Such treatment prevented memory retrieval during conjunction trance, effectively repressing the ship’s memory also . . . unless that ship gave parthenogenetic birth to a daughter, in which case the daughter’s Pilot might uncover those buried memories, as Roger and his ship had done.
In the final comments, he added his own analysis of the reported memory, highlighting its importance as he saw it: ‘Since my father underwent amnesia induction, and since his original report remains archived beyond my clearance level, I cannot tell which details are on record and which were lost. It might be that certain facts which are obviously relevant today, in the light of actions taken by former Admiral Schenck and the other renegade Pilots, would not have seemed significant at the time.
‘I note that the human criminals coerced Zajinets into taking them to the galactic core, probably in order to deliver the device to fellow humans living there. That seems to have been their main objective. However, it is the device itself, although I have no insight into its purpose, that I would urge our analysts to consider.
‘In particular, I would note that the device appeared alternately massive and light, depending on who touched it. The device was clearly constructed of ordinary baryonic matter. My conjecture is that it was able to interact with non-baryonic matter or non-gauge forces under controlled circumstances, a scientific achievement normally considered impossible.
‘Could the renegades be using this technology to affect the galactic jet emanating from the core? Or could they be preparing the locale in some other way – perhaps the jet is a side effect – in either case to construct a bridgehead for the enemy we know is coming eventually?
‘My recommendation is covert research into the device’s origins. However, Greybeard indicated he had covered his traces by murder, so there may be no trail to follow.
‘Infiltrating the renegades’ base would be highly dangerous, and in any case the base should be considered a primary target for overt, massive assault, with an objective of obliteration rather than capture.
‘End of report. Captain Blackstone out.’
The report was professional and he was proud of it; but he had just suggested the violent extinction of probably two thousand people – one in four being Pilots, renegades like Schenck – which under other circumstances would be termed an atrocity. When exactly had he become capable of thinking this way?
It bothered him, too, that his fellow Pilots thought so highly of him, because his ultra-hellflight had been hard but not heroic, more like desperate; and again it was all about ideas more than reality, because it seemed to him that what he had broken was a psychological barrier.
Perhaps it had been physically possible for the last few generations of ships to survive a flight through the mu-space turbulence that matched to the realspace galactic core. Perhaps the real barrier had been sociolinguistic hypnosis, due either to the real limitations of earlier ships or deliberate thought-sabotage by some previous member of the Aeternum language institute.
If this were true, Roger’s example would have broken the inhibition, and other Pilots would match the feat soon. Except that there was a war to concentrate upon, fought on two fronts or three, depending on whether you separated the Anomaly from the darkness. While Roger and the rest of his SRS squadron obsessed on the renegade base they had seen, the Admiralty planners had a different view of things, since the Zajinet numbers were far greater than that of the renegades, and their attacks were growing in frequency and ferocity.
Or so Roger deduced after attending the highest-powered meeting of his career so far.
Admiral Whitwell said: ‘Thank you for coming, Captain. I wanted you to see the battle plans, so that you understand why we’re asking you to take such a risk.’
A vast array of holos filled the war chamber. Some thirty people, most outranking Roger by far, stood among them.
‘Understood, sir,’ said Roger.
Commodore Max Gould highlighted a holovolume. What it showed was a simulation, not a recorded image, of something like the renegades’ realspace base, but nowhere near the galactic core: it was floating in a region where stars were sparse and space appeared black.
‘The segments are under separate construction,’ he said. ‘In mu-space. Transfer and assembly will be fast, and the location will be here.’
Another holo gleamed. The dummy base would lie on a familiar line, heading outwards from the galactic centre to a distant void: a line on which Earth also lay, at least on a map of this scale.
‘Why would Admiral Schenck . . .’ Roger’s voice trailed off. ‘Zajinets?’
‘Exactly, Captain. They’re the enemy we plan to break first.’
Roger examined the dummy base.
‘It’s convincing,’ he said. ‘Provided they know what the real Target Shadow looks like, but why should they?’
Whitwell’s voice fell flat.
‘Certain recordings from your squadron’s mission have fallen into the hands of Zajinet agents. The data makes it hard to determine the exact location, but obvious what kind of installation it is. Therefore a new, similar base with known co ordinates should form a tempting target.’
‘But how could—?’
Max Gould shook his head, as a comment on Roger’s naivety. Roger nodded.
So how many poor bastards died this time?
Or ended up in torture chambers, like the one that Clara and Clayton rescued Max Gould from four years ago. Because the best way to leak information to an enemy was to allow it to be captured, in the hands of sacrificial goats who had no idea their own masters had betrayed them.
A senior officer unknown to Roger said: ‘Petra Helsen was killed by your friend Jed Goran, or rather by Goran’s ship.’
Roger blinked. ‘When did this happen?’
The officer frowned while a few other mouths twitched: special forces had a different view of discipline, and lacked subservience when addressing their seniors. Plus Roger had entered SRS from the intelligence service, not the regular fleet, and so had never picked up the protocols of command. Roger had already said sir to Whitwell, which as far as he was concerned was more than enough for the sake of politeness.
‘During a recent mission’ – the officer had clearly decided to ignore Roger’s attitude – ‘to backtrack shipping route data being passed on to Zajinet agents, or so everyone thought, on the basis of earlier attacks on our Pilots.’
‘So either the attacks were faked to look like Zajinet weapons-fire,’ said Roger, ‘or Helsen really was helping Zajinets to attack our people, stirring things up. In either case, a known agent of the darkness’ – the bitch is dead – ‘actively wants us to engage with the Zajinets. My question is, given it’s what Helsen wanted’ – dead at last – ‘why would we even consider it?’
And it was Jed who had taken out Helsen! That was excellent news . . . although a younger Roger might not have celebrated a friend killing for the second time.
‘The easiest way to physically unbalance an untrained person,’ said Whitwell, ‘is to shove their chest—’
‘—and then catch their reaction and whip them forwards. Or pull them and throw them backwards when they jerk back.’ Roger smiled at the analogy. ‘That’s a neat idea.’
‘I’m glad we meet with your approval, Captain,’ said Max Gould.
It would suit the darkness – assuming the phenomenon could be anthropomorphised that way – to disperse Labyrinth’s forces against the widespread Zajinet attacks. But to draw out the Zajinets en masse, apparently going along with the intention of the darkness, was like taking an enemy’s momentum and subverting it to cause their downfall. If they could cripple the Zajinet fleets in one massive action, there would be less distraction from pursuing Schenck and his renegade force.
‘It’s a large target that we hope they can’t resist,’ said the unnamed officer, ‘and which they can’t attack in the piece meal way they’ve been operating in so far. Our xenopsych specialists believe that Zajinets will attempt to operate collectively, possibly to the extent of committing every ship to one massive fleet in order to attack.’