Vincent Trigili - The Enemy of an Enemy

He sighed and after a pause said, “I wasafraid of this.”

“Afraid of what?” I asked.

“Well, in your file are orders that if youever hit a memory block I am to inject you with 35ccs of CrystalineBetazene before you succeed in breaking it. Apparently they did nottrust their blocks to hold against you, and it seems with goodreason.”

“Forgive me if I am off-base here, Doc, but35ccs seems far too high,” I said.

“Indeed, it would be for a normal personunder normal conditions. You were not under normal conditions. Youwere fighting extreme pain, and the normal dose would have onlystabilized you. Their goal was to push you into a coma to preventyou from discovering whatever it was they had blocked. My orderswere to keep you in the coma until someone could come andreestablish the block.” He then stood, picked up the hypodermicsyringe from his desk and tossed it into my lap. When I picked itup I saw it was completely full.

I leveled my gaze at him and said, “This isfull, Doctor.”

“Yes, instead my official report will saythat your medical alert patch malfunctioned, and that we need toorder a replacement. I will also record that you passed out due tooverexertion, and lack of rest. Your official treatment will berest and a good meal, and to leave your medical alert patch offuntil we can replace it,” was his answer.

“Why, Doc?” I asked. “You are not the type todisobey an order and get involved in a cover-up.”

“Vydor, you will learn in time that you haveto weigh each order you get against the situation at hand. In mostcases orders come down the chain of command, and often from peoplefar removed from the situation. Sometimes, as in this case, theorders were placed long before the situation came about and need tobe adjusted in light of new information and events that arose sincethe order was given. Beyond that, though, you need to use your ownmoral compass to judge whether an order is something you shouldfollow or not. In this case, it was that moral compass that told methis order is wrong. If I am questioned officially I can simplystate I took the Emperor’s orders for your upcoming mission tooverrule that order since if you were placed in a coma there wouldbe no way for you to fly The rest of the cover-up is actuallydescribed in the orders so I would not have to explain thataway.”

Well, this doctor was packed full ofsurprises. Technically I should have reported him for disobeyingorders but, as he pointed out, that would jeopardize the mission aswell as getting my memory blocked again. He had me here. I couldnot report him, and part of me felt that was good.

“Doc, I have to ask you something. Why didyou recommend me so highly to the captain? I did not think youwould have known anything about me.”

He got that faraway look about him again,just as he had in the meeting. This time I could watch him moreclosely and I saw that there was more to it than that. He seemed tobe fighting some internal struggle with himself, one I could barelydetect. After a few minutes he sighed and looked at me.

“Vydor, I know that I did, but I cannotremember doing it. You see, like you I have many memory blocks, butunlike you I have never been able to open them. I can find them,just not open them,” he stated in an almost depressed tone.

“But no alarms went off showing you in pain?”I asked.

He had a proud smile about him as he startedhis reply, “No, I have been fighting the memory blocks much longerthan you have. You will find after you defeat the pain a few timesit starts becoming second nature and you get to the point that youdon’t even notice it any more. It took all my medical training thefirst few times to get through it, but I did. Of course the realquestion you must be wondering about is why I have memory blocks,and that’s a question I have been researching ever since returningto my post here.”

“Returning to your post? As far as I know youhave not left the ship since taking over from Dr. Smith.” Thisvisit was providing all kinds of new threads to work out, and itseemed that they must be connected to the Magi. Why that should bewas a mystery, but my instincts told me it was true.

“The problem is that you think Dr. Smith andI are two different people, in fact everyone in this fleet does.However, I know for a fact that we are not. Vydor, if we continuethis discussion you probably won’t like where it leads. It willcast a doubt on everything you think you know about the Empire. Areyou sure you want to hear it?” He had a concerned look on his face,worried about how I would take all this new knowledge.

“Doctor, information is my game; all I dealin is facts, figures and numbers. I know everything we have talkedabout so far will somehow lead me to the solution to the Magipuzzle. I need whatever information you have to give me the bestchance of surviving this mission.” I had to keep him talking.

“Very well.” He started to pace a bit as hespoke. “When I came aboard this ship five years ago, I felt I hadbeen here before, but every memory of this ship was blocked. So Istarted digging in the ship’s logs and personal records. As part ofmy search I looked at Dr. Smith’s records. At a glance I knew theywere faked. In time I was able to reconstruct a series of events,none of which I can directly remember, but I know must be true.Many years ago I was a leading DNA researcher. I accumulated manyawards for my work on trying to unravel the DNA code. I even helpedto create a lot of the DNA simulation software that is being usedto test genetic treatments today…”

“Sorry to interrupt, but what do you mean the‘mystery of DNA?’ When I was in the Academy we studied it. Itseemed fairly simple and well-understood to me,” I said.

He looked right at me, locked my gaze andsaid, “You were lied to.” He let that sit in the air for a minute,and then continued, “DNA is still a complete and total mystery tous. We have no idea where it came from, or how it works. Weunderstand bits and pieces; enough to make medicines and correctsome defects, but that is it. If you take the time to do theresearch I think you will be shocked by the number of things wedon’t understand that you were told we did in school. The mind isanother; no one really knows how it works. Centuries of study havenot solved the puzzle. No matter what we learn about it, we cannotmake any theory fully fit. It is as if we are missing some criticalpiece of that puzzle. But this is beside the point …” He paused togather himself, and then continued, “It was all that time spentstudying DNA that helped me spot the tampering with Dr. Smith’srecords. In fact, the DNA was mine with some not-so-clever editingto make it look like a different person. It happened to be softwareI had helped to create which was used to fake the DNA, so I wasable to undo the changes and get back to the original code, whichmatches mine perfectly. Since then I have spent a few hours everyday trying to unravel why all this has happened. I have managed torebuild a lot of my old life, but haven’t found any answersyet.”

“Wow, this really creates a lot morequestions than answers. To start with, why would the Empire lieabout the state of medical research?” I had so many questions, buta cover-up of this magnitude was just unimaginable, and I had tostart with that.

“You are expecting some deep, dark reason,with many levels of complexity, but in reality it is deceptivelysimple. This is where we will really begin to challenge yourpreconceptions. You, like everyone else, were brought up to worshipand serve the Emperor with all your heart, mind and body. As achild you probably sent him small gifts and offerings to helpensure you would have a good path in life to follow. Now, think fora minute. If it became generally known that no one had any solididea where life came from, or how the most vital parts of ourbodies function, would you think that such worship would holdup?”