The Deep Dark Well (33 page)

“I don’t know,” he
screamed, his hands pounding his temples.  “Please stop.  Something is wrong
with me.  It feels like my mind is being pulled apart.”

Probably not far from
the truth
,
she thought, if her suspicions were correct.  Something had to be coordinating
the events that allowed them to never meet.  Something that had something to
gain by keeping the two personalities separate.

“You know what I found,
Watcher?” she asked, moving closer to him, kneeling down to his front as she
looked into his pain scrunched eyes.  “I found what had destroyed the people on
the station.  I found what had destroyed the Galactic civilization that had
stretched so proudly across the stars for a hundred generations.  It was one
selfish being.”

“I don’t want to hear
anymore,” Watcher yelled at the top of his lungs.  “I can’t stand it.  Stop
it.”

“Vengeance destroyed
the people of the station.  The whole of Galactic civilization destroyed by one
man, using the potential of this station to interact with all of the civilized
planets.”

“No,” yelled Watcher,
his arm swinging out in a backhand that struck the woman in the face, knocking
her away.  The robots started to move in, but again she stopped them with a
wave and a thought.

“Why are the two of you
so different, Watcher?” she asked, thinking that the better part of valor would
be to keep a little distance between them, especially if she were right.  If
she were wrong, she would apologize to him, and allow her guilt to eat at her
for months.  She didn’t like causing this kind of pain, but she needed to know.

“Why does he have all
the darker traits, while you hold the lighter?  Why do you have no memory of
him as an independent being, until the time he needed to exist?”

Watcher slid to a
sitting position, holding his head and rocking back and forth, sobs wracking
his lungs. 
He has never been through this before
, she thought. 
He
has always been asleep when the change came
.  But he was not near to sleep
time right now, nor near a place where he could safely rest.  And he was being
told things that were making him think in dangerous paths.  Paths the system
could not afford for him to take, for it needed a sentient presence as much as
any living creature.

“What do you know of
memory uploading, Watcher?  What do you think the creators did when they found
that your superior mind was still limited?  Still unable to handle hundreds of
years of memory?”

“I don’t know,”
screamed Watcher.  “I don’t know.  I can’t remember.  I can’t remember
anything.”

“Because the memories
are being sucked up into the computer,” she said.  “While it plants new
memories in their place.  But you can fight it.  I know you can.”

“I can’t fight it,” he
screamed, his eyes shut in the agony of the neural reconstruction.  “I’ve tried
to fight it.  I’ve tried to remember.  But something stops me from remembering,
and fighting doesn’t work.”

“The computer stops
you,” she yelled over his moaning.  “It doesn’t want you to know the truth. 
The truth Watcher.  That you and Vengeance are the same person.”

“No,” he moaned.  “It’s
a lie.  I am not that monster.”

“Because the computer
wanted you to be the perfect companion for it.  A smart and sane controller of
the station.  While it needed Vengeance as well, to protect it from outsiders. 
So it loaded the dark side of you into its memory, while leaving the creature
that your creators had envisioned.  And the horrible memories took on a
personality of their own.  A dark personality, insane.”

“No!” screamed
Watcher.  “You’re killing me.”

“How could I be killing
you with words,” she said.  “I only want to help you.  You know the truth.  The
computer would not let you know the truth, because it thought that you couldn’t
take it.  But you can take it.”

“I love you,” she
continued in a softer voice.  “I will stand by you, no matter what it takes. 
We can fight this thing together, and purge Vengeance from your mind.”

“He’s in there now,” he
cried.  “I can’t get rid of him.  If I try, he will kill me.  They both will
kill me.”

“He can’t kill you
without killing himself,” she said.  “He knows that.”

“He can destroy my
memories,” cried Watcher.  “Then I will be as good as dead, and only Vengeance
will exist.”

He sounds like a child
, she thought.  If she
was right his intellect was fleeing, as his mind reconfigured into the pattern
of another personality.  The reason she had not been able to find his second
personality with her earlier probe.  Because that personality was not housed
within his mind, until it was loaded and awakened by the computer.  When the
computer needed Vengeance to serve its purposes.

“The station computer
is its own boss,” she said.  “It operates on an agenda of its own.  Why do you
think I have been able to get away from your super intelligent
brother
? 
Because the computer didn’t want him to destroy me, because it didn’t suit the
computer’s purpose.”

Watcher sat there
rocking, his head held in his hands, no sound coming from his mouth.  Pandi
linked into the local computer, monitoring his vital signs.  His blood pressure
was up, and his pain index was near the maximum that an organic being could
generate.  But he was in no danger of dying.  His brain wave readings were off
the scale one second, flat lining the next, but there seemed to be no organic
difficulties.

“What if it suits the
computer’s purpose now?” said Watcher’s voice.  “What if it suits my purpose?”

Watcher looked up at
her.  No, she thought, looking into the cold eyes that regarded her.  Not
Watcher.  Vengeance was alive, and occupying the body of his
brother.

*    *    *

Admiral Miklas Gerasi
led the prayer of gratitude, as the closed link brought his image to the
remaining ships in the squadron. 
Truly a squadron now
, he thought,
though it had once numbered enough ships to be thought a fleet by some.

“We thank the great God
for smiling upon this expedition,” he said to those assembled on the six
ships.  “The trials were difficult, the dangers many, but his will allowed us
to prevail.”

And a lot of luck
, thought the admiral. 
He hadn’t really thought they would get through at all.  But the alien aboard
the artifact hadn’t expected ships to warp through space that close to a high
gravity source.  They hadn’t counted on fanaticism.

“Now we must use his
gifts to us, in the great crusade he has ordained.  The crusade to remove the
taint of the Anti-god from the heavens, that God’s glory might once again reign
supreme.  We shall take these gifts and defeat the evil and the misguided.  We
shall prevail, for the lord is on our side.”

Orca
and two other vessels
had been loaded with all the prizes, as well as most of the remaining
antimatter.  Most of the remaining marines had been loaded aboard the three
ships that were to remain.  A likely asteroid had been found for a base in the
Sapphire system, a base to await the return of the forces of the
Nation of
Humanity
.  And Admiral Miklas Gerasi intended to lead the fleet back that
would use that base of operations to secure this system.  Not just battleships
this time, but troop transports, freighters and tankers.  They would establish
their presence in this system on a permanent basis.  And once they unraveled
the secrets of the technology of the ancients, they would discover the means to
establish a permanent presence on the
Donut
as well.  And then to take
it, as was their destiny.

“We bow our heads in
remembrance of all those who have sacrificed themselves that we might prevail. 
And we pray for those of our comrades who will stay here, in harm’s way.”

“Amen,” cried the crew
members within the meeting chamber, echoed across the squadron.

“Dismissed,” yelled the
captain of the
Orca
, the senior captain of the squadron.  Crew members
hustled to their stations as the admiral took the express lift to the bridge.

Within minutes the trio
of ships to be left behind started to boost on their approach trajectory to the
Sapphire system.  Miklas Gerasi wished them luck.  He supposed that the
Kingdom
of Surya
ships would try to come after his own division, as they were
leaving the system on a trajectory for home.  But there was always a chance
they would instead home in on those heading for the Sapphire system.

“Head at flank speed
for the safe zone of the gravity well,” ordered the admiral.  The sooner they
were in pseudo light, and unable to be intercepted, the better he would feel. 
Though cryosleep was still not something he looked forward to,  he would awake
to the sight of the stars of home.

*    *    *

From light hours away
Fleet Admiral Nagara Krishnamurta knew the images he was watching were in the
past.  But the offloading of pods that could only contain antimatter meant one
thing.  There was not enough fuel for all of the vessels to make it home. 
Interstellar travel was an expensive proposition, and the space destroying
drive of the
Nation
was an energy hog of the worst kind.  Three of the
ships would be leaving the system, while the other three would stay behind,
probably to establish a base in the nearby system.

Krishnamurta knew he
must use his resources wisely.  Home must be alerted, the location of the enemy
base must be found and tagged, and the enemy division heading for home must be
followed, and hopefully destroyed as it entered normal space near the gravity
well of its home star.

Two of his ships would
be dispatched for home.  Accidents happened with any kind of interstellar
drive, and home must be alerted, that a fleet could be dispatched to the
Supersystem.  Two ships would stay here in the Supersystem, to track down the
remaining ships of the
Nation
.  Leaving him with six vessels for his
suicide mission, the destruction of the carriers of alien technology before it
was brought home to be used against the other civilized powers of the Galaxy.

“We will be one half
hour behind them when they translate to pseudo light,” said the navigation
officer. 

“We can get one good
shot at them before they translate,” said the tactical officer.

“So if we’re lucky we
might just damage one of them enough to keep it in normal space,” said the
admiral.  “Not good enough.  I want warp bubble drive set to get us outside of
their system twelve hours before their scheduled arrival.”

“You’re not in a rush
then sir?” said the navigation officer.

“Why?” said the
admiral, as he watched his bridge crew start the ship on its way, the rest of
his squadron falling into formation.  “We won’t be able to touch them until
they translate into normal space.  And the longer we spend outside the system,
the more likely we are to be discovered before we can strike.”

And
, he thought,
as
soon as we're discovered we'll be attacked by whatever the enemy has waiting at
the entry point
.  Which was sure to be at least a heavy task force, more
than a match for his small group.  The chances were slim that they would destroy
even one of the enemy squadron they followed, much less all of them.  But,
thinking of his wife, children and grandchildren at home, what else could he
do?

*    *    *

She had never seen
anything move so fast in her life.  One blink and he was standing there, arms
at his side, robots moving in on all sides to affect his capture.  Half a blink
later he had the guns of two of the robots, and the nearest pair, now unarmed,
were falling heavily to the floor as he vaulted their bodies.

Rounds swished through
the air at hypersonic speed, but the target had moved between the time that
robotic minds had acquired and robot fingers had squeezed triggers.  Vengeance
threw himself toward the floor as he twisted sideways, both pistols bucking
silently in his hands.  The half dozen robots on that side of the room fell to
the floor, shot perfectly in the head by the superior being.  He rolled across
the floor as bullets struck into the hard metal, digging runnels and holes
where Vengeance no longer was.  The pistols continued to buck in his hands, and
more robots fell, until he had downed them all.

Vengeance leapt to his
feet, as agile as a gymnast, his pistols leveled at Pandi.  Pandi stared back,
her laser pistol aimed at his heart.  Vengeance hesitated for a moment.  
Instantaneous
transmission
, thought Pandi.  Even he couldn’t dodge a light speed weapon,
though he might anticipate the reaction before she could get off a shot.

Both of his pistols
fired, hitting perfectly as the laser was knocked from her hand.  Vengeance
thrust his pistols into his waistband as he advanced on her, a wicked smile on
his face.  Pandi backed until she could back no more, her posterior coming up
hard against the wall.  She gripped her hand tightly to her chest.  It still
felt numb from having the pistol shot from it.

“No more of your
servants around?” asked Vengeance, stopping just out of legs’ reach.  “Your
plan was brilliant, I must say.  But you were not cautious enough, it would
seem.”