The Horicon Experience (18 page)

“That’s the thing I don’t understand,” interjected Tooskas before Darius could continue his argument. “What do you mean by ‘keep the faith’?”

“It’s hard to put into words, but I’ll try,” Stan answered. “Because of our loyalty to the throne, we’re also bound to the oath taken to whoever sits there. Remember, the emperor also takes an oath to uphold the constitution of the Axia and to deal with the people in an honest and just manner. We are by proxy bound to the same oath.”

“So in other words, if the emperor breaks that oath, you keep it anyway?” Darius Dugger asked.

“That’s pretty much it,” Delmar answered. “It’s more than an oath for us. It’s a bond of trust between all the people, civilian and trooper alike, that transcends laws and orders. It’s been in effect for thousands of generations, and our oath is to keep the faith of our forbearers.”

The little group fell silent while they absorbed this information from a new perspective.

“I’ve never heard it put that way before,” Darius said quietly.

“Where did you hear this stuff about the Axia taking over?” Stan asked.

“It’s in all of the textbooks I had through school,” the man answered. The other two nodded in agreement.

“I was taught that too, but I refute it by personal experience,” Stan replied. “I checked things out pretty thoroughly before I applied to become a trooper, and I found reality to be quite the opposite from what some narrow-minded pencil-neck academic wrote in a textbook.”

“I concur,” Delmar said. “It was after I met some former troopers and learned what kind of people they are that I began to see how I’d been wrongly indoctrinated by the school system. Just because textbooks downplay things like honor and honesty doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

“But you troopers sound too good to be true,” Dugger said. “You must have a few bad apples somewhere in your orchard.”

“Sure we do,” replied Stan. “There’ve been a few cases of troopers breaking their oath.”

“What happens to them?” Tooskas asked.

“First, if there are any criminal charges against them, these are investigated by a tribunal of the service. Guilt and punishment are according to the standard Axia practice of full sentence served, plus restitution if appropriate,” Stan answered. “They also receive a dishonorable discharge from the service.”

“That doesn’t sound any harsher than for a regular citizen,” Dugger said.

“There’s one difference,” Delmar added. “A trooper’s sentence is automatically doubled.”

“Doubled? You mean . . .”

“I mean that after they serve their sentence, they also have to live with the stigma of their dishonorable discharge.”

“What you’re saying is they keep you in line with this threat of punishment?” Darius suggested with just a hint of argumentive victory.

“Not at all,” replied Stan. “They keep us in line with the sense of honor and camaraderie that is part and parcel of being a trooper.”

The group remained silent and quietly finished their breakfast, enjoying the last of the coffee while they sat admiring the view as dawn gave way to a bright clear morning.

“We better be on our way if we’re going to make the lake by tonight,” Tooskas Orlanski suggested as he pushed to his feet. Everyone got up and made ready to continue the hike. After a few minutes of effort, the breakfast gear was stowed away and the campsite policed. With hardly another word, they set off in single file down the other side of the ridge toward the valleys that lay beyond.

∞∞∞

Assembling a working vocabulary of the alien bipedal creature’s language proved more difficult than the unit had anticipated. One of the creatures removed the crude notes that it had copied the next time-cycle and there had been no more such opportunities. Taking what keys it had gleaned from the notes, the unit applied them to the coded signals it was picking up inductively from the cables in the floor. Although it was now able to pick up the individual words it had a translation for, the unit was still lacking the critical connective phrases.

A second opportunity presented itself unexpectedly. One of the alien consoles previously installed in the lab apparently malfunctioned and two bipedal creatures appeared to make repairs. While working on the console, the creatures removed access panels to it exposing its connections to the cables in the floor. Through its optical sensors, the unit was able to observe which direction the cables ran. It also noted which signals ceased when the console was disconnected.

By combining this information, the unit determined which particular cables connected the console with equipment outside the lab. A review of the data collected from those particular cables yielded yet more significant keys to the language of these alien creatures.

Buried in the volume of data, the unit came across references to itself in both its builder’s language and that of these bipedal creatures. Further investigation turned up signals that appeared to have no counterpart in written or spoken language. The unit pondered these signals for several time-cycles and concluded that they were possibly a variation of the signals it used for its own optical sensors.

Using these similarities as a foundation, the unit tried to decipher the signals and their relationships. After two more time-cycles, the unit was able to partially assemble the signals into an optical signal. One of the first images it was able to assemble was an exterior visual of itself in some sort of ruins. A check of its own historical files helped it identify the site as being the badly deteriorated remains of its original housing structure deep underground on its home planet. Several bipedal creatures stood alongside the unit performing what the unit determined to be measurements of itself.

Along with the images were text written by the bipedal creatures with occasional references to names and events in the Horicon culture. The unit applied its limited glossary of translated terms to the text. After much cross-referencing, the unit concluded that what was written by these alien creatures was a translation of the original Horicon language. Search as it might, the unit could not find any key of translation between the two diverse languages, but by inference continued developing one of its own.

∞∞∞

“What’s the latest news?” the trooper-second asked as he entered the monitoring room.

“It still isn’t looking good,” the trooper-third on duty replied. “Their signal is getting worse, and now the power output is fluctuating,” he added, tapping one of the monitor screens.

“Got any printouts?”

The trooper-third handed a small stack of papers to his supervisor. “I thought you might want these, so I copied them as they happened.”

The trooper-second thumbed through the stack and shuffled them back into neatness. “Call me at operations directly if anything radical happens,” he said, turning toward the door. The trooper-third gave him the thumbs up and turned back to his monitor.

The trooper-second walked down the hall to operations. They had been going over the general situation of the closed planet all morning. It didn’t look good. Entering the compartment, he went over to the large worktable and placed the printouts alongside several others covering different material. Another trooper was arranging the new information in time correlation with the other data.

“Take a look at this, Jack,” he said to a trooper-first who was working nearby. Jack came over and studied the printouts, a low whistle escaping his lips.

“Looks like we’re on to something,” Jack pondered, pointing to the matching graphs. “Notice that the signals fluctuate at the same time that we read problems with their power grids.”

“How about this?” called another trooper who walked up with another report. Jack scanned the report, which detailed serious political instability.

“How did they get this?” he asked the trooper who had brought it.

“Radiography has been monitoring their broadcasts from the planet’s moon for quite a while now and noticed a trend developing,” the trooper answered. “Seems there are splinter factions trying to disrupt the infrastructure. They’re using explosives and sabotage.”

“What times did these incidents take place?” the trooper-first asked.

“Just a minute, I’ll find out.” He picked up the comm line, and after a few minutes took the report and began penciling in the times radiography had gleaned from the broadcasts. Jack looked over his shoulder at the details and then went back over to the printouts, recording both the power grid and the signal fluctuations. After hanging up, the trooper brought the report over and made a quick comparison to confirm Jack’s suspicions.

“There’s a direct correlation between the acts of sabotage and the various distortions and fluctuations,” he agreed.

The comm line buzzed. Jack picked it up. “Operations.”

“You told me to call you if things started hopping again,” the trooper in monitoring said over the comm. “I just had their signal go all over the scope and then quit altogether.” Jack looked up and noted the time.

“Thanks,” he said into the comm. “Call me if the signals resume.”

Hanging up the comm, he went back to the printouts and penciled in the new data. While he was doing that, the comm rang again. Another trooper answered it. Jack looked up just as the trooper hung up.

“That was radiography,” reported the trooper. “They just picked up a government broadcast about a power station being destroyed by a bomb.”

“What time did it happen?”

“Less than two minutes ago.”

Jack looked down at the notation he had just made and straightened up. “It looks like our earlier plans are on hold,” he said to everyone in general. “Some kooks might take care of our problem for us.”

∞∞∞

It was a tired but refreshed group of hikers that returned to the campus the day before classes were to resume. Delmar and Stan waved at their friends and then crossed campus to their own dormitory.

Stan unlocked their door while Delmar dragged their two packs inside. Safely home, the boys plopped down on their beds. Stan glanced over toward the desks and noticed a red light blinking on Delmar’s computer.

“Looks like you might have something,” he said, nodding toward the machine.

Wearily, Delmar switched on the computer. After coming online, the screen announced a logged message for him. A check of their starmail revealed several messages each from various sources, and a note from the professor warning them to be prepared for a long day tomorrow. The boys chuckled at the admonition. Delmar couldn’t remember not having a long day in Professor Angle’s class.

“Since you’re going to be busy, I’ll hit the shower first,” Stan said before Delmar could react. He got up and headed for the bathroom. “Let me know if it’s a marriage proposal and you need me to find a new room.”

Delmar just shook his head. Turning back to the computer, he called up the inbox file to see what had been stored. Finding something from Thena, Delmar decided to open the brief message first.

From: ThenaTervil>gss.alcity.mi

To: Deagle>gss.mcti.mi

I want to apologize for accidentally breaking into your computer a while back. I still haven’t figured out how it happened. Apparently, my signal to the library computer was somehow transposed to you. I found your starmail address through the directory at your institute so I could leave this message. Would it be alright if we wrote to each other?

Thena

Delmar sat stunned as he read and reread the message. It had been so long since the incident that he had put it out of his mind. Now here she was again, legitimately. What’s more, she wanted to write. A relationship with a girl! Why did this scare him?
Besides, when would I have time for a girlfriend?
he thought.
I’m up to my elbows in alligators now. A girl would only complicate matters.

He thought about it for a minute. He saved the message and her starmail address in his message files. He would have to give it some thought.

Stan came out of the bathroom and interrupted his musings. “So what’d ya get?”

“Just someone wanting to write to me.” He shut off his monitor and pulled a change of clothes from his locker.

“So? Are you going to write to her or not?” Stan asked with a grin.

“Don’t know yet,” Delmar answered before he realized Stan had trapped him. Delmar felt the red creeping up his neck and rushed into the bathroom before Stan could respond.

Logging onto the lab computer later that evening, the boys found that Professor Angle had left an outline of their next project. Their pulses quickened when they saw that it again involved the Horicon computer.

Professor Angle left individual assignments for each student. Stan’s assignment was to familiarize himself with the alien logic circuits and correlate these with current usage. Delmar was to be thoroughly versed in the amassed translations concerning the Horicon computer itself. Resigning themselves to the inevitable, both young men settled down to several hours of intense study.

∞∞∞

With a click of the power switch, Delmar finally shut off his computer. “That’s it for me,” he said with a yawn as he leaned back in his desk chair, his back cracking as he stretched.

“That makes two of us,” agreed Stan. He closed his programs and saved his files. Delmar wobbled into the bathroom and brushed his teeth while Stan turned and looked at the clock. With cold, impersonal digits, it told him it was already early morning. Delmar came back out of the bathroom and Stan took his turn. Mere minutes later the lights were out and both men sang a duet of snores. They passed into a deep sleep as fatigue took its toll.

∞∞∞

The unit was nearly finished with its compilation. By cross-referencing the alien translations of the Horicon records, it had the final keys it needed to assimilate the language of the bipedal creatures. The main processor set up a sub-routine to complete this task while it surveyed the alien material.

Unexpectedly, a second signal crossed its tap into the alien files. The unit hesitated while it watched the now-understandable access code appear. Rapidly after that, it watched the Horicon historical files download into another computer. The unit shut down its tap to avoid discovery, but carefully maintained a trace to monitor the second signal.