The Ascension Factor

"...s you well know, it was because of a failure in the OMCs that we wound up on Pandora."

"I understand that the OMCs were traditionally taken from infants with fatal birth defects. This OMC is from an adult human. How will the performance differ?"

"Twofold," the tech replied. "First, this person was dying at the time of conversion, therefore it - she - should be thankful for an extension of her life in a useful, indeed noble, role. Second, this person survived the longest hybernation known to humankind and woke to life on Pandora. She knows that if humans are to survive, it must be elsewhere. She can take comfort in being the instrument of that survival."

"Does she know any of this?"

The tech looked perplexed.

"Much of this was included in her early training. The rest we extrapolate from the evidence."

"What was she like as a person?"

"What do you mean?"

The tech's tics accelerated rapidly to a very distracting crescendo.

"You're saying, essentially, that she will accept this duty because of love for humanity. Did she have love in her life? A man? Children?"

Her camera crew was warming to the task. They had not brought a monitor into the tiny space, and now she wished they had. It might be an OK piece, after all.

While staring at this brain behind glass, Beatriz knew that it was alive, a person. She also realized that the tech was surrounded by the squad that had murdered her crew and he probably hadn't the slightest inkling of what had happened.

No one will know if I don't tell them, Beatriz thought. I'm like this brain, cut off but alive inside. I wonder what she dreams?

"I know very little about the person," he said. "It's in the record. I do know that she had a child that was given up for adoption so that she could continue her studies in the kelp outposts."

"Dr. MacIntosh stated two years ago that Organic Mental Cores were crude, cruel, inefficient and u

The tech cleared his throat.

"I respect Dr. MacIntosh. He, along with the Director and this OMC, is one of the last survivors of the original flight of the old Earthling - 'Ship,' if you prefer. Yes, it's true that there were failures, and this required some compensation, but those bugs have been worked out."

"For some of our viewers, your term 'compensation' might seem a little cold. The 'compensation' you refer to was the first known creation of an artificial intelligence - one that turned out to be smarter than its creators, one that many believe is the personality 'Ship,' one that most Pandorans still revere as a god. Why did your department pursue the failed course of OMCs, severed living brains, rather than pick up on the artificial intelligence?"

"We were instructed to take this course."

"You were ordered to take this course," she corrected. "Why? Why is the Director more comfortable with failure than with the success that saved his lif... and hers?"

Beatriz pointed to the OMC, wired into her box, deaf, blind and dumb beside her warm, dead host.

"That's enough!"

The captain's voice behind her froze her spine and started her hands trembling. She was stu

"I'll speak with you in the cabin."

She followed him out of the shuttle storage lockers and into the dimly lit passenger cabin.

"I had to stop you," he said. "It is expected of me, no matter what my opinion. Soon there will be no need for deception. Prepare for docking. There will be briefing materials for the next Newsbreak when we get aboard."

Three Orbiter security lounged at the docking bay as the hatch opened from the shuttle. They were ready for the press, for the Holovision cameras, but they weren't ready for Captain Brood. The captain remained inside the hatchway, with Beatriz beside him.

"Three men out there," he said to her in a gentle voice. His eyes held her with that same wild glitter. She tried not to look at his face. "Choose one for yourself. One t... entertain yourself."

She was stu

"You want none of them?" he answered for her. "How fickle."

He pulled her aside and signaled the men behind them to fire. In seconds nearly a quarter of the Orbiter's token security force lay dead on the deck.

"Dispose of them through the shuttle airlock," he told his men. "If you kill one in a room, kill all in the room. I don't want to see any bodies. Beatriz will a

"Why do you do this to me?" Beatriz hissed. "Why do you tell me I have a choice when I don't? You were going to kill them anyway, but you have to include m..."

He waved his hand, a dismissal gesture that she'd long associated with Flattery.

"A diversion," he said. "Part of a gam... but see, you are stronger for it already. It amuses me, and it strengthens you."

"It's torture to me," she said. "I don't want to get stronger. I don't want people to die."

"Everybody dies," he said, motioning his men aboard. "What a waste when they don't die for someone's convenience."

***

Anyone who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it may expect to be destroyed by it.

Spider Nevi's favorite color was green, he found it peaceful. He jockeyed Flattery's private foil across the green-tinged seas and allowed the plush command couch to soothe the tension out of his back and shoulders. Green was the color of new-growth kelp, and tens of thousands of square kilometers of it stretched out around them as far as the eye could see.

Some su

"What's so special about this Tatoosh woman," Zentz gurgled, "the Director got the hots for her?"

Nevi ignored the question, partly because he wasn't listening, partly because he didn't care. He was about to have his first sip of coffee for the day when the Navcom warning light flicked on. He almost didn't notice it because the light, like everything else, was red. An abrasive warning tone blatted from the console and he started, spilling hot coffee into the lap of his jumpsuit. He doubted that he would have missed that tone if he were comatose. Their foil slowed automatically with the warning.

"Go ahead," he told Zentz, "let's hear it."

Zentz turned up the volume on the Navcom system. Nevi couldn't stand the radio chatter while he was trying to relax, so he'd had Zentz shut it down when they hit open water.

"...ou are approaching a 'no entry' area. Sector eight is disrupted, kelpways not secure. Code your destination and alternate routes will appear on your screen. Be prepared to take on survivors. Repeat - warning, 'code red,' you ar..."

Nevi took the foil down off its step and kept the engines idling.

"Fools!" Nevi muttered. "They were warned to keep her away from the kelp."

"Do you think they're in there? Maybe they made it through befor..." Zentz cut himself off when he saw the anger in Nevi's eyes.

"Get a display up," Nevi ordered, "I want to get a look at this 'disruption.'"

He coded in the private carrier code for Flattery's quarters. The waters around the foil had already gone from choppy to rough, and in the offshore distance Nevi could make out portions of a large sub train bobbing the surface.