SCIMTAR 3

I

 

Scepter 2: Timecode:104Z-B/二十二 (Moon 478)

 

That they called it “Knucklebone Mountain” was actually a misnomer, being in fact two grassy hills of similar elevation. It was unanimously decided that because of the range’s imposing presence over the rest of the surrounding landscape, and for the expedition party’s imposed disdain for the idea of twoness, it should be given a single name. Connecting the two hills was a land bridge of sorts, that when looked upon from a distance, resembled the web of skin between two fingers or toes bent at the first knuckle. Jutting out from the top of one of the hills was a derelict antenna array. Its rusted-out skeleton of steel scaffolding and silent electronics had been left only partially assembled, with the aerials from the array scattered about the site like giant metallic tree trunks. The hillside is dotted with the bleached white remains of three individuals.

As the party makes land, several kingfishers can be heard not far above them wheeling about and chattering in the warm wind. They struggle to look up at the sleek, colorful birds but as they do, they see themselves too, clear as day, as though looking at ones’ self through a mirror mounted to a high ceiling. It was presumed that one of the many satellites which allowed them to see again was in good range, and its own vision wasn’t impeded by clouds or atmospheric aberrations.

From any angle, the party looks worse for the weather. In the ankle-deep, frigid ocean water where they moored their ship, the ragged group stands wearily shaking off the salted grey buildup of the decades-long journey, dwelling upon the fact that their arrival to the island only signals the true beginning of the parties’ sordid mission. It had been a lonely generation of slow progress across the vast, dark oceans of Koros. Their numbers had been all but decimated, and their meager supplies fared no better. The vessel that carried the expedition party, christened “Scepter Two” by the Parliamentary Counsel on Network Expansion, had managed the voyage much better than the surviving members themselves. Its monstrously wide double hull was constructed from an exotic alloy whose ore had been mined to depletion for munitions during what was now being called “The Great Indirection”. The ship had been built three generations prior to present day, during the bloody peak of the violent insurrections and ethno-political genocide that triggered the Indirection’s numerous deadly wars. It’s original purpose of transporting prisoners across vast ocean expanses between a network of island labor-penitentiaries, was ideally suited for its current employment in long-distance surveying and network expansion. It could navigate the frozen plains of Koros’ dark side just as easily as it could sail upon its sun-soaked oceans.

Presently descending from the ship’s cargo birth is the party’s commander, Judith Norwood. Her unburdened eyes are shielded by a low-brimmed hat woven out of some fibrous jetsam one of the children had discovered during the journey. The hat itself was woven from brightly pigmented plastic and nylon strands which frayed in such a way that it gave the impression of tropical plumage framing her stately and weathered beauty. Her second in command, a wiry yet elegant man called Carlos accompanies her down the ramp exiting Scepter Two. A recording of Maurice Ravel’s “Gaspard de la nuit” can be heard faintly in the background as it floats out from somewhere inside the ship’s Tonal Remedy wards.

“Where’s our scouting party, Carlos? Have they assembled a team yet to assess the damage to Scimitar 3’s coms center? ” She spoke in low resonant tones as many in her team, Carlos included, were nearly deaf to all but the lowest ranges of audible frequency; they suffered irreversible hearing damage from the aural ballistics used during the Indirection.

“Georgette and Bill put together a team yesterday, Lady Judith.” replied Carlos, “They’ve reached the land bridge and are awaiting word from you. They embarked before sunrise…and claim to have come across edible roots and grain. They also mentioned discovering some human remains. Two bodies, maybe more”

Judith bends down to pick up a handful of black sand, only to let it drain out from the bottom of her wrinkled fist. With resignation, she speaks through a sigh,

“I guess that’s to be expected. I’m sure that won’t be the only remains they encounter. It’s good news about the food though. Let’s put our faith in Georgette, she’s always had a knack with comms.”

Judith removed her hat as she spoke, revealing a shock of silver hair bound into a neat knot at the back of her head. She turns the hat inside-out and removes a tattered booklet from a concealed fold in the crown. It is a typed transcription of a video-recorded event appraisal. She opens it to a dog-eared entry half way through the delicately bound, faded pages.

SCIMITAR 3 EVENT APPRAISAL: TIMECODES 001A-A/ 零零三 THRU 500L-C/零十五

CAPT. WENDY S. FRIEDMAN

TIMECODE: 339B-C/零零三

 

START APPRAISAL

 

The crew has found solace this evening in the interception of another arcane signal, most likely from home, maybe a relay from an old surveying telescope…who knows. Baxter identified it as The Pointer Sisters,  she tells me they were very popular when the recordings were made. how she’s managed to catalog so much ancient culture I’ll never understand…whatever it was the crew was transfixed by it when they heard it. I was surprised at how emotional they became over the recordings. As we progress further into this mission, it’s clear to all of us that there are these neglected, unvoiced parts of ourselves that the oceans we’re surveying have only silenced further in their great depths. Provided that we are successful in our endeavors, New Sense has promised us clarity and a profoundness of vision beyond any sight ordained to us by nature. Baxter’s intercepted signals though, despite the fact that they’re just interceptions of pre-recorded sound- there’s something in the structure of their tones- they sort of redeem the fact that the New Sense technology is not yet where it needs to be to uphold these promises. The crew seems to have more emotional stamina and pride in the mission after being exposed to the sounds. Baxter senses it too, and I’ve authorized her to spend more time researching the matter. Anyway- we’ve followed the course set by Scimitar 3’s navigator to what it has identified as “Mass twelve” with the intention to expand New Sense’s bandwidth beyond the Ögedei Penitentiary network. We’ll attempt to establish a com center on top of the two elevated areas of the mass…which my daughter has now named “Knucklebone Mountain” …We’ll see if it sticks.

END APPRAISAL

            Judith turned to Carlos as she flipped the pages to another she had marked and said, reflecting on the passage, “‘there are neglected, unvoiced parts of ourselves’…why the restraint, Carlos? Why was she shielding the Council from her crew’s true state? Isn’t that what the appraisals are for? I doubt the Council even expected them to make it that far, it was a fucking suicide mission from the start.” Carlos adjusted his New Sense feed as he stepped from the ramp onto the fine volcanic sand.  “Wendy always kept her event appraisals light, Judith, free from too much anguish or flourish.” He Said. “She was keen to maintain Parliamentary protocol even at that stage in the mission. Her team was in a constant state of defense, what with Hank inflicting Sensory Stasis upon so many in that crew…it must have been horrible. Try to see it from their point of view, ” they both wince at his graceless choice of words, but he continues after some calculated hesitation.    “…you’ve still got your biological sight. Had it not been for Baxter’s research in Tonal Remedy, your own team who relies entirely upon New Sense, in all its shortcomings and glitches, never could have committed to this mission.”

“Trust me, Carlos.” She measures out her words, “I recognize that the remedies have been immeasurably helpful in getting us this far, I know the effect they’ve had on me so I can only imagine what they’re doing for the rest of the crew…but what if this is it? What happens when we lose the remedy signals? Say the comms mission doesn’t pan out? How long before Hank’s followers start another mutiny like he did with Wendy’s crew? We need to start planning for bad weather long before the first clouds appear. We need to do absolutely everything we can to retrieve the rest of Scimitar 3’s event appraisals. They’ve been down this path; before we follow them any further we have to know every mistake and obstacle they had to overcome.”

In response Carlos rubbed his unseeing, milky eyes and sighed, “You’re right Judy, going any further without some clearer history would be reckless” . The wind rose up then, sending a fine briny spray up in spirals around the two of them and the ark-like vessel they called home for so long.

“I’m going back in. I’ll be in my quarters. See that a secure perimeter is established around the ship, … and stop calling me Judy.”

“Of course, …Judith” replies Carlos, “I’ll convene with you when we’re finished”

She returns to her quarters within the ship, relieved at the familiarity of it, and powers on the event appraisal recorder that sat in the corner of her room. It comes alive with a dull whir.

SCEPTER 2 EVENT APPRAISAL:

CAPT. JUDITH B. NORWOOD

TIME CODE: 107Z-B/二十二

 

“Good Day. …I don’t exactly know what has triggered it, but finishing this leg of the journey has me thinking a lot about my mother,” she pauses for a moment, looking at her reflection in the recorder’s lens. “I guess, … for what it’s worth, it’s important for me to continue documenting what I can remember of my own history and lineage, …but anyway my Mother she-” Judith straightens in her chair as she continues. “She was a member of the Aeolian Army during the Indirection; a veterinarian employed by the army’s Calvary Division as an Equine Ophthalmologist. … It may seem strange to future readers of this appraisal that horses were ever brought to Koros in the first place, but they were extremely instrumental in our establishing life as we know it on this planet.” She halts again and turns her gaze towards Carlos and four others securing the perimeter around their ship. She imagines them being accompanied by animals she’s never seen before, only read about; a Jersey cow drags supplies up the beach, feral dogs run by with two or three cheetahs, splashing about in the tidal pools. She returns her focus to the machine; the hum of its recording mechanism hasn’t ceased.

“Of the limited fauna that humans imported to the new world, horses’ numbers thrived more than any other in the early days of colonization. Their utility was dual purpose; both as an assistant to laborers and as livestock. Our species came to Koros as homesteaders, and we needed another species’ help to aid in our evolving with the new world that we had claimed as our own. By and by we thrived too. Over the next nine Days our ecology caught up with our expectations and there grew a need for social order, not just survivalist trial and error.” She breaks and her face turns stoic and remorseful. “We all know the pain that emerged from that phase in our evolution. …There were of course seemingly insurmountable difficulties in adjusting to the stretched timescale on Koros. Our children take the supposed endless bounty of Day for granted…as I’m sure the reader of this appraisal will to some degree… because they’ve never known the cold of Night, it’s like an impossibly dark fairytale to them. …” Judith catches herself rambling then, as she so often has to, and eventually regains her original train of thought.

“Horses,” she reminds herself, speaking with a more measured pace. “… eventually grew to become a valuable asset for the combat units. That was right around when I was born. The usage of animals as tools of war became commonplace in the latter years of the Great Indirection, and completely out of necessity. There simply weren’t enough human soldiers left to do the bidding of the fear-mongers and war-lords. Naturally, dolphins proved to be more effective at self-governing and mission execution than did the horses, but it was the horse that started the paradigm shift, or return to, as some historians claimed- mammal-aided warfare. It makes sense!  Horses had the longest standing history of companionship with their domesticators and their unique eyes were better suited than human eyes to the spectrum of light that shines from Koros’ sun. Beyond that, they could survive our long night better than any animal. … Anyhow, my mother, Cynthia-Rae.” Judith turns from the machine, looking fondly into the distance, “She helped pioneer the surgical procedures that eventually paved the way for New Sense’s cerebral integration. The Aeolian bio-engineers were the first to attempt mounting a satellite transponder to the visual cortex of an animal. They of course weren’t testing the concept for the application we use New Sense for currently. They wanted greater surveillance capabilities … Crazy fuckers. Mom used to bring me into the lab. I must have feigned an interest in the whole mess. … It was shear insanity bringing a child to such a horrendous place, but I just loved being around her, so she took me along because it seemed like I was into it.  The initial tests were with frogs and fish primarily; their cerebral cortex being at the perfect young stage in evolution to adapt to rudimentary versions of what would eventually become New Sense’s bio-interface. They found early on that it was surprisingly easy to get the simpler animals to become accustomed to Vertically Rectified Perception or VRP for short. However, convincing mammals that this type of dis-embodied sight was natural, that looking upon themselves from above and understanding that it was their own bodies they were ‘seeing’ … was heartbreakingly challenging. It was devastating to watch the first trials. Confusion begat terror, terror begat anger, anger begat self mutilation and ultimately… dea-“

A knock comes at her door. She gets up from the appraisal machine, shutting it off as she rises to answer the door. “END APPRAISAL” glows for a moment on the machine’s monitor before dimming away completely, and the old thing powers down.

Barry Keenan is at her door. He had just been outside helping Carlos establish a secure perimeter around the ship.  Barry is an un-assuming looking person. His simple round features compliment the fact that his current cognitive state is slightly more dampened and neutralized than that of most the others. He is a Disciple of Hank, as they have begun calling themselves. The hierarchy aboard Scepter 2 has split into two factions; both determined by their respective followers’ preference to one method of coping with the mission over the other. Judith’s camp is one of purity. She guides with patience and relies heavily upon Tonal Remedy as a methodical way of lulling her supporters into compliance. Hank’s followers on the other hand, despite their appearance of being inherently compliant, subject themselves to heavy drugging and a controlled torture that Hank himself has developed and coined the term “Sensory Stasis” for it.   Despite this duality, the two ideological hemispheres of the ship had a mutual goal in the mission itself, so the ship operated as a single unit with respect to duties of the mission, more or less.

“Georgette and Bill have returned, Judith.” Barry’s voice is low and even, “They’d like to debrief you on their findings if you have time”

“Many thanks, Barry. I’ve got time now. I’ll see to them.”

Barry Keenan turns to leave, but Judith gently grabs him by the shoulder as he does so.

“Barry,” she turns him back towards her, making sure to catch his foggy gaze, “…you look well. … I know this has been difficult, but the end is close. Hang in there, okay?”

Barry blinks twice, staring back at Judith. “Thanks, Jude. You look well too, … considering” and he turns away again and leaves; turning down the corridor towards Hank’s Stasis Ward

He reaches the door to Hank’s quarters, and before he can knock, Hank opens the door and silently motions him in. They exchange no glance. Both know what Barry is there for. A sort of clinical order has come about Hank’s Sensory Stasis process, and he has gone so far as to create a strict schedule for his disciples to follow.

Barry immediately sits in the chair across from Hank. Hank’s assistant stands silently at his side. The chair itself is positioned in a partially reclined position; its headrest illuminated by a shaft of light that filters through a hole cut in the decking above the chamber. After Barry straps his own ankles and left arm in the chair’s restraints Hank’s assistant fastens the final two straps around his right arm and chest. Hank, sitting at a massive drafting table, begins writing the sermon for Barry’s session on a large tablet. Finally, the last apparatus, a black metallic cage that could form around the contours of the face was then latched into the headrest of the chair, fixing Barry’s head in place. Along the outer edges of the face cage were tabs onto which a highly polished, concave mirror would be attached. The mirror was then locked in place and could be removed only by a key-holding assistant. Sitting in a reclined position, the wearer could look upon themselves through New Sense and the mirror’s reflection of the feed would create a kind of excruciating feedback loop that resulted in a seizure-like loss of motor-control and violent, jerking convulsions. Stasis, if left to take its course, had been known to cause spasms so strong that subject would come out of the procedure with broken bones and severe contusions from the straps; hence the assistant. For the person receiving treatment, however, Stasis was an incomprehensibly beautiful stimulation of the mind. The Disciples, by way of Hank’s gospel described it as “a shift into a different plane of consciousness”. One which was seemingly unbound from the laws of time and space and freed from limitations of “selfness”. The harm done to the body wasn’t perceived is until the mirror mask was removed. Prior to that stage in the procedure, a mind could submit itself to the pure, disconnectedness of New Sense control, and all concept of the self would temporarily vanish.

Hank had finished writing the sermon by the time Barry was in position and “fully reined”. The sermon read:

THE LAST ECHOS OF YOUR VULNRABILITY MANIFEST THEMSELVES IN STASIS. LET THOSE ECHOS DIE AWAY AND YOUR SELFNESS DIE WITH THEM. LET YOUR UNBURDENED MIND BE GLAD FOR THE SUFFERING, IT’S PAIN IS A MEANS TO AN END.

 

After latching the mirror mask to Barry’s face, Hank places the sermon tablet on his chest and leaves the rest to his assistant. The portal to the chamber closes behind hank as he walks through it; bringing a sudden hush to the corridor outside the ward.