Still, I had spent a lot of time with Dwayne, or whoever he was. I hadn’t spotted a single false note in him. The things he had told me about his past rang true, flavored with the hint of sagebrush and sadness, a world lost. A real person carrying real grief and raising real questions. The real stuff, he had called it.
I examined all the possibilities again, and none of them quite matched the situation.
Opening up my max, I did a search one more time, arriving at the list of passengers and crew I had just read on the main computer. It gave me the same total of 676.
I’m not sure why I did it, but I then flipped through the earliest entries in my paper journal and came to the page where I had written a summary of people on board, according to categories. The total was 677. I was off by one. I’d been guilty of mathematical mistakes before, but I now recalled how interested (and careful) I had been while doing the number breakdowns and totaling it up. Yes, 677. I was sure of it.
The main computer and the max both said 676.
It then struck me that I had printed out the official list of personnel six years ago. I flipped through pages and found it inserted between some initial pages of my journal. I counted the names carefully, and arrived at 677. I did it again just to be sure. And a third time: Yes, the original list contained 677 names—but none of them was a Dwayne.
This could only mean that the main computer had been revised. It also meant that my max had been “corrected” as well, which meant that it was no longer protected. This might mean that it had never been changed by Dwayne, or it might mean the opposite—it had been privatized but the block had been detected and removed.
Taking the staircase to another concourse, I entered a different library and found a vacant terminal. There were several people in the room busy at the other terminals. I accessed the main computer and entered a search. All the official and primary links offered the revised number. I keyed forward to an innocuous-looking three-hundredth link and clicked on it. It was the site of an Earth-bound astronomy club devoted to the Kosmos and its then-impending voyage. Enthusiasts and dreamers had created a complex site, and it was well done. Once I was inside it, I searched for a passenger / crew list, and suddenly there it was: Pages upon pages of names appeared, each accompanied by the individual’s position and his photograph. The total was 677. The file was dated two days before departure from Earth-base.
I wondered if whoever was overseeing onboard surfing would be able to track me. They wouldn’t know who I was, but they would know that someone was looking at potentially damaging information. I scanned down the site’s pages to Maintenance and there, among the department’s two hundred employees, his face looking back at me, was Dwayne.
His name was David William Ayne, born in Antelope, Nevada. Graduate in process engineering from a college in Sacramento, California. He also had a graduate degree from Stanford University in computer science. Listed also was his employment by the very aerospace corporation he had told me about, as well as his specialization in digitalized testing of alloy stress environments.
I closed the page, deaccessed, and walked as quickly as I could back to my room.
Day 2276:
In a quiet corner of the cafeteria on my concourse, over breakfast this morning, I presented these discrepancies to Stron, Xue, Etienne Pagnol, and Dariush. Each in his way pondered what I told them, saying little. In the end, none of them seemed alarmed, though none took it lightly.
“At worst, I suspect they’re isolating him for the extent of the voyage”, said Stron.
“That is a lengthy isolation”, Dariush commented. “It would be hard on him. I ask myself why they would do it.”
“Because he knows the truth”, I answered. “He knows the truth conclusively, while we who believe him have only our faith in what he told us. We have no evidence that would stand up in court.”
“And thus we are a relatively small threat to the administration”, said Xue.
“We’re easily dealt with. We’re small spot fires they can put out with a toe of their shiny shoes. In fact, they have done so.”
“Yet if that is the case, the deletion of his records from the ship’s database seems to me an extreme and unnecessary measure”, said Pagnol.
“It does”, Stron scowled. “It means they feel threatened in a big way by this lad. It’s not just the surveillance he knows about, you see. He also knows they’ve been lying to everyone.”
“And if that came to light, it would destroy the equilibrium of. . .”
“Of social infrastructure”, said Stron with disgust.
“It is most informative that so many sites on the main computer have been altered”, Dariush said in a milder tone. “Does this not seem to you a concerted effort to delete all references to David Ayne? Of course, there are too many sites for them to change at once. It seems they are going through them one by one, and this would demand a great deal of time, since there are thousands.”
“Neil, you say you checked a site very far down in the link list?” asked Xue.
“Somewhere around the three-hundredth link.”
“It might be useful to find out how far they’ve got with their deletions.”
We decided to access terminals in libraries on each of the four concourses. I told them the name of the little enthusiast site, and we split up in order to check it out.
Gathering again over lunch, huddling in relative isolation at the far end of a long table in the cafeteria on deck D, we compared our findings. The deletion had been done on the site, and random checks beyond that narrowed it down still further. Someone was hard at work eliminating any reference to David Ayne, and was now past the eight-hundred mark.
Xue had taken the trouble to transfer onto his pocket memor a photo and biographical data from a randomly chosen site beyond the one-thousand level. His wasn’t an ordinary port-memor, he explained, but a new test model which worked without circuit contact. He’d brought along the print-out, which he said he had made through a max.
“How did you do that!” Stron protested. “Maxes don’t have ports for memors. Besides, we have to assume that none of ours are safe anymore.”
“Right”, said Xue. “That’s why I took it to a friend—who shall remain unnamed—a friend whom the administration doesn’t realize is connected to our little revolt. He’s fairly high up in one of the science departments and has a max in his office to which my memor can speak—both downloads and uploads. He kindly permitted me to print out David’s biography on his max. It took a few seconds. We deleted any trace afterward.”
“Hopefully, his office max isn’t monitored”, I suggested to Xue.
“It may be. It probably is. But the file was multiple-encrypted and numerically named. I doubt that anyone would be able to crack it and see just what it was.”
We all bent over the sheet he held in his hand.
“That is the man who spoke to you briefly in the restaurant”, said Pagnol.
“The Mysterious Stranger”, murmured Stron.
Later that afternoon, we rechecked the site where Xue had obtained it. We found that this, too, had been scrubbed.
“Either someone’s working very quickly,” said Stron, “or they have a team on it. It smells like a team to me.”
“What puzzles me most”, I said, “is that this deletion business isn’t going to be very effective for them. After six years, David would have made friends with people on board. At the least, he would be known to his coworkers. And they’d probably ask around, wanting to know where he’d got to.”
“Neil, you say you checked with the people in Maintenance?”
“Yes, but that was before I had a real name to give them. We’ve learned that Dwayne is a pseudonym. And his general physical description matches quite a few men in that department.”
“Even so, a face and a personality are unique. Surely, someone on that level has noticed his absence.”
Xue said, “We have a photo and bio now. I think it’s time for a focused
inquiry.”
Day 2277:
Thoughtlessly, I sent a text inquiry via my max to the maintenance address, asking for contact info for David W. Ayne. There was no reply from M department. I e-voiced a call, but the M desk did not respond. Within the hour, there came a knock at the door, and there stood my two old friends, the agents from DSI. They were as courteous as before—and as determined. I was required, they informed me, to attend another meeting with Dr. Larson.
I now wear my button recorder at all times.
Elf did not greet me with a handshake. He did not use my name. There were no preliminary warm-up comments.
“Why have you had me arrested again, Elf?”
He rolled his eyes. “You are not being arrested.”
“You mean, I’m free to walk out of this office, having decided on my own that this is not a productive encounter?”
“That remains to be seen. Please sit down.”
“I regret I’m very busy right now. If you’d care to make an appointment, just send a request to my max address. I’m sure you know it. Good day to you.”
I turned to go.
“Who is Dwayne?” he said to my departing back.
I sat down on a chair and faced him squarely. It took a few moments for me to calm my nerves. He watched me coldly from the other side of his desk.
“The real question here”, I said through my barely controlled anger, “is where is he?”
He shook his head as if he had just heard something incredibly irrational.
“I repeat, who is Dwayne?” he said in a quiet voice.
“You know who Dwayne is”, I countered. “You know his real name, and you know he works—or worked—in Maintenance.”
“I know that you made an inquiry to that department eight days ago, asking for someone with that name.”
“And how would you know this, if you aren’t keeping everything under surveillance?”
“A report from the department crossed my desk, as it does every month, listing all inquiries and requests for nonscheduled services. It’s a routine pro forma document for the archives.”
“If my inquiry was so pro forma, why have you taken such pains to bring me here for a little chat about it?”
“Because I am concerned about you.”
“Oh, really?”
I knew he was lying. He was only interested in ferreting information out of me, anything that would tell him how much we knew. His approach also revealed that he was determined to maintain the veneer, and was not yet ready to use heavy muscle.
“Dr. Hoyos, ever since the night you gave your talk, a talk based on completely unfounded suspicions, I have been concerned about you.”
Ah, warm-hearted elf that he is, he cared about me. It suddenly struck me as so absurd that I laughed.
He tilted his head a little and looked even more concerned. “This has been a long flight”, he went on. “Close confinement has its psychological effects.”
“I find there’s plenty of elbow room.”
“Does it seem that way to you? Even so, there is always the subconscious dynamic, the accumulation of unacknowledged stress. And we know what happens to us when that occurs.”
“Do we? Well, I don’t know. Tell me what happens.”
“The human mind projects its undeclared fears onto quite ordinary situations. Shadows become dangerous presences, whispered conversations become conspiracies against you, the normal comings and goings in people’s lives begin to look like tragic plays.”
“Yes, it’s a danger in human psychology”, I nodded.
“I’m glad you see it. I was wondering if maybe you’d like to talk with one of our staff psychiatrists. Sometimes a person can sort things out for himself, but with a professional to guide the process, a sense of balance can be restored more easily.”
“A sense of equilibrium”, I murmured in apparent agreement.
He smiled understandingly. “We all have our down moments. Even the gifted and famous.” He smiled again. “Even Nobel prize winners.”
“Where is David Ayne?” I said.
His face froze, then on cue, his brow and mouth furrowed into an expression of perplexity.
“Who?”
“You know who I mean. What have you done with him?”
He shook his head in perfect bafflement. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t done anything to anyone.”
“Where is he? Do you have him locked up somewhere on the ship? You’ve got him isolated somehow, against his will, I’m sure.”
“We’ve locked up no one. And who is David Ayne? There’s no one by that name on the Kosmos.”
“Oh? Have you memorized the personnel list?”
“In preparation for our meeting, I searched through the ship’s entire personnel records for anyone named Dwayne, because that is the name you inquired about with the maintenance department.”
“I just asked you about David Ayne, and you instantly told me he wasn’t real.”
“I have a comprehensive knowledge of the list.”
“You have him in a holding tank somewhere.”
“That is simply untrue”, he replied in a reasonable tone. “It’s your inflamed imagination getting out of control again.”
“Elf, it is simply a fact.”
He did something with his lips, a half-smile tainted with the suggestion of a disgusted smirk. It was a subtle expression that lent itself to various interpretations. To the uninformed observer, Elf might have been no more than a professional caregiver momentarily wearied by the pathetic convictions of an irrational patient.
“Elf, that is a sneer on your face. You should see yourself at this moment. A sneer is contempt. It’s an indelible sign of loss of objectivity. It is very, very unscientific. And your dissembling really worries me.”
“It’s you who should be worried”, he muttered.
“Really? And what are you going to do to me? Make me walk home?”
His eyes grew colder as he prepared a retort.
“Elf, surely you know the dangers of projection and transference. Get a grip on yourself, or you’ll become a victim of your own fixation. You wouldn’t want to become dysfunctional, would you?”
He snorted, and still he said nothing. He rocked a little on his creaking chair, lips tight, one hand fisted on the desktop, the other out of sight on his lap.
“And while we’re discussing the unreality of David W. Ayne, can you tell me why all references to his name are being systematically removed from the main computer? Of course, he’s already been deleted from the private maxes.”
Now he jerked forward, pointed his index finger at me, and opened his mouth to say something. “Listen to me, you—”
I cut him off. Switching to my quiet but authoritative tone (one rarely used in my life), I said, “That is an aggressive gesture. I believe that both of us are committed to the deaggressivization of mankind, aren’t we? So I suggest you put your finger back where it belongs, and while you’re at it, wipe the rage off your face.”
He flushed beet red and rose from his chair, his impressive chin jutting forward.
“Ah, primitive threat-gestures”, I smiled. “Don’t shake your horns at me, Elf.”
“Get out of my office”, he seethed through clenched teeth.
Day 2282:
The day following my interview with Elf, I received a message delivered by hand from the Department of Medicine, signed by the director of DM himself, inviting me to a “consultation”. By which he meant, as it turned out, a series of psychological tests, as well as some tests of body chemistry—including brain chemistry. I agreed to do them all, since while it’s true that I feel generally low, and sometimes at night I’m agitated and sleepless, this is the result of natural worry over a missing person. I think I am relatively sane. There’s sadness but no depression. I decided it would be good for DSI to know this, since doubtless DSI will be receiving copies of the reports from DM.
I still haven’t seen any test res
ults. Maybe no news is good news.
Day 2300:
Three weeks have gone by since my nasty interview with Elf. Periodic checking of the main computer now confirms that all references to David have been deleted. Of course, immense as it is, it is not connected to Earth’s databases, as far as I know, so the original sites may still be intact somewhere back home. For the time being, however, David does not exist. I made other searches into the sites of institutions where he had studied or worked. Officially, he was never there.
I hope they let him out on AC-A-7. It would be too cruel to bring him all that way and not let him see it. Perhaps he’s being held in some security suite and allowed to watch films, maybe even the public visual presentations of the ship’s progress through the heavens.
Still no word from DM about my medical test results.
Day 2307:
Transcript of my lapel button recording: The speakers are me and Dr. Arthur (I’m not sure if this is his first or last name), a senior physician in the medical department.
Arthur: Thank you for coming in, Dr. Hoyos. We have the results from all your tests, and I wanted to discuss them with you.
Hoyos: Excellent. I’ve been wondering about them.
Arthur: We did a comprehensive battery of tests, as you know. Your profile is giving us some readings that concern us.
Hoyos: Biological or psychological?
Arthur: Frankly, both. They’re always interconnected, of course.
Hoyos: Of course.
Arthur: The results indicate CDS, clinical depression syndrome, as well as—
Hoyos: I don’t feel in any way depressed. Sad now and then, but not depressed.
Arthur: Depression is nothing to be ashamed of. It strikes everyone at one time or another, usually in high-stress situations.