Jack Campbell - Invincible

“Commander Benan also could only discuss it with me because I was the fleet commander.”

“Commander Benan? Why would a line officer— he has been blocked?”

“Yes.” Geary wondered what else to say, what else he could say. “Purely by chance I satisfied the conditions under which he could tell me.”

“He couldn’t tell me .” The doctor slammed his open palm onto the table before him, his face working with anger. “Damn! Do you know, Admiral, that by discussing a specific case of mental blocking with me, you are violating security regulations?”

“Are you telling me that security regulations don’t allow you to know what’s wrong with one of your patients, a patient who is a fleet officer?”

“I’m not even allowed to tell you that .” Geary had grown used to this doctor’s being professionally unflappable, but now Dr. Nasr was openly bitter. “There might be one or two other medical personnel in this fleet who know about the use of blocks, but even I don’t know who they are.”

“Ancestors preserve us,” Geary said. “Does that at least mean the use of blocks is rare?”

“As far as I know.” The doctor loaded that statement with irony as he tapped a query into his console. “It certainly explains the problems we’re seeing in Commander Benan. Personality changes, problems with controlling anger and impulses, occasional confusion.”

“He had a good record before he was captured by the Syndics,” Geary pointed out.

“Did he?” The doctor pulled up some records, scanning them rapidly. “I see. Yes. He reported aboard his new ship, and three months later, he was captured. Two weeks’ leave prior to reporting to that ship, and about three weeks in transit before he joined the ship. All told, a little more than four months.” The doctor paused, his brow furrowing. “Yes. Six months. That’s the usual time before symptoms of a block start manifesting clearly. Commander Benan got captured before they showed.”

And if he hadn’t been captured, his performance aboard his ship would have deteriorated, he would have committed offenses against discipline and good order, all for no known reason, and eventually he would have been expelled from the service. “I remember something about suicide,” Geary said slowly. “When I went through commanding officer capture and interrogation survival school a century ago, they didn’t tell us much about blocks, but there was something about suicide when they talked about why blocks weren’t used.”

“Yes.” The doctor’s mouth worked with distaste. “It’s common in blocked individuals. They’re suffering from the symptoms, they know what’s wrong, but they literally can’t tell anyone else, any attempts at treatment fail because the real underlying cause isn’t known to those directing treatment, and…” He shook his head. “An impulsive decision, the only way out, the only way to find peace, and that’s it. I’m about to make a statement that would get me in great trouble with security, Admiral.”

“Feel free. I’ll defend you.”

“Thank you. It has occurred to me on those rare occasions when I thought about blocks that they are indeed aimed at keeping secrets by the oldest and surest means. They eventually drive those given blocks to suicide, and once those individuals are dead, the secrets they carried can never be divulged.”

Dead men tell no tales. How old was that saying? Geary let out a slow breath, trying to calm himself. “Why not just kill them?”

“But we are civilized people, Admiral. We wouldn’t kill someone out of hand.” This time, the doctor’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“I see why they keep this so secret,” Geary said. “If more than a very few people knew about Alliance use of mental blocks, then the facts would come out somehow, and the blowback would be ferocious. How often do the Syndics use mental blocks?”

Dr. Nasr shook his head. “They don’t. I’m sure I would have been told if they did. Being less civilized than we are, the Syndics apparently simply shoot anyone who inconveniently knows the wrong things. It’s a much more efficient way of eliminating the problem if you look at it in a sufficiently cold-blooded manner.”

What could he say to that? “Thank you for your information, Doctor. With what you now know, can you provide any better treatment for Commander Benan?”

“There are some measures I can try, but I doubt they will help much. The block has to be lifted, Admiral. Then we can try to start undoing the damage.”

“Can I order you to lift the block?”

“No, Admiral.” The doctor spread his hands helplessly. “Even if you could, I don’t know how to do it. I know, in a theoretical way, how blocks are impressed upon individual brains. I don’t know how to do it in practice, though, and I wouldn’t have accepted such training. That means I also have no idea how to lift a block.”

“So Commander Benan has to wait for effective treatment until we get home.”

“If he lasts that long, and if once we get there, you can get authorization to have the block lifted. The only ones who will know how to do it will also be people who will only do it if they receive proper orders through proper channels.” Dr. Nasr shook his head. “I am sorry, Admiral.”

“It is in no way your fault.”

“If that is all, I’m needed in surgery in fifteen minutes.”

“Are you getting enough sleep?”

Dr. Nasr paused. “My patients need me, Admiral. If you’ll excuse me, I have to—” He stopped speaking, staring to one side as another message came in to him. “One of the bear-cows became fully conscious, Admiral. He is now dead.”

“Dead.” Geary felt a bitter taste in his mouth. “As soon as he realized he had been captured.”

“Yes. He shut down his entire metabolism. I don’t know how. But given the isolation in which we’ve kept them by the time we could react it was too late.”

“I had hoped that one of them would take the time to realize that if we had patched them up, tried to make them well, it would indicate we didn’t mean them harm.”

The doctor hesitated again, then spoke heavily. “Admiral, the creatures here, the…”

“Spider-wolves.”

“Yes. Have you considered the possibility that they eat like the spiders with which we are familiar?”

“To be perfectly frank, Doctor,” Geary admitted, “I’ve tried not to think about what they eat and how they eat it.”

“That’s understandable.” Dr. Nasr grimaced. “Some spiders don’t kill their prey at once, you know. They paralyze it, perhaps, or just wrap it in webbing to immobilize it. Then they leave it, keeping it handy for when they want to eat. They don’t want their prey injured. They want it alive and ready for consumption.”

He didn’t get it at first, then the doctor’s meaning washed over him. “The bear-cows might have encountered the spider-wolves and learned that the spider-wolves liked eating their prey alive, and that they considered bear-cows prey?”

“It is something we must consider,” Dr. Nasr said. “We don’t know. But it is a possibility. We don’t know that these bear-cows didn’t deal with predators like that on their own world before they achieved dominance. We don’t know whether or not they’ve encountered other species who like the taste of bear-cow. Humans do not usually consider themselves prey, Admiral. But when we do get that feeling, that we are nothing but something’s next meal, it is a very horrifying feeling. I wondered at first why a sentient species would develop the means of shutting down its own vital functions, of willing itself to die. But these bear-cows are prey. They have always been prey. They may have developed the means to will themselves to death at the same time as they developed intelligence. I can imagine the physical pain of being eaten, but I cannot imagine the mental pain of knowing I am being eaten. Under such circumstances, the ability to cease suffering would be a welcome option.”