The Ghost Brigades

  “I might have a few,” Jared said.

  SIX

  “We’ll talk out loud here, if you don’t mind,” General Szilard said to Jane Sagan. “It makes the waitstaff nervous to see two people staring intently at each other without actually making any sounds. If they don’t see we’re talking, they’ll come over every other minute to see if there’s anything we need. It’s distracting.”

  “As you wish,” Sagan said.

  The two of them sat in the general’s mess, with Phoenix spinning above them. Sagan stared. Szilard followed her gaze.

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it,” he said.

  “It is,” Sagan said.

  “You can see the planet out of any portal on the station, at least some of the time. But no one ever looks,” Szilard said. “And then you come here, and you just can’t stop staring at it. I can’t, in any event.” He pointed to the crystal dome that encased them. “This dome was a gift, did you know that?” Sagan shook her head. “The Ala gave it to us as we built this station. It’s diamond, this whole thing. They said it was a natural diamond that they carved out of an even larger crystal they hauled up from the core of one of their system’s gas giants. The Ala were amazing engineers, so I’ve read. The story might even be true.”

  “I’m not familiar with the Ala,” Sagan said.

  “They’re extinct,” Szilard said. “A hundred fifty years ago they got into a war with the Obin over a colony. They had an army of clones and the means to make those clones quickly, and for a while it looked like they were going to beat the Obin. Then the Obin tailored a virus keyed to the clones’ genetics. The virus was initially harmless and transmitted by air, like a flu. Our scientists estimated it spread through the entire Alaite army in about a month, and then a month after that the virus matured and begun to attack the cellular reproduction cycle of every single Ala military clone. The victims literally dissolved.”

  “All at once?” Sagan asked.

  “It took about a month,” Szilard said. “Which is why our scientists estimated it took that long to infect the entire army in the first place. With the Alaite army out of the way the Obin wiped out the civilian population in short order. It was a fast and brutal genocide. The Obin are not a compassionate species. Now all the Alaite planets are owned by the Obin, and the Colonial Union learned two things. One, clone armies are a very bad idea. Two, stay out of the way of the Obin. Which we have done, until now.”

  Sagan nodded. The Special Forces battle cruiser Kite and her crew had recently begun recon and stealth raids in Obin territory, to gauge the Obin’s strength and response capabilities. It was dangerous work since the Obin were unforgiving of assaults, and technically speaking the Obin and the Colonial Union were not in a state of hostilities. Knowledge of the Obin-Rraey-Eneshan alliance was a closely guarded secret; the majority of the Colonial Union and the CDF were unaware of the alliance and its threat to humans. The Eneshans even maintained a diplomatic presence on Phoenix, in the Colonial capital of Phoenix City. Strictly speaking, they were allies.

  “Do you want to talk about the Obin raids?” Sagan said. In addition to being a squad leader on the Kite, she was the ship’s intelligence officer, charged with force assessment. Most Special Forces officers held more than one post and also led combat squads; it kept the ship rosters lean, and keeping officers in combat positions appealed to the Special Forces’ sense of mission. When you are born to protect humanity, no one is above combat.

  “Not now,” Szilard said. “This isn’t the place for it. I wanted to talk to you about one of your new soldiers. The Kite has three new recruits, and two of them will be under you.”

  Sagan bristled. “They will, and that’s a problem. I had only one hole in my squad, but I have two replacements. You took one of my veterans to make room.” Sagan remembered the helpless look on Will Lister’s face when his transfer order to the Peregrine came through.

  “The Peregrine is a new ship and it needs some experienced hands,” Szilard said. “I assure you there are other squad leaders on other ships just as irritated as you. The Kite had to give up one of its veterans, and as it happens I had a recruit I wanted to place under you. So I had the Peregrine take one of yours.”

  Sagan opened her mouth to complain again, then thought better of it and clammed up, stewing. Szilard watched the play of emotions on her face. Most Special Forces soldiers would have said the first thing that came into their heads, an artifact of not having social niceties banged into their head through a childhood and adolescence. Sagan’s self-control was one of the reasons why she had come to Szilard’s attention; that and other factors.

  “Which recruit are we talking about?” Sagan said finally.

  “Jared Dirac,” Szilard said.

  “What’s so special about him?” Sagan asked.

  “He’s got Charles Boutin’s brain in him,” Szilard said, and watched again as Sagan fought back an immediate visceral response.

  “And you think this is a good idea,” is what eventually came out of her mouth.

  “It gets better,” Szilard said, and sent over Dirac’s entire classified file, complete with technical material. Sagan sat silently, digesting the material; Szilard sat, watching the junior officer. After a minute one of the mess staff approached their table and asked if there was anything they needed. Szilard ordered tea. Sagan ignored the waiter.

  “All right, I’ll bite,” Sagan said, after she was done examining the file. “Why are you sticking me with a traitor?”

  “Boutin’s the traitor,” Szilard said. “Dirac has just got his brain.”

  “A brain that you tried to imprint with a traitor’s consciousness,” Sagan said.

  “Yes,” Szilard said.

  “I submit the question to your attention once more,” Sagan said.

  “Because you have experience with this sort of thing,” Szilard said.

  “With traitors?” Sagan asked, confused.

  “With unconventional Special Forces members,” Szilard said. “You once temporarily had a realborn member of the CDF under your command. John Perry.” Sagan stiffened slightly at the name; Szilard noted it but chose not to comment. “He did quite well under you,” Szilard said. This last sentence was a bit of an ironic understatement; during the Battle of Coral, Perry carried Sagan’s unconscious and injured body over several hundred meters of battlefield to get her medical attention, and then located a key piece of enemy technology as the building it was in collapsed around him.

  “The credit for that goes to Perry, not me,” Sagan said. Szilard sensed another play of emotion from Sagan at Perry’s name, but again left it on the table.

  “You are too modest,” Szilard said, and paused as the waiter delivered the tea. “My point is, Dirac is something of a hybrid,” he continued. “He’s Special Forces, but he may also be something else. I want someone who has experience with something else.”

  “‘Something else,’” Sagan repeated. “General, am I hearing that you think Boutin’s consciousness is actually somewhere inside Dirac?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Szilard said, in a tone that implied that perhaps he had.

  Sagan considered this and addressed the implicit rather than the expressed. “You are aware, of course, that the Kite’s next series of missions will have us engaging both the Rraey and the Enesha,” she said. “The Eneshan missions in particular are ones of great delicacy.” And ones I needed Will Lister for, Sagan thought, but did not say.

  “I am of course aware,” Szilard agreed, and reached for his tea.

  “You don’t think having someone with a possibly emergent traitorous personality might be a risk,” Sagan said. “A risk not only to his mission but to others serving with him.”

  “Obviously it’s a risk,” Szilard said, “for which I rely on your experience to deal with. But he may also turn out to be a trove of critical information. Which will also need to be dealt with. In addition to everything else, you’re an intelligence officer. You’re the ideal offi
cer for this soldier.”

  “What did Crick have to say about this?” Sagan said, referring to Major Crick, the commanding officer of the Kite.

  “He didn’t have anything to say about it because I haven’t told him,” Szilard said. “This is need-to-know material, and I’ve decided he doesn’t need to know. As far as he knows he simply has three new soldiers.”

  “I don’t like this,” Sagan said. “I don’t like this at all.”

  “I didn’t ask you to like it,” Szilard said. “I’m telling you to deal with it.” He sipped his tea.

  “I don’t want him playing a critical role in any of the missions that deal with the Rraey or the Enesha,” Sagan said.

  “You’ll treat him no differently from any other soldier under your command,” Szilard said.

  “Then he could get killed like any other soldier,” Sagan said.

  “Then for your sake you’d better hope it’s not by friendly fire,” Szilard said, and set down his cup.

  Sagan was silent again. The waiter approached; Szilard impatiently waved him off.

  “I want to show this file to someone,” Sagan said, pointing to her head.

  “It’s classified, for obvious reasons,” Szilard said. “Everyone who needs to know about it already does, and we don’t want to spread it around to anyone else. Even Dirac doesn’t know about his own history. We want to keep it that way.”

  “You’re asking me to take on a soldier who has the capability to be an immense security risk,” Sagan said. “The least you can do is let me prepare myself. I know a specialist in human brain function and BrainPal integration. I think his insights on this could be useful.”

  Szilard considered this. “This is someone you trust,” he said.

  “I can trust him with this,” Sagan said.

  “Do you know his security clearance?” Szilard asked.

  “I do,” Sagan said.

  “Is it high enough for something like this?”

  “Well,” Sagan said. “That’s where things get interesting.”

  “Hello, Lieutenant Sagan,” Administrator Cainen said, in English. The pronunciation was bad, but that was hardly Cainen’s fault; his mouth was not well formed for most human languages.

  “Hello, Administrator,” Sagan said. “You’re learning our language.”

  “Yes,” Cainen said. “I have time to learn, and little to do.” Cainen pointed to a book, written in Ckann, the predominant Rraey language, nestled next to a PDA. “Only two books here in Ckann. I had choice of language book or religion book. I chose language. Human religion is…”—Cainen searched his small store of English words—“…harder.”

  Sagan nodded toward the PDA. “Now that you have a computer, you should have more reading options.”

  “Yes,” Cainen said. “Thank you for getting that to me. It makes me happy.”

  “You’re welcome,” Sagan said. “But the computer comes with a price.”

  “I know,” Cainen said. “I have read files you asked me to read.”

  “And?” Sagan said.

  “I must change to Ckann,” Cainen said. “My English does not have many words.”

  “All right,” Sagan said.

  “I’ve looked at the files concerning Private Dirac in depth,” Cainen said, in the harsh but rapid consonants of the Ckann language. “Charles Boutin was a genius for finding a way to preserve the consciousness wave outside of the brain. And you people are idiots for how you tried to stuff that consciousness back in.”

  “Idiots,” Sagan said, and cracked the smallest of smiles, the translation of the word in Ckann coming from a small speaker attached to a lanyard around her neck. “Is that your professional assessment, or just an editorial comment?”

  “It’s both,” Cainen said.

  “Tell me why,” Sagan said. Cainen moved to send files from his PDA to her, but Sagan held up her hand. “I don’t need the technical details,” she said. “I just want to know if this Dirac is going to be a danger to my troops and my mission.”

  “All right,” Cainen said, and paused for a moment. “The brain, even a human one, is like a computer. It’s not a perfect analogy, but it works for what I’m going to tell you. Computers have three components for their operation: There’s the hardware, there’s the software, and there’s the data file. The software runs on the hardware, and the file runs on the software. The hardware can’t open the file without the software. If you place a file on a computer that lacks the necessary software, all it can do is sit there. Do you understand me?”

  “So far,” Sagan said.

  “Good,” Cainen said. He reached over and tapped Sagan on the head; she suppressed an urge to snap off his finger. “Follow: The brain is the hardware. The consciousness is the file. But with your friend Dirac, you’re missing the software.”

  “What’s the software?” Sagan asked.

  “Memory,” Cainen said. “Experience. Sensory activity. When you put Boutin’s consciousness into his brain, that brain lacked the experience to make any sense of it. If that consciousness is still in Dirac’s brain—if—it’s isolated and there’s no way to access it.”

  “Newborn Special Forces soldiers are conscious from the moment they are woken up,” Sagan said. “But we also lack experience and memory.”

  “That’s not consciousness they’re experiencing,” Cainen said, and Sagan could sense the disgust in his voice. “Your damned BrainPal forces open sensory channels artificially and offers the illusion of consciousness, and your brain knows it.” Cainen pointed to his PDA again. “Your people gave me a rather wide range of access to brain and BrainPal research. Did you know this?”

  “I did,” Sagan said. “I asked them to let you look at any file you needed to help me.”

  “Because you knew that I would be a prisoner for the rest of my life, and that even if I could escape I would soon be dead of the disease you gave me. So it couldn’t hurt to give me access,” Cainen said.

  Sagan shrugged.

  “Hmmmp,” Cainen said, and continued. “Do you know that there’s no explainable reason why a Special Forces soldier’s brain absorbs information so much more quickly than a regular CDF? They’re both unaltered human brains; they’re both the same BrainPal computer. Special Forces brains are preconditioned in a different way from the regular soldiers’ brains, but not in a way that should noticeably speed up the rate at which the brains process information. And yet the Special Forces brain sucks down information and processes it at an incredible rate. Do you know why? It’s defending itself, Lieutenant. Your average CDF soldier already has a consciousness, and the experience to use it. You Special Forces soldiers have nothing. Your brain senses the artificial consciousness your BrainPal is pressing on it and rushes to build its own as quickly as it can, before that artificial consciousness permanently deforms it. Or kills it.”

  “No Special Forces soldiers have died because of their BrainPal,” Jane said.

  “Oh, no, not now,” Cainen said. “But I wonder what you would find if you went back far enough.”

  “What do you know?” Sagan asked.

  “I know nothing,” Cainen said, mildly. “It’s merely idle speculation. But the point here is that you can’t compare Special Forces waking up with ‘consciousness’ with what you were trying to do with Private Dirac. It’s not the same thing. It’s not even close.”

  Sagan changed the subject. “You said that it’s possible Boutin’s consciousness might not even be in Dirac’s brain anymore,” she said.

  “It’s possible,” Cainen said. “The consciousness needs input; without it, it dissipates. That’s one reason why it’s near impossible to keep a consciousness pattern coherent outside the brain, and why Boutin’s a genius for doing it. My suspicion is that if Boutin’s consciousness was in there, it’s already leaked away, and you’ve got just another soldier on your hands. But there’s no way to tell whether it’s in there or not. Its pattern would be subsumed by Private Dirac’s consciousness.”

>   “If it is in there, what would wake it up?” Sagan asked.

  “You’re asking me to speculate?” Cainen asked. Sagan nodded. “The reason you couldn’t access the Boutin consciousness in the first place is that the brain didn’t have memory and experience. Maybe as your Private Dirac accumulates experiences, one will be close enough in its substance to unlock some part of that consciousness.”

  “And then he’d become Charles Boutin,” Sagan said.

  “He might,” Cainen said. “Or he might not. Private Dirac has his own consciousness now. His own sense of self. If Boutin’s consciousness woke up, it wouldn’t be the only consciousness in there. It’s up to you to decide whether that’s good or bad, Lieutenant Sagan. I can’t tell you that, or what would truly happen if Boutin got woken up.”

  “Those are the things I needed you to tell me,” Sagan said.

  Cainen gave the Rraey equivalent of a chuckle. “Get me a lab,” he said. “Then I might be able to give you some answers.”

  “I thought you said you would never help us,” Sagan said.

  Cainen switched back to English. “Much time to think,” he said. “Too much time. Language lessons not enough.” And then back to Ckann. “And this doesn’t help you against my people. But it helps you.”

  “Me?” Sagan said. “I know why you helped me this time; I bribed you with computer access. Why would you help me beyond this? I made you a prisoner.”

  “And you struck me with a disease that will kill me if I don’t get a daily dose of antidote from my enemies,” Cainen said. He reached into the shallow desk moulded from the wall of the cell and pulled out a small injector. “My medicine,” he said. “They allow me to self-administer. Once I decided not to inject myself, to see if they would let me die. I’m still here, so that’s the answer to that. But they let me writhe on the floor for hours first. Just like you did, come to think of it.”

  “None of this explains why you would want to help me,” Sagan said.

  “Because you remembered me,” Cainen said. “To everyone else, I am just another one of your many enemies, barely worth providing a book to keep me from going insane with boredom. One day they could simply forget my antidote and let me die, and it would be all the same to them. You at least see me as having value. In the very small universe I live in now, that makes you my best and only friend, enemy though you are.”