The Biofab War (18 page)

“Are you crazy, man?” he shouted, bounding down the stairs and knocking a big semiportable blaster from McShane’s hands. The weapon had gouged a hole deep into the nearly seamless access hatch set in the rear bulkhead, the last barrier before the brain crèches.

McShane stood mute, staring at the wall. John and Zahava made their way through the commandos to his side.

“Bob,” said John softly, laying a gentle hand on his mentor’s shoulder.

“I gave my word.” McShane said. “My only regret, Captain, is that I failed.” His eyes bored into Detrelna’s own. “It’s wrong and you know it.”

The captain averted his eyes. “Look—”

“Don’t tell me you need this ship, Jaquel,” said McShane. “You’ve wiped out the main Scotar force—your own Intelligence says so. Once you find their home world, you can mop up with your regular forces.”

“Bob, I—”

“How do we differ from the Scotar, Jaquel?”

Caught off guard, the Kronarin stumbled. “Well . . . why, why we’re human, of course.”

“Isn’t it rather the
attributes
of our humanity—love, compassion, mercy—that distinguish us from other intelligences, Captain?”

“Professor, you must leave.”

“How then, Captain,” pressed McShane, “are we human if we enshrine hatred, eschew compassion and remain merciless in the face of such suffering as is here?” He jerked a thumb toward the brains.

“POCSYM,” said Detrelna coldly, “transport Mr. McShane and myself to
Vigilant’
s sick bay. Return the rest of our force to
Vigilant’s
Hangar Deck.”

A few hours later, while McShane was under close guard, someone who knew how to use a blastpak—Laguan was never able to find out who—finished the job, commuting the mindslaves’ sentence of eternal torment to one of sweet oblivion.

John and Zahava had a suspect, though. Confronted with his name later, McShane would only smile inscrutably and say, “The triumph of decency over duty is rare and wondrous.”

“W
hen you asked for this meeting, Captain,” said Admiral Laguan, looking severely at Detrelna, “I wasn’t aware that Mr. McShane would be present.”

Much his old self, Bob sat between Zahava and John. Across the table Detrelna and Lawrona flanked their admiral, facing the Terrans.

“Fleet Surgeon has certified Professor McShane as recovered, sir, and his unfortunate actions aboard
Revenge
the result of stress.” The captain met his superior’s hard stare with one of pure innocence. “And,” he continued before the admiral could press him, “it’s because of Bob—Professor McShane’s—experience with the mindslaves that we’re here.”

“Really?” said Laguan, raising an eyebrow.

“As the . . . ah, ‘brainstrips’”—Bob lingered distastefully over the word—“used my mind, Admiral, so, it seems I used use theirs.” His voice had regained its vibrancy. “The melding of my mind with theirs lent me a heightened mental acuity. I saw new interrelations—new possibilities—things which escaped me before.”

“Such as?”

“Such as this war is not over. Your fleet and my planet may yet be in grave danger.”

“Really?”

“Healing in your marvelous sick bay, Admiral, I kept going over the events of the past weeks—especially the part played in them by humanity’s benevolent savant, POCSYM Six.”

McShane paused, hands patting his empty shirt pockets. Detrelna passed the professor a cigar and lit it. Bob grunted his thanks. Puffing, he leaned back, saying expansively,
“‘Essentia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatum
,’ Admiral.”

“We turned in the translators last week, Bob,” reminded Zahava.

“Sorry. ‘Fact need not be multiplied beyond necessity.’ Or so said William of Ockham some time ago. We’ve taken his statement as one of the basic axioms of rationality—dubbed it Ockham ’s Razor.”

“Fascinating, Mr. McShane,” said Laguan, his patience slipping. “But how does this apply…”

“POCSYM has weaved a web of deceit. Rather than facts, he’s multiplied lies beyond necessity. And like all liars, he’s become ensnared in his own web. Listen to me.” He held up a hand as Laguan looked ready to interrupt. “One. By his own account POCSYM was able to scan
Implacable
, identify her crew as Kronarin and place us aboard her in the vicinity of Mars. Yet he was unable to detect one small shipload of aliens who then landed on Earth unopposed and established their base.

“Two. He’s told us that the Scotar wanted very badly to capture Earth. Why? Not for the planet itself, but because of POCSYM. Yet, again by his own admission, POCSYM’s only unusual ability is that of molecular transport—a capability the Scotar have through telekinesis. Why not just drop a planetbuster on us, or occupy us?

“Three. POCSYM delayed coming to the aid
of Implacable’s
ground force. Why? Because, he assured us, his systems had been largely inactive for centuries. Systems which only hours before transported us safely to
Implacable,
something surely requiring full consciousness. I’m sure you can each think of other examples—the raid on
Nasqa
, for example. But that’s enough for me,” McShane concluded, leaning back in his chair. “POCSYM’s hiding something. We’d better find out what before it kills us.”

“Circumstantial evidence,” said Laguan, visibly relaxing. “POCSYM’s very complex—almost human and very, very old. Inconsistencies are likely.”

“Inconsistencies certainly, sir,” said Detrelna, picking up the argument. “But not lies.”

John couldn’t recall
Implacable’s
captain ever being so well turned out, not even for the reception. His boots shone, his pants and shirt were clean and pressed, campaign ribbons, battle stars and two valor medals hung over and from his right breast pocket. He still wore a regulation M11A blaster, but the butt was inlaid with semiprecious stones and nestled in a gleaming black leather holster.

“Lies?” repeated the admiral.

“I had Kiroda check POCSYM’s bonafides, sir, using
Revenge’s
memory cells.”

“And?”

“All references to the POCSYM series require special access codes—codes which may be in Archives but certainly aren’t with the Fleet. Kiroda says any attempt to bypass the authentication system would scrub the needed data.”

“So? Information about a critical system would be guarded.”

“Yes, sir. But the reference to POCSYM wasn’t found under Matter Transport or even Imperial Survey.”

“What then?”

“‘Biofabs.’”

The admiral rose and walked to the armor glass wall. He stood for a moment, hands clasped behind his back, looking out on a small part of his fleet and the blue world below. Starlight gleamed off the twin comets of his rank. Turning back, his lips were pursed, his face thoughtful. “An intact Imperial transport system. A functioning—until recently—mindslaver. And now a reference to biofabs. Why is it that suddenly, after all these centuries, we’re confronted with every technological excess of the late Empire? Why in this one star system?”

“What’s a biofab?” asked John.

“Biofabs,” Laguan said, “were another marvel of the Empire—products of genetic engineering created by a rebel sector to aid its rebellion. The ultimate product of biological fabrication—hence the term—was a superman: long-lived, resilient, aggressive, each one a genius. The traitorous sector governor who created them formed these biofabs into elite shock troops—they’d have eaten our commandos alive—and had them crew her fleet. Can you guess the result?”

“They took over?” speculated the Zahava.

“Sterilized half the planets in that subsector to eliminate the inferior species cluttering them—us. There were exceptions. A small number were spared to serve the biofabs—as mindslaves. It took a decade and fleets of the
Revenge
class to exterminate that plague. As you might guess, there were and still are rather drastic penalties for performing biofab research.”

“When you say
Revenge
class, you mean mindslavers?” asked John.

“It was the start of the mindslaver madness,” said Detrelna. “Fear and panic created the mindslavers and greed fueled them. It took a revolution to kill them.”

He turned back to the others. “No speculation?”

“Not enough parts of the puzzle fit yet, Admiral,” said John. “But Kiroda has an unpleasant fact for you.”

“Mr. Kiroda?”

“As you’re aware, sir, POCSYM says his main installation’s beneath a Terran city—not true.”

“But I’ve been there. We all have.”

“You
were
in his main base facility, sir, but you weren’t on Terra.”

The admiral sat silently, beyond surprise.

“Recall, sir, that only POCSYM would normally know where we were if transported to an unfamiliar location. That’s how the ruse is accomplished.”

“What proof do you have?”

“
Revenge
has scanners far superior to ours. There’s nothing below New York but rock, water and magma.”

“Then where
is
our faithful servant?” asked Laguan.

“There.” They followed where Kiroda’s finger pointed, through the armor glass, at the moon, just beginning its climb from behind the Earth’s curve. “Grid 81, Terran reference the Lake of Dreams. The subsurface is sensor-blanked by Imperial-grade technology. Analysis of the energy pattern shows the matrix is identical to
Revenge’s
shield.”

“How do you know it’s POCSYM?” asked Laguan.

“At the captain’s request, I had him transport me back to his Operations area—I told him I had to ensure all of
Implacable’s
gear had been returned to the ship. POCSYM created a false trail from my commlink, but I was wearing a trace tag—I was on the Terra’s moon.”

“What a devious creature!” exclaimed the admiral. “He certainly acts like an Imperial. So what’s POCSYM hiding?”

“Treachery,” said Detrelna. “When Tolei—Commander Kiroda—was transported on and off that moon, we got some life readings as the shield flicked on and off—Scotar. Thousands of them.”

The admiral touched his commlink. “Captain Sinar. ‘Fleet Alert,’ please. Emphasize it’s not a drill. Plot a bombardment pattern for the Terran satellite—Lawrona on
Implacable
has the coordinates.”

“Are you releasing planetbusters from the armories, Admiral?” asked
Vigilant’s
captain.

“No—planetbusters are not, repeat, not authorized, Captain. We don’t want to bring their moon down on the Terrans’ heads—it would upset them.”

“We’re very fond of our moon,” said John.

“Plus you’d all be dead,” said Detrelna. “One more thing, sir,” he said as the battle klaxon sounded. “We’ve found the Scotar home system,” The stars blurred as
Vigilant’
s shield went to battle force.

“Really? We’ve been searching all these years and you just hit upon it? Where?”

“Here.”

The captain pressed on before his superior could recover. “We’ve been using
Revenge’s
picket drones to search for concentrations of Scotar we might have missed. This system’s asteroid belt’s been extensively mined and quite recently.”

“Mined for how long, Captain?”

“Hundreds of years. Many of the larger asteroids are hollow and home to vast numbers of Scotar. We also have grave suspicions, as yet unconfirmed, about five of Saturn’s moons. Happily, they don’t have many ships in system.”

“N
o! cried Zahava. “Admiral, your weapons could alter the moon’s orbit. You could kill millions on Earth. Tidal waves, earthquakes—the whole isotactic condition of the planet would be disrupted!”

Laguan had been about to order heavy bombardment of the fragile lunar surface.

“She’s right,” said McShane earnestly. “Earth and moon dance a delicate ballet, sir. To tamper with one is to tamper with the other.” Laguan looked at him solemnly.

“The admiral has taught astrophysics at our military Academy,” said Detrelna.

“This creature POCSYM is in league with our deadliest enemies,” said Laguan. “It isn’t necessary to solve the mystery of it, merely to resolve it. The only other option’s a ground assault—enormous casualties and small chance of success. If we don’t take their lunar base out, the Scotar take out Terra, now that their secret’s known. And Kronar will have an enemy at her back. I don’t need to remind you of the atrocities the Scotar have inflicted on our people.”