Brothers Of Mind

The little weasel who spat out that ultimatum sat across the table from me, his hands clenched on the smooth, silver-gray, metal surface. Steely eyes bore into mine with an intensity that made the room shrink, become smaller, more suffocating. A lesser person might have been intimidated, but not me—not after all I’d been through.

I didn’t know this guy; I had never seen him before. A stranger until an hour ago, he and his gorilla sidekick yanked me half-awake from a hibernation pod and forced me to shower and dress, after which I was frog-marched by a pair of goons into this dim, oppressive little cubicle.

I suspect I may have already been conscious, or partially so, for some time before being removed from the pod. When waking from cryo, one’s memories tend to be a little fuzzy for a while afterward, but not this time. I don’t know why, but I was fully aware the instant I woke, and believe me, I was not a happy little bunny.

The room resembled a cell far too much for my liking. It was cramped, three meters square, and constructed from the same lifeless gray metal as the table. Canned air with a faint, metallic smell hissed from a ventilator grille on the ceiling.

I didn’t like it.

I’m not as bad as I used to be, but I still have difficulty handling small spaces. I wouldn’t say I was claustrophobic though, not after everything that’s happened to me.

There were no windows, and a solitary door. Beside it stood Magilla Gorilla, not quite as happy-go-lucky as his namesake, armed with a military-grade laser rifle of a type I had never seen before. He exuded an inhuman stillness and lacked even the slightest trace of humanity. No smile, eyes fixed straight ahead, lips drawn.

And he smelled.

Bad!

I couldn't shake the suspicion that he might be a humanoid robot, ready to unleash chaos at his handler’s command. Or at least blow my brains to kingdom come.

But he wasn't. He was human, and I pondered whether he would be foolish enough to discharge the laser in this confined space. Imagine a focused energy beam bouncing around inside a steel cube with nowhere to escape.

Quite conclusive, really.

I turned my gaze back to the worm seated across from me. He was a short man with a bald head, no neck, and a hawk nose on his little, rat-like face. No trace of a sense of humor there. The small spaceship badge on his uniform jacket indicated he was a Space Force officer. He had no other insignia, nothing to show rank or division, but at least his dress told me I was most likely on a spaceship.

My inquisitor remained silent, his eyes piercing mine. He held all the cards, and he wanted me to know it. He was waiting for a response, one he had warned me to consider carefully.

I obliged.

“So, who the fuck are you?”

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t usually react rudely, and I rarely ever swear, but considering the circumstances, it felt appropriate. But it’s not me. I’m quite a reasonable guy.

Ask anyone.

But if there’s one thing I loathe, it’s little, rat-faced, hawk-nosed worms trying to put me down with an ‘I’m God and you’re not’ attitude.

Rat-face glared at me, eased back in his chair, and shook his head as if addressing a small, troublesome child who had misbehaved. An audible sigh filled the already oppressive air.

"I would have preferred you be more cooperative, Commander. I'm not sure you appreciate the gravitas of the situation you're in. I suggest you—"

“You’re right,” I cut in. “I don’t. I have no idea where I am, how I got here, who you are, or if the smelly anthropoid over there is a human or a robot.”

Magilla stiffened a little more, if that was at all possible.

“If you want cooperation,” I said, “bring me up to date first, instead of announcing yourself as God."

The weasel peered at me for a few seconds and sighed again, his fingers tapping erratically on the metal tabletop.

“Very well.” He hesitated for much too long, as if contemplating how to shape his next words. “I apologize for the guard’s odor. I dragged him from a workout session to assist with this interview.”

The guard’s face froze.

My interrogator paused for a moment more, gathering his thoughts. “You’ve drifted through space for a considerable time in an emergency gig. It suffered a reactor malfunction and the drive shut down. We intercepted it by accident several months ago and found you inside. We woke you an hour ago, and here you are.”

“Why wait so long before waking me?”

“We wanted to make sure of what we had discovered first. We’ve spent the time exploring and analyzing the gig’s memory banks. We kept you in a semi-awake state until you regained your normal faculties.”

“Find anything interesting?” Of course, I had a pretty good idea of what they found.

“Oh, yes. We discovered a great deal. Do you know that vehicles such as the one you were in contain an automatic backup of the records from the vessel they belong to? A ‘black box’ in case the mother ship is destroyed. This one also contained a smart-ass version of a full shipmind. Something you don’t see every day, I think.”

For a moment my heart thumped. Could the gig have recorded all of the events I’d been through? No, it could not have, not everything. But it could still have stored a considerable amount of incriminating information. I knew that full well, considering small spacecraft of all kinds were my stock in trade.

“So, Commander,” Rat-face continued. “Let's try this one more time. You will answer my questions fully and accurately, yes?”

“Why are you treating me like a criminal?”

My interrogator’s lips stretched into a smug smile. “Oh, I’m sorry, didn’t I mention it? You’re being held on suspicion of treason, aiding and abetting the enemy, and mass murder.”

Those words hit like a gut punch. Treason? Mass murder? It was a shock, I can tell you, like a stab to the heart. As far as I was concerned, I’d saved every human, and, for that matter, all life on every world in the galaxy. What kind of way was this to treat a goddamn hero?

“Who are you?” I asked.

“That is of no concern at the moment.”

“I have the right to know my accuser. Who are you? And why is BoBo standing over there armed to the eyeballs?”

Rat-face lifted his eyes to the ceiling and sighed. “Oh, very well. I am Admiral Abelard, and you are on the star cruiser Cooke, Fourth Fleet. Our mute companion is Midshipman Windsor.”

An admiral? He didn’t look it. Where was his insignia? And he was not dressed in an admiral’s uniform. For that matter, why would an officer of that rank concern himself with something like this interview?

“Okay, thank you. Why am I being accused of murder, and ... all the rest?”

“All will be clear in time. For now, you need to accept that you are in considerable trouble, and your future, or lack thereof, depends on the answers you give me.”

I didn’t have another smart response. This was serious; I got it. But I still wasn’t sure what my accuser expected. He could have given me the benefit of the doubt instead of treating me as guilty without a trial.

Not the best start.

“All right,” I sighed. “What do you want from me?”

Abelard stared at the table for a moment before looking up. His attitude seemed to have moderated a little. “This is a little difficult, I must admit. The log from your gig contained enough information to indicate your involvement in illegal, or at least suspicious, activities, but we lack the details—what was behind what happened, why, and how. That’s what I need you to tell me.”

I sat back. I had been involved with an alien—I remembered quite well—but not in murder. I could never do that. I’ve been responsible for deaths in the past, but only ever the Lette, the alien race we’d been fighting for decades.

Never directly.

Not humans.

At least, not without good cause. I’m a nice guy. Really!

“Where do you want me to start?”

“That’s the problem. We know nothing about the events leading up to the destruction of the Guiding Star, or how you came to be in the gig. Why don’t you start from the beginning? Tell me your story, in full—every detail.”

I smiled. “How long have you got?”

Abelard glared at me again.

“It’s complicated,” I explained, spreading my hands wide. “It’ll take hours to go through the whole thing.”

“I have all the time in the world, Commander. My job is to find the truth of this matter, and that’s what I’ll do, regardless of how long it takes.”

I nodded. I still didn’t like the little toad and was incensed at being treated in this manner. But he was military, and a senior officer; I’d met his kind before and I could tell from the attitude. I was stuck in this room until I played ball. BoBo would see to that.

“Okay, how do we play this?” I asked. “If you expect me to sit in this abysmal room and talk for hours, you’d better think again. It will take much, much longer than a few hours.”

For a moment Abelard paused, seeming to search for a way around my intransigence. His beady little eyes lit up, and a faint curve appeared on his lips. Clearly, he’d figured out a way to indulge me without wasting his time sitting in this little room.

“Very well. You’ll be taken to a cabin equipped with a terminal. It will be set to record everything you say, so you can tell your story in your own words, at your own speed. The whole thing, mind; leave nothing out, not the slightest detail. The last ten minutes have shown me you can’t give simple or straight answers, so we’ll record it all and edit out the bullshit before I make my report. If I’m not satisfied, we’ll come back here and start again.”

I sensed a distinct threat in that statement. “Bullshit? Really?”

“Really!”

I did not like this guy. Not—at—all. Still, I’m always happy to talk, so if ‘everything’ was what he wanted, then everything I would give him.

Every—insignificant—little—thing.

“Every little detail? I can ramble on when I get started.”

“Accepted.”

I smiled again. He would regret those words. Normally, the memories of an event fade from the mind, but not this time. I’m a reasonably smart guy, but this was way beyond the norm. I didn’t understand why, but I could recall every detail of what I went through. Every word spoken, every nuance, every emotion, and every soul-destroying, horrific moment that I experienced—it was all there, forever locked in my brain. I could remember everything, far more than was normal. I have no idea how, but I kid you not.

My interrogator was going to get more than he bargained for.

“Fine. Let’s get on with it.”