The Empty Warrior (33 page)

But the farther forward they walked, the fewer blemishes there were to be seen, until finally there were none at all. They walked onward for a bit longer before Pellotte stopped before a large hatch on the port side of the corridor, the side away from the ship’s outer skin. She pressed a control on the adjoining panel, and the door moved aside, revealing a sea of verdant green bathed in brilliant light from above. The sweet aroma of flowers in bloom wafted out into the corridor. O’Keefe breathed deeply of the fragrant, oxygenated air, savoring the sudden contrast it presented to the stale, recycled atmosphere that was pumped about the ship by
Vigilant’s
damaged reprocessors and that he had been breathing for weeks. He stepped gingerly through the opening and stopped just over the threshold, entranced by the beauty that was laid out before him. It hardly seemed possible that such a place could exist aboard a vessel. It was a perfect garden. Plants and shrubs of every description lined white pebbled pathways held in place by finely wrought, decorative stonework. Ornamental trees rose to almost touch the light emitting ceiling that hung some thirty feet from the floor. Brooks gurgled through the cavernous compartment, the pebbled pathways crossing them over arched wooden bridges of white. Near the center of the chamber, a fountain flung a myriad of tiny geysers into the air, their drifting spume refracting light prismatically as the tiny droplets floated downward toward the fountain’s base.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, still gazing about before turning to face Pellotte. “You must have a score of gardeners aboard.”

“Oh no,” she said, laughter sparkling in her eyes. “
Vigilant
takes care of this herself.” Almost as she spoke, O’Keefe sensed movement about his feet. He looked down to see a small, camouflaged vehicle with tiny metal arms grabbing up dead and fallen foliage and stuffing the debris into the covered trailer it pulled. It moved slowly away under the bushes, missing nothing as it rolled along. “Well, go on,” Pellotte said, pushing him playfully forward, “take a look around.”

He did so. He slowly wandered down the length of the path that led away from the entry, relishing his freedom not only from his rooms, but also from the chairs that had for years been both his prison and his conveyance. This was the first time since he had regained the use of his legs that he had been free to simply walk about on his own and explore. Every other step he had taken had either been in his quarters or while he was being led about in sick bay or down a corridor.

It occurred to him that this was something he had not done since his childhood on the farm. As an older teen he had been too preoccupied with sports and girls to enjoy a simple meander through the woods, while in Southeast Asia the plentiful flora had been a dangerous, fear-inspiring thing; he had thought of it only as a hiding place for the enemy. And later in life he had gone virtually nowhere that was neither paved nor floored.

He spent over an hour wending slowly and silently through every section of the arboretum, Pellotte and the guards following a respectful distance behind. At last he made his way toward the center of the compartment and took a seat on a bench facing the fountain, leaning back with his hands clasped behind his head and his legs extended luxuriously out across the pathway. He crossed them at the ankles and inhaled the scents of the garden deeply into his lungs while Pellotte took a seat next to him, her hip nearly touching his own. The guards positioned themselves on the opposite side of the fountain, far enough away so the cascading droplets produced enough small, splashing detonations to put them out of earshot.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” O’Keefe said. “It’s truly lovely, nearly as lovely as you.”

Pellotte fairly beamed at the compliment, turning slightly to more easily face him. “I thought you might like it. It is the favorite spot on the ship for many of the crew, myself included. But I particularly enjoyed this visit. Thanks to you, this is the first time that I have been here when there were so few people. Usually there is a crowd, and even more so as of late. The tropical arboretum was punctured by Vazilek weapons. The hole has been repaired, of course, but all that remains is an empty compartment, so at present this is the only large area of growing things aboard.”

O’Keefe grunted noncommittally, abruptly reminded of his quarantined status. The remembrance brought with it the nearly undeniable urge to make a satiric comment, which he somehow managed to stifle at the last moment. “So just how old are you, anyway?” he asked instead. “I know the question is probably in bad form, but I can’t help but wonder as no one here looks their age.”

“Oh, I’m young,” she said, looking at the ground. O’Keefe thought she might be attempting to hide a blush. “I turned a hundred and fortyseven three months ago.”

“A hundred and forty-seven!” O’Keefe exclaimed, loudly. Despite his intellectual acceptance of their longevity, he was still emotionally taken aback by the long life spans of which the Akadeans were capable. “You look twenty-five.”

“Well, this body is about twenty-seven if I remember correctly, so you are very close, in a way. It’s just that this is my third one. I start to get a little achy after about fifty years in an adult body, so I trade before a lot of other people would.” She acted as if she were talking about trading in an automobile, causing O’Keefe to shake his head slightly in disbelief.

“Did you keep the same one each time, or were you someone else before?”

“Oh, no,” she laughed, leaning forward and touching him lightly on the forearm. “New bodies are simply cloned shells of flesh and blood, just grown without a brain. I did have some enhancements done both times, but it’s still me. I would never move into a strange body, as it can be a little iffy, to say the least. There are always a few problems getting acclimated to a new one in any case, but those complications are greatly magnified if you trade for a body grown from someone else’s DNA. Brain damage has been known to occur. I don’t mean to say that it has never been done; there are numerous people who have over the years taken different bodies, but only those who were extremely unhappy in the one they were born with. The medical establishment, that’s me,” she said sprightly, “takes a very dim view of the practice.”

“How about implants, like this language chip you guys put in my head? Do you have the encyclopedia of medicine stashed away somewhere in your brain?”

“Oh no, I have no brain implants. We only do languages, except in very rare cases where we are attempting to rehabilitate a damaged mind. And I have never had the need for any language beyond Akadean.”

“Why do you only do language?” O’Keefe asked. After all, implants seemed like such an easy way to obtain the knowledge of the universe. “You could be an expert on any subject you chose.”

“Words don’t change,” she said simply.

“Sure they do,” he asserted forcefully, but was confused about exactly what she meant.

“Oh, they may attain different meanings over time, and new words will always come into existence, but the knowledge contained on a language chip will never be incorrect. Outdated maybe, but never incorrect. That is not true with other knowledge. Many other types of implants were tried long ago, but they never worked out very well in the long run.

“Most knowledge is always in a state of flux. What is true today may not be true tomorrow. History is my favorite example. It is the study of what has already transpired, and yet even it changes. As new evidence from the past is uncovered, people’s perceptions of the past change. But if you had an implant containing the historic record of humanity, as it was known at the time the implant was created, part of your perception would not change, it would be hard-wired so to speak, and there would be inherent contradictions that would form in your mind, thereby putting strains on your ability to reason. You would constantly be trying to discern which of your perceptions sprang from truth and which from an artificially created and now false impression. This does not happen with language. Words are expected to evolve, to have different meanings, and knowing the definition of archaic words that are no longer commonly in use or not knowing every new word that makes its way into the language hardly puts undue stress on a person’s psychological makeup.

“In the old days, they tried downloads to solve the problem of mental contradictions, but despite that effort, implants over time inevitably became obsolete and had to be replaced with newer models. Invasive replacement on a regular basis puts stress on the physical structure of the brain, risking damage. So a situation evolved where people with implanted knowledge became ever more susceptible to injury, both physical and psychological. And since the brain, or more precisely the memory and knowledge held by the brain, is the only part of us that is irreplaceable, general knowledge implants are now so regulated as to be very nearly forbidden. Not that it matters, as most people are aware of the dangers and would not accept an implant in any case.

“Oh, really,” said a sardonic O’Keefe. “How come nobody told me this before you guys stuck this thing in my head?”

“Don’t fret, my sweet patient,” Pellotte said softly. She leaned in close to him and placed a light but lingering kiss on his temple. “Your brain is in much better hands now than it was where you came from. Dr. Beccassit is an exceptionally gifted physician, almost certainly the finest ship’s doctor in the known universe. He is only aboard for this one cruise; otherwise, he spends his time as a researcher at one of our most prestigious universities. You will be just fine, trust me.”

She moved back away from him a tiny bit and then without warning gently slapped her thighs in a girlish gesture of excitement. “I almost forgot,” she said, suddenly gleefully animated. “I spoke to the captain just before I left to collect you, and you have been invited to a dinner tomorrow evening. Willet Lindy—you remember the pilot I have spoken to you about, the one who brought you back to the ship? Well, he has been agitating for some time for the chance to meet you. His wife’s family is very upper crust and politically powerful, thus she is very influential, and apparently the captain could no longer refuse the two of them. So Lindy and his wife have invited us, Dr. Beccassit, Mr. Busht, and the captain to dine in their quarters tomorrow evening. You simply must come. An invitation to dinner with Cyanne Lindy is not easily obtained and not lightly declined.” She gazed at him wide-eyed, nodding slightly as if willing him to accept.

O’Keefe just shrugged. “Sure, why not? It’s not like my social calendar is loaded up with engagements,” he said, adding “I just wish your captain wasn’t going to be there.”

“Why do you speak ill of her at every opportunity?” Pellotte demanded to know.

“Because she’s a mean little witch,” O’Keefe answered as if that fact should have been abundantly clear to anyone.

“Shush,” Pellotte scolded him, “she is not. She has suffered a great loss. Her husband was chief cartographer on the
Pathfinder
, a survey vessel that disappeared without a trace some years ago. She knows not if he is alive or dead. The wound in her heart causes her to come across as harsh sometimes, but she is in truth a warm and compassionate person.”

“How do you know all this?” O’Keefe asked suspiciously.

“My fiancé was a med tech aboard the
Restless,
a police frigate. It was the first police vessel lost to the Vazileks.” Her eyes became glassy, staring vacantly ahead at nothing. “I assume that Suven is dead, but I, like Valessanna, cannot say with certainty. In any case, the ship’s psychiatric doctor knew of our similar bereavements. She thought it would be beneficial for the two of us to confide in each other. She was correct.”

O’Keefe exhaled as his chest tightened in response to what his clumsy curiosity had elicited. He suddenly felt extraordinarily small. “I’m sorry,” was all he could say.

“Don’t be. You’re not responsible.” Her tone indicated that her answer was a rehearsed response, a falsehood she used to ease the remorse of thoughtless people like himself. It made O’Keefe feel even worse.

“Come,” she said. “We must go. We can’t keep the rest of the crew from the Arboretum all day.” She rose, and O’Keefe followed her back to his quarters, still feeling like a fool and afraid to pry for any more information lest he again get more than he had bargained for.

The next evening O’Keefe was in his bedroom when the door chimed, and he heard the soft susurration of the entry hatch sliding aside. Despite his best efforts to ignore it, he found the whole process terribly annoying. Why did the damn fools bother to ring the chime if they were only going to walk right in anyway? But he forced himself to ignore the indignity of it all. He was looking forward to getting out of solitary confinement for the evening and did not wish to do or say anything that might jeopardize the limited amount of freedom being offered him.