The Deep Dark Well (23 page)

"Which of itself
is still pretty formidable," said Captain Midas.

"But not
invulnerable," said the admiral.  "Not operating at the limits of
light speed.

"I want a complete
analysis of the defense system, and the best pattern to use the specials to
penetrate it."

Chapter 13

All my possessions for
a moment of time.

Elizabeth I, Queen of
England, Last Words

"Damn," said
Fleet Admiral Nagara Krishnamurta, watching the hundreds of miniature flares on
the holo.

"Of course this is
a time accel report of what the visual sensors picked up from the region of the
Donut
," said the
Danaus
' tactical officer. 

"It still looks
like quite a battle," said Krishnamurta.

"More of a
probe," said the tactical officer.  "All of the detonations were consistent
with one to two gigaton antimatter warheads.  No detonations were consistent
with the explosions of capital class warships."

"So they fired
most of their torpedoes at the
Donut
, and none of them made it?"

"Yes sir.  That’s
our interpretation."

"Trying to figure
out the best way to get past the thing's defenses?"

"Yes sir."

"Admiral,"
came the voice of the captain from the view screen.  "We will reach
turnaround in one hour."

"Go ahead and
turnaround now," he ordered.  "I want to stop a good distance from
that artifact.  If the
Nations
' people are having that much trouble
getting close to it I want to keep a wide berth.  Let me know if we have to add
decel."

"Yes sir,"
agreed the captain.  "It won’t hurt to ride the decel tubes for a couple
of hours."

Yes
, thought the admiral. 
He never liked the liquid filled decel tubes.  Most times they didn’t need to
be used, except when the ship had to surpass the ability of the inertial
compensators to absorb accel forces.  But he would rather ride in liquid, breather
in his mouth, than crawl under four or five gravities for an hour or more.

*    *    *

"Well, they’ve
been sitting there for hours," said Pandi.  "I guess they have
something better to do than come forward and be destroyed."

"They are probably
planning their next move," said Watcher.  "Something risky."

"Yeah.  That’s
just like our species.  Trying to get up their nerve to do the something
risky."

Watcher winced, as
Pandi watched his face, feeling concern for the eternal being who remembered
not all of his past.

"What’s
wrong?"

"My head always
aches when I have stayed awake too long," he answered with a strained
voice.  "My brain feels as if it can’t deal with anymore, and wants to
shut down, and the pain is my signal."

"But when you go
to sleep you black out," she said. 

"That is why I
avoid it till I can hold out no longer," he said with a grimace. 
"It’s not too bad, yet.  I can probably hold on for another six hours or
so."

"Why don’t you lay
down," she said.  "I’ll watch over you and make sure nothing
happens."

"What if Vengeance
comes for you, or me, while I’m out?"

"I’ll be right
back," she answered as she got up from the bed.  She walked into the next
room and dressed herself quickly in her survival gear, arming herself as well. 
When she returned Watcher looked at her with a smile on his face.  It was
erased quickly by another wince of pain.

"My
protector," he said in a strained voice.

"That’s
right," she agreed.  "You lay back and get some sleep, and I’ll stand
guard over you.  I don’t think Vengeance will get to me so easily this
time."  She patted the stock of the assault rifle for emphasis.

"OK.  I’ll lie
down.  You’ll let me know what happens while I’m asleep?  I am very
curious."

She nodded as she
smiled at him.  Of course she would tell him.  It was the dominant question in
his mind.  What happened when he was asleep?

*    *    *

Pandi sat on the side
of the great bed and studied the sleeping form of the man called Watcher. 
While she looked she thought about how she felt about the being. 
Being
. 
She knew he was genetically human, more or less.  But he was not a human such
as she understood the term. 

Did she love him?  She
had only known him for a little over a day, real time, taking into account the
time he was missing, and she was the prisoner of his
brother
.  But she
found she cared about him.  Was that love?  Or merely gratitude to the being
who had helped to anchor her after she had come through time and space.  A trip
she was sure most could not have undergone and maintained their sanity. 

And he was a terrific
lover, the best she had ever had.  But did that mean she loved him?  After all,
physical pleasure didn’t always translate into love.  She ought to know that. 
She had many lovers in her life, but none that she had truly loved.  Love had
seemed to her to be a barrier to her dreams, her dreams to confront the
unknown.  Well, here was the unknown, embodied in her newest lover.

Was that what she
felt?  Infatuation for the man who embodied her dreams?  How did one tell they
were in love, if it was the first time?

And what did he feel
for her?  How could he feel anything for her, except gratitude for ending his
loneliness?  He was as far above her as she was above his pet cat.

The cat
. 
What happened to
the cat
?  It had been underfoot most of the time they were in Watcher’s
quarters.  Now it was nowhere to be found.  Another mystery.

He looks so innocent
and angelic
. 
Lying there with his eyes closed, his face smoothed out in total relaxation. 
His breathing slowed as he slipped deeper into sleep.  Immortal.  What would he
think of loving one who would someday die?  Who would grow old and wrinkled? 
While he continued in good health and life for eternity.  How would she feel? 
Would she resent him his heritage?

Movement across his face
brought her out of her thoughts.  His eyes were twitching back and forth,
quickly moving beneath the lids.  REM.  Rapid Eye Movement.  She knew that was
a sign of dream sleep, and the workings of the mind to process the events of
the day and store them as memories.  But he said he didn’t dream.  Or at least
he didn’t remember any of his dreams.  What purpose did it serve for him to not
remember?

His body twitched as
well, as did his facial muscles, as if creatures of nightmare fought through
his mind.  What memories might his mind hide, that only came out at night?  Not
the memories of Vengeance, she was sure.  That would have shown in the probe
she had done on his mind.  He was not Vengeance.

After a half hour the
twitching and eye movements stopped.  His face smoothed out in the deepness of
sleep, and Pandi began to relax a bit. 
Might as well get something done
.

"Computer,"
she said.  "I want to see more of the files on the Watcher Project.  Put
it on the holo here."

The images sprung to
life in the center of the room, as her brain tapped into the massive computer
system of the station.  Soon she was again immersed in the data, trying to
learn all she could about the great mystery that slept by her side.

*    *    *

The first
perfected
homo superiors were no such thing, she learned.  They possessed one hundred
times the memory capacity of a normal human, which seemed immense.  Even though
the human race had found ways to cheat death, to extend the normal human life
span to near immortal limits, it was not true immortality.  Only the covering
of time’s ravages by medical technology.  But humans would eventually reach a
point where their minds were incapable of further reconfiguration.  Memory
would stop at that time, the person no longer able to remember new information
from moment to moment.

One hundred times the
memory capacity, paired with an eidetic system that allowed the beings to
remember everything they encountered, in all sensory modalities.  Enough to
last a lifetime?  But not an eternal lifetime.  And the homo superiors
processed and engulfed information at twenty times the rate of a normal human. 
So within the span of ten or twenty normal lifetimes the creatures were in the
same boat as ordinary humans, unable process or remember new information, as
mad as any human with progressive dementia.

Next had come the
generation before Watcher.  The neural structure of the brain had been changed,
with an unlimited capacity of reconfiguration.  But the brain could still only
hold so much information, and reconfiguration beyond a certain point, though it
would allow the storage of new memories, meant that some memories had to be
dumped.  But which memories?  This generation dumped at random, forgetting
vital information, or losing much of the emotional component of their lives as
early memories were lost.

Watcher’s generation
had been the culmination of research, using the technology of mind uploading. 
This allowed, through the construction of an enhanced implant, the storage of
memories from the immortal’s brain.  Memories that could be recovered whenever
the being needed them.  This allowed the immortal to have an essentially
unlimited memory system.

Pandi felt her eyes
begin to burn slightly.  She rubbed them as she looked back at Watcher, still
asleep at her side. 
I've been going for a long time
, she thought, not
sleeping for over thirty hours.  Life as a member of a spaceship crew had
inured her to long hours of work, and she could keep herself going for days
without sleep if necessary.  But she had been running, fighting, learning.  No
wonder she felt so tired.

She got up from the
bed, making her way to the food-processing outlet. 
Coffee would be good
,
she thought.  Thick with heavy cream and sugar, expresso strong.  The room
began to darken as she walked.  She shook her head to clear it.  But it
wouldn’t clear, and the room got darker, beginning to spin around her.  Her
knees buckled as she fell heavily to the floor, her mind blanking out as the
darkness enclosed her.

*    *    *

Pandi struggled to pull
herself awake; sure that something important awaited her.  Something she had to
do.  Something she had promised someone she would do.  But she couldn’t
remember what.  Her eyes slowly opened, taking in the room which seemed
unfamiliar at first, and familiar as well, like something out of a dream.

She shook her head to
clear it as awareness returned.  And with it the thought of what she was
supposed to do.  She pushed herself up to her feet, turning slowly to bring the
bed into her view, knowing what she would find.  It was empty, the sheets
ruffled.  She looked around, scanning the room, catching no sign of Watcher. 
The robots were also gone.

What the hell had
happened?
 
Had he gotten up and left, without waking her, or even seeing why she might be
laying on the floor, unconscious. 
Not likely
, she thought, unless he
was not in his right mind.  Could he be a sleepwalker?  That was a
possibility.  Or could Vengeance have come for him, taking him from under the
nose of his protector?  That was the most unlikely of possibilities.  Why would
Vengeance take Watcher, and leave her lying on the floor.

"Computer.  Where
is Watcher?"

"The being known
as Watcher is not currently available at this time."

"I didn’t ask
about availability you idiot?" she screamed.  "I asked where he is,
at this moment."

"The being known
as Watcher is not currently available at this time."

Dammit.
  Why couldn’t the damn
thing give her a straight answer?

“Is the being known as
Vengeance currently available at this time?”

“Vengeance is on the
station,” answered the computer.

Pandi felt panic begin
to grab her as her hand tightened on the pistol grip of her rifle.  Vengeance
was on the station.

“Is Vengeance nearby?”

“The being known as
Vengeance is not in the vicinity,” answered the computer.

“Why did I pass out
like that?” she asked.  “What happened to me?  What happened to Watcher?”

“Your connections were
not complete,” said the computer, “and a period of imposed inactivity was
necessary for full integration.  The being known as Watcher is not available at
this time.”

“Dammit,” she swore. 
“I wish you would stop telling me he’s unavailable and tell me something useful
about his whereabouts.”

“Wait a second,” she
said as her hands went to her head, feeling her scalp.  “What do you mean my
connections were not complete?  What connections?”

“You were not yet
integrated into the system,” answered the machine.  “It is necessary for the
health of all involved that all sentient creatures be integrated into the
system.”