“Not a bit. It was only a shadow. It was more like a meeting of minds that caused the reaction. I could sense that whatever was in that shadow could not only see me, it could look straight through me and into the deepest part of my mind. It was a sense of… oh, I don’t know. Violation? Being unable to stop anybody from going where only you can go and maybe into parts of yourself you don’t want to look at, which is why you put them there. Does that make any sense?”
“Kinda. Look up the term ‘rape’ sometime and you’ll see a lot of the same feelin’s and terms used. That’s sexual, but there’s a lot more to the act than just sex. Congratulations, Sergeant. I think you’ve just proved you’re human after all.”
“Perhaps. If nightmares are what make you human, then I guess that counts. But, the point is, we’ve proven two things. First, those gems are the genuine articles, and that raises as many new questions as it answers. Second, that, natural or artificial, they are some sort of communications medium. A two-way medium at that.”
“Are you sure? That would make them machines of some kind in my book. Interesting.”
“Not necessarily. You can create a primitive radio using quartz crystals. You can generate a mild current that is still sufficient to run some very small devices using the stored energy in a potato. No, they could still be either, and it really doesn’t matter which. I now think that your legendary scout’s signals were intercepted and interfered with by someone or something that did not want all the details of their existence known. They probably didn’t know enough about us and our technology at that point, considering the sample they had, to react in time to keep all the knowledge from us, but it was enough. Later on, when the second expedition solved where it was somehow and made it there, it was a different story. By that point, whoever is out there had a fair cross section of humans along with their data, both in their minds and in their ship and computers, to learn quite a lot. The second contact, that exploration ship, was sent back. Sent back by whoever it is, with just enough of those gems. They knew what would happen to them, where they would go, how they would be used. Their captives or whatever could tell them that.”
“You mean they were spies. Remote control windows to look at us.”
Maslovic nodded. “And if they can also transmit using those things, then they could learn an awful lot fast and have unwitting agents tell them all that they needed.”
“Witting agents, more like, considerin’ not only them girls but also whoever is sendin’ ’em to Barnum’s World.”
“Now, yes. But how long ago did this legend start? Centuries, you said.”
“Seems like. I dunno for sure, but it’s been around longer than I have, and that’s a fair amount of time. Sounds like our aliens are pretty patient buggers, though. Surely with that mind control stuff, they had enough information on us ages ago to conquer us if they wanted to.”
“I don’t know. Conquer might not be the right word. Maybe they’re just curious. Maybe they’re toying with us. The devil worship business indicates that they’ve achieved a pretty sophisticated sense of humor as well as a sense of how to utilize humans. Maybe there aren’t very many of them. Or maybe they don’t know anything more about the Great Silence than we do and think that whatever happened to our ancestors will be coming for us and then for them. It would be useful to keep us as a permanently monitored buffer race. We’re only guessing, though, and those girls can’t tell us. Whoever’s behind them, though, is closer to us than to the alien masters, you’re right about that much. Whether they’re partners or surrogates for the watchers doesn’t make much difference. The trouble is, if they’re on Barnum’s World, they’re going to be a lot better positioned than we are, and they’ll know us because now one of their remote masters knows me.”
“I dunno where you’re gettin’ that ‘us’ business, if you include me in that,” Murphy said. “I, for one, am willin’ to let ’em play their silly games if their money’s still good, and I think I’ll be long dead before they start doin’ whatever it is they’re plannin’ to do. Still and all, you got to figure that it ain’t just you and your pilot that they know. Not now.”
“Huh?”
“I wonder if they ever had the chance to poke into the innards of the most powerful military battle group left in this whole region? Maybe in all this side of the Great Silence? Three rovin’ eyes plus access to that whole blasted ship’s master computer of yours. Your nabbin’ me with them three had to be a godsend for ’em, don’t you think?”
The master of logic seemed suddenly dumbstruck by the enormity of Murphy’s words and the implication of it all. “Of course! I was just too close to it to see it! Damn! They really do have it all, don’t they?”
“Don’t feel too bad,” the old captain consoled. “You’re a pretty bright lad who brung it this far. You just were born and raised in that navy factory. It’s your mother, father, sister, brother, womb and probable grave. It’s the most secure place you can think of in the whole damned galaxy. It takes an old scoundrel like me to pull you that last little bit, that’s all.”
“Yes, but they know everything! Everything! And we—we know exactly nothing at all. Militarily, the only thing left for us is to take out ceremonial swords like the ancient warriors of Old Earth and rip our guts out.”
Murphy shook his head slowly from side to side. “Nope, I don’t think so, Sergeant. I don’t think they’re gonna let you or any of us off that easy…”
She lay there in an almost fully reclined position, strapped in and padded so that she was unlikely to shift and fall out, with small motors exercising and massaging various parts of her body while other probes monitored all her vital signs down to the most minute detail to insure that she was not in any way suffering injury or long-term impairment. Small tubes fed her and others took away her waste, so that her mind did not have to have any part of itself occupied with such things nor distracted from them.
The mind, in a sense, wasn’t even there.
Many who had never experienced at least this level of bonding, mind and machine, could not imagine why so many in the past had elected to simply discard their human bodies and mate brain and ship into one permanent organism. In the Meld, as it was generally referred to by those who did it often, it was easy to think how wonderful it would be to be like this permanently, to become one with the machine and live with this enhanced power, trading a fragile human body for one that could withstand the cold vacuum of space and the heat of a reentry, who could see and control all parts of themselves at once, with senses enhanced beyond any ordinary human’s imagination.
The navy, however, reserved that entirely for the Admiralty, insisting that you remain with your body and exist when not on station or on a mission in that body and not in the permanency of the Meld. It limited you in ways that you could never explain to others, and it meant that you would have to constantly readjust to the situation, but the navy wanted no Meld that it could not control, no cybernetic bond that it could not break. Humans had almost been wiped out when they’d allowed their self-aware machines free reign and will, and they were not about to trust even partly human cybernauts with it, either.
Lieutenant Chung preferred the Meld with a fast, sleek fighter, leading a limitless team with maximum power and abilities at their command, but this was fine compared to the alternative. Even if they somehow entered lifeboat mode, she could exist like this while having only the most tenuous connection to a cryogenically frozen body. But she still needed that connection, that body; it was part of the ship, and the ship was a part of her, but if it died, her thoughts, her personality also died. She was well aware of that.