Citadel: First Colony (37 page)

T
he
shuttle’s cargo door opened
, but before it had even finished lowering to the ground, the armed Blue Collars rushed out over the edge and took aim at Alan with their molecular disruption guns. Mitch, Thomas, and Reilly exited shortly after.

Penny and her mother had fallen to the ground and were clasping their heads. Alan stood next to the pod, holding a small scanner that was tethered by a cable to the pod’s computer. Thomas felt a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach and was certain that whatever Alan had done was not good.
Very
not good.

“Step away from the pod, Alan,” Thomas said.

“I’m sorry, Uncle John. But you’re too late.”

The Blue Collars didn’t budge, but Mitch shot Thomas a glance, and Reilly crinkled her brow in confusion. “Why did he just call you ‘Uncle John?’” she asked.

Thomas looked at her for a moment. “It’s ... a long story.”

“He’s John Thomas Paris,” Alan said.

Thomas shot him a glare. “ok, maybe not so long.”

The armed guards loosened their grips and turned to look at the three of them, particularly staring at Thomas.

“Hi,” Thomas waved. “How’s it going?”

“I don’t think this is the time to joke with them,” Mitch said.

“I don’t think I’m going to get many more opportunities,” Thomas smiled.

“Hold up,” Reilly said. “Wait. You ... you’re
John Thomas Paris
?
The
John Thomas Paris? Aren’t you and Hitler supposed to be playing poker in hell right now?”

Thomas looked at her and lost hope. “It’s complicated. But I’m sure Alan will cut right through it all and make it simple for us. Right, Alan?”

“You know who I am. You figured it out,” Alan replied. “You were always smart, Uncle John. Maybe not as smart as me, but smarter than my parents. And they loved you. I loved you.”

Thomas stepped forward, and suddenly one of the guards turned and raised his gun, pointing it directly at him. “Stay where you are!” he shouted.

Thomas stopped and put his hands up. “Whoa ... it’s ok. We’re here to arrest Alan, remember? You know I’m unarmed.”

“I said stay where you are!” the man shouted again.

“Rogers!” Mitch said, “Lower your weapon and stand down!”

Rogers turned first and pointed his gun at Mitch. Reilly squeaked and moved to stand in front of him. Mitch took her by the shoulders and moved her out of the way. “You’re not going to shoot me, Rogers. Because if you do, I’d have to kick your ass.” And with that he smiled.

Rogers, who a moment ago had been tense and freaked out, paused for a second and then laughed nervously. He lowered the gun. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s just ... John Thomas Paris!”

“I get that reaction a lot,” Thomas said. “But believe me, it’s fine. I’m not a monster. I don’t have claws. I don’t spit acid. And right now, the bigger threat is the guy your buddies still have their guns trained on.”

All eyes turned back to Alan, who was still holding the scanner. He looked ...
scared
. It was weird, seeing him so shaken, but Thomas supposed that this was a bit stressful for anyone. Even a stoic genius from another time.

“Is that a bomb?” Reilly whispered, though in the stone quiet it was easy to hear her.

“No,” Alan said, and he let the scanner drop to the ground.

The guards rushed forward then, and in seconds, had him pinned. Mitch and Reilly moved to help the two women on the ground. Thomas, still unsure just what was going on or why, moved closer to talk to Alan. The guards had lashed hold-cord—super-durable and near-indestructible twine—around Alan’s wrists. There was a man holding each arm, and the remaining guards stood at the ready, guns in hand.

“What is this, Alan?” Thomas asked. “What did you do?”

“It was for you, Uncle John. And for them. They ... they took
everything
.” For the first time, Alan’s eyes filled with tears, and his voice was filled with sorrow. “They took it all. My parents. You. Even the colony. They took our hope, Uncle John. I had to do something!”

“You’ve killed people,” Thomas said. “You’ve hurt people. And you’ve stranded us here on the wrong planet. None of the colonies know where we are, Alan. Why?”

“It’s not the wrong planet, Uncle John.”

Thomas blinked. “What do you mean?”

“It’s the first planet.
The
planet. Don’t you know by now? This is it!”

“What’s he talking about?” one of the guards asked.

“We’re here!” Alan exclaimed. “We’re finally here! This is First Colony!”

Thomas heard it, but he wasn’t sure at first what it meant. “What are you saying?”

“This is the planet my parents and the rest of First Colony were headed for when they died. While you were in prison, I hacked into the Earth government computers and removed it from the database. I replaced its coordinates with another planet. That was the only way to keep anyone else from coming here!”

“But ...” Thomas started.

Before he could finish, Mitch spoke up. “Um, Thomas. We have a problem.”

Thomas turned around and saw the two women rising shakily to their feet. Penny was talking to Reilly in hushed tones. Reilly looked up, completely confused. “I think they have amnesia or something,” she said.

“No,” Alan said. “They remember everything now. They’re back.”

“Who?” Thomas asked him. “Who is back?”

“First Colony, Uncle John. I just replaced the minds all of the colonists with the minds of First Colony.”

At
first, Somar thought that this was some ruse on Taggart’s part
. But the longer he spoke with him, the more Somar became convinced that the man before him was, in fact, Louis Alan—Alan’s father. How this could be possible, Somar was yet to determine.

Taggart ... Louis ... sat on one of the examining tables in what had become the camp hospital. It was a large triage of tents, tables, and racks of equipment. Dr. Michaels, a gray-haired man whose arm was still in a cast and sling, was shaking his head as the data poured in. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Not in thirty years of medicine.”

Somar was also looking over the data, but it meant nothing to him. “What do you see, Doctor?”

Dr. Michaels held up the small display and pointed to the color patterns that shifted and undulated there. “This is a scan of Taggart’s brain. I pulled it from the pod data. But this,” he said, tapping the screen and bringing up a new swirl of colors. The screen went into a near-solid shade of angry-looking reds and purples. “This is the scan we just took. Actually, it’s the fourth scan I took from three different scanners. All of them are the same. There’s activity all over the place, especially in the prefrontal cortex. That part of the brain is largely responsible for complex cognitive behaviors in humans.” He looked back at his patient then, “It’s also responsible for personality expression an decision-making.”

Taggart looked up at them. “I’m sorry, but are you saying that my mind has been placed in someone else’s body?”

Dr. Michaels nodded. “Essentially, yes.”

Taggart shook his head. “Remarkable,” he said. “I thought ... well, it was always a possibility, but ...” He trailed off as if in deep thought.

“Mr. Alan,” Somar said, “are you saying that you were aware of this possibility?”

Taggart looked at the alien Captain, and again there was that strange expression of fascination mingled with excitement. Somar knew that the man was surprised and impressed to discover that mankind was not the only intelligent life in the universe. There would be many questions later, he assumed.

“Captain, I was the Chief Science Officer for First Colony. Before that, I worked in engineering and physics for the colonization effort. I helped develop stasis for long-term space travel.”

Somar nodded. “Impressive,” he said. “I was unaware.”

Taggart laughed. “I’m not surprised. At the time, there were hundreds of us working around the clock on various projects. We were trying to beat the clock, as it were. Discoveries and advances were credited to the team, and individual team members were sort of anonymous.”

Dr. Michaels said, “You were saying something about implanting personalities?”

“Yes,” Taggart said. “The early efforts to develop stasis didn’t go well. We had ... problems. I suppose I’m no longer under security restrictions?”

“You were placed in stasis many years ago,” Somar said, evasively.

“Yes. I suspected that. ok, in that case I see no reason to keep it a secret. In the first attempts at stasis, we ran into issues with dreaming.”

Dr. Michaels snorted. “You don’t dream in stasis. All brain and cellular activity is stopped.”

“Right,” Taggart smiled. “But at first, that wasn’t the case. And we had problems with long-term stasis because eventually the person would enter a lucid dream state—they would realize they were in a dream and unable to wake up. It had ... detrimental effects.”

Taggart looked at each of them to see that they understood. “Obviously we overcame the issue. The answer was to set up a kind of feedback loop. Essentially, we copied the mind pattern of the person going into stasis and played it back to them. This created a kind of ‘white noise,’ a cancellation wave that disrupted mental activity. We found that we only had to do it once, when the person was entering stasis. The cancellation wave shut them down entirely, and the stasis systems prevented new mental activity from starting.”

Somar thought about this. “When stasis stops, the mental activity begins again?”

Taggart nodded. “Right where it left off. It’s as if nothing happened. We were excited when we discovered this, because it was practically the last barrier to long-term space flight. But my wife, Angela, had some concerns. When she brought them to me, we explored a few possibilities.”

“What were her concerns?” Somar asked.

“She discovered that if you played another waveform, after the cancellation wave, you could ... well, you could essentially re-program someone. You could insert thoughts into their head.

“The implications of this went way beyond space travel, and we were ordered to close off the research and bury all of our findings. The Colony Fleet reported directly to the world government, and if we pursued any further research, we’d have to turn over all results. We’d be opening a Pandora’s box. Mind control.”

Dr. Michaels grunted. “Surprised they didn’t force you to look into it further.”

Taggart grinned. “Well, luckily my best friend was my boss. He saw how dangerous this could be, and he ordered us to destroy our research.”

Somar peered at him. “Your friend ... was John Thomas Paris?”

Taggart smiled, “Yes! How did you know that? Did he ... did he become famous?”

Dr. Michaels answered, “I’ll say. He ...”

“He is a notable historic figure,” Somar interrupted. Dr. Michaels understood, or seemed to, and said nothing further.

Taggart laughed. “That’s great. He should be. He was a genius. I just wish he’d been able to come with us on the trip. He was heartbroken when they told him he’d have to stay behind.”

“I’m sure he was,” Dr. Michaels said. Somar worried that he was about to reveal Mr. Paris as the alleged destroyer of a world. It had been such a deep part of Earth’s history, after all, that none questioned it. But Somar did not wish to distress Mr. Alan any further. And beyond that, he knew the truth.

But Dr. Michaels said nothing further on the subject. “I need to review the data from the other patients and see what I can determine.”

Somar nodded, and the doctor left.

“Captain,” Taggart said. “I ... I have to tell you, I’m a little concerned. If I’m not me ... if none of these colonists are who they’re supposed to be ... what happens to us now?”

Somar studied the man for a moment. Just hours ago, the face before him was an enemy, someone who could not be trusted. The Esool were not prone to distrust, but when dealing with the humans, Somar had found it to be, at times, a necessary trait. Could he trust that this man, who was once Taggart, was really so different now? Taggart had made an attempt at a coup. He had willfully fostered mutiny. But the man sitting before him now was not Taggart. Not really.

“I do not know, Mr. Alan. I wish that I did.”

Taggart smiled, but it was a smile without joy. A bitter smile. “I have a feeling things are going to get a whole lot worse,” he said. “In the meantime, why don’t you fill me in on the history I’ve missed?”

––––––––

A
lan
made no move,
no struggle, as the guards secured his hands in front of him and led him into the cargo bay of the shuttle. The two women, Penny and her mother—Alan was not yet certain which personalities they had been given—were gently guided into the front of the craft. As Penny passed him, she gave him a strange look.

“I ... do I know you?” she asked. It came as a mumble, and Alan felt an overwhelming sadness as he realized that something was wrong with the transfer, in Penny’s case. She should be fully integrated with the new personality, but instead she seemed in a half –state, somehow teetering between being Penny and being the colonist that had replaced her.

Alan shook his head. “No,” he said, and then he was shoved roughly through the cargo bay doorway, away from Penny but somehow deeper into his growing sense of dismay.

He was having a new experience. It was something he’d never felt before, and it didn’t feel good. He wasn’t sure, at first, what to call it. But as the shuttle doors clanged shut and the cabin pressurized, Alan began to comprehend what he was feeling.

Regret.

There was no time for regret, or shame, or dismay. There was no place for it in his life. He had worked too hard and for too long to regret decisions he had made over a hundred years ago. When his parents had died, he had been torn free from humanity, and all of its emotional trappings. He had been set to spinning, unsure of what to do, until the day he found his mother’s laptop.

It was a huge oversight. Something she would have been punished for, if it had ever been discovered at the time. She had probably just forgotten to run the security wipe on it, in all of the excitement of the journey. She wouldn’t need it in the colony, of course, where all of their equipment would have traveled with them, customized and tailored for compact storage in the ship’s cargo hold.