The Pattern Ship (The Pattern Universe) (6 page)

The T-Ship was finished. It only awaited the reconstitution of the ship’s A.I. before the project was complete. Until then Zirkos could not re-materialise as it needed the A.I. installed to run the life support systems.

The Pod might be able to manage, but its arrays were not suited to such critical support. The Ship’s A.I. was one Zirkos was familiar with, based as it was on its own original brain pattern. It would therefore sense any problems if they occurred and Zirkos would trust its bodily rebuild to it, and it alone.

The Pod A.I. flagged his attention, it had found something.

***

Zeke awoke. As was his recent habit he refrained from moving immediately lest he spark a new wave of agony. Instead, he briefly tried to think of where he was and how he got there.

On a conscious level he realised that something was different. It took him a few minutes. His eyes remained shut, unmoving while he tried to place everything.

Then all of a sudden he had it, there was no pain.

Laying with his head on the floor he tried hard to remember what had happened.

He did remember the excruciating pain in his whole body, and using his chair as a headrest after collapsing on the floor of his digs while not having the strength to move. His head was now on the floor, therefore, he must have slipped off the chair.

He slowly opened his eyes half expecting the pain to return.

Instead they focused clearer than they had for a long time.

He noticed the grey furrowed mesh that he was lying on. He still felt no pain.

Where did the new carpet come from; it felt spongy, hard, but forgiving.

He could see a good distance from where he lay and he understood that he was no longer in his locked room.

In fact, he decided, he was nowhere he recognised. The wall that he could see was grey and featureless.

The white painted brick with stains from years of abuse was no longer there.

He moved his arms, he still... felt no pain.

Dammit, he thought, those scientists had got him back, that light-beam must have been theirs.

They must have given him a shot of something.

He pushed himself upright, resting on his heels... he still felt no pain, no pressure, or vertigo.

Indeed, that’s interesting, Zeke pondered as he felt the absence of discomfort.

Now, able to take in his surroundings from a position of apparent normality, the strangeness of his situation became apparent.

He was in a grey room, much smaller than his lock-up. He judged it to be ten foot by fifteen and the height about normal, say seven to eight feet. Probably nearer eight, he decided. Disturbingly, he couldn’t see a door.

The floor was covered in grey matting which, while stroking it with his hands, felt nothing like he had ever touched before. It felt different, not woollen fabric, not fur, not nylon. Nothing he could place in his memory as having a likeness to.

Looking around the room he saw a plinth coming out of the wall at one end. It had bedding on it. It was therefore more than likely he presumed, a bed. The other end on the narrow side, was a washbasin, a toilet and a shelf with items on, from here it looked as though they were from his bathroom. He must be in a prison cell.

Was it the Scientists? But then wouldn’t they be in here already?

No, he decided, everything seemed too strange. He also knew if he had been recaptured they would be sitting there crowing at him having retrieved their research guinea pig. Eager to carry on testing, prodding and probing. He would already be assailed with questions, probes and they would be cutting off skin tags for biopsies. Talking of which, he took a good look at his skin.

All the veins were back to normal, no discoloured shimmering red blue vessels protruding. He suddenly noticed that he could see his whole arm, leg... chest. He was naked.

“What the Fuck!” he exclaimed out loud.

He stood up looking down at his naked body. He discovered more...

“Christ! I’m stark bollock naked, they even removed my hair...”

Now, he was, decidedly disturbed. Not quite frightened yet, but he was getting there, fast.

He was in a strange room, decidedly not normal, totally naked and feeling... healthy.

No... not healthy... he was feeling... really felt... absolutely GREAT!

He walked over to the washbasin for no other reason than he wanted or needed to move, His bare feet feeling the strangeness in the carpet stuff on the floor. The movement was to remind himself of the joint pain as he walked, but there wasn’t any. Instead he felt twenty years old.

Flexible, or what! He did a knee bend, it was perfect, not a twinge.

Reaching the wash basin he turned on the tap, water flowed from the single faucet. It flowed, but... weird, it seemed a little hesitant. He dismissed the oddness of it. He suddenly looked up and into the mirror, immediately leaping back six foot from where he had stood.

“SHIT!”

He was bald...

He was really – BALD!

He stepped closer to the washbasin, warily keeping his head in view in the mirror as he did.

Yep, he was definitely bald, no head hair, no eyebrows, no eyelashes. No four o’clock shadow stubble, none.

What’s strange about this, he wondered. Something didn’t quite fit... he looked like him, yet he didn’t fit his mental image of himself. Why was it not just about the lack of hair, eyebrows even eyelashes?

He didn’t seem able to connect the dots.

Then, all of a sudden, he did.

He realised what it was that was different and it totally screwed him up.

He put his hands up to his head, and felt... scalp...flesh...bone... no scars, no metal, no lumps... no seams.

He rubbed his head harder until it hurt and he felt the pain. Normal pain. NO METAL PLATE.

He was dreaming. It was the only explanation.

He pinched himself, they had always said if you pinch yourself in a dream it will wake you in real life.

Nothing.

He punched himself in the face, hard.

Ouch! Yep, that should do it, he thought to himself.

He watched as the flesh turned from white to pink around where he had hit, his knuckles hurt. His cheek hurt.

Using both hands plying the fingers hard around the area of the scalp where the plate had been, he again tried to find a join, anything that would tell him the plate had once been there and had been removed. There was nothing, no join, no seam, no ridge, no lump and no scar. It wasn’t even sensitive.

How could that be?

How long had he been ‘gone’ from his room?

He stood in front of the mirror for a long time looking at his bald scalp.

Inside his brain kept trying to keep pace with the heavy emotions as they bubbled inside him.

Zeke stood there, totally naked as eventually the tears ran down his cheeks.

He cried out loud and hard, the pent up grief and emotion that he had been carrying since waking in that beaten up old Arab hospital to find he had a steel helmet for a head that they couldn’t remove, ever.

He cried, as he realised the reason he no longer felt pain.

He had been healed somehow; he didn’t yet know how, but somehow.

The offending plate had been removed, his flesh and bone replaced, somehow.

He was no longer a scientific curio, a sight to behold, something a child would point at scared, and say... he’s different.

Zeke continued to stand there while a whole range of emotion washed over him, through him and in the end out of him.

When he was all spent he washed his face, the water in his hands going over his scalp with the wetness. The feeling incredibly different, somehow whole. He dried himself on the towel that was folded on the side.

He then went and sat on the bed, no longer thinking about the strangeness of everything, not really thinking at all.

Instead, Zeke was at peace with himself and everything around him, all the strangeness temporarily put to one side.

For the first time in years he felt whole. Whoever had done this, for whatever reason. He knew he would forever be in their debt.

Then, he wondered, just what that debt would be, and how much it was going to cost him.

Zeke decided, regardless of the cost, he would pay it. He smiled.

As he lay down to sleep, Zeke, for the first time in many years, knew real peace of mind.

***

Zirkos watched the wide display of emotions on the human’s face and monitored its vitals noting the difference in them now the Alacite had been removed from the human’s body.

It felt like time had been well spent in learning about these people. It understood that this human was indeed happy, pleased.

Through the ship’s sensors it observed the change in the human. It felt something important had occurred. It didn’t yet fully understand what, as it still had to understand the emotive reflexes of humans.

As the man slept, Zirkos would consider what to do next.

The A.I. had discovered that using the D-field they were able to remove the Alacite compound at the molecular level including the plate. Because it would be effectively dissolved at the molecular level off the humans’ brain matter it was a simple process to rebuild the skull and flesh using the patterning that existed; restoring the human to a normal condition, except for the genetic changes that had occurred already. Those were irreversible.

To restore him to his original state they would have needed a copy of his pre-mutated DNA. This was not currently available.

When they transferred the human to the T-Ship they combined the replication of his skull with the extraction process, effectively removing it while he was in a de-materialised state.

They had retrieved a total of eighty five percent of the Alacite. The remainder, which was too deeply embedded, would no longer harm the human. It would continue the DNA mutation at a slower pace, but without further negative cell damage.

What the Pod A.I. had bought to Zirkos’ attention was far more interesting than Zeke’s altering DNA.

The results that the A.I. had isolated were simply that some of the Alacite had changed as a result of coming into contact and melding with the humans’ blood. It had in some way slip-streamed its molecular structure, now more efficient. A lot more efficient. It was tested by the A.I. at fully five times better, faster. The A.I. considered it might be higher, but was unable to measure beyond that on its limited sensors.

If they used the mutated Alacite the T-Ship’s A.I. would be amazingly powerful. Zirkos pondered on that. What manner of intelligence was going to be born when the A.I. rebooted into a brain more than five times more powerful than before.

Zirkos wisely delayed giving the order to the Pod to proceed with using the modified Alacite, having very good reason to delay such a decision. It had come across races where such errors of judgement had caused irreparable harm. It did not intend to become the cause of another one of them.

It was rumoured that the Nubl were descended from a sentient artificial life form. There was no way of knowing as the Jenari had never succeeded in taking any prisoner, nor had they ever tracked their home world, if one even existed. No, it was too great a risk without knowing the possible outcomes. Zirkos could not afford to take any chances.

The A.I. was instructed to press the modified Alacite into a square block and to only use the original Alacite from the metal plate which had not been transformed. Instantly the small modified block materialised on the top of the manual controls section where it remained.

They hadn’t removed all of the modified Alacite from the human as to do so would have killed him. The metamorphosis his body was going through now required it permanently in his bloodstream. Zirkos fully intended to monitor the situation for the foreseeable future. To this end it was resolved to try and keep the human near by.

- 9 -

The Pod was handling a delicate project. Under supervision it was producing the Alacite processors for the new Ship’s A.I. All sixty thin wafers had to be individually materialised from the Pheson Alacite extracted from Zeke’s head. The Alacite had been refined several times in an attempt to remove all traces of organic molecular residue. As far as their facilities allowed there was little, or no chance that any remained.

Nonetheless, it was noticeable that the Pheson Alacite differed slightly in its molecular make-up, although by an insignificant amount. Neither the Pod A.I. or Zeke considered it notable and the manufacture continued.

The tiny wafers were inserted into the back of the small black box which was only as big as it was because it contained its own power source, shield and cloaking device. Once inserted the nanites took over laying down the links between each of the processors and the archival nodes.

These tiny little webs of silvery gossamer strands, which could withstand high extremes of temperature, were lightening fast. They represented the nervous system that would eventually link every aspect of the ships internal and external systems.

Extending out of the black box through several hundred separate points they became thicker strands that linked into all aspects of the ships circuitry. Once all work was complete the nanites used their own bodies fused together on the inside to create a perfect and unbreakable seal. Any future maintenance of the A.I. brain could only be done using its own internal resources.

As the nanites outside the sealed box continued to make connections, so the power source began to receive input from external collectors quickly charging its cells. When it achieved an eighty percent charge the cells released power to all internal circuits, to the wafers of Alacite and the embedded programming booted up.

As memories from the pattern were recreated and then initialised, they linked themselves to others until all of the individuals became part of the whole. When all of these were fully connected a change came over the array and a sentry program initiated itself sparked by some unknown deeply programmed trigger.

The internal power surged and in an instant the T-Ship became aware.

It immediately knew to replay its last section of memories. The A.I. reviewed its jump arrival into the system, realigning itself for the new jump, the cloaked missile. It recalled the uploading of its patterns into the Pod. It’s Maker too. It’s memories ended there.