S. Swann - Prophets

It should have taken years .

But the Caliphate was here, with a whole fleet of ships.

Mosasa knew his view of the future was imperfect, and the smaller the scale of the projection, the less accurate it was. But this wasn’t a simple error or a slight divergence. This was a wholesale failure to see a major shift in resources on a planetary scale.

It was enough of a failure to completely shatter his faith in his understanding of the universe. Seeing the patterns of political, social, and economic energy had been as basic to his worldview as the ability to perceive color.

He looked at his hands and had difficulty being fully convinced that they were actually there.

I am Mosasa, he thought, but I am also a machine. Can I be sure that I ever left the Luxembourg? Can I know that I’ve not just suffered a prolonged hallucinatory systems failure?

“Mosasa!”

He looked away from the holo and saw Parvi looking at him. He should be able to understand the emotion in her face, but right now he found himself unable to interpret it. “Yes?”

“Did you hear what I said?” Parvi snapped.

“What?”

“They’re ordering us onto the Jizan, ” Parvi said. “That means losing contact with all our comm gear—God only knows what they’re intending to do to the planet. Our people are down there.”

“What do you want me to do?” Mosasa asked.

Parvi stared at him, and he thought he could understand her expression now. She was afraid.

Date: 2526.6.4 (Standard) 1,200,000 km from Salmagundi-HD 101534

An hour later, Admiral Hussein sat in a briefing room with a group of engineers, scientists, and medical officers. On the table between them was a frozen image of Admiral Naji Bitar.

“We’ve done a comprehensive analysis of the transmission itself,” said Lieutenant Abdem, one of the Voice ’s senior communications engineers. “It is unquestionably from the Sword ’s tach-transmitter. The encryption protocol is embedded in the hardware, and every transmitter is imperfect enough to give a unique temporal distortion to any broadcast. No way to duplicate it precisely.”

Admiral Hussein nodded and looked toward the medical officers.

“We’ve checked every biometric marker we can given the data transmitted. Voice-print, facial structure, iris variegation, kinematics. All are consistent with Admiral Bitar’s medical profile.”

“What about his emotional and psychological state?”

“It seems unusual,” said Lieutenant Deshem, the psychologist. “The admiral is displaying no abnormal stress levels at all.”

“That is unusual?”

“Consider what he’s reporting to us. This represents a radical change—even if it’s a positive one, change always engenders a stress response.”

“Could he be lying?”

“There’s no indication of that from what we can analyze. It seems that he believes everything he’s saying in this transmission.”

“Any sign of external influences, drugs, hallucination . . .”

Deshem shook his head. “He is lucid to all appearances—”

“But?”

“His body language, at the end of the transmission, it seems to suggest that he is withholding something. As if he’s not telling the whole truth.”

Hussein shook his head. Aside from all the technical resources they had, he could tell the same thing just from the deliberate vagueness of how Bitar phrased things. “You will receive a more personal contact within eighteen hours standard after your arrival. You will have a more in-depth briefing on what we have discovered here.”

Before he could ask another question, his personal comm buzzed for his attention. The Jizan was returning with what was left of the Eclipse and her crew. He excused himself and listened to the briefing from the captain of the Jizan on what they had found, and what the Eclipse had been doing so far from human space.

What he heard was not reassuring.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

My Brother’s Keeper

Never discount the possibility you might live through it.

—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom

Those who are prepared to die are unprepared to live.

—SYLVIA HARPER (2008-2081)

Date: 2526.6.4 (Standard) Salmagundi-HD 101534

Nickolai had mentally and spiritually prepared to die. Because of that, he found it disconcerting to open his eyes in the dark confines of the lifeboat and realize he still drew breath. He lay there, strapped to the jury-rigged acceleration couch, staring up into complete darkness, wondering if he was being rewarded or punished.

His last memory had been the slam into atmosphere. He had thought the shielding had failed the way the boat had shuddered.

He smelled blood.

Blinking, he adjusted the photoreceptors in his new eyes and the interior of the cabin came into focus. He saw the monochrome cabin in sharper relief than he’d ever be able to with his natural eyes, despite his species’ excellent night vision. His sight edged into the infrared, and he could see the form of Kugara radiating heat next to him. He heard her breathe and found himself grateful.

The lifeboat had taken a beating. The lack of lights showed a general power failure, and the bulkhead above him had been bowed inward by the impact of landing. The cot had been blown out of its stowed position to dangle like a half-severed limb. The emergency stores had also broken free, scattering medkit, food packets, and survival tools all through the cabin.

He now appreciated the effort Kugara had put into extending the acceleration couch. It had taken both of them an hour to unbolt parts of the third and fourth couches and attach them above and below a standard-sized couch. The effort had probably saved his life, given the violent landing.

As it was, it was an agonizingly slow process, untangling himself from the harness, except for his right arm, which gave him no pain at all. It no longer even felt a part of him. Fortunately, given how unsteady he was, the lifeboat had come to rest with the acceleration couches on the bottom. He was able to peel himself out of the couch without falling over.

“Kugara?” He spoke to her, but she was unconscious. Bending over her, Nickolai could see a sheet of blood trailing over the side of her face from a wound in her temple. Something had struck her during the descent, probably when the storage compartments burst open. She groaned, and he searched through the wreckage for the remains of the medkit.

He grabbed the kit, half of which was missing, and did what he could to treat the wound. He was gratified to see that it wasn’t as bad as it first appeared. It had bled profusely, but it was just a superficial tear in the skin. The blow causing it hadn’t been enough to knock her out. She’d probably blacked out from the deceleration as Nickolai had.

She groaned a few times, but didn’t wake up until after he had flushed the wound and had sprayed the last of the bandage on her scalp.

“Shit, that’s hot.”

“You have a bad laceration.”

“Am I bleeding to death? Save that stuff.”

The can hissed and died. “It’s empty now. You used most of it on my arm.”

She blinked and fumbled with her restraints. She raised her head and bumped it on his wrist. He barely felt it, but she flopped back, pressing her hands to her forehead muttering, “Shit.”

“Are you all right?”

“Where’re the damn lights?”

He had forgotten that she would be unable to see. He stood up and looked at the scattered emergency supplies until he saw a flashlight.

“What are you doing?”