Russ Colson--Future's Soul

Science Fiction Books

Future's Soul

--the third novel in the Certainty Principle Universe

A god-like alien warship, a brewing civil war, and a deadly moral challenge draw an injured cyborg scientist into a conflict where saving Earth may cost him his freedom, the woman he's starting to love, and even his own soul.

Cover Blurb

Three centuries in the future, technological and biological enhancements produce three human Branches: mechiform enhanced, gene enhanced, and unenhanced. Mechiform space scientist JoTHaN7 leads a research team to a seemingly-derelict ship entering the solar system and loses his Mechs A and B--two of his three mechiforms--along with the rest of his team when the ship attacks.

Jothan's own military believe him complicit in the attack and his Central Mechiform dies during a harsh interrogation, leaving him a crippled lone human. He escapes to Mars where he finds himself thrown in with two fellow fugitives: Eebialus, a genetically-enhanced former soldier now a Catholic monk, and Astara, a young woman of uncertain origin with unexpected powers. Although unsure they can trust each other, the three embark on a journey that draws them deeper into the unfathomable purpose of the god-like alien warship and into a brewing civil war that threatens Earth.

Sign up for Russ's Science Fiction Newsletter for updates!

Would you like to be notified when Future's Soul, or other science books are available? Subscribe to Russ's science fiction newsletter for notification of new publications, and, in addition, get a free copy of Russ's short story All the Beautiful Lights of Heaven. Email's will be few (no spamming), and your email address will not be shared.

Sample Chapter, Chapter 1, Interrogation

The cold fingers tangled in his hair yanked his head up again. His eyes rose to meet the blank metal of the interrogator, communication lights blinking where a face would have been in a carboform avatar.

“What information did you receive from the alien warship?” The interrogator's gentle tone sounded wrong given the harshness he'd already shown.

“Nophing.” JTHN7729K12-Carboform struggled to form the word, his dry tongue and lips conspiring against him. Hunger gnawed at his belly--they hadn't let him eat for several days--and that cramping hunger merged with the even deeper longing to be away from here, to go back to the simple scholar's life he had before the alien warship attacked and he lost all of his crew and half of his own life.

“We have reason to believe you are withholding something." The Mech-B interrogator tapped a metal finger of his free hand on the table beside him. "Your profile indicates a passion for duty, honesty. Why not now?"

Passion. The strength that gave the carboform purpose alongside his mechiforms. He felt that passion now, his heart torn between an honest desire to serve his people and anger at their unjust interrogation. He believed in his work, in serving the First Branch. He'd learned that passion at the facility that birthed his line. Taught by the woman who raised him, the only mother he had ever known. He felt a sudden longing to see her again, to fly away from this prison cell to those free days of youth, hear her kind words and know she cared about him. There, he could escape, for a little while, the cold duty expected in the adult world of First Branch society.

He heard his own breathing, loud in the quiet room.

The mechiform continued. "Your Central relayed data just prior to separation. What was this unreported transfer?”

Anger rose at the implied accusation. Why would the interrogator doubt his integrity? Even more, why doubt his desire to do the right thing? JTHN-7 understood at least part of the danger the alien ship presented, and he understood the critical need to learn its motives and intensions. He'd tell them if he knew, despite their harsh methods. But, unfortunately, he didn't know. “Central sent character and experience settings, as is typical when separation is imminent.”

"Then why do we find the hint in your Central's records that more was sent?"

Fear for Central overcame his personal fear for a moment, and, he surged upward from his slump over the table and tried to sit back in his chair. The effort consumed his last strength but led to nothing. He merely bumped his head into the ceiling of the interrogator’s unyielding metal hand.

“What have you done with my Central?” Resignation at his failed attempt to rise tempered the anger in his voice.

The interrogator gave no answer. After a moment, the metal fingers relaxed from his hair. JTHN-7's head fell forward, smashing his lip between his teeth and the table. He did not even recoil. He was too tired to feel it, too despairing to care.

Even if Central survived, he was already bi-mortigic. With two avatars dead, he could never again be more than a cripple, never more than a partial mind and partial body. What did it matter if he lost a lip, when he had lost most of himself?

And what if Central, too, was gone? Certainly, he was cut off from that essential part of himself. Since infancy, he'd never been so empty in his own thoughts. Never so alone. Instinctively he reached out, seeking the warm hum of communication, the strength of that powerful mind to provide guidance and to ease the pain of the present circumstance. But he met the empty void of interfering static.

Without Central, he would be nothing more than a lone carboform. What could he contribute then? He wasn't sure how he could make a living, or if he even wanted to. What he did want, more than anything else, was to prove his integrity to these militant bastards. Based on the failure of reasoned argument, that would seem to require escape. Then he could learn more about the alien warship and prove his loyalty. He let the deeper part of his mind reach out beyond the cell, looking for opportunities.

“What do you know of this starship?” the Mech-B continued after a merciful silence.

“Everyphing we learned was in my report. As I told you, my Central is thorough.” The indignation that accompanied JTHN7’s first response to the implied accusation slid into resignation. “The samples are still in the lab, unless someone moved them. We hadn’t completed the survey, and most of the analyses were yet to be done.” At great effort, JTHN7 pulled his head up from the table to face the interrogator, hoping direct eye contact would offer persuasiveness that truth alone did not seem to provide.

There was no reward for his appeal. With a firm hand pressed against the nexus panel on the back of his head, the interrogator pushed his face back into the table. His own blood lubricated his chin against the wood, allowing his head to twist uncomfortably to the left. The smell of blood and dust filled his nostrils.

“Come now, we know that you have special knowledge of it. Certainty analysis reveals that you will, in the near future, interact extensively with its creators. Even now, you must know something of them. Tell us what we need to know and everything can still be well.”

The Mech-B could read every expression that crossed his face, hear every heartbeat, sense every change in mental activity and skin chemistry. The interrogator must know that he told the truth.

JTHN7’s pain-fogged mind wondered if his Central had, indeed, learned something not communicated to the other avatars. If so, what could it be? And why keep it secret from the corporate mind? Was such schizophrenia even possible? Central, with his faster and stronger brain, might reserve some knowledge from the weaker vessels. But he would not, could not, withhold intent or character. To not know one’s own mind, to keep secrets from oneself, was the essence of insanity.

In any case, what might a simple scholar, a dedicated civilian scientist, know that was so terrible his own countrymen would set aside law to learn it?

The interrogator released his head from where he had held it against the table. JTHN7 turned his head further to the left so that his cheek rested on the greasy table, allowing his hemisphere of vision to encompass the entrance. A second interrogator entered the room, a carboform, dark hair, sharp nose.

This one glowered at the first interrogator. “How dare you treat one of our citizens, a member of the First Branch, this way!”

The first seemed startled. “I’m sorry sir. I was told we must find out by any means.”

“By any legal means.”

“I’m sorry, sir”, the first repeated. "But I was told..."

“Wait for me outside.” The Carboform dismissed the Mech-B, and came to stand by the table. JTHN7 felt warmth radiating from the man's organic body.

He lacked the strength of body and will to look at the Carboform. Instead, he watched the Mech-B walk toward the exit. The lights on the door's control panel flashed as the Mech-B sent the access code that released the bolt holding the door.

The radio signal was screened of course. He couldn't have picked it up even if his own Mech-A had been with him in the room. But he didn’t need either his Mech-A or a radio signal to get the access code. He read the change in the lock’s logic gates with a deeper sense, one that his interrogators did not know he possessed.

His one hope for escape.

He grabbed the last digit as the logic gate took on its favored value and the heavy steel door swung open. He secluded the number in memory, not the digital memory housed in the main processor in his torso, but his human memory where the interrogator could not force it out.

“Please excuse the vigor of an overenthusiastic subordinate.” The new carboform leaned casually against the edge of the table, about half a meter from where his head lay. “We did not intend to treat you so roughly.”

JTHN7 doubted that matters such as this happened by mistake. But, sincere or not, he clung to the offered kindness.

“I'd like to help.” He spoke slowly so as not to slur. “But I can’t. What more do you want from me?” He tried to raise his head, feeling that courtesy required it, but with his last reserves of willpower going to planning an escape, his head did not comply.

The Carboform watched him calmly, as though they were sharing lunch together. “Only the truth.”

“I've told the truth.”

The Carboform broke eye contact and stepped sideways out of JTHN7's view. “We have reason to believe otherwise.”

“Why can’t I see a lawyer?” JTHN7 sounded plaintive, even to his own ears.

The Carboform's footsteps rounded the table behind him. “You haven’t been arrested. You don’t need a lawyer.”

“If I’m not under arrest, then why can’t I leave?” JTHN7 wasn’t sure why he bothered to ask such a reasonable question.

“We need to find out what happened at the ship.”

“I have already told your colleague.”

“Please tell us again.”

JTHN7 sighed. “It was our third day at the ship." His voice lacked the vigor of the first telling, when the immediacy of new events added vibrancy. Even so, he still winced from the pain of severance as though shadow nerves still connected him to his former members. "We had finished sampling the metal hull and the crystalline window.”

The Carboform was back in his field of view. He leaned over, his long, narrow nose just centimeters away. “Excuse me. How many samples was that?”

JTHN7 closed his eyes, shutting out the Carboform. “Well, we sampled every three square kilometers, so I suppose about ten thousand. I’m sure Central has the exact number.”

“What did you learn from those samples?”

“The composition was an iron alloy, quite hard. We prepared a polished sample for backscattered electron imaging. The BEI showed a micrometer-scale network of gold threads imbedded in the iron. We speculated that contrasting conductivities provided some sort of electronic communications throughout the hull."

He took a breath and continued. “We made preliminary analysis of a couple of the samples, expecting to get a cosmic ray exposure age, but the metal was saturated with cosmogenic nuclides, with loss rates balancing production rates. We were surprised by that, given the slow rate of diffusion in the cold of space.”

“So, I suppose you calculated a minimum age?” The interrogator's tone took on a hint of true interest, and the content of the question revealed a knowledge of the technique that the first interrogator lacked. Somewhere in his fogged mind, JTHN7 realized that this interrogator might actually understand what they learned at the ship.

“Yes, at over one hundred million years.” He opened his eyes. The interrogator had stepped back about a meter from the table.

“So that explains your sampling of the crystalline window.” The interrogator nodded, his eyes drifting away from the table in concentration.

“Yes, we thought its lower diffusion rate, and therefore higher saturation density, might allow a better estimate of age. Unfortunately, we never got to analyze the samples.”

The interrogator grunted and was silent a moment before turning back toward him. “Did you learn anything more about the window?”

“Not really. It was about twenty kilometers in diameter, and the sample we took to the laboratory was transparent at all wavelengths. We had yet to determine its composition.”

The Carboform clasped his hands behind his back and began another tour of the table. “This age seems unrealistically high. Was there corroborating evidence?”

JTHN7 followed with his eyes until the interrogator disappeared behind him. “Well, the hull was crater-saturated. Looked like an asteroid. Numerous melting scars and vaporization pits.”

“Crater saturated? Didn’t it come from outside the solar system? What was it running into out there?”

JTHN7 tried to shrug, hard to do with his whole body slumped over the table. He noticed a lock of curly, black hair torn from his scalp sometime during the interrogation resting an inch from his nose. It lay glued to the table with his own blood. He scrunched his eyes to focus on it. “A retrace of its trajectory indicated it came from the centauri trinary.”

“My comment concerned the age of the ship and not its origin.” The interrogator bumped the table, and JTHN7 flinched. “Impactors aren’t that common in interstellar space. Crater saturation would seem to imply an age much greater than one hundred million years.”

JTHN7 hesitated. The other interrogator had shown no such interest in the science carried out at the mysterious ship, or in the implications for its great age. Was that what frightened the C of C, that some race from the dark of space had built this ship while their own forebears roamed Earth as brute beasts?

“That's what we thought,” he said.

“Go on.”

“We didn't find a doorway or airlock into the ship. However, we found a single opening in the metal hull, a tunnel roughly fifty meters in diameter that opened directly to space and extended into the darkness of the interior as far as our floodlights could penetrate. On the third day, my colleagues and I went in to explore. 9J25ZA655H1 and YB45R32DD2G went encomplet, with all four avatars. I went in only with my Mechs A and B. My Central and Carboform remained on board our own ship to coordinate the data feed. My Carboform specialty is remote pattern analysis using a Certainty amplifier. It made sense that I remain on board, since I was the one best able to participate from there."

"Remote pattern analysis.” The interrogator interrupted again. “So you can study something without seeing or touching it, simply by thinking about it?"

"It's more correct to say that I can anticipate the consensus that defines a remote object. But I must have seen it, at least once."

JTHN7 hoped the interrogator didn't think too much about the implications of that ability. Duty demanded that he respond truthfully. But he also had a duty to escape, to learn about the ship and its purpose. If the interrogator considered what someone able to anticipate the near future and see outside his own sight could accomplish, he'd realize that a normal prison cell couldn't hold him. That, of course, could make escape more difficult.

Although, such sensory powers were not widely known among the Branches. Only among his gene line.

"So, given this ability, why did you fail to anticipate what happened at the ship?" The interrogator continued. "Or did you, in fact, anticipate but say nothing?"

"Of course not." JTHN7 said, too exhausted to find the indignation that might have otherwise surged in him at such an accusation. "This ship had considerable Certainty shielding. Even with the Certainty amplifier, I was unable to read any firm pattern of its character.”

JTHN7 paused, a new memory tickling at his consciousness. "Except..."

"Except?" The interrogator prompted after a moment.

"Nophing." JTHN7 said.

"Why were so many of you on the ship at once? That seems incautious."

Another implied accusation. "The ship seemed primitive, lumbering into our solar system, and we didn't anticipate any threat, even though it was of alien construction. I point out that if others had thought it to be a threat, it would have been military and not civilian scientists examining it."

"Very well. Continue your account."

JTHN7 felt too weary to respond to the disbelief in the interrogator's tone.

"We had traveled about five kilometers into the ship, with no indication of doorways or other entries, when we came to a small circular room, about fifteen meters in diameter and ten meters high. It seemed to offer the best hope of entry into the ship.

"When we entered, a lighting system engaged, primarily in infrared but providing a dim light visible to carboforms as well. My Mech-A measured an intensity peak at 845 nanometers, with illumination in the visible spectrum of 50 lux on all surfaces.

"A contoured bench sat in the center of the room, about sixty centimeters high and two meters in diameter. Within a second of entering, YB45R32DD2G picked up a computer prompt inquiry--her Mech-A specialized in non-digital computer communications. The prompt came as a conceptual image rather than a linear logic-gate inquiry. She interpreted the image as 'confirm identity for access', although the prompt used foreign concept patterns, thus making the interpretation approximate.

“My Mech-B moved to the far wall in an attempt to detect where the signal originated and to evaluate the potential for other open areas in the ship. My Carboform was assisting with that activity using the Certainty amplifier. My Mech-A joined YB45R32DD2G in attempting to respond to the inquiry prompt.

"However, the alien computer made no further communication. Ten seconds after we entered the room, a wave of expectation more powerful than any I've ever encountered swept through it, destroying all of us inside. My Mech B, standing against the far wall, was the last destroyed, about point-one seconds later than the others. Central's analysis of Mech-B's last data stream indicated that their atoms were disrupted at the nuclear level, disaggregating into neutrons, protons, and electrons."

JTHN7 fell silent. His throat still burned where the scream, torn from him when his avatars were severed, left it raw. The sensation had been almost beyond pain, a fleeting moment of astonishment like those executed in the guillotine must have experienced before losing consciousness forever. It had been only an instant before Central intervened to prevent him from going into shock. But even Central could not relieve the ongoing ache of the loss itself. Half of him died that day.

But, only half of him. His colleagues, his friends, died encomplet. They would never be again.

Their death must surely precede his own by an insignificant amount. How long could he continue in this debilitated state, even if he were able to escape this interrogation? He was forever invalid now. The hundred years or so of life remaining to him felt like a burden. Even if prosthetic avatars could be grafted in, and that was no certainty, they would never be his own like those who had been a living part of him. As a bi-mortigic invalid, he could never be more than an insect in the house of his people, unable to fully communicate, useless, his intuitive Carboform mind cut off from them and from the puzzles it once delighted to explore. His powerful Central mind...where? Did it still exist? Or was the thin thread of downloaded thoughts and experience left in his own weak brain all that remained of who he had once been? A mental invalid in the body that a leading scientist once occupied?

He shook himself, a shiver that ran from his shoulders down to his feet. He must not succumb to such despair. He could still help his people if they let him. Even without Mech A and B, he was better equipped than others to pursue understanding of this alien ship. He was the only one living who had seen it. His particular abilities would allow him to explore it further, even from a distance.

"So, did you kill them?" The interrogators words interrupted his thoughts.

Despite his exhaustion, the accusation stirred him to anger. The implication was so unfair, so painful, and so frustratingly irrefutable given the circumstance. With all the dignity and intensity he could muster, he mumbled into the table, "Of course not. They were my friends." He took a breath, summoning courage. "Why are you so afraid? And why has Certainty analysis implicated me?"

The interrogator ignored his questions and again planted his face centimeters from JTHN7's. "Do you think you can keep secrets from us? There is something that you haven't told me. A few minutes ago, I asked what you anticipated at the ship, you an expert in Certainty pattern analysis. You answered ‘nothing...except’. Except? Except what?” The interrogator leaned still closer, shouting in his ear. “What was it that you remembered?"

JTHN7 held still, fearful that some twitch of finger or fleeting facial quirk might reveal his thoughts. Duty called him to tell what he remembered. But, if he had any hope of escape, they must not guess the prescience abilities on which that memory was based. Had he not been so beaten and tired, that glimpse into his abilities would not have slipped from him.

He couldn't have hoped to deceive the Mech B, were it still here. But the Carboform couldn't pick up on subtle changes in skin resistance or hear the faint surges in his heart. Perhaps a portion of the truth would be enough to ease suspicion.

“When you took me into custody, just before you broke my link, Central signaled that the danger is not from the ship itself,” he began.

“We picked up no such communication between you,” the interrogator interrupted.

JTHN7 winced. So tired. He couldn’t think clearly. Now, he'd opened himself up for a whole new line of questioning. He couldn't let them know about the unusual communication channel he had with Central.

“Central sent an abstract image to my visual nexus, not to my digital interpreter.” He offered no further explanation, unconsciously holding his breath, hoping that the interrogator did not pursue the line of questioning.

“Done so that we couldn’t translate the signal?” The interrogator didn't wait for an answer to his rhetorical question. “If you are as innocent as you claim, what do you have to hide?”

“I didn’t intend to hide anything," he said. "The capacity of my main internal transceiver was loaded by the transfer of character and experience settings, proper for impending separation.”

Not completely true of course. But maybe true enough to convince the interrogator.

He ached at the memory of that separation and Central’s desperate transfer of personality and mind during the last moments of contact. The bad news was that the tiny trickle of data allowed by his captors was insufficient to convey more than a fragment of Central’s immense mind and character. The good news was that that fragment was all his tiny Carboform brain could absorb anyway. He wondered for the second time what they had done with his Central, and whether the twilight shadow of being and intellect residing in his Carboform was all that remained of who he had once been.

“On what evidence could your Central claim that the true danger is not from the ship itself?” the interrogator asked.

Five long thudding hearbeats. He felt them pounding in the table beneath him. How could he tell the interrogator that Central's claim was based on a vision of the future? Once they knew, they would anticipate and prevent his one chance to escape.

The pause was long enough for the interrogator’s own Central to calculate and review a million possible implications of his hesitation. JHTN7 realized that his Carboform mind could not hope to deceive one who worked encomplet.

He glanced toward the doorway and sent a questing toward the Mech B who stood guard just beyond it. The guard was still there, but the brief vision of the future his questing returned showed he would be gone soon. Just for a few minutes. Perhaps long enough.

"Thanks to your limitation on my data transfer rate at separation," he replied, "I don't know how Central reached the conclusion. I don't even know what it means. You will have to get that from Central."

"Your Central had no answer for us," the interrogator replied. "We found only an image which we can't interpret. An image of Neptune with no Triton, a large cross on Nereid, and a fleet of warships gathering nearby, pointed toward Earth. What does this mean? Where did you get this...this...whatever it is. Dream? Painting?"

JTHN7 felt a chill stir through his bones. They had his vision, his glimpse of the future, the image that he had passed to Central shortly before the alien ship killed the exploratory party.

How did they know? Central would not have passed it to them freely.

The answer came to him, vaguely shocking, vaguely expected. They had scanned Central.

He shuddered. He knew the interrogator would see his tremble, but the awful pain that surged through him in realizing they had drained away all that made him who he was demanded it. One did not survive a scan. Only the core coding remained. Personality, intellect, memory, all gone.

Why would they do that?

The tremble abated. He'd known, somehow. Known that they had murdered Central, taken away his life while leaving him sufficiently aware to know his own death. Resolve began to transplant the despair in his mind now that conscious certainty replaced unconscious fear.

The interrogator had not reacted to his sudden tremble. He could not have failed to notice it or to understand its meaning. So, they knew he knew, and didn't care. That meant that they wouldn't let him leave this place alive.

At least, they would not do so by intent.

The interrogator, or whoever the interrogator worked for, didn't know yet what the vision meant, or where it came from. They didn't understand what it implied of his abilities.

"I have one more question for you," the interrogator continued, as though nothing had changed, as though the room had not grown dark and small, as though hope had not been extinguished like a small candle in a winter wind. "Earlier, you said, 'Even with the Certainty amplifier, I was unable to read any firm pattern of its character.' Why did you word it that way? Am I to conclude that you expected to be able to read something even without using an amplifier? Do you have some ability that you haven't told us about?"

He'd made another slip. Too tired. Now, the interrogator was truly suspicious, piecing together the little mistakes. He should have known that his Carboform mind alone could not outwit one with all four avatars working in proper union. There was no more time. The guard was gone from the door by now. He had to act.

"A slip of the tongue." He kept his words calm, but his mind was not on the words. The words were just to distract. "Without contact with my Central, my organic mind alone can't avoid such errors." He sent a questing that targeted the link between the interrogator's Carboform and his remote Central. "As you know, it's in approximation and error that the organic mind finds its strength." The questing sent back its anticipation, what would be in just one moment.

Information with the power to set him free.

He knew the moment the interrogator's human brain would access its main processor. He knew the moment his Central would commune with the Carboform’s processor and the frequency of that communication. He could interdict his own thoughts into the communication between them. The interrogator's Carboform would not be able to distinguish his Central's proper communication from the masquerateur. A well-timed signal entangled with the interrogator’s own internal communion would create confusion, disruption. A moment of confusion would be all he would need.

He signaled the processor in his torso to take care of timing. He needed accuracy to the microsecond, and his organic brain couldn't do that.

JTHN7 hit the interrogator with everything his tired mind could muster, requests for detailed analyses of puzzles unrelated to the present situation, a clutter of digitized images, and an errant physical command to run to the far side of the room and pound his head against the wall. He particularly hoped this last signal gained ascendancy among the mess of impossible and incoherent thoughts that must be tumbling through the interrogator’s mind. The interrogator made it halfway to the wall before internal safeguards cut off the data feed and he fell twitching to the floor.

JTHN7 gave him only glancing attention, being already halfway to the exit. He flailed his arms to maintain balance, hoping not to join the interrogator on the floor. The first few steps were the hardest, as the sudden drop in blood pressure when he rose from the chair, followed by the resurgence in pressure as his heart responded to the urgent effort, left him dizzy. He'd feared his weakened state might leave him unable to reach the door, but adrenaline coursed through his veins and gave him a desperate strength.

It would take only a minute for the interrogator to recover, although that scarcely mattered since those monitoring his interrogation would respond much more quickly than that. He had to reach the surface. Find a ship. Get to his lab. Presuming, of course, that his lab wasn't guarded. He sent a questing. No, it would not be guarded, at least not today. They'd not imagined that he might escape them. They still didn't imagine it.

They didn't know what he could do. Even as a tri-mortigic cripple.

The door opened to the code he sent. The Mech-B was gone, as he had anticipated, and the hallway outside his prison remained empty.

The doorway stood at a bend in the corridor, one branch of the corridor extending ahead of him, another to his right. Several other doors opened on either side of the corridor, spaced about twenty feet apart. An elevator, doors open and inviting, stood just twenty feet down the corridor to his right.

Just thirty seconds and the elevator could carry him up into the sunlight. He rejected its quiet seduction. The doors would close, and the elevator would go where his captors wanted, trapping him.

He considered his other options. Most ways led to certain recapture. A Central could not follow some routes, bound as they were by their wheels. Perhaps such a route would be unguarded. His captors would not truly forget that he no longer had a Central, but in the surprise and hurry of his escape, they might not search those routes first.

JTHN7 sent a questing to evaluate the layout of the building and the deployment of guards already swarming to cut off his escape. He directed his processor to construct a map from the returned images. A wave of dismay washed over him when he saw every corridor either guarded, or with guards moving into position. He couldn't move fast enough to get ahead of them, even if he were at his full strength, which he definitely was not.

No, one way remained open. There were guards moving in that direction, but he could reach the mechanical room ahead of them. The mechanical room in turn gave access to the sewer tunnels under the old surface city.

Turning right, JTHN7 staggered down the corridor, his right hand pushing off the wall for support and speed. He sent a questing for the combination code to the door. It was a fixed-code lock, much simpler than that of his former prison, and he captured it easily. The door was swinging open by the time he reached it. He slipped in, pulling it closed behind him. The staccato pinging of metal feet galloping on the tile of the corridor floor announced the arrival of quadruped Mech-B specialists just as the door clicked shut. Quadrupeds meant either military or other heavily armed specialists. So, his interrogation was not a solely civilian operation.

He leaned against the door, his eyes closed, stealing a moment of rest. Mech-Bs lacked the sensory equipment to find him quickly. The Mech-As would take longer to arrive. Even then, the heat from the furnace might mask his body heat and keep him hidden from their scans. At least for a few minutes. But he would need to avoid generating any radio signals. That meant no communication between his processor and visual nexus and, thus, no more visual maps.

He looked around the room. A dim light had lit when he entered. The furnaces and air handlers extended off to his left until they disappeared into darkness. On the back wall, on the far side of the row of furnaces, was a wooden door, cracked with age. That must lead into the old sewer system.

He sent a questing for its access code and got nothing back. Pushing off the door behind him, he made his way past the furnaces toward the wooden door. As he approached, he saw that it was secured with an old-style padlock and latch.

The latch itself was screwed to the frame of the door and accessible. If he could find a screwdriver, he could undo it. He looked around for a toolbox, but saw none. A small desk and chair sat against the wall to the left of the door. He rummaged through the drawers. The bottom left drawer held a selection of tools, and he picked out a medium-sized Phillips screwdriver.

Renewed clatter in the hallway outside announced the arrival of more guards. This time with a Mech-A--he picked up the characteristic chatter on his internal receiver. Public communications, so not the mechiforms of a single individual.

"Check the mechanical room." The crisp electronic voice of a Central.

"It's locked. He has no access." The Mech-A.

"Check it anyway." Peremptory. The Central wasn't taking any chances.

JTHN7 shut off all internal electronics. He couldn't afford stray signals reaching the Mech-A's electromagnetic sensors. He ducked into a nook behind the furnace, invisible from the doorway. Hopefully heat from the furnace would mask his carboform body from the Mech-A's infrared sensors.

A stream of light cut through the room from the hallway outside. He heard the scrape of feet and saw shadows moving in the light. Radiation from the furnace grew hot on his face, but he stayed tight against it. He didn't dare move. Or even breathe. The Mech-A's audio sensors would catch the faintest sound.

He gripped the screwdriver. Wouldn't do much damage to a mechiform, even a Mech-A, but he had no intention of returning to the interrogation without a fight. Not when proving his integrity meant retaining his freedom.

After a few moments, the door closed, cutting off the stream of outside light, and the footsteps of the Mech-A faded down the hall. He took a breath. Mech-A's. Always confident of their sensors. The reprieve wouldn't last. Once the guards eliminated the other places he might hide, they'd return here for a closer look. JTHN7 turned to the door with renewed vigor.

Only four screws. But those four screws proved obstinate. Old paint that pealed easily from the doorframe clung tenaciously to the latch and screws and caused the screwdriver to spin uselessly in each screwhead. He spent precious time scratching the paint from them with a smaller regular screwdriver he recovered from the desk. This done, he began removing the screws, tight with rust and age-bonded to the wood. His hands trembled so much from exhaustion that he could scarcely lock the screwdriver into the crossed slots of the screws. After what seemed eternity, although his processor indicated three minutes, he swung open the door. Cool, musty air swirled into the room and he stepped into the chamber.

The open door provided dim light in the artificial cavern. Metal stairs arched into the darkness like giant bones, flight after flight, reaching upward toward the sewer tunnels nestled under the streets above. Bare limestone glistened where water seeped down the walls, and the hollow sound of water dripping from the stairs echoed around him.

He scrambled up the stairs. His gene line was a strong one, but his captors had kept him active and without food for several days. His legs soon quivered from the climb. He pulled himself upward with the handrails as much as he pushed off the stairs with his wobbly legs.

He went upward, flight after flight. The faint light from the room below faded into utter darkness. He groped the cold, wet railing to keep his bearings. He continued until his whole world filled with only the need to take one more step.

He came to another door, wooden by its feel. Unlocked. The door opened into a short passageway that led into the storm sewer under the old city. He paused there, where the short passage joined the main tunnel, his hand resting on the damp side of the crumbling concrete aqueduct, his legs shivering with cold and exertion.

Here, sprays of light, admitted by the storm drains that opened to the street above, cast twilight splashes of color on the gray walls and dark water. Small waterfalls cascaded into the tunnel at each of the openings, creating a noisy racket that echoed through the enclosed space. The tunnels smelled foul, like wet animal, but he had no time to contemplate the sanitation of the water or what creatures might be living in it. He stepped into the dark liquid, about ankle deep, and walked up the tunnel to his left, looking for a way to reach one of the storm drains onto the street.

The openings were a good ten feet above him, much too far to leap in his present condition. But he found a ladder, imbedded in the concrete wall of the tunnel, yielding access to one of them. He climbed up to the drain and squeezed himself through the opening on his belly. Once outside, he rolled to a sitting position and checked to see if anyone on the street observed his escape.

The surface was not as well lit as he expected, brighter than the tunnels of course, but much darker than the corridors below. Dark storm clouds filled the sky, streaked sporadically by stray flashes of lightning. A gentle rain fell, suggesting the main torrent of the storm had passed. As though to confirm his analysis, the sun broke through the clouds in the west, painting the abandoned world in eerie light, deep red on the clouds and a faint orange on the buildings. The sudden burst of sunlight highlighted the spattering rain that rippled across the wet streets.

Few people worked on the surface anymore, only the agricultural specialists and their support personel. Few were around him now. A couple of Mech-B transport specialists unloaded crates from a building about two blocks away. They didn't seem to notice him.

The remnants of the old inner city rose into the sky just a few blocks away, fragments of broken window glass glinting in the low, evening sun. Forested hills rose to the north and south. The low elevation of his present location indicated he was in the flood plain near the river. The ag managers would live up in the hills to the south. JTHN7 headed in that direction.

The streets and buildings up in the hills lost the look of decay that characterized the old city. It was dark when he reached the residential district. Dark was good. He could move with less fear of visual detection by carboforms or most Mech-Bs. What’s more, at this hour, carboforms would be at supper and mechiforms would be undergoing their daily maintenance. A fine time to steal a ship.

He chose a palatial estate on the bluff overlooking the river. Lights were on in the house, but the spaceport lay dark and quiet, exposed infrequently by the now-distant lightning. It included a small launching pad equipped with a sporty one-seater and a larger group ship. JTHN7 chose the sporty one, needing speed over spaciousness.

With a questing, he got codes for both launch and computer access. He disabled the connection between the navigational array and the local net--it might be nice to know exactly where he was, but he didn’t want anyone else to know--and prepared to launch. The preparation took significantly longer than normal since he had to move from carboform to mechiform stations several times to complete all settings and tests.

The loss of his mechiform self was not only going to be an emotional burden, but a physical one as well. He had no time to dwell on that now. Tomorrow would suffice for mourning.

Several times he thought he heard steps and stopped to listen. But no one entered the ship. Maybe his interrogators weren't ready to make their search public. Yet.

He finished preparations for flight and engaged the launch engines. The ship rose silently into the air on gravity jets and accelerated above the troposphere where the photon rockets engaged. He approached Mars an hour later, and, triangulating with Jupiter, set a course for his lab in orbit around Neptune.

An odd sensation came upon him while he remained in the vicinity of Mars. At first, he thought the feeling reflected his relief at having escaped. But the sensation came from outside himself, tickling the sense of anticipation that was his special gift. There was a shift, not visible or audible, but real. A shift in the very fabric of space and time.