Vaughn Heppner: The Lost Starship

“Has she said anything to you about her past?” Maddox asked.

“No,” Valerie said. “If you want to know that you should ask Meta.”

“I think not,” Maddox said.

“Even if we can’t fully trust Dana, we should still try it my way,” Valerie said. “The present way… isn’t going to work for us.”

Maddox put his hands behind his back and began to pace. He was quiet for a time. Finally, he said, “We have the starship. We just don’t know how to run it. Soon, we’re out of food. Even if we can jump, we’re going to need a margin for error, food to last for a time. Yes, you’re right, Lieutenant. We must shake the dice one more time. You must talk with Meta and sound her out about Dana. I’ll go see the doctor and find out what she thinks about reactivating the AI.”

Captain Maddox spoke with Doctor Rich. They wandered through the mammoth engine area. Fortunately, the star cruisers’ rays hadn’t touched the antimatter cylinders.

The broken combat robots and skeletal pincer-creatures no longer littered the deck here. Keith and Riker had cleared them away a day ago.

Dana nodded as Maddox explained the situation to her. “I’ve come to a similar conclusion,” she said. “We have to open the stopper just enough to let the genie’s intellect come out but not its power.”

“Do you think it can be done?”

“Oh, certainly it can ,” Dana said. “That isn’t the question.”

“What is?”

“Whether or not I can do it,” she said. “Then, we must broach the heart of the matter of what’s really troubling you.”

“I didn’t know there was something else,” Maddox said.

Dana smiled. Her teeth seemed so much whiter than any of theirs because her skin was darker. “Now, you’re lying to me. It’s something I notice you do easily and do quite well, I might add.”

“I wouldn’t call it lying, specifically,” he said.

“I realize you wouldn’t,” Dana said. “You’re in Star Watch Intelligence. In the end, you’re a spymaster more than you’re a starship captain. Disinformation—lying—is your stock in trade.”

“Why the sudden flattery?” Maddox asked, dryly.

Dana nodded. “I suppose it’s my turn to make a confession. I understand you’d like to know whether I’m trustworthy or not for the long haul back home.”

Maddox wondered if Valerie had already talked to Meta about this, and if the Rouen Colony miner had come to the doctor.

“How much do you know about my past?” Dana asked.

“Could you be more specific?”

“You know I went on an expedition with Professor Ludendorff. What do you know about me after that?”

“Simply that you were a clone thief,” Maddox said. He figured why let her know what he already knew from the Star Watch Intelligence files.

“Your vaunted Star Watch didn’t give you any more specifics than that?” she asked.

Of course, they had, but his instincts led him to hedge his bets. “Nothing more than that you once engaged in espionage against the Social Syndicate of the Rigel System. I also know you’re a computer expert.”

“Much more than a mere expert ,” Dana said. “I excel with any form of electrical system or device.”

“I’ll willingly grant you that. According to your dossier, you were the heart of the attack against the ruling syndic. How and why you made these attacks—” Maddox shook his head. “You’re right. My brief concerning you was too light, with too many unanswered questions.”

“It’s as I suspected.” Dana compressed her lips together before asking, “What do you know about the Rigel Social Syndicate?”

“Very little,” Maddox admitted. “I know they’re part of the Commonwealth of Planets, if troublesome members.”

The Commonwealth was a loose, large union of sovereign systems with the Star Watch as its protective and space-enforcement arm. A few of the systems, such as the Rigel Social Syndicate, only gave nominal allegiance.

“The Social Syndicate controls several star systems,” Dana said. “Their navy keenly patrols its various tramlines. They also happen to quarrel incessantly with Brahma.”

Dana studied her hands before looking up. “I was born in Bombay, India on Earth, but at an early age I emigrated to Brahma. As the name indicates, former inhabitants of India colonized the Brahma System. Our planetary religion is an accelerated form of Hinduism. That’s unimportant to my story, as I’m an agnostic.” The doctor shrugged. “I believe something made all this—the universe, I mean—but I have no idea who or what combination of super-powered beings did it.”

“Fair enough,” Maddox said.

“The social contract, as preached by the syndic and his cronies, has little appeal to those of Brahma,” Dana said. “Our planet engages in high tech production and sales. We’re a single star system with perhaps three hundred million inhabitants. The Social Syndicate dwarfs us in territory and population. In these sorts of things, it doesn’t pay to be weak or small.”

“No,” Maddox said.

“Still,” Dana said, “we had a solid navy and fought with zeal. From time to time, however, syndicate raiders slipped into our system, kidnapping men and women for various rich people’s sex objects. Sometimes there were acts of technological piracy as well. It grew worse several years ago, and our hegemon—the name of our ruler—decided it was time for more vigorous defensive action. The Star Watch had failed to act decisively enough, no doubt wishing to keep the peace with the syndic. Instead of embroiling our systems in war and possibly bringing a Star Watch blockage on us and killing trade, we decided the Social Syndicate needed a civil war to split it apart.”

“Ah,” Maddox said, intrigued.

“The situation was something you might have excelled at,” Dana said. “It was a spymaster’s affair. How much do you know about the Social Syndicate philosophy?”

“Almost nothing,” Maddox admitted.

“The key facet to understand for my story is that there are two major branches of thought. The first is known as the Maxim school of thought while the second is the Limited. I won’t go into the philosophical differences between them. To an outsider they might not seem important. To many Social Syndicates, they are critical. The Rigel rulers and military are Maxim in belief. That being said, not all the Syndicate’s subjects adhere to those doctrines.”

“And…” Maddox said.

Dana grinned. “You wish me to get to the point. Very well, my task was to infiltrate certain clone centers. I was part of the team that planned to break into the most heavily guarded sanctuary in the Oikumene: that is, the syndic’s personnel clone garden, where his clones and those of his immediate cronies lived. Our idea was simple and elegant.

“I cracked the security codes, and we herded the poor clones into a waiting spaceship. With them, we fled to a secret center in the stars. The Brahman secret service wasn’t nice. They wanted to stop a war, after all. You can understand that, I’m sure.”

“Yes,” Maddox said.

“The clones underwent intensive retraining,” Dana said.

“Brainwashing, you mean,” Maddox said.

“I prefer my term. In any case, instead of the Maxim beliefs, the clones become Limited in outlook. After a certain length of time, the Brahman secret service released the first clones back onto Rigel.”

“I think I can guess the rest,” Maddox said. “The clones gathered a following and started a political rebellion.”

“That’s right,” Dana said. “It was the germ of a possible civil war. It didn’t get that far. But it gave the syndic’s people a headache they most certainly didn’t want.”