Koban: Rise of the Kobani (49 page)

Thad regained his composure and his voice. “Henry, Tet did make a joke, but we didn’t know for sure what you three had been talking about.” He chuckled. “We guessed at several possibilities, but it had to be some startling secret the two of them needed to tell you, and that would take some time to get you to accept. You half confirmed our best guess when you held back from handshakes. Your expressions when Tet made that loaded remark, was a clincher.”

Nabarone had cycled back from laughing at the joke he thought was on him, to confusion. “What the hell. Is this a bullshit story about you having mindreading ability, or is it real?”

“Henry, for me, any of us SGs for that matter, it is crap. For Ethan and Carson, and some others with a later genetic mod, it is real. With limitations that you appear to know something about, because you avoided physical contact just now.”

Longstreet spoke up. “The term TG1 apples to the TGs that have this extra ability. Is that right?”

“Yes.” Mirikami had finally recovered his demeanor. “We had ten TG1’s total when we left home, with what was a new genetic ability for humans. Three of them are on our other two ships. Please note that I said this is a new human ability. We discovered its existence in a native life form where we live, nearly twenty years ago. It seemed a useful feature to copy when we learned how to do it, and we were ready.” He grinned. “It’s pretty neat, huh?”

Trakenburg was still not amused by the light-hearted tone Mirikami was following. “You might have shared that information from the start.”

“Share that with the man that sent his troopers fully prepared to kill our kids, before you even knew a thing about us? Tell you a secret you wouldn’t have believed anyway. Yet which might have provoked you into issuing an order that could have forever blocked cooperation? Our caution was as reasonable as yours seemed to you, and avoided a disaster.”

Trakenburg snapped off a reply, “You know what we’ve been thinking and we don’t know your real intentions.”

“Actually, you do know what our intentions are because we told you, and we were truthful. If there were no TG1’s, how would that have made our intentions any more believable? We are a small group, exposing ourselves to people that might consider human genetic modifications worthy of the death penalty. What did you risk sitting in your office, watching us through your spy bots? The risk was all ours.”

“I’ll accept that, but how do we get around the trust issue if you always know our every thought? Do we have to always avoid contact?”

Looking at the other two men, even without Mind Tap ability, he could see that question was on their minds. “The ability has more limitations than requiring physical contact. It actually is strongest with hand-to-hand contact, because that is how it was designed to work with humans. Fingers have a high density of nerve endings, and actual contact is essential, although we have found that a diluted form of transfer is possible via a conducting material. For example, through a conductive metal for a short distance.

“As for pulling information from someone, it isn’t as general and detailed as you may think. You actually have to be thinking of the subject for a TG1 to receive the images, which sometimes have words embedded.” He suddenly laughed.

Shaking his head, he said, “Why am I, a blind man, describing what a person with eyes can see? Carson, would you please describe the process before I put a foot in my mouth?”

“Yes Sir.” He paused for a few milliseconds to sort thoughts.

“OK. For one thing, words are harder to receive from a non-TG1. Ethan and I can do that easily with other TG1’s, but from anyone else the words are partly inferred by the mental images we see, and we can sense emotional content for most pictures. To Mind Tap someone that doesn’t know what we can do, we might start with a leading question or statement, to get them actively thinking of what we are interested in learning. If they know what we can do, and don’t want us to know, the simple act of not wishing to tell us is sufficient to block us. If I ask who you slept with last night, and you said none of my business, or just refused to answer, I can’t get around your refusal to extract that thought.”

Nabarone said, “The words Mind Tap, and just Tap was used. Is that what you call doing this?”

“Yes Sir. You might also hear someone call it frilling, because the intelligent animal we discovered this ability in, called a …,” he was interrupted by four SGs and Ethan.

Red-faced and sheepish he apologized. “Oh crap, sorry Dad, guys.”

Explaining, “I almost said an animal name that the Krall could instantly connect to our home world if they heard it from a human. The genetic mental ability we copied is from an animal, and we initially called the experience frilling. We still do when it happens with one of these animals. The Krall do not know that word, or of this ability in those animals.”

He paused for an instant, trying to remember what he was going to say before his near slip.

Ethan stepped in. “Anyone can send us a mental image that they want us to see, even a false picture they made up; perhaps to convey or illustrate an idea, and they can hold back anything they wish. Apparently, due to thousands of years of humans practicing deceit, people are very good at withholding information, and at lying in a Mind Tap.

“A person that is unaware of our ability, or unguarded, might leak a bit about what we just asked or said, but it isn’t as if they spilled their guts of a lifetime of secrets. If I ask what you had for lunch, I won’t see a picture of your breakfast. If I ask what you had to eat today, and you don’t hold back, I might get it all in a fast series of mental flashes.

“Once you know of my ability, it’s not hard to hold back anything. I know my saying this won’t convince you, but that’s how it works. My friends that are non-TG1s can block me, as can virtually every one of the SGs block me. These guys,” he nodded a head at the older men, “and all of those at home.”

Longstreet, for Nabarone’s benefit, asked a pertinent question. “Warren Brock beat two of my men in a fight in that parking garage. Do you know about that?”

“Oh, sure. He’s a TG1 and shared it with all of us.”

“Did he read their minds?”

“Sure, at least as to what they each intended to do first. Each of them had a couple of moves they could start with, and Warren set up the ones he preferred. Jenkins was going to move in if Warren was distracted by a move from Bender, or if Warren attacked him first, he’d block, sweep the legs, and take him to the floor. Warren helped him decide by looking away at my dad, keeping Bender in his view to hold him in check. It was done to draw Jenkins into moving.”

“How did he get them to think of what he needed to know?”

“Ah, he didn’t. He was too nervous to think of that. My dad helped by suggesting he shake hands to start, and he told
Warren
to think of what he would do first. Both the other men had their minds tricked into focusing on exactly what dad knew Warren needed to know. Naturally, they didn’t know to block their thoughts.”

Longstreet looked pointedly at the general and the colonel in turn. Ethan’s description matched what they had just watched several times (again) for Nabarone’s benefit.

Taking the initiative, Longstreet started walking towards Ethan, his right hand extended. “Tell me what I’m thinking, but wait until I shake with Carson and then ask you both to speak, to see if you agree.”

Their hands locked in a firm grip, and they stood facing each other a moment. Ethan looked puzzled. Longstreet released his hand and turned to Carson for a handshake.

Pulling back his hand after a couple of seconds, he said, “Both of you together, what was I thinking?”

They spoke over each other, but it was easy to understand them. They didn’t agree.

From Ethan it was, “Nothing, you must have been shielding.”

Simultaneously, Carson said, “You want to leave with us.”

Trakenburg blurted, “Which one is right, Captain?”

Longstreet smiled. “They both are, Colonel. Captain Mirikami, I’d like to know the answer to the request I passed to Carson.”

Mirikami had the answer ready, which they had decided on just fifteen minutes earlier. “We don’t want a virtual prisoner at home, who might long to return to Human Space, and there succumb to pressure to be welcomed back by revealing our location. It isn’t really a fear of the Planetary Union that concerns us so much, not while they need us anyway. It’s the leaks about us, which might reach the Krall.” Before Mirikami could continue, Longstreet jumped in, proving he’d considered exactly this point.

He spoke in a rush. “I’ll accept the clone mods you four have, making sure I have as much legal risk as Sarge here if I wanted to return.” Then he added his real motivation. “And then I can go with you on raids against Krall planets.”

Sarge gave him a sour look, and a pretend accusation. “If you have a Booster Suit and my genetic mods, you’ll beat me at arm wrestling, you cheater.”

Mirikami looked sternly at his court jester apprentice, then at Longstreet. “Captain, before you cut me off, I was about to make an alternative offer.” He let him dangle a moment.

“To give you, at a minimum, the clone mods and then accept you as a citizen of our world. The Booster Suit might not be yours to take.” He looked at Trakenburg.

The jester’s apprentice simply couldn’t hold his tongue. “You’d be immigrant New Citizen number two. I’m number one.”

For the first time in weeks, Trakenburg felt a lessening of the tension that had been building. “Your only condition for accepting joint operations with Special Operations, to trust us, is if our people accept your SG genetic modifications. To physically become what only our surgery, implants, and these damned chaffing exomuscle suits gave us?” Even when feeling relieved, the starch and skepticism that was a natural part of his personality showed.

Mirikami relaxed his stern look. “I have one other concession I need from you, Colonel.”

Trakenburg thought,
I KNEW that smart little shit had something else up his sleeve.
It had been too easy. Prepared for the worst he asked roughly, “What is it?”

It was worse than he feared.

“Among only the older men in this room, in friendly conversations, might you allow us to call you Frances?”

He turned red in the face. “You picked my mind! Tapped it, whatever you call it. It’s Frank on any records you can find.”

Mirikami calmly looked at Nabarone. “Henry, care to explain?”

With a big charming smile, he did. “Sure. As I previously told you, Thad, Dillon, and Sarge…, oh excuse me, I mean
Garland.
The colonel’s real first name is Frances, not Frank. Generals have a deeper reach into sealed archives than colonels do. And he confirmed the accuracy of my digging just now.”

“I will not answer to that,” insisted the former Frances Trakenburg.

Mirikami offered a half bow. “Then to offer you a concession in return, I modify my request to call you Frank. Is that acceptable, Frank?”

“Fine.” He answered with a snap to his voice and a glance over to Longstreet, which suggested the captain had better use discretion.

Sarge, still playing jester, added, “At least your real name isn’t a Christmas tree decoration. What are you so sensitive about anyway? At least your last name wasn’t changed to Trakenburgfem.”

A female dominated society of three hundred years ago largely blamed men for the Clone Wars and the Gene War.  They had frequently used dual-purpose genderless first names for the sons that were born from the male survivor breeders after the Collapse. Others had changed family names, such as Johnson to Johnfem, or added other feminine sounding prefixes or suffixes.

When laws changed to grant men greater rights a hundred years ago, they regained the right to change birth given names when they reached twenty-one, which was the age they could register their names to vote. That didn’t prevent mothers, who retained contractual naming rights on their children, from
using
the feminine forms of names for their sons and daughters. Some of those rebellious, freedom-seeking sons changed their names when they turned twenty-one. It appeared Frances had been one of those, who apparently was sensitive to the teasing other boys with more “manly” sounding names had heaped on him.

Life had been awkward for a hypersensitive but physically tough kid that was forbidden to fight, and then the Krall came. Now Frank had an enemy he was not only allowed to strike back at, but to kill. A social outlet he had craved.

“If you want to call me Frank, then I get to go with you. I’ll accept your gene mods. I also want to participate in the raids.”

“New Citizen number…three.” Sarge died off at the end, under a withering glare from Mirikami.

“Count to yourself.” He was told. Then Mirikami went to the next of several sensitive subjects.

“Henry, I know your answer from previous conversations, and I agree that you are needed here to run the war on Poldark and to coordinate for us. That doesn’t mean you can’t have dual citizenship if you want, the same as these two wish to do.” He looked at the two other officers, realizing a clarification was needed.

“I wasn’t as clear as I should have been. This is all so new to us. I am not asking you to renounce Planetary Union citizenship. Each of you is a citizen of your birth worlds, perhaps of another adopted colony world you call home now, and of the PU. My adopted world isn’t even a PU settled colony, but there are Rim worlds that have not joined the PU, and those populations in large part feel like PU citizens, and fight for it against the Krall.