Chapter Six
22 December 2075
Vicinity of 82 Eridani
A.S.C. Powers of Heaven
Transel had found the Poet. Here, on this vessel. His vessel. The craft beta conditioner was on the other side of the vessel from the direction DDCM Receptor Lirish Transel was currently headed, but Transel had deduced long before that the Poet would never be found near the conditioner. No, he must have something like a virtual conditioner that fed off the main transmitter’s Q uncertainties.
Such a clever trick. A novelty as an end in itself.
Transel felt the acidic bile of contempt rise in his nostrils, as he did whenever he considered the nonsense the Poet was spewing. The waste of effort required to bring him to justice.
The repugnance of having to listen to the spew in order to do his job.
The knowledge that this subversive garbage was being secretly recorded, bounced to beta relay points, messengered in drones, passed hand-to-hand among officers, re-broadcast through the armada.
Disseminated.
Those traitorous officers—the ones who had been caught—claimed to think the Poet funny, amusing. A way to pass a mind-numbing voyage. Some thought him profound.
Worst of all, the Poet was beginning to spawn imitators. Other “Poets” were cropping up in the Armada, even in the Shiro.
This must be stopped. Everyone from the top-level down agreed, and the directive had gone out.
And now Transel had isolated the Poet to this vessel. The original broadcasts of the Poet were originating with the Powers of Heaven!
It was an amazing stroke of luck. Transel suspected he, Transel, was about to become a hero. Granted, only within the clandestine coterie of the DDCM. But still. Not a bad reward for a bit of detective work.
More importantly, Transel felt he was serving the cause of justice in a pure way, a way he’d not been able to in the messy world of Sporata deployment. He felt good. He felt virtuous.
He was going to see the Poet ripped to pieces by the dismemberment knives!
Transel had fixed Gitaclaber’s actual location: a little used janitorial storage area near the Q drives. He’d brought a gun—it had an official designation but was nicknamed a “painter” since its action was to release a cloud of needles at the target, with the “painting” itself being an empty, needle-free shadow behind the target on a bulkhead.. The body would not be needle-free, of course. Quite the contrary. Transel quickly made his way down the accessway toward the storage area. He felt like a scouring wind, about to turn stone to sand.
Transel had realized the Poet was onboard the Powers of Heaven several semanato ago through an off-channel beta sweep, and it had only been a matter of time after that. The DDCM knew Transel was very good at his job. This was not a boast, but clearly demonstrable fact. It was one of the reasons he normally got along with his captains, in his estimation. What was the use of dominance display when everyone with any sense understood the reality of the situation? Transel had even come to like Captain Malako, his current charge. He was smart and seemed utterly loyal.
But Malako had been harboring a traitor on his vessel. And that was intolerable. It was, however, a problem Transel would soon dispose of permanently.
Regulation of feeling produces regulation of thought. Regulation of feeling is accomplished by the surfaction of the flesh.
It had cost him some effort to arrive at a solution. He’d donned the hairshirt cilice under his uniform with its surfactant, skin-dissolving gels. Never fear the use of the Garment of Ongoing Surfaction and Revelation, his Master Interrogator had taught him during his training. Surfaction leads to pain. Pain first and always is the precursor to knowledge. This is the foundation to Regulation.
The Master Interrogator had been right. Once the rash had set in and burned a constant ache into his shoulders, the answer had come to him.
The answer was words.
The Poet had been careful, so very careful, to time his broadcasts randomly, to make them seem to originate from different portions of the vessel or from outside the craft entirely. His mastery of the technology was astounding, given what Transel now knew of him—so much so that he suspected external aid or perhaps an onboard accomplice. But the Poet was a word-shaper and word-maker, and he’d been unable or unwilling to clean up his first draft efforts. It was the hubris of creators everywhere, and one of the reasons Regulation must always be vigilant for the excesses of profligate producers. Were it not for the calming influence of parasitism, the galaxy might soon be overrun with words, ideas, out-of-control technology, all competing endlessly for dominance. Endless war, endless chaos and destruction. Dark age after dark age.
This truth made Transel shudder.
Regulation is the solution. Regulation proceeds through disambiguation. Pain is the primary tool of disambiguation. His Master Interrogator had made sure he’d understood by firsthand experience the pathways to the soul that pain afforded. She had beaten justice into him. Beaten him until his instinct for Regulation was second nature.
Transel was good at his job because it was a calling. He knew some on the vessel thought of him as a bit overbearing, doctrinaire—and he’d even sniffed the fragrance of “fanatic” emitted quietly behind his back. He was none of those things. He was merely a faithful instrument in the hands of universal justice. Faithful—and implacable when he had his scent.
He’d simply analyzed the Poet’s verse. Teased ester from ester, pulled the word trains apart and unpacked them transport pod by transport pod. And what had he come up with? Ethyl maltol. Furanol. Methyl maltol. To a human these odors would be part of the make-up of the scents of currants, blueberries and wild plums. So he’d set up detectors, noted concentrations over a period of tagato. Followed the trail. And trapped Second Lieutenant Mountain-Lichen-Scourer Gitaclaber in the web of his own poetry.
Now came the reckoning. As first political officer of the attack vessel Powers of Heaven, the enforcement provision was his call. He could apprehend Gitaclaber for further questioning. Such questioning could, and would be expected, to include necessary physical inducements to cooperation via the application of surfaction and chemical stimulants. On the other hand, he would be perfectly within his duty and right to execute the Poet outright. The choice was Transel’s.
Transel had not entirely decided upon a course of action as he made his way to confront the Poet. Gitaclaber was in the midst of one of his live broadcast spewing his Mutualist-inspired nonsense on symbiosis, love, the beauty of lichens (why were poets always going on about lichens?) and who knew what else bilge.
One note blown from a stone horn
resounds through the burnt
becoming stone vegetation.
This hard, bright now
What a pile of anal eliminations! A mind spewing…gibberish, yes—but dangerous gibberish! As if one could sit back and observe the universe, admire the universe, and heed no call to action. Heresy and madness.
Mutualism!
The transmitter was on the other side of the vessel, but now he had fixed Gitaclaber’s actual location: a little used janitorial storage area near the Q drives.
Transel paused on the other side of the janitorial storage area door and confirmed Gitaclaber’s presence with an atmospheric sensor. And this was where he, Transel, made an error. He immediately acknowledge as much. It was a minor error, but he’d violated best practice, nonetheless, and would report himself in due time. He hadn’t set his detector to vibrate.
The sensor let out a pungent ammonia alert odor when it located the chemistry it was set to find. And within seconds of Transel’s detector going off, the Poet began to furiously spray more filth out over the beta!
He’d smelled Transel, and he was trying to finish what would be his last broadcast.
It wasn’t going to happen. Not on Transel’s watch!
He made his decision on the Poet’s fate then and there.
He was not going to apprehend him. No, he was going to stop this excess, this overproduction, this glut of words, once and for all.
The universe is a profligate waste of resources, his Master Interrogator had told him. Regulation arises from the universe’s need to contain itself, to curb its own excess. This is our sacred task. We are the trimmers. The shapers. And, if need be, the cutters. The hewers of species. We are justice embodied.
We are the Executors of Regulation.
U.S.X. Chief Seattle
“He’s talking to us. Directly to us. He’s asking for help.”
SIGINT Petty Officer Japps knew from the visual display that this Poet broadcast was very different from the others.
“KETCH and LARK, are you getting the graph pattern here?” she asked.
KETCH’s geist flashed into blue-green being beside the XO. LARK’s was already manifested across the room. KETCH appeared as a bland, vaguely handsome young guy—shaded green and partially transparent, of course—in the uniform of an Exper First Class.
“Not sure, Petty Officer Japps,” he said. “The articulation is definitely not the sceeve patois used in the other intercepts. Perhaps it is a variant.”
Japps laughed. “Totally. He’s using his own dialect, I’ll bet, instead of sceeve standard. Which would fit with what I’m guessing is happening.
“What are you talking about, Japps?” said Martinez, still in SIGINT after Japps had called her down from the bridge.
“Give me a sec, XO.” Japps menued up a console, began to rapidly make adjustments. “Adapting to this dialect’s dynamic range,” she mumbled to herself. “Want to catch all of this.”
KETCH understood immediately what she was doing and began following her lead while making adjustments to his own algorithmic workings.
Bink.
After a short wait KETCH began to speak his rough translation. He didn’t use his “own” voice, which was something of a tenor, but provided a baritone with a definite Chicago-Midwestern nasality to Japps’s ears. Unfortunately, that familiar element didn’t make what the voice said any less chilling.
“Attention humans. Attention humans. This one knows you are there. Hopes. Attention, for the sake of your species. Much has already been given to you, but not all. Not all. A wrong element, a killer of poets, has found this one out. There is not time to explain, but this one makes the attempt to communicate final coordinates, complete information transfer—”
“There is a break in what follows. Transmission drop-out. Or perhaps the Poet has ceased transmitting without realizing this fact. Eight point four seconds in length, and then the transmission resumes.” KETCH returned to the Poet analog voice he’d concocted.
Our sun is dead. The stars blink broken code.
Japps recognized this immediately as a line from one of the Poet’s own pieces (or by some unidentified someone, if the Poet were not the actual author). It was a poem he’d read time and again during several transmissions.
KETCH continued in his Chicagoan voice. “—as previously stated, a visitor comes, comes to your system. Approaching, approaching. A visitor, visitors, vessels speaking Mutualism. This visitor offers trust. Alliance. Opportunity, survival, victory in struggle. Great danger, also. Peril closely follows. This one will—”
Silence. Crackle of stray radiation interference. KETCH sounded like an angry snake for a moment expressing it. Then the Poet’s voice spoke once more:
“—resistance to capture counterproductive at present. Will attempt to abandon this vessel. If this one apprehended, will attempt evoke immediate execution. Produce ejection. This one discard, discarded. N-space. Find this one. Final key delivery, this one. Rendezvous coordinates. Key to all. Key. Request humans attempt contact. Request, request of you. Key. Rescue this one. Key. Find this one. So much remains. Cannot convey. Attempt—”
Another beep, and the translation cut out.
“God in heaven,” said the XO. “What the fuck?”
Japps checked her readout. “That’s it, XO. The conditioner’s still turned on, but there nothing on the carrier.”
The XO hadn’t heard her. She was already in furious conversation with the bridge. After a moment, she stopped talking to what was, to Japps, the empty air, and turned back to face her.
“Sceeve can survive in the vacuum,” Japps said. “Sounds like they’ve thrown him out. Or could be some kind of trick.”
“Captain doesn’t care,” Martinez replied. She put a hand on Japps shoulder, smiled a big smile. “He wants you down in ET7. Wants you to requisition a lifepod, and go after that motherfucking sceeve poet.”
Holy shit in a can.
“Me? On an extravehicular?”
“You’re the closest thing we’ve got to a sceeve expert onboard this godforsaken craft, Japps. So tag you’re it. Now get your ass in gear, Japps.”
“I-I need—”
But the XO was rushing her to the SIGINT portal.
“Suit up at the pod,” said the XO. “I’ll be sure there’s a tank of heliox waiting for you at the tube entrance in case—well, take it with you. Maybe it’ll be useful to have some sceeve atmosphere along. And hell, I’ll throw in what we know about their rations. Tank of glucose goo. The pod has grub for you.”
“You talk like I’m not coming back for a while.”
“Oh, you’re coming back. Just taking care of a few contingencies. Now get going.”
This was happening too fast. EV in a lifepod? Japps felt her head spinning. She was an exper-tech, not a spacer. Sure, she’d had the training. All expers had. But to actually do it—
“You know I don’t speak sceeve, ma’am,” Japps said. “Not really.”
“You’re what we’ve got. Anyway, like I said, Japps: captain’s orders. Go!”
Japps shook her head to clear it, turned down the corridor toward the exteriorizing tube banks. Then a thought. The briefest pause. For a moment she gazed at the graphic parameters of the Poet’s message on her display.
“I hate those motherfuckers,” Japps mumbled—to no one in particular. “Every one of them. For what they did.” The XO was already turned back to SIGINT, was back into the chroma, talking to another underling about clearing the lifepods launch path.
“Poet’s no different,” she mumbled. “A sceeve is a sceeve.”
But her thoughts made a lie of her words. As Japps headed for Exterior Tube 7, her favorite of the Poet’s outpouring echoing through her mind. She’d gone over in her frequency analysis many times, but until now hadn’t realized she’d committed the lines themselves to memory.
Our sun is dead. The stars blink broken code.
I have traveling to do
away from this endless necessity to feed.