Absorption (32 page)

“Also, you never know what knowledge will be important, and some experience is personal. There are a lot of memories you can’t take away with you, which can make the experience … disjointed … in retrospect. A few memories of being part of a supermind can smooth things out a lot.”

Williams squinted. “So they don’t believe in it, but they still know what it wants?”

Brett chuckled. “That’s a good way to put it.”

“So people are added to projects, made to do stuff?”

Brett shook his head. “Not exactly. The part of the brain that focuses attention is different from the part that makes decisions. You can choose not to help with something, but you usually don’t. If you’re ‘there’ you usually have relevant knowledge and interests.”

“Sounds like a system crying out to be abused.”

Brett nodded. “It is. They know it too, and they even know it happens. Being a wiseass myself, I have to say the system to harness critics to puncture groupthink and find the holes in the system works pretty well – or seems to.”

Williams blinked. “You sound almost as if you like it.”

“I confess. I love it. It really does feel like being part of a supermind, a mind without limit. It feels so good you want to stretch it, do everything you can with it. Then you suddenly realize how far you’ve gone.”

Brett waited for a question, but Williams was listening silently and intently.

He continued. “Not all Oceanians believe what I’m about to tell you, not even most of them. Or maybe they believe it a bit when they’re in the mood – like not so devout people do with religion. You’ll see lots of religions from the rest of the galaxy here, so this can’t be as big as some people might make it sound.

“Remember what Ambassador Nocker said a long time ago? I don’t know where to start. I can only remember fragments now. I understood almost completely when I was part of Oceania. I could stare God in the face, reach out and touch the stars.”

Williams stared. “Brett, are you all right? I mean, you never seemed that religious before.”

Brett grinned. “Think I’m getting a bit carried away here?”

Acceleration pressed Brett back hard against his couch. To exit the Oceanian gravity well, the Firefly had been stood on its tail and placed atop a detachable and reusable fuel tank.

Soon he would see the Firestorm again. He had risen early to make the launch window, and missed some sleep. When the acceleration ended, he found freefall soothing. Apparently he still had his space stomach.

Too wound up to sleep, he closed his eyes for a moment anyway.

A slight vibration woke him. They were moving. Actually, they were moving much more slowly than before with respect to the Firestorm and pretty much everything else. Yet rolling on wheels across the shuttle bay produced vibration and a feeling of movement, while hurtling through the void didn’t.

Had he come all this way for nothing? Would his report merely fill a blank in someone’s records, show that the decision already in mind had been made after due deliberation?

Then the external view camera came on and Brett grinned. Three men were waiting on the scaffolding that would soon embrace the Firefly. This was the way to travel. Someone clearly cared about what he had to say.

Then he saw the star on the middle uniform. A Lieutenant General? Pendergastman himself? Nah, couldn’t be. They must be waiting for someone else. No matter how interested they were, it wouldn’t look right for a Lieutenant General to be waiting for a Major.

The Firefly approached the scaffolding and taxied to a stop. The other two men were M.P.s. Had Brett done something wrong? Ah no, they were in dress uniform. Must be an honor guard of sorts. The last thing Brett had expected, but doubtless well meant.

The Firefly was secured, the bubble opened, and Brett got out, a bit stiff after his long confinement. He took only a second or two to stretch. Time enough for that later. From recent use of the VR conferencing room he recognized the officer awaiting him was indeed Lieutenant General Pendergastman.

“Major Brett Johnson reporting, sir.”

The General replied, “Come with me.”

The two MPs fell into step, one on each side of Brett. Brett followed the man he had been instructed to report to, concealing his surprise.

Though time was short, normally Brett would have expected a few minutes to change his uniform, put something in a stomach which had been left empty for acceleration, maybe even rest an hour or so before reporting to Lieutenant General Pendergastman. The senior officer would hardly have greeted him personally merely to escort him to quarters, so clearly that wasn’t in the cards. Brett mulled over this unusual turn of events as he walked.

They escorted Brett to a room too bare to be the General’s office. The undersized desk didn’t resemble a working desk. It provided a surface to put things on, without creating much of a barrier between the person in front of it and the person behind. More like an interrogation room than an office.

Pendergastman impassively gestured Brett to sit in the smaller chair. The MPs moved to either side of him. Becoming uneasy, Brett sat down.

“I’ve been looking forward to speaking with you, Major.”

Brett hadn’t really anticipated this meeting with pleasure even before disembarking from the Firefly. He looked forward to it less by the second, but that didn’t seem the right thing to tell the General.

Instead he said, “Yes, sir.”

The General continued, “After reviewing the transcripts of our virtual conferences, I almost get the impression that you’ve been enjoying your recent experiences with the overmind.”

Given the tone of disapproval, a simple ‘yes’ didn’t seem likely to get them anywhere. Saying that he had enjoyed them more than his experiences with Pendergastman would serve no purpose.

“General, it’s a tool of unparalleled scope, and I’ve observed it with great interest. I’ve in no way become blind to the dangers, even if they aren’t the same ones I was led to expect at first.”

Pendergastman glared at him. “So tell me about these dangers.”

Brett paused a moment, gathering his thoughts. It didn’t make sense to talk about the dangers of something before discussing how it worked. Why the heck were they talking in an interrogation room? Brett shifted his weight. Someone designed this chair to make people uncomfortable. The sides even had straps and buckles on them, which prevented Brett from resting his arms comfortably.

A thought struck Brett. “Sir, there’s something vital I’m not even sure you’re cleared for. I wasn’t myself, only accidentally discovered it on Oceania. It’s about the war crimes trials on Roundhouse.”

Pendergastman impatiently pulled off his belt computer, put his thumbprint on the glass plate, punched a few keys. The man was no fool. He had expected this to come up.

Brett stared at the documents thus displayed. He had never seen them before, not having received clearance himself. They looked genuine to him. The correct response would have been to use his own belt computer to confirm it, but that had been stored in the Firefly during launch preparations, and never returned to him.

So he knew.

“General, since you’re already aware that Alexander wasn’t an independent entity but a composite, and that people were permitted to blame the overmind for their own actions because there were too many guilty and attempting to punish them all would have lead to endless civil war, that will save us some time.”

Brett couldn’t resist adding, “Knowing that would have saved my time in my investigation as well. Progress wasn’t really possibly until I discovered it.”

Pendergastman snapped at him, “I know no such thing. Some dissenting reports appeared during and after the trial. Clearly they were politically motivated.”

Eventually Brett had received access to those reports, and he saw nothing ambiguous about them. Suddenly everything seemed futile. The decision was already made. He would still do his job, but the decision was already made.

Pendergastman spoke again. “Tell me as much as you can about your original conditioning episode. As much as you’re permitted to remember, and can say.”

Conditioning episode? Then he remembered the symbolic therapy he had gone through, helping him see to the roots of his reflexive fear of somehow losing his individuality. The General seemed to assume he had been brainwashed, but had still brought up something Brett needed to talk about if there was any chance at all.

Brett used the arms of the uncomfortable chair to lever himself up straighter. “Yes, sir. After you instructed me to become part of the hive mind, I attempted to do so. People who had already done so informed me that my failure stemmed from a reflexive fear that many from the Federalist Worlds seem to have. Therapy would have been the safest was to confront it, but time and my orders did not permit.”

Now he needed to find a way to talk about fear to the General, without being insubordinate. Even Pendergastman’s reflexive fears weren’t the important point. A whole civilization had put him and Brett where they were now, his interrogator was only focusing the fears of the entire society that had put him into place.

Brett had barely begun to think about this huge task when the General asked his next question. Pendergastman wasn’t interested in Brett’s agenda.

“Tell me about Ariel: the woman who seduced you.”

Brett struggled to hold his face impassively. Who was the tattletale? Who besides Williams had known? Somehow, Brett just couldn’t visualize the Ambassador trying to curry favor with this man. He would already know the war faction despised him irredeemably.

War faction? Where had that come from? As horrible as war could be, sometimes it could be delayed but not prevented, and the cost of delay might be high indeed. This might still be one of those times, although Brett wished someone would listen to him with an open mind.

Pendergastman asked impatiently, “How long do you need to stall? Should I come back?”

Brett sighed inwardly. Truth to tell, his unprofessional behavior was a little embarrassing to discuss. “Sir, I seduced her. At the time I believed the supermind was harming her, and hoped to get her away from it and a man whom I believed to be closely associated with it. I have no excuse, and cannot say for certain that my actions didn’t endanger my mission.”

Brett braced himself for a well deserved reprimand. Surprisingly, it didn’t come as strongly as it might have. “I’m glad you realize the magnitude of your error. A honey trap is one of the oldest in the history of espionage. The one you encountered was cleverly targeted towards a man who knew the perils of the overmind.”

“Sir? During my months on Oceania I’ve become more closely acquainted with the supermind than almost any non Oceanian alive, and I’ve seen no evidence of any … politically ambitious entity. I’d be happy to go into more detail about what the hive mind is and how it works, but the Oceanians have nothing to gain by such an enterprise.”

Brett was prepared for an outburst, but the General lowered his voice instead. His tone was gentle. “Perhaps we should return to that symbolic experience the Oceanians claimed was necessary to remove fears which made it impossible for you to join the overmind.”

Clearly Pendergastman wanted to uncover repressed memories of Brett being brainwashed – or tacitly persuade Brett to fabricate them. Yet he had brought up the only thing Brett still felt any impulse to talk about.

“General, you’re right. I surely missed something important about that. Let me tell you what I do remember, and maybe you’ll get some clues.”

Brett knew he damned well wasn’t going to be telling the General what he wanted to hear. It was unlikely he would listen. Hopefully the briefing would at least be recorded for posterity. In the end it probably wouldn’t matter. The organization that had put Pendergastman here today had signified its’ collective choice.

He spoke anyway. That was his job. “The Oceanians have a theory that many people – even whole cultures – have a reflexive fear. It might even be partly genetic, although that can be overcome. The fear may serve useful purposes in some circumstances, keeping us from groupthink, or being manipulated by cynical leaders. On the other hand, we have a built in ability to overcome fears, when we know how to judge the perils of spiders and snakes for ourselves, for instance. Just as brain cells are designed to link up into tissues, and tissues into lobes, the same fractal structure gives us the built in ability to take the next step.”

The General narrowed his eyes. “You don’t sound like you’re looking for help recovering suppressed memories. You sound like you’re lecturing me.”

“Sir, there are still things which worry me about the overmind, but everything I’ve seen contradicts the idea of a concealed misanthropic consciousness. Dangerous it may be, but somehow your assumption that I must have repressed memories of brainwashing brought the Oceanian theory to mind. You’ve seen my diary, filed with intelligence every few days so it couldn’t be altered, and you know the reason for every change in perspective I’ve gone through.”

This wasn’t just Pendergastman. Peterson had made a choice, consciously or not, by putting him in charge here.

“The Major Johnson we used to know lead the effort to protect humanity against the dangers of the supermind. I’m going to try and recover the suppressed experiences, and bring him back.”