, causes, context, and consequences,� it replied.Micah wanted something clarified. “The funnel � what’s the significance, if the representation of our world disappears into it?”The Finchikta bobbed slowly. “A good question. In your world you represent justice by a set of scales, which can tip either way. But that implies justice can be wrong, that verdicts can be revoked, since scales can be tipped back again. Grid justice, as you may understand it, does not entertain reversals. Once either your globe, or the Q’Roth’s, dip beneath the event horizon of the funnel, the case is lost permanently. There is no appeal. Execution of sentence cannot be stopped.”Micah stared out at the swirling vista, suddenly concerned that maybe this wasn’t just an image. “But still, it’s only symbolic, right?� He hoped that whatever happened here, today, that Blake and the others on Ourshiwann might still have a chance to escape or at least defend themselves.The Finchikta bobbed again, deeper, which Micah interpreted to mean he’d asked another ‘intelligent� question. “It is mostly symbolic.”He didn’t like the sound of that.“Where’s the judge?� Sandy interjected.“Arriving,� the Finchikta said, orientating its beak upwards.They spotted something descending from way above. At first Micah couldn’t make out what was inside or riding the waves of rainbow-light, but as it got closer, he could pick out the details. Around thirty vertical rings circumscribed the main body, waves of fluorescent light surging through them. Inside the rings was a rounded hourglass shape which barely moved, except that the dark colours in the lower half sometimes squirted up into the lighter upper half of the hourglass, exchanging and sending lighter colours down through its narrow ‘waist�. It made Micah think of some night-time sea creatures he’d once seen, but his analytical mind dredged up a deeper analogy, that of the yin-yang symbol. He realised why, as he noticed a white patch in the lower, dark area, and a black one in the upper, lighter half. He recalled what his Zen master had said once about the symbol: “Most people only see black and white; they forget about the white dot in the sea of black, the black dot in the white portion. In nature there can no more be pure good than pure evil; in the heart of evil there is a speck of good, and vice versa. Nature abhors ultimate states.� Micah found the image fitting for a Galactic judge.“At least it’s human size,� Sandy said. She placed herself between Micah and Ramires and put a hand around the waist of each. “Whatever happens, gentlemen, it’s been � interesting.”An overwhelming impulse overtook Micah, to reach out to Sandy in some way, without offending her or Ramires. He leaned forward to her left cheek and deposited a soft kiss there. She didn’t pull back. Ramires shifted from one foot to another but said nothing.“It has begun,� the Finchikta chirped in a crisp tone, drifting to Micah’s side. Sandy’s hand slipped from his waist, and he faced the Tla Beth, some thirty metres away, its aurora ebbing into a penumbra of rippling pastel shades. “You will now bear witness to the charges,� the Finchikta said.Above the funnel, a swirling spiral of myriad stars appeared. Micah immediately recognised it as their galaxy, the Milky Way. A scalpel-sharp white mesh etched its way outwards about a third of the distance from the galaxy’s white hot centre. The pattern was complex, like some kind of blueprint, but there was a design to it. As it stretched out like vines along a number of the spiral arms, Micah realised it was the Grid, the transport system that was the paragon of Galactic infrastructure, enabling its society to function. It reached fully half the galaxy, a criss-crossing net of curving and intersecting conduits: a skeleton framing the stars. A blue dot pulsed on one of the spiral arms remote from any grid lines or nodes. “Your planet, the one you call Earth. Here is the latest recorded image.”His jaw fell as an image of a charred, ocean-less, dust-coloured ball loomed large in front of them. He felt as if someone had just punched him in the stomach.“The atmosphere was purged to reduce the radioactive poisoning. It will recover faster this way. In ten thousand of your years it can be terraformed and replenished with life.”“Bastards,� Ramires cursed.The Finchikta peered around Micah to see Ramires. It cocked its head. “I assure you the Q’Roth have followed strict protocol. Atmospheric removal is recommended in case of nuclear fallout, once radiation levels reach a certain point, to prevent planetary rot setting in. The world is then left fallow for a set period, after which time it can be used for resettlement of a displaced race or one requiring more room.”Sandy whirled around to the Finchikta. “It was our home! Billions of people! Not to mention all the animal life! Who gave them the right?� She pointed to the Q’Roth platform. “You’ll pay for this one day, even if it takes a thousand years!� she shouted in their direction. She added quietly, just for Micah and Ramires� ears: “They hibernate a long time, that’s when we’ll find them.”Micah gazed toward the judge. A line of fire unfurled from the Tla Beth like a whiplash, latching onto the head of Zack’s Transpar. “The judge is interrogating the human version of events.”While the line connected the two, another dot glittered, very close to Earth. “Eden,� he whispered. The image zoomed in, so they could see this sector of space in more detail. Four blue dots zigzagged from Eden towards another distant ball he knew must be Ourshiwann, still far out on the spiral, and a long way from Grid access. A red dot intercepted one of the blues, and was extinguished. The fireline connecting the Transpar with the Tla Beth dissolved. A new one lashed out to Sister Esma, taking her by surprise. Her haughty stance wavered as her face disappeared inside a fist of fire-light. Her body arced as if she was being electrocuted, her arms and legs stretched out to maximum.“About fucking time,� Sandy said. “Fry her, please.”“What’s going on?� Micah asked, glancing at the Finchikta.“She is being questioned. I have partial access as court official. She sent the one you know as Louise after you, but sabotaged her ship before she left so she could not hope to return to the Alicians. The Alicians made a deal with the Q’Roth a thousand of your years ago to dispose of humanity’s nuclear and nanotechnology, and to bring humanity to Eden. They instigated your third World War. They…� The Finchikta’s beak clamped shut.“What?� Sandy and Micah said at the same time. The Finchikta nudged a shoulder feather back into place. “They suppressed Level 4 emergents; co-opting those they found early enough into their order, terminating the rest.”“This much we suspected.� Ramires said. He glanced at Sister Esma and spat over the side of the abyss. “Though we never knew the full extent.� Micah gazed at Sister Esma’s taut body. Her face twisted in pain. Good, I hope it rips your mind apart. Abruptly the fireline dissipated, and they watched Sister Esma stagger, nearly collapsing. Her face had paled, and she looked shaken. Neither the Q’Roth warriors, nor their Queen, moved to support her. She gathered herself, and stared defiantly at Micah.A deep, guttural voice boomed across the space between them and the Ranger: a series of growls and clicks that put Micah’s spine on edge.“The Ranger Ukrull is testifying. He expresses surprise at finding the race calling itself humanity more advanced than he expected, based on the original Q’Roth incursion manifest. He believes humanity was on the cusp of emergence. However, the rate of progress in the last millennium was unusual by galactic development standards, so the Q’Roth couldn’t know. For him, given the escape of a number of humans, the main question is what to do with the survivors.”“Micah, this is good isn’t it?� Sandy said. “He must be the one who saved Rashid.”� He nodded, and addressed the Finchikta. “What else?”The Finchikta shivered, its fine feathers fluffing momentarily before settling down. “Ah. There is an anomaly in his testament. You have…� It craned its neck and peered at Micah. Its third eye opened, a clear sapphire blue. “You have encountered the Hohash?� “Yes. So what?”The eye sealed again. The Finchikta moved in front of Micah, clearly more interested in this than the court case. “They are legendary. They are the Listeners, the ears of the Galaxy. They have been missing for a hundred thousand angts. They are omnipaths.”“Omnipaths?� Micah wished his resident was online, this sounded important. “The Hohash helped create the Finchikta Order, establishing it amongst the fifty core Grid professions known as The Torus. We worsh –�. It ruffled its feathers again. “They are very important to us.� The creature dipped its head and whole upper body slowly. Micah realised it was bowing to them. “You have been honoured.”� Micah wished they’d brought one along. He cleared his throat. “So, who’s nex…�
Micah had no body. His mind floated like a two dimensional sheet of plazfilm, flapping on the winds of a featureless emerald space. He heard sounds: his own voice, as a child, as an adult. He perceived other sheets drifting, slip-sliding in the windless space like a dropped sheaf of paper, each one containing a scene, a memory, voices, people he knew, things he’d seen, things he’d said, more than a few he wished he hadn’t. As they tumbled, he knew the Tla Beth had complete access to his mind and memory. There was no question of lying or even trying to hide anything. He heard his mother crying, his father raging at him when he was a kid. He saw again the aerial nuclear detonations over LA, his younger self sprinting for the shelter to beat the vaporising blast wave; huddling there with his mother when he couldn’t stop shaking; his father calling him a coward; Louise about to kill him; Antonia; Sandy� He wrenched himself back from it all. It was too easy to drown in his own life. His Optron training helped him. He took the astrosurfer’s viewpoint, and witnessed thousands of sheets peppering the green sky: a man’s life dissected � his life. He discerned a common thread in the Tla Beth search strategy: Micah had always been a misfit as a kid, had hated his father, and had been a bit of a geek during adolescence. In the defence case for humanity, his head wasn’t the best brochure available. Abruptly he was back in his body, in a white space. He was standing on something but couldn’t discriminate between floor and space and wall: everything was solid white. A figure emerged and walked toward him. “No, not you,� he heard himself say, as an image of his father approached, in his grey military uniform. At least he didn’t have that disappointed look plastered across his face. The image of his father spoke. “We see in humanity destruction, greed, conflict, injustice, and other disharmonious emotions associated with Level Three and below races. Such comportment is dangerous for the Grid Society. The Grid Council, chaired by the Tla Beth, sanctioned the Q’Roth request.”� Micah knew he had to remain as dispassionate as possible; anger would be a fast-track to humanity’s final demise. “Look at our technological achievements, our advances, they –”� “Are dangerous without mental and emotional discipline,� Sister Esma said, materialising out of the white ether. “We Alicians instigated all the major breakthroughs in the past five centuries, and –”� “How many did you stop?� he countered. “How many DaVinci’s, Mozarts, and Qorelli’s did you snuff out? Who knows where humanity would be now if you Alicians hadn’t intervened? Your agenda was to break humanity, not nurture it, wasn’t it, Esma?”� She flared, so that Micah knew this was no avatar, it was her. The image of his father which the Tla Beth had chosen to utilise, held up a hand, choking off her retort. “The past cannot be undone. The Q’Roth incursion and their stewardship of the Alicians followed Grid protocol. Why is humanity worth saving? You don’t seem to believe in it yourself, Micah.”� Micah swallowed. He wished for any other figure than his father’s, but knew that was probably intentional. He had to think fast. Blake � he was as good a role model as Micah knew. “Then look into another head. Look at a real hero, Blake. Access Zack’s memories, and see another view of mankind.”� The Transpar materialised into the white construct, opposite Micah’s father. Its crystal surface flashed a pastiche of images, becoming a montage of Blake’s life. Micah had forgotten how much of it had been War-related. He couldn’t keep up with the almost subliminal shifting of events, but noticed that Esma apparently could. He saw her greedy ebony eyes darting about, peering into Blake’s history, scouring his soul. “Look!� she shouted, pointing a bony finger, a sneer of triumph swelling her face. “There! See? See how humanity’s big hero behaves? He murders his own son!� “This needs to be witnessed by all,� his father said. Micah found himself back on the platform. His legs gave way but Sandy and Ramires� arms caught him. “Thanks,� he groaned, feeling like he needed to throw up. “What happened?� Sandy asked. But before he could answer, she continued. “Micah, the Earth. It’s shifted further downwards. What’s going on?”� He sagged as he saw the blue-green globe rolling closer and faster into the maw of the funnel. Worse, a dusty orange ball followed close behind. Ourshiwann. Humanity’s fate was slipping closer to the precipice. He’d have to play the next part very carefully. Meanwhile, the Q’Roth planet rotated serenely along the outer rim. “We’re about to see exhibit A,� he said. Above the whirlpool, an image formed, like an outdoor holo. It was the one Sister Esma had spotted, a night-time scene played out in real time. Micah watched with a lead weight in his stomach as Blake, in battle fatigues soaked with blood, fired the slow-gun into his own son’s body, exploding him from the inside. The memory slammed into Micah as surely as if he’d stepped out in front of a hover-taxi.He addressed the Tla Beth, his voice firm. “His name was Robert. Blake’s son had been transformed into a ghoster by the Alicians.� He pointed at Sister Esma. “He was no longer human.� Esma’s sneer faltered. Micah continued: “Please go forward in time, a few minutes,� he said. “Stop there.� He saw Sister Esma squint to see what he was referring to. In the freeze-framed view, Zack and Blake were rescuing a group of young boys from the Alician camp. Ramires also edged forward. Sandy rested a hand on Micah’s shoulder. Micah knew exactly where to look. His voice cracked. “I was there. He rescued me and fourteen others, losing his entire platoon except Zack. Blake had been too late to save his own son.� “It doesn’t change anything,� Esma shouted. “Where is your Blake now? What use is a hero if the rest of your precious humanity hunts him down, and imprisons him?”� Micah frowned. “What � what are you talking about?� She turned toward the Ranger. “We have studied the full testimony of the Ranger Ukrull. I call upon Ukrull to testify on the most recent events on Ourshiwann. I am sure the honourable Ranger knows to which events I refer to.”“What’s that witch going on about now?� Sandy asked.Micah didn’t know, but had a bad feeling in his gut.A new image formed. It was another trial, but a human one. There was no sound; there didn’t need to be. Shakirvasta and Josefsson lorded over the proceedings, with the psychologist Carlson in the dock. Carlson was gesticulating wildly. The crowd in the cramped makeshift court room appeared to be shouting too, but there was a heavy militia presence, a new uniform Micah didn’t recognise. Then he saw the image of Blake, his hands cuffed behind him, sitting in a smaller dock, surrounded by four heavies. Whenever he tried to speak he was ordered into silence, then rifle-butted when he didn’t comply. The scene shifted. On seeing it, Sandy let out a cry and buried her head into Ramires broad shoulder. But Micah couldn’t turn away, though it wrenched his heart to stare at the limp body of Carlson, hanging from a noose in the central plaza. There was no one around. His corpse, abandoned, twisted slowly in the Esperantian breeze.Micah’s head bowed towards the ground. The Finchikta moved aside and the image of his father reappeared. “Do you have anything more to say in humanity’s defence, Micah?�
He heard compassion and empathy in that calm voice, like he’d never known from his actual father. Something inside him splintered, cracking him like a shell. He shook his head, unable to speak. The Tla Beth’s representation vanished. Micah’s eyes lifted to see the two globes of Earth and Ourshiwann begin their roll inwards, down the slope, towards the point of no return into the funnel, and the cauldron of fire deep within.
The Eden Paradox Tetralogy
where we find we are not alone, and have been betrayed
where we are put on trial for our right to exist
where it gets personal
where it all ends
Their judgement would possibly be harsh. And there would be no right of appeal.
They could look at our history, but they would also probably consider the current leaders of the human race.
Given that we're not exactly kind to our planet, and have a propensity for wars and glaring inequalities, I wanted to put something in our favor, and so the judgement comes after Earth has been ransacked by an alien race (the Q'Roth), abetted by genetically-altered humans called Alicians, led by Sister Esma. Despite this, the trial doesn't go well for what is left of mankind.
Here's an extract from the book, . It is 2054. Micah is on a travelling city in deep space, trying to defend mankind, who, led by Blake, have been displaced to the planet Ourshiwann. But Micah has been travelling for six months and has not seen Blake, and does not know what has been going on while he's been away. Additionally, Micah and his friends, albeit in self-defense, have just killed a Q'Roth ambassador...
Micah stood mesmerized by the blue-green globe as it rolled in slow motion around the funnel suspended in space beneath them. It was an illusion, a macro-hologram of some sort, but looked incredibly real. The outer rim of the inverted, thundercloud-grey cone appeared hard, ceramic; he almost expected to hear a grinding noise as the replica of Earth toiled its way around the circumference. Towards its centre, the funnel descended like a gaseous whirlpool into darkness, a faint fire-light glow reaching up from its core. He didn’t need to be Level 4 to grasp the implication. The ball resembled Earth as it had been � trawled from one of Zack’s memories, no doubt � not the post-nuclear orange dustbowl which Micah remembered most clearly. Staring at it, he felt hollow, with an attendant nausea. All that remained of his world was a pale echo of humanity’s home. He gazed upon the treasure they had squandered. It was too easy to blame everything on the Alicians. They were a contributory factor, but humanity’s inherent weaknesses had facilitated its own downfall. He tugged his eyes away from paradise lost, and tracked across to the far side of the vista, to a graphite ball scarred with glowing scarlet rivers. Pinpricks of blood-coloured light stabbed out from the planetary simulacrum. He imagined a sea urchin whose spines had been ripped off, oozing its life force into naked space. Far above that ball, on a platform higher than the one for him, Sandy and Ramires, stood two Q’Roth warriors. They looked more powerful than the ones he’d seen before, their lower legs splayed, and their mid and upper legs folded together in an Escher-like snake pattern. They were completely immobile, but he had the sense they were somehow spitting on the humans who had slain their ambassador. To his far right, on a small disk, Zack’s Transpar stood as if to attention � like Zack never had � emphasising that this was no longer Zack, just an alien replica. Micah’s friend, and mentor, was gone. He noted that the three parties � humans, Q’Roth, and Transpar, were at three cardinal points of the compass. He looked to the logical fourth point, but there was just empty blackness, no walls in any direction, only darkness framing his opponents, the Transpar, and the swirling funnel.The two balls circled in the same direction, the Q’Roth home planet having moved a few degrees around the circumference as far as he could judge. Then he saw what Ramires had noticed. He backed off a pace. Between the two Q’Roth warriors, three times their height, stood a giant Q’Roth, its trapezoidal head red with black slits, the reverse of the warriors� coloration. Its bloated, purple ribbed belly curved down to the floor supported by two ramrod straight, sturdy legs. Its four other legs looked puny by comparison, protruding from its mid-section like useless appendages. It glared at Micah and the others, excreting pure hate. Beneath its loins, half the size of the warriors, Sister Esma appeared in a burgundy cloak.“Q’Roth queen, and Alician queen bitch,� Sandy said. “We must be on the Galactic A-list.”He glanced at Sandy. Humour � even the sardonic wit variety � was a good sign, and he needed all of them to be on the same side. He detected a fine inverted triangular film hanging behind the Queen’s frame, and decided the Queen had wings, which wasn’t good news. Doubtless she would have liked to fly across and finish them off herself. He planted his legs firm, and stared right back. He felt Sandy’s hand on his shoulder.A new disk arrived close to Zack’s Transpar, carrying an upright lizard, slick brown all over except for glimmering black thorns running from its crown to the tip of its tail. Its forelegs folded onto the ground so that it looked relaxed, bored even. Its smouldering yellow eyes stared forwards, though Micah had the impression it took in everything around it.“Ukrull, the Ranger.”Micah and the others spun around to see a lime-green Finchikta hovering behind them. Micah tried to focus internally, but nothing happened.“Your resident has been disabled for the duration of the trial. I will translate the proceedings for you.� Its head bobbed like an albatross, though he guessed this creature was vastly more intelligent. He could barely make out the thin line where its upper third eye remained closed. When it spoke, its beak barely opened, but its two sharp orange eyes blazed. The Finchikta’s hundreds of green vermicelli-like legs did not quite reach the ground, hanging like a curtain over its nether region.“Counsel for the defence?� Ramires asked.“In this court, there are only truth, causes, context, and consequences,� it replied.Micah wanted something clarified. “The funnel � what’s the significance, if the representation of our world disappears into it?”The Finchikta bobbed slowly. “A good question. In your world you represent justice by a set of scales, which can tip either way. But that implies justice can be wrong, that verdicts can be revoked, since scales can be tipped back again. Grid justice, as you may understand it, does not entertain reversals. Once either your globe, or the Q’Roth’s, dip beneath the event horizon of the funnel, the case is lost permanently. There is no appeal. Execution of sentence cannot be stopped.”Micah stared out at the swirling vista, suddenly concerned that maybe this wasn’t just an image. “But still, it’s only symbolic, right?� He hoped that whatever happened here, today, that Blake and the others on Ourshiwann might still have a chance to escape or at least defend themselves.The Finchikta bobbed again, deeper, which Micah interpreted to mean he’d asked another ‘intelligent� question. “It is mostly symbolic.”He didn’t like the sound of that.“Where’s the judge?� Sandy interjected.“Arriving,� the Finchikta said, orientating its beak upwards.They spotted something descending from way above. At first Micah couldn’t make out what was inside or riding the waves of rainbow-light, but as it got closer, he could pick out the details. Around thirty vertical rings circumscribed the main body, waves of fluorescent light surging through them. Inside the rings was a rounded hourglass shape which barely moved, except that the dark colours in the lower half sometimes squirted up into the lighter upper half of the hourglass, exchanging and sending lighter colours down through its narrow ‘waist�. It made Micah think of some night-time sea creatures he’d once seen, but his analytical mind dredged up a deeper analogy, that of the yin-yang symbol. He realised why, as he noticed a white patch in the lower, dark area, and a black one in the upper, lighter half. He recalled what his Zen master had said once about the symbol: “Most people only see black and white; they forget about the white dot in the sea of black, the black dot in the white portion. In nature there can no more be pure good than pure evil; in the heart of evil there is a speck of good, and vice versa. Nature abhors ultimate states.� Micah found the image fitting for a Galactic judge.“At least it’s human size,� Sandy said. She placed herself between Micah and Ramires and put a hand around the waist of each. “Whatever happens, gentlemen, it’s been � interesting.”An overwhelming impulse overtook Micah, to reach out to Sandy in some way, without offending her or Ramires. He leaned forward to her left cheek and deposited a soft kiss there. She didn’t pull back. Ramires shifted from one foot to another but said nothing.“It has begun,� the Finchikta chirped in a crisp tone, drifting to Micah’s side. Sandy’s hand slipped from his waist, and he faced the Tla Beth, some thirty metres away, its aurora ebbing into a penumbra of rippling pastel shades. “You will now bear witness to the charges,� the Finchikta said.Above the funnel, a swirling spiral of myriad stars appeared. Micah immediately recognised it as their galaxy, the Milky Way. A scalpel-sharp white mesh etched its way outwards about a third of the distance from the galaxy’s white hot centre. The pattern was complex, like some kind of blueprint, but there was a design to it. As it stretched out like vines along a number of the spiral arms, Micah realised it was the Grid, the transport system that was the paragon of Galactic infrastructure, enabling its society to function. It reached fully half the galaxy, a criss-crossing net of curving and intersecting conduits: a skeleton framing the stars. A blue dot pulsed on one of the spiral arms remote from any grid lines or nodes. “Your planet, the one you call Earth. Here is the latest recorded image.”His jaw fell as an image of a charred, ocean-less, dust-coloured ball loomed large in front of them. He felt as if someone had just punched him in the stomach.“The atmosphere was purged to reduce the radioactive poisoning. It will recover faster this way. In ten thousand of your years it can be terraformed and replenished with life.”“Bastards,� Ramires cursed.The Finchikta peered around Micah to see Ramires. It cocked its head. “I assure you the Q’Roth have followed strict protocol. Atmospheric removal is recommended in case of nuclear fallout, once radiation levels reach a certain point, to prevent planetary rot setting in. The world is then left fallow for a set period, after which time it can be used for resettlement of a displaced race or one requiring more room.”Sandy whirled around to the Finchikta. “It was our home! Billions of people! Not to mention all the animal life! Who gave them the right?� She pointed to the Q’Roth platform. “You’ll pay for this one day, even if it takes a thousand years!� she shouted in their direction. She added quietly, just for Micah and Ramires� ears: “They hibernate a long time, that’s when we’ll find them.”Micah gazed toward the judge. A line of fire unfurled from the Tla Beth like a whiplash, latching onto the head of Zack’s Transpar. “The judge is interrogating the human version of events.”While the line connected the two, another dot glittered, very close to Earth. “Eden,� he whispered. The image zoomed in, so they could see this sector of space in more detail. Four blue dots zigzagged from Eden towards another distant ball he knew must be Ourshiwann, still far out on the spiral, and a long way from Grid access. A red dot intercepted one of the blues, and was extinguished. The fireline connecting the Transpar with the Tla Beth dissolved. A new one lashed out to Sister Esma, taking her by surprise. Her haughty stance wavered as her face disappeared inside a fist of fire-light. Her body arced as if she was being electrocuted, her arms and legs stretched out to maximum.“About fucking time,� Sandy said. “Fry her, please.”“What’s going on?� Micah asked, glancing at the Finchikta.“She is being questioned. I have partial access as court official. She sent the one you know as Louise after you, but sabotaged her ship before she left so she could not hope to return to the Alicians. The Alicians made a deal with the Q’Roth a thousand of your years ago to dispose of humanity’s nuclear and nanotechnology, and to bring humanity to Eden. They instigated your third World War. They…� The Finchikta’s beak clamped shut.“What?� Sandy and Micah said at the same time. The Finchikta nudged a shoulder feather back into place. “They suppressed Level 4 emergents; co-opting those they found early enough into their order, terminating the rest.”“This much we suspected.� Ramires said. He glanced at Sister Esma and spat over the side of the abyss. “Though we never knew the full extent.� Micah gazed at Sister Esma’s taut body. Her face twisted in pain. Good, I hope it rips your mind apart. Abruptly the fireline dissipated, and they watched Sister Esma stagger, nearly collapsing. Her face had paled, and she looked shaken. Neither the Q’Roth warriors, nor their Queen, moved to support her. She gathered herself, and stared defiantly at Micah.A deep, guttural voice boomed across the space between them and the Ranger: a series of growls and clicks that put Micah’s spine on edge.“The Ranger Ukrull is testifying. He expresses surprise at finding the race calling itself humanity more advanced than he expected, based on the original Q’Roth incursion manifest. He believes humanity was on the cusp of emergence. However, the rate of progress in the last millennium was unusual by galactic development standards, so the Q’Roth couldn’t know. For him, given the escape of a number of humans, the main question is what to do with the survivors.”“Micah, this is good isn’t it?� Sandy said. “He must be the one who saved Rashid.”� He nodded, and addressed the Finchikta. “What else?”The Finchikta shivered, its fine feathers fluffing momentarily before settling down. “Ah. There is an anomaly in his testament. You have…� It craned its neck and peered at Micah. Its third eye opened, a clear sapphire blue. “You have encountered the Hohash?� “Yes. So what?”The eye sealed again. The Finchikta moved in front of Micah, clearly more interested in this than the court case. “They are legendary. They are the Listeners, the ears of the Galaxy. They have been missing for a hundred thousand angts. They are omnipaths.”“Omnipaths?� Micah wished his resident was online, this sounded important. “The Hohash helped create the Finchikta Order, establishing it amongst the fifty core Grid professions known as The Torus. We worsh –�. It ruffled its feathers again. “They are very important to us.� The creature dipped its head and whole upper body slowly. Micah realised it was bowing to them. “You have been honoured.”� Micah wished they’d brought one along. He cleared his throat. “So, who’s nex…�
Micah had no body. His mind floated like a two dimensional sheet of plazfilm, flapping on the winds of a featureless emerald space. He heard sounds: his own voice, as a child, as an adult. He perceived other sheets drifting, slip-sliding in the windless space like a dropped sheaf of paper, each one containing a scene, a memory, voices, people he knew, things he’d seen, things he’d said, more than a few he wished he hadn’t. As they tumbled, he knew the Tla Beth had complete access to his mind and memory. There was no question of lying or even trying to hide anything. He heard his mother crying, his father raging at him when he was a kid. He saw again the aerial nuclear detonations over LA, his younger self sprinting for the shelter to beat the vaporising blast wave; huddling there with his mother when he couldn’t stop shaking; his father calling him a coward; Louise about to kill him; Antonia; Sandy� He wrenched himself back from it all. It was too easy to drown in his own life. His Optron training helped him. He took the astrosurfer’s viewpoint, and witnessed thousands of sheets peppering the green sky: a man’s life dissected � his life. He discerned a common thread in the Tla Beth search strategy: Micah had always been a misfit as a kid, had hated his father, and had been a bit of a geek during adolescence. In the defence case for humanity, his head wasn’t the best brochure available. Abruptly he was back in his body, in a white space. He was standing on something but couldn’t discriminate between floor and space and wall: everything was solid white. A figure emerged and walked toward him. “No, not you,� he heard himself say, as an image of his father approached, in his grey military uniform. At least he didn’t have that disappointed look plastered across his face. The image of his father spoke. “We see in humanity destruction, greed, conflict, injustice, and other disharmonious emotions associated with Level Three and below races. Such comportment is dangerous for the Grid Society. The Grid Council, chaired by the Tla Beth, sanctioned the Q’Roth request.”� Micah knew he had to remain as dispassionate as possible; anger would be a fast-track to humanity’s final demise. “Look at our technological achievements, our advances, they –”� “Are dangerous without mental and emotional discipline,� Sister Esma said, materialising out of the white ether. “We Alicians instigated all the major breakthroughs in the past five centuries, and –”� “How many did you stop?� he countered. “How many DaVinci’s, Mozarts, and Qorelli’s did you snuff out? Who knows where humanity would be now if you Alicians hadn’t intervened? Your agenda was to break humanity, not nurture it, wasn’t it, Esma?”� She flared, so that Micah knew this was no avatar, it was her. The image of his father which the Tla Beth had chosen to utilise, held up a hand, choking off her retort. “The past cannot be undone. The Q’Roth incursion and their stewardship of the Alicians followed Grid protocol. Why is humanity worth saving? You don’t seem to believe in it yourself, Micah.”� Micah swallowed. He wished for any other figure than his father’s, but knew that was probably intentional. He had to think fast. Blake � he was as good a role model as Micah knew. “Then look into another head. Look at a real hero, Blake. Access Zack’s memories, and see another view of mankind.”� The Transpar materialised into the white construct, opposite Micah’s father. Its crystal surface flashed a pastiche of images, becoming a montage of Blake’s life. Micah had forgotten how much of it had been War-related. He couldn’t keep up with the almost subliminal shifting of events, but noticed that Esma apparently could. He saw her greedy ebony eyes darting about, peering into Blake’s history, scouring his soul. “Look!� she shouted, pointing a bony finger, a sneer of triumph swelling her face. “There! See? See how humanity’s big hero behaves? He murders his own son!� “This needs to be witnessed by all,� his father said. Micah found himself back on the platform. His legs gave way but Sandy and Ramires� arms caught him. “Thanks,� he groaned, feeling like he needed to throw up. “What happened?� Sandy asked. But before he could answer, she continued. “Micah, the Earth. It’s shifted further downwards. What’s going on?”� He sagged as he saw the blue-green globe rolling closer and faster into the maw of the funnel. Worse, a dusty orange ball followed close behind. Ourshiwann. Humanity’s fate was slipping closer to the precipice. He’d have to play the next part very carefully. Meanwhile, the Q’Roth planet rotated serenely along the outer rim. “We’re about to see exhibit A,� he said. Above the whirlpool, an image formed, like an outdoor holo. It was the one Sister Esma had spotted, a night-time scene played out in real time. Micah watched with a lead weight in his stomach as Blake, in battle fatigues soaked with blood, fired the slow-gun into his own son’s body, exploding him from the inside. The memory slammed into Micah as surely as if he’d stepped out in front of a hover-taxi.He addressed the Tla Beth, his voice firm. “His name was Robert. Blake’s son had been transformed into a ghoster by the Alicians.� He pointed at Sister Esma. “He was no longer human.� Esma’s sneer faltered. Micah continued: “Please go forward in time, a few minutes,� he said. “Stop there.� He saw Sister Esma squint to see what he was referring to. In the freeze-framed view, Zack and Blake were rescuing a group of young boys from the Alician camp. Ramires also edged forward. Sandy rested a hand on Micah’s shoulder. Micah knew exactly where to look. His voice cracked. “I was there. He rescued me and fourteen others, losing his entire platoon except Zack. Blake had been too late to save his own son.� “It doesn’t change anything,� Esma shouted. “Where is your Blake now? What use is a hero if the rest of your precious humanity hunts him down, and imprisons him?”� Micah frowned. “What � what are you talking about?� She turned toward the Ranger. “We have studied the full testimony of the Ranger Ukrull. I call upon Ukrull to testify on the most recent events on Ourshiwann. I am sure the honourable Ranger knows to which events I refer to.”“What’s that witch going on about now?� Sandy asked.Micah didn’t know, but had a bad feeling in his gut.A new image formed. It was another trial, but a human one. There was no sound; there didn’t need to be. Shakirvasta and Josefsson lorded over the proceedings, with the psychologist Carlson in the dock. Carlson was gesticulating wildly. The crowd in the cramped makeshift court room appeared to be shouting too, but there was a heavy militia presence, a new uniform Micah didn’t recognise. Then he saw the image of Blake, his hands cuffed behind him, sitting in a smaller dock, surrounded by four heavies. Whenever he tried to speak he was ordered into silence, then rifle-butted when he didn’t comply. The scene shifted. On seeing it, Sandy let out a cry and buried her head into Ramires broad shoulder. But Micah couldn’t turn away, though it wrenched his heart to stare at the limp body of Carlson, hanging from a noose in the central plaza. There was no one around. His corpse, abandoned, twisted slowly in the Esperantian breeze.Micah’s head bowed towards the ground. The Finchikta moved aside and the image of his father reappeared. “Do you have anything more to say in humanity’s defence, Micah?�
He heard compassion and empathy in that calm voice, like he’d never known from his actual father. Something inside him splintered, cracking him like a shell. He shook his head, unable to speak. The Tla Beth’s representation vanished. Micah’s eyes lifted to see the two globes of Earth and Ourshiwann begin their roll inwards, down the slope, towards the point of no return into the funnel, and the cauldron of fire deep within.
The Eden Paradox Tetralogy
where we find we are not alone, and have been betrayed
where we are put on trial for our right to exist
where it gets personal
where it all ends
