Authors: DENNIS MILLER
Stopping, but not turning round, Andretta replied “Why did you not, Commander?”
Andretta waited for a few seconds, and then when no reply was forthcoming she stepped out through the doorway.
Staring at the place where the woman had disappeared, Rachmel said, quietly, “One day, Internal Administrator Andretta, I sincerely hope that you will be in serious need of my assistance.”
Miles watched Andretta as she was leaving the medical section; in fact he had been waiting for her, and as they met he said “I want a word, in private.”
Andretta looked him up and down and then replied “I hope you’re not going to ask me out on a date.”
Taken aback, he didn’t know if he should laugh or cry; his mouth opened but nothing came out.
Andretta smiled and said, gently, “Relax Leading Officer, just a little Administrator humour; you’re too old for me anyway.”
He stared at her incredulously, and then he found his voice, “Don’t you mean ‘just a little Administrator humus’?” The sting of her remark obvious in his tone.
The Agent grinned broadly “Touché Engineer Miles, I’ll be in the main galley when you are finished here.”
Watching her leave he realised that she had slipped easily through his guard again; Christ, he hated this bloody woman; if woman she was, he was having his doubts.
Coles watched as he entered the section, and said “Looks like you just bumped into our Agent.”
Through gritted teeth Miles said “Just bloody get on with it will you?”
The Doctor couldn’t help smiling “My my, she must really be on form today.”
When it came to Duarte’s turn to be called Rachmel asked “MAC, whereabouts of Leading Engineer Miles and Agent Andretta.”
“
Leading Engineer Miles is stationary at the entrance to the main galley area: Agent Andretta is in the main galley seating area four: do you require these persons Commander?”
“No.”
To Hidson, she said “Looks like Miles is psyching himself up for the challenge, let’s go.”
Before moving, the Pilot asked “Commander, are we absolutely certain that this is the right thing to do? I mean, we only have Andretta’s word that there is an alien influence on board, and she hasn’t even said who it is, everything we are working on is built of supposition. If we are wrong the penalties will be as serious as it gets, Andretta will see to that.”
Rachmel considered for a moment and then replied, “No matter what we may think personally about Internal Administrators, the one thing that is always constant is that they don’t lie; they may resort to misleading someone or lulling them into a false sense of security, and they are experts at swerving and avoiding answering questions; and they may possess all the humanitarian warmth of a snake in an icebox, but they never lie.
“
If she says there is an alien influence on board, then you can put your life on the fact that there is, and putting our lives on the line is exactly what we are trying to avoid. Everything points to Duarte; we have precious little time left, and as Commander it is my responsibility to safeguard everyone’s life on this mission. If it is proven later that I was wrong then I alone shall be accountable. Come on, let’s get this over with.”
Coles was in the act of disengaging the locking device that held the stretcher-bed, bearing Duarte’s now limp form, to the med-table when Rachmel and Hidson walked into the medical lab.
The stretcher contained its own hover and directional facility and so, could be sent to any section of the vessel accompanied or solo.
Looking up at her accomplices, Coles said “She’ll be out for an hour so we’d better get moving.”
To MAC she ordered “Stretcher to Biohibernation section direct route.”
Rachmel added
“No log.”
Mac responded immediately, ‘Complied.” and with that the stretcher moved off at walking pace towards its destination, its occupant completely unaware of the drama unfolding, with the three Officers following closely behind.
Meanwhile on entering the main galley a nervous Miles saw Andretta sitting, waiting for him. A sudden picture flashed into his mind; a big black spider and a pathetic little fly. Christ, but he felt like the condemned man trudging to his doom.
Taking the seat opposite the Agent, he began “I know you won’t tell me who it is, but I’m intrigued by the fact that we have an alien on board; to my knowledge no-one has ever met one; are you sure she isn’t a danger to us? Tomorrow we go into hiber state, and I don’t mind admitting I have concerns that we may not come out of it.”
Andretta was silent as she considered; then coming to a decision she said, calmly, “Very well, I shall give you the full background but I will not tell you who it is, the time is not yet right; as for your concerns of the hibernation process, be assured that everything in that section shall function precisely as it should, and to dispel any doubts about my abilities you will be taking charge of the ‘close-down’; which means you shall be last in and therefore responsible for the safety of everyone.”
Miles was mildly surprised at this last statement but greatly relieved; he hadn’t relished the idea of an Administrator closing the lid on his hiber unit, it would have felt to him more like a coffin.
His mind was racing; once she was inside and closed down there was nothing to stop him from putting her unit on manual release only, or timing her release to function some time after his own, so giving the rest of them time to consider their position
Andretta broke into his thoughts, “Does that allay your fears?”
The Engineer, trying not to show his relief, answered too quickly and regretted it immediately, “Yes, I’m sorry; it’s just that …”
The Agent cut him off before he embarrassed himself further, “It’s alright, I fully understand; if our roles were reversed I too would probably have reservations.”
Despite her empathy he couldn’t imagine her having reservations about anything, and even if she did the cold black colouration of her eyes would never betray her true feelings.
Feeling more relaxed, he said
“So, tell me about the background.”
In the Biohiber section Coles manipulated the stretcher next to Duarte’s hiberpod and, taking the limp form the three of them eased the Physics Officer into the unit. Once positioned, Coles depressed the pad that operated the internal clamps, and then she drew up the fibro-metallic shield which covered the whole body; when satisfied she said “Internal completed.” Rachmel then pressed the pad on the side of the unit, and the cover began to slide silently into position, sealing the unit completely.
Satisfied that everything was as it ought to be Rachmel then went to the end of the pod where the management system was situated; under normal conditions this would be automatically controlled by M.A.C. and would only begin to operate once the occupant had been detected and the cover was closed; but today this unit’s release time was to be over-ridden by manual control.
In the main galley Andretta began her narrative, “The wormhole that we shall be entering is known to have been used by Alien species; they have been utilising this facility for many tens of thousands of years, and Earth is one of the places that they took a particular interest in; or rather we, the human race, is what they took an interest in.
“
They watched our humble beginnings and observed the many hominids that came and went with time. They saw how one species after another disappeared and how one species in particular survived and thrived with the demise of the others; they noted the one thing that guaranteed their survival…Violence; a propensity to slaughter anything that stood in their way, including each other.
“
But to them the most disturbing thing they discovered about human nature was our ability to accustom ourselves to monstrous behaviour by excuse; basically, we can slaughter with impunity and then cleanse our souls with the belief that we have acted in the name of, and with the grace of, whichever Deities are fashionable at the time.
“
This tendency disturbed them; we had already proven that we possessed the ability to rapidly advance our technology through the improvement of our tools and weaponry, usually by the onset of war.”
Miles couldn’t resist pointing the verbal finger,” Administrators kill with impunity and, if I may say, coldly; so which Gods are you appeasing?”
Andretta responded coolly, “We appease no Gods, we serve no Gods, our sole function is to respond on your behalf against those who have injured you; as for seeming cold in our business, it is imperative that we practice an emotionless objectivity, for in this way we can diminish the possibility of error. We are trained to base our judgements purely on stored information and facts, where gut feelings and intuition play little or no part in our decisions; and we owe no allegiance to anyone. In short we are just administering the laws that were set up to protect the herd.”
Miles found himself agreeing to the principles she was relating and didn’t like the idea; he decided it was time to get back to the aliens.
“But how can you know all this? There were no written records in those times?”
Andretta countered
“I agree, there were no written records, but there are verbal records; ancient stories and beliefs in beings that could take to the skies; over time these beings became thought of as gods and the people offered sacrifices to them, sometimes out of fear but mostly out of want.
“
If this all sounds a little too far-fetched then think about this, people across the whole of the planet sacrificed to the unseen gods, how would they so many thousands of years ago have come to such a similar conclusion of appeasement without the ability to contact each other? What could possibly have been the common denominator?
“Did you ever wonder at
the story of Atlantis? A fabled island where beings that were reputedly more than human lived; and then suddenly the island wasn’t there anymore. Was that just the colourful imagination of a clever storyteller? Or was it a serious record of the times?”
“But surely that was a creation of Plato’s, explaining his version of the perfect society,” countered Miles.
“Then why would a man of his wisdom make the fundamental error of stating that the island sank overnight? Without some kind of catastrophic activity this would be impossible, and such activity has never been found in the geological record for that time in that area. Disregarding the accumulated embellishments that have been added over the millennia there must be a core of fact to all so called myths and legends”
“You’ve done a lot of homework on this haven’t you?” Asked Miles.
Andretta shook her head, “There is no need to, the Agency has dedicated a whole department that filters out evidence from all of these old legends, but the conclusive evidence is much closer to home.
“
Cast your mind back to Earth history of the pre-space wars to a time a little over two centuries ago; this was the period when one of the powers that ruled part of the planet at that time first developed and used a nuclear weapon against its enemies. The aliens’ alarm systems must have gone into overdrive; this meant that we now had the power not only to destroy life on a massive scale, but soon we would realise that we could escape the Earths’ gravity bringing with us our nuclear technology. Keeping in mind how we treated the indigenous peoples of our own world who lived in the lands that the then Europeans supposedly discovered, how do you think we would treat beings that we may find on other worlds? Perhaps that was in the forefront of their minds when they applied their solution.”
Miles frowned, “Their solution?” he asked, cautiously.
“Yes, their final solution. For many years they practiced non-harming experiments on humans; of course at the time these people were not aware of this, and even when they eventually began to recall some of their experiences through regressive hypnosis they were not believed because in every society there are some who try to get in on the act with evermore fanciful tales of abductions and visits to far off planets, so all of them were written off as nuts.
“
Eventually their experiments bore fruit, and they were able to find a way of thwarting any attempts by us to leave our Solar system and ‘discover’ someone else’s planet, bringing with us our usual enthusiasm.”
“So what you’re saying is that there are aliens walking around amongst us who are ready to destroy our space vessels and the people in them to protect themselves?”