Second Expansion Book 1: Shadows of the Ancient War Part 2: Sword of the Ancient Nemesis By Mike (mjm_keen@hotmail.com) "Clark to Shelby. I have a problem. The main power transfer conduits have blown. My main reactor is down. Damage is limited to that area. I am now switching to my backup reactors, but they only supply eighty-two percent of the fighter's power." Shelby's voice came over Lucy's headset, "Hold your fighter back, just keep directing the attack. The Yangs-Mills and Sagan should be in attack range in four minutes." Lucy rolled her fighter ninety degrees and pulled up, moving away from the firefight. She would have to fight this battle from the sidelines, which was hard to do when your blood was crying out to attack. On the sensor screen, the Broadswords were blowing chunks off the Zylon craft. The rear bulb on a Zylon craft began to flash red. Containment had been lost on the singularity of the ship. The Terran fighters fled from the ship like ants fleeing from a boot. The sac on the rear of the Zylon craft started to contract and the rest of the ship was being pulled back to it. Parts of the Zylon craft were being torn away and pulled into the singularity. Suddenly an explosion blinded Lucy even though she was facing away from it. The singularity had reached critical mass and had blown away most of its own mass. All that remained was a black chunk of matter smaller then a pin's head. Two other Zylon craft had been damaged in the explosion. Luckily none of the Terran fighters had been destroyed. A second explosion lit up space. The Zylon ships were now spreading out to try to prevent collateral damage from the destruction of anymore of their ships. A slightly shaken voice came over Lucy's headset. "This is Omega 3 Leader. I have suffered severe damage. Request return to base." The squadron leader of Omega 3 had lost his rear shield and most of the armor. His engines were down to sixty percent. His wingman could easily run the show without him, but then the wingman would not have anyone to cover him. "Omega 3 Leader, pull out and form on my wing." Lucy switched channels to her wingman, "Shark, Go in and cover Omega 3 2." "I'm on my way, ma'am!" Shark had wanted to get into the battle as much has she wanted to, now he got his chance. Over Lucy's headset came the sound of victory, "The cavalry has arrived!" The Yangs-Mills and Sagan came in with guns blazing. The Zylon ships were being sliced up. Within seconds three more Zylon ships were down. The remaining Zylon ships were turning away. "All fighters hold back. Let them go," Lucy commanded. The Zylon ships were departing. Once they were 100,000 km away, the ships went to Hyperspace. * * * * * A few hours after the victory the fleet was heading toward Arus at sublight. In an hour, Soran and several of his officers would be coming over for a meeting with the Terran Officers. Doris sat slouched in her chair on the bridge of the Einstein. This was where she belonged. Since she had been a little girl and had seen the old war holovids, she had known this was where she belonged. Most of the bridge stations were being manned. The fleet was at a high yellow alert since the attack. One of the lift doors opened to the rear of the bridge. A glance back showed that it was Colonel Clark wearing a pair of work coveralls covered with dirt and grime. She gave Doris a look that verified what Doris had been thinking. Doris got up and told Commander Tolwyn, "You have the bridge." "Yes, captain." Doris went and joined Clark at the door to Clint's Ready Room. Clint preferred to be on the bridge then in the CIC, so he had gotten a second ready room put on the bridge for himself. Clark had suspected sabotage on her fighter and her coming to see Clint in this condition only seemed to verify her suspicions. If there was a saboteur on board, it was a serous threat to the ship and its mission. The doors opened and Clint was seated at his desk looking right at them. His face had a concerned looked. Obviously he had reached the same conclusion Doris had about this meeting. He had set aside his PDA that supposedly was displaying the information that had been sent about Arus. Doris on several occasions caught Clint playing a game on it when he was supposed to be reading. Doris and Clark seated themselves. Clint liked to be more informal when not in front of the crew, especially with the two of them. Clint started off, "I assume that you have been able to verify the sabotage." "Yes I have. It seems really odd though. The person that did it tried to make the sabotage hard to detect, but botched it up by being extremely clumsy. "They had caused micro fracture damage to the main power transfer conduits from the reactor. When put under stress, the conduit would burst, damaging anything near it. But where they had damaged it would only cause damage to the reactor, which is cold fusion so there was no threat of an explosion. Most likely, the explosion was suppose to take out the cryogenic unit, which would caused the destruction of the fighter, except the damage was done three centimeters too near the reactor. They also were careless enough to cause damage to the reactor assembly. "A diagnostic would have been able to find the micro fractures, but the saboteur had set up the computer to read the standard readings. These were the readings for a standard Broadsword, not mine, so the diagnostic showed that efficiency had dropped." "Knowing you, you have already begun a preliminary investigation. Who do you suspect." Clark paused before giving the answer. Her lips quivered as the answer left them, "Daneel." What! This couldn't be! Daneel was unable to do such a thing. The shock was visible on Clint's face as well. Clark continued, "When I had been down checking on the reactor before the battle, he had come along. He had detected the micro fractures on the reactor assembly, but not on the power conduit. He also had dismissed the fractures has nothing and got me off the subject, so I didn't think about it. That is nothing like Daneel. He would not have dismissed that as nothing. "Further, when I checked the ships logs to find out who had been near my fighter since I last checked the reactor, I found a several second spot where he was walking toward my fighter and then nothing. When I had the computer check the records, it found that they had been tampered with using Daneel's access code." Doris piped in, "I have had reports over the last couple days from the crew that Daneel was acting preoccupied. Harry had noticed it and had told Clint about." "That fits in with my theory of what's going on. Somebody has attempted to reprogram Daneel to ruin our mission. Part of that includes eliminating me. Daneel's running into a conflict with that order. He has been commanded to kill me, but can't. His feelings and friendship for me stand in the way." Doris interrupted, "Excuse me? Did you just say that Daneel has feelings for you?" Clark nodded, "Yes. It won't admit it, but he does. I know him all too well. During his early personality development, when his development was equivalent to that of a Terran adolescent, he tried to act out on them. That lead to a few humorous situations. "Evidently, the party that is responsible for Daneel's recent behavior, was not aware of this. This has lead to the conflict he has been having. His clumsiness in the sabotage attempts is part of this, so is his preoccupation. When he met me right before the battle, a part of him was trying to warn me, but what has been altered wouldn't allow him to." Clint and Doris thought about this for a minute. Clint broke the silence, "Why you? Why not me or any of the other fleet command officers?" "I know more about Daneel then anyone in the fleet. They think that I am the biggest thing standing in their path." "Their thinking is, that if we catch Daneel doing something, that you would be able to figure it all out and return Daneel to normal. Thus they would lose their pawn." "Exactly. But there has to be more to this. Why go about it the long way? Daneel could easily take out the entire command staff during a meeting and leave no sign behind." Doris turned her chair to look at Clark, "Who is responsible for this?" "Could be lots of people. The Confederated Empire of Planets or any of the other governments in the Milky Way that is against us or it could be one of those conspiracy theories that has a some hinge of truth to it." Clint put his hands onto the desk, "Most likely, there are some other agents on board. I hand picked most of the command staff. The general crew was given a thorough look over by Command. We are dealing with more then a few people here. In order to place the people that were needed would require people inside of command. I am beginning to think there are very few people we can trust, unfortunately. For right now, we need to keep this to as few people as possible. Doris, you can let Harry in on it. But that is as far as it will go here. I will send an encrypted message to the President and a few friends I think we can trust at command. "But, how do we stop Daneel?" Clark spoke up, "I think I can take care of that. I need to confront him about it, escalate the conflict till it brings about a lockup of his neural net. We would then be able to secure him." "Are you sure he won't do something to you if you get to close? We don't know what was done to him. They could have a security measure set in for that." "That is a risk I am willing to take. If he does try to harm me, I am pretty sure the security measures will step in. His values and morals modules have a built in security measure that will cause him to lock up if he goes too far over them, which is what I'm trying to do. But that is tricky. It was given some leeway so he would not lock up when facing a hard decision." "When do you think you will be able to do it?" "After the meeting with the Arusians. We don't have the time right now to do it. We also need to come up with some way to be able to cover his disappearance while I attempt to repair him. "Right now though, I want to go to my quarters and take a nice, hot bath before the meeting." "You are excused. Doris and I will come up with something." Clark got up and left the room. Clint watched her leave, then knuckled his eyes. "I can't believe this is happening. I was expecting trouble, just not from my crew. "Most likely, we have spies on board. They needed somebody onboard to give Daneel orders and that could be anyone. This was one of the most heavily guarded secrets of the Commonwealth. Most of the people that were building the fleet didn't know what they were doing. The whole operation was compartmentalized. Hardly anybody had contact with each other or the outside world. There were only twenty people outside of that that knew, and they were all command officers. We have to assume that some of them are actually spies. They would be able to get spies in the general crew." Clint was all torn up inside. He didn't know whom he could trust. This was spilling over into Doris, but she was not going to begin to suspect everybody for a spy. "Clint, you can't go and start to suspect everybody." Clint was silent for a moment, then changed the subject, "What are we going to do about Daneel?" Doris began to think about this. They would have to make it look like an accident occurred and that Daneel was temporarily deactivated. Then the spies would have lost their pawn. They would have to make the next move themselves. Most likely they would go and attempt to eradicate their evidence from Daneel, then they would be caught. "I have an idea. If we make it look as if there was a power surge in one of the panels he was using." "But Daneel can survive that. His neural net is insulated from power surges up to 5 giga joules. There is no where near enough power going through the panel to cause that." "Yeah, we know that, but they don't." "Ahh, I see. It would be easy for Harry to create a power surge and leave no tracks. We would be able to keep this in with the four of us. "Doris, I want you to go and inform Harry and Lucy about this. I am going to send this to the President over secure channels and query a few friends I have to see what they can find about it. That will be all." Doris nodded and left the room. * * * * * Their lives were frozen. A single moment had been stretched to infinity, only to be broken by horrible nightmares, nightmares too horrible for any human to be able to imagine. A few of them were three thousand years old and the rest of them had been collected over the last fifty years. How horrible an existence they had been forced into. Unfortunately, this was viewed as the only way to be able to study them and be safe. These were creatures of pure evil. The evil was contained in cryogenic tubes arranged in several circles in the Zylon human research facility. The great prophet, Pl'neer, had taught that the Zylons would one day come across a species of true evil that would lead to the end of the Zylon race. To the Zylons, the Terrans had to be true evil. They used inanimate objects to do their work. Their genetics were completely different. How wrong the Zylons had been, though they didn't realize this yet. How absurd that a Zylon could think like that, how absurd that a Zylon could question one of the great prophets, especially one that shared the genetics of a prophet. It was all too easy for Rf'near. How truly naive the Zylons are. For the 230 years since his final molting, Rf'near had been in charge of the Zylon study of Terrans. His studies were complete; genetic structure, biological workings, thought patterns, memories, and technology. Unknown to most Zylons, the studies on Terran thinking had changed him. He no longer thought totally as a Zylon, now he also thought as a Terran. He even thought of himself with a Terran gender, even though these did not exist for Zylons. Most of his research staff had come the same way too, just not as far as Rf'near. Rf'near stood in the center of the great chamber that held the Terran specimens. He stood at the center console, which had a similar identity crisis to Rf'near. It was a combination of Zylon genetic technology and Terran manufactured technology. All Zylon technology was genetic. It was all living things that the Zylons had grown in biological generative tanks. Rf'near's upper center appendage, something like a Terran arm, was in contact with the input/output terminal plate. The cilia in Rf'near's hand passed protein strings with the cilia of the plate. This was how information was passed between Zylons. The Zylons never developed anything similar to human speech; they didn't even have an organ to hear with. Mass communications were done through something similar to the ancient Terran walkie-talkies. With the protein strings, large amounts of data can be carried. A Zylon could easily follow eight different conversations and read a document at the same time. Currently, the small space in the Denubian Galaxy that the Zylon occupied was a hot zone. The Warlord, that was how Rf'near viewed most Zylon politicians, for this spatial state had begun a major mobilization of all military craft within a million light years. Further Zylon attempts of using a nanobot virus had failed, due to the work of Rf'near and his colleagues. The only solution was the complete and utter destruction of any galaxy that the Terrans had settled in. An action like that would take several centuries, half the effective life span of a Zylon, but should completely eradicate anything Terran. It was unfortunate that Zylons were stuck to their believed superiority. They thought they were the only true species that deserved to survive. Terran thinking had changed that for Rf'near. He had gained some things the Zylon really didn't have, curiosity and human emotion. The Zylon only seemed to have three emotions, the equivalents of Terran fear, anger, and appeasement. The Zylon seemed like an unfinished project, which they truly were. Through Rf'near's research, he had found that the Zylon were created by the Geblar. The Geblar was not a god as the Zylons believed, but a mortal race that was on a similar technological level to the Zylons currently. A war had broken out before the Zylon had been completed. In the war the Geblar were destroyed along with much of their work. A new message got Rf'near's attention. The colony ship that had brought the Zylon here was being modified. Some new weapon was being placed on it that was being promised would wipe out the Terrans. This was horrible. Rf'near had heard nothing about it through his spies or through his snoopers in the main computer net. He would have to alert Arus to this problem immediately. Unfortunately there was not going to be the ties or opportunities to keep that as secret as he would like it. Rf'near caught one last thing in the message, the ship was going to be renamed Fol'ect yog Wert, an ancient Zylon weapon similar to that of the Terran Sword. * * * * * Soran was obviously amazed by the Einstein. Upon stepping onto the flight deck he had exclaimed to Clint (how) the Lion's Claw could fit in there with room to spare. He had taken a small shuttle over with five other members of the crew. Clint personally took them on a tour of the ship. Grier was taking care of everything else. Clint got along with Soran quite well. The other five, though, were quite quiet. Clint and Soran had quite a bit in common. They both were military men and had become among the greatest military men in their spatial nations, both had lost most of their immediate family to war, and both believed that battle was a last resort. The tour ended in Conference Room Two. Clint wanted to keep this first meeting small and would inform the rest of the fleet later during the daily meeting. In the conference room were Doris, Lucy, Daneel, Go-on, and Marx. Lucy was trying to avoid Daneel and it seemed to make Daneel a little suspicious. Clint promptly got the meeting under way. Clint informed Soran and his group about the fleet's mission. Soran interrupted when Clint began to talk about the ancient's technology, "What about communications? What new communications technology came out of it?" "The only truly new communications system that has been developed is hyperlink. It is a directed hyper-radio beam that cannot be intercepted by anything except the receiver. It also is fifteen times faster then traditional hyper-radio." "The explains it!" Clint and all of his crew had a puzzled look on their faces, so Soran elaborated. "About a hundred and fifty years ago, Arus built a hyperspace radio receiver array that was powerful enough to get messages from the Milky Way after the seven months it took for the messages to cross the void between galaxies. We were surprised when your fleet appeared because we did not hear anything about it." "Well I'll be a monkey's uncle." Marx muttered. Then looking at Soran he asked, "How did you get around the encryption?" "The array was routed through a ancient computer system that seemed capable of breaking every encryption or language we threw at it. Some of your encryptions, though, gave it a hard time. Especially the ones that if it seemed to be broken gave a false message." "That would also explain how you know Terran Standard. What I'm wondering, is how your language has changed." "It still shares many commonalties with the ancient Earth English it came from. Beispiel ist da das. That's Arusian for 'This is an example.' The subject has moved to the end of the sentence." Soran rambled on about it for a few minutes. Even though it was most interesting, Clint found it quite a bore. He slumped to his right, only to get a jab in his side. He looked at his attacker, Doris, who mouthed to him, "Pay attention or I'll give you KP duty for a week." Clint returned his attention to the conversation. To his joy, Soran was just rapping it up. "I'd love to get my hands on that computer. It's the best thing since sticky notes." Marx just loved that saying of his. The meeting went on with talking about politics in Denube and Arus. Clint had read most of this previously and planned what to go over in the next staff meeting while listening for anything interesting in the conversation. Too many meetings through his career had allowed him to develop this skill. He had a good memory for speaking and could easily remember most of what had been discussed. The meeting soon ended. Clint got up to escort the Arusian group back to their shuttle. Lucy was quick to get out of the room to avoid Daneel. * * * * * It had been six hours after the meeting with the members of the Arusian Convoy. The plan was now to go into motion. Lucy walked the corridors to Daneel's quarters. Daneel had been off shift for several hours. She was taking her time, not looking at all forward to this. What if his safety measures have been overriding? What if I'm wrong? What if my actions during the meeting clue him in? The questions bounced in her head. This was the hardest thing she had done in recent memory. She still couldn't believe that Daneel could be responsible for this, but everything pointed at him. She was now at the door to his quarters. She reached up to tap the door signal. Her hand gave a momentary shake, better watch this. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her finger finally hit the pad. She opened her eyes to the whoosh of the opening door. Daneel was right inside the door. "Why hello Lucy!" he said quite cheerfully as if nothing was going on. Lucy looked Daneel right into his eyes. "I need to speak with you." Well that was sort of obvious, but with the way she was feeling right now she could think of nothing else to say. The look on his face changed from the cheery look, to a grim, concerned look. He stepped aside and motioned her in. The door closed behind them. Daneel motioned to the couch that was on the wall right next to the door. "No thank you, I would rather stand." "Very well. What is it you want to talk about." Daneel went over to the couch and sat down. This is it. It took Lucy a moment to be able to start. She decided to not go right into accusations. "Have you heard what happened with my fighter." "Of course. Your power transfer conduit blew and put out the main reactor." "And you didn't see any sign of this when you found fractures on the reactor assembly?" "There was damage to the power transfer conduit." That was a bit of a slip. Could be a sign that Daneel has been winning. "But you only said you found micro fractures on the reactor assembly. Why didn't you say anything about the ones on the power conduits?" Daneel's face kept his concerned look without a cringe, but his eyes dilated slightly. That was a sign that he was beginning to have an internal conflict. "As I said, I only found micro fractures on the reactor assembly." "How do you think those fractures could have gotten there?" "I..I think that it was caused by vibrations during flight." "How could it? The fighter has only been flown once since the new reactor was put in place and before the damage was found. That flight didn't have the turbulence to cause internal damage, plus the inertial dampers were functioning." "H...How about wwhile being on on board." "You know that's poppycock. The ships mass is too great and the gravitational stabilizers would get anything that the inertial dampers didn't." "Well... Ah... May..maybe s..someone e.else was w..working on it an..nd w..was c.carel..lesss." A battle was being waged within Daneel right now, with the line between the two sides constantly shifting. Daneel's answers were becoming truly ridiculous. He knew better than what he was saying. Judging by the disorientation of his speech, he seemed to be well into a lockup. "But I am the only one that has worked on my fighter, to my knowledge. Do you know of someone else that worked on it?" Daneel's face began to portray a look of panic. His eyes began to dart back and forth. He was not able to look at her face anymore. "Daneel, look at me! Do you know if anyone else was near my fighter?" "I...I w...wa...s." He had just struck a sudden blow to his altered programming, the old Daneel was winning. It was now time to all out into accusations. "Why did you sabotage my fighter! Why did you try to kill me! How could you do anything of the sort!" His eye's locked forward with huge pupils. The rest of his body just locked. He could barely move his lips. "I...I c..ould...n't h..el..p iii..it. T..t.t.th..e...yy m..ma.made meeee. I...I d.dd.ddid..n't w...wa.. want t..to. P...Ple...as..e h...hel..p m..ee." Lucy wanted to go to comfort him, but a thought popped into her head, what if he had been setup to do this? She had to go through with a full lockup just to be sure. "You did it! You tried to kill me! Why did you do it? Why did you lie to me!" "IIIIIIIIIIII...IIIII..IIIIII......" Daneel just went silent. His whole body was stiff, his eyes were locked forward, staring into space. He seemed to have gone into a full lockup. Lucy walked up and touched him on the back of the neck. A small section of skin lifted up. Underneath were the "dummy" startup controls. A small scanner read her DNA. A triple chirp verified her as having access and started up Daneel's basic functions without bringing engaging his mind. Daneel's body stood up and just stood there, stiff as a board. Lucy began to find out if any permanent damage was done. "Run a level three diagnostic on your neural net. All regions dealing with higher reasoning." Daneel's eyes twitched signaling that the diagnostic was under way. He did this for about five minutes. "Neural net is currently in a lockup due to a level 2 conflict. There is minor damage to thirty percent of the pathways. No damage is permanent." Everything was good. "Walk over to the control panel on the wall to your right and put your right hand on it." Daneel did just that. Lucy walked over and tapped a button three times to signal Chief Seldon. Lucy stepped back. Within seconds, a power surge blew out the panel and caused Daneel to fall back. Lucy whipped out her PDA. "Colonel Clark to Chief Seldon! Emergency in Daneel's quarters. He has received a severe power surge and has been paralyzed." The Chief's voice came over the com. "I am coming down with a team right away!" Lucy knelt down next to Daneel. She picked up his hand held it. A few minutes later the Chief arrived with his team. Lucy stood up to get out of their way. He pulled out his engineering scanner, which looked like a portable florescent light, and waved it over Daneel. A flat display panel popped out of the top of it. "His neural net has suffered minor damage, but nothing permanent. The external neural connections have almost no activity. The surge seems to have fried the primary informational distribution unit. He should be fully operational in a few days." He looked over at the team and began to bark orders, "Get those antigrav units on him. Take him down to engineering in the workshop next to my office. Make it clear that no one is to enter. I'll be there in a few minutes." His team jumped to action and was out of the room in seconds. Lucy went and collapsed onto the sofa. She just felt exhausted and emotionally drained. Something had surprised her when she was confronting Daneel. She had always felt close to him as a friend, but there was something more to it. She had never felt that way for anyone. After those ten years of isolation, she had never wanted to get really close to anyone. Her standard psychological evaluations said that it was because of the self dependence she had gained during the isolation, but Lucy felt that there was something more to it. An odd sensation came over her. She felt something in her head soothing her. She had never sensed anything quite like it before. She looked over at the Chief. Could he be responsible? Nah, it was probably nothing. The Chief came over a gave her a pat on the shoulder, "He'll be all right." After a moment, he left the room. Lucy spent the next several hours just lying on the sofa. * * * * * The room was full of darkness. The sensors had detected that the room's occupant had fallen asleep. As soon as Clint walked in, the lighting returned to normal. Lucy's body lay motionless on the sofa in Daneel's quarters. Her eyes fluttered, signaling that she was in REM sleep. He pulled up a chair and just watched his daughter sleep for ten minutes. Suddenly she sat up. Her eyes stared ahead not focusing on anything. Clint leaned over and started to shake her, "Lucy! Lucy, hun! Wake up." Her eyes came out of the daze and she began to recognize where she was. She fell into Clint's arms and started crying. He held her close. "What is it honey. Is this all about Daneel?" She shook her head, "No, I had a dream from the attack." "The attack on your colony. I thought those had stopped long ago." "They had and I had learned to deal with them, but this one was different. It started before the attack. My parents had taken me to a picnic in a park near our house. I had gone off wondering by myself. I came across a few off worlders that had come to visit family. Before that I had never met anyone that was outside the colony. But there was something really different about them. I could read their thoughts. This amazed me. It was as if they were open books and I could find out anything about them with just the flip of a page. "After a while, my parents called me back. When I returned to them, they were also different. I couldn't read their minds, but they didn't really seem human anymore. They acted and looked just fine, but I could sense that they were different. "I turned around and ran, screaming. People would stop me asking what was wrong, but they were like my parents, not human. Many of these people I had known for as long as I could remember. "I eventually stopped running when I ended at one of the outer walls of the colony. I climbed into a shaft and hid. "While I hid, the attack came. I climbed deep into the shaft and hid for several days. I was able to get water through a water pipe that ran alone the shaft. Eventually hunger pulled me out. Everything was either rubble or dust. A few bodies were laid around, but all life was dead. There was nothing left to eat except for," she paused. Her sobs were getting much worse. "You resorted to cannibalism." "That is where the dream ended, with me beginning to eat that, that..." "I understand. Does this upset you so much since you haven't been able to remember much from the attack and that this dream is some representation of what did happen?" She nodded her head, "Yes. The dreams I used to have about the attack were of me running while ships would be shooting the colony. They were more of my fear of losing everybody I had known. But this, this feels like it is something more." "You should go see the doctor about this. I can't stand seeing you this way and the ship needs you." "No, no. I will be fine." She pulled herself away and wiped away the tears. "Why did you come down here?" "I had thought you had gone to work on Daneel. I had called down to Harry, to see how it was going. But he told me you hadn't shown up there. So I came looking for you." It was odd how that phrase was still used even though he had just asked the computer where she was. "After the confrontation with Daneel, I felt drained. I just needed to lie down for a while. "I'm going to get to Daneel right now." She ran out of the room before Clint could say anything. Emily, Clint's virtual assistant, came over the inter-ship com, "Sir, a communique has just been received over hyperlink for you. It is unmarked and has one of your special encryptions." "Keep it in my ready room. I'll be there right away. Keep the communique secret." "Already taken care of. There is no log of it being received and it only exists in your private data store." * * * * * Clint sat in the chair of his ready room viewing the information he had received from one of his "friends" inside of command. Even though Clint was a member of the President's Chief of Staff and was technically third in command of the Commonwealth Military and Supreme Commander of the Commonwealth Navy, there was a lot that went on in the Military that he was not aware of. This information was classified level 5E, which was not supposed to exist. The highest classification was 5D, which was for the President and members of the chief of staff. He was transfixed in the documents. Scanning through, something caught his eye. On the general document list was a file titled, LUCILLE CLARK-COMPLETE AND THOROUGH PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE. What did they mean by complete and thorough? And what was special about Lucy? Without hesitation he opened the file. What he found surprised him. He immediately called Lucy to his ready room. Several minutes later Lucy came in. Clint noticed that she was wearing a technician's jumpsuit instead of the normal blue and white uniform of a pilot. Without a word he handed her his PDA with her psychological profile on it. She nearly dropped it within reading the first page. "Psi ability eighty-six? What is this about? Don't tell me that the government has gone back into believing in ghosts and the Loch Ness Sea Monster?" "I have heard rumors of a military black project that looks for Psi; ESP, telekinesis, prescience, that sort of thing. I have heard that they had been able to find people that had those true abilities. They're not like what people believed back on ancient Earth during the twentieth century, but more with the ability to sense what people were thinking and able to manipulate their minds. That was the last I ever heard about it. Evidently, you have one of the highest Psi ratings they have found. Something just prevents you from being able to exploit it." "How could you not know about this group? You are a chief of staff. You advice the President and run the military." "There are lots of things that go on that I can't control. Black projects aren't under congressional oversight. Many of these completely skip the executive branch. Many generals and admirals run little pet projects and find ways to funnel government money to them." "How did you get this?" "One of my contacts within the military. He retrieved this stuff out of the computer database. It came with the information related to the possible conspiracy. I think that it was sent to try to find any other reasons for the attempt on your life. "Hand me your PDA and I will copy the package for you." Lucy handed it and over. Clint swiped it across a data transceiver strip behind his desk. The information was passed over in seconds. He handed it back and she sat down to read it over. Clint continued from where he had left off. The doctor that had reviewed her believed that her failure to be able to exploit her Psi powers originated with her years of isolation. With no need of her powers, they had weakened to the point that they shut down. They never came back when she returned to people. Also, it could be related to a traumatic event that had occurred, such as was indicated by the standard psychological tests. A bulb lit up in Clint's head. "Lucy, do you think your dream could have something to do with this?" Clint looked up and Lucy was half way out the door, "I need to see someone," was all she said. That was the second time she has walked out on me. What is going on with her? * * * * * "Well hello Colonel!" Before Lucy could respond, Chief Seldon grabbed her arm and pulled her through the door. He waited for the doors to close before saying anything further. "First of all, stop thinking of me as Chief Seldon, just call me Harry. Second, no Doris doesn't know about my powers." "Would you just stop reading my thoughts. I would rather be able to carry on a conversation instead of you taking it out of my head before it can reach my mouth." "Alright, I try to not do that so I won't slip up and reveal myself. I just needed to exercise them since I really haven't used Psi for months. I have just used it to pick up people's feelings. "Very few people know about my abilities. Just my parents, who are now dead, and a few other telepaths." "I can't believe you haven't even told your own wife about this?" "There are many people that have a hatred of telepaths. I only wanted to save her from that." "Do these people that hate telepaths have anything to do with the destruction of my home colony?" "Yes, that was one of six colonies of telepaths that existed. They wanted to be able to get together and refine their skills without the hassle of common people. The percentage of people that develop Psi powers has been increasing for as long as we have records for, which is about five thousand years. The first records were kept during what is called the twenty-first century on ancient Terra. The people like your parents wanted to help prepare for the future when most of the terran populace would develop Psi powers. "Unfortunately it and the other five colonies were destroyed for one reason, they housed telepaths." This disturbed Lucy. For all of recorded human history people were persecuted for being different and having more then others did. She couldn't understand it. How could it still exist in modern society? From a young age, people would undergo mental therapy to stabilize people's minds and improve their ability to make rational decisions. If everyone was supposed to think rationally, why did that go on? "So that dream I had was true? That was what I couldn't remember?" "Most of it. The turning into a cannibal was your own fear that manifested into the dream. That happens a lot with recessed memories, but you can learn to tell what is a memory from what you have made up. The rest of the dream was true. Most telepaths have mental shields that prevent them from having their minds read. Those few off-worlders were your first chance at sensing a person's thoughts. With your stronger powers and your extreme curiosity, you basically absorbed everything they knew. Those people didn't know they were in a colony of telepaths. With your new found knowledge, you tried to do the same to everyone else, but you felt nothing, just the shield they had constructed. Your mind concluded that they weren't human. If they were human they would think and they weren't thinking." "Why would I do that? I knew many of those people my whole life. I don't see why I would think that." "With telepathic powers, young minds are more unstable. I think it had to do with that. Your sudden jump into sensing caused your mind to become fairly unstable and you thought those things." Lucy was becoming slightly angry. How could this person that really didn't know her, know so much about her that she herself didn't know. "What do you mean you think? Everything else you stated as fact. And how could you know all this." "I was able to get it from your locked up memories. I don't totally know why you thought what you did because I don't know that state of your mind at the time. It could be other things." Lucy sat on the sofa. She just couldn't accept everything that was going on. It was all happening too fast. First Daneel tried to kill her, then confronting him, then the dream, and now finding out why her colony was destroyed and that she had Psi powers. This was just too much for one day. She looked over at Harry. He seemed so calm about everything. How could he do that? Harry sat down next to her, a little too close for Lucy's comfort. She scooted away a little. Harry gave a little laugh. "I wouldn't do such a thing. I'm happily in love with my wife." Lucy just shook it off and asked him a question that had been bugging her since she came in, "How did you know about me?" "Since Doris and I received the communique from Clint that he had found a young survivor on the colony, I have known. I used my powers of persuasion to get Doris and I on board the ship." "I remember that. Clint thought it was to help with me. So you actually came there to find out if I was really a telepath." "Hmmm mm. I needed you to be in a safe place that I would be able to reach you. I used Clint's sadness over the loss of his son to make him feel closer to you. You were a little harder to get to, but I was able to chip away enough to get you to think of him as a father figure." Lucy was slightly disturbed. She had always liked to be in control of her life since the attack. "Just how much of my life have you affected?" "Not much after that. I had sewn the seeds already. Most of what needed to happen just fell into place. I did have some affect on the outcome of your court marshal." Lucy gave a double take, "What! I always thought that Clint had something to do with that." Harry shook his head, "No. He just stood back and let the system take care of it. He had thought you would get a slap on the wrists and sent back due to your lack of experience and fact they needed pilots with your skills. Unfortunately, several members were biased against telepaths." "But how did they know?" "Same way your father found out, through contacts within the computer system." "Harry, if you have psi powers, can you tell who the conspirators are on board?" Harry looked a little disturbed, "As I said before, I try not to read peoples thoughts, but I always get a sense of what they are feeling. Also, there is a device that can be implanted into a person's brain that masks their thoughts, almost like camouflage. You sense thoughts and feelings from the user, but they are not his real thoughts. The conspirators must be using these, since I can't sense deception among the crew." "What about people that block their minds?" "There is only one person on board that I can't sense and I am married to her." "You mean Doris also has psi abilities?" "Not much, but she has a natural thought barrier." "What about Daneel?" "He is a little harder. When you sense a persons emotions and thoughts, you are picking up on the electromagnetic field that is generated by their body, a sort of aurora." "Since Daneel produces a similar field, you can sense what he is thinking." "Yes, your team did an overwhelming job of making very close to human. He thinks very similar to people, but a lot of the field is shielded so you can only get his emotional state and often a thought." "Is that why you are so good with machines, because you can sense their electromagnetic radiation?" Lucy turned and looked at the wall to compose her thoughts. "This is just too much to happen in one day." A voice came into Lucy's head, *. (* <>are used in place of quotation marks for transmitted thoughts.) Her thoughts began to organize. It seemed as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. The response surprised Lucy. She wasn't sure how she was able to respond. Her mind now seemed to unfold. She became aware of new sensations in the room. The room itself had a rhythm to it. How could he do something like this to her? Suddenly the resentment left her mind. Without a word or thought, she got up and left the room. * * * * * The room was sparsely furnished. The owner didn't see much of an importance to having lots of things to clutter the room. The only real decorative thing in the room was a painting by one of the greatest abstract artists of the last two hundred years, Lars Riemann. The painting showed a person made of geometric shapes that was dying. It was suppose to depict human frailty. The room had one occupant who sat in a chair behind his desk. Things had not been going well for him or his cause. Today his plans had began to unravel. A chime came from the door. The man looked at a monitor that showed right outside his door. At the door was a young, browned haired Ensign engineer. The man in the room opened the door to let the engineer in. After the door was closed and all the security measures were in place, the man spoke. "Mr. Langely, things are not going well. Several hours ago, Daneel was involved in an accident that has put him out." "Sir, that was not an accident. Chief Seldon caused the power surge that supposedly put out Daneel. He was at the power management station when it the power surge occurred and my worms in the computer console recorded that he had transferred the power to do it." The man hit his desk, "Damn! There is a good chance they are on to our actions. We will have to act quickly. We will have to move to our alternative. You will have to do the dirty work instead of Daneel. One change though, you will have to get rid of both Daneel and Colonel Clark." Langely bowed his head slightly, "Understood." His voice trembled slightly. He knew that there was a good chance he would be caught in the act, but if they achieved their goal, it wouldn't matter. That only thing that mattered was the furthering of the Revolution. The telepaths had to be purged for that gain, for they could be the end of humankind. * * * * * The problem was worse then Rf'near had imagined. The Zylon were more desperate then he had ever thought. The Sword was being equipped Hyperspace Weapons. According to the ancient scrolls and the two prophets, Geblar forbid the use of Hyperspace Weapons saying that they would destroy themselves in the process. The leaders were leaving their beliefs, this meant that there was no real telling what could happen. Those weapons threatened this entire local cluster. The Terrans had to know about this, no matter the cost. This could be a large cost for Rf'near. Many Zylons in the government were beginning to get suspicious of him. There was a good chance snoopers were on him right now. He looked over to a cryogenic tube that sat right in front the console. A human form was just visible through the opaque tube. It was a side project that he had taken on, but now it would serve a far different purpose then intended. Rf'near changed his attention to his own body. He screened out all outside stimuli, except that of his body. For this flesh would only hold him for a few days more. To be continued.