Wormhole (5 page)

“Fair enough. It’s time Janet and I made you aware of our concerns.” He pointed toward the comfortable chairs and couches arranged around the low coffee table.

Heather sat down, as did Mark and Jen. For some time now she’d been expecting this talk. She’d seen it coming in her visions, different versions, but always the same topic. Suspicious thoughts hovered around Jack and Janet like ghostly halos whenever they mentioned the Bandolier Ship or the four alien headsets.

As if on cue, Janet entered from the kitchen and paused to set little Robby in the baby rocker, winding the handle several times and setting it in motion before sliding onto the love seat. Jack settled in beside her.

Heather glanced at the baby. Robby already bore a striking resemblance to his father, especially in the eyes. But there was something else about the child that both fascinated and unnerved her. For one thing, the little boy never cried. Whenever Heather looked into those eyes, the feeling he was studying her rose within, as though she were a zoo animal on the far side of safety glass. Heather knew it was ridiculous to think this way about a three-month-old, but as she looked into those eyes, she couldn’t shake the feeling.

Jack’s voice brought her out of her reverie. “Throughout your training here, we’ve made it clear that everything we have you do is voluntary. And although you’ve done everything Janet and I have asked of you, you can’t have helped noticing a certain amount of distrust on our part. It’s time for you to know just how strong that distrust is.”

Having Jack say aloud what she’d long suspected slapped Heather in the face as if he’d struck her with his open hand. From the silence that hung in the air, she knew Mark and Jennifer felt the shock just as strongly. For several long moments Jack let it
hang there, allowing his words to achieve their full emotional impact.

“Don’t get me wrong. You’re the finest group of young people I’ve ever known. What Janet and I don’t trust is the agenda of the starship that altered you.”

“Wait just a second!” Jen burst out. “The Rho Ship’s the bad one.”

“Damn right,” Mark agreed. “And it’s not like the starship chose us. It was just pure dumb luck that we stumbled onto it and tried on the headsets.”

“Was it?” Janet asked. “You know the odds that the wind catches your model plane and drops it down that canyon, right into the starship cavern?”

“Two chances in 3,423,851.” The words tumbled from Heather’s lips before she caught herself.

A smile lit Janet’s beautiful face. “Pretty slim odds.”

Mark shrugged. “Shit happens.”

“True,” said Jack. “But this might not be one of those times. Remember when I told you not to trust anyone completely, not even each other? Think about the agendas in play here. You’ve seen what your starship wanted to show you about its enemies. That doesn’t mean your Bandolier Ship has Earth’s best interests at heart. We think it’s trying to stop whatever the creators of the Rho Ship had in mind, but we don’t really know the Bandolier Ship’s original mission.”

Janet shifted to face Mark across the table. “And we don’t know why you were each drawn to a particular headset. Although all of you have been enhanced across the board, you each have special skills that are significantly different. Does that mean the headsets have certain crew positions to fill on the ship? Heather’s ability to calculate probable outcomes and evaluate strategies implies a command function. Mark, your
physical and language enhancements would seem to fill a security officer role, while Jen’s computer expertise and ability to influence the thoughts of others could fill a communications and science officer function. We also know that once a headset attunes with someone, nobody else can use it while the original user still lives.”

Heather shook her head. “I’ve considered all that. Too many holes in the logic. What about the fourth headset? As far as we know, only two people have attuned with it, the Rag Man and El Chupacabra. Hardly starship crew candidates.”

“But with similar natures,” said Jack.

Jennifer shook her head “Ridiculous. A homicidal maniac crew position?”

Janet reached out, letting her fingers brush Robby’s curly brown hair as he rocked slowly back and forth. “It’s more common than you imagine. In the Soviet Union, it was standard procedure to place a political officer with every unit to ensure loyalty to the motherland. The Nazis used the Gestapo in a similar role. In Saudi Arabia, a volunteer clerical police force called the mutawa’ah enforce sharia law. Throughout the Middle East, religious police perform similar functions throughout society.”

“But not in Western governments,” Mark said.

“Don’t kid yourself. Even the US has its enforcers of politically correct thought. Whether they are internal security, internal affairs, internal revenue, or even some of the media, their mission is to make people toe the line. They wield special powers that inspire fear.”

“It doesn’t make them the Rag Man,” Heather interjected.

“No. But they’ll do whatever it takes to force people to conform. That kind of power attracts zealots and fanatics.”

“So you think we’re under some sort of alien influence?” Heather asked.

Jack shook his head. “If I thought that, I wouldn’t be training you. But we need to know everything we can about the intentions of both ships’ creators. We also need to learn everything we can about their technology. You’ve already done amazing work in this area, but we need to delve deeper. How do their weapons work? Not just the starship weapons, but personal weapons as well. What other technologies are hidden away? In the case of your Bandolier Ship, we have an in, the headsets. But that means you’re going to have to breach the ship’s internal security mechanisms and get access to the restricted parts of its computing systems.”

“You think I haven’t tried?” Jen asked. “Those systems are interwoven with complex fractal patterns that I haven’t even come close to cracking.”

“You’ll need to work together. While you have the headsets on you’re all linked to the ship and to each other. You share imagery, even thoughts. By focusing your combined talents on cracking one barrier at a time, you’ll have a chance.”

Heather exchanged fleeting glances with Mark and Jennifer before responding. “The ship isn’t stupid. Its computing systems function as a fully integrated expert system, possibly even an AI. It’s bound to have defenses against what we’ll be trying. Some of those might not be as passive as firewalls and encryption. It may lock us out completely, or worse.”

Jack nodded. “There is that risk. It’s why Janet and I have had you exploring the other systems through your headsets these last few weeks, letting you enhance your familiarity with the ship’s artificial intelligence in a nonaggressive manner. It’s why you’ll need to proceed with extreme caution, Jennifer’s skill guided by your mind and by Mark’s link to the security systems. I’m counting on you to find a path through those defenses.”

Mark inhaled deeply, cracking his knuckles as he breathed out. “Sounds interesting. I’m game.”

“Me too,” added Jennifer.

Feeling all eyes on her, Heather centered, thrusting aside a series of disconcerting visions that sought to pull her into the deep.

“Let’s do it.”

After dinner, Heather took her turn cleaning dishes before walking through the open alcove onto the veranda. It was a beautiful fall evening, temperature hovering in the high seventies, with just enough breeze to make the humidity comfortable.

Although Sunday was usually the day set aside for their headset exploration of the Bandolier starship, Jack had decided it was time to change up the routine. Even though the headsets worked through a subspace link that was undetectable by earthly technology and Dr. Stephenson was rotting in an American prison cell, predictable patterns of behavior violated Jack’s sense of security. But Heather detected something else in Jack’s demeanor, an eagerness she had never before observed.

Slipping into a wicker chair, Heather inclined her head toward Mark and Jen, each occupying a similar chair, all three arranged around a low wrought iron table. In the center of the
table, an open aluminum case held the four alien headbands, the area dimly illuminated by an oil hurricane lamp that hung suspended from a support beam.

Jack leaned against the wall, his eyes studying the full moon that shed almost as much light as the lamp itself. The scene reminded Heather of a séance more than a serious scientific experiment. But then, in a strange way, maybe that’s what it was.

“You ready?” Jack asked, his strange eyes locking with hers.

“Yes.”

“Good.” Jack pulled up a wooden stool, seating himself where he could see the faces of all three of his trainees. “Because tonight you’re going up against the artificial intelligence controlling the Bandolier Ship. Your mission is to gain access to the ship’s restricted data banks. In order to make that happen, you’ll have to convince the ship’s artificial intelligence that you are truly the crew and not just candidates that have attuned to the headsets.”

“And how do we do that?” Jennifer asked.

“That’s something you’ll have to figure out together once you’re all linked in. Don’t rush it. Heather’s intuition should guide you, but she won’t be able to do it alone. The ship must fully accept you all.”

“And if something goes wrong?” Mark asked.

“I’ll be here watching you. If I think you’re in trouble, I’ll remove the headsets. But remember, you have to retain control of your own minds. Don’t lose your way back.”

Heather reached for the metal case. The four headsets lay nestled in its dark foam-padded interior, each exactly like its mates, the strange metal picking up the dancing lamplight so photons seemed to bead up and crawl along its surface. Wasn’t it odd how her hand was drawn only to the one she recognized as her own?

Lifting the light band from its resting place, Heather leaned back, letting Jennifer and Mark select their own. Then, as their eyes met, they all slid the bands up over their temples.

As the small nubs at the ends of Heather’s headband touched her head, they elongated, the massaging pulse spreading through her body as each sought its optimum position. Then the world dissolved.

She was on the starship, her virtual self standing on the command deck, its smoothly curved walls, ceiling, and floor as beautiful as she remembered. Glancing to her right and left, she saw Jennifer and Mark settle into their crew couches, the translucent material flowing around them to cushion their bodies, as if they were preparing for takeoff.

Jennifer had been the first to discover this unique capability available to wearers of the starship’s headbands, something they had come to call the Avatar Projection. If they imagined themselves physically on the starship, the interaction between the ship’s computer and their own enhanced minds created the impression that they were physically there. It was an illusion, but it sure as hell felt real, far more real than a dream, so real that she could reach out and touch things, including Mark and Jennifer.

While they were in the Avatar Projection, all their senses worked. Not just when they were roaming the ship either. From the first summer they’d spent exploring their Bandolier Ship, they’d known how to have it surround them with sights and sounds of other places and scenes, like Bora Bora or the starship’s arrival in this solar system. But now when the ship presented sensory experiences, it went far beyond mere sounds and scenery. This was the full monty.

The closest thing she’d seen to this was the dream implants in the movie
Total Recall
, which provided all the neural stimulation of a real experience. It played out in such detail that it surpassed Heather’s visions of the future, making it hard to remember she wasn’t physically there. That was the reason Jack had cautioned them against losing their way back.

Heather settled into her own command couch, opening her mind to the touch of Mark’s and Jennifer’s. They were all there sharing the same link—to varying degrees, sharing the same thoughts. It was another aspect of exploring the ship’s neural linkages that had, at first, startled Heather. Jennifer had been the one most familiar with the experience, having used a version of the ability on other people for several months.

But this went well beyond what Jennifer could do. If they weren’t careful, they found each other sharing their innermost thoughts and feelings, something that went beyond frightening to downright embarrassing. After the first experience, Heather had de-linked, refusing to wear the headset again unless she did so alone. Only Jack’s insistence that they retry the experiment had overcome her resistance.

In a series of tentative practice sessions, Heather, Mark and Jen gradually learned to establish mental barriers that effectively shielded parts of their minds from each other. Connected through the headbands, their minds each had the capacity to open to the others. Fortunately, that openness could be selectively disabled, effectively firewalling off layers of thoughts and feelings. The bad news was that if a person got interested, aggressively pursuing another’s thoughts, it became very difficult to disentangle him or her from the deeper parts of one’s mind.