Authors: Cathy Perkins,Taylor Lee,J Thorn,Nolan Radke,Richter Watkins,Thomas Morrissey,David F. Weisman
It seemed an eternity before Pendergastman spoke again. “You’ll have plenty of help.”
Brett looked him in the eyes. “I’ll need to be very thoroughly coached. The stakes are too important for errors, and I could go to prison for a long time for perjury before the Grand Council.”
As he spoke, Brett knew cooperation was unthinkable. Heedless defiance would get him nowhere though, as violence had brought the teenager he had once been nowhere. He couldn’t even wait until he saw the Grand Council to tell the truth. War would be underway by then. Somehow he had to alert someone, convince them to pass word to… who? Brett no longer even trusted Senator Peterson, not really. Even if nobody trustworthy had power here, he had to tell the truth to someone.
General Pendergastman nodded. “Very good. But we’ll need a brainscan before we continue.”
The last of Brett’s hope leeched away. A brainscan was not like nannies and a skullcap, but with care they would be able to tell truth from lies, straightforwardness from evasion.
Pendergastman seemed to notice a change in his expression and said, “I like to think the old Major Johnson will be grateful to us if we can bring him back again, grateful that we kept the Oceanians from using your shell as a puppet.”
Wondering if he should just keep his mouth shut, Brett asked, “So after the cure, are you going to punish the old Brett for what I’ve done?”
Pendergastman shook his head vigorously. “Of course not. And you can still be that old Brett if you try.”
Brett wanted to tell him he was wrong, this man was entirely Brett’s evil twin, and then tell him he was a loathsome worm who deserved to be run through a meat grinder. What stopped him wasn’t common sense, or the hope for some clever idea to come. Brett was desperately frightened, pure and simple, and could not get the words out.
Chapter 28
Gravity was fairly strong in the room where Brett was secreted, almost that of Old York. He could throw up normally without making a mess when he made it all the way to the toilette.
How long had he been here? Sometimes it felt like years, but that couldn’t be right. Questron distorted the brain’s sense of duration, so he probably hadn’t really been left locked away in a room forgotten after the war was long over. He had eaten a few meals, then gotten tired of vomiting and stopped eating. They hadn’t punished him as he half expected, but had fed him intravenously. It was nice actually, not having anything to throw up, but the dry heaves left an acidy feeling in his throat, and a technician stood over him to make sure he didn’t pull out the needle. He had started eating again in return for the occasional illusion of privacy, though of course he was monitored. There had been a couple of light meals since then.
There was a loud knock on the door. “May I come in?”
The question seemed hysterically funny, but laughing would hurt, and he didn’t want to cry. He was a prisoner, and the door locked on the outside. The Brett who might have said that he was busy and they should call again later seemed very long gone.
“Come in,” he croaked.
Pendergastman entered, followed by his two goons dressed as military policemen, one of whom carried a folding chair. Brett did not stand up from the bed and snap a salute, partly because his hospital gown meant he was out of uniform, but mostly because he struggled even to sit up. Questron couldn’t really be considered torture, it was no worse than the worst flu he had ever had combined with the worst stomach virus.
After sitting Pendergastman said, “Major, I’m very sorry you had to go through this.”
Brett refrained from saying that Pendergastman wasn’t nearly as sorry as Brett. “Yes sir.”
The general went on. “I’m only going to ask once more. Will you agree to testify before the Grand Council?”
Of course he would. Not worth mentioning, since they both knew the General wanted him to lie to them, and would have his brain scanned before releasing him.
Brett shook his head, lest a refusal to answer entirely anger the General further to no purpose.
“As disappointed as I am, I still want you to return to the planet’s surface. I believe your reports may still be of some value to us, but I’m really hoping you will regain some of the memories that have been buried.”
Did the general still believe that? Did he pretend to in order to salve his own conscience, or to fool Brett into … what?”
Then new hope crashed over him, like a warm Ocean wave splashing over the head of a confident swimmer. Once away from the Firestorm, he could do anything. He could ask for asylum. He could say, “I’m pretty convinced the overmind isn’t gonna eat me, but even if it does I still prefer that to being tortured by my employers, and this Questron stuff kind of eats your brain anyhow.”
He would have to leave soon, because the Questron would make a brain scan unreliable while still in his system. There was a scientific name for that effect. Oh yeah, ‘brain all fucked up.’
The general gestured to the two MP’s standing behind him. “These gentlemen will help you put your uniform back on.”
Brett envisioned some cruel trick, but in fact he was unable to dress himself. They could do anything they wanted, and if he didn’t cooperate with one form of humiliation, try another.
“Yes sir,” he replied as firmly as he could, and attempted to get to his feet. One of the MP’s helped him, not too roughly.
Pendergastman said, “The optimum launch window for the shuttle is in about three hours. You should be a lot better by then.”
An almost familiar noise woke Brett, followed by an unbearably bright red light. No, that must be the sunlight shining through his closed eyelids. Brett tried to struggle to his feet, experiencing a moment of panic before he remembered the safety harness.
A young voice said, “Sir, you don’t have to get up just yet. I wish you and the General hadn’t insisted on your returning today.”
Brett started to take a deep breath, stopped when he began to feel a cough reflex. He didn’t think he was that ill. He certainly hadn’t wanted to eat while still sick from the drugs. It hadn’t seemed like a good idea right before flight. So now he was weak, though he didn’t feel quite hungry. Maybe traces of some drugs were still in his bloodstream.
Why couldn’t he move? Oh. Brett unsnapped the harness with an effort. He couldn’t quite focus. For some reason standing up still posed difficulty. Maybe eye trouble or eyes blurred with tears. Nausea and dizziness hit again, and he half sat, half fell, back down.
“Brett! What’s the matter?”
The voice was familiar. Ambassador Williams. Coming to meet the shuttle had been a nice touch, especially considering Williams’ phobia.
Brett croaked, “I’m fine,” but his voice didn’t sound fine at all in his own ears.
Williams spoke again, apparently not to Brett or the pilot. “Can you use that hat to summon an ambulance?”
“Right away Ambassador.”
The young voice again, “You have help on the way? Great, I don’t think my first aid certification covers this.”
Great. This would be embarrassing when they saw he was only a little dizzy. Brett collected himself to begin explaining.
“And will you find a way of notifying an important Neuron named Ariel Lilac who knows Brett personally? She should know how to get everything ready at whatever VIP hospital he’s going to, and she may want to meet him there.”
Brett objected, “You’re not my mother, stop it.”
Nobody responded, perhaps because his voice wasn’t all that loud or clear.
Brett flashed back momentarily to the confrontation with his own fears, and the past that had made him who he was. It had been a long time since he had thought of his mother.
He opened his eyes. Had he blacked out a moment? Were they really getting ready to remove him from the cockpit in a stretcher? That was silly, but he wouldn’t mind being carried a few minutes. He closed his eyes for another moment.
Brett heard Ariel’s voice. “He’s waking up.”
How did she know? Did Ariel see Brett’s vital signs hovering over his body, as if he were hooked up to virtual monitoring equipment?
He didn’t open his eyes yet. A strange male voice said, “Are you sure he’s going to want visitors? Will all four of us be too much for him? Maybe Callie and I should come back some other time.”
The name Callie was familiar. Brett had worked with her as part of the hive mind.
Ariel’s voice. “I promise you he’s not too shy to ask you to leave if he feels like it. Anyway, the doctors say he should be feeling a lot better, though they want to keep him a few days. He slept nine hours, his blood sugar is a lot higher now, and most of the drugs have been washed out of his system. I think it will give him a boost to know so many people are concerned about him, though I didn’t let anyone else who knows him only through the hive mind come right now.”
Then she addressed Brett. “You can stop pretending to be asleep now.”
Brett opened his eyes. Ariel and Williams were seated on chairs next to his bed. Williams said, “You look a lot better.”
“Much better. Thanks.”
Brett focused his gaze on Williams. “You could use a few hours sleep.”
Williams grinned. “How kind of you to say so. Same old Brett. We were worried about you.”
Brett replied in the same fashion. “I apologize for not being more unpleasant the past few months. You could have not cared and slept peacefully.”
It felt good to be home. The implications of the thought startled him for a moment, but he didn’t flinch from them. The Federalist Worlds had betrayed him. If he were within reach of the authorities and expressed such a view, a court martial board would speedily remind him that he had taken an oath to the Space Force, but the Space Force had taken no oath to him. As far as his own conscience went though, any obligations he had were paid in full.
He had been trained to withstand torture by an enemy, and hoped he could have withstood more than this – if it were from an enemy. He liked to think it was not his courage that had been used up, but his loyalty. On balance, he still believed the Federalist Worlds and the Space Force had still done more good than harm in history, but he no longer felt personally bound to obey orders he disagreed with if he could get away with not doing so, or was willing to pay the price.
Williams gestured in the direction of two chairs behind him and Ariel. “These people think they know you. Want us to get rid of them?”
One of the chairs was occupied by a man in his sixties, whose hard muscular build contrasted with his white hair. Had Brett met him before? Not in person, but he had seen images of Rock once or twice while part of Oceania. If he had been part of the supermind all those decades, he had to be at least a hundred. Brett had been misled again by Oceanian aging rates.
“Hello Rock, thanks for coming.”
“Good to see you feeling better.”
The woman next to him was his wife. “Thank you for coming, Callie.”
She smiled. “I’m happy to hear you’ll be in good shape after a little rest.”
Brett spoke softly. “Oddly enough, it seems they want me to become part of the overmind again after all.”
Ariel raised her voice. “You’re not seriously thinking of going back to them, are you? Are you crazy?”
Despite his condition Brett smiled, a little wan, but a genuine smile. He said, “I am as stubborn as a mule, but not stubborner. That part of my life is over. I just think it’s a little too convenient. They prove they don’t trust me, then send me back to continue my investigation anyway.”
Ariel frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Williams pointed out the connection which Brett was pretty sure Ariel deliberately refused to make. “Since he won’t testify before the Grand Council that Oceania steals people’s individuality, they want him to turn into living proof.”
So the Ambassador had successfully decoded whatever distorted rumors had reached him. He might even understand Brett’s decision. He nodded. “Just so.”
He was pleased to see how calmly Williams took the implication. Probably Williams had been the one who helped them figure out what had happened to him.
Ariel replied, “Who cares? That part is fine. You’re not actually thinking of going back, are you?”
“That depends on why they sent me. It would be pretty natural for me to defect now, wouldn’t you say? Perhaps they would find it convenient to have proof that the overmind had absorbed a notorious critic.”
Ariel replied too loudly for the small room. “I don’t care. They’re going to fight us anyway! I have you and I’m keeping you!”
Brett smiled and squeezed her hand. “It’s worthwhile to deny the enemy anything they seem to want.”
Then he said ironically, “You realize I’m only referring to the Space Force that way because I’ve been instructed to function as part of the overmind to the greatest extent possible.”
Ariel shook her head violently, lashing her hair around the room. “Never mind that. You know it would be insane to return to them, I just need you to tell me you won’t so I can sleep in peace.”
Brett replied gently, “We don’t know how much internal dissension the lack of a causus bellici will bring them. It might be enough that they would abandon a long and bloody war in the middle.”
The shift into the word ‘them’ was surprisingly easy. The scent of the paranoid fear that had infused General Pendergastman’s thinking had been ugly and it seemed unlikely he had been put into place by people who didn’t know who and what he was. Brett had been tortured. And he was becoming more and more certain the Senator and his ilk wanted to use him, not as an officer, but as a patsy.
Brett saw the unhappiness on Ariel’s face, but the conclusion was unavoidable. He continued. “How could they torture me, then send me back to continue doing my job as if nothing had happened? This has to be what they want. And we already know the reason for it.
“Ariel, I like me too, but you’ve never seen war. There’s going to be a time when you realize I’m not worth millions of lives. You haven’t even asked your government if they would give me asylum yet. But don’t bother. I wouldn’t take it. You would be surprised how quickly they got tired of me – and you for standing up for me.”
Ariel frowned. “You’re not returning to orbit again now are you? That would be suicide!”
Despite everything, Brett felt himself smile. It was a hard, unfamiliar sort of smile. He said, “Heck no. I took an oath as an officer. All this stuff about how they want me to defect is mere speculation on my part. My instructions are to function as part of the overmind and learn as much about it as I can, and I’ll obey them. Where’s my hat?”
Rock and Callie looked at each other and laughed. Callie said, “No. You’re supposed to be resting.”
Brett told her, “I’ve never been good at lying around doing nothing. I thought that might help take my mind off it.”
It was Ariel who replied. “We’ll find something else. Most of what you’ve been doing is strenuous – not physically but mentally. A break would be a good idea now.”
“Well, I’m still part of the overmind even if I can’t use a high bandwidth connection now, right?”
She pressed the back of his hand with her palm. “Always. The Space Force’s loss and our gain.”
Brett grinned. “Oddly enough, there are people overhead who might disagree with that. There are two kinds of officers in the Space Force. The first kind tells their superior officers what they want to hear, hoping for a pat on the back. The second kind brings the news that will make their superiors unhappy, knowing there are plenty of the first kind to report the other stuff.”
There was bemusement in the air, but nobody interrupted to ask why he wanted to talk about this now. So he continued. “I was always the second kind. I always obeyed orders I disagreed with, and I always spoke out strenuously until the orders were actually given, and the decision actually made.”
Rock looked slightly puzzled. “That sounds admirable.”
Brett grinned. “I never made admiral. There were officers who were happy to be rid of me. This wasn’t always good, but I managed to avoid being part of some of the inevitable disasters of projects led by people who never wanted to hear bad news. Oddly enough, sometimes superiors decided I was worth having around.”