Over the Darkened Landscape - By Derryl Murphy Page 0,5
became too much to swallow away.
Because he was used to taking breaths far apart from each other, it took a long time to realize he was no longer breathing. By then, his mind had slipped into an almost total fog. What used to be Simon tried one more time to claw to the top of his consciousness, but the well was too deep.
Still, something of him remained.
*
Captain Galvez exited her ship. Ahead of her hung the massive bulk of the research ship Waldsemüller, its bulbous front end pointing her way. Her personal force-field irised minutely and for only two seconds, and air jetted out behind her, pushing her towards the other ship.
Claire spoke in her head. “Dr. Schaum is requesting that you use port number three, Captain. And to please maintain silence unless you are talking through me. Her own ship’s brain is not as sophisticated as I.”
Galvez grunted in response and irised her field again, this time in front. She bumped up gently against the ship and then created a pseudopod to grab hold of a handle while she waited for the airlock door to open. When inside and the ship’s oxygen had finished cycling in she shut down her field and waited for the inner door to slide open.
When it did, both Dr. Schaum and Captain N’Dour were waiting for her. Schaum was tall and blonde, graying a bit, with light blue eyes. Worry lines creased her face. N’Dour was a huge, dour-looking Azanian, hair shaved off and with three earrings in each ear, emulating the style of imagined pirates from long ago. Where the doctor wore a jumpsuit, N’Dour wore shorts and nothing else. His body was well-muscled.
All three nodded tersely and exchanged quick greetings before the two turned and led her down a short hall to a small, plain room with a low round table and four chairs. They sat down, although Captain Galvez found the artificial gravity strange, having been living under SAR procedures for the last four months on her own ship, the naval vessel Mitterand.
“Claire tells me you think you’ve found Mr. Helbrecht, Captain,” said Dr. Schaum.
“We think it’s him,” she responded, “But . . . he’s not in good shape. Even for someone who is probably dead. We sent a snooper and the graphics it brought back were not very promising.” Galvez pulled a portable viewer with multiple jacks from her kangaroo pouch.
Both Dr. Schaum and Captain N’Dour plugged in and watched with the snooper’s eyes as it probed alongside the lumpy brown mass that seemed to have once been a human body. Captain Galvez noted with interest the looks of horror and then sadness that crossed the doctor’s face. They both unjacked.
Captain N’Dour leaned his imposing bulk forward, elbows on his knees and hands clasped together. “I understand that Claire has briefed you on the need for silence from the navy, Captain?”
Galvez nodded, angry that she had to follow orders to serve the needs of a conglomerate over the needs of an individual, and angry that N’Dour was emphasizing his point with his bulk. She leaned forward as well, putting her face uncomfortably close to his. After a brief hesitation, he leaned back a bit.
“I sympathize, Captain Galvez,” said Dr. Schaum, looking a bit confused at what was playing out in front of her. “It infuriates me, too. But if this gets out, the regulatory boards would shut us down, and I think you’d agree the research we do for you is too valuable to lose. But our commercial public ventures are important to us getting, and I quote the company line here, ‘much needed short-term capital to aid in the financial upkeep of the corporation.’ And since the boards check our ship’s brain every time we re-orbit, we have this need for secrecy even out here.”
“So we just leave him out there?”
She nodded. “We can come up with a half-dozen reasons that his telemetry shut down, all having to do with his actions or else the people who installed his neural input, which was manufactured, incidentally, by a Chinese company. We’ll get a little bit of heat, but not enough to shut us down.
“But if we bring the body on board, then people will see what happened to the algal implant. That will be the end of this business, as well as the end of research that has supplied you with things like your personal force-field.”
Captain N’Dour stood, evidently trying to tilt the intimidation factor back in his favor. “He’s