Communion of Dreams, page 23
Tops nodded. “In the autopsy I found evidence of pre-death blunt trauma that indicated she was probably first attacked by someone from behind.”
“Looking over the scene, my bet is she was knocked down, then shot at close range. Whoever did it knew enough to make sure the pc was incinerated with the first shot, just in case it was transmitting a record of what was happening. And that’s not an easy thing to do, through our suits.” Navarr looked hard at Jon. “Not much in the way of other evidence.”
“What was her name?” asked Jon. He wasn’t sure why, but this felt important to him.
“Lewis. Indra Lewis.” The commander looked away for a moment, then he looked back at Jon, and Jon was very glad that he wasn’t responsible for the death. “She was a good soldier.”
Jon nodded, and no one said anything for a few moments. Finally, Jon asked, “What about the bomb?”
“It exploded when we threw it away from the dome. Small, but very powerful. Easily would have opened up a big hole in the wall.”
“So, we have someone with one of your weapons, knowledge of military protocols, at least one bomb, and a desire to kill us all. Great.”
“Yeah, that’s about right. And either it’s one of my troopers, or someone else who has the necessary military encryption to use our weapons.”
Jon took a deep breath, felt a soreness in his ribs up where his pc should be. He must’ve winced as he reached up to touch that area beneath his armpit, because Tops said. “It’s out. While I had you under, I removed all your cyber systems.”
“Fried?”
“Yeah, like Jackie’s and Duc’s.”
“The same thing as when they touched the artifact?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, at least we know it wasn’t just a fluke with them.”
“You’re talking like you did it intentionally, to find out,” said Navarr.
“No. I don’t remember doing so, anyway.” Jon shrugged. “But I did have another of the dreams or visions or whatever, associated with the thing. And that made it pretty clear that I had come in contact with the artifact.”
“Interesting, because the artifact had disappeared.”
“Yeah, I remember that. Weird.”
“Perhaps,” said the commander. “Perhaps not. It reappeared when we finally turned the Apparent Gravity system back on.”
This caught Jon by surprise. “Oh?”
Navarr smiled. “Yeah. It’s got Bradsen and his people all excited. They tested it several times: each time the AG was shut off, the thing disappeared. Still, none of the equipment can pick it up. But at least we know that something we can do affects it.”
Jon thought about this. He looked to Tops. “Can I leave?”
“Yeah, if you really want. I’d recommend some more rest. But if you take it easy and are doing well, maybe tomorrow we can install new cyberware. I’ve already got Duc and Jackie scheduled, but I bet you’ll be in shape for it, too. So, yeah, you can go, but limit your activities.”
“Well, I don’t think I’m going to be doing a whole lot, with no cyberware.”
Tops smiled. “As to that . . . you have another visitor.”
She left the room for a moment, and came back with Gish and Chu Ling. The scientist looked around the privacy screen tentatively, but the girl just came around the corner and smiled broadly. “Ling is happy to see you! Have brought you gift!”
She held out her portable holo projector. Jon took the thick grey slab. The moment he touched it, the image of Seth appeared. “Good evening, Jon. I trust you are well?”
Jon felt a relief that he didn’t expect. Taking a deep breath, he smiled back at Chu Ling, but said to the miniature expert, “Be with you in a moment, Seth.”
He set the projector down on his lap, and reached out to the girl. She hesitated, but when Gish let go of her shoulder, she took Jon’s hand. He felt an electric shock go through him, and clearly the girl felt it too, because she almost jumped away. But the connection held, and for a moment Jon could swear that he could see a glow around the girl, a pale blue aura.
“Chu Ling wanted you to have the projector, until your new cyberware is installed,” said Gish, evidently unaware that anything unusual had taken place.
Jon looked from the girl to the scientist, then to Tops and Navarr. None of the others seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. Then he looked back at Ling, and found the girl staring at him, intent, seeing something.
“What is it Ling? What do you see?”
“The glow. Like that lady. But yours different.”
Gish spoke again, now looking at the girl. “She wanted to see you, once you were back up on the station. No idea how she knew, but she did. We came in while you were asleep. Said she saw the glow then.”
Jon looked at Ling. “Is it the same glow you see now? Can you tell me about it?”
She looked at him with a little confusion. “Same as you see. The blue glow.”
“What do you mean the same as I see?” He tried a smile. “Can you tell me about the blue glow, and how you know I see it?”
Holding tight to Gish’s hand, she glanced up at the scientist. He nodded. She looked back at Jon. “Ling just knows. Can see it with your eyes.”
“You mean in my eyes?”
She shook her head. “No. Ling sees it with your eyes. Like you see it.”
Gish’s hand came comfortingly to her shoulder. She looked up at him. “Ling, tell me. Do you see like this with other people?”
Her brow furrowed, considered. “No. Not other people. Just Mr. Jon.”
“Not even Jackie or Duc, who you also said glowed?”
She looked at him as though it was a dumb question. “They don’t glow like this. They just have little glow. And no . . . ” she hesitated, trying to think of the word. “ . . . vision. Mr. Jon has vision. He sees. So Ling sees.”
“Amazing.”
Jon looked deeply into her eyes again. “Ling, can you see anything else with my eyes?”
Still holding tight to Gish, she nonetheless returned Jon’s gaze. After a long moment, she said, “Some man. Old man. In a dark place, but he has the glow, too.”
Jon nodded. “Yes, that’s right Ling, a man. Can you tell me who he is?”
She made a face. “Ling tired, looking is hard.”
“Do you know the man, Ling?”
One hand let go of Gish, and rubbed her eye. “Not know. But you do.”
“Yes, Ling, I know who the man is. Maybe you would like to meet him?”
She frowned. “Not now. Tired. Ling wants sleep.”
In truth, she did look tired. “Maybe in the morning, then. Will you come to see me, and we can talk more about him? Maybe you can come with me to see him.”
She nodded, but then turned and stuck her face against Gish’s side. Gish looked at Jon. “Perhaps it is best if I get her to bed. She’s normally asleep at this hour.”
“Yeah. That’s fine.” Jon closed his eyes for a moment, and he could see a faint afterimage of blue. “But come by in the morning, and we’ll talk, then take a trip to the surface together. I want her to meet Sidwell.”
* * *
“Well, what will you do?” Sidwell’s voice came to him in the darkness. He tried to look around, and somehow knew he was in the cave, but there was no light.
Holding up a hand right in front of his face, he stared intently, and after a moment, could see a faint glimmer of deep blue. Concentrating, he tried to look further into the light, and slowly it grew, started to pulsate, to emerge from the depths of his hand.
“I’m waiting.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m just trying to figure this out.”
Jon could . . . feel . . . that the old man was smiling. “Good. This shouldn’t be taken for granted.”
Now the room started to fill with a diffuse light, but it didn’t come from him. He turned to face the source of it, saw the dreamtime Sidwell. As before, the light seemed to seep through his clothes, to permeate the space. Jon looked back at his own hand, and concentrated again. More light started to appear on the surface, to gather there like the coming of dawn.
“That’s it. Just look, feel, call the light.”
He relaxed, but kept his concentration focused. The light in his hand shifted down the spectrum slightly, becoming less dark, more visible. It pooled beneath the surface of his hand, puddled in his palm, and started to pour out its radiance, adding to the light coming from Sidwell. “So, there’s some sort of control to this?”
“Of course. You have to learn to walk, don’t you?”
“And learning that control will help me understand what to do with the light?”
Sidwell smiled. “No. No more than learning how to walk will help you understand what paths to take.”
“What paths are there?”
“The same paths you have always found in your life. This doesn’t change that.”
“Then what changes?”
“It’s a way of . . . seeing.” The old man looked thoughtful for a moment. “Like the girl.”
“You mean Ling?”
“Yes. It takes something special to see the world the way a child does.”
“But Ling is special.”
“Yes. Something . . . older.”
“Older?”
“Like I said, the light is your heritage. She remembers this, though she doesn’t understand it yet.”
“Help me to understand it.”
“I am. Habits long learned are difficult to break. Most people can never change. You, I fear, have to.”
“Have to?”
There was a somberness in Sidwell’s voice. “Yes. And there isn’t much time.”
* * *
Jon walked into the medical facility, portable projector slung under his right arm. Tops was waiting for him. “What’s up? Your message said come down right away.”
“Come on back.” She turned and went down a hallway, entered a surgical bay. “Have a seat.”
Jon followed her in, sat on the exam table she pointed to.
She picked something up from a nearby counter, turned to face him. “Let me have your left hand.”
He held out the hand and she took it, turned it over so the palm was facing up. She examined it carefully, through a small scanner she held just a few inches away from it. “How does your hand feel this morning?”
He looked at it, flexed his fingers. “Fine. Why?”
“No problems with either hand since your incident with the artifact?”
“No. They were sore last night when I first woke up, but I figured that was due to the shock or whatever it was.”
She nodded. “You know how the palmkey is installed and works, right?”
“Yeah, sure. It’s a thin film injected just under the skin, forms a fluid web across the palm that is programmed to function as a close-range transceiver. Simple enough.”
“Simple, and a technology that we’ve used for ten years. It’s well understood.” She looked at him. “Except, watch this.”
She set down her scanner and picked up a hypo filled with what looked to be a gold-colored mercury. Taking his hand, holding it firmly, she tipped the needle down to the skin and slipped it under. There was only a mild sting. She depressed the plunger on the hypo, and the fluid was injected under the skin. She waited a moment, removed the needle, let go of his hand.
Jon held it there, palm up, expecting to see the liquid metal flow across the palm. But it didn’t. It stayed, pooled up at the injection site. He glanced up at Tops. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But the same thing happened with Jackie when I tried that an hour ago.”
Jon looked back at his palm. Now the liquid seemed to be seeping out through the small hole made by the needle, pooling on the surface of the skin. “What the hell?”
“It shouldn’t do that. That material is specially formulated to spread out subcutaneously and form a thin, flexible film, not stay in a liquid state. Certainly not come squirting out of you like that.” She looked at him. “It’s like you’re having an immune response to it.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Your body is rejecting the material. Jackie’s did the same thing, though more slowly. Same thing with the thin-film controls on the back of her hand.”
“Duc?”
“I’ve sent for him. When he gets here, I’ll run the same test on him. But I bet I know what will happen.”
Jon nodded. “The artifact?”
“Probably. But how? I mean, having your cyberware fried because you came into contact with the thing makes a certain amount of sense. And I just figured that the palmkeys were somehow damaged when that happened, so removed the pooled material with a hypo and didn’t give it much thought. But this? You’re not in contact with the thing now.”
“Or are we?” He looked down at the small dollop of liquid metal skittering around on his palm. “Look, I need to go down to Titan. Can you go ahead and use Jackie and Duc for your tests for the time being, try and see what the extent of this is? I’ll come back in as soon as I’m back on the station.”
She nodded. “But do me a favor, Jon, and stay away from the artifact, at least until we can figure out what is going on here. If it’s exercising some kind of physiological influence over you, that might be exacerbated by being in close proximity to it.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean. I’ll try and keep my distance, but I want to expose the girl to it.”
“No touching.”
“I promise.”
* * *
Navarr was waiting for him when he got back to his room. Jon gave him a curious look, but ushered the commander in.
Navarr paused by the door, looked around. He reached down to a thigh pocket and touched the control of a device that Jon recognized: the field suppressor. But this time, Jon felt nothing.
“What’s up?” asked Jon.
“You’re vulnerable.”
Jon nodded. “Yeah, but I’m also not responsible for anything. Bradsen is.”
“True, but whoever killed my marine and planted that bomb may not care about that.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. And him being in charge, that’s only temporary, right?”
“Well, who knows? I just came from Tops, and it looks like there are complications with getting new cyberware installed. I can’t very well run things if I’m not connected.”
Navarr nodded to the holo projector. “What about that?”
“Clumsy, at best.”
“Yeah, but the same principle applies. Don’t be stuck thinking that there’s only one solution to your problem.”
Jon considered it for a moment. “Well, yeah, we can go back to some of the older equipment, I suppose. Pre-cyberware. I’m not sure if there’s anything like that available up here, though.”
“You’ve got a communications tech expert down on Titan, don’t you?”
“Yeah, sure as hell. OK, I get the point.”
“Good. Now, in the meantime, you need some protection.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the suppressor, handed it over to Jon. “Take this. If you need some privacy, just touch this control. This one controls the power output. Turn it like this to create just a personal space, crank it up like that to secure a room.”
“Yeah, I remember how it felt when you had it turned up.”
“OK, good. Then there’s this,” Navarr reached behind his back and pulled out a small pistol, handed it to Jon.
With just a slight hesitation, Jon took the weapon, examined it.
“It’s not much for range, but packs punch. Uses the same ammo as my service weapon.” He smiled. “And doesn’t require cyberware to use.”
“Where’d you get this?”
“Back-up,” said Navarr. “My dad was a cop, told me that no good cop was ever without a secondary weapon, just in case. It’s non-regulation as all hell, but rank has its privileges. You take it.”
Jon hefted the weapon. It felt comforting, but he was dubious. “Look, my days of fighting are behind me. Well behind me.”
“I don’t care. I can’t afford to have someone play bodyguard to you all the time. You’re without cyberware, can’t call for help easily, can’t be monitored, and are potentially a target. So, you take that. Fewer worries for me.”
Jon nodded, and Navarr handed him a pocket holster and an extra magazine of ammunition. He hefted the weapon again. “Thanks.”
He carefully tucked the weapon into the small holster, then put it into his back pocket. The magazine slipped into another pocket. “Gish and Chu Ling should be here any moment, and then we’re going down to the surface. Wanna go?”
“Sure. I’ll arrange for a transport. Meet me at the hanger.”
* * *
The tholin sleet wasn’t as bad, since Titan’s atmosphere was adjusting to the ‘seasonal’ change and stabilizing. Nonetheless, visibility was down, and Jon was happy that Navarr was with them as they walked the distance from the landing pad to Sidwell’s dome.
He was following Gish and Ling, the scientist holding the hand of the girl. Navarr followed behind them. Gish kept looking straight ahead, but Chu Ling was looking all around, trying to take it all in. Suddenly they stopped, and Navarr touched him on the shoulder. The two in front turned around just as Navarr touched his helmet to Jon’s and said “Be ready . . . gravity flip.”
Jon started to ask what he meant, when it hit. A quick series of shifts as the AG generator was turned on and off in rapid succession. His stomach didn’t have long enough between shifts to find a new balance each time, and Jon thought that he was going to be sick inside his helmet. Then it was over as quickly as it started. Navarr nodded ahead, and Jon turned to see that Gish and the girl were already walking again.
They got to Sidwell’s habitat dome, entered the airlock. After the accumulated tholin sludge was rinsed away and breathable air cycled in, they removed their helmets, and prepared to enter the dome. “Was that Bradsen testing the artifact?”
“Yes. I was down here last night when they were doing it. After you go through it a few times, it’s not so disorienting.”
