Chapter 9: Developments

That night, the boy Roy Masters retreated into the past forever and the golden morning light filtering through the tall windows of this luxury apartment found Roy Masters the man instead.

No other event, no other act was as decisive and profound as the one he had shared with the most incredible creature in the entire universe.

It began in the most innocent and playful way, simply wanting to know more of her, not her mind and nothing she was saying. His mind was detached from reason or conscious approach.

There on the floor right behind the entrance door, they had both kissed each other. She smelled and tasted like nothing else, a taste that did not find satisfaction but fanned a hunger to something more, something that could not be satisfied with food, or stilled with reason.

They both vowed to wait with what had now happened, both had dismissed their own promises. She was as eager to explore Roy and a fire that smoldered ever since she had seen him the first time, was fanned into white-hot flames. It started burning with an unquenchable intensity somewhere beneath her stomach. A burn that engulfed her very soul and reached deeper than any desire she had ever before.

He was raw and so masculine, it swept away every defense and caution. In his strong arms, she was just a helpless willing woman. A woman in all her glory and presence was only complete with the man of her desire. They never made it to the bedroom, a sudden strange weakness in his knees made him sink to the floor, where she willingly joined him. Their hands undoing fasteners and brushing fabrics aside to allow their senses to explore what was hidden beneath.

No one could tell the time or would have been able to say when it happened, but what started as something so pleasurable that neither really had words to describe found its climax in an explosion of sensation that reached every fiber of their bodies. For a moment that could have lasted seconds or an eternity they ceased to be individuals and had merged into something new; new to them yes, but a state as old as life itself. To be re-discovered and made their own by every couple ever since there were man and woman.

--””— Martha felt rotten to do this to Sam. He did not hesitate to leave his home and business behind to help her, but the more she was getting into all this the more she knew, her friends, and most certainly Sister had or were committing crimes, perhaps of the most severe kind. She simply could not have Sam getting involved. He would perhaps be torn between his friendship and his oath of duty. She did not want to have him make this choice.

She literally managed to leave the Silver Swan in the very last second and just as she reached the terminal building, she watched the elegant bird-shaped ship climb into the cloudless sky of Harper’s Junction. Sam however was not the only dilemma she had to face, there was her family. The old man back in her family’s villa on Phantas, who had an impeccable reputation as a scientist and indeed managed to be invited into the hallowed ranks of the Hive of Minds.

To be considered to be among the most brilliant minds in a society a huge as the Union was an honor like no other. And there was her son, Roy, at the very start of a long military career. If she followed through and heeded the call of help, she knew there was no return. She would jeopardize the good name of her family and her grandfather, perhaps hamper or even end Roy’s career and very likely end her son’s chance of a normal life with that blonde girl he clearly was in love with.

Not that she could really figure out how Sister managed to survive and call her for help in the first place. The last time she saw Sister alive was in the Forbidden Forests of Phantas, only to be shot by Roy her son. She could not really blame Roy, no one seeing Sister could see anything else but a fright inducing monster.

But as much as she knew she made a terrible choice, she also simply knew she could not ignore her friend’s plea for help. Out there beyond Union Space, as harsh and terrible life was, the sites were clear and simple and in their shared ordeal forged a kinship that really did make the other two females, true sisters of hers.

She decided to cross that bridge when it was time to cross it, and concentrate on the situation at hand.

She had to leave Harper’s and reach the Sol System as fast as possible. Now the most convenient way to get to Sol via the Spindlar Hub had just left Harper’s orbit behind and the next space-bus was not due till tomorrow. Not that this would have been a particularly fast way. Using the bus she would eventually reach Sol Hub and very cheap, but Sister would have been captured and perhaps even executed by then.

Just as she was standing there thinking about her next steps, she heard her name. Of all people, she recognized Dr. Mortimer Evans coming towards her.

The last time she remembered seeing the small man was right after the crash landing following the eventful and sudden attack of an agitated Lighting Bolter.

She remembered there was an investigation and a subsequent hearing, but with all the things that happened back then and ever since, she could not really recall what happened to Evans they had been rescued, by Sam and Charles no less.

The small man, wearing a modern sailor cut business suit. The suit was bright blue and featured shorts exposing much of Evan’s legs. Martha had seen these suits of course, but never on Green Hell, where everyone wearing full cover Bio-seals.

She was also not sure why the square v-shaped collar and the other distinctive design features were called sailor cut, she had never paid much attention to Union military uniforms, but whatever inspired that fashion was not a military uniform she recognized.

Mortimer Evans, so it became apparent had not changed much in the last two years.

He had now reached Martha and gave her a toothy grin. “Dr. Master’s what a surprise. Who would have thought I would ever see you alive again and right here on Harper’s of all places.”

“I am delighted to see you again as well, Dr. Evans. However, I am in a hurry trying to find passage.”

“You are our of luck if you tried to catch the Silver Swan. That ship lifted off, ten minutes ago and who would possibly consider a cramped and slow Space-Bus?”

“I think that is what I have to do however, at least to the next port with a space train connection.”

“Why don’t you travel with us? We are about to travel to Earth aboard a Fast Clipper. With the transfer times and all that maybe only two or three days slower than a Space Train, and we don’t stop at Sol Hub, but Earth Torus.”

“The Institute has a charter?”

He waved. “I would not know about that, don’t you know I am no longer with the Institute, but with Bio-Acids Inc. right here on Harper’s. Getting into the private sector was the best thing ever happening to me.”

She now paid attention. “You’re going all the way to Earth?”

“Yes, well I am and sixty-two other businessmen and corporate employees. The clipper much smaller than the Swan of course but, but still features many creature comforts.”

“There is room?”

“Of course and I am sure any of the corporations gladly accommodate a bio researcher of your renown.”

--””— Only two hours after the Silver Swan reached Quasi, the ENR- Tahoe slipped past the FTL threshold. Martha indeed had no problem to be accommodated, a lead executive of Enroe Bio-Tech insisted on having her travel under the most favorable conditions and all she wanted in return was the consideration of a career at Enroe Bio-Tech and visiting the Bioneering symposium that was the destination of the group in the first place.

For the second time in a short period, she excused herself and to find some rest in her cabin, this time she did plan to rest a little for real.

Yet just as she left the hygiene unit, her Com Unit signaled an incoming call. She half expected it to be Sam or perhaps Sister, but to her surprise it was Geha.

--””—

Sam did consider calling Martha of course, but he was quite sure she didn’t leave him behind like that, just to be reachable on the Com. Sam suspected to know her motivations. He chased behind Martha halfway through Freespace and while he was doing so learned a little about Martha’s companions. The one calling herself Geha was an enigma alright, a genuine Privileged, perhaps a real Novaj Djoi. Sam was long enough in the special force’s business to know a little more about intelligence gathering, covered operations, and the clandestine world. The general public hardly knew the Novaj existed, it was just another single planet community one of the countless others. Yet there very a handful who knew about the NAVINT ties of that society.

Then there was her Dai Than connection. How did she manage to become Than as a female in the first place? The son of a Tar could have hundreds of the finest women of his own kind, why would he risk war over a Daiyee and make her something akin to a princess. Something that, as far as he knew did not really exist in the Dai society.

Sam had nor forgotten the Half Dai that suddenly disappeared from Brhama Port. Dimon Honshu, he did pick Geha, Sister, and perhaps even Martha on purpose out of the slave dens of Alvor’s Cove.

And if Geha was an enigma, then the other one took the case. Martha called her Sister, but thank’s to Sam’s Norkana friend and a few other sources he knew Sister was also Experiment Vengeance Red.

All societies and civilizations known, regardless of how advanced they had become stopped shy of resurrecting the dead. Even though bioscience, bioengineering, and medicine had advanced to a point where re-animation even past the so-called Final Wall. To proceed and attempt to recreate life and overcome death was considered forbidden. Perhaps the one truly universal law, repeated in a million languages and a million warnings. It did not matter if it was the myth and lore of civilizations long gone or the stern warnings of the most advanced.

Yet as much as there had been warning and draconian punishment to those who attempted anyway, there were always those who dreamt of overcoming death and thus foray into the last bastion of what was deemed the realm of the gods and creation itself.

If Sam paid any credence to the stories and rumors, then Vengeance Red was the first and perhaps only successful attempt to do just that, revive something that was truly dead.

To achieve this feat, a triumph of science that even eluded the Narth if the legends were true, a device a machine was utilized.

The old pre-Union Sarans believed it to be of Saresii origin, something from the fabled time of the First Age of Knowledge. Discovered by the House of Mukummh and used to revitalize a Battle Telepath. A Kermac agent attempted to steal the system and failed at first.

What neither the Kermac nor the Sarans back then knew, the device was not Saresii, nor was it Celtest. It was much older and some believe it was created by the last of the Cripple Techs, talented techno mages.

Sam leaned back in the darkness of his cabin and stared into deep space unfolding beyond the transparent material of the small viewport. He did not know what to make of this, but he had spent too long beyond Union borders to simply dismiss such things.

If such a device existed, if there was a way to resurrect the dead, it would change everything, change war, crime, religion, and the very fabric of the universe. Without the pain and sacrifice death presented to the living, good and evil lost its meaning. There was a reason far beyond technical capabilities that made this final step a forbidden one.

Did Martha and her friends stumble upon the answer to all that?”

Or was the one called Sister an abomination? Something flawed and perhaps a creation that escaped or outgrew its creators?

The man in him wanted to run after Martha. He was one of the best trackers and he was certain he could find her again and with her, he would find Geha and Sister, but he was not just a man. He was a Marine and he believed in the Union, in the fundamental truth of law and order. Geha was a Dai and if nothing else, she was a pirate, and for that alone she had to be captured, sent before a Union Judge and Jury. Sister was if she existed a Kermac tool and loose within Union Space.

He clenched his tremendous fists. This was a dilemma and he wished he could simply go back to his Farm and let others worry. Yet this was not him, like his idol if in doubt go by the book and do what is right.

Sam sighed deeply, he knew he could never act or be any other way. He then tapped his Com Unit. “System connect me to Charles.”

Moments later he stared into the smooth robotic features of a Cerberus robot. “Charles shut down the farm and meet me at Sol Hub, as soon as you can.”

--””—

General Warwick truly believed in his cause. If he could prove to the decision-makers, military planners, and of course eventually the public that thinking beings, humans mostly, of course, no longer needed to fight wars, crew ships, jump onto planet surfaces to do battle they would erect statues in his name and rename planets. No not stupid robots, to make robots truly equal to man they would not only need strength and intellect but emotions and the ability to react to new situations like only a truly organic mind could. Yes, of course, there were Sentmacs and the famous androids of Mothermachine, but Mothermachine already declined any such suggestions, besides that infuriating AI of planet Factory insisted on regular academies and give her Sentmacs the free choice to chose whatever career they wanted.