Chapter Twenty-five
Anverd told the TC duty controller he'd chosen where they would be docking and he could complain to the emperor that he had to rearrange scheduled berths. The duty controller looked at the posture of the man in black and said he'd shuffle. He contacted security. He didn't know who he was, but he'd seen 'military bearing' before. He was surprised by the answer he got. He didn't recognize the voice, but that wasn't surprising. That he didn't get visual and what the voice said was.
"They're expected. So is cooperation, but they know a large number of people won't have the choice to do so. Hopefully, their medical personnel will find a counter to the drug that has taken that choice from them. This station is in a state of isolation. No ships are to leave. All arriving ships are to be given stand-off positions and instructed to remain in them. Any ship which departs from this station or stand-off positions will be reported to Imperial Fleet Command. All Imperial Drug Enforcement agents' response to resistance will be logged and logs forwarded to the imperium. Organized resistance will prompt an immediate call for fleet blockade and occupation by Imperial Marines. Sorry, kid, but the enemy has this place and they took it with a drug that doesn't allow people not to believe what they're told. They used it on people to make them use it on influential people, who have come through here for about fifty years. When they leave, they all believe the bigoted filth poured into their minds while under the influence of the drug. Agent of the emperor, code cousin, out."
The TC duty controller had been there three days. He realized he was hearing the truth, as it was spoken, and the many proffered drinks people had seemed very angry he'd refused were why he had. He didn't drink alcohol and didn't know if the fruit juices he'd been offered had enough of a particular chemical compound to give him a headache, a slight sensitivity he'd inherited from his mother. Three days was long enough to know there was something wrong with some of the people he worked with.
He took a deep breath and contacted three ships scheduled to leave within the next three hours. He told them all ships had been ordered held in dock by Imperial Drug Enforcement. He said none were suspected of drug trafficking, but there was a high probability persons on them had been drugged and medical personnel would be attempting to find a counter for the mental tampering it allowed.
A trader captain screamed it was "a plot by the filthy Shadill." His two crew members subdued him and one said he'd liked them six hours before and they wouldn't be going anywhere until he did again. The duty controller played the recording of the incident for a luxury cruise ship captain who called back yelling about schedules and the importance of her passengers. She paled and nodded. The captain of the passenger liner commed back and asked to be notified as soon as the medical personnel learned something. He told him he'd had to reprimand his chief steward twice for discrimination since the last time they'd been there. The 'medical personnel' was with Anverd when he walked into the station security office.
"Have any of you even taken a sip of water?"
"No, nor eaten anything. You're sure it's in liquid?"
"I'm sure Jast was furious she didn't get over a bar fast enough to keep the tender from dumping a pitcher of something."
"Was she as mad as you are?"
"Ven said medical section first, Shel. Everyone in it assured us there was no drug capable of doing anything like that to anyone and the Shadill weren't capable of developing it if there was. Ven asked them when the Shadill had become another species. She told them the 'enemy' was non-human and the doctor explained the Shadill were still a human race, no matter how much we'd all like to disclaim them. A med tech said the Toscans might be drugging people, but no one let the 'dirty old homo lover' on the station close enough for him to hit them with an inject."
"Comm Anverd!"
"Here, Farner."
"We found something. Looks like a couple hundred liters. We stunned about twenty people trying to keep us out of this storeroom and a dozen more before we got the door open. They come running down the corridor screaming epithets, brandishing kitchen knives, metal rods, bottles... It's pinkish. There's a siphon in one of the two liter bottles behind a bunch of others. There's a mark just above the clamp on it, less than a quarter cc. There are about... forty empty bottles sitting around. I've got five with me. With twenty more, I might make the ship with a bottle of it for Ven to analyze. It's on the end of the corridor numbered eight six two, but it's not on the station map and there's no number on the door. If those people hadn't been here, we'd have probably looked at the labels that say pink pepper cocktail mix and gone on."
"Understood. Shel?"
"Send fifty and cargo carts. We want it all out of there fast. Once it is, look for more while Ven works on it. I've got a feeling that's either not all or not it."
"You heard, Farner."
"They're going to have to move a lot of people to get down the corridor, more all the time. I agree. Too easy."
They located the seven security guards who were not on duty when they fired on four who were searching. A woman yelled a warning or they'd have done more than just fired. Garis thanked her. She said the thanks she wanted was help for her husband. He was one who had run into a corridor brandishing a bottle. She hadn't been able to stop him. Garis commed for a medic. She had a nasty bruise on her arm where he'd hit her with it.
Space around the station began to be dotted with ships, not a great many, but it was a busy station. One started to leave. Nightband put shots on three sides of it from her aft guns. A shaking woman commed the station and said the bridge crew had been stunned and they were working on getting the ship stopped and turned around. She was connected to Nightband and Harschen helped the cabin steward and three passengers who had 'taken the bridge' do it. They'd gotten the stunners they used from two stewards, auxiliary security, who had yelled "Homos!" and shot two men in the lounge, father and son. The steward had been leading a delegation to the bridge to find out what was going on because the captain had yelled at her to search for "Toscan traitors" when she'd attempted to report it.
The pink liquid wasn't the drug. The TC duty controller yelled for help when people began to batter at his barricade on the door. They added six more to the very full security cells and hunted somewhere else to put people. They had over sixty stuffed in four small cells. They'd had to stun several again to keep them from damaging themselves battering against the doors. Ven began sedating people. They couldn't calm them and stunning them every time they awakened was harder on those who had to do it than those stunned.
Reverend Tassherty opened the chapel doors and frightened people began to find the place where the soothing music was coming from. Kiri watched the door with the stunner one of the 'agents' gave her and added eleven to the number in the cells over a three-hour period. Each time she stunned someone, Reverend Tassherty invited those who wished to join him in a prayer aid for them would be found.
It took them thirteen hours, but they finally identified the drug. They found it in a tiny breath spray bottle. Once they had, it took them seven more before they were reasonably sure they had all of it. It was all over the station and in several forms, but it began as a fast dissolving powder. Once identified, they could scan for it. They'd sedated three hundred sixty-seven people by then and they knew they were far from all of them. There were just a great many who hadn't been pushed to become violent, well over two thousand of them, more than half the people who lived and worked on the station. They held onto patience and acceptance of authority and had people around them who helped them do it. Shop owners and store clerks were the primary helpers and all knew they'd been on the schedule. Most of those who had been drugged had shops or worked on the top deck and one section of the one below it.
Ven worked feverishly to find a counter. She had help. Tommy supervised a lab crew preparing samples. Lola ran comp simulations. Nightband had been at the station twenty-seven hours when she yelled, "We've got it!" o
n ship-wide comm and across the station public address system. Exhausted people cheered and Tommy's crew began making the counter as fast as they could. The first to get it were the station medical staff. They learned how to use it with the doctor. Ven countered the sedative and placed a restraining hand on him when he began to sit up.
"You've been under the influence of a suggestibility drug too powerful for the word to fit. You totally believed anything you were told while the drug itself was in your system. The one I just gave you doesn't cure the belief, but it allows you to use your reason to overcome it."
"Such a drug is impossible and the Shadill... "
"Didn't have anything to do with it. Here's the formula. I know you're positive it can't exist, but you can see it does. Work your way through it. Replace the false opinion with knowledge. The Shadill are just people who looked for a way to assure their children had a good future. The way they chose is unusual, but it works or there wouldn't be about a three hundred percent increase in their numbers every generation. Every marriage begins as a group of young friends looking for people to share life, love and children with them. They can't be a race because at least half of them weren't Shadill before they joined a marriage. There's nothing wrong with homosexuals. If there was, we'd have found a treatment for it hundreds of years ago. It's a physical and emotional preference, not a disease or a disorder. There may be individual causes for the preference, but there are causes for some women preferring tall men, young men preferring older women and so on. Toscans are people who believe love is wonderful and fidelity strengthens the bonds between people. They believe in something greater than they are and call that something God."
"I'm sure you're wrong and I know you're right. I can see exactly what the drug does and I'm sure it can't exist. I can see you're exhausted."
"I have over three hundred fifty people sedated, have been testing substances to see if they were the drug since yesterday and working for fourteen hours since we found it to come up with a counter. I was sure using it again to lay down new neural paths that couldn't be deviated from was not the only way to counter it, but I was beginning to have doubts."
"Doubt. I have doubts. I couldn't doubt anything. I could have... suspicions, but no doubts. No healthy person is always sure of everything and we all know it. Anyone who is needs treatment. It's a psychiatric disorder and one doesn't need medical training to know it. It's very common knowledge. Tell the patients to look for doubt, even if that doubt was there was anything wrong with them. Once they find it, they'll know they hadn't been able to doubt."
"Thank you, Doctor. Your injector. Get to work."
"Yes, Doctor. I seem to be very well rested. Let's start with my staff and then check the medical personnel on ships in dock."
"I did. None of them have doubts."
"Let's give them back to them."
Reverend Tassherty surprised a great many people when he sang a hymn of thanks. Not that he sang it, but that his voice brought goosebumps to nearly all who heard it. Kiri put it across the station PA as fast as she could and she was fast. All she missed was the first "Oh... "
Shel smiled and opened cell doors, gave Urber the code to give the security people and he, Tal, Mandy and Li left to become just four more people, who had waited and hoped. Tommy and Lola met them at the captains' lounge a few minutes later. They didn't try to hide what they'd been doing. They'd volunteered to help. The two trader captains who had been in it when Shel had led them in asked for a bit more information.
"We don't know where it comes from. I think they may have a few suspicions, but that wasn't of primary importance to them and it was obvious, especially in their medical section. I'm a pretty good hand on a sample prep unit and there were several of us working and there were never more than two samples sitting in the prep tray. That doctor is... incredible and you could feel her determination to find a counter. Lola is very fast on anything with a keypad and she got a bit behind a couple times."
"I didn't, Tommy. The computer did and it was very fast and had a lot of capacity. I'm awed. The emperor sent the best he could. I have no doubt of that. A lot of other things, but not that."
"I docked less than an hour before this whole thing started. Four people offered to buy me a drink the first time I sat down somewhere. By the time the third one did, I was sure I didn't want one, even after I finished taking care of business."
"I docked just before the drug enforcement ship came in. I told my crew of three to stay put and headed back for the ship fast when people started to go crazy. This is my first trip here. Always planned to come, but it was the first time I had a cargo I thought would sell well enough to be worth the trip. Carter said this is his first trip here too."
"I want my cargo checked. It's a delivery job, but it paid well enough to be worth taking to see the place and let my daughter shop a bit."
"They've probably thought of that, but... Comm Officer Farner."
"Farner."
"This is Lola Hadlain. I helped in the lab. We're in the captains' lounge and there's a captain here who wants his cargo checked."
"We're about to get to work on that, Lola. I've got fifteen, who aren't too fogged to see what a scanner says, who are going to start at the top and work their way down. We're currently most concerned with finding passengers and crew who need the counter, but we're getting a lot of help on that now that the doctor got the medical personnel treated and they figured out how people can help once the counter is given. It's amazing. They start fighting the effect of the drug as soon as someone points out they didn't have any doubts at all about anything they believed. The Toscan minister said tell them complete faith wasn't having no doubts. It was being sure there was an answer to them. I'm sorry. I'm rambling. We've got people who have had three hours sleep coming on to relieve some who need it almost as badly as they did. Estimate is six hours including all those ships out there. Do spread that around. We've got a kid up in TC who has a plan to get ships out and in before he takes down the barricade on the door and folds. He said he'd napped, even if he hadn't planned on it. He deserves a medal. I can't give him one, but I think I know someone who can. I'm rambling again. Out."
"She's right. He deserves a medal. He's kept every ship informed and done his best to keep people calm. I slept on the bridge with the comm open and didn't mind being awakened by his calm voice giving an update every so often."
"He's been here three days, Carter. It's his first job. He was trained at the school on Panemer Docking and they recommended him. He got it because he was willing to pay his passage himself. The doctor was checking on him and I listened. He doesn't drink alcohol and explained some fruit juices give him a mild headache and he hadn't had time to find out which ones wouldn't, so had turned down offers to buy him anything to drink long enough to begin to wonder about how many offered and how angry they seemed when he said no thanks. The doctor named three juices that wouldn't bother him and told him he'd probably get even more offers to buy, but they'd be for the right reason. She knew exactly what he was sensitive to in the juices and had analyzed every one of them by then."
"Fruit juices?"
"They're all used as mixes for drinks and offered immediately if alcohol is refused. I'm Tommy. I don't know your name."
"Oh, sorry. Angela."
"I'm Angeli. They're both pretty old names. My mother said I told her to call me Li before I was making sentences."
"I told mine I wouldn't answer to Angie any longer when I was about six. I'm confessing we broke in here."
"What?"
"I thought this would be a good place to find a cup of coffee and keep up with things when it began to get sane and was walking away when Carter showed up with the same idea."
"I told her that wasn't the only door and we hunted others. It gave us something to do. Eventually, we found the service lift to the ballroom and it and the door through were both unlocked. Thi
s place is not supposed to ever be closed. None are. They may not be serving food and staff may be a sign that tells how to make more coffee if the big pot runs out, but not closed. We figured out how to make coffee and unlocked the doors."
"Hang on. Comm Officer Farner."
"Farner."
"Lola again. Two captains in the captains' lounge got in by the ballroom service lift."
"We left it unlocked. We figured someone would find it. Captains are a rather resourceful bunch. We locked the other doors when we took eleven people out of there. The place itself was clean. Four pockets were not. That's where we found the drug first. I just wish we'd stuck those little sprays at the front of the sample queue, but we hadn't found them anywhere else and they were labeled. I've just been told I'm being relieved, or else. If you need more, Jast is your girl."
"Hi, just yell 'Jast.' She's wobbling. I got a brief on who you are. I'll call Captain Shelter with updates. The doctor says you and Tommy flat somewhere. Since she was sleepwalking when she said it, she's sure you should be. Checking. Comm connect Captain Shelter."
"I've got you, Jast. I'll order them down and threaten to sit on them if they don't stay flat, but I think they'd prefer to stay here rather than head for the ship. Would saying we'd docked about fifteen before you arrived, didn't have anything to eat or drink here, aren't carrying any cargo and no one has been on it, including us, be enough to cross it off the scan list?"
"Nightdancer crossed off. Thanks. Out."
"Couches."
"You give such nice orders, Captain. You haven't slept either."
"I know, but I just sat and waited. It was tiring, but it wasn't hard work. Tommy, don't argue. In fact, I want all of you down. Yes, Mandy, you too."
"I napped."
"So did I."
"I'll wake Tal to relieve me and you to keep him company in awhile, Li. This place is going to get busy before too long. You want to stay here instead of going to the ship, flat now."
"He sure kills an argument fast, doesn't he, Tal?"
"I don't know, Li. I never come up with one before he answers any I could come up with."
Shel woke Tal when the head of station security asked to speak with him "somewhat privately" about an hour later. Shel surprised him when he led him out of the lounge, sat down and leaned back against the wall in the corridor.
"Who are you?"
"An ex-military officer with a big family with a lot of money. Found another ex-military person to train us all so we can watch over each other."
"You erased part of the security logs."
"Yes, we did. You did a very thorough search on us, then yelled the comp tech, who told you there was nothing wrong with your computer, was a rebel. We didn't know if just taking us out of the log would help her, but it was the best we could think of to do for her. I explained what we'd done and why to the drug enforcement agents, some that I didn't think you deserved to have to watch it. I have a feeling they're just going to take the logs of the last... day-and-a-half with them."
"They told me they would be. They said they needed them to show what action they'd taken and why and we didn't need a copy. I'm rather glad you erased that part. I know it wasn't me, but... "
"That may be the real reason they're not just copying. Don't try to remember what someone forced you to do. You know how completely you were forced. No persons living under an occupation by an enemy military were ever so completely forced to work for them, because they could at least think of resistance. You were all victims of a terrible crime. The job now is help the other victims. Help those who drugged others to forgive themselves by showing them you forgive yourselves for being victims. You didn't 'let someone' make you victims. Tell them how often you have to remind yourself you know the victim is in no way responsible for the crime because it was you. You would never say a person was carrying so much cash he or she deserved to be robbed. You did nothing to deserve what was done to you. You were shot in the back when you started the job of watching over the playground, because you would have noticed a stranger talking to the kids. This stranger wanted you incapable of seeing the kids were given drugs and told to give them to their friends."
"I tried to kill you. I'm still sure you were traitors resisting arrest. I still have no doubt of it. That's why I'm sure it can't be my belief."
"The only person I know who is without doubt fairly often is a mathematician and she checks several times to make sure she didn't change a sign, reverse two numbers, enter one wrong or use the wrong function before she accepts the proof."
"Belief is overcoming doubt, not being free of it."
"Sounds like Reverend Tassherty."
"It was. He walked in and said he'd forgive us if he ever thought of anything we needed to be forgiven for, but he was having a great deal of difficulty forgiving whoever had made him work so hard to forgive us for things we weren't doing. I'm still sure he's a traitor, but I'm sure glad he's here. He's going to be a lot of help."
"There. That smile is the beginning of healing of the injury the doctor treated. This isn't exactly the shopping trip and treat for my family I planned, but I still plan to do the shopping and take them to a ball in the captains' ballroom. Do help the merchants get their doors open so we can hand them lots of credits, so we have just the right thing to wear to a celebration. The occupation is over. The liberating force managed to do it without a single injury to them or the civilian population, an amazing feat."
"Yes, it was and I can't find out the doctor's name."
"Or probably anyone else's. I noted they used each other's first names, nicknames and a couple common surnames. It makes sense."
"Yes, it does. I asked where they came from and so did a couple others. We all got the same answer."
"The emperor sent them."
"That's the one. I think I believe it because it's so hard to believe. Jarim, the TC duty operator, said there was an agent in security, when he called to check on the ship."
"We didn't see anyone else there, until I told their commander what we'd done and the new lock code for the cells. I was asked if I'd had even a sip of water since we arrived. I didn't expect a no answer to get me twenty-plus hours of sitting in the security office while they hunted drug, but I realized I'd already volunteered. A lot of people did. A great many sat down and held the hands of people who couldn't believe the bigoted opinions they held weren't their own, but fought to accept they'd been drugged and worked to wait for the agents to find what had been used on them. If they'd all been as thoroughly... programmed as you were, they couldn't have."
"Programmed. A very good word for it and I wonder if that's exactly how... the enemy thinks of it."
"Probably, and they're going to find out it makes us very, very angry. Almost makes me sorry I'm an ex-military officer, but I was still present for the first real battle."
"Yes, Sir, you were. Company coming. If captains are coming off ships, it's time for me to help people prepare for passengers who will be soon."
"Remind them all it's a victory celebration. The occupation has ended."
"And we have some terrible memories, but no one to mourn. Your fellow husband knew."
"That's Tommy. He said that's why research on suggestibility drugs is illegal."
"Very true. Enjoy the rest of your visit, and get some sleep."
"Oh, I will. There will come a point when one of them orders me flat, probably Tal."
"Comm Shel."
"Yes, Tal?"
"Where are you?"
"Just about to walk in the door."
"Good. You need to occupy one of these couches. I commed and switched info coming to me. Now, Shel."
"Yes, Tal, now. Out. He surprised me. I thought I'd get back through the door first."
The security officer was laughing when Shel walked through the door. Carter and Angela did when Tal pointed at a long couch a bit away from the bar area and he hea
ded for it. Shel knew he was right. He was beginning to feel shaky inside. He knew he could get past it and keep going a great deal longer, but it wasn't necessary. Tal was more rested. He'd napped about two hours during the long night, on his lap. It had been how he'd finally gotten him to sleep. He'd found it restful too.
Li didn't sleep long. She was a fairly light sleeper, not exhausted and it had begun to get busy in the lounge. It didn't surprise either of them when Mandy joined them at the table about a half-hour later. She'd 'catnapped' for ten or fifteen minutes several times during the night and they worked for her about the same as a single rest period of their total time. She pointed Tal back toward a couch. He noted it was getting busy. She told him to share Shel's and he noted he occupied a bit more space than there was on it already. She beckoned him to follow, moved a big chair over beside it and told him the back of it to block noise and light and his feet to cuddle would keep Shel asleep awhile longer. He smiled and took off his sandals. Mandy was smiling widely when she got back to the table.
"Funny?"
"Tal put his feet up on the couch and Shel rolled over, pulled them in and sighed in contentment, Li. He'll probably giggle himself to sleep in a few seconds. How you doing?"
"I've had about five hours sleep total, about the same as you have. Tal's had about three and Tommy and Lola are getting close to the same. Change comm before they call Tal."
"True. Who's on?"
"Still Jast. She told Tal she'd been ordered to bed when they finished the scan for the drug, so Farner wouldn't keep waking to check how she was doing when she relieved her. Someone said it was a pretty military bunch and Tal asked when a swat on the rear started being used as a salute. He said it wouldn't be surprising if most had been in the military, but they were definitely not 'officers and troopers.' They were 'tell her it's done and she'll tell you what's next on the list' and friends."
"Agreed. More incident or task force command than military structure. Comm connect Jast."
"Jast."
"This is Captain Mandala, Mandy, Hadlain. I just stuck Tal in a big chair beside Shel with a piece of his couch as footstool. I've had a not too-short night total and he was still running on naps. Update?"
"We have found some on ships. That nervous captain was right to be nervous, two kilos. We got where he picked it up, but it was a transshipment and is going to take some more tracking. We've got five of the eight past due out and all the out in. Fellow passengers are pointing out people who hold unshakable opinions they've espoused too often on the way here. Nearly all have been here before. Crews are some and some not on nearly all of them. They've all been here before. We think we caught it just before a major expansion and it's been coming in as station supplies, just as the two kilos did, to go out on ships twenty-five grams at a time. You don't want to know how many doses that is. I don't want to know how many we found."
"Too damn many."
"Since six would have been, needing approximately five for analysis, that may be a record understatement. It's a good thing we're leaving in a couple hours. I can't afford the gowns I've been drooling over. One maybe, but I want them all and doubt I could narrow that to two or three."
"I noticed. I also noticed they'll all fit Lola. If I find one my size, I'll be ecstatic, but I imagine I'll be looking at fabric and hunting through pattern catalogs."
"I saw fabric and pattern catalogs here. They're not like other places. I had trouble remembering to look at the scanner when I was looking around the fabric and difficulty walking by the image on the catalog screen. Since I did, the people who turn them into gowns are probably incredible too. Hang on. I've got a yell. Here's your update, estimate is well under two hours. We've got all the people treated and are starting on the scans with four more scanners. We have a couple people who built specific for the purpose. The idea was see if they could and they got done in time to hand them over."
"Shel will probably want to talk to someone before you leave."
"Considering we drafted the six of you as soon as you volunteered, he'll probably get a call. Probably to watch us give a medal to that kid in TC. Farner found the right one and the gang in the tech lab are making it up, just in case. None of us are really worried it's a wasted effort."
Shel opened his eyes, saw Anverd was squatting down beside him, got a wink and was handed a medal and a rolled and ribbon-tied paper. He raised an eyebrow.
"We're asking you to do it for us when he's not staggering and there are a lot of people to cheer. 'By order of' will be official, but he's a bit far away to sign it and there and back is a bit long for Jarim to wait for it. He'll get a signed one of those one of these days because fleet ships will stop by, but it will be awhile before one gets here from there, about a hundred days unless he sends a courier, which he might. We heard the same from every ship crew. His calm voice with updates and personal reassurance when they needed it was listened for and never failed to ease the worry for the people for whom they were responsible. Take him to a victory celebration and give it to him in the middle of it for us, please."
"Yes, definitely. He will send a courier, for all of them. He sent you."
"We got here just in time. There was enough here to take every station in Yarrow sector and it was ready to move out. We found some on every ship headed for another station. We didn't tell people how much we found in their luggage, cabins, quarters, stock rooms and holds, except Carter. He pointed and said, 'That one makes me nervous. It just says station supply.' Two kilos, about a half-million doses. Hope you weren't hungry."
"How much did you find total?"
"Do you really want to know, my friend? I'll tell you how much I shoved in the elemental reclamation unit as fast as it was brought to me if you truly wish it, though I told no other and allowed no record to be made of even the increase in elemental stores."
"Shelter, don't ask him to tell you. It would hurt him. Tell Tommy."
"It'll hurt him less to tell Tommy?"
"It won't weigh as heavily on him. It's the kind of load he's built to carry. He knows it because he's built the same way."
"Yes, Tal, I am. I'll tell him."
"You'd carry all the load for all of us, for everyone, if you could, Shel. Since you can't, you have us to help. Together, we can."
Shel looked at Tal's smug smile, grinned and got up. When Tal did, he grabbed him and tossed him over his shoulder. He yelped and giggled. Anverd and Tommy were smiling when Lola went by them, picked up Tal's shoes and followed them to the table. She was giggling.
"Fairy dust and Shel helps spread it around."
"Yes, Tommy, he does. My load suddenly feels a great deal lighter too."