“You will know the success or failure of mymission in about two weeks. The captain has orders to destroy theplanet if I am not successful. If at any point he launches thisattack you will know that he has reason to believe I have failedand am probably dead.
“High Command believes that the Magi arepresently contained on this planet only, and if that is true thewar can be won there. If the captain’s attack fails, we can expecta full retaliation from the Magi, and we really do not know whatthat means yet. I would say we have good reason to think that wewould suffer many casualties.
“As you know I always look for a backup plan,and in this case you are it. Do you recall all the cycles ofdecryption challenges we did, especially the one I called the DuckCode?”
“Yes, sir. As I recall no one, not even thecentral computers, ever cracked it,” he responded.
“Also on that disk is a complete explanationof the Duck Code, including how to encrypt and decrypt it. It isactually a fairly simple code. But it is specifically designed totake advantage of a weakness I found in our decryption methods.Because of this, no computer in the Empire can decode it; it has tobe done by hand. I am giving you this code so that if I should needto contact you, you will know it is from me. Of course, there willalways remain the possibility that I have been captured and broken.You will just have to do your best to determine that for yourself.Do not share the Duck Code with anyone; do not even admit knowingof its existence, ever. After you have memorized it, destroy thatdisk completely.”
He took the disk and stared at it for a longwhile, then slipped it in his inner jacket pocket. After that Igave him some advice on how to run the department and how to choosea new red team leader, then sent him on his way. It was gettingnear the end of Dr. Rannor’s shift, and if I hoped to catch him Iwould have to move quickly.
Chapter Nine
I made my way quickly to Dr. Rannor’s officein the medical wing. I wondered why he wanted to see me. Larath’ssuggestion that he planned to offer me a way out did not seemlikely; he was not the type to get mixed up in games of deceptionand politics. Well, if nothing else it gave me a good excuse tomeet with him as the captain had requested.
As I entered his office, the ensign behindthe desk snapped to attention and stood there silently. “As youwere, Ensign. I am here to see Dr. Rannor,” I said, rememberingthat junior officers were not permitted to speak unless spoken to,a rule I had done away with in my department. All this formalityjust got in the way of getting anything done.
“Sir, he is with a patient,” was his concisereply.
“That is fine. I will wait here until he isfinished,” I said. I sat in one of the chairs provided for waitingpatients and began to think about the Magi again. This mystery keptgrowing more and more complex. I began to focus more and moredeeply on all the threads of information I had, slipping intopuzzle-solving mode. I continued by building a wall of thoughtaround my mind to block out distractions, and once that was set upI began to deeply focus both my subconscious and conscious mind onthe problem.
Once in this mode, I lose almost allconnection to the outside world and that nearly got me killed once.I was working on some puzzle as a small child when our home caughtfire. I never heard the alarms, or felt the heat. The only memory Ihave of it is my mom screaming as she ran out of the house with mein her arms. Because of that, I learned to save a bit of myattention to watch and listen for trouble around me.
I do not know how long I had been working onthe mystery of the Magi when I heard alarms sounding. I wasextremely deep into the puzzle but for the first time ever Isuccessfully managed to separate my awareness of my surroundingsfrom the puzzle solving. It was very odd. I could see everyonerunning, and hear commands being called out, but everything wasgoing very slowly. I knew it would take me at least thirty, if notforty-five seconds to fully come out of my deep focus, and I sawDr. Rannor coming towards me. As my brain became more aware I stoodand walked towards him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw all thecolor leave the ensign’s face as he attempted to stand up, withoutmuch success. Slowly the world started to come back up to normalspeed and I heard Dr. Rannor call out, “CANCEL ALERT! EVERYONESTAND DOWN!”
I realized the alarms had stopped ringing.Suddenly, without any warning, a feeling of deja vu hit me with theintensity of a tidal wave. Instinctively I grabbed a hold of thatmemory thread and started to follow it when I was struck by anagonising feeling, like liquid ice pouring through my veins. Theintense pain threatened to break my concentration on thatmemory.
“Pain is but an illusion, the mind is themaster of the body,” I chanted to myself over and over until I hadcontrol of the pain. I could not let go of the memory thread, and Ichased it to a locked door. “A door is merely a temporary obstacle;a lock is but a pattern begging for a solution,” was what I foundmyself chanting next. I had no idea where either chant came from,but that was the least of my worries. I needed to open the lock andsee where the thread led. The lock proved too simple to stand up tome. I opened it and suddenly I was transported back in time …
“Academy-Level Ensign Vydor reporting for myyearly physical, sir!” I stated as I stood at attention at thefront desk.
“Have a seat, Ensign. The doctor will see youwhen he can,” said the officer behind the desk.
This was likely to take a while; they did notattach much importance to ensigns’ physicals. It was probably doneon purpose to teach us humility or patience. This time I had comeprepared to occupy myself while I waited.
I had managed to find a contact that couldget me real encrypted messages from the communications systems ofthe Empire. I used them to keep my mind sharp, especially duringbreaks. So far most of them had been boring messages about fleetpositions and the like. This would be extremely useful if anyonewas trying to mount an attack on the Empire, but to me they weremuch more interesting as decryption problems. This latest code wasmuch more complex than the others. I had been working on it for afew days now without any real progress. As I began to focus on it,tiny pieces of it started to emerge, but nothing that made muchsense. Whatever it was, it was certain to be more interesting thanwhat I had intercepted so far.
Before I could get much further I heardalarms going off. I began to work my way back out of the puzzle. Itusually took me forty-five seconds to a minute to return to fullawareness. As I emerged from my deep focus, I realized I was on astretcher with crewmen barking orders all around me. I started tosit up. A mask was pushed on to my face …
The thread of memory ended there. I awoke inDr. Rannor’s office on his couch. He was sitting at his desk with asyringe ready to use, watching me with a look of concern on hisface.
“So you’ve finally decided to return to theland of the living,” he said.
“How long was I out?” I asked, still tryingto regain my senses.
“Which time? I guess in total around thirtyminutes,” he replied.
“Um, Doc, what do you mean ‘which time’?Perhaps it would be best if you told me what happened,” was myreply.
“Well, I am hoping you can answer that betterthan I can. Shortly after you arrived your med alert patchbroadcasted an emergency message. According to your vital signs,you were dead. No heart rate, no brainwaves, no sign of life atall. You had been dead for about eight seconds when I came out ofmy office and saw the resurrection team scrambling to get theirequipment and reach you. After you had been dead about ten secondsyou stood up and started to walk towards me. All your vitals werestill below detectable levels. Then at about fifteen seconds one byone your vitals came back slowly; by about thirty seconds yourpatch was reporting all was normal.” He paused here as if he didnot believe his own words. “After that your vitals spiked off thechart: heart rate, respiration, all at extreme levels. You startedto collapse in front of me, but I managed to catch you. I heard yousay something, but I couldn’t make it out. It sounded like a chant.Then according to your patch you died again. This time however, Iwas close enough to see you were not really dead. Your breathingand pulse were much weaker than normal, but functioning. I removedyour patch and laid you on the couch to recover. That was aboutthirty minutes ago.” A big, friendly grin broke out on his face ashe said, “Now, I think you have some explaining to do. The abilityto die and come back is something you really should let your doctorknow about.”