The Night's Dawn Trilogy (382 page)

Yeah, he was a nurse. Couldn’t read the label on the medicine bottle.

Careful, shit-for-brains.

Or what?

I’m sure Kiera would be interested to know about this sedition you’re spreading. See what a little fasting does to your attitude.

SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU BOLLOCKBRAINED NAZI REDNECK MORON.

The general affinity band fell silent for quite some time.

Were you listening to all that?
Pran Soo asked Rocio on singular engagement.

I heard,
the
Mindori
’s possessor replied.
I think things might be starting to slide our way.

Could be. I’m sure each of us can do simple maths. Two of us per soft-target planet. When we start hitting hard targets, Kiera’s
going to have a full scale strike on her hands.

Which she’ll win unless we can provide everyone with an alternative food source.

Yeah. How’s it going?

I have been tracking the
Lucky Logorn
, they’re almost back at Almaden.

You think this Deebank guy will go for our pitch?

He was the first to offer us a deal. At least he’ll listen to what I suggest.

______

The First Admiral had stayed away from the CNIS secure laboratory ever since the incident in court three. Maynard Khanna had
been a damn fine officer, not to mention young and personable. The boy would have gone a long way in the Confederation Navy,
so Samual Aleksandrovich had always told himself. With or without my patronage. Now he was dead.

The funeral ceremony in Trafalgar’s multi-denominational church had been short and simple. Dignified, as was fitting. A flag
draped coffin, the enduring image of military service for centuries, placed reverently on a pedestal before the altar by the
Marine dress guard. It was intended as a focus for their honour. But Samual had thought it looked more like a sacrificial
offering.

Standing in the front pew, mouthing the words of a hymn, he suddenly wondered if Khanna was actually watching them. Information
gleaned from captured possessed indicated those ensnared in the beyond were aware of events inside the real universe. It was
a moment of profound spookiness; he even lowered his hymn book to stare at the coffin in suspicion. Was this why the whole
funeral ritual had started back in pre-history times? It was one of the most common cross-cultural events, a ceremony to mark
the passing of life. The deceased’s friends and relatives coming to pay homage, to wish them well on their way. It would be
reassuring for a soul, otherwise so naked and alone, to gain the knowledge that so many considered their life to be worthwhile.

The remnants of Maynard Khanna’s body mocked the notion of a fulfilled existence. Young, tortured to death, his ending had
been neither swift nor noble.

Samual Aleksandrovich had raised his hymn book again and sung with a vigour which surprised the other officers. Perhaps Khanna
would witness the mark of devotion from his superior officer, and draw some comfort from the fact. If it made a difference,
the effort should be made. Now Samual Aleksandrovich was having to confront the cause of his regret. Jacqueline Couteur was
still possessing her stolen body, immune from the usual laws that would deliver justice upon such a treacherous multiple murderess.

He was accompanied by Mae Ortlieb and Jeeta Anwar from the Assembly President’s staff, as well as admiral Lal-wani and Maynard
Khanna’s replacement, Captain Amr al-Sahhaf. The presence of the two presidential aides he found mildly annoying; an indication
of how his decisions and prerogatives were increasingly coming under political scrutiny. Olton Haaker had that right, Samual
acknowledged, but it was being wielded with less subtlety as the crisis drew out.

For the first time he was actually thankful for the Mortonridge Liberation. Positive physical action on such a massive scale
had diverted the attention of both the Assembly and the media companies from Navy activities. The politicians, he conceded
grimly, might have been right about the psychological impact such a campaign would create. He’d even accessed a few rover
reporter sensevises himself to see how the serjeants were doing. My God, the mud!

Dr Gilmore and Euru greeted the small elite delegation with little sign of nerves. A good omen, Samual thought. His spirits
lifted further when Gilmore started to lead them along to the physics and electronics laboratory section, away from the demon
trap.

Bitek Laboratory Thirteen was almost the same as any standard electronic research facility. A long room lined with benches,
several morgue-like slabs arranged up down the centre, and glass-walled clean rooms at one end. Tall stacks of experimental
equipment were standing like modern megaliths on every surface, alongside ultra-high-resolution scanners and powerful desktop
blocks. The only distinguishing items the First Admiral could see were the clone vats. Those you normally wouldn’t find outside
an Edenist establishment.

“Exactly what are you demonstrating for us?” Jeeta Anwar asked.

“The prototype anti-memory,” Euru said. “It was surprisingly easy to assemble. Of course, we do have a great many thoughtware
weapons on file, which we’ve studied. And the neural mechanisms behind memory retention are well understood.”

“If that’s the case, I’m surprised no one has ever designed one before.”

“It’s a question of application,” Gilmore said. “As the First Admiral pointed out once, the more complex a weapon is, the
more impractical it becomes, especially in the field. In order for the anti-memory to work, the brain must be subjected to
quite a long sequence of imprint pulses. You couldn’t just fire it at your opponent the same way you do a bullet. They have
to be looking straight into the beam, and a sharp movement, or even an inappropriately timed blink will nullify the whole
process. And if it was known to be in use, retinal implants could be programmed to recognize it, and block it out. However,
once you hold a captive, application becomes extremely simple.”

Mattox was waiting for them by the last clean room, looking through the glass with the air of a proud parent. “Testing has
been our greatest stalling point,” he explained. “Ordinary bitek processors are completely useless in this respect. We had
to design a system which duplicates a typical human neurone structure in its entirety.”

“You mean you cloned a brain?” Mae Ortlieb asked, a blatant note of disapproval in her voice.

“The structural array is copied from a brain,” Mattox said defensively. “But the construct itself is made purely from bitek.
There was no cloning involved.” He indicated the clean room.

The delegation moved closer. The room was almost empty, containing a single table which held a burnished metal cylinder. Slim
tubes of nutrient fluid snaked out of the base to link it with a squat protein cycler mechanism. A small box protruded from
the side of the cylinder, half-way up. Made of translucent amber plastic, it contained a solitary dark sphere of some denser
material, set near the surface. The First Admiral upped the magnification on his enhanced retinas. “That’s an eye,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Mattox said. “We’re trying to make this as realistic as possible. Genuine application will require the anti-memory
to be conducted down an optic nerve.”

A black electronic module was suspended centimetres from the bitek eye, held in place by a crude metal clamp. Fibre optic
cables trailed away from it, to plug into the clean room’s utility data sockets.

“What sort of routines are you running inside the construct?” Mae Ortlieb asked.

“Mine,” Euru said. “We connected the cortex to an affinity capable processor, and I transferred a copy of my personality and
memories into it.”

She flinched, looking from the Edenist to the metal cylinder. “Isn’t that somewhat unusual?”

“Not relative to this situation,” he replied with a smile. “We are attempting to create the most realistic environment we
can. For that we need a human mind. If you would care to give it a simple Turing test.” He touched a processor block on the
wall beside the clean room. Its AV lens sparkled.

“Who are you?” Mae Ortlieb asked, with some self-consciousness.

“I suppose I ought to call myself Euru-two,” the AV lens replied. “But then Euru has transferred his personality into a neural
simulacrum twelve times already to assist with the anti-memory evaluation.”

“Then you should be Euru-thirteen.”

“Just call me junior, it’s simpler.”

“And do you believe you’ve retained your human faculties?”

“I don’t have affinity, of course, which I regard as distressing. However, as I won’t be in existence for very long, it’s
absence is tolerable. Apart from that, I am fully human.”

“Volunteering for a suicide isn’t a very healthy human trait, and certainly not for an Edenist.”

“None the less, it’s what I committed myself to.”

“Your original self did. What about you, have you no independence?”

“Possibly if you left me to develop by myself for several months, I would become reluctant. At the moment, I am Euru senior’s
mind twin, and as such this experiment is quite acceptable to me.”

The First Admiral frowned, troubled by what he was witnessing. He hadn’t known Gilmore’s team had reached quite this level.
He gave Euru a sidelong glance. “I’m given to understand that a soul is formed by impressing coherent sentient thought on
the beyond-type energy which is present in this universe. Therefore, as you are a sentient entity, you will now have your
own soul.”

“I would assume so, admiral,” Euru junior replied. “It is logical.”

“Which means you have the potential to become an immortal entity in your own right. Yet this trial will eliminate you forever.
This is an alarming prospect, for me if not for you. I’m not sure we have the moral right to continue.”

“I understand what you’re saying, Admiral. However, my identity is more important to me than my soul, or souls. I know that
when I am erased from this construct, I, Euru, will continue to exist. The sum of whatever I am goes on. This is the knowledge
which rewards all Edenists throughout their lives. Whereas I now exist for one reason, to protect that continuity for my culture.
Human beings have died to protect their homes and ideals for all of history, even though they never knew for certain they
had souls. I am no different to any of them. I quite plainly choose to undergo the anti-memory so that our race can overcome
this crisis.”

“Quite a Turing test,” Mae Ortlieb said sardonically. “I bet the old man never envisaged this kind of conversation with a
machine trying to prove its own intelligence.”

“If there’s nothing else,” Gilmore said quickly.

The First Admiral looked in at the cylinder again, contemplating a refusal. He knew such an instruction would never be allowed
to stand by the President. And I don’t need that kind of interventionism in Navy affairs right now. “Very well,” he said reluctantly.

Gilmore and Mattox exchanged a mildly guilty look. Mattox datavised an instruction to the clean room’s control processor,
and the glass turned opaque. “Just to protect you from any possible spillback,” he said. “If you’d like to access the internal
camera you can observe the process in full. Not that there will be anything much to see. I assure you the spectrum we’re using
to transmit the anti-memory has been blocked from the sensor.”

True to his word, the image the delegation received when they accessed the sensor was pallid, the colour almost nonexistent.
All they saw was a small blank disc slide out of the electronic module, positioning itself over the encapsulated eye. Some
iconic overlay digits twisted past, meaningless.

“That’s it,” Mattox announced.

The First Admiral cancelled his channel with the processor. The clean room’s window turned transparent again, in time to catch
the disc retract back into the electronic module.

Gilmore faced the AV lens. “Junior, can you hear me?” The lens’s diminutive sparkle remained constant.

Mattox received a datavise from the construct’s monitoring probes. “Brainwave functions have collapsed,” he said. “And the
synaptic discharges are completely randomized.”

“What about memory retention?” Gilmore queried.

“Probably around thirty to thirty-five per cent. I’ll run a complete neurological capacity scan once it’s stabilized.” The
CNIS science team members smiled round at each other.

“That’s good,” Gilmore said. “That’s damn good. Best percentage yet.”

“Meaning?” the First Admiral asked.

“There are no operative thought patterns left in there. Junior has stopped thinking. The bitek is just a store for memory
fragments.”

“Impressive,” Mae Ortlieb said reflectively. “So what’s your next stage?”

“We’re not sure,” Gilmore said. “I have to admit, the potential for this thing is frightening. Our idea is to use it as a
threat to force the souls away from their interface with this universe.”

“If it works on souls themselves,” Jeeta Anwar pointed out.

“That prospect is bringing about a whole range of new problems,” Gilmore conceded cheerlessly.

“Let me guess,” Samual said. “If anti-memory is used on a possessed, you will also erase the host’s memories, and destroy
their soul.”

“It seems likely,” Euru said. “We know a host’s mind is still contained within their brain while the possessing soul retains
control of the body. The host’s reappearance after zero-tau immersion forces the possessor out proves that.”

“So, anti-memory cannot be used on an individual basis?”

“Not without killing the host’s soul as well, no sir.”

“Will this version work in the beyond?” Samual asked sharply.

“I doubt it would ever get through to the beyond,” Mattox said. “At present, it’s too slow and inefficient. It managed to
dissipate Junior’s thought processes; but as you saw, it didn’t get all the memories. The areas of the mind which are not
employed when the anti-memory strikes are likely to be insulated from it as the thought channels which would ordinarily connect
them are nullified. If you analo-gise the mind with a city, you’re destroying the roads and leaving the buildings intact.
Given that the connection a possessing soul has with the beyond is tenuous at best, there is no guarantee the anti-memory
would manage to pass through in its current form. We must develop a much faster version.”